LONE STARS: Norah Jones & M. Ward, Tower Theater, Last Night BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER Judging by Friday’s night’s performance at the Tower, every drop of the gallons of ink spilled extolling the virtues of Norah Jones is justified. She is a poised and classy young lady with a Natalie Portman-esque bearing, blessed with enormous talent and a voice that is wise and soulful beyond her relatively tender years. And it will be our pleasure to hear her grow into that voice in the coming years. However, a Grammy-winner like Jones doesn’t need the Inquirer’s megaphone to alert […]
EARLY WORD: Remember What The Dormouse Said…
Patti Smith performs at 5:45 tomorrow in front of the Philadelphia Free Library — for FREE! You lucky ducks!
EARLY WORD: My Fleeting House
Tim Buckley was an experimental vocalist and performer who incorporated jazz, psychedelia, funk, soul, and avant-garde rock in a short career spanning the late 1960s and early 1970s. He often regarded his voice as an instrument, a talent most exploited on his albums Goodbye and Hello, Lorca, and Starsailor. He was the father of musician and singer Jeff Buckley, also known for his three-and-a-half octave voice, who died in 1997. Buckley released his debut album Tim Buckley on Elektra in 1966. A folk-rock album, it contained psychedelic melodies written with input from Beckett. He went on to release Goodbye and […]
VELVET UNDERGROUND: Venus In Furs
Live at Andy Warhol’s Factory.
LIVE ACTS: Mad Shit Going Down At The Mann, Yo
BY AMY Z. QUINN There are moments — say, on a swampy summer evening when Lucinda Williams’ between-song patter is accented by the rumble of August thunder, or when you’re 17 and dancing at an REM concert instead of at your Senior mixer — when the Mann Center for the Performing Arts is a magical place. And yeah, in recent years the quality of the acts booked at the Fairmount Park venue was spotty at best, but don’t blame that all on the Tweeter Center. Because fact is, no matter how good the performer, the biggest problem with the Mann […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
READING IS FUNDAMENTAL: The Books, First Unitarian, Last Night EVA SAYS: I was in New York this weekend and I couldn’t afford to get into the MoMa. It was either modern art or lunch — and I was really hung over so I picked the latter. Luckily, the nice guys in The Books — Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong — comped me a free press ticket, knowing full well what it’s like to be broke. And so, while I might have missed out on the Warhols and Calders, I did get to experience The Books live. In a […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
DOPE, GUNS & FUCKING IN THE STREETS: Birds Of Maya, Closing Night Of Popped!, Fireman’s Lounge, Last Night BY SARA SHERR The most thankless job in the world is to be the band that plays the last night of a weeklong festival. Especially one on a Sunday night in the middle of a Nor’easter. But like fungus, the best rock n roll thrives in dank, dark places. Pissed Jeans, Total Fucking Destruction, and Birds of Maya basically gave both the weather and rocked-out indifference the middle finger and brought the beautiful noise. It also helps that the show was in […]
LEONARD COHEN & U2: Tower Of Song
I said to Hank Williams: ‘How lonely does it get?’ Hank Williams hasn’t answered me yet, but I can hear him coughing all night long a hundred floors above me in the Tower of Song — Leonard Cohen
POPPED! FEST BAND LIBS: Birds Of Maya; Total Fuckin’ Destruction; Drums Like Machine Guns
1. We are called Birds of Maya because we thought that was a good name. 2. No, that is not a stupid name for a band and it is what? of you to say that. 3. We are a band because we’re 3 dudes who like hanging out and playing music. 4. If we were not a band, we would be 3 dudes who like hanging out. 5. People say we sound like Stoner Rock. 6. But really we sound like 9th graders covering ZZ Top songs. 7. If the cops searched our van, they would find… we don’t have […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
WHERE R U GOING, CRAZY? Dr. Dog, Popped! Fest, Starlight Ballroom, Friday [FLICKR] BY AMY Z. QUINN If the question at hand during the Popped! Festival’s headlining night was, “Where are you going crazy, in your mind or in every inch of your body?” the answer was YES. Here’s the kind of scene it was at the Starlight Ballroom on Friday night: By the time I arrived at the show, during the second act of the four-band bill, all but one of the stalls in the women’s bathroom were already clogged and the bass was heavy enough to make your […]