EVA SAYS: So, you’d think after all these years of waiting to see The Shins, my first show would have been some meaningful notch on my concert bedpost or something. What a silly expectation that was. At best, maybe I got excited for the first ten seconds of each song. But then the initial thrill of recognition would fade and I would be back to underwhelmed. Mostly I blame myself. After all, my friends did try to warn me off: “The Shins suck, you loser Zach Braff fan!” (For the record: I do not like Zach Braff nor was I […]
ROLLING STONES: Honky Tonk Women (1969)
Hyde Park, London. I4-5rqlhePQ /youtube]
THE EARLY WORD: Special Beat Service
WORLD CAFE LIVE FRIDAY MAY 25th
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
MIRAGE PEOPLE: The Capitol Years, Johnny Brendas, Sat. Night [FLICKR] [Photos by Jonathan Valania]
NY TIMES: BRING ME THE HEAD OF ABU GONZALES
UPDATE: “I think for the sake of the nation, Attorney General Gonzales should resign.”–Sen. Charles Schumer NEW YORK TIMES Editorial The Failed Attorney General During the hearing on his nomination as attorney general, Alberto Gonzales said he understood the difference between the job he held — President Bush’s in-house lawyer — and the job he wanted, which was to represent all Americans as their chief law enforcement officer and a key defender of the Constitution. Two years later, it is obvious Mr. Gonzales does not have a clue about the difference. He has never stopped being consigliere to Mr. Bush’s […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
THE WOLF SURVIVES: Los Lobos/Taj Mahal, The Keswick, Thur. Night [FLICKR] BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER Taj Mahal doesn’t work too hard these days. Perched beneath a big ol’ floppy straw hat and a generously-sized Hawaiian shirt, he sits down when he plays guitar and lets a chorus pedal do all the heavy lifting. These days his voice sounds like he swallowed an alligator and washed it down with gasoline. Which was just fine with the capacity crowd of middle-aged Boomers who have turned to his music as soulful comfort food ever since his incendiary performance on the Rolling […]
LIVE AID: These Are The CAPITOL YEARS Of Our Lives
BY AMY Z. QUINN You could call the Capitol Years’ show tomorrow at Johnny Brenda’s a comeback, as they haven’t played in town since November. You could call it the kickoff to the Philly contingent’s triumphant march toward Austin and next week’s South By Southwest Music Conference. “Or you could call it our fund raiser to pay for the trip to SXSW and back,” frontman Shai “Son of Eli” Halperin told me. The band’s most recent album, Dance Away the Terror [NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO] is only a few months old, its first single “Mirage People” — inspired by […]
NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO
BY JONATHAN VALANIA God, it was almost 17 years ago that I first met her. It was at an art opening at Tyler — the exact who and the why of the occasion are both long lost but I distinctly remember hearing her laugh before I even saw her: It sounded like something that had long ago gone out of style. She laughed like a woman from an earlier time, dare I say it, her laugh sounded positively antebellum. Frankly Scarlett, I was giving a damn. And then the crowd parted and there she was: radiant, coquettish, from Texas. I […]