Photo by MATT SHAVER Last night, every long-haired pothead in Philadelphia gathered at the Skyline Stage of the Mann Center to worship their ultimate idol. True to its name, the magnificent city skyline was visible from the top of the hill as the setting sun glittered against the metal skyscrapers in a golden wave. Millennial hippies in flowy maxi-skirts and Baja hoodies swayed to the soothingly unadorned acoustic soft rock of Uruguayan opener Juan Wauters. A Mac DeMarco concert is half music and half stoner stage antics. Living up to his reputation as indie rock’s goofball slacker, he paused between […]
BEING THERE: Made In America
Photo by DYLAN LONG Philadelphia’s annual Made in America festival made its return to the Ben Franklin Parkway this past weekend. Many in Philadelphia and beyond were well aware that going into Labor Day weekend, the major event was on the tail end of a rather contentious few weeks in the press recently. A public spat between event founder Jay-Z and Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney erupted in mid-July over the future of Made in America, an incident which was quickly mitigated by a promise from Kenney to keep Made in America on the parkway for years to come. In what […]
ALBUM REVIEW: The Gun Club Fire Of Love
THE GUN CLUB Fire Of Love (Superior Viaduct) On the night of August 16th, 1938, as Robert Johnson lay dying, poisoned by a jar of corn whiskey laced with strychnine by the jealous boyfriend of a pretty girl Johnson was flirting with at a country dance he was playing in Greenwood, MS, he had a brief and flickering vision — of a gaunt white man in a cowboy hat slumped in the backseat of a car motoring through the backwoods of West Virginia on New Year’s Day 1953. It was Hank Williams. Drifting in and out of consciousness as a […]
Q&A With Sun Kil Moon’s Mark Kozelek
Photo by PATRYK MOGILNICKI BY KYLE WEINSTEIN Although born and raised in Massillon, Ohio, Mark Kozelek’s professional music career began in San Francisco with the formation of Red House Painters in 1988. Their first album, Down Colorful Hill, showcased, early on, Kozelek’s profound talent for sincere and deeply personal lyricism, which he would carry through his career into the present. The band’s style quickly became associated with sadcore/slowcore, and assumed an important role in influencing that realm of ‘90s alternative music. In ’92, the band were signed to 4AD after its head honcho, Ivo Watts-Russel, heard their jaw-dropping demo tape […]
Win Tix To See Mac DeMarco @ The Skyline Stage
Photo by DANNY COHEN Wise men say only fools rush in where angels fear to tread. But apparently nobody told pepperoni playboy Mac DeMarco and Indieland is all the better for it. Still, all things must pass, and somewhere around 2014’s Salad Days, DeMarco took a giant step forward in his ongoing transition from “wacky indie guitar boy” to “actual person with feelings and shit.” Going forward, there were less gimmicks and more self-reflection as DeMarco flirted with adulthood, which admittedly was a ballsy move for a songwriter beloved for cigarette anthems, stoner odes, and chorus pedal abuse. But despite […]
Win Tix To See Asleep At The Wheel, The Texas Kings Of Western Swing, At Ardmore Music Hall!
What’s that you say? ‘What is Asleep At The Wheel?’ Oh brother, where art thou? Where have thou been? OK, let’s start with the beginnings, as per All Music Guid: Since the early ’70s, Asleep at the Wheel have been the most important force in keeping the sound of Western swing alive. In reviving the freewheeling, eclectic sensibility of Western swing godfather Bob Wills, the Wheel have earned enthusiastic critical praise throughout their lengthy career; they have not only preserved classic sounds that had all but disappeared from country music, but have also been able to update the music, […]
BEING THERE: Jeff Lynne’s ELO @ Wells Fargo Ctr
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER The year is 1977. Eleven-year-old me is sitting on my best friend’s bunk bed listening to his older brother’s copy of Electric Light Orchestra’s Out Of The Blue on the Hi-Fi, staring at the neon starburst-colored spaceship on the gatefold sleeve which, he informed me, was used to clean your weed on. Being 11 I had no earthly idea why somebody would collect weeds nor why they would want to clean them, and said as much. My best friend didn’t seem to really know either, but said he had it on good authority, i.e. his older […]
BEING THERE: Interpol @ Union Transfer
Interpol by JOSH PELTA-HELLER If it’s intimidating to open a sold out show for a band as influential as Interpol, any trepidation was well-hidden by Brooklyn punk outfit Honduras. They banged through a set that seemed like a Joy Division impression, conjuring images of studded leather jackets and quadruple-pierced earlobes. This may explain why they were tapped for this tour, satiating nostalgic cravings for 80’s post-punk revival. Interpol drew a diverse crowd— I was squeezed between someone’s mom squinting through horn rimmed glasses and a scraggly-bearded barista in denim. Interpol emerged in somber funeral attire, shadows stalking across the stage, […]
THE BASSMAN COMETH: Talking Tech, Trump And The End Of Americana With Wylie Gelber Of Dawes
Photo courtesy of COLDSMOKE APPAREL BY SOPHIE BURKHOLDER In their nearly ten years as a band, Dawes has earned a reputation for old timey, scuffed denim sonics and sepia-toned Americana narratives that sound like this 21st Century version of the Laurel Canyon Sound. But on “Living In The Future,” the lead-off track from their latest album Passwords, Dawes plumbs the darker premonitions of America circa now with a colder, harsher sound that conjures the paranoia and darkness of the Age of Trump. Currently on tour with the Jeff Lynne’s ELO, Dawes play the Wells Fargo Center on Friday August 24th. […]
ALBUM REVIEW: Ovlov TRU
Ovlov, obscurantist fuzz-rockers from Newtown, CT, have finally returned from their nail-biting, years-long hiatus. It was a widespread belief among their cult following that the band had broken up for good, their last new material being a couple of split 7-inchers back in 2014. It seemed that, after their impressive 2013 debut LP, am, Ovlov had reached a standstill that threatened to leave the band and their audience with just one truly successful LP to listen to on repeat forever, a fate suffered by many underground greats. A Greatest Hits collection released in 2017, however, was a beacon of hope […]
THE QUEEN IS DEAD: Aretha Franklin Dead @ 76
FRESH AIR: Aretha Franklin was more than a woman, more than a diva and more than an entertainer. Aretha Franklin was an American institution. Aretha Franklin died Thursday in her home city of Detroit after battling pancreatic cancer of the neuroendocrine type. Her death was confirmed by her publicist, Gwendolyn Quinn. She was 76. Franklin has received plenty of honors over her decades-spanning career — so much so that the chalice of accolades runneth over. She was the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s […]
KURT VILE: Loading Zones
New video by producers James Doolittle and Laris Kreslins, makes Kenzo look like Do The Right Thing. Note cameo by Pissed Jeans frontman Matt Korvette as a PPA stooge. Nice.
Q&A: Legendary Jazz Photojournalist Veryl Oakland
Miles Davis by Veryl Oakland BY JOSH PELTA-HELLER Jazz In Available Light is a brand-new 328-page photo album of jazz from the 1960s through the 1980s, culled by jazz photojournalist and author Veryl Oakland from his own back pages. In many ways, the book is a sort of antimatter, a physical paradox: here is a current chronicle of a time past, published in print during a decidedly digital age, a daring declaration of the significance of a genre of music whose national popularity has waned to record lows, and — with the announcement from Canon earlier this summer that it […]