Photo by MATT SHAVER I have no control over the Spotify playlist when cruising the highways and byways with my wee men, and while I am afforded at least one or two selections over a 40-minute span, the majority of my time behind the wheel is scored by the likes of Drake, Post Malone and Logic. Yet the most inexplicable queue add of late was Toto’s “Africa,” which only after a cursory screen-face peek revealed itself to be a Weezer cover. From 2018. If you read the backstory on why THAT cover, it all but underlines the band’s enduring appeal. […]
BEING THERE: Beck @ Festival Pier
PHOTO BY JOSH PELTA-HELLER As a rule, I hate concerts with hand-clapping. The one and only exception to my rule is Beck last night at the Festival Pier on the final stop of Colors tour. Having long worshipped the 90’s experimental rock god from the first time my dad played “Loser” for me on a car radio back in 2008, finally seeing him live was surreal to say the least. As the band opened with an earth-shaking rendition of “Devils Haircut,” the stage lit up with a colorfully morphing visual display on the two-story back screen. The vibrant 90’s designs […]
BEING THERE: Arcade Fire @ Festival Pier
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Under the ethereal light of a half moon, I kicked up sand with every step closer to the stage at Festival Pier. The six members of Arcade Fire wove a path through the crowd under glaring spotlight, mobbed on either side by ecstatic fans. There was a blip in the beginning of their set, as Win Butler paused the show to summon First Aid for a concertgoer, a typically conscientious and empathetic gesture. Recovering, the band launched into “No Cars Go,” off Neon Bible. A diverse range of instruments were used to create their dynamic, ever-evolving […]
ALBUM REVIEW: Dirty Projectors Lamp Lit Prose
Since their inception in 2002, Dirty Projectors have undergone a multi-stage evolution from charmingly freaky lo-fi balladry, to orchestral experiments, to rhythmically glitchy compositions of juxtaposed sounds, and beyond. The band has reached a new stage on their latest album, Lamp Lit Prose. Dirty Projectors’ fourth studio album, 2005’s The Getty Address marked the introduction of ideas most fundamental to their current sound, which features the glitchy rhythms, spooky vocal harmonies, and unconventional percussion found on most of their work thereafter, including Rise Above (2007), an album consisting of outlandish interpretations of Black Flag songs. A factor in the […]
BEING THERE: Quiet Slang @ Underground Arts
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER A couple years back, James Alex’s new pop punk project Beach Slang was catapulted into the national spotlight, and nobody was more surprised by the attention than him. During interviews conducted around around the time of their first tour (including one with Phawker), Alex would cite a personal benchmark for his songwriting to which he referred as “the campfire test.” “What I do is,” Alex explained, “I challenge myself with, can it hold up if it’s just me and my acoustic guitar?,” and reasoned, “if it can hold up in that simplest form, then there’s some […]
TONIGHT: Square Peg Round Hole
When I told my coworker about Mage Hand, I said that they’re probably the best band in Philly. Well, he hadn’t listened to them before telling me, “No, this is the best band in Philly,” and then he put on Square Peg Round Hole’s 2016 album, Juniper. It was, indeed, some good stuff, but it wasn’t until I saw them live at Kung Fu Necktie that I had to concede that, all right, there are two best bands in Philly. Square Peg is an instrumental, highly percussive trio of serious music nerds Carlos Pacheco-Perez, Evan Chapman, and Sean Gill, encompassing […]
Win Tix To See Os Mutantes @ The Foundry
Illustration by KAINEIRIBAS We have a couple pairs of tix to see Brazilian psych legends Os Mutantes at the Foundry tomorrow night. First two readers to email us at PHAWKER66@GMAIL.COM with the phrase BAT MACUMBA in the subject line wins. Please include your full name and a mobile number for confirmation. Good luck and godspeed! Wait, what’s that you say? What is an Os Mutantes? Oh, buddy, where have you been? OK, keep calm help is on the way. The following entry from the Rock Snob Enyclopedia should tell you just about everything you need to know to avoid being […]
EXCERPT: The Man The Angels Killed At Altamont
EDITOR’S NOTE: Forty-eight years ago, on December 6, 1969, 18 year old Meredith Hunter was killed by the Hell’s Angels at the foot of the stage while the Rolling Stones played a free concert at Altamont Speedway for an audience of 300,000 people. The following excerpt from Saul Austerlitz’s forthcoming book, Just A Shot Away: Peace, Love and Tragedy With The Rolling Stones At Altamont describes in graphic detail that awful moment in the dying light of the 1960s. ROLLING STONE: The Rolling Stones finally appeared, and for a brief moment, a sense of relief spread through the speedway. The […]
BEING THERE: Foo Fighters @ BB&T Pavilion
Photo by DYLAN LONG The Foo Fighters have been a band for 24 years. That’s longer than I’ve been alive. When you’re in a band for that long — rehearsing, producing new albums, touring — I think it’s safe to assume that you dig what you do. A lot. So much so, that over 20 years later, you’re still out there on stage having the absolute time of your life. And lo and behold, on a beautiful July night in Camden, the Foo Fighters brought the house down in front of tens of thousands in a three-hour musical bonanza that […]
THE ESSEX GREEN: Sloane Ranger
Their first album in 12 years! They play Johnny Brenda’s August 6th.
ALBUM REVIEW: Beach House 7
Beach House, the Baltimore-based shoegaze duo comprised of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally, is an unceasing storm of brilliance with an impressive catalogue of seven albums spanning 13 years. Their third album, Teen Dream (2010) seemed to be where they truly sculpted their sound, carving out their own niche within the dreampop genre. “Silver Soul” was my gateway drug, and their music has held its addictive quality throughout the years. A glancing listen to the hits off Depression Cherry and Bloom might give an impression of stagnancy, but a more conscientious play through demonstrates how the composition of each […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Dr. Dog @ Festival Pier!
There are few greater pleasures in this American life than watching a relatively young, gifted rock band in the prime of its youth burn through its set before an adoring hometown crowd with the confidence of five young men who’ve come to realize that — after all the blood, the sweat and the tears that got them to this point — they are making their mark on the world. It’s even better when the young, gifted band is local, as will be the case when Dr. Dog takes the stage at the Festival Pier tomorrow night in support of […]
ALBUM REVIEW: God’s Favorite Customer
With God’s Favorite Customer, Joshua Tillman, the man behind Father John Misty, continues to solidify his reputation as a narcissistic grifter, though this time in the absence of his wife Emma. Written during a six-week hotel stay while the two were separated, God’s Favorite Customer is Tillman’s retreat into himself. It’s the emotional breakdown he has after, in the words of Joan Didion, he runs away to find himself and finds no one at home. If we go by Tillman’s own definition of authenticity as “empathizing with people and making them feel like what you’re talking about is somehow […]