EDITOR’S NOTE: To mark the sad and tragically premature passing of Sharon Jones we present this reprise edition of our 2011 Q&A with her. Good night, Miss Jones wherever you are. BY JONATHAN VALANIA The first time Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings came to town, back in January of ’08, there was a prevailing giddiness in the air at the TLA, a palpable sense that we were lucky enough to attend a very auspicious occasion, above and beyond the usual concert experience. A sense that we were all active participants in poetic justice, and by ponying up for a […]
RIP: Leonard Cohen Is Dead
Leonard Cohen on bended knee, Academy of Music, 5/12/09 by MICHAEL T. REGAN EDITOR’S NOTE: To mark the sad but not unexpected passing of Leonard Cohen we present this reprise edition of our review of his concert at the Academy Of Music on May 13th 2009. Even back then it felt like a eulogy. The Great Man glides onstage in black pinstripes and a fedora like a gangster cantor, double-breasted and tie-less, his crisp creamy blue shirt buttoned-up to the neck David Lynch-style. He seems to walk on air. He was born like that, he had no choice, he was […]
STOP MAKING SENSE: A Q&A With Fred Armisen
Photo by GENE SMIRNOV BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR VICE Last night, comedian Fred Armisen (ex-SNL cast member, star of Portlandia and Documentary Now!, sidekick/leader of the Late Night With Seth Meyers house band) kicked off an East coast run of live comedy dates that mix the glib wackiness of his stand-up with sneak previews of the forthcoming seventh season of Portlandia and live renditions of the music of his various faux-bands (the cluelessly pro-authority punk of Ian Rubbish & The Bizarros, the ersatz Laurel Canyon soft-rock of The Blue Jean Committee, the artsy-fartsy New Wave nonsense-making of Test Pattern, etc.). […]
Win Tix To See Fred Armisen Make The Funny Live
Tomorrow night, comedian Fred Armisen (ex-SNL cast member, star of Portlandia and Documentary Now!, sidekick/leader of the Late Night With Seth Meyers house band) kicks off an East coast run of live comedy dates at The Grand in Wilmington wherein he will perform the music of his various faux-bands (the cluelessly pro-authority punk of Ian Rubbish & The Bizarros, the ersatz Laurel Canyon soft-rock of The Blue Jean Committee, the artsy-fartsy New Wave nonsense-making of Test Pattern, etc.). We have a pair of tix to giveaway to some lucky Phawker reader. To qualify to win you must do the […]
Win Tix To See Criminal Podcast Live @ The Troc
“Criminal is a podcast about crime. Stories of people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle.” Such is the self-description of the acclaimed true crime podcast Criminal, written and hosted by award-winning NPR reporter Phoebe Judge, which has just surpassed the 50th-episode threshold of durability and is celebrating with a live-action tour that stops at The Trocadero tomorrow night. We have a pair of tickets to give away to some lucky Phawker reader. To qualify to win, you must do the following: A) Friend us on Facebook B) follow us on Twitter C) send […]
BEING THERE: The Garden In North Philly
Photo by DYLAN LONG Wyatt and Fletcher Shears are The Garden, and they like their Chipotle. This of course I learned from walking around Temple University’s campus on Saturday with my friend Natalie, and running into them just a few hours before their headlining gig in North Philly. We asked to hang out with them, and they said sure. Fletcher was very kind, and made small talk with us whilst we were lowkey stoned as hell and utterly perplexed by the situation unfolding before us. We decided to play it cool by abruptly leaving the restaurant mid-conversation, unable to properly […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Aussie Psych-Rockers Pond At Underground Arts Tomorrow Night!
Pond — the circa now Australian psych-pranksters whose memberships Veng Diagrams with Tame Impala, NOT the early 90s Portlandian Sub Pop grunge-titan-shoulda-beens, although there is some haircut similarities — raises more questions than it ever answers. Chief among those questions is not ‘Are these guys high?’ instead it’s ‘How goddamn high are these people?’ ‘Is that even safe?’ ‘Should we tell someone?’ and lastly, ‘What about all the chromosonal damage?’ The answer to these questions in order of appearance: Higher than an entire Phish concert parking lotful of nitrous balloon huffers, fuck no, don’t bother everyone already knows, and […]
Q&A: Talking Big Star Third w/ REM’s Mike Mills
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR VICE It has been said that the genre of power pop—white man-boys with cherry guitars reinvigorating the harmonic convergence of The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and The Byrds with the hormonal rush of youth—is the revenge of the nerds. Big Star pretty much invented the form, which explains the worshipful altars erected to the band in the bedrooms of lonely, disenfranchised melody-makers from Los Angeles to London, and all points in between. Though they never came close to fame or fortune in their time, the band continue to hold a sacred place in the cosmology of […]
THIS JUST IN: Leonard Cohen Is Ready To Die
Illustration by LIEZLS NEW YORKER: There is probably no more touring ahead. What is on Cohen’s mind now is family, friends, and the work at hand. “I’ve had a family to support, so there’s no sense of virtue attached to it,” he said. “I’ve never sold widely enough to be able to relax about money. I had two kids and their mother to support and my own life. So there was never an option of cutting out. Now it’s a habit. And there’s the element of time, which is powerful, with its incentive to finish up. Now I haven’t gotten […]
CAPTAIN’S LOG: A Fanboy Q&A w/ William Shatner
Artwork by PIERRE-LUC FAUBERT BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR PHILLY.COM Pretend, for the length of this introduction, you are me. Your earliest television memory is Star Trek, back when you thought you could talk to the people on TV simply by yelling at the screen. In the ‘70s, Star Trek reruns ran in seeming perpetuity. You watched every episode many times over, your thirst for the show was unquenchable and you became the ultimate fanboy — an obsessive, jock-mocked, girl-repellent Trekkie. You still have your copy of the Star Fleet Technical Manual you bought at the mall with your paper route […]
INCOMING: In Bob We Trust
Employing the same Buckeye ingenuity that keeps the Goodyear blimp afloat, Robert Pollard can polish a turd with Budweiser until it shines with 24-carat radiance, transmuting a tossed-off, six-pack idea into a classic rock artifact or at the very least a beguiling no-fi curio. As captain of the drunken boat that is Guided By Voices, Pollard built a cottage industry by churning out cheap, miniature melodic masterpieces with all the fidelity of a ham radio broadcast. He does it with volume — by which I mean quantity not loudness. As such, the discography remains daunting if only for its […]
Win Tix To See James Blake @ The Electric Factory
Prismatic Brit electro-soul cipher manboy James Blake is blowing our frickin’ minds. What’s that you say? You never heard of James Blake? Let’s ask Wikipedia: James Blake Litherland (born 26 September 1988),[1] known as James Blake, is a British singer, songwriter, musician and producer from London. He first received recognition in 2010 for a trio of dubstep-influenced EPs, and the following year his self-titled debut album was released in the United Kingdom[2] to critical praise. His second studio album Overgrown was released in 2013 and was awarded the Mercury Prize.[3] His third studio album The Colour in Anything was […]
FOUND: The Lost Bowie Album Recorded In Philly
THE TELEGRAPH: A lost album from David Bowie might seem like the holy grail of pop music yet the peculiarly named The Gouster, raised from the archives, is right here as the centrepiece of a handsome new 12-CD box set, Who Can I Be Now? (1974-76). The 27-year-old Bowie stares from the sleeve, draped in a newspaper and the American flag, looking unusually anxious, as if wondering what posterity might make of a collection of recordings he, himself, deemed unfit for release. He needn’t have worried. The Gouster turns out to be a minor joy from a major artist, […]