Photo by DYLAN LONG Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters have had a hectic last couple of weeks, to say the very least. Dave experienced a tumble for the ages in Sweden resulting in a majorly broken leg, forcing the cancellation of many upcoming gigs, including two shows at the prestigious Wembley Stadium. In the hospital, Dave conceptualized an innovative and kickass throne prototype to support him on stage, which his crew wasted no time in bringing to life. The Foos were quickly back in action playing a grandiose 4th Of July throwdown at the RFK Stadium in DC celebrating […]
FROM THE VAULT: Touch Me I’m Dick
EDITOR’S NOTE: Mudhoney plays Union Transfer on Thursday with Pissed Jeans. To mark their impressive 27 years of service, I’ve dug deep into the archives to retrieve the article I wrote for the September 1998 issue of MAGNET about going on tour with Pearl Jam and Mudhoney for three days. The story was titled WHERE HAVE ALL THE GOOD TIMES GONE, and, if memory serves, was a little more honest than the band and the label were expecting. It wouldn’t be the first time. Enjoy. __________ In the decade that’s passed since Mudhoney emerged as the Seattle beer barons of […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To A Special Advance Screening Of The New Amy Winehouse Documentary
Amy Winehouse was a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. We all know the power and the grace of Back To Black and we all know about her harrowing decline and premature death. The new and rightfully acclaimed documentary Amy, which opens Friday at the Ritz, reveals the back story behind the music and the actual person behind the grotesque, strobe-flashed caricature the media depicted. The film makes the case that the very factors that fueled her bottomless ambition and stratospheric rise — the psychic wounds incurred in adolescence, the debilitating insecurity and self-loathing that triggered her bulimia and a […]
Win Tix To See Brian Wilson @ The Mann
Love & Mercy tells the harrowing, heartbreaking story of the life of Brian Wilson — Beach Boys auteur and resident genius — which goes like this: Angel-headed boy from Hawthorne, California, at the dawn of the 1960s, smitten by the harmonic convergence of The Four Freshman and the shimmering Spectorian grandeur of “Be My Baby,” forms band with his two brothers and asshole cousin, calls it The Beach Boys, writes uber-catchy ditties of Zen-like simplicity about surfing, hot rods and girls (despite being slapped deaf in his right ear by his sadistic tyrant of a father), boy becomes international […]
ALL YOU NEED IS PAUL: 10 Thoughts About McCartney @ The Wells Fargo Center On Sunday
Photo by DAN LONG 1. At some point in the last decade Paul McCartney assembled a team of pop imagineers and big-picture media strategists to re-brand his act from ‘The Cute One drum majoring a Boomer-ific oldies parade of warmed-over shimmy-shimmy shake moptoppery’ to ‘Sir Paul, doe-eyed Elder Statesman of Pop with one of the greatest songbooks in the history of recorded music, who is also an Important Artist who continues to make challenging and inventive work that is still relevant to The Kids,’ which is to say everyone under the age of 72. So, in addition to re-animating the […]
BEING THERE: Morrissey @ The Academy Of Music
Photo by DAN LONG Two songs into his set at the Academy of Music on Saturday night, Morrissey paused to catch his breath and to beg the crowd to “save us from the memory of Delaware,” where he and his band were met by a sparse crowd of booing yokels at the Firefly Fest the day before. The near-deafening response made it clear that he’d get his wish. The packed house at the Academy got their wish, too: Moz more than rebounded from the Delaware disaster with an electric performance that kept the crowd on its feet for two hours […]
BEING THERE: Shamir @ Making Time
Photo by DYLAN LONG Making Time celebrated its 15th anniversary in grand fashion last night at the Philly gayborhood’s Voyeur Nightclub, with a highly anticipated headlining set from dance-pop’s biggest and newest up-and-comer, Shamir. The 20 year-old sensation from Las Vegas has set himself apart from the pack with his breathtaking countertenor, lovely persona and vibrant variety of songs. Popping up on stage a few minutes after midnight to an immense roar from the hyped up crowd, Shamir knew exactly what kind of time the club was looking for as he kicked off his set with a pep in his […]
BEING THERE: Robert Plant @ The Mann Center
Photo by DAN LONG Flash back to 1972 in South Plainfield, NJ. I’m three years old. My earliest memories are of my father and I pulling the pots and pans out of the cupboard and setting them up like rack toms on a Ludwig kit because he and the drunk and stoned partygoers who were at my house every weekend were ripe and ready to watch me do my thing: the outro of Led Zeppelin’s “Rock & Roll.” Bonham’s mini-solo/big finish was in my hands now. Wooden spoons in hand, I blasted out the fills with such vigor – in […]
THE BEING THERE: Dillinger Escape Plan @ UT
Photo by DYLAN LONG Anybody who knows anything about thrash-y Jersey mathcore avatars The Dillinger Escape Plan went into Union Transfer last night expecting non-stop moshing, crowd surfing and acrobatic stage diving. But last night the barrier that usually separates the fans from the stage at these sort of shows was duly absent, which of course only further encouraged reckless stage-diving havoc while packing the front three rows of fans together smack up against the front of the stage like smelly, headbanging sardines. Mutoid Man, the supergroup consisting of members from the heavy hitting Cave In and the legendary Converge […]
Win Tix To See The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn @ TLA
When Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn was growing up in suburban Minneapolis in the shag-carpeted ’70s, there was nothing musical about the family Finn, nothing at all. Nobody played an instrument. Nobody played records on the stereo. They did not even sing show tunes on long car rides. But when he was eight years old Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham choked to death on his own vomit, and that’s when he discovered the awesome, mood-altering, life-changing power of rock n’ roll. Up until this point he’d thought of rock n’ roll as nothing more than the interstitial music between […]
BEING THERE: Courtney Barnett @ Union Transfer
– Photo by TOM BECK Judging by the wide spectrum of ages in the crowd at Union Transfer last night, Courtney Barnett isn’t the voice of a generation, she’s the voice of every generation, more specifically every generation that’s still willing and able to leave the house on a Monday night for an evening of gloriously loud, raw rock n’ roll thrills. The Aussie indie sensation’s acerbic lyrics and deadpan delivery bring out the dry and sarcastic humor cherished by Millennials while still maintaining that classic “I-wrote-these-songs-in-my-garage-with-only-three-chords” primitivism old heads have been swooning over since The Sonics did it in […]
INCOMING: The Importance Of Being Morrissey
For the deeply devoted—and they are legion—there are but two periods in the history of mankind: The time Before Smiths and the time After Smiths. The years B.S. ended in Manchester one May afternoon in 1982, when Johnny Marr—his rockabilly quiff stacked high and retro, Brando-esque Levis cuffed just right—ambled up to 384 Kings Road and knocked on the door. One Steven Patrick Morrissey, unemployable bookworm homebody, who at the ripe old age of 22 was beginning to get the distinct feeling that life had passed him by, answered the door. Marr did not bother with the inane niceties of […]
BEING THERE: Alvvays @ Union Transfer
Photo by NOAH SILVESTRY Last night in a town called Philadelphia, Taylor Swift played before a stadium full of teenage girls (mostly, I assume). It was probably great. I wouldn’t know, because I was busy moshing with those girls’ male counterparts to Alvvays, whose hooky eponymous debut has been blasting triumphantly through the speakers of smoky college dorms and beat up first-car stereos across the continent since its release nearly a year ago. I’m hooked too – that blue-marble 12” has been more or less glued to my turntable since I got my hands on it. And just like that […]