ROLLING STONE: Beatles bootleg buffs tend to be pretty particular in what they go for and return to, generally orbiting around a brace of accepted classics. These include the material that first came out on the Ultra Rare Trax and Unsurpassed Masters collections, as well as what may be the finest bootleg trove ever put out, the various editions of the endlessly edifying BBC material. Choice concerts, too, have their day – who doesn’t like the full Hollywood Bowl, package? But then there’s the stuff that most aficionados hear once and never consider again, despite the revelations that might be gleaned […]
WORTH REPEATING: Stereogum Declares Philadelphia The Capital City Of The State Of Rock
STEREOGUM: When [the War On Drugs Adam] Granduciel wasn’t obsessively recording, he and War On Drugs bassist/founding member David Hartley were working at a Philadelphia company called University City Housing, cleaning up college apartments and helping run open houses. “In hindsight it was really hilarious because we were both just really scraggly, skinny musician-y dudes who had no business occupying any sort of professional atmosphere,” says Hartley, “and we were sort of the two linchpins of this pretty huge operation. Eventually we got fired, but that was a fun time because there were a lot of other musicians working […]
BEING THERE: SBTRKT @ The TLA
Photo by DYLAN LONG Let’s face it, playing the TLA requires a slight recalibration of expectations if you played the Governor’s Ball in NYC the night before, but apparently nobody told the man behind the mask known as SBTRKT because he brought the house down on South Street last night. SBTRKT, a masked multi-skilled musician hailing from Britain, wasted no time behind his (count ‘em) three unique synthesizer pads, kicking off a beautiful and experimental set backed by drums, piano and his collaborative vocalist Sampha, whose high octave, soulful voice perfectly matched up with the tropical and electronic grooves being […]
BEING THERE: How I Went To Mumford & Sons To Meet Wayne Coyne & All I Got Was A Free Banana And This Acid Flashback You Are About To Read
Photo by PENNY LANE BY PENNY LANE Sitting passenger side headed towards the Jersey Shore for 60-plus miles gave me hours to contemplate the following pressing issues A) I am supposed to interview Wayne Coyne, frontman of the Flaming Lips, but I have no idea where or when. B) I have never actually interviewed someone before. C) Roughly thirty minutes ago I swallowed 300 mics of Purple Sunshine, and it’s coming on strong. You see, a few days prior, the boss asked me if I wanted to cover the Seaside Heights stopover of Gentlemen of The Road, the Mumford & […]
BEING THERE: The Woman Who Knew Too Much
Laura Poitras, 2015 Investigative Reporters & Editors Conference, Marriott, 10:54 AM by JONATHAN VALANIA PHAWKER: What do you make of the so-called NSA reform legislation currently making the rounds of Congress? LAURA POITRAS: It’s good that we are actually having this debate. Obviously, in a democracy we shouldn’t have secret laws and secret interpretations of laws that violate the Constitution, but [the reform legislation currently before Congress] doesn’t go far enough. PHAWKER: What do you say to people who insist that we would have been right where we are right now, having this debate about the overbroad powers of the […]
BEING THERE: Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds @ The Merriam
Photo by RORY MCGLASSON During the start of the sold-out Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds concert at the Merriam Theatre last night, a brazen (and presumably drunken) heckler asked Noel of the whereabouts of his younger brother, the ex-Oasis frontman. “Where’s Liam? the man screamed. With two hands on the left side of his chest, Gallagher said, “He’s probably sitting down somewhere at home doing absolutely fuck all.” The crowd — a mix of soccer-loving Manchester City-clad ex-pats, and diehard Noel devotees from Malaysia, Germany, and Jersey — cheered his response. These are Noel’s fans. They absolutely adore him, as […]
Q&A: Talking Love & Mercy With Brian Wilson
Photo by MARK HANAUER via Rock Paper Photo BY JONATHAN VALANIA Brian Wilson is not a big talker. Music, glorious music, is his gift, not gab. He partnered with a lyricist for his greatest works — Tony Asher on Pet Sounds, Van Dyke Parks on Smile and Mike Love on “Good Vibrations.” He’s not one of those artists who like to use the celebrity interview format to deliver expansive ruminations about the world according to Brian Wilson. In fact, having interviewed him several times over the years, it is patently obvious that he sees talking to the press as a […]
MIC DROP: Top 10 Things I Learned Seeing Brian Wilson At The Beacon Theater w/ Actor Paul Dano
EDITOR’S NOTE: This originally published on October 17th, 2013 1. Don’t tell anyone but I always cry at Brian Wilson concerts. His music — Pet Sounds in particular — is just so ineffably sad and beautiful. His life is so sad and tragic, albeit with a reasonably happy ending. I’ve seen him perform live nearly a dozen times. Whenever the opportunity arises I jump on it because every show could be his last. Or mine, for that matter. I always promise myself I’m not going to cry this time but I always do. Tuesday night at The Beacon Theater it […]
BEING THERE: Security Guard @ Roots Picnic 2015
[Via KODAKLENS] RELATED: Our Complete Coverage Of The Roots Picnic 2015
BEING THERE: The Roots Picnic 2015
[CLICK HERE TO VIEW] BY DYLAN LONG Year after year without fail, The Roots have managed to wrangle just the right combination of iconic — and destined to be iconic — artists from the realms of hip hop, rap, reggae, R&B, electronica, indie and soul, to showcase at their annual Roots Picnic in Philadelphia. This year was no exception. The eighth annual Roots Picnic kicked off Saturday with sets from the soulful Marc E. Bassy and Donn T, the little sister of Questlove, The Roots Don Dada, drummer and all-around ambassador of good vibes and goodwill. Mr. E. Bassy, hand-picked […]
DUMB ANGEL: Smile, Brian Wilson’s Rosebud
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Teenage symphonies to God. That’s the phrase Beach Boys auteur Brian Wilson used to describe the a heartbreaking works of staggering genius he was creating in the mid-’60s, when his compositional powers were achieving miraculous states of beauty and innovation even as his fevered faculties skirted the fringes of madness. With the 1966 release of Pet Sounds, The Beach Boy’s orchestral-pop opus of ocean-blue melancholia, Brian clinched his status as teen America’s Mozart-on-the-beach in the cosmology of modern pop music. Less than a year later, he would fall off the edge of his mind, abandoning his […]
MIKE LOVE NOT WAR: Q&A With A Beach Boy
!NOTE: This picture comes from a photo-sharing site where it was posted without attribution but with the caption ‘My mom backstage’ BY JONATHAN VALANIA In the psychedelic American fairy tale that is The Beach Boys — who play Camden on Saturday as part of a tour celebrating 50 years of endless summer — Mike Love is invariably cast as the villain. The pre-maturely balding Philistine. The counter-revolutionary company man. The sexist greed head who saw the band as little more than a singing ATM machine. The one who blanched at any and all attempts to move the band past past […]
LIFE OF BRIAN: A Q&A w/ The Beach Boys Auteur
EDITOR’S NOTE: A version of this Q&A originally published on October 10th, 2013 BY JONATHAN VALANIA Teenage symphonies to God. That’s the phrase Beach Boys auteur Brian Wilson used to describe the heartbreaking works of staggering genius he was creating in the mid-’60s, when his compositional powers were achieving miraculous states of beauty and innovation even as his fevered faculties skirted the fringes of madness. With the 1966 release of Pet Sounds, The Beach Boy’s orchestral-pop opus of ocean-blue melancholia, Brian clinched his status as teen America’s Mozart-on-the-beach in the cosmology of modern pop music. Less than a year later, […]