EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally published on October 30, 2013 BY JONATHAN VALANIA It’s not easy being the Frank Zappa/Captain Beefheart/Bonzo Dog Band/Butthole Surfers of your generation. Just ask Man Man mainman Ryan Kattner, aka Honus Honus. Five albums into an accidental career as the ringmaster of the weird beard three ring psychosexual psychedelic circus that is Man Man, he sounded a little down-in-the-mouth when he called last week from the back of a stinky rental van parked behind the club Man Man played later that night in glamorous and exotic Buffalo. “It smells like sweat socks and rotting food […]
Win Tix To See Broken Bells @ The Electric Factory
When it comes to music, Danger Mouse (AKA Brian Burton) has been the Zelig at the dawn of the 21st Century, an everywhere man with an uncanny knack for being at the ground zero of the decade’s important pop moments. The Grey Album, wherein the Beatles’ White Album peanut butter got mixed up with Jay-Z’s Black Album chocolate? Check. The Gorillaz sophomore slump-defying second album? Check. Gnarls Barkley’s breakout hit “Crazy”? Check. The Black Keys’ break out hit “Tighten Up”? Been there, done that. The new U2 album? Move over Brian Eno and tell Steve Lillywhite the news. Danger […]
BEING THERE: J. Mascis @ World Cafe Live
Photo by DAN LONG It was a cool, clear and serene early autumn Thursday in Philadelphia when J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. fame played an uncharacteristically intimate, largely acoustic set downstairs at World Cafe Live in support of his new album, Tied To A Star. And yet, despite this being a picture-perfect setting for an awesome concert by a legendary alt-rock figure, it was probably the most awkward show I’ve ever been to in my life. Seemingly everyone in the 200-plus person crowd was aged north of 35. Everyone except me. So, I wondered if it was just me and […]
BEING THERE: KRS-ONE @ The Trocadero
Photo by DAN LONG I hate to say it, but hip-hop shows nowadays bore me. You have a DJ sitting on a computer, looking as though he is just choosing songs from iTunes. Seem like I never see DJs actually scratching these days, I just see them pushing a button and waving their hands in the air. And it seems as though MCs have lost a lot of the energy you used to see at showsback in the day. But after watching the KRS-One show last night MY FAITH HAS BEEN RESTORED! As KRS-One took the stage a few graffiti […]
BEING THERE: Lily Allen @ Electric Factory
Photo by MARY LYNN DOMINGUEZ Last night, Lily Allen strolled on stage at the Electric Factory holding a grimacing Emoji pillow over her face and all I could think was “Yes. YES. This was worth the wait.” To backtrack a bit, for me (and I suspect many of her fans) Lily Allen was the first and only pop-star I fell for post-angst-filled adolescence and now finally seeing her live has cemented my place as a disciple of Sheezus. Lily appeals to the anxious, questioning, and sarcastic because her discography is by turns anxious, questioning, and sarcastic. Last night, the set […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Paolo Nutini @ The Troc
Despite the Italianate name, Paolo Nutini is actually a Scotch pretty boy with a voice like butta working the Northern/Blue-Eyed Soul the Brits more or less invented. In the UK he is, as Joe Biden would put it, ‘a big fuckin’ deal.’ Caustic Love, his first album in five years, debuted at Number One in the UK charts and now he’s headed to the New World on a tour that brings him to the Troc on Saturday September 20th. We have a pair of tix to giveaway to some lucky Phawker reader. All you have to do is follow […]
Win Tix To See Hard Working Americans @ TLA
Hard Working Americans is a crunchy, mellow yellow, supercalifragilistic supergroup for the Jam Band Nation, featuring bassist Dave Schools from Widespread Panic, Neal Casal of Chris Robinson Brotherhood on guitar and vocals, Chad Staehly of Great American Taxi on keyboards and Duane Trucks, younger brother to Derek on drums, plus Todd Snider on lead vocals. Their self-titled debut includes covers of Randy Newman and Drivin’ N Cryin’, and it should come as no real surprise that Blues Traveler’s John Popper makes a cameo. They play the TLA tomorrow night and we have a coupla pairs of tix to giveaway […]
BEING THERE: Stromae @ The Trocadero
Photo by DAN LONG The name Stromae is put in front of you the morning of his show at the Trocadero last night, and you’ve never heard of the guy in my entire life. But typing his name into Google and you find out that this man is an eye-opening French pop star whose You Tubed singles draw hundreds of millions of views. His tunes range from poppy songs that make it impossible for you to sit still to ballads that make you cry to without even knowing what he’s saying. Google further reveals a fascinating pedigree. He identifies as […]
BEING THERE: Dr. Dog @ The Mann
Photo by MARY LYNN DOMINGUEZ When Dr. Dog appeared on the Skyline Stage of the Mann Center last night, the band was clearly dreaming of greener, and presumably drier, pastures — unlike the rain-soaked mud pit we were standing in. With jungle-esque sound effects, fog machines and green backlighting, the band members took their places onstage among various potted houseplants. It looked like the wilderness that could be found within a Home Depot gardening section (Welcome to the Home Depot, baby! You’re gonna diiiiiiiiiieeee!), or a medical marijuana dispensary grow room. All of the band members came dressed in their […]
ABOUT A GIRL: The Complete Magnet Magazine Q&A With Against Me!’s Laura Jane Grace
EDITOR’S NOTE: I interviewed Against Me!’s Laura Jane Grace for the cover story of issue 106 of MAGNET MAGAZINE. Because of space restrictions, more than 2000 words had to be cut from the Q&A. In advance of Against Me!’s performance at The Mann Center’s Skyline Stage tomorrow night, as well as the welcome news that Laura Jane Grace will be getting her own reality show, we are running the complete Q&A. All 7,200 words. Enjoy. BY JONATHAN VALANIA In 2012, Tom Gabel, the 33-year-old year old frontman of Florida-based million-dollar major label punk band Against Me!, announced to the […]
BEING THERE: Die Antwoord @ Electric Factory
Photo by MARY LYNN DOMINGUEZ Being assigned to cover the Die Antwoord show at the Electric Factory last night meant boning up on Zef culture (pun intended), which is all about looking extravagant while being poor. Zef is the South Africa version of ‘ghetto fabulous’ meets white trash. All of which dovetails nicely with Die Antwoord’s mission— embracing the oddities of humankind, casting aside all negative associations with obscenity and horror, and telling censorship to go fuck itself. Hard. Waiting in the photo pit at the lip of the stage for the band to arrive, I began to worry that […]
Win Tix To See Die Antwoord @ The E-Factory
Fearlessly and furiously dry-humping the dark, moist seam between art and identity like it’s the vajayjay of God, these faux-Zef art/rap/provocateurs from the land of Nelson Mandela are not only punk-as-f*ck and funny-as-sh*t, they are — or at least were — the greatest threat to the status quo since Marcel DuChamp ripped a dirty urinal off the wall and made it high art with nothing more than the power of Because I Said So. Having said that, the new-ish video for “Pitbull Terrier” from Donker Mag is a bit of a letdown visually and sonically, so instead of posting […]
FROM THE VAULT: A Hard Night’s Day
Hy Lit and the Beatles, Convention Hall, Philadelphia, 1964 BY JONATHAN VALANIA It is precisely 9:36 p.m. in West Philadelphia on the second splendidly summery September night of 1964, and exactly six minutes ago everything suddenly changed. For teenage Philadelphia, the calendar just flipped, along with everyone’s wig, to a new era. It will be years before anyone fully understands all the far-reaching implications, but this much is indisputably true: The hazy, crazy 1960s have officially begun. OMIGOD, THEY’RE HERE! THEY’RE REALLY REALLY HERE! For months, their songs have blared from the tinny speakers of transistor radios, and they’ve stared […]