Photo by PETE TROSHAK MAGNET magazine celebrated its 21st Anniversary with a concert headlined by Robert Pollard’s Guided By Voices. Dayton’s finest have existed on and off for over thirty years and during those years Pollard has proven himself to be one of the greatest and most prolific songwriters of this or any era, having released over 40 albums between his solo and GBV releases. In 2012 Pollard reunited the seminal lineup of GBV that recorded 1994’s Bee Thousand album and together they have released six albums in the last four years including two in 2014 alone. If Nirvana’s 1991 […]
RAY LAMONTAGNE: Supernova
Title track from his effing AMAZING new Dan Auebach-produced album. He plays the Susquehanna Bank Center with Jason Isbell on June 6th.
BEING THERE: Panda Bear @ Union Transfer
Photo by MARY LYNN DOMINGUEZ Last weekend, Panda Bear (a.k.a. Noah Lennox) navigated his sonic spaceship through Philly and Brooklyn as a part of his North American tour to drum up support for his forthcoming album with Domino Records. Tentatively titled Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, it does not yet have a release date. His two previous mystic dream-pop masterpieces, Person Pitch and Tomboy, set the bar for his new material at an all-time high, but his performances last weekend completely surpassed anything we could have expected, as shows at both Union Transfer in Philadelphia and at Warsaw in […]
BEING THERE: NonCOMM 2014
Photos by PETE TROSHAK WXPN hosted the 14th annual Non-Commvention at World Cafe Live last week. It’s sort of a semi-private SXSW for non-commercial radio programmers. Besides panels, networking stuff and lots of liquid lunches, the convention also features a lot of short sets by both veteran artists and newbies trying to get noticed. The Both (Aimee Mann and Ted Leo) cracked jokes while delivering a lunchtime set of songs from their impressive first album as a duo, including “Milwaukee” for which the group filmed a video for in Philadelphia. Hamilton Leithauser (formerly of The Walkmen) played an rollicking set […]
BEING THERE: Swans @ Union Transfer
Photo by PETE TROSHAK Michael Gira is rock n’ roll’s last great tyrant, and his band Swans is the last outpost of rock n’ roll Stalinism. Many former members have been exiled to the vast Arctic wastes of the Gulags for the sins of disobedience, insubordination or just missing one of the many, many cues he dispenses onstage with a wink of the eye, a nod of the head or a shrug of the shoulders (take it to the bridge, repeat this chorus, go left at the next light, etc.). In fairness, some great literature came out of those Siberian […]
ENDORSEMENT: N.A. Poe For City Council
Photo by LAUREN M. WAKSMAN Folks, we got trouble right here in Philadelphia. Trouble with a capital “T.” And that rhymes with “C” and that stands for CORRUPTION. All the major institutions in this city are wretched hives of patronage hires, hacks and shady backroom deals. There is zero accountability for the police, the unions, the politicians and don’t even get us started on the PPA. There is just one candidate running for City Council that aims to do something about it. His name is N. A. Poe and he is running on a platform of pulling back the curtains […]
Win Tix To See Morcheeba @ The TLA On Thursday
We have a pair of tix to see reconstituted Brit trip-hop-sorcerers-turned-chillax-vibe-merchants Morcheeba at the TLA on Thursday May 15th. To qualify, all you have to do is sign up for our mailing list (see right, below the masthead). Trust us, this is something you want to do. In addition to breaking news alerts and Phawker updates, you also get advanced warning about groovy concert ticket giveaways and other free swag opportunities like this one! After signing up, send us an email at FEED@PHAWKER.COM telling us a much, with the magic words BECAUSE YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MUCH CHEEBA […]
BEING THERE: Lana Del Rey @ The Skyline Stage
Photo by DEREK BRAD Controversial ruby-tressed ingénue Lana Del Rey captivated a sold-out crowd at the Skyline Stage at the Mann Music center last night with a mesmerizing 14-song set of her darkly shimmering retro-pop. Del Rey is about to drop her much anticipated album Ultraviolence, which was produced by Black Keys singer Dan Auerbach and cut live in the studio with a Del Rey fronting a seven piece band. Last night, with her big fluttering eye lashes, bee-stung lips, and prevailing air of smoldering carnality, Del Rey looked like a 1940’s pin-up dream girl that just stepped off the […]
FREDLANDIA: The Nicest Punk In Show Biz
Fredlandia Everyone knows (and loves) funnyman Fred Armisen from Portlandia and SNL but few know how he got there. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, kid. How do you get to Portlandia? Trenchmouth. MAGNET goes to 30 Rock to walk a mile in the wing tips of The Nicest Man In Show Business and untangle his punk rock roots By Jonathan Valania “Do you have Questlove’s cellphone number?” Beyonce’s drummer asks nobody in particular. She twists around from her perch in the front seat of a black Escalade that NBC has sent to ferry us from a […]
Win Tix To See Thievery Corporation @ The Tower
We have a pair of tix to see D.C. space age bachelor party music swingers/reggae-dub/acid jazz/bossanova/special beat delivery servicemen Thievery Corporation at the Tower on Saturday May 10th. To qualify to win the tickets all you have to do is sign up for our mailing list (see right, below the masthead). Trust us, this is something you want to do. In addition to breaking news alerts and Phawker updates, you also get advanced warning about groovy concert ticket giveaways, advance movie screenings and other free swag opportunities like this one! After signing up, send us an email at FEED@PHAWKER.COM […]
BEING THERE: Against Me! @ The Troc
Photo by PETE TROSHAK Ever since he was young Against Me! singer Tom Gabel had a secret: he suffered from gender dysphoria, meaning that while he was outwardly male, he self-identified as female (for more on this see here.) Gabel suffered through 15 years of living a dual life in Against Me!. By day he was a standard-bearer of punk cred in a macho and insular hardcore scene, performing upwards of 200 shows a year. By night, after the show back at the hotel room, lonely but free at last, he would cross dress. In 2012 Gabel made the courageous […]
BEING THERE: Phantogram @ The Piazza
Photo by PETE TROSHAK> On Saturday, Chvrches and Phantogram rocked a gigantic sun-drenched Piazza crowd that included a tsunami-like wave of crowd surfers, a wedding party and two-time Olympic gold medal winning snowboarder Shaun White. The crowd surfers landed safely, the wedding party rocked out on one side of the stage and White was there to catch some good music and to see his his girlfriend, Phantogram singer Sarah Barthel. Those that couldn’t fit in the square took in the show from adjacent building roofs or apartment balconies. Scotland’s Chvrches took the stage first, kicking off their set of sweet-sounding-but-venomous […]
BEING THERE: Slint @ Union Transfer
Photo by JONATHAN VALANIA The really cool kids found out about Slint back in 1989. I found out about them in 1993 (hey, I was stationed at the Antarctic weather station of my own lameness at the time, and the record store there refused to carry Touch & Go shit, OK?!?). In all seriousness, Slint did not make it easy for uncool kids like me. They were always an enigma wrapped in a riddle. They were named after the one dude’s pet fish — Slint isn’t even a real word. They hated every picture ever taken of them and let […]