Readers of a certain age will remember Gary Numan‘s “Cars” as easily the coolest song of 1979 — the nearest competition was The Knack’s “My Sharona,” and catchy as it was/is it was essentially retrograde, guitar-based power-pop. Nothing wrong with that, in fact some of my best friends are retrograde, guitar-based power-pop. But where “My Sharona” harkened back to the past, to some mythical coked-up episode of Shindig!, “Cars” was prophetic, a harbinger of things to come in the impending ’80s. And many of it’s quirky tropes remain the building blocks of pop culture: robotic anomie, cinematic synthesizer washes, […]
Win Tix To See Desert Blues Mystics Tinariwen
Illustration by ADRIA FRUTOS Tinariwen was founded by Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, who at age four witnessed the execution of his father (a Tuareg rebel) during a 1963 uprising in Mali. As a child he saw a western film in which a cowboy played a guitar. Ag Alhabib built his own guitar out of a tin can, a stick and bicycle brake wire. He started to play old Tuareg and modern Arabic pop tunes.[citation needed] Ag Alhabib first lived in Algeria in refugee camps near Bordj Badji Mokhtar and in the deserts around the southern city of Tamanrasset, where he received […]
BEING THERE: The War On Drugs @ UT
Photo by ERIC ASHLEIGH I’ve always been intrigued by making it out for home town performances, though they tend to be overhyped or more often, the band shows up exhausted – playing one-off hits for some family and friends after a long tour – mustering whatever they’ve got left to give and not much more. At last night’s gathering, War on Drugs was doing the inverse, celebrating not only the release of their new record, Lost in the Dream, but also launching the tour itself at a sold out home town venue. The crowd was all winter beards and high […]
BEING THERE: Arcade Fire @ Wells Fargo Center
Photo by ERIC ASHLEIGH BY JONATHAN VALANIA The jagged through-line of agreed-upon rock n’ roll history is marked by epic strategic blunders and stylistic reboot fails that will live on in infamy. The Grateful Dead going disco, Jefferson Airplane becoming Jefferson Starship, REM attempting rap (nothing personal KRS-One, it wasn’t you it was them), the Rolling Stones hiring the Hell’s Angels to keep the peace at Altamont, to name but a few. Add to the list the Arcade Fire getting ‘funk to funky.’ Or trying to, anyway. There seems to be two schools of thought on Reflektor. A) It’s their […]
EARLY WORD: In Bob We Trust
MAGNET MAGAZINE TURNS 21! Feat. GUIDED BY VOICES SURFER BLOOD * TITUS ANDRONICUS MAY 22 Trocadero Theatre 1003 Arch St * Philadelphia Tickets on sale Friday 3/21 at Noon! Although they’ve been underage drinking for years, MAGNET is finally turning 21! To celebrate, the long-running indie mag is putting on a kick-ass rock show, featuring the classic lineup of Guided By Voices (who we hear might know something about drinking), Surfer Blood and Titus Andronicus. It’s May 22 at the legendary Trocadero Theatre. Be there, or bee thousand. For tickets and more information for Magnet Magazine Turns 21 featuring Guided […]
THE LIFE ACOUSTIC: Meet Randall Poster, The Man Who Makes Wes Anderson Soundtracks Sing
EDITOR’S NOTE: This was first published in issue #104 of MAGNET MAGAZINE. BY JONATHAN VALANIA How’s this sound for a dream job description: Sit around all day rolling doobies with Wes Anderson, reading script pages as he pecks them out on a vintage Smith-Corona and then firing up your iPod for the perfect vintage Kinks b-side/deep-cut mid-60’s Stones track/David Bowie song sung in Portuguese to go with each scene. Must have and impeccable ear, a kaleidoscopic mind and an encyclopedic record collection epic in its scope and unknowable vastness. Some time travel required. The bit about smoking doobies and […]
BEING THERE: Broken Bells @ The Trocadero
Photo by PETE TROSHAK Broken Bells — the collaborative side-project of Shins main man James Mercer and producer/DJ Brian Burton, AKA Danger Mouse — thrilled an overflowing standing room only crowd at the Trocadero last night with an 18-song set of their indie-psych-electronica hybrid. Mercer and Burton arrived on stage dressed in dark business suits and took up positions behind two white Star Trek-like pulpits, embedded with all manner of vintage synths and assorted retro-futuristic keyboard gadgetry, situated on opposite sides of the stage. Behind them were two risers with a drummer on one and a guitarist on the other. […]
EXCERPT: How To Grow Up To Be A Debaser
Armed with a bottle of wine and a little chien andalusia, Black Francis — in an extremely candid 7,000 word interview with yours truly — bares his soul and sets MAGNET straight on Kim Deal, Kim Shattuck, dope, daddyhood, new songs, old wounds, and how, after 26 years, he finally found his mind. Here’s an excerpt of our in-depth discussion of The Kim Deal Situation. Enjoy. — JONATHAN VALANIA MAGNET: I’m not going to make this whole thing about Kim Deal, but I would like to give you the opportunity for you to respond to this narrative that’s emerged […]
KURT VILE & The VIOLATORS: Never Run Away
Just announced: Kurt Vile & The Violators will open for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds at the Mann July 25th. Stay tuned for a Nick Cave/Kurt Vile @ The Mann giveaway contest! PREVIOUSLY: If you heard a distant rumble or saw a flash of light on the Northwest horizon last night around 9 p.m., that was Nick Cave, like a bat out of hell, smiting Glenside to a crisp as per his satanic majesty’s request. And it was good. Very good. How could it not be? Everyone knows Heaven has better weather but Hell has all the best bands. […]
BEING THERE: ZZ Ward @ The TLA
Photo by PETE TROSHAK Zsuzsanna Eva Ward was born in Abington, PA, in the late eighties and spent her youth absorbing her dad’s blues records as well as her brother’s hip-hop albums. Fast forward to 2014 and that little girl has become ZZ Ward, a rising music star with a sound that combines the lyrical and sonic tropes of blues and soul as well as the rhythms of hip hop. Friday night Ward and her tight three-piece band packed the Theatre of Living Arts and thrilled a winter-weary hometown crowd on the opening night of her Last Love Tour. Ward […]
BEING THERE: St. Vincent @ Union Transfer
Photo by MARY LYNN DOMINGUEZ Before St. Vincent could take the stage at Union Transfer last night, an announcement was made over the loudspeaker by Microsoft Sam, the voice of Windows text-to-voice app, asking the jam-packed crowd to refrain from the use of any digital recording devices, audibly disappointing the smart phone-wielding hordes, most of whom, we can safely presume, had already figured out what vintage filter they were gonna put on their Annie Clark snaps. The irony of a phone telling humans to put away their funs may or may not have been lost on the crowd. Despite my […]
WIG OUT AT JAGBAGS: Win Tix To See Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks @ TLA Tomorrow Night
Generation X has always seemed the embodiment of Groucho Marx’s dictum about not wanting to join of any club that would have him as a member. That goes double for Stephen Malkmus, Gen X’s aging slacker princeling, son of a Coca Cola middle man, the man Courtney Love called the Grace Kelly of Indie Rock. As leader of Pavement, Malkmus spent the better part of the 90s zigging whenever his fanbase zagged, and the better part of the past decade cranking out the kind of wanky, Asbergerian solo records that scare off women and try men’s souls. The pretty, […]
BEING THERE: Courtney Barnett @ Union Transfer
Photo by NOAH SILVESTRY Courtney Barnett is not yet famous, but she’s a legend in the making. Her lyrics are not yet iconic, but evoke Bob Dylan’s poetry. Her band has not yet attained rock and roll glory, but they rock like Nirvana. Point: Believe the hype. Courtney Barnett is for real, and she hasn’t even released a proper album yet. Her Thursday night show was originally booked at Boot N’ Saddle but had to be moved to Union Transfer to meet demand. Taking the UT stage backed by her power trio, she opened up a short set with “David,” […]