Live at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, 2011. With Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. LOS ANGELES TIMES: In the center of Hollywood right next to the Paramount Studios lot lies the Hollywood Forever cemetery, which, in addition to housing to the bodies of, among many others Cecil B. DeMille, Art Pepper, Yma Sumac, Johnny Ramone, John Huston, Virginia Rappe, Bugsy Siegel and Fay Wray, also serves as an outdoor film venue, art exhibitor and concert venue. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the burial grounds will be loaned to Oklahoma psychedelic rock band the Flaming Lips, who will perform two classic […]
Win Tix To See Sullivan & Son Comedy Tour
We have a couple pairs of tickets to give away to see the Sullivan & Son Comedy Tour’s stop at the TLA on Thursday. The TV show, now in its second season on TBS, is premised upon Steve Sullivan (Steve Byrne), a corporate attorney from New York City who visits his Irish American father Jack (Dan Lauria) and Korean mother Ok Cha (Jodi Long) just as they are preparing to sell their bar in a Pittsburgh working-class neighborhood and retire. Much to their surprise, Sullivan decides to trade the corporate bar for his parents’ taproom which is the unofficial […]
BEING THERE: Paul Weller @ Union Transfer
Photo by RORY MCGLASSON Paul Weller, founder of The Jam, is now and shall forever be The Modfather. The 55-year-old Brit pop icon ended his U.S. tour Wednesday at Union Transfer and despite a setlist with paltry few Jam numbers, Weller did not disappoint. Weller doesn’t do nostalgia. Repeated shout-outs for Jam tunes were summarily ignored. Still, Weller did offer up a few all-time favorites, among them “That’s Entertainment,” the timeless classic that catapulted Weller to super-stardom some 36 years ago, and the mighty “Town Called Malice.” Weller, who still gets nervous before going on stage apparently, took about three […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See The Vaccines @ UT
We have a pair of tickets to see The Vaccines at Union Transfer on Friday! 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 words VACCINATE ME in the subject line. If you are already on our mailing […]
BEING THERE: The XPoNential Music Festival
Dr. Dog’s Scott McMicken, Saturday night by PETE TROSHAK The 2013 XPoNential Music Festival kicked off Friday with the sunny sounds of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and ended on a lightning-flashed, hard-rain-a-fallin’ Sunday with the one and only Bob Dylan. Dr. John, a.k.a. the Night Tripper, delivered a rare daytime outdoors set Saturday afternoon to a large, eager audience. Backed by a tight five-piece band, the good Dr. delivered a swampy drowning-in-gumbo-blues jam of a set that wowed the crowd. Highlights of the evening included a transcendental set of psychedelic ear candy from Philly’s stoner-friendly answer to E.L.O., aka […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See New Order At The Mann
ALL MUSIC GUIDE: Rising from the ashes of the legendary British post-punk unit Joy Division, the enigmatic New Order triumphed over tragedy to emerge as one of the most influential and acclaimed bands of the 1980s; embracing the electronic textures and disco rhythms of the underground club culture many years in advance of its contemporaries, the group’s pioneering fusion of new wave aesthetics and dance music successfully bridged the gap between the two worlds, creating a distinctively thoughtful and oblique brand of synth pop appealing equally to the mind, body, and soul. New Order‘s origins officially date back to mid-1976, […]
Win Tix To See Clap Your Hands Say Yeah @ TLA
Artwork by YOKO SHIMIZU It’s been eight years since CYHSY first blazed across the night sky of the blogosphere, leaving behind of phosphorous tail of spent Pitchfork hype and Brooklyn hipster cache and exactly one great debut writ incandescent by those twinkling gyroscopic guitars, martial drum thwackery, hooky bass thrum and Alec Ounsworth’s slurry adenoidal yelp. An ill-conceived follow-up and a protracted hiatus, not to mention various side projects and an Alex Ounsworth, along with the inevitable passage of time and the eventual departure of everyone but Ounsworth and drummer Sean Greenhalgh , has let much of the air out of […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Fun @ The Mann
A year and change later and the chorus to this song is STILL fucking epic! Easily our favorite hit song/guilty pleasure of 2012. Love this video, too. The show is sold out, but fear not, my droogs, we have a pair of tix to giveaway. 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! […]
BEING THERE: Interstellar Overdrive
Flaming Lips, Wallingford, CT, last night. PREVIOUSLY: We’d been traversing the spine of Tornado Alley for the last two hours when the stewardess announced that we would be landing in Oklahoma City in a few minutes, and that we should fasten our seatbelts and return our minds to the upright position, when the drugs took hold. We are, as the saying goes, off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Odd—or, if you prefer, the Wizard of OK, a.k.a. Wayne Coyne, frizzy-brained mainman of the Flaming Lips, the P.T. Barnum Of The Stoned, a.k.a. The Man Who Had A […]
BEING THERE: Savages @ Union Transfer
Photo by PETE TROSHAK UK post-punk priestesses the Savages have been a band for less than two years and released their debut album just two months ago. In that short window they have been so relentlessly hyped as “the next big thing” that the inevitable “they aren’t THAT good” backlash has already begun. Sunday night at Union Transfer Savages proved, to this reviewer anyway, that they are more steak than sizzle. They took the stage stealthily, clad in ninja-like black outfits and opened with the Siouxsie-ian roar of “I Am Here.” Message: Get used to it. Gemma Thompson throttled her […]
BEING THERE: Wire @ Union Transfer
Photo by PETE TROSHAK Minimalist Brit post-punk legends Wire brought their Dadaist art-punk to a joyous, head bobbing crowd at the Union Transfer last night. Wire has only played Philly once in the last decade, and the joint was packed with fans both old and young to catch this rare performance. Early on the crowd buzzed about the setlist, wondering if the band, which has always taken pride in defying expectations, would eschew their classics for a singular focus on the new Change Becomes Us. Those fears were put to rest when Wire delivered a spastic, barking “Drill,” from 1987’s […]
Win Tix To See Savages @ Union Transfer Sunday!
Photo by RICHARD DUMAS “[Savages] makes us dream of what it must have been like to have been around to hear, in real time, the debut releases by Public Image Ltd, Magazine, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Joy Division, to feel, as those incredible records hit the shops, that unearthly power and sense of a transmission from a satellite reality.” –THE GUARDIAN We have a pair of tix to see England’s massively-hyped Savages (better than the Second Coming we are told) at Union Transfer on Sunday. To qualify, all you have to do is sign up for our mailing list […]
Win Tix To See Wire @ Union Transfer
In contrast with many of their punk peers, Wire were enigmatic and cerebral, always keeping a distance from the crowd. Although Pink Flag appeared before the end of 1977, it was already a meta-commentary on the punk scene and was far more revolutionary musically than the rest of the competition. Few punk bands moved beyond pared-down rock ‘n’ roll and garage rock, football-terrace sing-alongs or shambolic pub rock and, if we’re honest, only a handful of punk records hold up today as anything other than increasingly quaint period pieces. While the majority of their peers flogged one idea to […]