Stu Murdoch, Belle & Sebastian, Skyline Stage @ The Mann last night by DEREK BRAD
Win Tix For Bosnian Rainbows @UndergroundArts
Attention all fans of Mars Volta and/or Le Butcherettes and, in general, those about to rock: We have a pair of tix to see Bosnian Rainbows at Underground Arts this Saturday night to give away to some lucky Phawker reader. For those not keeping score at home, Bosnian Rainbows is an American alternative rock band from El Paso, Texas, formed in 2012. The band consists of former The Mars Volta members, Omar Rodríguez-López (guitar, backing vocals) and Deantoni Parks (drums, keyboards), alongside Le Butcherettes vocalist Teri Gender Bender and Nicci Kasper (keyboards). Check out this groovy video compiled from […]
BEING THERE: She & Him @ The Mann
Photo by PETE TROSHAK Unlikely retro folk duo She & Him worked their Mickey & Sylvia-like magic on an enthusiastic crowd in the sweltering heat on Tuesday night. On paper the union of dark-and-serious artist M. Ward and sunny anime-girl-eyed actress Zooey Deschanel shouldn’t work, but live their talents mesh to create something special. Ward was the grounded half of the duo, dressed to the nines in a sharp grey suit delivering bristling bursts of notes with both his Gibson guitar and gravelly voice. Deschanel provided the wings for the pair with a bouncy energy and a powerful voice that […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See She & Him @ The Mann!
She & Him, the he-and-her duo of quirky-girl-from-the-kooky-house-next-door movie star/songstress Zoey Deschanel and Portlandian-indie-folk-rock-savant M. Ward, play The Mann on Tuesday in support of the just-released Vol. 3 and we have a pair of tickets to give away to some lucky duck Phawker reader. Why? BECAUSE WE LOVE YOU! 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 […]
RAWK TAWK: Life According To Brother JT
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Garage-punk savant, drone-rock wizard, acid-dazed psychonaut, human ouija board, holy fool of the Internet — Brother JT is a man of many hats. He’s been a puppet, a poet, a pirate, a pawn and king. He’s been up and down and over and out — and he still really likes the LSD thing. (SEE Trippin’ Balls With Brother JT, his lysergic talk show on Scrapple TV) He’s come to tell us all that the emperor has no clothes, the sky is falling, God is great, we’re already dead, and yet despite all that life is beautiful. He’s […]
EXCERPT: In Bob We Trust
SCALPING THE GURU In the time it takes you to read this Robert Pollard will have written and recorded three brilliant albums and disbanded Guided By Voices again. MAGNET stages a Beer Summit to find out how and why. BY JONATHAN VALANIA No light or air or hope gets past the front door of Desmond’s Tavern, a grungy windowless taproom in midtown Manhattan that looks like a VFW hall crashed into a sports bar and smells like a frat house at low tide, and the afternoon crowd seems to like it that way. They like to do their drinking […]
BREAKING: Win Tix To See Belle & Sebastian!
It’s official: The Mann’s Skyline Stage is now the go-to concert venue when the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars and you and 5,000 of your closest friends want to see/hear widescreen, state-of-the-art indie-rock on the grass, under the stars, with yummy food trucks and ice-cold craft beers and a panoramic view of the emerald city skyline over your shoulder. That Belle & Sebastian should break the seal on the second season for this newly-minted venue is kinda like a teenage boy losing his virginity to a super model. Because sometimes — not often, […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Cirque Du Soleil
We have a pair of tickets to Cirque Du Soleil‘s AMAZING Totem under the Ben Franklin in Camden on June 27th. Forget Ringling Bros. THIS is the greatest show on earth. To qualify, you need to sign up for our mailing list (see right, below the masthead), trust us you want to do this. You get first dibs on concert ticket giveaways, breaking news alerts and other assorted be-the-first-on-your-block type shit. After you sign up, send us an email at FEED@PHAWKER.COM with the words CIRQUE in the subject line. Please include your full name and a mobile number for […]
BEING THERE: It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But I Like It
The Rolling Stones, Wells Fargo Center, last night 9:05 pm by VIC SUEDE EDITOR’S NOTE: Powerful east coast storms that grounded us for 12 hours at Atlanta International yesterday put the kibosh on our Rolling Stones concert coverage plans. Our apologies. RELATED: About to turn 70 next month, the impossibly fit and thin Jagger not only strutted from the opening chords of “Get Off of My Cloud,” but at the very end of the show still was running and dancing along a long tongue-shaped walkway into the audience. He not only sang sharp and high from the start, but through […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Postal Service @ The Mann
Photo by PETE TROSHAK Very few groups could make one album then take a decade off and have a devoted audience still waiting for them, The Postal Service is one of them — in fact, probably the only one. The side project of Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and producer Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel), The Postal Service made only one album, 2003’s Give Up, and played a brief tour before the duo returned to their regular jobs. Give Up brought electronic music to a new generation of fans and transplanting heart into what is often a soulless and nihilistic genre […]
BEING THERE: Hallelujah
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes, Bonnaroo, 6:33 pm Sunday by JONATHAN VALANIA EDITOR’S NOTE: Out on the road with these guys for a few days, so posting will be light but stay tuned for a must-read post from Uncle Bill about Snowden/NSA spying on Americans.
CONTEST: Win Tix To See The Postal Service
Artwork by SEAN LEWIS If you’ve just thawed out from the deep freeze of a cryogenic pod, having spent the last eon rocketing to the far reaches of Alpha Centuri, welcome back spaceboy. Let us get you up to speed. Really all you need to know about the last 10 years is that Ben Gibbard from Death Cab For Cutie teamed up with producer Jimmy Tamborello on an electro side project called The Postal Service. The resulting album, Give Up, is the biggest selling Sub Pop album since Nirvana’s Bleach. (NOTE: Nirvana was a very popular boy band with great […]
LET IT BE: The Gospel According To Paul
EDITOR’S NOTE: Last night it was announced that The Replacements will be reuniting for a series of live dates. SPIN: Even during their ’80s heyday, the Replacements were an unpredictable live entity. And though footage exists of the group at their explosive peak, that was 30 years ago. Still, the Paul Westerberg-led indie-punk icons are “reuniting” as the headliner for Riot Fest 2013. The three-city engagement marks the ‘Mats’ first billed performance in 22 years; they last performed in Chicago’s Grant Park on July 4, 1991. In a statement, founding bassist Tommy Stinson contended that the band never broke up despite the […]