The Sadies, North Star Bar, last night by PETE MARSHALL
MEDIA: Life After Death Magnetic
INQUIRER: “The music industry was in the toilet, and we were able to weather that,” says Magnet editor Eric T. Miller, who in 1993 cofounded the magazine. (John Cusack was reading it in publicity shots for the 2000 movie adaptation of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. “And then the magazine industry was in the toilet, and we were able to weather that — for a while.” And then, in 2008, the economy crashed. “You’re able to weather 90 things going wrong, but 100 things . . . .” In a shrinking market where online music sites and blogs such as Pitchfork […]
THE RETURN OF THE KING OF CARROT FLOWERS: Jeff Mangum Tickets On Sale In Five Minutes
Jeff Mangum at Irvine Auditorium 1/25/12. Tickets go on sale in FIVE MINUTES, purchase them HERE. RADIO EXILE: The story of Neutral Milk Hotel’s short existence has been told and told well (see Kim Cooper’s wonderful 33 1/3 book on the subject). What is untold, and in many respects, far more interesting, is the influence of Neutral Milk Hotel. There are five major themes that spring forth from Neutral Milk Hotel that you see repeated time and time again. Jeff Mangum and his crew did not synthesize these themes; all existed prior to the formation of the band in the […]
THE BAD JOE WALSH: Religion Tea Party Politics Is The Opium Cocaine Of The MAsses
[Video: Tea Party Republican Rep. Joe Walsh held a townhall at Uno Bar and Grill in Gurnee, Illinois, over the weekend. When the topic of banks and the collapse of the economy arose, the congressman flipped out.] GAWKER: Is this the angriest interaction between a congressman and his constituents ever, or at least of the ones that have been captured on YouTube? Yes? Let’s go with “yes.” This is Illinois Tea Party Rep. Joe Walsh, a.k.a. Congress’ Dad of the Year, just completely unloading on a couple of constituents at a recent town hall at an Uno pizza restaurant. The […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: The Man Who Howled Wolf
FRESH AIR: Bad As Me, Waits’ 20th album, references the people he normally sings about: loners, losers, drunks and eccentrics. The “poet of outcasts,” as The New York Times once called Waits, romanticizes loneliness, the city of Chicago, death and love, among other topics. The album also pays homage to some of Waits’ favorite singers, including James Brown, Peggy Lee and Howlin’ Wolf. “I’ve always looked to [Wolf] for guidance, and probably always will,” Waits says. “He does have a voice that is otherworldly. It should be in a time capsule somewhere. When you’re a kid and you’re trying to […]
LIFE LESSONS: A Pep Talk For OccupyPhilly
AP TICKER: I’m getting lots of letters about why I haven’t shown my face at any of the Occupy Philly protests. I wholeheartedly, endorse and support their endeavors and while I talk a good game about revolution and overthrow of this plutocracy, the sad truth of the matter is……..I’m a very very lazy man. As I have said many times before, my favorite hobbies are as follows, lying on my couch and being very very quiet. I and my couch bound brethren, represent a subset of The Greatest Generation that I have coined “The Lazy Generation” This true silent majority […]
INCOMING: Psychotic Reactions & Carburetor Dung
A Q&A with Cheltenham resident/Delaware Valley College professor Stephen Tow, author of this just-published definitive history of grunge. Tow will be reading at UPenn’s bookstore tomorrow night. Look for it tomorrow on a Phawker near you!
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Andrew Bird At The Grand
We have a pair of tickets to see the always-excellent Andrew Bird at The Grand Opera House in Wilmington this Saturday! The first Phawker reader to email us at FEED@PHAWKER.COM with the correct answer to the following Andrew Bird trivia questions wins them: What is the name of the swing band Andrew Bird was a member of back in the 90s? Put BIRD in the subject line and include a mobile number for confirmation. Good luck and godspeed!
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Langhorne Slim Tonite!
Time is short so let’s just cut to the chase. You know you want ’em, we know we got ’em. Let’s do this thing. First three readers to email us at FEED@PHAWKER with FOGHORN LANGHORNE in the subject line win a pair of tickets to see Langhorne Slim tonight at Union Transfer. Good luck and godspeed! RELATED: Langhorne Slim is an American singer-songwriter, (born Sean Scolnick on August 20, 1980 in Langhorne, Pennsylvania). Scolnick attended high school at Solebury School in New Hope, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College, part of the SUNY system. MORE […]
CONCERT REVIEW: tUnE-yArDs @ uNiOn tRaNsFer
[Photo by JUSTIN BANK via YOUTELLCONCERTS.COM] BY MIKE WALSH MUSIC CRITIC The first time I heard a tUnE-yArDs song, I wondered how Merrill Garbus, the singer and songwriter who essentially is the band, could perform such a unique style in a live setting. With the many layers of her voice and sounds on her CD whokill, I assumed she’d need a large band with backing singers to pull it off. But I was wrong about that, as I discovered on Sunday night at Union Transfer. Garbus uses live looping techniques so expertly, she made her and her bass player sound […]
Win Tix To See Matthew Sweet Perform Girlfriend
Matthew Sweet’s guitar-pop masterpiece Girlfriend turns 20 this year. Good grief, where does the time go? Those who’ve lived through its glorious flowering in the early 90s can attest to the album’s deathless classic status, as for those who haven’t, if you like rock music, trust us, you already love this album, you just don’t know it yet. Sweet’s honeyed, golden-boy vocals and study-at-the-feet-of-the-masters songwriting is kicked into overdrive by the astonishing six-string fire power of Television’s Richard Lloyd and the dearly departed Robert Quine. Hail, hail rock n’ roll! They sure don’t make ’em like this anymore. To mark […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
Stephen Malkmus, TLA 9:21 PM, last night by JONATHAN VALANIA BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER Generation X has always seemed the embodiment of Groucho Marx’s dictum about not wanting to be a member of any club that would have you. That goes double for Stephen Malkmus, Gen X’s aging slacker princeling. As leader of Pavement, Malkmus spent the better part of the ’90s zigging whenever his fan base zagged, and the better part of the last decade cranking out the kind of wanky, Aspergerian solo records that scare off women and try men’s souls. While the pretty, wryly observed […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Ray LaMontagne’s Beard
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] Soulful, scruffy, silver-tongued singer-songwriter par excellence Brother Ray LaMontagne — think Nick Drake meets Joe Cocker — plays the Mann Music Center on Friday, thus bringing to a close another lovely summer concert season under the stars in Fairmount Park. And gone with it goes Alex Fine’s cool-as-shit line of commemorative baseball cards. Sigh. But fret not, dear reader, we have a pair of tickets to give away to the first person to email us at FEED@PHAWKER.COM with the correct answer to the following question: What is the title of the Ray LaMontagne tune nominated for […]