From our partners in media crime over at Scrapple TV.
CONTEST: Win Tix To See MMJ & Neko Case Tonight!
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] We have a pair of tickets to give away for My Morning Jacket and Neko Case at the Mann tonight! Why? Because we love you, you idiot. Time is short, so we’re gonna make this super easy: Name the large, furry creature on the cover of 2003’s It Still Moves. And, no, Jim James is NOT the answer. First reader to send us the correct answer at FEED@PHAWKER.COM wins the tix. Include a cell phone number for confirmation. Good luck and godspeed!
WORTH REPEATING: Being Stephen Malkmus, Again
Stephen Malkmus, Portland 6/8/11 by JONATHAN VALANIA COWBELL: If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, satire is a close second. After all, everyone knows you’re nowhere until your locale is brilliantly lampooned in Twitter-iffic, Hulu-able form. Case in point is Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s hipster burlesque Portlandia, a loving mockery of the bluest city on the angry red planet that is the USA circa now: All lattes and tattoos, skunk weed and microbrews, unlimited wireless for all, a free-range chicken in every pot, and everyone gets around on solar-powered tofu bicycles. This is the place that Stephen Malkmus—the […]
FOLK FESTIVUS: Q&A With Jorma Kaukonen
Jorma Kaukonen, bottom left BY JONATHAN VALANIA Son of a Finnish American father and Russian Jewish mother, Jorma Koukonen spent his early child in the Phillipines and his teenage years in Washington D.C., where he learned to play guitar. He played in an early rock ‘ roll band called the Triumphs in the late 50s, before being seduced by the finger-style acoustic blues playing of Reverend Gary Davis whilst attending Antioch college. In 1962 he moved to the Bay Area to attend Santa Clara University, where his roommate was one Paul Kantner. During this time he struck up a friendship […]
How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Bob Dylan
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY MIKE WALSH Let me make this clear up front: I’m not a Dylan-head, Dylan-ite, Dylan-phile, Dylan-ologist, or any other kind of extreme Dylan fan. In fact, I never bought a Dylan record or CD until just a few years ago. I never saw the need. Growing up in the ’60s, Dylan was on the radio all the time —“Blowing in the Wind,“ “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right,“ “The Times They Are a Changin’,“ “All I Really Want to Do,“ “It Ain’t Me Babe, “Mr. Tambourine Man,“ etc., etc. Plus, many other bands had hits […]
FIGHT CLUB: Steve Albini Is NOT A Fan Of Odd Future
ELECTRICAL AUDIO: I spent about 40 minutes with these little pricks at the end of May and I haven’t wanted to strangle anybody that much in a real long time. […] My band shared an airport shuttle with them in Barcelona. They piled onto the shuttle late, after finally getting corralled by their minder, who was nursing a head wound with an ice bag wrapped in a towel. They piled in, niggering everything in sight, motherfucking the driver, boasting into the air unbidden about getting their dicks sucked and calling everyone in the area a faggot. Then one of them […]
Schoolly D Not Happy To Find His Lyrics Inside Norwegian Psycho Killer’s 1,500 Page Rant
Deep inside Anders Breivik’s 1,400 page ‘manifesto’, “2083: A European Declaration of Independence,” in between all the raging Islamophobia, pathological nativism, and bomb-making instructions, the man who killed 77 innocent, unarmed people in cold blood, warns readers of the negative effect that gangsta rap lyrics have on society. In section 2.67 of the PDF version, Breivik includes a slightly bastardized version of John P McWhorter‘s 2003 anti-rap diatribe How Hip-Hop Holds Blacks Back, which singles out a few of the most sensational lines from Schoolly D’s proto-gangsta rap “PSK What Does It Mean?” to illustrate the toxicity of hip-hop: Copped […]
CINEMA: Space Oddity
THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (1976, directed by Nicholas Roeg, 139 minutes, U.K.) * BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC True to its title, The Man Who Fell To Earth begins with David Bowie’s alien Newton crashing down from the sky in his alien vessel. It isn’t just Newton, Nicholas Roeg’s experimental sci-fi epic also seems like an alien document sent from a far-off place, that place being the mid-1970s. Before Star Wars‘ arrival, mid-70s sci-fi was still heavily influenced by the mystical vagaries of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Roeg’s film, which brought rock phenomenon David Bowie to the […]
Q&A With The Regulars Photographer Sarah Stolfa
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Pretty much everyone in this town knows about The Regulars, Sarah Stolfa’s stunning Bukowski-meets-Caravaggio portraiture of McGlinchey’s patrons, snapped from behind the bar where she earned the dubious distinction of Unfriendliest Bartender In Town. The series won her first place in the New York Times Sunday Magazine’s Photography Contest For College Students, a long-running exhibition at Gallery 339 and an asspocket full of local acclaim and national recognition, including a residency at the Whitney Museum Of American Art in New York. And now Artisan Books has published the series in richly-appointed book form with a snarky-but-snappy essay […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
U2, Lincoln Financial Field, 9:34 PM BY JONATHAN VALANIA DAN DELUCA: The band took the stage to the strains of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” And in the night’s most-winning gambit, the foursome brought off a gleaming, life-affirming “Beautiful Day,” dedicated to recovering Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, with the aid of her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, in a video clip recorded in outer space. “Tell my wife I love her very much, she knows,” Kelly said, speaking a Bowie line that Bono then sang as U2’s song segued into Bowie. It might sound corny, but it made my hair stand on […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Cass McCombs At JBs
OK, we’re gonna make this real easy, i.e. Google-able, and hyper-local: What Cass McCombs album contains the song “City Of Brotherly Love”? First Phawker reader to email us at FEED@PHAWKER.COM with the correct answer wins two tix to see Cass McCombs at Johnny Brendas on Sunday July 17th. Put CASS in the subject line and include a cell phone number for confirmation. Good luck and godspeed. PITCHFORK: Over the course of his previous four albums, McCombs fashioned himself an enigmatic vagabond in the classic Dylan mold, yet it wasn’t until 2009’s Catacombs that his enigma started to feel more like […]
LOST & FOUND: Return Of The King Of Carrot Flowers
PITCHFORK: ATP’s Portishead-curated I’ll Be Your Mirror Festival comes to Asbury Park, New Jersey September 30 – October 2. The fest’s roster already includes Portishead themselves alongside Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Swans, Battles, Ultramagnetic MCs, Cults, the Horrors, Mogwai, Deerhoof, and plenty of others. It also features the semi-reclusive Neutral Milk Hotel frontman Jeff Mangum. MORE 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 […]
SIDEWALKING: Mars Hotel Foxtrot
Wilco, Solid Sound Festival, 10:47 PM Saturday by JONATHAN VALANIA * WILCO + SARAH LEE GUTHRIE: California Stars RELATED: Guthrie was born in Massachusetts, USA, the youngest daughter of folksinger Arlo Guthrie and the granddaughter of Woody Guthrie. MORE