EARLY WORD: She And Hymn

BY MEREDITH KLEIBER Most bands typically travel by tour bus, hiring one or multiple drivers to chauffeur them around the country from shows to hotels and vice versa. Lucy Tight and Wayne Waxing, however, don’t really fit the definition of “typical”. Better known as the self-described “stomp-grass punk folk” duo Hymn For Her, Tight and Waxing traverse the country in their 1961 Bambi Airstream, fully loaded with myriad instruments, recording equipment, dog, and four-year-old daughter. The Airstream functions not only as their primary form of transportation, but also as a recording studio — Tight and Waxing recorded their album Lucy […]

JUDAS PRIEST: Open Letter To Archbishop Chaput

PHILADELPHIA  SURVIVORS NETWORK OF THOSE ABUSED BY PRIESTS: We were disappointed in how Charles Chaput responded to abuse claims as the archbishop of the Denver archdiocese, especially his work to defeat statute of limitations reform in the Colorado legislature. We suspect that the fears held by church leaders in Philadelphia of similar reform are one of the reasons that Chaput was promoted. However, his past record is not as important as the tone he will set for the future. After years of cover-ups perpetrated by Cardinal Justin Rigali, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia deserves better. Survivors of abuse do not deserve […]

CINEMA: There Will Be Blood

BY ALEX POTTER Terrence Malick averages about one film every seven years, but it’s always worth the wait — he is widely regarded as a director’s director and A-List actors wait in line to work with him. He has not made a film that critics don’t consider great. His new one, Tree Of Life is no exception. If you like that, you’ll like Badlands, Malik’s bleak, beautiful 1973 directorial debut, starring a young and very James Dean-esque Martin Sheen and the always-great Sissy Spacek as young lovers on a killing spree across the American prairie. Set in the Badlands of […]

TOM WAITS: For No One

RELATED:  ‘Tom Waits For No One‘ was created when two animators, dying to test out a new use for rotoscope, the method of tracing over live action film frame by frame, happened upon a Tom Waits performance at the La Brea Stage in 1978 purely by accident. After viewing the live show, Bruce Lyon and John Lamb, knew it would be the perfect test song for their unique process. So the pair visited Waits at the infamous Tropicana Motel and after getting the okay, they set to work using five cameras, six takes and 13 hours of footage to assemble […]

NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t

FRESH AIR In 1973, an infant chimpanzee was taken from his mother’s arms and sent to live with a human family as part of a Columbia University psychology experiment. The goal of the project was to see if the animal, named Nim Chimpsky, could be conditioned to communicate with humans if he was raised like a human child in a human household. He learned some very basic words in American Sign Language, but Nim continued to act like a chimp — he bit the children in the house and didn’t understand how to behave like a human child. It was […]

MEET THE NEW BOSS: Same Shit, Different Asshole

NEW YORK TIMES: Before he was named on Tuesday to lead the prominent but troubled Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput spent the last 14 years in Denver establishing himself as one of the nation’s most prominent advocates of a politically engaged and conservative Catholicism. He is among a minority of Roman Catholic bishops who have spoken in favor of denying communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. He helped defeat legislation that would have legalized civil unions for gay couples in Colorado. And he condemned the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic institution, for granting President Obama […]

Q&A: Planned Parenthood’s Mama Grizzly

[Photo by MINDY TUCKER] BY MEREDITH KLEIBER Lizz Winstead, the co-creator and former head writer of The Daily Show, boasts a resume brimming with comedic achievements: included in Entertainment Weekly‘s 100 Most Creative People issue; produced The Jon Stewart Show; co-founded Air America Radio; and nominated Best Female Club Performer by The American Comedy Awards. Since departing from The Daily Show in late 1997, Winstead has continued to blaze trails in the world of entertainment. She is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post, founded a TV/web/theatre-production company called Shoot the Messenger, has appeared on countless television programs, and continues […]

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 […]

Texting While Walking Is Not Illegal In Philadelphia; Cops WILL NOT Start Issuing $120 Tickets

CBS PHILADELPHIA: The program, dubbed “Give Respect, Get Respect,” was launched at the beginning of May, aimed at reining in bad behavior by motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians in Center City (see previous story). Since then, some tickets, but mostly warnings have been handed out. But Deputy Mayor Rina Cutler says starting in August, more citations will be issued. Pedestrians who text while they walk without looking ahead will also be targeted. The citations include $120 fines. MORE PHAWKER: Oh for fuck sakes! Of all the unsolved crime in this city, THIS is a priority? Really? Sixteen THOUSAND people have been […]

IT’S ALWAYS RUMMY IN PHILADELPHIA: Q&A with Brian McManus, Noted Author & Professional Drinker

Whenever we recall our gloriously misspent season in the dives, aka our 20s, we remember the good times, and those that served, and those that gave their lives, and those lines from Howl:  “Who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night…who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s floated out and sat through the stale beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi’s, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox.” For one long, blurry, Bukowskian year, PW Food and Music editor Brian McManus was living those words. […]