First, the album cover: a mushroom cloud partially eclipsed by a black heart. The band wasn’t fucking around when they titled the album Deerhoof vs. Evil—they are taking on the heart of darkness with Catalan lyrics, kittenish mischief and bird-like coos in this rampantly eclectic, almost entirely self-recorded album. This is the eleventh full-length release from these seasoned demigods of art-pop-noise, and—though membership has shifted somewhat over the years — it marks the bands sixteenth year of existence. The songs on Deerhoof vs. Evil ecstatically juxtapose disparate — sometimes even disagreeable — sounds and genres with schizophrenic enthusiasm; the result […]
DEAR GLENN BECK: John DeBella’s Moment Of Zen
John DeBella walks around Independence Mall after 6 PM with money sticking out of his pockets trying to get mugged. Alas, there are no takers. Our old pal Joe Paone posted this to FB with the commenting that this is ”the most amusing, relevant thing John DeBella’s done in a quarter century.” Yep. PREVIOUSLY: Glenn Beck Declares ‘Philadelphia Sucks’; Says He Is Afraid To Walk Around Independence Mall After 6 PM RELATED: John DeBella has been a hippie and a punk. A winner and a loser. A hero and a villain. And now he just wants to be a nice […]
DEATH OF A STRONG MAN: Jack LaLanne RIP
NEW YORK TIMES: Jack LaLanne, whose obsession with grueling workouts and good nutrition, complemented by a salesman’s gift, brought him recognition as the founder of the modern physical fitness movement, died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, Calif. He was 96. A self-described emotional and physical wreck while growing up in the San Francisco area, Mr. LaLanne began turning his life around, as he often told it, after hearing a talk on proper diet when he was 15. He started working out with weights when they were an oddity, and in 1936 he opened the prototype for the fitness […]
SIDEWALKING: Rust Never Sleeps
Federal St., Camden NJ, 11:40 AM by JEFF FUSCO
CINEMA: Romeo Void
BLUE VALENTINE (2010, Dir. by Derek Cianfrance, 112 minutes, U.S.) If you’re expecting a warm-fuzzy remake of The Notebook, where romance-never-dies and love conquers all, think again. With Ryan Gosling assuming as the lead, along with Heath Ledger ex- Michelle Williams, it’s no wonder that such preconceptions arise, but, as the title suggests, this isn’t going to be all sunshine and lollipops. On the other hand, if you’ve come looking for a brutally realistic examination of love-on-the-rocks married life, accompanied by a reversal of typical gender stereotypes, then this is a film for you. From the get-go, the camera delves […]
THE HORROR: Forcible Abortion On Demand
DAILY NEWS: Fifteen-year-old Robyn Reid didn’t want an abortion. But when her grandmother forcibly took her to an abortion clinic one wintry day in 1998, Reid figured she’d just tell the doctor her wishes and then sneak away. Instead, Kermit Gosnell barked: “I don’t have time for this!” He then ripped off her clothes, spanked her, wrestled her onto a dirty surgical stretcher, tied her flailing arms and legs down and pumped sedatives into her until she quit screaming and lost consciousness, she told the Daily News yesterday. Nicole Gaither got an abortion from Gosnell in 2001. After four days, […]
SMOKE EM IF YOU GOT EM: State Supreme Court Strikes Down Philly’s Blunt Ban, Wiggers Rejoice
DAILY NEWS: A narrowly divided state Supreme Court has voided a 4-year-old city ordinance that was designed to curtail the use of cigars, cigarettes, rolling papers and other tobacco products as vehicles for marijuana and other illegal drugs, the court announced Thursday. The state’s high court ruled 4-3 that the ordinance, sponsored by Councilman Brian O’Neill, was inconsistent with state law regulating tobacco products and drug paraphernalia. The Pennsylvania law has a broad prohibition against the sale of any paraphernalia used to grow, harvest, package or use illegal drugs. But prosecutions are limited to situations in which the seller knows […]
Video Footage Of Reading Woman Tripping Into Mall Fountain While Texting Helps Millions Feel Superior
READING EAGLE: The fall on Jan. 12 was caught on security camera video that has brought her unwanted fame since it was posted Friday to YouTube and Facebook, where it has been viewed at least 1.6 million times. Many media outlets worldwide have shown the footage. Cathy is mortified by the incident and both laughs and cries when she talks about it. “My issue is I don’t think security was professional because they didn’t send anyone to check on me until 20 minutes later and I had already left,” Cathy said Wednesday in her first interview since the accident. In […]
THE HORROR, THE HORROR: How Holes In The Social Safety Net Let Monsters Like Gosnell In
BY JEFF DEENEY Let me begin by assuring anyone reading this from outside the region that the disbelieving moan of “What the fuuuuuck, Philadelphia?!” that reverberated around the world yesterday is being heard loud and clear here in the evermore ironically nicknamed City of Brotherly Love. Surely, the grand jury report detailing Kermit Gosnell’s filthy West Philly baby abattoir is utterly soul-shattering in and of itself, regardless of your proximity to the events. But many Philadelphians felt an additional, all-too familiar communal nausea watching the story go viral through the Twitterverse, first moving from the local media to national outlets, […]
PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies
BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]
RAWK TAWK: Q&A With Sharon Van Etten
[Photo by DUSDEN CONDREN] BY PELLE GUNTHER Sharon Van Etten is the latest sad-eyed folkstress to set the twilight reeling in indie-town. With her shattered-glass songs and that tiny wind chime of a voice, Van Etten has captivated a growing legion of sympathetic sad-sacks and garnered pretty much across the board critical acclaim. Her latest album, epic, turned up on quite a few Best Of 2010 lists, including NPR’s, and for good reason. Although she easily falls in with other singer songwriter sorceress types, like Cat Power or Jenny Owens Young, Van Etten’s emotion-steeped delivery and beautiful, haunted melodies are […]
THE LEAST TRUSTED NAME IN NEWS: The Onion Plans To Launch Philadelphia Edition This Spring
DAN GROSS: The Onion, the popular news parody publication, is finally coming to Philadelphia. A print edition of the weekly paper, also online at TheOnion.com, is expected to launch here this spring. The paper is also looking for a Philadelphia city editor to oversee the local editorial operations though the bulk of the product will be the often hilarious news stories such as “Tip of Area Man’s Tongue Refuses to Relinquish Richard Crenna‘s Name,” and “Nation’s Porn Stars Demand to be F—ed Harder.” The paper started in Madison, Wis., in the late 1980s and also has print editions in Milwaukee, […]
LOVE WILL KEEP US TOGETHER: Bigger Lovers Reunite, Re-Issue Their Debut, Play Rilly Big Show
EDITOR’S NOTE: Pat Berkery was Phawker’s first sports columnist. PATRICK BERKERY: Hey, Patrick Berkery here, drummer for The Bigger Lovers. Five seasons and change after closing up shop, The Bigger Lovers are reuniting to celebrate the 10th anniversary of our instantly out-of-print 2001 debut, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying” (originally issued on Black Dog Records on March 13, 2001) with a remastered vinyl and digital reissue coming March 8, 2011 on our own Miles Above imprint. It’s the first time the album has appeared in either format. The reissue – which includes two bonus tracks (available digitally) recorded during […]