Sweet By-And-By Pig Iron Theater OBIE Award-winning Pig Iron Theatre Company teams up with Swedish Teater Sláva to create this all-acoustic whistle-stop tour of America in a time of union martyrs, Seventh-Day Adventists, and lost souls. A forerunner of Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Billy Bragg, Joe Hill was a Swedish immigrant, well known on California picket lines as a union organizer and radical songwriter. Sweet By-and-By features Hill’s wickedly funny songs on banjo and concertina, while following his journey from Sweden to California to a Utah jail, and on up to Mars, where all good union leaders go to […]
WORTH REPEATING: RNC Chaos Theory
JAY ROSEN/HUFFINGTON POST: John McCain’s convention gambit is now a culture war strategy. It depends for its execution on conflict with journalists, and with bloggers (the “angry left,” Bush called them last night) along with confusion between and among the press, the blogosphere, and the Democratic party. It revives cultural memory: the resentment narrative after Chicago ’68 but with the angry left more distributed. It dispenses with issues and seeks a trial of personalities. It bets big time on backlash. At the center of the strategy is the flashpoint candidacy of Sarah Palin, a charismatic figure around whom the war […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE: War On Drugs, Johnny Brendas, Last Night BY TIFFANY YOON Last night’s show was surprisingly light on paying customers, considering Windsor For the Derby just returned from a massive European tour and War on Drugs is set to leave for their own with the Brooklyn based Hold Steady. War on Drugs and WFTD were backed by two drummers, serving as a driving force for each set. It was only the second time they’ve tried incorporating two drummers and I’d say it was a complete success. These bands are all tightly knit, sharing Charlie Hall, Adam […]
JERRY REED: Wabash Cannonball
ASSOCIATED PRESS: NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Jerry Reed, a singer who became a good ol’ boy actor in car chase movies like “Smokey and the Bandit,” has died of complications from emphysema at 71. Sony BMG Nashville Chairman Joe Galante called Reed a larger-than-life personality. “Everything about Jerry was distinctive: his guitar playing, writing, voice and especially his sense of humor,” Galante said. “I was honored to have worked with him.” Reed’s catalog of country chart hits, from 1967 through 1983, were released under the label group’s RCA imprint. As a singer in the 1970s and early 1980s, Reed had a […]
ELEPHANT GUN: Spitballing The RNC In IM
Our completely unfair and totally biased analysts tonight will be Amy Z. Quinn, aka Citizen Mom, recently converted Obama supporter/longtime Hillarycrat dead-ender, and Jonathan Valania, aka ME, who was right about Obama, and most other things, all along. We join the second night of the RNC in Minneapolis with First Lady Laura Bush introducing her husband… 9 minutes 9:49 PM Citizen: Laura Bush: Proof that with a pack of Marlboro Lights and a Xanax, a girl can do anything! 9:50 PM me: nice 9:51 PM nobody has ANYTHING good to say about No Child Left Behind except for the White House Spokesperson and […]
RAW FOOTAGE: Armies Of The Night
Stormtroopers unleash thunderous salvo after salvo of tear gas grenades at peaceful protesters at Republican National Convention. Hat tip to GNOOZE for actually doing some journalism at the RNC. The talking head chick completely loses her shit at one point, but then she collects herself and does her job and you are in the moment. And what a sadistic moment it is. Forget Denver, this is Chicago ’68 redux. And then there’s this. I don’t remember seeing this on the news. Did we invade Minnesota?
HURRICANE SARAH: Palin’s Rev. Wright Problem
POLITICAL PUNCH: An intense “she said”/”she said” has emerged over whether Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was ever a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, the third-largest political party in the 49th state. The AIP wants Alaskans to get an opportunity to vote on whether or not they will remain a state, or become a commonwealth, or split off as an independent nation. Officials of the AIP say Palin was once a member, but the McCain campaign — providing what it says is complete voter registration documentation — says Palin has been according to official records a lifelong Republican. MORE TALKING […]
EARLY WORD: I Like Big Butts & I Cannot Lie
INQUIRER: [W]ith the opening on Friday of “R. Crumb’s Underground” at the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Philadelphia-born artist’s obsessions — collecting old-time blues and country 78s, riding piggy-back on powerfully built women, and forever depicting, as he has put it, “the seamy side of America’s subconscious” — will be on full display in the ICA gallery at the University of Pennsylvania through Dec. 7. The exhibition, which originated at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco in 2007, is the largest ever mounted in the United States on the 65-year-old Crumb, who created the 1960s counterculture […]
HOT DOCUMENT: Citizen Mom Gets A Job
Hey folks, I don’t know about you, but I’ve always felt like the year really starts in September. My school days are far behind me, but this time of year always feels like the beginning of something. To that end, I want to let you know about my new venture, a column for the Philadelphia City Paper. It debuts with the Sept. 4 issue (that’s Thursday, for any of you suffering Monday-holiday discombobulation) so please pick up a copy or look for it on www.citypaper.net . The plan is for the column to run weekly, and not many subjects will […]
FRINGE REVIEWS: Store; Waiting For the Show
BY AARON STELLA FRINGE CORRESPONDENT Two men gussied up in tweed suits and hard-soled shoes manage the day long showcasing of The Store. As you enter The Store, you are handed a menu — much like what you would be given at a restaurant — complete with specials and other various delicacies. But instead of food, art is today’s special. Michikuza Matsune and David Subal, creators of The Store, will be your “servers”, and they are capable of accommodating a diversity of artistic tastes. When you want to “order” something, you settle up the bill first (ranging between $0.75-5.00) and […]
VALLEY OF THE SHADOW: Town Without Pity II
BY JEFF DEENEY The memorial standing at the intersection of Green Street and McIlvain on Chester’s Eastside was erected to commemorate the anniversary of 19 year old John Strand’s death. Strand was shot in the chest after a street corner confrontation in the early evening of August the 7th, 2007 and died on the sidewalk as paramedics attempted to resuscitate him. I found Strand’s memorial while en route to the site of another homicide that just happened two blocks away. A piece of white poster board including loving messages from Strand’s mother, brother and other friends and family was propped […]
FRINGE PICKS: European Sons
9/2: The European Lesson Fake anthropologists, real Slovaks, serious drama: The European Lesson is dance, theater, and adultery at its finest. The Live Arts Festival presents a world premiere by internationally acclaimed Norwegian director/choreographer Jo Strømgren (The Convent, Live Arts 2006), created in residency with five acclaimed Philadelphia actors. The European Lesson features Strømgren’s comedic, pseudo-realistic, and highly physical style of theater in a mock anthropological lecture that examines the ocean of misunderstanding that separates Europe and the Americas. MORE Beyond the Pale/Soundwalk Philadelphia Let an audio track usurp your every day consciousness as it guides you through heaven […]
GOP: Is It OK To Be Dicks Again?
KEYSTONE PACHYDERM: Pennsylvania Delegation, RNC, Chicago, 1912 THE CAUCUS: It took resources, coordination and lots of volunteers, but the McCain campaign managed to push back the dreaded split-screen between St. Paul and Hurricane Gustav and save the Republican convention from a flood of bad Katrina memories. Organizers turned the political event into a pageant of penance and patriotic redemption, a chance to don sackcloth and ashes and get the disaster relief effort right this time. Viewers did not see Republican fat cats in limos or delegates in funny hats knocking back shots. In a convention hall so solemnly lighted it […]