EIGHT MILES HIGH: Q&A With Mild High Club

  BY DYLAN LONG Sitting down for 5 minutes and watching a Mild High Club music video is a journey. The solo project founded by jazz studies major Alex Brettin turned full band serves as a portal to another dimension; their very own dimension, crafted by the sights and sounds of who knows how many acid trips. Signed to Stones Throw Records, the band has two full albums out and have embarked on a lengthy countrywide tour in support of their latest album, Skiptracing. In advance of Mild High Club’s PhilaMOCA show tonight with Louie Louie and Point Breeze Country […]

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FOUND: The Lost Bowie Album Recorded In Philly

  THE TELEGRAPH: A lost album from David Bowie might seem like the holy grail of pop music yet the peculiarly named The Gouster, raised from the archives, is right here as the centrepiece of a handsome new 12-CD box set, Who Can I Be Now? (1974-76). The 27-year-old Bowie stares from the sleeve, draped in a newspaper and the American flag, looking unusually anxious, as if wondering what posterity might make of a collection of recordings he, himself, deemed unfit for release. He needn’t have worried. The Gouster turns out to be a minor joy from a major artist, […]

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WORTH REPEATING: Dear White People, It’s Time We Talked Seriously About This Trump Noise

  DAILY KOS: I know it’s been a good long while since we had an honest and open conversation. I can’t say that I speak for everyone from my particular demographic of African Americans, because we don’t all agree—just as we all know not every Caucasian American thinks or believes the same. But before things go too much further and get too much worse, we need to talk. Seriously talk. Not at each other, not about each other from another room, but to each other. First: Let’s get to brass tacks about this Trump guy. He says he wants to make things better for all […]

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INCOMING: Straight Outta Christchurch

  On the whole, Philadelphians don’t take good times for granted, yes? (We savored the Phillies’ quasi-dynasty last decade; ditto for that ‘74-75 brace of Stanley Cups.) Let’s make sure this positive approach includes the current surfeit of notable New Zealand recording artists coincidentally touring through town here in late September. (Fact: 3 Kiwi acts are playing Philly within six days of each other, all hailing from NZ’s pastoral South Island; while bigger than the country’s commercial/ political hub of North Island, its 1,076,300 residents are but a quarter of its population. Fascinating.) Most immediately, the Renderers play Kung Fu […]

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TONIGHT: Teenage Symphonies To God

  Love & Mercy tells the harrowing, heartbreaking story of the life of Brian Wilson — Beach Boys auteur and resident genius — which goes like this: Angel-headed boy from Hawthorne, California, at the dawn of the 1960s, smitten by the harmonic convergence of The Four Freshman and the shimmering Spectorian grandeur of “Be My Baby,” forms band with his two brothers and asshole cousin, calls it The Beach Boys, writes uber-catchy ditties of Zen-like simplicity about surfing, hot rods and girls (despite being slapped deaf in his right ear by his sadistic tyrant of a father), boy becomes international […]

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WORTH REPEATING: ‘Did They Have To Kill Him?’

  FACEBOOK: Today at school, our staff decided we needed to press pause and create a space for kids to share their thoughts and feelings in response to the killing of Mr. Crutcher. I was part of facilitating three small group discussions throughout the day: a fifth grade group, a sixth grade group, and a seventh/eighth grade group. I want to share what I experienced with the kids today, because I am convinced that if you can put yourself in the shoes of a child of color in Tulsa right now, you will have a clearer understanding of the crisis […]

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INCOMING: Moby & The Pacific Void Choir

These Systems Are Failing drops October 14th. PREVIOUSLY:  Maybe this story starts in Moby’s apartment on a sunny pre-9/11 morning in New York city. Moby and his neighbor David Bowie are sitting on the couch strumming “Heroes” on acoustic guitars. They are prepping for a Tibet House benefit concert at Carnegie Hall organized by Phillip Glass. This is too good to be true, Moby thinks to himself. What if it isn’t? What if I’ve lost my mind and I’m institutionalized and just hallucinating this? Does it even matter? Just go with it. As hallucinations go, you could do a lot […]

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PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Save The Day

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: The writer-director has launched Save the Day, a super PAC focused on encouraging Americans to get out and vote on Election Day. The first phase of that effort is a star-studded PSA that launched Wednesday featuring the likes of Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle, Julianne Moore, Yvette Nicole Brown, and Leslie Odom Jr. The Save the Day website reads, “We are a short-form production company dedicated to the idea that voting is a necessary and heroic act. That every voice in this wonderfully diverse nation should, and must, be heard. That the only thing […]

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THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING MORRISSEY: Win Tickets To See Moz @ The Tower On Thursday

  For the deeply devoted—and they are legion—there are but two periods in the history of mankind: The time Before Smiths and the time After Smiths. The years B.S. ended in Manchester one May afternoon in 1982, when Johnny Marr—his rockabilly quiff stacked high and retro, Brando-esque Levis cuffed just right—ambled up to 384 Kings Road and knocked on the door. One Steven Patrick Morrissey, terminally unemployable bookworm homebody, who at the ripe old age of 22 was beginning to get the distinct feeling that life had passed him by, answered the door. Marr did not bother with the inane […]

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