It has often been said that Wilco is the American Radiohead — an edgy, 21st-century rock band whose audience only seems to grow the more they challenge it. Less remarked on is the more obvious fact that they are also the new Grateful Dead — populist guarantors of the heartland verities of cosmic Americana. Like the Dead, the continuum of Wilco’s concertizing has come to matter far more than their individual albums. Which is why it is so crucial that you get to the Mann tomorrow night to see them, or risk falling hopelessly behind on the whole ‘heartland […]
LET IT BE: A Q&A With ‘Mats Biographer Bob Mehr
BY JONATHAN VALANIA In the Amerindie rock underground of the mid-80s, The Replacements, along with Husker Du and REM, formed a troika of indie-rock royalty that produced some of the greatest music of that decade or any other. Nineteen eighty-four was their annus mirabilis. REM released Reckoning, and Husker Du released Zen Arcade and New Day Rising. The Replacements released Let It Be, which despite the co-opting of the Beatles song for its title was in fact their Beggars Banquet. All three soon signed major label deals with varying results. Husker Du lasted just two albums, the uneven Candy Apple […]
BECK: Wow
NASTY LITTLE MAN: The children have spoken: “WOW,” the latest new taste from Beck’s forthcoming opus, has been unveiled to the world in all its fluorescent mutant hip hop glory. And accompanying this retro-futuristic earworm is a virtual “WOW” world built with the help of a global collective of creators on Instagram. Beck fans were first tipped off that something “WOW” was coming their way when a clip posted Wednesday on the official @beck Instagram rallied them to GIDDY UP. The following day creators and artists from the Instagram community uploaded their unique interpretations of “WOW” each with an exclusive clip of the song. Clips from various creators using […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR: Three kids meet in junior high, grow up skateboarding, doing graffitti and shooting stuff on home-video cameras, then eventually get jobs together on Saturday Night Live. It sounds like an adolescent fantasy, but for former SNL cast member Andy Samberg and former SNL writers Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer, it actually happened. “We were not ambitious,” Schaffer tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “We were just kids who liked comedy, and we liked music, and we were nerds about that stuff.” Samberg, Taccone and Schaffer work together under the name The Lonely Island. Their new film, Popstar: Never […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Eagles Of Death Metal!
The Eagles Of Death Metal — still reeling from the horrific tragedy at the Bataclan, and the PTSD-tinted crazy talk that followed — play the Troc on Friday and we want to send you and a friend, on us. To qualify, all you have to do is sign up for our mailing list (see right, below the masthead). Trust us, this is something you want to do. In addition to breaking news alerts and Phawker updates, you also get advanced warning about groovy concert ticket giveaways and other free swag opportunities like this one! After signing up, send us […]
EARLY WORD: To Be Young And Philadelphian
Throughout his multifarious career guitarist Marc Ribot has regularly formed projects to put his unique spin on bodies of work created by others. Such projects have always eschewed obvious homage. Whether tackling the influential son of pioneering Cuban guitarist Arsenio Rodriguez (with his own Los Cubanos Postizos), or the indelible, spiritually charged themes of free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler, Ribot has always examined such material through his own instantly recognizable lens, both bringing something new to the table and carving out a new pathway for listeners to hear those compositions. Ribot is a genuine musical omnivore, finding interest in […]
NATHANIEL RATELIFF: Wasting Time
They play a way-sold-out show at The Fillmore on June 6th with Lord Huron.
Win Tix To See The Walkmen’s Hamilton Leithauser
Fourteen years after the release of Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Now Gone, The Walkmen have gone on ‘indefinite hiatus’ — which is a polite way of saying ‘We broke up but we could easily get back together for a tour or an album if the money’s right, or everything we try post-Walkmen utterly fails.’ Given the warm critical response to Walkmen singer Hamilton Leithauser’s 2014 solo debut Black Hours — an unlikely but uber-catchy collection of stately torch-songs, caffeinated power-pop and Stones-y country-rock hybrids, that features members of Vampire Weekend and The Shins), that’s not happening any […]
IDIOCRACY: The Reasons Why I’m Not Voting
THE NEW YORKER: —I’m afraid that on my way to the voting booth I will trip and fall into a puddle and splash mud onto an innocent passerby, Meryl Streep. She will be on her way to accept her fourth Oscar and will hate me forever. I will cry because I love Meryl. —My designated polling place is run by my ex-boyfriend, Tad, who once tattooed my name on his face and expected that I would do the same, with his name on my face. I did not because I hate needles and also didn’t love Tad for real. […]
FROM THE VAULT: Heroes & Villains
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story first appeared in the June/July 2002 issue of MAGNET MAGAZINE BY JONATHAN VALANIA so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. That was written by William Carlos Williams, an American poet. Best I can tell, he was talking about the significance of insignificance, that little things truly do mean a lot—like if you could surf the past in a time machine and you did something as small as, say, kicking a stone in the Stone Age, it could send a ripple through the entire fabric of history. […]
BEING THERE: Courtney Barnett @ The E-Factory
Photo by TOM BECK Fresh off a 2015 North American tour during which she played a sold out show at Union Transfer, Courtney Barnett returned to Philly last night for a sold out show at the Electric Factory backed by her Aussie accomplices, drummer Dave Mudie and bassist “Bones” Sloane. Decked out in her trademark droopy pants, old t-shirt and slept-on hair, Barnett kicked things off with “Dead Fox.” Songs from Sometimes I Sit And Think And Sometimes I Just Sit, Barnett’s 2015 debut LP, made up the lion’s share of the set list. Just three songs from 2012’s A […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When U Can’t
FRESH AIR: New Yorker writer Jane Mayer discusses conservative activist James O’Keefe’s latest botched sting operation, and the new kind of political opposition research O’Keefe pioneered. MORE NEW YORKER: On March 16th, a foreign donor who identified himself as Victor left a voice message at the offices of the Soros-funded Open Society Foundations. Then he forgot to hang up the phone, and the machine recorded “Victor” and his staff describing what sounded like an entrapment scheme. This week, James O’Keefe, the conservative activist whose undercover videos have embarrassed Planned Parenthood, NPR, and ACORN, outed himself as the caller, and […]
Win Tix To See Borns @ The Electric Factory Friday
Garrett Borns is a one-man glam-rock revivial — think Marc Bolan crossed with Jeff Buckley with Harry Styles hair — and who doesn’t love one-man glam-rock revivals? Not you, that’s for sure. That’s why you must be terribly excited to learn that we have a pair of tix to see Borns @ the Electric Factory on Friday. To qualify to win, all you have to do is sign up for our mailing list (see right, below the masthead). Trust us, this is something you want to do. In addition to breaking news alerts and Phawker updates, you also get […]