DIFFUSER: The David Bowie Archive granted the Wall Street Journal permission to share The Image, which stars a 20-year-old Bowie alongside Michael Byrne. Byrne portrays an artist whose painting comes to life; Bowie is the animated version of that portrait. The dialogue-less super-short is only 14 minutes in length, and it originally screened between two porn films in a London theater. MORE
Q&A With Teri Gender Bender Of Le Butcherettes
BY JOSH PELTA-HELLER Teresa Suárez considers her home country of Mexico to be a place of brutal contradictions. The Le Butcherettes frontwoman, better known as Teri Gender Bender, started her band in Guadalajara, and to hear her describe it, between the intractable sexism and misogyny, violence, and law enforcement corruption that she regularly encountered, establishing a recognizable public persona in Mexico wasn’t without its hurdles. Having survived a couple lineup changes to their original incarnation in 2007, Le Butcherettes have since relocated to Los Angeles. They’ve toured extensively in Europe, Mexico, and the US, and opened for and recorded […]
NEW TRAILER: Captain America: Civil War
Prediction: This will end in tears.
FROM THE VAULT: Q&A w/ Sir George Martin, Producer & Paterfamilias, Species Beatles Britannia
EDITOR’S NOTE: To mark the sad the passing of Beatles sonic architect Sir George Martin, we’re reprising this brief email interview from 2006 on the occasion of the release of a series of Beatles mashups he’d mixed for Cirque Soleil’s Love. In the cruelest of ironies, his hearing had deteriorated to the point where he was no longer able to converse on the phone, hence the email format. Good night, Sir George, wherever you are. PHAWKER: I am sorry to learn that a hearing problem makes a phone interview impossible. Like most homo sapiens, I am a HUGE fan and […]
THE UNIVERSE ACCORDING TO CHARLIE: I Went To The Philly Flower Show And All I Got Was Happy
BY CHARLIE C. If you would’ve asked me, in all honesty, I would say that I don’t give a bat crap about flowers. Flowers are just…… flowers. But, that opinion of mine changed a year before this moment. That was when I had the pleasure of going to The Philadelphia Flower Show for the first time. But, last Sunday, an entire year later, I went back for more. On that fateful Sunday morning that I anxiously awaited for a long time, I awoke with a jolt, and in a vibrant, fast paced daze I got myself ready for the […]
THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS: Philly Trick Shot
Amazing. All due props to El Gato Melendez and Hawk Thomas. The Globetrotters are celebrating their 90th year. They play at the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday, March 12 at 12:30 p.m. Click HERE for tix.
BEING THERE: Leon Bridges @ The Fillmore
Photo by DYLAN LONG The sold out crowd at the Fillmore Sunday night for retro-nouveau soul sensation Leon Bridges’ eagerly-awaited return to Philadelphia was 85% caucasian. Bridges is used to this. Back in June of 2015 Leon told The Guardian, “I have a song called “Brown Skinned Girl,” and I ask ‘Where my brown-skinned girls at?’ And there’s maybe one or two in the crowd. It’s a little awkward sometimes.” At 9:15 sharp, Bridges shimmied out on stage, snapping his fingers to the beginning of “Smooth Sailin’” amidst deafening cheers. Leon’s voice and energy were equally extravagant, not to mention […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR: In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court decided, by a vote of 8 to 1, to uphold a state’s right to forcibly sterilize a person considered unfit to procreate. The case, known as Buck v. Bell, centered on a young woman named Carrie Buck, whom the state of Virginia had deemed to be “feebleminded.” Author Adam Cohen tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross that Buck v. Bell was considered a victory for America’s eugenics movement, an early 20th century school of thought that emphasized biological determinism and actively sought to “breed out” traits that were considered undesirable. “There were […]
JUST SAY NO: Nancy Reagan Turned Down Rock Hudson’s Desperate Plea For Help Getting Medical Treatment Nine Weeks Before He Died Of AIDS
BUZZFEED: On a Sunday evening in July 1985, just hours after arriving in Paris from Los Angeles, Rock Hudson collapsed shortly after checking into the famed Ritz hotel. The 59-year-old actor was once one of Hollywood’s hottest stars throughout the 1950s and ’60s, seen as the embodiment of “the American man” — tall, dark, and handsome. A constant fixture on the big screen, he starred alongside leading actresses like Elizabeth Taylor in Giant — netting an Oscar nomination for the role — and Doris Day in a series of popular romantic comedies. By the mid-1980s, though, while still close […]
BEING THERE: SWMRS @ The Fire
?Photo by DYLAN LONG I walked into The Fire on 4th & Girard through the narrow all-ages entrance, and upon stepping into the room I found myself immediately at the front of the stage, squeezed between a wall and two girls, legs pressed up against the roughly thigh-high stage. I looked around at the sizeable crowd that filled the room up, and accepted the spot I was standing in as my fate for the evening. A tight squeeze, but a sweet up-and-close view of the bands nevertheless. The Frights took the stage soon after the wrapping up of Lancaster locals, […]
SNL: Voters For Trump
LOUIE CK: Please stop it with voting for Trump. It was funny for a little while. But the guy is Hitler. And by that I mean that we are being Germany in the 30s. Do you think they saw the shit coming? Hitler was just some hilarious and refreshing dude with a weird comb over who would say anything at all. […] Please pick someone else. Like John Kasich. I mean that guy seems okay. I don’t like any of them myself but if you’re that kind of voter please go for a guy like that. It feels like between […]
VINTAGE VIOLENCE: A John Cale Q&A
Photo by CRAIG MCDEAN via Interview EDITOR’S NOTE: A shortened version of this interview first appeared on VICE’s NOISEY website on February 3, 2016 BY JONATHAN VALANIA In 1982, VU architect John Cale recorded Music For A New Society, an album of wrenching, emotionally-shattered torch songs that prophesied a denatured dystopia, somewhere between Blade Runner and Metropolis, looming ominously on the horizon, full of vintage violence and hysterical laughter, homicidal mothers and greedy angels with broken wings exfoliating the crawling skin of God. Thirty-four years later, we may not quite be there yet, but you can see it from here. […]
BEING THERE: Wolfmother @ The Troc
Photo by TOM BECK The first time I saw Wolfmother was in 2006, and boy have times changed. What was a rowdy, teenager-infused rock and roll mosh show at the Electric Factory has turned into a stagnant Ed Hardy t-shirt-infused sausage fest full of old-but-wanna-be-young stoner metalheads at the much smaller Trocadero. Back then, voice-beaming front man Andrew Stockdale was joined by Chris Ross and Myles Heskett onstage. Since that time, the band’s gone through a number of different lineup changes, having as many as four members in the band. As evidenced last night at The Troc, the band has […]