Just do it.
SIDEWALKING: Full Metal Jacket
Johnny Cash Museum, Nashville, yesterday @ 11:34 pm by PETE TROSHAK
THE BOOKS YOU SHOULD READ BEFORE YOU DIE
BY BEN LEHMAN Set in turn of the century Mississippi, The Sound and the Fury chronicles the decline of the Compsons, a once prominent southern family who have fallen into social disgrace. The Compsons are a family destroyed by alcoholism, patriarchy, and suicide; they represent the decay of the southern aristocracy after the Civil War. Other literary greats like Marcel Proust write about music and wine and society, but Faulkner explores the darkest parts of human nature and showcases our unending selfishness cruelty. Published in 1929 to positive reviews but minimal sales, The Sound and the Fury has remained […]
COMMENTARY: GOP’S Carnival Of Shame
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY In Houston recently Republican troglodytes voted down a proposed city ordinance that would have afforded protections against discrimination based on sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, familial status, marital status, military status, religion, disability, genetic information and pregnancy. The reason? They claimed the ordinance would have allowed Houston’s women’s bathrooms to be overrun by nefarious transgendered individuals who’d been born as men, and that said transgendered would use the toilet stalls as well as various gagging devices (or worse) — okay, I’m paraphrasing a bit here, but you get the picture — to deflower […]
Win Tix To See Public Image Limited @ The Troc
We’ll have an interview with John Lydon tomorrow so we’ll wait until then to gas on about the game-changing filth and fury of the Sex Pistols and the barbed-wire art-rawk shatterings of Public Image LTD, currently in the midst of a world tour in support of What The World Needs Now, PiL’s new, shockingly-vital-yet-reliably-vitriolic album. Lydon and his re-activated/reconstituted PiL crew will be at the Troc on Wednesday and we have a coupla pairs of tix to give away to some lucky Phawker readers. To qualify to win, you need to A) sign up for our mailing list by […]
INQUEST: Q&A w/ Victor DeLorenzo, Singer, Actor, Songwriter, Drummer, Recovering Violent Femme
Photo by DOUG SEYMOUR BY JONATHAN VALANIA The year is 1984. I am sitting Indian-style on the floor in my freshman year college dorm room along with a half dozen other self-styled punk-rock refugees from the stultifying conformity and bourgeois pieties of mainstream campus life. Incense burns to mask the sweet leafy odor of burning marijuana from the nostrils of our RA, or resident administrator, the closest thing to a sheriff on the first floor of Burnside Hall at Moravian College. Crumpled cans of Piels litter the floor. The ashtray overflows with clove cigarette butts. On the turntable is the […]
BEING THERE: The Districts @ Electric Factory
Photo by DYLAN LONG Hailing from Lititz, PA (pop. 9,399), four high school homies turned international rock stars known as The Districts made the final stop of their North American tour last night at the Electric Factory. Countless family and friends of the hometown heroes comprised the crowd where sons and daughters and parents openly mingled as if it were one big family Thanksgiving gathering. Philly soft-rock locals Purples kicked off the evening with cool, melodic tunes that graciously complimented the warm and welcoming atmosphere of the show. Although with the venue being nowhere near capacity, bright smiles and loud […]
Win Tix To See Questlove Spin @ The Foundry Sun.
Illustration by TORREN THOMAS In addition to his duties as the drummer/musical director/de facto frontman of The Roots and social media’s Buddha of The New Black, Ahmir-Khalib Thompson, aka Questlove, is a beloved globe-trotting DJ with encyclopedic ears and an alchemist’s touch on the decks. The man is a walking jukebox and all the world is a stage in search of a soundtrack. See for yourself on Sunday when Questlove spins at The Foundry at The Fillmore. We have a coupla pairs of tix to give away to some lucky reader. To qualify to win, you need to A) sign […]
CINEMA: Play It Again, Sam
SPECTRE (2015, directed by Sam Mendes, 148 minutes, U.K.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Skyfall, the previous entry in the long-running Bond series, was one of the British secret agent’s strongest chapters and bringing Bond face-to face with his origins it would have been a perfect capper to Daniel Craig’s 007 trilogy. It was never meant to be though, Craig’s Bond films have been the franchise’s biggest grossers yet and he has been contracted to serve as Bond for five films (although Craig seems desperate to break that contract). Spectre‘s script unfortunately unwinds the Craig trilogy’s tidy symmetry, making […]
BEING THERE: The Dead & Co. @ Wells Fargo Ctr.
Photo by HERB GREEN Fear not heads and freaks, it’s totally cool to dig John Mayer. Like you, I harbored some harsh vibes about the dude, who admittedly, we knew only for such crimes against rock n roll as “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” and worried aloud whether his mojo would jive right with former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann in their latest retread, Dead and Company. Those doubts went up like a puff from a vape pen into the skunky-scented haze that hung heavy over a crowded Wells Fargo Center Thursday as the band […]
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN/E STREET BAND: Ramrod
Temple, AZ. 1980. ROLLING STONE: The day after Ronald Reagan was elected America’s 40th president, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band brought their River tour to Tempe, Arizona with a four-camera crew to capture the vast majority of the blistering 1980 show on film. The footage has been sitting in a vault for the past 35 years, but on December 4th, fans will finally get the watch the concert when it’s released on The Ties That Bind: The River Collection box set. MORE
PHENOMENON: The Truth Is Out There
BY COLE NOWLIN “A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome to Night Vale.” Thus begins the pilot episode of Welcome To Night Vale, the most delightfully bizarre podcast out right now, a wonky blend of Twin Peaks and The Twilight Zone with a sinister Lovecraftian bent to it. It is also enormously popular, with more than half a million subscribers on Soundcloud. The premise of the show is a faux-community radio broadcast hosted by Cecil Baldwin, whose silky baritone lends narration […]
THE MOUTH THAT ROARED: Q&A w/ Bill Burr
Illustration by Ari Bennett When Bill Burr plays the Wells Fargo Center on Friday and Madison Square Gardens on Saturday, he joins an elite club: the arena-rockers of comedy. Not bad for a salty ginger Masshole* former forklift operator from Canton, Mass. So last week we got him on the horn. DISCUSSED: The ’83 Sixers; his forthcoming animated TV show F Is For Family; playing Madison Square Gardens like he’s the goddamn Aerosmith of comedy; why he’s a licensed helicopter pilot; impending drone-triggered air disasters; The Spectrum; how bloggers make more money than the president (this is news to us); […]