To celebrate the June 5th release of Love & Mercy, the shockingly great and unexpectedly avant garde Brian Wilson biopic, and the arrival of summer, we’ve designated this week Beach Boys Week. Tell all your little friends. We’ll music, videos, essays, surfboards, hot rods, bikini babes, LSD, teenage symphonies to God, fat kids, skinny kids, even kids with Chicken Pox. You know, the usual. Plus, we’ll have an exclusive brand spanking new Q&A with Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson talking about the making of Love & Mercy! Look for it all this week on a Phawker near you!
COMMENTARY: Once Upon A Time In America
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY What now seems like forever ago on a flood-lit Chicago stage in front of a world-wide audience of hundreds of millions of adoring soon-to-be constituents, a relatively young, bright, optimistic, ostensibly eager-to-act-upon-a-promised-forward-thinking-agenda black President-elect lifted the hopes and dreams of young, old and in between, black, white and tan, liberals and progressives, idealists and dreamers, the down-trodden and the forgotten, Untold legions cheered and wept with joy. And then … well … a number of unexpected and not so funny things happened on the way to the end of the next eight years. If you considered yourself […]
BEING THERE: Melt Banana @ Johnny Brenda’s
Photo by SEAN CALDWELL It was an evening of magnificent sensory overload last night at Johnny Brenda’s as the Japanese grind-pop duo Melt-Banana performed amid a vivid array of animated lights and electric colors, triggering the sold-out crowd to erupt in a wild, mass of exuberant imbalance. Touring in support of the band’s newest release, Return of the 13 Hedgehogs (MxBx Singles 2000-2009), vocalist Yasuko Onuki and guitarist Ichirou Agata created a perpetual frenzy of blast beats and over-amplified pop melodies complimented by Yasuko’s cartoonish pitch. Sharing the bill last night were the Philadelphia-based crust oddity HIRS and the synth-driven […]
CINEMA: All Mods Con
LAMBERT & STAMP (2014, directed by James D. Cooper, 117 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The 1979 documentary The Kids Are Alright was one of the early classics of the rockumentary genre, a mad bash-up with the four characters who made up The Who. The film did a lot to burnish their artistic legend but years later it is apparent that the doc left out the guiding force that nurtured them into the band they would become: the visionary management of the duo known as Lambert & Stamp. Director James D. Cooper’s unusually intimate portrait of the band’s […]
INCOMING: Q&A With Brian Wilson
To celebrate the impending release of Love & Mercy, the excellent Brian Wilson biopic, and the arrival of summer, we’re making next week Beach Boys week. Music, videos, essays, surfing, LSD, teenage symphonies to God, Mike Love not war. You know, the usual. Plus, we’ll have an exclusive Q&A with Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson! Look for it all next week on a Phawker near you!
BEING THERE: Ufomammut @ Johnny Brenda’s
Photo by DAN LONG We were a collection of blissed-out bobbleheads beating the air in unison last night at Johnny Brendas as the Italian psych metal trio Ufomammut delivered unto us an onslaught of riff-borne aggression within a haze of deafening sonic bliss. Touring in support of their latest album, Ecate, Ufomammut’s performance followed the space age post-metal atmospherics of Philadelphia’s Ominous Black and the scream-laden slowed up doom of Portland’s Usnea, an interesting duality culminating in Ufomammut’s third act as the band churned out weighty blankets of reverberating tone and rhythmic density that would violently unwind. While none of […]
CINEMA: The Wolf Pack
The six Angulo brothers have spent their entire lives locked away from society in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Nicknamed “The Wolfpack,” they’re all exceedingly bright, are homeschooled, have no acquaintances outside their family and have practically never left their home. All they know of the outside world is gleaned from the films they watch obsessively and recreate meticulously, using elaborate homemade props and costumes. For years this has served as a productive creative outlet and a way to stave off loneliness – but after one of the brothers escapes the apartment (wearing a Michael Meyers […]
INCOMING: Long Islandia
“Sandy Passage,” wherein Fred Armisen and Bill Hader satirize the Maysles brothers’ Grey Gardens, from Documentary Now! ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: “Authentic. Loving. Celebratory. Time-specific.” That’s how Fred Armisen describes Documentary Now!, an IFC comedy (debuting Aug. 20) that spoofs and pays tribute to the genre with a six-episode showcase of mockumentaries about fictitious historical subjects (often rooted in real life), each unspooled in a different filmmaking style. Armisen and Bill Hader star in each half-hour doc while serving as creator/executive producer/writers alongside fellow SNL vet Seth Meyers. The SNL connection extends to another executive producer (Lorne Michaels) as well as the show’s directors (Rhys Thomas and Alex Buono). And […]
BRIAN WILSON: We Are All Chemistry
Brian Wilson and Mike Douglas have a very frank conversation about drugs in Philadelphia, circa 1976.
NERD CAGE MATCH: Marc Maron Vs. Terry Gross
FRESH AIR Earlier this month, almost 2,000 radio fanatics gathered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) to listen in as Marc Maron, the neurotic and sometimes gruff comedian and podcast host, interviewed Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. He is known for being vulnerable and bringing his personal life into his interviews; she tends to keep her personal life separate from her work. The conversation that resulted blurs those two styles and ends up revealing aspects of Gross’ life that even the biggest Fresh Air fans may find surprising. Maron is the host of WTF, a podcast he started in […]
TRUTH & CONSEQUENCES: Q&A w/ Marc Maron
Photo by Larry Hirshowitz UPDATE: Marc Maron on Fresh Air BY JONATHAN VALANIA Marc Maron pretty much wrote the book on how not to write the book — the book on how to win friends and influence people, how to succeed in showbiz without really trying, how to enjoy harmless recreational drugs like cocaine responsibly. Whatever his books about those topics (in truth, there are no books like that, but stick with me I’m going somewhere with this) tell you to do, do the exact opposite. Unless you want to find yourself on the far side of 40, bottomed out […]
MEMOIR: Brother Theodore Was My Babysitter
ZANDY HARTIG: For people who aren’t familiar with Theodore’s work, here’s a bit of background. He was the voice of Gollum in the animated version of Lord of the Rings. But before that, Steve Allen, Merv Griffin and Tom Snyder were big fans. I think Merv Griffin may have been the first to call him “Brother” Theodore, but I’m not positive about that. After a series of professional setbacks, David Letterman took a shine to him and was single-handedly responsible for Theodore’s career resurgence. He was one of Letterman’s favorite regular weirdos, except both Letterman and Theodore were in on […]
Win Tix To See Primal Scream @ The TLA Tonight!
Twenty-three years ago, a handsome young go-getter — aka me — at the tender age of seven (ahem), began his auspicious rock crit career by reviewing Primal Scream’s February 12th, 1992 performance at the Trocadero for the Allentown Morning Call, my hometown newspaper. To wit: Primal Scream, a Scottish indie guitar/acid house aggregate, brought a shimmering slice of Madchester to the Trocadero in Philadelphia on Tuesday. The group, fronted by former Jesus And Mary Chain drummer Bobby Gillespie, started out in the mid-’80s as your basic British indie guitar band, in stripey shirts and pudding bowl haircuts, with all […]