If any band on Earth can deliver us from evil, it’s Redd Kross. The brothers McDonald, pride of Hawthorne, California, have been bringing sonic sunshine to punk’s heart of darkness since 1978 and their seventh full-length release, Behind the Door, is here to tell you – yeah, you! – to stop tweeting, step away from CNN, and get your ass back to the party. It’s a goddamned all-American rager and it’s not over till Redd Kross says so, which won’t be anytime soon judging by the 11 rambunctious cuts on Behind the Door, which brings them to Underground Arts […]
TELEVISION: Last Night On It’s Always Sunny
The gang finds out that Philadelphia City Council has proposed a law to decriminalize public urination, but one councilwoman has vowed to vote it down. The gang likes the idea of being able to urinate publicly with impunity, so Dennis devises a plan for the guys to “obtain” the naysaying city councilwoman’s house keys and set all of her clocks back so she misses the public urination decriminalization bill vote. But then Dee arrives to ruin the fun. Turns out this is “Dee Day” and for the next 24 hours the gang must devote all of their time and attention […]
INCOMING: Get Yer Vans On!
Starting Thursday October 10th and running through Sunday October 13th, Vans will transform the industrial warehouse at 404 N. 2nd Street into a pop-up cultural hub to celebrate art, music, action sports and street culture bringing Vans’ “Off The Wall” ethos to life. The pop-up will kick-off Thursday, October 10 with a concert featuring hometown heroes including rapper, singer and songwriter Tierra Whack, indie-rockers Hop Along and multi-instrumentalist Orion Sun. Music continues through the weekend with dreamy electronic rock duo Phantogram, house artist Channel Tres and eclectic, indie-folk pop band Y La Bamba owning the mainstage on Friday, October […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When U Can’t
FRESH AIR: When Christopher Wylie first began working for the British behavioral research company SCL Group, the company used data drawn from a number of sources as a means of potentially altering outcomes for their, sometimes military, clients. But over time, Wylie’s mission — and that of the company — expanded. Conservative strategist Steve Bannon, who later worked in President Trump’s White House, became involved with the SCL subsidiary Cambridge Analytica. Wylie, who served as Cambridge Analytica’s research director for a year and a half, watched as his group began to use of data from Facebook and other online […]
ALL THAT JAZZ: Talking Miles Davis’ In A Silent Way With The War On Drugs’ Drummer Charlie Hall
BY JONATHAN VALANIA If you don’t know Charlie Hall [pictured, below right] you should. He’s the drummer for The War On Drugs, Windsor For The Derby, co-founder of The Lindsey Buckingham Appreciation Society, leader of the a cappella choral group The Silver Ages, and an all-around good guy. A fan and a student of music in all its popular and unpopular forms, Charlie’s latest project is a tribute/cover band called Get Up With It that will mark the 50th anniversary of the 1969 release of Miles Davis’ In A Silent Way, the jazz master’s initial foray into the experimental […]
Q&A: With Jeff McDonald Of Redd Kross
EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally posted back in 2014. We are re-posting it today in advance of their show with The Melvins at Underground Arts on Saturday Oct. 12th. BY JONATHAN VALANIA You were born in an age of mockery, which was followed by a decade of irony. You were 15 years old when you played your first gig, opening for Black Flag. Your little brother was only 11. His bass was taller than him. You named your band after the crucifix masturbation scene in The Exorcist. Early on you were fascinated by pop culture gone horribly wrong, you wrote punky […]
BEING THERE : White Fence @ Underground Arts
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Those familiar with the smaller stage at Underground Arts may know that seven musicians is at least three too many for a space of that size. A small extension was added centerstage on Thursday night for White Fence frontman Tim Presley, like a mini-catwalk, but the garage rock anti-hero hardly took advantage of it in the conventional sense, using it instead to edge up his mic only slightly to give the rest of his band just a little breathing room in the wings. Presley comes off as demure, unassuming and refreshingly unpretentious, his shirt tucked into […]
GEEK SQUAD: The Joker Is NOT A Role Model
BY RICHARD SUPLEE GEEK SPACE CORRESPONDENT The Joker is the most known super villain of all time. You know who he is. Green hair, white face, and a cackling laugh that borders on horrifying. You’ve seen him played by Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, and even voiced by Mark Hamill for decades. You also probably had a friend obsessed with The Joker. That guy in college or high school who said that The Joker had a point in The Dark Knight (2008). He argued that the rules of government or school or society holds life back and The Joker was […]
Win Tix To See Bon Iver @ Liacouras Center
I am old enough to remember when Bon Iver was just a weird-beard folkie lumberjack with a broken heart and a bad liver haunting the woods of Wisconsin, cranking out subterranean heartsick blues in his dad’s hunting cabin like the Unabomber of Love. This was back before he went prog-rock at Newport and started a riot — that was way cray. I remember Father John Misty threatening to cut the power with an axe and the guys from Mumford & Sons had to wrestle him to the ground. So much drama. And yet, despite the confusion of the moment, […]
TELEVISION: Last Night On Always Sunny
Everybody’s a critic. In episode 2 of the new season, the gang gets recruited for a Hollywood studio focus group re: Thunder Gun 4: Maximum Cool, the latest installment in the notoriously sexist/racist/tasteless action movie franchise. Not surprisingly, the gang LOVES the Thunder Gun movies so they jump at the chance, but are quickly horrified to learn that the dreaded “Hollywood liberal elite” has eliminated all the sexism/racism/tastelessness — basically everything that the gang thinks makes the Thunder Gun movies great — in the name of political correctness. The gang is not having it. Mac demands foreign enemies, preferably, “Eastern […]
BEING THERE: Lucinda Williams @ World Cafe
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Lucinda Williams has a cold. Less than a minute into “Right on Time,” her first song of the night, she stepped back from the microphone saying “shit” under her breath, to reach for a tissue while she shook her head in agitated dismay at someone backstage. The annoyance on her face made me fear a stoic, empty performance lay ahead, or worse yet, a shortened-set meltdown. If her sandpapery voice could barely make it through the first verse of “Right on Time,” there was no way she’d be able to perform the straining high-range melodies of […]
THE MILK CARTON KIDS: I’ll Be Gone
From The Only Ones due out October 18th.