BY DAVID CORBO Byard Lancaster, a Philadelphia jazz icon and a champion of the city’s jazz and blues scene, died Thursday night from complications related to pancreatic cancer. An internationally respected avant garde multi-instrumentalist who was accomplished on saxophone, flute, clarinet and piano, Lancaster performed with Sunny Murray, Albert Ayler, Kahn Jamal, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Archie Shepp, Odean Pope, Sun Ra and others over the course of his long career and released nine recordings as a band leader. Lancaster named John Coltrane, Albert Ayler and James Brown as major influences and wanted to bring jazz, reggae, blues, R&B […]
CINEMA: Twilight Of The Gods
TIME OUT CHICAGO: From David Cronenberg, the director of Naked Lunch and Crash, comes something truly perverse: a vision of capitalism’s decline, as seen through the blinkered eyes—and tinted car windows—of a billionaire too coolly detached to mourn even the collapse of his own empire. True to its source, a spookily prophetic 2003 best-seller from Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis is rich with topicality: Protesters hoist rodent dolls, Occupy-style, as power players cause seismic ripples in the economic landscape. Yet that description makes the film sound like a leaden lecture about How We Live, when it’s closer in spirit, and texture, […]
SIDEWALKING: Reel Around The Fountain
Diner En Blanco, Logan Circle, Ben Franklin Parkway, 8:14 PM last night by COLLIN KEEFE RELATED: At the last minute, the location is given to thousands of friends and acquaintances who have been patiently waiting to learn the “Dîner en Blanc’s” secret place. Thousand of people, dressed all in white, and conducting themselves with the greatest decorum, elegance, and etiquette, all meet for a mass “chic picnic” in a public space. Over the course of an evening, the diners enhance the function and value of their city’s public space by participating in the unexpected. Beyond the spectacle and refined elegance […]
BUT DAD, IT’S SHARK WEEK: Feeding Frenzy Down The Shore
Sharks getting their carnivore on at Island Beach State Park, just one beach down from Seaside Heights. Is it wrong to wish it was Snooky and the Situation being chased by sharks instead of little fishies?
SIDEWALKING: Bravery, Repetition & Noise
The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Union Transfer, 11:44 PM last night by JONATHAN VALANIA
Gawker Takes Massive Data Dump On Romney’s Finances
Artwork by DONKEYHOTEY GAWKER: Mitt Romney’s $250 million fortune is largely a black hole: Aside from the meager and vague disclosures he has filed under federal and Massachusetts laws, and the two years of partial tax returns (one filed and another provisional) he has released, there is almost no data on precisely what his vast holdings consist of, or what vehicles he has used to escape taxes on his income. Gawker has obtained a massive cache of confidential financial documents that shed a great deal of light on those finances, and on the tax-dodging tricks available to the hyper-rich that […]
How To Tell Tea Party Assclowns To Shut Their Pie Holes
Why does it take the prime minister of Ireland to speak truth to douchebag? Right wing/Tea Party talk radio gasbag Michael Graham gets a smackdown of common sense from the Prime Minister of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins. Why is it that Ireland gets elected officials like Mr. Higgins and we get asshats like THIS? RELATED: The President of Ireland Michael D Higgins has become a celebrity on YouTube over a two year-old broadcast debate that resurfaced in which he eviscerates ardent US Republican radio broadcaster Michael Graham over issues like healthcare and foreign policy. The recording is hurtling towards 500,000 […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Brian Jonestown Massacre @ UT
Artwork by NICK KULP If you’ve not seen Dig, stop reading and go watch it. We’ll wait. [two hour pause while the reader watches Dig and learns everything he/she needs to know about The Brian Jonestown Massacre and probably more than he/she needs to know about The Dandy Warhols] I know, right? Told ya. Anyway, Brian Jonestown Massacre are coming to Union Transfer tonight support of Aufheben, their 12th LP. We have a pair of tickets to give away to the 10th lucky reader to sign up for our mailing list [below, right, at the bottom of the masthead]. Good […]
UNAMERICAN ACTIVITIES: Ronald Reagan Rat Fink-A-Boo-Boo
FRESH AIR: In 1964, students at the University of California, Berkeley, formed a protest movement to repeal a campus rule banning students from engaging in political activities. Then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover suspected the free speech movement to be evidence of a Communist plot to disrupt U.S. campuses. He “had long been concerned about alleged subversion within the education field,” journalist Seth Rosenfeld tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. So Hoover ordered his agents to look into whether the movement was subversive. When they returned and said that it wasn’t, Hoover not only continued to investigate the group but also […]
ALWAYS DRINK THE WATER: The Ten Most Valuable Lessons I Learned Bumming Around South America & South Asia
A woman selling ginger root in Kerala, India. BY ST. JOHN BARNED-SMITH Dear Phawker, when last we talked, I was roaming the far reaches of south Asia. I’m back now. Yes, it was fun, yes, it’s weird to be home, and yes, it’s been quite the experience. After two years in Paraguay for the Peace Corps and another four months backpacking across Nepal and India, I am struck by how much I have changed but you all stayed the same, aside from the fact that your devices look shinier and more magical. And you seem to be even angrier than […]
THE XX: Angels (Live In Japan)
Lovely. They play the Electric Factory on 10/29.
SIDEWALKING: Trip The Light Fandango
LIGHT: INSTALLATIONS BY BRUCE MUNRO @ Longwood Gardens 10:03 pm Sat. by PETE TROSHAK
BURIED ALIVE: Obscure Treasures And Curiosities
SKIP MARTIN Scheherajazz Somerset Records, 1959 (Reissued 2009 on Flare) When you have friends over for a barbecue, it’s good to have some albums set aside that are gems from beginning to end. It puts everybody in that food mood. Skip Martin’s Scheherajazz is one such record. Martin was a jazz musician and arranger who worked with most of the big bands from the late ’30s through the early ’60s and was chief muckety-muck of several legendary recordings. At the end of the ’50s, Martin brought together a band of top-notch studio musicians under the name The Video All-Stars. Working […]