Jón Þór Birgisson, Reykjavik, Iceland, 6;23 PM BY JONATHAN VALANIA RELATED: Let’s start with an understatement: things tend to move quite slowly in the world of Sigur Rós. This is true whether we’re talking about the glacial pace of their songs, the glacial pace at which they release them, or their artistic progression. In the 13 years since Ágætis Byrjunbecame the first and possibly only post-rock crossover record, Sigur Rós have edged closer to actual pop while still maintaining their singular place amongst many consumers’ record collections: The band’s stamp of approval is pretty much the only way a lot of people are […]
THEATER REVIEW: The Island
The Lantern Theater Company’s production of The Island may be entertaining, but its primary value is educational which is a direct result of the gravity of its subject matter and the authenticity of its script. I left the performance with a visceral impression of the horrors of race-based oppression and man’s cruel inhumanity to his fellow man. The Island depicts the relationship between two cell-mates who are prisoners of the South African state during the apartheid era. It is a grim reminder that less than 20 years ago, not too far away in a smallish country just across the Atlantic, […]
GEEK SQUAD: Get Your Nerd On At Wizard World
Star Trek Costume Contest contestant Lauren Toki Gabbard as Yeoman Janice Rand BY RICHARD SUPLEE GEEK SPACE CORRESPONDENT If you are sensing a disturbance in The Force, it’s most likely because the Philadelphia Convention Center will be home to the annual Wizard World Philadelphia from Thursday to Sunday. While Wizard World Philly is not as big as other conventions like the comic-cons in San Diego and New York, it is a fun experience for both die hard comic nerds and so-called “normal” people. Most of you reading this probably have a vague idea of what a comic book convention is. That […]
OUR PRAYERS ANSWERED: Philly Opening Of The New Wes Anderson Movie Moved Up To June 8th
FRESH AIR Director Wes Anderson has many credits to his name — The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited, Bottle Rocket and Fantastic Mr. Fox among them — but Moonrise Kingdom is his first film to open the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Starring Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Bruce Willis and Edward Norton, the quirky independent picture tells the story of a 12-year-old girl and boy who fall in love and then make a pact to run off into the woods together. Anderson tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross that the movie, set on a remote (and fictional) island off the coast of New England, is what he calls “a memory of a fantasy.” “I […]
ON ASSIGNMENT: No Sleep ‘Til Reykjavik
Just a heads up here. I’m going to be in Iceland this week working on a Magnet cover story about these guys. More on that later, but in the mean time you can listen to the new album HERE. In addition to updates about the situation on the ground in Reykjavik (deep down, you know you want to know) we will have some exciting new content I’ve prepared for just such an emergency, including: an in-depth Q&A with indomitable Buzz Bissinger, Richard Suplee’s Wizard World preview to help you get your nerd on, and a quite frankly fascinating (if […]
MEDIA: Twilight Of The Alt Weekly Gods
[Photo by micholitzii] PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE: They burned beautifully for a long time, the City Paper and the Welcomat, later renamed the Philadelphia Weekly. Through the ’90s and most of the 2000s, they both did important, groundbreaking work and cultivated a series of talented writers who hadn’t come to journalism via the usual path. Line cooks and guitarists, labor organizers, wayward lit majors, cross-country bicyclists … they were people who happened to have an eye for a story and an ability to write muscular sentences, but who would have been instantly tossed by security if they’d tried to enter 400 North […]
GREETINGS FROM THE ROOF OF THE WORLD: Dispatches From The Highest Man On Earth
EDITOR’S NOTE: Phawker South American Correspondent St. John Barned-Smith just completed a two year stretch in Paraguay for the Peace Corps. He is currently in Nepal, Katmandu to be exact, and you can almost see neighboring Tibet from there. Next stop is India. He will be sending intermittent dispatches as our newly deputized Himalayan Correspondent. BY ST. JOHN BARNED-SMITH HIMALAYAN CORRESPONDENT I spent three days in Manang waiting for the penicillin to evict that pernicious bacterial infection from my lungs. It was a relief to sling on my backpack, grab my hiking stick, and shake the knots and stiffness out […]
Win Tix To See The Dandy Warhols @ The Troc
The fascinating 2004 documentary Dig! chronicles the roller coaster existence of two indie bands who who go from friends to rivals – The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre – as they try to survive and thrive in a messed up, backwards music world. How messed up is it? It might be the only documentary you will ever see showing scenes from the filming of a music video that features dancing hypodermic needles. No kidding. The Dandy Warhols look like proper rock stars should, but they come across as relatively normal, and seem poised to achieve stardom via their […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When U Can’t
FRESH AIR If you see the new Wes Anderson movie Moonrise Kingdom, you’ll hear background music from composers Benjamin Britten and Alexandre Desplat, as well as several songs from Hank Williams. How those songs ended up in the movie is partly the work of music supervisor Randall Poster, who works with Anderson to help find and license music that helps add nuance and emotional depth to each scene. Poster is one of the best-known music supervisors in the movie industry. His credits include indie films like The Darjeeling Limited and Rushmore and blockbusters like The Aviator, Meet the Parents […]
ARTSY: Fame Kills
ART NEWS: When Arthur Fellig, the New York street photographer known as Weegee, moved to Los Angeles in 1947 to become a technical adviser on The Naked City, the film-noir classic named after his 1945 book of photos, he had big Hollywood dreams. Like many aspiring stars before and after, he didn’t quite find the magical landscape of the movies, and he declared that Hollywood was Newark, New Jersey, with palm trees. Weegee was famous in New York for grisly crime-scene photos. He earned his nickname from his job as a darkroom assistant, or “squeegee boy,” for the New York […]
CINEMA: The Creation Records Creation Myth
THE GUARDIAN: There’s one great stroke of genius to Upside Down, Danny O’Connor’s chronicle of the birth, glory years and demise of mouthy mogul Alan McGee’s iconic record label. It’s the lack of a voiceover: O’Connor eschews traditional narration in favour of nuggets of rock’n’roll wisdom, spoken by ageing Irish DJ, music guru and McGee’s Death Disco co-conspirator BP Fallon (“purple-browed beep” in T Rex’s Telegram Sam). Fallon is shot in monochrome and beamed onto a grainy 50s TV set – a move that ensures the film stays in tune with the vibe of the bands Creation championed: amongst […]
Editor Larry Platt Resigns From The People’s Paper
The following is an email Daily News Editor Larry Platt sent out to newsroom staffers: I let Bob Hall know this week that I wouldn’t be renewing my contract as editor of the Daily News. As you know, I have what has evolved into a big book due in a few months that I’m woefully behind on and I desperately need to focus on that. We started talking about other ways that I can remain part of the PMN family, and Bill Marimow graciously offered to have me pen a regular column in the Inquirer going forward. As some of […]
INCOMING: Monkee Business
Yesterday we got Peter Tork of The Monkees on the horn to advance his appearance at the Sellersville Theater on June 8th with Shoe Suede Blues with one of our award-winning, life-saving, game-changing, prayer-answering Phawker Q&As. Discussed: Knocking around the early 60s Greenwhich Village folk scene with Mama Cass and the Lovin’ Spoonful; dropping acid for the first time and being the only ‘head’ in the Monkees; going to a love-in with Jimi Hendrix and Mickey Dolenz; seeing The Who at Monterey Pop; why Stephen Stills was too ugly to be a Monkee; WTF they were thinking when they made […]