EDITOR’S NOTE: On the occasion of Brian Wilson’s sold out performance at Parx Casino tomorrow, we are re-posting our review of the 2015 biopic Love & Mercy. Sail on, sailors! LOVE & MERCY (2015, dir. by Bill Polhad, 120 minutes, USA) BY JONATHAN VALANIA Love & Mercy tells the harrowing, heartbreaking story of the life of Brian Wilson — Beach Boys auteur and resident genius — which goes like this: Angel-headed boy from Hawthorne, California, at the dawn of the 1960s, smitten by the harmonic convergence of The Four Freshman and the shimmering Spectorian grandeur of “Be My Baby,” […]
NEW RELEASE: David Lynch’s Thought Gang
By the time Twin Peaks’ second season had aired and Fire Walk With Me had just began principle production, Thought Gang had been born. The esoteric jazz side-project of David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti evolved from the seeds of Twin Peaks’ trademark slow cool jazz and blossomed into more experimental pastures: horizon-less vistas of acid-soaked free-jazz, laced with spoken-word narratives and sprawling noisescapes. Fire Walk With Me’s soundtrack would ultimately showcase two preliminary tracks (‘A Real Indication’ and ‘The Black Dog Runs at Night’) from a full-length album that wouldn’t see release for the next two and a half […]
MAY THE CIRCLE REMAIN UNBROKEN: Q&A With Roky Erickson, Cosmic Psych/Garage/Punk Avatar
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Cosmic ’60s psych/garage-punk pioneer. Acid casualty. Drug-war martyr. Demon-crazed extraterrestial ’70s solo artist. Patron saint of alt-rock’s fringe dwellers. In 1968, Roger Kynard Erickson, aka Roky Erickson, then singer for Texas’ psychedelic avatars the 13th Floor Elevators, was busted for possession of a joint’s worth of marijuana and offered a choice: 10 years of hard time or a stretch at Rusk State Hospital For The Criminally Insane. He opted for the padded cell. Already half-fried from Herculean doses of psychedelics, Erickson was subjected to a cruel regimen of “experimental” drugs and electro-shock therapy and was released […]
TONITE: Black Hole Sons
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following story originally published in the pages of the Philadelphia Weekly back in May of 2002 on the eve of a celebration of Sun Ra Arkestra director Marshall Allen’s 79th birthday at the sadly-now-defunct Tritone nightclub. We are re-posting it here today in advance of the Arkestra’s sold out Halloween performance at Johnny Brenda’s on Wednesday October 31st, presented by Ars Nova Workshop. Marshall Allen [pictured, below right], who continues to lead the Sun Ra Arkestra, turned 94 this year! BY JONATHAN VALANIA When the 15-piece Sun Ra Arkestra takes to the bandstand at Tritone on Saturday–as […]
The Time 20,000 American Nazis Came To NYC
THE ATLANTIC: In 1939, the German American Bund organized a rally of 20,000 Nazi supporters at Madison Square Garden in New York City. When Academy Award-nominated documentarian Marshall Curry stumbled upon footage of the event in historical archives, he was flabbergasted. Together with Field of Vision, he decided to present the footage as a cautionary tale to Americans. The short film, A Night at the Garden, premieres on The Atlantic today. MORE RELATED: The apparent spark for the worst anti-Semitic massacre in American history was a racist hoax inflamed by a U.S. president seeking to help his party win a […]
CINEMA: Season Of The Witch
SUSPIRIA (Directed by Luca Guadagnino, 152 minutes, USA, 2018) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC When discussing Italian horror’s influence on cinema as a whole you would be remiss if didn’t name check Dario Argento’s 1977 supernatural masterpiece Suspiria, a surrealist nightmare about a young girl who is sent to a dance school run by a coven of witches set to the score of prog rockers Goblin. As a devout horror fan, my initial response to the news that a remake of Suspiria was in the works was akin to hearing someone had planned to remake The Godfather. But director […]
BEING THERE: Garbage @ The Fillmore
Photo by PETE TROSHAK Halfway through a triumphant set at the Fillmore on Thursday night, Garbage singer and Scottish firebrand Shirley Manson stared out into a crowd and asked “Who would’ve pegged Garbage as a band that would’ve fucking survived the nineties?” Manson along with guitarists Steve Marker and Duke Erikson and bad-ass drummer/uber producer Butch Vig have not only survived but thrived over the course of 25 years since their debut. With Jane’s Addiction Eric Avery taking on bass duties, the band set out on tour this year to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of their second album Version 2.0, […]
AUTEUR NOUVEAU: Q&A W/ Director Jonah Hill
BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Mid90s, Jonah Hill’s directorial debut, is an impressive feat for a first-time filmmaker. This coming of age drama set in the skateboarding subculture of the 90s is heavy on the nostalgia as you would probably expect, but also has something genuinely important to say about youth. We experience the film through the eyes of Stevie (Sunny Suljic) the son of a single mother who is taken in by a group of skaters much older than him who teach him some very important life lessons and how to be a man. It’s not the film […]
INCOMING: Massacre At Duffy’s Cut Book Signing
BY JONATHAN VALANIA There is an old saying that goes: under every mile of railroad track is a dead Irishman. Locally speaking this is almost literally true. Back in the 19th Century, the Main Line was built on the blood, sweat and tears of Irish Catholic immigrants, who back then commanded about as much respect as Mexican migrant workers command today. Out near Malvern, under mile 59 of what was then the Pennsylvania Railroad and is today SEPTA’s R-5 line, beneath a stretch of track known as Duffy’s Cut, lies the bodies of 57 Irish railroad workers. What killed […]
THE GODFATHER OF GRUNGE: Q&A With Butch Vig, Garbage Drummer/Producer Extraordinaire
Photo by AUTUMN DEWILDE EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally published on November 23rd, 2016. In advance of tonight’s Garbage show at the Fillmore, we present this encore edition. Enjoy. BY JONATHAN VALANIAThe Smart Studios Story documents the rise and fall of the legendary recording studio founded by acclaimed producer Butch Vig and his partner Steve Marker, where they recorded Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, Death Cab For Cutie and, most importantly, Nirvana’s Nevermind. The film tracks the evolution of Smart Studios from its humble DIY beginnings as a glorified punk rock treehouse with free beer to the center of the alt-rock universe […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
Photo by CHAD GRIFFITH FRESH AIR: Paul Dano, is probably best known for his performance in “There Will Be Blood” as a teenaged evangelical preacher. Imagine being in your early 20s and working on that film with director Paul Thomas Anderson and actor Daniel Day Lewis. Dano was only 12 when he had a part in the Broadway revival of “Inherit The Wind” starring George C. Scott. Dano also co-starred in the films “Little Miss Sunshine,” “12 Years A Slave” and portrayed Brian Wilson in the film “Love & Mercy.” Now at the age of 34, he’s directed his first […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR: Since the 2010 election, 24 states have implemented new restrictions on voting. Alabama now requires a photo ID to cast a ballot. Other states, like Ohio and Georgia, have enacted “use-it-or-lose” laws, which strike voters from registration rolls if they have not participated in an election within a proscribed period of time. Mother Jones journalist Ari Berman, author of Give Us the Ballot, says that many of the restrictions are part of a broader Republican strategy to tighten access to the ballot — an effort that was bolstered in 2013 by the Supreme Court’s Shelby County v. […]
CINEMA: Being Jenny McCarthy
FRESH AIR: Melissa McCarthy is not interested in playing pleasant characters — flawless women with perfect clothes and relationships. “Who wants to watch that?” she asks. “There’s nothing to sink your teeth into. … The people I love and like are filled with quirks and eccentricities. … We’re a bundle of all these different weirdnesses.” Instead, McCarthy became known for her comic roles in movies like Bridesmaids and The Heat — and for her impersonation of President Trump’s first press secretary, Sean Spicer, on SNL. More recently, McCarthy’s taken a turn into drama, playing the misanthropic writer and literary […]