We have a pair of tix to see old school ballers Ja Rule plus Method Man and Redman at North Seventh (formerly Electric Factory) on Friday and to win them all you have to do is like us. Really, really like us. More accurately, you need to follow us on Twitter and send us an email at phawker66@gmail.com telling us you have done so or already were along with a screen shot of the top of our Twitter page that clearly displays your FOLLOWING status. Put the word R.U.L.E. in the subject line and include your full name as […]
LOW: Dancing & Blood
Low plays Underground Arts on November 10th.
NPR 4 THE DEAF: Weaponization Of Social Media
FRESH AIR: The New York Times just reported that in 2016 Rick Gates, then-deputy campaign manager for Donald Trump, requested proposals from an Israeli company to create fake online identities and use social media manipulation to help defeat Trump’s rivals for the Republican nomination in the primary and Hillary Clinton in the general election. The proposals were apparently never acted on, but we know that Russian operatives made effective use of Facebook and Twitter in seeking to influence the 2016 presidential campaign. Our country is hardly the only one in which political opinions have been manipulated by millions of […]
Win Tix To See Death Cab For Cutie @ The Tower
Death Cab For Cutie are the consolation prize for people like you and me. We may not get to be Ken or Barbie, the quarterback or the homecoming queen, or for that matter CEO or Taylor Swift, but we do get some damn pretty music to help us lick our wounds and accept our status as the runner-up in our own lives. Ordinarily, we’d leave it at that and move on with the low expectations business of being beta. But we have it on good authority that EVERYONE in this country who isn’t an a**hole could use some cheering […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR: Musician and writer Leonard Cohen died in 2016, leaving behind many unpublished poems and lyrics. His son Adam Cohen discusses The Flame, a collection of some of Leonard’s final works. MORE PREVIOUSLY: Everybody knows that 2016 was a cruel and unusual year. Intolerably cruel. Everybody knows that war is over and everybody knows the good guys lost. So I am only half-kidding when I ask: How can we possibly be expected to endure the abominable presidency of Donald Trump without David Bowie, Prince or Princess Leia? But I’m dead serious when I say we can’t do this […]
GEEK SQUAD: Venom Defanged
Venom was one of Marvel’s most popular characters in the ‘90s. Built like a WWF Superstar, he looked cool in his black Spider-Man-esque onesie. And like any “good” 90’s comic Venom was extreme. He would straight up murder his enemies and eat them. But the comic struggled to figure out if Venom and his alter ego Eddie Brock was a hero or a villain or in between. So too does Sony’s Venom, the studio’s first attempt at a Spider-Man Shared Universe. But with no Spider-Man. And while that can work, it just doesn’t. Tom Hardy plays an Eddie Brock […]
BEING THERE: Last Train To Guyville
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER I will remain forever in awe of Liz Phair’s ability to seamlessly slip the word “fucked” into a dreamy, cloudy-brained pop anthem like “Why Can’t I?” My preoccupation with the song began at the age of ten. It was marked explicit in iTunes and therefore deemed too adult for the music library of my silver iPod Nano. I spent an embarrassing amount of time poring over the song, humming, singing, intently listening each time it came on the radio, searching for the goddamn expletive. The charm of “Why Can’t I?” persisted with the years to come. […]
CINEMA: Star Wars
A STAR IS BORN (Directed by Bradley Cooper, 135 minutes, USA, 2018) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC It’s been hard to ignore the buzz surrounding the latest incarnation of A Star is Born, which marks not only Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut, but also the first starring role in a feature film for Lady Gaga. The pop icon had a rather successful transition from music to television taking home an Emmy for her work on American Horror Story, and this time she’s here to prove she can do it all and Cooper helps her get the ball across the goal […]
Krasner Announces Takedown Of Kenzo Dope Ring
Source: Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office This morning Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner announced the arrest of 57 individuals tied to the Alameda Drug Trafficking Organization (DTO) responsible for selling fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine and other substances in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, specifically within the four block radius of Kip and Cambria streets. The District Attorney’s office estimates that the Alameda DTO generated over $5 million in annual revenue and upwards of $10,000 per day in illegal drugs sales in that four-block radius of Kensington. In the past year, the Philadelphia Police Department made over 700 arrests and received […]
WORTH REPEATING: The Wood Of The Suicides
Illustration via GOLD HAND GIRLS THE NEW YORKER: I still own the copy of “The Virgin Suicides” that I first read in high school, the evidence of my teen-age self on its pages: water-rippled from many hours in the bath, stained with juice from the tangerines I used to eat in great quantities. It’s a book I’ve read many times now, but I still remember that original encounter, how it felt like a flare from my own secret world, all the inchoate longings and obsessions of being a teen-ager somehow rendered into book form. Even the five Lisbon sisters seemed […]
THE NOISENIK: Q&A W/ Wolf Eyes’ Johnny Olson
BY KYLE WEINSTEIN Wolf Eyes is not just a noise band. Wolf Eyes is a trip metal band. Wolf Eyes is a psychojazz band. Wolf Eyes is a constantly shifting musical phenomenon with roughly 300 recordings. Wolf Eyes is one part founding member, Nate Young, one part long-time member and meme lord Johnny Olson. Young manipulates his voice with an array of electronics and Olson plays sax, wind synth, and homemade monstrosities of noise. Aside from being a multi-instrumentalist, Johnny Olson is an avid record collector, family man, and runs a highly successful Instagram meme page called inzane_johnny. Fittingly […]
CATCHER IN THE WRY: Q&A W/ Moshe Kasher
BY HENRY SAVAGE Growing up can be rough. Comedian Moshe Kasher had it rougher than most. The subtitle of his 2012 autobiography Kasher In The Rye tells you all you need to know: The True Tale of a White Boy from Oakland Who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16. Born to deaf Hasidic Jewish parents in New York, Kasher’s mother and father split when he was one. His mother moved to Oakland with Moshe in tow, and soon renounced her faith to become a hippie libertine, while his father stayed back in New York […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
FRESH AIR: These are highly charged times for politics reporters. Just ask Greg Miller, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalist who has broken a number of stories related to the Trump administration’s ties to Russia. Miller says that he’s been “trolled a lot” because of his work. But after revealing that then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had discussed U.S. sanctions with Russian officials prior to Trump’s inauguration, Miller experienced something new: notes from grateful readers. “Weird things happen that had never happened to me as a reporter,” Miller says. “Several of us started getting cards, actual letters in the […]