Photo by MATT SHAVER Leon Bridges was a beam of pure and joyful iridescence after a week of hopeless darkness. Stepping out in a Canadian tuxedo and a crisp white chest-hair-exposing button-down, Bridges gripped a sparkling mic stand with both hands as he crooned the first words of “If It Feels Good (Then It Must Be)” from his 2018 record Good Thing. Doused in deep magenta light, Bridges danced around the stage, moonwalking from one end to the other, periodically reaching out to the crowd to move along with him. Surrounding him on risers were his six bandmates, which included […]
WORTH REPEATING: Devin Nunez Has A Secret
Illustration by ED STEED via Esquire ESQUIRE: Nunes has always been reliably conservative, but on some issues, he has broken with his party. He has long supported moderate immigration reform, for instance, including amnesty for many undocumented people living and working in the U.?S. But as Trump has instituted a draconian policy of zero tolerance for all undocumented people and argued that every undocumented individual should be deported, Nunes has been silent. More recently, as Trump and the House Republicans have celebrated Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the agency’s aggressive tactics, Nunes has followed suit. On CaRepublican.com—a Nunes-created news site, […]
BEING THERE: 88 Degrees And Rising Tour @ The Fillmore
Photo by DYLAN LONG The 88rising crew kicked off their immense new 88 Degrees and Rising tour last night at The Fillmore in Philadelphia with a lineup so extensive, one can only imagine the workload ahead for whoever handles their settlement. The tour, branded with the 88rising record label which has become well renowned for serving as a strong platform for Asian artists, features prominent headliners Rich Brian and Joji. Joining them are the four man rap group Higher Brothers, singer-songwriter Niki, and several other singers and rappers with Asian roots. Something that you don’t see very often in live […]
SIDEWALKING: Thank You For Your Service
Image of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford projected on the edifice of the New York State Supreme Court in downtown Manhattan Friday night to Saturday morning.
BEING THERE: Belly @ Union Transfer
Photo by PETE TROSHAK A few songs into their first set on Friday night, Belly singer Tanya Donelly let out a deep sigh, looked out into the audience and summed up the feelings of the crowd and the nation with a single sentence: “What a shit week.” Regardless of your political leanings, the firestorm brewing in Washington last week left a lot of psychic trauma and scars on the country, but Donelly and Belly succeeded in bringing release and relief to a captivated audience that happily hung on every note and syllable at Union Transfer on Friday night. Donelly was […]
BEING THERE: The National @ The Mann
Photo by MATT SHAVER I heard “Mistaken for Strangers” on the radio when I was thirteen, and my music taste took a drastic 180 degree turn into the world of indie rock and there would be no going back to the likes of Metro Station, Say Anything or All Time Low. The National’s dreary tones and striking rhythms became the soundtrack to every rainy day and long bus ride, a space where I could wallow and brood comfortably. It only seemed fitting that the forecast predicted buckets of rain for their appearance at the Mann Center on Thursday night. With […]
RULE BRITANNIA: Q&A With Blur’s Graham Coxon
GRAHAM COXON PERFORMS @ THE FOUNDRY THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 27TH BY JONATHAN VALANIA As the guitarist for Blur, Graham Coxon has done battle with: the Gallagher brothers, his own band, and even himself — and emerged victorious. During the Great Britpop War of the mid-90s, Blur and Oasis fought each other tooth in nail for the top of the charts and the cover of the NME, and Liam Gallagher went so far as to publicly wish that Blur frontman Damon Albarn contracted AIDS. Today, the members of Blur are lauded for making smart innovative music with a broad palette of sounds […]
Win Tix To See The National + Cat Power!
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER If Joy Division had a horn section and beards and grew up in Cincinnati instead of Manchester, they would have been called The National and Ian Curtis would still be dead. Speaking of which, we have a pair of tix to see The National perform tomorrow night at the Mann Center’s Skyline Stage with very special guest Cat Power! To qualify to win them, you must be signed up for our mailing list (see right, below the masthead), trust us you want to do this. You get first dibs on concert ticket giveaways, breaking news alerts […]
BEING THERE: Hana Vu + Sales @ First Unitarian
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Whenever I walk into the basement of First Unitarian Church, I feel like I’m attending a 1970’s middle school prom—maybe it’s all the wood paneling and Canadian tuxedos. When the friend I was waiting for finally arrived, wading through the crowd armed with a can of PBR in one hand and a vape pen in the other, she complained I was difficult to pick out—“It was like Where’s Waldo, everyone here looks like you.” Seventeen-year-old old Hana Vu [pictured, above] falls into the batch of indie artists that self-produce via Soundcloud and Bandcamp. The LA-based songwriter […]
WORTH REPEATING: ‘I Believe Anita Hill’
[Illustrations by ALEX FINE] EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally published on December 7th, 2011. We are re-posting it now, for obvious reasons. BY JONATHAN VALANIA In advance of her reading at the Free Library to promote her 2011 book Reimagining Equality: Stories Of Race, Gender And Finding A Home, we were afforded the opportunity to speak with Anita Hill, professor of social policy, law, and women’s studies at Brandeis University. Discussed: The fantasia of a Post-Racial America; the mendacity, narcissism and hypocrisy of Clarence Thomas and Herman Cain; the right wing’s racializing the blame for the 2008 financial crisis; how […]
BEING THERE: David Byrne @ The Mann
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER David Byrne — Talking Heads architect and post-New Wave elder statesman of all things arch, artsy and oblique — is the Marcel Duchamp of 20th Century rock n’ roll, transmuting the artifacts of the mundane and the quotidian into magical charms to ward off the confusion, dread and ennui of modern life. He is, in other words, an antidote for our current season in Hell, and his arrival at the Mann last night backed by what is, for lack of a better description, The Greatest Marching Band on Earth, to deliver humane tidings of comfort and […]
MONKEE BIZNESS: Q&A With Mike Nesmith
BY JOSH PELTA-HELLER Among YouTube’s vast assortment of Monkees videos is a 20-minute reel of black-and-white screen tests: the 1965 auditions of the four fresh-faced fellas who were ultimately cast for the immensely popular hit series featuring the madcap shenanigans of a hustling young American pop band struggling to succeed in sunny Southern California. The latter half of the video is a cut of scripted studio shorts, with Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith trying a couple test-roles on for size, juxtaposed with a couple other final-cut casualties that make it immediately obvious why the four […]
LADYSMITH MAU MAU: Q&A W/ tUnE yArDs
Artwork courtesy of KALTBLUT EDITOR’S NOTE: This Q&A originally published on May 9, 2018 BY BRIAN HOWARD When tUnE-yArDs, the musical project of Merril Garbus, broke out in 2011 with the mesmerizing album w h o k i l l— a jittery, skronking mash up of acoustic and electronic, funk, soul and Afro-pop—it was a revelation. It felt especially fresh, making all the year-end lists, and topping the Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop poll. But a lot has changed in the world since then, and a white woman from New England playing African beats is received a little differently now. […]