When I told my coworker about Mage Hand, I said that they’re probably the best band in Philly. Well, he hadn’t listened to them before telling me, “No, this is the best band in Philly,” and then he put on Square Peg Round Hole’s 2016 album, Juniper. It was, indeed, some good stuff, but it wasn’t until I saw them live at Kung Fu Necktie that I had to concede that, all right, there are two best bands in Philly. Square Peg is an instrumental, highly percussive trio of serious music nerds Carlos Pacheco-Perez, Evan Chapman, and Sean Gill, […]
FUNCH-A-MANIA: Q&A W/ Comedian Ron Funches
EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally posted on May 30th, 2017. BY MAX ABRAMS Ron Funches’ comedic delivery is as slow as molasses. His voice his idiosyncratic and smooth and he makes you hang on his every word, but man is it worth it. Funches was a writer and performer on the The Kroll Show and was also a regularly occurring cast member, and he’s appeared in a wide array of shows including Portlandia, Bob’s Burgers, Undateable, and more. He will be appearing at Punch Line Philly July 12th-14th. So we got Mr. Funches on the horn for some Q&A. […]
OCCAM’S RAZOR: The President Is A Traitor
The Trump-Russia ties hiding in plain sight from CNBC.
Win Tix To See Os Mutantes @ The Foundry
Illustration by KAINEIRIBAS We have a couple pairs of tix to see Brazilian psych legends Os Mutantes at the Foundry tomorrow night. First two readers to email us at PHAWKER66@GMAIL.COM with the phrase BAT MACUMBA in the subject line wins. Please include your full name and a mobile number for confirmation. Good luck and godspeed! Wait, what’s that you say? What is an Os Mutantes? Oh, buddy, where have you been? OK, keep calm help is on the way. The following entry from the Rock Snob Enyclopedia should tell you just about everything you need to know to avoid being […]
EXCERPT: The Man The Angels Killed At Altamont
EDITOR’S NOTE: Forty-eight years ago, on December 6, 1969, 18 year old Meredith Hunter was killed by the Hell’s Angels at the foot of the stage while the Rolling Stones played a free concert at Altamont Speedway for an audience of 300,000 people. The following excerpt from Saul Austerlitz’s forthcoming book, Just A Shot Away: Peace, Love and Tragedy With The Rolling Stones At Altamont describes in graphic detail that awful moment in the dying light of the 1960s. ROLLING STONE: The Rolling Stones finally appeared, and for a brief moment, a sense of relief spread through the speedway. […]
BEING THERE: Foo Fighters @ BB&T Pavilion
Photo by DYLAN LONG The Foo Fighters have been a band for 24 years. That’s longer than I’ve been alive. When you’re in a band for that long — rehearsing, producing new albums, touring — I think it’s safe to assume that you dig what you do. A lot. So much so, that over 20 years later, you’re still out there on stage having the absolute time of your life. And lo and behold, on a beautiful July night in Camden, the Foo Fighters brought the house down in front of tens of thousands in a three-hour musical bonanza that […]
CINEMA: Good Things Come In Small Packages
ANT MAN & THE WASP (Dir. by Peyton Reed, 118 minutes, USA, 2018) BY RICHARD SUPLEE GEEK SPACE CORRESPONDENT Where does the Marvel Cinematic Universe go after super soldiers, scientists, gods, raccoons, aliens, and an entire secret nation of Wakanda fought together against a single threat in Avengers: Infinity War? They scaled down — literally. Ant-Man and The Wasp is superhero story with less stakes. But that is not a bad thing. This film is a more personal story. Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang is a divorced dad just trying to keep his life together. He is focused on his […]
CINEMA: This Is America
THE FIRST PURGE (Dir. by Gerard McMurray, 97 minutes, USA, 2018) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC The Purge series has had an interesting trajectory throughout the last five years. While the first film was an interesting high concept meditation on race in a near dystopian future where one night of the year for 12 hours, any crime including murder is legal. The consistently profitable franchise now on its fourth outing has afforded writer James DeMonaco the ability to not so subtly comment the state of America. For example, the last film Election Year featured a blatant stand in for […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: F*ck You, Mr. President
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY WARNING: When describing a cesspool, sometimes you have to include a little excrement. So, if you’re sensitive to expletives, don’t bother going any further. So, what’s with America’s moderate mainstream media and the Democrat party tiptoeing around this lying piece of shit we euphemistically refer to as the “president.” What’s with their “treading lightly” when it comes to reporting on, or responding to, this lying, pandering, sewer-dweller? This uber-repulsive Defecator/Divider in Chief; his entire bottom-feeding, obsequious administration; and his kowtowing, sycophantic Republican House and Senate minions are nothing less than vile modern-day reincarnations of the […]
BOOKS: Fear & Loathing In Trumplandia
THE NATION: It has been 50 years since Hunter S. Thompson published the definitive book on motorcycle guys: Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. It grew out of a piece first published in The Nation one year earlier. My grandfather, Carey McWilliams, editor of the magazine from 1955 to 1975, commissioned the piece from Thompson—it was the gonzo journalist’s first big break, and the beginning of a friendship between the two men that would last until my grandfather died in 1980. Because of that family connection, I had long known that Hell’s Angels […]
THE ESSEX GREEN: Sloane Ranger
Their first album in 12 years! They play Johnny Brenda’s August 6th.
CINEMA: There Will Be Blood
SICARIO 2 (Directed by Stefano Sollima, 122 minutes, 2018, USA) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Sicario, Denis Villeneuve’s mesmerizing 2015 Academy Award-nominated meditation on the US government’s invisible war with the Mexican drug cartels, isn’t the kind of film that leaps to mind when you think franchises. But the original story of one FBI agent’s descent into the Hell of south-of-the-border gangland drug warfare was populated with such uncommonly rich and dense characters — courtesy of screenwriter Taylor Sheridan’s boffo script — that audiences simply demanded more. Directed by Stefano Sollima (Suburra), Sicario: Day Of The Soldado traffics in […]
ALBUM REVIEW: Beach House 7
Beach House, the Baltimore-based shoegaze duo comprised of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally, is an unceasing storm of brilliance with an impressive catalogue of seven albums spanning 13 years. Their third album, Teen Dream (2010) seemed to be where they truly sculpted their sound, carving out their own niche within the dreampop genre. “Silver Soul” was my gateway drug, and their music has held its addictive quality throughout the years. A glancing listen to the hits off Depression Cherry and Bloom might give an impression of stagnancy, but a more conscientious play through demonstrates how the composition of each […]