FRESH AIR: Decades before NFL player Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem to protest police treatment of African-Americans, boxer Muhammad Ali roiled white America with his 1967 resistance to the Vietnam War draft. The boxer had converted to the Nation of Islam a few years earlier, and he explained his resistance to the war by saying, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.” Ali’s resistance to the draft resulted in his being stripped of his heavyweight title, banned from boxing and charged with evasion. (Though he avoided jail time, it would be more than […]
SPOON: I Ain’t The One
Ahead of an upcoming run of October dates that includes Red Rocks and Austin City Limits, Spoon have released a new video set to a live recording of album standout track, “I Ain’t The One.” Renowned British artists and filmmakers Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard (Silent Sound, 20,000 Days On Earth) have captured one of the world’s most formidable live bands in an intimate studio setting, the slinky silhouettes and blue-tinged shadows complimenting the song’s sinewy synths and Britt Daniel’s standout soulful vocals. The minimalist drums and bass surface sporadically throughout, building tension across the melancholy melody that never quite relents. […]
WORTH REPEATING: Crime Family
THE NEW YORKER: In one e-mail, according to four people who have seen it, the Trumps discussed how to coördinate false information they had given to prospective buyers. In another, according to a person who read the e-mails, they worried that a reporter might be on to them. In yet another, Donald, Jr., spoke reassuringly to a broker who was concerned about the false statements, saying that nobody would ever find out, because only people on the e-mail chain or in the Trump Organization knew about the deception, according to a person who saw the e-mail. There was “no […]
THE BREEDERS: Wait In The Car
Ahead of their upcoming tour dates in Europe and North America — they play Union Transfer on November 6th — The Breeders announce their return to 4AD with the infectious new track, ‘Wait in the Car’. The single is the first music to be released by the classic line-up behind the iconic album, Last Splash. ‘Wait in the Car’ marks the welcome reunion of band members Kim and Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs and Jim Macpherson. The quartet returned to the stage in 2013 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their platinum-selling record Last Splash and have since been spending time […]
TRUE FACT: If You Take NRA Money You Have Vegas Blood On Your Hands, This Is Not Debateable
President Trump knows we are searching for some kind of meaning in the chaos, but…#LasVegas @realDonaldTrump @SpeakerRyan pic.twitter.com/0S9jtZsKlS — Vic Berger IV (@VicBergerIV) October 2, 2017
BEING THERE: Tom Petty @ Wells Fargo Center
Photo by DAN LONG EDITOR’S NOTE: This originally posted on 9/16/14. We are reposting it today to mark the sad passing of Tom Petty today at age 67. I was in the sixth grade the first time I saw a picture of Tom Petty. He looked like a stick with blond bangs and lidded rabbit eyes. I was fairly certain he was going to die soon. Turns out he was just high. In October he turns 64 and having learned a thing or two about longevity over the course of the last 40 years, I’m pretty sure he’s never gonna […]
New Posobiec Pac Trolls For Thiel & Mercer Money
Photo by @JackPosobiec THE ATLANTIC: A group of pro-Trump media figures are launching a super PAC aimed at making an impact in the 2018 midterms. Jeff Giesea, Mike Cernovich, and Jack Posobiec, organizers of the “Deploraball” party to celebrate President Trump’s inauguration earlier this year, are behind the super PAC, which is being called #Rev18. Giesea, who at one point worked for Trump donor Peter Thiel at Thiel Capital Management, said the trio expects to attract big donors but has not done so yet. “I’m the first donor with a 50k personal investment,” he wrote. “We expect major donors come […]
EXCERPT: The Devil & Jack Posobiec
Photo by CHRIS BUCK PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE: Jack Posobiec — born in Norristown, proud “Philly kid,” Temple grad, onetime Santorum intern, former WPHT account exec — is a relentless, ruthlessly effective pro-Trump political dirty-tricks operative/fake-news ninja/social media assassin who salts the fields of the Internet with alternative facts and dank counter-factual memes that he blasts out to his 199K Twitter followers at least 20 times a day. Posobiec studied the dark arts of ratfuckery — a Watergate-era term for Nixonian political dirty tricks — at the feet of the master, GOP strategist Roger Stone, who regards him as the torchbearer for […]
BEING THERE: Dinosaur Jr. @ Union Transfer
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER A healthy showing turned up at Union Transfer last night to see the Philly stop of Dinosaur Jr.’s tour in support of their latest release, 2016’s Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not. The evening’s warm-up was Easy Action, their vocalist, John Brannon, a seasoned performer whose resume includes fronting the early 80s hardcore band Negative Approach and The Laughing Hyenas. Hailing from Detriot, Easy Action fully embraces the gritty rock n’ roll of their hometown, finding room to maneuver creatively within that space between proto-punk and hardcore. With an intense glare and mashed upper lip, […]
CINEMA: Inglorious Bastard
BATTLE OF THE SEXES (Dir. by Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris, 121 min., 2017, USA) BY CHRISTOPHER MALENEY FILM CRITIC We have a tendency as humans to build up people and events with layers of symbolic meaning until they come to stand for something far greater than perhaps originally intended. Barack Obama seemed for a while like not another president, but the indicator of a post-racial age. Moonlight’s win over La La Land was touted by some as the redemption of the movie academy’s general bigotry. While these narratives are often fabricated to make money or shift public opinion, they […]
CINEMA: Empire Burlesque
VICTORIA & ABDUL (Directed by Steven Frears, 152 minutes, 2017, USA) BY CHRISTOPHER MALENEY FILM CRITIC Because I am a son of Ireland, Queen Victoria was never my favorite historical figure. Her reign brought hard times for Ireland, as well as many other countries around the world. The Victorian era included the annexation of then-Zululand and India, the transportation of thousands to Australia, two horrible conflicts in Crimea and South Africa, the repression of sexual liberties, the scramble for Africa, and more. But how responsible was the Queen for the actions of her state? If she was even aware, can […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Donald Trump M.D.
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY So, what’s with the “MD” post-nominal letters, you ask? Well, for all you non-college-educated, angry, white, laboring (or not), red state, Charlottesville torch-bearing Trumpeteers, the current POTUS true-life-inspired suffix stands for Moronic Degenerate. Believe me, I cogitated long and hard to come up with a concise yet altogether properly inclusive designation to attach to this lamentable piece of pulp fiction we so absurdly refer to as “Mr. President.” I mean, just how do you accurately condense such a noxious mix of imbecility, petulance, misogyny, prevarication, racism, bigotry, pandering, bullying, cheating, hypocrisy and hell-bent ambition to […]
BEING THERE: A$AP Mob @ The Mann
Photo by DYLAN LONG A$AP Mob is arguably the biggest hip hop collective in the game right now. Their two first studio albums, Cozy Tapes Vols. 1 and 2, managed to blow expectations out of the water and do so in a seemingly effortless manner, all in a span of 10 months. Founded by A$AP Bari, A$AP Illz and the late A$AP Yams, the Harlem hip-hop supergroup now features household names such as A$AP Rocky and A$AP Ferg. However when it came to showtime, the massive amounts of hype surrounding the group’s visit to Philly unfortunately couldn’t quite save the […]