Photos & Text by JOSH PELTA-HELLER This year, XPoNential Music Fest management scrambled to prepare for End-Times weather, rescheduling the first day of the event to shift more of it to the shelter of the BB&T Pavilion, and moved up set times, as highly anticipated performances from two beloved local bands — Swift Technique and Hurry — fell casualty to the lineup rework. Philly fest-goers armed themselves with ponchos and steeled their resolves — or just decided to stay home. Early Day-One acts Arkells, Brownout and Pinegrove did their damndest to rally the raging of the Friday afternoon crowds in […]
Win Tix To See Fleet Foxes & Animal Collective!
The hirsute Seattle-based five-piece known as Fleet Foxes traffics in often-acoustic autumnal 60s folk-rock and sun-dappled three-part harmonies which can be deadly in the wrong hands, but they’ve always stayed on the right side of precious. While it is well known that the Fleet Foxes look like lumberjacks and sing like angels, what is less known is that live they play like they made a deal with the devil at the crossroads. If, like me, you loved their 2008 self-titled LP but were a little underwhelmed by 2011’s Helplessness Blues and find the new Crack Up a tad snoozy, […]
GEEK SQUAD: The Temple Of Doom
BY RICHARD SUPLEE GEEK SPACE CORRESPONDENT Before Marvel made their own movies, they licensed their properties out. This is why Sony owns the rights to Spider-Man, Fox owns the X-Men, and the Hulk is unlikely to get a solo movie anytime soon. Fox also own Marvel’s Fantastic Four: Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic who can stretch his body super far), Sue Storm/Richards (Invisible Woman who can create force fields on top of the obvious power), Johnny Storm (The Human Torch who becomes a being of fire) and Ben Grimm (the rock like creature known as The Thing) were the first […]
KALEIDOSCOPE EYES: A Visit With Photographer Henry Grossman, The Man Who Shot The Beatles
All photos by HENRY GROSSMAN except the final image by JOSH PELTA-HELLER BY JOSH PELTA-HELLER In March of 1967, on assignment for Life Magazine, photographer Henry Grossman found himself sitting in EMI Studio Two at Abbey Road with The Beatles, while they sculpted and shaped the early demos of what would become “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.” “I remember when we walked in that Paul [McCartney] came over and said ‘hey guys, listen to this…,’” recalls Grossman fondly, “and he sat down at the piano and started playing something, and [the other three Beatles] all gathered around, and by […]
THOSE WERE THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES: Q&A With The Dream Syndicate’s Steve Wynn
EDITOR’S NOTE: This Q&A with Steve Wynn originally published back in the summer of 2013. In advanced of the re-activated Dream Syndicate’s performance at XPoNential Fest on Sunday, we present the encore edition. ALL MUSIC GUIDE: Dream Syndicate are at the foundation (alongside the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, and R.E.M.) of contemporary alternative music simply because at the time when most bands were experimenting with new technology, the Syndicate deigned to bring back the guitar. Fronted by Steve Wynn (b. Feb. 21, 1960) and including Karl Precoda (guitar), Dennis Duck (drums), and Kendra Smith (bass), the band formed in Los […]
ALBUM REVIEW: Offa Rex Queen Of Hearts
Before I start, I should probably confess that I’ve always loved folk music. Growing up with one foot in America and one foot in Ireland, folk music helped me connect with what I felt were my roots. My culture. My people. The songs and artists I grew up with spoke to an older time, when lessons were passed down orally, when work was done by hand, and songs were sung to make it go a little faster. As I grew up, I found artists who mixed those old ballads and stories with a more mainstream, rock’n’roll sort of sound. It […]
BEING THERE: Thurston Moore @UndergroundArts
Photo by SYDNEY SCHAEFER “Blues is a feeling,” Mississippi Fred McDowell used to muse. Indisputable truth from a blues master (1906-1972). But can Rock n Roll be deemed a Consciousness, as Thurston Moore posits with the title of his latest solo album? Lawdy, yes. Moore’s roiling yet contemplative recent record, released in late April, helps make the case: 5 extended dual guitar song-jams over its 40 minutes, oft-enough reaching “real O-mind” rock-out exhilaration as well as strum-&-blossom thoughtful reflection. The alb’s not a meta-rock document but, especially for those who Believe, it’s some hugely welcome Rock My Religion-ism spirit-uplift from […]
CINEMA: Lost In Space
VALERIAN (Directed by Luc Besson, 137 min., USA, 2017) BY CHRISTOPHER MALENEY Going into Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, I really hoped it was going to be excellent. Though I have never read Valérian et Laureline, the French graphic novel that provides the material for the film, I was impressed by director Luc Besson’s credits (Leon: The Professional, The 5th Element, Taken, Lucy, etc.). I love science fiction movies and detective movies, so the trailers seemed to promise a film that very rarely gets made. I mean, space police, alien worlds, political intrigue, what’s not to love? […]
FROM THE VAULT: Summer Bear
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story originally posted on Sept. 5th 2012 BY JONATHAN VALANIA It is another blazingly hot and hip mid-summer day in Brooklyn. Boomboxes, guinea tees, gold chains, water ice, open fire hydrants. It’s kind of like Do The Right Thing without the race riot. The girls walk by in their summer clothes. The boys walk by in their skinny jeans. The subway is redolent of stale urine and diesel. It’s high noon and the sun is punishing and relentless. There are many things in abundance in Brooklyn — coffee shops, craft beers, beards — but shade isn’t one […]
BEING THERE: Kendrick Lamar @WellsFargoCtr
Photo by LIAM MCKENNA [ENLARGE] Oh Kendrick Lamar! I often remind myself how grateful I am for his existence and his talent. In the 20-something years that I have been listening to Hip-Hop, no other artist has been able to embody so much of my black experience in America. He is political, hood, eloquent, exceptionally creative and may very well be a genius. So, I was beyond ecstatic to see Kung Fu Kenny live in person last night at the Wells Fargo Center for the Philadelphia leg of the DAMN Tour. Aside from that one meet and greet that radio […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When U Can’t
FRESH AIR: It’s hard to believe, but before the 1950s, guitars were rarely heard in British music. Billy Bragg says the first guitars to hit the British pop scene came as a part of skiffle, a musical movement inspired by African-American roots musicians.Bragg, who’s written a book on skiffle called Roots, Radicals And Rockers, describes the genre as “a bunch of British school boys in the mid-’50s playing Lead Belly’s repertoire… on acoustic guitars.” One of the most pivotal performances was Lonnie Donegan’s 1954 cover of Lead Belly’s “Rock Island Line,” which Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin later described as […]
DATELINE WOODY CREEK: Home On The Strange
First a note of justification. I’m about to say a few words about Hunter S. Thompson, the writer, in what is ostensibly a column about music because: a) HST was rock ‘n’ roll incarnate; we’re talking balls the size of cantaloupes. b) Despite the pharmacopia of substances controlled and otherwise he ritually pickled his gray matter in, he was in possession of one of the sharpest minds of the 20th century, possibly even up until he personally disconnected it with a gun to his head. c) I just happen to be hiking in the Rockies. Which is why I’m writing […]