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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

Photo by DAN LONG Josh Tillman, AKA Father John Misty, has carved a place for himself in the hearts of many of the indie music audience with his beautiful singing voice, ability to craft accessible songs, and with lyrical content that smashes the veneers that society force feeds us. He’s done all of this after leaving Fleet Foxes because of an inability to work with frontman Robin Pecknold. Tillman’s beef with Pecknold would be the first of many controversies that Tillman would find himself embroiled in. Ryan Adams called Tillman out, saying, “He sounds like shit Elton John but if […]

Photo by JOSH-PELTA HELLER I expected to feel naked and vulnerable at the Mount Eerie show, but I never suspected that, hours before the show, I would literally be naked in Center City Philadelphia, and it wouldn’t feel like a nightmare at all. The weather was too beautiful to ignore on Saturday, so my cousin and I decided to go on a bike ride. He’s a seasoned city biker, so I ate his dust as I have in the past, but when I finally caught up to him on Kelly Drive by the art museum I didn’t even get the […]

Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER It’s hard to recall a cool breeze on an early September evening in Philly, during that limbo time of the year, post-Labor-Day and pre-Equinox, where devout fans of the Endless Summer dig in with resentment, resist the cold, and get rewarded most often up here by an Indian Summer’s reprise of temperatures and humidity that tend to verge on unseasonable. Not these days though. Not last night, standing outside, watching Queens Of The Stone Age, where you needed maybe one more overpriced domestic brew to counter the chilly breeze blowing off the Delaware, and to maybe […]

Photo by ALICE KRIEG There aren’t too many folk festivals in this part of the country, and certainly not many that have the benefit of as much built-up knowledge, tradition, and custom as the Philadelphia Folk Festival. Because the festival has been put on every year for the past 56 years at the Old Pool Farm in Schwenksville by the Philadelphia Folksong Society, these traditions give the Philly Folk Fest a gravitas not accessible to younger music festivals. There are mysteries to it, set pieces that seem bewildering to newcomers and outsiders; many familiar faces are perhaps not even sure […]

Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Back in February, when it was announced that Andrew Bird and Belle & Sebastian were going to play the Mann Center in August, images of bespectacled sophisticates sitting cross legged, politely nodding along to plucked violin, expert whistling, and crooning Scottish voices commingling in refined harmonies sprang into my mind. I pictured it hot and muggy and figured that most of the audience would be fanning themselves off with that morning’s edition of The New York Times. I was excited to see Andrew Bird perform again, as he’d enlightened me with a labyrinth of sound engineered […]

Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER At first blush, the marquee billing for the Animal Collective/Fleet Foxes show at the Mann Center last night confused me: Animal Collective was the opening act? The experimental trance-pop band that made their name with mesmerizing collections of psychotropic anti-folk like Sung Tongs (2004) and Feels (2005) couldn’t be an opening act. They were too revolutionary and exciting. Unfortunately, though, the keyword here is were. It’s a pretty human thing to hold on to the past. Damn memory and everything. But, jesus, I knew better. I’d listened to Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009) and heard a shift […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]