Photo by TOM BECK Fresh off a 2015 North American tour during which she played a sold out show at Union Transfer, Courtney Barnett returned to Philly last night for a sold out show at the Electric Factory backed by her Aussie accomplices, drummer Dave Mudie and bassist “Bones” Sloane. Decked out in her trademark droopy pants, old t-shirt and slept-on hair, Barnett kicked things off with “Dead Fox.” Songs from Sometimes I Sit And Think And Sometimes I Just Sit, Barnett’s 2015 debut LP, made up the lion’s share of the set list. Just three songs from 2012’s A […]
BEING THERE: Del The Funky Homosapien @ UT
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Following an earnest and energetic opening set from Minneapolis rapper Sean Anonymous, Harvard math grad, NYU adjunct professor and turntable acrobat DJ Shiftee helped prime a Sunday crowd convened at Union Transfer to see Del The Funky Homosapien. Having first cut his chops writing lyrics for cousin Ice Cube’s Da Lench Mob crew in California’s hip hop scene in the early 90’s, Del’s first solo record I Wish My Brother George Was Here was produced by Cube in 1991, and buoyed by the success of hit single “Mistadobalina,” a popular critique of cultural inauthenticity that sampled […]
BEING THERE: Iggy Pop @ The Academy Of Music
Photo by DAN LONG BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER There may well be a sound more thrilling than the tub-thumping opening salvo of Iggy Pop’s “Lust For Life,” but after five decades of listening closely I’ve yet to hear it. When that song starts, stillness is simply not an option. Resistance is futile. It’s a showstopper, which is why it’s usually the last song of the night. So when Iggy (known to his mother as James Newell Osterberg Jr.) kicked off his concert at the Academy Of Music last night with it, the question hanging in the air was: […]
BEING THERE: The Melvins @ Underground Arts
Photo by DAN LONG Three distinctive variations of “loud” were amply demonstrated last night at Underground Arts during the Philly stop of the Savage Imperial Death March Tour, featuring the wildly animated Melt-Banana, the seminal distorto-ooze of The Melvins, and break-neck intensity of Napalm Death. Playing to a sold-out crowd — a kinetic mash of beards, denim, and flannel — each band tested earplug limits and garnered high-contact physical responses, with bodies continually thrashing about for the show’s duration. Preceded by a series of droid’ish bleeps and swaths of grinding guitar sound, Melt-Banana’s set was delivered with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it speed as […]
BEING THERE: The Cult @ The Electric Factory
The Cult, Electric Factory, Friday April 8th by DAN LONG DAN LONG: Joining The Cult — it’s a father and son thing, you wouldn’t understand. Or maybe you would. I can’t remember the exact moment it started – probably on a car ride with The Cult blasting over the shitty Subaru speakers and Dylan, my nine year old son, digging them. The next few years would be spent becoming semi-superfans, as my son and I built a tight Cult-centric bond. During our second show together, on a Wednesday night at The Trocadero back in 2006, my son became a bit […]
BEING THERE: Jonathan Richman @ Union Transfer
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Jonathan Richman’s shows are a meandering montage from start to finish, what might at first seem like an ill-advised marriage of classical guitar noodling, musings in various languages, vaudevillian song and dance, psychedelic storytelling and outright highly stylized stand-up comedy, with and without musical accompaniment. There’s no opener, and no encore. His show is short — just over an hour — and performed casually, intimately by Richman and his longtime drummer Tommy Larkins, before the rapt attention of a room of devoted followers. Where many performers seem to struggle to preserve audience attention or to outplay […]
BEING THERE: Berniedelphia
Bernie Sanders speaks to 10,200 @ Liacouras Center by DYLAN LONG It’s a chilly Monday afternoon and I’m sitting in my dorm at Temple University dicking around, and I get a text from one of my closest friends. It reads, “Bernie Rally Wednesday night??” I ask her what she’s talking about, assuming it’s some locally sponsored rally for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders that’ll draw maybe a thousand people in support. She sends me a link to Bernie’s website that has the official event at the Liacouras Center listed in full detail, telling me that Bernie Sanders is coming to speak […]
BEING THERE: Rihanna @ The Wells Fargo Center
Artwork by ITSMCFLYY Admittedly, I haven’t always believed in the political power of Rihanna. That might be partially due to my inability to think philosophically while a preteen who was forced to run laps in gym class to “Pon De Replay,” and who went through awkward lessons in dancehall etiquette to “Umbrella” in my middle school’s cafeteria, and by that I mean my first introduction to what my peers called ‘dancing,’ which in reality was just grinding your ass into some dweebish 12-year-old boy’s lap under a strobe light that someone’s mom rented, while wearing an unfittingly preppy, mall-branded polo. […]
BEING THERE: Guerilla Toss @ Underground Arts
Photo by MARY LYNN DOMINGUEZ Right before Guerilla Toss was set to play at Underground Arts last night, I took a seat on the floor in front of the stage with my camera. The floor just happened to be the spot from which I could get a decent photo and still revel in wallflower-y seclusion. There, I could avoid contact with anyone remotely interested in talking with me and consequently figuring out my affinity for what some call “art rock” and what I’d rather not be troubled with giving a name to. Truthfully, I’m a sucker for deeply collaged sounds […]
RIP: The Garry Shandling Show Has Been Canceled
NEW YORK TIMES: Garry Shandling, a comedian who deftly walked a tightrope between comic fiction and show-business reality on two critically praised cable shows, died on Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 66. A spokesman for the Los Angeles police confirmed the death but did not give a cause. TMZ, the celebrity news site, reported that Mr. Shandling had had a heart attack. Mr. Shandling, who began his comedy career as a writer and went on to become one of the most successful stand-up comics of the 1980s, was best known for “The Larry Sanders Show,” a dark look […]
BEING THERE: Megadeth @ The Electric Factory
Photo by DYLAN LONG If the excitement for an evening with thrash metal behemoth Megadeth wasn’t enough for the 2000 strong at the Electric Factory last night, the newest addition to the Suicidal Tendencies live act most definitely tipped the scales. Dave Lombardo, the epic maestro of thrash metal drummers and former member of Slayer, recently joined Suicidal Tendencies as their official drummer on tour. Back in 2013, after being stiffed with barely any payment after a year of touring and a gag order against him, Lombardo was cut from Slayer after speaking up about the increasing deductions from Slayer’s […]
BEING THERE: Leon Bridges @ The Fillmore
Photo by DYLAN LONG The sold out crowd at the Fillmore Sunday night for retro-nouveau soul sensation Leon Bridges’ eagerly-awaited return to Philadelphia was 85% caucasian. Bridges is used to this. Back in June of 2015 Leon told The Guardian, “I have a song called “Brown Skinned Girl,” and I ask ‘Where my brown-skinned girls at?’ And there’s maybe one or two in the crowd. It’s a little awkward sometimes.” At 9:15 sharp, Bridges shimmied out on stage, snapping his fingers to the beginning of “Smooth Sailin’” amidst deafening cheers. Leon’s voice and energy were equally extravagant, not to mention […]
BEING THERE: SWMRS @ The Fire
?Photo by DYLAN LONG I walked into The Fire on 4th & Girard through the narrow all-ages entrance, and upon stepping into the room I found myself immediately at the front of the stage, squeezed between a wall and two girls, legs pressed up against the roughly thigh-high stage. I looked around at the sizeable crowd that filled the room up, and accepted the spot I was standing in as my fate for the evening. A tight squeeze, but a sweet up-and-close view of the bands nevertheless. The Frights took the stage soon after the wrapping up of Lancaster locals, […]