[Photo by JONATHAN VALANIA] DEAD MAN TALKING: Steve Earle, Johnny Brendas, last night. BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER Steve Earle would be the first to admit he’s no saint, but by my tally he’s been going to bat for the angels ever since he tamed his demons – a nasty drug habit that ended in a prison sentence – nearly 20 years ago. Earle is just old-fashioned enough to think that folk songs can make a difference and protest singers should put their money (and their downtime) where their mouth is. Case in point, Earle performed Sunday night at […]
REVIEW: Tim & Eric’s Chrimbus Spectacular
BY ARTHUR SHKOLNIK High-budget comedy acts are a dying breed of entertainment these days, and those that remain are few and far in between, but this November has been an exceptionally good month for Philly comedy, with the week-long Philly SketchFest having closed out on the 14th and now, the day before Thanksgiving, former Temple University Film students and Adult Swim all-stars, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim appeared at the Trocadero to celebrate an early Chrimbus as part of their fourth nationwide live tour “The Tim and Eric Awesome Tour Chrimbus Spectacular!” with 30 shows taking place in 30 cities […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Guided By Voices @ The Troc
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER Funny how Gen X used to mercilessly mock its predecessors for endlessly revisiting the Woodstockian ecstasies of its youth, as though nostalgia were a generational affliction instead of a universal symptom of aging. Now that the gray-bearding of Gen X has commenced, its members have proved no less immune to the impulse to revisit the pleasures of their gloriously misspent youth. Exhibit A is Guided by Voices’ sold-out “Hallway Of Shatterproof Glass Tour,” which reunites the so-called classic lineup of the Dayton, Ohio, indie darlings for one more beery, fist-pumping, scissors-kicking sing-along of their […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Social D @ The Electric Factory
BY ARTHUR SHKOLNIK Friday night I arrived at the Electric Factory and saw gray-haired grandpas, hawked and studded teens, and everyone in between standing side by side; three generations of concert-goers with one thing in common – an abiding faith in Social Distortion — a legendary band that, for over 30 years, has both defined and transcended the rebellion and attitude of punk rock while remaining fearlessly unabated in the face of its own evolution. This is undoubtedly due to the hardships a now 48-year-old Mike Ness has faced on his long and arduous path through love, loss, and drugs, […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Pixies At The Tower
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER The classic album concert — wherein a storied and beloved band reunites to perform its career-making album beginning to end along with all the attendant B-sides — is the latest attempt by the music biz to plug the gaping hole at the bottom of the money pool, as was the case when the Pixies performed its 1989 art-brut classic, Doolittle, at the the Tower Theater Tuesday night. The show kicked off with a screening of Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali’s 1929 surrealist masterpiece Un Chien Andalou, which was apropos for at least two reasons. […]
DUCKBOAT DOWN: Second Body Found
[Photo by HARPO 42] INQUIRER: A female’s body was recovered from the Delaware River this morning as a salvage crew prepared to raise a duck boat from the river bottom. It is not clear yet if the body – described as that of a young woman – is that of Dora Schwendtner, 16, a Hungarian tourist who disappeared when the duck boat was run over by a barge on Wednesday. A second Hungarian tourist Szablcs Prem, 20, also did not make it to shore after the Ride the Ducks boat went down and remains missing. A fisherman spotted the body […]
TONITE: The Animal Collective Movie Comes To Town
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY: At turns disturbing, confusing, disgusting, hilarious, mesmerizing and stone cold beatific, Oddsac is perhaps best explained by clarifying what it is not: it is neither a rock documentary nor a concert film, nor is it the kind of film you would see at the cineplex. There are no stars, no car chases, no dreamy romantic interests who meet cute and live happily ever after. In fact, there is no plot, no linear narrative arc. Instead, there is a series of hallucinatory vignettes: a girl attempting in vain to stanch the flow of black […]
BREAKING: Steve Wynn Pulls Out Of Foxwoods Fail
BUSINESS WIRE:Wynn Resorts, Limited announced today that Development Associates, LLC, and certain other of its wholly owned subsidiaries have terminated all agreements and negotiations with respect to a potential investment in the Foxwoods Casino project in Philadelphia, PA. “We are fascinated by the legalization of full gaming in Pennsylvania and stimulated by the opportunity that it presents for Wynn Resorts, but this particular project did not, in the end, present an opportunity that was appropriate for our company,” commented Stephen A. Wynn, Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts, Limited. MORE PHILLY CLOUT: Just this week, Wynn released a colorful sketch […]
Casino To Be A Wynn-Wynn For Wynn Says Wynn
INQUIRER: Casino mogul Steve Wynn on Monday declared that his plans for a South Philadelphia casino would be “Wynn top to bottom,” carrying both his name and signature design. After meeting for an hour and fifteen minutes with Mayor Nutter at City Hall Monday night, Wynn said in an interview with The Inquirer: “We only have one brand. We don’t have a down-market brand. It’s our place.” When Wynn Resorts surfaced in February as a new developer to take over the faltering Foxwoods Casino project, there was speculation that he might not bring his style of high-end casinos to Philadelphia. […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Drive-By Truckin’
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER The Drive-By Truckers have a well-earned rep for consistently delivering grungy Southern rock operas set in places where red meets neck, where dubious characters lead self-inflicted lives of quiet desperation: unanswered prayers, unrequited love, and unmitigated semiprivate disasters. The DBTs’ just-released The Big To-Do is no exception, although it is quite exceptional in its capacity to sketch out the private hells of jaded pole workers, homicidal preachers’ wives, and modern drunkards in high-def whiskey-hued vérité. Everyone’s on something – booze, pills, God, or all the above – and before all is said and done, […]
SIDEWALKING: The Sheltering Sky
Kimmel Center, Sunday 3:04 PM by JEFF FUSCO
iCATCHING: Apple Store Architect To Design Philly
INGA SAFFRON: Barely four years after Apple opened the store in the basement of the General Motors tower, Bohlin’s ethereal one-story structure – a glorified vestibule, really – has become a must-see attraction as well as Apple’s highest-grossing location. According to Cornell University scientists who analyzed 35 million Flickr images, the Cube is the fifth-most-photographed building in New York, the 28th worldwide. MORE
THIS JUST IN: Passion Pit At The Mann
Sunday June 27th, with Tokyo Police Club. Tickets on sale Friday at 10 AM.