EDITOR’S NOTE: Wrote this 14 years ago (14? Good Lord!), reprinting this today in the wake of today’s news that DeBella is being sued for sexual harrassment by his long-time on-air sidekick. The title of the profile was JOHN DEBELLA IS NOT AN ASSHOLE. ANYMORE — in retrospect, that assessment was premature. BY JONATHAN VALANIA John DeBella has been a hippie and a punk. A winner and a loser. A hero and a villain. And now he just wants to be a nice guy. As if to prove it, he is going to start welling up in T-minus-three seconds. “I […]
FROM THE VAULT: A Hard Night’s Day
Hy Lit and the Beatles, Convention Hall, Philadelphia, 1964 BY JONATHAN VALANIA It is precisely 9:36 p.m. in West Philadelphia on the second splendidly summery September night of 1964, and exactly six minutes ago everything suddenly changed. For teenage Philadelphia, the calendar just flipped, along with everyone’s wig, to a new era. It will be years before anyone fully understands all the far-reaching implications, but this much is indisputably true: The hazy, crazy 1960s have officially begun. OMIGOD, THEY’RE HERE! THEY’RE REALLY REALLY HERE! For months, their songs have blared from the tinny speakers of transistor radios, and they’ve stared […]
BIG STAR DOC: Nothing Can Hurt Me Now
BIG STAR: NOTHING CAN HURT ME is a feature-length documentary about legendary Memphis band Big Star. While mainstream success eluded them, Big Star’s three albums have become critically lauded touchstones of the rock music canon. A seminal band in the history of alternative music, Big Star has been cited as an influence by artists including REM, The Replacements, Belle & Sebastian, Elliot Smith and Flaming Lips, to name just a few. With never-before-seen footage and photos of the band, in-depth interviews and a rousing musical tribute by the bands they inspired, BIG STAR: NOTHING CAN HURT ME is a story […]
FROM THE VAULT: Hello Darkness My Old Friend
Artwork by ADAM GREELEY BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY: Near the end of The Royal Tenenbaums, Wes Anderson’s storybook cinematic fable of wasted potential, the character of Richie, a disgraced world-class tennis player with a dark secret, looks soulfully into the bathroom mirror. It’s impossible to say what he’s thinking–he looks scared, confused, angry, on the verge. A tensely strummed acoustic guitar spirals in the background, accompanying a hushed, faintly ominous vocal. It’s Elliott Smith’s “Needle in the Hay.” Richie picks up a scissors and methodically, if crudely, crops his shoulder-length tresses down to the scalp. He lathers up […]
EARLY WORD: Duffy’s Cut Live
[Illustration by TIM DURNING] Dead Men Do Tell Tales Wed. October 13 8 PM Pen & Pencil Club 1522 Latimer St. Philadelphia, PA 215-731-9909 FREE There is an old saying that goes: under every mile of railroad track is a dead Irishman. Locally speaking this is almost literally true. Out near Malvern, under mile 59 of what was then the Pennsylvania Railroad and is today SEPTA’s R-5 line, lie the bodies of 57 Irish railroad workers. What killed them remains mystery that — 178 years later — appears to be on the verge of being solved. The official record says […]
RIP: Solomon Burke, ‘The Bishop Of Soul,’ Dead At 70
CNN: Soul singer Solomon Burke has died at the age of 70 in the Netherlands, his Dutch representative said Sunday. Burke died of natural causes after arriving at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, his family said in a statement posted on Burke’s website. He was in town to perform for a sold-out show with the Dutch band De Dijk. “This is a time of great sorrow for our entire family. We truly appreciate all of the support and well wishes from his friends and fans. Although our hearts and lives will never be the same, his love, life and music will continue […]
PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY: The Khyber Past
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY On the afternoon of Nov. 26, 2008, death came ashore at the Indian coastal city of Mumbai in the form of 10 Pakistani assassins aboard a rubber dinghy. Young and cocky, the killers were dressed in bluejeans and cargo pants, pumped up on steroids and ripped from months of rigorous physical training. They brandished AK-47s and carried backpacks loaded with grenades and ammo. When fisherman asked them what was going on, the gunmen told them in fluent Marathi to, in effect, go fuck themselves. The fishermen reported the incident […]
VALANIA: Last Night I Sneaked Into The Tea Party
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY A word of warning: The story you are about to read is neither fair nor balanced; just true. The other night I snuck into the Tea Party, like a spy in the House of Glenn Beck Love, and nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. You know about the Tea Party movement, right? The populist jihad—sponsored by Fox News, FreedomWorks, the Taliban wing of the Republican Party and the rest of the Dick Armey—that’s putting the RIOT back in PATRIOT. They’re white as hell and they’re not gonna take the 2008 presidential election anymore. […]
FROM THE VAULT: Clothes Make The Man
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY There is, perhaps, no more efficient way to remind yourself that you are no longer 22 than to walk the aisles of Urban Outfitters. For the postcollegiate slackerati it is a mecca of precisely modulated urban hipster cool, a time-warp thrift store aesthetic filtered through a retrograde prism of detached irony and kitsch–proof positive of the fashion adage that everything, no matter how uncool, comes back into style eventually. This is readily apparent to anyone old enough to remember when most of these styles were cool for the first time. Rule of thumb: […]
PW: Why The Right Hates ACORN, How They Took Them Down, And Why Philly Didn’t Take The Bait
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY There’s an old joke that goes like this: A pimp and a prostitute walk into an ACORN office and ask for advice setting up a brothel and smuggling in underage Salvadoran girls to whore out for fun and profit. The punchline is the pimp and the prostitute were in fact a pair of twentysomething right-wing media provocateurs armed with a hidden camera. Over the summer James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles visited an undisclosed number of ACORN offices on the East and West coasts—including Philadelphia. While the Philly office didn’t […]
GOODNIGHT MR. WELLS: PW Writer Extraordinaire Steven Wells Loses Long, Public Battle With Cancer
Damn. Steven Wells was THE funniest, ballsiest, take-no-prisoners writer to grace the pages of Philadelphia print media in recent memory. His long, tragic battle with cancer was no secret, he wrote about it with the same unflinching honesty, hair-on-fire rage, savage wit and gallows humor he wrote about everything. Sir, it was a privilege and an honor. You will be sorely missed. Good night Mr. Wells, wherever you are. PW: Steven Wells Farewell Column WIKIPEDIA: Steven Wells is was a British journalist and author currently based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Born in Swindon, England in 1960, Wells moved to the […]
BLUE HAWAII: What, Me Worry?
BLOOMBERG NEWS: The U.S. presidential race is a tossup as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has lost what was once an eight-point lead over Republican rival John McCain, according to a new poll. The Washington-based Pew Research Center for the People and the Press said today that Obama now leads McCain 46 percent to 43 percent among registered voters, down from June when the Illinois senator enjoyed a 48 to 40 advantage. His lead narrowed to five points in July, the survey said. MORE WASHINGTON POST: An analysis of political contributions from soldiers on the battlefield has produced some unexpected […]
Hyski O’Rooney McVoutie O’Zoot Has Left The Building
Hy Lit, 73, one of Philadelphia’s pioneer disc jockeys, died yesterday at Paoli Memorial Hospital of what his son termed “bizarre complications” after a knee injury. Mr. Lit was on hand for much rock-and-roll history as it played out in Philadelphia. He played Rolling Stones music early on and accompanied the Beatles to the city in 1964. A dashing figure with a face for television, he also hosted dance shows on WKBS in Philadelphia and a New York station. Another longtime fixture in local radio, disc jockey Jerry Blavat, last night called Mr. Lit’s death “the end of the era […]