“Mr. QUINTRON is a very eccentric concert and nightclub organist from New Orleans, Louisiana. He plays music on a custom made Hammond / Rhodes combo synthesizer / organ (which he’s got all built up to look like a car with real working headlights) backed by raw simple drum machine beats (think 808 boom chika boom through one BIG speaker with all the treble turned down) and his own patented invention THE DRUM BUDDY – a rotating, light-activated analog synthesizer which is played much in the same way that a DJ spins and scratches records. Of course lets not forget about […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: There Will Be Blood
FRESH AIR When Sissy Spacek started her film career, she was told to lose her heavy Texas accent. But her famous drawl became one of her greatest assets when Terrence Malick cast her in his 1973 crime drama Badlands.Spacek played Holly, a teenage girl from South Dakota who became an accomplice on a cross-country murder spree. The film, which also starred Martin Sheen, was narrated in Spacek’s distinctive Southern voice.How she got the role remains up for debate. Spacek says that Malick remembers auditioning one of Spacek’s friends, only to become charmed by Spacek herself after she interrupted their meeting. […]
HOODWINKED: Thank God We Stood By And Let The Diabetes Delivery Lobby Kill A Painless Soda Tax & Plunge Homeowners Into A World Of Pain
DAILY NEWS: If the city’s property-tax valuation overhaul happens, Candace DiCarlo already has a real-estate agent lined up to sell her South Philadelphia home. “It’s going to drive people out. They’re going to ask me now to pay $5,500 a year [in property tax],” said DiCarlo, 59, a self-employed artist who lives on Broad Street near Washington Avenue. “I feel like I love the city and it doesn’t love me back.” Community groups have warned that many homeowners could wind up with rude sticker shock when the Nutter administration moves to a tax system that relies on the market values […]
THIS JUST IN: My Morning Jacket @ The Mann
with special guest BAND OF HORSES Fri * Aug 17 The Mann Fairmount Park * Philadelphia Tickets On Sale Friday, 5/04 at 10AM! PREVIOUSLY: Opening for a band that draws seven or eight times as many people as you do seems like a no-brainer, after all if you win over just a quarter of the crowd, you’ve more than doubled your draw in this market. The downside is nobody shows up for the opening act at the Big Rock Show — never have, never will. Tuesday nigh at the Mann was no exception when Neko Case opened for My Morning […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Pit Bulls & Cocky Moms
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY The political over-importance and consequent over-propagandizing attached to Hilary Rosen’s recent questioning of Ann Romney’s work record brings to mind a previous column I authored concerning birthright/inheritance and the hyper-critical role it plays in determining one’s economic future — and the fact that this whole child-rearing “choice” kerfuffle only serves to further emphasize the point. How so? you ask. Well, because today’s moms’ “choice” of child rearing methods is determined almost entirely by economic status rather than any altruism or feminism on their part, and is but another example of the overriding influence that something none of us had […]
Q&A w/ Nick Lowe, Elder Statesman Of Pure Pop
Photo by Dan Burn-Forti BY ED KING ROCK EXPERT Nick Lowe’s 45-year career as a singer-songwriter, record producer, and all-around musical instigator is a one-man Village Green Preservation Society, to quote the Kinks’ 1968 mission statement. After brief spell in a Cream-influenced psychedelic rock band, Kippington Lodge, Lowe and his fellow UK mates, including future standouts in the late-’70s new wave scene, got an early start on “preserving the old ways” in the Americana roots-rock band, Brinsley Schwarz. A big push to launch the band in the States flamed spectacularly, and in the US their records would be left for […]
CINEMA: The Unkown Soldiers Of 20th Century Pop
BY JONATHAN VALANIA A little known fact outside of musician circles is that the instrumental tracks of many of the most beloved and iconic pop songs of the 1960s — The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” The Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man,” Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me,” The Mamas & Papas’ “California Dreamin’,” The Monkees’ “Mary Mary,” Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas,” The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson,” Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night,” Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” to name but a few — were not performed by the artists credited. […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist, The Hives, NYC last night by GENE SMIRNOV
CINEMA: The Craven
THE RAVEN (2012, directed by James McTeigue, 110 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK At one point in the silly speculative fiction fantasy that is The Raven, a character is describing the town drunk Edgar Allan Poe. When he is asked about what kind of writing Poe contributes to the newspaper he replies, “Criticism, you know the easy kind.” Critics learn to take such passing jibes in stride, but you can see why The Raven’s writers are so touchy on the subject, at every turn their film is preposterous in ways sure to wake the film critic in everyone. Not that […]
JUDAS PRIEST: Even More Nauseating Testimony
INQUIRER: In 1999, the altar boys there included the 10-year-old son of a Philadelphia police officer. In a photo shown to jurors, the boy wore a blue sweater vest, a light-colored crew-cut, and a smile. “Mom always said I was a cute kid,” he testified. Earlier that school year, the man said, he had been sexually abused by another priest at the parish. (That priest, the Rev. Charles Engelhardt faces a separate trial because he belongs to an independent religious order. So, too, does a former schoolteacher at St. Jerome’s also accused of raping the boy.) Avery, he said, […]
SIDEWALKING: Here Comes Johnny
34th & 8th Avenue, NYC, 3:29 PM yesterday by JONATHAN VALANIA