PREVIOUSLY: We’d been traversing the spine of Tornado Alley for the last two hours when the stewardess announced that we would be landing in Oklahoma City in a few minutes, and that we should fasten our seatbelts and return our minds to the upright position, when the drugs took hold. We are, as the saying goes, off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Odd—or, if you prefer, the Wizard of OK, a.k.a. Wayne Coyne, frizzy-brained mainman of the Flaming Lips, the P.T. Barnum Of The Stoned, a.k.a. The Man Who Had A Headache And Accidentally Saved The World. […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When U Can’t
Photo by ALEX PATERSON-JONES FRESH AIR: In the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police, protesters across the country are demanding systemic changes in the way American police forces operate and are funded. Journalist Jamiles Lartey says the discussion about policing feels different now than it has in the past. “You’re hearing so much less of the ‘few bad apples’ argument and so much more of the, ‘What is wrong with this system?’ [argument],” he says. Lartey is a staff writer for The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that covers the U.S. criminal justice system. He […]
WIRE FROM THE BUNKER: Meet Go To Blazes
BY JONATHAN HOULON This week’s Wire is dedicated to the memory of Bruce Langfeld, musical associate and friend of our subject, Go To Blazes. I swear that I selected Blazes (as they were sometimes called by their fans) before these incendiary, recent days. By the way, starting a fire can, indeed, be a component of anarchism. Fetishizing, coveting, and collecting commercial merchandise (is there any other kind?) is decidedly not. Not sure what — if anything — that has to do with the below but … really, folks? In any case, when I moved up to Philly from Austin, […]
NICK LOWE + THE SOUTHSEA ALTERNATIVE CHOIR: What’s So Funny About Peace, Love, Etc
? This is pretty sublime.
EXCERPT: The Wichita Lineman Meets Joni Mitchell
1971 On the surface, Joni Mitchell was a friendly, almost deliberately ordinary Canadian girl with a bright smile and a quick wit. But when it came to music and lyrics she had been blessed with a divine gift. I knew with no envy or jealousy that she was a better writer than I was. I envied her easy conversational phrasing that turned everyday banter into a new kind of song lyric. Her sensual guitar tunings delivered deep, dissonant yet compelling chords that, to use an expression by Linda Ronstadt, “rubbed.” Play that warm chord. I would sit with her and watch […]
REST IN POWER: Little Richard (1932-2020)
Photo by MICHAEL OCHS NEW YORK TIMES: Richard Penniman, better known as Little Richard, who combined the sacred shouts of the black church and the profane sounds of the blues to create some of the world’s first and most influential rock ’n’ roll records, died on Saturday in Tullahoma, Tenn. He was 87. His lawyer, Bill Sobel, said the cause was bone cancer. Little Richard did not invent rock ’n’ roll. Other musicians had already been mining a similar vein by the time he recorded his first hit, “Tutti Frutti” — a raucous song about sex, its lyrics cleaned up […]
JOHN TRAIN: “Where Were We (For John Prine)”
Boss, Here’s a link to a brand new John Train song called “Where Were We? (for John Prine).” The lyrics and credits are in the description as well as a link to my Phawker piece on Prine. I first encountered Prine via my father’s record collection (which is how I discovered the majority of music that still means the most to me!). He had a copy of Common Sense which remains my second favorite Prine LP (Aimless Love from 1984 has always been my number one). I first saw Prine live in 1988, opening up for Johnny Cash at the […]
WIRE FROM THE BUNKER: Meet Howard Tate
Art by NIALL MCCORMACK BY JONATHAN HOULON This week’s Wire concerns Philadelphia’s own late great R&B legend, Howard Tate. I’ll send this one out to another late great Philadelphian, my dear friend Peter Stone Brown who passed away earlier this year. Peter, of course, was known both as a formidable songwriter and as one of the world’s leading “Dylanologists” as recognized in David Kinney’s book of the same name. Kinney tells a wonderful story about how Peter, as a teenager, mowed the words “Fuck You” into his parents’ lawn in Millburn, New Jersey where he grew up. They don’t make […]
ISOLATION DRILLS: Socially Distant Fest
BY VANESSA GOMEZ PEREYRA Back in my day, we would gather in groups of ten and more, with bare faces and no hand sanitizer in sight. Usually, it was someone’s cramped, stained-carpet living room where a friend’s beloved band would play. The sound wasn’t amazing, and the new guitar player could never tune his guitar quite right, but who cared — we were gathered. A sweaty keg bought with everyone’s wrinkly dollar bills stood by, and the only thing you worried about catching was your best friend’s heroin addiction. But those were the good ole days of loud and close […]
OK GO: All Together Now
DAMIAN KULASH, SINGER/GUITARIST, OK GO: I caught the coronavirus early, when there were only six known cases in California, all of them hundreds of miles from L.A., where I live. My symptoms lasted forever, but were only genuinely scary for a day and a half. My wife Kristin’s battle was tougher, though. She was only briefly at the hospital, but bedridden with breathing problems for a long stretch. As she convalesced, I struggled to keep up with our two-year-old twins, and there were times when her breathing was so labored I worried she just wouldn’t wake up. We’re extremely lucky. […]
NEIL NATHAN: Staycation
The Go-Go’s “Vacation” retrofitted for The Plague Years. PREVIOUSLY: Neil Nathan Covers John Prine’s “Some Humans Ain’t Human” PREVIOUSLY: Neil Nathan & Friends Cover Chuck Berry’s “Promised Land”
ISOLATION DRILLS: What I’m Listening To Now
[Click HERE to enlarge] BY KYLE WEINSTEIN Elegant and cruel, Swans are beautiful birds with very ugly temperaments. That duality is the reason Swans maestro, visionary, and lead guitarist/singer/songwriter Michael Gira chose them for the namesake of his band, an ongoing art-rock concern that has been trafficking in bliss and dissonance to great acclaim since 1982. Built from the wreckage of New York No Wave scenesters Circus Mort by Gira and Jonathan Kane, Swans quickly established themselves as the most ferocious act in town, and considering which town that was, that pretty much meant the world. Their early sound was […]
THE COLONEL REMEMBERS: Nirvana At JC Dobbs
Sad, sad news. We received word today that Tom Sheehy, aka The Colonel — longtime Philly music publicist/scenester/historian, storied music biz vet, barroom philosopher, perennial guest list fixture, late-blooming recipient of a Ph.D. in 20th-century American History from Penn, colonel in the ‘MMaRmy, and frequent Phawker contributor — passed away this weekend. This week we will honor his memory by re-posting some of his greatest Phawker hits. We conclude our weeklong tribute to The Colonel with his 2011 remembrance of the night Nirvana honored a longstanding booking at J.C. Dobbs on October 1st 1991, one week after the release of […]