Arts & Events: June 2009 Archives

We covered Kiss Kiss's last record release, when they put out Reality vs. the Optimist and we have good news: they still bring the awesome. Their newest release, , due out July 7, is just as hyper-kinetic and jarring as their first effort. The differences? Well, there's a more calculated organic approach.

Looking for some 4th of July deals for the tragically hip, underfunded, and child bearing? We've got you covered. Phillyist has been blessed with a bevy of tips for families looking for a great time in the city, but not looking to spend an insane amount of cash... or stay up till midnight.

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

First Farrah and then Michael. No, these videos don't have anything to do with Philadelphia, but we thought it would be fair to pay tribute to two cultural icons.

We know what you're thinking. That glass of wine looks mighty good. That's because wine is synonymous with summer. Read on to learn about favorite shore bar drinks and local wineries down the shore.

After a bit of deliberation, the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival changed its name to the pithy Qfest. They've released their lineup of films, and tonight's your chance to grab a drink, meet the programmers and pick their brains about their choices, as well as get insider info on the sure sellouts. See you there.

Oh, Jon Stewart. We still love you. Just maybe... a little less. (Fast-forward to about 1:50 if you want to see what we mean.)

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

The Lemonheads (MySpace) was actually the first band this Phillyist ever saw in concert... back in 1993. I was ten years old and enamored with the grunge movement, donning over-sized flannel shirts and trying to grow my hair long like rockers such as Mark Lanegan, Anthony Kiedis, and Lemonhead leader Evan Dando (pictured). Too bad my hair came out wavy instead of hardcore, but that's a different story altogether. The prolific Red Kross opened for Dando's outfit that night, but all I remember about them is that they had a song called "Disco Bitch" that made me giggle. The Lemonheads were always kind of strange bedfellows in the alternative movement, but Dando had the good looks and enough catchy hooks to trump the subversive songs on the album and make him a teen idol.

I think I can say with some confidence that however you felt about Michael Bay's first Transformers film, you will feel the same way about his second one. It's more of the same. More giant robots getting into epic slow motion fights while things explode all around them. More Megan Fox in sexy outfits running in slow motion. More ponderous narration. More of John Turturro thoroughly embarrassing himself for what I hope is a very large paycheck. More lowbrow "comedy." More, more, more.

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

Chances are, if you're a food nerd like me, you probably already know much of the information presented in the new movie Food, Inc.. The film is co-produced by Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, and features a lot of input from author Michael Pollan, who wrote In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma. So if you've read all these books, you're probably going to see the film anyway. (If only Marion Nestle had made an appearance, it'd be a Food Nerd's Trifecta.)

Gorgeous setting? Check.

Love musical theatre? Want an hour and a half's worth of laughs? Has the Walnut got a treat for you!

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

Last night, Phillyist was invited to Mojitofest at G Lounge, where there were drinks, competition, drinks, a light up wall of multi-colored squares, and more drinks. Looking back on our night of debauchery and muddled mint, we are eager to share the experience: the highs, the lows, and most importantly, the drinks!

A couple days ago, we encouraged you to check out An Horse (MySpace) when they played at Kung Fu Necktie. If you didn't make it, here's a sampling of what you missed...

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

We sort of didn't want to like a band whose name is a blatant rip-off of a Smiths song. Then we slipped Trio B.C. into our CD player and sort of fell in love with Girl in a Coma (MySpace). Following quickly on the heels of the first tejano-inspired guitar notes of "BB," Nina Diaz's soulful voice grabbed us, then proceeded to kick us in the ass on the singalong-worthy "Static Mind." We're not embarrassed to admit we kept pressing repeat when that one came on. And then there's "Baby Boy," which reminded us of something we'd rock out to back in our alt-rock college days. "El Monte" smacks of old-fashioned girl group goodness tinged with a bit of twang, and "In the Day" made us jump up and dance like idiots in our living room.The rest of the album continues in this eclectic vein; each song has a different vibe but every one is worth repeated listens. So we admit it—we were way off base with our initial, superficial assessment of Girl in a Coma. The girls are alright.

As the Schuylkill River Development Corporation successfully acquires more property to lengthen its increasingly popular riverfront trail, the Delaware River is making baby steps of its own. Since PennPraxis unveiled its Civic Vision and Action Plan for creating high-quality public space and private development, much of the news on Philadelphia's original river has been less sexy back-of-house stuff so far, like the creation of the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation (DRWC) and announcements of funding allocation towards future public space projects. There has also been a zoning overlay for the riverfront moving through City Council, but even this Phillyist (who loves to nerd out on urban things) considered that too boring to post here.

When we get an e-mail from a publicist describing a band as "Matt and Kim in a punky blender with Tegan and Sara, we can't help but be curious. It could be either really good, or really really bad. Fortunately, the band that e-mail was about, An Horse (MySpace), turns out to be really good. We don't know about the "punky blender" part, but there's definitely a similarity to Matt and Kim.

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

The Piazza at Schmidts is the latest "it" place in the city, and there seems to always be something going on there, like Sundae Philadelphia:

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and guess that most people reading this don't frequent the Brewerytown neighborhood much. Perhaps you've caught a show at North Star Bar in nearby Fairmount but didn't make it up to Girard Avenue. Or you saw Philly Weekly's feature earlier this year that labeled Brewerytown the "epicenter" of Philadelphia soul food and swore you were gonna make it over there one day...though probably on a weekend, and probably while it's still daylight outside.

Whether you think Marcel Duchamp's Fountain is brilliant or bullshit, there's no denying that it takes a special kind of somebody to come up with this idea.

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

The Jersey Shore in Manhattan? The Jersey Shore Store is open in NYC until July 6 to help travelers book vacations to Atlantic City. It's the perfect tie-in too because trains are now available from Penn Station to Atlantic City on Aces.

Anyone who has had both a pulse and a penchant for some loud guitar rock in the last twenty years can probably stroll down memory lane and recall one of the first times they heard or saw Pearl Jam. It might have been the crazy "I'm gonna murder you" eyes of leader singer Eddie Vedder in the ground-breaking "Jeremy" video, their Woodstock '94 performance, their well-publicized boycott of the fascists at Ticketmaster, or their recent tours selling out festivals and stadiums around the country. For this Phillyist, it was Vedder in the "Even Flow" video, standing atop the rafters at a live show, arms outstretched before plummeting into the audience. The first cassette (yes, cassette, that's right) we ever purchased was Vs. the first week it came out, and you better believe it was the first of many Pearl Jam albums to come. And yes, we still have ALL those cassettes...why, you wanna make something of it?

This Thursday at the Susquehanna Bank Center, a newly reunited No Doubt takes the stage, joined by Paramore and The Sounds. This energy-filled trio of bands has been touring since May and is unique in that all three ensembles feature female lead singers. No Doubt is a staple to anyone who came of age in the mid-90s and Paramore is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in the rock world. These two powerhouses are a great billing in their own right but we are very much looking forward to The Sounds.

Monday, maybe you should go to the North Star Bar naked.

Quick! What do a puppeteer, a fisherman, a psychologist, an aquarium volunteer, and the band Igor's Egg have in common?

Despite a record-setting twelve Tony Awards, is really a star vehicle. And by that, we don't mean that it's not an exceptional show; but, it's a deceptively difficult show to pull off, at least in terms of the delivery of its humor. If the actors aren't top-notch, the slapstick can overwhelm the show if not well-executed. So we were a bit skeptical when we learned that the Walnut Street Theatre was doing the show. Without the right balance of indulgence and restraint, the show can go awry—it's a tough balance, even for seasoned performers. So it wasn't really surprising that, after stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick departed from the original New York production, audience numbers dwindled; and although the show managed to remain open on Broadway for six years, it ceased being New York's "must see" ticket without its original stars.

Perhaps the thing with which I've struggled most, when it comes to Terry Johnson's Hysteria, onstage through this weekend at the Wilma Theater, is how to describe it. What starts off as a traditional door-slamming farce—albeit one tinged with Freudian overtones—that presents the unlikely pairing of Sigmund Freud and Salvador Dalí eventually vacillates between absurdism and the completely surreal, the farce all but forgotten by the show's close. Taken in parts, these elements work, but combined, it becomes difficult to determine whether the play is clever or disjointed, let alone to determine whether I actually enjoyed it.

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

Its official, Philadelphia is hosting the Olympics.

Art and decay have oft had a love/hate relationship. Look no further than the inspirations of Marcel Duchamp or the crumbling Colosseum in Rome. Time (and lack of preservation) may eventually rob us of some of our cultural treasures, but it also inspires the creation new artistic works. This month's Hidden City Festival organized by Peregrine Arts and produced in partnership with the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia and the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage seeks to highlight this circular phenomenon. Inspired by some of Philadelphia's most spectacular "forgotten" landmarks, a small army of artists have put together an unique collection of multimedia installations, dance and music presentations.

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

Classic rock + psychedlia = Quest for Fire. This band out of Toronto somehow manages to do long jams that aren't boring. Their self-titled release (which hits physical and digital store shelves tomorrow) is an epic journey in the form of six solid tunes. You can check them out live with Pink Mountaintops at Johnny Brenda's tonight.

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

"Let's have a bachelor party with chicks and guns and fire trucks and hookers and drugs and booze!" Twenty-five years ago this summer, Rick Gassko (Tom Hanks) lived every adolescent boy's fantasy in Bachelor Party. So when we saw the previews for The Hangover, we assumed the traditional story of boys behaving badly was making the rounds yet again.

Tonight, get yourself over the bridge to the Susquehanna Bank Center. Not in seventeen years have Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction shared the same stage together—and we're not talking any old conglomeration of Jane's Addiction—this is the original lineup. Perry Farrell, Dave Navarro, Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins, just as we remember them from the historic Lollapalooza festival back in '91. Adding in the NIN lineup of Trent Reznor, Robin Finck, Justin Meldal-Johnsen and newest member IIan Rubin on drums and keys makes this a rock event not to be missed.

This Phillyist likes his metal epic, brutal, thrashing, and fast-paced, and that's just the way Iron Age delivers it on their latest album, The Sleeping Eye, scheduled for release on August 4th of this year. You could also call their music "hardcore" or even "punk," but it's loud and fast and there's screaming, so we just call it metal. Iron Age is playing as part of a packed bill of hardcore bands at the Barbary this Sunday night, so if you feel like banging your head, get out there.

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

Philly Improv Theater's June lineup continues tonight at The Actors Center (257 North 3rd Street). The college showcase opens at 8 PM, when two Penn State troupes—"Full Ammo" and "Your Ex-Boyfriend's Improv"—take the stage. "m@&" (Matt Holmes of Rare Bird Show) then defends his CAGEMATCH title at 10 PM, when he selects a random audience member to join him in a 30-minute longform improv act. "Mr. Lizard" will be the challenger. Both the 8:00 and 10:00 performances cost $5.

Back in February, we encouraged you to pounce on tickets to see The Decemberists (MySpace) right when they went on sale. The show is now a couple days away, and if you didn't take our advice then, you're in luck, because there are still some tickets left for Saturday night's show.

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

Fun around town, for $10 or less: