Although our contests usually only last two or three days, we wanted to remind you about two contests we posted last week that are still open through this Friday. If metal's your thing, sign up for two tickets to a metal show, plus two CDs. And if you'd prefer a night out at the theatre to a headbanger's ball, The Wilma wants to give you two tickets for Ying Tong: A Walk With the Goons.......

A sad week for LAist as they lose their trusted and amazing editor Tony Pierce to the LA Times, but what a blast his last week was. He shared his 25 Favorite CDs of 2007 and wrote a great review of just a good movie, No Country For Old Men. At UCLA, thousands of students celebrated the end of their quarter by running around campus in their undies (lots of photos in a two-part......

Every weekday of December (except for December 25, that is), Phillyist will be counting down to 2008 with our highlights from the past year and our predictions for the next. If you have a list you'd like to submit, let us know! 10. Cross – Justice While this debut album by French duo Gaspard Auge and Xavier de Rosnay leans heavily on the discography of fellow Parisians, Daft Punk, it breaks out on its own......

No matter how much your musical tastes evolve over time, sometimes you can't help but go back to what you liked during your teenage years. When this Phillyist was in junior high, there was one type of music, and only one type of music, emanating from my bedroom stereo: Metal. Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead... you get the idea. Even though the Death CDs have lately collected dust on the shelf in favor......

A week ago tonight, OFFICE, quite simply, rocked my face off. It had been a long day – the fourth in a row. I left the office at 6:50, giving me just enough time to go home and change clothes before meeting my plus-one for the evening. I just wanted some feel-good music. Fortunately, as I mentioned in the preview for this show, OFFICE is feel-good music. I just didn't know how good. You......

Forgive the error in syntax for a moment, but we've been a grumpy critic lately. We've been seriously underwhelmed by the last couple concerts we've gone to. We really needed a great - not good, great - concert to get us out of this funk. So thank you thank you thank you to Eric Hutchinson and Matt Duke for giving us that show. As Editor Jill mentioned in her preview of the show, we first......

This Phillyist hearts Rilo Kiley. Jenny Lewis is our long-standing girl crush. So we're pumped for tonight, when they'll be at the Tower Theatre, touring after their new album, Under the Blacklight. We can't stop playing it. It's a lot more eclectic than the band’s previous CDs, but we dig it, immensely. It’s like Multiple Personality Disorder Rilo Kiley. Which is awesome, because crazy people are fun. Didn't you see Sybil? Under the Blacklight has......

We love when we get the opportunity to see a ton of bands in one shot. We love it even more when a couple of the bands are old favorites of ours and others are bands we've never heard of, because it gives us the chance to check out some new music, and if we don't like what we hear, we can always go back to the stuff we know and be completely satisfied.......

The Sea and Cake is one of those rare bands that is totally consistent and reliable in terms of style and quality. For years they've been putting out ten track-long CDs full of excellent, mellow indie pop. Pop any one of their discs in the player and you are guaranteed a good time. Their latest album, Everybody, which came out in May, over four years since their last full-length release, is no exception. How can......

Think back to May 20, 1997. I was finishing up my sophomore year in high school. I had a crush on a girl named Lauren who kissed me like she was licking an ice cream cone. (Yes, I broke up with her specifically for that reason.) I remember buying my first CD: Abra Moore's Strangest Places. This hot new singer/songwriter was hitting the top of all the charts with her up-beat pop/folk song, "Four Leaf......

Last night, Ropeadope Digital celebrated its launch at the World Cafe Live. The evening was made up of performances by BurnDown All Stars, Electric City, and Aunt Jessica. And a duo of painters who kinda hung out in the corner of the stage for most of the evening with some canvas. I didn't quite get it, but, nonetheless, there were painters in the corner. Yeah. Aunt Jessica, an electronica-influenced hip hop group, started off the......

The best of the internet, squirted out in flavorful neon globules, just for you. SwitchPlanet sounds like a pretty cool little idea. You create a free account, put together a list of things you'd like to trade (like used DVDs, CDs, and video games that you're done with), and then set up free trades with other people on the site. The idea is for people to get more of what they like without having to......

Phillyist is pleased as punch to announce our participation in a very cool contest/giveaway. You can check out the web page here, but we'll give you the background: super fun indie trio The Noisettes are on tour, opening for TV on the Radio, and they're coming to the Troc in our own hometown on April 20th (sorry, the show is already sold out!). And after they run across the nation opening for TV on the......

You may not have heard of G.B.H. We hadn't heard of them before we got a copy of their recently released box set, Race Against Time: The Complete Clay Recordings. But they're a pretty popular band in England. And they're now one of our favorites. Of course, G.B.H. is a British punk metal band, and when we heard that was their genre, we suspected we would like them quite a bit. British? Punk? Metal? That's......

This suburban Phillyist used to work in the city, and commuted daily into Center City via SEPTA from Paoli. Imagine our surprise one day when, blearily staring out the window as the suburban landscape rushed by, we saw a tiny cemetery and historical marker mere feet away from the train tracks. Not quite convinced that we'd hallucinated the stone fence-enclosed minuscule graveyard, we made it our mission over the next few weeks to figure out......

Not only is that the title of the latest album from Philly's own The Capitol Years, but it's also what we feel the need to do this weekend after reading that a guy tried to fly from LA to Philadelphia with a magnet and some wires up his ass. Magnets are the new butt plugs. Anyway, The Capitol Years will be playing Johnny Brenda's Saturday night, with Nethers, El Dorado, and The Boggs. Dance......

Everclear/Jonny Lives! Giveaway
2/5/07-2/9/07...

I have a crush… on a song. This is actually a common occurrence in my life. I love music. I have music playing at all times. I cannot be in my apartment without it on. I can’t drive without music (or be driven somewhere without it). Even when I hate the CD we have to listen to at work, I want it on. This need, coupled with my innate neuroses, means that I often find......

The shapeless dough of the internet, formed into tasty pellets and baked to perfection, just for you. Want to write the next great rock book on that totally amazing album by that one guy? Shoot your idea at music blog 33 1/3 and see if it sticks. (Via Editor Jill) Those end of year sum-up lists aren't all done yet, folks! Just check out Idolator's 2006 Jackin' Pop Critics Poll! They surveyed critics and writers......

Happy Holidays! Chances are, you're reading this the day after Christmas, back at your day job after all-too-short a holiday, and the last thing you want from us is stuff about the holidays. But that's just too bad. Because, see, here in the Ist-A-Verse, we do things ahead of time. It might be December 26 for you, but that's what you get for not checking your Favorite Local Blog on Christmas Eve. Austinist is......

Dear Retailers (Again): Today is December 22 (Happy Birthday, Grandma!). That means yesterday, obviously, was December 21. Four days (I'm good at subtraction) prior to Christmas. So what I'm confused by, is, yesterday, I walked into a certain large retail chain to pick up a few prescriptions, and saw, on a display for snack foods, HEART-shaped snack cakes. Heart. Shaped. Snack cakes. Gag me with a spoon. Further perusal of the store (I was......

We like the idea of a good time for a good cause, so we're pretty excited about the Third Annual Philly Bands Together that's taking over the entire World Cafe Live, upstairs and down, tonight at 7:30PM (doors open at 6). A TON of artists - including Grey Eye Glances, Hoots and Hellmouth, Lili Anel, and Red Heart the Ticker - will be there playing music (you can find a detailed schedule and band......

Tired of sifting through that same-old same-old at your local shops and malls? Get your holiday shopping done tomorrow, flea-market style. R5 Productions is hosting the holiday edition of its Punk Rock Flea Market at the Starlight Ballroom. Almost 100 tables will be filled with new and used fare, from wearable art by local artists to used vinyl and CDs. We find ourselves especially interested in table 56, which promises to be full of "kickass......

Joan Jett Giveaway
11/20/06-11/24/06...

Musician Joshua Radin...

Tower Records has been sold to a liquidation firm, which means - liquidation sales! Now, Phillyist has become accustomed to purchasing music online, generally only purchasing physical CDs direct from the artist at shows (er...sorry, Tower), but we may make an exception in the face of a sale. (We made out like a musical bandit when the HMV on Walnut closed down a few years back.) The only real question is where we're going......

Twist: Dickens purists should find very little to complain about in Gila Sand's Twist, a sort of rock-n-roll, vaudevillian, burlesque, S&M reimagining of Oliver Twist. Sure, Oliver's erudite saviour Mr. Brownlow is replaced by Mrs. Downlow, a female foot fetishist and yes, Sand's Fagin is a vampy, tranny dom with a passion for silk scarves instead of a sour old villain with a penchant for pocket watches, but the plethora of corsets and lacy underthings......

You may question Jill's dedication to Sparkle Motion, but never doubt her dedication to the Fringe. With the schedule she's keeping, I don't know how she's still functioning; and I feel quite the Fringe slacker. But sometimes she lets me accompany her to shows anyway. 'Cause she's cool like that.   The Sea: The Sea is a "rock opera" about a young man going to sea, and his subsequent life as a sailor. Like the......

LAist has so much fun this week! They go to E3, where they overhear the timeless remark "Man, this is where nerdy girls get laid." Is that a promise? They also give us this week's best CDs and make us realize that LA is the best place to use Zillow. Ah, Houstonist. They're biking to work, that is, if they can figure out how to get there. That's right, Mapquest says "Houston had the......

To describe the Eagles of Death Metal as merely a side-project of Queens of the Stoneage frontman Josh Homme (who goes by the hilariously excellent and ridiculous moniker, Carlo Von Sexron, when playing with the Eagles) is to do the band a disservice. Although, as the title of this post suggests, their music is far from being death metal, it is an incredibly fun, perhaps-slightly-harder-than-average bluesy pop rock that is highly enjoyable, and really......