I knew when I first saw Hampton Yount on Conan that he was someone to watch out for. What made it difficult was that he was called Hampton Yount, so I wasn’t going to remember his name. But his bit about the risks of online dating of men vs women was so clever and witty that it always stuck with me. Hell, I even discussed the idea with friends over drinks. So when I got his full length album Bearable,...

Cheap Novelties: The Pleasures of Urban Decay by Ben Katchor This book is nice and simple, and maybe our review of it should be the same. Comics get a bad rap for being only about superheroes so their potential for telling common everyday stories is often ignored or overlooked. As a medium they can tell stories as subtle and personal as any other art form, and Cheap Novelties is as good of an example as any. Knowing nothing about Ben...

WHO: Priests WHAT: Nothing Feels Natural WHY: It seems like people have been missing the point and assuming Nothing Feels Natural is a response to the Trump administration, which is of course wrong because Priests completed this album long before the elections last year. What hopefully will not be missed is how this much-awaited debut is both a brooding, aggressive and moody commentary on modern life and a push out of the comfort zone both for the audience and the...

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence   Ghost in the Shell is back in the headlines, and I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing. It seems like the upcoming live-action remake of a classic like Ghost in the Shell is doomed to fail, not only because fan expectation is going to be so high, but also because Ghost in the Shell might not survive a Western translation. The original movie is so deep and I dread thinking...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the new Exit Planet Dust reissue from The Chemical Brothers. From the outside, The Chemical Brothers have never really appeared to be an act that anyone associates with the concept of “evolutionary development,” but that is really the fault of shortsighted critics who simply assume that the group’s influence and growth is limited because the music first gained life on a series of dance floors. Such rigid thinking is foolish, really; in...

Katy Perry – Venue: Theatre of Living Arts, Philadelphia, PA Photos by: Laura McKechnie Originally Posted: April-09   “Are you the guy with the food?” It’s a beautiful Sunday night in Philadelphia and Laura and I are on surprisingly animated South street that reminds me of a more subdued Las Vegas strip. Over the years, I’ve heard that South street has gone downhill; that the shops and the visitors have gone to a more relevant and hipper spot, but...

With the amount of noise they’ve been making, it’s hard not to notice Priests. I know exactly when I noticed their noise, and that was years ago when I saw them on the Chris Gethard show. They were the musical guests for the Sleater-Kinney episode and I knew when I saw them that I had to keep an eye on them. Smart folks knew to do the same and for years everyone waited, wondering when they were going to make...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Oczy Mlody LP by The Flaming Lips. It has been pretty evident that The Flaming Lips were in need of a change over the last few releases, the band just wasn’t sure what needed to happen in that capacity and so elected to throw everything at the wall to see what might stick. They tried getting darker and more dissonant on The Terror, but that didn’t work out so well because...

Prison School: The Complete Series Prison School should be ashamed of itself, because honestly, I don’t know how anyone can take it seriously looking the way it does. I’m not trying to slut-shame anybody here, but a simple Google image search makes it clear who this show is targeting. Prison School is so overtly objectifying to women and geared towards horny males that it should be embarrassed. The female characters are cartoonishly sexual and the camera shots are clearly...

Daft Punk Random Access Memory Oh boy, here’s a big one. It’s funny reviewing this, because I was completely oblivious to the anticipation surrounding this album and only picked it up with a lot of hesitation. I have said this before (and love repeating it), but punk rock is mostly my forte so I was quite surprised to find myself enjoying this album. So, looking at Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, what do we have? I can’t help but think...