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JULY EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW 16 | STEVEN VAN ZANDT Say the name Steven Van Zandt and an image of a bandana-wrapped, rock n’ roll gypsy belting out lyrics that decry today’s political and justice systems jumps to mind. But there’s another Van Zandt: Beyond having performed as Silvio Dante in HBO’s The So-
pranos and Frank “The Fixer” Tagliano in Netflix’s Lilyhammer, he’s curated his Sirius XM radio channel, Underground Garage, with the best of new and vintage garage rock Zach Kleemeyer, Peace. Martin Art Gallery
from around the globe. He produced a theatrical musical, The Rascals: Once Upon a
Dream, with his boyhood heroes for Broadway and beyond. “I’m a helluva guy. What
The intersection of art, entertainment, culture, nightlife and mad genius.
Since 1992 215-862-9558 icondv.com facebook.com/icondv PRESIDENT Trina McKenna trina@icondv.com
can I say?” he said with a laugh when asked about his busy schedule and his deep connection to fans. “I’m a working-class celebrity. It’s a job that I do, which is nothing more
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special than any other job anyone else does. I even go to an office.”
EDITORIAL Editor / trina@icondv.com Raina Filipiak / Advertising filipiakr@comcast.net
MORE FILM
ART 5|
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ESSAY They Say My Opinion Matters
Martin Art Gallery
Summer Show
Bethlehem House Gallery
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Chawne Kimber: Cottoning On
Grossman Gallery at Lafayette College
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NIGHTLIFE
FOODIE FILE 18 |
20 |
Joey Fonseca CONTRIBUTING WRITERS A. D. Amorosi Robert Beck Jack Byer Peter Croatto Mark Keresman George Miller R. Kurt Osenlund Bob Perkins Keith Uhlich
Bill Frisell / Thomas Morgan Harry Partch
CINEMATTERS
Chick Corea 24 |
The Dead Don’t Die The Souvenir The Last Black Man in San Francisco
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JAZZ LIBRARY Billy Taylor
FILM ROUNDUP Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese
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INTERNS
Bundling & Branding
Salt
The Biggest Little Farm 12 |
Rita Kaplan
Geoff Gehman
Wes Montgomery
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Susan Danforth
POP
22 | JAZZ/ ROCK/CLASSICAL/ALT
FILM
Photo: Kirsti Hovde. Page 16
Where to Take Your Dog to Lunch
MUSIC
The Biggest Little Farm.
ON THE COVER: Steven Van Zandt.
REEL NEWS High Life Transit The Aftermath Little Woods
EXHIBITIONS Femi J. Johnson: Femi and the Collection
Marlow Rodale, Mountain. Bethlehem House Gallery.
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PRODUCTION Richard DeCosta
ETCETERA 26 |
HARPER’S FINDINGS
26 |
HARPER’S INDEX
30 |
L. A. TIMES CROSSWORD
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AGENDA
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ART ESSAY & PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK
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THEY SAY MY OPINION MATTERS
READ THAT THE guy who invented the Internet died. No, the other guy. There are probably people today who are unaware that there ever was no Internet. It was always there, just like indoor plumbing, electricity, and online surveys. It’s difficult to believe that with so many businesses and people peeling every shred of personal information from our lives for their own advantage, the online survey even still exists. Our every move is already minutely monitored, producing more information than they have figured out uses for, acquired without the unfashionable bother of asking permission. Talk to your friend about insurance while your phone is in your pocket and for a month you’ll be bombarded with ads showing pictures of tragic housefires and floods. And Bezos, have mercy if Alexa is listening. The surveys I’m asked to complete read like the designers were asked to come up with twenty questions, and having no idea what the issues are they ran out of good ones at three. A place where I had my car serviced asked if I had waited 1, 2, or 4 minutes at the counter. I can tell you that’s not the crux of my concern when I have to get my car fixed. Wait time can be an issue, but there are 21st century ways of determining how long it took. (One dealer installed a flat-screen in the waiting room that displayed all the customers’ names, the time that the repairs had been promised, and what time it was now. If there’s a reason for that self-inflicted injury, I don’t see it. Maybe they don’t do it anymore. I stopped going. The wait wasn’t the problem.) One survey question that always gets me is whether I would recommend the company to a friend. There is a pathetic sound to that, like: do you think Susie likes me? No, she doesn’t, now how about we work on getting the repair job done right the first time, then worry if the cookies were warm. There aren’t many places that have more information about me than my doctor’s office. Most of it I wrote on a clipboard balanced on my leg. I have to write it all again every time I show up, advancing the medical-digital revolution one crappy pen at a time. And somebody tell me that patient portals are better than the phone. I haven’t seen it yet. This last time I was at a hospital they lost the record of my test appointment. (I had my paper confirmation when I showed up. Hah-hah!) They told me they’d fit me in and sent me to room 237. There was nobody in room 237, but a sign instructed patients to go to waiting room B and wait to be called for. After a half-hour I called the hospital that I was sitting in, on my phone. They were wondering where I was. Me, too. Two days later I got a survey, and there was that question asking
if I would recommend them. Try to get your test results that soon. How about we wait a week or so to see how I’m feeling? But these aren’t really surveys; they are marketing pieces. They reframe your experience by making you think about it in terms of friends and cookies, rather than the things they did that sucked. There are never questions like: On a scale of 1–10, with 10 being the highest, how annoying was our lack of effective organization? On a scale of 1–10, how much like a package at a FedEx distribution center did you feel? Or a really good one: If you had a choice, would you go somewhere else? The health care “surveys” often come before the bills, so they can’t ask: How ethical was charging $10,000 for a colonoscopy, and negotiating it to $1,100 for the insurance company, with 1 being void of principles and 10 being your mother would be so proud. I find myself wondering if these people use their own services, or are there secret hallways for them. It’s obvious that the executives who are in positions to actually make things better at companies like Comcast or AT&T or Bank of America don’t have to queue up in the Peasant Line when they need service; they have people to take care of it for them. Otherwise they’d know how bad things are on the ground for the schmucks that provide the cash flow, and why Susie doesn’t like them very much. n ICON | JULY 2019 | ICONDV.COM | FACEBOOK.COM/ICONDV
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EXHIBITIONS
Arturo Cabrera, Tempest.
Summer Show
Ancient Presence.
Femi J. Johnson: Femi and the Collection Martin Art Gallery Baker Center for the Arts, Muhlenberg College 2400 Chew Street, Allentown PA 484-664-3467 muhlenberg.edu/gallery Through August 1, 2019 This dynamic exhibition showcases Johnson’s expansive artistic practice in the context of eclectic complementary Martin Art Gallery collection works. The gallery has chosen to highlight works from Johnson’s ongoing series, Abstract Story-Scapes. The show draws formal, aesthetic, and conceptual connections with Johnson’s contemporary art practice. Permanent collection artists represented in this exhibition include Richard Anuszkiewcz, Harry Bertoia, AM Debrincat, Valerie Demianchuk, Robert Rauschenberg, and many others. Johnson’s expansive exhibition is complemented by two other solo shows in our Philip Johnson-designed Baker Center for the Arts: Zach Kleemeyer and Emily Strong.
Emly Strong works from Corporeal Landscapes. 6
Bethlehem House Gallery 459 Main St., Bethlehem, PA 610-419-6262 BethlehemHouseGallery.com Through October 5, 2019 Five Year Anniversary Celebration 7/25, 6-9pm Closing reception 10/5, 6-9pm Bethlehem House Gallery celebrates five years on Main Street in Historic Downtown Bethlehem. In twenty exhibitions, more than 2,000 pieces from over 150 artists have been beautifully displayed since opening the gallery doors in 2014. Bethlehem House Gallery thanks the visitors, patrons, friends and family who are dedicated to supporting the arts. The gallery is committed to innovative and inviting exhibits for the Lehigh Valley and surrounding communities. Our friendly and informed staff displays exquisite works of art in an environment that makes you feel right at home.
Domenick Naccarato, Industrial Vignettes No 5
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Chawne Kimber: Cottoning On Grossman Gallery at Lafayette College 243 North Third Street, Easton, PA galleries.lafayette.edu Through July 27 Artist’s Talk: When the Cotton is High: Social Justice and Textiles, 7/9, 7:30, 248 N. 3rd St. (across street)) Chawne Kimber is a celebrated textile artist who uses her medium to respond to current race-related social justice issues, engaging political confrontations in quilt form. Through cultivation of cotton in rural Alabama, some of Kimber’s ancestors (unwillingly) participated in building the U.S. Cotton has been central to the lives of the women in the artist’s family—from picking to ginning to sewing, with quilting emerging as the main mode of self-expression. Inspired by quilts made by these ancestors in the late 1800s, Kimber interprets traditional patchwork in an improvisational style.
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JULY NIGHTLIFE CURATED BY A.D. AMOROSI
7 – BETTER THAN EZRA
10 – TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND
22 – JOHN MAYER
Before their omnipresent 1995 single “Good” hit No. 1, before their debut album Deluxe went double-platinum, before popular shows such as Desperate Housewives licensed their song “Juicy,” before Taylor Swift attested to their timeless appeal by covering their track “Breathless” — New Orleans’ Better Than Ezra was a pop-rock act paying its dues, traveling from town to town in a ramshackle van. Over two decades after the band formed, that vigilance still resonates strongly with the trio, who were finally rewarded after seven years of stubbornly chasing their dreams. World Cafe Live Philadelphia, worldcafelivecom
Every set of young married should be able to hold a happy relationship and create a grungy, jamming,
I happen to think that the years spent with the Dead & Co. touring road show and sidegigs with rap
10 – PETER FRAMPTON
Soon to retire from touring due to health problems, the legendary British singer and guitarist goes deep
blues-rock act such as this flirty couple have fashioned. The Mann Center, manncenter.org 13 – DHANI HARRISON/ELO (WFC)
While Jeff Lynne’s winged, stringed Electric Light Orchestra have been on a reunion tour high since last year, get to this show early for the opening act, Dhani Harrison. This apple falls further from the Beatles’ tree than most children of the Fab Four, and yet his orchestral tones and bent guitar sounds will remind you of George if you close your eyes. Wells Fargo Center, wellsfargocenterphilly.com into his roots one last time for Philly audiences with his new album, All Blues. The Met Philadelphia, themetphilly.com
artists such as the great Mac Miller have given Mayer some necessary funk and grit. Wells Fargo Center, wellsfargocenter.com 23 – THE ROLLING STONES
Check out ICON’s June music feature on everything
16 – BLUEFACE
The rapper with the Ben Franklin tattoo on his face, his weird flow, and “Thotiana” hit plays his first
10 – JIMMIE VAUGHN
The late Stevie Ray’s brother is as intense a soulful bluesman guitarist, with a punk rock heart and a Jagger, Richards & Co. They tell me it’s fantastic. Lincoln Financial Field, lincolnfinancialfield.com 24 & 25 – CHE GUERRERO
One of Philly’s hottest new comedians talks warmly and cuttingly about immigration headaches, old relationships and the problems with his adopted
shows in Philly. The Fillmore Philadelphia, thefillmorephilly.com 17 – ROBYN
The Swedish electro-pop singer with the powerful voice and strng emotions hasn’t played stateside in over a decade. This is an occasion. The Mann Center, manncenter.org 20 – JENNIFER LOPEZ
rockabilly soul for his troubles. Steelstacks, steelstacks.org 8
How much of J-Lo must we explain—she being Latino pop’s most exciting mainstream presence for nearly 30 years? Wells Fargo Center, WellsfargocenterPhilly.com
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city—and he’s recording it LIVE for posterity. Punch Line Philadelphia, punchlinephilly.com
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CINEMATTERS PETE CROATTO
John and Emma.
Baby piglets sleeping in a pile.
The Biggest Little Farm IT IS SOUL-SHREDDING TO read anything about global warming. Every story issues a death sentence for the planet that shrouds the day in dread—especially when the current administration’s response to a genuine crisis is to neuter the Environmental Protection Agency, entrust companies to legislate themselves, and embrace coal. All acts that align with the Trump administration’s open-mouthed logic that the nation stopped excelling after 1950, a time of concentration camps, racism dressed as patriotism, and constant talk of nuclear war. The Biggest Little Farm, the moving, splendid documentary directed by John Chester, offers hope through John and wife Molly’s Apricot Lane Farms, a traditional farm—read: letting the ecosystem do the work. The husband and wife have built 200-plus acres of desolation into an agricultural paradise featuring just about every animal on Noah’s Ark and most types of fruit. The movie, which spans several years, shows the pain in getting a dream off the ground and into the soil, but it provides much-needed inspiration. Molly and John’s path to farming emerges almost by accident. She dreams of owning a farm overflowing with animals and produce that John describes as coming from a children’s book. That dream has a sky-high 10
entrance fee, something the couple (he’s a working filmmaker; she’s a private chef and blogger) lack living in pricey Santa Monica, CA. An eviction notice forces their hand. Their new rescue dog, Todd, barks nonstop when they’re away. John can’t give him up. Where can they go where a dog can act like a dog? The couple gets to work. They call farmers, create a business plan, and land investors who allow them to buy that tract of land about an hour outside Los Angeles. Todd, of course, is thrilled. Instead of a cramped apartment, his home is a backyard. But Molly and John are overwhelmed by reality. The soil is concrete hard: it’s impossible to pierce with a shovel; clumps of dirt don’t break when dropped. The irrigation pond is an arid memory. Weeds overrun land. They hire a consultant named Alan York who specializes in eco-friendly farming, a savior in sandals and breathable clothing. He preaches patience. It’s like surfing, he says: eventually you’ll find the rhythm. But It’s grueling—a simple way of farming, John says, that is difficult. One task gets accomplished, ten more pop up. Catastrophes mount: the chickens lay delicious eggs, but then they start getting killed; crops flourish, but snails devour them. As John and Molly—and a passel of employees
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who look like American Apparel models in coveralls— midwife a pregnant pig and behold the wonders of fly shit, Alan’s spacey rambling makes sense. John notes that if he takes a step back, and thinks for a second, he can see how the parts fit. Coyotes get rid of the gophers; ducks feast on snails. Everything has a purpose if you foster the structure to support it. The breathing, gyrating life of the farm is captured in John Chester’s stunning cinematography. Raindrops cannonball ladybugs off leaves; a hummingbird’s wings flap as it eyes a flower. He mixes in aerial shots showing that green, grand sprawl with close-ups and slow motion, giving us a full scope of just what’s unfolding. The star of the movie is optimism. “Our farm,” John says, “is fueled by the impermanence of life.” The Biggest Little Farm provides practical solace: change took place with a few people. Saving the earth must start with us, even if it’s by voting for candidates who don’t resemble updates on silent film villains. We can’t look for a savior, not with the current administration ignoring scientific data and common sense solutions to fuel its bottomless, delusional self-interest. Molly and John took their unruly corner of the world and made something unrecognizable from the current gloominess. It seems all isn’t lost yet. [PG] n
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FILM ROUNDUP KEITH UHLICH
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (Dir. Martin Scorsese). Documentary. It’s not all true, and, really, what better way to celebrate and interrogate the mercurial icon that is Bob Dylan than by near-fully obliterating the line between truth and falsehood? Director Martin Scorsese primarily utilizes astonishing performance footage (some of which was cut together into Dylan’s lambasted drama Renaldo and Clara) filmed during the 1975-1976 Rolling Thunder Revue tour, during which Dylan assumed the persona (the “mask,” he might say) of a traveling musician/mountebank. But Scorsese also incorporates modern-day interview segments with Dylan and others whose recollections are often suspect, even though presented as cold, hard fact. Sharon Stone drops by as “Sharon Stone,” reminiscing about her time as both Dylan groupie and KISS obsessive. And a certain actor from a certain recurrent Robert Altman project gets to playact his famous failed-politician role one more time. The myriad falsities are treated as givens as opposed to anomalies. (Very 2019.) If there’s any truth to be gleaned it’s from the movie’s wholesale sense that Dylan is performing his life as much as he is his art. [N/R]
HHHHH
The Dead Don’t Die (Dir. Jim Jarmusch). Starring: Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tom Waits. The inimitable Jim Jarmusch throws an end-of-the-world party in this unhurried, very funny, and bracingly bleak horror comedy. In the small town of Centerville, USA, zombies are rising from the grave. It appears to be an irreversible apocalypse, and there’s an all-star cast on the flesh-devouring menu. Par for a Jarmusch movie, the default performative mode is blasé deadpan, something at which Jim J. regular Bill Murray and new recruit Adam Driver (playing sheriff and deputy, respectively) excel. There are also innumerable injokes—hip-hop artist RZA driving up in a “Wu-PS” delivery truck; Tilda Swinton’s alien countenance finally followed through to an (il)logical endpoint—and meta touches (in one scene, two characters debate Jarmusch’s own script). Yet there’s a potent undercurrent of sadness that’s new for Jarmusch, as if he’s using an apparent genre exercise to grapple with his and his generation’s legacy and finding it sorely lacking. If there’s any kind of worthwhile future (and that possibility exists only at the movie’s extreme margins), he won’t live to see it. [R] HHHH The Souvenir (Dir. Joanna Hogg). Starring: Honor Swinton Byrne, Tom Burke, Tilda Swinton. Grim to a fault, British writer-director Joanna Hogg’s semi-auto12
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biographical drama (set in the early 1980s) traces the fraught relationship between film student Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) and Anthony (Tom Burke), a sightly older man hiding his heroin addiction. Each scene plays like a half-remembered fragment, with the movie itself acting as a kind of cumulative mosaic. It’s impressive at times, especially whenever Hogg willfully withholds information (in one scene, Julie discover a drugged-out stranger in her apartment and we’re left to intuit the specifics of how he came to be there) that most versions of this story would put front-and-center. But while the structure is provocative, the film’s monotonous reliance on misery above all else comes to seem like an affectation. It doesn’t help that Swinton Byrne is handily out-acted by her own mother Tilda, brilliant as Julie’s understatedly snobbish parent. [R] HH1/2 The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Dir. Joe Talbot). Starring: Jimmie Fails, Jonathan Majors, Danny Glover. Winner of two prizes at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, this gentrification parable from co-writer and director Joe Talbot bites off a lot more than it can chew. Talbot’s friend and collaborator Jimmie Fails stars as a fictionalized version of himself—an African-American San Franciscan obsessed with the home he grew up in, a place his family lost due to discriminatory urban renewal policies. Jimmie’s best friend, aspiring playwright Montgomery (Jonathan Majors),
Jonathan Majors and Jimmie Fails. Photo: Peter Prato-A24
joins him in a quixotic quest to take ownership of the home, and as Jimmie’s own moral failings come to light, their friendship is tested. Talbot helms much of the movie in an irritatingly twee-indie style that comes perilously close to socially-conscious Wes Anderson. (And it doesn’t help that Fails’ screen presence lives up to his last name.) Whatever is moving in the tale comes via Majors (particularly excellent when he finally confronts Jimmie for his fibs and falsehoods), as well as the seasoned supporting performers—Tichina Arnold, Rob Morgan and Danny Glover—who play Jimmie and Montgomery’s family members. They all lend a pathos and poignance for which the film otherwise strains. [R] HH n ICON | JULY 2019 | ICONDV.COM | FACEBOOK.COM/ICONDV
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REEL NEWS
Transit.
DVDS REVIEWED BY GEORGE OXFORD MILLER
High Life (Directed by Claire Denis; starring Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Scarlett Lindsay). Like the Australian delicacy Vegemite, critics and viewers either love this movie or really, really hate it. First, you have to like sci-fi stories with as much allegory as grist. Then you have to endure a ricocheting, non-linear timeline steeped with as many existential dilemmas as real threats, not to mention extended periods with little dialogue and less action, and others filled with violence and gore. If you pass these tests, and trust director Claire Denis to deliver her usual complex and bizarre treatment, you won’t be disappointed. The concept here is a deep space mission racing at 99 percent the speed of light toward a black hole. The six passengers are death row inmates serving their life sentences onboard the doomed vessel as part of an experiment that could save the human race from extinction. Besides an experiment to harness black-hole energy, the demented Dr. Dibs (Binoche) conducts human reproduction-space experiments that involve ovaries, semen, artificial insemination, and inevitably all the human complications the human sexual psyche and parenting involves. We 14
enter the story with the last surviving passenger Monte (Pattinson) caring for his baby daughter Willow (Lindsey), the flawed but successful result of Dr. Dibs at work. Flashbacks eventually recount the tormented backstories and tragic fates of the crew members, the exploitive experimentation, how Monte and Willow managed to survive, and what their survival means, if anything. [R] HHHH Transit (directorChristian Petzold; starring Franz Rogowski, Paula Beer, Lilien Batman, Maryam Zaree). Based on a 1944 novel by Jewish-German refugee Anna Seghers, Transit takes us “back to the future.” It’s set in Nazi France, but without swastikas. It could be today’s polarized world still groping in the long shadow of Nazi fascism, or maybe even a dystopian future pre-ordained by past atrocities. As in World War II France, people use manual typewriters and have no smartphones, yet CCTV surveillance covers the city, modern cars crowd the streets, and the storm troopers look like modern riot police responding to yet another mass shooting. We have one foot in a tragic historical period and the other in the pres-
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ent with the ongoing saga of domestic terrorism and refugees fleeing threat of death in their war-torn homelands. The edgy effect makes us more attuned to the plot issues and their relevance in society today. We first met Georg (Rogowski) in a Paris café. As sirens wail threateningly in the distance, he receives illicit migration papers to deliver to a leftist writer and his wife. Georg avoids the police sweep only to find the author in his apartment dead of suicide. The thriller-like action escalates as Georg flees to Marseilles to use the writer’s papers to board a ship to Mexico. In the course of events, he meets and falls in love with the writer’s estranged wife, Marie (Beer) who doesn’t know her husband is dead, or that Georg has her travel papers. The tension builds as Georg and Marie, and hundreds of other refugees, attempt to book passage on the ship with a limited capacity. In French and German with English subtitles. [NR] HHHHH
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INTERVIEW
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A.D. AMOROSI
he gospel “
[IN THE ’80S] REAGAN WAS EVERYBODY’S HAPPY BELOVED GRANDFATHER/COWBOY TO YOUR FACE, BUT BEHIND YOU, HE WAS A CRIMINAL DESTROYING THE WORLD. WE HAD TO SHINE A LIGHT ON THAT, THAT AMERICAN IDEALS WERE NOT BEING LOOKED AFTER. NOW, IT’S DIFFERENT. NOTHING IS HIDDEN. THE CRIMES ARE UP FRONT EVERY DAY.
”
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according to
Steven Van Zandt BY NOW, IT’S NO secret that Little Steven Van Zandt is Bruce Springsteen’s consigliere, the Peter to his Paul, the Boss’ bandleader and primary temperature-taker when it comes to all musical matters and comings and goings on E Street. There has, however, been the other Steven Van Zandt, several really, that existed before he became part of Springsteen’s band that allowed the guitarist-producer-songwriter entrance into Bruce’s inner circle from the Asbury Park start. As Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes’ primary auteur, it was Van Zandt’s poignant mix of rock n’ roll, doo-wop and R&B that fueled that team’s first three albums—a roaring, soaring sound and song list that eventually was re-recorded by Little Steven & his Disciples of Soul on his first solo album since 1999, Soulfire. Upon touring that same LP across the country, Little Steven came up and out with the four-LP Soulfire Live package that included dozens of vintage funk and R&B covers, an appearance from Springsteen and more; all of this a precursor to the release of Van Zandt’s first album of original songs in 20 years, Summer Of Sorcery. To go with Summer, Van Zandt is also releasing his two separate soundtracks to Lilyhammer, a 2011 English/Norwegian series he starred in, co-wrote and acted as executive producer on as a Sopranos-like former Mafioso who enters the witness protection program. Because you can run but never truly hide, not only will Van Zandt see a younger version of himself via The Sopranos origin tale from creator David Chase in the upcoming The Many Saints of Newark film, he’ll record (then tour in 2020) with Springsteen and the E-Street crew as Bruce has recently completed enough songs for a new album. None of this happens, however, before Van Zandt & his Disciples of Soul play the Keswick Theatre on July 11 and State Theatre in Easton on July 26. Beyond having performed as Silvio Dante in HBO’s The Sopranos and Frank “The Fixer” Tagliano in Netflix’s Lilyhammer, he’s long curated his Sirius XM radio channel, Underground Garage, with the very best of new and vintage garage rock from around the globe. He produced a theatrical musical, The Rascals: Once Upon a Dream, with his boyhood heroes for Broadway and beyond. “I’m a helluva guy. What can I say?” he said with a laugh when asked about his busy schedule and his deep connection to fans. “I’m a working-class celebrity. It’s a job that I do, which is nothing more special than any other job anyone else does. I even go to an office.” I’ve talked with Little Steven several times since Soulive’s release. When we last spoke, he told me about the new writing he had committed to paper on the psychedelic Summer of Sorcery— and even in its larval stage, it sounded like a gem. It’s been a minute since you’ve toured under your own name, and now suddenly, you can’t stop. As you’re going along, what have you learned about yourself and your songs? I knew it was going to take a few years and a few albums to make that transformation back to
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Photo: John Kirkby / The Sun Glasgow.
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FOODIE FILE A.D. AMOROSI
White Dog Café, Wayne.
Where to Take Your Dog to Lunch Dining out with your pooch
Vault Brewing Company, Yardley.
White Dog Café, Haverford.
The Hamilton Kitchen, Allentown. 18
IF LIKE MY WIFE and me, you don’t have children, your dog happily becomes your whole life, the center of your existence. Then again, I have a funny feeling that even if we did have kids, Django—our famed greyhound—would hold sway over any possible child as he is so darned charming. What that means, is that we do nearly everything out of our house with our dog: shop and do errands with our dog, head to work with our dog. And naturally, that also includes dining out with our dog. Fortunately, a slew of restaurateurs and bar owners have recently figured out that my wife and I are not alone—that dogs make fine company at restaurants, often more friendly than any human dining partners—and that many dog lovers feel and act similarly to us. Red Owl Tavern/Square 1682 Connected to the Kimpton Hotel Monaco in Old City, this is the crème de la crème for the pooch set. Not only is a dog grooming station and a tonsorial consultant usually on hand to pamper your canine, the chef has weekly specials made fresh such as the Doggy’s Dream with bacon and short rib. Hey, I’ll eat that. While a portion of the cost of your drinks benefits Lulu’s Rescue, there are often adoptable dogs on display in case you don’t have one to share a meal with you. The same adopt-ability and drinks donation (to the no-kill Operation Ava shelter) is true of Kimpton Hotel Palomar’s downtown boite, Square 1682, off Rittenhouse. And they, too, have weekly meal specials for your pooch. The one thing that is different from 1682 and Red Owl is that the former has a monthly BYOD Brunch and that the latter has nightly Yappy Hours. Man, is that cute. Plus, both hotels are pet-friendly, just in case you both have too much kibble and need to sleep it off. redowltavern.com and square1682.com Four Dogs Tavern/White Dog Café Oh, see, this isn’t even fair—a West Chester bar and grille, built into an aged stable, is serving reasonablypriced New American brasserie fare and is favorable to canine customers and is named Four Dogs. Dag. The same thing is true of Judy Wicks’ legendary University City eatery. Not only are there dog tiles and dog paintings on every wall and sconce, there are statues of schnauzers at its doors, and dogs eat at
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Django Amorosi at Kimpton Hotel Monaco, Phila PA Photo ©Reese Amorosi
outdoor tables with their person friends while being served meaty treats. Woof. thefourdogstavern.com and whitedog.com The Hamilton Kitchen & Bar One of Allentown’s most prominent white linen cocktail bars and seasonal American salons has a lovely patio which offers dogs their own water bowls—which is probably better than offering them cocktails. thehamiltonkitchen.com Otto’s Brauhaus Here is a designer wiener house that sells meals to wiener pups or hot dogs to real dogs. But, the bratwurst toast of Horsham surely keeps things on the up and up and offer its pooch customers the most loving care. ottosbrauhauspa.com The Vault Brewing Company Yardley’s tapas, pizza, and craft beer gastropub is not only dog conscious on its outdoor deck, but they also feature live jazz on the regular deck. Dogs and jazz? Why don’t I just move in? vaultbrewing.com The Trestle Inn The eye of the Callowhill-Eraserhood neighborhood hosts dog-friendly happy hours to support Build the Rail Park. Plus, the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society is always around during happy hour with dogs ready for adoption. And it’s got the vintage go-go bar feel. A win-win-win for everyone and every dog. thetrestleinn.com n
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POP A.D. AMOROSI
Bundling & Branding Tying travel to concerts
Blondie. Photo: Press Here Now.
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T A TIME WHEN entrepreneurs and enterprises, even the savviest brands, are looking for ways to bundle its goods and those of their closest collaborators, it’s no surprise to see concert agencies and hotels in bed together. The most recent pairing finds this city’s concert controller, Live Nation, and the tourist-focused Visit Philadelphia under the sheets for a first-of-its-kind Visit Philly Live Nation Hotel Package for concertgoers attending shows at four major venues in Philly, including the brand new Met Philadelphia, and hotels such as 3600 Walnut’s The Inn at Penn, Hilton Hotel, and the Wyndham Philadelphia Historic District Hotel. Carrying into autumn of 2019 (so far), you can find $230 of perks, prizes, and freebies (courtesy of this travel-concert-hangout experience) if you check into the Visit Philly website, and find the shows, concert venues, and closest hotels. You can, say, book the Elvis Costello and The Imposters & Blondie on Saturday, July 27 at the BB&T Pavilion in Camden, and stay at the neighboring Wyndham in Old City Philly, which happens to be a ferry away. You can catch “How Did This Get Made?” on Tuesday, July 23
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Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend performing at the Desert Trip festival in California, in 2016 Photo: Kevin Mazur
at The Met, and book a room at several Broad Street hotels—and get free hotel, venue parking, and early access for crowd-free merchandise shopping. “The Visit Philly Live Nation Hotel Package is more than just the combination of an unforgettable show with an awesome overnight stay in a great city. It’s also the collaboration of two preeminent brands, Live Nation and Visit Philadelphia,” said Geoff Gordon, regional president of Live Nation Entertainment. “The hotel package makes a fan’s experience even better and more memorable before, during, and after the show.” The package kicked off with a stay at Broad Street’s Double Tree Hotel and a sports stadium’s one-two punch with gigs from Billy Joel (Friday, May 24) and The Who (Saturday, May 25) at the Phillies ballpark, Citizens Bank Park. To say that any night with The Who is majestic is undoubtedly true: a star-filled night sky with a cool breeze and Roger Daltrey and Peter Townshend reliving their biggest hits and deepest cuts with a fullon orchestra—the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, featuring violinist Katie Jacoby and cellist Audrey Snyder, and conducted by Andrew Lipke. Turning their holy-rolling hit “Behind Blue Eyes” into a chamber-rocking epic, with the winged, stringed aid of Jacoby and Snyder, was a stroke of genius.
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Ragged (both Townshend and Daltrey are in their mid-70s and showing every inch of wear and tear), but righteous (they sounded amazing), the show opened with seven theatrical songs from 1969’s deaf, dumb, and blind boy rock opera Tommy, touched on rarities such as “Tea & Theatre,” from 2006’s Endless Wire (The Who’s most recent album, with a new one promised from the stage) and found its centerpieces dueting, acoustically on “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” and closed with another seven songs form another of its operas, 1973’s cascading Quadrophenia, only here performed with the sort of soaring strings and rich brass that Townshend’s multiple personality song cycle always begged for (for those who couldn’t make it to this Citizens Bank Park Show, a new live Daltrey solo album The Who’s Tommy Orchestral via Polydor on June 14, is a nice taste). Though there were riches (and glitches) to be found within that long setlist, when pared to the bone—a core quartet of Townshend, Daltrey, longtime drummer (and Ringo Starr’s son) Zak Starkey and bassist Jon Button—The Who made it into something punkish, magical and pure with the likes of “Substitute” and “I Can See for Miles.” Hotel package or not, The Who created their own travelogue spectacle. Besides, who could sleep after that raging experience? n
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JAZZ, ROCK, CLASSICAL, ALT MARK KERESMAN
Wes Montgomery HHHHH Wes’s Best: The Best of Wes Montgomery on Resonance Resonance Wes Montgomery (1923-1968) was one of the finest jazz guitarists of his day and is still a major presence today—guitarists that’ve passed through his shadow include George Benson (especially), Kevin Eubanks, Larry Coryell, Pat Metheny and Pat Martino. Montgomery’s style was based on Charlie Christian and his distinctive
guitars and amiably sardonic singing could be an outtake from Abbey Road. The idyllic rocker “Dandelions” has a diaphanous vocal chorus that’ll take you places the aforementioned bands took you, judicious touches of psychedelia and all.
Ken Stringfellow.
style was in part due to his use of his thumb instead of a guitar pick—and it didn’t hurt that he could swing like nobody’s business. Resonance Records specializes in releases that collect previously unissued/archival recordings (from mostly live sources) and have thus far gifted the world with six Montgomery sets. Of the three main phases of his career—the straight-ahead bebop of the Riverside era, the Verve Records era, and the A&M pop-crossover days—these recordings fall squarely in the first category, along with a few rarities from the late ’40s and the mid-’50s. Wes mixes it up with his brothers Monk and Buddy as well as such aces as Wynton Kelly—but the joy is hearing WM honing his style and sampling his artistry in a slightly more rough-hewn form. No, not sloppy—just missing that studio smoothness of his ’60s studio sessions and highlighting a certain rambunctiousness. For those wondering where to start with the Resonance sets or Wes M’s considerable catalog—or those on a budget—as well as the smitten, Wes’s Best is as good as it gets. (12 tracks, 67 min.) resonancerecords.org Salt HHH1/2 The Loneliness of Clouds Beehive There a few musical entities dedicated to the premise that rock music can be smart and fun along with melodiously catchy. Salt is one such—a French-American combo helmed by Ken Stringfellow (The Posies) and Anton Barbeau. Loneliness is a set of songs that evoke the classy progressive pop of The Beatles (circa 1969-70), XTC (circa Oranges and Lemons), The Loud Family, Procol Harum and Supertramp. “Miracle Soul Powder” with its assertive beat, chunky and densely chiming 22
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“Shiny Leather Sun” is what people used to call “trippy” with its overlapping voices, swirling sound effects, insinuating melody and omniscient-sounding singing—this could be an escapee from the Yellow Submarine soundtrack. Some might carp about the lack of originality—but these lads have their own (fascinating) ways to take classic elements of/from chapters of rock history in which welcoming, memorable melodies and broadminded/experimental aspects were not mutually exclusive. (10 songs, 41 min.) salt-the-band.com Bill Frisell/Thomas Morgan HHHH1/2 Epistrophy ECM Guitarist Bill Frisell has proven his mettle many, many times before, both as a leader and accompanist—the latter with folks disparate as Elvis Costello, Paul Simon, John Zorn, Paul Motian, and many others. Some have described Frisell’s unique style as “Jim Hall on acid” and that’s a fair (over)simplification. BF has a dreamy, bell-like tone—unlike many jazz six-stringers, Frisell builds on the foundations of Hall and Wes Montgomery with electronic effects (reverb, delay) as well as absorbing inspiration from rock, country music, movie music, the avant-garde, whatever—he’s recorded a John Lennon tribute album and albums of jazz standards, scored silent films of Buster Keaton and Fatty Arbuckle, and collaborated with country musicians and jazz icons such as Elvin Jones. Epistrophy, recorded live at NYC’s legendary Village Vanguard and accompanied only by acoustic bassist Thomas Morgan, is in a small way a retrospective of BF’s career. This duo serves up tunes by Thelonious Monk, classic American pop songs (Sinatra’s “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning”; The Drifters’ “Save the Last Dance for Me”), and film music (John Barry’s theme for the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice). If hard
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swing you seek, not found here—but there is exquisite musicianship and subtle inspired interplay aplenty (two fellows playing for themselves and the audience). The vibe here is moody, subdued, contemplative, the sonic quality aces back-to-back. (9 tracks, 69 min.) ecmrecords.com
Dementia spans 1941-1962 and it’s like falling down a rabbit hole into a surreal estate wherein Frank Zappa, Duke Ellington, and Carl Stalling (composer of classic Warner Brothers cartoon music) collaborate on the soundtrack. (21 tracks, 75 min.) bridgerecords.com
Harry Partch HHHHH Sonata Dementia: Music of Harry Partch Vol. 3 Bridge American composer Harry Partch (1901-1974) belongs to the American Maverick tradition. In this context, American Mavericks refers to those starting out as classical music composers (based in the EuroAmerican notated traditions), but at some juncture veered from those origins and blazed their own paths
Chick Corea & The Spanish Heart Band HHHH Antidote Concord Jazz The fingers of jazz pianist Chick Corea have been in many proverbial pies over the decades—bandmember of/for Mongo Santamaria, Miles Davis, and Stan Getz; leader of several fine piano trio sessions, the avant-garde combo Circle (w/ Anthony Braxton), duets with vibes master Gary Burton, and assorted
Harry Partch. Photo: Darren Chesworth.
(usually getting attention/renown only after dying): George Antheil, Charles Ives, Lou Harrison, and of course, Harry Partch. Partch felt the Western notated musical tradition wasn’t all it was cracked up to be and so invented his own. He established his own system of notation—simply put, standard Western tuning uses twelve equal intervals to the octave, but HP wrote with scales dividing the octave into 43 unequal tones. To play this music he altered or rebuilt regular instruments such as guitar, marimba and viola, but mostly devised many instruments from objects he’d found in junkyards. Some of Partch’s music vaguely resembles traditional musics of East Asia (and occasionally West African percussion), but there is a uniquely American sensibility at work. The vocal and theatrical aspects of Partch’s compositions evoke Woody Guthrie (HP was a hobo during the Great Depression), and Mark Twain (droll, irreverent). Sonata
varieties of fusion with his band Return to Forever. One constant (aside from change) in his career has been the inspiration of Spanish music(s), from the flamenco sounds of Spain to Afro-Cuban-derived salsa to the plethora of styles from Central and South America. At age 77 Corea pays homage of sorts to (nearly) all of the aforementioned accompanied by players from Spain, Cuba, Venezuela and the good ol’ USA. Plus we get vocal guest shots by Ruben Blades, Maria Bianca and Gayle Moran Corea (wife). Needless to say, this is not for fuddy-duddy “purists” nor for those seeking amped-up fusion nor straightahead jazz—Corea and company combine facets of (inter)national sounds with the joy of a master chef cooking-up variations on his/her fave recipes. “Armando’s Rhumba” has a gregarious rhumba rhythm (what else?) carrying along Afro-Cuban-flavored, punchy bebop and a sultry, oh-so-nimble flamenco guitar solo. Throughout Corea’s piano solos are relatively brief but are oh-so sweet to hear—as well it should be, as he is one of jazz’s most lyrical pianists (think post-1966 and onwards). Antidote, with its bright, lilting melodies and varied and ebullient rhythms, lives up to its title in/for these most stressful times. (11 tracks, 73 min.) concordjazz.com n ICON | JULY 2019 | ICONDV.COM | FACEBOOK.COM/ICONDV
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JAZZ LIBRARY BOB PERKINS
BILLY TAYLOR
Billy Taylor in 1947. Photo: Library of Congress.
FITTING THE LIQUID CONTENTS of a quart-size bottle into a pint-size container, would be as neat a trick as capturing the life and times of Dr. Billy Taylor with little more than 600 words. But even a thumbnail sketch of the jazz giant that was Billy Taylor might be a revelation for those who don’t know about his rich jazz history. Billy Edward Taylor was born July 24, 1921, in Greenville, N.C. The family moved to Washington, D.C. when Taylor was still in short pants. His father was a dentist and his mother, a school teacher. He started piano lessons at age seven, progressed nicely over the years and ultimately enrolled at 24
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what is now known as Virginia State University, graduating with a degree in music in 1942. Taylor moved to New York two years later and began playing professionally; his first major job was on New York’s famed 52nd in Ben Webster’s quartet. His first night on the job he met the great pianist Art Tatum, who became an unofficial mentor. Following an extended tour of Europe, he returned to New York, and played piano at the Royal Roost, and in 1949 landed the job of house pianist at Birdland, backing Charlie Parker, J.J. Johnson, Stan Getz and Dizzy Gillespie, to name a few established and rising jazz celebrities, and he held that position, longer than any other pianist. Taylor formed his own small groups in succeeding years, and during the 1950s and ’60s, recorded a good number of albums. He was also a successful DJ at two radio stations in New York City, and at one became its program director for several years. In the mid-1960s, Taylor established Jazzmobile, a mobile unit and a flatbed, from which musicians played jazz, introducing the music to people in various neighborhood through the city. Some years later, Jazzmobile produced a jazz special for National Public Radio, for which the program received a Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting. Next came a Taylor foray into television, as musical director for the David Frost Show—becoming the first African-American to front a talk-show band. In 1981, Taylor was hired by CBS Sunday Morning as a correspondent, and conducted interviews with musicians and others involved in the arts. His feature pieces became an integral part of the popular program. Taylor ultimately formed his own Taylor Made record label, in which he could highlight some of the more than 300 songs he’d written—then add in the hundreds of albums on which his name has appeared as a leader or sideman, and there’s enough stuff to cover a couple of lifetimes…but there’s still more, having to do with the culmination and recognition of all this talent: Along the course of his long career, Billy Taylor found time to become Dr. Billy Taylor, holder of a doctorate in music from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He has been the recipient of some 20 honorary doctoral degrees, two Peabody Awards, an NEA Jazz Masters Award, an Emmy, Down Beat’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and earned the National Medal of the Arts. I once hosted a music program on an NPR station in Philly, at which Dr. Taylor also hosted the syndicated program Jazz Alive. His show came on a couple hours before mine, but I’d tune in before I went on, to take notes and be inspired. If you’d like to hear Taylor at his best, try Live at the MCG (the Manchester Craftsman’s Guild) with Gerry Mulligan. Billy Taylor passed away on December 28, 2010, at the age of 89. His legacy will undoubtedly be around for quite a spell. n
Bob Perkins is a writer and host of an all-jazz radio program that airs on WRTI-FM 90.1. Listen to Bob Mon–Thurs from 6–9p.m. & Sunday 9–1.
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harper’s FINDINGS
INDEX
A new climate model that extensively cross-references atmospheric modeling with sedimentary records indicates that surface temperatures never exceeded modern preindustrial levels by more than 2º C in the past 2.6 million years. A rise to 1,200 parts per million of atmospheric CO2, which will be reached around 2100 a.d. at current emissions trends, may disrupt the formation of stratocumulus clouds, whose loss would result in an additional 8º C of warming globally and 10º C in the subtropics. Swansea University’s Tree Ring Research Group found that climate warming has increased cloud cover over northern Scandinavia, which has in turn lowered local temperatures, and snowfall, acting as a blanket, is further warming the Arctic. Scientists from the United States and the United Kingdom attempted to reconcile highly divergent assumptions about snow cover and cloud behavior to better compare differing climate-change models. Sulfur aerosols emitted by trans-Arctic shipping, which is newly feasible because of sea-ice disappearance, will offset local warming by −1º C by 2099. Passing airplanes can cause a tenfold increase in precipitation. Chinese researchers identified two periods of heavy precipitation hundreds of years ago as the cause of mass die-offs among penguins.
Number of tickets issued by the New York Police Department for sex in public parks in 2007 : 432 Number it issued last year : 6 Percentage by which membership at Planet Fitness gyms has increased since 2010 : 443 Number of times per year that Planet Fitness gyms offer free pizza or bagels : 24 Percentage of Filipinos who say they like American cuisine : 93 Of Americans who do : 91 Median percentage approval rating worldwide of U.S. leadership : 31 Of Chinese leadership : 34 No. of EU countries that have agreed to participate in China’s Belt and Road infrastructure project : 15 Portion of the Académie Francaise, the official authority on the French language, who are female : 1/9 Who are non-white : 1/36 Average amount per student by which predominantly white U.S. school districts receive more funding than non-white districts : $2,226 Percentage increase in the number of U.S. college admissions consultants since 2005 : 400 Portion of U.S. parents who say they would pay someone to take an admissions test to get their children into a “good college” : 1/3 Who say they would pay college officials directly : 1/4 % of self-identified U.S. liberals who say it’s acceptable to “stretch the truth” on résumés to get hired : 31 Of self-identified U.S. conservatives : 19 Percentage of male U.S. employees who prefer higher pay to job perks like free lunches, happy hours, or additional paid time off : 15 Of female U.S. employees : 34 Percentage of U.S. workers who plan on postponing retirement because of financial concerns : 52 Percentage by which abusing a voodoo doll of one’s boss lowers feelings of “injustice” among employees : 33 Average % win for a presidential administration in court cases involving the adoption of new regulations: 69 Percentage win rate for the Trump Administration, through March : 5.6 % change in annual visitors to the National Portrait Gallery since the Obamas’ portraits were unveiled : +76 Percentage by which a selfie makes one’s nose look larger than it is : 30 Percentage of facial plastic surgeons who say their patients are motivated by social media : 57 Percentage decline in climate-change coverage from 2017 to 2018 on U.S. broadcast television news : 45 Ratio of the no. of record-high temperatures in the contiguous U.S. from 1999 to 2018 to record lows : 2:1 Rank of last winter in the contiguous United States among the wettest in recorded history : 1 Portion of Americans aged 18 to 29 who think climate change should be taken into account when deciding to have children : 2/5 Percentage decrease from 1973 to 2017 in the size of the average American household : 15.6 Percentage increase in the square footage of living space per person over that same period : 88 Est number of homes that would need to be built annually in California to keep up with population growth : 180,000 Average number of homes that have been built there each year since 2007 : 80,000 Estimated minimum number of new Bay Area millionaires that will be created this year from tech I.P.O.s : 5,000 Percentage increase last year in venture-capital investment in A.I. startups : 72 Percentage of U.S. newspaper circulation accounted for by papers owned by investment groups in 2004 : 2 Today : 20 Average number of seconds by which adults fall asleep more quickly if they are rocked: 398
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Between 1984 and 2013, the number of thaw slumps recorded in a 27,000-square-mile area of Arctic permafrost increased from 63 to 4,077. Four fifths of ice from marginal Arctic seas now melts before it can join the transpolar drift, though the North Atlantic Oscillation is temporarily slowing the melting of Greenland’s Jakobshavn Glacier. A British Antarctic research station was forced to relocate because a large section of the Brunt Ice Shelf was close to splitting away from Antarctica; the shelf ’s calving, however, is the result of natural processes rather than anthropogenic climate change. The melting of the Khumbu Glacier is exposing the corpses of dead climbers on Mount Everest, and recent snowmelts have set off a series of small earthquakes in the Sierra Nevadas. Geological evidence collected at Wyoming’s Lake of the Woods, Little Windy Hill Pond, and Rainbow Lake indicates Arctic warming in the Holocene diminished rainfall in the middle latitudes. Canada has been warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, and by 2080, the local climates of North American cities will shift by an average of more than 500 miles. U.S. residents— among whom white people are disproportionately responsible for carbon output as compared with African Americans, who disproportionately suffer the ill effects—were found to prefer indoor climate control that mimics the weather of northeastern Africa.
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Marine heat waves are luring tropical species as far up the Pacific coast as Oregon and have less negative effects on Shark Bay dolphins who use sponges to hunt than on those who do not. After two successive years of coral bleaching, larval recruitment declined by 89 percent on the Great Barrier Reef. It is likely now impossible to avoid an order-of-magnitude decline in the volume of habitable water for shelled organisms in southern oceans. Warming seas, acidified by further carbon uptake, will capture less carbon in part because of the smaller number of dead marine animals that will turn into “marine snow.” A billion more people will be exposed to mosquito-borne diseases in the next half-century, and mosquitoes will start evolving faster, although the Skrillex song “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” may provide a way to disrupt mosquito reproduction. A male Tyrannosaurus rex who died in his early thirties is now the heaviest known predatory dinosaur. Donald Trump claimed that the sound of windharvesting turbines causes cancer. 26
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“Harper’s Index” is a registered trademark. SOURCES: 1,2 NYPD Office of the Deputy Commissioner, Public Information (NYC); 3,4 Planet Fitness (Hampton, N.H.); 5,6 YouGov (NYC); 7,8 Gallup (Atlanta); 9 Peterson Institute for Int’l Economics (Washington); 10,11 Académie franCaise (Paris); 12 EdBuild (Jersey City, N.J.); 13 Independent Educational Consultants Association (Fairfax, Va.); 14−17 YouGov (NYC); 18,19 Wrike (San Jose, Calif.); 20 MetLife (NYC); 21 Douglas Brown, University of Waterloo (Canada); 22 David Zaring, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia); 23 Bethany Davis Noll, Institute for Policy Integrity, New York University School of Law; 24 National Portrait Gallery (Washington); 25 Boris Paskhover, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (Newark); 26 American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (Alexandria, Va.); 27 Media Matters for America (Washington); 28 Associated Press (NYC); 29 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Asheville, N.C.); 30 Business Insider (NYC); 31,32 American Enterprise Institute (Washington); 33,34 California Department of Housing and Community Development (Sacramento); 35 Compass (San Francisco); 36 PricewaterhouseCoopers (Washington); 37,38 Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media, U.N.C. School of Media and Journalism (Chapel Hill, N.C.); 39 WEPA Group (Bolton, England).
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8 | NIGHTLIFE
26 – THE ASSOCIATION
3 – QUEEN + ADAM LAMBERT
The breezy melodies and three-part harmonies of the band that made “Windy” and “Along Came Mary” famous sound as great now, as they did in the ’60s and ’70s. Sellersville Theatre, st94.com
Did you see Bohemian Rhaposdy? If not, just take out Remi Malik, put in the guy from American Idol,
30 – IRON MAIDEN
The Freddie Kruger of sludgy thrash metal returns. Wells Fargo Center, Wellsfargocenter.com
AUGUST 2 – THE CHAINSMOKERS
The 21st century’s most lyrically obnoxious, synthshake and stir. Wells Fargo Center, wellsfargocenterphilly.com 4 – LADY ANTEBELLUM
“We couldn’t go away for almost two years and come back with a copycat of something else,” says Hillary Scott. “We had to do something fresh and
sequenced EDM pop bands can’t help itself when it comes to contagious melodies. Steelstacks, steelstacks.org 3 – STEVE MILLER BAND
The Joker, the Smoker, the Midnight Toker and the Space Cowboy who speaks of the “pompatus of
different.” And so, for their new album, Heart Break—the seventh release from Scott and her bandmates Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood, and their first new music since 2014’s 747—the seventime GRAMMY award-winners decided to try a new approach. Steelstacks, steelstacks.org 5 – WEEZER
For all their smart-ass snark and wiseguy punk pop, Weezer is quickly becoming the best and most
love” still plays a mean, down-tempo blues lick. Steelstacks, steelstacks.org 28
earnest Toto cover band on the planet. Steelstacks, steelstacks.org n
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14 | REEL NEWS
The Aftermath (director James Kent; starring Keira Knightley, Jason Clarke, Alexander Skarsgård). Though totally predictable (but so are sports movies) and overly melodramatic from the first railway depot scene to the last, this period melodrama captures the angst and raw emotions of post World War II Germany. Occupied by British reconstruction troops, bombed-out Hamburg is in shambles with Nazi sympathizers lurking behind every rubble pile. Surrounded by suffering and chaos, the empathetic British Colonel Lewis Morgan (Clarke) strives to maintain peace and restore order to the once-proud and beautiful seat of commerce and culture. British Command requisitions the undamaged luxurious mansion and country estate of a famous German architect Stephen Lubert (Skarsgård) for Morgan and his wife Rachael (Knightley). When Morgan learns that Lubert’s wife died when the Allies bombed Hamburg, he sympathetically allows the architect and his teenage daughter to remain as housekeepers. Meanwhile Morgan and Rachael’s marriage collapses from the grief of their son’s death during the German blitz of London. So, Rachael hates Germans and Lubert hates the British, except when they shoot covert glances to each other. You can guess the rest. The cliché “love finds a way” is twisted here to “grief finds a way.” The three sympathetic leads each wrestle with their heart-rending grief and anger as they search for solace one day at a time. [R] HHH Little Woods (director Nia DaCosta; starring Tessa Thompson, Lily James, Luke Kirby). When the fracking boom hit Little Woods, North Dakota, workers flooded in chasing the big wages. The locals, especially the uneducated, unskilled, and the women, who miss the hiring boom have to scrap by on minimum wages as prices skyrocket. Deb (James) is stuck in a dead-end job as a diner waitress. Her half-sister Ollie (Thompson) survives by hustling oxy from Canada for her sick mother and the men on the rigs who can pay big for literally a pain-free day. Ollie gets busted, serves her time, and comes out determined to go straight. With one week left on her probation, the bank forecloses on their house and gives the sisters one week to pay off the mortgage. Deb can’t help, she’s pregnant by her abusive, deadbeat husband (Kirby). Having a baby without insurance costs five figures and the closest abortion clinic, 300 miles away, might as well be on another planet. Ollie scrapes by selling coffee and breakfast tacos to rig workers from her truck. The sisters’ health and debt options came down to, well nothing. You get the picture, this is not a feel-good movie. Yet, it’s powerful, empathetic, and intensely thought provoking. It’s a treatise about life in the underbelly of progress where those left behind are tossed aside with less care than the weekly garbage pickup. The sisters find that any chance of survival takes self determination, doing instead of hoping, and relying on the power of family love. [R] HHHH n
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16 | STEVEN VAN ZANDT
being a front man, so right now I’m just a presenter. I’m presenting this music— some new, some old—and this wonderful band. I couldn’t have hoped for more enthusiasm along the way. The audiences have been extraordinary, seriously, especially considering that the bulk of them don’t know too many of my songs. So, they’re coming out of curiosity, or they’re Sopranos fans, or Lilyhammer, or Underground Garage, or the E-Street Band. Maybe a few Southside Johnny fans where some of Soulive’s songs come from. Maybe they’re coming out of respect. Either way, we’re winning them over song-by-song which is extremely satisfying. So it’s odd. Yes, especially when you figure that no one tours so extensively without ever having a hit. Seriously. It’s not as if the audience is sitting there, waiting for the classic single, or that one big smash. It’s not coming. Artistically and spiritually, It feels good to do this, as this is the way I can be most useful, emphasizing our common ground, rather than the separation that’s going on in the world. We’re leaving behind partisan politics and concentrating on pure music. Our audience needs this with all the division just to get us through the day. Plus, I’m becoming more comfortable fronting a band; It’s a big journey from sideman to frontman. Like climbing a mountain. I should add that partisan politics got you in trouble in the first place, as the earliest parts of your solo career found you railing against all injustice. You were undeniably political on albums such as “Freedom - No Compromise.” Oh yeah, proudly so. I was the political guy. I made a point of that. When you came to see my show, you knew where I stood; It was going to be a political rally. It’s been an adjustment from that now, going forward with this tour.
Photo: Björn Olsson.
Steven Van Zandt as Frank “The Fixer” Tagliano in Lilyhammer.
Because the entire world is politics now, 24/7. Exactly. I don’t think we need that now. It was perfect for the ‘80s because there was so much going on behind the scenes. Reagan was everybody’s happy beloved grandfather/cowboy to your face, but behind you, he was a criminal destroying the world. We had to shine a light on that, that American ideals were not being looked after. Now, it’s different. Nothing is hidden. The crimes are up front every day. We
adjusted because talking about politics feels redundant, so let’s put music first— me as a songwriter, arranger, singer, and guitarist. How does the material breathe differently when played live—or on “Soulfire Live!”—than when you first wrote it. The “Soulfire” album sounded like a live record to start. I know exactly what you mean. The most fun, the thing that justified it, was making arrangements for horns where there weren’t any in the first place...“Bitter Fruit” or “Out of the Darkness.” I made some radical transformations to the songs I wrote for Gary U.S. Bonds, too. Was there a criterion you needed your older material to meet to suit the “Soulfire” experience? Good question. Yeah, some of the stuff I wrote for other people; there’s always an autobiographical element in there. I picked the songs that had the most resonance to me, now, emotionally. I am reintroducing—hell, introducing—myself to an audience that doesn’t know me. I get to show my inspirations in doo-wop and Blaxploitation soundtrack music in a new way. It’s a long time between drinks from the last album to this new one. I know you’re going to work in film and with Springsteen soon. I know you have new music inside you. Do you see a way to maintain this solo music’s existence coming up? Yes. I really do see a way to do that. I’m writing a new album now, recording most of it through September before getting back on the road. There’s gonna be more music, too—a lot of it. I felt guilty that I had these songs inside me, and that I put my, you know, soul—my music aside for so long. No more, though. And, I do want to get back on TV and am holding the first months of 2019, to see what happens. Bruce? When that phone call comes—and it will come—we’ll do that. I will do all these things. And, Philly? Philly? C’mon, man, that was always like a second home to us. n ICON | JULY 2019 | ICONDV.COM | FACEBOOK.COM/ICONDV
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The Los Angeles Times SUNDAY CROSSWORD PUZZLE
CAN YOU DIGIT? By Pam Amick Klawitter
ACROSS 1 7 11 14 17 18 19 20 21 23 24 25 26 29 32 33 34 35 38 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 51 52 53 54 55 58 60 61 62 64 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 77 79 82 83 84 30
Prepared for a selfie Pizzeria chain, familiarly Grey Cup gp. ER figures What worms help do, soilwise Rowling teacher Brewpub choice Silk on the Seine Unite in a common cause Extinct bird Duds Official fuel of NASCAR since 2004 Unobstructed view You, in the Bible Mustard, e.g.: Abbr. Bruins legend Lacking freshness Place to find a hack Blood prefix Problem for the weary Eight hours per day? Nods from NASA Loner of a fish? Prospecting tool Laryngitis docs Post-Civil War economic growth period Food service trade org. Midsummer arrivals Vintage autos Kid __: reading genre Shopper’s indulgence Newspapers Lord’s domain Audi’s rings, e.g. Fortuitous On a lark Co-star with Goldie, Ruth, Henry, et al. Courtroom attention-getter Reference volumes Musical markings Toon bartender Circle makers Sham Phishing target, briefly With no time to spare Nero’s 902 Six-pack muscles “__ Walked Into My Life”: “Mame” song Love interest of 58-Down Liability
86 Aussie leaf munchers 89 “Yeah, right!” 90 Front door, usually 91 Week attachment? 92 Banned bug spray 93 Fla. NBA team 94 Barcelona bears 95 What “I don’t wanna” do, in a Zayn/Taylor Swift hit 99 Crew member 102 Butcher’s cut 103 __ Today: magazine for teachers 104 5 1/2 and 8 3/4, e.g. ... and a hint to this puzzle’s circles 109 RSVP cards, say 110 Terrible start? 111 “Come-faithful” filler 112 Clavell’s “Shogun” sequel 113 Deli choice 114 People fixers: Abbr. 115 TV’s “New Girl” 116 Involve
DOWN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 18 20 22 27 28 29 30 31 36 37 38 39
Hangdog Cousteau’s sea Nest egg letters Action in a legal thriller Words from Caesar Cole of “Angie Tribeca” Incalculable “Guess again” GM subsidiary until 2017 LPGA star Pak in the World Golf Hall of Fame Smartphone feature It’s underfoot Foliage element Dr. Howser of ’80s-’90s TV They involve responsibilities Largish combo Difference between winning and losing, maybe Word in an iconic cocktail order Small racer Asian menu promise Inedible wraps ’Vette roof option Maui’s scenic __ Highway Babe’s relatives Wilson of “Walker, Texas Ranger” Brown of publishing Snack cake brand Scratches (out)
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React to a boring speech 87 Like some bagels “This is only __” 88 It may be unwanted Comes down hard? 89 Things to aspire to Angelou’s “And Still __” 90 Walks unhurriedly Up in the air 92 Hardly look forward to Movement in some Bach suites 96 Bar words that make you smile Stiff collars 97 Key with four sharps: Abbr. Snow in le Alpi 98 Tick off Kay of “Rich Man, Poor Man” 100 Renaissance instrument Longtime SeaWorld orca 101 Yemen neighbor Eva of Argentina 105 Tee sizes Used Yelp, maybe 106 92-Across banner Love interest of 83-Across 107 Bollywood star Aishwarya __ Baseball’s Pee Wee 108 Popular skit show, for short Blow one’s top Scientologist Hubbard Bridge positions Answer to June’s puzzle, LOW-TECH GLOSSARY Stand-up fare Risky kind of kick Mystic’s deck Kennel double talk? Let go __ Féin Actresses Brennan and Davidson Vehicle for Hulu and Roku Pretense E-file alternative Talent show entries Pressure: Pref. Northern __: apples How much space debris travels Sullivan’s pupil
AGENDA AUDITIONS ArtsQuest is looking for actors to be a part of the fun and excitement of its ninth annual Oktoberfest celebration Oct. 4-6 and 11-13 at SteelStacks in Bethlehem. Actors will portray characters typically seen at a German Oktoberfest, complete with authentic German attire, and interact with festival guests while in character. Oktoberfest auditions will take place Sun., July 14 from 2-4 p.m., in the Crayola Gallery of the Banana Factory, 25 W. Third St., Bethlehem. Interested individuals do not need to prepare, as auditions will be primarily improv-based. Ability to perform with a realistic German accent is encouraged but not required, and all actors will be paid for their appearances at Oktoberfest. To request an audition time, please email ArtsQuest Cinema/ Comedy Coordinator Addyson Young at ayoung@artsquest.org. The email should include an attached resume and headshot, as well as the preferred audition time (2, 2:30, 3 or 3:30 p.m.). Auditions will last approximately 15-30 minutes; no phone calls will be accepted. For more information on Oktoberfest, please visit steelstacks.org ART EXHIBITS THRU 7/21 Jennifer Hansen Rolli, This Place. Silverman Gallery, Bucks County Impressionist Art. In Buckingham Green, Rte. 202, just north of PA 413, 4920 York Rd., Holicong, PA. 215-794-4300. Silvermangallery.com THRU 7/27 Chawne Kimber, Cottoning On. Lafayette College Art Galleries, Easton, PA. 610-330-5361. Galleries.lafayette.edu THRU 8/1 Emily Strong, Corporeal Landscapes. Martin Art Gallery, Muhlenberg College, 2400 Chew St., Allentown, PA. Muhlenberg.edu/gallery THRU 8/1 Zach Kleemeyer, In Search Of. Martin Art Gallery, Muhlenberg College, 2400 Chew St., Allentown, PA. Muhlenberg.edu/gallery
THRU 8/1 Femi J. Johnson and The MAG Collection. Martin Art Gallery, Muhlenberg College, 2400 Chew St., Allentown, PA. Muhlenberg.edu/gallery
Learn how America’s earliest astronauts journeyed from Bucks County to the moon. Mercer Museum, 84 South Pine St., Doylestown, PA. 215345-0210. Mercermuseum.org
THRU 9/1 Deco After Dark: Evening Wear, 1920-1945. Allentown Art Museum, 31 N. 5th St., Allentown, PA. 610-4324333. AllentownArtMuseum.org
ART FESTIVALS
THRU 9/1 An Essential Presence: The Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African-American Art. Allentown Art Museum, 31 N. 5th St., Allentown, PA. 610-432-4333. AllentownArtMuseum.org THRU 9/8 The Color of the Moon, Lunar Painting in American Art. The James A. Michener Art Museum, 138 S. Pine St., Doylestown, PA. 215-340-9800. Michenerartmuseum.org THRU 9/22 Fresh Perspective: Modernism in Photography, 1920-1950. Allentown Art Museum, 31 N. 5th St., Allentown, PA. 610-432-4333. AllentownArtMuseum.org THRU 10/5 Summer Show, opening reception 6/28, 6-9pm. Five Year Anniversary Celebration 7/25, 6-9pm. Bethlehem House Gallery, 459 Main St., Bethlehem, PA. 610-419-6262. Bethlehemhousegallery.com 7/11-8/8 Mark May: Assembly Required. Artist’s reception, 7/18, 6-8pm. The Baum School of Art, 510 W. Linden St., Allentown, PA. 610-433-0032. Baumschool.org MUSEUMS THRU 9/8 Mercer Museum 2019 Summer Exhibits presents, From Here to There. A hands-on, family exhibit on the science of how things move from place to place. Mercer Museum, 84 South Pine St., Doylestown, PA. 215-3450210. Mercermuseum.org THRU 9/8 Mercer Museum 2019 Summer Exhibits presents, Making Astronauts.
7/6-7/7 Tinicum Arts Festival celebrates its 70th year. Discovery tent, author’s table, silent auction, book sale, white elephant sale, live entertainment, children’s activities, and more. Beautiful Tinicum Park, River Rd., Erwinna, PA. TinicumArtsFestival.org 7/13-7/14 27th Annual Haddonfield Crafts & Fine Art Festival, rain or shine. Downtown Haddonfield, NJ. 856-216-7253. Downtownhaddonfield.com THEATER THRU 7/27 Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre presents, a World Premiere Circus Experience for All Ages, Bohemia. Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA. 484-664-3333. Muhlenberg.edu/smt 7/1 Hand to Hand, A FringeArts Circus Festival presents Test Flights, curated and hosted by Ben Grinberg. FringeArts, 140 N Columbus Blvd., Philadelphia, PA. FringeArts.com 7/11-7/28 Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre presents, Cole Porter’s, Anything Goes. Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA. 484-664-3333. Muhlenberg.edu/smt MUSIC
7/7 Various Artists, A Benefit for Restoring Notre Dame Cathedral and the 1867 Sanctuary. 2-9 pm. 1867 Sanctuary Arts and Culture Center, 101 Scotch Road, Ewing, NJ. 609-3926409. 1867sanctuary.org 7/21 Valley Vivaldi . Chamber music by Vivaldi, J. S. Bach, Corelli, Locatelli, Leclair and featured solos for violin and flute, with strings and harpsichord. 7:00 p.m., Presented by Pennsylvania Sinfo-
nia Orchestra, Wesley Church, 2540 Center St., Bethlehem, PA. 610-434-7811. PASinfonia.org 7/24 Brad Rau. Classical Guitar. 8 pm. 1867 Sanctuary Arts and Culture Center, 101 Scotch Road, Ewing, NJ 609-3926409. 1867sanctuary.org 7/28 Hot Club of Philadelphia. Gypsy Jazz. 2 pm. 1867 Sanctuary Arts and Culture Center, 101 Scotch Road, Ewing, NJ. 609-392-6409. 1867sanctuary.org KESWICK THEATRE 291 N Keswick Ave, Glenside, PA 215-572-7650 keswicktheatre.com JULY 10 Heavy Hittas of Comedy featuring Bill Bellamy, B Simone (You’re My Boooyfriend), Desi Banks (Nuthin But Funny Tour) and Friends 13 RATT - Reality Suite 17 RuPaul’s Drag Race 20 Little Steven And The Disciples Of Soul 25 Jessie’s Girl AUGUST 1 An Evening with Glennon Doyle 2 Cinderella’s Tom Keifer 3 Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox 13 Ted Nugent 15 Little River Band 16 AEG Presents Extreme 22 The Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Spectacular with Shawn Klush and Cody Ray Slaughter. MUSIKFEST CAFÉ 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem 610-332-1300 Artsquest.org JULY 10 WXPN Welcomes Jimmie Vaughan 11, 18 & 25 Splintered Sunlight J12 An Evening with Billy Bauer Band & special guests Cubbage and Tyler Rothrock
MUSIKFEST AUGUST 1 Earth, Wind & Fire 2 The Chainsmokers 3 Steve Miller Band with Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives 4 Lady Antebellum 5 Weezer 6 Train & Goo Goo Dolls 7 Incubus 8 The Revivalists 9 Godsmack 10 Phillip Phillips 11 Brad Paisley DINNER THEATER THRU 7/31 Murder Mystery Dinner Theater: Crime of Thrones, Fridays & Saturdays. Peddler’s Village, routes 202 & 263, Lahaska, PA. 215-794-4000. Peddlersvillage.com Every Thurs.-Sat., Dinner and a Show at SteelStacks, Bethlehem, PA. 510:00. Table service and valet parking. steelstacks.org CAMPS 7/22-8/2 Summer Dance Intensive, DeSales University, Summer Arts Camp. College credits. 2755 Station Ave., Center Valley. 610-282-1100. desales.edu/sdi EVENTS 7/4 Red, White and Blue BBQ Bash. Peddler’s Village, routes 202 & 263, Lahaska, PA. 215-794-4000. Peddlersvillage.com 7/11 Village Food Trucks. Peddler’s Village, routes 202 & 263, Lahaska, PA. 215794-4000. Peddlersvillage.com 7/19 & 7/20 Sidewalk Sale on beautiful Main Street in Clinton, NJ. For more information, Visitclintonnj.com 7/20 & 7/21 Bluegrass & Blueberries Festival, fun for the whole family. Peddler’s Village, routes 202 & 263, Lahaska, PA. 215794-4000. Peddlersvillage.com n
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