Author Archives: Joel Tannenbaum

December 29, 2012 | 5:53 PM | By

The Key’s Year-End Mania: Joel Tannenbaum’s top music news headlines of 2012

For The Key’s year-in-review, we asked our trusted sources – our writers and photographers, XPN’s on-air staff, fellow bloggers in the Philly scene and even a few musicians – to send us their Top Five Whatevers. Could be the traditional music route – albums, songs, concerts of the year – or it could be only loosely connected. We’ll be sharing these recaps every day through to the end of the year. Today, Plow United bassist, Ex-Friends singer-guitarist and occasional Key contributor Joel Tannenbaum shares his top music news headlines* of 2012.

5. Julio Iglesias releases Saludos desde Asbury Park, NJ, a song-by-song rebuttal to Bruce Springsteen’s Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ. 

4. Joey Sweeney releases digital-only retrospective spanning his 80+ year career.
Early vaudeville material largely ignored.

3. The Spin Doctors’ “Two Princes” certified top-selling mini-disc single of 2012.

2. Ben Nichols of Lucero cast as Eddie in Ang Lee’s Eddie and the Cruisers remake.
Other members of Lucero not cast as Cruisers.

1. Chris Christie realizes lifelong dream of meeting Glenn Danzig.
Meeting facilitated by President Obama during Hurricane Sandy aftermath.

*entirely fabricated

Thanks to Justin Agnew and Tom Kretchmar.

FILED UNDER: Artists, Ex-Friends, Joel Tannenbaum, Plow United, Year-End Mania 2012
October 26, 2012 | 1:06 PM | By

Beyond Silence digs deeper into the work of John Cage (begins tonight at the Philadelphia Museum of Art)

Silence!

Despite an incredibly diverse career spanning six decades and uncountable genres, silence is what American avant garde composer John Cage is known for. His 1952 composition 4’33″, in which performers let four minutes and 33 seconds transpire without making a single sound, quickly became the font of Cage’s fame – and infamy.

Nonetheless, Cage continued to compose, perform and conduct a wildly varied repertoire: sometimes piano-driven, sometimes high concept pieces whose “scores” consisted of no written music, only performative instructions to musicians, or multimedia collaborations with performance and video artists like Nam June Paik.

There’s a lot more to John Cage than the absence of sound. And that’s the driving conviction behind Cage: Beyond Silence, a multi-sited celebration of the composer’s life, work and influence that will take place in Philadelphia from October 26 through January 20. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Artists, Events, John Cage, Philadelphia museum of Art
August 9, 2012 | 12:30 PM | By

This is Hardcore: Dig into the roots of the punk rock fest beginning tonight at Union Transfer

This is Hardcore Festival 2008 | Photo by Ken Penn | www.kenpenn.com

Now in its seventh year, This is Hardcore Fest has evolved into a multi-site music festival which brings together bands less than a decade old – like Pennsylvania-based Title Fight – with bands like Suicidal Tendencies and the Cro-Mags, who first took to a stage in the early 1980s. Theoretically at least, what binds them all together is something called hardcore.

The word is vague, but if you were wondering, it refers to a spin-off sub-genre of punk rock that had fully taken on its own identity by the mid-1980s (or the early 1980s, depending on who you ask). Where punk bands were often deliberately shambling and sloppy, hardcore bands were generally tight and disciplined. Where punk bands were frequently androgynous, hardcore was intensely masculine. Whereas punk was generally libertine, hardcore was ascetic, with bands like Youth of Today emphasizing abstinence from drugs and alcohol, some, like Earth Crisis, focusing on strict veganism, and some Krishna-affiliated bands even calling for strict sexual abstinence. (Don’t believe me? Check it out.) Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Artists, Concert Previews, Events, Blacklisted, Cro-Mags, Earth Crisis, Electric Factory, Grey Area, Lifetime, Suicidal Tendancies, Terror, This is Hardcore Festival, Title Fight, Union Transfer, Youth of Today