Remember all that stuff we were saying yesterday morning about Mayor Michael Nutter and his dwindling stock? Well, this is not going to help: Even after narrowly avoiding cutting 3,000 city jobs in the wake of the state budget crisis and getting that seemingly-all-important sales tax hike, the city is still projecting a $31M defecit [...]

>>> Tigerbeats, a new weekly party at the Barbary specializing in indie rock (think Metric, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Dan Deacon, and on down through the Blur/Depeche Mode memory lane) kicks off tonight. >>> And of course, at the Academy Of Music, there’s the Monsters Of Folk tour, with M. Ward, Jim James and Conor Oberst. [...]

See, this is the problem with you Tivo people: You make it impossible to do timely posts about television shows without running the risk of everybody getting hot under the collar because we just came right out and said that…

Mummery: Where some see a proud working class tradition, others (like us) see an unwholesome ghost of minstrelsy and a hard-to-erase piss smell. Well, no matter: It’s 2009, and even if the debate had somehow been magically settled forever, nobody’s got any money left hanging around for Mummery — not even the Mummers. So here [...]

If, like me, one of your first memories of This Life On Earth was watching Good Times — which chronicled the adventures of projects-bound kids Michael, Thelma and James Evans, Jr. (also known as “J.J.”) — with dear old dad, take note: Ralph Carter, BernNadette Stanis and JJ Walker, who respectively played those roles, will [...]

Being the kind of hardcore record nerds we are here, it’s a little surprising that we’ve never preached the gospel of the Numero Group before. Let’s fix that: Since 2003, the three guys behind the Numero Group have been unearthing lost soul classics, and re-issuing them in high-quality, gorgeous editions at a speed faster than [...]

The New Year Parade, local director Tom Quinn‘s portrayal of the twin decays of a family and Mummer culture, has been held over at Ritz At The Bourse through Thursday. Click here for show times.

After the jump, photographer Jenelle Rittenhouse‘s from Saturday’s Tweed Ride Philadelphia, which took place on Saturday. Says Jenelle: “It really was quite the fashionable jaunt.” We wonder what the overlap between this and the Snuggie Crawl was.

>>> We hope we’re not there’s-no-such-thing-as-Santa-Claus-ing you here, but you do know, don’t you, that in anticipation of World Series victories, it’s often the case that merch proclaiming both teams is printed up, right? So what shall become of all of those “PHILLIES WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS 2009″ hoodies and t-shirts? They’re going to Indonesia. Same [...]

On one hand, it can be taken as encouraging that, these days, if you try to get 1,000 Rockys to show up on the Art Museum steps to promote the new Rocky DVD box set, only a few hundred will show up, and one of them will be Danny Bonaduce and his strange rubber manboobs; [...]

Fans of the dying beast that was once known as Stadium Rock, mark your calendars: Monday, July 12, 2010 is the day when Irish-old-guys-dressed-as-Russian-gangsters U2 will come to Philadelphia and fill Lincoln Financial Field with their sweet, pompous, confusing love. This time around, it’s something called the U2 360° Tour, which looks like the band [...]

So, now that the SEPTA strike is over, what have we learned? Well, a few things: One, for sure, is that sometimes, old-school Philly politicking still works — a lot of the credit for the tentative agreement is being thrown good ol’ Bob Brady‘s way. (We still won’t trust him with our Internet connection, but [...]

FRIDAY: >>> If your last memory of The Swimmers (check out our re-run of their awesome new video above) is that of an earnest alt-country band with an affection for Beach Boys bounce, you may wanna check in again. People Are Soft is the band’s latest record, which they celebrate tonight at an early (8PM) [...]

RECOMMENDED: At the screening we attended, The Men Who Stare At Goats got more actual LOL-laugh-out-loud laughs than any other movie in recent memory. The best part? Those laughs weren’t cheap; OK, the ones about goats falling dead to the floor because George Clooney was looking at them were kinda cheap, but mostly, these were [...]

Black Taco might have left the building, but in his absence, all we can see today is the ugliness of this old world. Back here at home, let us say good night, you sweet princes. Spring training’s just a few months away.

Here is a shocking revelation for you: The Philly visual art scene, like most location-specific arts or music scenes, is a humid, claustrophobic bubble that is divided into two camps. There are The Supporters, who lavish praise upon a coterie of like minded-artists via not-often-very-critical critics, who seek to build things together and put prestige [...]

After the jump, Dan Murphy‘s shots from last night’s much-hyped Girls gig, plus a tune from the groop.

Hold it right there: Are you folding your Phillies gear and damning it to hell? C’mon ___! Amidst all the recent tragedy Philly has suffered — World Series loss, Septa strike, Soprano-mama’s-boy-cum-Rebublican-fat-fuck as Governor next door — we shouldn’t feel at a total loss. These past two years have been a hell of a ride, [...]

· Awesome upshot of the SEPTA strike, which thus far has been about as anti-Good Motherfucking News as you can get: Based on counts conducted by the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia yesterday, Day Two of the SEPTA strike saw a 38% increase in bicyclists during rush hour. What! That’s awesome! And there’s more: There [...]