A very loud ripple of inside-baseball went through Philly’s media community (such as it is) yesterday when a story about developer Bart Blatstein putting together a group called Philly Hometown Media appeared on the Daily News‘s Clout blog. The piece, stating that Blatstein’s group was looking into making a bid on the once-again-for-sale Inquirer, DN, [...]

When Jon Foy began documenting the search for the source of the mysterious Toynbee Tiles seen all over the United States and South America, he probably didn’t expect to be lead on a journey that would take him to Sundance to receive an award for Best Director in the Documentary category, but it is where [...]

It’s a little bit difficult to come up with a present-day literary comparison point for the novelist Ben Marcus who, at 45, is four books deep into a career that’s quickly establishing him as capital-H Heavyweight in an industry that seems increasingly averse to the species. And though Marcus’s last two books have involved families [...]

Hard to believe it’s been nearly a decade since Philly boy Bill Ricchini came into the local music consciousness with Ordinary Time, a little four-track album of sweet, simple pop that made fans of his all over the world. (To say nothing of the cross-country tour with Joey Sweeney and a young BC Camplight that [...]

As soon as Nick Spitzer, folklorist and host of American Public Radio’s American Routes, gets on the phone, we’re talking about the golden days of vinyl-digging in Philly. From his reminisces of the old Discmakers plant here where they used to press up Folkways records to Matty “The Humdinger” Singer, a fella who used to [...]

We wish they made more novelists like Jennifer Egan these days — writers who have all the necessary chops for falling down the Eggers/Foer wormhole, but have the good taste to do it in a sparing, almost genteel way. And yes, there is a chapter in Egan’s latest novel, A Visit From The Goon Squad, [...]

Sonny Rollins has been playing jazz in front of audiences since 1941, when he was 11, and “Saxophone Colossus,” his nom du jazz, is well earned to say the least. At 79, when many of the players he came up with are either dead or dying, Rollins, not unlike Bob Dylan, remains a true road [...]

Even the most casual reader of this site might have picked up over the years that, well, we love Jerry Blavat aka The Geator With The Heater, The Boss With The Sauce, My Man Pots And Pans. We love him like he was our own blood. We love the way he talks all over the [...]

Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden met on a student film shoot at NYU. Their first feature film, Half Nelson, for which rising star Ryan Gosling received his first Oscar nomination, was made for just $800,000 and put the pair on the Hollywood map as the next great writing/directing duo. Their follow-up film, Sugar, is about [...]

Peter Kember aka Sonic Boom has been making totally far out head music since 1985, first as half of the legendary group Spacemen 3, and then as Spectrum. And there has never been a time when the music he has made has not been relevant. Kember’s droning guitars, trance figures and blissed-out vibe have an [...]

It’d be an understatement to say that Matthew Ray has had his work cut out for him these last few weeks. As the PR flack for the TLA Video side of the Philadelphia Film Festival — which had long been a partnership between TLA, headed by Ray Murray, and the Philadelphia Film Society — Matthew [...]

Hands down, Steve Volk is one of the best investigative reporters this city has — he’s got old-school chops but (and this is key) has his eyes wide open. Now, for our money, since Volk moved to Philadelphia Magazine, there just hasn’t been as much Volk going around, and that’s a damn shame; when he [...]

Don’t say you don’t know Rhys Darby: He’s Murray, the band manager from Flight Of The Conchords. But, yes, previous to this interview, that was where our knowledge of Darby ended as well. Turns out, he’s quite a guy. Darby has a standup gig at the Trocadero this Sunday night, and after the jump, he [...]

Since it debuted back in 1997, Nick Stuccio (pictured) has been the mindcog at the center of the spinnin’ wheel that is the Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe. Over the years, the festival has morphed and shaped not just with the changing times, but also in an effort to balance its ego — the [...]

Lately, we’ve been thinking about this whole Larry Mendte/Alycia Lane thing. Well, not so much about the various controversies themselves, but the way they’ve played out in the local media. Not to get too heady about it, but suffice to say that watching Larrygate play out has represented not just the spiritual nadir of our [...]

Ron Crawford is the sneaker store UBIQ‘s “Mr. Everything” here in Philly. So by that extension, to a certain strata of Sneaker People, he is the Everything of Everything. Ron does the buying for the store, along with the marketing and general day-to-day operations of the store on 1509 Walnut St. But he’s also an [...]

Ride The Ducks: Perhaps there is nothing in this city that unites us more than our hatred of the foul duck boats that populate the well-trodden tourist attractions of this great city. And while many have complained, and even more have given the finger to these nuisances (which truly do represent everything Philadelphians hate about [...]

When it rains, it pours, and right now, PhillyMag would seem to be in the throes of a major personality crisis. And if it’s not pondering what God hath wrought when the pubeless are getting waxed, it is that other Job-like trial the magazine has been enduring for a while now: The web. But for [...]

Tonight, the 6th Annual Backseat Film Festival gets underway in Northern Liberties. For the unfamiliar, the Backseat fest is pretty much the antidote for every stuffy film fest you’ve ever been to: Here, the trashy, the low-budget and the simply whacked-out are celebrated in much the same way other film fests celebrate things like, oh [...]

We first met Daniel Ralston during the first year of Philebrity, when we bought a used digital camera from him off Craigslist. Back then, he was very active in the Kensington South CDC and its accompanying short-lived music venue, the Kensington South Forum. In the last year or two, though, Ralston has been focusing on [...]