Now that it’s officially summer, we’re in for three-plus months of beach reads, beach bods and, of course, beach bands. After that explosion of nautically themed band names in the ’00s (think Beach House, Beech Creep, Surfer Blood, Shark?, etc.), “beach” band is a confusingly crowded field of surf rockers and lo-fi experimenters and everything in between. Don’t panic, though, we’re here to help. To keep you from looking like a shoobie when the conversation turns to music at the next bonfire singalong, we’ve broken down two Beach bands with upcoming shows that you definitely don’t want to get confused: Beach Slang and Beach Fossils.
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philadelphia
Cheesesteak Donut Burgers, Anyone? Philly’s PYT Burger Lands in NYC
Cheesesteak Donut Burger. (Credit: Joshua Alvarez)
Everybody knows that to be from Philadelphia is to have a glint of madness in the eyes, a smile relishing the shock and horror of the sensitive and the mollycoddled when confronted with the sight of a bulbous, half-naked Eagles fan stuffing his face with a cheesesteak sandwich in the middle of a blizzard. King George really did not have a clue about who he was dealing with in 1776.
Seems exaggerated, you say? Then explain the success of Philadelphia’s six-year-old PYT Burger. In this age of calorie-counting health freaks PYT stands out like a Maurizio Cattelan statue with menu items like the Firebird Chicken Sriracha (a chili-and-sriracha-marinated chicken patty, pepper jack, thin cut onion rings, ranch, lettuce and tomato) or the “Doh! Nut” (beef patty, American cheese and chocolate-covered bacon on a glazed donut bun). PYT made national headlines in 2013 with the creation of an abomination, a burger that, it’s rumored, the Vatican may have considered condemning as the Eighth Deadly Sin: the Deep-Fried Twinkie Burger.
Stephin Merritt of Magnetic Fields Did Songs From A-Z: His Setlist and Comments
(Photo: Daniel Maurer)
Stephin Merritt, last seen getting the Katie Lazarus treatment at Joe’s Pub, kicked off a rare solo tour in Philadelphia on Saturday. Since the Magnetic Fields frontman and onetime Luckiest Boy on the Lower East Side doesn’t yet have an NYC show slated, we traipsed down to Union Transfer, the Bowery Presents venue inside of a former train depot in Philly, to see what he had up his sleeve. Or, under his pageboy cap.
Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz at the Morbid Anatomy Museum
First things first: if you haven’t been to Morbid Anatomy Museum yet, you should probably go ASAP. It’s a hotbed of macabre romance, and you’re missing out. Now that that’s settled, why not go along and learn things whilst perusing the petrified remains? Next week, author and poet Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz will be relating the story of Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter, the founder of Philidelphia’s heralded Mütter Museum—arguably America’s finest museum of medical oddities. Mütter was a brilliant young surgeon whose compassion-based philosophies were revolutionary for his time, and whose enthusiasm for collecting paved the way for the museum erected in his name. O’Keefe Aptowicz is a prolific poet and author; Dr. Mutter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine is her second foray into non-fiction.