Barbra Streisand comes with significant weight beyond mere vocal prowess. At her start, she was the singular arc between the standard song of the great composers (Porter, Berlin), several of the new cats (Bernstein, Sondheim) its lurch into Hollywood and…

On Tuesday night I had two delicious options — the tony family and friends dinner at still-unopened Red Owl Tavern at Hotel Monaco or hanging with Kevin James as he premiered his new mixed martial arts/teaching comedy Here Comes the…

I’m not certain at this point who likes Restaurant Week. It short changes diners, wait staffs and misrepresents most every fooderie that enters this limp dick enterprise. That is why I say God bless to Arch Street’s sweetest BYOB Chloe.…

Hurry up. If you pick the right place and start drinking right now — could be booze, could be espresso — a percentage of today’s proceeds (Thu., Sept. 27) goes to helping fund four local HIV/AIDS service organizations. That’s the…

There was a glorious noir about Melody Gardot’s early stuff, informed by unspoken loss and a life-altering car-on-bike accident in 2003. The newest album by this Philadelphia chanteuse is different — more alive and ready to throw off the shackles…

This first week of September is about the welcoming. Always. There’s the full-court press for the dewy Fringe kids eager to shake their Kickstarter-funded tail feathers. There are the leagues of apple-cheeked, red-eyed, out-of-state students lining up at food trucks,…

Mark Stehle HOUSE RULES: Chris Schwartz (right) is pinning the revived Ruffhouse label’s hopes on Beanie Sigel’s new album, This Time. Conshohocken has never looked like a hip-hop hotbed. It’s a sleepy, hilly borough with a quaint town square and…

[ rock/pop ] Maybe it’s not nice to separate Gretchen Lohse from epically eerie/playful Philly band Yellow Humphrey — you can blame Folkadelphia’s Fred Knittel for singling her out for this solo booking. Yellow Humphrey is a large-scale band; local…

In the age of bedroom Albinis and laptop Spectors, it’s a bold move when someone chooses to build a real-world recording studio. It’s bolder still when the builder had his heart broken by the demise of his previous studio. That’s…