Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER In a New York Times piece about birding published a few years back, author Brian Kimberling observed insightfully that making a list of bird species identified on any particular day, as birdwatchers do, is “a form of prayer, a thanksgiving for being alive at a certain time and place.” And posting that list online, he went on, “is a 21st-century form of a votive offering.” Concert setlists are arguably no different. Created by a band to serve the practical purpose of coordinating each member’s participation in the show that night, the paper on which they’re written […]
BEING THERE: Lightning Bolt @ Union Transfer
Photo by DYLAN JARED LONG Lightning Bolt’s band name may be a visual representation of their sound. Other band names that could have been a good fit for the noise rock duo are – hold on, let me scroll through my list here – Total Lunatics™ or perhaps Fuck Rocket™. Unassociated recording engineer Steve Albini called one of their live performances the “best alarm clock [he’s] ever had” when they played on the doorstep of his neighbor John Peel’s house. Yes, the John Peel. Lightning Bolt formed in college at Rhode Island School of Design in ’94. Drummer/vocalist Brian Chippendale […]
BEING THERE: Phish @ The Met
Photo by Kevin Mazur for Getty/SiriusXM Beyond the givens when seeing Phish— long improvisational grooves, setlist gags, middle-aged fans huffing Hippy Crack after the show, and the day-after ache in my legs from three hours of channeling my dance moves from the spirit of Vincent Vega— no one knows what to expect from a Phish show, and anyone tells you otherwise is a liar. There was a little bit of online controversy surrounding their show at The Met last night. Because the concert was a SiriusXM promotional event, no tickets were put on sale for the general public. Instead, tickets […]
Win Tix To See She & Him @ The Met Wednesday!
Zooey Deschanel — with her big baby blue doe-in-the-headlights, her kicky Bridgette Bardot ‘do, and her unsinkable cheerfulness — is like the impossibly cute, eternally quirky, thrift store retro-cool girlfriend every soon-to-be art school drop-out wanted to blow off the prom with. She’s one of those people that walk between the raindrops tittering over the same private joke she’s been cracking herself up with for years but tells to no one. M. Ward, with his George Shearing tea shades, his Cheshire grin of a voice, and his impeccable curation of shimmering mid-20th Century ephemera, is that art school drop […]
HOT FREAK: Q&A w/ Philly’s Own Alex G
Photo by DYLAN LONG BY JONATHAN VALANIA Alex G, aka Alex Giannascoli, is like the red-eyed unshaven love child of Olivia Tremor Control and the Beta Band drunk on early Iron and Wine, Portland-era Elliott Smith and Guided By Voices circa Vampire On Titus: pretty/sad zig-zag bedsit folk-pop chopped and screwed until blissed out and chimerical. Born and raised on the mean streets of Havertown, an inner ring suburb of Philadelphia, and bottle-fed on the mid-90s’ indie-rock of his big sister’s record collection, he started making his own music on Garageband at the tender age of 15 and pumping it […]
INCOMING: Vengeance Will Be Thine
RELATED: The 90s were a helluva drug. You really had to be there, kid, but suffice it to say it was 10 years of unprecedented peace and prosperity, a pot in every chicken, 2.5 SUVs in every garage, a Clinton was president and Donald Trump ran beauty contests instead of the free world. In the 90s, the Internet went public and we all become tech stock billionaires overnight — all of us — selling dog bones over the World Wide Web, which was what we called the Interwebs back then, as was the style of the day. Good. Times. […]
INCOMING: Take The Last Train To Clarkville
Todd Kimmell, Philadelphia’s perennially apoplectic gentleman of the arts, in association with CLARKVILLE, the much beloved taproom and restaurant across from Clark Park, offer up four days of the most unusual holiday shopping you’ll find anywhere. Local artists and photographers of note, and avid (or possibly rabid) collectors have been invited to glean their flat files and present long buried treasures for the public to peruse and purchase at their leisure. Saturday, November 30 and Sunday, December 1, then again two weeks later. Saturday, December 14 and Sunday, December 15. 11 to 5 each day, and different artists presenting each […]
BEING THERE: Crumb @ Union Transfer
Photo by DYLAN LONG Crumb, unlike the name, is a seven-course feast of dreamy pop-rock that leads you far away from the musically ordinary. Instead, this four-piece band is a never-ending journey on a road less traveled. Assuming their sound even desires definition, it draws hints of Hiatus Kaiyote, BADBADNOTGOOD, and a healthy dose of the mysterious. This past Thursday night, Crumb graced a packed crowd at Union Transfer with support from Divino Niño and Shormey. Colorful light-filled balloons sat scattered across the stage, glowing and evolving from shades of red to purple to blue. The four-piece had a soothing […]
REVIEW: Mean Girls @ The Academy Of Music
Mean Girls, the 2004 smash teen romcom written by Upper Darby’s Tina Fey and starring pre-demise Lindsey Lohan, is a cautionary tale of a teen’s need for validation in order to compete in the perpetual popularity contest that is high school. It’s the story of Cady Heron, who just transferred to North Shore High after growing up in Kenya. Because she was homeschooled for the first 16 years of her life, Cady lacks the social skills it takes to fit in at her new school. Mercifully, two high school outcasts, Janice and Damien, befriend her. Janice and Damien’s sworn enemies […]
THE METHOD ACTOR: Q&A W/ Alex Cameron
BY JASMIN ALVAREZ It’s been two years since the release of Alex Cameron’s Forced Witness—his most controversial record to date, for which he donned the persona of a conservative and bigoted macho-male who falls for an illegal immigrant, and which landed just before all the business with Weinstein and Trump. Earlier this year, Cameron released his third album, Miami Memory (2019). While the fictional songwriting personas he has often used as narrative vehicles make cameos—such as the empowered and money-making sex industry workers in “Far From Born Again” and the embittered drunkard caught in a power-struggle with his absentee wife […]
BEING THERE: Skegss @ Boot & Saddle
Photo by DYLAN LONG Skegss is an Australian three-piece group that wants you to live your best life. If the band’s energetic and jangly garage rock doesn’t lift you up off your ass, their inspiring, anecdotal lyrics surely will. Frontman Ben Reed has it figured out: he can teach you things like getting out of bed in the morning on the track fittingly titled “Wake The Fuck Up,” or how to enjoy the present moment despite life’s complexities on the jangly anthem “My Face.” With just a quick glance at his bright-blond surfer hair and brighter smile, it’s easy to […]
BEING THERE: Black Mt. @ Underground Arts
Photo by JOSH-PELTA-HELLER It’s almost 10:00 PM Thursday night when Stephen McBean and his merry band of psych-metal minions emerged from backstage at Underground Arts, rendered as silhouettes by stage lighting and smoke machine, and unleashed the fuzzy electric buzz of “High Rise,” from their latest record, Destroyer. At 50, McBean is an unassuming frontman, silver beard framed by the shoulder-length hair that shrouds his face for most of the evening, as he wrestles with his guitars and considers the evening’s extensive pedal decisions. McBean paces back and forth between flanking keyboardists Jeremy Schmidt and Rachel Fannan to commune with […]
INCOMING: Killing Me Softly With Her Song
I Don’t Wanna Lose by Kate Bollinger Perhaps inspired by her musical therapist mother, introspective indie-rock thrush Kate Bollinger’s soft, yet distinctive voice has a lulling, dream-like effect. Her music radiates a certain sweetness and serenity which serves as a welcome balm in these nerve-shattering times. Her back catalog to date is a series of relaxed-fit singles that sound, at turns, beachy, psychedelic, and jazzy — sometimes at the same time. And she can sing a line like “You give me so much to be afraid of” (from “I Don’t Want To Lose,” see above) with indomitable placidity of a […]
