Intern Matthew’s Weekend Picks: Get Your Country On.
Every week, intern Matthew Albasi brings you his musical selections for the coming days …
I don’t know what it is about this weekend, but there is an awful lot of country-ish music going on in the city. Aside from the big acts like John Prine, Bob Dylan and Mark Knopfler, a couple of Wainwrights and Conor Oberst, you have a lot of local bands with a similar sound. Thanks to the amazing powers of sub-gernre-ification many of these bands are not “country” in the traditional cowboy hats and spurs kind of way, but instead they bring something a little different the table. So, get out there and enjoy.
FRIDAY
The Miners, Shark Tape and SuperFive @ Milkboy
The Miners have been doing their country music thing in Philly for quite a while. In their current incarnation they’ve been around since ’09. This show will be the release of their first EP, Miners’ Rebellion, which was mixed and mastered at Milkboy the Studio.
The Donuts, Morning River Band and The Knife and Fork Band @ The Fire
This all local show is going to be great. The Donuts have got a great sort of punk, sort of country sound. Morning River Band is a bit more traditional with an Americana sound filled with fiddles and twelve-strings. As for The Knife and Fork Band, they’ve got a cello, a fiddle and an accordion. What more do you need?
SATURDAY
+Church+, HogMaw, The Wounded Healers and Victoria Spaeth and The Spaeth Cadets @ The North Star Bar
+Church+ makes me think of Jeffrey Lewis if he started a country band. There is a smattering of grunge mixed with the detached soulfullness of Leonard Cohen. It’s all around solid stuff. HogMaw, the thundergrass masters, will be playing their foot stomping version of old appalachian-inspired tunes.
Husky, Amy Cook and The Bailey Hounds @ Johnny Brenda’s
The real draw for me here is The Bailey Hounds. Any band that can cover Glen Danzig’s “Mother” using an organ and an acoustic guitar is good in my book. On top of that the rest of their music ranges from toe-tapping modern bluegrass filled with arpeggios and solid bass lines to crunchy slide guitar filled blues.
SUNDAY
Gashcat, Franklin Bruno and Gleason @ Kung Fu Necktie
Gashcat is good, even if their name makes me inexplicably uncomfortable. Their sound is somewhere around Neutral Milk Hotel with a little more anger. Franklin Bruno is another reason to check out this show. Aside from him likely being the most intelligent man you’ll see on stage (he teaches modern symbolic logic at SUNY) he’s also a damn good musician.
Truth & Salvage Co. and Tim Brantley @ World Cafe Live, Upstairs
I think Truth & Salvage Co. is the only band on this list that actually wears cowboy hats. Well, at least one member does and that’s all that matters, right? Sartorial requirements aside, these guys are good. They channel a time, long ago, when rock and roll and country music weren’t that far apart. Better yet, they do it well.
Well, that’s it for this week Philly. Even if you don’t think you like country music, check out a few of these bands. Broaden your horizons. They may surprise you. Take care
NEXT TUESDAY: The Official Launch Party for the New Issue of JUMP! Featuring Blonde Gang and DJ Lisa Love!
The new issue of JUMP is rolling out now, with stories about Keith Greiman from Prowler, Norwegian Arms, The National Rifle, DJ Damage, Ameerah K. Art, NoseGo, Arrah and the Ferns, Harsh Vibes, Break It Up, Brian Langan, DJ PHSH and so much more.
Come grab a copy and party with us next Tuesday at PhilaMOCA.
We’ll get the party started with a DJ set and then give the stage to our cover guys, Blonde Gang. They are a hip-hop collective with influences from a wide variety of music genres. These guys put on a wild show, so it should be fun.
After they perform, DJ Lisa Love will keep the party going all night.
Check out the show details here.
TUESDAY: The Astronauts @ PhilaMOCA.
This month, JUMP is hosting the weekly Tuesday Tune-Out series at PhilaMOCA. This week, we’re very excited to have The Astronauts crew performing.
The Astronauts are a collective based in Southwest Philly. Started by Pace-O Beats and Mont Brown, the guys just appreciate hip-hop, Philly and having a good time (see the video above, where they had a packed house at Corsa bouncing all night). They took their name from Guy Bluford, a West Philly native who became the first African-American to enter space.
After the guys perform, we’ll watch Tailor Made: The Bucky Davis Story, a locally produced documentary about the Junior Black Mafia. It’s the story of Mont’s father, and the guys made most of the music for the film.
The guys will take the stage around 8:00 or so. There is a $5 suggested donation to PhilaMOCA. See show details here.
Cold Specks @ The First Unitarian Church.
Text and images by Grace Dickinson.
It’s a rare and intimate occasion that you get to see a band play in the small side chapel of a church. From time to time, the First Unitarian, at 21st and Chestnut, presents such special events, like this past Friday with Al and Pete of Cold Specks.
“We’ve been on tour recently with our seven-piece band but we showed up here and realized that wasn’t going to happen,” said Al Spx, the Canadian front woman of the London-based group. “We decided to strip it down for you tonight.”
The performance wasn’t all that far off from Al’s last show in Philly when she took the stage all by herself at Johnny Brenda’s. At the time, Al was on a solo tour, a result of certain “circumstances and the expenses of touring,” as she explained.
This time around, she again performed several spurts alone, with guitar player Pete Roberts joining the audience to listen at one point during the night.
The side chapel’s 20 or so pews sat two to three people per row, and held likely one of the most respectful and quiet audiences of any concert I’ve attended. It was so quiet that each click of a camera felt like a snare drum rather out of rhythm. The band is known for stretches of sparse instrumentation, which became magnified even more so with just two members up on stage. The whole show had a very raw feel to it, almost like an acoustic session, despite both Al and Pete remaining plugged in.
Kicking off the night, and again multiple times throughout, the instruments went down and Al sang a cappella. In every instance, her soulful voice would radiate in the air that hung between the audience and the high ceiling of the church. Just like Al’s delivery, the entire situation felt powerful and novel, and her gospel-esque vocals felt rather fitting.
Cold Specks did get the crowd stomping and shouting out at one point when Al started singing The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s classic theme song.
“I tried that joke in Quebec the other day,” she quipped. “It didn’t work.”
At the end of a fairly short but memorable set, Cold Specks closed out just like they started – with Al standing on stage hugging the mic, bravely and boldly letting out lyrics sans any musical accompaniment. Unlike the opener, however, this time she stepped out of her signature black cloak, which had been draped around her the entire night.
“It’s my confidence cape,” she said.
With a voice like hers, it’s hard to believe she could lack any of that.
Intern Matthew’s Weekend Picks: Bang Your Head.
Every week, intern Matthew Albasi brings you his musical selections for the coming days …
This week we got the first snow of the season. Winter time always makes me want to listen to only one thing – metal. So, every night I give you the option of one delicious, soul-crushing, face-melting metal show. To keep things interesting I limited myself to one per day. That way, if winter time doesn’t mean “pretend to be Norwegian” to you too, there is still something to do.
FRIDAY
I Am Heresy rose from the ashes of Boysetsfire and Casting Out with Nathan Gray taking up the mic once more. While their sound is distinctly different, Gray still knows how to put together a band that will knock your socks off.
Cold Specks and Bad Braids @ First Unitarian Church
Doom Soul. How does that sound for a genre classification for you? Well, that’s how Cold Specks decribes herself and I think it’s pretty freaking awesome. While it’s not quite Pentagram, she definately has the slow rhythm and immense sound. Plus, this show is in the chapel at First Unitarian which is proabably the most intimate room in the city.
SATURDAY
Red Fang, Black Tusk and Indian Handcrafts @ Underground Arts
Stoner rock is one of those genres of metal that often goes over my head, but Red Fang does a damn good job of it. Throw in Black Tusk, who are so sludge-y they make fellow Georgians like Kylesa seem clean, and you’ve got yourself a show.
Jonah Matranga @ First Unitarian Church
Regardless of what you think about Jonah Matranga as an artist, you have to appreciate his approach to selling his music. This is a guy who sells branded USB drives loaded with whatever smattering of his music you want and, if you bring it to his show, he’ll throw whatever else he’s got lying around on there too. You can even commission him to make songs for you. Hell, he’s just about the most approachable musician I’ve ever heard of. And on top of all that, he’s a damn good singer-songwriter too. You can’t beat it.
SUNDAY
Fight Amp, Rosetta, Ape! and Dridge @ The Barbary
This is the hometown record release show by Fight Amp for their new album, Birth Control. Well, They’re actually from New Jersey, but don’t hold it against them. These guys still rip with some incredible head-banging riffs. The rest of the lineup brings you some diverse awesome local bands. Dridge will melt you with droning doom and deep, deep screams. Ape! stands out from the rest of the bands with a distinctly not-metal sound. And Rosetta, of course, is metal for astronauts. Which essential means they have meandering, twelve-minute songs and ethereal guitar leads.
Hezekiah Jones Big Band (When Guitars Attack!) and Jaggery @ The Fire
This show should be something special, and definitely not metal. Hezekiah Jones Big Band is really just one dude, folk rocker Raphael Cutrufello, who is occasionally joined by some –or all – of his friends. For this show, he is promising at least twelve electric guitars. If anyone can pull that off it’s these guys. Jaggery will be a little more subdued. This show is the last on their tour to promote their new EP, Private Violence.
Put on your snow boots and headbang the night away, Philly. I hope you have a good weekend.
November Tuesday Tune-Out Series: Chalk & The Beige Americans, The Astronauts, Blonde Gang, DJ Lisa Love and The National Rifle.
Tuesday 11/6
This month, we’re hosting the great music and movies series at PhilaMOCA. If all goes well, by the time we start the party, the presidential election will be over (the voting at least) and the world will return to normal. No more annoying campaign advertisements on TV means I can actually turn my TV back on. Whew.
To celebrate, we invited Chalk & The Beige Americans to perform. These guys have a great Philly sound – full of funk and soul, though they can’t easily be classified in a musical genre. It’s definitely a groove, and the band is known for improvising, jazz-like, during performances. They selected the film Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which we’ll watch immediately after the performance.
Tuesday 11/13
We found these guys last year after they did this video/song with Chill Moody. The bass line was so addictive and the rhyme style so old school. Listen to the lyrics and you hear that these guys just love hip-hop.
The Astronauts are actually a collective, with Pace-O Beats and Mont Brown as the principals. Pace and Mont are just a couple of smart kids from Southwest Philly. They named themselves after Guy Bluford, a West Philly native who overcame many obstacles and became the first African-American astronaut to enter space.
It’s hard not to root for these guys. The film we’ll present on this night is Tailor Made: The Bucky Davis Story. It’s a locally-produced documentary about Mont’s father, who was involved in Philly’s ultra-violent drug cartel, the Junior Black Mafia.
Tuesday 11/20
This is our official winter issue launch party and we’re thrilled to have Blonde Gang, the issue’s cover artists, performing. These guys are another collective and their styles run the gamut – from dance tracks to more rap-oriented hip-hop. When these guys perform though, things get wild. They are bright and colorful and they get the crowd into the action.
DJ Lisa Love is a longtime DJ who spins and scratches like the old days. And she’s a great story – a Southwest Philly girl who overcame struggles and went on to DJ for the likes of Jill Scott, LL Cool J, Musiq Soulchild and others. She also runs a DJ school, and she’ll bring one of her young protégés to spin.
This will be your chance to grab a copy of the winter issue of JUMP, which is loaded with good stuff. It’s our annual visual issue and we have stories about Keith Greiman from Prowler, DJ PHSH, Harsh Vibes, The Downtown Club, Sunny Ali & The Kid, DJ Damage, Modern Inventors, Band Name, Norwegian Arms, Tutlie and much, much more.
We’ll be presenting Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, so you really have four reasons to attend.
Tuesday 11/27
These guys recently recorded a new album, set to drop in late January. They’re an indie rock band, I guess, but their music is all over the place. Some of their newer stuff has a real 80s post-punk feel, which is pretty awesome. Everything they do is loaded with energy and you will dance.
In addition to showing the cult classic The Warriors, we’ll also be presenting two episodes of the locally produced Sadie, a web series produced by Nicole Agostino. The show features a young woman who sneaks into music shows around Philly and stumbles across adventures, romantic and otherwise. Most of the soundtrack for the show features local artists.
All shows begin around 8:00. There is a $5 recommended donation for the good folks at PhilaMOCA.
Every week, intern Matthew Albasi brings you his musical selections for the coming days …
Post-Halloween weekend is going to be filled with shows and, probably, people still dressing up in all manner of awful costumes. There are tons of big shows that I’m not going to talk about like Cyprus Hill, Smashing Pumpkins and Justin Bieber. I’m sure they’ll be fun but they get enough press. I am going to talk about everything from toe-tapping folk to soul-crushing womp-womp. So, throw on your ninja turtles costume and get out there. If you can’t have fun this weekend, then you may just be boring.
FRIDAY
Datsik, Terravita, xKore and Getter @ SoundGarden Hall
Philly’s newest concert venue, SoundGarden Hall will be hosting some of the bigger names in dubstep. You can expect tons of womp-womp and awful dancing. But, seriously though, Datsik is crazy talented. He’s a young guys who manages to bring some interesting offerings to a genre that can get kind of bland.
Atlas Sound, School of Seven Bells and Slow Dance Chubby @ The Rotunda
Bradford Cox, the frontman of Deerhunter, will be playing his solo stuff under the moniker Atlas Sound. He will be joined by the New York electro-pop duo School of Seven Bells and Slow Dance Chubby. Aside from having to put up with Penn students, this could be an amazing show.
SATURDAY
Hoots and Hellmouth, Creepoid and David Mayfield Parade @ Union Transfer
Philadelphia locals Hoots and Hellmouth have that kind of folk-y sound that makes you want to go home and learn how to play the washboard. They’re touring to promote their newest album, Salt. So expect a bunch of new tunes from these guys.
Twenty | One | Pilots, COME WIND and W.C. Lindsay @ North Star Bar
Aside from their awful-to-type name, Twenty | One | Pilots is actually pretty cool. Their style is all over the place. Sometimes it’s auto-tuned pop, sometimes it’s white-boy rap and, occasionally, it’s just a dude with a uke. So, you never know what to expect. They apparently have crazy amounts of energy onstage too.
SUNDAY
The Luyas, Ladies Auxiliary and Silly Heart @ Kung Fu Necktie
This show will be nice and ambient. All the bands on this bill have managed to capture that atmospheric sound that quells the soul and enlivens the heart. The Canadian indie-weirdos The Luyas will bring their strange instruments to promote their new album, Animator. PA locals Silly Heart will make you wish you had a ukelele.
Hop Along, The Sidekicks, Johnny Foreigner and Kite Parade @ The Fire
Hop Along‘s Frances Quinlan is probably my biggest crush in the Philly music scene. She and, by extension, the band, are amazing. So amazing, in fact, JUMP covered them in the last issue (photo above by Colin Kerrigan). Mix this with the rare appearance of Johnny Foreigner and you’ve got the recipe for a great show.
Go ahead, Philly. Dress up like a dismembered zombie, a turtle turned trollop, a reindeer or, you know, whatever else you kids do these days. Regardless of how much fake blood you use, have a great weekend.
Dinosaur Jr. @ Union Transfer.
Text and images by Brian Wilensky.
The majority of the shows at Union Transfer are all ages. Sometimes that means dealing with some fifteen year old kid who will throw a fit when you move in front of him during the show. Or it means that kid is at that show with his old man and you’ll be honored to stand with him. His father that is.
The latter was the scene Saturday night when Dinosaur Jr. came back to town on the last stop of their North American tour. J Mascis, Lou Barlow and Emmett “Murph” Murphy were out supporting their latest album, I Bet on Sky, which put them on the younger generation’s map when Tim Heidecker made his appearance in the video for “Watch the Corners.”
But it’s cool to see the older guys in the crowd move rigidly at the waist and headbang with their entire neck to Dino Jr. classics like Bug’s “Freak Scene,” and even deeper cuts like Dinosaur’s “Forget the Swan.” It’s especially great standing next to a kid who’s likely his son, since he’s getting protected by that graying headbanger pushing kids back into the pit when they get near.
Barlow sounded a bit like a dad in between songs too when he repeatedly told the youngsters in the crowd to be careful “slamdancing.” And maybe even dated himself when he said, “slamdancing.”
Do kids still call it that?
Besides, where’s the dancing these days? Everyone just bumps shoulders together in an alt/punk show pit in 2012. Those bridging the generation gap sang along with the hits, “Out There” and “Start Choppin,” from Where You Been, and of course “Feel the Pain,” from back in’94. They even played a song by Lou and Mascis’ first band, the hardcore driven Deep Wound. Actually they played it twice.
Sure, Barlow’s fatherly instincts dumped out a little. But Mascis, the brains behind it all, can still shred like he did before he turned into “J the Gray.” Since coming out of extinction three years ago, Dino Jr.’s kept alternative fuzz rock alive with their standout moments of solo-extending jams. Thanks for keeping the guitar solo alive, J.
Shearwater’s overly-romantic indie rock felt a bit shoegazey at times when they warmed up the crowd. It was ultimately driven by lead singer, Jonathan Meiburg’s coliseum-sized voice. However, in terms of size, Union Transfer’s stage looked to be a bit more than they were comfortable with, especially after their last Philly appearance was at Johnny Brenda’s.
Even though Barlow may sound like your father did when you were in high school and Mascis might look like the wise sage-like great grandfather you’ve only seen in photo albums, Dinosaur Jr. still rocks harder than most guys hitting the scene now.
Win a Private Ukelele Lesson From Walk Off The Earth.
Want to see Walk Off The Earth for free at the TLA on Sunday? How about getting in early to watch soundcheck? And then sticking around after the show to get a private ukelele lesson?
Like our facebook page and email us at FreeJumpStuff@gmail.com to enter to win a pair of tickets, plus the lessons (give us your name and put “Walk Off The Earth” in the subject line). We’ll announce a winner at 6:00 on Saturday.
Want to play it safe and get tix on your own? Click here for details.
JUMP: The Philly Music Project 