Text and images by Rick Kauffman.
The term “face melting” is tossed around so often these days that at times it seems to have lost all meaning. In the case of the Perfect Pussy show at the First Unitarian Church, however, no other description seems to befit the performance the noise-rockers put on to a quaint, yet aggressive crowd Friday night.
Yet, when it was all said and done, the crowd stood in awkward disbelief as if something went wrong, but why?
Plastic Little, Spank Rock, Sweatheart, Needle Points and GUN$ Garcia @ Underground Arts.
Images by Rick Kauffman.
Saturday was pure craziness at Underground Arts as party-rappers Plastic Little came out of retirement for a one-off show, headlining the Red Bull Sound Select (curated by JUMP).
Words just can’t describe the night, so here are a ton of images of Plastic Little, Sweatheart, Needle Points, DJ GUN$ Garcia and surprise guest, Spank Rock.
Spank is headlining the next JUMP curated Red Bull Sound Select on July 19 at Underground Arts. Details will be announced soon. Read more…
The Whigs, Nikki Lane and Desoto Jones @ North Star Bar.
Text by Kyle Bagenstose. Images by Jason Melcher.
It wasn’t on the show poster but Friday must have been fan appreciation night at the North Star Bar. Through all three musical sets of the evening – from the the opening performance of local rockers Desoto Jones to the twangy middle set from Nashvillian singer Nikki Lane, through the garage rock of headliner The Whigs – there was on and off-stage interaction at every turn.
Exhibit A: Deep into the sweaty, high energy performance of The Whigs, the band’s raucous fans in the front row started to lose their shit. No literally… they started to lose their shit, as one wild hair flaring gentleman jumped right out of his left shoe, and another lost his glasses in the fray, diving down to the floor rescue them from the stamping feet.
It was then that one of the fans, who had been slapping his open palm onto the stage for several songs, finally worked up the gumption to crawl on all fours up onto the stage and become a part of the performance, as he passionately pounded the center of the space with both fists.
Rather than take issue with the fan invading their space, the Athens, Ga. based Whigs simply let him do his thing, and frontman/guitarist Parker Gispert even gave away the band’s water to the fans following the song.
Baths and Young Fathers @ Union Transfer.
Text and images by Grace Dickinson.
It’s rare that an opening band is able to build as much momentum in the audience as the headliner. However, Scottish hip-hop band Young Fathers seemed to have little trouble creating a steady stream of both energy and applause from the early crowd who came out to Union Transfer this past Wednesday night.
Want a pair of free tickets to the massive 4-day Firefly Music Festival in Delaware in June?
All you have to do to enter is RSVP for the Red Bull Sound Select party on Saturday at Underground Arts … and then show up at the party. It’s only $3 to get in!
The Saturday party, curated by JUMP, features the return of Plastic Little, the party-rappers whose song “Miller Time” was spun into the viral “Harlem Shake” phenomena. They’ll share the stage with Sweatheart and Needle Points, with DJ GUN$ Garcia holding down the party all night.
Rumor has it that Spank Rock will make an appearance …
If all that wasn’t enough, we’re giving away Plastic Little T-shirts to the first 25 people who show up at the venue. Doors open at 8.
GUN$ Garcia will announce the winner at the show at 9 pm and you must be in the house to win! RSVP here!
The Saturday party will be insane, so please arrive early.
We’ll be partying until they kick us out at 2 am.
WIN FREE TICKETS: The Whigs @ North Star Bar Tonight.
Want to see The Whigs at the North Star Bar tonight for free? With Nikki Lane and Desoto Jones (below)?
Hits us up at FreeJUMPstuff@gmail.com (give us your name and put “The Whigs” in the subject line).
If you don’t want to take a chance, you can purchase tickets here.
The Return of Plastic Little: Win a Free Shirt!
The first 25 people who show up at Underground Arts on Saturday for the Red Bull Sound Select show featuring Plastic Little, Sweatheart, Needle Points and DJ GUN$ Garcia will receive a free Plastic Little T-shirt.
Doors open at 8 and GUN$ will be spinning from the get-go. This will be a massive party, with GUN$ and Plastic Little DJ Si Young spinning until the club closes at 2 am.
Tickets to the show are only $3 if you RSVP here.
Nick Millevoi: The Rotunda Album.
Through non-traditional tunings, feedback, extreme volume and noise, Philadelphia-based guitarist Nick Millevoi has made it his mission to experiment with and expand upon the sounds of the electric guitar. Millevoi will be releasing his fourth instrumental solo effort—the fuzzed-out avant-garde Numbers on the Side—this Saturday at the Pageant: Soloveev Gallery in Queen Village. The record release show is the penultimate date on Millevoi’s current US tour with fellow Philadelphia guitarist and Numbers on the Side engineer Eric Carbonara, who helped Millevoi record the album in West Philadelphia’s 103-year-old Rotunda last July. Along with a vast number of other collaborations, Millevoi also co-leads noise-rock-free jazz trio Many Arms and makes one half of the duo Archer Spade. Our Derrick Krom spoke with Millevoi about experimental music, the creative process and his many influences.
What got you interested in playing guitar? How did you eventually find your way into exploring the experimental side of the instrument?
Well, I’ve played the guitar since I was 8-years old at this point, so it’s something I’ve always done. Probably when I was 18 or so I got really into jazz because I felt like that was the musical direction for me to get into. I heard A Love Supreme by John Coltrane and thought that free jazz was the coolest shit. But, I still wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with that information. Then I remember, my freshman year in college, I had gotten really into jazz guitarist Bill Frisell. Somebody told me that Bill Frisell was in a band that played a song called “Pigfucker.” That was Naked City, and I got the Naked City album and was like, “This is the coolest.” It made sense to me because I was a rock guitar player and not a jazz guitar player and Bill Frisell was playing like a rock guitar player. So I thought, “This is the cool shit that I gotta check out.” I continued to be really psyched about jazz and got really into playing free jazz guitar, but that’s where it started. That’s what got me into playing weirdo experimental guitar playing.
How is creating a piece of music that is experimental different than, say, if you were to create or craft a traditional pop or rock song?
It isn’t. It’s no different. You know, it’s just about being honest about what you’re hearing and being honest about the music you’re trying to create. I don’t set out to make music that’s totally weird or anything like that, it’s just that’s what I feel like I have to add to guitar music. The things I have to add and the things you hear, you would classify it as experimental or avant-garde, but I don’t think about it. I don’t set out to be weird about it. So, I think in that way it’s just like when you’re writing a song, if you’re writing a song and you’re writing it from your heart, it can come out in any style.
Your latest album Numbers on the Side was recorded in The Rotunda in West Philly. How did that building play a role in your creative process?
The building played a huge role in the sound of this album. Really, the album was created because of the building. My good friend Eric Carbonara—who I’m on tour with right now—had the idea that it would be cool for me to do a recording there. We actually both recorded in there at the same time – he also recorded some stuff for his next album. We did it in the sanctuary, this giant room. It used to be a church, I believe, a long time ago and it’s huge. So Eric invited me in to do it and we just spent an afternoon in there where I had some ideas about what I was trying to accomplish, but a lot of it is improvised through the room. I didn’t really come in with set material or anything super specific because I really wanted the room to play a role in it. I didn’t want it to just be that I came in and said, “I want this song to sound this way.” I wanted the room itself to just really influence the music. So, Eric put mics throughout the room. There’s some close mics on my guitar but then there are mics right in the middle of the room and mics completely on the opposite end up on the balcony. People are already sending me messages asking me about the effects that I use and stuff like that, but I didn’t really use that many effects on my guitar. A lot of the effects are created because of the way the room is miced-up and the way I could react to sounds like that. The reverb in there is so long that I had time to react to it and play against the sound that was happening. The room absolutely impacted the album and made it what it is. If I went and recorded that album in a different place, it wouldn’t have come out like that at all. Read more…
A Day To Remember @ The Troc.
Text and images by Gabi Chepurny.
The Trocadero literally shook under the weight of the intensity that Florida native, A Day To Remember, brought with them Monday night.
New Jersey’s Chasing Safety opened the night with it’s own brand of hardcore, complete with ripped jeans and stage antics there we were sure would cause injury to one of the band’s members. Between on-stage gymnastics and the overkill on mic throwing, we were surprised to see the band survive and while lead singer, Johnny Galivan’s on-stage presence was erratic, the music brought us back to the hardcore days of 2007, and that was a good thing.
The nights bill was heavy on local bands, as Major League, also from the Garden State, gave the crowd some much appreciated pop punk. It’s worth noting that lead singer Brian Joyce rocked a Brand New t-shirt in a not toward the hardcore scene’s roots. With catchy hooks and lyrics that the adolescent crowd was totally into, Major League sounded to us like that punk band from high school that you always hoped would actually go somewhere.
As the room filled to sold-out capacity, the sound guy made sure to keep the music playing as ADTR took 25 minutes to set up. Among the songs played were System Of A Down’s Chop Suey, to which everyone moshed and knew all the words. The same can be said for when Lil Jon’s “Turn Down For What?” and Limp Bizkit’s “Break Stuff” came on. The most pits between sets were only a taste of what was to come.
Headliners A Day To Remember took the stage in a flurry of confetti and flailing limbs as the entire venue turned into a swirling mosh pit. While we’re not sure about the balcony, from front to back, the downstairs was filled with every 16-year-old and their best friend fighting their way through the pit during a set that included mostly older tracks, with a few off their most recent effort, Common Courtesy, thrown in.
Frontman Jeremy McKinnon put security to work when he said, “Philly I wanna see the biggest fucking circle pit The Troc has ever seen. You don’t have to participate; just get the fuck out of the way,” before launching into “Why Walk On Water When We’ve Got Boats?”
Confetti and a full venue mosh pit were just the beginning to a stellar performance from the hardcore heroes. The five-piece brought out beach balls and rolls of toilet paper to be tossed across the crowd before McKinnon came out in an inflatable hamster ball that he used to run across the crowd and back onto the stage. Between hitting every note and endless stage antics, A Day To Remember delivered a truly impressive show.
The Menzingers, The Holy Mess and Nona @ Golden Tea House.
Text and images by Jessica Flynn.
Yesterday at noon, Guild Shows announced that the Golden Tea House would be hosting a surprise, same-day record release show for The Menzingers’ new album Rented World.
The show reached capacity 14 minutes after opening the doors. Nona and The Holy Mess opened. It was the first Holy Mess show as a three piece since Scott Engel left the band.
This was the first time The Menzingers played Philadelphia since last summer at First Unitarian with Fake Problems, Restorations and Captain We’re Sinking. It was the first house show The Menzingers played in more than two years (the last time was at The Cracker Factory … RIP).
People were really stoked throughout the whole show. When the mic stopped working for the last song of the night, everyone sang it as loud as they could in that wonderful uniting way that is often referred to as “gang vocals,” and it was beautiful.
JUMP: The Philly Music Project 