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Archive for March, 2023

Muse / Evanescence / One OK Rock (Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia, PA, March 19, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Evanescence, Muse, One OK Rock, Philadelphia, PA, Wells Fargo Center on March 19, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: March 19, 2023] Muse / Evanescence / One OK Rock

I’ve seen Muse twice at Wells Fargo and I promised myself I’d never miss a show.

But this year when tickets were announced  they were SO EXPENSIVE that I balked at getting one.  I realize that Muse puts on a stellar show that is better than anything I’ve ever seen, but I couldn’t see spending so much on a ticket for the floor. And I didn’t want to be back in the cheap seats.  So I blew it off.

I also don’t really like their new album as much as their older music, so it didn’t seem like I’d be missing that much.  The album is stripped down, I assumed the show would be too.  But I guess I was wrong.

And yet, reviews tell me this was their biggest show yet.  The Brooklyn Vegan review (from Madison Square Garden) says

a number of elaborate, expensive-looking cut scenes (one with parkour!) that allow for major set changes, it all makes sense in the context of Muse’s current, totally bananas live show. Songs like “Hysteria,” “Madness,” “Bliss” and “Uprising” were custom made for arenas, as streamers and confetti rain down over the audience who are singing along the whole time.  A runway connected the main stage and smaller stage in the middle of the floor, allowing for a lot of running around and kooky spotlight moments like when frontman Matt Bellamy played a glowing keyboard that was stitched into the sleeve of his jacket.  There were also six massive mirrors, rimmed with LEDs that floated and moved above the stage that helped reflect all those lasers into the crowd, and were really effective, visually. Less effective, but still fun, were the giant (inflatable) figures that loomed behind them for most of the show, first a hooded figure with a mirrored mask (the band opened the show wearing these masks, too) and then later a demonic centaur. Bellamy played a guitar solo on the shoulder of the former at one point. Streamers shot out over the whole room early in the show, and then confetti a few songs later. There was never a lack of things to look at.

Sometimes being cheap isn’t worth it. (more…)

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Messthetics / James Brandon Lewis Trio (Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, PA, March 19, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Fugazi, James Brandon Lewis Trio, Johnny Brenda's, Philadelphia, PA, The Messthetics on March 19, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: March 19, 2023] The Messthetics / James Brandon Lewis Trio

I really like The Messthetics (including the name).  The band has at its core drummer Brendan Canty and bassist Joe Lally who were both in Fugazi.  Along with guitarist Anthony Pirog, they make cool and interesting instrumental rock.  They have been pretty high on my list of bands to see.

However, the timing of this show was kind of rough.

Plus, the opening band or co-band or maybe even headliner (it was unclear), was James Brandon Lewis Trio.  JBL is a saxophonist.  he is typically joined by Lally and Canty (I assume he was on this show as well, but who knows).

I just didn’t think I wanted to hear roughly an hour of jazz, even if it was really good (which I’m sure it was).

So I stayed home instead, and had a great night in with the fam.

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Quasi (Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, PA, March 17, 2023)

Posted in Johnny Brenda's, Philadelphia, PA, Quasi, Sleater-Kinney on March 19, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 17, 2023] Quasi

I explored Quasi’s music back in the late 1990s mostly because I loved Janet Weiss’ drum work with Sleater-Kinney.  I had no idea who Sam Coomes was (he was her husband at some point but is no longer), but he was clearly the main songwriting force behind the band (Janet is credited with some song, but Sam wrote the majority).

I lost track of them during the 2000s (they release sporadically and Sam does a ton of other work with other people–for instance he has played keyboards on every Built to Spill album since Keep It Like a Secret].  They have put out about five albums that I hadn’t heard of, including their most recent Breaking the Ball of History.

Janet Weiss got into a car accident about four years ago and broke her leg and collar bone.  It seemed like she’d never play again.  But she fought through the grief and man, she was amazing to watch.

I went to this show in part because I like their older songs and in part to give Janet Weiss some support.  She clearly didn’t need the support from me as everyone was there to cheer her on.  Apparently they used to sell “Janet Fucking Weiss” shirts, but don’t any longer.

And so they came out on stage, Janet and Sam setting up their own gear.  Since it’s just the two of them, they face each other.  Sam plays keyboards (which is the most limiting way of describing his performance) and Janet pounds the hell out of the kit. (more…)

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Bat Fangs (Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, PA, March 17, 2023) [QUASI]

Posted in Bat Fangs, Johnny Brenda's, Philadelphia, PA, Quasi on March 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 17, 2023] Bat Fangs

I hadn’t heard of Bat Fangs when this show was announced.  But when I looked them up I was really excited to hear them. I really love duos, especially bands that can really rock even with a two person set up.

I wound up missing the very beginning of this set (parking around Johnny Brenda’s can really suck).  But I caught most of it.

Rather than being a duo, however “(Betsy Wright (Ex Hex) shreds ‘n’ howls over Laura King’s (Flesh Wounds / Speed Stick) deep-thunder drums),” there was  third person on stage playing bass.  I have recently found out that bassist was Chrissy Tashjian (lead vocalist and guitars for the amazing Philly band Thin Lips).

I was a little bummed that they weren’t a duo, but Chrissy’s bass playing was awesome and their backing vocals were pretty incredible.  Indeed, each musician was great.  Betsy Wright played some fantastic guitar solos–shredding like nobody’s business.  And Laura King not only beat the hell out of the drums, but (for some of the songs) the patterns were complex and really interesting.

However, I really didn’t enjoy the songs. (more…)

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White Reaper / Soul Blind / Mamalarky (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, March 18, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Mamlarky, Philadelphia, PA, Underground Arts, White Reaper on March 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: March 18, 2023] White Reaper / Soul Blind / Mamalarky

I was intrigued by this show because I’d heard some good things about White Reaper.  But when I listened to them I wasn’t all that impressed.  But then WXPN started playing their single “Pages” and I really like it.

At some point I realized that I wasn’t going  to be able to make this show, so I haven’t listened to anything else by them so I didn’t know if I was missing out on something I really wanted to see.  Now that the show’s over I’ll give them a more proper listen.

Soul Blind was originally listed as on this bill, but it appears that they didn’t play.

A review describes them as:

Soul Blind is a four-piece group from the Hudson Valley, creating a fuzzy blend of shoegaze and alternative that takes inspiration from bands like The Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains, Third Eye Blind, and Deftones.

Aside from Third Eye Blind, I think I’d enjoy their set.

I had heard of Mamalarky on NPR Music.  Their single was a boppy weird thing that I kind of liked.  But I knew that the rest of their sound could have gone in many different directions.  The singer is from Cherry Glazerr.  According to the program they said they wanted to make a psych pop record but not from “60’s dude band.”

I feel like this whole show would have been really fun.  Probably best I didn’t find out until after it was done.

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Unwound (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, March 16, 2023)

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer, Unwound on March 17, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 16, 2023] Unwound

This Unwound tour was announced with much fanfare.  It had been 20 years since the band had last toured.  And they didn’t think they’d reunite

“When we put Unwound on the shelf in 2002, we never thought we’d return to the project,” drummer Sara Lund said in a statement with today’s announcement. The band held its first reunion practice, secretly, in April 2022.

but

“Starting over again is a rebellious act against our failure,” guitarist/singer Justin Trosper added.

There was a compounded problem in that their bassist Vern Rumsey, died in 2020.  When introducing the last few songs of the night (the only time he spoke) Trosper dedicated the finals songs to Vern saying that he was the soul of the band.  Jared Warren filled in for Rumsey.  Scott Seckington has also joined on guitar–the band was (pretty much) always a three-piece, but I thought Seckington was an excellent addition to the overall sound.

But it turned out that the early 1990s band that I was familiar with was Unrest.  Indeed, I didn’t know Unwound at all.  But I had grabbed a ticket because the hype got the best of me.  I listened to their albums and really liked what I heard.  So I wasn’t disappointed that I got the ticket.

There was the usual pre-band music playing over the speakers, but about five minutes before the band went on, the sound was switched to a live broadcast of NOAA weather–a perfectly weird sounding recitation of ordinary weather information.  It worked perfectly.  The also played the NOAA weather when the band was over. (more…)

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Versus (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, March 16, 2023) [UNWOUND]

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, Sonic Youth, TEKE::TEKE, Union Transfer, Unwound, Versus on March 16, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 16, 2023] Versus

Back in the 90s, I loved a whole bunch of band that I discovered from a compilation called Ear of the Dragon.  I had known some of the bands already (which is why I bought the compilation).  It featured bands like The Dambuilders, aMiniature, Seam and Versus.

I loved everything about Versus.  Their sound was interesting–catchy and dissonant alternately.  And I loved the vocals of Richard Baluyut and Fontaine Toups (who has the best name in music).  They put out a number of albums and EPs in the 1990s and t hen went dormant.

In 2010 they put out a new album that I missed entirely.  Same with their 2019 release (which is on a label I’ve never heard of).  I basically had assumed that they were broken up for good.

So imagine my surprise to see that they were opening for Unwound on the night that I happened to get a ticket.  (TEKE::TEKE from Montreal opened the first night–I hadn’t heard of them but they are a Japanese psych rock band, hmmm).

The band came out on stage and while I recognized Richard and Fontaine, I didn’t know the other two.  They weren’t introduced, but I think they were  the rest of the Baluyut family: James on guitar and Edward on drums.

They opened with Mummified, a track off their newest album that has a really long instrumental opening.  I didn’t know it, but the band sounded great.  And after two minutes when Richard started singing, he sounded great too.  But it was when Fontaine added her vocals that everything came flooding back why I loved this band so much. (more…)

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Lucy Ellmann–Things are Against Us (2021)

Posted in Absolutely Fabulous, Agatha Christie, Alfred Hitchcock, E.L. Doctorow, Essays, Femicide, Feminism, Greta Thunberg, Guns, Jane Austen, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Lucy Ellmann, Mary Ellmann, Murder, Pizza, Raymond Chandler, Sex, Sexism, Sherlock Holmes, Violence, Virginia Woolf on March 15, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[READ: March 10, 2021] Things Are Against Us

I loved Ellmann’s book Ducks, Newburyport so much that I had intended to read all of her books.

So I’ve gone back and read some of her previous novels.  Which I found to be…okay.  They were mildly amusing with some very personal diatribes thrown in to put some passion into these otherwise comic novels.

Then I saw that she had a recent collection of essays, which I thought might be really interesting.

I agree about 95% with everything Ellmann says in this book.  And yet I hated this book more than almost anything I’ve read recently.  And I think I’m not going to bother reading the other novels that I haven’t read yet, since the other two weren’t that great anyhow.

Ellmann’s style in these essays is so unpleasant, so superior and self-righteous, so… (and I hate to use this word because of the anti-feminist implications of it but it is definitionally accurate) strident, that I almost didn’t finish most of the essays (I forced my way through to the end of all of them).  Strident, btw: “presenting a point of view, especially a controversial one, in an excessively and unpleasantly forceful way.  I mean, that is this book to a T.”

In the past, strident women have been very important to many movements.  But hen your arguments are so scattershot, it’s hard for your stridency to be a positive force.

“Things Are Against Us”
In this essay Ellmann all caps the word THINGS every time she writes it.  On the first page (which is half a page not including the title), THINGS appears over 30 times.  The tone is kind of amusing–about how things get in our way and cause us trouble: Things slip out of your hand; things trip you, things break.  Then each following paragraph gets more specific.  Clothes tear, socks don’t stay up.  Matches won’t light, water bottles spill. Then she gets into the body.  In her novel Doctors & Nurses she lists 12 pages of bodily ailments.  So there’s not much new here.  And there’s no real point.  It doesn’t end with any grand idea.  It just stops. (more…)

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Maya Hawke / Raaaatscraps / Raffaella (White Eagle Hall, Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY, March 12 & 13, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Brooklyn, NY, Maya Hawke, Music Hall of Williamsburg, Raaaatscraps, Raffaella on March 12, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: March 12 & March 13, 2023] Maya Hawke / Raaaatscraps / Raffaella

My daughter loves Maya Hawke.  I’m sure much of this comes from Stranger Things (which she also loves), but there’s more.  She really likes her music.

When Hawke announced a tour, I wanted to get tickets for her pretty badly.  I was shocked that the only close dates were in Brooklyn.  I was willing to take her there because I had taken her brother to Brooklyn for a show.

I tried to get tickets, but they sold out instantly.

My daughter was pretty bummed, but she understood.  And frankly I’d be really surprised if Hawke didn’t do a larger tour too.

There were two dates with a different opening act on each night.

(more…)

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David Stafford–Skelton’s Guide to Suitcase Murders (2021)

Posted in Alexei Sayle, David Stafford, Entomology, Funny (ha ha), Guinea Pigs, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Racism on March 11, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[READ: December 20, 2022] Skelton’s Guide to Suitcase Murders

I admit that I thought this book was called Skeleton’s Guide… which I thought as very funny.

But it turns out that Skelton is a barrister (and this is the second book in the Skelton series).  David Stafford is a British writer who has written largely for TV and theatre until he started writing novels.  He has written plays with Alexei Sayle (for fans of The Young Ones).

This mystery is set in 1929.  That setting allows Stafford to avoid any kind of contemporary details that might help speed the case along.  But it’s written in such a way that you’re not frustrated by it–you can simply get into the nearly 100 year old technology (and lack thereof).

In November 1929, a woman’s corpse is discovered in a suitcase.  She is identified and her husband, Doctor Ibrahim Aziz becomes the prime suspect.  They find some evidence and there is a rumor that she was cheating on him.  So clearly he is guilty.  Especially since he’s not from England–he’s Egyptian.

Arthur Skelton is a barrister.  He’s not 100% successful, but he gives his all in hopeless cases.  So he is called in to represent Aziz.

Skelton is concerned for diplomatic matters if Aziz is executed here.  He is related to a wealthy and well-connected family back in Egypt.

The story, despite dealing with a gruesome murder, has some funny moments.  Skelton’s clerk Edgar is trying to lose weight and is quite miserable. (more…)

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