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Archive for June, 2023

Bully (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, June 9, 2023) [PIXIES]

Posted in Bully, Franz Ferdinand, Philadelphia, PA, Pixies, The Met Philadelphia on June 11, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 9, 2023] Bully

I was excited for both opening bands at this show.  I had wanted to see Bully back in 2021 at Underground Arts.

But I had a ticket to see Baroness that night and couldn’t make it.  That show looks like it was great.  She played around twenty songs from throughout her catalog.  I don’t know if she had a band or was solo.

For this show, my first time seeing her, she had a band.  And they sounded great.  Singer/guitarist/really everything that is Bully, Alicia Bognanno, was right in front of us.  Wesley Mitchell was on drums right behind her.  Nick Byrd was on bass on my right.  And a guitar player and backing vocalist was on my left.  I never caught her name but she was an essential component to the sound.

So they played eight songs, all from the new album.  I see that at other shows she threw in a couple of older songs.  But whatever.  I like her sound and her voice and while I didn’t know that many of the songs, they sounded great and Bognanno’s intensity is wonderful. (more…)

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Black Midi (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, June 8, 2023)

Posted in Black Midi, Cold Court, Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer on June 10, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 8,  2023] Black Midi

So who the hell is Black Midi?  I’m not sure.  I wanted to see them because I’d heard their live show was great.  Although, I’m not sure where I heard that from.

I assumed NPR music, but they don’t really talk about Black Midi all that much.  So it must have been from elsewhere.

I watched a live video online and the show was insane–lots of slam dancing, lots of amazing musicianship.

The main trio is Geordie Greep – lead vocals, guitar; Cameron Picton – lead vocals, bass, guitar and Morgan Simpson – drums.  At our show there was a fourth member. and I’m not sure who he was.  He played bass the whole night and may have played piano for one song (although I couldn’t see him, but SOMEONE was playing).

Black Midi plays a kind of free jazz with a spoken lyric vocalist (Greep) who sounds like he’s an over-the-top crooner/stage actor from the 1950s.  Picton wore a button down shirt and tie and Greep was wearing business casual.

And they inspire some of the most intense mosh pits I’ve seen.

I don’t know how much (if any) of the music is improvised, but the scripted musical parts are intense and fast with incredible guitar playing that would fit right in with King Crimson.  Oh, and a very healthy splash of Primus.

The music is intense and so very specific, yet it is also quite a lot of fun.  The band apparently often plays ludicrous covers, but for this show it was all originals.  And that was fine. (more…)

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Pierce the Veil / The Used / Don Broco / DeathbyRomy (Skyline Stage at The Mann, Philadelphia, PA, June 9, 2023)

Posted in DeathbyRomy, Don Broco, Girlfriends, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Pierce the Veil, The Used on June 9, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: June 5, 2023] Pierce the Veil / The Used / Don Broco / DeathbyRomy

My son has been into Pierce the Veil for a while.  When they announced a show last year we were going to go, but they weren’t the headliners, and it seemed like a lot for just 45 minutes of music.

So here they were, possibly headlining (certainly co-headlining) this Creative Control tour with The Used.

There were literally FIVE shows that we could have gotten to for this tour.

The was the second.  Not a great venue to drag to on a Friday night (we would’ve certainly missed at least one band).  But I already had tickets to see Pixies.  I would have given those up for this show, but was happy I didn’t have to.

This first show was a Monday night show on the Rooftop at Pier 17, thank you, but no.

The third show was at the Stone Pony and that’s what we got tickets for. (more…)

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Cold Court (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, June 8, 2023) [BLACK MIDI]

Posted in Black Midi, Cold Court, Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer on June 9, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 8,  2023] Cold Court

Cold Court is from Philadelphia.

That’s about all I can find out about them.

They have an Instagram page but there’s not much on it.  And any searches reveal pretty much that they opened for Black Midi and very little else.

According to the video below (live at the Lawn Jawn), this is the lineup of the band about two weeks before the Black Midi show:

Mini Serrano (Guitar, Vocals), Josyah Lavina-Maldonado (Guitar, Vocals), Theo Shuttleworth (Bass), Jett Mann (Drums), Charlie Westlake (Saxophone, Synth), Alex Ramirez (Viola), and Joe Kuck (Percussion). (more…)

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AJJ / Oceanator / Gladie (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, June 9, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in AJJ, Andrew Jackson Jihad, Oceanator, Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer on June 9, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: June 9, 2023] AJJ / Oceanator / Gladie

AJJ were once called Andrew Jackson Jihad (that’s how I had always known them, although they changed it in 2016:

1.) We are not Muslims, and as such, it is disrespectful and irresponsible for us to use the word jihad in our band’s name. 2.) We no longer wish to be a living reminder of the president Andrew Jackson. Interesting historical figure as he was, he was an odious person and our fascination with him has grown stale.

And that’s all I knew about them.  I had no idea they were a folk/punk band, I assumed they were a heavy, harsh band.  And I could not have been more wrong.

They sound a bit (on this new album anyway) like The Weakerthans.  Literate, clever lyrics with simple instrumentation (in this case mostly on acoustic guitar).

But I had had tickets to see Pixies/Franz Ferdinand/Bully and I wasn’t passing that up for a band I didn’t really know.

Turns out they played 28 songs from throughout their career. It was probably a lot of fun.  Maybe even if you didn’t know their music ahead of time since the lyrics are so easy to understand.

Oceanator is Elise Okusami a Brooklyn-based guitarist.  I hadn’t heard of her and when I listened to some songs, I loved them. The songs are catchy and fun and sound great.  This would have been a really fun show.

I saw Gladie open for Otoboke Beaver late last year and really enjoyed their set a lot.  I would happily see them again, although this is the second time since that show that I’ve had to miss them.  They were supposed to open for Charly Bliss, but cancelled at the last minute.  I’m sure that with each show they just get better so when I finally get to see them again, they’ll be fantastic.

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Temples (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, June 7, 2023)

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, Post Animal, Temples, Underground Arts on June 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 7, 2023] Temples

I saw Temples about a year and a half ago and the show was terrific.  The songs sounded like the albums without sounding exactly like the albums.  They were fun and funny and, without doing anything fancy, put on a heck of a show (probably because their songs are so good).

I wasn’t sure if I was going to go to this show because a literal cloud of smoke had fallen over the entire area.  Wildfires in Canada had sent plumes of really dangerous smoke over the entire Northeastern U.S.  Air quality was so bad that we were wearing masks again.  I wasn’t sure if it was safe to go out in it.  Technically it wasn’t, but it was okay with a mask.  I drove to Philly with my windows closed and a mask on the whole way.  It was weird to take the mask off inside, but I did because the place had a filtration system in place.

I hadn’t listened to the new record a much as I should have, but I do like the overall feel of the album.  So, having new songs sprinkled throughout the set was a nice way to get to really enjoy them.

Lead singer/guitarist James Bagshaw is a great presence up there under his curly hair.  His voice sounded great and it was cool watching him play the catchy riffs that the band has created.  He messed up the opening of one song and chastised himself.  But other than that his playing was spot on.

I really enjoyed their previous album Hot Motion a lot and would have loved to hear more songs from it.  But I understand you have a new album to promote.  Honestly they could have played for thirty more minutes and maybe played all of their songs that I like. But I have no complaints about the setlist.

Because “Certainty” from Volcano sounded amazing.  And Holy Horses from Hot Motion is one of my favorite songs of theirs. (more…)

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Post Animal (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, June 7, 2023) [TEMPLES]

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, Post Animal, Temples, Underground Arts on June 7, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 7, 2023] Post Animal

I hadn’t heard of Post Animal, but when I read about them, I was really interested in checking them out.

They came out on stage–all five of them–and proceeded to blow me away with a fusion of what I heard as Rush meets King Gizzard.

The Rush component came in some of their extended, prog-like songs that ended in chord patterns that were very much Rush adjacent.  The King Gizzard part came from some of the frenetic guitar soloing.  And what was really really fun about them was that every song was really different.

Some were straight up riff rockers.   Some had multiple parts.  Indeed, I didn’t actually know how many songs they played before they spoke.  I thought it might be one fifteen minute song, but i believe it was actually three shorter songs.

They had four different vocalists (some who switched off during one song, I believe). (more…)

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A.A. Milne–The Red House Mystery (1922)

Posted in A.A. Milne, Eight Perfect Murders, Guns, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Sherlock Holmes on June 6, 2023| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: June 6, 2023] The Red House Mystery

In Peter Swanson’s mystery Eight Perfect Murders, his narrator makes a list of eight perfects murders in fiction–not the best books, just the perfect setup for murder.  These books are:

Agatha Christie’s A. B. C. Murders, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, Ira Levin’s Death Trap, A. A. Milne’s Red House Mystery, Anthony Berkeley Cox’s Malice Aforethought, James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity, John D. Macdonald’s The Drowner, and Donna Tartt’s A Secret History.

And yes, A.A. Milne, the writer of Winnie the Pooh, is one of those authors.  Swanson’s narrator kind of dismisses the story saying that it’s a quaint mystery and that the murder is perfect (meaning the killer would never get caught), but almost with an asterisk.

What’s all that about?

Well, the story is set in an English country manor, the Red House.  The kind of place where other rich folk would come to stay for a few weeks, drinking, playing gold and generally enjoying themselves as rich English folk apparently did at the turn of the century.  The owner of the house is Mark Ablett.  He is a single man.  However, he informally adopted his younger cousin as an opportunity to pay forward a good deed that was done to him when he was a young lad with limited propsects.   The boy (who is now in his late 20s) is named Cayley and is (now that he has been formally educated) more or less Mark’s right-hand man.  Mark doesn’t seem to do anything without consulting Cayley.

Mark is generally liked (he is no snob), but he can go on a bit.  As the book opens, Mark is hosting some people: Major Rumbold, a retired soldier; Bill Beverley, a youngish man about town.  There was also Ruth Norris, an actress “who took herself seriously as an actress and, on her holidays, seriously as a golfer.”  Finally there was Betty Calladine (18 and eligible) and her widowed mother (keen to get her settled).  (more…)

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Pierce the Veil / The Used / Don Broco / DeathbyRomy (The Rooftop at Pier 17, New York, NY, June 5, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in DeathbyRomy, Don Broco, Girlfriends, New York City, Pierce the Veil, The Rooftop at PIer 17, The Used on June 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: June 5, 2023] Pierce the Veil / The Used / Don Broco / DeathbyRomy

My son has been into Pierce the Veil for a while.  When they announced a show last year we were going to go, but they weren’t the headliners, and it seemed like a lot for just 45 minutes of music.

So here they were, possibly headlining (certainly co-headlining) this Creative Control tour with The Used.

There were literally FIVE shows that we could have gotten to for this tour.

This was the first one.  And the least likely for us to attend.  A Monday night show on the Rooftop at Pier 17, thank you, but no.

The second one was at the Skyline Stage at the Mann Center.  Not a great venue to drag to on a Friday night (we would’ve certainly missed at least one band).  But I already had tickets to see Pixies.  I would have given those up for this show, but was happy I didn’t have to.

The third show was at the Stone Pony and that’s what we got tickets for. (more…)

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Grandson / K. Flay / Jack Kays (Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia, PA, June 4, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Franklin Music Hall, grandson, Jack Kays, K. Flay, Philadelphia, PA, Wax Trax! on June 4, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: June 4, 2023] Grandson / K. Flay / Jack Kays

Last year my son and I saw grandson and he was great.  It was a stellar show.  So when he announced a new tour this year I grabbed us both a ticket.

Last year I know he was really into the grandson album, but I hadn’t heard him talk much about the music this year.  He had seemed excited about the show when I told him about it, but as it drew close I felt like maybe he didn’t fell like going.

It turns out that the school was going to Great Adventure the next day and he didn’t want to be tired for it.  Which is fair. I happened to do a ton of yard work during the day and the last thing I wanted to do was stand for three hours in Franklin Music Hall.

Even though I’m sure grandson kicked ass.  And maybe if I liked his openers more next time I’d see him again.

Jack Kays is a 22-year-old musician from Cincinnati, Ohio, here to raise awareness for mental health, drug addiction, and redemption—situations and obstacles he personally has faced, gone through, and overcame. Blending the genres of hip-hop, alternative, and folk, Jack carves his own unique lane and sound, while touching the masses with his remarkable story.

The one song I listened to was all acoustic guitar and intensity.  I rather liked it.  He’s also apparently a trained chef!

K. Flay (full name Kristine Meredith Flaherty), is an American singer, musician, songwriter, and rapper. Her debut album Life as a Dog was released in 2014.

Her singing style reminds me a lot of grandson’s actually.  They seem like a perfect fit.  In fact, when the tour was announced I wasn’t sure if the two of them would be performing together or separately.  I mean, the official tour name was Grandson & K.Flay Present: I Love You, I’m Trying Tour.

I wish we were more up for going.

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