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Archive for March, 2024

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum / Stinking Lizaveta / Zoë Keating (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, March 16, 2024) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Stinking Lizaveta, Underground Arts, Zoë Keating on March 16, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: March 16, 2024] Sleepytime Gorilla Museum / Stinking Lizaveta / Zoë Keating

Underground Arts had a special year-end sale.  12 future shows for $18 each.  It’s a good deal if you plan to go to a lot of shows there.   And I find myself wanting to go to more and more shows there.

Well, my cost per show went up a bit because I wound up not going to this show.  My son was home from college, and that more important that checking out this strange band, although I would still like to see them sometime.

I actually only even paid any attention to this show because Stinking Lizaveta was opening for them.  They are a local Philly band that I have yet to see, but who I have missed now about six times.

This lineup was pretty fascinating.

Zoë Keating opened the show.  I have discovered that she recently played at ArtYard in Frenchtown and I’m going to want to check her out live.  Here’s her bio

I am a cellist and composer, born in Canada and currently based in Vermont. I use live sampling and repetition to layer the sound of my cello and create rhythmically dense, immersive music. I’m known for both my use of technology – which I use to sample my cello onstage – and for my DIY approach, releasing my music without the help of a record label. In addition to performing, I also write music for TV, film and dance.

(more…)

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Mary Timony: Free at Noon (World Cafe Live, Philadelphia, PA, March 15, 2024) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Free at Noon, Mary Timony, Philadelphia, PA, World Cafe Live, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA on March 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: March 15, 2024] Mary Timony 

Mary Timony is one of indie rock’s great guitar players.  I really enjoyed her band Helium, although I haven’t really listened to them in quite some time.

I didn’t go to her show last week, so i thought I had a nice gift of a Free at Noon today.  I grabbed a ticket even though I knew I had a doctor’s appointment earlier that morning.  I assumed t he appointment would be quick and I could get to World Cafe just in time.

Well, it turned out the appointment went really long and I was still in the office as of 11:30.  So, there was no way I could ever get to the venue on time.

So, I had to miss Mary once more. (more…)

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Neshanic and Neshanic Station: Images of America (1999)

Posted in Branchburg, NJ, Hillsborough NJ, History, Set in New Jersey! on March 14, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: March 2024] Neshanic and Neshanic Station

My son bought me this book for Christmas.  It’s a historical look at our town, assembled by the Neshanic Station Historical Society.

I’m fairly certain every town has one of the books in the Images of America series.  And they are basically lots of photos of interesting (or not) scenes from the history of the area.

Obviously, the bigger the area, the likelihood there is for more pictures.

Neshanic and Neshanic Station are small villages that are part of Hillsborough and Branchburg respectively and it’s pretty clear that initially one or two families owned much of the area.

It was once a fairly thriving area, with a train station and a lot of businesses.  Most of those businesses are now residences.  There were two schools in the area both are now gone.  The train station is no more, although the train does still pass through.

It’s now a sweet, quiet place to live with a lot of historical information available.

The book shows lots of pictures of what it was like in the early 1900s through the 1950s with a couple of contemporary (circa 1990s) photos as well.

A lot of the same names appear in the photos– I do wonder if a call for pictures from other families was put forth.

My favorite parts were seeing the roads that I know now as the were–unpaved and with no houses when the village was first founded.  And seeing that one of those original schools was possibly on our current property–maybe a metal detector is called for!

It was interesting reading this and realizing just how much is different in the 25 years since the book came out.

 

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Caza–Kris Kool (1970) [ 2020 reprint]

Posted in Caza, Graphic Novel, Huh?, Infinity, Outer Space, Sex, Sexism, Violence, Virginity (Loss of) on March 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: February 2024] Kris Kool

Caza is Philippe Cazaumayou, a French illustartor who has been working since the 1960s.  This was his first novel and it is as psychedelic as one might expect from a comic made in 1970.

There’s sex, there’s trippy colors, there’s outer space, there’s even a plot of sorts.

Kris Kool “has known the sumptuous vertigo of sinking among the moribund asteroids… [his] eyes were burnt by the truly dense flames of the sun’s corona.”

Kris is talking to a naked woman [we learn later that she is a “Lectronic Party Doll–For bachelors only”] about his spacecraft–that he sold it to the scrapyard and doesn’t have enough for a new one.  This adventurer can’t possibly end his days like this can he?

Fortunately a rogue named Bluebeard offers him a job piloting an illegal ship for Gweene.  The Gweene is a hot woman with tattoos all over her body and… no face.   She offers him a job to go to the Mandrakes from Venus, the flowerwomen that Kris believes are a myth.  (more…)

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Brent Butt–“Huge” (2023)

Posted in Brent Butt, Canadian Content, Comedians, Funny (ha ha), Murder, Thrillers, Violence on March 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: January 2024] Huge

Brent Butt is a Canadian comedian (treasure) who created Corner Gas.

His humor (at least in the show, I’ve never seen his stand up) is fairly PG–a few jackasses thrown in, but mostly (the show at least) is about living with weirdos who you love and hate.

So, imagine my surprise to find that there’s bad words in here–and pretty intense (but not graphic) violence!  This is not Corner Gas: The Book.

It is about stand up comedy though.  And it follows three main characters (in 1994).

Dale is the main character.  He’s been a comedian for years and is reliably very funny.  But his star is fading and now that he is his forties, he’s finding himself doing smaller shows.  He also has an ex-wife and daughter who he wants to support. Once he gets through this run of shows he’ll have enough to give her what she needs. (more…)

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Cherry Glazerr (The Foundry, Philadelphia, PA, March 11, 2024)

Posted in Cherry Glazerr, Ex-Pilots, Philadelphia, PA, The Fillmore Philadelphia, The Foundry on March 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 11, 2024] Cherry Glazerr 

After Ex Pilots and the obnoxious guy who was talking about how much he didn’t like Cherry Glazerr, a new guy behind me popped up who was a truly crazy fan.  He said he was going to start crying as soon as singer Clementine Creevy came out.   He also shouted her name and said “I love you” about six times.  It wasn’t scary stalker territory but I could see how she could have been unnerved by him.  He sang/screamed too loudly for a bunch of songs and then I think people got him to calm down (it’s a small venue after all).

I’d wanted to see Cherry Glazerr for a while.  I could have seen them in 2019, but they played a date that I couldn’t make.  Then in 2022 they were the openers for the Alt-J/Portugal the Man show that I really wanted to go to but couldn’t make.  Of course, it’s always more fun to see a band like this headlining a small venue, so this show at The Foundry was perfect.

They opened with the slow, moody, “Touched You With My Chaos,” with Clementine sing/shouting “I said that I loved you” and the creepy intense fan screaming it along with her.

But he wasn’t the only one super psyched to be here.  The two women in front of me bounced and screamed to each other for song after song.  And a guy who pushed his way to the barrier was literally leaping three feet in the air to land with every drop in a song.

I don’t really know the band’s output all that well, but I recognized a few songs like “Told You I’d Be with the Guys” with the sharp guitar line and screamed lyrics. (more…)

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Ex Pilots (The Foundry, Philadelphia, PA, March 11, 2024) [CHERRY GLAZERR]

Posted in Cherry Glazerr, Ex-Pilots, Philadelphia, PA, The Fillmore Philadelphia, The Foundry on March 11, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 11, 2024] Ex Pilots

I was not familiar with Ex Pilots before this show, but a guy behind me certainly was.  he was one of those guys who feels the need to talk loudly about whatever he thinks he knows a lot about.  He was pretty annoying, but he was right: people are going to come away from this show as Ex Pilot fans.  At the very least, I became a fan.

He also went on some crazy rant about Cherry Glazerr saying he’d never heard of them but thought they were some kind of 90s female grunge sound which he was never into (I was shocked that the the women around him didn’t pound him).  he also said he was surprised that there was only one opening band because most shows have like four.  Ugh, men.

But he was right about Ex Pilots.

I really enjoyed the way Hammer started as a fast rocking song and then after a minute it shifted gears to a slower, heavier rocking sound and then immediately shifted again into a lighter bouncier verse.  According to their recording, this song is only two minutes long.  It changed gears about five times and I was hooked.

“Exactly Like You” is a quieter song with echoing guitars.  It has very few words (only the title is sung) and at two minutes long, the vocals don’t come in until the half way part.

There were lots of fascinating things about this band.  There are six members in the band, including three guitarists!  And yet despite this, lead singer (and from what I can see, the main Pilot) Ethan Oliva played most of the lead guitar lines too.

After two new songs (I always think it’s funny bands ask if it’s okay if they play a new song, especially if hardly anyone has heard their older songs) they played “Nick Song” has a really catchy vocal melody.  “Bad Aibling” has a rocking shoegaze feel.  Most of the songs were about two minutes long but “Aibling” stretched out to 3! (more…)

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Red Baraat (ArtYard, Frenchtown, NJ, March 10, 2024) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in ArtYard, Frenchtown NJ, Red Baraat on March 10, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: March 10, 2024] Red Baraat

My family and I saw Red Baraat seven years ago at a free festival.  They were great.

Their sound?

Red Baraat is “the pioneering 8-piece Brooklyn Bhangra, party juggernaut…. the drum and brass + guitar band delivers an unprecedented, high energy, gut-busting fusion of jazz, hip-hop beats, rock muscle, funky go-go, and scalding hot bhangra.”  And what’s that?  Well, bhaṅgṛā is a type of upbeat popular music associated with immigrant Punjabi youth. It was invented in England starting in the 1970s by people from the Punjab region of India and Pakistan.

I have definitely wanted to see them again. They play around, but never conveniently.   They played in Philly on the 29th, but I couldn’t go.  Then I found out that they were playing in ArtYard in Frenchtown!

I went to get us tickets and found out it was sold out!   Which is awesome for the band and the venue.  I hope this means they’ll bring even more cool bands to their location and I hope it means that Red Baraat will come back.

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Slide Away Philadelphia: Nothing / Swirlies / Loveliescrushing / Tagabow / Mint Field / Knifeplay / Astrobrite / Glixen (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, March 9, 2024) [DID NOT ATTEND–COVID]

Posted in Astrobrite, Glixen, Knifeplay, Loveliescrushing, Mint Field, Nothing, Philadelphia, PA, Slide Away, Swirlies, Tagabow, Union Transfer on March 9, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: March 9, 2024] Slide Away

When this day-long event was announced, I grabbed a ticket because I knew a couple of the bands.  Amazingly, perhaps, I didn’t know Nothing, the headliner.

I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to spend an entire day at Union Transfer, but the lineup was pretty great.  The recently sent the proposed schedule

3:00pm Doors Open
4:00pm Glixen
5:00pm Astrobrite
6:00pm Knifeplay
7:00pm Mint Field
8:00pm TAGABOW
9:00pm Lovesliescrushing
10:15pm Swirlies
11:30 Nothing
w/ DJ set by Full Body 2, Kip Berman and Vyva Melinkolya between bands

And it sounds like most of the sets were going to be about 30 minutes, at least until Loveliescrushing.

But then my son came home from college for Spring Break and I REALLY didn’t want to spend most of the day away.   I mostlu wanted to see Knifeplay and Mint Field, but as I listened to more of the bands, I realized I quite liked them all.

Glixen is from Phoenix.  Now, pretty much all of these bands are shoegaze, so the descriptions are going to be quite similar, but here we go

Glixen is a shoegaze band from Phoenix, Arizona whose sound consists of tender melodies encased inside chrome walls of grungy textures and heavy guitars. Founder and lead vocalist, Aislinn Ritchie, began the project in 2020 enlisting guitarist Esteban Santana, drummer Keire Johnson, and bassist Sonia Garcia.

I really liked the Glixen vibe–lots of soft guitars and thick cottony sounds.  Aislinn Ritchie has a beautiful soaring voice that suits the music really well. (more…)

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The Teeth / Toby Leaman (First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, PA, March 8, 2024) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Dr. Dog, First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, PA, The Teeth, Toby Leaman on March 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: March 8, 2024] The Teeth / Toby Leaman

Back in January I wrote this about the Teeth.

I had never heard of The Teeth before I saw that they had sold out three nights at Johnny Brenda’s months and months before these shows happened.

So who were they?

The Teeth was an indie rock band from Philadelphia consisting of twin brothers Aaron MoDavis on rhythm guitar and Peter MoDavis

After abruptly breaking up 15 years ago The Teeth are reuniting for a pair of special shows at Johnny Brenda’s in Philadelphia. Twin brothers Peter MoDavis (Bass) and Aaron MoDavis (guitar) will reassemble with Jonas Oesterle (drums) and Brian Ashby (guitar) on their favorite stage in the City of Brotherly Love.

Well, that short run of songs has been extended.  They’re playing this show at The Church and they’re opening for Dr. Dog in July. (more…)

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