I Just Read About That…

[DID NOT ATTEND: May 10, 2024] Sweet Pill / Equipment / Broke Body / Have a Good Season

Sweet Pill opened for Pool Kids last year.  But I arrived too late and missed them.

The other bands raved about them so I was interested in checking them out.  I was really surprised that they had a headline spot at Union Transfer.  And they sold it out!  Very impressive.

I decided I didn’t care enough to go to a four-band show if I didn’t even know the headliners.

Philadelphia’s Sweet Pill writes eruptive emo songs that embrace the edges of pop and hardcore. The kind of band whose members are fully immersed in their local scene—through a handful of notable side projects (twentythreenineteen / Goings / Harm Assist / typopro) and the show-promoting Philly staple 4333 Collective—the quintet’s sound takes wide-spectrum influence from its environment. The result is an amalgam of complex song structures and flourishes of technical acumen, wholly unconcerned with genre, yet evoking the specific styles of touchstones such as Paramore and Circa Survive.

I personally hear a huge amount of Pool Kids in their music, without the wild guitar pyro that Pool Kids use.

It’s fascinating to thing that a band that is basically unknown (Sweet Pill) is headlining over three other bands, who must be REALLY obscure.

Equipment is from Toledo, Ohio.

Equipment is a band formed around Nick Zander’s songwriting, brought to new heights with the addition of guitarist Jacob Scott, bassist Ellie Hart, and drummer Jake Pachasa. Similar to some of his inspirations like Jeff Rosenstock, Rivers Cuomo or Dan Campbell of The Wonder Years, Nick looks at his peers in high-paying jobs and wonders if he made the right decision chasing his music dream instead. He spends the majority of Alt. Account playfully poking at this imbalance and its many nuances, constantly flowing between being a mental health hot mess and a cool, calm, and collected sort of chaos.
At various points on Alt. Account, a 12-year-old Zander can also be heard talking about LEGO stop-motions and the Sega Genesis; these are samples taken from his childhood YouTube gaming channel that he started in 2008, before the platform truly took off. It speaks to the many versions of ourselves we can be in our lifetimes, our own alt accounts––a concept that Equipment’s bold new record embraces head-on.

Catchy emo pop with some modern sounds.  I’m not sure if the samples really work.

Broke Body is also from Philly.

A slow-burning force on the Philly rock scene, Broke Body is gearing up to release its next batch of new music.  The Paranoid Particles EP last September made for a solid project-length introduction to Broke Body via a punchy set of five post-punk infused atmospheric rockers. But the stage is where the band has truly shone in the time since, and this power trio — singer-guitarist Jackie McLaughlin, bassist Davey Jones, drummer Nolee Morris — has shaped its sound into something as bracing as it is body-moving.

I really love the bass work on their songs–playing some lead parts over the guitar chords.  And the drummer is tight and up for sharp tempo changes.  The vocals/guitars are also quite good.  They are headlining a show at PhilaMOCA in June.

Have a Good Season is a power trio from Eatontown, NJ who have crafted a signature sound that takes inspiration from 90’s college rock, vintage power pop, and midwest emo. The rhythm section of Daniel Stattner (bass) and Dan Sakumoto (drums) pushes and pulls with intricacy and motion, leaving open space for Nic Palermo (guitar/vocals) to lay down rich, open chords and melodic lead playing.

They are the most poppy and sound far more like 90s indie rock than the other bands (who lean more punk).

This seems like it would have been a really good show.