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Phish (Baker’s Dozen Night #1 Madison Square Garden, New York, NY, July 21, 2017)

Posted in David Bowie, Donuts, Harry Nilsson, Jon Fishman, Josh White, Junior Senior, Led Zeppelin, Madison Square Garden, Mike Gordon, New York City, Page McConnell, Phish, Trey Anastasio on July 21, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 21, 2017] Phish

I really enjoyed the Phish concert I saw last summer.  I knew I wanted to see the guys again, and I was really surprised to hear that they were doing a 13 night residency at Madison Square Garden.  I briefly thought…could I do all 13?…and then reality came crashing down on me.  I took a chance on 4 shows in the Phish lottery and amazingly I got all 4.  But I decided to sell 2 and just go to the first and last nights (making that two shows three weeks apart).

One of my tickets was being delivered to a buyer before the show and I was running late, so I had to hasten to MSG and managed to get to my seat by 7:25 for the promised 7:30 start.  Well, I was kind of annoyed that they didn’t start until 8.  I mean, start at 8, that’s fine, but don’t say you’ll start at 7:30, especially given how stressed you made me.

At any rate, I knew the theme of the show was coconuts, but since it was the first night, I didn’t really know what that meant.  It turned out that they were going to play a few songs that had a coconut theme (and have continued that for each night so far). (more…)

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King’s X (Sellersville Theater, Sellersville, PA, July 15, 2017)

Posted in King's X, Kings of Spade, Sellersville Theater, Sellersville, PA on July 15, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 15, 2017] Kings X

My friend Sean and I were planning on making it three years in a row seeing King’s X, but he had last minute other plans (which I hope were wonderful).

It was interesting seeing them again (this is 4 times in four years! and three years at Sellersville).  Usually I can’t get good pictures at Sellersville, but either it was brighter, or my new phone is better in the dark.  Either way the photos were much better.

My friend Charles is a huge fan of the band and he warned me the dUg’s voice wasn’t sounding so great.  I thought that last time around, so I was prepared for the worst.  But he sounded okay.  As another friend said, he is 66 years old.  The only real drag about that is that his voice was so amazing that’s it’s a shame he’s lost that instrument’s full range.

But the band itself sounds great and since everyone in the audience is a huge fan, we did a lot of the singing for dUg, anyway.

(more…)

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Kings of Spade (Sellersville Theater, Sellersville, PA, July 15, 2017) [KING’S X]

Posted in King's X, Kings of Spade, LGBTQ, Sellersville Theater, Sellersville, PA on July 15, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 15, 2017] Kings of Spade

Back in November, I saw King’s X and Kings of Spade.  I was more than a little surprised to see that King’s X were coming back to Sellersville and to see that Kings of Spade were opening again (turns out, not again, but still).  The band said that King’s X brought them to Europe, which was pretty exciting for them.

In the last 8 months or so, Kings of Spade have gotten even better.  They were really tight and solid back then, but their rocking songs rocked more and they really had a lot of fun on stage.  I guess 8 months of touring will get you to loosen up a bit.  In fact, when I saw them after the gig–they hung around for autographs again, I told the singer they sounded even better and she said she felt a lot more comfortable up there and danced a lot more–very nice folks.

It was cool seeing how well the bassist Tim Corker and drummer Matt Kato feed off each other–there’s some great rumbling sections in the later songs, with some great, complex drumming and fast bass playing. (more…)

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King Crimson (Count Basie Theater, Red Bank, NJ, July 9, 2017)

Posted in Count Basie Theatre, David Bowie, King Crimson, Red Bank, NJ, Stick Men on July 9, 2017| 4 Comments »

[ATTENDED: July 9, 2017] King Crimson

I was genuinely surprised to discover that my previous King Crimson show was nearly three years ago–it felt so much more recent than that.  But so it was.

I was pretty excited that they were playing in Red Bank, NJ at the Count Basie–a theater I’d never been to before. And I was pretty thrilled that my cousin Kate who lives nearby was able to get tickets without having to pay the bastard fees (especially since the tickets were so frickin expensive).  But she managed to get me a seat in Row G, which was just phenomenal.

Interestingly, since the theater slopes down (which is awesome, no one’s head is ever in your way), for this band’s setup, being that close meant that the drums blocked a lot of the view.  Because yes, the three (!) drummers were right out front.  The lineup was pretty much the same as last time except that since I saw them last, drummer Bill Rieflin took a sabbatical (and was replaced by Jeremy Stacey) and then came back.  So now there were eight performers!

The lineup: Tony Levin (bass, Stick, more); Mel Collins (saxes, flutes); Jakko Jakszyk (guitar, vocals),  Bill Rieflin (keyboards and effects–I’m led to believe he played drums earlier in the tour, but for our show he was just on keys): Three drummers: Gavin Harrison, Pat Mastelotto and Jeremy Stacey (also keyboards).  And of course, Robert Fripp (guitar).

My seats were right in front of Gavin Harrison, which was awesome.  It was so much fun to watch him.  But being so close to him meant that I couldn’t always see Fripp (Harrison’s cymbals were blocking him!).  I couldn’t really see Stacey much (he was blocked on both sides by his gear) and Mastelotto was on the other side, which meant I could watch his expressions and see him bash the hell out of things, but could never exactly see when he did subtle things.

The main thing I wanted to watch this time was Tony Levin’s bass and Stick playing.  But just like last time, I never knew where to focus because someone was always doing something interesting and my attention was easily swayed.

I looked at my prior write up and feel like much of it is the same, and that’s fine because the show was amazing, and I was delighted to have seen it again. But there were also a whole bunch of different songs at this show–for a band who is playing such complex music to mix it up so much is pretty cool.

So here’s what I said last time:

(more…)

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Palm (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, June 24, 2017)

Posted in Palberta, Palm, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, Suffer Dragon on June 24, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 24, 2017] Palm

I saw Palm open for Dilly Dally last year and I enjoyed their set a lot.  I instantly found their bandcamp site and downloaded Trading Basics (Ostrich Vacation is a bit more out there).  This show at PhilaMOCA was ostensibly an album release party for their new EP, Shadow Expert.  But when I asked the bassist if that meant the were going to throw confetti he just laughed.  Later Eve Alpert said she was really blown away that so many people came (it was sold out).  So it was cool to be at that show.

I was really excited to see them in such a small place and I planted myself right up front to watch what they were doing (those chords!).  After about four songs someone came thundering in from who knows where and started slam dancing (she was the only one), and I wound up pretty far back after that, which sucked.  It was also really really stupid hot in there, but Palm transcended the scene and played an awesome set.

They played most (but I don’t think all) of the new EP.  It even sounded like they may have thrown in some brand new songs too, but I’m not sure.  They started with “Walkie Talkie” and the opening strange chords and notes of the EP–it’s so interesting to watch them play this stuff.  And the fact that they are perfectly in sync and never miss a beat is just outstanding. (more…)

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Palberta (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, June 24, 2017) [PALM]

Posted in Palberta, Palm, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, Suffer Dragon on June 24, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 24, 2017] Palberta

For Palberta, I came down from the balcony because the room had cleared out some–it was really hot so people headed outside for a mew minutes.  I grabbed a spot pretty close and then just before the band went on a tall fellow with artificial flowers (that seemed like he was going to give to the band but never did) stood on front of me.

I’d only heard of Palberta after seeing that they were going to open for Palm.  They have gotten some write ups in some pretty major publications (in Feb they were mention in Rolling Stone as 1 of 10 new bands to get to know).  In that article, Rolling Stone says

sing disjointed playground punk that embraces both dissonance and innocence, trading instruments as quickly as they change ideas: A good 80 percent of the songs poke and scurry off before two minutes are up. “At this point writing short songs feels more intuitive for us than intentional – it’s the natural way,” says Nina Ryser. “It kind of reflects the song writing process itself: frenzied, fast, kind of jumbled.”

And that’s a pretty apt description of the band (I’m fairly surprised that they were mentioned there at all).

And the band says: (more…)

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Suffer Dragon (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, June 24, 2017) [PALM]

Posted in Palm, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, Suffer Dragon on June 24, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 24, 2017] Suffer Dragon

Two trips to PhilaMOCA in three days.  This time to see a local band that I really like, Palm.

I arrived in the middle of Suffer Dragon set and immediately went upstairs where no one was (it as incredibly hot once again).  I enjoyed that angle quite a bit.  It was very close to the stage and you could really see what both guys were doing.

For Suffer Dragon is a duo–guitar (Adam Babar) and one drum (Daniel Betts).  I didn’t know any of their songs until I looked them up online–there was basically one live video that I watched.  I gather they might be pretty locally famous.  Indeed, back in May, Palm opened for Suffer Dragon.

What made this duo different from many other duos is that Betts also played keyboards (drumstick in right hand, left on the keys) and the Babar’s guitar was hooked up to some crazy effects pedals that made many things he played sound very un-guitar-like.  He was the singer as well. (more…)

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Chastity Belt (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, June 22, 2017)

Posted in Chastity Belt, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA on June 22, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 22, 2017] Chastity Belt

 I first heard of Chastity Belt from All Songs Considered.  They’d played their really great song, “Black Sail.”  And they also brought attention to their amusing/appalling band photo (see below).  The album No Regerts [sic] had some fun/funny punky feminist songs.  Since then the band has released two albums (and their new one is really really good) and changed their band promo photo style (see below also).  They’re still writing feminist songs but they’re slightly less abrasive (and not called things like “Giant Vagina” or “Nip Slip”).

In fact, despite their name and that particular photo below, their music is really chill.  Julia Shapiro plays nicely jangly almost shoegazy guitar while Lydia Lund plays some simple but really catchy guitar lines that emphasize or counterpoint the melody.  Annie Truscott keeps everything grounded with her bass and Gretchen Grimm plays some really interesting drum parts.  It was particularly notable live since the drums were louder, that Gretchen wasn’t just playing snare/bass, but was playing complex patterns on her toms.  It really made for a cool sound.

I also got a kick out of Shapiro handing out the setlist to everyone on what looked like little tiny pieces of paper (wonder if they were handwritten). (more…)

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Sneaks (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, June 22, 2017) [CHASTITY BELT]

Posted in Black Flag, Chastity Belt, Joy Again, Kim Gordon, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, Sneaks, Sonic Youth on June 22, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 22, 2017] Sneaks

Sneaks was second on the bill opening for Chastity Belt.

I ended my post about Joy Again by coming out of the bathroom.  Well, while I was on line, I kinda thought that Sneaks was standing behind me.  But I’d only watched one video from her so I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to be presumptuous.  Well, I was right, because the woman wearing the Space Jam T-shirt climbed up on stage with the same shirt tied in a knot and, now, glitter all over her face.

I hadn’t heard Sneaks, so I checked out her bandcamp.  Sneaks is basically a one-woman show.  She plays bass and sings/raps/freestyles over her punky bass and a drum machine.  She has a lo-fi recording out and a more polished disc.  I would have loved both of these records when I was in college–the DIY punk attitude is pretty great.  But I didn’t love either one all that much the other day.

But she was great live. (more…)

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Joy Again (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, June 22, 2017) [CHASTITY BELT]

Posted in Dungen, Joy Again, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA on June 22, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 22, 2017] Joy Again

I had never been to PhilaMOCA before this evening.  I was supposed to see Dungen there this winter, but a snow storm kept me away.  Well, imagine my surprise that the event location is even smaller than I realized.  You walk in and the band is directly to your left.  There’s a small room and a balcony (sometimes in use) which holds about 250 people.

When I walked in Joy Again was already on stage.  I had listened to their bandcamp release before the show.  It was a lo-fi affair.

I was surprised at just how loud the band was live–a very different experience than I was expecting. (more…)

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