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Autechre (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, October 26, 2025)

Posted in Autechre, Mark Broom, Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer, William Fields on October 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 26, 2025] Autechre

I have one Autechre album and I don’t really listen to it.  But when they announced this American tour (their first time playing here in ten years), I asked my friend Lar, who had seen them if I should go.  He told me an amusing story about how he liked the show but he took his significant other to the show and she almost broke up with him because of it.

But when I dove a little more deeply into the show it sounded like a unique experience that I’d like to try.

I arrived at the show knowing that this would be the case, but I loved seeing this in print on a flyer at the door:

autechre

will  perform in darkness.

For their set all lights in the venue will be off.

Please plan on being in one place for the performance and do not move unnecessarily until it has finished when the lights will come back on again.

Please do not shine any lights at the stage or ar0und the room during the performance unless you require assistance.

…

If you are uncomforatble with the idea of spending around 80 minutes in the dark while Autechre play, please see venue staff before the performance starts.

Autechre are an English electronic music duo consisting of Sean Booth and Rob Brown, formed in 1987.  After the two openers did their set, the lights dimmed, with only red lights on the stage.  Some ambient music played for, frankly, longer than was necessary.  It was so long, that the music stopped and they had to start it again. (more…)

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Mark Broom (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, October 26, 2025) [AUTECHRE]

Posted in Autechre, Mark Broom, Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer, William Fields on October 27, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 26, 2025] Mark Broom

I have one Autechre album and I don’t really listen to it.  But when they announced this American tour (their first time playing here in ten years), I asked my friend Lar, who had seen them if I should go.  He told me an amusing story about how he liked the show but he took his significant other to the show and she almost broke up with him because of it.

But when I dove a little more deeply into the show it sounded like a unique experience that I’d like to try.

The opening act for the tour was Mark Broom. We also ha William Fields.  Fields was on the left side of the stage with his laptop and when he was done (after 30 minutes), Mark Broom who was on the right side of the stage with a laptop, started immediately (I appreciated the lack of pause).

I assumed that it would be more of the same because Autechre are also glitchy and noisy, but Broom had a different vibe.  His music was a bit more musical and a bit more dancey.  In the most basic way, it was more “enjoyable.”

I have no idea what he was doing up there (the lighting was very dim).  He had a laptop I know but he had some other gear too.  I could see him twisting knobs from time to time.  So I don’t know if he was making up the sounds on the fly or if they were existing songs that he was mixing around with.  As I said, it’s not my genre, but I found myself really getting into his stuff.

Broom has been DJing (and producing others) for a long time.  He is a veteran of the techno scene and evidently specializes in hardgroove with heavy percussion and tribal beats.

I assumed that he would get a 45 minute set, but he actually played for an hour.  Since I was planning to kick back and enjoy the night, I didn’t have a problem with him playing for an hour.  I felt like he mixed the tempos up and added interesting sounds and beats to make the hour pretty enjoyable.

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William Fields (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, October 26, 2025) [AUTECHRE]

Posted in Autechre, Mark Broom, Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer, William Fields on October 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 26, 2025] William Fields

I have one Autechre album and I don’t really listen to it.  But when they announced this American tour (their first time playing here in ten years), I asked my friend Lar, who had seen them if I should go.  He told me an amusing story about how he liked the show but he took his significant other to the show and she almost broke up with him because of it.

But when I dove a little more deeply into the show it sounded like a unique experience that I’d like to try.

There was an opening act listed, but we had two opening acts.  William Fields is a Philadelphia based DJ whose bio says

William Fields is an artist and musician from the Phildelphia area whose work explores the intersection of generative processes, improvisation, and audio-visual correspondence.

What does that mean?  Beats me.  But here’s some reviews

“Some of the most mind-blowing algorithmically generated music I’d ever heard”  — Richard Devine

“William Fields is at the absolute front of algorithmic music and this tremendous 24 hour collection is some of the wildest stuff out there… TOP NOTCH” — Telefon Tel Aviv

That still doesn’t quite explain it but this kind of does (more…)

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The Vampire Circus (State Theatre, New Brunswick, NJ, October 25, 2025)

Posted in Acrobats, New Brunswick, NJ, Set in New Jersey!, State Theatre, The Vampire Circus, Vampires on October 25, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 25, 2025] The Vampire Circus

I love a good circus.  This circus–vampire themed–seemed like a really fun thing to do around Halloween.  It was also near my daughter’s birthday so I thought it would be a fun birthday present.  Amusingly, she made other plans that night so we went with my son and one of his friends instead.

The short version is that this show was much like any other cirque–aerial work, strong men and balancing.  But the overall story was vampriric.  It wasn’t “adult” or scary, but it did play up the tropes of vampire lore (somewhat).  For instance, before one of the acts, the woman was wheeled out in a coffin, but otherwise it was an aerial act with ribbons.

This is not to downplay any of the spectacle, just to give it proper setting.

Although according to the website

Set in Bohemia during the 19 century, Count Dracula contemplates a plan for world domination, when he decides to open a traveling circus with his gypsy bodyguards. The Vampire Circus is a perfect cover-up to travel unnoticed and begin his world reign of terror and turn all humans into an army of vampires for global dominance.

I didn’t get any of that but I did get

Cirque acrobatics, comical audience interactions, contortionists, jugglers, acrobats, and raving cheers for a “Mad Graveyard Clown.”

For indeed, the host, the Mad Graveyard Clown was awesome.  His audience work was fantastic.  Our favorite bit was when someone came in late while he was on stage.  He immediately found the man and had the man hold up his (the clown’s) coat.  The man stood of to the side in the audience and every time he lowered his hand a bit, the clown spotted him and made him raise his hand.  He also had a really fun sequence where he brought two kids from the audience and had them use water pistols to put out a candle.  For the climax of that bit, he moved the candle right in front of the people in the front row and gave him a huge super soaker. (more…)

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Acid Mothers Temple: “Dark Within of Astropia Tour” (Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA, October 22, 2025)

Posted in Acid Mothers Temple, Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA, The Macks on October 23, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 22, 2025] Acid Mothers Temple

This was my fourth time seeing Acid Mothers Temple.  Every show is basically the same but also very different.

This show was particularly different because I found out (after the show) that the band was being joined by Cotton Casino (for only this show and the NYC show!), the original singer of the band from 1995 (she lives in the States now).  Of course I didn’t know this and I didn’t know who the woman was when she jumped on stage with them.

Amusingly, I thought she was like a young teenager or 20something.  She looked so youthful and was wearing a hockey shirt that said SUCK IT and bounced around with so much energy.

The band lost their bassist Wolf a while back and have replaced him with Sawano Shozo, but the other four are familiar:  Kawabata Makoto guitars, speed guru, Higashi Hiroshi synths, Satoshima Nani drums and Jyonson Tsu vocals and guitar.

They opened, as they do, with a wall of noise–Kawabata furiously playing the guitar, Nani smashing up the drums and the rest adding their own noise to the mix.  And after a minute or so, they settled into the glorious Dark Star Blues.  Slow and loud and psychedelic, with Cotton adding tambourines to the rhythm.  It’s so much fun watching Kawabata go nuts on his guitar while Jyonson is chill on the other side strumming out the rhythmic chords.  Jyonson and Cottom sang complementary/competing melodies.

Things exploded and then settled down for the quiet Santa Maria which opens and sounds like a British folksong before launching into the stratosphere.

On record La Novia is an hour long, so I’m guessing they played some part of the song before entering the slow burning noise of Blue Velvet Blues.  The songs melded into Flying Teapot and OM Riff before landing on Interstellar Overdrive from Pink Floyd.  When they started the slow In A Session Not C, Cotton lit up a cigarette (which you’ll see below caused all kinds of concern)

I don’t know if AMT have ever not played Pink Lady Lemonade (actually, they didn’t play last time I saw them, huh), but it seems that they play variations on it as the years go by.  This one started with the PLL prelude and then shifted into Sparking PLL (in the past I have seen Disco PLL.  This one was unique for me though because while Kawabata was using his metal wand (whatever that is) on the strings, Cotton was singing a high melody.  I enjoyed that for some of the song, Higashi Hiroshi sat aside (even though he sits for the show) and let the rest of the band do their thing.

And then, like each of the three previous shows I’ve seen, they ended the set with Cometary Orbital Drive.  Cotton picked up a tambourine and it looked to me like Higashi was having a little fun mimicking her when he shook his tambourine (but he’s totally deadpan, so who knows).

And then, like the end of every show, Kawabata went insane for the final 3 minutes or so.  His fingers flew, he raised the guitar over his head, he bent notes (all the while the rest of the band is keeping up going faster and faster), he took off his guitar and held it head down while still making noises.  Then he brought the guitar to the edge of the stage and let everyone within reach (including me) tap the strings as he waved it around.  Satisfied, he took the guitar back and looked around…spotting something or another and then he lifted the guitar over his head and suspended it from something near the ceiling.  And there it hung feedbacking as the band finished up.

It was without question the best AMT show I’ve been to.  I even hung around and took a (sadly, very blurry) selfie with Kawbata.

Next time they come to town I might have to hang out in front of Jyonson.  I feel like I don’t get to really appreciate what he does.  But Kawabata is such a magnet it’s hard not to want to watch everything he does.

Kawabata writes a daily(ish) blog about all of his show and here’s the recap for ours

From Kawabata’s blog:

For just two shows, tonight in Philadelphia and the day after tomorrow in Baltimore, AMT’s original founder , Cotton Casino , will be joining us for a special 90-minute set. The crowd was thrilled when Cotton first appeared, her incredible vocals and trance-like performance stirring up the band and the audience. Meanwhile, the enigmatic rhythms she occasionally played on the tambourine completely captivated both NANI and I, and this only served to further enhance the hyper-psychedelic sound, transforming us into a super-fast version of the eerie star Goras, racing through the galaxy with a furious cosmic rampage, and finally bringing the set to a grand finale.

Incidentally, in the middle of her set, Cotton lit a cigarette, much like she did in her old performances, causing a plume of purple smoke, and after the show she was given a stern warning by the venue. Smoking in public indoor spaces is now considered a barbaric act, and with the Fire Service Act now also coming into play, even the charismatic Cotton would not be tolerated in this day and age, so please do your best.

2025 Milkboy 2023 Johnny Brenda’s 2019 The Saint 2018 Underground Arts
Dark Star Blues ‰ [3] Jam (while soundcheck was finishing up) La Nòvia £ Dark Star Blues ‰
Santa Maria Õ Blue Velvet Blues ⊗ [2] Sycamore Trees (Jimmy Scott cover) Blue Velvet Blues ⊗
La Nòvia £ [2] Dark Star Blues ‰ [2] From Planet Orb With Love > ≅ Disco Pink Lady Lemonade > ⇑
Blue Velvet Blues ⊗ [3] Interstellar Overdrive (Pink Floyd cover) Good-Bye Mrs. Uranus § La Le Lo > ♥
In A session Not C > Flying Teapot (Gong cover) Hello Good Child > ‰ In C ©
Flying Teapot (Gong cover) > From Planet Orb With Love § > [2] Disco Pink Lady Lemonade > ⇑ [2] Untitled > 
OM Riff From The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. ‰ > Good-Bye Mrs. Uranus § [2] In E > ∞ Nanique Another Dimension >  ⊄
Interstellar Overdrive (Pink Floyd cover) Cometary Orbital Drive ⇔ [3] Pink Lady Lemonade coda∀ [2] Pink Lady Lemonade coda ∀ > 
Pink Lady Lemonade prelude > Cometary Orbital Drive ⇔ [2] Cometary Orbital Drive ⇔
Sparkling Pink Lady Lemonade ◊
Cometary Orbital Drive ⇔ [4]

It’s unclear to me what records these songs first appeared on (as they have 1,000 records out), although Setlist does a pretty good job, I think.


Õ Holy Black Mountain Side (2024)
£ La Nòvia (2023)
⊄ Never Ending Psychedelic Deathmatch (2022)
◊ Domino Dimension Drumatique Vol.1 (2022)
⇑ Levitation Sessions (2021)
∀ Diend of Fiend or Unstoppable Moonsault (2020)
≅ Electric Dream Ecstasy (2018)
§ Sacred and Inviolable Phase Shift (2018)
∞ In 0 to ∞ (2010)
⇔ Cometary Orbital Drive (2008) or Paralyzed Genius Brain (2023)
‰ IAO Chant From the Melting Paraiso Underground Freak Out (2005)
‰ Does the Cosmic Shepherd Dream of Electric Tapirs? (2004)
♥ Mantra of Love (2004)
© In C (2001)
⊗ Pataphisical Freak Out MU!! (1999)

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Billie Eilish (Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia PA, October 23, 2025)

Posted in Billie Eilish, Philadelphia, PA, XFinity Mobile Arena, Young Miko on October 23, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 23, 2025] Billie Eilish

Our history with Billie Eilish shows is interesting.  I bought tickets in 2019 to see her in NJ.  Then COVID came along and the show was postponed and then cancelled.  I bought tickets again in 2021 and we finally got to see her in 2022.  When she announced a show at Wells Fargo Center in 2024 I wasn’t sure if my daughter cared that much and so I didn’t get tickets.  The show sold out and everyone raved about it and she was bummed we didn’t go.  And then, ever so nicely, Billie announced that the tour was continuing and she was going to play in Philly AGAIN at the same venue.  So this time I was able to surprise her.  The tickets weren’t as close as they were in Newark, but her stage design was a huge rectangle on the floor and she came pretty close to us throughout the show.

And this show was basically the same as the 2024 show.  The only real difference was the middle acoustic songs that she and her backing singers played.  And the fact that the venue was then the Wells Fargo Center and is now the XFinity Mobile Arena.

As happened half the time at this venue, the traffic was terrible.  We left early and assumed we had plenty of time.  But even when we pulled in the lot, all of the ADA was taken!  Good grief.  However, it was cool that we parked right near the Billie 18 wheeler which had her logo on it (photo op!)  Nevertheless, we were going to miss some if not all of Young Miko, the opening act.  I didn’t know anything about her.  She seems to be a chill rapper who sings in English and Spanish.

Since we has already missed half of her set, we decided to just get on the merch line (which moved really quickly!). Having acquired our merch, I did the typical dad thing of figuring out that if half of the people there bought a shirt she made $500K on merch alone.  But good for her and even better for her because she happily donates to good causes and calls out rich men who don’t.

We had pretty great seats, unexpectedly.  I mean, I knew where the seats were that I bought, but I didn’t expect them to be so good.    So her stage was a square (rectangle?) on the floor of the arena.  There was a vertical lighting rig in the middle of the square on which they projected videos and also had a crane of some sort that lifted her up and down throughout the show.

The show started with some videos on the middle screens–mostly static.  And then suddenly Billie was floating above the screens.  On either side of this big screen in a lower area were her band members–2 on either side facing each other.  We were closest to the bass and drums.

When Billie lowered to the stage, she proceeded to run (pretty fast) all around the stage.  She sang and waved to all sides of the square. She stood at corners and sang. She lay down in some places.  She made sure that everyone had a good view of her.

I don’t really know her new album all that well, but she is such a great performer that I didn’t care.  I enjoyed her delivery, her energy and the whole entertainment package of her show.  Like last time the girls screaming around me were far louder than the music.  In fact, listening back to the videos I took, the audience is always louder than Billie (but are in fine rhythm).

Perhaps the most interesting part of the show was when she asked everyone to be quiet so she could loop her vocals for When the Party’s Over.  She explained that she needed silence or the looping wouldn’t work.  People were okay and then people yelled at them to shut up and the Billie started and of course someone shouted I love you and Billie just shook her head and carried on (that voice did not get looped that I could hear).

During Bad Guy (easily my favorite of her songs), she grabbed one of the many cameras ringing the stage and ran around with it showing all of the band members.  And of course the crowd shouted every word.  Duh! (more…)

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The Macks (Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA, October 22, 2025) [ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE]

Posted in Acid Mothers Temple, Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA, The Macks on October 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 22, 2025] The Macks

I hadn’t heard of The Macks before and I wasn’t really sure what to expect from them.  I mean they were opening for Acid Mothers Temple so I knew they’d be kind of weird, but I wasn’t expecting them to be weird in the way that they are or for them to rock so hard.

After the set, I asked the singer if their set was a bunch of really short songs or a few long songs and he looked at me like I was crazy.  But there were so many stops and starts it was hard for me to tell.  Either way, though, I didn’t care because the songs were so cool.  Ben Windheim on guitar played great riffs and made wild sounds (he spent so much time on the high notes–chords, feedback, noise–it was great.  The drummer Josef Windheim (Ben’s brother) played really fast and added lots of little details that filled out the sound.  Aidan Harrison on bass played really cool lines and fills and was also up on the high notes a lot.

But it was hard to take your eyes of of singer Sam Fulwiler.  He was really intense, almost daring us to watch (or to turn away).  He had a kind of barking delivery that worked perfectly with the staccato verses.

But there were also some really catchy parts.  Like the chorus of Modern Grape: “I don’t need anymore, godamnit.”  But the verses were staccato pumps with staccato lyrics.  And then the middle slowed down with wild spacey synth sounds from Jacob Michael Perris.  That’s what made it so hard to know if these were all the same song or lots of little songs. (more…)

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Kathleen Edwards (Musikfest Cafe, Bethlehem, PA, October 19, 2025)

Posted in Bethlehem, PA, Kathleen Edwards, Musikfest on October 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 19, 2025] Kathleen Edwards

When I saw Kathleen Edwards in 2021, I traveled to NYC to see her because I thought that this was a one and done kind of thing.  That she had basically retired from music but was going to do this show and I’d finally get to see her.

Who would have guessed that four years later I would have seen her six times.

After seeing her at the XPN Fest it wasn’t really necessary to see her a few weeks later, but heck, seeing her in an intimate setting like the Musikfest Cafe from just a few feet away (when I already had tickets) was hard to pass up.  I had a ticket for my wife as well but she didn’t feel the need to come to the show.

I must have left a little later than I meant to because by the time I parked (and there are NO ADA spots near the venue–the best they can do is spots on the closest side of the closest parking lot which is like two blocks away) I was running seriously late.  In fact, I think I walked in at exactly 8.  Luckily, this is one of those loose setups and there was no opening act, so she came on around 8:15, which gave me enough time to order my (obligatory at this place) food (a flight of pierogis–pretty good).  I was seated at a table not too far from the stage (but I knew better than to get right up against the stage–it’s too close!)

It’s funny that the first few times I saw her, she had a different backing band each time, but for the last three shows it has been the same–they are a well seasoned band by this point and they sound great. (more…)

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Margaret Glaspy (Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA, October 15, 2025)

Posted in Brooke Annibale, Daphne Gale, Margaret Glaspy, Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA on October 17, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 15, 2025] Margaret Glaspy

I have seen Margaret Glaspy three times.  She announced an acoustic show last year but I was unable to go.  I don’t know what she played that night, but a show around that time shows that the set was similar but not exactly the same.

Margaret’s tour manager setup the stage very nicely–a cool old fashioned microphone which was closer to her guitar than her mouth but which picked up everything perfectly–a rug, two guitars and a stool with capo and harmonica.  After a few minutes Margaret came up and took the stage.

Getting this out of the way: there was a guy there who immediately showed YEAH MARGARET!  Totally not reading the room which was quiet and respectful.  That would have been bad enough, but he shouted it before just about every song.  Everyone else was clapping politely and sometimes loudly, but this guy–holy cow.  He also whooped occasionally during the songs.  It was really weird and I feel like maybe Margaret was annoyed by it too.  It startled everyone in the room.

She grabbed her guitar and started playing.  Somehow I missed that she released an EP in 2024 called The Sun Doesn’t Think (she was selling shirts for this release and I wasn’t sure what they were talking about).  The first song Would You Be My Man? was from that EP.  It features great lyrics:

There’s a few numbers in my book, that you don’t know about
But you don’t need to know about them
And a few photos that I took, that you don’t know about
But I’ll let you know if you need to know about it
Yeah I had a life, that you don’t know about
And you don’t need to know about it
But would you be my, would you be my
Would you be my man?

I believe that Margaret is happily married, but boy she has amazing kiss off songs. Up next was her first cover of the night.  Earlier this year she released a covers EP and all three songs that she played come from it.  The first one was The Book of Love.  I’m so used to Stephen Merrit’s deep voice that it was weird hearing Margaret’s delicate voice singing it. (more…)

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Daphne Gale (Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA, October 15, 2025) [MARGARET GLASPY]

Posted in Brooke Annibale, Daphne Gale, Margaret Glaspy, Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA on October 16, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 15, 2025] Daphne Gale

Daphne Gale is a singer, songwriter, composer from Brooklyn (she joked about almost being from Philly because her mom almost got a job “across the street” (not sure where that meant).  Her web page says she also lives in Berlin.

I had assumed that she was a new performer.  However, her stage confidence and ability to not feel rushed really showed what a professional she is.  And indeed, she’s been making music for a few years.

She had a guitar player with her (whom she named several times and whose name I have forgotten).  For  the first few songs she played electric guitar (a guitar that her friend found i the trash and fixed up for her) and then she switched to acoustic for the last few.

She told a little story about each song, with fun personal details.  The song Benjamin is about a doorman.  One of the songs (Melodrama, I think) referenced a bakery that was near her ex’s flat.  She used to pass by it every day marveling at the people who were there to buy $8 croissants. (more…)

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