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Archive for the ‘Philadelphia, PA’ Category

Nels Cline’s Consentrik Quartet (Solar Myth, Philadelphia PA, February 10, 2024, 3PM matinee)

Posted in Nels Cline, Nels Cline’s Consentrik Quartet, Philadelphia, PA, Solar Myth on February 11, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: February 10, 2024] Nels Cline’s Consentrik Quartet

I was excited about this show for a couple of reasons.  I love Nels Cline’s work in Wilco, but I never get to ficus on him because there’s so much else to see in Wilco.  Plus, this was a 3PM matinee show!  I could go to a show and see a great band and be home for dinner!

Well, then Scott Thompson announced a show that evening, so I guess I would be very busy on this Saturday.

I was also excited because I had never been to Solar Myth before, but I’d heard it was a great venue.  Well, little did I realize that Solar Myth is Boot and Saddle!  The venue has been remodeled into more of a coffee shop 9although they do serve wine as well).  They sell jazz records, the bathrooms are less weird and there’s even more room by the door to the venue.

Best of all though is that they didn’t change anything in the performance room.  Our show was seated and I feel like most shows there are seated.  But honestly that just gives you much better sight lines.

So the Consentrik Quartet was introduced by someone from Ars Nova, the non-profit arts company that puts on a lit of experimental shows in New York and Philly.  They bought Boot & Saddle and basically turned it into an experimental jazz club.  Which sounds dire, but this show was packed (all three shows at Solar Myth had sold out).  he told us that contributions to Solar Myth helped Nels Cline get a grant to make music during the pandemic.  So tickets to this show were basically there to keep music like this going.  Pretty cool.

The Consentrik Quartet consists of Nels Cline (Guitar), Ingrid Laubock (saxophone), Chris Lightcap (bass) and Tom Rainey (drums).  The music was 100% experimental jazz, with some parts that were catchy and swinging and other parts that were noisy and skronking with wild sax soloing and crazy chords from Nels.

Each musician was excellent.  Chris Lightcap had the least work to do aside from holding everything together as it spiraled in all directions.  His bass was grounding and perfect, sometimes bowed with occasional runs of his own, but mostly just perfectly placed upright bass notes. (more…)

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Mannequin Pussy: Free at Noon (World Cafe Live, Philadelphia, PA, February 9, 2024) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Free at Noon, Mannequin Pussy, Philadelphia, PA, World Cafe Live on February 9, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: February 9, 2024] Mannequin Pussy

I have a ticket to see Mannequin Pussy in May and was in no way expecting then to do a Free at Noon in February.  But I was pretty excited to see them in such a small intimate setting.

Then life got in the way.  We were up late the night before seeing Band of Horses and then I had a very late morning getting to work, which made leaving work for a few hours to see a concert harder than it might actually seem.

I did get to listen live on the radio and the band sounded amazing.  I’m really looking forward to seeing them in May.  And I’m looking forward to when they release the live stream of the show.

There’s a great write-up about the set here.

SETLIST

  • I Don’t Know You
  • Nothing Like
  • Sometimes
  • Loud Bark
  • I Got Heaven
  • Romantic
  • Of Her
  • Aching

 

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DJ Shadow /Holly (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, February 8, 2024) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in DJ Shadow, Holly, Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer on February 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: February 8, 2024] DJ Shadow / Holly

I really liked DJ Shadow’s debut album.  I also bought his remix album.  And then promptly assumed he stopped doing music (or something).  So, essentially I hadn’t thought about him in some 25 years.

He hasn’t released all that much over the years, but his previous album was well received.

I wasn’t sure if I necessarily wanted to see him live.  I mean a DJ… how interesting can that be.  But I was curious to see him do his thing and I’d heard that his live shows were good.

So I bought a ticket.

And then Band of Horses announced a show for the same night.  My wife and I love Band of Horses and there was no way I was passing them up to see a DJ that I wasn’t all that sure about.

So, no DJ Shadow for me.  Maybe I’d see him next time he comes around.  We’ll see. (more…)

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Kevin McDonald: Stories from “The Kids in the Hall” (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, April 7, 2024)

Posted in Kevin McDonald, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, Scott Thompson, The Kids in the Hall on February 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 7, 2024] Kevin McDonald

I was so excited to hear about  this show as soon as it was announced.  When Scott Thompson came to PhilamMOCA in 2022 I completely missed it until after it had happened.  So I was psyched to get in on this before it sold out (and a second show was added, but without a musical opener).

The Kids in the Hall was one of my favorite shows in college.  I even liked their “massive bomb” Brain Candy.  I’ve read books about them and books by them. I assumed that I knew all of the good stories.  So I wasn’t entirely sure what Kevin could tell us.  Boy was I naïve.

Kevin came out and was immediately self-deprecating, shying away from our applause.  He then apologized, a lot.  He was sorry that he was a sketch comedian trying to do standup.  He apologized for destroying our childhoods and for making us all fail out of college.  It was a great start.

Kevin told us about the demographics of the people there–34% were 49 years old, dating someone for decades whom they would never marry and who were die-hard KITH fans.  The rest were people who had heard of KITH and lived within walking distance.  And there was a small extra part who were super die hard who loved Brain Candy–they were scary people.

He told us about a time when he was coming out of a place on Queen Street and a very drunk man looked at him and said, “It’s the guy from Brain Cancer!”  He kept shouting “he made brain cancer!” (more…)

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Joe Jack Talcum (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, February 7, 2024) [KEVIN McDONALD]

Posted in Joe Jack Talcum, Kevin McDonald, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, Scott Thompson, The Dead Milkmen, The Kids in the Hall on February 7, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: February 7, 2024] Joe Jack Talcum

I was so excited to hear about  this show as soon as it was announced.  When Scott Thompson came to PhilamMOCA in 2022 I completely missed it until after it had happened.  So I was psyched to get in on this before it sold out (and a second show was added, but without a musical opener).

I didn’t know who the musical opener was going to be until day of the show where I saw it was Joe Jack Talcum from the Dead Milkmen!  I had somehow thought it might be someone from Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, although it makes 100% more sense that it was a local Philly fella.

I have never seen The Dead Milkmen even though I’ve been a fan forever.  I’ve also never seen Joe Jack in any context, so this proved to be a fun, if simple introduction.

He sounded much the same–slightly off-key and really into his songs.  He played acoustic guitar and harmonica and he sang five Dead Milkmen songs and 1 original.

I recognized the first song which was from the final Dead Milkmen album that I seriously listened to.  It made me want to relisten to the album. (more…)

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Mitski / Tamino (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, February 6 & 7, 2024) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Mitski, Philadelphia, PA, Tamino, The Met Philadelphia on February 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: February 6 & 7, 2024] Mitski / Tamino

Everyone in my family loves Mitski.  Unfortunately, everyone else in the world does too.   So when her shows are announced  they sell out in a second.  I thought that maybe seeing her at The Met would be better than elsewhere since we would be pretty much guaranteed to actually SEE her from any seat.

But of course the first show sold out in a second.  And the second added show also sold out in a second.  There was supposed to be some kind of anti-bot policy in place and I even got on a waiting list to be notified when non-scalped tickets were put back into the process.  And I was notified.  but every time I went to the site, I couldn’t find these tickets and there was no where to put my special code.  So much for that.

It’s now a week before these shows and there are more than 100 resale seats for eat show available.  Each of these seats is over $100, with some pushing $300.  I mean, that’s disgusting as there are definitely 100 people who would love to go to the shows.  But you’d be insane to pay that much

If the prices drop to something reasonable I might grab some, but I don’t really see that happening.

I knew the name Tamino from somewhere but wasn’t sure who they were.  Then I remembered he had played a Tiny Desk Concert several years ago.  I had written

Tamino is a 22 year-old singer of Belgian, Egyptian and Lebanese descent.

I didn’t know anything about him.  But the blurb mentions his voice.  As soon as I read Jeff Buckley and I heard it in the middle part of the first song I knew it was right on.

He sounds like he’d be an amazing opener for Mitski.  Sounds like a great night of music.

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Frost Children [Speed Run] with support from Frost Children [Hearth Room] / Mother Cell (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, February 1, 2024) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Frost Children, Mother Cell, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA on February 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: February 1, 2024] Frost Children / Mother Cell

When this show was announced I grabbed a ticket pretty quickly.  I had seen Frost Children open for Yves Tumor and their set was wild and super fun.  I knew I’d want to see  them again.

I also loved that they billed the show as Frost Children with special guest Frost Children.  They were going to play their two new albums (which sound very different) as if they were two bands.

But when I listened to the new albums, they were far more sedate than when I’d seen them live.  And, actually, I wondered if their show, which felt so big to me could translate well onto the PhilaMOCA stage.

Then I saw that they had another opening band, Mother Cell.  They are described as a rhythmic noise pop band, but when I listened to the two most recent songs I found them far more mellow and poppy than noisy.

Since the show was sold out and I’d been to four shows in the last few days, I decided to give this one a miss.  I’m actually planning on going to fewer shows of young, noisy bands like this.  So we’ll see if that comes to pass too.

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Lucius (Brooklyn Bowl, Philadelphia, PA, January 29, 2024)

Posted in Brooklyn Bowl, Jeff Taylor, Lucius, Philadelphia, PA on February 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: January 29, 2024] Lucius

I’ve had a ton of opportunities to see Lucius in the last two years.  My count is 5 (plus two at festivals I wasn’t going to).  For one reason or another (sometimes inertia) I just didn’t go.

Then they announced this ten year anniversary of their debut album and I thought that that would be really fun to see.  I really liked about half of the album a lot.  The rest was good.  And I figured in a live setting all of the songs would be great.

The strange thing is I had no idea that Lucius has released only three albums (and various other remixes and stuff).  So when they played in NJ last year, had I gone, I would have seen half of this album anyway!  In fact, had I gone to that show, I would have heard them play one of their newer songs that I love, “Next to Normal.”  Serves me right.

But there was something neat about going to this little mini-tour and being one of the select cities that got to see it.

It took them a while t o come out.  In fact, they turned the lights out at 8:45 and we sat in the dark until like 9:10, which is just weird.  But whatever.  The guys came out first and then Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig came out in matching outfits–berets and bold colored jackets00primary colors splitting the coats in half with brighter colors on the pockets.  They looked great.

There was a (tall) family in front of me and they were pretty good when they started singing “Wildewoman.”  There was a woman behind me who was singing very loudly.  She had a good voice, but honestly we are here to hear these two women with incredible voices.   Fortunately she was mostly in tune and easy to ignore. (more…)

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Jeff Taylor (Brooklyn Bowl, Philadelphia, PA, January 29, 2024) [LUCIUS]

Posted in Brooklyn Bowl, Jeff Taylor, Lucius, Philadelphia, PA on January 31, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: January 29, 2024] Jeff Taylor

Jeff Taylor is an old friend of Lucius.  He is from new Jersey but lives in Pittsburgh.

He opened his set by humming a kind of dissonant sound as he strummed his guitar.  It went on for far longer than it should have and became kind of funny, but not actually funny.

Then he finally sang a line “We lost my dad,” and seemed to start the whole song over.   Whether he messed up or just wanted that line to hang there is unclear.

Jeff played an electric guitar and sang and I just couldn’t get into it.

By the end of his set I feel like he warmed me up a bit and I enjoyed the last few songs more.  But most of his songs were about breaking up with someone and they just weren’t that interesting.

I mean “Flashes” goes

Just push me away
Let me be free of you
You weren’t my kinda girl

So, yeah. (more…)

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Torres (The Foundry, Philadelphia, PA, January 25, 2024)

Posted in Aisha Burns, Philadelphia, PA, Torres, Union Transfer on January 27, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: January 25, 2024] Torres 

This was my fifth time seeing Torres play.

Every time I see her, her set becomes more powerful and intense.  What was fun about this tour was that her new album, What an Enormous Room, was coming out the next day.

So we were able to hear most of these songs for the first time in a live setting, which was great.  Especially since she gave a little explanation of each song before playing them. I also love that she played a new song followed by an old song–a kind of mini greatest hits.

A lot of times when you hear a song for the first time, it may not land right away.  There were a couple of songs that are going to take a few listens to really get into, but for the most part, these songs were grabbers, doing what Torres does best–catchy powerful choruses with her great voice doing its thing.

I had wondered what the title of this album was supposed to mean, and she told us that life these days was overwhelmingly depressing.  And without trying to forget that, she felt that this album was a ray of hope–this is an enormous room, look what other things I can do in it.

She played a few songs from each of her recent albums (although only one from her lost-to-COVID album, Silver Tongue). (more…)

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