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Archive for the ‘Coyote Island’ Category

Karina Rykman (Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA, December 15, 2023)

Posted in Boygenius, Butthole Surfers, Coyote Island, Karina Rykman, Marco Benevento, Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA, Tom Tom Club, Ween on December 16, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: December 15, 2023] Karina Rykman 

I‘ve seen Karina Rykman play bass with Marco Benevento three times.   She exudes a joy that is infectious.  And her sound with Marco is outstanding–her fuzz bass is unparalleled.

So I’d wanted to see her solo for a while, even though her solo songs are a bit more discoey than I would have liked. She opened for Guster back in April and she and her band blew me away.  In fact, my wife liked her so much that she was totally on board with seeing her again.

Yes, her singing voice is rather discoey (she must use lots of effects on it to sound so echoey and outer-spacey, but man, when she jams, she gets down and dirty and often quite heavy.  But she also steps back and lets her impressive guitar player Adam November take over.  And her drummer Chris Corsico is pretty awesome too.

She sold out Milkboy (I was supposed to see her there in 2020 and I think it would have been a very different show) which she was pretty thrilled about.  And the crowd was 100% dancing to her groove.

She opened with three songs from her album Joyride (which had not come out in April).  “Joyride” and “All That You Wanted” are softer songs that accentuate her way with melody and hooks–the choruses are dynamite. (more…)

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Coyote Island (Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA, December 15, 2023) [KARINA RYKMAN]

Posted in Coyote Island, Karina Rykman, Marco Benevento, Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA on December 15, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: December 15, 2023] Coyote Island

Coyote Island opened for Karina Rykman.  I hadn’t heard of them and when I listened to a song or two I thought they sounded kind of folkie and mellow.  Turns out

Coyote Island is the musical vision of producer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Mike O’Hehir. For many years Mike travelled the country with guitar in hand. With roots in folk music, the sound quickly expanded into a new genre-bending realm of psychedelic indie. With good vibrations, dancey grooves, and tropical psychedelia, Coyote Island offers you a sonic vacation from the doldrums of existence.

Okay, so that’s promo blather but it’s not far off.

When the band started, they played an excellent instrumental jam.  It rocked and was really grooving.  Their second song was kind of lite-reggae.  I don’t like reggae, but I enjoyed this song because it deviated from the formula in little ways.

Their next song was, as the blurb says, kind of tropical psychedelia.  There’s definitely the tropical element in the drums from Ryan Benoit.  And five-string bassist Garrett Roy Jones played a great low-end.

It was lead guitarist Amir Rivera who really blew me away.  I loved the way he casually played some really amazing solos.  He was fast, but also very clean and tasteful.

I don’t have any song titles, although I do know that they played a super fun and hugely surprising cover of “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” by Kylie Minogue–sung by Amir.  Another really fun moment was when Mike broke a guitar string–a low E of all things–and had to get a new guitar.  He climbed off the stage to their gear which was stacked up in the crowd.  While he grabbed and tuned a guitar, Amir led the rest of the band in this rippling fun instrumental.  None of this is to dismiss Mike, whoc joined in about halfway through and added a ton of little details.

Indeed, Mike is a fun and engaging front man.  He’s got a smooth island-inflected singing voice [I was stunned when he said they were from Maine as they sound like the least Maine-sounding band I could imagine].  He had on a fun outfit and was generally smiling and happy.

When the set was over he walked through the crowd and happily talked to anyone.

Without question they would make an excellent opening band in nearly any situation.  I hope to see them again.

 

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