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Hurry (Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, PA, September 5, 2023) [SPEEDY ORTIZ]

Posted in Hurry, Johnny Brenda's, Philadelphia, PA, Speedy Ortiz, Teenage Fanclub, Washer on September 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 5, 2023] Hurry

I was supposed to see Hurry open for two previous shows.  A Restorations show that was cancelled because of COIVD and a Nada Surf show that I didn’t go to because it was the same night as something else.

I was positive about them, but a little dismissive as well.  Perhaps it took them to release their newest album Don’t Look Back for them to perfect their blend of perfect Nada Surf/Teenage Fanclub pop songcraft.  Indeed, their album is named after a Teenage Fanclub song.

Originally, the project was a solo venture for Matt Scottoline who played bass in another band.  Scottoline has a knack for simple pop hooks and songs that you can’t help but tap your toes to.  The rest of the band is Rob DeCarolis: Drums; Joe DeCarolis: Bass; Justin Fox: Lead Guitar and , a fifth member who (amusingly) sang occasional backing vocals and banged a tambourine but mostly just seemed to hold a drink in his hand.  Turns out this guy was Ian Farmer of Modern Baseball (and owner of their record label) who sat in for this whole set.

I was sucked into their music right from the get go.  The melodies and harmonies were wonderful.  All of the songs were from this new album (which came out last month).  The only exceptions were “When I’m with You” (which is their biggest hit and was features in two TV shows a few years ago) and “Don’t Look Back” the Teenage Fanclub song that they got their album name from. (more…)

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Speedy Ortiz: Free at Noon (World Cafe Live, Philadelphia, PA, August 4, 2023)

Posted in Free at Noon, Philadelphia, PA, Speedy Ortiz, World Cafe Live on August 6, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 4, 2023] Speedy Ortiz

I feel like I have seen Speedy Oriz a few times.  But I had only seen them once before.  It was a very memorable show, though, with me getting to stand right in front of Sadie Dupuis as she played and sang.

Here it is five years later (after they opened for Foo Fighters in Fenway a few days after I saw them), with a new album out soon.  I bought a ticket for their Johnny Brenda’s show in a few weeks, but I decided to give the Free at Noon show a go.  (This time it only cost me 3 hours of sick time).

I was pretty no nonsense about this one.  Sucked it up and paid for parking (it had just started raining) and I felt like I was cutting it a little too close to be driving around.  I was bummed for them that it was so sparsely attended, but maybe they’re just not that big of a band.

But it meant I could get up nice and close and watch them play.

They were so spread out on  the big stage.  I felt like bassist Audrey Zee Whitesides (now a permanent member of the band) was miles away.  I was in between Saide and Andy Moholt.  Last time I couldn’t really see Moholt but he was fun to watch this time, playing weird chords and lots of solo frills 9as well as a keyboard).  Initially his lead guitar was way too loud, but they mixed it down pretty quickly.

I’m guessing my location was to blame for how loud Joey Doubek’s drums sounded.  Or more specifically, his one cymbal.  When he crashed it a lot, it really drowned out everyone else. I’m sure you won’t hear that when it gets uploaded to the streaming playback, but it was quite loud to me (I probably should have moved).

They played 8 songs in half an hour.  Four from the new album (released Sept 1) and four oldies.

I was surprised and delighted that they started with “The Graduates” a favorite of mine.

The new songs sound great–a bit heavier and a bit more unusual with the guitar chord choices and whatnot.  And Doubek’s drumming was much louder and more intense on the new songs.  Sadie said that Scabs had something to do with striking postal workers.  I’ll have to listen to the playback to get the details (she was drowned out by the applause).

The folks around me were definitely fans as they sang along to the older songs like “Silver Spring.”

Audrey said that the last time they played World Cafe, they played all of Twerp Verse.  They didn’t want to do any duplicates for this show, but they did want to play a song from each album, so they played “Lucky 88” my favorite off of Twerp.

They ended with the new song “You SO2” (which continues the album’s trend of Sadie’s lyrics being more narrative than rhyme based) and finished with “Plough” a great song from their debut.

Seeing this made me wonder if I still needed to go to Johnny Brenda’s, but it’s a few weeks away and I expect they’ll probably play at least twice as many songs, right?

It’s great to have them back.  I’m looking forward to more new music from them.

Free at Noon 2023 PhilaMOCA 2018
The Graduates € Buck Me Off ⇓
Scabs ¥ Lean In When I Suffer ⇓
Ghostwriter ¥ Lucky 88 ⇓
Silver Spring ⊗ Raising The Skate €
Plus One ¥ The Graduates €
Lucky 88 ⇓ Silver Spring ⊗
You SO2 ¥ Plough ♠
Plough ♠ Alone With Girls ⇓
I’m Blessed ⇓
Taylor Swift [single]
You Hate The Title ⇓
Moving In ⇓
Villain ⇓
Swell Content €
Dvrk Wvrld €

 

¥ Rabbit, Rabbit (2023)
⇓ Twerp Verse (2018)
€ from Foil Deer (2015)
♠ from Major Arcana (2013)
⊗ from Sports EP (2012)
[single] from (2012)

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Vagabon / Maneka (White Eagle Hall, Jersey City, NJ, May 21, 2022) [CANCELLED]

Posted in Cancelled, Jersey City, NJ, Maneka, Speedy Ortiz, Vagabon, White Eagle Hall on May 21, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[CANCELLED: May 21, 2022] Vagabon / Maneka

There is evidence that Vagabon was supposed to play White Eagle Hall on May 21, 2022.  But there is very little of it. There’s no announcements of the show/tour.  There’s np posters or fliers.  And if you look at the website for White Eagle Hall, there a post announcing the show, but not one cancelling it.

I have wanted to see her for a few years now.   I loved her debut album, but i believe her follow up records sound quite different, so maybe I missed my chance back in 2019 when I didn’t see her with Angel Olsen.

Maneka used to be in Speedy Ortiz.

I listened to a track off his new album and it was mellow and almost a little boring.  But then I read that his previous album was wild and crazy and it is.

Turns out Maneka is really hard to pin down and would probably be amazing to see live.

Here’s a little blurb from Pitchfork.

After parting ways with Speedy Ortiz in 2017, Brooklyn-based musician Devin McKnight adopted the moniker Maneka to experiment with genres beyond his indie-rock roots.   …  McKnight came into his own on Devin in 2019, and he cranked his energy up to 11 by blending heavy metal and noise-punk with hip hop and jazz. On Dark Matter, McKnight continues to ask what it means to be Black in the indie scene while expanding his musical range in surprising ways.

McKnight likens America’s racist history to dark matter—an invisible force that binds the country together. “America has this really dark energy. How has it been this fucked up for so long and no one’s done anything about it?” he has said. On Dark Matters, he confronts that energy directly, writing lyrics that attack racism at its roots. On “Winners Circle,” an unusual fusion of trap drums, shoegaze guitars, and a double-time hardcore outro, he plays on the theory that Beethoven might have been a person of color who lightened his skin to pass in his own scene, singing, “Don’t paint a smile in the place where that shame hid/Play that brand new shit/That No. 9 shit.” On “The Glow Up,” he grapples with generations of racism—“And how do you explain this?/The seat in the back is meant for me?/And how do you explain this?/The ones we lost hanging from the trees”—over syrupy electric bass and guitar. And on the psychedelic “Runaway,” over dueling electric and acoustic guitars, he comes brutally to the point: “Stored in the bones/Is the feeling/You don’t belong here.”

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William Trevor–“A Bit on the Side” (New Yorker, October 29, 2001)

Posted in Coronavirus, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Quarantine, Sad13, Sex, Short Story, Speedy Ortiz, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, William Trevor on November 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SAD13-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #105 (October 30, 2020).

After yesterday’s Concert, this was an excellent palate cleanser.  Sad13 is basically Saude Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz.  Sadie is a fun and great frontwoman in Speedy, whose songs tend to rock.  For Sad13 she plays more synth and the songs are a bit quieter.

It was also fun to see bassist Audrey Zee Whitesides whom I have seen in many bands over the years playing on a Tiny Desk (and wearing rather convincing vampire fangs).

“We weren’t sure what to wear and the only thing we could agree on was devil costumes.” In a pink wig, blue horns and a purple cheerleading outfit, Sadie Dupuis brings a brightly ghoulish spirit to her Tiny Desk (home) concert, just in time for Halloween.

Drummer Zoë Brecher is also in costume–wearing a black cape and horns.

Sadie says “we are a coven of musical demons” and she hoped this would air around Halloween, but if not, haunted cosplay is “good for the whole month of October.  For 12 months a year.”  Plus it ties in with the new album.

Haunted Painting, her terrific new album as Sad13, is, in part, about metaphorical and literal ghosts: their weight and place in your life, but blasted with the sonic glee of a neon rainbow. While Dupuis’ guitar unmistakably squiggles with a vocal vibrato to match, Sad13’s pop sensibility differentiates from her other band, Speedy Ortiz; these sweet-and-sour songs explode with creative arrangements and nerdy production techniques.

I haven’t heard the record but I guess it sounds different from this Concert

Recording separately from their homes in Philly, New York and Stamford, Conn., Sad13 (featuring drummer Zoë Brecher and bassist Audrey Zee Whitesides) doesn’t so much slim down the wild details but finds different textures in these songs.

They open with “Oops…!” which has simple echoing guitar riffs and some fancy bass work from Audrey.  I love Audrey’s backing vocals when they sing opposite Sadie.  Sadie also throws in some waverly synth parts.

Between songs she says “they don’t make pink desks for adults so this is where I make music that I have to crouch over for and is giving me premature back pain.”

“Hysterical,” is up next.  Sadie moves to the organ for some cool synth lines.  Zoë sings backing vocals along with Audrey’s pumping bass line.  There’s terrific backing vox during the chorus, in particular.  The song

leans into a fuzzy space-age boogie, as Dupuis hooks up her Farfisa organ to an array of effects pedals, sounding like one of Joe Meek’s idiosyncratic productions from the 1960s.

“WTD?” (What’s The Drama?”) has a fun off kilter guitar riff and more killer playing from the band.

Sad13’s set ends with “Take Care,” a song that beautifully blossoms from grief. “It’s about caring for and missing people to an extent that’s detrimental to your own well-being,” she shares as cellist Sasha Ono and violinist Camellia Hartman take their virtual places. “I think, as we’re all secluded and cloistered away from the people we care about, this one’s been resonating harder with me than it did when I recorded it.”

It’s a lovely ballad with Sadie on acoustic guitar and delicate pizzicato from Camellia.  It’s a beautiful song and a great selling point for getting the album. They song fades out at the end but it feels like it could go much longer.

[READ: November 18, 2020] “A Bit on the Side”

This was the slow detailed story of a couple breaking up.

They met at their usual cafe and she sensed something was wrong.

He spoke positively of how nice she looked. (more…)

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Diet Cig / Sad13 / Thin Lips (First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, PA, November 4, 2020) [rescheduled date–POSTPONED]

Posted in Coronavirus, Diet Cig, First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, PA, Philly Music Fest, Postponed, Quarantine, Sad13, Speedy Ortiz, Thin Lips, Union Transfer on November 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: November 4, 2020] Diet Cig / Sad13 / Thin Lips [rescheduled from May 14 Union Transfer]

indexI was really bummed when this show was postponed.  I was even more bummed when it was moved to the Church. I really liked the venue when we first arrived, but by the end, I was hot and sweaty and crowded and worn out.

Then back in September, the venue sent out this message

We that brief note of optimism, now for the bad news: The rescheduled show w/ Diet Cig has now been officially “canceled”. When we rescheduled this show a few months back, we thought we would be in a much different place than where we are currently.

Exactly NOT what I wanted to experience in a club.  So this postponed makes sense to me.  Maybe next time they’ll move them back to a bigger venue.

I have wanted to see Diet Cig ever since I saw them on a Tiny Desk Concert–they are a bundle of energy and the duo play super catchy pop punk.  I wanted to see them before they lost their energy.

I missed them the first time they came around and last time around they played at the First Unitarian Church, a venue I dislike.  So when they announced this show at Union Transfer I was so excited.  This cancellation was a major bummer for me.

Especially since now that they rescheduled it is apparently being moved to the Church again (does this mean sales are really poor?)

Sad13 is the solo moniker of Sadie Dupuis the singer of Speedy Ortiz.  They were wonderful live (and I was right in front of Sadie to watch her terrific guitar work).  I don’t really know much about the Sad13 songs but I assume they will be great if she is behind them.

I saw Thin Lips at the Philly Music Fest and they were absolutely fantastic.  I loved them and was looking forward to seeing them again.  They play catchy pop punk with pointed lyrics.  Outstanding.

So, I sure hope all three can come around for the postponed date (and I hope it sells better and has to get moved out of the Church into a bigger venue).

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Diet Cig / Sad13 / Thin Lips (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, May 14, 2020) [POSTPONED]

Posted in Coronavirus, Diet Cig, First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, PA, Philly Music Fest, Postponed, Quarantine, Sad13, Speedy Ortiz, Thin Lips, Union Transfer on May 14, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: May 14, 2020] Diet Cig / Sad13 / Thin Lips [moved to November 4, First Unitarian Church]

indexI have wanted to see Diet Cig ever since I saw them on a Tiny Desk Concert–they are a bundle of energy and the duo play super catchy pop punk.  I wanted to see them before they lost their energy.

I missed them the first time they came around and last time around they played at the First Unitarian Church, a venue I dislike.  So when they announced this show at Union Transfer I was so excited.  This cancellation was a major bummer for me.

Especially since now that they rescheduled it is apparently being moved to the Church again (does this mean sales are really poor?)

Sad13 is the solo moniker of Sadie Dupuis the singer of Speedy Ortiz.  They were wonderful live (and I was right in front of Sadie to watch her terrific guitar work).  I don’t really know much about the Sad13 songs but I assume they will be great if she is behind them.

I saw Thin Lips at the Philly Music Fest and they were absolutely fantastic.  I loved them and was looking forward to seeing them again.  They play catchy pop punk with pointed lyrics.  Outstanding.

So, I sure hope all three can come around for the postponed date (and I hope it sells better and has to get moved out of the Church into a bigger venue).

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Philly Music Fest (World Cafe Live, Philadelphia, PA, September 28, 2019)

Posted in Ali Awan, Arnetta Johnson, Arthur Thomas, Ceramic Animal, Chestnut Grove, Darlingside, Federal Donuts, Foxtrot and the Get Down, Genesis, Ill Doots, Ill Fated Natives, Jeremiah Tall, Johnny Brenda's, Man Man, Milkboy, Palm, Petal, Philadelphia, PA, Philly Music Fest, Remember Sports, RFA, Rosali, Sammus, Secret American, Sixteen Jackies, Speedy Ortiz, Stereolab, Sun Ra, Sun Ra Arkestra, Tate, Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, The Districts, Thin Lips, Vacationer, World Cafe Live on September 28, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 29, 2019] Philly Music Fest

For those counting, this makes four concerts in four nights, which is frankly insane (and thanks to my poor wife who tolerates such excesses).

But the whole reason I wanted to go this evening was to see Man Man (more in their own post).

But, in fact, the entire Philly Music Fest was pretty fantastic.  I would have certainly gone to three of the four nights if I could have.  This little festival is a testament to the amazing music that Philadelphia is producing, and they didn’t even include two of my favorite Philly bands, Mannequin Pussy and Control Top.

The first night I actually didn’t know any of the bands.

  • Wednesday 9/25 at Milkboy (a venue I haven’t been to yet)
  • Secret American
  • Sixteen Jackies
  • Ceramic Animal

The second night was an amazing line up! (more…)

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Speedy Ortiz (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, July 18, 2018)

Posted in Jessica Lea Mayfield, Mal Blum and the Blums, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, Speedy Ortiz on July 18, 2018| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 18, 2018] Speedy Ortiz

I really enjoyed Speedy Ortiz’ Foil Deer.  Sadie Dupuis has a great sense of melody (in a delightful alt-90s rock package) combined with excellent lyrics.  Check out this great blurb about Dupuis’ lyrics:

It’s very strange (“Or not strange at all! Hi!” says feminism) that most of the music we funnel into little girls’ ears——even music written by former little girls——is about how women are petty, pretty garbage whose only valuable function is to hold perfectly still in men’s boudoirs and wait for intercourse. “I wanted to make songs that were the opposite of ‘Genie in A Bottle’ or ‘The Boy Is Mine,’” Sadie Dupuis says of Slugger, her new solo album under the name Sad13. “Songs that put affirmative consent at the heart of the subject matter and emphasize friendship among women and try to deescalate the toxic jealousy and ownership that are often centered in romantic pop songs.” What!? Songs for women that actually champion women’s autonomy, reflect women’s desires, listen to women when they talk, and let women be funny and normal and cool, like women actually are?   – Lindy West

When Speedy Ortiz released their new album, they did a mini tour of…ice cram parlors.

As The Key noted:

It was a little suspicious, previously, that Speedy Ortiz’s only tour appearance in Philly would be at Little Baby’s Ice Cream in West Philly to scoop a new flavor, “Twerp Verse Dessert Burst Sundae,” and not to perform.

Then they announced a proper tour, which included a headlining spot at PhilaMOCA.  Amazingly, four days after our show, they were going to open for Dinosaur Jr and Foo Fighters at Fenway Park!  I don’t know how many people arrived early enough to see them, but I have to assume thy were seen by more than the 150 capacity crowd at PhilaMOCA.  And yet Sadie said she was more excited about our show than that one.  And it seemed like it.

Before the shows even began, Sadie was hanging out at the merch table.  We chatted, she sold me a copy of Twerp Verse and even signed it for me.  She was super nice.   (more…)

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