Posted in Dry Cleaning, Nourished By Time, Philadelphia, PA, The Spirit of the Beehive, Union Transfer on February 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »
[DID NOT ATTEND: November 5, 2022] Dry Cleaning / The Spirit of the Beehive / Nourished By Time
Dry Cleaning are a kind of trendy British band. They are of the spoken deadpan vocal/wild guitar noise variety. I don’t love them, but I think their music is really interesting. I thought they’d be fun to see live once.
But we had a family emergency and it wasn’t time to go to a show. So, I didn’t really mind missing this one. (more…)
Posted in Baroness, Bully, Control Top, Dusk, Graham Hunt Band, Midwives, Mike Krol, Philadelphia, PA, Reruns, Slomo Sapiens, Sundial Mottos, The Spirit of the Beehive, Underground Arts, World Cafe Live on December 12, 2021| Leave a Comment »
[DID NOT ATTEND: December 12, 2021] Bully / Graham Hunt Band / Slomo Sapiens
Look at this, yet another great show at Underground Arts that I didn’t go to. That place has really got my number–we just need to get our calendars to synch up better.
Bully is basically Alicia Bognanno and whoever she chooses to play with. She writes great songs and has a unique and cool voice. I really enjoyed Bully’s first album, Feels Like, but when it was announced that she was touring a new album (and playing Philly with Spirit of the Beehive AND Control Top!) well, I checked that album out right away. And it is very good.
I was pleased when it was announced that she’d be playing Underground Arts instead. World Cafe Live is a better venue, but UA is much easier for me to get to. Sadly the opening bands were not the same, but that’s okay.
And then…. Baroness announced they would be playing three nights at Kung Fu Necktie. I couldn’t make the Saturday one (holiday party), so my only choice was Sunday. Later they added another date for Monday, but I had already purchased my ticket and it seemed like way too much of a hassle to try to change it. So Bully had to miss me. Drat. Come back again Alicia!
I’d never heard of Graham Hunt although apparently he is been in a lot of bands. According to this write up
Hunt’s solo work continues to be an oddball amalgam of the best traits of his other projects: Midwives’ exacting focus, Reruns’ strong songwriting structures, and Sundial Mottos’ winsome, relaxed aesthetic all are apparent throughout the excellent new solo album Painting Over Mold. Even the distinct imprints of Dusk and Mike Krol, both acts Hunt has appeared with as a touring member, find cohesion across the record.
Slomo Sapiens continues the tradition of great band names from Philadelphia. I didn’t know much about them, but they are described as a psychedelic “sludge rock” trio, which sounds pretty good to me. Their newest album is called Cabin Fever Dreams.
Posted in Bully, Control Top, Coronavirus, Mew, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, The Spirit of the Beehive, World Cafe Live on July 18, 2020| Leave a Comment »
[CANCELLED: May 22, 2020] Bully / The Spirit of the Beehive / Control Top
I really liked Bully’s first album Feels Like, which came out back in 2005. Then they just sort of disappeared (I gather there were label issues with their second album).
They have a good grungey guitar sound with a controlled screaming vocal from Alicia Bognanno. They would probably be a lot of fun live.
The two opening bands are from Philly. I’ve seen them both and would love to see them again.
The Spirit of the Beehive were outstanding live. I’d never heard of them before but they easily blew me away with their set which was a nice mix of shoegaze and noise.
Control Top are an outstanding punk band with great lead vocals from bassist Ali Carter. I was supposed to see them in march but that show was one of the first postponed.
This is an outstanding bill and although the show is cancelled, I really hope the three can do a show again in the future.
Amazingly there were four different shows I would have gone to on this night. And this one might have won out.
Posted in Philadelphia, PA, The Districts, The Spirit of the Beehive, Union Transfer on August 11, 2017| Leave a Comment »
[ATTENDED: August 11, 2017] The Spirit of the Beehive
I had never heard of The Spirit of the Beehive before this show. They are a Philadelphia band with two albums and one EP on bandcamp.
I listened to them briefly before the show–their sound was noisy with a shoegaze element. I didn’t have much time to explore them before I left for the show, so I was totally unprepared for the wild set the band played.
They were fun to watch. And their music was wonderfully complex.
According to the latest album, Pleasure Suck, the band is composed of the hex, buzz, rat, ricky, and pail. Some research provides me with names, although I’m not sure who to match with which nickname: guitarist/vocalist Zack Schwartz, drummer Pat Conaboy, guitarist/keyboardist Justin Fox, guitarist Tim Jordan and bassist/vocalist Rivka Ravede.
There were only four members on stage (based on the above, I’d guess that Jordan was not there as everyone else’s instruments seem to be accounted for). (more…)
