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Archive for the ‘Venues’ Category

David Gilbert–“The Sightseers” (New Yorker, November 20, 2017)

Posted in Cannonball Run., David Gilbert, Dogs, Field Recordings, Humiliation, Mark Rothko, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Parenting, Reignwolf, Sasquatch Music Festival, Sex, Sexting, Short Story, Technology, Travel, Wicked on November 20, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: REIGNWOLF-“In the Dark” (Field Recordings, June 29, 2012).

This is another Field Recording set at Sasquatch! Music Festival [Reignwolf: A One-Man Rock Show].

I’d never heard of Reignwolf and I’m still not sure if Reignwold is typically a solo project–like here or a band.  “In the Dark” is a simple blues rock song–like Led Zep via the White Stripes.

Jordan Cook plays a noisy, distorted guitar with a metal slide so that there’s pretty much always something coming out of the amp.  After some pretty simple verses he plays a wild, sloppy (broken stringed) solo.

The way he was tearing it up during an impromptu set at the Sasquatch Music Festival, you’d barely notice that Jordan Cook, a.k.a. Reignwolf, broke a string midway through his fiery rendition of “In the Dark” — that is, until you saw the mangled remnants of his guitar, smoldering on the ground after he’d wrenched every wailing chord from its guts.

The song works best when he plays the kick drum.  It adds just enough oomph to make it not seem like a guy playing a guitar.

The Saskatoon native and recent Seattle transplant never misses a beat — literally. When he’s not with a band, he accompanies himself on kick drum and makes enough noise to match a dozen metalheads. In this video, recorded at the artist campground between sets at the festival, Reignwolf causes a ruckus beside his RV and rousts a crowd of sleepy campers into dancing and cheering.

The soloing goes on for a while and the people around him seem to like it.  Although the soloing behind his head is a bit much, but hey, if you can do it, then go ahead!

[READ: February 1, 2017] “The Sightseers”

I really liked a main aspect of this story, and so many of the details.

The story begins with an overprivileged New York family.  They have a maid/cook/gofer named Kiki from Tibet and the husband marvels at Kiki and “their calm, those people.”

The father, Robert, is happy that they no longer go to North East Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving–the round nephews and the piles and piles of food.  For their Thanksgiving they would be having salmon as Robert was training five times a week with a Navy Seal.

When the salmon turns out to be halibut, the son says that wasn’t on the menu (the menus were designed ahead of time to limit daily stress by preparing the children for their dinners ahead of time–there would be no surprises.  The son asks if the next time they have halibut it will be salmon.  The father thinks that’s an excellent suggestion. (more…)

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Shad / Kuf Knotz (Boot & Saddle, Philadelphia, PA, November 17, 2018) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Boot & Saddle, Christine Elise, Kuf Knotz, Philadelphia, PA on November 17, 2018| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: November 17, 20182] Shad / Kuf Knotz 

SHAD’s 2010 album TSOL is one of my favorite rap albums.  Of all of the rappers that come around to Philly to tour, SHAD is the one I’m most interested in seeing.

SHAD is from Canada although he was born in Kenya.  He raps about real issues but also has a thread of positivity through his songs, which I appreciate.

This happened to be a really busy week of shows for me, though, so I had to blow it off.

I hope he comes back to town in a year or so.

Kuf Knotz is a Philly rapper who blends hiphop poetry with deep grooves of soul and beats sun kissed with the spirit of Lo-Fi & 90’s era vibes , Kuf’s inimitable style focuses on unsubtle spirituality, that, like his music, focus on unity, positivity and creativity.

If they all tour together next time, I’ll have to go for an night of positivity.

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Letters to Cleo (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, November 14, 2018)

Posted in 10 Things I Hate About You, American Hi-Fi, Boston Phoenix, Care Bears, Cheap Trick, Doc McStuffins, Firewater, Generation O!, Happy Birthday, Josie and the Pussycats, Letters to Cleo, Melrose Place, Miley Cyrus, Nick Lowe, Philadelphia, PA, Scooby Doo, Underground Arts, WFNX 101.7 FM--Boston, MA on November 14, 2018| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 14, 2018] Letters to Cleo

When Letters to Cleo first put out Aurora Gory Alice back in 1993  I was really excited about them.  They were punky and fast but they were poppy and intriguing.  The chorus of “Here & Now” is somehow really catchy and impossible to sing.  I lived in Boston, they were based in Boston.  They were getting much buzz in the Boston Phoenix and on WFNX (“Here & Now” was inescapable–it was even used on Melrose Place).  And their name was weird and mentioned my childhood dog (Cleo).  I also thought their album title was funny so I bought a copy on Cherry Disc records (one of dozens of CDs I bought on an indie label only to later find out the major label pressing aided like five more songs and a gold chain or something).

Their second album had an even weirder name Wholesale Meats and Fish but was equally as strong, if not stronger.  Their third album was the amazing Go!–it added so much depth to their songwriting and was really just fantastic.

Then they appeared in 1999’s movie 10 Things I Hate About You.  They had songs on the soundtrack and were filmed playing “I Want You To Want Me” over the closing credits.

Wikipedia says that “the band then recorded 13 new original songs for the Kids’ WB cartoon, Generation O!, which aired from 2000 to 2001″ and which I’ve never heard of.

Then they broke up. (more…)

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American Hi-Fi (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, November 14, 2018) [LETTERS TO CLEO]

Posted in American Hi-Fi, American Pie, Hum, Iron Maiden, Letters to Cleo, Miley Cyrus, Philadelphia, PA, Underground Arts on November 14, 2018| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 14, 2018] American Hi-Fi

Back in 2001, I thought that American Hi_Fi’s single “Flavor of the Weak” was great.  And I still do. It’s a funny and self deprecating look at young love.  And it’s catchy as all heck as well.

American Hi-Fi got lost for me amid the power pop surge of the early 2000s.  There’s only so many catchy rocking songs you can absorb, after all.  And I basically forgot about them.  They put out a couple of discs and then wound up taking four or five years between the others.  They haven’t released anything new since 2014, so I was a little surprised that they were opening for Letters to Cleo.

Then I read that Stacy Jones, the lead singer and guitarist for American Hi-Fi was the original drummer for Letters to Cleo and he’d be playing with them on LtC’s short 2018 tour (5 shows).  Well it made perfect sense that his other band would open for them.

They played six songs from the debut (which all sounded slightly familiar), three songs from the follow up, a “rarity” and a song from their last album from 2014.

The band sounded great.  Stacy is a terrific front man.  And even though they used to play stadia (and Jones now works with Miley Cyrus apparently), he really seemed to enjoy playing in this tiny club with a rabid fan base.  Because even if I didn’t remember their songs, nearly everyone around me sure did, and they went bananas.

The guy who was next to me was about 6 foot 3 and a large dude.  He was completely hammered.  We around him were lucky that he had a buddy with him to hold him up–and he literally was holding this guy up, moving his arm when it almost hit someone else).  But this guy was so into the show, it was almost cute (almost).  His friend said he liked LtC even more, although he was so drunk he couldn’t make it through the set break and started to spit up a bit (not throw up, thankfully) and his buddy had to drag him off to the side.  At least I didn’t get thrown up on during Letters to Cleo.

Their set made me wonder what happens to bands that they get left by the wayside like that.  They sounded great, they were still tight and the fans loved them. Their songs were poppy and would fit in with modern rock radio now.  The music business is pretty inexplicable.

“Scar,” “Surround” and “Hi-Fi Killer” from the first album rocked really hard, but it was “The Breakup Song” from the second album that made the audience go nuts (this was a single that I might not know, but it was so simple and catchy that by the end I was sure I had heard it a million times).  It had that whole bratty pop punk vibe that was huge circa 2003.

“Safer on the Outside” was very familiar to me.  I’m not sure if it was ever a single, but it’s a pseudo-ballad that I could see being a hit.

The he said the next song was from “one of the American Pie movies, I think we had a song on each soundtrack.”  But the best intro was when he said that they ripped off the introductory drum riff from Iron Maiden (true); however, when the drummer played it the first time, he messed it up and they had to do it again.

“Portland” had a different sound than the other songs–not radically different, but a different style of song writing, which makes sense since it was written 13 years.  It had a few more delicate moments and an actual guitar solo.  “Another Perfect Day” is all acoustic and cello on the record.  But there was none of that here, just a slow intro before the mid-tempo song segued into the fun drum intro and bratty woah-ohing of “The Art of Losing” (hey ho, let’s go, I’m gonna start a riot, you don’t wanna fight it // one, two, fuck you, don;t tell me what to do I don’t wanna be like you) which ends with a shout out to “we’re the kids in America.”

As the set was ending I was thinking that I knew they had a hit single that I liked.  I just couldn’t remember what it was called.  When Stacy started singing “Stars” I thought, oh right, this song.  But my memory banks knew this wasn’t them (“Stars” is by Hum from 1995).  So after that intro verse when he switched into “Flavor of the Weak” it all came flooding back.  It sounded great and reminded me why I liked these guys so much back then.

They ended the set with “Happy,” a noisy romp with a great heavy bass line and rough guitars.  Midway through the song, Stacy grabbed a drumstick and shoved it under his guitar strings and began making all kinds of cool sounds for a mid-song diversion.

There set was great and a lot of fun and I’ve been listening to their older stuff again, and enjoying it quite a bit.

SETLIST

  1. Scar *
  2. The Breakup Song ∀
  3. Surround *
  4. Safer on the Outside *
  5. Vertigo ⊗
  6. Hi-Fi Killer *
  7. Portland ß
  8. Another Perfect Day *
  9. The Art of Losing ∀
  10. Stars (song by Hum…snippet played as segue into next song)
  11. Flavor of the Weak *
  12. Happy ∀

* American Hi-Fi (2001)
⊗ American Pie 2 soundtrack (2001)
∀ The Art of Losing (2003)
ß Blood and Lemonade (2014)

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Tenacious D (The Fillmore, Philadelphia, PA, November 8, 2018)

Posted in Dio, Hall and Oates, Jack Black, Kyle Gass, Philadelphia, PA, Post-Apocalypto, Sex, Tenacious D, The Fillmore Philadelphia on November 8, 2018| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 8, 2018] Tenacious D

I loved the first Tenacious D record and enjoyed the goofy film The Pick of Destiny.  It amuses me to no end that kid-favorite Jack Black is in one of the most vulgar comedy-metal bands ever.  I could barely find 30 seconds of curse-free material to show my kids.

I also didn’t realize that the band toured at all.  This is mostly just an oversight on my part, because it’s obvious that they do and have toured several times as a duo and a full band.

Well, S. and I were super excited to see them, even if I haven’t listened to their more recent stuff and she apparently only knew “Tribute.”  But hey it’s Jables and Rage Kage!

The crowd was very male (S. noted) and very tall.  We arrived later than we wanted to and were a little further back than was practical for people of our heights.  We probably should have moved to the side, especially when a group of really loud people moved in around us.  But we stuck it out and waited for the show to begin.

Opening act Wynchester told us we’ve never seen a show like this.  And they were right. (more…)

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Wynchester (The Fillmore, Philadelphia, PA, November 8, 2018) [TENACIOUS D]

Posted in Dio, Philadelphia, PA, Tenacious D, The Fillmore Philadelphia, Wynchester on November 8, 2018| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 8, 2018] Wynchester

Initially we thought that we might not be able to go to this show–S.’s schedule seemed like it would conflict most unjustly.  Then we thought that we might miss Wynchester but still manage to see Tenacious D.  But it all worked out and we got a decent location not too far from the very packed stage.

I had never heard of Wynchester, and I was surprised to see them described as a country band (very much unlike Tenacious D).  But it all made sense when I read that Wynchester was fronted by Kyle Gass Band vocalist Mike Bray and Tenacious D electric guitarist John Konesky.  Knowing that it was Konesky playing lead explains some of the really impressive soloing and riffage on these songs.

Wynchester came out and played some fun alt-country/country rock songs.  The songs were funny but not comedy songs.  “The Gospel of Good Times” was a good, fun opener about, well, spreading the gospel of good times. (more…)

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Guster (White Eagle Hall, Jersey City, NJ, November 1, 2018)

Posted in Guster, Jersey City, NJ, Kishi Bashi, Tim Horton's, White Eagle Hall on November 1, 2018| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 1, 2018] Guster        

It had been over two years since we’d since Guster and we were going through some withdrawal.  So it was pretty exciting that they were starting their latest tour at out favorite club in Jersey City.

We’d never seen them at the beginning of a tour before and I have to say the rest does them well.  They seemed energetic (which they usually are) but more importantly everyone’s (especially Ryan’s) voices sounded amazing–best I’ve ever heard them.

They have a new album coming out in January so we thought it might be a show of all new songs . But it wasn’t.  They played two brand new songs (and none of the singles that they’ve released so far).  The rest of the show (all 23-2 songs + two improvs) were familiar and more than welcomed.

When we saw them last time, we had seen them three times in 14 months and during those three shows they had played a ton of songs that we hadn’t heard before (or not since a decade earlier). So this show was a lot more songs that we’ve heard (which is still fine).  But with a few that were more or less new.  And of course those wonderful improvs. (more…)

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Zac Clark (White Eagle Hall, Jersey City, NJ, November 1, 2018) [GUSTER]

Posted in Guster, Jersey City, NJ, White Eagle Hall, Zac Clark on November 1, 2018| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 1, 2018] Zac Clark

Thursday nights are bad music nights for us.  C. and I have a Boy Scout meeting.  During Field Hockey season, T. has practice (or in this case a party).  So arrangements must be made.

We thought the Guster show started at 8:30, which would have given us just the right amount of time to drop of T and get to the show.

But then they moved the show up to 8.  (Irritatingly, Guster had malfunctions with their gear so they didn’t go on until 9:30 anyway).  If there was easy parking we would have made it fine.  But Jersey City on a Thursday night was something of a zoo and it took us fifteen minutes to find a spot (there was a potter’s wheel in the garbage which I seriously considered taking).  Then we had to walk the 8 or 9 blocks (and we had a delicious slice form a gourmet pizza place on 5th) and after security and bathrooms, we basically walked in and heard two and a half songs from Zac Clark. (more…)

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Mystery Science Theater 3000: 30th Anniversary Tour [The Brain & Deathstalker II] (Keswick Theatre, Glenside, PA, October 26, 2018)

Posted in Deathstalker II, Hampton Yount, Jonah Ray, Keswick Theatre, MST3K, MST3K Live, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Patton Oswalt, Rebecca Hanson, The Brain on October 26, 2018| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 26, 2018] MST3K Live

A year ago I went to see MST3K Live and it was a ton of fun.

I assumed it was a one-off thing, but they announced a 30th Anniversary Tour this year and came back to the same theater I saw it at last time.

Once again, I got tickets for both movies.  This year’s turkeys were to be The Brain and Deathstalker II.

When the show started, Synthia Forrester (Rebecca Hanson) came out on stage and introduced the cast.  But this time there was no Joel Hodgson.  Could they really do this with no Joel?  Last time, Joel came out from time to time to mess with audience.

Then she gave us the surprise: Joel was going to be a part of the riffing!  For the first time in forever, Joel Robisnon was shot into space to riff on movies. (more…)

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Courtney Barnett (The Fillmore, Philadelphia, PA, October 23, 2018)

Posted in Courtney Barnett, Gillian Welch, Kurt Vile, Philadelphia, PA, Phoebe Bridgers, The Fillmore Philadelphia, Waxahatchee on October 23, 2018| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 23, 2018] Courtney Barnett

S. and I saw Courtney Barnett back in May when her latest album Tell Me How You Really Feel just came out.  She did a few shows where she played the whole album in its entirety.  Our show sold out very quickly and I was lucky to get tickets.

This time around she played the larger Fillmore and did not sell out the venue.  Is it better to play a small club and sell out, or a larger one and not sell out?  I’m still not sure why this one didn’t.

So why would we go to see someone five months after we had just seen her?

Well, primarily because I thought that this show would be different–bigger, longer and a bit more fun. Not that the first wasn’t fun–it was.  But at that show, she had a mission to play that album and make us like it.  This time, we already had the album and we liked it, we just wanted to hear it again!

And man was this show terrific.

I assumed she would not play the album straight through again.  But I shouldn’t have been surprised that she opened with the first two songs.  The stage was bathed in red (terrible for pictures so I didn’t bother trying to get any).  However, I love watching her play guitar–her technique is so bizarre to me and yet it sounds wonderful.  It must hurt like the dickens.  You can see her playing with no pick very clearly in this clip from “City Looks Pretty.”  (more…)

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