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Archive for the ‘Underground Arts’ Category

Swans / Anna Von Hausswolff (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, June 25, 2020) [POSTPONED]

Posted in Anna von Hausswolff, Cancelled, Coronavirus, Philadelphia, PA, Quarantine, Swans, Underground Arts on June 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: June 25, 2020] Swans / Anna Von Hausswolff [moved to February 18, 2021]

indexI have liked Swans since I discovered them as a DJ on my college radio station (Children of God was and is like nothing I’ve ever heard). I loved their bombast.

But I have always been a little nervous about seeing them live (they seemed scary and intimidating).

The last time they toured was supposed to be their final tour ever (I think). I considered going but it never happened.

Then they announced they were playing Underground Arts–small and easy to get to, I assume that they will literally blow the roof off the joint.  My friend Phil is the drummer with them (and has been for a decade or more) so it would be fun to see him play.

I was looking forward to this one and was surprised it was cancelled so early (early April for a June show) especially since they weren’t starting their American leg until June 5.  But I guess it was easier to cancel the whole tour (Europe starting April 25) and start over again next year.

Anna von Hauswoff is a fascinating performer, playing a kind of gothic pop.  She works a lot with a pipe organ (for real).  I’m sure there would be no pip organ in his tour (duh), so maybe it wold be samples?  I’ve been intrigued about her for a few years and I am looking forward to seeing her open when the tour comes back to town.

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clipping. / Cartel Madras (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, May 17, 2020) [POSTPONED]

Posted in Canadian Music, Cartel Madras, clipping., Coronavirus, Daveed Diggs, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, The Flaming Lips, Underground Arts on May 17, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: May 17, 2020] clipping. / Cartel Madras

indexS. and I saw clipping. open for The Flaming Lips.  It was an unlikely pairing to be sure.  clipping. are a noisy glitch hop band fronted by Daveed Diggs.  Their songs are noisy and violent and more than a little unpleasant.

I won’t say that I enjoyed their set, but I was thoroughly engaged by it.  I’d be very curious to see what they are like as a headliner–more noisy, more abrasive even less pleasant, but a total experience, I’m sure.

clipping.’s new album “absorbs the hyper-violent horror tropes of the Murder Dog era, but re-imagines them in a new light.”  I have to assume the live show for this album is very intense.

Cartel Madras is a Canadian hip hop duo from Calgary, Alberta, consisting of sisters Priya “Contra” Ramesh and Bhagya “Eboshi” Ramesh.  Both sisters emigrated from Chennai, India and identify as queer women of colour.  They classify their music as “Goonda Rap”, a play on a term used in South Asian circles to describe a “thug.”

Their music has an original sound underneath it and I’ll be they are dynamic live.

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The Lemon Twigs (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, May 16, 2020) [POSTPONED]

Posted in Cancelled, Coronavirus, Philadelphia, PA, Quarantine, The Lemon Twigs, Underground Arts on May 16, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: May 16, 2020] The Lemon Twigs

indexI feel like this show was announced about five days before it was cancelled.  I hadn’t heard about it and I was certainly interested in seeing them.

I really liked The Lemon Twigs’ Do Hollywood album and their follow up EPs showed even more development.

They are about to release a new album (although that was also delayed because of the Coronavirus).

Their glam rock sound is really great and I imagine that they would be a ton of fun live.  I hoe the new album is good and that they come back around soon.

 

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Acid Mothers Temple / ST 37 (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, May 3, 2020) [POSTPONED]

Posted in Acid Mothers Temple, Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Cancelled, Coronavirus, Philadelphia, PA, Quarantine, ST 37, Underground Arts on May 3, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: May 3, 2020] Acid Mothers Temple / ST 37 [moved to March 8, 2021]

indexI have seen Japanese psych rockers Acid Mothers Temple twice and each show was a whirlwind of fun and insanity.

I promised myself I would see them any time they came to town.  So I was very excited to see them again.

Acid Mothers Temple pretty much tour all the time and they come our way every year or so, but because their tours are planned out ages in advance , it means that their rescheduled date isn’t until next year!  Bu that’s okay, I’ll still be there.

ST 37 is from Texas.  Their bandcamp blurb:

Quite simply, we rule. And we have been ruling for over 30 years. So there.

They play a noisy experimental kind of rock and have nine people listed in their “past members” category.  Wikipedia gives these two quotes about them: mind-altering space-punk whose live shows are drowning in a haze of guitar and reverb that can drift through cosmically shifting layers of aggressive punk riffs, fuzzed noise, and scalding jams.

Sounds fun.

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Dan Deacon / Ed Schrader’s Music Beat (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, April 30, 2020) [POSTPONED]

Posted in Coronavirus, Dan Deacon, Ed Schrader's Music Beat, Miley Cyrus and her Dead Petz, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, Underground Arts on April 30, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: April 30, 2020] Dan Deacon / Ed Schrader’s Music Beat

index

I have wanted to see Dan Deacon live ever since I saw his mind-blowing Tiny Desk Concert.

Deacon is an electronic musician and a bit of a wild card.  His shows are full of audience participation and are a lot of fun.  There’s improv and looping and a whole lot of jumping around.

He hasn’t played Philly since 2015 (apparently, when he opened for Miley Cyrus and her Dead Petz). Well, he did a show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (!) back in 2018, which was apparently wonderful, but which I wasn’t prepared to go to.

I was super excited to see that he was playing at Underground Arts and I grabbed tickets immediately. UA would have been an ideal venue to see him in, with the low ceiling and wide audience area.  I do hope this tour gets rescheduled soon.

When show were first starting to get cancelled in March, I held out hope that a show at the end of April might still go on.  But shows all around him started getting postponed.  He held out longer than most artists before postponing.

Technically Deacon’s music isn’t really my scene.  I do like him quite a lot, but I don’t particularly like other music like it.

So Ed Schrader’s Music Beat is a duo and Dan Deacon produced their latest album.  I listened to a couple of songs but didn’t really like it all that much.

I’ll bet they are fun live, especially if Deacon is guiding them.

Do come back soon, Dan!

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Juana Molina (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, April 22, 2020) [POSTPONED]

Posted in Coronavirus, Juana Molina, Juana y Sus Hermanas, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, Underground Arts on April 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: April 22, 2020] Juana Molina

indexJuana Molina is a wonderfully bizarre performer.

Molina is from Argentina and she plays a  blend of folk, electronica, and experimental pop (which I find to be more than a little out of the mainstream), playing with some great noises and percussion.

She recently released a more or less punk EP, Forfun, which she was the foundation of this tour.

This show was only cancelled a couple of days ago–they really held out until the last minute for this one.

This show was scheduled for the same night as the Real Estate/Palm show, so I was torn about which show to go to.  I really want to see Palm again, but I feel like Juana Molina would be a much more interesting and rare treat.

I do hope she reschedules.

Apparently it is common knowledge that her career began with her initial success coming as a massively popular comedic actress on the show “Juana y Sus Hermanas” in the early-1990s.  She walked away during the height of its popularity to pursue music.  The music was not well received at home, but she was embraced here in the States.

 

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Margaret Glaspy / Kate Davis (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, April 16, 2020) [POSTPONED]

Posted in Coronavirus, Kate Davis, Margaret Glaspy, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, Underground Arts on April 16, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: April 16, 2020] Margaret Glaspy / Kate Davis

indexI loved Glaspy’s album Emotions and Math and I really wanted to see her perform it live.  Turned out she had played in Philly a couple of months before I first heard the album.

So I figured she’d be back soon.  Now here it is four years and a new album later and she’s finally coming back around.

However, this show conflicted with Kishi Bashi, so I was going to miss out on it anyhow.

Kate Davis is a former jazz prodigy who has suing jazz standards and played Carnegie hall.  Now she has gone indie rock.  She has a really nice voice and her songs seem to start quite and conclude with a grunge-lite flourish.

 

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An Evening with Laura Marling (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, April 7, 2020) [CANCELLED]

Posted in Cancelled, Coronavirus, Laura Marling, Peter Bjorn and John, Philadelphia, PA, Quarantine, Underground Arts on April 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[CANCELLED: April 7, 2020] An Evening with Laura Marling

indexI saw Laura Marling three years ago and she was amazing live.  I felt the venue was a little too large and crowded for the intimacy she produces.

I really wanted to see her again, but she took some time away from touring.

Then she announced this wonderful night: an evening of just her playing requests and who knows what else.

Wow, was I excited about this.  I already had tickets to see Peter Bjorn and John, but I think I would have gone with this one.

She will not be rescheduling this intimate tour, sadly, because she is planning on a full band tour next year.  So for now we just have to watch her guitar lessons on Instagram, which are actually even more intimate than this show would have been.

laura

 

 

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Ásgeir/Khushi (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, March 25, 2020) [POSTPONED]

Posted in Ásgeir, Coronavirus, Khushi, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, Underground Arts on March 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: March 25, 2020] Ásgeir/Khushi

indexMarch was going to be a very busy concert month for me.  I have wanted to see Ásgeir for a few years.  He came around back in October 2017 to do a seated show at Union Transfer, but I was busy that night so I missed it.

Now he was back, playing at Underground Arts, and I was really looking forward to it.

I don’t know how easy it is for Icelandic artists to reschedule concerts, but I hope that it’s not too troublesome for him to redo this tour.

I had never heard of Khushi.  An NPR article tells me that he is

Kalim Patel a Grammy-nominated producer who has worked with James Blake on Assume Form, which was nominated for best alternative music album. Now, he’s releasing a full-length album of his own music as Khushi, a childhood nickname and a Hindi word for “happiness.” His new album is called Strange Seasons, and he thought it might never come out… it took him ten years to make it.

It turned out to be the eighth of dozens of shows cancelled or postponed by the coronavirus.

Obviously, my main concern is for everyone’s safety, including the bands!

My selfish concern though is that once the shows are rescheduled that all of these shows will be scheduled on the same day!

Let’s hope the rescheduled dates also do some social distancing.

asger

 

 

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Monster Magnet / Silvertomb / Nebula / Heavy Temple (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, March 22, 2020) [POSTPONED]

Posted in Agnostic Front, Fu Manchu, Heavy Temple, Monster Magnet, Nebula, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Silvertomb, Type O Negative, Underground Arts on March 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: March 22, 2020] Monster Magnet / Silvertomb / Nebula / Heavy Temple [moved to January 24, 2021]

indexMarch was going to be a very busy concert month for me.  This show was scheduled for the same night as the Thundercat show and I was quite torn between the two.

I ultimately decided to go to Thundercat, but if that Thundercat show ended early, i was considering swinging by UA to catch the end of Monster Magnet (if there were four bands on the bill it was surely going to run late).

I saw Monster Magnet open for Aerosmith with my friend Matt back in 1998. Monster Magnet really impressed me and I wound up getting Powertrip and a few other albums.  “Space Lord” was one of my favorite songs of the year.  I haven’t really listened to them in a decade or so, but I was totally on board with hearing Powertrip in its entirety.

It was definitely a tough choice between this and Thundercat.  Now the choice has been taken away.  I hope it’s rescheduled though as I think it would be a real trip.

I have never heard of Silvertomb, Nebula or Heavy Temple, but I assume that they play stoner rock and I would have enjoyed the evening (with earplugs).

So Heavy Temple is a band that consists of High Priestess Nighthawk (low end and vocal power), Siren Tempest (rhythm) and Thunderhorse (6 string axe slinger).  Damn, I would have enjoyed that.

Nebula is made up of members of Fu Manchu and Silvertomb is made up of member of Type O Negative and Agnostic Front. I guess I know what I was in for with them!

I have seen Thundercat on a Tiny Desk and I really enjoyed his album “Drunk.”  It’s not exactly my kind of music–sometimes a bit too R&Bish for me, and yet I love his overall vibe and style enough that I thought a live show from him would be really fun.

I have no idea who TeeJayx6 is or how to say the name.  Indeed, there wasn’t even an opening act announced for this show until very recently.

But I had to look him up and I see that he is part of the “fringe world of scam rap.”   According to Wired, all he does is scam and rap about it.  He raps about the scams he does, the tools he uses and the ways he did it–so you can do it too.

“Swipe Story” is about lifting seven Xboxes and TVs from Walmart–from a red-herring perusal of the clothes racks; through fumbling conversations about golf with the clerk; to the feeling of relied zooming away in a rental car with  the cargo.

Damn, see what the virus had me miss.

It turned out to be the eighth of dozens of shows cancelled or postponed by the coronavirus.

Obviously, my main concern is for everyone’s safety, including the bands!

My selfish concern though is that once the shows are rescheduled that all of these shows will be scheduled on the same day!

Let’s hope the rescheduled dates also do some social distancing.

monster

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