August 3, 2023 by Paul Debraski
[ATTENDED: August 1, 2023] Sparta
Since 2020 I have had four opportunities to see Sparta. Two were cancelled because of the pandemic. One saw them opening for Get Up Kids (a show I was interested in, but not enough to go) and now this one. And while those two cancelled shows were probably good, seeing them for this one was undoubtedly better.
Sparta formed out of the breakup of At the Drive-In (Mars Volta was also formed from that breakup). Sparta sounded more like ATDI because the songs were short and punky, even though Cedric the lead singer went on to Mars Volta. Guitarist Jim Ward sings lead on Sparta songs and his voice is unique and sounds just as great as it did when Wiretap Scars came out twenty years ago.
The band came out–a trio now–with Matt Miller on bass and Neil Hennessy on drums. Jim Ward stood on the far side of the stage (not too far away) and the band launched into the album.
It was great to hear these songs live. I hadn’t listened to the album in quite awhile, although I did listen to it a week ago to refamiliarize myself. And I remembered how much i loved at least half of the album. And the rest I enjoyed. Hearing (and feeling) the guitar riffs and the excellent bass lines was fantastic.
The crowd wasn’t as dense as I would have thought and there was surprisingly, no mosh pit (which I appreciated).
The whole album sounded great–fresh and new and really great live. Continue Reading »
Posted in Geoff Rickly, Philadelphia, PA, Sparta, Thursday, Underground Arts, Venezuela, Zeta | Leave a Comment »
August 3, 2023 by Paul Debraski
[DID NOT ATTEND: August 3, 2023] Kings X / Trope
I’ve seen King’s X five times, all within the last ten years.
I’ve enjoyed all of their shows although I started to find them a little samey. Nevertheless, I enjoy them and, since they’re all suffering from some kind of health issues, who knows how much longer they’ll tour.
So when they announced two shows near me, I thought I might be able to go. However, the first show was on the same night as the AJR show that I had tickets for. So that was not going to happen. The show sold out, though, so good for them.
I’ve seen the setlist that they played this night and I have to say they really aren’t mixing it up much at all these days. Which is a shame. I know that they have some songs that they “have to” play but there’s a bunch in here that they could switch out. I mean, I would like to see them once more, but I’d hope they’d throw in a few other songs next time. Continue Reading »
Posted in King's X, Sellersville Theater, Sellersville, PA, Trope | Leave a Comment »
August 2, 2023 by Paul Debraski
[ATTENDED: August 1, 2023] Geoff Rickly
Geoff Rickly is the singer for Thursday, a band from New Jersey who I had never even heard of when I saw them open for My Chemical Romance last year.
I wasn’t really looking forward to his set (I would have missed this one if he was first), because I didn’t love the Thursday set. It was fine and I may have liked it more if I was closer. But it was fine.
However, as a solo performer, Rickly was fantastic. He told little stories before each song. He said that since Thursday torued with Sparta 20 years ago, he was going to play mostly Thursday songs (instead of his solo songs).
I didn’t know any of them, and at first I didn’t think the set would be that enjoyable, but he put so much passion into his singing that “Time’s Arrow” blew me away. He had lots of fans in the audience who knew all the words and it was fun to hear them singing along.
He told us about a lawsuit that the band faced back ten years ago or so that cost them $100,000 which they did not have. So they wound up doing a lot more shows to make some money. They even did an “emo cruise.” He said that he had written a solo osng which he thought was perfect and after the show the Captain of the theater told him to never play that song on a ship again. Continue Reading »
Posted in Geoff Rickly, Philadelphia, PA, Sparta, Thursday, Underground Arts, Venezuela, Zeta | Leave a Comment »
August 1, 2023 by Paul Debraski
[ATTENDED: August 1, 2023] Zeta
Zeta (pronounced Zeh-tuh) is a band “of immigrants from Venezuela” as they put it. They are now based in the U.S. trying to deal with the immigration deal.
I had listened to a little of their music before the show and I was absolutely intrigued. I arrived just before 7:30 but they had already started by the time I came in. I don’t think I missed too much, but as I got to the stage, the band was in full flight.
There were four members of the band. As I walked in Juan Chi (Juan Ricardo Yilo) was whaling lead guitar and singing. Right in the front of the stage was drummer Eduardo Sandoval. He was front and center because this is a band that loves drums.
The wall of sound was really loud, but not harsh. Sandoval was a maniac on the kit–it was amazing to have such a fun drummer right in the front of the stage. Standing behind him was bassist Antonio Pereira. Pereira was the one constant through the set–his bass was fast and steady keeping the song moving forward and also keeping it in perfect time. He kept everybody moving. Continue Reading »
Posted in Geoff Rickly, Philadelphia, PA, Sparta, Thursday, Underground Arts, Venezuela, Zeta | Leave a Comment »
July 31, 2023 by Paul Debraski
[LISTENED TO: July 2023] The Future is Yours
I didn’t know much about this book, but the blurb sounded good.
And wow, was it a a well-told future/time-travel story. I also really enjoyed that whole cast that was employed for the book. Usually a single narrator is fine, but there were so many different voices in this story that having multiple narrators was great.
I had known Cary Hite from a Mike Chen novel so his familiar voice was great. He reads the part of Ben Boyce a young entrepreneur who has great ideas for how to get startups to work. He is best friends with Adhi Chaudry (read by Vikas Adam).
Adhi is a once-in-a-generation genius. He writes a thesis that postulates creating a kind of time travel machine using quantum computers. Fortunately, there’s not a lot of hard science here, so you don’t really have to know what they’re talking about (I also have no idea if what they postulate is feasible in reality). The thesis is so theoretical that Stanford doesn’t want him to defend it because they think it’s more philosophical than computer science based.
Adhi struggles with things a lot (he is bipolar) but Ben is always there for him. Ben believes in him 100%. So when Adhi gets a job at Google (and hates it) and Ben has tried a few startups (that have failed), Ben asks Adhi about that thesis. And what they might be able to do with it. Continue Reading »
Posted in Aneesh Chaganty, Beer, Cary Hite, Catherine Ho, Dan Frey, Dion Graham, End of the World, Joshua Kane, Kyla Garcia, Marriage Trouble, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Natasha Soujek, Quantum, Ron Shapiro, Technology, Thérèse Plummer, The Future, Vikas Adam | Leave a Comment »
July 30, 2023 by Paul Debraski
[ATTENDED: July 28, 2023] Pool Kids
Wow was it hot in The Ukie Club.
After two bands (and the inability to buy water at the bar–I can never catch a bartender), I splashed water on my face in the bathroom and prepped for Pool Kids.
The band set up, left the stage and then moments later came on stage to a familiar song that I realized I had no idea the name of. And you probably don’t either.
It was “Sandstorm” by Darude. You know it. Everyone knows it. When I looked up the song the top comment on YouTube is “This song would have well over a billion views if people could actually find it” And it’s true no one knows the name of it. [The video is quite good too.]
Anyhow, the band came out to it, getting everyone pumped, and then the song slowed and wavered as they kicked into the opening chords of “Swallow.” There’s some great guitar lines on this song and even though there’s some mellow middle parts (on record–live it’s much heavier), the crowd immediately started slam dancing. Several people who were up front headed for the sides and I moved over a bit to let them get their dancing out. Continue Reading »
Posted in Chase Petra, Philadelphia, PA, Pool Kids, Sweet Pill, Sydney Sprague, The Ukie Club, Ukrainian American Citizens' Association | Leave a Comment »
July 29, 2023 by Paul Debraski
[DID NOT ATTEND: July 29, 2023] ALT 104.5 Fishtown FestivALT Block Party
I received a notification that Portugal. The Man were going to be playing at The Fillmore. They are a band who are high on my “wanna see” list. So I grabbed a ticket even though I had a ticket for another show that night.
Then I learned a short time later that the Portugal. The Man show was part of this ALT 104.5 Fishtown FestivALT Block Party. It’s an all-day affair in three locations. Much of it is free, although the Portugal. show is not. Well, then it turned out that we were picking up my daughter from camp that day–so that knocked out going into town early. And then we got invited to a farewell party for a friend who was leaving the area. So there went the evening show. I tried to resell my tickets but I guess Portugal. The Man is not on the top of everyone’s “must see” list.
As for the free bands, it’s amazing how much TikTok is making new bands into favorites.
There are three venues involved. Continue Reading »
Posted in ALT 104.5 Fishtown FestivALT Block Party, Brooklyn Bowl, Cafuné, David Kushner, DJ Reed Streets, Grouplove, Max Davey, Philadelphia, PA, Portugal The Man, Snacktime, The Fillmore Philadelphia, The Foundry, Voilà | Leave a Comment »
July 29, 2023 by Paul Debraski
[ATTENDED: July 28, 2023] Sydney Sprague
I had seen Syndey Sprague open for The Front Bottoms a couple years ago. She was the first band of the night and I wound up walking in after the first two songs.
I liked her vibes and overall sound. But I was surprised/disappointed by her record which was a lot more poppy than her live show (which was kind of grungy and rocking).
For this show, she came out in an oversized shirt(she must have been very hot).
The other two bands were fairly heavy and rocking, and Sydney was almost in that style, but was a little softer, a little quieter. Just a little. The biggest difference was in her singing style which was a lot more monotone than t he other two singers. Not monotone exactly, but nowhere near as expressive as the other singers.
Having said that, her set was a lot of fun and was full of songs from her new (as yet unreleased) album. The first two (new) songs were catchy and a rocking. The third, “Steve” slowed things down a bit but retained that catchiness with a big chorus.
“Object Permanence” is a poppy song–super catchy. Continue Reading »
Posted in Chase Petra, Philadelphia, PA, Pool Kids, Sweet Pill, Sydney Sprague, The Ukie Club, Ukrainian American Citizens' Association | Leave a Comment »
July 29, 2023 by Paul Debraski
[DID NOT ATTEND: July 31-August 2, 2020] Newport Folk Festival
We went to Newport Folk Festival in 2019. We’ve had a kind of understanding that we would try to go again. So this year, when tickets were announced I jumped online and managed to score four of them!
Then it turned out that the weekend would be massive conflict.
So, after seeing just who would be there, we felt that the whole fest was kind of a big shrug. And it would be no loss to sell the tickets back. Fortunately, Newport has a great system where you just put the tickets back in the pool and who ever is next gets them. Continue Reading »
Posted in Bartees Strange, Billy Strings, Goose, Indigo De Souza, Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, Jon Batiste, Lana Del Ray, Madison Cunningham, Maggie Rogers, Mdou Moctar, My Morning Jacket, Newport Folk Festival, Newport, RI | Leave a Comment »
July 29, 2023 by Paul Debraski
[DID NOT ATTEND: July 29, 2023] Altin Gün / Rogê
Altin Gün is a Turkish psychedelic band from The Netherlands. (Their name means Golden Day).
Their live shows are supposed to be wonderful as well:
Altin Gün’s relentless grooves are truly immersive, anti-elitist, inclusive. It’s truly music for the dancefloor – all dancefloors. Altin Gün are the perfect 21st Century psych band, hinting at a deep record collection while still belonging to a living tradition and having a unique and distinctive voice
[from Forestpunk].
They played Underground Arts last year but I couldn’t go. I’m impressed that they moved up to Union Transfer this year–good for them.
I bought a ticket this year because I’d been listening to and enjoying their new album. But it seemed like this show was destined for me not to go. Continue Reading »
Posted in Altin Gün, Philadelphia, PA, Rogê, Union Transfer | Leave a Comment »
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