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Yard Act (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, November 5, 2023)

November 7, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: November 5, 2023] Yard Act 

I had tickets to see Yard Act last year.  I bought the ticket mostly because I wanted to see the opening band, Gustaf, whom I had recently seen and really liked.

That show was cancelled at the last minute because Yard Act was called back home to do a live TV appearance for the Mercury Prize (surely a lot more lucrative than playing a gig at Underground Arts).

When this new tour was announced I decided to give them a go.  They are very British (being from Leeds).  On record, “singer” James Smith mostly rants and speaks angrily.  His lyrics are placed over some very cool guitars from Sam Shipstone and some really grooving bass from Ryan Needham.  Drummer Jay Russell keeps things together.

For this live show they had a keyboardist/saxophonist who seemed to allow Shipstone to go even more berserk.

I really had no idea that Shipstone would be playing the kind of noisy, feedback drenched sounds he did.  Which is not to say that he was not playing melody because he was, but as the rest of the band took over a song, he was just wild on the far side of the stage.  I was a little annoyed that I couldn’t see him well.  The woman in front of me was dancing and taking up a lot of real estate so I couldn’t lean in around the guy next to me.

Needham’s bass had a great sound and was often the only thing holding the melody down while Shipstone went nuts.  He also provided backing vocals.

But the focus of the show is clearly James Smith.  And the best part of the show is that he doesn’t casually recite his lyrics.  He is a non-stop machine of gestures and quips, singing and screaming lyrics.  Whispering and delaying satisfaction.  He has the entire audience in his hands and he is not afraid to make then do what he wants.  It was amazing to watch.

He was also quite taken with Philadelphia (he apologized that they missed last year’s show…but they had other commitments).  There was even a point where he shouted I love Philly!  And then fell to he knees shouting “And I’m not just saying that!”  He also said if he HAD to move to the States, he’d want to live in Philly.

So I’d listened to the album a couple of times and knew what the band was about, but I didn’t know any of the songs really.

Really, it’s the lyrics though, that keep you coming back, even if they are spoken like in “Dead Horse:” Continue Reading »

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PVA (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, November 5, 2023) [YARD ACT]

November 6, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: November 5, 2023] PVA

I had not hear of PVA before this set.  I listened to one song before the show and liked it.  Then I read this blurb

South London trio PVA’s stunning debut BLUSH consolidates the beating pulse of electronic music with the raw energy of a life-affirming gig and reveals more than they’ve ever shared before. Ella Harris & Josh Baxter (who share vocals, synths, guitars & production) and drummer Louis Satchell, create 11 blistering tracks from a formula of acid, disco, synths, the dancefloor & queer-coded post-punk.

PVA was sitting on the stage when I walked in.  They were still doing sound check and looked pretty bored.  I think they got their set started a little late because of this.  I say this especially because thy played two fewer songs at our show than the previous night’s show and the audience was really responsive to them.

The woman in front of me, who I picked to stand behind because she was fairly short, turned out to be a dancer.  Which is fine.  Except that she took up about four people’s space when she danced.  She moved a lot, so I couldn’t get anywhere close to where I thought I’d be standing.  She also did that very irritating thing that young women do of stacking one hand up in the air randomly.  So, she was annoying but not terrible. Continue Reading »

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, PVA, Underground Arts, Yard Act | Leave a Comment »

Spiritualized (White Eagle Hall, Jersey City, NJ, November 6, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

November 6, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[DID NOT ATTEND: November 6, 2023] Spiritualized [moved from September 23, 2022]

I had forgotten that Spiritualized was supposed to play our area last year, but they cancelled the show last minute for a medical emergency.

I wasn’t planning on going to this show (White Eagle Hall has really fallen off my radar lately).  But I feel like it must not have been very well attended as a week before the show, White Eagle Hall was giving $10 off per ticket.

I decided to go see Tortoise instead.  Interesting that both bands are from the same era.

But I really enjoyed Tortoise, so no regrets.

 

 

 

Posted in Jersey City, NJ, Spiritualized, White Eagle Hall | Leave a Comment »

The Head and The Heart (State Theatre, New Brunswick, NJ, November 4, 2023)

November 5, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: November 4, 2023] The Head and The Heart

My wife and I saw The Head and the Heart in 2019 and it was terrible (not the band, the crowd)

I wrote:

But holy crap, the people around me sucked so bad that they ruined the whole night.  I am writing this ten days after the show and I hate to say that I am still annoyed by them all.  …

So I had quite possibly the worst concert experience of my life at this show.  And I want to reiterate it had nothing to do with the band.  There may have been a song or two in the middle that I wasn’t too excited about, but overall, they sounded great, played some really fun songs and seemed to be really enjoying themselves.  I wouldn’t mind seeing them again to make up for this show, but I probably won’t.

So last time they came around, I decided not to see them.  But I figured they were coming to the State Theatre, how bad could the audience be?

And indeed, they weren’t too bad.  They talked a lot during Drew Holcomb, but were largely good during THATH.  The strange thing to me was how many kids there were there.  Like dozens of them.  Which is fine, it was just surprising as they’re not a notably kiddie band.  Although when I asked some parents about this, the dad said they were not offensive, which is very true. Continue Reading »

Posted in Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors, New Brunswick, NJ, State Theatre, The Head and the Heart | Leave a Comment »

The Last Dinner Party / Mothermary (Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, PA, November 4, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

November 4, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[DID NOT ATTEND: November 4, 2023] The Last Dinner Party / Mothermary

I heard about The Last Dinner Party a few weeks ago.  Right around when I found out they were doing a very short US Tour and Philly was one of the places.

I was intrigued by their gimmick, but also by their music.  And I snagged a ticket even though I knew we had tickets to see The Head and the Heart. I figured this would sell out and I’d rather not be able to go because I had something else to do than not be able to go because it was sold out.

So what is this band about?  Well, they dress as you see here, and they play a kind of “art-rock bombast” with a “distinctive baroque-pop sound and look.”  Lead singer Abigail Morris sings in a very aristocratic way with very long vowels.

And they dress up.  Often in corsetry and baroque outfits.

Because, yes, they are all university students.  And there are few things more fun than British University students starting a band. Continue Reading »

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Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors (State Theatre, New Brunswick, NJ, November 4, 2023) [THE HEAD AND THE HEART]

November 4, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: November 4, 2023] Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors

I had purchased these tickets a pretty long time ago–a chance to see The Head and the Heart again after the disastrous last time we saw them.

Then The Last Dinner Party announced that they were playing a couple of shows i the U.S. and I grabbed a ticket trying to decide if we could blow off The Head and the Heart.  But I thought it would be more fun to see a show with my wife, so we went.

Then Drew Holcomb came on and I was sure I’d made the wrong choice.

Holcomb is a Tennessee country singer.  Ouch.

His voice wasn’t the worst in terms of twanginess.  But his songs were so generic and bland it was sad.  His lyrics were also really meh.

In the first song he lists a bunch of things that “I am” an endless list which included Continue Reading »

Posted in Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors, New Brunswick, NJ, State Theatre, The Head and the Heart | Leave a Comment »

Japanese Breakfast (Fillmore Philly, Philadelphia, PA, October 31, 2023)

October 31, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: October 31, 2023] Japanese Breakfast

This was my third time seeing Japanese Breakfast. But more importantly, it was my first time going to a show on Halloween (that’s not true, I saw Skinny Puppy on Halloween in 1988), but this is my first time since I had kids.

I wasn’t sure we could pull it off–my daughter wanted to go trick or treating after all.  And I was willing to not go to this show.  If my daughter wanted us home, I would have happily stayed home.  Although this did promise to be a super fun show.  Costumes, a cool poster and the notification that this would be the last J Brekkie show for at least a year.

Zauner had shared her plans for her second book, mentioning the year-long hiatus she plans to take in Korea.  “I’m moving to Korea December 29th to live for a year and work on my second book where I am going to study the language and document that process,” she told Hsu. “And I think it was such a natural response to writing a book that was so rooted in the past and so much of what was hard about it was like it was so obviously emotional, but also it was hard to remember all of that.”

Our daughter gave us permission to go out and we arrived at the show in time to see the opening act. I could (should?) have waited on line for a poster (the above picture with a foil outline), but I decided against it.

Originally Hop Along was supposed to open but that changed at pretty close to the last minute.  (Well, they had enough time to make posters with the new band, Crooks and Nannies) on it.  I’m not a huge fan of Hop Along, but I do like the and was a little bummed at the loss.  But Crooks and Nannies proved to be weirdly delightful.

After Crooks and Nannies finished (at 8:30) it was a short wait and then a woman in a clown outfit came on.  It was comedian Sarah Sherman who Michelle Zauner said “insisted she come out on stage.” She did her routine which was funny and irritating.  And when she was done, Japanese Breakfast’s crew started setting up for their show.  I was sure that the comedian was  a way to distract us while the crew set up.  But instead, it was just a delaying technique.  J.B. didn’t go on until 9:45.  Good grief.

And indeed, it was Sherman who returned, this time dressed as Gollum, ready to introduce the band.  And when she did, it was revealed that the whole band was dressed like Lord of the Rings characters.  And there were clips from the movie (and cartoons and more) projected behind them for the whole show. Continue Reading »

Posted in Crooks and Nannies, Hop Along, Japanese Breakfast, Little Big League, Philadelphia, PA, Sable, The Fillmore Philadelphia | Leave a Comment »

Sarah Sherman (Fillmore Philly, Philadelphia, PA, October 31, 2023) [JAPANESE BREAKFAST]

October 31, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: October 31, 2023] Sarah Sherman

After Crooks and Nannies, we waited a few minutes, honestly hoping that JBrekkie would come on stage soon so we could get home early, when out came a a woman in a clown suit.  It took us a moment to realize that we recognized her from the Adam Sandler film You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah.  She was weird and funny.

Turns out she was a special surprise Halloween guest for this show.  Michelle Zauner later said that she didn’t ask to perform, she just came out and insisted on it.  Which is pretty funny.

So Sherman started doing her routine.

I have no idea what her stand up is normally like.  If this was a typical gig for her, just shortened to twenty minutes.  Or if she was trying stuff out or what.  But her stand up is deliberately annoying, I believe.

I was annoyed by the guys behind us who kept saying things like “why would you have a stand up comedian come out between bands.”  I mean, it’s Halloween it’s supposed to be fun, shut up.

She does a lengthy bit about New York “you know what I’m tawkin’ about.”  She repeats that line “you know what I’m tawkin’ about” about forty times.  Funny, not funny, then funny, then not funny then funny again. Continue Reading »

Posted in Crooks and Nannies, Hop Along, Japanese Breakfast, Philadelphia, PA, Sarah Sherman, The Fillmore Philadelphia | Leave a Comment »

Crooks and Nannies (Fillmore Philly, Philadelphia, PA, October 31, 2023) [JAPANESE BREAKFAST]

October 31, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: October 31, 2023] Crooks and Nannies

This was my third time seeing Japanese Breakfast.  It was a Halloween show!  And her last show for at least a year.  So I grabbed tickets.

Hop Along was supposed to open. Hop Along is a band that I wish I liked more.   I like their music but there’s something about their songs that just doesn’t work for me.  I think it’s got something to do with the vocals, but again, I don’t really know.

But I was looking forward to seeing them live to see if they could win me over.  And then they were not playing the show and it on their place was Crooks and Nannies, a Philly band that I hadn’t heard of.

Crooks and Nannies is more or less a duo: Max Rafter and Sam Huntington.  For this show (and a tour opening for Lucy Dacus (!)), they were a five-piece.  I am pretty certain that Lucy’s own Jacob Blizard was playing with them on guitar.

Since it was Halloween, it was an opportunity for the band to dress up.  Amusingly, because of the lighting in the first two songs, I didn’t realize that guitarist/singer Saxophonist Max was wearing green face makeup to look like Frankenstein’s monster.  I did  wonder why they were dressed that way–the makeup definitely completed the picture.

Their bassist, Ryan Ficano was wearing a cow costume.  Ficano is also in a fascinatingly off kilter metal(ish) band called Ogre.  Their keyboard player, who I think was Addy Watkins, was wearing a fringed cowboy outfit. Continue Reading »

Posted in Crooks and Nannies, Hop Along, Japanese Breakfast, Philadelphia, PA, The Fillmore Philadelphia | Leave a Comment »

Mudhoney (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, October 29, 2023)

October 30, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: October 27, 2023] Mudhoney 

I have never really been much of a Mudhoney fan.  I like “Touch Me, I’m Sick” and I have a couple of their early records but I never really listen to them.  Their music was pretty abrasive and didn’t really have any joy for me.

And yet I acknowledge that they are the progenitors of the whole scene that I loved so much.

Nirvana may have been the band that put an entire generation in flannel, and Pearl Jam and Soundgarden both sold a lot more records, but Mudhoney were truly the band that made the ’90s grunge rock movement possible. Mudhoney were the first real success story for Sub Pop Records; their music laid the groundwork for the movement that would (briefly) make Seattle, Washington, the new capital of the rock & roll universe. They took the sweat-soaked and beer-fueled mixture of heavy metal muscle, punk attitude, and garage rock primitivism that would become known as “grunge” to the hipster audience for the first time with early releases like 1988’s Superfuzz Bigmuff and 1989’s Mudhoney, and those fans would in turn sell it to a mass audience ready for something new. Mudhoney never scored the big payday some of their old running buddies did, though they did land a major-label deal that produced several strong albums, especially 1995’s My Brother the Cow and 1998’s Tomorrow Hit Today. Their importance on the Seattle scene cannot be underestimated, and their body of work — big, loud, purposefully sloppy, a little bit menacing, and even more funny — has stood the test of time better than their well-known colleagues.

They are also one of the few bands from that scene (besides Melvins, who I also didn’t really like) who stayed around and kept making music.  So what do I know?

The crowd was rowdy but not very big.

When the band came out on stage, they shone the album cover of Superfuzz Big Muff on the screen behind them.  And I soon learned that they showed whatever album each song was from, which was kind of cool. Continue Reading »

Posted in Hooveriii, Mudhoney, Philadelphia, PA, Underground Arts | Leave a Comment »

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