Results tagged “liveshow”

Here's hoping that on the next album and tour, she takes the Middle Way.

This was the one show of the year I went to strictly on a friend's recommendation, having never heard of the band. It was worth it. Bradford Cox's creepy demeanor only adds to the show. The droning guitars and heavy drums created a melancholy, fugue-like state that I'd gladly return to next time Deerhunter is in town. There's nothing like going to a concert and leaving feeling like you've just been mindfucked.

Crushed by The Big Bang Theory? Out of The IT Crowd? Has The Sarah Connor Chronicles already passed your expectable threshold of continuity errors? Have faith, young padawan. Though TV’s sudden embrace of geek culture has not lessened how crappy most of it is, there does remain some shows out there that speak to how the real nerds get down. And this coming Wednesday, one of the best is touching down right here in...

Mike Doughty Ticket Giveaway
11/15/07-11/16/07

Architecture in Helsinki (AIH) are shilling for Sprint. And we're totally okay with that. Now that we are TiVo-less, we have to watch commercials like everyone else. So it may not have been news to you, but we almost spit out our Blueberi and coke last night when we heard "Souvenirs" playing in the background of a Sprint spot. They've come far from when we last so them a year ago, and already they're taking money from the man.

The last time we saw The National was on their gigantic tour with Arcade Fire. In the midst of The National’s set at The Tower Theater, this Phillyist was overtaken. “This is the best band ever,” we thought. Well, we were thinking that until Arcade Fire came on and blew our ears off…but we knew the band was going to be something worth loving. And shortly thereafter, Internet critics began to think along the same...

Rachael Yamagata, singer/songwriter, is headed to the Johnny Brenda's tonight. If you can't make it tonight, you can see her on Tuesday, July 24th or Tuesday, July 31st. Yep, that's right - she is playing three times in Philly, a short residency of sorts. Yamagata is known for her dark, raspy alto voice and being highlighted on numerous TV shows and movies. Recently, she contributed a song to Mandy Moore's new CD, Wild Hope. On...

Being big fans of Fair to Midland’s , “April Fools and Eggmen.”)

(it's nice, pretty background music, but not nearly as fun as some of their earlier efforts), we're still totally psyched to check out their live show tonight. We've heard they put on a helluva show, and provided they at least play a few of the songs we remember from high school, we'll be perfectly happy.

Heavy metal is a musical genre that has gone through a lot of ups and downs in popularity and quality over the years. But it's a genre we've always had a fondness for, and so we're quite happy to see it making yet another one of its many comebacks. This time one of the filthy hard rock zombies helping yank the corpse of metal out of its very unquiet grave is Mastodon (MySpace). They've been together making music since the late '90s/early '00s, but they only just released their first major label album - their third and most recent disc - September of last year. It's called Blood Mountain, and besides featuring cameos from such musical greats as Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme and Mars Volta frontman Cedric Bixler, it's full of Mastodon's patented brand of lengthy, thrashing, doomy, complex, psychedelic, progressive metal. In other words, it's real good, rocking stuff, and we like it. And we hear their live show is even better, so check them out when they attack the Electric Factory this Friday, along with Against Me! and Cursive.

Check out Deerhunter tomorrow night at Johnny Brenda's. The band has followed up the much-fellated Cryptograms with the equally-fellated Flourescent Grey EP.

Okay, so we'll admit, we missed Mixel Pixel's set last night. But check them out - we've heard great things.

Justice Ticket Giveaway
10/25/06-10/29/06

Be Your Own Pet are endorsed by Sonic Youth (Thurston Moore's label is putting out their records), which is practically enough right there to make us like them. But it turns out their music is good, too! As R5 Productions says, they sound like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs when the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were still good. Crazy, brutal rock with a lead singer who even sounds a bit like Karen O. But they rock in their own right, delivering pure, full volume, head-banging thrash music. And they're playing the First Unitarian tonight at 7:30PM with the very '60s retro rock Black Lips (whose live show is apparently crazy wild, involving violence, nudity, arson, and flying bodily fluids - so be warned!) and "demented and manic" local band Clockcleaner. Doesn't sound like an appropriate group of bands for an all ages show in a church, but...whatever! Rock and roll!!!

If you read Phillyist regularly (and if not, why not?), you're probably already aware that we're partial to both music and video games, so when the two come packaged together, we get rather excited. And that's just what's happening at a couple of upcoming shows at First Unitarian.

Mission of Burma is back in Philly this weekend, playing the Church with NYC rock outfit Pela. That's right, Mission of Burma. If you don't know who Mission of Burma is, you need to go. If you do know, you already know you need to go. MoB is indeed, as it says on their website, "one of the most important American rock bands of the last 20 years." This is despite the fact that the main body of their career covered only 1979-1983, and produced only two albums worth of studio material and one rather crappy set of live recordings (entitled The Horrible Truth About Burma...that truth being that their live show is often not quite as great as their studio performances...but what can you do?). Those two albums alone make them worth listening to, full as they are of such a fantastic blend of punk/pop/rock, with such intelligent lyrics full of humor, scathing political commentary, and powerful artistic statements. But in 2004 MoB returned to the stage and the studio, picking up right where they left off with the amazing OnOffOn. And just a few months ago MoB put out a brand new disc - The Obliterati. With incredible songs like "2wice," "Man in Decline," and "Careening with Conviction," they sound just as fresh and raw and relevant on this album as if they'd formed yesterday. R5 Productions is doing the show, so check out their site for the usual colorful descriptions and awesome music files.

Jason Forrest is pretty clearly a music junkie. He used to record, confusingly enough, under the name Donna Summer (although, don't worry, there was indeed a real Donna Summer; she wasn't just an elaborate conspiratorial creation of the record companies, so you can stop thinking that right now, you paranoid weirdo), so she may have had some influence on him, first off. (The decade of her heyday certainly did, as the website for his self-owned label, Cock Rock Disco, is smothered in '70s era photos and style.) And his latest album, Shamelessly Exciting, features samples from artists as diverse as The Ramones, Steely Dan, Yes, Genesis, and Blood Sweat & Tears - and those are just the ones we recognized. All of this wildly different music is sometimes layered over with fresh performances (the disc features collaborations with contemporary acts like Laura Cantrell), then chopped and pasted and molded into something entirely new, and incredibly rocking - an exhilarating postmodern fusion that may indeed be the future of music, or at least the music of the future.

By Jen A. Miller

Well, we were going to tell you about Dracula's Ball, the regular Goth event that happens to occur on Hallowe'en every year (what a coincidence!), but then we had a bright idea: Why do all the work when we can have someone else tell you all about it? So we traded some emails with promoter Patrick Rodgers of Dancing Ferret, and he graciously agreed to answer some spoooooky questions.

The Roots brought down the house at the Kimmel Center on Friday night, bringing a rather stagnant crowd to its feet for a two-and-a-half hour set that spanned the entire Roots discography.

Will Smith probably earns the title of "Most Popular Philadelphian Recording Artist." But when it comes to the title of "Most Popular Philadelphia Recording Artist We're Proud To Admit Is Our Own," well, The Roots own that title. Tonight, The Roots bring their amazing live show to the beautiful Kimmel Center, in a night that promises to be a great fish out of water experience. You know, sort of like Splash but with a concert and without Tom Hanks.

By now you’ve probably heard of Nouvelle Vague, the French band covering songs of the English new wave in the loungey style of Brazilian bossanova. They’re on the stereo at your hipster friends’ parties, they’re showing up on every list as one of the best breakout albums of the summer, and most recently, they’re on the soundtrack for a T-Mobile commercial. And now the band is bound for World Café Live, the Philadelphia stop on their American tour.

by Vin Varstin