Music

I remember getting MGM’s This Is Spinal Tap DVD when it was released in 2000 and being giddy at all the special features. The deleted scenes were longer than the movie, revealing that a ton of great stuff was sacrificed in the service of making the final cut an essentially perfect comedy. But alas, while watching Spinal Tap II, I shuddered to think what was on the cutting room floor, because the vast majority of… See more →

A quick reminder to myself that in the future I really should swap out my 15dB earplug filters for the 25dB ones (or maybe even the solid ones) if I’m going to be right next to the speakers. My left ear was not the same after this show, and I hope it’s not permanent. That said, of all the dozens of shows I’ve attended in this room over the years, I don’t remember any of… See more →

First time in a long time I’ve come home from a show covered in fake blood! I knew Ghoul’s schtick borrowed liberally from Gwar’s, but I didn’t realize just how far they took it until one of their elaborately costumed characters came out with hoses attached to himself. Sure enough, his face was soon ripped off to get the fluids flowing. Not nearly as messy as a Gwar show (which these days suits me just… See more →

• Anna von Hausswolff: Stardust
  The Anna von Hausswolff that made me a fan wielded her pipe organ as a powerful agent of ambient, drone, and doom. On paper, the notion of her veering into pop territory would have been a no-go for me, but clearly my doubts were misplaced, as this has quickly become one of my favorite songs of the year so far.
• That Dog: Ms. Wrong
  I can’t believe this song is 30… See more →

Even if I’ve never been all that interested in the records that came after The Downward Spiral, a Nine Inch Nails show is always an event, so I had been keeping an eye on tickets for this one. By the day of the show, even the available cheap seats were not quite cheap enough for this cheapskate, but at the eleventh hour, a friend materialized with an extra ticket, and I came to my senses.… See more →

• Mazowsze: Dwa serduszka
  Cold War, “a broken love story about broken people in a broken country,” is one of my favorite films of the last decade, and among all the great music it packs into its relatively short runtime, this mournful traditional Polish tune about a doomed love affair intentionally stands out. I’m partial to this choral version, but there’s also a great jazz version sung by Joanna Kulig later in the film.
• Pat Benatar:… See more →

Not a packed show, but well-attended by scene afficionados, as I noticed members of Baroness, Pentagram, Pharaoh, and Sonya in the audience. Also cool to spot Ben Brower (formerly of The Stuntmen) in Breakker! Tower crushed. Definitely the best way I could have spent this particular Sunday evening in Philadelphia.

• Gillian Welch: Annabelle
  My buddy’s sister is Gillian Welch’s lone full-time employee, handling merch and various other odds and ends. (She also plays drums in a ripping all-girl Rage Against the Machine tribute band in Nashville). I’ve been a casual fan since the ’90s, so when they came through NYC awhile back, I got to tag along and briefly meet Gillian and David Rawlings backstage before the show. We had great seats too!
• Andrew W.K.:… See more →

• The Pazant Brothers & The Beaufort Express: A Gritty Nitty
  It’s a testament to the amount of quality material produced in funk’s heyday that these guys are footnotes at best. I dare you to try sitting still while listening to this.
• Shannon: Let the Music Play
  “Let the Music Play” is the standard-bearer for freestyle, a genre I strongly associate with my early adolescent roller rink days in the late ’80s. I’m sure the DJ… See more →

• Faith No More: Let’s Lynch the Landlord
  Faith No More had a strong cult following for many years before and after “Epic,” their surprise 1990 hit, including a long list of singles that got regular rotation on 120 Minutes and Headbangers Ball, but this cover of Dead Kennedys’ “Let’s Lynch the Landlord” is perhaps lesser known even among the band’s diehard fans. It was recorded for a compilation celebrating the 100th release from DK’s label,… See more →

• Shake Chain: Mike
  You’ll be hard-pressed to find another vocalist who’s leaving it all on the field in quite the same way Shake Chain’s Kate Mahony is. Her anguished yowling is sometimes unnerving, often hilarious, and always admirably obnoxious.
• Morphine: Claire
  The first Morphine album feels like you’ve stumbled upon an unassuming trio playing to no one under a street light on a desolate corner in the middle of the night, like you’re living in… See more →

The late, great Faraquet scheduled a handful of reunion gigs across a weekend (presumably so no one in the band would have to take time off work) to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their lone full-length album, The View From This Tower, which has long been high on the list of my favorite underground records. I felt a rare bit of hometown pride when the Philly show sold out fast enough for them to add… See more →

• Taraf de Haïdouks: Turceasca
  Every few years or so, I fall down a rabbit hole into one or another corner of eastern European folk music, and it’s the Romani gypsy traditions I seem to come back to most often. This song is an absolute barnburner, exemplifying one of the genre hallmarks I find most appealing: a manic energy that often feels like the players are all racing to see who can get to the finish… See more →

Filling a couple conspicuous holes in my collection. RIP Ozzy.

• Black Sabbath: Supernaut
  One riff to rule them all. Surges out of the gate exultant and invincible and never lets up, not even when there’s a little drum circle break for the hippies. And its fade-out ending, unlike most fade-outs, isn’t a cop-out; it sends its Supernaut marching off into the horizon, forging new frontiers and radiating wisdom and splendor to all in his path. (In my cursory research, it seems that Sabbath songs are… See more →

• Low: Surfer Girl
  Alan and Mimi from Low used to sing their daughter to sleep with this before they started playing it live, and it’s such a perfect lullaby. Mimi’s been gone almost three years and her voice still puts a lump in my throat.
• Devo: (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
  I dunno, “I can’t get no girl reaction” (or “girly action” in the Devo version) just seems more believable coming from the bespectacled guy… See more →

• Jesu: Stanlow
  When Jesu first popped up, a decade early to the shoegaze revival, I was surprised to learn the band was formed by Justin Broadrick, who made his name in the ’90s underground with the harsh industrial metal band Godflesh. While both bands share his leaden guitar tone, Jesu is a notable departure from its forebear in its indulgence of melody and sometimes even major keys, as heard here. For me, this song evokes… See more →

• Marie Davidson: Fun Times
  I didn’t think there was much modern EDM that really did it for me, but stumbling upon Marie Davidson this year is making me think again. It’s true that a lot of what I find appealing here reminds me of club styles (EBM, electro) from decades gone by, but rather than being a rehash, it feels like a fresh update of those sounds, with plenty of new ideas sprinkled in.
• Ghost:… See more →

• Can: I Want More
  I’m not an authority on Can, but this might be the closest they ever came to an anthem? The whole thing is great: the underlying tremolo, the hushed vocal chants, those unassuming organ stabs in the verses, and that simple melody in the wordless chorus.
• Parliament: Do That Stuff
  Forever doomed to live in the shadow of “Give Up the Funk,” Parliament’s biggest hit, which was also released in 1976, I… See more →

A solid bill of oddities tonight.

Ecology: Homestones is a purveyor of harsh noise that probably wouldn’t hold my attention if it weren’t performed by a towering ghoul with a shrunken head, accompanied by a limbless torso writhing along to the cacophony on a hook behind a velvet rope. Apparently there’s a whole mythology that goes with this, and incredibly, it’s attracted more than a half million social media followers in just a few short… See more →

• The Comet Is Coming: Space Carnival
  I’ve scarcely seen a more apt song title. If Sun Ra had directed Star Wars, maybe the cantina band would have sounded like this.
• Amyl and The Sniffers: Hertz
  Amy Taylor’s furious joie de vivre is among my favorite punk rock paradoxes. My favorite Aussies are the real-life Mad Max freaks.

It’s not uncommon for me to lament an old band’s preference for new material at a live show, and while tonight’s set list was dominated by songs from NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD, and I do find that album to be something of a rote exercise, that wasn’t the only reason I left early. Even in this grim geopolitical moment, Godspeed’s brand of all-consuming pessimism somehow feels to me more naive… See more →

I saw Tower open for my buddy’s band Mutant Scum at Saint Vitus (RIP) 10 years ago, and frontwoman Sarabeth Linden’s powerful pipes and electric stage presence have been burned into my brain ever since. In the years that followed, the band’s first few EPs and LPs were enjoyable, but didn’t measure up to what I remember of that show, and on record, at least, Tower seemed destined to be one of those bands whose … See more →

I wouldn’t have expected to really get into this one! Electronic music’s presence in my listening habits has definitely increased over the last several years, but it’s tended to be more in the avantgarde realm than the dance music realm, and I’ve never been all that interested in electroclash, so Marie Davidson’s persona and deadpan vocals on this record don’t do that much for me. But the production is another story, and if I’m being… See more →

I finally ditched Spotify at the end of 2024. I never loved it, and I felt extra icky about giving them my money ever since they had no trouble finding $250 million for the sham supplement salesman and douchebag magnet Joe Rogan, despite their inability to promote or pay the vast majority of the musicians who are the heart and soul of their service. The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was learning… See more →

I was hopeful, if not naive enough to be confident, that enough people were sufficiently fed up with That Fucking Guy to keep him from returning to the White House. But he will, of course, be returning, and while this time his victory isn’t the shock to the system it was in 2016, his popular vote win, a hair shy of a mandate, still stings plenty. The Democratic Party’s subsequent soul-searching might be morbidly comical… See more →

I joked with some other folks in line about the event staff carding people at the door: Would anyone attending a Slowdive show in 2024 be under 40? I had momentarily forgotten that the kids on TikTok have in recent years made shoegaze far bigger than it’s ever been, and not only had the kids come out to pack this show, but they’d arrived early. I got there shortly after the start of Quannic’s opening… See more →

The name of this tour, The Future Past, led me to believe it was one of those tours where Maiden would be sticking to the classic albums, which is all I really want to hear. If I had done any research at all, I would have learned that “Days of Future Past” is the name of a song on their 2021 album Senjutsu, and indeed, that album accounted for a full third of the setlist.… See more →

My fourth Greet Death show, and my first since singer/guitarist Harper transitioned, and it was nice to see her come out of her shell, playing more expressively in a way that maybe she felt she couldn’t before.

Soul Glo isn’t really my thing, but I’m not gonna tell you they didn’t burn the place down. Mannequin Pussy, not so much.

Frontwoman Marisa Dabice isn’t an especially clever lyricist, and it’s easy enough to get past when listening to the band’s records, whose sonics are more about feeling than thinking. But while the records are mercifully absent overt speechifying, this show sadly was not, and Mannequin Pussy’s emotion-to-intellect ratio is a poor fit… See more →

I only found out about the Philadelphia Organ Festival the day before it started, and I’m so glad I did. I wish I could have attended more events, but if I could only make it to one, this one, “The Organ’s Modern Touch: Minimalism and Contemporary Works” was at the top of my list.

This festival being devoted to the organ, video screens were set up at either side of the sanctuary, one showing the… See more →

I’ll begin by briefly weighing in on five of the most prominent pieces of the 2023 zeitgeist, at least from where I was sitting. Some cynical vibes ahead, so feel free to skip past this part if you’re not in the mood for negative energy:

• Taylor Swift: Gen Z’s version of Beatlemania is a bit of a head-scratcher for me, since I find Taylor Swift’s music to be entirely unremarkable, but that didn’t stop her… See more →

Late last year, my friend Jon (without an h) told me his high school buddy John (with an h) was putting together a band to play Misfits and Danzig tunes for Porchella, the annual Halloween band crawl in Irvington, the town in New York’s Hudson Valley where John lives. John on drums and Jon on guitar. Did I want in? As anyone who has ever spent more than five seconds with me knows, fronting a… See more →

Ghost’s set was largely unchanged from the one I saw last year—and I enjoyed it just as much a second time—so I won’t describe it again. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t make a note of how impressive Amon Amarth’s stage production was, especially for an opening band. The stage was bookended by three-story Viking statues. The drum riser sat atop a massive Viking helmet encasing video screens projecting eyes, fire, lightning, and… See more →

I knew right away that the arrival of Metallica’s …And Justice for All in my suburban home in June of 1989 was a pivotal moment. I didn’t even wait for my birthday party guests to disperse before sneaking up to my room to listen to it, even though its tone was decidedly at odds with the celebratory atmosphere. It was the darkest thing I’d ever been exposed to, forcing me to contemplate unvarnished truths about… See more →

Soraya Roberts, for Defector:

I just want to go to a concert. One concert. I just want to see First Aid Kit. I just want this one thing. […] But I am sorry, I am not willing to pay $97.58 for general admission at History, a Toronto club co-owned by Drake.

So that’s $73.04 USD for a relatively intimate experience (a 2,500 capacity venue in a major city) with a band that has nearly 3 million… See more →

My first visit to the Foundry. The place has strong “waiting in line for a theme park attraction” vibes.

This show was my first visit to the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, and I was immediately struck by the building’s gold brick interior, which I don’t think I’d ever seen in a church nave before:

The interior is buff-colored brick and sandstone and the pews are black walnut, exemplifying [Augustus] Sims’ architectural philosophy of honesty in building materials, eschewing plaster throughout. Stone carvings both inside and out were done by Alexander Milne Calder,… See more →

Another sold out Underground Arts show, and I’m still not taking my own advice and getting there early, so I didn’t get to see much more than the backs of a lot of heads. I was cranky about it at first, but even when you can barely see them, it’s impossible to stay cranky when White Reaper is doing their thing.

I think I can count on zero hands how many people I know who can even name an Unwound song, let alone call themselves fans, so after I got over my excitement when the reunion tour was announced last summer, I was a little surprised to learn they were playing Union Transfer (capacity: 1,200), and still more surprised when that show sold out and a second one was added. I’ve long had an objective understanding… See more →

The six massive pillars in the middle of Underground Arts make the stage invisible to big chunks of the room, and when it’s a sold out show like this one, finding an even halfway decent sight line can be next to impossible if you don’t get there early. I’ve been burned by this a few times now, so I think going forward I’ll need to commit to early arrival or just skip the show.

Tonight… See more →

Maude

Leah and I became dog parents early in 2022, adopting a 15-pound, two-year-old Jack Russell / Chihuahua mix. Knowing Roe v. Wade would soon be overturned, we named her Maude, after the Bea Arthur character, who in 1972 was the first sitcom character to have an abortion. Living with Maude has been a big adjustment, but after getting over the initial hump, I’m not sure how we ever lived without her. She loves belly… See more →