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Last month 19-year-old pop star on the rise Natalie Jane released “Tattoos” – her latest single, whose teasers racked up over 25 million views on social media and even got a repost from Billie Eilish – and kicked off her first-ever North American headlining tour, which sold out well...
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In support of their critically acclaimed 2024 album, The Past is Still Alive, Hurray for the Riff Raff played an incredible sold out show in Philly last Friday. They put on a spectacular performance, every song sounding nearly identical to the record. It’s a testament to the talent of...
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Last Thursday Madi Diaz played an incredible show at Philly’s World Cafe Live in support of her newest album, Weird Faith, which dropped last month on ANTI-. It was the Nashville-based, Lancaster County-raised artist’s biggest headlining show in the 215 to date, previously having played the likes of Tin...
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I recently documented 20 of the hardest-to-believe-they-ever-happened Philadelphia shows of the past 20 years, which included Caroline Polachek fronting Chairlift for a crowd of about 30 at KFN in 2009, Charli XCX playing to under 20 at North Star Bar in 2012, and Billie Eilish’s first-ever Philthy appearance, which...
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Industrial pioneers KMFDM have played Philadelphia countless times over the years. Sascha K and his cohorts (which have included now-wife Lucia Cifarelli on keyboards/vocals and Andy Selway on drums since 2002, along with Andee Blacksugar on guitar since 2017) have headlined The Trocadero and TLA a plethora of times...
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The last time we chatted with Daisy the Great – a NYC indie pop outfit led by Kelley Nicole Dugan and Mina Walker – was in early 2023, prior to their first-ever non-DIY headlining jaunt. The group had previously toured as support for mega acts AJR, half•alive, and The...
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Last July we officially announced the release of Holey Water, the most recent LP from “all-female, queer Southern Rock DIY band” Thelma and the Sleaze, after a chat with TATS frontwoman and only constant member Lauren “LG” Gilbert on her 38th birthday. The chat was in advance of the...
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This Friday, February 23rd, singer/songwriter and guitar legend Mary Timony – famed member of Autoclave, Helium, Wild Flag, and Ex Hex, in addition to Lindsey Jordan/Snail Mail’s former guitar teacher, who Wild Flag bandmate and Sleater-Kinney co-founder Carrier Brownstein once called, “Mary Shelley with a guitar” – will release...
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Philadelphia are no strangers to Twin Temple, “Los Angeles’ one and only purveyors of Satanic Doo-Wop.” We saw them in their earliest years alongside Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats and Graveyard at Union Transfer in 2019. In 2022 we saw them on the mega-stage of Camden’s ever-name-changing pavilion, opening...
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This coming Saturday, February 24th, Union Transfer will be hosting two amazing acts that we haven’t seen in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection for quite some time. Headlining the evening is garage rock legends The Kills, who were last in town when they played the Eraserhood...
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Indie folk outfit This Is The Kit – the elegant moniker of Paris-based, UK-born singer/songwriter Kate Stables – is no stranger to the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection. We first met This Is The Kit in October of 2017, but they were just in town last October,...
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Last month, Yep Roc Records announced the April 12th release of When We Were Looking, the debut LP from Maine-based indie folk singer/songwriter Louisa Stancioff, who is about to kick off a short run of dates with equally impressive singer/songwriters Molly Parden and Eliza Edens, which will find the...
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“I was one of the first artists to get popular on social media before social media even had that name,” says singer/songwriter Ron Pope. Tonight, Pope kicks off the A Drop in the Ocean Tour, which will have the Nashville/Brooklyn Americana artist performing his 2008 debut solo LP, Daylight,...
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Mitski is truly a once in a lifetime performer, and full of surprises, as shown by every one of her tours being completely different. Her first-ever show at the opera house — night one of two local stops on The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We Tour — looked...
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Tonight, LA blues punk duo Deap Vally – who we first met in 2013, just after the release of their debut EP, Get Deap! – kick off the second leg of their Live for the Last Time FAREWELL TOUR, which will have them playing their debut full-length, 2013’s Sistrionix,...
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Still looking for Valentine’s Day plans? Well, whether you’re all baed up or navigating the chilliest time of year solo, there’s sure to be plenty of love and affection going on at The Fillmore on February 14th courtesy of Sammy Rae & The Friends (The last time they played...
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NYC indie-pop sibling trio BAILEN have deservedly been darlings of WXPN for a number of years now… Just last year they played NON-COMM for the second time, their second Free At Noon, and a set at XPoNential Music Festival that proved to be a highlight of the exceptionally rainy...
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“These days I’m pretty stoked on wellness stuff. I try to do an infrared sauna in almost every town, I do yoga backstage, a lot of meditation, and I got into tapping, this new thing,” says Jaime Wyatt, which has me a little taken aback, considering that Wyatt first...
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Los Angeles garage rockers FIDLAR — whose drummer, Max Kuehn, recently spoke with Izzy Cihak — returned to Philadelphia for the first time since 2018 to play a spectacular show in support of Oliver Tree at The Met. With a headliner-quality stage show, and setlist of both “classics” and...
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*While Sarah Jarosz’s show Friday night, February 2nd, at World Cafe Live may be sold out, she will be playing WXPN’s Free At Noon at World Cafe Live on the afternoon of February 2nd, which you can attend for free, if you just register here. Polaroid Lovers, the seventh...
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Today Brighton post-punk outfit Squid released standalone single “Fugue (Bin Song),” the follow-up to their second full-length, O Monolith, which dropped last June on Warp and which prompted Stereogum to say, “Squid turn dance-rock inside out until you can’t really dance to it anymore. The arty, explosive O Monolith will still...
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“The whole last year has been amazing! It changed my life, really,” Phoebe Go tells me during a recent phone interview, going on to admit, “It’s been so important for my growth as a person and understanding myself.” Last October, the Melbourne-based alt-pop singer/songwriter released single “Something You Were...
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This Friday, January 26th, TORRES – who we’ve seen over the past ten years headlining Boot & Saddle and Johnny Brenda’s, in addition to providing support for artists like Strand of Oaks, Tegan and Sara, Frightened Rabbit, and Superchunk at Union Transfer and The Fillmore – will release her...
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Grace Potter (with and without the Nocturnals) has played the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection countless times over the years. However, it’s been a while now, and we’ve definitely been missing the ineffably soulful retro rocker and all of the nights of rapturous rock n’ roll abandon...
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“We are four women, but celebrating our masculine energy and leaning on that… We celebrate both genders! And we ask our fans to do the same!” says platinum recording artist Bonnie Sims, mandolin player for Big Richard, a Colorado-based Americana supergroup, where Bonnie (Bonnie & Taylor Sims, Everybody Loves...
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This past fall, ultra-heavy psych-rockers Royal Thunder found themselves playing mega-venues supporting grunge legends Alice In Chains. They were some of the first shows the Atlanta trio played after an extended hiatus, following some January headlining dates and a summer tour supporting Royal Bliss. The last time we saw...
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It’s been a while since we’ve seen uber-rowdy Los Angeles skate/garage punks FIDLAR in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection, the last time being a 2018 headlining stop at Union Transfer, prior to the release of their third LP, Almost Free. However, during a recent phone chat,...
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“Me and Mark Gardener looked alike, we released records at the exact same time, and we were in the studio with Flood and Alan Moulder, who were best friends,” jokes Tim Burgess, frontman for The Charlatans, about his legendary Madchester band’s longtime relationship with shoegaze (although I hear they...
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Minneapolis quartet Gully Boys are no strangers to the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection, having headlined PhilaMOCA in 2021 and opened Johnny Brenda’s for Bad Bad Hats in 2022, but this Wednesday, January 10th, the band play their biggest local show yet when they will find themselves...
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This coming Sunday, January 7th, Brooklyn Bowl Philadelphia will be hosting 2024’s first must-see Rock N’ Roll show, with a sold-out show from Zakk Sabbath, which will have Zakk Wylde (Ozzy Osbourne, Pride & Glory, Black Label Society) performing classics from the first five Sabbath records. But we’re just...
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“We play very celebrative, tribal, dance-around-the-fire kind of music, so of course we were always championed by promoters to do New Year’s Eve multiple nights,” says Eugene Hütz, mainman of Gogol Bordello. Tonight, December 27th, the legendary gypsy punk band kicks off their 16th annual New Year’s Eve celebrations...
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“I feel like I’ve had this New Year’s Eve convo before and the general consensus is that it’s kind of a bummer ,” says Foyer Red drummer Marco Ocampo of the almost always overhyped holiday. Although vocalist and clarinetist (and Ocampo’s partner) Elana Riordan goes on to tell me...
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You may have seen singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Salami Rose Joe Louis opening for Alice Phoebe Lou at Johnny Brenda’s in 2021, or supporting The Comet Is Coming at Underground Arts last year, but the former climate scientist, formally known as Lindsay Olsen, recently relocated to our neck of...
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“I think, at a certain age, coming back around to all the different music you made in your life becomes important,” says Scott McCloud, guitarist of DC post-hardcore legends Soulside and Girls Against Boys (for whom he’s also the vocalist), whose New Wet Kojak just played their first proper...
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“I was doing the two-set-a-night thing, which I hadn’t done in a while,” says Darren Weiss, AKA PAPA, who recently wrapped a tour where he played the role of both drummer and opening act for Irish singer/songwriter Sorcha Richardson, which included an October 16th date at The Foundry. The...
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More than two months since the announcement of the tour, I’m still in more-than-slight disbelief that Pussy Riot’s first-ever area appearance is not actually going to be in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection, but at Ardmore Music Hall. This coming Sunday, December 3rd, the Russian feminist...
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Southeast Michigan and Northwest Ohio punk-emo band, Citizen, play an incredible sold out show at Brooklyn Bowl on November 19th. Playing songs from their latest record, Calling the Dogs, as well as fan favorites from previous records. With opening acts, Modern Color and Narrow Head, this was certainly a...
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“You can expect that it is going to be joyful circle work, where the audience is as much a part of the show as we are,” says Canadian-born/Nashville-based singer/songwriter and activist Allison Russell of her band’s current live show. “I came up in roots music/Americana music, and it’s always...
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This past Wednesday, November 22nd, a leather-clad Liz Phair gave Gen Xers the perfect pre-Thanksgiving emotional cleanse with a performance of her seminal ’93 debut, Exile in Guyville, as part of the album’s 30th anniversary tour. The “legendary albums” performance had the now-56-year-old Phair performing the lo-fi masterpiece at...
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“It’s been such a surreal past few months. It’s been hard to even make sense of it, to have these audiences know the songs and be singing them back to me is the greatest thing that could ever happen… And it’s my debut record!” says Karina Rykman. Rykman’s first...
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Last week, Chicago duo Friko – comprised of vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Niko Kapetan and drummer Bailey Minzenberger – announced the release of their debut LP, Where we’ve been, Where we go from here, which is set to hit shelves February 16th. The announcement came alongside their drop of lead single, “Crashing...
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Later this week, alt-country singer/songwriter Lydia Loveless kicks off their first tour behind their sixth studio album, Nothing’s Gonna Stand In My Way Again, which dropped this September on their previous home, Bloodshot Records (previous LP, 2020’s Daughter, was released via their own Honey, You’re Gonna Be Late Records),...
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“We’ve always had the approach to play every show like it’s your last night alive,” says Sam Quartin, guitarist and vocalist for garage punk act The Bobby Lees, during a recent phone chat. That is, unfortunately, now more relevant than ever, as the band recently announced, via their Instagram...
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“I imagine we’ll be almost sort of delirious from all of time we’ve spent on the road… We’ll be delightfully unhinged,” jokes Libby Rodenbough of Mipso’s upcoming, November 19th show at Johnny Brenda’s. The show is not only the North Carolina-based, indie-Americana folk quartet’s last show of their current...
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This Friday, November 17th, Americana-flavored indie rockers Deer Tick will return to the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection for not one, but two concerts, with a Free At Noon performance at World Café Live in the afternoon (There are still spots remaining.), and a full-length set that...
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This Thursday, November 16th, Montreal indie pop outfit Men I Trust will be playing their biggest show yet in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection, when they headline the 2,500-capacity Franklin Music Hall. However, we’re just as excited about fellow Montreal indie poppers TOPS, best known for...
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“The first word that comes to mind is ‘mega-chill,’” says Danny Davis (frontman for indie rockers Husbands) of his new home and life. Prior to releasing Cuatro, Husbands’ fourth full-length, Davis (a native of Oklahoma City) quit his 9-to-5 engineering gig and moved to Costa Rica, where he also...
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This past Saturday, November 4th, the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection got a live preview of next year’s most anticipated album, Prelude to Ecstasy, at what very well might be remembered as a legendary show in the very near future. The album is the first full-length from...
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During a recent phone chat with Sun June vocalist and bandleader Laura Colwell, in advance of the group’s November 8th show at Johnny Brenda’s, the frontwoman makes a point to confirm with me that they’ll be able to get cheesesteaks nearby, at which point she tells me she’s actually...
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Our phriends in Australian indie folk outfit The Paper Kites – who we’ve been covering since 2013, and have played shows at Johnny Brenda’s, World Café Live, MilkBoy, Underground Arts, and First Unitarian Church – released their sixth full-length this September. The LP, At The Roadhouse, is a concept album,...
Last month 19-year-old pop star on the rise Natalie Jane released “Tattoos” – her latest single, whose teasers racked up over 25 million views on social media and even got a repost from Billie Eilish – and kicked off her first-ever North American headlining tour, which sold out well...
In support of their critically acclaimed 2024 album, The Past is Still Alive, Hurray for the Riff Raff played an incredible sold out show in Philly last Friday. They put on a spectacular performance, every song sounding nearly identical to the record. It’s a testament to the talent of...
