Photo by Rachel Del Sordo
Photo by John Vettese
Photo by John Vettese
Photo by John Vettese
Photo by John Vettese
Photo by John Vettese
Photo by John Vettese
Philly pop-rock heroes Free Energy dashed away today’s grey skies and rainy afternoon with a loud and lively performance that drew from their self-released new LP Love Sign as well as their 2009 debut Stuck on Nothing. The band plays the Arden Gild Hall tomorrow with Bleeding Rainbow opening; tickets and information on the show are available here. Check out photos of today’s performance in the gallery above; read the setlist below; and listen to Free Energy’s performance in its entirety here (via the WXPN media player). Continue reading
We’re all kinds of excited for the release of Pissed Jeans‘ new LP Honeys. It’s a brutal and unrelentingly heavy collection of thrash, punk and social commentary, but its also the band’s most diverse and (dare I say) approachable output. Key contributor Elliott Sharp wrote a great cover story on the band in this week’s Philadelphia City Paper – if you haven’t read it yet, do so here. The album is out on Tuesday, we’ll feature them in a Key Studio Session (words cannot describe how psyched I am for this) on Wednesday, and on Friday, they celebrate the release of the album with a headlining show at Underground Arts.
As a huge week is about to begin for the band, we’ve got a contest for you. To win a pair of tickets to see Pissed Jeans at Underground Arts on Friday, February 15th, with openers Lantern and Leather (great acts both), simply leave your favorite Pissed Jeans lyric in the comments. We’ll pick a winner at random next Thursday at noon. Ground rules: you have to 21 or over, you have to leave your first and last name in the comments, and you have to enter an email where we can contact you if you win (the e-mail will not be made public).
Make sense? Cool. I’ll get things started: “The jogger, area rug / The jogger, fantasy football / Soy milk, the jogger / Button down collar.” There you go. What’s your favorite Pissed Jeans lyric? Comment to win.
Patti Smith | Photo by Chris Sikich | countfeed.tumblr.com
Most colleges consign punk rock to dorm rooms, obscure airwaves or an out-of-the-way venue. Maybe even a class or two. But when it comes to the top brass, not too many pledge allegiance to the punk flag. Then again, not too many Main Line schools get to salute a legend like Patti Smith.
“I suspect Bryn Mawr actually has a punk spirit,” college President Jane McAuliffe said Thursday night before presenting Patti Smith with the Katharine Hepburn Medal.
Photo by Chris Sikich | countfeed.tumblr.com
Kim Masters of The Hollywood Reporter, the night’s master of ceremonies, pointed to actress Katharine Hepburn and her mother, family-planning advocate Katharine Houghton Hepburn — both Bryn Mawr graduates — as “trailblazing women who defied convention.”
And while that description also fits Patti Smith, she’s not necessarily the first candidate you’d come up with for the Katharine Hepburn Medal, which was first awarded in 2006 to recognize achievement in film and theater, women’s health and civic engagement. The previous winners — actresses Lauren Bacall and Blythe Danner, mural maven Jane Golden and HIV expert Helene Gayle — fit more neatly into the medal’s mission.
But Smith’s CV is anything but neat; you’ll run out of hyphens before she runs out of energy. She’s a rocker-memoirist-photographer-actress-model-playwright-muse-critic-painter-poet — and you know I’m forgetting something. Not bad for a South Jersey girl who dropped out of Glassboro State College to be somebody in New York City. Continue reading
Photo by Kate McCann | KateMcCannPhotography.com
Photo by Kate McCann | KateMcCannPhotography.com
Photo by Kate McCann | KateMcCannPhotography.com
Photo by Kate McCann | KateMcCannPhotography.com
Photo by Kate McCann | KateMcCannPhotography.com
Photo by Kate McCann | KateMcCannPhotography.com
L.A. indie rock five-piece Local Natives released its sophomore full-length Hummimngbird at the end of last month, and the band is headed out on tour in support of it. It plays a sold-out show at Union Transfer on April 4th, and this week stopped by WXPN studios to record a session for World Cafe with David Dye. Check out photos of the band in the studio in the gallery above, and listen back to the session when it broadcasts in March.
Steve Martin and Edie Brickell have teamed up for an album called Love Has Come for You. It drops April 23rd, but tickets to see them perform at the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall went on sale this morning. The show isn’t until June 27th, but the highly anticipated collaboration promises to attract a crowd. As if Steve Martin and Edie Brickell aren’t enough, several other big names make an appearance on the record including Esperanza Spalding, Nickel Creek members Sara and Sean Watkins, and producer Peter Asher. Tickets and information for the show are available here. Below, listen to a track from Steve Martin’s 2012 album Rare Bird Alert, and watch the music video for Brickell’s “Circle.”
Today’s download comes from Lexington, Kentucky based singer-songwriter Ben Sollee from his interview/performance on World Cafe on January 2nd of this year. You can listen to the full session here. Below, download “Unfinished.” The song is from a new, free collection of Cafe performances available for a very limited time during the month of February. Each weekday during the month World Cafe will offer one free song from a recent session, however the collection will only be available until March 1st. Go here to download tracks from Lord Huron, Calexico, Freelance Whales, The Kopecy Family, Alt-J, and others.
Philly psych-pop group Laser Background headlined Kung Fu Necktie last night, along with Spanish Prisoners and Avery Rosewater. George W. Miller III of JUMP Philly was there covering the scene. He reports:
Andy Molholt, the frontman for Laser Background, announced to the crowd at Kung Fu Necktie last night that the relatively new band is working on new tracks for a forthcoming album.
“We love your tracks, Andy,” a woman yelled from the crowd.
“We love you too, audience member,” Andy replied. Continue reading
