DRGN KNG and Baltimore’s Secret Mountains are performing with Hop Along at Johnny Brenda’s on Saturday, July 14th. Hop Along recently released the excellent Get Disowned. Go here to download a new song from the album. Below, watch the video that Secret Mountains recorded at Converse Rubber Tracks for the song “Weepy Little Fingers.” Kelly Laughlin, lead singer of Secret Mountains, fronts the band like a modern day Grace Slick while the band plays out their shoegazy tendencies like The Verve. With DRGN KNG in the mix, this is going to be a show you won’t want to miss. Go here for tickets and more information about the show.
In case you missed this article on Pitchfork this week about the 20 Essential Festivals of Summer 2012, of the ten they chose for North America, two are right here in Philly. While we need to actually make it through their choice of the Jay-Z curated Labor Day Made In America festival to see whether or not it will turn out to be “essential,” one thing we know for sure: their choice of The Roots Picnic tomorrow and Sunday is right on target. For the last four years The Roots have thrown one of the best festivals in town and this year, they’ve expanded the picnic to two days (Saturday, June 2nd and Sunday, June 3rd) at the Festival Pier at Penn’s Landing. The lineup features The Roots, De La Soul, Rakim, Danny Brown, St. Vincent, James Murphy (of LCD Soundsystem), Diplo, Major Lazer, Kid Cudi, Chill Moody, OCD: Moosh & Twist, tUnE-yArDs, Shabazz Palaces and more. Two day and single day passes are available here. You can find the complete lineup here.
FRIDAY, June 1st
One of our favorite new Philly band record releases is the album from Hop Along called Get Disowned. The band is having its record release party and is headlining the First Unitarian Church tonight with Band Name, Little Big League and Mary Lattimore. (Doors: 8:00 p.m / Show: 8:30 p.m.; all ages; $10). Also playing: The Kopecky Family Band play at today’s Free At Noon and perform tonight at Milkboy Philly at 8:30 p.m. with The National Rifle and MyNameIsJohnMichael. Tickets to the 21+ show are $10-$12.
SATURDAY, June 2nd
WXPN Welcomes the Appel Farm Arts & Music Festival featuring Dawes, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Rodney Crowell, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Sara Watkins, Jukebox The Ghost, Cheryl Wheeler, Mason Porter and more. (11:30 a.m.; all ages, $5.00 for kids ages 3-12; $40.00-$50.00 for adults).
SUNDAY, June 3rd
Singer-songwriter JBM returns to town and plays Milkboy Philly with Tim Rogers of YOU AM I. JBM (real name: Jesse Merchant) JBM’s new album, Stray Ashes, is a gorgeous and haunting collection of songs that recalls the sparse beauty of records by Jose Gonzalez. (Doors: 7:00 pm / Show: 8:00 pm; tickets to the 21+ show are $12). Below, watch the video produced by Philly’s Out Of Town Films they did with Jesse when he played at Jonny Brenda’s several weeks ago.
One of our favorite new Philly band record releases is the album from Hop Along called Get Disowned. The band is having its record release party and is headlining the First Unitarian Church tomorrow evening, Friday, June 1st with Band Name, Little Big League and Mary Lattimore. It was a year ago when Hop Along came in to the WXPN studios to record a Key Studio Session. You can listen to that session here. The center piece of Hop Along is lead singer Frances Quinlan, whose extraordinary voice brings to mind a young and restless PJ Harvey, and the intensity of Kristen Hersh. Along with her brother Mark on drums and bassist Tyler Long, the trio recorded their album over the last two years. Get Disowned is a glorious mess of melody, cacophony, soft/loud Pixies-esque guitar playing and France’s intense and enchanting vocals. The rhythm section adds more than just the right amount of punch to anchor the songs and Frances wraps her voice around the sounds with a deep emotional expressiveness. Go here for more information and tickets to tomorrow evening’s record release party. You can stream and buy the album in its entirety here. Below, download the song “Sally II” compliments of the band and watch Hop Along’s new video for “Tibetan Pop Stars.”
Next Monday, May 28th, XPN2‘s Eric Schuman will be reaching into the archives to play interviews and performances by bands (both local and out-of-town) who have recently appeared in the studios. The full lineup can be found below:
Noon – The Spinto Band
1 p.m. Stevie Jackson
2 p.m. Hop Along
3 p.m. The Menzingers
4 p.m. Zammuto
5 p.m. Chill Moody
With its debut 7″ celebrating a release this weekend, and only a handful of local live shows under its belt, some might say it’s jumping to gun to get all super psyched about Philly indie foursome Little Big League. On the other hand, you can just tell sometimes when a band is going to do great things. I’m opting for the latter in this case. Sure, the group has an impressive pedigree – former members of Post Post, Golden Ages and Titus Andronicus – so it’s almost like we sort of know them already. But joined as one, they do something else entirely. It puts an east coast megalopolis spin on the slow-burn woodsy tones of Built to Spill and early Death Cab (“Holes in Shape,” and that debut single mentioned above, “Tokyo Drift”), then catapults into spunky, soaring power pop (“My Very Own You,” and the spirited “St. Johns”). Two of the four songs the band recorded for its Key Studio Session are unreleased, and I’m thrilled to be presenting them to you for the first time. But if you’ve seen them live, you’ll totally remember hearing them, since they really are that catchy. If you haven’t caught them live…well, fix that already. Little Big League plays this Sunday, April 29, at Kungfu Necktie (8 p.m., 21+, $10), and then joins the stellar bill at The First Unitarian Church on June 1 for Hop Along’s record release show.
After nearly two years working at Head Room Studios in North Philly arts space Big Mama’s House, local art-pop trio Hop Along wrapped up work on its next full length album, Get Disowned, just last week. On Sunday, singer-guitarist Frances Quinlan announced on the band’s Tumblr “OUR NEW ALBUM IS DONE (and I am delirious)”; on Tuesday, she appeared after-hours on WKDU’s Mike Bell Show to chat and premier the album version of “Tibetian Pop Stars” (their Key Studio Sessions recording of it having already generated some buzz since its release last summer); and last night, the band posted the track as a free download on its Bandcamp page. It’s a kind of epic collision of the band’s preferred styles: overdriven punk, singalong folk and hooky pop. Give a listen below, check out Hop Along’s whole Key Studio Session here, and keep a close watch on this space for more on Get Disowned as its release nears.
The Key Studio Sessions Compilation Volume 2—which you can download for free here—features one exclusive track recorded at the WXPN studios by 17 local acts, including Arc In Round, Dutch, The National Rifle, Denison Witmer, Hop Along, Matt Duke, Catnaps, Penrose, Arches, Lantern, Nicos Gun, Restorations, Ages, Sisters 3, The War On Drugs, Sonni Shine And The Underwater Sounds, and Work Drugs.
Want to hear more? Click here to listen to the full sessions by all 17 local acts. You can also download the previous edition The Key Studio Sessions Compilation, Volume 1, in its entirety as a .zip file here.
