Still riding high from the release of their debut full-length a few weeks ago, Philly’s Bleeding Rainbow headline Johnny Brenda’s tonight.  The duo-turned-quartet signed to Kanine Records last fall and though the release date was pushed back several months, the noise-punk band put out their gloriously shoe-gazey Yeah Right LP in January.  Yeah Right is The Key’s featured album for this week’s Unlocked series, which means you can dig into it with a review here (and an interview later today).  Tickets and information for tonight’s 21+ show at Johnny Brenda’s with Pet Milk and Ghost Light can be found here.  Watch a new video for “Waking Dream” from Yeah Right below.

On the other Kung Fu Necktie stage tonight, you’ll find local harpist Mary Lattimore performing with Jeff Zeigler. This collaboration is but one on each musician’s long list of projects, Lattimore’s including work with Thurston Moore, Kurt Vile and Meg Baird and Zeigler’s expanding with his band Arc in Round and production work for The War on Drugs, Ape School and others.  When the two pair up for nights like tonight, though, the result is about as far away from those other projects as possible.  Lattimore’s dreamy harp compositions and Zeigler’s warpy but gentle synth layers froth with emotion and understanding.  Tickets and information for tonight’s 21+ show with Trummors, Fred Thomas and Morning River Band can be found here.  Stream Mary Lattimore and Jeff Zeigler’s improvised Folkadelphia session below and learn more about Lattimore’s debut full-length The Withdrawing Room here.

Philebrity and BITBY.TV have teamed up to bring you the hoppin-est Valentine’s Day variety show in town at Underground Arts tonight.  WIth love-themed sets by Juston Stens & The Get Real Gang, Blayer Pointdujour, Katie Frank & The Pheromones, J.M.M. Sweeney Jr. (Mr. Philebrity himself) and others, the event lays claim to being “the city’s only destination for old school-style slow dancing,” with the groove being set by DJ Langor.  More information for the 21+ show can be found on the Facebook event page here.  Stream and download “Strange Love” by Juston Stens & Jessica Lea Mayfield (part of the With Love, From WXPN Philly Local sampler).

Also happening:

XPN welcomes New Jersey rockers The Smithereens to World Cafe Live in support of their 2011 self-titled record.  At The Sellersville Theater, XPN welcomes long-standing rock ‘n’ roll act Soul Asylum.  And finally at The Fire, XPN welcomes the Northern Liberties Winter Music Fest with American Babies, The Fleeting Ends, Ross Bellenoit, Joe D’Amico Band and Miz.  Tickets and information for all shows can be found here.

Ross Bellenoit heads out to Puck Live with Auctioneer tonight.  Bellenoit is a local musician with a long list of collaborative partners, including Birdie Busch, Ben Arnold and Sun Airway.  His most recent solo record was 2012′s Home Songs, Volume 3, the third part of an EP trilogy released over the course of last year.  The multi-instrumentalist will be joined by Philly’s Auctioneer, the experiemental pop project of Craig Hendrix that began in 2011. Auctioneer participated in Weathervane Music’s Shaking Through series last year, recording the sonic mosaic “Our Future Faces.”  Check out the full episode here, and watch Ross Bellenoit’s video for “Besides” below.  Tickets and information for tonight’s 21+ show in Doylestown can be found here.

Philadelphia’s Leather play Kung Fu Necktie tonight.  The hardcore quartet have been slowly spilling details for their upcoming album, hinting at twenty minutes of music and artwork by a local photographer.  What we also know is that the record is going to be a heavy-hitting punch of rock, based on the tracks uploaded to the band’s YouTube account.  Stream “Zek” from 2011 below.  Tickets and information for tonight’s 21+ show with Antwon and Heathen Reign can be found here.

Noise rockers Dope Body have a free show at The Depot in York, PA tonight.  The Baltimore outfit are touring behind 2012′s Natural History LP, an effort that showed growth from the Drag City signees and somehow managed to walk a line between headbanging thrash rock and colorful bursts of angular (and at times dance-able) math rock.  Tonight they share the stage with Roomrunner and Peals at the 21+ up show – more information can be found here.  Below, stream “Twice the Life” from Natural History.

Phoenixville indie blues rock band Riley Road return to World Cafe Live at The Queen tonight.  After taking first place at the Beta Hi Fi Emerging Music Festival in Philadelphia this past summer, the local trio has continued to work on their already-impressive, classic rock-influenced foundation that was started when the band members met at Phoenixville’s Rock and Roll After School program.  Tonight Riley Road will be joined by Wilmington Beta Hi Fi winners and local favorites The Districts.  Tickets and information can be found here.  Stream Riley Road’s new single “Better Man” below.

XPN welcomes Tommy Conwell to The Blockley tonight.  Conwell was a focal point of the 80s rock scene in Philadelphia when he fronted The Young Rumblers.  The leather-clad heartthrobs reunited this past holiday season for their third annual post-Thanksgiving concert, but not before Conwell stopped in for a Key Studio Session where he recorded an acoustic set including Young Rumblers’ hit “I’m Not Your Man.”  Tickets and information for tonight’s 21+ show with Jeffrey Gaines can be found here.  Below, watch the original video for “I’m Not Your Man” and stream / download the acoustic Key Studio Session version (along with three other tracks) here.

The Broad Street Ministry

One of the many wonderful things about the Philadelphia music community is its desire to rally around causes and make a difference in the city.  As cliched as that sounds, its true – the latest example being hometown musician John Francis‘ new City of Love Festival, benefiting Broad Street Ministry and their “Breaking Bread” hospitality initiative.  Amidst debate over whether or not outdoor meal services for the homeless should be allowed in Philadelphia, the Broad Street Ministry has created its own safe haven for the city’s homeless men and women where they can receive a hot meal and a variety of services (including medical attention, art therapy and assistance for veterans) every Thursday afternoon.

Francis founded the secular City of Love Festival to help Broad Street Ministry pastor Bill Golderer reach his goal of increasing servings to nine hot meals a week in 2013.  The festival will be a bi-annual event, with the first concert happening on Friday, January 12th at Underground Arts.  The bill for the evening includes sets from The Districts, Levee Drivers, The Lawsuits, Caleb Hawley, Sean Hoots (of Hoots & Hellmouth), Kuf Knotz, Ross Bellenoit Band, Ryan Tennis, Blayer Pointdujour & The Rockers Galore, Zach Djanikian and John Francis & The Midnight Choir, plus special surprise guests.

The City of Love Festival is presented by the Philadelphia Folksong Society and is free for PFS members, with a suggested donation to aid in the Broad Street Ministry’s efforts, and $12 for non-members.  The event is 21+; more information can be found here.  Below, watch John Francis perform “Who” in Nashville.

We went in-depth with Bellenoit’s solo work in this Unlocked installment – from a review of Volume 3 and the Home Songs trio as a collection, to an interview with Bellenoit on his process and influences – but that paints only a partial picture of Bellenoit’s life as a musician.  To gain a complete understanding of just how big a role Bellenoit plays in his peers’ careers, we have to look at his discography as a whole.  With production, songwriting and instrumentation work for Lauryn Peacock, Birdie Busch and Hezekiah Jones (just to name a few) under his belt, the full picture of Bellenoit’s life as a musician shows a ubiquitous and deeply respected talent in the Philadelphia music scene; a true musician’s musician.

Check out a selection of Bellenoit’s genre-crossing work below. And celebrate the completion of Bellenoit’s Home Songs project tonight at Underground Arts.

Producer: Ginger Coyle Homeward Bound

Musician: Divers Wild Things

• Wild ThingsBy DiversDownload

Producer & Musician: Aaron & the Spell Sing

Musician: Sun Airway Nocturne of Exploded Crystal Chandelier

Musician: The Sweetback Sisters “Be Back Home Tonight”

Musician: Da’ T.R.U.T.H. The Big Picture

Home Songs Vol. 1 – 3 is the featured album in this edition of Unlocked; hear the spotlighted single “Down To One” in Monday’s post, read Tuesday’s album review; watch the “Besides” video in Wednesday’s post, read my interview with Ross Bellenoit from yesterday. And stay tuned to The Key for future album spotlights on Unlocked.

He was trained in music in his native Boston, but Ross Bellenoit came into his own as a musician here in Philadelphia. When he arrived in town nearly ten years ago, he formed an early bond with a community of musicians based in South Philadelphia and was quickly enlisted to play guitar for many of them. Soon, he began playing for touring groups as well – like Brooklyn-based alt-folk combo The Sweetback Sisters – and in 2010, released his first collection of his own songwriting, Eight Track Mind. This year’s Home Songs series of EPs, which we’ve featured all week on Unlocked, show a tremendous growth in songwriting, production and overall style – which is interesting, considering that these songs are essentially demos recorded at home, with slight studio embellishments after the fact. Bellenoit and I grabbed lunch a couple weeks ago to talk about his growth, his process and parallels he has with a certain pop singer from Sweden.

The Key: With everything that you’re musically involved in, how do you find time for your solo stuff in the midst of all that?

Ross Bellenot: I find myself consciously having to make time to do it. It’s actually really interesting lately, for the past maybe like six months, because I’ve been not on the road anymore. And when I initially made that decision to not be on the road anymore, you know, I was like, “Great, I’ll have more time to focus on my own stuff.” It doesn’t quite work that way. I have to hustle a lot more than I was when I was on the road to sort of keep the same sort of level of income coming in. A lot of things have been taking up a lot more of my time, and I ended up delving into a lot of other projects, too – like Divers, and I started playing with Matt Landis’ group Minor Arcana, and Early Ape, I’ve been playing with those guys.

TK:  Wow.

RB: So, yeah, it’s like, there’s been a lot of things on the plate. And, uh, I was hoping to have started recording the next full-length while all these EPs were being released. It’s been really hard to like set that time aside to make it happen. But, I’m always writing songsIt’s getting to the point where I have so much backlogged songs and material that just haven’t been recorded, let alone released or anything, that it’s been harder to keep writing more material because there’s just like—there’s too much I need to get out first to sort of clear my head and focus on new things.

TK: Did you always know that you wanted to write songs? Or was there this point of realization where you were like, “You know,  I want to do more than just write a guitar part, I want to write a full finished piece?”

RB: I didn’t ever think about writing songs. It wasn’t actually until I moved here. I had been playing guitar and in a couple bands, back in Massachusetts, and I wrote a lot of lyrics for this one band that I was in, but I wasn’t the singer. And that was just like a big sort of training ground as far as lyric writing.  And then it wasn’t ‘til I moved here, and then I met and started working with like John [Francis] and Devin [Greenwood] and Birdie [Busch] and all these people and I was like, “Oh.” Just watching them and what they do, it’s like “Wow.” You know? That’s really sort of like bringing something into the world that could move people. And so I started learning from them —Devin was a particularly big influence as a songwriter, and just being really creative with the subject matter and how to approach making records. But it wasn’t always there. Even since I was a kid, my interests shifted. I started classical guitar when I was eight, and I studied that for like ten years. I was like waaaay into classical music and opera—I wanted to be a conductor at one point, and I actually have a newspaper article that I conducted the Springfield’s Orchestra when I was twelve years old. It was pretty awesome, but my brother got me the Led Zeppelin songbook for Christmas this one year, and an electric guitar, and that was, you know, that was it.

TK: Never went back…

RB: Never went back! But the actual writing of the songs—it was really directed inspired by moving here and getting into the scene. It’s also them exposing me to different songwriters and being like, “Check out what this guy does.”

TK: How did the Home Songs EPs come to be?

RB: Maybe a handful of the songs on the EPs were written while [my previous] first full-length record was getting made, um, so there’s like a little bit of crossover.  It was the first time also that I had the ability to demo—that’s how all these tracks started, they were just demos, they were just like, “Oh, look what I can do, Garage Band.” And then I started realizing, I could maybe spruce them up a bit, and release them. But something about a lot of these recordings—just from the process—is that the recordings were mostly created when the songs were first finished. Like, “I just finished this song,” or, “I just wrote this song, and I just made this demo, check this out.” The foundation was never really labored over, so I had to make sure things were right overall with each song in order for me to keep working on them.

TK: Sort of pinning the song down when it’s fresh.

RB: Yeah, ‘cause you can sort of just start spinning your wheels: “I don’t know about that bridge. That one word bugs me…” but you just kind of have to like surrender to the, like, that’s what it is, BAM! I have a decent enough editing process internally, so that when I do finish a song, it’s there. It’s there, and like there’s not much tweaking left to be made.

TK: Also, what about the setting, like recording it at home, like in your house? How does that compare to the studio?

RB: Well the difference is I am working completely by myself, whereas at Turtle I would be working with an engineer. I started when I got my MacBook, and I was like, “Oh, I can record music now,” but I just have like the little internal microphone. So I had to teach myself and my ears how to hear certain frequencies and how to work compressors, and all that sort of production stuff. Where, working with somebody else at Turtle, I just sort of trust that they take care of the engineering responsibilities—it takes a little more off my shoulders. When I’m like producing at Turtle, I think more about, “Is this song in the right key?” “Is this song in the right tempo?” “What’s happening with the arrangement?” Like, “How does the drummer feel?” Where if I’m at home, I’m thinking more sort about “How do you get that sound?” Or “How do you get that weird reverb on the kick drum?” I’d say about 30 to 40 percent of the extra tracks were recorded with just the internal microphone.

TK:  It feels like you’re like going a bit more stylistically broad on these collections than on the full-length. Like the full-length seemed like rock/singer-songwriter stuff, and this has like more areas that it reaches into. Was that like a conscious thing?

RB: It was really just like, “this is the collection of songs that I have.” And that’s kind of why I split them up as EPs, because I felt like I couldn’t whittle—I didn’t want to cut any of them. I was like, there’s eighteen songs, I don’t really want to get rid of any of them, they don’t all really work together as either like a full-length or as like, a split thing. The first one is kind of what I think is the most stylistically diverse, and then the second one has this sort of like folky, dreantm introspective quality to it. And the third one has this zesty kind of edge to it, you know? And that helped me put everything together. And I didn’t think about that when they were being made, it was just like, “Oh! This is the song I wrote this month.” Like the song “Down to One” on the third one—I’d never really listened to Harry Nelson before. I mean, I had checked him out a little bit, but I suddenly got like super fascinated and I spent like, two days, just like listening to his whole catalog, and I immediately wrote that song, and made the demo, that night, and I was like, “Oh, this is my little Harry Nelson song.”

TK:  The other aspect of the EPs, being three releases staggered acrouss the course of a year, reminded me a bit of what pop singer Robyn did with her Body Talk EPs a couple years ago, were momentum built with each one. Do you think splitting it up and spacing it out gives you more of an opportunity to get into people’s consciousness than, like, “here’s an album,” and then “here’s another album” in a couple of years?

RB: Exactly. I can’t stand that. I feel nowadays, the key to really get any sort of momentum in starting your career is to be constantly putting stuff out. Like the older artists, the Springsteens, they can afford to take five or eight or whatever years to make their next record. But to really stay current and in people’s ears you have to be constantly releasing new stuff. Sort of like you’re like giving them all your options, to be like, “try this, try this, try this.” I’m really glad I did it this way. I think it helped. I even just released a single, between the second one and the last one. I don’t think anybody really heard it, but it was just like this song that I had, I was like, “this is one to put out there,” so I just put it out there. I think it’s a good idea, especially in the sort of younger stages of being an artist, to be giving as much as you can, putting as much out there as you can.

Home Songs Volumes 1 – 3 is the featured album in this edition of Unlocked; hear the spotlighted song “Down to One” in Monday’s post, read Tuesday’s album review; watch a music video for “Besides” in yesterday’s post and check back tomorrow for a genealogy of sorts showing who Ross has worked with, and when.

Home Songs Volumes 1-3 is the featured album in this edition of Unlocked; hear the spotlighted track “Down to One” in Monday’s post, read yesterday’s album review; and check back tomorrow for an interview with Bellenoit.

This week, Bellenoit celebrates the completion of his Home Songs trilogy, a series of three EPs he’s self-released since the spring. And as we wrap up listening to Volume 3, and reflect back on Volumes 2 and 1, it becomes clear: Bellenoit does all of the above.

If you had to characterize this set, it would be his late night at the rock-and-roll bar. Opening with a punchy, jagged cover of Richard and Linda Thompson’s classic “I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight,” Bellenoit jumps immediately into the single “Down To One” – which we heard yesterday as the featured download in this week’s UNLOCKED. Loosely a musical homage to “One” by Harry Nilsson, it also rocks a vocal melody similar to classic Elliott Smith or, digging even further back, The Beatles. Lyrically, it’s a study of trends and dubious trendsetters with chameleon identities: “The minds you’re deceiving are close to believing that they could be the new renegade.” So is he taking a critical character study of Nilsson himself here, or talking more generally to folks who overstep the bounds of the collaborator / producer role he so cherishes? It’s unclear, and the compelling lyrical mystery shows that Bellenoit’s skill lies in telling stories and studying characters as much as his slinging his six-string.

But Bellenoit does explore different roles himself; Volume 2 of Home Songs shows us his country and western alter ego. Opener “When I Leave” is a pedal steel part and a southern accent away from a Louvin Brothers song, while “Your Face” is his waltzy Gene Autry moment. Digging further back to Volume 1, the music feels more lo-fi, homegrown and personal. “To Be Free” has a bopping handclap groove and a scatchy kitchen-table soul vibe to it, maybe akin to early Spoon, Meanwhile, he acknowledges the debt the pensive “Lockless Heart” owes to XTC with its unusual, evocative chord changes. The latter song has a padded, soft, recorded-in-my-living-room sound…which it was, sort of. Hence the Home Songs moniker. These are recordings that were made at his house between 2009 and 2011, and then fleshed out with overdubs at South Philly’s Turtle Studios.

The new EP is the most sophisticated of the batch in terms of production, but from its fierce opening, it plays out in a progression of melodic numbers with restrained temperaments – beginning with the more traditionally singer-songwriter stylings of “Sink or Swim.” Slightly different instrumentation might have made the melancholic-yet-poppy “On Your Own” a Browdway musical set piece, while “Twisted Phrase” is a pensive fingerpicked number with hushed, shuffling brush drums that don’t enter for a minute, then bring the set to a quiet close.

If there’s a downshot here, it’s that Volume Three announces itself as the rocker, the voluminous finale, and then halfway through cuts the power to leave delicate piano and wistful singing. But it wasn’t necessarily intended to be heard as an individual work, just like book three of a serial novel would not be meant to be read without the context of books one and two. Bellenoit structured this set not as a standalone collection, but the denouement in a larger work. And each volume ends up flush with those midtempo moments, the breezy compositions that are Bellenoit’s bread and butter, enrichend by each set’s distinctive excursions. It will be interesting to see how Bellenoit proceeds when he goes back to having only one canvas to work with, instead of three. But as Home Songs shows, not only is he a whiz at playing, he has no problem thinking big.

Home Songs Volumes 1 – 3 is the featured album in this edition of Unlocked; hear the spotlighted single “Down to One” in yesterday’s post, and check back later in the week for interviews, video and more.

Andrew Lipke performs 11/2 at The Fire

Love Andrew Lipke‘s “Mindgames,” but want to know how the rocking anthem would sound after being given the whimsical treatment by Hezekiah Jones‘ Raphael Cutrufello? Curious to hear how Suzie Brown‘s yearning vocals can completely change the tone of Ryan Tennis‘ road-weary “To The Moon?” Who eventually covers what is anybody’s guess, but one thing is for certain: the month-long, five-performance “Philly Sings Philly” series at The Fire features just about every acoustic-guitar-wielding singer-songwriter in town playing each others’ material. The series begins tonight, with performances by Andrew Lipke, Wissahickon Chicken Shack, Dawn Iulg, David James, Jessica McDowell, Scott Silipigni, and Susan Rosetti; notable names from later shows include the aforementioned Hezekiah Jones, Suzie Brown, and Ryan Tennis, as well as The Spinning Leaves, Sisters 3, Ross Bellenoit, Phil D’Agostino, and Joshua Park. Tonight’s performances begin at 8 p.m.; tickets to the show are $8.