Category Archives: Listening

I Met Ryan Madson at Yo La Tengo

Proof that Philly’s still weird: I met Phillies’ set-up man Ryan Mad­son at the Troc’s down­stairs bar at Yo La Ten­go last Thurs­day night.

He was floored by the band, call­ing it “pure music,” ask­ing if they were on iTunes and was just an all-around sweet guy. He also shared that his dad played in a band like that in the ’70s. (Ryan, if you ever find this post, can we talk about your dad’s band?)

Me? I played it cool. You see, Ryan Mad­son is one of just two Phillies that I have a rehearsed sto­ry about their career. My Mad­son moment? 7 relief innings against the Mets. He gave up a homer to Bel­tran in the 13th, but I told him that he real­ly showed some­thing there. Gut­ting it out as a strug­gling young pitch­er ain’t easy any­where, let alone Philly, but he did it. Can’t wait until he’s our clos­er in 2012.

Yo La Ten­go? Pre­dictably great, although the cru­el wheel (pic­tured above) fell on Sounds of Sci­ence, Part 2. Ouch. Def­i­nite­ly a “for fans only” set that was a slow burn. They fin­ished with a daz­zling sec­ond set that blew Ryan Mad­son’s mind. “Does­n’t it sound like 6 peo­ple are on stage?”

Party Photographers, Slutever at Younglove’s

Caught some amaz­ing local bands at Youn­glove’s last night. Final­ly saw the Par­ty Pho­tog­ra­phers, who total­ly lived up to the hype. Real­ly fun band. Friend­ly peo­ple, too. Check them out over on their Band­camp page. Watch them play Fleet­wood Mac’s “Rhi­an­non” in the video above.

Sur­prise of the night was Slutev­er, who filled in for a last-minute can­cel­la­tion. They were AWESOME! So much fun. You should prob­a­bly get Sor­ry I’m Not Sor­ry right now.

Spe­cial thanks to Mark and Erin for the lift and the banh mi! Thanks to Youn­glove’s, too! Great lit­tle spot and Dock Street is right across the street. Hard to beat if you’re thirsty and want a bite to eat before a gig out in west Philly.

In Praise of Local Music

Know what’s been on my mind late­ly? Local music! Lots of it. I just caught the Purl­ing Hiss bug last week . Just got hand­ed the new Prowler CD by my favorite bar­tender at Mem­phis Tap­room, Kei­th. Ran into Ports of Call there, too. Snagged the new Woe disc. Watch­ing Shak­ing Through videos with Par­ty Pho­tog­ra­phers and Read­ing Rain­bow. (Give Shak­ing Through some mon­ey, okay?) Picked up the new Sun Air­way LP. Need to get that Night­lands record ASAP. Turns out there’s more to the Philly music scene than Dr. Dog. Who knew?

Lots of peo­ple did. I’m lit­er­al­ly the last guy to the par­ty. Why? Nev­er paid much atten­tion to the local scene when I was com­ing up as a rock crit­ic because Doug Wallen had that beat cov­ered like a blan­ket and I was­n’t all that impressed with what was hap­pen­ing back in the mid-’00s, apart from bands like Man Man and Espers. That’s changed. And how.

Sure, some of it can be chalked up to me not being paid to care about music any­more. Lis­ten­ing to new music became a chore. Feel like I missed lots of great stuff because I tuned out, but now I’m back with open ears. In fact, I’m arrang­ing inter­views with some of the bands list­ed above now. Can’t wait to chat with some of these artists and show­case a renewed Philly music scene!

So tell me: who are your favorite local bands?

Constant Hitmaker Kurt Vile

Not sure how I feel about Kurt Vile’s sound, but one thing’s clear: the dude is a born enter­tain­er. Had a fun time watch­ing him play with his band the Vio­la­tors last night. 

First time I met Kurt was at the first Beach House gig at John­ny Bren­da’s. He was sit­ting next to me at the bar, hop­ing to meet the guy behind Car Park Records. What hap­pened next is history.

Felt good to con­grat­u­late him last night. He played to a packed house in his home­town! Shows that Pitch­fork rat­ings aren’t the end of the world. Wish more bands got that.

My Favorite Albums of 2010

I’m try­ing to pull these togeth­er now. A few albums leap to mind:

  • Liars – Sis­ter­world
  • The Roots — How I Got Over
  • Kanye West — My Beau­ti­ful Dark Twist­ed Fantasy
  • Tay­lor Swift’s Speak Now
  • Sight­ings — City of Straw
  • Janelle Mon­ae — The ArchAn­droid
  • Erykah Badu — New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh
  • Ted Leo and the Phar­ma­cists — The Bru­tal­ist Bricks
  • The-Dream — Love King
  • Titus Andron­i­cus — The Mon­i­tor
  • Big Boi — Sir Lus­cious Left Foot…
  • Spoon — Trans­fer­ence
  • Kyle­sa — Spi­ral Shadow
  • Sleigh Bells — Treats
  • V/A Casu­al Vic­tim Pile comp

I’m still look­ing around for things I missed. Real­ly wish there were more met­al on this list, to say noth­ing of weirdo noise and psych stuff. More coun­try, too! I’m not above hear­ing ten albums in the next week and mak­ing those my favorite albums of the year. Still haven’t heard that Beach House album that came out so long ago it feels like 2009! I’m over wor­ry­ing what crit­ics think of my year-end list; none of them mat­ter so much to war­rant the cos­mopoli­tan ulcer I used to give myself come Novem­ber. Have to admit that it feels good to have reached the point in my life where I’m hap­py to nom­i­nate the main­stream fluff I used to hate see­ing in the Vil­lage Voice Pazz ‘n’ Jop poll. That Tay­lor Swift album is damn good!

What are your favorites of 2010? Feel free to drop links in the com­ments. Wow me.