New Music / Freshly Written & Recently Released (Jan 30)
Philly Music!
Thursday night March 14 I saw Philly band "Pine Barons" do an excellent show, opening up the evening at Everybody Hits. While they're a Philly band now, they trace their roots back to NJ. Here's an excerpt from their web page: "Born among the pitch pines of southern New Jersey, Pine Barons is a super team of ultra-pals who write songs for everyday thinkers, movers, magicians, friends, animals, and legends. With a satchels-worth of musical influences, these four heroes devote themselves to the mission of spreading rock n roll, good times, high fives and hot sauce to friends around the world."
I like the band's harmonies and some of their oddball song structures. The music in the show was a little more freeform than what we hear on their web page. They played around a little more with tempo changes as well as stops and starts.
The band released two new singles just back in January. One of them is "Clique Bait" :::
Pine Barons doesn't have any other shows coming up soon, but here is the click to their Facebook page where you can keep an eye on what they're doing ::: Pine Barons on Facebook (CLICK HERE)
What is or was an "apocalypse party"? Were you part of one? Maybe only know it now when you look back?
Back on March 7 I went to see New York band Madam West do a show at Rockwood Music Hall. It was my second time seeing them. Rockwood Stage 1 is a small stage, yet it still gave Sophie Chernin, lead of the band, more room to move around than she had had when I saw her the first time. That was at a packed basement show at a house in Philly.
The band played all the favorites from their 2018 album "Warm Bodies", including their disturbing song, "Strongest Son", which I wrote about last year. The song is about nuclear war, the possible destruction of the planet. When I first heard that they did a video of this song, and before I watched it I thought wtf are they doing a video about this? But after I watched this "apocalypse party" I realized what the message is. And I asked Sophie to tell us about the video, its creation and its background. Here's her response:
Hi Bob- Thanks so much! Really appreciate that. Here’s some background: I wrote the lyrics right after Trump was elected in 2016. They speak to the la-di-da, “he’s never going to win” attitude of the left in the months leading up to his election. It also predicts some kind of nuclear event with Trump at the helm. The last lyric, “mother of all shows of strength” refers to Trump’s boast that he planned to drop “the mother of all bombs” in Afghanistan. (Which he did.)
For the video, we imagined the months leading up to his election as a party of sorts—picnics, cocktail parties, dancing. The revelers ignore the atomic war footage (and “Apocalypse Now” fanblade shots) being projected onto the wall behind them, failing to see the signs of their imminent destruction. The party transforms into the dark and disturbing scene of a nuclear bunker. Our director Ian Wexler played with several different lighting setups for each phase of the end of the world, from bright yellows to jarring white and finally, red, the color of emergencies. We played a lot with projections on the bathroom tile, and used some smoke effects for an apocalyptic touch. The bird masks were added to our costume arsenal late in the game, but I love the way that they are both comical and sinister, like the Trump administration itself.
So here is the video "Strongest Son" released just two weeks ago :::
Madam West doesn't have any other shows coming up soon, but here is their Facebook click where you can follow what they're doing ::: Madam West on Facebook (CLICK HERE)
Drummer extraordinaire, Rosie Slater, has been performing in New Myths for years, and, in more recent years, with her boyfriend, Sam Seeger, which I wrote about in the previous post. I heard her play in both bands a few weeks ago when the two bands did back-to-back shows at Pianos.
New Myths has been around for a while. In fact they've built up quite a story. (From their website) NEW MYTHS has performed at music festivals such as SXSW, Pop Montreal, CMJ, Northside and Destination Moon. The band members have been spotted backing up acts like Kristin Kontrol and Frankie Rose, and singing in an SNL Digital Short with Paul Rudd. A favorite at Steve Madden Music, they have been tapped as direct support for major acts like Metric and Warpaint. In the fall of 2017, NEW MYTHS hit the road as direct support on tour with Cindy Wilson, (of The B-52s) and in the spring of 2019 toured with The Joy Formidable. Currently, they are gearing up for the release of their hard-hitting sophomore album.
In 2014 New Myths produced a full-length album, "Give Me Noise", and on their own record label. The first track on that album is "Howl".
OOPS! New Myths doesn't allow their Soundcloud music to be reposted, so I can't give a sample! I can only give a link.
New Music / Freshly Written & Recently Released (Feb 2019)
I have not yet met "Nan", but I did meet even more of Sam Seeger's family members and friends when I went to see his show at Pianos a couple weeks ago. His music productions are truly a family event.
A nice show, with sound even more full bodied than last time.
It was two days after the Pianos show that Sam posted this video of his song, "Hi Sam It's Nan" which is based on actual voicemails he received from his grandmother.
Sam doesn't have any other shows coming up in the next few weeks, but here is the click to his Facebook page where you can keep watching what he's doing ::: Sam Seeger on Facebook (CLICK HERE).
