Is this Nashville? Is this Brooklyn? It's a little bit of both. Clear Plastic Masks is an interesting band that claims both Nashville and Brooklyn as home bases. The influence of both can be heard in their music.
I heard Clear Plastic Masks for the first time just about a year ago this week (May 29, 2014), when they did a show at Pianos. I made a note to keep my eye open for another show. That time came along just a few weeks ago when they did a show right here in Philly at Milkboy. This year compared to last shows even a greater texture and nuance in their performance. Unfortunately it all can't be captured in the recorded versions, so you'll have to see them live. (although they do point out for the song below: "Mixes are not final and unmastered.")
But the website recordings still represent their music well. Here is "Everything Nothing" which the band posted on Soundcloud about a year ago.
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6/27/20 UPDATE! ::: OOPS! Looks like the band removed this song from their page!
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Clear Plastic Masks is on tour right now and has a very busy schedule lined up. Unfortunately, another visit back here isn't on the list. But you can visit them on Facebook. Here is the click ::: Clear Plastic Masks (CLICK HERE)
Sometimes the music is very much in sync with what's going on in life. Such was the case a few weeks ago when I saw live for the first time Philly band "BlendMode". They did a nice show at North Star.
I've been busy communting, spending a lot of time on the train. In fact, I went to see BlendMode after working a day up in North Jersey. When I went in to North Star and started to listen to them play, it seemed to fit right in with the rest of the day and almost be a continuation of the most recent event, my train ride back from North Jersey. Each piece was long and had a continuous fast steady rhythm. There were very few breaks in tempo. And the pictures and scenes going by were the sounds of the other instruments that would seemingly appear out of nowhere and "blend" in, playing a dozen or two bars over the rhythm and then recede. The rhythm would keep going steady and then some more short surprises from the other instruments would come in. The band is quite eclectic, melding or "blending" a bunch of genres. I never knew what was coming next.
My personal take was I felt like I was still traveling. I enjoyed the show and hope to see them again.
BlendMode has a limited amount of music posted on the internets. This is their one track from Soundcloud. It's "TweedMode Show - Silk City - 2015 02 04".
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6/27/20 UPDATE! ::: OOPS! Looks like the band removed this song from their page!
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If you like their sound and would like to see them, you're in luck. BlendMode is doing a show tonight at Silk City Lounge. If you would like to visit them on Facebook, here is the click ::: BlendMode on Facebook (CLICK HERE)
I've been listening to New York band "The Mystery Lights"' pages on line for quite a while. Their music has largely a garage feel, punctuated with some psych highlights.
I've been lucky enough to see them three times, once at Mercury Lounge (7/30/12), once at Baby's All Right (1/29/14), and just a couple weeks ago at Johnny Brenda's (3/26/15!). Philly was the last stop on their recent national tour. While they do a lot of shows, they very rarely come to Philly. And their many shows in Manhattan and Brooklyn are late for me, seeming to be either the night before I have to work early, and/or too late for the last NJT/SEPTA departure home.
So I was very "psyched" to see that they were going to be playing at Johnny Brenda's on a free night. High energy is one of their trademarks, and while they've been able to carry that high energy over into their recordings better than some other bands, it's even better to see them do a live show on stage.
I like the intensity of their music. There's just the right amount of "rough-around-the-ages" garage sound combined with more sophisticated writing and arrangements to make their sound a unique experience. At the Johnny Brenda's show, they played songs from their new album released last month, "At Home W/The Mystery Lights". They also played tracks from their March 2014 ep, "The Mystery Lights EP". At Johnny Brenda's the band played around with some of the tempos and arrangements as they had at Baby's All Right, so a listener is essentially hearing new work even as they play songs already heard.
One of the songs they played out of last year's album is "What Happens When You Turn the Devil Down", which is more representative of the psych portion of their persona. Listen to the lush arrangements. It's playing right here :::
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6/27/20 UPDATE! ::: OOPS! Looks like the band removed this song from their page!
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I like "What Happens When You Turn the Devil Down" a lot; I wanted to feature it with this writeup, but I also like the song "Before My Own", also appearing on the 2014 album. I listened to both songs a zillion times, but still couldn't decide which one to show here, so I'm including them both. "Before My Own" is more representative of their "garage on steroids" persona, and is playing right here :::
The Mystery Lights has an upcoming show soon; they're going to be headlining at Alphaville on April 21. In the meantime, if you'd like to visit them on Facebook (with links to their music), here is the click ::: The Mystery Lights on Facebook (CLICK HERE).
UPDATE UPDATE :::: June 22, 2016 :::: The band has evidently deleted all tracks from its Soundcloud page as well as most tracks from Bandcamp. :( ... I don't know what that's about. ... It's especially difficult for somebody when you're not familiar with a band and are considering going out to a show, but the band has only one sample song on their site. That normally for me is a negative ("What's up with them?"), but in this case you'll have to take it from me that these guys are good!
NEW UPDATE UPDATE ::: December 8, 2016 :::: The band has new music up as well as new versions of some of their original standards. Check out more recent music and comments here!
March 20, What a Day! What a Night! I had worked up in North Jersey and was planning on getting back to Philly in time to see Jackie Paper and Seismic Thrust do a show together at Everybody Hits. I've seen both bands before and like them a lot and didn't want to miss this opportunity to see them both play together, especially when I didn't have work the next morning.
But sometimes the best-made plans don't work out exactly as envisioned. It turned out Friday we had that freak snowstorm, which partially messed me up. Missed one bus, the next didn't show, and the next was late so I missed my train. The next train got stuck for over an hour at New Brunswick due to someone on the train ahead of us having a medical emergency and their having to get ems. (I was wondering why it was taking so long since major medical facilities are only a block from the station.) And then, of course, we missed the train to Philly out of Trenton.
I wound up getting to Everybody Hits very late, after both Seismic Thrust and Jackie Paper had played, so I had to ask for updates on what the bands had played.
Zach from Philly band Seismic Thrust says they're working on a new album and played songs that will appear on that. Here is "Jean Jacket", one of the band's newer songs. Not sure if this is going to be on the new album.
Seismic Thrust has another show coming up on April 20 at Bourbon and Branch. Here is the click to the band's Soundcloud page ::: Seismic Thrust on Soundcloud (CLICK HERE)
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I also got a chance to talk with Michelle from Jackie Paper. She gave me one of their new albums which is a compilation of work they've done over the years. The album is available in either cd or cassette format. Here is "Into Oblivion", one of their newer works.
While I had missed my two favorites that I had seen before, I arrived just in time to see New York band Whitewash do their show. In checking around for music each week, I had come across Whitewash a few times and was interested in seeing them, but the scheduling never seemed to work out. So this was a great opportunity. Here is "No Sunglasses", a song posted on their page about a year ago.
Whitewash has two shows coming up soon. The first is on April 2 at Nola, Darling, and the second is April 20 at Palisades. To visit Whitewash on Soundcloud, here is the click ::: Whitewash on Soundcloud (CLICK HERE)
The last band to play and the headliner of the evening was Philly "fuzz-punk" band Mumblr. They've also done a number of shows that I never got to see. Here is their song "Philadelphia", from their newly-released album, "Full of Snakes" :::
Mumblr doesn't have any other shows coming up in our area right now, but they do have a show in DC at Above the Bayou on April 10. To visit Mumblr on Bandcamp, where you can hear their music and see their raw and powerful lyrics printed out, the click is here ::: Mumblr on Bandcamp (CLICK HERE)
Both Mumblr and Whitewash did good shows; I know I'm going to go back to hear both of them again. My rotten Friday turned out well in the end! And I really liked "Everybody Hits" as a venue. It was my first time there. It's actually "batting cages" that doubles up as a diy venue from time to time in the evening. Open room, high ceilings, great acoustics. If any band you like lists a show there, GO!
A few weeks ago I went to see music outfit 18568232 do a show at Eris Temple Arts. 185668232 is my friend, Iam S. Mick (yes, that's his real soc sec #). Iam not only performed in the show but curated the event as well.
The music or "sound" of 185668232 has undergone a dramatic change since I first started listening back in 2011. When I first met Iam, most of his work came from familiar sounds performed with traditional musical instruments. His music room had a variety of instruments that many people would envy.
Over the past couple years, he increasingly played with the sounds generated by those instruments and started to change them or distort them electronically. Then over a period he gradually added more electronic sounds, crossing the border to include more "noise" than traditional musical sounds.
185668232 has done quite a number of albums with topics ranging from the casual to the more serious comments about society.
One of the tracks that I like the most is "mONAURAL bEATS (recorded/mixed/mastered practice)", which Iam posted about a year ago. Iam classifies this as "dreamesque", a genre that he's named or created. I think this fits the name perfectly. ... And, personally, I think it is also a metaphor for the progression I've seen his work take over these last few years. At the beginning of the track is a more conventional sounding melodic line. Over the course of its 3:59 minutes, it adds more noise to its persona..
This is the page for "mONAURAL bEATS (recorded/mixed/mastered practice)" ::: "mONAURAL bEATS" page (CLICK HERE). There you can find a link to the rest of his Soundcloud page.
While Soundcloud contains a lot of his individual tracks, Iam's Bandcamp page includes his concept albums ::: 185668232 on Bandcamp (CLICK HERE).
Iam asks me what had I been thinking about before I post a photo on Facebook, and then what did I think about after the posting. I've returned the questioning back to him in terms of what was he thinking about as he wrote various instrumental lines in his song "Underscore", which is one of my favorites. Iam did an updated version of the song at the Eris Temple show. Of course it was more noise than the original. It was a "one time only" arrangement, never performed before and never to be performed again. You can hear the original version of "Underscore" through the link to the interview that we did a few years ago. "185668232 - THE INTERVIEW"
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This was my first trip to Eris Temple Arts, and I think it was the right venue and ambience for these shows: part diy storefront venue / part house party... 185668232's next show will be at The Pharmacy on March 19.
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It was about a week later that I saw a listing that quickly grabbed my curiosity. It was for a show by Daisy Berkowitz, a Marilyn Manson alum. While I never was really into Marilyn Manson, I was interested to see what the transition might be from playing in a band at major venues to doing solo work on the small venue circuit. So I did go out to see him play at Delancey Lounge.
Here is "Defensive", by Daisy Berkowitz a/k/a Scott Mitchell Putesky :::
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I did a "Mix and Match" that night. After seeing Daisy Berkowitz play at Delancey Lounge, I went over to Arlene's Grocery where I saw Bushwick's "The Benjees" do an outstanding show. This was the second time I had seen them, the first time being at Pianos over last summer. They were just as good as the first time I saw them, and, again, playing a lot better than anything their web page could convey.
I don't know whether it was the arrangements or the sound work this time around, but the keys seemed to play a much more prominent role in the music than at their show at Pianos over the summer.
The band currently doesn't have a lot of music on line, and, very oddly, they seemed to have all but abandoned their own Soundcloud page, leaving only one song up, while transferring their music to another page (of the recording co? I don't know). They said at the show that an album should be coming out later this year. In the meantime, here is "Fukushima" :::
The Benjees have another show coming up at Arlene's Grocery on April 10. Here is their web page where you can find out more about them :::
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7/5/20 ::: OOPS. Website seems to have disappeared.
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One of the delights of commuting by New Jersey Transit is their "Music In Motion" program, where they have live music being performed for the evening rush. I've seen performances at both Hoboken Terminal and Secaucus Junction Station. (I think there are also some in Newark). The performances cover a wide range of genres, and the week before last I was able to hear "The Garden State Saxophone Quartet", which plays both classical and pop.
Here is their rendition of The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby". I was especially intrigued how they handled the rhythm portion of the music since there were no percussion instruments and the saxophones themselves had to do that job :::
This is a picture of their show at Secaucus Junction last week. While some people just speeded through on their way to change trains, many did stop to listen. (I stood in front of them to get the picture). The main waiting room at Secaucus Junction has high ceilings and excellent acoustics. All bands should try to go there!
