Root Down in the Shadow

Somehow Sofar Sounds : Philadelphia is hitting their 4th Anniversary. The now world-wide phenomenon was a few shy of twenty cities world-wide when Philadelphia joined the ranks. These days, the shows are all over the globe and it seems like there are just shy of twenty dates in NYC alone each month. It all startThed in London, back in 2009, and slowly spread during the next two years to New York, Paris, DC, Los Angeles, Pune India, Houston, Brighton, Seattle, New Dehli, Sydney, Madrid, Berlin, Toronto, Dallas-Forth Worth, and Glasgow before hitting the City of Brotherly Love.  During the next 10 days I'm going to look back at four years of Sofar Sounds: Philadelphia trying to give my version of the best videos. Please comment and share what were your favorites. #10 DRGN King - Undertow  This December '14 Sofar Sounds: Philadelphia show was so much fun.  Ugly holiday sweaters, holiday covers from each band, super festive decorations, not to mention tasty foo

Welcome to Season Two of Philly-centric video series, Cover Club. Cover Club is best conceptualized as “A special brand of Philly covers”, akin to The Onion’s AV Undercover series but with one caveat: the song being covered must originally be from a Philly artist.   We started Cover Club as a means to share the diversity and strength of the Philadelphia scene.  So when we had a chance to collaborate with Kettle Pot Tracks for a Small Houses session of Cover Club, we jumped at the chance.  This session represents a culmination of so many things going right.  It goes back to the June 2013 Sofar Sounds: Philadelphia show when I met Small Houses.  He had recently done the local On The Hill Sessions for Kettle Pot Tracks, a site that is/was one of the places we would look to find more out about bands from Philly.  So when I got a call, last summer from Mike Batchelor of Kettle Pot Tracks, "hey Jeremy Quentin is here recording, do you want to do a Cover Club with him?" t

#CoverClub 2.0 @Nomad Recording Studio by #CoverClub * As The Root Down In The Shadow #CoverClub team starts to unveil it's latest sessions and plan the next session, it's time to release some of this killer audio for your downloading pleasure. The Bernhardt Family Band - Photo by Bob Sweeney The sessions recorded in January back at Nomad Recording Studio feature Sean Hoots, The Bernhardt Family Band, Up The Chain, and Dominic Angelella of DRGN KING. The set includes 3 unreleased originals and only 1 previously released track. Covers on the download include Toy Soldiers and The Lawsuits. If we can get a release to include the Sean Hoots/BoyzIImen cover or Dominic Angelella's Dead Milkmen cover we'll add it asap! Keep an eye out for more tracks from our Breakneck Studios session 2.0 including Mat Burke, Levee Drivers, Lucy Stone, and Leaf & Tree. While the first sessions are set up as #FreeDownload currently on SoundCloud for Breakneck Studios session

On Monday we were thrilled to unveil the Dominic Angelella (DRGN King) solo cover of the Dead Milkmen hit "Punk Rock Girl".  Recorded on a treacherous winter day back in January, it was hard to keep the excitement of the session under wraps for the last month.  The song was recorded in one take and it was one of those thrilling recording moments, when you know you just saw/heard something incredible. DominicAngelella recording his #CoverClub session at Nomad Recording Studios Excitement and anticipation seem to be two key themes for DRGN King these days.  Just over a year since Paragraph Nights, the band filled up the year in between with solid touring, playing XPoNential Festival , and recording a Daytrotter Session . The anticipation is palpable as new music is never out of the plans future reality for DRGN King.  "Saint Toms'" is part of the new material that Dominic Angelella and Ritz Reynolds are working on.  This still untitled second a

Welcome back to # CoverClub .  This week's video continues our 2nd session at Nomad Recording Studios .  We kicked things off two weeks ago, with Sean Hoots covering Boyz II Men 'It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday' and soon we have two more sessions to unveil while we alternate with videos from our 2nd session at Breakneck Studios. This week we unveil a session featuring Dominic Angelella of DRGN KING.  When the idea of #PhillyPresents and #CoverClub were being kicked around, Dominic was one of the first artists approached.  "What would you think about talking about other Philly bands you dig, for Root Down In The Shadow?"  Once Dominic lit up, totally stoked about the idea of sharing his enjoyment of his co-conspirators, it was a forgone conclusion that #PhillyPresents would happen.  Now that Philly Presents has branched out to include Cover Club, it had to involve DRGN KING.  The band formed by Dominic and Ritz Reynolds would certainly be in the m

It's January 31st.. hardly the time to look back at the year prior.  But ripe with the awards season, Grammy's, Golden Globes, Tri State Indie Awards, etc it seems like the perfect time to share some thoughts about the year before.   2013 was a pretty damn good year for new music.  When compiling the year end list, it was remarkable how many outstanding Philadelphia based releases there were each month.  As with all things here at Root Down In The Shadow, we're going to skip retelling what you've read every where else.  Here we are going to do a Philly only year-end review!  Sorry to those of you who may be expecting Bastille , Aoife O'Donovan , J. Roddy Walston & The Business , or Phosphorescent on a year end list, like most things here at Root Down In The Shadow, this list will be Philly-centric!   Finally, apologies to Dr. Dog and Amos Lee, but I think everyone is aware already of B Room and Mountans of Sorrow, Rivers of Song.  Although I will add, the

Your band name:   Dominic Angelella/Drgn King Style: Kitchen Sink music. I like loud guitars and synthesizers and cool lyrics. Years on the Scene: I moved here nine years ago to come to college and have moved through countless bands and met lots of interesting and nice people.   Current Project and/or Members: Drgn King is my child and I love it.  Joe Baldacci plays drums, Steve Montenegro plays bass, Brent Reynolds plays synths and tambourines and oversees all the music.  Brendan Mulvihill (current Philadelphia expatriate and member of Norwegian Arms ) plays guitar.  Zach Goldstein is our engineer and he's been helping us record at Kawari Sound in Elkins Park.   Any new album projects? Sessions in the works? We released our first record Paragraph Nights earlier this year and tour a good amount. We're recording our new record which will probably be out next summer at Kawari Sound, which is an amazing studio. Recent and/or most unique/excit

In early 2011, I was excited for the release of the Iron & Wine album Kiss Each Other Clean .  I had been keeping an eye on their website for details of shows and maybe a free single.  At the time, the depth of what you could find on the internet for music was burgeoning.  The fans had spoken and wanted more music, but the free-for-all that was Napster, etc was over.   With Kiss Each Other Clean, s omething happened, that I had never experienced before.  All the promo stuff that happened previously city by city, limited to local fans at record stores and radio stations, this now was out on the web for all to see.  There were many session from stations across the country.  Included in this promotional explosion was a video session at Daytrotter.com! Here it was a Daytrotter session in video form. Iron & Wine pre-Kiss Each Other Clean  - Jan 12, 2011: Daytrotter Studio, Rock Island, IL This was and still is a beautiful piece of recording.  I was darn curious what was happen

Finally, the 2013 XPoNential Festival is here! Arguably the best weekend of live music Philly has to offer, you need to be prepared. Rather than the typical blog post where one source tells you who to like for an upcoming fest, we at Root Down in the Shadow are going to take a different approach to giving you a listening guide to the artists at the upcoming fest.  I've asked my contributors and some of the festival artists for their views on who to see. Here's the results:  Aaron Brown of Aaron & the Spell (Wiggins Park- Friday 5:30)   Another band i'd like to see on the day I play : I'm actually pretty excited to see Michael Kiwanuka .  It's not because, he plays right after [Aaron & The Spell].  I saw him when he played at the Trocadero in the winter and I enjoyed the show.  I've been listening to Home Again , and really dig the title track Another band i'd like to see on Saturday or Sunday :  Wilco ! They play on Sunday and are on