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 started 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! #4 Dirty Dollhouse - "Teenage Dirtbag (Wheatus Cover)" On a brief list of things that are cool are:  1. Being friends with musicians 2. Being cool enough friends with a musician that they take y

artwork by Jennifer Prough So just a few weeks back, two hot U.K. bands with brand-new releases played Philadelphia together.  The supporting acts were two exciting bands that have been tearing up the local scene.  The room was packed.  The mood was high.  The crowd was comfortable??? Photo by Lindsey Borgman Yeah, this super dope line-up of To Kill A King, Prides, Worshyper , and Maitland was in a local living room.  Once again Sofar Sounds: Philadelphia raised the bar on the increasingly popular house-concert scene here in town.  The Sofar Sounds crew has asserted their dominance in the movement, bringing quality music to homes and studios for an experience that can't be matched. You see, you can't just add people and bands to a living room and expect success.  While it takes the right fans, the right bands, and the right hosts for everything to work it also takes that little bit of allure that only a Sofar Sounds show can provide with the bands being a caref

All Photos by Lindsey Borgman Jonas Oesterle February 16th, 2014 at World Cafe Live , TRI STATE INDIE threw one hell of a party.  The day of the Third Annual Tri State Indie Awards day was filled with celebratory fun and killer music.  Jonas Oesterle hosted the event with The Living Sample as the house band, who by the way are a much better combo than Seth Myers and The 8G Band with Fred Armisen on Late Night .  The event showcased so much of what is awesome with the Philly music scene. The camaraderie in the building was impressive.  Tri State Indie really captured it well, when co-founders Rich McKie & Stephanie Seiple-McKie explained "the event is not solely Tri State Indie's award show.  It is the award show for the whole scene."  They are completely spot-on, as there were an impressive number of bands playing and being nominated, not to mention all the presenters representing a huge cross-section of the local industry.  To further their point, the n

For those of you who don't know what Sofar Sounds is, here is their story: "We have created a movement which brings music lovers together in secret living room locations to hear some of the world's most cutting edge artists.  In order to create an intimate and spellbinding atmosphere, we ask that nobody talk during performances.  We hold these pop-up gigs in over 35 cities across 5 continents"  ** All photos from Lindsey Borgman** August 11th Northern Liberties - Philadelphia, PA Each Sofar Sounds show is unique.  Each Sofar Sounds show has elements that haven’t been seen before and won’t be seen again.  Fans keep coming back as they are so intrigued by what incredible experience they might be a part of. What part of town will the show be in?  Who in the crowd will be performing later?  What future (or current) star is going to be performing?  What unexpected genre will be represented? Looking back at prior shows, there has always been at least