Root Down in the Shadow

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. Photo by Bob Sweeney Cover Club | TJ Kong "Post Apocalypse Blues" The TJ Kong Cover Club session at Cambridge Sound Studios "living room" was complete, like most of our sessions, with the recording of an original tune.  Ironically, "Post Apocalypse Blues" was one of the very first songs ever written for TJ Kong & the Atomic Bomb , according to Dan Bruskewicz , front man of TJ Kong .  While this may be throwback original having been recorded on Idiots (2010) & Manufacturing Joy (2012), it was a fresh choice for the session.   According to Dan, "we love playing it in a stripped down setting, such a different blues feel." While enjoying this fresh take on an old-...

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. Photo by Bob Sweeney Photo by Bob Sweeney In late 2013 at the Philly Sings Philly event, I first met Dan B . of TJ Kong .  Truthfully, I hadn't yet figured out that he wasn't actually Mr. Kong.  While the "real" TJ Kong, was actually Major T. J. Kong, the B-52 bomber pilot from Dr. Strangelove . Philadelphia's TJ Kong and the Atomic Bomb is a band full of Dans & Joshes dropping musical bombs (the band has two Dans and two Joshes in it). I've seen Dan B. cover "Standard Human" from Purples solo at Church of Kong (a brunch song-writer series at the former Nodding Heads Brewery ), but it was with Joshua Machiz on bass joining Dan B. that this cover, really takes on new li...

Show poster by Jennifer Prough Ahh, Sofar Sounds , that wonderful international phenomenon sweeping the globe that brings an eager group of music fans to living rooms and hip places to see bands large and small play intimate shows each month. Ever since the first Sofar Sounds I went to, back in Jan '13, I've been absolutely hooked.  It's really the best of all worlds for the music fan with amazing international acts, national touring bands, fabulous local bands, the best music fans to be-friend, acoustic/stripped/re-configured/interesting song arrangements, great homes &hosts, and plenty of other reasons to keep coming back for more.  In the last two years, showing up to these select locations it's been surprise after surprise worthy sharing with all my musical friends. The September show was yet another success by the Sofar Sounds: Philadelphia crew ( Carolyn Lederach, Ken Winneg, & Davis Howley ).  They brought us back to the Fishtown/Kensington neighbo...

So our pal Mat Burke had the bad luck of getting his place broken into a few months ago.  To overcome the major shortfall that isn't covered by Mat's numerous jobs, he's doing things to raise money in the only way that he knows how: a "Break In Fundraiser."  Here's what Mat has to say about the event: "As many of you know my home was broken into shortly after christmas. The burglars ended up stealing around 10,000 dollars of my stuff. Bummer I know but the really bad thing about all of this was that about 5-6 thousand of that wasn't even my stuff. It was mics, mixing boards, pedals and other odds and ends i was borrowing from a studio for the recording of my new record. Underground Arts and their awesome staff has donated the room and the staffs time to help raise money in hopes of paying back the studio and replacing the equipment that has been stolen. Every dollar of the ticket sales will go toward this. We will also be holdin...