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. 14. The Lawsuits - You Won't Love Me If You Don't Sofar Sounds shows are typically stripped down to fit the room.  For this living room / office, it was a perfect fit.  "You Won't Love Me...

American Diamond Recordings , Philadelphia's newest collective had a really big weekend.  The newly minted label, home of Ron Gallo / Toy Soldiers / The Lawsuits / TJ Kong and the Atomic Bomb / Levee Drivers had major appearances across the North-East.  The Lawsuits opened the River stage on Sunday at the 2014 XPoNential Music Festival Presented by Subaru while on Thursday night; Toy Soldiers played the Newport Folk Festival kick-off party!  The Levee Drivers and TJ Kong & the Atomic Bomb are never ones to steer away from the fun, so they popped-up at XPNfest as well.   In the very brief cross-over between River stage and JerseyArts.com Marina stage, The American Diamond bands took up shop on the concourse playing songs between sets.   First, Levee Drivers, joined by TJ Kong and the Atomic Bomb members TJ Kong & Josh Machiz, took the lead for a song playing "Bound By That Ride" immediately after the Lawsuits XPNfest set.  Af...

It's our favorite time of the year: XPoNential Festival time!  Like most things here at Root Down In The Shadow we're going to take a band-centric view of the festival and let them tell you who to go see this year at the 2014 XPoNential Music Festival Presented by Subaru, brought to you by WXPN . SATURDAY - RIVER STAGE - 12:30 PM-1:00 PM Davis Howley - Vox/Guitar - Commonwealth Choir Band Most Excited to Share the Festival Stage with : " Jenny Lewis & Dawes are both really significant to the band.  Rilo Kiley (Jenny Lewis' former band) was sort of the cross over artist for us, as teenagers moving from punk & hardcore to a new genre, they exposed us to country & folk in a modern way, but still bad-ass & sexy.  It's really expertly crafted music." Band Most Excited to see live at #XPNFest :   "We all became obsessed with Dawes .  Individually we started going to see them at shows, covering them at parties, drawin...

The first Thursday of every month is the always intriguing Communion show at Underground Arts .  The line-ups feature from 5 to 7 bands, some on the Communion Label , some local, all exciting.  In early April a 5 band line-up was featured including three Philadelphia bands, The Lawsuits , Gretchen Lohse , and Banned Books .  National touring acts, Johnny Stimson and Sturgill Simpson flushed out the lineup, with Johnny Stimson bringing his soul over beats, while Sturgill brought his weathered twang. Video mastermind Bob Sweeney and Root Down In The Shadow regular contributor, Michael Southerton got together to make a few videos.  Bob shot some Super 8, while Mike was sure to get all the right instruments at all the right times. Check out some videos by Bob Sweeney featuring Gretchen Lohse, Johnny Stimson (coming soon) , and The Lawsuits: Gretchen Lohse "Spider at the Gate" (Communion PA) Gretchen Lohse "Spider at the Gate" (Communion PA) from B...

The final #CoverClub entry from Nomad Recording Studios session 2.0 is here at last.  We're proud to present Up The Chain covering The Lawsuits .  Rounding out an intense line-up of Sean Hoots covering Boyz II Men 'It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday' , DRGN KING 's Dominic Angelella covering the iconic Dead Milkmen , and The Bernhardt Family Band covering Toy Soldiers, Up The Chain takes on the most challenging cover of the session. Originally known as "Walk You Home", the song was originally a track by the Lawsuits frontman Brian Dale Allen Strouse on his solo release Peace, Turkey!, "Walk You Home" is one of many love songs written by Brian Strouse through the years and featuring Brian on piano with a little harmonica.  Unfortunately, the song was not well-known as the album was overshadowed by the more successful Lawsuits release Darleen , put out in the same time period.   Here's the original track by Brian Dale Allen Str...

Contributing writer Michael Southerton is back with more details on the Philadelphia scene.  One part writer - one part musician, Mike brings his unique voice to Root Down In The Shadow for a point of view only a musician could explain.  On assignment for his view on the Katie Frank release show, check out his assessment of openers Kevin Killen and the Lawsuits ; and headliners Katie Frank & The Pheromones : Kevin Killen Eventually on the Highway to Hell the vagabond will find himself at Robert Johnson ’s Crossroads. There, he must make his decisions; though not in haste: a soul is terrible price to pay for a fruit tree, however bountiful, after all. So rather than press forward to Rosedale, the vagabond may benefit from a few minutes listening to cautionary tales and wary words from Philadelphia’s Kevin Killen, who seems to have found a home at that very crossroads. With an old Ephiphone bluesbox and a voice that subtly hints of Brian Johnson , Killen blends vi...

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 furthe...

Earlier this year here at the indie Philly blog, Root Down In The Shadow, we started the fun series #Philly Presents ...bands writing about other bands. The most common reaction from bands to this project: "Wait? Are we covering other bands?" And so #CoverClub was born!   The first sessions for #CoverClub were recorded in October, at the intimate Break Neck Studio under the sonic helm of Peter Joseph!   With the excitement over the series we couldn't contain ourselves, but couldn't continuously steal Peter.  Nomad Recording Studio graciously offered to be our alternate studio for the series and we quickly lined up more bands.  With Rob Swift and Tom Williamson of Nomad Recording Studio, the Session 1.0 includes Aaron Brown of Aaron & The Spell, Ron Gallo of Toy Soldiers, The Rivals and the Fleeting Ends!  The posts here at Root Down In The Shadow have been a blast to do, featuring the excellent videos by director Bob Sweeney assisted...

Earlier this year here at the indie Philly blog, Root Down In The Shadow, we started the fun series #Philly Presents , ...bands writing about other bands. The most common reaction from bands to this project: "Wait? Are we covering other bands?" And so #CoverClub was born! The newest session in the #CoverClub series finds us at Nomad Studios in West Philadelphia with Philly's hardest working front man, the Ron Gallo of Toy Soldiers !  The selection 'Anybody's Girl' is from the Lawsuits new album Cool Cool Cool , just released in October 2013. Cover Club | Ron Gallo "Anybody's Girl" (The Lawsuits)  Video by Bob Sweeney(director) and Paul Lorenz - Audio by Nomad Studio In the past five years, Ron Gallo and the Toy Soldiers have shared bills with all kinds of bands big and small, in and out of Philly, but the logical choice for Ron's Philly-centric cover was none other than The Lawsuits.   The Lawsuits first came onto hi...

Earlier this year here at the indie Philly blog, Root Down In The Shadow, we started the fun series #Philly Presents ...bands writing about other bands. The most common reaction from bands to this project: "Wait? Are we covering other bands?" And so #CoverClub was born!   The first sessions for #CoverClub were recorded in October, at the intimate Break Neck Studios under the sonic helm of Peter Joseph!  The posts here at Root Down In The Shadow have featured the excellent videos by director Bob Sweeney with Paul Lorenz and Jeff Coon also behind the lens. Since the audio tracks are soooo good, it was decided they had to be shared!  Now at SoundCloud with permission from the bands we have switched the audio files to be a free download !!   Download them and share them.  Make sure all your friends hear them.  All we ask of you is to listen, watch, and share!  The Lawsuits members Brian Strouse & Vanessa Winters - photo by Jeff C...