Root Down in the Shadow

Saturday night at the MilkBoy Philadelphia, New Hope, PA's The Lawsuits , pulled out all the stops for their, Hot Love, EP release party! Friends and cohorts Mountjoy , The Levee Drivers , and Penrose each took a stab at shaking up the near sell-out crowd, raising the excitement up yet another notch band by band. By the time The Lawsuits hit the stage near midnight, everyone was ready to rock. Each "opener" did a great job, and could have easily held their own in a headline spot. With my limited exposure to the bands, one thing that stood out was every band out played their recordings. Victor G's vocals were reminiscent of Jim Morrison, joining Cameron Sima, Bob Szafranski, and Ryan Farber for alt rockers Mountjoy. The brothers Murphy of Penrose, even outplayed a description I found about the band "Philadelphia blues-garage rock", with a solid full-on set leaving the garage far behind! The Morrisville, PA based Levee Drivers led by August Lutz deserv...

Cover Song of the Week, albeit not as weekly as I'd like has been one of my favorite posts to do.  There's so many variations to consider.  Awesome cover band or awesome original?  Same style vs new style.  Or in general sometimes it's just sharing something cool that others should see. In this case, this week's edition is a reminder that the Onion.com AV Club is kicking off their 3rd installment of the AV Undercover, a series of cover songs on a pre-set list being completed one by one by bands stopping in the AV Club studio until all the songs are gone.  The bands are a secret until, they've been released one by one throughout the Spring & Summer. I've featured a few before including my first discovery of the AV Club with Iron & Wine and the Low Anthem on a double feature and They Might Be Giants doing Chumbawamba As mentioned above, the Onion has kicked things off for 2012.  There's a cool cover of Sharon Van Etten and Shearwater cover...

photo credit: Neil Krug First Aid Kit , a Swedish folk duo composed of sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg came through Philadelphia on a short US & Canada tour on the way to Coachella Festival .  The chilly March night did not keep a near sellout crowd away from the sonically fabulous Union Transfer.  London trio Peggy Sue opened the show.  They are a three piece outfit with hypnotic harmonies by Katy Klaw and Rosa Rex and pounding drums by Olly Olly Olly.  New song 'Idol' stood out the most, with a lyric of "Robert Johnson and the devil" catching my attention.  They played originals and two 50's/60's covers they recorded for a special tour EP; 'Blue Velvet' and 'Heatwave'. The First Aid Kit touring for new album, The Lion's Roar, hit the road with their album drummer Mattias Bergqvist, Johanna taking lead vocals and guitar,  and Klara playing her Nord Electro 3 keyboard.  The exceptionally confident young ladies, ag...