Due to the upcoming holiday (and that I will be on vacation) Sound Advice will return for its next issue on 12/5. Here's an extra side or two of musical stuffing.
Thanks again for reading, enjoy the long weekend!
Set adrift in a tryptophan bliss,
Maria T
Take note! These are two separate shows, and chances are by the time you get this newsletter they will have very much sold out. Word is that there might be a couple of extra tickets released at the door, but I recommend asking around and see if anyone has a spare—this is very much worth the effort.
On their own, the three musicians in this trio have contributed enough sonic damage in projects such as Sonic Youth, Harry Pussy, Comets On Fire, Heron Oblivion and so on that when combined, I suspect the riffage will be anything less than incendiary. Then add in the respective openers for these two sets—Orcutt improving with Philly's own, the stellar Emily Robb, and cosmic splendor of Julie Beth Napolin—and you've got easily one of the can't-miss events of the year.
20 vendors will convene to sell you their array of guitars, pedals, and other musical equipment. No one is ever truly looking for more gear, it just kinda happens, and this is how. If you haven't blown all your cash, Zig Zag's around the corner, where you can feast on excellent BBQ while listening to Flipper.
Philadelphia's own masters of misanthropic sludge, Pissed Jeans, open up for the reunited Dillinger Escape Plan. Their latest record, Half Divorced (Sub Pop), finds the band in excellent form with an even more palpable sense of urgency than usual. Given the recent news over the proposed federal transgender bathroom ban, this might be a good way to work out your rage over what is an absolutely demonic piece of legislation. The heavy melodic noise stylings of locals Rid of Me open this very early show (it starts at 6).
John Wright of Canadian punk legends Nomeansno brings his solo effort, Dead Bob, to town. Along for the ride are Cincinnati, OH's Lung, a two-piece giving us grungy cello art-punk that scratches the Dambuilders itch quite nicely. Be Nothing, featuring Alexi from Stinking Lizaveta, making this a legitimately West Philly affair.
Considered to be one of the greatest concert performances ever caught on film, Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz captures the Band's final concert on Thanksgiving Day 1976. In tribute, Solar Myth will be screening the film for free (see showtimes above) with limited seating. This sure as hell beats having to break bread with relatives that probably voted for Trump, I'll tell ya what.
Travel the interstellar spaceways for the first or fifty billionth time with our city's finest musical group.
American Standard's title is a reference to the New Jersey-based manufacturer of toilets, an object which features prominently in Michael Berdan's chronicling of his relationship to and reckoning with bulimia nervosa. For this skin-crawling industrial masterwork, Berdan sought out writers B.R. Yeager and Maggie Siebert, known for their transgressive literary works, as creative collaborators. The end result is one of the most devastating releases of 2024.
Sound Advice is a weekly newsletter highlighting upcoming concerts and music-related events in the greater Philadelphia area. Expect 1-5 shows of note, perhaps an occasional guest contributor or two, published on Thursdays.
Local concert listings can be found at the following websites because I am not a concert calendar:
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