|
|
|
Forget all the cult of dubstep schisms, purity debates, and heresy hunts. Call him post-dubstep (already?) if you get off on taxonomy. Whatever. But James Blake has an old-fashioned secret — he gets over on his voice.
The lone sign of organic life in a soundscape of programmed, layered, vocodered, synthesized, and looped machines, Blake’s voice is shockingly sensual in live performance, with a clear falsetto and lower register that garnered screams of delight from the audience. It even had a visible Sade effect, as couples throughout the floor decided that the sold out TLA wasn’t already hot enough.
This is not to entirely detach him from his EDM roots. On the second half of “Digital Lion” and on songs like “Voyeur,” he vibed out to his own stuff as the crowd went from bass led head bob to move your ass rave. And drummer Ben Assiter is wonderful at giving percussive force to Blake’s downtempo cuts.
But it’s the voice that sticks, makes the ladies swoon and guys shake their head in appreciation, leaves you cooing the hummed refrain of “Retrograde” four hours later at 3 a.m. in your friend’s living room. By the time he encored with “The Wilhelm Scream” I was thinking, alienated neo-soul nothing. Babies might be conceived to this.
Duly noted singer-songwriter street cred — Blake finished his encore alone on keyboard with a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You.” “Go to him, stay with him if you can, but be prepared to bleed.”
View galleryWe always get a ton of stuff that doesn't make it into the official agenda for one reason or another. Or sometimes it does! Anyway, this is some of the stuff that CP staffers are attempting to get to this weekend their own selves. You have no excuse for boredom.
FRIDAY 5/10
- We're dying to see Marnie Stern at Johnny Brenda's, and not just because The Chronicles of Marnia is, like, the funniest possible album title. Barren Girls and Philly's Little Big League (coming off their recent signing to Tiny Engines) open.
- Tonight is the debut performance of Lady Lungs, which is an all-lady choir based in Philly. See here.
- If you're high on lo-fi, check out Height, Kate Ferencz and Phile Cote at Magic Pictures.
- There's a PAWS benefit at Grindcore House.
- Food Will Win the War and The City and Horses will show off their shiny new split seven-inch at Garage Mahal. They're promising hot rock, cheap beer and free tater tots.
- Oooh! Ladyfest presents Ladies and Gentlemen… The Fabulous Stains at I-House.
- Attention theater heads: PLANS: A Contemporary Playfest must be acknowledged.
- The Space Merchants — you can trace their New Pornographers-ish bloodline back to This Radiant Boy — are playing Ortliebs tonight.
SATURDAY 5/11
- The Claymation animal parade might be reason enough to check out Art Star Craft Bazaar.
- Department of Making + Doing (a partnership between workshops like NextFab, The Hacktory and others) celebrates its launch with a mini Maker Faire: silkscreen your own bag or t-shirt, laser cut an "I heart my neighborhood" key chain or play around with a Japanese saw (which is safer than it looks).
- I-House screens The Source Family, a documentary about cult leader Jim Baker (more affectionately known by his brain-washed followers as Father Yod) who also happened to start one of the country's first health food restaurants. Kohoutek, a local experimental group who once toured with Father Yod's house band, performs after the screening.
- Where Were You When They Bombed MOVE? I was nowhere near the place, buddy.
- Former City Paper editor Duane Swierczynski will read from his latest blood-soaked crime thriller at Prot Richmond Books, which you've been meaning to check out.
SUNDAY 5/12
- Storytellers and funny people are taking over Ortlieb's for Kiddo, wherein they read things they wrote when they were children.
- It's Mothers Day. Dress nice.
The last time I saw Joe Tartaglia — the 44 year old co-proprietor of Connie’s Ric Rac in the Italian Market — he saw me walking my greyhound around the neighborhood on a chilly early afternoon and told me that he had a friend who sold custom-made dog coats that played music.
“It’s like a dog iPod in his coat,” said Joe. “You should call him.”
That was the Little Joe Brown, or Joe Jr., or whatever-you-called him I knew: always something absurd at the conversational ready and always hustling, whether it was for his live music and comedy outpost on Ninth Street or someone else’s game.
Joe passed away this week after a long battle with brain cancer. I had heard he was sick but assumed, like everything else in the Market that he would always be there no matter what the trouble. Like the rest of his family — his dad Joe, mom Connie, brother Frankie — young Joe Tartaglia was a daily part of my life, and their struggles to get Connie’s Ric Rac off the ground and liquor-licensed a long time part of my reporting.
The other night, the Ric Rac (which is literally right behind my house) opened its doors and let his friends rock the joint despite the family’s loss. They said that Joey would have wanted it that way. I disagree. I think he would have liked it to be just a little louder.
Rest in peace, Joe.
A couple of songs into his set, Danny Brown — Sideshow Bob afro already dripping from sweat and bottled water — stood center stage and declared in his inimitable voice, “This is not a rap show. If you came to hear rap, you can put your backpack on and go to the coffee shop to hear some rap music.” The crowd screamed its approval and laughed. They get his jokes, and he’s funny as shit. Funnier actually, since the scatological has its limits. So he does one better and goes for broke by matching the eschatological (personal of course) and hedonistic, becoming about as funny and smart as any music can be.
Before we get going here, let’s pay condolences to the Tartaglia family of the Italian Market. Joe Brown Tartaglia, co-proprietor of Connie’s Ric Rac passed away after a long bout with brain cancer. He was a funny guy and will be deeply missed
Were The Breeders your favorite band of the ’90s? Well, maybe they should've been. In town to play their 1993 classic album Last Splash from start to finish, Kim Deal and co. reminded everybody they've got more gears than most of their old alt-rock (did I just write that?) peers. Fast, slow, loud, soft, pretty, brutal, precise, chaotic — these songs are an emotional tilt-a-whirl. In fact, while it was a solid thrill to hear "Cannonball" live once more, "Divine Hammer" and "I Just Wanna Get Along" rocked the crowd most thoroughly. The prettiest moment was surely "Do You Love Me Now" — just gorgeous as all hell.
We always get a ton of stuff that doesn't make it into the official agenda for one reason or another. Or sometimes it does! Anyway, this is some of the stuff that CP staffers are attempting to get to this weekend their own selves. You have no excuse for boredom.
FRIDAY 5/3
- This First Friday promises to be weirder than most with artists showcasing their obsessions with monsters, dough and the color black.
- Cheap, dirty rock 'n' roll at the Ric-Rac: Sinking Ocean Gods and Dead Tenors. $5.
- Film buffs have been wondering when Upstream Color, Shane Carruth's new flick (kinda) about parasite-assisted hypnosis, would make it to Philly. Well, it's finally arrived, and of all places, it's playing a limited engagement at the Franklin Institute.
- The Ladyfest ramp-up is on. Tonight, check out the art at Satellite Cafe.
- Grandchildren will run wild with their new album at Johnny Brenda's tonight.
SATURDAY 5/4
- Maybe you're sick of hearing about Lentil (this week's CP cover story subject) and maybe you don't want anything to do with the multi-day festival that carries his name, but you've gotta admit that the related event happening at The Fire has a respectable line-up (Mike Slomo Brenner will be playing, people).
- Not only is the Franklin Institute screening Upstream Color it's opening a new espionage exhibition meaning we might spend most of our weekend there. On display: Insectothopter (an insect-sized intelligence-gathering device), the actual ice ax that was used to kill Leon Trotsky and other things to make us wish we worked for the CIA.
- The Khyber Pass serves frozen mint juleps every day (that the slushy machine is working) but it's all preamble for their Kentucky Derby viewing party. Get drunk. Watch animals get spanked and run a race they don't know they're in.
SUNDAY 5/5
- The Breeders at the Troc is all sold out.
- Good seats are still available for the Shooting Wall film fest at PhilaMoca. Totally free.
Money by Time/Bank.
Although your head is probably ready to explode with all of the cool stuff happening on First Friday, there's a new event appealing to abstract thinkers or those generally unimpressed by art. From the folks who bring you the Fringe Arts Festival each year comes Proposition Tent, "a laboratory and social place of ideas on how to engage the existing world," which really means that this won't be your typical free booze/gallery schmoozing extravaganza, but something purportedly intellectual and discussion-based.
Happening every First Friday through July, four contributors – a local artist, an international artist, a local business/non-profit and a philosopher – will propose an idea or showcase a project related to a set theme. At tonight's event, CASH MONEY, film director/humorist Miranda July's project calls upon strangers to participate, the folks from Time Bank talk about their alternative currency and the South Philly Co-op tell us why their food distribution model actually matters. Proposition Tent's curators even convinced Antanas Makas, the former mayor of Bogota and respectable mathematician/philosopher, to submit a statement on economics. If the strangeness of this event isn't motivation enough to attend, there will be free pizza (although its source is unknown).
Fri., May 3, 7 p.m., free, North 11th and Carlton Streets (near Vox Populi), blog.fringearts.com
RELATED: For a curated list of tonight's best events, check out our First Friday Focus.
Before we start, give a laurel and hearty handshake of congratulations to one-time City Paper editors Brian Howard and Carolyn Huckabay for tying the knot last weekend, honeymooning in Mexico and making it back in time so that the prettier half of that coupling got to the 12-hour Knights Arts Challenge Awards ceremony for her job with Canary Promotions. Congrats goes too to those $2 million+ Knights grant awardees, some of whom have coupled with each other for what promises to be some seriously bizarre work, 43 projects to be exact. Like a $60,000 pairing of Pig Iron Theater and Dr. Dog for an indie-opera, and Stacey Wilson asking visual artists and DJs to collaborate. There are a few winners that are questionable — like curator Theresa Rose commissioning art projects at restaurants (doesn’t Starbucks and Dirty Franks do that without giving anyone a drink let alone money?) or giving the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia $50,000 to hire artists to paint bike racks (surely, biking artistes would do that out of love). I kid. Spend away. You can find all the winners at knightarts.org.
- Activism
- Arts
- Arts Events
- Books
- Dance
- First Person Fest
- Last Chance
- Museum
- On the Fringe
- Philly Artists
- The Curator
- Theater
- Visual Art
- Arts News
- Artist Profile
- Arts Preview
- Street Art
- Been There, Done That
- Big Ups
- Comedy
- LOL With It
- Stand-up
- Critical Mass
- DVD
- Events
- Friday Fill-in
- Ice Cubes
- In Memoriam
- Interview
- Just Do It
- Just Opened
- Kaleidoscopic
- LGBTQ
- Art Phag
- Mailbag
- Movies
- Film Fest
- Movie Review
- On set
- Scenester
- screening
- trailer!
- Music
- 10 Track Mind
- Album
- Album Review
- Concert Review
- DJs
- Local Support
- Now Hear This
- One Track Mind
- Philly Bands
- Show
- Somebody Else Was There
- Song
- The Showdown
- concert photos
- jazz
- DJ Nights Blogged
- Night Watch
- Now See This
- Poetic License
- Printed Matter
- Radio
- Shopping
- Coveted
- Fashion
- What We Heart
- TV
- 24
- Idol Hands
- Mad Men
- ProjRun
- True Blood
- Useless Lost Recaps
- Couch Potato
- Shore Trash
- Turned ONN
- TopMod
- Video Games
- Free Online Game
- PSP
- PlayStation 2
- The 1-Upper
- Wii
- Web Junk
- CAGE MATCH
- Free Online Toy
- Weekend Omnibus
- Win
