Artist: The Toy Soldiers

First it was New York , and now Philadelphia is stepping up as the potential hub of the East Coast festival scene. Popped! is back, and Riot Fest East has already announced they're setting up shop for a day. As it turns out, that day is part of the Philadelphia Film & Music Festival (a.k.a. Philly F/M Fest), and now the rest of the initial lineup has been revealed. Promising "at least fifteen 'headline-level' artists of all music genres," the immediate standouts are Deadmau5, Opeth, Jukebox the Ghost, Silverstein, The [...]

If summer and free are two of your favorite things, then the Brothers Murphy have your hookup in the best way possible. Because Penrose are teaming up with WXPN and Danger! Danger! Gallery to bring you the No Excuses! Summer Series. This exclusive set of all ages shows kicks off tonight, and will carry on throughout the first Saturday of July, August, and September. And since it's free to all who show up before 9 PM (and just $5 after). It's the perfect time to catch up on some of the fine local acts that you may have [...]

From the folks at The Fire : In an attempt to fill the void left by festivals past, and offer a good alternative to flocking to the shore, many of Philadelphia's finest local musicians will participate in the Inaugural Sundrop Music and Arts Festival. The festival includes three great nights of music at the Fire, and an all-day, two stage show and craft fair on Saturday May 28th. Stages will be located at Trios Tratorria and outside of the Fire, with vendors offering fine art, crafts, and food lining the path between the Trios Stage [...]

This week Amhrán Gach lá is going Apple Green to celebrate Clockwork Apple's mini festival taking place this weekend in Whelans: All week I'm going to highlight why you should make it to at least one of the three gigs above: Here's the new video from Thursday's headliners Miracle Bell for the single 'Light, Shape, Sound': http://clockworkapplepresents. wordpress.com/

Baltimore rockers J. Roddy Walston And The Business begin the last two weeks of their month-long Philly residency at the North Star Bar tomorrow night (Thursday, May 5th). We asked J. Roddy to tell us about some of his favorite bands and songs by sending us some videos and some commentary. 1) Little Richard, "Lucille": Where it all began: Rock, punk, and white people trying to dance to rhythm-based music. Little Richard is the epicenter of everything. Watch the video here . 2) Sam & Dave, [...]

Straight fom the Penrose website : "The NO EXCUSES Summer Series is your summer party destination. On the first Saturday of every month June through September, Penrose and WXPN will be bringing you a raucous engagement featuring Philly's best in live music... To reiterate: on the first Saturday of every month, during the summer of 2011, Penrose+WXPN+DangerDangerGalle ry will be bringing the fun." Penrose performs with Toy Soldiers and Conversations with Enemies ! at 9 p.m. [...]

Genius. Just flat out genius is what I have to say about this song. I have always jammed to Yae because of my familiarity with Fly High or Die but over the past year or so I have to say that I have been listening to Yae at unhealthy amounts. First we start with the beat. Whatever it is is amazing. That sample is something that hits home and makes noises that have been inside jokes for years. Then having Yae rap over that is great, especially since he does some unlawful things to it.

Toy Soldiers are back with a new EP Get Through the Time and the band's lineup is a little more scaled down, but it all seems part of their plan to get back to their roots. Life is hectic sometimes when you are in a band while still in college, and it doesn't get any easier once you have graduated and are faced with more obstacles from the "real world". Well, for Ron Gallo and crew, it seems that the answer is to just keep on playing to "get through the time". We had a chance to [...]

Photo by Mike McMonagle Ron Gallo's Toy Soldiers are constantly in flux. When the band got its start at Temple in 2007, it was just Gallo and drummer Mike Baurer doing stripped down, Black Key-esque blues. By the time Whisper Down The Lane was self-released in 2009, Baurer had exited and Toy Soldiers had grown to a massive twelve-piece, The Band-style band. For Toy Soldiers' latest EP, Get Through The Time , the lineup has once again turned over, Gallo having assembled a new five-piece to take out on the road. [...]

• Long Goneby Toy Soldiers from Get Throug... » PP_040411_ToySoldiers_LongGone.mp3

TJ Kong and the Atomic Bomb's "Dirty Mixes" from Upcoming Album Available for Preview & Toy Soldiers Releasing New EP : "If you are interested in checking out "dirty mixes" from TJ Kong and the Atomic Bomb 's upcoming album, go HERE . You can also hear them live at Johnny Brenda's on Thursday, April 7. TJ Kong and the Atomic Bomb will be helping Toy Soldiers kickoff their southern tour as well as celebrate the release of their new EP Get Through the Time , which will be available digitally April 8." (The Deli [...]

If you are interested in checking out "dirty mixes" from TJ Kong and the Atomic Bomb 's upcoming album, go HERE . You can also hear them live at Johnny Brenda's on Thursday, April 7. TJ Kong and the Atomic Bomb will be helping Toy Soldiers kickoff their southern tour as well as celebrate the release of their new EP Get Through the Time , which will be available digitally April 8. Enjoy! - The Deli Staff

Creepoid In case you haven't noticed all of our Creepoid-related coverage this week, we're pretty stoked about the band's record-release show at Kung Fu Necktie . (You can read our interview with drummer Pat Troxell here ; look for a review of Horse Heaven next week.) The band will be bringing a limited 30 copies of its new LP, Horse Heaven —all of which are hand-numbered and silk-screened—to tonight's show. (For those with [...]

Toy Soldiers If you thought that your live-music options would be extremely limited tonight because of the upcoming holiday, well, you're right. (Not that it should come as much of a surprise. Late December to early January is annually among the most slowest times of the year when it comes to live music.) Thankfully, we don't have to scrape the bottom of the barrel and endorse a show that, under normal circumstances, we wouldn't recommend to our worst enemy. Because there's a perfectly good local showcase tonight over at The Fire , featuring performances by [...]

Original Toy Soldiers Duo Performs Tomorrow Night…And There's A New Toy Soldiers B-Sides EP Out, Too "Way back in April of 2009, when we first tipped you to local roots/mod-rock outfit Toy Soldiers...the group was essentially singer-guitarist Ron Gallo and drummer Mike Baurer. Baurer subsequently left the band, Gallo rounded up some of his musical pals to help make the album and tour, but at the moment Gallo is in the midst of reconfiguring the Toy Soldiers lineup and bringing in some fresh faces. In the meantime, he's linked back up with Baurer [...]

Last night, we learned that—if you're ambitious, dedicated, and lucky enough—you can catch a bunch of performances by local bands in one night , thus getting a ton of value out of the $100 you spent on your all-access Philly F/M Fest pass. The next lesson we learned is that, if you do manage to pull off such a minor miracle, you're likely to sleep in the following morning and get to work late (not to mention hungover). Thankfully, if you're like most 9-to-5 office drones, you don't have to worry about going in to work tomorrow—which [...]

"What am I now/ if I don't have you?," asks Toy Soldiers' vocalist Ron Gallo in "When I Tripped Into You" (from the band's debut, Whisper Down The Lane ). Why would you ever ask such a thing, Ron? Don't you already know by now that you're the ringleader of our favorite foot-stomping, hand-clapping, banjo-strumming roots-rock band to come out of South Philly in recent years? And who said you don't have us in the first place? I mean, we invited you over to our studio for a recording session and everything. Doesn't that mean [...]

There's precious little more rewarding than being pleasantly surprised by music. When you pop in an album from a band you've never heard of before and are just swept away with the music. The first song usually piques your interest. Soon song after songs passes and you grow more and more excited for the next one. That may seem a little dramatic, but that's exactly the feeling I got when

Currently, The Philly Folk Parade is a 4 shows, every Tuesday night in May, residency at The Fire . The event was organized by The Spinning Leaves and Hezekiah Jones . Each Tuesday will feature a different host and a different bill of artists performing. The first night of the residency (May 4, 2010) was hosted by The Great Unknown. The sets alternated from the front stage to the back room allowing for more music which was a great idea. So, between the 2 stages there were performances by: Jack Ohly [...]

Flickrshow will appear here. All photos: Shantel Mitchell All words: Shawn Breen Have you ever seen that ONE band before, that you just totally love and you want to keep them to yourself forever? That feeling of not wanting others to embrace them for fear of losing them to the masses? I feel that way about The Dutchess And The Duke. It's a love affair, I'll admit it. This was one of those shows that you [...]

Cover art by Kate Egan (eganart.blogspot.com) In 2007, two friends sat in their basement in South Philly and started recording some very wonderful and crude joke songs in the style of Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly. Through coincidence and the hand of God they began playing out as Toy Soldiers , and in about a year's time, got serious enough to get themselves (by then a trio) into the studio at The Fire in Fishtown. But, when it came to the making of this record, bandleader Ron Gallo knew he was ready for a bigger sound. So he [...]