Tagged: firstunitarianchurch

Photo by Joe Del Tufo The members of Real Estate announced today that they'll kick off their spring U.S. tour in Philly this April. The band has been touring in the States, Europe, and Australia since November promoting its album Days. "Easy", the next single from Days , will be released on vinyl and digitally March 5th, but is available for pre-order now . Real Estate played a Free At Noon show at World Cafe Live back in January, which you can listen to here . (You can also read our review [...]

I Am The Avalanche have announced new tour dates.

Hate5six.com has posted a video of Lifetime 's full set from January 8th, 2012 at The First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia, PA. The band's last album was 2007's Lifetime .

A four-year whirlwind of solo success has uprooted AA Bondy 's life, but he has stayed true to his bluesy, folk foundation. After his band, Verbena, split in 2003, Bondy started writing songs that would ultimately construct the framework for his 2007 debut album, American Hearts . This album set a folk revival precedent evocative of Bob Dylan (but with much more agreeable vocals). His sweeping, acoustic finger-picking and nature-centric lyrics set a scenic stage that would be best illustrated by creeks, leaves, and mountains. It is easy for any listener to envision a rugged, tormented mountain man with [...]

On paper, singer-songwriter Kimya Dawson has committed every artless crime in creating music. Her homemade, low-fi records are filled with rambling talk-singing lyrics about love and longing, evocative of a neurotic teen writing their first poem against a three-note song. The success in Dawson's songwriting, then, comes from the Olympia-native's unexpected sense of humor and awareness of her clichéd style; she manages to hang on to all the good parts that come from the honesty of adolescence and simultaneously refuses to be embarrassed by all the stupid, embarrassing parts of it. After reaching mainstream recognition for her work on the [...]

Photo by Jacqueline Di Milia FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4th It was only a matter of time before the indie-rock veterans who comprise Mister Heavenly tried to concoct their own music genre. Though the band's debut LP, Out Of Love , was released just last August, the threesome began coining the phrase "doom wop" to describe its sound since forming last year. Made up of stray members of three other bands—Islands' Nick Thornburn, Man Man's Ryan Kattner, and Modest Mouse's Joe Plummer—the group's invented genre is used to describe its mix of classic-sounding [...]

At first glance, Katie Stelmanis appears to be the delicate, girl-next-door type. But her music suggests quite the opposite. As the front-woman of Austra, she creates mysterious dance music that would make for a great soundtrack of an experimental film. (No surprise, then, that Austra's music videos delve into nude dancers, reptilian deformities, and sporadic images of missiles—a bizarre realm of visual representation that only its music could support.) Through obsessive electronic beats and extended vocal lines, the songs simultaneously evoke excitement and instill a sense of reverence. Stemanis' commanding voice sings gruesome, passionate lyrics about love and anger that [...]

The folks over at Bands In The Backyard have just posted a video of Psychic Teens performing in the basement of Kung Fu Necktie back in late September. You can watch the video below. Each month, BITBY posts a new video featuring interviews and performances by up-and-coming bands. Previous episodes have featured Faux Slang and Streetwalkers . (Tomorrow night at 8 p.m. at Little Bar , the series will premiere its third episode, featuring Arc In Round ; the screening will include live performances by Ages, Renderers, Sore Eros, [...]

Photo by Angel Ceballos With an alias like Zola Jesus , it is apparent that Nika Roza Danilova has no problem ruffling a few feathers. The atheist Russian-American singer has said, "I believe in not avoiding things you're afraid of. Especially really dark things." Dark is an understatement for Danilova's music, which is downright gothic and occasionally sinister. With distant, menacing vocals suspended over an array of electronic arrangements, her songs evoke the isolated hunting environment of Danilova's rural Wisconsin upbringing. Her latest album, Conatus (released in the U.S. earlier this month), is [...]

mc chris always seems to play The Church when he hits Philly and it really is the perfect spot for his audience. Bring your own booze (cans only), puff a little cheeba, and nerd out to some hilarious raps by the MC, comedian, voice actor, and writer. I've caught his show before and if his fans are in the audience, which I expect they will be tonight, you should have a good ass time. A comic book junkie who raps about Star Wars, Harry Potter, and of course, drugs, mc chris is definitely an acquired taste.

XPN22s John Vettese—who, in addition to hosting the Philly Local Second Shift (Thursdays, 5 p.m.-midnight), records and produces all of our Key Studio Sessions —has organized the first in what he hopes will be "a regular series showcasing experimental/ambient music from the Philly region" The inaugural "Still Life" showcase will feature Cough Cool, Dan Malloy, and Brendan Codey at the First Unitarian Church at 7 p.m. Monday, October 24th; tickets to the all-ages show are $8.

Being a fan of Black Moth Super Rainbow 's (BMSR) take on psychedelic electronic pop, naturally I was very excited to find out they were playing the First Unitarian Church. A small intimate venue (literally the basement rec room of the church) could not have been a better place to see the enigma known as BMSR. I believe the genre of psychedelia gives bands the opportunity to expand on what listeners hear on their albums. BMSR take this concept and run with it. The first thing that anyone would have noticed is the drums. They were absolutely [...]

Female guitar badass Marnie Stern hasn't released any new material since her self-titled LP in October of last year. Though she's touring with no new album to promote, her visits across the US are being commemorated with entries in her self-penned blog, The Vagina Monoblog . Perhaps a blog doesn't seem as exciting a tour ritual as the short-lived kissing booth she set up after a couple shows in 2008 to raise money for a speeding ticket, but the blog does offer a look into the refreshingly low-key lifestyle she and her band maintains while traveling. For someone with [...]

Photo by Angel Ceballos From NPR Music : Conatus finds Nika Danilova, a.k.a. Zola Jesus, pushing the boundaries of her previous work to create an album filled with hauntingly beautiful songs. It also shows her taking a giant leap forward in production, with big arrangements in songs both fierce and fragile — and, for the first time, live string instruments. As before, Danilova's operatic vocals remain front and center. Her classically trained voice is commanding, rich and silky. Each song overflows with emotion: dark and moody, yet [...]

Photo by Jacqueline Di Milia The members of the self-proclaimed "doom wop" trio Mister Heavenly have just announced dates for an upcoming fall tour in support of the band's debut album, Out Of Love . The tour will kick off in Philadelphia on November 4th at First Unitarian Church and wrap up in New York City on November 20th at Mercury Lounge. The band, which features Nick Thorburn (Islands/The Unicorns), Ryan Kattner (Man Man), and Joe Plummer (Modest Mouse) wrapped up a two-week West Coast tour earlier this month. You [...]

Yesss! We are very excited to learn that Mister Heavenly will be making their debut live performance in Philly on Friday, November 4 at the First Unitarian Church. We've been pushing in our recent interviews with Honus Honus to get a local date for a while now. Tix will go on sale at noon this Friday, September 23 HERE , as well as the other usual R5 outlets.

Imagine a wave rolling over your body, so delicate in form, so precise in its constitution, powerful and awesome, a true reminder that great splendor can be found in the subtlest sensations. This wave, this magnificent flourishing wave, builds and collapses, continually rising and falling to produce the fine aesthetics of ages long gone. But what is this force, this chilling flow of sparseness and frailty that spreads over your body to confirm your existence by proving you can feel? Braids, man, Braids. What can be said about a group that defies expectations, not only with their admirably layered melodies [...]

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 "Why?" is the ultimate universal question—the quest for some kind of understanding in an answerless world. (Well, that's what the band claims, at least.) With a statement like that, a listener might expect to hear bleak emo music from the California-based group. However, the songs have quite the opposite effect. With bouncy bells, group sing-alongs and hip-hop influenced beats, WHY? provides up-tempo tunes that are deceiving considering the peculiar lyrical content. Songs that involve drugs, race, and sex are infused with metaphors and ambiguity. So why see WHY?? Maybe the members of the band [...]

You know that scene in Dirty Dancing where Baby carries a watermelon? She doesn't know where she's carrying a watermelon, but it turns out she carries it to the Summer Resort's staff underground dance club. She walks in, and is at once horrified and excited by the sweat, half naked bodies, and loud music. That was my initial experience at the Starfucker show and it got better from there. Except I had no watermelon. Because who brings a watermelon to a dance party? That is Dirty Dancing 's only plot flaw. Anyway, you know [...]

• starfucker_usa - Boy Toy

It's impossible to deny the enduring influence of '80s pop culture, especially with Madonna look-alikes and glitzy music videos currently dominating Top 40. But for every handful of artists inspired by glossy '80s pop, there's another act that draws from a different part of the era, such as the chillwave genre's appropriation of techno-ridden beats. (Think less "flashy art project" and more "low-fi dance party", using synthesizers to their fullest but skipping the garish costume changes and extraneous choreographed dancing.) Neon Indian , led by the 23-year-old Texas-native Alan Palomo, joined the genre with 2009's Psychic Chasms; his [...]