R5 Newsletter – June 20th 2013

If we are going to talk about “out there” music, we can’t get much further out than legendary 70’s British space rock pioneers HAWKWIND. Most of  our favorite bands have been borrowing heavily from Hawkwind (consciously or not) for years – heavy, droney, hypnotic and endless. Like the Stooges or the MC5 stretched and stretched until they become these epic riffscapes of wah wah guitars and thrumming low end drone, all stretched loosely over an unwavering motorik beat. Basically every stoner metal band/psych rock ensemble I have ever heard owe it all to the ‘wind, whether they know it or not. It’s totally insane they are playing again and we are very excited to welcome them to Union Transfer on October 11th.

As you hopefully saw yesterday we added some new artists to our free outdoor summer concert series at Morgans Pier. On August 7th the prolific PREFUSE-73 will be joined by MAN MAN drummer Chirs Powell’s solo project SPACESHIP ALOHA. 

“Power noise” trio WOLF EYES are coming back to Philly with their homebrewed electronic analogue filth, headlining a show at Johnny Brendas on September 3rd. The disheveled, chaotic, falling to pieces, Sonic Youth approved, guitar rock Connecticut duo MAGIK MARKERS opens the show.

Our good pals and fellow punks, NO AGE have spent the last three years getting weird, really weird. After releasing three critically acclaimed albums of “ambient punk” – they have been creating new compositional methods and instruments for their about to be releases fourth album, An Object. They’ll be playing the new stuff with an intimate show at PhilaMOCA on Saturday September 7th. This will 100% sellout. So get your tickets now!

Woozy, hyper-emotional R&B certainly seems to be the flavor of the month and we can’t get enough of it. Fortunately for us, we have one of of the best (and most slept on) artists doing this stuff coming through. Brooklyn duo BEACON do the burgeoning genre proud fusing the cold-as-ice electro of The Knife with the kind of sideways shuffle of The Weeknd. Check out their latest release HERE. We highly recommend them! They are part of The Ghostly International Tour (Matthew Dear’s label) which also features SHIGETO and HEATHERED PEARLS. All of the artists are touching down August 30th at Johnny Brendas.

Speaking of woozy r&b jams. We have 28 year old British producer – PHAELEH making his Philadelphia debut Thursday September 19th at Johnny Brenda’s. A sort of perfect hybrid of blissed out dubstep (the good kind), garage, electronica and house music. We likely.

For the punks we have a few new shows sprinkled in the mix for you. Philadelphia’s King of Jeans – PISSED JEANS close out our free outdoor summer concert series on August 28th at Morgans Pier. That show is obviously going to be bonkers. Maybe not as bonkers as this weird show combination featuring pop punk veterans THE QUEERS and scary, dirty legit disgusting sounds of THE DWARVES. September 1st at The Barbary.

To balance out The Dwarves scuzzy punk vibes we added a show with TITLE FIGHT to keep the hardcore youth positive.They are coming back to sell out Union Transfer once again with BALANCE AND COMPOSURE on Oct 12th. If that’s too far ahead, perhaps consider the equally as positive pop punk of Los Angeles’ JOYCE MANOR who are going to play a hot, sweaty show at The Church August 14th.

Remember “chillwave”? We do. yeah it was kind of embarrassing but it also shined the spotlight on the immensely talented WASHED OUT. His first two records are pretty spot on perfect and we expect that level of perfection when his  third album, “It Feels Right” drops in August. It’s pretty different than his previous output. Checkout the first song HERE and see for yourself. He’ll be playing both the new jams and old favorites September 19th at Union Transfer.

Johnny Brenda’s mania : Merge Records recording artists THE LOVE LANGUAGE will be playing with the most perfect summer band ETERNAL SUMMERS. July 28th at Johnny Brenda’s. San Francisco’s THE DODOS are playing a small, intimate show  on September 28 with DUSTIN WONG. You should get tickets for that sooner vs later. Two time best new music ‘getter’ DIRTY BEACHES stops by JBs on September 9th. The instrumental / electronics duo EL TEN ELEVEN stop by on September 20th. Closing out the JBs additions we have our very first band from Estonia. EWERT AND THE TWO DRAGONS. You’ll be hearing lots from them. October 5th,

That’s a whole lot of music. Our good pals at MAKING TIME are turning thirteen (which is totally insane) and they are celebrating this Saturday (June 22) with a live appearance from SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO. You know the deal. Three floors of DJs. Free drinks early on and it’s only $12 in advance. Advance tickets can be purchased HERE