Written & Photographed by : Killian O’Neil

It’s a very rare occasion when I am in North Philadelphia and actually feel safe; this last Saturday was one of those times. As my Uber pulled up to The Met Theatre, I was greeted by a hand full of security guards, accompanied by a wall of walk-through metal detectors. The entrance of The Met was sectioned off with chain link fences that had fake grass woven throughout the openings. It turned out to be a pop-up beer garden, and a DJ was spinning Emo/EDM remixes. Everyone either had a drink in hand or was chatting amongst themselves, bopping around. Despite the heatwave that was ripping through the city, the excitement of the night seemed to trump the thermostat reading 100 degrees.

Once I entered the venue, it was wall-to-wall with people every which way. I had about 10 minutes to kill before the night began, so I did what anyone would do, and I went to stand in line for merchandise. The line was wrapped around the staircase, overflowing onto the second floor of the venue. I overheard the couple behind me getting frantic because they were worried they’d miss Something Corporate because the line was “so long.” It really shouldn’t come as a shock, seeing as it’s been nearly 14 years since they went on tour. What makes it even wilder is that this was the first time in 20 years that all five of the original members were on the road together. We were definitely in store for a very special night. I myself have been waiting for this moment patiently since I was 14. A little longer wasn’t going to make a difference.

Something Corporate came on right after nine p.m., following their opener, Days Away, who had one hell of a set. Keeping the theme of indie rock for the evening, they got the crowd roaring to go and singing along to every song they played. It was my first time seeing them, but it was quite clear they have been doing this for a very long time. I was only able to catch the end of their set, but what I did catch was profound. Right before they played their last song, the lead singer said, “It’s kind of beautiful that you can write a piece of something and give it to the world,” and immediately after, everyone went crazy.

Once Days Away ended, it was finally time for something corporate. The music cut and the lights dimmed, and next thing you know, Andrew McMahon is skipping out onto the stage. He was dressed in a white button-down, black suspenders, and black dress pants, which completely suited the evening that was in store. The band immediately went into the song “Straw Dog” without anybody in the audience missing a beat with the lyrics.

Continuing the high energy of the night, they bang out “I Want to Save You” and “She Paints Me Blue,” with a mix of nostalgia and memories penetrating the air. There wasn’t a single person who wasn’t singing along with their eyes closed, getting transported to their formative years. There were 21 songs played that night, and the band left little time for pauses and transitions.

They played every hit, including “Punk Rock Princess.” During this song, Andrew went and grabbed his daughter, bringing her out on stage. They both sang it together and danced around the stage, e

ating up every moment. Ending that song on a strong note, Andrew jumped into the crowd and ran around singing to finish it off. Following it was “I Woke Up in A Car,” and that is when I believe I lost my voice. The last time I sang along this much, it was at Taylor Swift! The lights cut and all filed off.

A few moments later, after echos of “one more song” chants and screaming from the crowd, Andrew walks out on stage, walks to his piano, and takes a seat. At this point, everyone was losing it because there was still one song in particular that had yet to be played. The first key was hit, and the crowd started to sing in unison, “Konstantine.” It’s a seven-minute beautiful song, mainly on the piano, and seeing it live was out of this world. The emotions were swirling for everyone that was in the crowd that night. I swear I saw a girl crying in front of me. The second-to-last song that evening was a throwback of all throwbacks to close out the night, for real this time. It was none other than “If You See Jordan.”.

The synergy I saw that night on the stage between the bands is something that you don’t see often. It is quite clear that their brotherhood has weathered the seasons of life together. Which has transferred beautifully to the stage. Every single one of the members of Something Corporate was having the time of their life, and you could tell that. Everyone was feeling something on some level that night. In the middle of the evening, Andrew said to the crowd, “You can’t manufacture magic; you just have to try to put yourself on the path, and if goddamn, tonight wasn’t magic.” That’s exactly what this night was to not only them but to everyone in attendance.

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The Canadian indie-punk band, Knifey, shares their new single, “Savage,” from their forthcoming sophomore record, Sleepwalker. The track was inspired by the 1991 movie, Point Break, starring Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves.

Sonically, they made a nod to Point Break‘s surf themes “using reverb and tremolo on the lead guitar lines.” The big chorus invites the summer vibes to breakthrough.

Watch the music video below or stream the single via SoundCloud and connect with the band via the links below!

Connect with Knifey

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You can’t help admiring how Church Girls bring out the sunny side of whatever they do. Mariel Beaumont’s songs aren’t always themed around pleasant things, but she and this Philly crew clearly have enough fun making music together that it all comes out spunky and contagious. The hooks make sure there’s always something to grab the ears through this appetizing bite of lo-fi indie-folk-punk, and her vocal delivery even makes lines like “I’ll crash my plane into yours and we’ll go down together” sound as inviting as a picnic.

Whether these tunes are full of hard-chugging guitars or soaked in clouds of chiming reverb (or what the hell, sometimes both), there’s a melody to follow and probably a theme anyone can relate to their own life somewhere. The band isn’t opposed to tossing in a little horn or vibraphone for a dash of extra flavor. They spin personal angst into driving road tunes with the jangle-pop of “Just Like You” and the deceptively peppy title track, while “Dead Wood” makes a particularly sweet highlight midway through, grooving on bouncing bass and spring sunshine before the heavy fuzz kicks in again.

It inevitably feels over too soon – not just because Home caps off at a tidy 15 minutes, but because Church Girls clearly have more thoughts to sing and stories to share. Diving into their back catalog makes a good next step, and any more of these tasty morsels down the road will be most welcome.

Rating: Charming

Church Girls Upcoming Tour Dates

Find Church Girls on social media:

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photo credit: Charlie Lowe

by Ziggy Merritt

I have single-handedly altered the course of history. That’s what my insecure ego wants me to write and something I’ll return to later in this feature. Here’s a long-winded explanation: In my time with THAT MAG I’ve been able to interview some of my hometown heroes in the indie music scene.

Recently I had the chance to talk once again with James Alex, otherwise known as the public face and persona behind indie punk outfit Beach Slang and its acoustic offshoot, Quiet Slang before their tour stop at Underground Arts on July 14. We had previously chatted way back in 2015, not long before the release of his debut LP, The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us.

Three years, two albums, and a smattering of EPs later, Alex continues to make music that resonates with embittered teenagers, social outcasts, and consummate loners. He doles out extra helpings of angst with music that deserves nothing less than to be played loud and fast. But even with a now international audience attuned to his brand of distorted noise pop, Alex continues to make music with his friends in mind. “Music for us,” he writes.

On Alex’s latest tour, the loud and fast adjectives have been ejected. With his side project, Quiet Slang, the thrash and hazy feedback and distortion are sliced away. The emotional heft is channeled instead through the lens of stripped-down chamber pop, inspired by one part Stephin Merritt of Magnetic Fields fame and one part NPR.

“Stephin Merritt offered the spark and Tiny Desk offered the allowance,” wrote Alex on the inspiration behind the Quiet Slang project. In 2015, he made a solo, acoustic appearance on NPR’s popular Tiny Desk Concert series. Watching that same performance now, you have a grounded sense of what can be expected from his first proper Quiet Slang album, Everything Matters But No One is Listening.

“Inspiration and permission are fear-wreckers,” Alex continued. “After I had them, I lunged forward. I mean, I wasn’t nearly sure I could pull it off, but that wasn’t a concern. I’m a big chaser of unfamiliar things. It’s important to dream bigger, you know?”

He added, “Being allowed to fail is a gift. And I have that in spades. Look, none of this is particularly overthought. I just want to make records that feel honest to what I want to make, regardless of whether they‘re sensible or unpredictable or even accepted. I’m just not built with fake-it wiring. It has to rattle me. It has to scratch at me. When that feeling comes, I make songs and offer them to my friends. Whatever happens after that is whatever happens.”

Whether you attach punk or chamber beforehand, those same offerings bleed the blood of pop through and through. For Alex, this is intentional and perhaps the only rational way to make a record.

“The only thing I know how to write are pop songs,” Alex wrote, responding to how he has come to define pop and more specifically the self-described “chamber pop for outsiders” descriptor he labeled his Quiet Slang debut.

“They’re buried in distortion and knee-jerking, but they’re unapologetically pop. As a kid, I was clubbed with way too many Beatles and Beach Boys records for it not to stick. So, that part of the description is the easy part. The chamber part, that’s the lavish bits. This is trickier,” He explains, then continues, “For me, rock & roll is guitars, drums, and swagger — plug in, turn up and go, no rules and devil-may-care. Searing the more well-dressed instruments into the thing takes real nerve. It takes cellos with guts, pianos with brass knuckles. It’s like lining the gutter with flowers. And I dig that. The ‘for outsiders’ bit is for me and all my friends who’ve only ever felt worthless and forgotten. We aren’t. We never were. And these songs are for us.”

Following this, I wanted to take it back to the song (“Filthy Luck”) that originally made me more fan than a purely objective reviewer. Adapted from the brash and breathtaking original, it still packs the same dynamic punch now with the accompaniment of lush strings acting as the Greek chorus for Alex’s unfiltered delivery.

“It was the first song I wrote for Beach Slang so I knew I wanted to have it on the quiet record,” wrote Alex. “Reworking it started as a joke. For no interesting reason, maybe self-entertaining, I sat at the piano and banged those first three chords in this exaggerated Beethoven kind of way. I stopped right after and was like, ‘F*#k, that actually sounds pretty alright.’ Accidental composing or something, you know?” He explained. “After that, I knew a rewrite could work. I plucked out the keeper guitar parts I’d written for the loud versions, cut them on piano and cello, and then built the fuller arrangements on top of those with Keith (piano) and Dan (cello). I read this thing about the recording of ‘Astral Weeks’ and wanted to chase that idea — maybe not as purely improvisational as those sessions, but at least a half-thought-out and half-in-the-moment approach. And that helped crack the whole idea of this open.”

As with the seminal Van Morrison album that Alex references here, his LP-length debut as Quiet Slang required more thought and feeling for what may be reductive to boil down to a covers album. After all, with No One is Listening, Alex is covering himself not someone else. There’s so much more at stake to get right not even accounting for keeping the integrity of the original tracks alive and well. With much of his attention focused on the all-too-ambiguous goal of “getting it right” this made me naturally curious for what the future held for both Quiet Slang and Beach Slang.

“I hope to have the chance to make more Quiet Slang recordings. Like, really hope,” wrote Alex when questioned about the future of both projects. “I‘ve been so messed up on, ‘Will anyone even care about this?’ that I haven’t really looked too far forward,” He admits.

“But then this tour happens and starts to show me that maybe some people care a whole lot. It’s humbling and melting. I mean, this whole process pushed me along as a writer, forced me to think in really left-field ways. I needed that. And, yes, the idea is to definitely include original, non-Beach Slang songs. Rewrites were the right first step, but I think I’m ready to test my luck a bit more. Right now, the plan is to get home from the Quiet Slang tour and pretty much go right into pre-production for the new Beach Slang record. I have it all home-demoed and am chomping to start making it. Once I sack that thing properly, I’m guessing I’ll be itching for cellos again.”

Alex appears to remain optimistic that the future of his loud and quiet sides will continue to be productive. It’s encouraging news for those wondering when, or if, Alex would resume work on new Beach Slang material. It’s also a boon for people, such as myself, that appreciate the output from both projects.

Very near the start of this feature I mentioned a little something about how I changed the course of human history. Now, while I’m not vain enough to believe that I actually changed the course of history for a well-known indie band, I at least like to entertain the fantasy. It began by asking whether or not two halves, Beach Slang and Quiet Slang, would ever merge into a single, unified project.

“It’s interesting you mention this,” wrote Alex. “Charlie and I were talking about this same idea the other night in Minneapolis — a split 7″ of Slangs. I think there’s something to it. Even more so now that someone outside of my head thought to think it.”

When I first read this, I had this purely smug, self-satisfied reaction that perhaps I had acted as a catalyst for some future creative endeavor. That remains to be determined.

Returning the focus to James, I was curious enough to follow up on the threads of our previous interview some three years ago. Back then we discussed some of his graphic design work for the cover art on his albums and his interest in vintage photography, some shared via Beach Slang’s own Tumblr page. Had his own design aesthetic continued to, in some way, influence the direction of the band?

“In this tiny, weirdo bubble called Beach Slang, music and design are all-the-way stuck with each other,” Alex wrote in reply. “They were born into that way and are both stronger because of the other’s influence. It’s difficult, I suppose, to clearly define how the relationship works, but maybe it’s as simple as when you see something that rattles you, that makes your heart notice, you feel compelled to make something in return, like writing a love letter and really meaning it. Influence and inspiration don’t deserve to go unrequited.”

Like the interlinked nature of music and design, Alex has never strayed far from his roots here in Philadelphia. The War on Drugs, Japanese Breakfast, and even his own band have all garnered more than a fair share of exposure along with a bevy of others in just three short years. Those three years have been tumultuous, chaotic, even downright fucking frightening, but our own burgeoning and evolving music scene have scarcely wavered in its fervor and intensity. James has a way of putting that all into perspective.

“I think the thing I dig the most is the blue-collar-ness of it,” wrote Alex. “It’s a wrecking ground. It isn’t pretty or perfect and doesn’t want to be. It has dirt under its nails and bruises on its cheeks. It means it — every bit of it. And that’s all rock & roll has ever asked of us. If it’s changed, I haven’t noticed. But I look down a whole lot.”

Watch the latest music video for Beach Slang‘s “Dirty Cigarettes” below and follow the links to find more out about Beach Slang / Quiet Slang.

Website • Twitter • Facebook • Bandcamp

For a few years now the voice of Felicia Lobo has led the Brooklyn-based four-piece QWAM in shouting their way through waves of self-important hipsters, all the while, soundtracked by the hiss of amplified feedback. On their latest effort, Feed Me, they tap into a deep well of adrenaline that rips apart this demographic with aggressive percussion and guitar. They make few stops across the five tracks that make up this EP, settling into a blistering pace that wraps up in just under 15 minutes. It’s an auspicious start to the new year with the band taking things carefully enough to craft a record that is packed with anthemic punk and an attitude that rejects pretension in favor of playful lyricism.

Take the title track, which at one point takes you on a trip through an interlude comprised of nothing more than people rapturously listing off foods you might snack on after chugging away at a giant blunt. The before and after of this is filled in with an all too familiar stretch of alt-rock angst ripped straight out of the 90s. That same angst could easily be levied against the album’s better intentions to be a fun diversion from taking things too seriously. For some, it may be overstated, even overwhelming if you’re not invested in their brand of playful punk.

Meanwhile, the lead single from the EP, “Doggie Door”, emerges as the best of their offerings with the slower burn of the closer “Dirty Feet” butting heads to try and claim that #1 spot. QWAM, however, is at their best when they play fast and loud, something you get in abundance with “Doggie Door.” Throughout this EP, yet rendered here in its most raw form, Lobo’s distinct sneer takes a stance against your commonplace urbanite obsessed with Whole Foods and beard wax. This is done without being disingenuous or untrue to their audience. Whether that audience is comprised of strung-out partiers or frenzied punks, QWAM just wants you to get over yourself and dance.

You can purchase the EP through their Bandcamp and their next show is January 24th, 2018 at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, NY.

Rating: Listenable