by Teyquil Skelton

In a dark, dim room, a crowd emerged for Nashville’s own Future Thieves to get a dose of their infectious, melodic, soulful, and indie sound, which was well-delivered at Boot & Saddle last night. The standing areas became quite a necessity as the band played on, people guarded spaces in fear of possibly missing something. The crowd held their ground, as they fed on the band’s energy, catchy tunes and driven rhythms led by the instruments displayed during the band’s 50-minute set.

The band has had countless amazing moments throughout their career with opportunities at hand that most artists don’t get. For instance, they’ve performed at Summerfest, SXSW, Live on the Green and Bonnaroo to name a few.

It was a magnificent ride of emotions, as the band took us on a journey of melody filled with love, heartache, uncertainty, and discovery. Some songs were slow, upbeat, and mid-tempo but yet, possessed a sense of togetherness as everyone moved in-sync with one another to the music. I had the opportunity to speak with frontman Elliot Collett, to get his thoughts on the band and their growth over the years as they transitioned from a more rooted sound that was rock n’ roll influenced to a more organic indie pop approach culminated with bits of synthesized and digital structures that changed their style indefinitely. Future Thieves’ 2015 album, Horizon Line, was more guitar-heavy and in your face with grit and forwarding instruments that demanded your attention as the record spewed all over your turntable from start to finish.

Now, in 2019, Future Thieves has activated that organic experiment and placed the elements of the exploration into the new songs created on the new upcoming LP. The first single up to bat is a song called “My Body” which is supported by rich guitars, a percussive groove, along with a six-string solo and a danceable melody that’s quite irresistible to ignore. I’m sure as the band expands with more performance opportunities and appearances, the music will immediately follow too. Future Thieves is the band to keep an eye out for. The music speaks for itself but to see these fellas perform live is something else that’s far from whatever norm formality you may be accustomed to, musically.

Stay in the know with what the band is doing on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

It’s a matter of fact that some bands bring their absolute best to a live performance. Their efforts in the studio remain a fixed point in time, a snapshot of something polished to a mirror sheen. Without waxing too much with the poetics, the return of Jacksonville natives, Black Kids to not just Philly but to the world at large is a welcome return to form. Riding on the high of their sophomore album after a scant 8-year gap between their last release (2009’s digital-only EP, Cemetery Lips) the 5-piece fronted by the jaunty vocals of Reggie Youngblood made their debut at the Boot and Saddle alongside the transcontinental duo known as Surf Rock is Dead.

SRiD has so far fed the public with a steady stream of propulsive singles and EPs since 2014. Distortion heavy and able to coax out their own signature brand of pop from a host of other hazy jangle junkies, their set hit all the high points of a brief yet heavy-hitting catalog. Starting with what may be their most well-known track, “Never Be the Same” and following from there with cuts from their latest We Have No Friends EP including “As If” and “White Salsa,” not even technical difficulties arising from Joel Wittenberg’s bass could hope to mar the evening.

This set up Black Kids to hit the floor buoyed by that momentum. Starting with “Hit the Heartbrakes” and pulsing through their regular set that ended with “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You” there came the steady realization that this is one of those select few bands that you must see live. The true test is ripping through their two full-lengths and having a sense that their presence, their pure energy informs so much of their performance. Whether that be Reggie dancing and swearing in their performance of the jazzy oddity that is “Obligatory Drugs” or the breakneck speed of the chorus on “Look At Me (When I Rock Wichoo)” there’s something almost undefinable lost in translation when digitized or pressed to vinyl. This is not to say their record do not hold a candle to their performance. Capturing bits and pieces of new wave, jazz, R&B, and pop punk, both Partie Traumatic, and Rookie gift the band a uniquely spirited sonic legacy. Also, they have their own branded coloring books at the merch table. You’re missing out.

Friday night was a welcome return for the Van Pelt, a band that 20 years ago was just as hard to define as they are today. Their two original albums, Stealing from Our Favorite Thieves and Sultans of Sentiments were veritable preambles to the progression of anything from emo to post-rock through the late 90s and early 00s. Two decades and a third album of previously unreleased music later (2014’s Imaginary Third) the band is no less vital. With the conversational vocals of Chris Leo guiding the way through a blur of downtempo distortion, their set capped off a humid evening with stimulating excitement.

photo credit Ziggy Merritt

Opening up, Magic Deal began the evening with a barrage of bass licks and winding solos that surprised many who were immediately drawn toward the front of the stage barely 30 seconds into their set. A blend of blues, hard rock, and punk defined their presence onstage, but the formation of an identity is still in the works. Barely a year old, the seasoned and gifted three-piece shared a few moments of technical awkwardness, but otherwise managed to stir and excite a crowd that didn’t know what to expect.

photo credit Ziggy Merritt

As the second three-piece of the night, the members of Amanda X have always maintained a consistent level of distorted punk glee since their debut in 2012 with the excellent Ruin the Moment EP. With a DIY spirit at heart, their music can be at one moment uplifting and the next introspective and aggressive. Their set captured those same moments of giddiness and frustration, the latter perhaps sharpened in the current political heat. Responding to that heat, their vocal commitment toward donating the proceeds of the forthcoming Giant LP to Women Against Abuse only emboldens their genuine selflessness.

photo credit Ziggy Merritt

Starting with perhaps their most well-known track “Nanzen Kills A Cat,” Van Pelt opened up strong and rarely let the momentum fall off throughout the length of their set. A healthy mix of their robust work proceeded with a personal favorite in the more minimal yet wonderfully emotive “Do the Lovers Still Meet at the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial?” Whether they’re post- this or that, the current lineup of the Van Pelt are humble at heart, outwardly sharing genuine excitement at being able to express their brief yet impactful catalog of tunes once again.

Since I live in Seattle I don’t get to review shows in Philadelphia much but this past Friday night I had the pleasure of seeing Jay Som and The Courtneys co-headline at Boot and Saddle. I unfortunately missed the openers, Little Junior, but was told they were really good and now I am curious to check them out. It was sold out! I have never seen Boot and Saddle so packed; the audience was super engaged.

Rain and traffic made me late to the show, but I got in as Jay Som was starting his set; I was already blown away by the sound. Hearing 22-year-old Melina Duterte’s vibrant, spaceful melodies swirling inside my ears whisked me away to an astral plane. The song “Baybee” had fierce bass hooks and the last song of the set, “Lipstick Stains”, made me have the feels as lyrics took hold of my heart. This Bay Area song bird released debut album, Everybody Works, early this past month on Polyvinyl.

From the first note The Courtneys strummed I was dancing with their hypnotizing melodies. They made me feel like I should be on the beach watching the waves. This Vancouver-based lo-fi, jangly punk band has been on tour the past few weeks with Jay Som and recently signed with Flying Nun Records who released their second album, The Courtneys II. They opened with the album’s first track, “Silver Velvet” and continued to play almost the entire new album in order (though that left me feeling a bit bored). The song “Lost Boys” was my favorite song because it is about vampires and is an ode to Kiefer Southerland’s character in the movie Lost Boys.

Sometimes having two different genre bands on the same bill can be a refreshing combination; these two bands compliment each others’ sounds. I had a lot of fun seeing this show and recommend taking a listen to both. Try to catch them before the tour is over in a couple of week.

Press Pic, Credit to Andrew Volk

Having received considerable coverage from the likes of BrooklynVegan, Pitchfork, and NPR, the trio of sunshine pop connoisseurs known as the Courtneys have enjoyed an upswell of success that comes on the heels of their lauded sophomore effort II. The string of undeniably infectious singles that album produced (“Tour”,”Minnesota”, and “Silver Velvet”) only solidify their uncanny ability to structure hooks that almost force you to pay attention to them. Bassist Sydney Koke was able to give some insight into that process as well as the album as a whole while on their current North American tour with like-minded artist, Jay Som.

“I think the trick is to try to find the simplest way to contrast different musical components in an unexpected way,” says Koke on the topic of creating a great hook. “We spend a lot of time structuring the songs so that they have an element of suspense and don’t feel too repetitive. One of my favorite strategies is to look for mistakes that we make when we are just jamming in the early stages of the song, because mistakes can sound amazing and take the part of the song in an unexpected direction.”  

That same DIY aesthetic that places emphasis on improvisation and experimentation has stuck with them since their start in 2012 as well as their self-titled debut which produced its own acclaim with the inspirational, lo-fi jam “90210.” The four years separating both full-length albums allowed them ample time to grow and expand on their sound, resulting in an LP filled with rambunctious attitude and adrenaline. The first track off of II, “Silver Velvet” neatly encapsulates the appeal with Koke offering a few words on its creation.

“As with most of our songs, we started by jamming out the basic structure, and then making recordings so that Jen [Twynn Payne] could go home and work on the vocals. Similarly, as with most of our songs, it’s about a crush.”

Crushes, heartbreak, and touring often figure prominently in their lyrics as deceptively simple components that accentuate a sound difficult to box into any one genre. Elements of ’90s punk, shoegaze, and fuzzy garage rock all float around. But Koke’s own insightful terming of their sound as “artisanal grunge” works just fine. “We think it describes us well,” she adds.  

Sydney Koke and the rest of the Courtneys are excited to stop by Boot and Saddle this Friday, March 31st, alongside Jay Som who is touring with their own recent release Everybody Works. “We ended up touring with Jay Som by chance and are so glad, because they are the coolest people,” says Koke with a final word on the tour.

Before the show, check out their video for “Silver Velvet” below.

photo by Dailey Toliver

Capturing love in song is one of the more elemental things about the continuum of music through the ages. It can be divine or personal but all forms of the love song offer something relatable. It helps the songwriter connect to their audience through the ups and downs and plateaus that are so becoming of all romantic partnerships. For Austin transplant Molly Burch, her debut is a window into the past few years of heartbreak and rekindling.

Taking elements of vintage pop and soul, the album in question, Please Be Mine also marks Burch’s first opportunity to take her wistful love songs on tour, supporting Tim Darcy and Sallie Ford on two separate legs in March and April respectively. Before making her debut tonight at Boot and Saddle (and visiting our city again on April 13th at Johnny Brenda’s), I had the chance to speak to Burch about her debut, what inspired it, as well as how her own songwriting has offered closure and renewal.

“When I wrote the album and recorded it I wasn’t signed yet,” she says on eventually getting signed to her label Captured Tracks. “But I started writing it in 2013 when I moved to Austin. I had just moved from North Carolina and moved by myself on a whim. That’s when I started writing the album and then we recorded about a year ago. We just sent [Captured Tracks] a cold demo submission and they signed me and wanted to put out the record basically as is.

“I had just sent it to friends and anyone who I felt who would give me good advice on the album,” Burch continues. “I had planned on sending it to labels and I didn’t know too much about that process.”

Thanks to her friend Jared, a member of the Austin-based psych-rock quartet the Zoltars, that process was simplified, giving her the advice to send the demo out to Captured Tracks. “They got back to me in a day,” she says. “It was very early on and I didn’t really send it to too many places. It was very fast.”

With two separate tours booked so far in 2017, things are on track to move even faster. Owing to that pace is Burch’s own tenacity and resilience. “I’ve always been a singer, songwriting came later,” she explains. “So for this whole record, I mean…I’m always learning and growing and of course everyone is, but there wasn’t much experimenting probably since I moved here. I write for my voice.”

That voice gifts her debut with an undeniable authenticity. She writes and sings from experience, developing the vocals that feel both natural and nuanced. “When I was younger my voice sort of leaned towards more pop music,” she says, recalling how she found her voice in the most literal sense. “I listened to a lot of Christina Aguilera and I grew up with American Idol. I feel I was too much like that. Then when I was in college I was studying jazz and it was almost like too much in that spectrum so I feel like I’ve sort of fused the two in a way where I feel like it has both of those elements. A jazz sound but with a pop mentality.”

This mentality trickles down into the doo-wop textures of Please Be Mine, some of the improvisational nature of which is utilized in her track “Please Forgive Me.” “It was one of the first songs I wrote for the album,” she says. “I think it was the second song. I wrote it on a ukulele, it was a very simple progression. I definitely wanted it to have a sort-of doo-wop vibe. That’s one’s about having such a young love and finding somebody else but then realizing you made a mistake and wanting that person back.”

Love and want are central to Burch’s recent songwriting. Healing heartbreak through her own music has inlaid a sweet if maudlin vibe that digs deep into relatable aspects of any long-term relationship. “The act of singing has always been a very therapeutic thing for me,” she explains, on writing to heal. “It just always makes me feel better. Specifically referring to the album, I went through a breakup right before I moved here. It was my first real time writing songs basically. I was dealing with breaking up and I wrote a lot of the songs like the title track when I moved here. That felt very cathartic.”

But the singer rejects the identity of her debut as a “breakup album.” After all such labels are reductive. “Since moving here, the guy I broke up with, we got back together,” she says referencing her bandmate Dailey Toliver. “A lot of the songs are inspired by reuniting with him. I feel like that in itself is very therapeutic for both of us in a way and learning how to work together.”

I, of course, couldn’t help but admit the inherent awkwardness that might arise from being partly the subject of an album while at the same time playing together on tour. “There’s never awkwardness,” she admits with a laugh. “He’s extremely supportive. We didn’t play with each other when we lived in Asheville. I feel like that was something we had to work up to.”

Molly Burch will open for Tim Darcy at the Boot and Saddle tonight, in addition to opening for Sallie Ford at Johnny Brenda’s on April 13th. Check out the video for her single “Downhearted” below.

Since 2011 the name Jamie Isaac has steadily been gathering clout among contemporaries of his age who have dabbled in the post-dubstep era popularized in part by artists such as James Blake and Nosaj Thing. Not content to follow in their exact slipstream, the London-based artist infuses his songwriting with layers of ambient jazz that add color to the often darkly romantic urban landscapes he depicts. Such elements were explored in detail on his debut album, Couch Baby released in the summer of 2016.

But in 2017, those talents cross the Atlantic to debut in the United States for the first time, with a stop at Boot and Saddle kicking off a mini-tour that ends with an appearance at SXSW in mid-March. In the leadup to his debut here I had the opportunity to talk with Isaac about the recent tour as well as Couch Baby Revisited, a remixed version of his album done with friends and collaborators in North America such as Allan Kingdom and Sporting Life.

“I kind of just got told it was going to happen,” he says in response to hearing that a tour of the U.S. was being put together. “It’s always one of those things, especially if you’re a British artist, it’s always something that crosses your mind, y’know? Go to the U.S., have a tour. It’s quite a romantic idea. It was such great news when I first heard it and it kind of took me back a bit.”

If anything, Isaac’s proper debut in the states is a chance to experience the rhythms of the unfamiliar, having not been back to visit North America since his childhood. “It’s weird especially when you’re from an English-speaking country going to another English-speaking country and seeing how their culture is completely different,” he says. “I haven’t been to the U.S. since I was a kid. There’s so much that’s happening in the U.S. at the moment between artistically and politically. I’m just kind of interested in how people are moved and do move physically to the music and how you move them. There’s so many different elements.”

The opportunity of a tour naturally invited reinvention for a debut steadily approaching its one year anniversary. In that pursuit a re-release of the album featuring remixes from friends and label-mates was created and recently kicked off with a surprise cover of Alicia Keys’ “Un-thinkable.”

“I always thought it was sung so amazingly, there’s so much feeling,” he says in making this cover. “If I am going to do a cover of a song, I want it to be a simple song. I don’t want it to be something that, if I covered it, it would be automatically judged. I want it to be something that could flow warmly and would compliment the sound I already have.”

But the idea for this had been gestating for quite some time as he revealed. “I think I had been thinking of making a cover of this song for so long that I already knew exactly how I was going to do it. I was going to strip it back, make it more vocal percussion and make it quite sparse,” he says. “When it actually got to the point of making it, it happened in, like, a day. It’s more like a midway of me adapting to her sound: trying to take that song down to a level that people who enjoy my music would be able to relate.”

Likewise with Couch Baby Revisited these remixes are a chance for others to strip back and reconfigure his own music into something just as relatable and exciting as the original. “It’s a bunch of remixes with people that I’m really fond of and people that I actually know,” he says on the album. “If I was going to do a U.S. release of the album I wanted it to be supported by people that liked the music and supported by U.S. artists that I liked also. In the eight months since the album came out I’ve been thinking about how the hell I’m going to approach another album so it was kind of nice to take a step back and almost give the music over to my friends and say ‘hey run with this, see if you wanna add something to it’ and I think it’s really added something that i couldn’t have done by myself.”

Jamie Isaac performs at Boot and Saddle on March 2nd with openers Olukara and JUSTPROCESS. Check out the video for the remix of his track Last Drip featuring Rejjie Snow just below.

The mood inside the Boot & Saddle was profound. Blurbs of conversation broke up the otherwise silent room, as eyes were focused on the dark-red lit stage—Suuns, gloomy noise-rock auteurs hailing from Montreal, were preparing their instruments for their next song.

Outside it was cold to the bone.  It was Friday night, but South Broad Street felt drowsy and subdued. Boot & Saddle is the city’s most down-to-earth music venue, featuring a wide range of off-kilter sonic flavors: from local punk bands and singer-songwriters, to indie rock standbys that can quickly sell-out due to limited standing room.  The bustling pace of the bar, matched with the warm ambiance, provides a cozy and amicable space ideal for what often feels like a slightly more relaxed and personal performance.

The evening’s opener, Moon Bounce, the pseudonym for Philadelphia local electronic artist Corey Regensburn, didn’t leave the room in a state of religious-like ecstasy, but he delivered a nonetheless entertaining set.

Regensburn blasts together vibrant particles of beats sampled from a wide range of sources—it’s infectiously quirky and outlandish, resembling both Animal Collective’s freak-out psych-pop experiments, as well an R&B undercurrent that was hard to put a finger on.  It would pair well with a UFO sighting-themed rave, if such an oddball even existed. His stage antics were also quite amusing.  Granted, when he approached the stage there were only five people in the room.  He jokingly remarked, “wow…didn’t expect to see so many show up.” He proceeded to peel off his heavy winter coat, rhetorically pondering, “is it derobing or disrobing?” He quickly settled the debate adding, “I’m just going to unrobe.”

As Moon Bounce finished up, the crowd began to grow. Suuns are a serious band that set the tone when they take the stage. There isn’t an elaborate stage crew at the Boot & Saddle so it’s not unusual for the band to set up themselves.  Situated next two me were two avid Suuns fans that had driven five hours that evening to see them perform.  They were jittering with anticipation.  I knew I was in for a treat.

When Suuns broke into “2020”, perhaps their best-known tune, the crowd cheered with exhilaration.  One of the Pittsburgh visitors even blurted out “thank God I got to hear this once in my life, I can die happy now.”

At some point during the set it became apparent that lead guitarist/bassist Joe Yarmush was experiencing an equipment malfunction. A blown amplifier fuse.  The bulkishly-built figure, whose dangling strands of dark hair dramatically obscure his face when he performs, clutched a can of beer from the floor and silently strode off to the far right side of the stage, hunching down into a squatting position.  It was a primitive pose.

The dark-red lit stage—the primeval music—the astutely focused audience.  Everything jived.
A technician gently maneuvered through the dense crowd, hauling a replacement Fender amp—Yarmush automatically stood back up once it was plugged in, and ventured back to the front of the stage.

“Just electronics,” he quipped. The audience understood.  The room was still impeccably quiet.

Wiry-framed lead-singer/guitarist Ben Shemie assertively spoke into the microphone: “resist.”

10 seconds or so passed and then again: “resist.”

A scraggly guitar hook was thrown in to accompany the montra as the tempo gradually increased tempo, “resist…resist…resist.”  The rest of the band jumped into a mesmerizing rendition of the aptly-titled tune “Resistance”, featured on their 3^rdfull-length album Hold/Still, released this past April via Secretly Canadian.  I had listened to the track several times prior to the show, but live Suuns executed the song even more exquisitely than the recording.

After that song Shermie announced that all proceeds from merch sales that evening would be donated to the ACLU.  The audience enthusiastically cheered approvingly.

The audience was completely enveloped in Suuns potent mosaic of dark ambiance and pulsating bass lines—music full of juxtaposition: from mellow guitar segments and lush synths, to aggressive drum beats and visceral streaks of metallic machinery.

Suuns gave a stunning performance that left the audience speechless.

For the past six years, Tom Krell, the figure behind the seductive ambient soundscapes of How to Dress Well has delivered up a brand of ambitious if unpredictable pop that revels in the rawness of love be it physical or emotional. That ambition has so far produced four albums, each one dynamic in how they represent matters of the heart. For his latest, Care, that love is more central to the success of that album. That love is self-love. Just before his latest appearance in Philadelphia at Boot and Saddle we spoke about the drive behind the album and the accompanying tour.

Between the exuberant pop and soulful R&B on full display through Krell’s smooth yet nuanced vocals, one of the album’s brightest lights comes in the emotional epic that is “Salt Song.”  “I had a dream that I was a very old man and I went into this house,” says Krell on the inspiration behind the song. “Almost like an LA mansion house, and it was super austere and empty. But it didn’t feel abandoned. I went into one of the rooms and there was this little boy, a four-year old, sitting in a bed of flowers. I was like who are you? ‘My name’s Tom.’ And I’m like my name’s Tom. ‘Yeah we have the same name I’m just a little bit smaller than you.’ Then he proceeded to tell me in fractured, adorable little kid speak all these quote-on-quote secrets.”

Awakening from that dream, Krell felt despondent. But as he continued on, that loss drove him to reinvention. “I went back to a song that I was writing that day and I was like I gotta put this in that song,” he continues. “And I had already sung about how I wanted to fill my house with light and flowers and things that grow. It started to feel like it was connected. It’s the shit that you live for as an artist.”

The track itself is in part a conversation with that same little boy from his dream, one that eventually ends in a commitment to Krell’s own development as not just an artist but a human being: “But as I touched my face felt so alive and felt so strong/That little me in my dream; what he meant not sure I’ll ever know/But with everything that I sing I wanna honor him and help him grow.” There’s a sense here and throughout the whole of the album that this next step in his career is one of healing, acceptance, and growth.

“It’s something I realized I was doing with the record that I really fell in love with,” Krell explains on the concept of the album. Over the course of the verses as I learned things, the choruses changed. There’s still a refrain melodically but the words change because I’m learning through the process that you’re in the laboratory of my self-development, my self-care.”

Throughout the interview it was hard not to notice Krell’s genuine excitement over this album and perhaps moreso this latest tour. “Everything we’ve done on this tour is a complete new translation of songs from all of my records,” he says. “We’re even doing ‘Suicide Dream 1’ from Love Remains, but we’re doing it with crazy guitar and violin.”

Like the album, this tour sees Krell reviving his already robust back catalog but instilling past and present with the same inspired fervor. “Even some of the songs from the new record, some of them get a real different flip in the live context,” he continues. “‘Salt Song’ is amazing live. It feels like one of those songs that you can get lost in live. We brought ‘& It Was You’ back out and rearranged it so the whole middle section is literally a dance party.”

Catch How to Dress Well at Boot and Saddle tonight- Saturday, October 1st- at Boot and Saddle along with opener Ex Reyes. Meanwhile check out the video for “Lost Youth/Lost You” just below.

VÉRITÉ Photo by Chad Kamenshine

Kelsey Byrne is pretty well known as VÉRITÉ these days, and this alt-pop singer/songwriter curated quite a playlist for us just now. She hails from Brooklyn and made her way in the music scene just a few short years ago. If you don’t know much about VÉRITÉ yet, it’s time to get acquainted.

This lovely gal is about to kick ass in Philadelphia tonight. Whether you’re pumped for the show, or bummed because you have other plans, you can feel like she’s with you in spirit by taking a listen to a custom playlist VÉRITÉ created just for us at That Mag. The list includes songs by Aesop Rock, Childish Gambino, Radiohead, Drake and 11 more. The hour long collection is well worth your time, and you can view it here via Spotify.

Catch her tonight at Boot and Saddle with Lostboycrow. She’ll also be on tour for the rest of the month:

5/16       Philadelphia, PA @ Boot & Saddle
5/18       New York, NYC @ Baby’s All Right
5/19       Boston, MA @ Great Scott
5/20       Montreal, QC @ Le Divan Orange
5/21       Toronto, ON @ Drake Hotel
5/23       Chicago, IL @ Schubas Tavern
5/25       Minneapolis, MN @ 7^th St Entry
5/28       Seattle, WA @ Barboza
5/29       Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
5/31       San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
6/2         Los Angeles, CA @ Echo