Chicago Rock and Roll Duo Local H, best known for their 1996 hit Bound for the Floor, will play Mojo Main in Newark, Delaware on Wednesday April 18th. Local H have six full length albums with a seventh due later this year. The band is well known for their high energy shows and rabid fan base. This will be their first ever show in Delaware.
Tickets are $12 for the 18-Plus show, and go on-sale this Friday, February 3rd at 10 a.m.
All month Fantasy Square Garden and their lead singer/songwriter David Cope (aka Davey Cope) have been holding court on Tuesday nights at The Fire. If you have never seen Fantasy Square Garden before, please do yourself the favor and stop in. They are a hidden treasure in the city that consistently play to large audiences with little or no press recognition. Experience them now before they move well beyond the small club scene.
Fantasy Square Garden are lead by songwriter David Cope. David describes his influences as coming from ”the 60s, the 70s, not so much the 80s, maybe a little of the 90s, not so much from now…and John Lennon, Paul McCartney and John Lennon“. Live the band has more in common with Jefferson Airplane, The Mamas & The Papas and even Big Brother And The Holding Company thanks to the wailing Joplin-esque vocals of Alison Wadsworth. They really are a treat to see if you have never experienced them before…and really have the potential of being huge in the XPN audience, Jam world and Indie Rock Scene.
David is a very prolific song writer and has enjoyed meetings with the Capitol Records brass, come oh-so close to landing a deal for Bonnie Raitt to record one of his tracks, released a Christmas tune this year with his project LeBon LeBon (self described as a Novelty New Wave band) dedicated to Megan Fox, and continues to work on his solo material which he refers to as more “balls to the wall” drawing influence from bands like Free and Bad Company.
His band not only features Alison Wadsworth, but her sister Claire on organ, keys and vocals. Claire is a graduate of the Berklee School of Music and her skills are needed to keep up with the David Cope on guitar…who not only is an amazing songwriter, but can solo on guitar channeling Clapton, Harrison and other greats. Demian Mason (Unlikely Cowboy, LeBon LeBon) on bass and Kevin Killen (Chris Kasper, Wissahickon Chicken Shack and Joe D’Amico among others) round out the band.
As we approach the 10th Anniversary of TRIC TOWN (coming in April), we embrace our new format, alternating months between Wilmington and Newark, Mojo 13 and Mojo Main. We start 2012 in Newark, at Mojo Main with four great acts that blend classic Americana, Folk and Country with the new vibe of Alternative and Indie Rock.
Headline duties fall on Newark, Delaware’s BATTLESHY YOUTHS. Playing in the area since 2009, their debut album was released early in 2011. The music is focused on the songwriting of Michael Natrin and fleshed out by the mandolin, banjo and guitar work of Mitchell Ebbott. This will be their first Tric Town performance.
NEW SWEDENsits nicely in the third slot on the night, and will be welcomed back for their third performance at the Tric Town series having previously played two shows in 2010, including the 8th Anniversary show. 2011 was a busy year for the Indie Folk / Americana quintet, having released both the raw EP “Lovers Lane” and the slick full length “The Mountain”, as well as opening shows for The Felice Brothers, Kevin Devine and James McMurtry…and breaking into the Philadelphia scene playing shows at The World Cafe, The North Star Bar, Milkboy Coffee and The Fire.
Philadelphia based THE NORTHEAST actually share some history with New Sweden. The Northeast guitarist/vocalist Brian Maduskuie and New Sweden’s Jimmy Dukenfield we part of the short lived Delaware Progressive Alt Rock, Muse-esque band The Autumn Affair. (TAA played Tric Town in September of 2007). Having digressed a bit…The Northeast have a sound very similar to New Sweden, but are unique in their own right, focusing a little more on electric instrumentation and textured melodies, almost closer to Son Volt or Whiskeytown compared to New Sweden’s more acoustic and vocal approach.
South Jersey’s BLACK HORSE MOTEL open the night in their first ever Tric Town and Newark, Delaware debut. If The Northeast are the cousin of New Sweden, Black Horse Motel are their younger siblings. Amazing songwriting and musicianship have helped these young upstarts gain attention in Philadelphia and beyond. A pairing at the North Star Bar’s Victorian Dining Room Series in the spring of 2011 has led to a friendship between the two that includes show swapping and stage sharing, joining each other for the others songs onstage, weather at The North Star Bar, The Baby Grand…or lets hope, Mojo Main.
Saturday’s show starts at 9pm, there is a $6 cover and its ages 18 and up.
We are just two days away from Chicago’s SMOKING POPES playing at the North Star Bar on New Year’s Eve! You will get Born To Quit in its Entirety at Midnight, plus the greatest hits from the band, to go along with your free champagne at midnight and opening sets by Aspiga and Luther. Read more about The Popes here.
On December 22nd 2002, 9 years ago, Joe Strummer passed away from a fatal heart attack while shoveling snow…and in that moment the world lost one of its greatest song writing treasures…a man easily on par with Dylan, Springsteen and Guthrie. His music was that of a revolution, that of a new generation, that of legend. And in the days following his death his family and friends established Strummerville, a not for profit organization that gives opportunities for people to make music who might not otherwise have those opportunities, funding projects that change the world through music.
Thursday night Sunny Day Music will host a Tribute to Joe Strummer, a Benefit for Strummerville at the North Star Bar. 100% of the door proceeds will be donated to Strummerville. There is a $10 cover at the door and the event is for those 21 and over. Eight local bands will perform the music of Joe Strummer, The Clash, The 101ers and The Mescaleros. Artists scheduled to perform include The Future Unwritten, Mean Streets, Taggart, Scarier Area, Lust2Love, Successful Failures, Tonight We Strike and Leland Plumridge (of First Capital Funk).
On Thursday, December 1st, heavy metal band, Saviours will be taking the stage at North Star Bar. The band was formed in September of 2004 in Oakland, California. In 2011, Saviours released their fourth full-length album, Death’s Procession. According to revolvermag.com, the new album is “such an album, lumbering forward with strung-out brilliance and bleary-eyed might. Classic heavy-metal thunder, dedicated swagger, and almost-crisp production make this record a triumph”. This is stoner/progressive metal for fans of Motorhead to Maiden to Sabbath to everyone in between.
Check out video of Saviours from 2007 at the Luna Lounge in New York for CMJ -
Supporting Saviours are Ramming Speed, Fight Amp, Mose Giganticus, and Bad Dream. Ramming Speed, from Boston, Massachusetts, has been on the road since 2005. They have released one full length album, influenced “heavily by d-beat punk’s charging rhythm, classic rock’s twin guitar harmonies, trah metal’s aggression and grind’s blinding speed”. Fight Amp, from Williamstown, NJ, has just finished a tour as support for Weedeater and Saviours. They have released two full length albums, “Manners and Praise” and “Hungry for Nothing”. Mose Giganticus, from Philadelphia, PA, most recently released a concept album called Gift Horse. This most recent album is about “the struggle between a vengeful god and the deposed angel Lucifer leading to the Battle of Armageddon”. Bad Dream is a band from Brooklyn, New York They released a two-track album called “Black Blizzard” this past spring.
On Wednesday November 16th 88.5 WXPN welcomes Canadian Country meets Psych Rock act THE SADIES return to the North Star Bar for their first Philadelphia show in over six years to co-headline with JESSE SYKES & THE SWEET HEREAFTER, the later of whom are touring in support of their 2011 release Marble Son. Support on the date comes from Philadelphia based Psych Rockers THE ASTEROID #4.
THE SADIES are still touring in support of their 2010 release Darker Circles, the follow up to the critically acclaimed Country Club album which featured John Doe (of X). For Darker Circles they once again hit the studio with legendary Jayhawk producer Gary Louris. The Sadies bring their signature blend of country, psychedelic, rock and surf into rifle-scope focus on Darker Circles, further underscoring their reputations as musicians’ musicians.
JESSE SYKES & THE SWEET HEREAFTER follow up 2007’s critically acclaimed Like Love, Lust and the Open Halls of the Soul with Marble Son, their fourth release from Paris’s Fargo Records and the first on their own US imprint Station Grey/Thirty Tigers. The band features Phil Wandscher (the former guitarist for Whiskeytown) prominently. The record is heavily influenced by Sykes friendship and work with art-metal bands SunnO))) and Boris. Of course they have also toured previously with heavy doom act Earth. The album is the product of Wandscher’s alt-country background and Sykes metal experimentations. A perfect fit for a co-headline date with psych rockers The Sadies.
THE ASTEROID #4 whose name is in of itself a reference to one of their biggest influences Spacemen 3, released their 6th record Vesta earlier this year on The Committee to Keep Music Evil. They have never shied away from name checking influences as diverse as Echo & the Bunnymen to Popol Vuh to the Flying Burrito Brothers. Their sound is a hypnotic hybrid of several different genres filtered through the kaleidoscope of all things psych, krautrock, shoegaze, folk and even cosmic countryrock.
Texas based all female punk rock trio GIRL IN A COMA return to the North Star Bar on Tuesday November 15th. GIAC have just today released their fourth album on Joan Jett’s Blackheart Records label, Exits And All The Rest. They are streaming the album in full at NPR Music here. Rollingstone.com premiered their new video for the first single, Smart, see that here.
Support on the date comes from Atlanta based all girl punk rockers The Coathangers, who are supporting their new album Larceny and Old Lace on Suicide Squeeze Records (Modest Mouse, Minus the Bear, Elliot Smith, This Will Destroy You), as well as Brothers of Brazil who are signed with Side One Dummy Records (7 Seconds, Anti-Flag, Chuck Regan, Big D & The Kids Table).
Huge news – the SMOKING POPES will be playing the North Star Bar on New Year’s Eve, Saturday December 31st, 2011. Tickets are on-sale now and include a free champagne toast at midnight with the band.
2011 marked the return of the SMOKING POPES with their sixth full length album This Is Only A Test. Released in March on Asian Man Records, This Is Only A Test was a pop punk concept album with all the songs written for the perspective of a single teenage boy dealing with the growing pains of adolescence. Jon Gilbertson of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel compared the album’s concept to The Who‘s Quadrophenia, which also structured its themes around the difficulties of teenage life: “Although This Is Only a Test doesn’t try to match Quadrophenia, it does convey the same realization that there’s no such thing, for the young, as the folly of youth. And Caterer’s voice, perhaps the most tunefully expressive in the entire pop-punk sub-genre, brings across the way small things grow gigantic under the influence of hormones.”
Formed in 1991 in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, the SMOKING POPES got their big break when Ben Weasel of Screeching Weasel became a fan and got Mass Giorgini of Squirtgun to record their debut LP. In 1995 the band signed to Capital Records, and released two albums with the major label. During that time they were also featured on the soundtracks to two truely 90s films; Clueless and Angus, along side of artists like Jill Sobule, Counting Crows, Radiohead, Green Day, Weezer and Pansy Division. The band spent the 90s touring with acts such as Tripping Daisy, The Figgs, Jimmy Eat World, and Jawbreaker. In 1997 the band went on extended hiatus reforming in 2005. In 2008 they released their fourth album, the first the had recorded in over 10 years, Stay Down. And in April of that year they announced that Neil Hennessy of The Lawrence Arms would take over on drums for the band.
Join us for what will surely be a night to remember with one of the most important bands of the 90s Pop-Punk movement. Here are all the details…can’t wait for New Year’s Eve!
Check out video the classic Smoking Popes video for Need You Around here -
Purchase Advance Tickets Here
RSVP to the Facebook Event Here
Friday October 28th we welcome YELLOW DUBMARINE to the North Star Bar. More than just a tribute band, Yellow Dubmarine take the songs of the Beatles and re-imagine them in a Reggae/Dub setting; horns, organ, percussion, dubbed out, smoke a bowl goodness! Its easy to write something like this off if you don’t see it – Beatles covers, everyone has done that…and yes how many Beatles Tribute acts are out there…a million…but for good reason (greatest rock, pop, and otherwise band of all time), and this one is so different than all the others you have seen or heard in the past…and honestly, I think this might be one band that paying tribute to will never get old. And, no one has done it like this, truly unique, truly dub, and truly Beatles. Its worth a look for sure.
Abbey Road is the focus of their current set, here is a sneak peak to give you an idea of what we are talking about.
