There’s nothing I love more than All Hallows’ Eve, rad music and even radder art (also on that list: instituting a false lexis). And the Big Art Show Halloween Spooktacular exhibit at Pterodactyl tonight is like an idiosyncratic flare-up of all three. Well, OK, it’s not on Halloween, but the minds behind the Kensington space did so cleverly allude to the sacred day in the show’s title, and that’s good enough for me. Still, designations are trivial when compared to the local rhythms that’ll vibrate threw your body while trolling the loft gallery – the blithesome folk of The Great Unknown’s alt-Americana missives, the incisive disquiet of Lion Versus’ alt-folk allegories, and the spectral jowls of A Stick and A Stone’s esoteric chronicles, plus the bemoaned strings and pining plucks of Baltimore’s indie-folk squad, A Cat Called Cricket. Pterodactyl, 3237 Amber St., Floor 5, 8pm, $5 suggested donation, All Ages – Annamarya Scaccia

 

(The Sounds of) Kaleidoscope plays exactly what their name suggests: a mottled cul-de-sac of cinereal garage rock, angsty power pop and dawdling psychedelic rock. And it’s not a metaphor pulled out of vivid thin air – the hometown quartet’s 2009 album¸ All This Heaven, plays out like a mollified light display reflecting the sonic reverberations of a thousand tiny mirror shards. Couple this with the auricular time-traveling of local garage-psych lo-fiers Far-Out Fangtooth, who released their self-titled 7-inch last month on Ian Records, and Australia’s psych-rock pushers The Lovetones, and you’ll find yourself sipping one hell of a cocktail, which, by the way, is served best with a side of Mary and an entrée of Jane. Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St, 7:30pm, $8, 21+ – Annamarya Scaccia

 

Even though it happened on a rain-soaked day, last year’s inaugural Bloktoberfest managed to be the perfect marriage of community spirit, delicious food from Philly’s best food trucks, all kinds of epic beer varieties, and a nice lineup of music that included Adam Arcuragi and The Love Language. But in honor of its second coming, one of the city’s larger block parties has outdone themselves. The beer lineup will feature favorites from Dock Street, Weyerbacher, and Ommegang, and the food truck lineup has become twice as large to feature the likes of Honest Tom’s Taco Truck, The Dapper Dog, and Koja. But this also marks the first time that the festival will be bringing in 2 stages of music, and it will features bands like London’s Allo Darlin’, the horn-tastic Budos Band, and a bunch of up-and-coming locals. Since a busy schedule that involved signing to Merge Records, releasing an ambitious sophomore LP titled Libraries, and embarking on national tours with Camera Obscura and Local Natives prevented The Love Language from playing another local show last year, the fest decided to take matters into their own hands and invite them back as a headliner. Joining them will be Cozy Galaxies (formerly The Major Leagues) whose Americana rock echoes the likes of Wilco and Pavement as well as Strange Engineers, Giant Mind, Fishtown Jazz Odyssey and New Pony. Blocktoberfest, 20th and Christian St., 12 – 8pm, Free, All Ages – Bill McThrill

 

 

BTW: Our apologies about the black out of show picks today, but below are our weekend listings just in case our showcase isn’t your poison (shame on you – just kidding). We’ll be hopefully back tomorrow depending if we survive through the night.

 

Kung Fu Necktie (1250 N. Front St.) SAT Sounds of the Kaleidoscope and Far Out Fangtooth SUN McRad and Jukebox Zeros

 

North Star Bar (2639 Poplar St.) FRI Mother of Mercy and The Claw

 

The Fire (412 W. Girard Ave.) FRI (Early) The Lopez and Dear Althea, (Late) Casey Alvarez and The Almighty Terribles, SAT Kill You In The Face and The Revere, SUN Free Cowmuddy Live Recording

 

M Room (15 W. Girard Ave.) SAT Bridge Underwater, Red Letter Life, June Divided, Formerly Divided, SUN Howling Fantods

 

Tritone (1508 South St.) FRI Starving the Tsunami Album Release w/ Galaxies, Born Pilot, SAT Broken Prayers

 

Danger Danger Gallery (5013 Baltimore Ave.) FRI Snow Caps and Motorcycle Maus, SAT Levee Drivers and The Lawsuits

 

Millcreek Tavern (4200 Chester Ave.) FRI Lion Versus

 

Tin Angel (20 S. 2nd St.) FRI The Fallen Troubadours

 

The Ox (2nd and Oxford St.) FRI YVYNYL Showcase w/Blackhawk

 

Pterodactyl (3237 Amber St.) SAT Big Art Show Halloween Spectacular w/ The Great Unknown, Lion Versus, A Cat Called Cricket, A Stick In A Stone

 

Greenline Café (4239 Locust St.) FRI Allison Polans and Psalmships

 

World Café Live (3025 Walnut St.) SAT Kuf Knotz Album Release Show w/ Jawnzap 7, Chalk & the Beige Americans

 

The Blockley Pourhouse (3801 Chestnut St.) SAT Legends of Punk Show w/ Dead City Psychos, Mikey Wild, Handsome Petes

 

Fergie’s (1214 Sansom St.) FRI Oso

 

Connie’s Ric Rac (1132 S. 9th St.) FRI Barbara Gettes Birthday Show w/Spinning Leaves and Hezekiah Jones, SAT Joe Jack Talcum, Boog

 

Triumph Brewery (117 Chestnut St.) SAT The Goodnight Lights and Dani Mari

 

Theatre of Living Arts (334 South St.) SUN Dirty Tactics

 

Electric Factory (421 N 7th St.) FRI Blood Feathers

Blocktoberfest (Graduate Hospital Area) SAT The Love Languages, Cozy Galaxies, Strange Engineers, New Pony

 

Latvian Society (531 N 7th St.) Watersports and Meg Baird

 

Philadelphia AIDS Thrift (514 Bainbridge St.) FRI Dangerous Ponies Album Release w/Arrah & The Ferns and Sisters3

Blackhawks are a new band made up of members from local outfits Nude Beach and BAnnanas Symphony. You might have heard some buzz about Nude Beach this summer from all the confusion with the other band by the same name from New York. Well, I’m happy to say that our local Nude Beach is much more interesting than the other. I had a chance to catch Blackhawks perform live a little over a month ago when they opened for Creepoid at Little Berlin. At the time, they were a trio with Drink Up Buttercup’s drummer Mike Cammarata sitting in, and sounded a little more raw, fuzzy straightforward indie rock than the laidback, glowing psych-pop in their recordings. What did stand out were Yohsuke’s lead vocals. There was simply something distinct yet comforting about it through all the delay and reverb. I’m thinking that you’ll feel the same from the first listen of their Spacemen 3 cover “More Rainbows (Come Down Softly)” or originals like “Sunday Morning” and “XXX Bypass”. They’ll be performing at local blogger YVYNYL’s showcase at The Ox tomorrow night. – Q.D. Tran

 

According to a new interview with Diplo from Interview, Major Lazer is currently in Jamaica working on a new full length album. They’d like to get it out by 2011 and are “about halfway” done with recording the album. Expect a slew of special guest including Santigold, Vampire Weekend and Lykke Li as well as old school heads Lee "Scratch" Perry and Junior Murvin and dancehallers Vybz Kartel, Bugle and Timberlee. He also reveals some “outside the box” ideas like an Avatar-type movie “about something mundane like a Winn-Dixie cashier’s day at work” and a screenplay written via Twitter called Ghostyboy. As we’ve learned in the past, somehow the world traveling DJ/producer/director/label head gets things done so get ready for some weird shit to come! You can check out the rest of the interview here. (Ha…while I was writing this his Blackberry commercial just popped up on TV.) – The Deli Staff

 

You should be no stranger to Kuf Knotz (a.k.a. Ty Green) with all the local press and XPN love that he’s received over the years. I admit that I’ve probably known Kuf through mutual friends (and ex-girlfriends) long before I ever saw him perform on stage, but it’s not hard to instantly recognize that the guy’s got skillz. To think, that he basically doesn’t play any instruments or sing, but has certainly left his mark on a segment of our local music scene that stretches beyond our city limits. You have to believe that this young veteran of the music biz has paid his dues, and it might be just his time to shine. While other, less determined artists seem to fade into the distance trading in their talent and music career aspirations for Plan B – that steady office or teaching job, you can be assured that won’t happen to Kuf Knotz. For him, there is no Plan B – only a growing hunger to just do what he believes that he was put here on earth to do. Make music. Well, you can get a taste of what is probably section XXXVI of Plan A when he takes the stage this Saturday with many of his friends/collaborators at World Café Live for the pre-record release party of his latest solo offering BoomBox Logic, due out on Oct. 26 via Drexel University’s MAD Dragon Records. But first, check out our recent interview with the man as we pick his brain about the entertainment biz, his songwriting process and how an oftentimes starving artist wouldn’t eat Taco Bell even if it was free here.

 

It’s been quite a while since I’ve heard a punk band that I feel is worth everybody’s time. And I’m not talking about all those art-damaged punks that drown their sound in a fit of grating noise or electronic manipulation (though they can be great too). Bandname may claim to be “ex-art school”, but listening to them, you’d think they’re a bunch of good ol’ boys raised on nothing but Buzzcocks, Dead Boys, junk food, and comic books. Beautifully flippant vocals, no-frills distortion, plenty of personality, wrapped up in tracks less than three minutes because they know that’s all the time they need. If you’re in need of something slightly more cerebral and a little less from below the waist, there’s Arches, whose shimmering folk ditties might prompt you to sit on your roof deck overlooking the bay and sip a margarita. It’s hard to ignore a summer of love tinge in the vocals of “Behind Closed Blinds,” or the drifting, dreamy melody of “Another Fading Memory.” Also on the bill at The Ox tonight are Turbo Fruits and Pujol. The Ox, 2nd and Oxford, 8pm, $5 donation, All Ages – Joe Poteracki

 

When you share a birthday with someone like Ringo Starr, you already walk along a path of music royalty. And it’s no secret that Juston Stens has already gained an amount of musical glory hitting the skins for some local band called Dr. Dog. But having made the bold step away from the drum kit and potential international fame to follow his own musical journey, we have to give him props. The Deli likes his moxy and fearlessness. He has been gaining an admirable amount of buzz alongside the Get Real Gang. And whether you sift through his elaborate but interesting bio (did he really rescue Brooke Shields from drowning?) or listen to his self-titled release on Park the Van Records, you can instantly tell that gettin’ real is something Stens is all about. He’ll be opening for Pomegranates tonight at the M Room before embarking on a mini-tour. M Room, 15 W. Girard Ave., 9pm, $8, 21+ – Bill McThrill

 

It was just announced that Sun Airway will be part of Pitchfork’s Offline Festival. They are scheduled to perform at 3:30pm on Friday, Oct. 22 at Brooklyn Bowl. The three-day festival will feature performances by such acts as Marnie Stern, Matthew Dear, Glasser, and Wild Nothing as well as DJ sets by Animal Collective’s Avey Tare and TVOTR’s David Sitek. You can purchase tickets for $10 here. Sun Airway will release their debut album Nocturne of Exploded Crystal Chandelier on Oct. 26 via Dead Oceans. – The Deli Staff

 

Update: Sun Airway also just released a new video for "Put the Days Away" on Pitchfork.tv. It was directed by Klip Kollective’s Ricardo Rivera (we’ve been big fans of his work for years – absolute genius with lighting as you will see). 

The War on Drugs released the second single from their upcoming EP Future Weather today called “The History of Plastic”, its closing track. This is why we fuckin’ love The War on Drugs. We know that they can write a catchy tune that can burrow into our brains with its poetic verses. But leave it up to the Philly boys to drop an eight minute plus experimental slow burner as a "single". If you just can’t wait for the EP’s official release on Oct. 26, then you can pre-order the album here, and you’ll get an instant download of the record. You can also enjoy the newly released track for the price of your e-mail or just listen to it over and over on our site. – The Deli Staff