With a name like Gondola, it’s almost wieldy to cook up visions of floating down an expansive and glistening Venetian canal in a light-strung bateau. But, in fact, the humid sweat bucket of blues-rock filth exploding forth from the Philly power-trio is more like a sleazy, good time trek on a dirt-caked motorcycle down a bone-dry desert back road – and tonight will taste no different. On “Hash in the Highlands”, Gondola sails from the sluggish smoke and leisure burn of fringed sonic crawls to deafening rhythm accelerations of roaring riffs and driving drums that ignite electrifying hip climaxes. It’s a phonic stamp also courted by hometown trio and tonight’s bill mates, Screaming Rattler, who, slowing the tempo down just a little, add their own Southern-soaked flavor to the genre. If you have time, throw back another Pabst and stick around for stoner-rock geniuses The Company Corvetteand soak you’re feet in the unnerving electronic bubble bath of locals Hott Tubb, ‘cause, you know, it’s Friday, and you ain’t got shit to do. JR’s Bar, 2327 S. Croskey St.,8 pm, $5, 21+ – Annamarya Scaccia

 

I’ll be the first to admit that the idea of The Roots leaving Philly to be Jimmy Fallon’s house band, at first, sickened me, but they’ve certainly done the most with their situation. Having proven to be musical sponges, once again, The Roots released their best album in years with How I Got Over. Last night, ?uestlove got his twee on performing with Glaswegians Belle and Sebastian on the title track from their new album Write About Love. While the aired performance on TV frankly left me lukewarm, I did enjoy ?uestlove joining the indie-pop icons on “Piazza, New York Catcher” from 2003’s Dear Catastrophe, which was a web exclusive. Oh yeah – The Roots backing Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon on a medley through the History of Hip Hop actually kicked some serious arse! Check both videos out below while you can. – Q.D. Tran

(“Piazza, New York Catcher”)

("History of Hip Hop Medley")

Connie’s Ric Rac is back in biz, and they’ll be celebrating their official grand re-opening and good buddy Maxx Stoyanoff-Williams’ 40th birthday tonight so expect things to get rowdy in the heart of the Italian Market! Maxx and the funky fresh crew of Black Landlord will be headlining the event. The Tartaglio Brothers (Frank and Angelo), your hosts, will be taking the stage with their band The Discount Heroes (great name) and their groovy radio-friendly folk rock along with psychedelic garage rockers St. James & The Apostles. Spinning throughout the evening will be DJ Sean Smoove. BTW: Whispering in the door man’s ear the secret-but-not-so-secret password “tits” for guys and “swallows” for girls will get you $5 off the admission and hopefully not a stiffie on your leg. Free Fried Chicken!!! Door prizes (and it won’t be the stiffie)! Don’t forget that they have a liquor license now so NO BYOB! The comedy portion of the festivities will be tomorrow evening. Connie’s Ric Rac, 1132 S. 9th St., 8pm, $15, 21+ – H.M. Kauffman

 

With just one listen to “La Mariposa”, you know that The Powder Kegs have the skills to probably play most female XPNers out of their panties. Well, it seems the guys have been experimenting more in the studio and are really happy with the results so they wanted to share them with us. Here’s “When the Body Tricks the Mind” from The Powder Keg’s first recording session for their upcoming full length due out in early 2011. It reminds us of a more dreamy, psychedelic Death Cab for Cutie, but with angular post punk guitar riffs to give it some balls. – The Deli Staff

Far out, post-punk, or perhaps shoegaze, local outfit Moon Women remains a little bit of a mystery when googling the band’s name leaves would-be fans with less links than one could count between two hands. “Having formed on a whim in March of 2010 to play with the Strange Boys at Danger Danger,” things quickly got more serious when for their second show, they were asked to open for legendary punk rockers Buzzcocks at The Troc, followed by a personal request by Wavves to do the same. Tonight Moon Women will open for Deprciation Guild and Film School, and will be releasing their debut recordings on cassingle titled tape, which will be a limited 50 tape-run. It will also contain additional sounds and music that won’t be found on the MP3s (that I’ve provided for you below) including an instrumental that closes out Side B. The case is painted with its own silk-screen slip cover. Aptly titled “Listen Closely” eases in with reverb that quickly blooms into driving chords that sound out beside quickened drumbeats (which might make you think, “Stephen Morris”). Moody and melodic, the new-ish Philly trio makes the most of jangly backbeats and psyched out riffs. They also have a 7” coming out on up-and-coming Ian Records, who specializes in strictly only local acts which is pretty rad to me. Johnny Brenda’s. 1201 Frankford Ave. 9pm, $10 adv/$12 door, 21+ – Dianca Potts 

One of our favorite local anti-folk heroes and self-deprecating social commentators, Sir Charles Latham (formerly Death Panel), just released a single by his new project Charles Latham and the Prospectors called “Oil!”, which whimsically spews some of his thoughts about the recent BP disaster. Here’s a message from Sir Latham himself: “For any of the MP3s I sell, 100% of the proceeds go to Global Green USA. I’m like fucking Bono over here.” Help save our planet and get some music from a witty, talented dude! Sounds like a win-win situation to us. You can check out the track and download it here. – The Deli Staff

 

If your wallet’s as empty as mine, you monopolize the opportunity to acquire free things. THIS IS ONE OF THOSE MOMENTS! A free concert! Even better, it’s not some family band playing at the local church, but our favorite urban cowboys, Levee Drivers, bringing you down-home thigh-slappin’ rock ‘n roll cut with deep blues soul. They’re looking to amp your Wednesday evening past Saturday night status and into the stratosphere of their idols, Bruce, Johnny, and Hank. Joining them will be fellow Bucks County natives, The Lawsuits, and Machine Gun Joe. Like Levee Drivers, these bands’ write songs that echo some of our country’s rich rock history. So, if you don’t go, you hate America… just kidding… Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St., 8pm, FREE, 21+ – Katie Bennett

 

It should be no surprise that I’ve been waiting for this day for a while, well, for you (I have my copy already) and the West Philly crew, Grandchildren, because today is finally the official release of their long-awaited debut full length Everlasting on Green Owl Records. Get ready to see these D!D!G! electro-acoustic art rockers blow up! I am also happy to announce that The Deli Magazine will be co-presenting Grandchildren’s Album Release Party with Dock Street Brewing Co. We are stoked to share in this evening full of good vibes and great music! You can check out my interview with Grandchildren mastermind Aleks Martray about the making of Everlasting, his second home, how The Jackson 5 can take him to his “happy place”, and much, much more here.

 

Well, it looks like In Grenada are taking a chapter from The Swimmers and have decided to re-release their debut album Break today, albeit nationally this time but it still remains self-released. After the breakup of local ukulele indie rock outfit Movable Type, Jesse Leyh salvaged some tunes assembling them in his home studio into upbeat indie pop tracks for the open road with all your windows down (preferably in a convertible). Looks like no scheduled re-release party this time around, but you can catch In Grenada on Oct. 1 at Chestnut Hill College and Nov. 3 at Kung Fu Necktie with Creeping Weeds. – The Deli Staff

 

Thank you all who came out for our showcase last Thursday at Kung Fu Necktie, especially Univox, The Homophones, TJ Kong and the Atomic Bomb, and Hair Rocket! We love when our showcases have a mixed-bag of artists and works out to be such an amazing time. What did you miss? Well, Hair Rocket unleashed some new material on the audience as they warmed up the crowd and themselves preparing to hit the studio this past weekend to record a new EP. TJ Kong and the Atomic Bomb might have been down a man/woman or two during their set for the newly expanded five-piece, but they still had people joyously gettin’ down and screaming for more at the end. Dan Bruskewicz’s partied-too-hard-last-night vocals and seedy backroom bar storytelling stand in the forefront of this raucous delight. While Dan Martino really holds down the backbone of the band, making him another local drummer along with Chris Wood (Grimace Federation) and Chris Ward (Pattern Is Movement) that we look forward to seeing and hearing perform live. What can I say about The Homophones? They just look like they are having so much fun on stage (especially when Jason Ferraro is dry-humping his band members, but you might be able to blame that on the complimentary backstage Irish whiskey) that it becomes infectious. Plus they write killer tunes – duh. Now, they just have to get off their asses and hit the studio already to lay down tracks for the radio stations to spin and make them big and famous. The mighty Univox premiered at our showcase their video to “Conan”, which you can see below, and just tore through their set with such ferocity that you couldn’t help but be sucked in while uncontrollably gyrating. All the bands absolutely rocked! It was truly one of those nights that make putting together Deli showcases all worth it for us. We look forward to seeing you at The Deli’s Anniversary Party on October 15 at Johnny Brenda’s with The Extraordinaires, An American Chinese and Power Animal as well as DJ Jersey Dan and visual art by Meredith Edlow. This is not to be missed so don’t get shut out and grab your tix early! Hopefully we’ll see you sooner than later. Cheers! (Photo by Meredith Edlow) – The Deli Staff