“You are gonna see an all-girl two-piece band up there [laughs].  I usually have a guitarist with me, but for this I will be playing electric for the whole set… but you’ll experience all of the ups and downs of a normal set,” says pop artist Laur Elle of her upcoming August 21st date at The Lounge at World Café Live, the final date of her double-headlining run with singer/songwriter Lyncs, which kicks off August 13th in New York City.  I’m chatting via phone with Laur Elle, who’s in LA, where she spends half of her time, when she’s not in her hometown in Canada. This February Laur El ..read more

“What’s important to us is touring and playing live.  We put these albums out so we can keep playing and touring…  I thought if we could go to Europe once it would be great, but it’s been like 10 times over,” laughs Mathieu Ball, guitarist and co-founder of Montreal experimental metal trio BIG|BRAVE (alongside fellow co-founder and guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie and drummer Tasy Hudson, who joined the fold in 2020).  The last time I spoke with Ball was in the summer of 2022, when the band was just returning to touring and getting ready for their first post-lockdown US jaunt, wh ..read more

“I love supporting any band that’s doing intelligent pop music.  I feel like the dream would be like Stereolab, Sufjan Stevens, Belle & Sebastian… Alex G, that would be a really fun tour,” says Joe Stevens, founder and songwriter of Los Angeles avant-pop outfit Peel Dream Magazine (Yes, named for that Peel.)  Peel Dream Magazine has toured alongside PHILTHY phavorites like Soccer Mommy and Chastity Belt, and this May they announced a two-week tour supporting dream poppers Wild Nothing, including a stop at our very own Underground Arts on Tuesday August 13th. Last month I got a ch ..read more

“I’m so excited to play that show.  That’s definitely gonna be a huge thing.  I don’t wanna say it’s all about me, in like a narcissistic way [laughs], but I really want it to be a showstopper,” says locally grown pop singer/songwriter Ciara Grace of her upcoming CD Release Celebration Show, which will take place Thursday, August 8th at The Lounge at World Café Live and which will have the emerging artist joined by a band of famous Philadelphia musicians, including Erik Johnson and Chico Huff.  The show will celebrate the release of Grace’s debut LP, Write it Down, which dropped ..read more

“The first time I was in Philly, I had a cheesesteak five minutes before I went onstage, which was the worst decision of my life,” Sydney Sprague tells me, laughing.  However, the indie pop singer/songwriter has had some more enjoyable experiences playing the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection since then.  In 2021 she opened The Fillmore for The Front Bottoms and last summer she played Ukie Club alongside Pool Kids, before hitting up PhilaMOCA in November on her first-ever headlining tour, behind sophomore LP somebody in hell loves you, which she tells me during a recent p ..read more

New Wave/Post-Punk legends The Pretenders have spent much of the past year performing show-stealing (we’re assuming…), hits-filled festival gigs and support sets for Axl, Slash, and Duff’s Guns N’ Roses and Foo Fighters.  However, this past Sunday, July 14th, they brought An Evening with The Pretenders to the 2,500-capacity Fillmore as part of their 15-date headlining tour, their first time headlining the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection proper since 2009…  Their last area headlining show in 2018 was technically in Upper Darby. The capacity audience boasted a notably ecl ..read more

“It was the first song we wrote that felt like it was part of the Macro world, and we wrote the initial version with only guitar and voice which was a new process for us,” said Brijean Murphy – percussionist/singer/songwriter and one-half of Oakland-based psychedelic pop outfit Brijean, alongside multi-instrumentalist/producer Doug Stuart – of the duo’s latest single, “Counting Sheep,” which dropped last Friday, coinciding with the release of the band’s fourth full-length, Macro, which comes courtesy of Ghostly International. However, upon the album release, Murphy also admitted that the ..read more

“I try to be very honest in all my music.  I don’t lie,” laughs singer/songwriter Ava Della Pietra, going on to explain, “I try to be very authentic in my songwriting process…  I feel like it’s easier for people to connect with me that way.”  The 19-year-old (She recently wrapped her freshman year at Harvard/Berklee College of Music.) burgeoning pop sensation has been releasing music since 2019 (although she’s been writing since she was 10), but that wasn’t her first time in the spotlight.  In her younger years, Ava Della Pietra starred in the original Broadway cast of Scho ..read more

“Something crazy always happens in Philly!  Not in like a bad way, but the last time at Johnny Brenda’s our drummer’s brother got really drunk and jumped up onstage with us, and then someone stole my chains off the stage,” says Angela Gail Mattson – one-half of Grand Rapids-based indie rock duo In The Valley Below, alongside husband Jeffrey Jacob Mendel – during a recent phone chat.  She also tells me that the experience certainly didn’t sour the band’s (who have opened mega-sized venues for the likes of The Airborne Toxic Event, OMD, and Albert Hammond Jr.) feelings about Fishtown’s ..read more

“A lot of people think we’re putting out a shoegaze album…  They’re like, ‘Yes!  Lunar Vacation going shoegaze!” the Georgia indie rock outfit jokes with me during a recent phone chat.  They’re referring to “Set the Stage,” the lead single off of Lunar Vacation’s sophomore LP, Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire, which hits shelves September 13th via Keeled Scales (home of our buddies Sun June and Tenci), where they’ve been dropping music since 2021 debut full-length Inside Every Fig is a Dead Wasp. I’m chatting with co-founder/lyricist/vocalist/guitarist Gep Repasky, co ..read more