#previous shows

You are hyped up for a live show of your fave podcast. You've been to their shows before, in small venues, and they were fantastic.

You were impressed by how much care and attention clearly went into making the show a) incredible and b) accessible. You love the whole cast, everything, its just amazing.

You're also super happy for the show cast and crew that they're gaining so much more popularity and recognition and are now booking larger venues! Yeah! Go you guys this is incredible and you all totally deserve it!

So, you've scraped together some cash to go buy your tickets, you've coordinated with your friends who are also fans, you know where you're all going to stay overnight (it's too much travel to do all in one day with the various wonky bodies involved).

And then you call to book accessibility.

Oh.

You aren't considered by the venue to be Truly Disabled unless you are in receipt of benefits or are willing to share private medical information with a stranger who isn't a medical professional (cos that wouldn't be humiliating at all, don't you know disabled people have no dignity?!).

The assumption that you must be in receipt of pip or dla (disability benefits in the UK), given the way our government treats people who apply for these benefits (it's disgusting, the UN has investigated and declared it to be just fucking awful) is ridiculous. If you're managing to get by financially (maybe your partner works, or you still live with your parents who don't begrudge you your existence for being disabled) and don't want to expose yourself to the humiliation of the application process, only to be denied and have to wait months or even years to take your application to tribunal, you obviously can't be a *Real Disabled*, can you!

So you say fine, we'll do without the accommodations, one wheelchair user can just about transfer from the wheelchair to a seat, so just let us have one wheelchair parking spot and we'll carry/support the other person and make do.

In fact, don't even worry about the free tickets for carers, we'll just figure it out somehow. But no, that's not good enough. You get told that, despite their website stating that you don't have to be part of their ableist bs scheme, you still have to either join their scheme, or provide proof of disability or receipt of benefits.

It's bloody heartbreaking and so unnecessary. I can promise you there aren't reams of people faking disabilities to get aisle seats for wheelchairs, or to be close enough to the front to lip read when their hearing craps out.

Saturday, February 5, 7 p.m.: Cough Cool + Arches + Sky Stadium $5 donation

Three sweet local bands:

Cough Cool Arches Sky Stadium

I would write an elaborate description—and I may still do so—but for now, just wrap yourself up in the tunes. The tunes.

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Sunday, February 6, 3 p.m.: DJ Champe Presents Bob Marley's Birthday free

Deep reggae cuts from DJ Champe, host of the Lion's Den on WPEB 88.1, all afternoon.

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Saturday, January 22, 7 p.m.: Andrew Bernstein (Teeth Mountain) + Owen Gardner (Teeth Mountain) + Your Children Is Beautiful (Philly) + The New Heaven & The New Earth (Philly) $5 donation Andrew Bernstein hails from Baltimore, where his band Teeth Mountain plays a crucial role in making that city a hub for off-centered sounds of all sorts. When he's without his bandmates, Andrew leans toward heavy drone and tape-based textures—the sort that bewitch and confound in equal measure. If instruments are involved, they're twisted and skewed into something completely new, as with this saxophone-based composition.No wonder Dan Deacon tapped him to play sax in the Dan Deacon Ensemble. Get on it.

Also performing here—and also in Teeth Mountain—is Owen Gardner. His solo work trades in expansive sounds, exploring the purity and potential of tone. If that doesn't clear anything up...we understand. It's sort of hard to explain. Think about what might happen if a guitar-wielding mystic put you in a particularly serious trance. (And check out this video to get a better sense of what we mean.)

 Your Children Is Beautiful are from Philly. Or maybe they is from Philly. Either way, they kick ass. This city has a whole bunch of bands who take your more or less normal rock and roll and transform it into something a bit more meditative and heady. Think about Kurt Vile, or Purling Hiss, or Sun Airway. Your Children Is Beautiful work in a similar vein, taking tropes you might know and turning them into slowed-down masterpieces. 

Notes: Your Children Is Beautiful Didn't Play.

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Saturday, January 15, 7 p.m.: Radere (record release) + Anduin (Richmond, VA) + DJ Andrew Joseph (Philly) $5 donation

Radere is Carl Ritger, a local musician working hard to make this city safe for the deepest, most all-encompassing journeys in sound. It was he (along with DJ Andrew Joseph, see below) who brought Xela and Black to Comm to Younglove's back in November, which ended up being a total blast. Holed up in his West Philly apartment, Carl creates ambient compositions that, in his words, "explore the fusion of acoustic sound sources and digital production techniques." That might mean tweaking field recordings until they're little more than washes of sound, and then re-processing that wash into endless iterative textures. A new album, A Season In Decline (Full Spectrum), is the best example yet of Carl's intricate touch with cast-away tone; come celebrate its release.

It wouldn't be enough, though, for Carl to perform. He's also roped in Richmond's Anduin. Anduin is the solo project of Jonathan Lee, a member of the excellent Souvenir's Young America. When left to his own devices, Jonathan favors dark drones that go low and slow, as on his second album, 2009's fine Abandoned In Sleep (SMTG). Drowned in Sound writes that Anduin "generates a nocturnal, threat-tinged atmosphere that suggests inexorably swelling panic." Can you possibly think of a better way to spend your Saturday night?

DJ Andrew Joseph is Andrew Brzozowski, another West Philly denizen with a musical spoon in lots of musical pots. Along with Carl, Andrew put together the Xela and Black to Comm show. As one-half of Bunnies + Bats, Andrew makes minimal, IDM-inflected compositions. Here, he'll be performing a DJ set that will most probably delight and defy your expectations.

Saturday, December 11, 7 p.m.: WOOM (Oakland, CA) + Party Photographers (Philly) + Soft Sea (Philly) $5 donation

 WOOM makes amazing experimental organic noise-rock, to put it inarticulately. There are handclaps, the sounds of someone breathing panned rapidly between the stereo field, an off-kilter organ, fuzz, and Sara Magenheimer's desperate pixie howl. Xiu Xiu, a guy from Deerhoof, and Talk Normal all recently remixed songs by WOOM, so you'll be in good company if you get into them. They are awesome.

The Party Photographers' rapid rise up the Philly's indie-rock totem pole—a crazy pole, covered in oil and lined with corpses of countless bands that tried and failed to make it—is probably due partly because of their name. Needless to say, the Party Photographers have the best name in rock. (I was going to make fun of a bunch of indie-rock band names here, but I'll let you do that.) But believe it or not, the moniker is just a small part of their appeal, because their sound—evocative garage-fuzz, with a little bit of shoegaze and a little bit of spilled beer—is so damn compelling.

The Soft Sea is a band we know very little about. It involves a guy named Al. In any case, you should show up and watch him (them?) play.

This is going to be a big show. Come early so you can stake out a spot. And bring $5 as a donation for the bands, because they deserve it.

Notes: WOOM didn't play. Instead, the amazing, amazing Slutever did. They were great.

Sunday, December 5, 1 p.m.: Franz Nicolay (NY)

The ingenious composer, keyboardist, and all-around brilliant musician is dropping by on Sunday, and we are so, so psyched. Nicolay was a member of the Hold Steady from 2005 until earlier this year—all of the amazing keyboard, organ, and accordion parts on albums like Separation Sunday and Girls and Boys in America were laid down by the man himself—when he left to work on his own material. His latest album, Luck and Courage, is fantastic: a little bit folk, a little bit rock, a little bit chamber music virtuosity. We couldn't be happier to have him. This'll be an in-store for the ages...even if it's not on Saturday. You'll just have to leave church a little early.

Saturday, November 13, 7 p.m.: Xela (MA) + Black To Comm (Hamburg, Germany)