Show Review: Darry Miller & the Veil

I finally went and saw Darry Miller and the boys at a show I had nothing to do with booking and enjoyed it immensely. The Legendary Dobbs on South Street was the venue, Friday was the night, and the place was packed. New bassist/background vocalist Josh Kirwin, formerly of Captain of Compliments, meshes well with the band's always-impeccable stage presence, and newer synth-oriented material like single "Quite the Substance" demonstrates the songwriting diversity that earned them Tri-State Indie's Central PA Band of the Year. Most impressive, however, was their cover of MGMT's "Time to Pretend", a song they've made completely their own as far as I'm concerned. Skip to 6:30 for the "Time to Pretend" cover. This is from Radio 104.5's excellent "Live @ 5" series.

The New Division, Remixers Extraordinaire

Our boys in The New Division have been very busy of late, dropping their first hip-hop remix (of Baltimore's Rapdragons):

In-house producer Vaab's prog house rework of their own "Violent":

As well as their take on 2 Hearts and Chemicals' "Coming Home":

Be sure to keep up with them on Soundcloud for all their latest remix work!

Jeff Waters - Barceloneta

Two weeks on iTunes and this isn't topping charts yet? Get on it people! Jeff Waters is the man! [Buy on iTunes]

Tweet Tweet

So I finally decided I am famous enough for Twitter, or I exhausted the spamming capabilities of Facebook... take your pick.

In either case, follow @philosofoxthedj

Yufi Zewdu - Change Your Mind [feat. Chill Moody]

Yufi hit me up with a pre-release of this new track with Chill Moody, which I promptly premiered late night at Liberty Bar. Just goes to show the sort of excellence you may miss out on if you aren't there.

This Month At Liberty Bar

In addition to my Thirsty Thursday residency, I'll be DJing special Irish/rock/folk sets all day at Liberty Bar every Saturday leading up to and including Saint Patrick's Day. They'll be featuring green beer, Irish coffees, Tullamore Dew giveaways, corned beef and cabbage, and various other Irish paraphernalia. The 3rd I'll be opening up for DJ Harv and Plan C's new residency (you may remember them from NYE), and the 10th will be part of the Erin's Express pub crawl known as the Running of the Mick's. Check out the Facebook fan page for more details!

[RSVP for the 3rd]

[RSVP for the 10th]

[RSVP for St. Patty's]

Show Review: Souljazz Orchestra

Ottawa's Souljazz Orchestra coaxes more varied sounds from drums, keys, and three types of saxophone than most full orchestras due from a much broader selection of instruments. For my first show at World Cafe Live, I was pessimistic about the chances of people getting on their feet, but the unique blend of originals and covers of Fela Kuti, James Brown, and others simply compelled movement. If you get a chance to see them, do it. I bought the vinyl over and above the price of a ticket at World Cafe. They are that good.

The New Division's Star Is Rising

The New Division have been upping their profile lately, performing at a pre-Oscar party benefitting Global Green, packed with celebrities like Adrian Grenier, seen above with TND frontman John Kunkel. Their focus is still broad though, as tracks from the crew's side projects just keep getting better. As John Glenn, Kunkel recently released trance track "Columbo":

Keyboardist Mark Michalski's Datsyuk project just made "Love 16" a free download on their Bandcamp page: