Show Recap: Gradswag Shindig

A while back, some friends and I invented the word "gradswag" as a sort of positive spin on "senioritis". I combined this idea with the old plan The Hound and I had for a straight up graduation party somewhere off campus and my love of the word "shindig", and the Gradswag Shindig was born. Alex Brubaker and Mob Device (fka Kolstrom) had both played at a local BYO restaurant called The Whole Cannoli, so I figured they would be open to the sort of thing I was proposing. Nik Seitz, the proprietor, was not only open but cautiously optimistic about it, and so on the Wednesday between finals and graduation, it happened.We kicked things off with some tunes from singer-songwriter Anthony Francesco, who played so passionately that his set was cut short by his fingers bleeding all over his guitar. Next up was Darry Miller & the Veil, whose full band show fit better in this venue than they had in a loft bedroom at the last show I asked them to play. Their set, as usual, was very tight and professional, perfectly conveying Darry's songs directly into one's head, from which they are unlikely to leave.
From there, things got a bit more dance-centered. We (The Fox and the Hound) played a diverse set of hip-hop, Bmore club, electro, and the occasional dubstep track to warm the crowd up for the main event. Mob Device, formerly known as Kolstrom, threw down a ridiculous dubstep set. He rarely DJs, preferring to focus on school and his production, but this made it clear that it is well worth the trip if you can catch him live somewhere. By 1 AM, things were beginning to wind down, but DJ KiB kept the party alive with his own selection of dubstep chunes. It was a great party: the music was great, YESNOCO sold some sweet I heart Dubstep and Gradswag t-shirts, and feedback was all positive.
If you missed out, be sure to catch Darry & co. at North Star Bar on Tuesday and Mob Device at Club XS June 24th.

Show Review: Caleb Hawley

Caleb in 2007:
It's not often a former American Idol contestant comes to B-sides, but this week singer-songwriter Caleb Hawley returned to our stage after almost three years, including his stint on Idol and a move to New York. His quirky music-nerd persona still comes through in the revamped act, but in a much more professional package. Constant joking and a winning smile carried Hawley through original music, renditions of the Mario soundtrack, and a jam session with his student doppelganger, Alex Brubaker. As someone who has been in artist management, it was fascinating for me to see such a talented musician attain much greater levels of success through marketing. His new and improved show pulls out all the stops, even bringing his dog on stage for a song about being jealous of the affection his wife shows their canine companion. A graduate of both Berklee College of Music and the Stephen Tyler school of "YES!", Hawley is sure to be a fixture in the industry now that his excellent musicianship is more popularly packaged. Caleb in 2011:

Show Review: First Friday

This year, Alex Brubaker started First Fridays, an event to help campus musicians gain experience performing actual sets instead of just single songs at Coffeehouse. Each month he hosts a few artists either outside the Union on the patio or in the Fishbowl. Sometimes he brings in outside guests, which have included Suzi Brown and Joseph Strider. I've made it out for a few, but for some reason haven't gotten around to reviewing them and probably shouldn't try to remember that far back to do one after the fact.

This month featured Matt Wagner, Natalie Ness, and Jeff Waters. Wagner opened up, bringing along a few accompanying musicians for some songs as he did at the Sycamore House show. His guitar work was more complex than the average singer-songwriter, probably because he's a music performance major. He closed the show with an acoustic rendition of his dance-pop tune "Vienna", which has since become a staple in my indie-dance sets.

Next up was Natalie Ness, a regular performer on campus whose multi-instrumental performances always bring a mix of originals and covers rearranged to fit better with them, like her popular medley of Lady Gaga songs.

Closing out the evening, my RA from freshman year, '08 homecoming king Jeff Waters returned to campus with an abundance of new material written since graduating. The focus of his latest album is on travel, as all of the songs were written while aboard planes, trains, and automobiles or backpacking across Europe. Standout tracks "Manhattan Blues" and "Postlude" were as beautiful live as they were when I first heard the demo recordings, as Waters' perfect pitch never failed us.

Be sure to come out to the final First Friday on May 6 for another evening of local music curated by Alex Brubaker.

Getting Some Artist Love

Every once in a while an artist is impressed enough by what I've said about them here to link to it or quote it in one of their media outlets. While many might post a link on Facebook or Twitter, a few have paid me the respect of doing so in a more permanent way:

• Will Gray posted my review of his show at b-sides on his blog. [this review]

• Alex Brubaker has a link to one of my show reviews up on his Myspace. [this review]

• MC Psalmist quotes me in his SonicBids EPK under "Press". [this review]

• Kyle Rictor includes me on his website under "Fan Testimonials". [this review]

Photo of Kyle & Kelsey Rictor courtesy of Megan Kelley

• For those interested, you should come see Kyle Rictor at B-sides on Wednesday.

• MC Psalmist recently put out the Friends'n'Family mixtape with some of the artists who also played the show I reviewed at MCPC.

• Alex Brubaker will be playing with Suzi Brown, who has been on The Fox and the Hound, at The Whole Cannoli on Saturday the 26th (I'm missing it for my sentencing in Wilmington, DE).

• Will Gray has a great documentary out about the music business called *Broke. It features interviews with everyone from John Legend to vice presidents of labels like Sony and Columbia.

Show Review: Nathan Leigh

On Tuesday, Phil Wilmot booked Nathan Leigh to play at The Sycamore House's community dinner. The intimate living room environment and the shared meal helped give even more of a communal feeling than the last time at the SALT House [review here]. I only caught the first few songs because I had to go set up for The Fox and the Hound Show, but both the old and new tunes sounded great. Nathan played a 3-song set (two originals and a cover) in the second hour of the show, as did Alex Brubaker in the first hour, but we were unable to record properly due to technical difficulties-I assure you both performances were phenomenal. "Family of Ghosts" was my favorite of the new tunes Leigh played, yet another example of his great writing. His live show has improved over the past few months, though perhaps this owes more to increased confidence in a more traditional house-show setting as opposed to sitting on top of a dresser in a dorm room. Either way, he puts on a good show, and I look forward to his next tour. In the meantime, check out his hilarious tour blog, "The Adventures of Pen Pen".

Show Review: Atlantic/Pacific

I missed Jarrod Gorbel, the first b-sides of the semester, because of a house meeting at my new residence in Harrisburg. Apparently Alex Brubaker did not deign to cover the show, so suffice to say that he is the frontman from The Honorary Title and my little sister felt the need to text me that To Write Love On Her Arms is on tour with him.

The next band to grace the Larsen Student Union with its presence was Atlantic/Pacific, fronted by a pair of music industry veterans. Garret Klahn most prominently played guitar and sang in influential '90s emo/hardcore outfit Texas Is The Reason, bookended with stints in Copper and New Rising Sons. John Herguth has played in House & Parish and The Love Scene before the two hooked up to form their current project. Billed as "psychedelic indie/folk", among other things, the duo plays live with the addition of a basic rhythm section.

To be fair, apparently a substantial portion of their equipment crapped out just before the show, surely a hard blow to any band that can be even tangentially linked to shoegaze. However, the show was simply uninteresting. The most positive comments I heard involved soundtracking mediocre movies, and quite a few students left early. The sound reminded me of a generic Guster by way of emo, and a lackluster performance gave me the impression these men are simply in a band because they don't know how to do anything else. In this era of television placements, however, perhaps all they need is to sculpt their niche sound and wait for commercial dollars to keep them afloat. A mildly catchy closing number offered a glimpse of hope, and Alex gave them the benefit of the doubt, so don't be surprised if these veteran rockers pull a great album out one of these days, but one thing is certain: Meet Your New Love is not it. This video captures the vibe pretty accurately:

If you'd like to make up your own mind, they are headed west with Gorbel at the moment-interesting coincidence-but they will return to the area without him at Kung Fu Necktie on March 4th. Hopefully they'll have some new gear.

Catching Up With Alex Brubaker

You may remember Alex Brubaker from previous posts. He plays percussive fingerstyle guitar, runs the monthly First Fridays that Messiah started up this year, and has done quite a few guest blogs reviewing various shows.

He is still playing shows, even doing some weddings now, and liked blogging so much he decided to start his own - http://alexbrubakerguitar.blogspot.com - where you will find information about his own musical efforts and his consumption of others' musical efforts, like his review of the most recent b-sides, featuring Cloud Nothings and Oberhofer.

Show Reviews: December B-sides

Due to Christmas break, there were only two shows in Messiah's b-sides series this month, but lack of quantity was made up by quality. The first of these two trios was The Wiyos, a nostalgic-folk act that made me feel like I was seeing all the best bits of my grandparents' record collection performed live. Fresh off a national tour with Bob Dylan, who handpicked them to open, the tightly harmonizing multi-instrumentalists enthralled us with a ridiculously wide variety of original compositions ranging from bluegrass to polka, including a soon-to-be recorded suite based on The Wizard of Oz. Their impressive array of instrumentation included everything from upright bass to kazoo, the latter even managing not to come off kitschy; kitsch could hardly come from such impeccably dressed, consummate professionals.
As John Cleese was fond of saying, "And now for something completely different..." The Andreas Kapsalis Trio is an instrumental group centered on guitarist Andreas Kapsalis, who plays a percussive fingerstyle not far removed from that of Alex Brubaker, a friend of mine who has been covered here before and was influential in bringing him to Messiah. Not content to play solo, Kapsalis spices things up with a pair of percussionists, adding propulsive polyrhythms to his original film scores and interpretations of other improvisation-oriented musicians' work. A perfect close to the semester, the trio provided excellent background music for those studying for finals while captivating those who needed a break with an intense and technical performance.

Guitar Republic @ Tin Angel

Guitar Republic is the newly formed Italian trio consisting of Sergio Altamura, Stefano Barone and Pino Forastiere. All being world-renowned guitarists, these three have come together in the past 6 months, only practicing on weekends, to write and perform some of the most mind-blowing guitar pieces you will ever see and/or hear.

Conveniently, the trio (as well as the 3 individual artists) are under candyrat records (the same label as Andy McKee, Antoine Dufour, and a host of other amazing guitarists), so when they had the show in Philly, I was notified by candyrat. Otherwise, I would never have heard of them until they were done with their US tour and back in Italy. That being said, after I heard about them through candyrat, I looked them up and immediately cleared my schedule for the show.

The show took place in a tiny venue, the Tin Angel, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Though I’m sure you could pack like 100+ people into the venue, it could maybe seat 40-50 comfortably. Getting there on time meant a front row seat in the dimly lit room, at a candle-lit table. The main point: this was a tiny venue with an intimate performer-crowd setting. This is the sort of atmosphere where there isn’t a bad seat and it’s almost as if the performers are performing a private show for you – excellent for the type of act that Guitar Republic is.

The night started off with the song, “Ghetto Republic.” Sergio used a lap steel guitar in this song, starting the show off slowly, easing the audience into what we were about to be a part of. Throughout the rest of the night, the trio played the rest of the songs off of their 9 song debut, self-titled album, ending with, “Funky Sex Republic.”

What is truly unique about these guys is the variety that they throw into their songs. They had notable influences from rock to jazz to even having some Eastern influence. On top of that, they take their 3 guitar instrumentation to places uncomprehendable. Quite a few people know that I’ve been working with some percussive-fingerstyle lately, but I put my skill level with this right above novice (Yes, I am my own worst critic. Clearly, this is to make a point.). These guys, however, are all three well versed in percussive fingerstyle, easily being some of the best in the genre. In addition to percussive elements, a bow was used a few times, what looked like a computer fan with a string(?) attached to it was used, and some prepared guitar as well.

So what the heck is prepared guitar, you ask? If you’ve heard of prepared piano, you are familiar with the concept. It’s pencils, CDs, nuts, screws, paper, and anything else you can think of to wedge between the strings. Seem like a weird concept? Well, it is. However, it enables some truly unique sounds to be produced that, yes, are mostly created out of dumb luck, but cannot be produced by any “normal” means.

With a unique blend of all three styles, what I witnessed was rhythmic mastery, fretboard mastery, and a mastery of the absurd. This equates to a mastery of music and of sound. Do I believe there is even more out there that can be done with a guitar? Of course I do, but these guys are pushing what even I thought possible. It’s only once you realize how little you know about your instrument that you begin to appreciate its true potential. These guys have helped me to see over where I was as a musician to an entirely new dimension of guitar playing.

- Alex Brubaker

Show Review: Alex Brubaker

Back in November, I booked Alex Brubaker for a show at Messiah's Philadelphia campus. For those who don't know or don't remember, Alex plays instrumental guitar, integrating diverse techniques such as percussive fingerstyle into his various experimental pieces [see here and here]. The show in Philly was accompanied by a cooking contest, during which Alex played a long set, followed by a short break and finishing with a few fan favorites.

apologies for the talking in the middle

Show Review: Zappa Plays Zappa

Let’s go back in time between the late 50s through the early 90s. Through this time we see the influential works of bands like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and many others who have helped to shape today’s music. Our younger generation, not being around for most of that time, has missed one of the most potentially influential artists of that time. You won’t hear Frank Zappa’s name commonly throughout much of the under 30 crowd, but if you look a bit later, your parents probably listened to Zappa’s music or at least had heard of him.

So Frank was this crazy crazy guy. He and Captain Beefheart worked together on occasion, just to give you an idea. Anyway, so from the 50s through when he died, he was a guitarist and composer. His music basically takes the idea of experimental rock and adds another “experimental” to it, or something like that. Back in the day, this was one of the first bands Steve Vai was in (also, another testament to his craziness) And if you can get a hold of any of his orchestral works, they’re pretty nuts as well.

How is this a show review, though? I mean, the guy has been dead for 17 years and I would’ve been 4 at that time! This show was actually only in mid-January, this year. Turns out Frank’s son, Dweezil, (Yeah, Dweezil. His sister’s name: Moon Unit… Told ya’ he was crazy…) made a tribute band to his father in ’05, appropriately name: Zappa Plays Zappa. Since then, ZPZ has been on tour a few times, playing old Zappa songs, nearly note-for-note. Last summer I got the chance to see them 5th row, opening for Dream Theater. It was the best live show I’ve ever seen, so when I saw ZPZ was going to be in Baltimore, at Ram’s Head Live, I had to go.

As I said before, this is some crazy experimental rock. ZPZ is a 7 piece: guitar, guiar, bass, drums, percussion, keyboard/sax/flute, and vocals. In addition, everyone else also does vocal things and Dweezil actually plays his dad’s old Gibson SG – the same one Frank played at his shows. Since it was just ZPZ, with no openers, they played a nearly 3 hour set. It featured a wide variety of Frank’s work, including a few pieces from the Joe’s Garage album that they’ve just started to play on this tour. I’d say my favorite songs of the night were probably “Catholic Girl” and “Crew Slut.” Yes, moderately offensive, but in a rather comical way.

Now on to how this show was mind-blowing. First, I think the instrumentation is amazing. Not only is there an extreme variety between songs because of this, but then they throw in these crazy instrumental interludes. These are a little beyond just “solos” because it’s not just one feature at a time (most of the time). There is also a lot of call and response between instruments, which is pretty awesome.

So in addition to the instrumentals, there’s also these crazy vocal things they do. With everyone capable of singing and whatnot, the possibilities are endless. Quite a few of Zappa’s songs tell stories. In that instance, usually everyone will have a character and dialogue within the song. There are even times when multiple conversations are going on at once, so you have to listen to bits and pieces of each to get the idea of what’s going around. That’s probably the craziest it gets vocally. A handful of weird vocal sound effects are used throughout the performance as well.
Basically, this is the sort of show that everyone should be required to go to at some point in their life. There’s a little bit of everything thrown in, so if you are even remotely musically inclined, you should be able to appreciate it. Those of us who fancy more experimental sounds, music that keeps you guessing, will likely be able to appreciate ZPZ the most. For me, this completely changes my outlook on music. I have no idea what that means for the future of my own writing/listening/etc, but for now I’m sorta just left scratching my head and wondering how it’s possible to do what they do.

-Alex Brubaker

Show Review: Between the Buried and Me & In Flames

Ever since I discovered Between The Buried And Me this past spring, I’ve been hooked. After hearing Selkies, they quickly moved ahead to be one of my favorite bands. It may be my all-time favorite song. I even wrote a song with sweeps inspired by the solo at the end of the song. All of this being said, when I heard they were coming to Philly, I immediately marked down the date and planned for a crazy night. And quite the eventful evening it was… From nearly running out of gas in stop and go traffic to the actual show, it was quite the event. Unfortunately, in our hitting stop and go traffic, having to stop for gas, having to drop a friend off at Temple, and then discovering that everywhere we wanted to park was full, we ended up late to the show. We missed 3 Inches of Blood and some other band I hadn’t heard of, but got there just in time for BTBAM.


The set was solid. It consisted of: All Bodies, Selkies, Obfuscation, Foam Born A and B and White Walls. Despite being sick, frontman Tommy Rogers came through with his ridiculously powerful screaming and left the crowd to fill in some of the softer singing parts. All of the instrumental work came through with studio-quality precision and, as it usually does, blew my mind. Paul Waggoner’s guitar work is simply amazing.
Closing the night was In Flames. I had listened to these guys a few times before, but they never really did much for me. I feel like them playing after BTBAM took away from the show more than anything. Not that they weren’t good, but they just don’t have as much to bring to the table as BTBAM. The crowd seemed to be just as content with them, however[editors note: I am just as content with them as well]. There was even some crazy drunk guy who jumped from the balcony down to the pit to mosh… Somehow they let you do that at the Troc? Also, during In Flames, the stage lost power for a good 10 minutes. No one really knew what was going on. At the end of the night, the show was a good one and a great time, even looking back on it like a month later.

-Alex Brubaker

Show Review: August Burns Red, Bless the Fall, Enter Shikari, Iwrestledabearonce

If you’re ever having a bad day, week, month, or entire summer, then you’re clearly in need of a good hardcore show. To say this show was good, however, is like saying that the sun is warm - it’s a gross understatement. This was one of the best hardcore shows I’ve ever seen, and I was once one of those kids who went to a show each week, so I’ve seen quite a few.

The show started off with this band, iwrestledabearonce. Having never heard them before, I wasn’t sure what to expect. When a girl stepped on stage, I figured it’d either be something absolutely terrible, or something along the liens of Flee the Seen, being not nearly as heavy as ABR. So yeah, I was pretty wrong about that one. Frontwoman Krysta Cameron is brutal. She did all of the vocals, ranging from a death metal growl that would make small children cry to singing both very powerful melodies to extremely timid ones. She would switch back and forth on the slightest whim as well. Now being a guitarist, you’ve gotta do a good job at wowing me instrumentally as well. Not only did iwrestledabearonce have some crazy vocals, but they kept things extremely interesting with lots of genre changes, similar to what you’d see with some Between the Buried and Me songs, but slightly more frequent. Basically if I could be in a band, it would be something extremely reminiscent of these guys. I was impressed enough to actually go and buy their CD after the show (perhaps I’ll have a later segment in this blog on my view of piracy, coming from an artist). For the opening act, I don’t know that you can do much better.

With such an incredible first band, I expected to be slightly disappointed by the other two leading up to ABR. However, hailing from the UK, Enter Shikari was yet another wow experience. I really enjoy when people experiment with their music and come up with sounds that you haven’t heard before or, at the very least, don’t hear often. These guys did that with some strange mixture of techno-esque beats and synth sounds with a healthy mix of screaming and singing. It was unique, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was kinda strange at times, when within a single song you couldn’t decide whether you were supposed to be dancing or moshing. Jumping around in a more jovial manner would turn into a pit with the little scene kids and their windmill kicks and whatnot almost instantaneously. It’d also be interesting to note that they have an extremely different sound live than they do on their recorded material. In listening to them online just now, they are much more reserved in their recording. Live they seem to have a lot more raw vocal power than the processed sound of the studio. If I was going to buy a second CD at this show, it would have probably been theirs.

Still waiting for the almost inevitable flop that far too many shows seem to have, the third band, Bless the Fall, took the stage and I took a pessimistic stand. Perhaps I’ve just seen too many really exceptional bands with really unexceptional bands. Though I wasn’t quite as wowed with these guys, they still had a great sound and put on a great show. Their sound was a little bit more commonplace, and not as experimental, but still really solid and thoroughly enjoyable. They were really good, honestly, but at this point in writing this review, I’m just more anxious to get to ABR’s set, so this is getting cut short. Seriously, look all of these guys up online if you’ve never heard of them before.

So then comes the set change for ABR… With such anticipation for what everyone knew would be pure insanity, the set change took forever. I guess a few people couldn’t wait for things to go crazy, so they started a bit early. There were two girls who went into an all-out brawl prior to ABR taking the stage. I saw very little of it, but the few seconds I caught when I turned around to see what the commotion was were pretty intense. ABR finally took the stage shortly thereafter and everyone else got to go crazy. They started out with a few of their new songs, then played a few older ones and continued with a very healthy mix of old and new. Having not listened to the new songs too much, I was less familiar with them, but thoroughly impressed. Usually when a band first goes on tour with a new set list, it takes a while until the new songs are played as well as the old ones, but, as I gave an extremely critical ear to the new material, everything seemed to be dead on. A while back I had read some of the comments on their myspace saying that the new material wasn’t as brutal and whatnot, but it still is very much so, at least live.Despite it being an amazing show and ABR’s performance being pretty insane, there were a few things that I wasn’t too pleased about. In the midst of playing their new material they announced that they had the new album for sale at the show, even though the release date is the 14th. Sure that’s great and all, but being one of the people who preordered it, I was a little upset to find out that I would have to continue to wait while other people did not. Also, they didn’t play The Seventh Trumpet. If anyone has seen them live, The Seventh Trumpet pretty much redefines epic. It’s probably one of the best songs ever written by a person. To see them and not have that show in their set was troubling. However, I still got my mosh on, got to crowd surf, and saw one of the best lineups ever.

-Alex Brubaker

Show Review: Margot and the Nuclear So and So's (by Alex Brubaker)

Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s first appeared in at the V sometime in the spring of ’08. They were in with the new music and had some neat little description for themselves, so I gave them a try. Instantly I was blown away by a whimsical soundscape of awesome. They reminded me of a slightly less timid, more folksy Anathallo, whom I had seen around that time at a B-Sides.
Needless to say, when I heard that they were going to be playing B-Sides this spring, I was ecstatic. When the day finally arrived, I showed up early and further put off studying for a rather important final. They were a little slow to get to the stage, but it was well worth the wait once they walked on.
Not doing my research prior to seeing them, I was rather surprised to see that they were an 8 piece including a separate guy on percussion, a brass player, and a guy who played both lap steel guitar and violin. Many times you see these sorts of additions as gimmicks, but these were extremely talented musicians who tastefully added to the songs with every note both played and omitted. Despite having so many members, it’s not like there was so much going on in the music that it was hard to follow.
Afterwards I got the pleasure of talking to the brass player for a little bit. We discussed the band’s sound and imaginative writing as well as touching on a few of the oddities of the band’s sound. For instance, the suitcase used by the percussion guy. Inside the suitcase is a trigger. The trigger goes to the percussion guy’s drum pad. When triggered, the drum pad samples a recording of the suitcase… A rather round-about way of getting things done, but if it’s more reliable, why not?
This was an extremely strong ending to an excellent year of B-Sides provided by Margeaux. Ryan will definitely have a lot to live up to as next years B-Sides director, but I’ve got faith in him. Anyone who missed the B-Sides this year, especially Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s, definitely missed out.
Here's a video of them performing on Conan:


Interesting Side Note: In their contract, the band states that they can be paid in alcohol if money is a problem. Messiah just opted for the cash…
-Alex Brubaker

Show Review: Alex Brubaker

Friday night I rode down to Coffee Co. in Lancaster for one of Alex's frequent coffeehouse gigs. He played a couple of his older songs, along with nearly all of the material from his album, which is currently being mixed'n'mastered. I've heard a pre-release version, and it's excellent. For those that don't know Alex Brubaker, or haven't read my previous Homeboy Music entry on him (here), he plays what is known as percussive fingerstyle guitar, as well as experimenting with looping, processing, and other technical aspects. Here's a video of him performing at Messiah's monthly Coffeehouse, which he has won 3 times:

Side note: apparently Coffee Co has live music Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 7-9, and they make delicious lattes-one of which is called a Michael Jackson-that look like this (highly recommended):

Homeboy Music: Alex Brubaker

Homeboy Music is a series I'm starting where I will cover one friend of mine who is also a musical artist of some kind once a week until I run out. This week's artist is Alex Brubaker.

I met Alex when I hitched a ride with him to see August Burns Red at the Champ freshman year and then again to see Haste the Day. He's a really good guy who also happens to be an amazing musician, which makes going to shows with him interesting since he's always analyzing the guitarists' technique.

Alex is a guitarist whose technical proficiency never ceases to amaze me. He makes frequent use of tapping (yeah, that crazy August Rush ish), looping, and a bunch of other techniques that I don't fully understand, similar to artists like the recent indie darling Kaki King. He cites King, Trace Bundy, and Angel Vivaldi, among others, as influences. I just saw him do his thing at a Messiah coffeehouse the other night and it was awesome.

Check out this video of him playing "Horse in the Clouds" on his couch:

Go see him with singer/songwriters Sam Coakley (expect an upcoming profile) and Brian Turner for free at South Side Cafe this Friday @ 8 and/or next Saturday at Juice and Java in Mechanicsburg (a 2-hour show he tells me will involve 2 guitars).