US – Sunday, March 21

Photo: STEVE GULLICKSilversun Pickups: ‘We’re the weird kids at the prom’
Silversun Pickups picked up a lot of steam in 2009. The Los Angeles-based shoegaze quartet’s second album, “Swoon,” swooped into the Billboard Top 10 last spring and gained them a Grammy nomination.
 

Photo: KATHY PETERSON
Philly Music
Taking the jam to a whole new level
Combined, Larry Toft and Daniel Peterson play in at least a half-dozen bands — two together, plus four other projects each. That’s actually pretty typical of serious musicians in Philadelphia’s tight-knit, hard working, experimental jazz scene. But Toft and Peterson were craving even more, and so last year, Avant Ascension was born.
 
Philly Music
Fixing a broken record
Over the last decade, Philadelphia has seen the emergence of small nonprofits — think Ars Nova Workshop and Bowerbird — that continue to develop emerging classical, experimental and jazz musicians. But until now, artists working in popular mediums had one, maybe two options: Do it yourself or … be Dr. Dog? That’s just one of the reasons Brian McTear launched Weathervane Music, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the careers of independent popular musicians.
Music
It's a sisters thing
Anna Christie first appeared in the these pages back in 2006, when she was among the frequent street performers in Suburban Station.
 

Philly Music
Amanda Blank is ‘Philly to the bone’
When it comes to other dirty-lyric-writing, genre-bending, female-driven musicians, most tend to compare Amanda Blank’s rapid fire raunch-rap with Canadian electronic dance floor queen Peaches.
 
Philly Music
Short and sweet, but deserving of exclamation point
Alpert back on the road
French revolution
The Folk Festival plugs in
The Windows treatment
Fashion statement
All that prog-metal-jazz
Angie Stone kicks off Welcome party
Bishop gets his ‘Freak’ on
Near and Deer
Philly Music
Not buyng it
Living the Dream
Back to their Roots
Rapper Lif told you so
Out of hibernation
Peaches and ‘Cream’
Still so Damned good
Now that’s ‘Entertainment’
War not healthy for Living Things
Two planets