Dan DeLuca’s Mix Picks: Lame-O Records, Blanco Brown, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and deconstructing Taylor Swift
Music critic Dan DeLuca's Sunday picks.
Switched On Pop: How Popular Music Works, and Why It Matters, by Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan. It’s a podcast, and now it’s a book. Along with Song Exploder and the Kanye West-obsessed Dissect, Switched On Pop is one of a group of podcasts that break down the art and science of pop music-making. Each Switched On chapter deconstructs one song, from Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” to Kendrick Lamar’s "Swimming Pool (Drank)” to Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe,” treating pop music with the seriousness it deserves. (Oxford University Press, $24.95).
Kurt Rosenwinkel’s Bandit65. A “post-jazz” trio featuring the twin guitar improvisational interplay and experimental electronic excursions of Rosenwinkel, a Germantown native and Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts grad, and equally adventurous Philadelphia axeman Tim Motzer. With drummer Gintas Janusonis. Monday at the Ruba Club.
Lame-O Rock Residency. The annual South Philly series celebrating local indie-punk label Lame-O kicks off with Petal — a.k.a. songwriter Kiley Lotz — plus Russell Edlin-led Cherry and New York trio Strangepride. The winter music series continues on subsequent Thursdays in January, with the likes of the Menzingers, Tigers Jaw, and Slaughter Beach, Dog. Thursday at Boot & Saddle.
Blanco Brown. Call it “trailer trap,” “hick-hop” or country-rap opportunism, but Georgia rapper Blanco Brown hopped on the “Old Town Road” bandwagon in 2019 and rode the line dance novelty “The Git Up” to the top of the Billboard charts last summer. He followed it up with the less charming, if evocatively titled debut album Honeysuckle & Lightning Bugs in October and is opening for “Fix” singer Chris Lane on his “Big, Big Plans” tour. Thursday at Theatre of Living Arts.