Concert Previews
Atmosphere For a decade now, Sean Daley and Anthony Davis - whose hip-hop handles are Slug and Ant, respectively - have been forging a formidable career in the unlikely alt-rap stronghold of Minneapolis. Ant lays down steady rolling smooth funk backdrops
Atmosphere
For a decade now, Sean Daley and Anthony Davis - whose hip-hop handles are Slug and Ant, respectively - have been forging a formidable career in the unlikely alt-rap stronghold of Minneapolis. Ant lays down steady rolling smooth funk backdrops for Slug's deft and detailed story songs. Since 1998's
Overcast!
, those songs have tended to focus on the coming of age of an open-hearted mixed-raced rapper reflective enough to call himself "self-absorbed," and to be unfairly pigeonholed as "emo rap" as a result. The previous Atmosphere high water mark was the
God Loves Ugly
CD in 2002, but the confident and impressively consistent musical alchemy found on the new
When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That S- Gold
(Rhymesayers) is the duo's sharpest yet.
- Dan DeLuca
Fern Knight and Linda Cohen
Fans of the psychedelic terrapin-toned folk sound with classical leanings that the kids seem to love, take note - this evening is an event. Not just because this gig shows off two masters of the form at their finest.
It proves that Philly's command of the gray-and-green genre didn't commence with Espers - as brilliant, necessary and scene-gleaming as that band is. Classical guitarist/teacher Linda Cohen, 60, was studying the works of Segovia and Fahey and opening gigs for Dave Van Ronk at the Second Fret before she turned 18. She recorded creepily ambient albums filled with theremins and tape loops
(Leda, Lake
of
Light)
before 1973. That makes Cohen Philly's psych-folk godmother. And there are few nicer, eerier classically imbued children than crystalline singer/songwriter Margaret Wienk, her phantasmagorical Fern Knight, and that Philly ensemble's moody improvisational mesh of the electronic and the acoustic. It'll be a perfect Sunday for Fern Knight as it marks the debut of the harp, cello and violin-filled electric light orchestra's new songs that will appear on its third CD,
Fern Knight.
Love and learn.
- A.D. Amorosi
Joe Ely
Last week, Joe Ely took the stage in Houston with the Boss, but the Lone Star Springsteen hasn't really played the dynamic rocker for a while now. Rather, he's been in troubadour mode, and that's the way he'll be performing on Sunday night. Matching the approach of his excellent new album,
Live Cactus,
Ely and his acoustic guitar will be accompanied only by accordionist Joel Guzman, who helps accentuate the border flavor of some of Ely's finest narrative songs, as well as numbers by Butch Hancock and Townes Van Zandt.
- Nick Cristiano