Dirty Beaches, Live @ FUC

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Alex Zhang Hungtai, Canadian Bands, concert video, Dirty Beaches, Dirty Beaches Band, first unitarian church, fuc, live music, live philly concerts, R5 Productions

Dirty Beaches is Alex Zhang Hungtai and Alex is Dirty Beaches.  The boutique label holy-grail maker engineers tracks of dirty croon-filled depths.  His stage presence has an amalgam of personifications peering through it; although, their intention is rightfully mysterious. We saw glimpses of Chuck Berry and Elvis through the dimly lit stage and sludgy tracks.  Based out of Canada, Dirty Beaches comes through Philadelphia several times a year and we are damn lucky for it.

A Dirty Beaches show touches on auditory sensibilities difficult to define but easy to appreciate.  Blazing new trails in sonic bliss, the band graced the FUC stage on May 3rd, 2012 and delivered a reverent performance  to his musical influences and the lucky crowd.  Grinding through numerous tracks and ferociously brandishing his guitar Alex, with his Dirty Beaches bandmate, provided us with yet another exhibit behind the crime of missing his live performance.  You can beat the case by catching his July 23rd performance at Johnny Brenda’s after his Spanish tour.  In the meantime, we have some dark and dirty videos:

Xiu Xiu, Live @ FUC

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concert video, first unitarian church, first unitarian church concerts, fuc, indie music, polyvinyl, R5 Productions, xiu xiu, xiu xiu band

The decade old project of Jamie Stewart, Xiu Xiu, played a fresh set at FUC in Philly on the third of May 2012.  This avant-garde experimental indie group has existed as a solar system of artists with one star.  The current orbiter (since 2009) is Angela Seo.  The history around Xiu Xiu is deep and saving a regurgitation of this, we simply point you to wikipedia for many paragraphs on the subject.

We can state unequivocally that the performance was moving and energetic.  Coasting in between soft and hard sounds, Xiu Xiu created an atmosphere that held gravity in a state of influx allowing those in attendance to ebb and flow with the metaphorical currents;  quiet interludes pulled at the feet while  soaring guitar solos and haunting vocals pulled the listener up off the ground.  Percussion sounds added to the visceral feel that was manifested and we were happy to be in attendance for yet another stunning performance at FUC for Xiu Xiu.  We have a few videos for you below and apologize in advance for the partially obscured shots:

Coma Cinema, Live @ FUC

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bands to watch, coma cinema, concert video, electronic music, first unitarian church, Fork and Spoon Records, live music, live philly concerts

I’ll admit it. I did not know much about Coma Cinema going into the September 12th show at FUC in Philly. I read the typical source materials and found that they were a band out of South Carolina, they were formed by Mat Cothran in 2005, Pitchfork posted a video of theirs back in 2010.. But what I definitely didn’t know was that a saxophone could be so seamlessly blended with a keyboard, so many songs could be run through with such short breaks, and that I would be witnessing the playing of a bunch of unreleased tracks. Coma Cinema was a solid act. Although I hadn’t anticipated taping so many songs back to back, I couldn’t stop recording. I kept waiting as the songs seemed to get better and better. Not that I didn’t enjoy the first. But you know… Anyhow, for me, the second song in this video, “Caroline, Please Kill Me” was my favorite. It had an infectious chorus and beat. Jazz elements supported by the sax, electronic elements from the keys, punk from the drums, emo-esque voice from Mat, with solid guitar and bass lines.. I enjoyed it. Check out the 5 song half set below:

Take a listen to Coma Cinema’s most recent EP below or head on over to their full bandcamp page to DL all their work,