So my show list has been updated yet again, due to the fact I can’t make SO many of the shows because of rehearsal demands. I’ve kept on 3 shows I’ll probably try to push and make since they’re gonna be AWESOME.

September 4: Electric Zoo Music Festival.
September 17: Biffy Clyro at North Star Bar.
September 18: Sea Wolf at North Star Bar.
*September 23: Andrew Belle, Joey Ryan, Paula Valstein, Jay Nash and Amber Rubarth at World Cafe Live.
September 26: Gabriela Martinez at the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.
*September 30: Stars at the Troc.
October 15: Ingrid Michaelson at the Troc.
October 16: Sara Bareilles/Greg Laswell/Holly Conlan at the Troc.
*October 17: Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott at the Kimmel Center.
October 22: Guster at the Electric Factory.
October 23: Phoenix at the Tower Theater.
October 29: K-OS at the North Star Bar.
November 9: Dala at World Cafe Live OR La Roux at the Troc.
November 10: Sufjan Stevens at the Academy of Music.
November 19: The Frames at the TLA.
November 21: Brooke Fraser at World Cafe Live.

Since I am going to a wedding this afternoon, this seemed the appropriate mix. Hooray for Christopher Rubino and Megan McGowan! Yes, I am a closet romantic. Stole My Heart is on the Amazon Kindle commercial. Sister Hazel actually has some good stuff beyond their most popular late 90s period. Carissa’s Wierd was a Seattle “chamber pop” band, one of the members went on to Band of Horses. They apparently didn’t know how to spell. Good to see Jennifer Knapp coming back with some good stuff. Ima see Katie Herzig live pretty soon, so am looking forward to that. The Lily Allen song has weird grammar but maybe that’s a Brit thing… “get a Chinese” rather than “get Chinese”? I assume she’s talking about Chinese food and not adopting a Chinese baby. The song has a nice cover by some UK kids choir, was listening to that the other day and it was utterly charming… possibly even a little better than the original.

Stole My Heart – Little & Ashley
Dead Hearts – Stars
You’re Not The Only One – Paul Thorn
What Kind Of Living – Sister Hazel
Raining In Me – The Benjy Davis Project
Lions – Samantha Crain
Chinese – Lily Allen
Princess – Lee Dewyze
Die – Carissa’s Wierd
Things I Used to Know – Riley Etheridge Jr.
Blue Sunshine – Blue Giant
Check Your Pocket – The Benjy Davis Project
Dive In – Jennifer Knapp
Wasted Daylight – Stars
Static Waves – Andrew Belle & Katie Herzig
Queen of the Lot – The Spring Standards
Heart To Tell – The Love Language
Smile with Candy Hearts – Clara C

K-town, in the vein of Jersey Shore.

I can waste hours listening to new music (and lots of rediscovering old favorites). One of my joys is listening to opera arias that I used to accompany back in the day. I remember with fondness the extremely short-lived Penn Opera Society… I looked up some of the old members on Facebook and it looks as if a lot of them are still in the opera game. Good for them. I’m not out of the game either; I’m working with many talented soloists on an opera right now called The Crowded House, along with the composer himself, Michael Dutka. The show will be opening in the Philly Fringe Festival in September in the Lantern Theatre. It’ll be great. I hope.

Never actually accompanied this one, but I find the Stabat Mater to be beautiful.

This Steppenwolf song has always been a keeper, and this updated live cover (since it’s been jazzed up a little bit) by the old man himself is pretty darn tootin.

I listen, off and on, to a lot of French music. Particularly that with a Afro or Cuban or Afro-Cuban feel. Since there are so many African and Arabic “influences” in France, there’s always bound to be great music. Thus, one more. I love her sound, as I imagine myself in a Havana cafe in the 1920s with elegant Creole women holding long cigarettes in holders and wafting exotic perfumes… I also, randomly, think of Marion Cotillard.

One of my favorite bands, Stars. They have this cinematic melancholy sound, and they’re from Toronto. What’s not to like? This is Wasted Daylight, off their newest album. Their other single from that album, Dead Hearts, is also super-awesome – and you can get it free on Amazon. Grab.