What’s Going on?

Philadelphia has an amazing amount of fantastic live shows coming our way in the next couple of months. Scroll down to find a comprehensive list of our favorite event calendars for around the area.

We wanted to highlight some notable shows coming up.

Kurt Vile and The Violators Philadelphia’s favorite long haired lo-fi experimentalists are playing Wednesday, February 17 at

TheBarbary with Fucked Up: hardcore punk at it’s best.

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Mission of Burma may be old but they are still ridiculously good and pretty much historical figures when it comes to rock as we know it.  Mission of Burma should be on everyone’s bucket list. They will be at The Church Thursday, February 18 with Sleeper Agent.

St. Vincent will be bringing her painfully pretty songs to a seated sanctuary show at The Church Thursday, February 25 with Wildbirds and Peacedrums who also put on a spectacular show.

We are all about Surfer Blood right now! They will be playing The Barbary Monday, March 1. They bring their warm weather, 1990’s pop sounds to our cold, modern, Philadelphia ears.

Rouge Wave will be putting on a seated Sanctuary show at The Church Thursday, March 4, full of harmony, melodies, and choruses to sing to. It’s goose pimple music.

Our muse, namesake  and favorite showmen ever, Man Man, are doing a long overdue hometown Philadelphia show. Oh how we’ve missed them. No more crossing state lines for our fix! They will be debuting new songs galore at the their Troc show on March 5.

Henry Rollins?! Yep, really Henry Rollins is coming to the Sanctuary Thursday, March 11. Sounds nuts but it’s true. The Church is just one of many stops he is making on his Frequent Flyer Tour.

The Ruby Suns invoke big sunglasses, psychedelic swirls, and songs like “Let the Sunshine In“. Check out their 6-piece band at Kung Fu Necktie with Toro Y Moi and Power Animal, Philly’s own experimental wonders on Thursday, March 25.

The xx is sold out and we don’t have tickets and I am pretty much too mad to even comment on this one. If your going and want to do a review or interview for us, e-mail me at andrea@hipsterseatforfree.com The show is at The Church Monday, March 29. We will probably be there begging for tickets.

Fanfarlo is the kind of indie pop that can take over. It sticks around a while and the pay off is more then instant grat. The show is Wednesday, March 31 at The Church. I am guessing this one will sell out.

The forefathers of indie rock Nada Surf will be playing at The Church Thursday April 1. If you haven’t been paying attention since the 90’s, it’s time to see just how much perfection these guys put out this decade.

The Thermals will be giving us an excuse to jump around like madwomen in what is sure to be a sweaty packed Church on Thursday, April 15.

Check out other event calendars here:

• R5 Productions Event Calendar
• The Electric Factory
• Kung Fu Nectie
• Johnny Brenda’s
• Y-Rock
• Tritone
• The Trocadero
• World Cafe Live
• Phrequency

Man Man: Ridding the World of Fascism

If you have never heard of Man Man you are certainly no friend of mine. It may also mean you are not from Philadelphia, like bad music, are a fascist, or hate fun. There seems to be two extremes when it comes to Man Man’s music. You either love it until it becomes a creepy obsession, possibly involving a shrine in your closet or you hate it and it gives you nightmares. If you are the latter, you are most likely a fascist.

The music of Man Man is unlike anything out there today and is saturated with creativity, imagery, talent, feathers and amazing musicality. The songs range from catchy and dancey to aggressively tragic. The eclectic sound of all three albums, The Man in the Blue Turban With a Face, Six Demon Bag, and Rabbit Habits, never gets stale and isn’t overdone.

The songs are a perfect mixture of drums, piano, saxophone, synthesizer, sousaphone, flute, xylophone, plastic toy horns, wind toys, spoons on metal and the unforgettable, raspy, vocal stylings of Honus Honus (Ryan Kattner). Regardless of the fact that none of the members of Man Man have formal training in any of the many instruments they play, each song resembles a well choreographed, well rehearsed, perfected ballet. It is not by chance that the sousaphone and the plastic toy horns play harmoniously while the piano and vocals seem to be battling. Both the musicality and the performance aspect of their shows reflect organized chaos. Chaotic and yet consistently awesome!

Seeing them live is like having the best sex you’ve ever had. They even skip the ceremonious foreplay and jump right into an hour long climax, no boring small talk, no lame little jokes, no breaking the ice etc… Their set never stops so as not to break the momentum. In the end both you and them are sweaty, exhausted and satisfied.  For those of you who enjoy the foreplay and slow, tender, love making, try Jason Mraz.

Man Man would not be the world-improving force that it is today without the flawless drumming of Pow Pow (Christopher Powell) and the scratchy, Brillo pad vocals of Honus Honus.  They set up their instruments so that the drums and Honus’ piano and microphone are  side by side and downstage center.  This provides the audience with a real show.  Honus and Pow often gaze at each other for cues and have certain choreographed movements that go with the particular song they are playing.  Your eyes never get bored watching while Honus perches on his stool, in a glitter dress and flaunts his legs, meanwhile Pow Pow pours water on his drums to make a splashing effect when he plays.

After one Man Man show your fascist tendencies will melt away and the liberty loving you, will shine through.  They call me boy crazy but I can seriously never get enough Man Man.  If you like a great show, flawless music, America, fun and freedom, than go see Man Man the next time you get a chance.

The Honus Honus Interview: Swept Off My Feet Like A Fish.

We love Man Man. It’s obvious, we’ve stuffed it down your throat even more than Victor Victor Band. We are such big fans that Sister and I, between the two of us, have seen them in five different states in slightly over a year.

In their own way they started our unhealthy obsession with local and indie music. If you get the joke in the name of our Web site then you know that the music and experience of Man Man plays a huge part in what we do here at HEFF.

So when the opportunity to sit down with frontman Honus Honus presented it’s self we were psyched! We packed the car with vegan snacks, tempted Nataly’s crappy car radio to make it the 3.5 hour trip, and headed south into rainy, dark traffic on I-95, all to catch up with them at the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. (Okay, okay, we were going anyway, duh! But, getting to talk with them was an extra “rad” experience.)

I sat down between sets to speak with Honus Honus. We grilled him a little about their long absence from Philly, and his feelings on relationships. We covered a wide and strange array of topics like, death, parenthood, skydiving and his inspirations. We had to stop a few times for the bands to play, so a few questions went unanswered, but don’t fret whether you like it or not, you will be hearing a lot more from Man Man on our little site.

HEFF:How come we haven’t seen you guys in Philly for quite a while?

HH: I don’t know. It’s like we haven’t been avoiding Philly we just for some reason or another haven’t played Philly. It’s almost been a year.

HEFF: Your R5 relationship is still good and strong?

HH: Yeah that’s still good. (Slight hesitation and laugh). No, no it’s good. There really hasn’t been a reason why we haven’t played Philly…. We all feel really lousy about it. We don’t sleep well.

HEFF: I don’t think we have seen you in state since last Halloween.

HH: Well I mean we don’t like playing Philly all the time anyway because we don’t want to wear out or welcome but a year is kind of ludicrous. We kind of feel at this point that we need more new songs, or a new record before we have the right to play Philly again anyway, so thats on us.

HEFF: So Chris (Drummer Pow Pow aka Christopher Powel) said you did have some new songs.

HH: Yeah we are going to play a couple tonight.

HEFF: Tell me about them.

HH: They’re new.(laughs)

HEFF: Is there an album behind it?

HH: Oh I mean thats why we haven’t been touring very much. We’ve just been trying to write a new record. I keep telling myself it’s the hardest one to write. What a bitch. But then I think back and they were all pretty terrible to write. So we are kind of in the thick of it.

HEFF: What’s your writing process? You all have a certain sound that you bring to it. So how do you do that? Does one person write?

HH: It’s like group therapy, a lot of putting out family fires.

HEFF: How did you guys find each other?

HH: Through Match.com(laughs)…. He [Pow] was always my favorite Philly drummer, so when my first drummer bounced, I got someone else and then I got Pow.

HEFF: Your fans are either die hard or “I can’t listen to that crazy clown music”.

HH: (Laughs)Clown music?? Wow that’s cool.

HEFF: Why do you think your music can draw so many people and turn so many people off?

HH: I dig it, you know? I like eliciting some response. I’d rather it be an extreme one than a middling one where some one just bops their head. I’d rather people just go ape-shit with happiness or just be completely reviled. I like that we can piss people off its great.

HEFF: Who are your fans?

HH: I think, anyone who the child isn’t dead in them. You know? Someone who is at least open. I mean I feel like your either into it or your not. I feel like I am the same way personally so it works for the music too.

HEFF: Are your love songs about hope or about heartbreak?

HH: Hope that heartbreak doesn’t happen again. But being open to it possibly happening again. I don’t know both.

HEFF: Do you believe in painless love?

HH: I wish. I mean I haven’t been in a relationship in years now. It’s worth trying… I don’t know.

HEFF: So when you write about love, not having been in a relationship recently, are you pulling from the past?

HH: Well I mean I wasn’t able to write songs for like about a year or so, just because I just didn’t feel like I had anything. I didn’t want to go to the well basically.

We take a break to watch Opening Band Who Shot Hollywood play.

HEFF: How do you go from being Ryan to Honus? I mean you are so quiet and nice right now?

HH: (Mischievous laugh)Ahh. Its funny, I went to go to the Dirty Projectors show the other day but just to catch their sound check, because i wanted to watch the Phillies game and one of the girls in the band (we played a couple shows with them) she walked by me a couple times and we finally got to talk and she said she didn’t recognize me cause she was used to seeing my legs. Maybe thats what it is?

HEFF: What do you want to be doing when your 64?

HH: I want to be dead!

HEFF: Dead by 64?

HH: We are all dead by 2012! … I hope I have something figured out by 64.

HEFF: What is it that your trying to figure out?

HH: My shit.

HEFF: Do you want to be playing music? Do you want to be settled down?

HH: I don’t know. I’d hope that the “shit show” that’s my personal life, I hope that it settles down a little bit, yeah. I’ll probably just be a little more mellow.

HEFF: Are you happy?

HH: Are YOU happy?

HEFF: Most of the time.

HH: Yeah? What’s the secret?

HEFF: Honestly… for me it’s my kid.

HH: Well than yeah, its not your life anymore…. that’s the last thing I need to have is a fucking kid (laughs)…. it would be terrible if i had a kid.

HEFF: Would it? Why?

HH: Nah it would just be bad.

HEFF: Your kid could be so creative and crazy and fun.

HH: My kid would be a mess or he’d just grow up to be really conservative.

HEFF: There you go that would probably be it.

HH:… generally how that happens.

HEFF: Back to the music. What are you listening to?

HH: I’ve been listening to a lot of early R&B. My friend got me into this record Tarheel Slim and Little Annie. It’s really cool like early Sixties R&B. I am a sucker for R&B and Do-woop

HEFF: Yeah it’s obvious.

HH: ( laughs)Yeah. I did a cover of Cry To Me by Solomon Burke. A friend of mine (Charlyne Yi) she was in our Rabbit Habits video. She remade a scene of Dirty Dancing with that actor Channing Tatum… They reenacted the sexy, sultry dancing. They couldn’t get the rights to that Solomon Burke song so she had me cover that song and it was painful. Solomon Burke is like 400 pounds, 90 grandchildren, full of soul. I mean I have some soul but my soul is broken and fucked. So it took two days to record my vocals for it. And the first day I made it like 3 hours and I had to leave and go to bed at 5 o’clock at night. I was like I don’t know how to do this. I can’t do this. But I figured it out. I don’t know where that story came form.

HEFF: How did you get together with Charlyne? How did she get involved in your videos and opening for you?

HH: A friend of a friend, and then we just clicked. She’s pretty fearless she’s got some big balls on her. When we first stared hanging out we went skydiving together that was a lot of fun.

HEFF: Oh shit, how was that? Was that your first time?

HH: Yeah for both of us. It was probably our last time, well I want to go again.

HEFF: I always said when I’m 84

HH: (laughs)Yeah when your 84?… It’s gonna be written into my will, [that] I want my mom to go skydiving with my ashes.

HEFF: And spread them?

HH: Ah huh ..I’m going to give people pieces of my ashes to do something with. Like my one friend Angry Mike, I want him to have my ashes and go snorkeling in the Bahamas you know and spread um in the water, he can’t swim so that would be awesome. And my moms like, “If i jump out of a plane i’ll have a heart attack.” I’m like, “At least your dying with me.”

HEFF: How did you conceptualize, was this your musical sound that comes through in Man Man?

HH: It’s kind of my answer all the time but its the truth: I couldn’t afford therapy and this is how i get my shit out of my system. But its ironic because it just got to the point where if I didn’t have this I would just be….

Then they called him for set time!!!

What You Should Be Doing This Week (10/19)

Tonight (Monday): Our favorite funny man Steve (Diary of a Band) and his band Odessa Stair take the Stage at North Star Bar 7 p.m. on the dot! They are Playing with Jupiter One and Me and My Arrow. Be there. They are so talented, and we have to make sure they make enough money so that Steve can continue to write for us for free!

Wednesday Night: We are going to see Banned Books at Silk City. These guys have a great sound. Check out Nataly’s review of their album, Mission Creep. If you can’t make it Wednesday night they will be at The Danger Danger Gallery on Sunday. There is no excuse not to go see them. You’ve got two days to pick from.

Thursday Night: Holy shit balls! I am so excited for Portugal. The Man with Drug Rug and Hockey. It’s a R5 show at Johnny Brendas. It is sold out! You snooze you loose!

Friday Night: Nataly will be attending the Man Man show in D.C at the 9:30 Club. I will be at home weeping into my pillow. WTF Man Man?! Come to Philly!

*****Breaking News, This Just In: Hockey is no longer playing Philadelphia this Thursday. I don’t know why, but I will ask them when I interview them this weekend. Kinda wish I hadn’t bought the tickets but Portugal. The Man will still be a good show. That’s the bad news, the good news…..I’m going to Man Man!!!! Yay me! That might not be great news for you, unless you’re going too.

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