By Denny Dyroff, Staff Writer, The Times
The Wrecks
On July 29 and 30, Fillmore Philadelphia (1100 Canal Street, Philadelphia, 215-309-0150, www.thefillmorephilly.com) will host the “Rockstar Energy presents: All Time Low – Young Renegades Tour,” a tour which also features SWMRS, Waterparks, The Wrecks
The Wrecks are a Los Angeles-based indie rock band with roots in Thousand Oaks, California. The group features Nick Anderson (vocals/guitar), Nick Schmidt (guitar), Harrison Nussbaum (guitar), Aaron Kelley (bass), and Billy Nally (drums).
With influences such as The Pixies, The Strokes, Weezer, and Vampire Weekend, the band rocks out with its own distinct melodic and quirky sound.
The Wrecks are touring in support of their debut EP “We Are the Wrecks. The EP “Favorite Liar,” a song that caught the attention of Jeff Reagan at SiriusXM’s Alt Nation and reached top #5 on their Alt-18 countdown for weeks.
The EP is currently Top 40 at Alternative Radio and has almost 5.5 million streams on Spotify. The live video has garnered almost 400,000 views on YouTube.
“In November 2015, we were in the room together for the first time,” said Anderson, during a phone interview Wednesday from a tour stop in Niagara Falls, N.Y.
“Three days later, we snuck into a recording studio and recorded the tracks for the EP.”
The Wrecks recorded their debut EP on a whim when they heard the news that a friend had been granted access to a professional recording studio for just a few days.
With zero budget, limited recording experience, and less than a week as a band under their belts, the group set out to write and record the best songs that they could in three days.
“A friend was in custody of the studio and placed the key under a mat,” said Anderson. “We didn’t know we weren’t allowed to be there.”
As the owner’s ex-wife was on her way to the studio, the band members were told they had just minutes to leave without a trace.
“As we were pulling out, we saw the ex-wife’s car pull into the driveway,” said Anderson.
The Wrecks made a successful getaway – but it was not a clean getaway.
“We realized that we left the tracks on the hard drive there,” said Anderson. “Aaron snuck in the next night at 2 a.m. to get the files.”
Once they got the recordings back, the Wrecks joined together with a co-producer to assemble the EP.
“Our co-producer was Andrew DiAngelo,” said Anderson. “He is also co-producing our next EP.”
Both EPs are being released on Another Century Records.
“Another Century was coming to our shows before anybody else,” said Anderson. “We signed with them because they were the first to show interest — and because they are a growing label.
“We originally released the EP on our own in April 2016 and then Another Century re-issued it in February 2017.
“We’re finishing the second EP now. Andrew and I are co-producing again. We recorded it in L.A. and then scrapped those recordings.
“We came east and re-recorded the EP at Patrick Barry’s home studio in western New York. Now, we’re playing songs from both EPs in our live shows.”
Video link for The Wrecks – https://youtu.be/_kHjDNHEU5o.
The shows at the Fillmore, which also features SWMRS, Waterparks, and The Wrecks, will start at 7 p.m. Tickets are $32.50.
Dalton
Dalton, who is headlining a show on July 29 at The Voltage Lounge (421 North Seventh Street, Philadelphia, 215- 964-9602, www.Voltagelounge.com), is going by just one name now.
Because of his television exposure, thousands of fans already know him as Dalton Rapattoni.
Dalton is most recently known for being one of the Top 3 finalists on the 15th and final season of the Fox Television hit show, American Idol.
Dalton began performing at the age of 12 when he formed his first band Fly Away Hero, which released two EPs (Fly Away Hero, Now Boarding.) At 14, he was contacted by a casting director that discovered his band through YouTube and asked him to audition for a new act called IM5.
The principles were Simon Fuller, Perez Hilton and Jaime King. From over 30,000 nationwide auditions, Dalton was chosen for the group.
Over the next four years, Dalton worked with many well-known producers, songwriters and choreographers, including Toby Gad, Harmony Samuels, Rock Mafia, Nappytabs, and Meghan Trainor.
At 18, Dalton reunited with his childhood band Fly Away Hero, who landed themselves at #17 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart after releasing an EP titled “Lost and Found.”
That EP debuted at #22 on the Alternative charts and included the song “Hercules,” written by Dalton, which remains the #1 selling song on the EP.
“I grew up in Dallas,” said Dalton, during a phone interview Wednesday from Secaucus, New Jersey. “I moved to L.A. when I was 13 and I’ve been going back-and-forth ever since.
“I’m bi-polar and had seizures when I was a kid. Because of that, I missed so many days of school that I had to be home-schooled. My parents found out about School of Rock and enrolled me.
“I think I was 12 when I did my first show with School of Rock. I started out playing guitar. I was singing during one of my guitar lessons and my teacher said I should be singing rather than playing guitar.
“I auditioned for a band in L.A. when I was 13. That’s when I started taking it seriously. I went back to my old band Fly Away Hero and that’s when I met my producer Matt Novetski.”
The American Idol show proved to be a game changer for Dalton.
“I was nervous about American Idol,” said Dalton. “I didn’t think I’d get very far. I figured I’d at least get on TV and that would help my profile.
“I got more confused as I went. I wasn’t the best singer. There were great singers getting cut and I kept going – all the way through 13 rounds. The best song I did on the show? I like ‘Elanor Rigby’ because I got to pick the stage show.
“The most successful was ‘Bird Set Free.’ I connected with people because I cried like a baby in the middle of it. I saw my mom in the audience crying and that got me crying.”
Video link for Dalton — https://youtu.be/ChRhoMDKfZc
The all-ages show at the Voltage Lounge, which also features The House On Cliff and Lauren Carnahan, will start at 5 p.m. Tickets are $15.
Pinact
Pinact, which is performing on July 29 at Kung Fu Necktie (1248 North Front Street, Philadelphia, 215-291-4919, kungfunecktie.com), started as a loud, hard-rocking duo and now has amped it up even more as a three-piece.
Corrie Gillies (vocals, guitar) and Lewis Reynolds (drums) were already a frantic on-stage force before they added Jon Arbuthnott (bass) to bring out the razor-sharp melodies and unapologetically fuzzy guitars.
The band from Glasgow, Scotland is touring in support of its sophomore album “The Part That No One Knows” (Kanine Records) – and is making its first live assault on the American music scene.
“We came over before to play SXSW and CMJ but this is our first proper tour here,” said Gillies, during a phone interview Thursday from a tour stop in New York.
“We released our first album ‘Stand Still and Rot’ in 2015. Th new one is coming out in about a month. There is a definite difference between the two albums.
“The first one was just drums and guitar. We got a bass player now so that has totally opened up the sound and made it more dynamic. The recording process has cleaned up but we still have the same immediacy.”
Pinact got its start in Scotland’s capital city.
“Lewis and I had been friends in Glasgow for a while,” said Gillies. “We started playing together when we were around 20.
“We recorded some demos early on and then did the first album. In the two-and-a-half years between albums, we’ve definitely become more focused.
“With the new album, the way we recorded was a big part of the process. We wrote a lot before we started recording. It was a very intense writing period. We locked ourselves up in the studio and spent two super-intense months writing new songs.
“We went up to a little cottage in the Scottish Isles and spent the time in complete isolation. We purposely holed ourselves up in the Highlands to focus on bringing out the melodies — and I think that it shows.”
Arbuthnott’s rock-steady bass work allowed Gillies to play sinewy guitar over the drumming and that has increased the songs’ intensity.
“After being in the Scottish countryside, we went to London at the end of October,” said Gillies. “We were there for two weeks working with producer Rory Atwell.
“The basis of all the songs was live performance in the studio. I don’t think we could have done it any other way because it would have sucked all the energy out of the songs.”
Video link for Pinact – https://youtu.be/aSfC_9HrhxQ.
The show at Kung Fu Necktie, which also features Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires and Crazy Bull, will start at 8:30 p.m.
Tickets are $10.
Stolen Jars
Stolen Jars, which plays The Sound Hole (43rd and Osage streets, Philadelphia, https://www.facebook.com/SoundHolePhilly/) on July 29, has mainly been the recording project of Cody Fitzgerald but now is a full band.
Fitzgerald, the group’s songwriter and center of gravity, started writing as Stolen Jars in 2011. Now, Stolen Jars is touring in support of its new EP “glint.”
Stolen Jars have released the new EP, “glint” as the follow-up to their 2015 sophomore LP “Kept.”
According to Fitzgerald, “A glint is a shimmering reflection of light and, at the end of the day, that is really what this EP is — a small 16-minute moment of reflection.
“It is five songs centered around themes of loss and renewal — songs about finding hints of memory in the present and trying to keep sight of them just long enough to let them go.”
Each track plays alongside a composition from different video artists, animators, choreographers, and directors to create a “Visual EP” experience — Evelyn Ross for “Eliot,” Jenelle Pearring and Nora Alami for “Gold Age,” Abie Sidell and Felix Handte for “Long New York,” Marissa Goldman and Blaine Dunkley for “Gone Away,” and Henry Chaisson for “Afterlight.”
“‘glint’ came out a few months ago with the last video right before this tour,” said Fitzgerald, during a phone interview Wednesday from a tpour stop in Chapel Hill, NBorth Carolina.
“I actually recorded ‘glint’ a while ago. I recorded it as my thesis in my senior year in college at Brown University. I recorded it there and then we decided to make it a visual EP.
“I recorded everything in my room for this project using Logic. I thought – I’m going to write songs about a concept and then decided I could use it for my thesis.
“The whole EP is about this sense of memory appearing in the present but you can’t quite hold on to it. I basically wrote all the music first and then the lyrics came later.
“When I started writing the lyrics, the themes showed themselves. Each song starts as a small noise and builds off of that.”
Each track on ‘glint’ starts with an impossibly small sound — a keyboard briefly glimmering in warm light, a finger sliding down the neck of a guitar, a chord strummed with just enough space in between the strings that each note sounds alone.
“Stolen Jars is a pretty set band now,” said Fitzgerald. “Some people switch sometimes – but even they are set. We’ve been out on this tour for a while and Philly will be our last show.”
The new EP will also serve a good cause with 25 pert cent of all sales benefitting The Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a legal aid organization that serves low-income or people of color who are transgender, intersex and/or gender non-conforming.
According to Fitzgerald, “In the current political climate it is important to us that we do whatever we can to help protect those who are most targeted and most vulnerable.
“The Sylvia Rivera Law Project is a local organization that seeks to do just that, to protect and fight for transgender rights, particularly in relation to immigration issues and prison justice, areas which seem particularly salient to us right now.”
Video link for Stolen Jars – https://youtu.be/e49JInAaJg4.
The show at The Sound Hole, which also features Fraternal Twin, Bellows, and Sun Organ, will start at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10.
