It’s Labor Day weekend, and the weather predictions are lookin’ quite fine so a BBQ is most likely eminent in your future. While you are probably wavering between catching the FREE live performance by Free Energy at The Piazza or making the trek to the Camden Waterfront for Red Bull’s Flugtag competition on Saturday, we’d like to offer you a fun First Friday alternative for this evening that certainly won’t interfere with your plans (well, that is if you don’t tie one on too hard with all the free beer that comes with your measly $5 admission). Our favorite grunge-y dream pop outfit Creepoid will be putting on an intimate concert tonight at Little Berlin. It’s also doubling as a video shoot for the hard-partying crew so dress to impress (not really necessary but you may be immortalized on film or laughed at privately by the band while viewing the footage). They’ll be joined by Black Hawk and Exploding World as well as artwork by Zodiac Down. Little Berlin, 119 W. Montgomery Ave., 7pm, $5, All Ages

 

Hurry and do something as the official days of summer fade off into the distance…

 

Johnny Brenda’s (1201 N. Frankford Ave.) FRI & SAT Fring Festival Late Night Cabaret

 

North Star Bar (2639 Poplar St.) FRI Arrah & The Ferns Album Release Show w/ Wissahickon Chicken Shack, Funkslaw, Lady, SAT Clean Equations

 

The Fire (412 W. Girard Ave.) SAT The Stand-Ins, Jaded Son, Opening Day

 

M Room (15 W. Girard Ave.) SAT Donovan Rice, Sunday's Best

 

Tritone (1508 South St.) SAT Broken Prayers, SUN Robots & Racecars and Pulling Punches

 

Tin Angel (20 S. 2nd St.) SAT Schoolly D and Alien Architect

 

The Ox (2nd and Oxford St.) SAT The Divine Lorraine

 

JR's Bar (2327 S. Croskey St.) SAT Surgeon, KMX Band, The Fetals

 

Greenline Café (4239 Locust St.) FRI The Circadian Rhythms, Motorcycle Maus, The New Heaven and the New Earth

 

World Café Live (3025 Walnut St.) SAT Boy Wonder Album Release Party w/ Wyldlyfe

 

Fergie’s (1214 Sansom St.) FRI Hired Gun Blues Band, SAT 722

 

The Piazza (Germantown Ave.) SAT 104.5 Block Party w/Free Energy

 

Somewhere between swing and Americana, local folksters The Circadian Rhythms cook up bluesy ballads that with ease impress. Mixing a laundry list of instruments with creative deliberation, the band is like mash-up of Glenn Miller with beardos like Sam Beam. Vocals suggest hard times, long days, and nights spent drinking whiskey. Sounding older than their years, The Circadian Rhythms revive the rugged swagger of saloon goers long past with the ivory chords of “Stealin’ Honey” and the shuffling snare of “Sweet Lovin’ Mama”.  Charming yet pastoral, these urban troubadours’ ballads will make you sing la-di-da. They’ll be matched with the experimental pop of Motorcycle Maus and the chamber pop of The New Heaven & The New Earth as well as Swedish indie rockers The Horror The Horror. Green Line Café, 4426 Locust St., 7pm, $5 - $7 donation, All Ages - Dianca Potts

 

Lead singer Arrah Fisher is reminiscent to Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino in that her strong vocals and ruminations on miscommunication with lovers past are often the focal point of her songs. Her band, Arrah and the Ferns , is more upbeat indie pop than beach punk, with softer vocals and bouncy guitar lines. Materialized at an open mic in 2005 with newfound friend Carl Stovner, “the Ferns” have since added and lost members, but their new lineup will be ready tonight for the CD release party for their sophomore album All the Bad in One Place at the North Star Bar as well as their upcoming east coast tour this fall. North Star Bar, 2639 Poplar St., 9pm, $8, 21+ - Katie Bennett

 

Birdie Busch will be bringing her mellifluous voice to the airwaves today when she performs at XPN’s “Free at Noon”. Swing by or tune in and you’ll be treated to some atmospheric folk from her latest release the optimistically titled EP Everyone Will Take You In, which was inspired by her hometown. It’s the flagship album from Be Frank Records, a local startup indie label brought to you by WKDU’s programming/music director Fred Knittel. She’ll also be performing at Johnny Brenda’s on Friday, Sept. 13 with the musical family of Hezekiah Jones. World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 12pm, Free, All Ages - H.M. Kauffman

 

You can say that Philly’s alt-hip hop MC/producer duo Chiddy Bang is an overnight success. After releasing their first commercial single, “Opposite of Adults” - the electro-hop track (which samples MGMT’s breakout, “Kids”) - off of their 2009 18-song mixtape, The Swelly Express, they went from the local stage to international forum, signing to UK’s Parlophone Records (with backing in the states from Virgin/EMI), sharing the stage with Kid Cudi and Three 6 Mafia, and playing major festivals like this year’s Glastonbury. But after listening to a Chiddy Bang mixtape, this isn’t a surprise - producer Noah “Xaphoon Jones” Bersein and rapper Chidera “Chiddy” Anagmege blend angular synths, dancefloor pop, indie rock samples, hip hop and afro-beat with on-point spits in such flawless fashion, their eclectic sound just can’t help but be catchy. And, on October 12, they’ll digitally release their first major label record, The Preview, which will feature three old songs and five new ones (their actual, full-length major label debut has been pushed back and is now scheduled for release in 2011). Currently touring stateside and overseas for their “The Swelly Life Tour”, with a stop at the TLA tonight, The Deli had a chance to speak with the dynamic duo Chiddy and Xaphoon about their success, sound, influences, and the idea of ever returning back to school as well as much, much more. Check it all out here!

 

Between her spoken word performances at Zanzibar and Painted Bride Arts Center, her contributions to Do You Want More?!!?!!, Things Fall Apart, and other classic albums from The Roots, and her own dynamic recordings, Ursula Rucker has been a poetic songbird tour de force since the 90s. And since she’s scheduled to release a forthcoming album in October titled She Said, a project for King Britt’s FiveSix Media, her fire hasn’t shown any signs of burning out just quite yet. Tonight the soulful muse will be doing an intimate performance at Johnny Brenda’s. So expect to hear favorites from albums like Supa Sista and Silver of Lead, plenty of freestyle flow, and signs of what’s to come. Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 9pm, $10, 21+ - Bill McThrill

 

Deathbeds, Towers, Bubonic Bear - just their names alone make it sound like their set tonight at North Star Bar is going to be a summit of death and destruction. But that’s how I like it - intense aural beatdowns that pound and rip at your ear drums, causing you to explode in a frenzy of head bangs and body slams. Okay, so that’s a little excessive, but it’s hard not to get all extreme when you have Deathbeds’ brutal, guttural, riff-filled hardcore, Towers mile-a-minute punk metal assaults and Bubonic Bear’s crazed noise punk (plus Austin’s Today is the Day) under one roof. North Star Bar, 2639 Poplar Street, 8pm, $12, 21+ (Poster by Mike Wohlberg) - Annamarya Scaccia

 

Sunny Ali & the Kid are very minimalist. And by that I mean, if the old "less is more" adage is true, then Sunny Ali & the Kid's Try Harder EP might as well be a blindingly epic prog suite. None of the songs even reach the three minute mark, and it's almost funny how well it works. Each track gives you just a taste and nothing more, so you can't help but go back and listen again, and again...and again.

In this respect, they recall Wire, who managed to cram more invention into fifty seconds than many other bands could in four minutes. In fact, the whole EP sounds like a series of post-punk diversions. Vocals are alternately distant and aggressive; the guitars, when not strumming, are locked in surf-y, angular riffs; and as a whole, the recordings have a trebly, reverberating quality to them.

 

Since singer Hassan Ali left his earlier band POPO, he's been plugging Sunny Ali & the Kid as a sort of country punk act, even going so far as to dress like an urban cowboy. But there are scant traces of country on Try Harder, or even what one might call folk. There are a few tracks, like the closer "Fuck Me" and the title track, that strum along at a leisurely, country-inflected pace. But the overall effect is something quite different. The songs that really stand out, "You Know What Jawad" and "Cand Stand Ya", with their trebly guitar riffs and dance beats, sound something like Cake (if Cake had been listening to a lot of Gang of Four and the like). And yes, I do hear the “Oh, Pretty Woman” influenced opening riff of "You Know What Jawad". "Skinny Fucker" is straight-ahead punk fury, while "The Best for You..." makes a light, quirky marriage between ukulele and drum machine. There is also a random but enjoyable punkish, garage pop version of “Better Off Alone”, a Euro-dance pop hit for the band Alice DeeJay. So while the record is a rather brief trip, it is an oh so sweet one! You can purchase and download the album here.

 

After getting rained out, The Homophones finally have their shot to get in the game at Rittenhouse Square Park. You’ll be treated to a taste of rich baritone vocals, sharp-witted lyrics and a joyously tight musical outfit that has a bright future on the airwaves. We, at The Deli, are very excited to have them performing at our showcase for the Opening Party of the Philly Film and Music Fest at KFN on Sept. 23 w/Univox, TJ Kong and the Atomic Bomb, and Hair Rocket. It should be interesting to see what happens this week in extra innings at PW’s Concerts in the Park Series. We’ve already had police time and tax dollars wasted with the cops being called in for profanity by Gang, a rain out and plenty of last minute lineup changes which include last week’s switch of Peasant for Government Cheaze and this week’s substitution of Post Post for Terrible Things (who will be at FYE on Broad St. today for an in-store performance as well as at The Note tonight for a CD Release Party - you can check out an interview with Fred Mascherino for The Deli’s Where Is My Mind? here). It doesn’t matter. It’s FREE! So grab whatever legal or illegal substances that you’d like to ingest for this evening and head on over to Rittenhouse Square Park because you won’t be able to do this again until next summer. PW’s Concerts in the Park Series, Rittenhouse Square Park, 7pm, FREE, All Ages - H.M. Kauffman

 

If there’s one thing that’s great about Philly, it’s that even on a Wednesday night, there’s a good chance you can find something awesome to do. For example, who would’ve thought that a show like this could happen in the middle of the week? Levee Drivers continue to evoke images of dusty, open roads and girls on the lam with their gritty, barn burning anthems and country rock balladry. Hopefully we won’t lose these Bucks County natives to Nashville, even though they might blow up quicker there. Busses somehow find a happy medium between 90’s indie guitar gods like Built to Spill and older, more “classic” rock gods. And if there’s such a thing as a condensed jam band, Paper Cat (featuring drummer Eric Slick, the newest member of Dr. Dog, and sister Julie Slick) are it. Huge stoner riffs and slightly math-y jams wrapped up in intense three or four minute packages. Hump day isn’t half bad. Blockley Pourhouse, 3801 Chestnut St., 8pm, $7, 21+ - Joe Poteracki