Ratboys & Wild Pink

Schedule

Wed Sep 15 2021 at 08:00 pm to Thu Sep 16 2021 at 12:00 am

Location

Johnny Brenda's | Philadelphia, PA

Ratboys & Wild Pink with Another Michael at Johnny Brenda's
About this Event

*Proof of Covid-19 vaccination required for entry*

*Attendees are encouraged to wear masks while not actively drinking*

Doors - 7 PM

Another Michael - 8 PM

Wild Pink - 9 PM

Ratboys - 10 PM


RATBOYS


10 years ago this April — April 1st to be exact — Chicago’s Ratboys put out their first collection of songs. The RATBOY EP, consisting of five indie-folk dorm room recordings, was free to download on Bandcamp and humbly passed around to friends on social media.

Cut to 2021, and Ratboys would normally be celebrating their 10-year anniversary on the road, playing a mix of songs from their very first release to their most recent, last year’s critically-acclaimed Printer’s Devil. Instead, just two weeks after the album’s February 2020 release and mere days before heading out on their first headline tour, the COVID-19 pandemic forced all touring to a halt. Despite not being able to play in-person shows for the past year, Ratboys has managed to stay busy by performing their music online via their own Virtual Tour series and by finding a different way to celebrate their first decade of being a band.

Lots of time at home last year gave Ratboys a chance to hit the studio, which has led to Happy Birthday, Ratboy, a surprise party of a new album featuring 10 brand new recordings of the band’s earliest songs + a newly-written bonus track entitled “Go Outside.” Although written in 2019, the lyrics of “Go Outside” take on a special sense of relevance and yearning today more than ever. “It’s this carefree and wistful, totally innocent folk song about wanting to travel and spend time with loved ones,” songwriter Julia Steiner says. “We had no idea how much it would mean to us when we wrote it, but hopefully this song will provide a light in someone’s day and help us all wait out this weird ride a little bit longer,” Julia shares. Released as a surprise on April 1st, 2021, Happy Birthday, Ratboy comes 10 years to the day since the release of the band’s first EP. New recordings of the 5 original RATBOY EP songs make up the A-side of the record, with 5 new versions of rare college-era tracks and the newly-written “Go Outside” on the B-side. Featuring mainstays from their live show over the years, including “The Stanza'' and “Space Blows,” pressed to vinyl for the first time and given the full band treatment, Happy Birthday, Ratboy introduces new Ratboys fans to the band’s beginnings while also raising a toast to those who’ve been there from the start.


WILD PINK


Wild Pink’s last album, 2018’s Yolk In The Fur, concluded with a song about the strange sense of relief that comes with “letting go of youth.” Frontman John Ross, then in his early thirties, was singing from a place of newfound comfort and wisdom, but it ended with a repetition of the line, “I don’t know what happens next.” The song, titled “All Some Frenchman’s Joke”, is a beautifully concise rendering of a universal milestone: leveling up from the wide-eyed naivety and self-destructive routines of our youth, only to realize that we’re as unprepared for the future as we were for the past.


On Wild Pink’s third album and first for Royal Mountain Records, A Billion Little Lights, Ross explores that dichotomy of finally achieving emotional security—of accepting the love and peace he deprived himself of in his twenties—while also feeling existentially smaller and more directionless than ever before. The record is a two-pronged triumph: an extraordinary reflection on the human condition presented through the sharpest, grandest, and most captivating songs Wild Pink have ever composed.


The band, which is rounded out by bassist T.C. Brownell and drummer Dan Keegan, formed in New York City in 2015 and put out a handful of EP’s before releasing their critically acclaimed self-titled debut in 2017. It was a sophisticated showing for a band’s first album, but it was the striking maturation of Yolk In The Fur that established Wild Pink’s unique sound: a glistening variety of pastoral indie-rock akin to The War On Drugs, Death Cab For Cutie, and Kurt Vile, but informed by classic American rock poets like Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. The album received glowing praise from Pitchfork (a score of 8.1), Billboard, NPR, Stereogum, and Uproxx, the latter deeming them “one of indie’s best emerging bands.”


Even though Wild Pink were operating within the relatively modest world of contemporary indie-rock, critics likened them to the types of revered rock auteurs who rack up Grammy nominations. So for A Billion Little Lights, they actually made that leap. The record was produced, mixed, and co-engineered by producer David Greenbaum, who’s worked with the likes of Beck, U2, Cage The Elephant, and Jenny Lewis. Like all Wild Pink records, the songs were entirely written and arranged by Ross, who shaped them into high-quality demos over the course of a year in his new home in New York’s Hudson Valley. But unlike previous Wild Pink albums, Ross enlisted a deep bench of session musicians and friends to perform a litany of additional instruments, finally granting Ross’s musical visions the space and sonic resources they needed to achieve their finest forms.


The ten songs on A Billion Little Lights are adorned with fiddles, violins, wurlitzers, saxophones, accordions, pedal steel guitars, and a variety of richly textured synths and keyboards. In addition to the instrumentation, Julia Steiner of the Chicago band Ratboys provides beautiful harmonies throughout the record, her soft voice recalling the friendly glow of a porch light when it switches on behind Ross’s dusky coo. On past records, Ross’s breathy delivery rarely raised above a hushed murmur, but here he sings with a melodic confidence that makes songs like “Pacific City”, “Die Outside”, and “The Shining But Tropical” some of the catchiest, most anthemic cuts in the Wild Pink catalog. The band have never sounded dated or nostalgic, but the lingering twinge of Americana in their sound has always given their songs a familiar, classicist resonance. On A Billion Little Lights, there are little details like speckles of auto-tune, flashing synths, and even trip-hop-esque drum loops that subtly yet effectively rebuff the notion that Wild Pink’s music yearns for a bygone era: the album sounds at once timeless and unmistakably modern.


That sonic quality is a fitting complement to the album’s lyrics, which see Ross caught in the bramble between his past and his present; feeling suffocated by the repetition of life while simultaneously gazing at the stars above and marveling at the unquantifiable vastness of it all. “Time spreads like Jasmine on a fence / Always behind, I can let go but I’m still always behind” he sings on the shimmering “Bigger Than Christmas”. On the sprightly folk-rocker “You Can Have It Back”, he cheekily sizes up his flaws (“Everybody laughs easily / There’s something wrong with me”) and outwardly admits, “Never figured out how to live / Just dreaming all the time.” “Family Friends” and “Track Mud” are musings on day-to-day stasis: “Every day is Groundhog’s Day now” he sings in the former, while lamenting about being “lost in anxious thoughts again” in the latter.


However, it’s the final two songs, the record’s musical standouts, that offer a tepidly hopeful counter to those periods of despair. In “Pacific City”, Ross sings about barely being able to recognize the person he once was, a self left behind once he shedded self-hatred (“For every little thing about myself I couldn’t change”) and learned to “make hay


while the sun shined.” “And you deserve the good things that’ll come to you / You just need a little room”, goes its hook. It’s unclear whether that “room” is a reference to his literal relocation to rural upstate New York, or a metaphor for emotional space, but either way “Die Outside” is all about making it. With a stadium-sized hook and the rhythmic swing of a two-ton pendulum, Ross calls to “let every wall come down” with a windswept sing-song of a delivery, a barnraiser of a hook.


Whereas Yolk In The Fur ended with an admission of utter uncertainty, this album ends with a more conclusive observation: “Your blood is like ocean water.” It’s an almost soothing acceptance of our primordial nature, that like the ancient water of the sea or the billions of little stars above, we’re as much a part of something greater and everlasting as we are a mere flicker in the night sky. Wild Pink’s music has always rooted around in those sort of immortal complexities, but A Billion Little Lights is the first time the surrounding music truly captures those alternatingly micro and macro quandaries. It, too, is something to marvel at.– Eli Enis


ANOTHER MICHAEL


Another Michael’s new single New Music offers a taste of what’s to come from the Philadelphia-based indie band.

The three piece — made up of multi-instrumentalists Michael Doherty, Alenni Davis, and Nick Sebastiano—began making waves with their early EPs, 2016’s Sans and 2018’s Land, enticing listeners with a wide-reaching blend of tuneful indie pop, homespun R&B, and dreamy folk . Following the recording of Land, they collectively relocated from Albany, NY to a shared house in West Philadelphia. The communal move served as a testament to the group’s growing friendship and belief in each other on a personal level, as well as on a musical level.

The band’s extraordinary musical chemistry and desire to push their songwriting to new heights is on full display with “New Music” which builds from a spare, fingerpicked intro to a sweeping, vibrant finale. Doherty’s mesmerizing vocals guide the listener through a reflection on the simple joy of falling in love with a song, offering an ideal entry point into Another Michael’s world. On the single’s B-side “Boring For The Times” the band effortlessly combine hazy bedroom pop charm with a silky R&B hook. At just over five minutes, the two new tracks hint at the breadth of sounds, styles, and emotions that Another Michael have brought together for their upcoming debut full-length— luckily, listeners won’t have to wait long to hear more from the exciting up and coming band.


In accordance with Philadelphia's citywide mandate, attendees will be required to show proof of Covid-19 vaccination for entry to all Johnny Brenda's events. Please note that negative PCR / antigen test results will not be accepted. We ask that you bring your vaccination card, a copy of your vaccination card, or a legible photo of your vaccination card on your phone. Full vaccination must be completed at least 14 days prior to the date of the event. If you are unable or unwilling to provide proof of vaccination, we will refund your tickets in full. Please feel free to e-mail us at [email protected] with any questions or concerns.

All Johnny Brenda's events will be presented in accordance with city & state guidelines and requirements as of the date of the event, which could include changes to capacity, attendance prerequisites, procedures, and other protective measures. Any updated protocols will be included in your ticket reminder e-mail closer to the event date.

Where is it happening?

Johnny Brenda's, 1201 N. Frankford Ave, Philadelphia, United States
Tickets

USD 15.00

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Host or Publisher Johnny Brenda's

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