ROCKIN' ALL OVER THE WORLD - PHILADELPHIA BY THE CIVIL RATS

It's been a long time since we last published this column. Well, it's back with the Civil Rats, who told us about their favorite bands from their hometown of Philadelphia.

The Out-Sect

If the Philadelphia scene is a family, they’re the cool older sibling who’s got a bitchin muscle car and gives you their old ID so you can buy beer and introduces you to all the cool underground music that eventually become your favorite bands. And we’re the youngest child, sitting under the picnic table, eating dirt and getting toys stuck up our nose.

The Low Budgets

Yeah, yeah, I know the safe answer when talking about Philadelphia and punk rock is to reference the Dead Milkmen, who are absolutely fantastic, but this next band of (Dead Milkmen guitarist) Joe Jack Talcum resonates so much more to me. This was the scene I grew up in and I spent many a night seeing Low Budgets play Peelout’s, the West Philly house their singer/guitarist Chris lived in and ran basement shows at. They play reunions every now and then and I was bitterly disappointed to find out Olde English 40s don’t even come in glass anymore. I ask you, what is this world coming to when we have to drink 40 ounces of stale malt liquor out of a plastic bottle?

Book of Love

This one’s from our road trip playlist, and I only recently learned they’re from Philly. This is a band who sounds nothing like us and has no overt influence on our music or song writing, but they’re a quintessential Civil Rats band. They’re fun, over the top, and catchy as hell. Sometimes that’s all it takes, and we don’t like the kind of music you have to overthink to comprehend.

The Interpreters

Dale’s been friends with this band ever since he went to a show they played and inadvertently wore the same exact outfit as the band’s matching stage outfits. People at the show thought he was in the band kept asking what time they were going on. I guess if you’re going to be mistaken for being in a band, there’s far worse ones to be presumed a part of.

The Tough Shits

 

This band feels so representative of Philly’s scene- one of those bands that makes you realize you didn’t know how good you had it until suddenly you didn’t have ‘em anymore. If I saw the Tough Shits were on a show’s lineup, chances were that it was gonna be a pretty stacked show. And they were on a lot of lineups, so I got kind of lazy about going out to see them, because there was always another show in a few weeks that they’d be on. A few years ago, they dissolved and there’s been a power pop-shaped hole in Philly since. To be clear, that’s not a space for Civil Rats to fill. We do a different thing. But damn, if they do a reunion one of these days, I’d love to throw my hat in the ring to open.

Wax Jaw

Nothing makes you feel older like seeing a bunch of kids doing the damn thing with this much passion, creativity, and energy. You kind of want to hate them because they seem like they’d invite trendy, pretentious crowds and only deign to talk to the most popular bands that can offer them something. Except that is not at all the case with Wax Jaw. To be clear, they are incredibly talented songwriters and performers and they have the drive that gets them opening for the most enviable of shows in Philly. But they’re also the kindest, most personable people that get excited to see us and come out to our shows nearly as frequently as we make it to theirs. They’re young, so they have the kind of drive that could get them to Sheer Mag-type indie levels, in which case, we wish ‘em nothing but the best. Definitely a band to keep an eye on!

Thank you The Civil Rats !