Category: All Posts

Any and all content created by WKDU DJ’s (includes album reviews, show reviews, personal lists, opinion pieces, etc)

Fifteen Years of Radiator Hospital: Sam Cook-Parrot on Outlaw Ancestors, Tape Decks, & Distorting Time

By Gabby McIlhinney

Sam Cook-Parrott has been Radiator Hospital for almost fifteen years. And while playing with the same full band for about a decade of that, he showed up to WKDU wielding only a cassette deck a day after dropping his sixth album, Distorting Time. Come for the tape machine, stay for the story about a possible outlaw ancestor whose skin reportedly became a pair of shoes.

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Zest Pop’s One and Only: Mustard Service on Their “Paradise” Tour

Miami’s “Mustard Service” stopped in Philadelphia on August 28th, as part of their 28 city Paradise tour, where I had the chance to ask them a few questions. Mustard Service lit up the Foundry Stage in Fishtown, playing a mix of vibes from their discography and giving fans a show they wouldn’t forget. Mustard Service, made up of Marco on guitar and vocals, Leo on keys, Adam on drums, and Yucky on bass, released their fifth-studio album, Paradise, on August 21st.

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Atta Boy Resurface Like Sediment, as Silt Emerges for the World

By Gabby McIlhinney – Host of Fish Food

Atta Boy | From the WKDU Vinyl Archives

Atta Boy has been a band since its members were, in our collective own words, “wee teens,” and in that time they’ve built a small, devoted discography around a comforting, aching blend of pop Americana. Fans of a certain age (mine, apparently) know theam best through Saccharine, the album that soundtracked a lot of pandemic bedrooms and hasn’t left rotation since. The band doesn’t move fast, as new music from Atta Boy tends to resurface like sediment, stirring back to the surface every so often, and well formed upon arrival. Their newest album, Silt, just came out, and the tour behind it brought Dashel on keys, Freddie on guitar, Eden on vocals and guitar, and Louis on drums, into the WKDU studio, crammed onto whatever chairs we could find for their first radio interview ever.

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Makeout Reef: 12 Shows Into Their First East Coast Tour, & Still No Hacky Sack

By Gabby McIlhinney – Host of Fish Food

Makeout Reef | From the WKDU Prod Room

It’s nautical night at WKDU: Fish Food and Makeout Reef, back to back, and I promise I didn’t plan it that way. The Los Angeles four-piece, who blend reverb-drenched shoegaze haze with catchy 2000s NYC indie rock, squeezed into the studio straight off a support slot at Ukie Club, Philly’s beloved, occasionally-Ukrainian-social-hall DIY venue. “We heard it’s a pretty legendary Philly spot,” bassist Kyle said. Drummer Liam went further, comparing it to the anything-goes, all-the-lights-on shows Title Fight used to throw in random rooms around here. In Philly terms, that’s some high praise.

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“If You Don’t Love Me at My Worst, You Don’t Deserve Me”: Mirriam’s Book of Lore

By Gabby McIlhinney – Host of Fish Food

Mirriam | From the WKDU CD Archives

Second half of the night, same studio, new lineup: Maddie Ruhoy, who performs and records under the pseudonym Mirriam, came in right behind Sunbather Die with her guitarist and producer, also named Henry, in tow. Two Henrys in one night. The DIY music scene apparently has a cast of six people and everyone’s named Henry. Not the last coincidence of the evening, either.

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Sunbather Die on Basements, Bourdain, and the DI Box That Started It All

By Gabby McIlhinney – Host of Fish Food

Sunbather Die | From the WKDU Vinyl Archives

“This is one of the coolest stops we’re ever gonna have,” says bassist Dom, minutes after Sunbather Die finished ripping through a live set on WKDU. Henry, Dom, and Gabe, all the way from a Ballard basement in Seattle, take the cake for the furthest band I’ve ever had play the station. Possibly ever, in the history of the station. I can’t prove that. But it felt that way.

Tonight was history for another reason: a back-to-back in-studio, Sunbather Die played straight into a set from Philly’s own Mirriam. A pairing nobody planned so much as manifested, since Mirriam knew Sunbather Die from home in Seattle and managed to help snag them during their east coast tour.

By their own description, Sunbather Die makes “tragic noises and cannabis and pessimistic loudness.” Having now heard it in person, I can confirm.

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Cold Court’s ‘Frankensteined’ EP Is Finally Leaving the LAN Basement

By Gabby McIlhinney – Host of Fish Food

  • Photos by Seven Finckel
  • Photos by Seven Finckel
  • Photos by Seven Finckel
  • Photos by Seven Finckel
  • Photos by Seven Finckel
  • Photos by Seven Finckel
  • Photos by Seven Finckel
  • Photos by Seven Finckel
  • Photos by Seven Finckel
  • Photos by Seven Finckel
  • Photos by Seven Finckel
  • Photos by Seven Finckel
  • Photos by Seven Finckel
  • Photos by Seven Finckel
  • Photos by Seven Finckel
  • Photos by Seven Finckel
  • Photos by Seven Finckel

DJ Gabby Mack, host of Fish Food, sat down with Cold Court after their live studio session at WKDU Philadelphia to talk about their debut EP, \ (^_^) / (aka: HANDS UP), their constantly evolving writing process, Minecraft nostalgia, and their first tour kickoff. 

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