All of the Music: A Weekend of Jams

My friends are pretty frickin’ talented. This past weekend I had the opportunity to see one of my friends perform with his band, The Racket Boys, at their new album party show and in addition to that I got to see my other friend perform with her a cappella group, Broad Street Beat when they opened up for In the Mix.

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The Racket Boys are a five man band and they describe their musical style as “a blend of hip-hop and funk-rock that works so well it’s flagged by the FDA for causing colon-melting euphoria.”

They certainly don’t disappoint. The entire audience was jamming with them the entire show without pause. My friend Kevin, the lead singer, was dancing, jumping, water-gunning the audience and rocking out on-stage. And the rest of the band doesn’t slouch – they perform every song with intense focus and also a healthy amount at fun.

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One hilarious moment of the night: after continually mentioning how much their drummer was sweating, said drummer threw his shirt into the audience. A few minutes later the shirt was thrown back – but when the drummer when to put it back on – the audience “boo”’ed. So the shirt stayed off.

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The Racket Boys’ new album, Breakfast for Dinner, is available online now: TheRacketBoys.com. Right now, my favorite song of theirs is “Shot Down” – it’s got a really great here-comes-summer vibe. I highly recommend seeing The Racket Boys perform live – I can promise you’ll have a blast.

The next night I went to my first Broad Street Beat show. Broad Street Beat is a contemporary a cappella group based in Philly. They were opening for another a cappella group, In the Mix and both groups were really fantastic.

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Broad Street Beat opened with Delta Rae’s “Bottom of the River” (one of my personal faves) and really blew the audience away:

Here’s @broadstreetbeat making @deltarae proud. #acappella #visitphilly @candacetomkiel @theksink @chairwin

A video posted by katharinefriedgen (@katharinefriedgen) on

My friend Candace sang in my favorite of their mashups, “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”/“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”. It was a really impressive show, and I can’t wait to see the next one. They are holding auditions and looking for a bass and soprano – so if you know of anyone – feel free to share.

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You don’t have to go far to find talent in Philadelphia. It’s one of the many reasons I started My Friends Make Art. Philly is such an amazing place because it doesn’t just have talented people – it helps those people find outlets and thrive so they can share their talents and make our city a welcoming music and arts town.

Click here to my other post on The Racket Boys

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