Rock Band

The English rock band Echo and the Bunnymen will headline a show at the University of Pennsylvania's Irvine Auditorium tomorrow night. Echo and the Bunnymen recently released a new album, Songs to Learn and Sing (Sire), a collection of the group's best-known songs. The Liverpool band's most pervasive presence is that of lead singer Ian McCulloch, whose stentorian groan is an apt homage to the band's spiritual forebear, the late Jim Morrison of the Doors. The opening act tomorrow will be the Australian band the Church, whose gloomy music exerts a sort of sultry allure.

Is Half Japanese the greatest rock-and-roll band in the universe? Director Jeff Feuerzeig's feature debut makes a pretty cheeky case that two misfit brothers from Michigan - who bear more than a passing resemblance to cartoondom's Ren and Stimpy - just may be pop music's saviors. Equal parts infomercial for the band, parody of the rock-documentary formula, and loving tribute to the now Baltimore-based noise-makers, Half Japanese: The Band that Would Be King portrays Jad and David Fair as childlike geniuses who single-handedly re-created a moribund art form from the ground up. You be the judge.

One of the most acclaimed young British rock bands, the Woodentops, will perform Sunday in Houston Hall at the University of Pennsylvania. The Woodentops' first American release, Giant (Columbia), features pretty melodies, murmured vocals and vigorously strummed acoustic guitars. In the old days, we called this "folk-rock. " These days, in the amnesiac pop world, it's the Next Big Thing From England. This, of course, is not the Woodentops' fault. At its best, this quintet takes familiar styles and makes them its own - this is the sound of hesitation and doubt, of romantic hemming and hawing, offered in a gentle, unassuming manner.

Add yet another claim to fame to Philadelphia's list. "This is Yes-town," Clifford Loeslin said yesterday. "Philadelphia is Yes-town. " Loeslin, a 29-year-old aerospace engineer, made the pilgrimage from his Seattle home to the Philadelphia area for the weekend-long Yescon - a celebration of the 19-year-old rock band Yes. Other fans trekked here to the acknowledged center of Yes culture from elsewhere on the West Coast and in the Midwest....

NOT EVERY band is praised by not only one, but both surviving members of Nirvana . Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl , the former Nirvana drummer, said on comedian Marc Maron 's WTF podcast that he loved Philly rockers Bleeding Rainbow . Ex-Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic posted his appreciation last week. "We all really freaked out when we first saw the Krist Novoselic tweet about how he likes us," said Sarah Everton , who sings and plays bass and guitar in the band.

A rock band manager, building a pipe bomb to amuse himself as he hung out with friends on a slow night at an Exton service station, was killed early yesterday when the device exploded and blew a hole in his chest. Matthew Harvey, 28, of the Indian Run Village mobile home park in Honey Brook, was dead on arrival at Brandywine Hospital. West Whiteland police Lt. Ralph Burton said the incident occurred about 12:15 a.m. in the cashier's kiosk at the Exxon gas station at the intersection of Routes 30 and 100. He said that Harvey had been assembling the bomb by stuffing a section of metal pipe with sulfur scraped off match books and was screwing a top on the device when it went off. "There was just a small flash," said Brian Moore, manager of the 24-hour station.

The last time Todd Rundgren came through town he brought along a veritable rock-and-roll orchestra. Monday at the Trocadero, the unpredictable Rundgren brought only himself - and a ton of equipment. He billed the show "TR-i" (for Todd Rundgren-interactive). But the restless innovator could just as easily have pegged it "the Return of Rock's Original One-Man Band. " From his stage (set up in the middle of the Troc dance floor) to his songs (from the new No World Order (Rhino/Forward)

Every Phoenix album has offered at least one, and usually two, perfect pop confections, starting with "If I Ever Feel Better" and "Too Young" from 2000's United. But America had not paid much attention until a Saturday Night Live appearance in the spring kick-started Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, the French quartet's fourth album. Now they're playing sold-out theaters across the States. "Before this record we still felt like we were a secret society or something," says vocalist Thomas Mars from a tour bus somewhere between Salt Lake City and Omaha.

Why in blazes would a Bucks County family willingly open its doors to Slaughter? The hottest new hard-rock band of the year, Slaughter has earned a fast reputation as party-hearty animals who like to stay "up all night, sleep all day. " Or so go the lyrics to the MTV and radio smash from their nearly platinum (840,000 copies sold) debut album, "Stick It To Ya. " Another of Slaughter's bone-crunching anthems celebrates "burning bridges, running down, got a nasty reputation from town to town.

Max Bernstein had a band, the Actual, with a catchy song called "This Is the Worst Day of My Life," a slot on the Warped Tour, and a gig opening for heavy hitters Velvet Revolver on a national tour. What he lacked was a sense of purpose. "Somebody once asked me, 'Why are you in a band?' " says the Los Angeles singer and guitarist, who will bring his new Internet-distributed agit-rock outfit, Max & the Marginalized, to the Trocadero tomorrow and the Reef in Wilmington on Monday.

There are a handful of incarnations of the indie rock band Eels, a decades-long project led by Mark Oliver Everett. Over the course of 10 studio albums, the band has been quiet and introspective, aggressive and defiant, witty and sweet, and a spectrum in between. Live shows have likewise covered the gamut, from full string orchestra to rock band to solo Everett and his guitar. This time around, Eels is an all-out rock band. Five men, wearing dark sunglasses and clad in black Adidas track suits, took the stage Saturday night at World Cafe Live.

NOT EVERY band is praised by not only one, but both surviving members of Nirvana . Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl , the former Nirvana drummer, said on comedian Marc Maron 's WTF podcast that he loved Philly rockers Bleeding Rainbow . Ex-Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic posted his appreciation last week. "We all really freaked out when we first saw the Krist Novoselic tweet about how he likes us," said Sarah Everton , who sings and plays bass and guitar in the band.

Film New this week: Not Fade Away (*** out of four stars) Suburban New Jersey in the 1960s is carefully recreated by "Sopranos" auteur David Chase. John Magaro is great as Douglas, a gawky teen who finds confidence in his rock band. James Gandolfini, also of "The Sopranos," is the often-exasperated dad. A sprawling, often well-done tale. It's a hit. Rated R. . - Steven Rea Music Gov't Mule Formed as an Allman Brothers offshoot in 1994, Gov't Mule, which plays Dec. 28 and 29 at the Tower Theater, has kept its vigor and roadworthiness, becoming a much-followed jam band, due in large part to front man Warren Haynes.

Lee Dorman, 70, a bass guitarist for the psychedelic rock band Iron Butterfly, who played on one of the genre's most recognizable songs, "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida," died Friday in Laguna Niguel, Calif. Mr. Dorman was found dead in his car outside his home, said Gail Krause, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department. A coroner ruled the death was of natural causes, Krause said. Mr. Dorman had heart problems and was on a transplant list, Martin Gerschwitz, one of the current members of Iron Butterfly, said in an interview.

WASHINGTON - David Letterman's "stupid human tricks" and Top 10 lists are being vaulted into the ranks of cultural acclaim as the late-night comedian receives this year's Kennedy Center Honors with rock band Led Zeppelin and three other artists. Stars from New York, Hollywood, and the music world gathered Sunday in Washington to salute the comedian and the band, along with Dustin Hoffman, Chicago bluesman Buddy Guy, and ballerina Natalia Makarova. The honors are the nation's highest award for those who influenced American culture through the arts.

AIN'T IT great when all the stars align? Denny Somach is feeling just such a magical, mystical moment as he and others aim to spread a "Whole Lotta Love" for one of the biggest rock bands of all times - Led Zeppelin - with a rash of new goodies, including a lavish book, CD and DVD sets, tribute concerts and even a major TV salute. Producer of the nationally syndicated "Get the Let Out" weekly and daily radio features, Somach has been on the bluesy Brit band's case since the early 1970s.

On recordings it's not entirely clear why Spoon singer and guitarist Britt Daniel needs a second creative outlet. But in concert, as at Union Transfer on Monday, the differences between Spoon and his new project, Divine Fits, are legion. Spoon re-creates its studious minimalism so faithfully onstage that fans must be foaming at the mouth for a broken string, a monkey wrench, some jarring element to provoke a response from the unit they love. But Divine Fits is a rock band - Sam Brown metronomically swings at his kit like he's backing Warren Zevon, while co-leader Dan Boeckner writhes on the floor during "My Love Is Real" ("until it stops," ouch)

MOSCOW - The global campaign to free members of the punk band Pussy Riot is gaining speed: Supporters of the rock provocateurs are mobilizing this week in at least two dozen cities worldwide to hold simultaneous demonstrations an hour before a Russian court rules on whether its members will be sent to prison. Friday's rallies will ride a wave of support for the three women who have been in jail for more than five months because of an anti-Putin prank in Moscow's main cathedral. Calls for them to be freed have come from a long list of celebrities, including Madonna and Bjork.

There's a song called "Funeral Dress" that's the title track to the 2005 debut album by the terrific, little-heard Ohio rock band Wussy, as well as the group's 2011 acoustic reworking of the album called, aptly enough, Funeral Dress II . "Funeral Dress" is a typical Wussy song - an even collaboration between guitarists and singers Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker that manages to turn a fairly grim subject - in this case, death - into a bracing, catchy,...

The Skyline Stage at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts could hardly have made a more stunning debut then it did on Sunday, when Icelandic ambient experimental ensemble Sigur Ros opened its U.S. tour with the first show of a sold-out two-night stand. With the moon peeking through the clouds and, yes, the Philadelphia skyline visible through the trees on a balmy summer night, Sigur Ros - whose four main members are bassist Georg Holm, guitarist Kjartan Sveinsson, drummer Ori Pall Dyrason and singer-guitarist Jon Por Birgisson, known to the world as Jonsi - was making its first appearance anywhere since 2008.