Father Figures

Sat., Aug. 22, 9 p.m., $10, with Blood Warrior, Untitled Original, Lucy Michelle & The Velvet Lapelles and Preacher, Danger Danger Gallery, 5013 Baltimore Ave., myspace.com/dangerdangergallery; Sun., Aug. 23, 8 p.m., $5, Gojjo, 4540 Baltimore Ave., scifiphilly.com.

by Shaun Brady

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Published: Aug 18, 2009

jazz

The influence of rock music is almost a constant in modern jazz, unsurprisingly so. A couple of generations removed from jazz's last claim to the title of "popular music," it's inevitable that young musicians started out with something that had a chance of getting played on the radio. But most of that influence, filtered through the consciousness of so many college-age, conservatory-trained upstarts, takes the form of headier indie rock; Radiohead could legitimately be said to have a "songbook" by this point. But Father Figures drags the music back into the garage, kicking and screaming — the kickier and screamier the better, from the sounds of it — for what they refer to as a "booze-fueled jazz/rock joyride." The Brooklyn-based quintet careens through its influences (a '60s free-jazz blowout here, a sludgy grunge crawl there, a marching band beat collapsing and regathering into electric-Miles orbit) with ragged, sweat-drenched energy. You don't need a mission statement to just hit the gas and go.

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