By Denny Dyroff, Staff Writer, The Times
“Defending the Caveman” is one of those shows that keeps coming back. No matter how many times the one-man show visits a city; it never seems to hit a saturation point. The actor in the show could come back out for a final bow, exclaim “I’ll be back” and be totally telling the truth.
The wildly popular show was written by Rob Becker over a three-year period, during which, he made an informal study of anthropology, prehistory, psychology, sociology and mythology. It has evolved into not only a hit show but also an aid for couples as they cope with the ongoing misunderstandings between men and women.
Vince Valentine in ‘Caveman.’
“Caveman” originally opened in San Francisco in 1991 and soon moved to Dallas. After a year in Dallas, the show went on to sold-out engagements in Washington D.C., Philadelphia and Chicago, before opening on Broadway in 1995. After running two and a half years, playing 702 performances at the Helen Hayes Theater, “Defending the Caveman” entered the record books as the longest running solo play in Broadway history.
The well-written, insightful play about the ways men and women relate has endeared itself to more than eight million people in over 30 countries and has been performed in approximately 20 different languages.
In 2012, “Defending the Caveman” returned to Philadelphia to the Prince Music Theater for its first extended run since 2006. At that point, local comic actor Vince Valentine played the role — a role he had already performed more than 500 times.
Now, “Defending the Caveman” is coming back to Philly — and so is Valentine. The show will open on July 9 and run through August 30 at the Penn’s Landing Playhouse (211 South Columbus Boulevard, Philadelphia, 855-448-7469, http://plplayhouse.com).
Valentine is a South Philly native who teaches stand-up comedy at Camden County College and produces comedy showcases at clubs and restaurants throughout the Delaware Valley.
Performing in “Defending the Caveman” since 2004, Valentine started his career performing at comedy clubs along the east coast. Vince was selected from more than 1,500 actors as one of five finalists for NBC-10’s “Best Summer Gig Ever Traffic Contest” and also made a guest appearance on “NBC 10! Live” as a panel guest soon after.
Valentine has appeared in the independent film “Shut Up and Eat” — a show that he co-wrote and played a starring role. He also was a finalist in 93.3 WMMR’s “Philly’s Last Comic Standing.” He appeared in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival as a member of the Sketch Comedy Troupe “Skitzoids,” and with the Brick Playhouse in its production of “Flip the Script.”
“I like the role,” said Valentine, during a phone interview last week from his home in South Jersey. “First of all, it’s live. There’s nothing like live theater. You can never repeat a performance. I get a lot of enjoyment out of it. It pays me back.”
“With ‘Defending the Caveman,’ women think they’re coming to a Broadway show — and they are. Men think they’re coming to a stand-up comedy show — and they are. The show lets everyone know that we’re all going through it if we’re in a relationship. Men are hunters, women are gatherers and it’s evolved from there. Women will call each other to talk. Men don’t talk — they bond. I’m at a little advantage performing this role because I’m a comic. It’s a live show that keeps evolving. We’re constantly updating the show. For example, there are now jokes about Twitter, Facebook and other social media. I’m really excited to be a part of the revival at the Penn’s Landing Playhouse. People still don’t know there is a theater there at the Independence Seaport Museum. And, I love playing to Philadelphia audiences. Philly fans are tough. They know when you’re mailing it in.”
Video link for “Defending the Caveman” — https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=v5d6d5H5E7Q. “Defending the Caveman” will run through August 30 at the Penn’s Landing Playhouse with shows at 7 p.m. on Thursdays, 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. on Sundays. Tickets range from $45-$65.
The Painted Bride Art Center (230 Vine Street, Philadelphia, 215- 925-9914, www.circuscats.com) is known for presenting non-mainstream music acts as well as art installations. So, if someone told you that there would be a show there this weekend featuring “cats who play their own unique style of free-form music,” you’d probably think that it would be improv jazz musicians performing exploratory music. But, you’d be wrong.
The show is billed as “Samantha Martin and her Amazing Acro-Cats .” All of the show’s performers are cats — the small feline variety — with the exception of a chicken who adds percussion. The show, which is definitely non-mainstream, will have six performances from July 9-12.
The headline act is the Rock Cats and Tuna (cowbells) is the leader. The ensemble also includes Oz (guitar), Dakota (drums), Nue (keyboards), Sookie (chimes) and Cluck Norris, a chicken on cymbal and tambourine. The one-hour show features over a dozen musical and non-musical felines, all of whom are former orphans, rescues and strays. Their skills include walking tightropes, pushing carts, skateboarding, jumping through hoops, ringing bells, balancing on balls and turning on lights.
Martin provides living proof that the idea that “cats can’t be trained” simply isn’t true. Tuna and the rest of the crew are real house cats who have learned all their talents through clicker training. The shows feature a cat or kitten learning some basics using this method — a method that highlights positive reinforcement.
“I started the show at the end of 2005,” said Martin, during a phone interview Tuesday afternoon from a tour stop in Baltimore. “I first took it on the road in 2008 and the first big tour was 2009; it was also when I first started fostering rescues. We just got four foster kittens in Tennessee and we’re down to three already. The kittens stay with us until we find a home for them. We’ve found homes for more than 160 cats since 2009.”
The arrival of Tuna was the catalyst for this project. “When Tuna came into my life, I saw that she had such an aptitude for learning,” said Martin, who is based in Chicago. “I had a trained rat show. I started doing numbers with Tuna and people loved it. Tuna is 13 years old now and she’s still the star of the show. She rings a bell, plays cowbell in the band and does high fives. Dakota and Oz are the next oldest. They’re nine or 10. We have 14 cars in the show and they range from one year old to 13.”
Martin, who has a college degree in animal husbandry and behavioral sciences, knows that cats can be trained but also retain rights to acting unpredictably. “You can’t always count on cats,” said Martin. “Sometimes in the show, a cat won’t do its act. Audience members don’t care. They find it funny if the cats don’t do what they’re supposed to. Our show demonstrates that there is a real benefit to training cats. There are all sorts of benefits to training your cat. We’ve trained our cats to perform and they enjoy it. It’s their free will. If they don’t want to do something, they don’t have to. They know it. With our cats, their body language shows they’re having fun.”
Video link for Accro-Cats –https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=A4cIuJ2im4M. The shows at the Painted Bride Art Center are scheduled for July 9 and 10 at 8 p.m., July 11 at 5 and 8 p.m. and July 12 at 2 and 5 p.m. All tickets are $21 and available at www.circuscats.com. A portion of the proceeds will go to Philly Cats Animal Rescue (http://www.phillycats.org).
The Vans Warped Tour, which touches down at the Susquehanna Bank Center (1 Harbour Boulevard, Camden, New Jersey, 856-225-0163, www.livenation.com) on July 10, is often the highlight of the summer for young music fans. It is an impressive tour that features more than 90 bands and covers a variety of genres — mainly punk, hardcore, power-pop and the harder side of alternative.
One of the high profile bands on Warped 2015 is Never Shout Never — a Midwest pop-rock band that has released six albums since 2010. Never Shout Never began as a solo project by Christof Drew in 2007 under the name nevershoutnever!
“When I first started performing with a band it was a six-piece,” said Drew, during a phone interview Thursday evening from a Warped Tour stop in western Pennsylvania. “It went down to a three-piece. Now, we’re up to a four-piece and we have an organist who is out with us now.”
The group’s most recent album is “Recycled Youth Vol. 1” which came out earlier this year. The album featured reworked songs from previous Never Shout Never records. The band now has a new album filled with fresh new tunes that will be released next month on Warner Bros. Records. It’s called “Black Cat.”
“’Black Cat’ has been in the works since 2013,” said Drew. “I started hammering it in 2014 — really got it going. I found a producer — Dennis Herring — and did some pre-production with him. Recording the album was a really long process — five times longer than we had spent on any previous album. We cut at DTLA Studio in the arts district of L.A. and that was really cool. The music on ‘Black Cat’ — it’s kind of all over the place. It’s definitely a pop album — cool chords and classic melodies. But, we produced it in a very contemporary way. The title track is somewhat psychedelic. Our last few albums were mid-tempo but this one is pretty upbeat. There a few things on the album that tie together lyrically. I co-wrote half the songs with the band. Then, me and Dennis worked more on the songs in pre-production.”
This will be Never Shout Never’s third Warped Tour. The first time was 2010 and the second jaunt was in 2013. “We definitely learned a lot from that first time,” said Drew. “This time, we have a 35-minute set. I love the short set. We just come out and play our favorite songs. We are doing one song from the new album -l ‘Hey! We OK,’ which is the first single from the album.” Video link for Never Shout Never — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ew4wSG7cU&feature=player_detailpage.
New Beat Fund
Another featured band on this year’s Vans Warped Tour is New Beat Fund, a band that plays a style it has dubbed G-Punk, a blend of hip-hop, garage pop and West Coast punk. The line-up includes Jeff “Burnie Baker” Laliberte (guitar/vocals), his brother Paul “Snapz” Laliberte (bass), Shelby “Button” Archer (guitar) and Michael “Silky” Johnson (drums).
“A few years ago, my brother and I started jamming together,” said Jeff Laliberte, during a recent phone interview from his home in Southern California. “Then, Shelby joined us. We worked at a barbecue spot in the suburbs and stated jamming more. We met our drummer through a friend of ours. Our first gig was a little over three years ago. We had one new song we wrote as a band and two other songs we knew how to play. Everything seemed right. QWe called each other the next day and decided to go for it.”
“That first song was called ‘Scare Me’ and it was written out of frustration. That was the jumping-off point — and we still play it. Our first record was the ‘Coinz’ EP in 2013. We recorded it and produced it in our bedroom because we were working different jobs and didn’t have the money to go to a studio.”
“Our next record was ‘It’s Cool,’ which we recorded the same way. When we started working on an album, we’d make demos in different places. Then, we all moved in together in a little place in Topanga Canyon to work on songs. We spent five months there altogether.”
The end result was New Beat Fund’s debut album “Sponge Fingerz,” which was released in June on Red Bull Records. “We recorded bits and pieces for the last couple years,” said Laliberte. “We did most of the work nine months ago and then recorded and mixed it last fall. We played a lot of gigs in Southern California this spring and now we’re off on the Warped Tour. This is our second Warped Tour. We played the 2013 tour after we released our EP. That was our first tour ever. It was like boot camp. This time, we’re more prepared. We’re bringing our music which we call ‘G-Punk/Beach Funk.’ No-one can define us so we’ve created our own genre.”
Video link for New Beat Fund — https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=knfcE4NCZfY. The Vans Warped Tour will start at 1 p.m. Tickets are $39.50.
Royal Blood.
Royal Blood, a two-piece band from the U.K., is currently getting introduced to a huge amount of potential fans because it is touring America as the opening act for the immensely-popular Foo Fighters. After playing to a sold-out audience last week at Susquehanna Bank Center (1 Harbour Boulevard, Camden, New Jersey, 856-225-0163, www.livenation.com), the tour is returning to the same venue on July 13.
The duo — bassist/singer Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher — released its debut album “Royal Blood” 10 months ago. Now, with the impetus provided by the tour with the Foo Fighters, the album has climbed to Number 5 on the Billboard Albums Chart. “We met a gig a few years ago when we were playing in different bands,” said Ker, during a recent phone interview. “We just decided that a duo would be cool.”
Royal Blood has an amazingly big sound considering it is just a duo. It has all the bombast of a power trio — without a lead guitar. “I didn’t know if it would work but it was something I wanted to try,” said Kerr. “It’s more of a configuration to make it louder. And, I use ultra-pedals to get high-end sounds. We did do a little overdubbing in the studio. Our approach is just trying to write good songs — just trying to get a good melody. It’s very collaborative the way we work. We’ve been friends as long as we’ve been playing together so we have really good chemistry.”
The band formed in Brighton, England and is based in Worthing, a town 10 miles west of Brighton. “We had our first live gig in November 2013 in Worthing at the Tangerine Bar,” said Kerr. “We didn’t even rehearse. We just met up and did the gig the next day. We began recording around Christmas that year. The rest of the album was done over the next year. We’re writing all the time. We’re playing all the songs from the album in our live show. We aren’t playing any new songs and we don’t play covers. American audiences are starting to take notice of us. A year ago, we were playing shows to 20 people. When we headlined our own tour earlier this year, we were playing to 1,000 fans and having sold-out shows.”
Video link for Royal Blood — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSdtvfBQd6c&list=PLhAkyTFeUxdMcyWuJcFYOPwMBE6UPjTkg&feature=player_embedded. Royal Blood’s show with the Foo Fighters will start at 7 p.m. Ticket prices are $75, $58.50 and $42.50.
Jungle by Night
Jungle by Night has been winning over audiences all throughout Europe for the past few years but has remained relatively unknown in the United States. That’s all about to change because the band has just embarked on its maiden tour of North America — a tour that brings it here on July 12 for a show at World Café Live (3025 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, 215-222-1400, philly.worldcafelive.com).
Based in Amsterdam, Jungle by Night has a large line-up — Pieter van Exter (tenor sax, Ko Zandvliet (trombone), Bo Floor (trumpet), Jac van Exter (guitar), Pyke Pasman (keyboards), Peter Peskens (bass), Sonny Groeneveld (drums), Tienson Smeets (Djembe) and Gino Groeneveld (congas).
The nine-piece powerhouse evolves the American and Nigerian roots of the music, folding in the beats and fierce attitudes of hip-hop and EDM, guided by the wild soul of jazz and the raw energy of rock. The band will bring its modern take on Afrobeat to America with the current tour in support if its third album “The Hunt.”
“This is our first time to tour the states so we’re really excited,” said van Exter, during a recent trans-Atlantic phone interview from his home in the Dutch capital. “We’re a combination of nine friends and brothers. It’s a group of friends and affiliates who were into different music than most other people our age. It started as a jam and ended up going to stage. It began in 2010. Our main target was a local festival and then it took off.”
Jungle by Night’s version of Afrobeat has found fans around the world. The band organized its own Afrobeat festival “Felabration” (in honor of the late Fela Kuti) in Amsterdam and brought in Fela’s drummer Tony Allen and Fela’s son Seun Kuti as special guests.
And the people who have Afrobeat in their blood, one of the creators and the heir, were captured with Jungle by Night’s take on the music. “Afrobeat to that level is just wonderful and impressive,” Seun Kuti said after they’d performed.
“I grew up on Afrobeat,” said van Exter. “My father was a journalist in Africa so I was exposed to a lot of the music from Mali, Nigeria and Ethiopia. I liked the crossovers of Arican music with western music. Our music is inspired by Afrobeat and jazz. But, we want to go beyond that — not to copy but and make our own music. We’re moving in many directions. With Afrobeat, there are a lot of typical aspects and we don’t follow there.”
“Sometimes, we use synthesizers with Afrobeat or keytar with Ethiopian music. Or, we might take a Malian vibe and sue that as inspiration. We keep developing our own style. If you listen to ‘The Hunt,’ you’ll hear that there is more going on musically than just Afrobeat. We’ve toured Europe a lot. This tour is to get us noticed in the states and in Canada. We’re playing our own headline shows and we’re also playing a lot of impressive festivals such as the Montreal Jazz Festival and the Ottawa Blues Festival.”
Video link for Jungle by Night — https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=R8plXruz8PQ. Jungle by Night’s show at the World Café Live will start at 8 p.m. and also feature El Malito as the opener. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door.
Other area performances include:
The Flash (102 Sycamore Alley, Kennett Square, 484-732-8295, http://www.kennettflash.org) will present Better than Bacon on July 9.
The Steel City Coffee House (203 Bridge Street, Phoenixville, 610-933-4043, www.steelcitycoffeehouse.com) will host “No Fuss and Feathers Roadshow” featuring The Yayas (Jay Mafale and Catherine Miles), Carolann Solebello and Karyn Oliver” on July 11.
Doc Watson’s Public House (150 North Pottstown Pike, Exton, 610-524-2424, docwatsonspublichouse.com) will feature the Billy Joel tribute act “River of Dreams” on July 10 and Graham Squad on July 11.
Chaplin’s (66 North Main Street, Spring City, 610-792-4110, http://chaplinslive.com) will have Captive Son, Distress Call, Awaking Mercury and Pansy on July 9 and Aberdeen Green, Aubrey DeMedio and Kaitlyn Myers on July 10.
Burlap & Bean Coffeehouse (204 South Newtown Street Road, Newtown Square, 484-427-4547, www.burlapandbean.com) will present Project Ico on July 10 and Flagship Romance with IVA on July 11.
Valley Forge Casino (1160 First Avenue, King of Prussia, 610-354-8118, https://www.vfcasino.com) presents its next Comedy Club show on July 10 with Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling.
The Grand Opera House (818 North Market Street, Wilmington, Delaware, 302-652-5577, www.thegrandwilmington.org) will present Kidz Bop on July 12 at 5 p.m.
World Café Live at the Queen (500 North Market Street, Wilmington, 302- 994-1400, www.queen.worldcafelive.com) will host Wilmo Wednesday on July 15.
The Sellersville Theater (24 West Temple Avenue, Sellersville, 215-257-5808, www.st94.com) will have Johnny Peers & the Muttville Comix on July 13, Dale Watson & His Lone Stars on July 14 and Robbie Fulks & Redd Volkaert on July 15.
