Art for the Cash Poor 14 – part art show, part rock concert – offers more than enough bang for those without the bucks. Now that the band lineup is officially set, the only dilemma you’ll have to deal with is what to please first, your eyes or your ears.
Over the weeks leading up to the June 8 and 9 event, we’ll be bringing you a series of interviews with some of the bands who’ll be featured throughout the weekend.
Post by Erica Minutella
Drummer Marc Sonstein stood unsuspectingly beneath low-mounted stage lights. When a stealthy stagehand switched them on, Sonstein felt the heat but didn’t see the light.
“It’s getting hot,” he announced. “Weird hot.”
“And that’s the name of our band,” his bandmates decided on the spot.
While the name was the work of an instant, the formation of Weird Hot was 20 years in the making. Founder Shawn Kilroy jumped around dozens of Philadelphia bands, until he “finally got a really good one.”
“I booked a show and put together a band to play the show,” Kilroy said. “I might have had a couple of people with me for multiple situations, but usually it was just whoever I could put together. In the beginning of 2011 I decided to put together a band that would be together for a long time.”
If their astrological charts have anything to say, then the Fates won’t be snipping their musical chords any time soon. When the band looked up their signs, Spinal Tap style, they discovered they were perfectly balanced, with the six members perfectly representing one half of the Zodiac.
And the balance doesn’t stop there. Kilroy himself is so artistically well-rounded that there wasn’t a creative field I could name that he hasn’t already dabbled in.
“I draw, I paint, I write, I sculpt, I act,” Kilroy said. “I do standup comedy. That’s an art, that’s the art of being an instant immediate asshole in public. I’ve never made a dime doing any of it, but it’s what I do.”
It’s Kilroy’s background in art that’s led him to slot Weird Hot into the art rock genre. The movement began in the 70s and early 80s, when art school kids began forming bands like Japan and The Talking Heads.
“We’re making art. It’s not just rock and roll,” Kilroy added.
While the band hasn’t set a date for the record they’re currently working on, you can catch them every last Wednesday of the month at Kung Fu Necktie for Weird Hot Wednesdays. The next one will be on May 29 at 8 pm. As if mind-blowing music isn’t enough of a return for your $3 cover, it also buys you your first Narragansett beer.
Look for their set at Art for the Cash Poor 14 on Saturday, June 8 at 5 pm. It’ll be kind of like your favorite vintage store exploded on stage to the sound of David Byrne. But better.
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All photos of Weird Hot featured on this page are by Brian Hunt of Ethimo Foto
