In Philly music this week: Nick Cave, Zac Brown, Magdalena Bay, Orla Gartland, and two Philly soul legends

This week in Philly music brings Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds to North Broad Street, along with rising alt-pop acts Orla Gartland, Magdalena Bay, and Bartees Strange performing around the city. It’s also a busy weekend at the Shore, with the Zac Brown Band and two classic Philly soul vocal groups taking the stage.

On Wednesday, Chris Thile performs with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The Nickel Creek and the Punch Brothers’ mandolin virtuoso and vocalist will be performing a new piece called “Attention!” described as “a narrative song cycle for extroverted mandolinist and orchestra.”

Last time Thile played on Broad Street, he was serving his short-lived term as a Garrison Keillor replacement host of Prairie Home Companion, which visited the Academy of Music in 2016. This time, he’ll front the Fabulous Philadelphians at Marian Anderson Hall.

Also Wednesday, hardworking guitar strummer and songwriter Rhett Miller of Old ’97s does a solo gig at World Cafe Live, sharing a bill with Josh Rouse, the Nebraska-bred folk-pop songwriter who now lives in Spain. And British pub-rock great Graham Parker plays the Sellersville Theater in Bucks County, with James Mastro opening.

Low Cut Connie’s monthly Connie Club radio show taping for WXPN-FM (88.5) is Thursday at Ardmore Music Hall. Adam Weiner’s variety show guests are intriguing as always, starting with Tammy Faye Starlite, the country singer persona of New York performance artist T.D. Lang.

Also on board is Philadelphia Englishman Wesley Stace, the songwriter and novelist who has his own variety show in his “Cabinet of Wonders,” with the next one up at City Winery New York on Sunday. The Connie Club lineup is completed with Tommy Greene, the no hitter-throwing former Phillies pitcher.

There’s much to recommend at South Jazz Kitchen this weekend. On Thursday, a giant of the genre is paid tribute to in Gerald Veasley’s “Electric Mingus Project,” celebrating great bassist and composer Charles Mingus, who would have turned 103 this week.

Then on Friday through Sunday, the headliner is C. Anthony Bryant, the New York gospel vocalist and member of the Electric Root collective whose “Sound of (Black) Music” follows John Coltrane’s lead and brings a Black music sensibility to Rodgers & Hammerstein.

Irish songwriter Orla Gartland’s music has grown with her online presence. She started playing violin and fiddle when she was 5, picked up guitar at 12, and posted her first YouTube video in 2009 at 13. Her self-produced alt-pop grew more sophisticated on 2021’s Women of the Internet and the new varied and self-confident Everybody Needs a Hero. She’s at Underground Arts on Friday

Friday is album release day for Philly indie band the Tisburys’ A Still Life Revisited, a further progression for the Tyler Asay-fronted pop-savvy quintet, which was recorded at Dr. Dog’s Mount Slippery studio in Delaware County. The band’s Philly record release show isn’t until June 7 at MilkBoy, but they’ll be celebrating at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park on Friday.

Jay Schwartz belonged to the Blank Generation. That’s a reference to a 1977 Richard Hell song, and Schwartz’s show of photos from Philadelphia venues like the Hot Club and Tower Theater is called “I Belonged to the Blank Generation.” Those shots of Patti Smith, the Jam, and Talking Heads are on display at the Space Art Gallery in South Philadelphia.

There’s an accompanying program of Schwartz-shot footage called I Belonged to the Blank Generation: Philly’s Early Punk / New Wave Scene on Screen showing at Lightbox Film Center in the Bok Building on Friday.

The old=school country drinking song is alive and well in the hands of Maggie Antone, the rising Virginia honky-tonk singer who has covered Tyler Childers’ “Lady May” and whose new album Rhinestoned includes song titles like “Johnny Moonshine,” “One Too Many,” and “Me and Jose Cuervo.” She’s at the Foundry at the Fillmore Friday.

Jammy country-rock outfit Zac Brown Band plays Hard Rock Live at Etess Arena in Atlantic City on Friday and Saturday. Saturday night in A.C. features competing versions of classic 1970s Philly soul groups. Rock and Roll Hall of Famers the Spinners are at Resorts’ Superstar Theater. And the Stylistics are at the Golden Nugget. The band’s new album, Falling in Love With My Girl, includes unlikely collaborations with Shania Twain, Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones, and Billy F. Gibbons of ZZ Top.

Magdalena Bay, the high concept and highly entertaining electro-pop duo of Mica Tenenbaum and Mathew Lewin, is at Franklin Music Hall on Saturday.

It’s a Philly-connected band. Both are Argentinean Americans who grew up in Miami, and are now based in Los Angeles. The band was formed in the mid-2010s when Tenenbaum was a student at the University of Pennsylvania — and active in the female comedy troupe Bloomers — and Lewin was at Northeastern in Boston. Their 2024 concept album, Imaginal Disk, deservedly landed on many year-end best-of lists.

New York soul-pop band Brandy & the Alexanders plays the Fallser Club on Saturday with Shayna Blass and Philly singer Nicole Saphos opening. British songwriter Fabiano Palladino plays Johnny Brenda’s on Saturday in support of her eponymous 1980s throwback pop-R&B debut. Deb Callahan sings the blues at Jamey’s House of Music in Lansdowne on Saturday, and the Philly Blues Kings with Clarence Spady do brunch the following day.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds last played Philadelphia in 2018. Since then, the Australian rocker has released two albums. Ghosteen, which came out in 2019, mourned the death of Cave’s teenage son Arthur. Last year’s Wild God finds a way to move forward with joy while not letting go of grief. Cave is an electrifying performer, and the early reports from this tour, which comes to the Met Philly on Saturday, have been rapturous.

Camden County rocker, California desert resident, and The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn radio host Ben Vaughn is back east for one of his perfectly droll biannual hometown appearances with the Ben Vaughn Quintet. They’ll play at World Cafe Live on Saturday with Palmyra Delran and the Doppel Gang, led by the South Jersey-bred Little Steven’s Underground Garage DJ.

Philly songwriter Laura Mann has been traveling the U.S. with her dogs since closing her Living Room music venue in Ardmore in April 2024. A year later, she’s back with a show at Mason Hall in Ardmore, joined by a cavalcade of Philly-area troubadours including Jim Boggia and Ben Arnold, plus special guests Cliff Hillis and Andy King.

Genre-blending indie artist Bartees Strange’s new album, Horror, features several collaborations with producer-to-the-superstars Jack Antonoff. It includes “Baltimore,” a song about searching for a city to settle down in and “raise a few Black kids.” It rhymes “DC’s nice but the summers are tough,” with “Philadelphia always shows up.” That’s likely to be the case again when he headlines the Foundry at the Fillmore on Sunday.