Philly Music Fest is back with a first-time metal night and a customary mystery guest

The Philly Music Fest will return for its ninth year — and once again there’s a mystery headliner.

This year’s all-local “our genre is Philly” fest — a nonprofit venture that raises money for music education — will run from Oct. 13-19 in independent venues in and just outside the city.

The PMF will take place over the course of one week in seven different venues, but is expanding to nine shows, with two multi-act bills happening on two of the nights.

For the first time, Philly’s heavy rock scene will be represented with a metal night at MilkBoy Philly. And the fest is also adding a new venue in East Falls’ Fallser Club, said Greg Seltzer, who founded the festival in 2017 with his wife, Jenn.

The headliners include two nights with the Dan Campbell-fronted Lansdale pop-punk band the Wonder Years, a solo show with Matt Quinn of Mt. Joy, a jazz double bill that teams Nazir Ebo and Daniel Villareal, and a singer-songwriter night with indie folk artist Greg Mendez.

The fest will kick off Oct. 13 and 14 at Ardmore Music Hall with the as-yet-unannounced headliner.

That’s become a tradition: a buzzworthy act playing the PMF whose name can’t be immediately revealed because the artist has another competing gig in the region before the fest takes place.

Last year, a similar situation occurred when Waxahatchee had two shows to do at the Fillmore before her Ardmore gig at the PMF could be announced. Two years earlier, Mt. Joy needed to do a show at the Mann Center before news of a PMF show could go public.

So who could this year’s mystery guest be? It’s a long-standing Philly act that has never played the PMF, that needs to get a local show over and done before tickets can go on sale for the PMF dates.

Seltzer says he’s tried to book the act to play the PMF every year of the fest’s existence, and finally got a yes. “I’m obsessively persistent,” he says. “Turns out, year nine is the charm.”

The clever PMF poster art by Hannah Westerman depicts vintage TV sets, with one marked “Stay Tuned.” Start guessing. I’ll never tell.

Here’s a rundown of everyone else playing the PMF after the first two nights at Ardmore Music Hall, on which there will be no opening acts.

Oct. 15 at Johnny Brenda’s: Topping the bill is Mendez, the Philly troubadour who broke through with his superb self-titled album in 2023. 22 Halo and Soup Dreams open.

Oct. 16 at World Cafe Live: Quinn will play a solo show, likely joined by some friends. (Could one be longtime PMF supporter Jason Kelce, with whom Quinn sang “Santa Drives an Astrovan” with the Philly Specials? By October, Christmas will be coming.)

Grace Gardner precedes Quinn downstairs in the Music Hall, and Black Buttafly and Archawah play upstairs in the WCL Lounge.

Oct. 17-18 at Underground Arts: The Wonder Years, who Seltzer says has “been on my dream list for years,” plays two shows. Dryjacket, Golden Apples, and Public Works open the first night, and Caracara and KulfiGirls on the second.

Oct. 18 at the Fallser Club: Catie Turner (of American Idol fame) will headline, with Chioke and the Lunar Year. Seltzer added the Fallser Club, he says, because “it’s important to spread PMF shows across different neighborhoods,” and he’s psyched to add East Falls.

Also, “the club was started by two fiercely local independent entrepreneurs that love music and love Philly” — Felicite Moorman and Ryan Buchert — “and that’s pure narrative alignment.”

Oct. 19 at Solar Myth: Nazir Ebo, who WRTI-FM (90.1) called “the Philly jazz scene’s next breakthrough talent,” will headline, while Daniel Villareal, the Panama-born drummer who recently moved to Philly from Chicago, opens.

Oct. 19 at MilkBoy: Deadguy headlines, and Lastima and ShyGodwin open the PMF’s first metal show. “We’ve received more comments and requests to include metal than any other genre — by far,” Seltzer says. A self-confessed metal novice, he enlisted Graham Noel of Rising Sun Presents to book the show.

Since its inception, the fest’s mission has remained constant, Seltzer says. “We produce a music festival that benefits local musicians with opportunity and attention, hosted only at independent venues. We donate profits to music education programs — $100,000 each of the last three years.”

Seltzer, an attorney with the Ballard Spahr law firm as well as a Philly music booster, estimates the PMF’s annual contribution to the Philadelphia music economy — including payments to bands and revenue for venues — is $600,000.

Tickets for the individual shows go on sale Friday, May 16, at 10 a.m. at phillymusicfest.com, though the Ardmore Music Hall shows with a mystery headliner won’t become available until later in the summer.