Philly Music this week, with Marshall Allen, Dawes, Snow Patrol, Magnetic Fields, Record Store Day and more

This week in Philly Music features a 100-year-old Philly bandleader playing his debut solo album, a Philly Brazilian band marking 40-plus years of making music, a sneak peak at an upcoming Philly music fest, two nights of 69 Love Songs, and a region-wide celebration of vinyl culture on Record Store Day.

It starts on a busy Wednesday night with Sun Ra Arkestra bandleader Marshall Allen — whose 101st birthday is next month — leading a band he’s calling the New Dawn, which is also the title of his first album under his own name. He’s at World Cafe Live.

The cool alt-country show of the week is Hayes Carll and Corb Lund’s “Bible on the Dash Tour,” named after a 2022 joint single by the simpatico duo. Texan Carll’s dry wit is on display on last year’s Hayes & the Heathens. Lund pays tribute to his fellow Canadian Ian Tyson on El Viejo. They play City Winery on Wednesday.

There’s a high-quality indie pop triple bill at Johnny Brenda’s on Wednesday, topped by a pair of Midwesterners in Wisconsin songwriter Graham Hunt and Liquid Mike, the terrific power-pop band from Marquette, Mich., led by Mike Maple. Don’t miss opener Dazy, the Richmond, Va., British Invasion-shaped band.

Bluegrass banjo great Tony Trischka brings his Earl Jam — a tribute to banjo pioneer Earl Scruggs — to World Cafe Live on Thursday. That same night R&B singer Chanté Moore — in the gossip pages lately with news of her split from former duet partner and ex-husband Kenny Lattimore — plays the Keswick Theatre.

Think Cory Booker’s 25-hour speech on the Senate floor last week was impressive? Los Angeles alt-rapper Murs — whose acronym stands for “Making the Universe Recognize and Submit,” among other things — rapped for 24 hours straight on Twitch in 2016. He plays MilkBoy Philly on Friday.

This week’s Free at Noon takes place at Ardmore Music Hall on Friday, and serves as a preview of the Sing Us Home Festival, which is May 2-4 in Manayunk. At FAN, it’s a doubleheader, with brothers Dave and Tim Hause getting the lunchtime party started, then Speedy Ortiz takes it home.

Minas — the husband-and-wife team of Orlando Haddad and Patricia King Haddad — are marking four decades in Philadelphia, encompassing an eight-album career that began with their debut, Num Dia Azul, in 1983 up until Beatles in Bossa in 2022. They play World Cafe Live on Friday night.

The Magnetic Fields magnum opus 69 Love Songs came out in 1999. The band celebrated Stephin Merritt’s witty songwriting tour de force with a 25th-anniversary tour last year, now extended into 2025, and will play the album in its entirety over two nights at the Keswick Theatre on Friday and Saturday.

Siblings Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith of Los Angeles band Dawes have been in the news for tragic reasons: They both suffered severe losses in the L.A. fires earlier this year, with their cover of Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” becoming an anthem of resilience.

On Friday, the band plays the Fillmore, with Michigander opening. But before that, at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, Dawes will keep up its tradition of doing an in-store performance at Main Street Music in Manayunk.

Saturday is Record Store Day. Main Street Music keeps the party going with a Michigander in-store at noon, followed by sets from Max Mason and All the Living and the Dead, and a listening party for the Tisburys’ upcoming A Still Life Revisited.

Exclusive vinyl releases with Philly connections will be available at independent stores throughout the region and include vinyls by Lil Uzi Vert, Astrud Gilbert, John Legend, Skip James, the O’Jays, Todd Rundgren, and Sun Ra. Non-Philly prized products include releases by Taylor Swift, David Bowie, Prince, and Post-Malone.

Also, as a RSD exclusive, WXPN-FM (88.5) is releasing Homegrown Originals, Vol. 3, with live recordings of Philly acts including Mannequin Pussy, Ron & the Hip Tones, and Zinadelphia. It’s free with purchase at area stores. There’s also a Homegrown Live show at World Cafe Live on April 16 with dd Toby Leaman Trio, Eliza Hardy Jones, and Cadre Noir.

Northern Irish Scottish band Snow Patrol plays the Met Philly on Saturday night. The Gary Lightbody-led trio is touring behind its new The Forest is the Path, with Sorcha Richardson opening.

It’s a supercool avant-jazz guitar weekend at Solar Myth, with the Messthetics playing Sonny Sarrock’s Ask the Ages album in its entirety on Friday, and Wilco guitarist Nels Cline bringing his Consentrik Quartet to the South Philly space on Saturday.

In 1988, the D.C. post-punk band Fugazi played a show in a Northeast Philly gym — with Philly punk-reggae world-beat luminaries Scram opening — in which Fugazi singer Guy Piccioto lifted himself upside down through a basketball hoop in the middle of the performance.

That moment was captured in the Fugazi documentary Instrument, and the show booked by Northeast Philly High School student Mickey Lynch has been memorialized in the new zine Upside Down Punks: The Strange But True Story of the Fugazi Basketball Show by J. Hunter Bennett. The zine’s release by Microcosm Publishing will be celebrated on Saturday night at PhilaMOCA, with Des Demonas, Dot Dash, and Applied Knowledge playing.

Etana and the Raw-Soul Rebels Band — not to be confused with New Orleans brass band Soul Rebels — heads up a reggae bill at Ardmore Music Hall on Sunday with the Tabernacle Reggae Band, DJ Black Widow Sound, and M-Gee.

Guatemala-born and Mexico City-based cellist and songwriter Mabe Fratti is at World Cafe Live on Sunday. Her 2024 album Sentir que no sabes — which translates as Feel Like You Don’t Know — is a gorgeous, pensive chamber pop record, RIYL Kate Bush and Arooj Aftab.