Dr. Dog drummer Eric Slick lets out ‘New Age Rage’ and turns on the ‘Philadelphia Lights’
The drummer and songwriter will celebrate a solo album with a hometown show at Johnny Brenda's. VinylCon! also hits Philly this weekend.
Eric Slick has spent 15 years drumming for Philadelphia-bred band Dr. Dog and toured with Waxahatchee and Kevin Morby.
Since moving to Nashville in 2018 with musician wife Natalie Prass, he’s also been a busy session musician. He’s played on songs by Courtney Love and Taylor Swift — on the Fearless (Taylor’s Version) tracks “You All Over Me” and “That’s When” — as well as country acts such as Sarah Evans and Ingrid Andress.
But like so many drummers who spend hours gazing at lead singers’ rear ends, Slick has secretly harbored ambitions to front his own band.
OK, maybe not so secretly.
“Ever since the first time I saw Tool at the First Union Center in 2001. That was a real turning point for me. I said to myself, ‘I want to be a front person,’” says Slick 36, who grew up in Fairmount. (The Wells Fargo Center was then known as the First Union.)
He started on drums at 5 and studied at the Paul Green School of Rock at 11 with his bassist sister Julie, who tours with Adrian Belew and Jerry Harrison in the Talking Heads tribute band Remain in Light. The siblings are featured in the 2005 documentary Rock School.
Slick played bass in Lithuania, the Philly band he co-led with Dominic Angelella, which released three albums, the most recent being White Reindeer in 2017. He first came into his own as a solo artist with 2020′s Wiseacre, but he never really got to push the album properly due to the pandemic.
Now he’s ready to hit the road in support of New Age Rage, his delirious, synthy collection of dance rock influenced by the 1980s funk of acts like Yellow Magic Orchestra and Prince.
The album comes out Friday, and Slick plays Johnny Brenda’s on Saturday, with Dr. Dog coleader Toby Leaman and Mavis the Dog opening. (And speaking of Dr. Dog, the band announced this week that their self-titled 11th album is due July 19. Six days before that, the band will play the Mann Center, in one of only two shows this year.)
New Age Rage’s tone is set by its title cut, a cautionary tale about the dangers of artificial intelligence with a clever video directed by comedian and actor Demi Adejuyigbe.
The idea for the song title came from a concert by Philly New Age artist Laraaji, which was plagued by sound problems. Slick and cowriter Kyle Ryan drew on Zapp’s 1985 hit “Computer Love.”
“We used that as a template,” Slick said to The Inquirer while driving from Nashville to Philadelphia earlier this week. “Thinking about what if you fell in love with a robot, but then the robot killed you? Kind of an ‘80s pastiche for a very modern concern.”
Slick loves Nashville for the opportunities for a working musician, but gets nostalgic for his hometown. That’s where New Age Rage’s 1970s soul homage “Philadelphia Lights” comes in.
“That was written in the throes of COVID,” he said. “I was so sad and homesick. So I really wrote that for my parents. They’re my biggest fans, and I just wanted to write them a song that was just like, ‘Philly is such a special place, and it still means a lot to me.’ It’s always going to be home.”
Eric Slick with DD Toby Leaman and Mavis the Dog at Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., at 9 p.m. Saturday.
Also this weekend, Brooklyn post-punk band Bodega has a new album called Our Brand Could Be Yr Life that’s a hat tip to Michael Azerrad’s classic book about the 1980s underground rock group Our Band Could Be Your Life. The new album is actually a rebooted version of the band’s 2018 release, which they rerecorded, Taylor Swift-style. They play two shows Friday, with a Free at Noon at World Cafe Live followed by a headlining spot on a four-band bill at the Latvian Society’s Baltic Hall that evening.
It’s closing weekend at the Living Room in Ardmore, as club owner and booker Laura Mann moves on from the BYO venue that has been in three different locations since opening in 2018. Mann and Dan Navarro play on Friday.
Then on Saturday, Philly songwriters Ben Arnold and Jim Boggia team up for early and late shows, while blues singer and saxophonist Vanessa Collier plays around the corner at Mason Hall, which was home to a former iteration of the Living Room.
Saturday, the free Haddonfield Music Festival kicks off at noon with Smash Palace and carries on into the evening with a bill that includes Matt Cappy, Oceanator, the National Reserve, Snacktime, and Jeffrey Gaines. And Burlington County-raised country-rap artist Breland brings his Little More Countrier tour to the Foundry at the Fillmore.
On Sunday, garage rocker Ty Segall is at Union Transfer, 1970s Laurel Canyon stalwart and coauthor of many Eagles hits J.D. Souther plays the Sellersville Theater, and always electrifying righteous Providence, R.I., punk rock band Downtown Boys play PhilaMOCA.
The non-live music attraction of the weekend is VinylCon! a two-day event to be held at the 23rd Street Armory on Saturday and Sunday that promises to be a one-stop sequel to last week’s Record Store Day. It promises “70+ vendors, 100,000+ records,” DJs, and more. Dealers Choice: A VinylCon After Party will feature five DJs at the Trestle Inn on Saturday night.