Philadelphia's The Swimmers have a couple of apearances this weekend to celebrate the sleeky satisfying slighty arty pop of People Are Soft, the group's new release on Drexel's Mad Dragon label. Steve Yutzy-Burkey's band is playing an early show at Kung Fu Necktie on Friday with Capitol Years, and a Saturday afternoon in-store appearance at Main Street Music in Manayunk. Below, the Yutzy-Burkey directed "What This World Is Coming To," from People Are Soft.

Previously: Mae's Van Stolen In South Philly 

The members of Mae, the Virginia alt-pop band that played the North Star Bar on Tuesday and Wednesday, woke up on Thursday in a city that had just lost the World Series to find that their van and a trailer containing all of their equipment had been stolen. The band was staying at the Holiday Inn on Packer Ave. in South Philadelphia, a stone's throw from Citizen's Bank Park. Here are Mae's own words on the matter: "This morning we woke up to find our van, trailer, all instruments, equipment and merchandise had been stolen from the hotel parking lot. This misfortune has fallen among many of our friends in the past and after touring for 8 years this sort of thing is bound to happen. We have four dates left on our tour and will play the shows with the help of our friends in Deas Vail and Jenny Owen Youngs. It's in these moments that our fans lift us up and remind us why we do what we do. We thank you for the immediate outpouring of love and support.”

Tonight, the band will be at the Fillmore at Irving Plaza in Manhattan, playing a show with borrowed equipment. Any fans of Mae - whose name is an acronym for "Multi-sensory Aesthetic Expereince"  - who want to commiserate, share some info or chip in to the cause can follow the instructions on their Facebook page.

Previously: I Don't Know What To Do With Myself

This one goes out to the Philadelphia Phillies. Without a Game 7 to watch, my life has no meaning. 

Previously: Folk Monsters 

The Monsters of Folk were on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night, and they're in the Inquirer today. My interview with Conor Oberst and Jim James is here. James, Oberst, M. Ward and Mike Mogis get electro-trippy, with The Roots as their backing band, in the clip below. The Monsters play the Academy of Music on Monday. 

Previously: Girls XXX Video

Girls, the San Francisco indie-pop band whose equally wrenching and catchy debut album, Album, is one of the standout releases of 2009, are playing at the Kung Fu Necktie tonight. (There is a TV in the bar, and the Phillies game will be on.) Lately, the band fronted by warbling singer Christopher Owens has caused much titillation in the indie world due to the director's cut video for "Lust For Life" (not the Iggy Pop song), which includes all sorts of boy and girl full frontal nudity. The version you see below is the clean one. All you perverts want to see the dirty one, let google be your guide. 

Previously: The Very Best At Johnny Brenda's  

I don't know who's on first, but I do know that the very best band is playing at Johnny Brenda's tonight. Which band is that, Abbott? Why, Costello, it's The Very Best. That's the collaboration between London based Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya and DJ-producer Radioclit whose electro-Afro-pop debut, The Warm Heart of Africa, really truly is one of the very best of the year. The Very Best includes collaborations with M.I.A. and Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, and I'm guessing neither of them will be in Fishtown tonight. The cause for celebration, however, is that Mwamwaya, who's visa problems have forced the band to cancel previous shows on this tour, will indeed be there. Check TVB out below.

Previously: I Hate People

Ex-Be Your Own Pet singer Jemina Pearl has that contemptuous rock and roll sneer down cold. A couple of years back, when BYOP opened for a certain highly-hyped Brit band at the Electric Factory, the now 22 year old Pearl looked out of the crowd and said," So, I guess you're all Arctic Monkeys fans, huh?" as if there were no lower life form on earth. On the first single from her solo debut, Break It Up, which is just out on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label, she playfully continues in that misanthropic vein with "I Hate People," an updated girl-group ditty in which she makes an exception for Iggy Pop, who chips in on vocals. In the video, she's the bored waitress, and Sonic Youth's Moore is the short order cook. The Nashville native's MySpace is here, and her blog, Puke Till You Punk, is here. Pearl plays the First Unitarian Church tonight, sandwiched between Islands and Toro Y Moi.

Previously: Record Shopping, Without Pants

Philadelphia's own Amanda Blank and Philly and Baltimore's Spank Rock are the stars of the latest episode of What's In My Bag?, the web video featurette series from the great West Coast mini music chain Amoeba Music. Spank wears trousers, Amanda doesn't. Here's my Blank interview from back in August.  She plays a hometown show at the TLA on Nov. 13, with Peaches.

Previously: Pearl Jam Setlist, Last Night of the Spectrum

Pearl Jam shut down the Spectrum for good on Saturday with a show that stretched into Sunday morning. It started off with "Why Go," a question Spectrum lovers have been asking since the treasured old building's impending doom was annouced last year, and ended about 3 hours and 40 minutes later, much more happily than the Phillies game across the street, with a Mike McCready interpretation of Jimi Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner." (Despite the rumors, Jimi Hendrix did not show up to play with him, although earlier in the show, Eddie Vedder did bring out 89 year old Spectrum stage hand Charlie DiFabio, who's worked at the Spectrum since 1967, for a moment of onstage glory.)

There were as many songs in the encores as there were in the main set, including a Halloween surprise cover of "Whip It," with band members dressed as Devo from their red flower pot hats down to their yellow jumpsuits. Vedder and crew whipped out the obscurities, too: after failing at first, Vedder got through his accordion parts on the creepy, crawly "Bugs," from 1994's Vitalogy, which had never been played live before. That's also apparently true of  "Sweet Lew," the stripped down Kareem Abdul-Jabbar-Lew Alcindor inspired trifle, which was sung by Jeff Ament (while wearing a Wilt Chamberlain Sixers throwback jersey, nice touch) as Vedder palmed a basketball to his left. That one was followed by "Do The Evolution," with a Julius Erving tribute intro: "First we crawled out of the sea, then we learned to walk upright, and then Dr. J taught us how to fly!"

Along the way, the band pulled out rarites like "Out Of My Mind", and "Pilate," and again employed the Philadelphia string quartet of Marjorie Goldberg (viola), Kaveh Saidi (violin), and the wife and husband team of Jennifer Lee (violin) and Glenn Fischbach (cello) on extended chamber rock section at the start of the first encore that included a gorgeously rendered "Just Beathe," from Backspacer, as well as "Low Light" and "The End." (Backstage on Saturday, Goldberg said that all week Vedder had been "exceptionally nice," and Fischbach called the expereince "incredible" and note that Vederr "knows my name. That's kind of cool.") 

Meanwhile, Vedder himself seemed star struck when he told of meeting Dave Schultz and Bernie Parent of the Flyers back stage. And at one point the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink show, spurred by a Halloween reveler dressed as Kiss' Gene Simmons, led to Vedder and McCready to exchange dirty innuendos about their mothers. ("We don't tape these shows, do we?," quipped Vedder.)

»  More Pearl Jam Setlist, Last Night of the Spectrum