Florry w/ special guest John Andrews & The Yawns

Florry w/ special guest John Andrews & The Yawns

Fri 11/21

7pm doors/8pm show

21+ | $18 adv./$22 day of

A far cry from the cool, calculated distance and reserved posture that is all-too-familiar to the indie-rock sphere, Florry, the Philly-bred septet and songwriting vehicle of bandleader Francie Medosch, are marking their territory as a band resolving to do something very different: they are having a really good time out there.

Cutting her teeth in the Philadelphia DIY scene starting in 2019 as a student at Temple University, the early days of Florry found Medosch at the end of her teenage years releasing a slew of singles and EP’s in a familiar idiom of lo-fi bedroom recordings tinged with country melancholy. A lot has changed since then. Most importantly, perhaps, the project snowballed into a barn-burning seven piece rock band in the proceeding years; and without sacrificing any of the emotional immediacy that's come to define Medosch’s brashly earnest, bleeding-heart lyrical style, you’re unlikely to find her lingering as much on the melancholy these days. Or, as Medosch plainly puts it in regards to Sounds Like... , the band’s forthcoming LP:

“The Jackass theme song was actually a really big influence on the new album”

The release of their 2023 formal full-length debut The Holey Bible (via Dear Life) found Medosch now flanked by six bandmates and trafficking in a wider, more rock-oriented approach with the bravado of someone with a new lease on life. With Jon Cox (Sadurn, Son of Barb) on pedal steel, John Murray on electric guitar, Colin Dennen on bass, Will Henrikson on fiddle, Katya Malison (Doll Spirit Vessel) on Vox, and Joey Sullivan (Bark Culturr) on drums, Florry 2.0 had arrived. The retooled seven-piece embraced a lengthy run of tours dialing in their new kinetic sound and freewheeling chemistry including runs with Fust, MJ Lenderman, Greg Freeman, and Real Estate. Greeted to critical acclaim upon its release, with positive notices from outlets including Pitchfork, Stereogum, Paste, and Brooklyn Vegan, the album quickly introduced Florry to an expanded audience and pointed a way forward for Medosch and the band at a time when the future wasn’t so clear.

“I had a job lined up selling insurance, I guess I figured that was that, you know?”

As it turns out, that was not that. A few days went by, and then the phone started ringing. From managers, from booking agents, from indie-rock elder statesman Kurt Vile, who took the band on the road in support of his 2023 Back to Moon Beach LP.

On the winkingly titled Sounds Like... , the band’s second full-length release via Dear Life, Florry is picking up right where they left off in 2023. Again upping the ante with a bigger, brighter, more abrasive sound that resembles something closer to Rolling Thunder Revue-era Bob Dylan than their humble DIY roots. Across ten tracks, the band wear their influences on their sleeve while carving out a space that is distinctly their own, blending raw honky-tonk grit and rich instrumental textures with the disarming sincerity and intimacy of the group’s lo-fi beginnings. It’s a record about searching—searching for home, for love, for meaning, and for a sound that captures it all.

As Medosch croons on the red-hot opening track, First it was a movie, then it was a book:

Last night i watched a movie

the movie made me sad

‘cause i saw myself in everyone

how’d they make a movie like that?

John Andrews is something of an open secret in a certain corner of the music scene: a versatile musician & animator. A film school drop out whose work hat-tips tradition as much as outsider anti-aesthetics. He’s spent over a decade on the DIY circuit, playing early house shows alongside then up-and-coming peers Weyes Blood and Daniel Bachman. Today he is still out there projecting his sketchy hand drawn animations during his performances in coffee shops, small galleries and non-traditional venues. Andrews’ painterly approach now introduces us to his version of New York City, the place he was bound to end up after years of dwelling in Pennsylvania farm towns and New Hampshire barns. There is handmade vibrancy to the world he’s imagined for us here: intimate moments seen from the interior, looking outward from hole-in-the-wall restaurants, theaters and the fragments of peace found within the restless and dirty street corners.

Love For The Underdog, his aptly titled fourth release with the Woodsist label, was tracked live to tape in various studios and apartments across the Empire State with help from his bandmates in Cut Worms’ touring outfit, Max Clarke, Keven Lareau & Noah Bond. Buoyant melodies are supported by timeless string arrangements, translated from Andrews’ head to page with the help of friend Simon Hanes. The string quartet follows the tradition of Francoise Hardy, Harry Nilsson, Margo Guryan & Belle and Sebastian, giving the whole thing a cinematic ambience with stark shadows of an Edward Hopper painting.

The lyrics tie together narratives of cynical heroes & troubled lovers. In song titles like “Walking Under My Love’s Ladders” and “Checks in the Mail” he delivers clever one liners and wry observations in a comforting voice. “Like a movie star but the movies are closed / Living like a celebrity that nobody knows / Trying hard every day to make ends meet / Somethings you can’t get back, even with your saved receipts” he sings in the Beatles-esque Art Deco pop ballad “Starving Artist”. He knows from experience.

But as the album cover suggests (not John’s own work, but a drawing by artist and friend Christian Peslak), Love For The Underdog also sees Andrews as both the reliable narrator and a character himself: an unlikely omniscient presence, snacking on popcorn at a midnight screening of a slice-of-life movie, surrounded by heroes both unlikely and not.

Love For The Underdog has the feeling of sinking into well-worn red velvet theater seats, when the lights go down and the flickering of projectors run the title: Love for the Underdog, indeed. The glow of New York Movie. By the end, like the comforting smell of buttered popcorn and the whispers of a first date tucked into the back rows, you step out into the bright lights of a city street, the lines of the characters echoing in your head like the advice of an old, wise friend whose comfortable with the passage of time. Just like Andrews sings in 7 minute long mini opera “Fourth Wall”: “Some things take years to know / No one is the same they were years ago”. He looks at the camera and winks.