Mavis The Dog, Super Infinity, Cole Berggren Band
Launderette Records
3142 Richmond St.
Philadelphia
March 27, 2026
If a rising tide lifts all boats, then Cole Berggren’s 2nd sold-out show at Launderette in five months (here, previously) was another fine chance to check out some stellar hand-picked openers. Launderette always brings the goods (seriously: choose any event on their calendar, and go, and thank me later) and Berggren’s selections, Mavis The Dog and Super Infinity, made my night with their complimentary-yet-singular approaches to insular, lo-fi indie rock. I couldn't help but think wistfully of the times I’d show up early to shows when I was a kid – when I truly had nothing else going on and already firmly believed there was no better use of time than checking out a new band that might flip my wig – and how every once in a while, I’d love the opener as much, if not more, than the band I paid to see; like when I got obsessed with +/- after a mind-blowing set opening for The Wrens, or Blood Brothers destroying on a bill they shared with Against Me! You gotta take a chance sometimes, and, hey, it’s house money: you paid for the whole show, so you might as well get what you paid for.
Mavis The Dog kicked things off. The band’s home-recorded, lo-fi 2024 album White Plastic Chairs supplied most of the material, the warm-but-tiny-and-muffled sound of that record giving way to the mostly high-definition vividness of hearing them live and up close: deep-pocket grooving drums and bass, Mellotron, sleigh bells ringing crystal-clear, and guided along by songwriter Scott Olsen’s trap-door chord changes. Olsen’s got catchy tunes galore, vacillating between major and augmented chords like you’re caught in a Scooby Doo crazy doors chase sequence. The band’s smart turnarounds, rock ‘n roll rhythmic drive and crisp dynamics raise the energy on their recorded output 11-fold, but there’s one crucial lo-fi element carried over: a microphone that discards most of the frequency spectrum and makes Scott Olsen’s voice sound like it’s beaming at you from a radio under a pillow in 1955, vague and melodic and cool. His great guitar-playing style – using a nail like a pick, weaving through the strings, getting tape-y warble and wiggly vibrato with pedals – was on fine display in the infectious “Mr. Wilson,” one of White Plastic Chair’s major highlights. Live, a song like “Rocky Horror” sounds like it could kickstart a dance craze. It all took me back to when I first got into Philly indie rock, back when Dr. Dog first put out “The World May Never Know.”
Super Infinity – the project of songwriter Robby Grote, a former Philadelphian now based in Lancaster – was next, and though performing solo on acoustic guitar, with the firepower of a soundhole pickup and a Fender Princeton amp, he made a huge, band-mimicking sound all on his own. Switching between DADF#AD, standard, and CGCEGC tunings, nasty tube distortion responding to the wonderful dynamics of his aggressive fingerpicking and open-handed strumming, Grote was drums and bass and guitar rolled into one. On record, Grote is a true sonic world-builder, often layering stacks of guitars, synths, vocals and drums into wall-of-sound proportions – check out last year’s 18-song collection organica ecstatica, it’s excellent – but live, you don’t miss what’s not there: his skills as a guitarist, singer and songwriter shine through. Best of all, he stretched his legs with a new song, doing something he admitted he never does by encouraging a little crowd participation: we echoed Grote, the room singing “no one could find me!” from our chests back at him, the tune’s bouncy sing-song melody masking something sad and lonely that felt transformed, or at least shared, a burden lightened like only singing together can.
