4333 Collective Presents: TWO PIECE FEST XIX
Featuring: Holy Death, Schmuck, Small Head Big Torso Vicious Grip, Karen Smith Experience, Sandcastle, Nazeer Art’aud Duo, Whitepicketfence, gun itt, Nick Millevoi & Andy Pitcher, Film & Gender, Deathbird Earth, 24 Hour Mania, Disaster Artist, Joint Chiefs of Math, Zeke Ultra, Lung, Peter & Craig, Hooky, @, 1994!
Ukie Club
847 N Franklin St.
Philadelphia
Feb. 21, 2026
Two Piece Fest! “What a great institution,” Katy Otto, drummer in whitepicketfence, said during a tuning break from the B stage, addressing a packed late-afternoon crowd that would expand and contract throughout the day, though on stage, one number would remain constant all day long: two. Two-piece bands, two people playing together. No more, no less, all day! It’s an institution because they’ve been doing this almost every year since 2008, spearheaded by former Philadelphian and current PDX-er Peter Helmis – of local legends Algernon Cadawallader – and Craig Woods. (Their duo, Peter & Craig, plays every time; I regretfully had to dip before their set, but I’m sure it ruled.)
Two Piece Fest now graces not just Philly but Portland and Chicago, as well. For our version, we got twenty bands, all told, on two stages, at opposite ends of the room – the usual Ukie Club stage was the A stage, with another set up by the entrance. For the most part, this was a marvel of efficiency: you’d watch, for instance, the Massachusetts-based punk duo Film & Gender, drums and marvelously blown-out and feedback-prone bass, play a thoroughly entertaining and confrontational set, and then, the moment their fifteen-minute slot concluded, the next band was ready to go behind you. There was a fantastic stretch from about 4:30 until 8 where it was like this, nary a break in the action, an onslaught of duos; the day had a dream-like quality, speeding along so briskly you’d barely have a moment to process something amazing and senses-obliterating before another amazing, sense-obliterating thing happened.
In terms of highlights, the whole thing could definitely be felt and experienced as a sort of undifferentiated blur of color and noise and genuinely novel approaches to the duo format – I keep thinking of calling it punk tapas – but let’s get specific anyway. I loved a set from gun itt, a new-ish band from Alex Krausman and Mario Alvarado (he’s got a PhD in rock ‘n roll, folks) that sounded sort of like Lightning Bolt with emphatic Rick-from-Pile full-throated singing, in your face but melodic with real songcraft; I heard bits of Dan Deacon and Marnie Stern. It was noise rock rooted in a different era, and it was sick, especially because Krausman was ripping a Rhodes through enough pedals to make it sound like overdriven bass and guitar at once.
In general, the order of the day was “how much mileage or racket can we get out of two humans?” and mostly that meant a few things:
a) Someone multitasking their damn ass off (Deathbird Earth’s bassist, playing some kind of never-seen-that-before eight-string bass, was also playing a DX7, bass pedals like from an organ, and vocalizing with one of those headset microphones I associate with Britney Spears and football coaches);
b) Someone, or both players, playing wonderfully loud;
c) A shreddy drummer who might as well have eight limbs.
Back to other highlights: Nick Millevoi and Andy Pitcher delighted with a duo electric-guitars-and-drum-sequencer set, the emphasis on dark tones, interlocking syncopated rhythms, and weird processing, all played in real time by two clearly in-sync musicians that I’m glad to have discovered. Disaster Artist brought an irreverent screamo element, with the most overdriven, taking-the-piss cover of Radiohead’s “High & Dry” conceivable, punk as fuck and recalling Blood Brothers at their most over-the-top and tight. They played the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” riff for, like, three measures at one point, just ‘cause; the next two-piece, Joint Chiefs of Math – featuring former Philly live-sound engineer emeritus Kevin Keenan – launched at one point into less than half a cover of Pearl Jam’s “Evenflow” in the middle of their usual Ableton-linked math-and-space rock assault, a funny grunge-reference echo that made me actually question if I was experiencing reality properly or just hearing things. And Nazeer Art’aud Duo, featuring Nazeer and his friend Matt, who mostly was just sitting there and smiling and pressing play on tracks, was so fun and funny: the rapper-actor-comedian played a bunch of hilarious songs, from “Full House” (rhyming “ass addict” with “asthmatic”) and “Brunch” (as in, “white girls love brunch”). Shouts out to anyone who came and stayed for the whole day; I wish I had two of me so I’d have double the endurance. Maybe next near I’ll clone myself and play the 4:30-4:45 slot.
This is one of two articles on Midbrow documenting this year's Two Piece Fest. Read more here.
