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ICE PACK ILLUSTRATED: Erika Schiff, Whisper, Tim Motzer and Georges Perrier
My favorite new power couple in Philly is Dean and Christy Bottie Kitagawa.
ICE PACK ILLUSTRATED: Erika Schiff, Whisper, Tim Motzer and Georges Perrier
My favorite new power couple in Philly is Dean and Christy Bottie Kitagawa. She’s a painter and muralist whose swell new student exhibition made of studies of the Divine Lorraine Hotel are the hit of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and will be on display throughout the spring. Dean is a local restaurant vet (FriSatSun, the Saloon) whose first-ever restaurant Rotisseur (on S. 21st Street, between Chestnut and Sansom) has been soft testing this week with mind toward a Mon., May 23, opening for his menu of cage-free, hormone-free, antibiotic-free rotisserie chicken with veggie sides, all done up with products from local growers and farms in Lancaster. Ask for the succotash as a side and you’ll love me forever. But hey, why a BYOB rotisserie chicken spot? “I’ve seen tons of spaces fail and watched places have headaches with bartenders,” says Kitagawa. “Here, the bell rings and you know the chicken is done.” Along with partner Aaron Matzkin, Christy painted a gorgeous sunny mural on its walls to brighten up the spot.
Clark Maloney has, at one point or another, run every club and restaurant in Philly. He’s probably managed the square footage of space where you are standing. Now the managerial veteran Maloney has a new gig at the Walnut Street after-hours joint, Whisper. Along with being its GM, Maloney is now Whisper’s entertainment director. Maloney is bringing in Jazzy Jeff on May 25 and readying artist-centric after parties in June with Marsha Ambrosius, P Diddy and Ke$ha. Zach Seidman, Whisper’s valued previous EM, is rumored to be doing something similar at Tweed.
When Audrey Claire Taichman isn’t busy planning THE perfect dinner at 20th Street’s Twenty Manning (May 24’s bacon and beer collaboration with Dock Street) she’s tied up with a blog detailing the progress of COOKbook, her due-in-late-summer food lab. Taichman gets blogging help from COOK’s Jackie Baik and Lily Cope.
Guitarist Tim Motzer’s 1k label hosted “Sessions,” a live in-studio web cast on May 18 with bassist Tony Tidd and drummer Jeremy Carlstedt. Think Cream meets Eno. You missed it live so catch it and tons of other Motzer music at 1ksessions.com. Motzer was also the subject of an April article in Guitar Player Magazine on the making of Descending, an album he made with King Crimson’s Tony Levin and Pat Mastelotto.
Kraftwork on Girard Avenue celebrated a one year anniversary the other night. I’m not sure which night after the mix of Fegley’s Brews and absinthe ginger ale vodka drinks.
After spinning a Moombahton EP party during his Tropicalismo night at Walnut Room on May 19, DJ Apt One hosts his own b-day ball at Kung Fu Necktie on May 20. Buy A-1 a cocktail.
Remember in January I tipped you to Georges Perrier’s comings and goings regarding bread in Narberth and rejiggering Le Bec Fin? Well, the bakery/café known as The Art of Bread should be open first week of June. Later that same month, Perrier will shutter LBF, take apart the kitchen and the Bar Lyonnais basement boite to turn that lower level into a casual, sensuous spot called Tryst.
You know South Philly’s Joe Boruchow’s wood carve-like black and white etchings because they are wheat pasted everywhere (joeboruchow.blogspot.com). You know his noisy Nite Lights from my long level of fandom. But they don’t record as often as they should. Great news, then, is that a new EP, the Link Wray-meets-Arthur Russell-like Tumbling Hearts EP by The Nite Lights is out now as a free download.
While discussing all things Adele at his Electric Factory booking, Bryan Dilworth mentioned that another of his clients, the new Milkboy live music coffeehouse at 11th and Chestnut should open in early July.
The Theater of the Living Arts is hosting something that has do with weed and passing a medical marijuana bill in PA on May 21, the Philadelphia Freedom Festival. Featuring The Synth Sircus — toast of South Street’s Cannabis March — and I Yahn I Arkestra. The whole thing is sponsored by Holy Smokes bongs and apparatus.
Speaking of South Street, it’s going to the dogs. Hot dogs to be exact. The all-wiener-all-the-time Hot Diggity opens on the 600 block of South shortly.
Remember I told you guys that Erika Schiff was the hit of Atlantic City’s gay Miss’d America pageant several months back? That town’s GLBT organization hosted their opening welcome to Prohibition, the city’s first gay club in a casino, on Saturday with The Boots N’ Legs Review and its star Schiff. Columnist Michael Musto was all over her to get her scoop. Schiff performed “For a Good Time,” a tune she’s currently remixing with Schoolly D providing a racy rap (D asked her to appear on his new album too) and one she sung in A Perfect Ending, a brothel/madam dramedy starring Morgan Fairchild in which Schiff acts and sings.
WHOWHATWHERE: When the Arrow Swim Club opened the other night, not only did I see the venue’s devilish co-owner Bart Blatstein making flames scarily rise in the fire pit. I saw the least likely human other than me to be caught in the sunlight: SPF-75 wearer and gothic godhead David E. Williams was by the fire. No he wasn’t trying to rid the swim club of the evil spirits brought on by visitors like John Bolaris. Williams sells real estate advertising for the METRO newspaper. And he just released his entire recorded catalog on the internet as digi-downloads (search iTunes). Retired CNN talk show host Larry King did his bit for Atlantic City when he opened his stand up tour at the Borgata last week. Attorney to the stars Gloria Allred and her daughter, legal analyst Lisa Bloom were spotted at Horizon’s last week. Like Allred, a UPenn grad, her granddaughter Sarah is an attendee. The twelfth anniversary party for Philly Style Magazine was held at SugarHouse Casino with Thor co-star Kat Dennings. Dennings is a Bryn Mawr native, has appeared in ER and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, and is on Style’s April/May cover. Word has it, she was not so into posing for photographs with a copy of the mag in her hand. Weird.
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