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We always get a ton of stuff that doesn't make it into the official agenda for one reason or another. Or sometimes it does! Anyway, this is some of the stuff that CP staffers are attempting to get to this weekend their own selves. You have no excuse for boredom.
FRIDAY 5/17
- Charles Bradley — the Screaming Eagle of Soul — plays Union Transfer tonight.
- If you have kids, you're probably trying to decide whether you want them to read. The Mount Airy Kids' Literary Festival at Blue Marble Books should help you out.
- Drummer G. Calvin Weston — you may recall him from the cover of City Paper back in October — presents Treasures Of The Spirit: The Music Of Mahavishnu Orchestra at The Kennett Flash in Kennett Square, PA.
- Chaz is still Unloved. He plays The North Star. Aw.
- Some people are excited about Gold Panda at Johnny Brenda's.
- Live graffiti and sticker art upstairs at Tattoed Mom? Better lay down some tarps, Sideshow 3.
- Ross Bellenoit gets his Quartet back together tonight at Fergie's.
- It's the second night of Jeff the Brotherhood at Kung Fu Necktie!
- Fancy-feeling people can get suited up for the new Barnes' first birthday.
- Aux and LadyFest are hosting a screening of Watermelon Woman, the first full-length film shot by an African-American lesbian, and also a pretty great time warp to '90s Philly.
SATURDAY 5/18
- Artist Peter Quinn wants to draw 12,000 chalk body outlines on JFK Blvd. and he would like your help. It's an anti-gun violence installation called "American Casualties: A Drawing."
- Azar Lawrence at the Ethical Society, or A$ap Ferg at the TLA?
- It's the first day of the Punk Rock Flea Market.
- The 12th Annual East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention. Lots of signings, workshops, panels and such at the Enterprise Center in West Philly. Wonder if our old Milestone comics are worth something.
- We assume you already know about the Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby and Trenton Avenue Arts Fest.
- End the Fed people will be out there doing their thing.
- Spaceship Aloha lands at Johnny Brenda's. You should investigate.
SUNDAY 5/19
- Pop vocals with weird harmonies at The Sea Around Us at Ortlieb's.
- Philly Songwriters Project 2013 Contest Finals Showcase. That's a mouthful. And it's at the Blockley.
- Punk Rock Flea Market day 2.
- Calvin Johnson at Space 1026. (Not the Megatron one.)
- Haydn's The Creation oratorio in West Philly. (Technically true because: One CP editor and one CP writer are singing in it, and so will definitely be there. But we would have tried to go even if that were not true because the soloists are totally baller and anyway what the hell this is just a blog post. Consider this your disclosure.)
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Many aspects of MS MR's backstory have a distinct quality of deja vu — or, less charitably, done-to-death — they're based in Brooklyn, they built up blogosphere buzz via an artfully curated web presence (specifically — and this is ostensibly a point of distinction — on tumblr), and until relatively recently they upheld their blankly anonymous-sounding moniker by maintaining actual anonymity.
Their unabashedly huge-sounding, lavishly theatrical debut album, the aptly titled Secondhand Rapture (IAMSOUND), expands the picture somewhat, even as it conveniently recycles most of their tumblr hits.
It's not hard to find reference points for their style of darkly anthemic pomp-pop either — Florence + the Machine, Bats for Lashes and former tour partners Marina and the Diamonds are maybe the most obvious go-tos — but (MR) Max Hershenow's adventurous, widescreen production style and (MS) Lizzy Plaplinger's legitimately spellbinding alto are strong and distinctive enough to stand alone, particularly with a strong and infectious batch of songs that veer from martial trip-hop ("Hurricane") and thunderous orchestral rock-soul ("Bones") to stately classicism and the self-explanatory (but still intriguing) "Dark Doo Wop."
TONIGHT: Thu., May 16, 9:15 p.m., $12, with Magic Man, Johnny Brenda’s, Frankford & Girard aves., 215-739-9684, johnnybrendas.com.
Taking care of business: Miller Time "interns" travel across the country in support of the summer comedy, The Internship.
Times are tough for the movie business, so studios have been getting creative with how they promote their films. Moving beyond newspaper ads, TV spots and fast-food toys, the big film groups have been devising kooky tactics to grab our scattered attention: Facebook apps, crowdsourced screening locations, promotional web videos made by YouTube stars are all ways of reaching millennials, and we get that. But some of the latest marketing ploys to have reached our ears sound downright wacky (but they must be working if we're writing about them, right?).
LOVE NOTE RECIPIENT: Spruce Street
I AM: David Gloss, a #PhillyDoGooder, community instigator, storyteller and generally happy Philadelphian.
MY LOVE NOTE:
A main vein of good. A cosmic melting pot of neighbor and hood.
Forget all the cult of dubstep schisms, purity debates, and heresy hunts. Call him post-dubstep (already?) if you get off on taxonomy. Whatever. But James Blake has an old-fashioned secret — he gets over on his voice.
The lone sign of organic life in a soundscape of programmed, layered, vocodered, synthesized, and looped machines, Blake’s voice is shockingly sensual in live performance, with a clear falsetto and lower register that garnered screams of delight from the audience. It even had a visible Sade effect, as couples throughout the floor decided that the sold out TLA wasn’t already hot enough.
This is not to entirely detach him from his EDM roots. On the second half of “Digital Lion” and on songs like “Voyeur,” he vibed out to his own stuff as the crowd went from bass led head bob to move your ass rave. And drummer Ben Assiter is wonderful at giving percussive force to Blake’s downtempo cuts.
But it’s the voice that sticks, makes the ladies swoon and guys shake their head in appreciation, leaves you cooing the hummed refrain of “Retrograde” four hours later at 3 a.m. in your friend’s living room. By the time he encored with “The Wilhelm Scream” I was thinking, alienated neo-soul nothing. Babies might be conceived to this.
Duly noted singer-songwriter street cred — Blake finished his encore alone on keyboard with a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You.” “Go to him, stay with him if you can, but be prepared to bleed.”
We always get a ton of stuff that doesn't make it into the official agenda for one reason or another. Or sometimes it does! Anyway, this is some of the stuff that CP staffers are attempting to get to this weekend their own selves. You have no excuse for boredom.
FRIDAY 5/10
- We're dying to see Marnie Stern at Johnny Brenda's, and not just because The Chronicles of Marnia is, like, the funniest possible album title. Barren Girls and Philly's Little Big League (coming off their recent signing to Tiny Engines) open.
- Tonight is the debut performance of Lady Lungs, which is an all-lady choir based in Philly. See here.
- If you're high on lo-fi, check out Height, Kate Ferencz and Phile Cote at Magic Pictures.
- There's a PAWS benefit at Grindcore House.
- Food Will Win the War and The City and Horses will show off their shiny new split seven-inch at Garage Mahal. They're promising hot rock, cheap beer and free tater tots.
- Oooh! Ladyfest presents Ladies and Gentlemen… The Fabulous Stains at I-House.
- Attention theater heads: PLANS: A Contemporary Playfest must be acknowledged.
- The Space Merchants — you can trace their New Pornographers-ish bloodline back to This Radiant Boy — are playing Ortliebs tonight.
SATURDAY 5/11
- The Claymation animal parade might be reason enough to check out Art Star Craft Bazaar.
- Department of Making + Doing (a partnership between workshops like NextFab, The Hacktory and others) celebrates its launch with a mini Maker Faire: silkscreen your own bag or t-shirt, laser cut an "I heart my neighborhood" key chain or play around with a Japanese saw (which is safer than it looks).
- I-House screens The Source Family, a documentary about cult leader Jim Baker (more affectionately known by his brain-washed followers as Father Yod) who also happened to start one of the country's first health food restaurants. Kohoutek, a local experimental group who once toured with Father Yod's house band, performs after the screening.
- Where Were You When They Bombed MOVE? I was nowhere near the place, buddy.
- Former City Paper editor Duane Swierczynski will read from his latest blood-soaked crime thriller at Prot Richmond Books, which you've been meaning to check out.
SUNDAY 5/12
- Storytellers and funny people are taking over Ortlieb's for Kiddo, wherein they read things they wrote when they were children.
- It's Mothers Day. Dress nice.
The last time I saw Joe Tartaglia — the 44 year old co-proprietor of Connie’s Ric Rac in the Italian Market — he saw me walking my greyhound around the neighborhood on a chilly early afternoon and told me that he had a friend who sold custom-made dog coats that played music.
“It’s like a dog iPod in his coat,” said Joe. “You should call him.”
That was the Little Joe Brown, or Joe Jr., or whatever-you-called him I knew: always something absurd at the conversational ready and always hustling, whether it was for his live music and comedy outpost on Ninth Street or someone else’s game.
Joe passed away this week after a long battle with brain cancer. I had heard he was sick but assumed, like everything else in the Market that he would always be there no matter what the trouble. Like the rest of his family — his dad Joe, mom Connie, brother Frankie — young Joe Tartaglia was a daily part of my life, and their struggles to get Connie’s Ric Rac off the ground and liquor-licensed a long time part of my reporting.
The other night, the Ric Rac (which is literally right behind my house) opened its doors and let his friends rock the joint despite the family’s loss. They said that Joey would have wanted it that way. I disagree. I think he would have liked it to be just a little louder.
Rest in peace, Joe.
A couple of songs into his set, Danny Brown — Sideshow Bob afro already dripping from sweat and bottled water — stood center stage and declared in his inimitable voice, “This is not a rap show. If you came to hear rap, you can put your backpack on and go to the coffee shop to hear some rap music.” The crowd screamed its approval and laughed. They get his jokes, and he’s funny as shit. Funnier actually, since the scatological has its limits. So he does one better and goes for broke by matching the eschatological (personal of course) and hedonistic, becoming about as funny and smart as any music can be.
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