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We suspected as much when there was a mysterious lack of picketers outside Suzanne Roberts Theater at Broad and Lombard last night for the first time since The Mountaintop opened two weeks ago, but it's now official: All the drama is finally over. From a PTC press release:
Philadelphia Theatre Company is pleased to announce that an agreement has been reached with IATSE Local 8, the union representing the stagehand employees. The agreement needs to be ratified by the union leadership and the Philadelphia Theatre Company board of directors.
“During several lengthy meetings all afternoon and last evening, the union made significant movement to come closer to the terms which, although consistent with what PTC had originally proposed, had previously been rejected by the union,” said PTC’s Producing Artistic Director Sara Garonzik. “We have negotiated a settlement that is reasonable for PTC and appropriate to our size. We want to express our appreciation to our audiences, subscribers and artists for their wonderful support and patience during this challenging period. We are pleased that we can now focus on our mission of producing great theater.”
And now the drama can finally resume. Or, at least, resume in full — up until last night, at least, the MLK-centered play The Mountaintop was been being performed by two costumed actors under a static lighting situation, with a third person person seated on a chair at the side of the stage occasionally piping up with dramatic readings of the stage directions that weren't occurring, like "Blackout!" and "THUNDER ROLLS!"
Keep an eye out next Thursday for a more in-depth piece on the strike.
Tight Six is a weekly comedy show and open mic featuring live music. It runs every Sunday night, upstairs at Fergie’s Pub (1214 Sansom Street). The show is run by six local comedians: Joe Bell, Mikey Garcia, Aaron Nevins, Elise Thomson-Hohl, Becca Trabin and Dan Vetrano. They are all in their 20s and have varying amounts of comedy experience. Each week features a different house band, which plays a set at the top of the show and then sticks around throughout the night, playing comedians on and off the stage. Previous house bands include Thee, Idea Men, OhBree, Rob, Lately, and The Rivals.
Says Aaron Nevins, “The room is packed every Sunday. A lot of spontaneous insanity tends to happen on our stage. Some of the most fun moments at Tight Six happen late into the evening, so it’s always worth sticking around.”
The band plays at 8 p.m., which is when comedians can start signing up for the show. The comedy begins at 8:30 p.m. Their featured drink special is the “Classy Special”, which is a Narragansett with a shot of Jameson for $5.
Regular Philly open-mic’er Nicole Yates lauds the unique style of the new mic, “The upbeat music keeps you from killing yourself after a bad set!”
You can find them on Facebook. Here’s video we found of the gang papering the streets of Philly in preparation for one of their mics…
If you’re looking to dance after doing the First Friday thing, head to Kung-Fu Necktie. You won’t want to miss headliners Gemini Club, the Chicago-based trio whose electronic dance-rock is continually remixed and reinvented live on stage, but you’d be wise to get there in time for show openers The Downtown Club. This Philly-based trio, rooted in British post-punk and New Wave like Gang of Four and Public Image Ltd., combines metronomic drumlines and gritty picked bass with warm synths and reverb-drenched guitars. Singer April Harkanson’s vocals, alternating between hushed utterances and anguished belting, sit over the instrumentation to create as haunting as it is groovy.
Fri., Feb. 1, 7:30 p.m., $15, Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St., 215-291-4919, kungfunecktie.com.
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Every few weeks, Critical Mass will feature one Philly Love Note in its collaboration with blogger Emma Fried-Cassorla of phillylovenotes.com.
LOVE NOTE RECIPIENT: Wedge and Fig
I AM: Cheese blogger (a.k.a. Madame Fromage)
MY LOVE NOTE:
Dear Café Garden Behind Wedge & Fig Bistro,
I like secret passages. I really like secret passages that lead to cheese boards. Two summers ago, I was wandering up Third Street, sipping a cup of Old City Coffee, and I happened upon you – a corridor, a cheese vein?
You led me to a small garden full of café tables, with a view of fire escapes and a square of blue sky. I saw people drinking bubbly water and nibbling blue cheese off of slates. It was so lovely to discover a cafe with a cheese shop at its heart and an alley garden for its artery. I hide here whenever I need to rest my gams in the sun and ponder a golden Gouda.
Kirk and Lisa who run Wedge & Fig have a magical story involving novels and sailboats – ask them about it over a Blue Fig sandwich (blue cheese, fig jam, pretzel bread). It’s my favorite lunch in the city. I also like to stop in for wedges of gooey Morbier or, for dessert: a box of goat cheese tuffets.
Big love,
Madame Fromage
Philadelphia knows Brendan Bring’Em the DJ for his Sherman’s March-like rush on this city’s best dance clubs, to say nothing of his on-stage antics (at one time or another) for Jay-Z and the Beastie Boys.
Locals know Brendan Olkus the artist as the fascinatingly odd creator of tribal gas masks and ritual-heavy paintings whose images portray gorgeous displays of bloodshed.
That these two separate but equal personalities should meet on one project — his self designed, built and co-owned up-coming first-ever club, Emmaline (named after his grandmother) — is a bonus to say nothing of the fact that it’s the biggest thing he’s ever done. Olkus is setting up in the unused space below the nightspot Industry XIX on 19th and Chestnut, a room that has remained empty for a minute with its own speakeasy-like entry way alley on 19th Street. While there will be a hard hat friends-and-family opening in the next 10 to 12 days, Olkus intends to be fully opened, six days a week, within 16 days.
This week was supposed to be fun. I was finishing an Ice Cube on the Academy Ball, guessing in my print column how Molly Eichel would be Gorgeous Dan Gross’ successor on the gossip beat at the Daily News (I was right) and writing up something cute about how Philly producers Pop Wansel and Tru got themselves in the middle of that Chris Brown/Frank Ocean fracas in Los Angeles. Then Jef Lee Johnson died. By now you’ve read eulogies (including Pat Rapa’s) about Philly’s most inventive guitarist and his sudden passage. Eulogies worldwide referenced a City Paper cover story on Jef and his immense talents that I wrote. Needless to say his loss leaves a deep hole in this city’s musical schematic to say nothing of the world at large and more specifically his family to whom I send the dearest of condolences. For me, who got to know him a little — we talked at length about his life and work — I can’t stop feeling a little bit emptier. Seriously. He will be missed. Everything else today seems dumbly frivolous.
Anyway about that Chris Brown/Frank Ocean fight at Westlake Studio in L.A., Sigma Sound stalwarts Tru, FLIP Colson and Pop Wansel were at that same studio mixing (according to label sources) the Miley Cyrus album they started here and got caught up in the police proceedings, harassed and hassled according to friends and Tweeters. Come home, gents. Our cops ain’t that bad.
Tonight, is Philadelphia Night on NBC with the finale of Tina Fey’s 30 Rock and the beginning of the Philly-filmed Do No Harm. Do a shot if you hear the words “Upper Darby” or see Broad Street, drunkie.
"In a fair world, I should be carrying Jef's bags."
—Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson
I was sad to see that Germantown guitar veteran Jeff Lee Johnson passed away on Monday. Johnson never got super famous, but he was always there in the fringes: He put out several under-heard solo albums. He backed the likes of Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, George Duke, D'Angelo and McCoy Tyner. He played the starring role in that amazing Lonnie Johnson tribute album a few years back. Questlove loved him.
We put Jef Lee Johnson on the cover of City Paper in 2010. A.D. Amorosi did the interview. Mark Stehle did the photos. Here's a Johnson quote that sorta sums him up, maybe:
"I've had that said to me, that I'm too good at what I do and that I show people up. I'm not looking to show off other musicians' shortcomings. Their shortcomings are not my problem. I may be a guy who has said no more often than I said yes, but I'm just trying to knock the gig out of the park every time."
For more about Johnson's passing, check out Dan DeLuca's piece in today's Inky.
“One of the prettiest sights in this pretty world is that of the privileged classes enjoying their privileges.”
—Katharine Hepburn, The Philadelphia Story
Chuck Ragan and Chris Wollard aren’t singers — they’re scruffy, flannel-clad, Southern, guitar-playing lions.
Hot Water Music has been pioneering a brand of gravel-throated rock somewhere between punk and post-hardcore (or whatever you want to call it) for nearly 20 years now. Their set at the Electric Factory Saturday only reminded the crowd that yes, their live show as refined as it is impassioned; yes, they will still play “Trusty Chords”; and yes, Ragan’s roar of a voice in particular is enough to occupy and quake every open space in the venue.
HWM’s set was balanced nicely with long time favorites from Caution, A Flight and a Crash and No Division, and a handful of tracks from their latest record, last year’s Exister (Rise). “Mainline,” “Paid in Full,” and especially “Drag My Body” were solid picks from Exister that highlight the band’s exceptional rhythm section (Jason Black is a bass guitar hero).
I caught Ragan last March at the Philly stop of his Revival Tour, so I wasn’t caught off guard by how jovial and appreciative he is when addressing the audience between songs, but I wasn’t expecting him to pour even more of himself into his playing — this is a dude who sings with his entire body. But the best HWM songs are always the ones where he and Wollard share vocals, the bromance-y songs like “Wayfarers” and “It’s Hard to Know,” where you’ll look around the Factory and find pockets of 30-somethings with neck beards arm-in-arm at the balcony bars, shouting right back.
Though Christopher Owens’ face is obscured by a curtain of perpetually lanky hair on the cover of his new (and debut) solo album Lysandre, a near-unprecedented proportion of his face was visible during his set last night at Union Transfer. These slightly tamer locks were just one of many changes to Owens’ post-Girls identity. He was also, for example, joined by seven-piece band – a figure that sometimes felt overinflated, especially in the presence of two distractingly under-utilized American Apparel-esque waifs. Much about the songs from Lysandre felt similarly ornamental. With a running time of less than thirty minutes, Owens’ album is slightly insubstantial – a fact which frequent and slightly anachronistic-sounding flute flourishes seemed to emphasize, rather than disguise. And the sameyness of the recurring instrumental theme which runs through each track of Lysandre was not much mitigated by the live performance.
But this somewhat middling first set was mostly redeemed by an extended encore of covers, including The Everly Brothers’ “Let it be Me” and Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice.” Owens and Co.’s rendition of Simon and Garfunkel classic “The Boxer” was particularly excellent and marked one of the few times that the generally enthusiastic crowd rose from the plastic folding chairs which had been set up for the occasion. Though easily the highlight of the performance, these covers also drew attention to the relative weakness of Owens’ own material.
It wasn’t a bad show by any means — but I did leave more with the desire to hear Owens cover the rest of Bridge Over Troubled Water than to replay Lysandre ad nauseum.
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