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Archive: September, 2009
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| Photo | Brion Shreffler |
| Joey Sweeney gives a speech. |
Emphasizing that his Philebrity blog has always been inspired by music, Joey Sweeney, standing in front of the steps leading up to National Mechanics in Old City, laid down the vision for the nascent Philebrity label and agency. The imprint, he says, will be about making music accessible to fans while giving bands needed support to navigate the ever-shifting economic realities of the music industry. Philebrity, says Sweeney, would not own a band's entire catalogue but would rather act as an agency group with a boutique record label, assisting its bands in obtaining licensing agreements and placing songs on TV and the radio. After his speech, Sweeney went on to explain that the label is cognizant that these media, in addition with touring, are where bands have to look for most of their revenue. All releases will be vinyl pressings with a download code supplied upon purchase of the much more tangible wax 12-inch. It's a move Sweeney sees as in-step with the return to vogue of the vinyl aesthetic. While he won't rule them out, Sweeney says the label will try to move away from CD releases. So it was with expectations high that the label's first signing was introduced ' The Blood Feathers, a band led by Ben Dickey and Drew Mills. The band released an album, Curse and Praise,' in 2005 (listen) prior to an extended hiatus, with its current lineup coming together early this year. They opened with their first single, "Don't Know You At All," off their forthcoming album Goodness Gracious ' to be released prior to Thanksgiving ' and drew a crowd with subdued-but-raucous riffs and a touch of swaggering old school rock 'n' roll. Catch them at Johnny Brendas on the Sept. 28 (they open for Flashy Pythons), or, for the low-low cost of your e-mail address, you can download their new single along with 4 bonus tracks (3 are demos). "It's more important to make people a fan ' especially with new bands ' and to find something that works for both parties," says Sweeney of his label's easy-access model. More photos after the jump...
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| Photo | Brion Shreffler |
| The Blood Feathers |
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| Photo | Brion Shreffler |
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| My Friends |
Whoa, My Friends are pretty awesome. The band ' not my actual friends, though they're nice, too ' are playing at North Star Bar (2639 Poplar St., 215-787-0488) tonight at 7 p.m. for $5. This is Friday-night music happening on Tuesday, people. With their sound often changing from song to song, they never quite fit into one box. The common thread, perhaps, comes in a pair: rich, heavily layered instrumentals and vocals that sound on the brink of ' something. There's a mystery there about which way they might turn. There are moments when I'm nervous that the singer is about to go emo on me, but then he lets up on the anxious tick and saves the song from going horribly wrong with airy electronics, maracas, and is that the sound of bubbles popping? Listen here.
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| Business Week |
| He was here, in our fair city? No no no no! |
Every Tuesday, Critical Mass sifts through the art blog world so you don't have to. -The breadth of Facebook's influence is reflected in NEXUS/foundation's most recent exhibit, 'My Face in Your Space.' Each artist did a portrait of another artist, the catch being that the subject had to then reciprocate with a portrait of the original artist ' the FB equivalent of having a friend request accepted. The artblog reports that artist Austin Lee is the most popular, having done 20 portraits (and receiving 20 in return). -Roberta Fallon of Philadelphia Weekly interviewed UPenn grad Manya Scheps. Fed up with Philly DIY-ers' self-satisfaction, Scheps created the critique zine New Asshole. Ahead of the game, Scheps claims that the beginning of her discontent was this past winter, two full seasons before City Paper's Bruce Schimmel noted that this summer has been one of the perturbed. -To coincide with the It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia's season premiere, Philebrity pointed out the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation's earnest, but perhaps misguided, attempt to promote our city ' which is shown affectionately, but crudely, in It's Always Sunny. But hey, whatever it takes to get people to sleep over. -September tends to be a month of new tenants. Walls looking a bit bare? Pick the perfect hi-res image and send it to Old City-based Larger Than Life Prints, which will create a giant, wall-safe sticker to your liking. Technically Philly chose a mouse icon, but feel free to slap on something a wee less dorky. -You can't spell Philly without 'Phil.' Unfortunately. And that's the only reasoning I can find as to why the TV shrink Dr. Phil is sticking his mustache into local business, which the Inquirer reported on last week. Not only will the man be adding his two cents on the Vick controversy, he'll also try to heal the rift between Pat's and Geno's. Please.
We are nothing if not earnest. :)
Every Monday Tuesday this week, The Showdown tells you who to see and where to see 'em. Tuesday: Chain and the Gang are a DC band fronted by Ian Svenonius, the lead singer of The Nation of Ulysses (they were like Fugazi, but not as good). These guys pretty much sound like the DC hardcore movement met ' well ' a chain gang. Soulful choruses and Ian's trademarked rambling, abstract, sermon-lyrics. With Drink Up Buttercup, 8 p.m., $8, Space 1026, 1026 Arch St. 2nd Floor, 215-574-7630. Wednesday: One of the songs Br'er had posted on their Myspace sounded like the singer from Muse and the keyboard player from Tears for Fears gave birth to a cuckoo clock. With Zebras, Power Animal and Barrett Lindgren, 8 p.m., Danger Danger Gallery, 5013 Baltimore Ave. Thursday: This girl ditched on the USSR, moved to New York and used her classical training as a Russian pianist to make crazy American 'anti-folk' for your listening pleasure. So unless you love communism, you'll go see Regina Spektor. With Jupiter One, 8:30 p.m., $38, Electric Factory, 421 N. 7th St., 215-569-9400. Friday: Mutemath is one of the more versatile electronic-influenced alternative bands out there. They do down-tempo, they do glitch, they do catchy-as-hell and they do it all well. With As Tall As Lions, 9 p.m., $24.50, Theater of the Living Arts, 334 South St., 215-922-1011. Saturday: Shwayze is a black dude from Malibu who 'lives by the W's: weed and women.' He makes slacker-anthems and cheery hip-hop, like Asher Roth, if he had a shred of street cred. His lyrics are totally inane, but he knows it, and his music sounds like smoking blunts in the summer. With B.o.B., Tabi Bonney, Cold Flamez and Beardo, 7 p.m. $19, The Trocadero, 1003 Arch St., 215-922-6888. Sunday: A poppier version of Tsunami Bomb, The Action Design is what Avril Lavigne would sound like if she didn't write such shitty, angsty music. With Donora and Sick of Sarah, 7 p.m., $8, The Khyber, 56 S. 2nd St., 215-238-5888.
RE: "The Action Design is what Avril Lavigne would sound like if she didnâ t write such shitty, angsty music" Comment: The fans seem to like her music.....after all, she has sold over thirty million albums...
the Spice Girls sold double that, are they quality music too?
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| Employment Spectator |
Last Friday, Gov. Ed Rendell and the General Assembly proposed a budget deal that will apply a 6 percent sales tax to all arts and cultural organizations in the state. The tax will increase ticket prices for shows, and admission prices for museums and parks, among other things. Considering the budget cuts that were being tossed around before this deal, this doesn't sound too bad. But the price increases may dissuade people from spending the extra buck here and there. It could also seriously hurt the state's arts organizations themselves, 40 percent of which say they're working with a deficit. And it's worth noting that tickets to movies and sporting events (read: companies with more lobbyists than your average theater company) will remain tax-free. (Cigs, cigars and gas-drilling leases, however, are also being taxed additionally.)
If you think Sorority Row should be taxed as much as or more than the Philadelphia Museum of Art, you've got a friend in the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, which is encouraging people to get involved and speak out against the cuts.
City Paper welcomes Jonathan Wallis, assistant professor of art history at Moore College of Art and Design, to our Critical Mass team. His column, 'Perspective,' will run monthly in this space, bringing a critical eye to a visual art scene that continues to thrive in Philadelphia. Questions? E-mail Wallis at jswallis@gmail.com.
Nick Paparone, "30 Days in the Hole" Nick Paparone's solo show at Vox Populi is a rambunctious affair, composed of sculptures and wall hangings that turn the gallery into an anxious landscape littered with past fits of excessive inebriation, sexual adventures and scatological accidents. The gallery is decorated with large beer labels and sheets with spray-painted images of billiard balls that create the effect of bouncing off objects and walls like a cue ball. It's a bit too frenetic at times, but maybe that's the point. The title of the show seems to leave little doubt ' this experience, like the tale told in the 1974 song by the rock outfit Humble Pie, is a jaunt into a world of overindulgence with all the usual risks, dangers,and consequences. Paparone's visual referents function like flotsam and jetsam from the unconscious, gathered together as surreal expressions of the tensions between repressed desires and powerful acts of personal catharsis.' The objects are the strongest aspect of the show, more so than the installation effect evoked by the wall elements, and the sculptures evidence solid craftsmanship and an adroit use of vernacular materials. Paparone seems at his best when working with free association between words and things, and engaging in semiotic associations with his chosen combinations and juxtapositions is provocative to say the least. A saddle horse structure with a bucket of scatological slop and a lurid orange turd, mounted with a riding saddle, elicits aesthetic sophistication in a cocktail with something beastly. But at times the visual noise from the surrounding walls has a tendency to compete slightly with the full potential of Paparone's objects.' With all the sexual and scatological imagery in the show, and the large kinetic sculpture of a bloodshot eye at the center of the room, I'm reminded of polemical surrealist Salvador Dal', whose sequence in Hitchcock's Spellbound seems recast through the hovering, lonely eye. But Paparone's eye is not an outside observer. Instead, it seems to function as the ocular nexus of this visceral world, a way of presenting a haunting visual metaphor of the persistence of self-reflection. If Paparone's intent in '30 Days in the Hole' is to take me on a trip down a perverse memory lane, recalling psychic and physical ups and downs along the road of life, then he succeeds with ease.
voxpopuligallery.org
Is it just me or is this season's crop of new TV shows totally "Oh shit, I'm gonna put that on my DVR"-worthy? I did some catching up this weekend, and I finally got around to watching the obvs excellent It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia premiere. FX decided to be super sneaky, though, and secretly broadcast new show Archer under the It's Always Sunny banner, meaning my DVR picked up the debut episode as well. Archer is an animated series about secret agent Sterling Archer (codename: Duchess) who works at international spy agency ISIS with his ex, her new boyfriend, a secretary who loves him and his domineering mother. I had seen a clip (check it out below) of Archer so I was pumped, especially because it involves some of my favorite people ' Judy Greer as the secretary, H. Jon Benjamin (you'd know his voice ' Home Movies, Dr. Katz) as Archer, Chris Parnell as his ex's new love interest and consummate member of the Hall of Fame of Awesome Jessica Walter as Archer's overbearing mater. It's like a lot of other Adult Swim-ish shows. It's got a vintage look ' like Harvey Birdman or Sealab 2021 ' and half of the hilarity is derived from irreverence paired with animation ' i.e. characters saying "shit," having phone sex, big tits, etc. It doesn't add anything to the formula, but who cares? It's snappily written and continues the It's Always Sunny asshole theme of the evening. Plus, if it means Judy Greer gets a paycheck, I'm down. Here's the clip:
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| Photo | Sarah McKay |
Before he releases his first record, Childish Prodigy, for the venerable Matador, soon-to-be hot shit Kurt Vile will do a victory lap around his hometown. He's got two shows in the works:
Fri., Oct. 2 A.K.A. Music 27 N. Second St. 7 p.m., free.
Sat., Oct. 3 - Record Release w/ Birds of Maya, Coconuts Kung Fu Necktie 248 N. Front St. 8 p.m, $10
Childish Psychology comes out Oct. 6.
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| Lebowski Fest |
There's something really beautiful about this. Philly's first Lebowski Fest will take place this Fri., Sept. 25 at 8 p.m. at the Electric Factory (421 N. Seventh St., 215-627-1332) and on Sat., Sept. 26 at 8 p.m. at North Bowl (909 N. Second St., 215- 238-2695?). Check back this Thursday in the Agenda section for more information on it, and click below to see some more admirable costumes.
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| Lebowski Fest |
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| Lebowski Fest |
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