If there’s a Mayan apocalypse this weekend, glad to have known you, sorry I said those things about your hair, clothes and mom. And, oops — if we’re still here and thriving, you’re a jackoff for having bought tix to end-of-world parties at McFadden’s and Johnny Utah’s, though I dare say doomsday events at Penn Museum, PhilaMOCA and 12 Steps Down (!?) are fine ways to celebrate the M-pocalypse. (See the Agenda section for more on a few of those.)
Know what’s definitely ending? Renegade, playing Johnny Brenda’s on Dec. 22. The damn-near-hardcore act with Punk Rock Boot Camp boss Brian Adoff, Little Baby’s Ice Cream guy Jeff Ziga, several Hail Social members and Daily News-ie Dan Gross claim that they’re truly retiring after this holiday’s grand finale. Should they stay or should they go, now? Tell them Saturday.
One-time Anastasi Seafood dude and my greyhound Django’s best friend John DiMarco, together with his cousin Steve DiMarco, just opened a Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, a link in the chain of legendary Midwestern ’50s-themed eateries. “I just got back from Kansas a couple of weeks ago and have been working to get Freddy’s open,” says DiMarco, who flew there to snag a franchise. The DiMarcos’ Freddy’s is in Broomall. Django gives it three bells.
Think Philly comic Kevin Hart is funny? You should try Crown Royal Maple (yeesh), one of the label’s four whiskeys he’ll be signing bottles of at Second and Girard’s state store Dec. 20 at 2 p.m. That night, he’ll hit up the Wells Fargo Center for a Crown Royal-sponsored gig.
This week, Philly’s Artsploitation Films — which, led by a co-founder of TLA Entertainment, Ray Murray, focuses on releasing “intriguing, unsettling, unpredictable and provocative films from around the world” — gets its first big DVD release with the controversial Indian thrash-metal/hip-hop drama Gandu. (Hindi slang for “asshole.”) Bengali filmmaker Kaushik “Q” Mukherjee’s film is banned in his homeland due to its graphic everything.
Oaks, Pa.’s MVD Entertainment, headed up by Clint Weiler, has its first self-made movie coming Feb. 19: Bath Salt Zombies. Co-written and co-produced by Weiler, the locally filmed, druggy gore-flick features Philly’s Combat Crisis on the soundtrack. Trailers at bathsaltzombies.com.
Tommy Joyner, owner of MilkBoy Studio on North Seventh Street, says his B room was used by Miley Cyrus during her July-August session while working on new material for her upcoming album with producers Oren Yoel (Asher Roth) and Stacey Barthe (Rihanna, Britney Spears). She has not, as was rumored in the blogosphere, returned for more Milk sessions since.
Merry Christmas. More ice at Critical Mass.
