» Tuesday night James and I drove out to Asbury Park because Spoon were playing at the Stone Pony. I was covering it for Pitchfork, James was a curious observer. I mean, let’s face it — wouldn’t you rather see Spoon in a teeny dingy rock club rather than a gigantic hall?

I belive that venues, and to a larger extent, their neighborhoods inform the listening experience, sometimes impacting a performance in ways you’d never expect. In short, the creepy, post-apocalyptic vibe of Asbury Park’s boardwalk — crumbling, desolate and in the nth attempt to revitalize it — leaked its way into the band’s set. When the band wasn’t off-key and sloppy, they were awkward and terse, as if they expected the wrecking ball to come crashing down on the club at any moment.

Oh yeah, another fun thing to note: I was nearly chucked out of the club. Now, I am no stranger to security guards tossing me out (*cough*bannedfromtonic*cough*), but in all the years I’ve been photographing concerts, this particular one marks the first time I’ve ever been busted for taking photos. Everyone else in the front row had a camera — most, if not all were nicer than mine! Somehow I must have had “troublemaker” scrawled across my forehead or something, because the security yanked me out and tried to confiscate my equipment. Things were looking pretty iffy for me until dropped the P-bomb; suddenly everyone wanted to accommodate me and my photographic needs. Meh.

» The new Mary Timony album has made its way into my grubby little paws. It straddles a bunch of her previous incarnations, so this record could be a temporary stop onto another style. If you really liked Ex Hex, you might be less into this one; if you loved the No Guitars, this could be your jam. Me, I love the fact that I get a very Sonic Youthy song bumped up against some crazy Eric Burdon keyboard noodling!

» A seed of something: So back during the whole Popped! festival, there was a piece on Phawker essentially advocating a media blackout for the house show circuit. While I understand why a suggestion like this was made (Stupid Penn professors or likeminded folks getting places shut down), I’m finding the blackout aspect problematic in the grander scheme of documenting/criticism.

To wit: I always hear about really great bands playing house shows and as a contributor to a local paper, have this innate desire to tell folks about them. But if the media’s at fault for killing off the scene (this is a little too Blame Game-y for me, really), then how do critics/journalists document it? I find limiting the conversation to blogs and messageboards a bit too limiting and reeks of elitism. Of course, talking about any subculture or fringe group in print stands to co-opt and/or misinterpret. This has been an ongoing problem, but is there a balance that can be struck?

» A pretty decent Monday night show: Neal from the Snowfairies has a new band, Scary Monster, playing at the Khyber. Also on the bill are Casper & the Cookies, who are pretty Elephant 6-eqsue. I’d probably go if I didn’t have stuff to do tomorrow night, but you should.

» Oh yeaaah: this is the last week of my show for WQHS. Make sure you tune in!

OK, if I wasn’t in the throes of covering the Popped! festival, I would be totally going to this.

1915’s Birth of a Nation was the film that simultaneously launched the modern movie industry and gave the Ku Klux Klan a foothold in the 20th Century.

Friday night is the Philly premiere of Rebirth of a Nation, a film project that DJ Spooky calls “a digital exorcism” — taking the original 1915 footage and doing a live 3-screen video/audio remix that turns the tables on the original.

It all goes down this Friday night 4/13 at the Gordon Theater on the Rutgers-Camden campus.

DJ Spooky will be there at 6pm for a FREE roundtable discussion with the RU-C departments of film and African-American studies.

Photos and video:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/32/54642149_c8fdec363e.jpg?v=0

http://www.gordontheater.com/i/press/Spooky_imax_1.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VCwXF8nzx4

» I really can’t believe Rick D. is gone. Just doesn’t feel real. I dread the moment it actually sinks into my thick skull. Rick was an immense help to Plain Parade, especially after the crap we were going through at Doc Watson’s. I loved his snark, his leather vest. No amount of words can truly justify his legacy, or what we’re all feeling right now.

» In other, less important and entirely shallow news, I will be blogging here all week.

» I use “BAAARF” to tag a lot of things these days, it seems:

“Both Ben Folds and Third Eye Blind were very popular on our Facebook searches and on our student-body survey, so we think that everybody will be really excited about them,” said Wharton senior and SPEC director Catey Mark.

Maybe it wasn’t being trapped in so-called “90’s rhetoric” that killed Plain Parade, we should have been soliciting data from Facebook! Give the people what they want – nay, spoonfeed it to them – even if it’s shitty, middling alt-rock. I guess.

» On the Veronica Mars front: As many of you may have heard, Rob Thomas is entertaining the possibility of “fast-forwarding” the series four years ahead, only for the sake of keeping the show on air. How is this a good idea… at all?

» That wasn’t my ears playing tricks on me last night, the Feelies’ “Let’s Go” was really in a Volvo commercial. This is exactly why I am for licensing: if I can watch Grey’s Anatomy and catch a bit of The Good Earth, just how bad can it be? Also, when will someone get smart and reissue the motherliving shit out of their records?!

» Oh yes, my preview for this Tuesday’s Blues Control gig is up at the City Paper. If you don’t trust me, then take Tom Lax’s word for it. Funny how two folks pegged as the authors of Cherry Coke have similar taste in music, isn’t it?

» Friday Night: WQHS is hosting a show at Haunted Cream Egg house (4207 Baltimore Ave) in West Philly, mere blocks from my bed. Relay, Grammar Debate, Kurt Vile and others are on tap. But it gets even better — over at the Green Line Café, The Impossible Shapes are playing. I believe this is the very definition of “Rock Block”, folks. Do it!

» FYI I’m back on WQHS beginning this Wednesday. 4-6PM EST, same old time. My fill-in slot at WPRB ended sooner than expected; alas, Jon and I did not perform the Princeton Record Exchange live on-air. Someday. Soon?

» Last, but not least: Saturday I had my pupils dilated at the doctor. This would have been all fine and dandy, had there not been a sunny sea of ice/snow waiting for me outside the doctor’s door. “Oh the agony!” only covers a fraction of what I felt on my walk home.

All Your Slopes Are Belong To Us: from last week’s skiing excursion.

The very definition of “first world problems”: I am stuck at home waiting for Fedex to ship my new cellphone because they won’t let me re-route the package to work, so the only thing I can do is finish up a bunch of freelance stuff, listen to records and post on my blog.

» My week was nicely bookended by two shows, The Nightingales/Victoria Lucas (Sunday) and Magik Markers (Friday) at JB’s. Even though I had to head out after checking out a song or two by the Nightingales, they were pretty fantastic. Ditto for the Victoria Lucas — I played their record quite a bit on WPRB last summer, but for some reason I never picked up on the similarities to Guv’ner until the other night. It’s a crying shame both of these bands wound up playing to eight folks. Of course, there was zero press or PR [to the best of my knowledge] about the gig. If only I had known sooner…

Friday night MM put every Philly noise band to shame in .0000009 seconds with their guitar assult — and this was probably the most straightforward gig I’ve ever seen them do. (Also, the first show I’ve seen with the new two-person setup.) I nearly detected structure [!] in their songs, which was actually kinda neat. Out of all the things I could potentially ask Elisa Ambrogio, the only thing I wanna know about is where she gets her shoes, ’cause she always has the best footwear. The other night was no different: purple suede heels with forest green buttons running up the side and a big bow, like something plucked from the 1890’s. Hotness. Unfortunately, not even her awesome shoes could keep the audience hooked; the crowd looked pretty sparse by the end of their set.

» BTW, I hope no one took my previous comments about the book on Sassy Magazine as derogatory; I was really nervous it wouldn’t live up to the hype I had in my head. Sassy played a huge role in my teenage life; I probably wouldn’t be who I am today without the encouragement of the magazine. Lord knows I have been rooting for this book since the moment I heard about it (when I met co-author Marisa Meltzer at the Teenbeat 25th Anniversary concert in DC a couple years ago).

What you need to know: the book is absolutely brilliant and well-deserving of all the accolades bound to come its way. How Sassy Changed My Life is thoroughly researched and examined, sharp, funny and at times even critical — which is unusual for a book calling itself “a love letter to the world’s greatest teen magazine”. In the closing chapters I caught myself reaching for the Kleenex at several points, not because it was sappy; reading about Sassy’s demise was as painful as experiencing it the first time around (I burned my copy of the crappy Petersen-published issue as protest). Did I mention it was brilliant? Let me do it again: BRILLIANT. Now go pre-order it.

Oh PhillyCarShare, your cars are constantly a mess and your members walking shitstacks who always screw my reservations over, but you do know how to market yourselves and throw a party, so I’ll let it slide.. Well, let’s be honest, looking at my bar tab, I could have thrown this party anywhere else. But see, I wouldn’t have scored a new protective skin for my ipod. (Now I know where my subscriber dues are going.)

So what the hell is a “Philly SoundClash”? No, it’s not some new lame hipster DJ night. It happens to be a Battle of the Bands style contest, where bands had to rely on their marketing power — actually, more like Myspace power — to gain a slot on the show. From there it’s 15-20 minutes of noodling to impress dudes with baggy jeans and their whiny girlfriends.

By some sheer stroke of luck, RunRunner (your pals & mine!) wound up as one of the six finalists, but as I quickly learned they were just filling a quota and giving this event some shred of credibility. Turns out this “SoundClash” was really a battle of genre, and not based on being a good band. All the strands of popular music were represented — dudes who all wear track jackets like they’re friggin’ Oasis (Band #1, aka, “Band of Track Jackets”), “eclectic” R&B white girl singer who apparently forgot to try out for Idol (#2), legitimately good local indie band who gets stuck with the sound problems (RunRunner), live hip-hop act (#4), group of dudes who are waaaaay into Dave Matthews (#5), suburban emo band (#6).

It should come as no surprise the pretty blahsville live hip hop act won (#4); this is what I know about The Music Business: people love bland music like there’s no tomorrow. When good bands are stacked up against aural douchebags of this variety, there’s no hope. And it’s kind of a shame, since the audience seemed to be into RR, or at least what I could gauge on the screen of scrolling text messages in between bands (how very Live 8 of them). But good for them getting on this bill and all their recent luck as of late.

As for the atmosphere, I have a sneaking suspicion this event was on par with the lameness of the recent PLUG awards. It was emceed by some dude (a comedian who wasn’t funny) and a member of the Jazzyfatnastees (as a friend said, “who?”). Josh Wink, King Britt and Dave P spun between sets. Dave’s is the only one I actually remember (”Maneater” into “Standing In the Way of Control” — Making Time Lite!) and then one of the DJ’s entertained the post-show crowd with some bad New Age rave crap. As previously mentioned, they set up a screen where you could send text messages, where everyone promoted themselves (hey, I plugged this here blog), along with shout outs to BCO, aging hipsters and Sean Agnew calling me a sellout (no offense taken, I found it hilarious). Wang Newton did some stuff in the crowd but there were technical difficulties all around. There was also a dance contest where some dude jumped up on stage mid-competition, blew away the others with his moves and managed to lose.

So there you go, a summary of the evening, and I didn’t walk out empty-handed — no, I am now the proud owner of a green Philly Car Share iPod skin and some PCS gum. THANKS GUYS

Who would I have picked to win? Dave P, of course. RunRunner, a close second.

Now that my Pitchfork review & photos are up, you can have a look-see at the rest of the images from Friday’s show.

You see Matt Sugg’s mouth? It’s freakin’ huge in this picture and if you don’t try to win these tickets to see his new band White Whale, who are playing at the Khyber on 11/5, he’s gonna eat ya.

So yeah, White Whale came out with this new record on Merge during the summer and it’s really good. But of course what can you expect from a guy whose track record is stone cold solid? From Butterglory on (I still contend that their _Rat-A-Tat-Tat_ is the best Feelies aping ever, a solid 3-4 years ahead of the revival curve), he’s won me over with his pop genius. Needless to say, he’s the highlight on this lazy Sunday show (unless you are an ex-hardcore cornball that still likes Hot Water Music).

So get your trusty dialing finger ready for Wednesday, 10AM - Noon and tune to WQHS!

Sunday 11/5
At the Khyber (56 S. 2nd Street)
8PM, 8$, 21+

White Whale, “The Admiral”

The Baird Sisters (which features Meg from Espers) are playing this evening at the Kelly Writers House (I work here, yo) as part of our monthly program for WXPN, “Live at the Writers House”. Even though this show is *FREE*, you can’t roll into this gig after it starts because of the recording component, so make sure you show up on time at 7:00 PM. Also on the bill are readers from _Philadelphia Stories_, a local literary journal and as always, these tapings are a blast.

Helvetia at the Trocadero, 10/07/06

What would happen if I got my chocolate in Pitchfork’s peanut butter? Probably something like this.

Check out more photos from this show »