JUMP Fall 2012: Girl Power!

ISSUE #7

FALL 2012

FREE! TAKE A MAG

SLUTEVER FLEXES THEIR

BRAT POWER

INSIDE: SUZI ANALOGUE, HELEN LEICHT, ATTIA TAYLOR, BLAYER POINTDUJOUR, SELINA CARRERA, HOP ALONG & MUCH MORE

CONTENTS | Issue #7

7

Fall 2012

THE JUMP OFF Blayer Pointdujour & The Rockers Galore, Nothing, Fabian Akilles, Deathwaltz Media Group, Medea, Lucy Stone, Misstallica, Void Vision, Selina Carrera, The Lawsuits, Trophy Wife, Hop Along, Pet Milk and Suzann Christine.

18

MUSIC & EDUCATION After working her day job in a prison, DJ Lisa Love teaches people how to rock the turntables.

19

THIS PLACE ROCKS Underground Arts will host the Festival Bar during the Live Arts/ Fringe Fest. And check out PhilaMOCA.

20

MUSIC & Politics City Representative Melanie Johnson hosted a jazz show on WRTI and produced a blues show on NPR.

29

COVER stories: Girl power!

The duo from Slutever began as house-party heroes.

They've since traveled the country, and both have launched their own DIY record labels.

Suzi Analogue signed with a Dutch label when she was 19. At 24, she's a veteran and still making waves.

Helen Leicht has been on the air for more than 35 years, boosting the careers of countless local musicians along the way. And meet Wendy Rollins, a force at Radio 104.5.

There are amazing women doing amazing things in Philly. We tell you about 12 you need to know.

40

MODERN BROPAR Mattitude talks to lead singer Elisha Cause and guitarist Anthony Edge from Combat Crisis.

42

FOOD THAT ROCKS At the north end of 5th Street, CafĂŠ Soho serves up some of the best chicken and they crank the K-Pop. Also, we present five other places with great food and music.

45

the JUMP concert calendar Check out who is playing in the city.

46

LINER NOTES Attia Taylor was forced to take the stage alone at SXSW and she rocked.

COVER PHOTO: Slutever, by Marie Alyse Rodriguez.

BACK COVER: Suzi Analogue, by Teresa McCullough.

CONTENTS PAGE: (top to bottom) Fabian Akilles, by Michael Bucher.

Slutever, by Marie Alyse Rodriguez. Helen Leicht with Jim Belushi and Ed Sciarky (image courtesy of Helen Leicht).

4

JUMPphilly.com

Publisher's Note

Yo, Put Me In JUMP Magazine!

Very rarely do people ask me how they can be profiled in JUMP. For the most part, people just send boring emails requesting coverage of their shows or album reviews. They never ask what we're looking for in what we cover.

So let me tell you now.

In the print edition, we only cover stuff within city limits. We don't cover Camden or Cheltenham or DelCo. People have yelled at me about this – one guy called me a dickhead when I said we wouldn't cover some kid rapper from Camden.

Whatever.

There's a reason why we cover what we do. First of all, we only publish four times per year and there is plenty within city limits to document.

Philly is happening. There are amazing artists, great venues, awesome fans and a burgeoning musical ecosystem with studios, producers, promoters, engineers, labels and everything in between.

Why would you be anywhere else?

There's another reason we only cover Philly. If the region is going to have a dynamic music scene, it needs a hub, a place where there is critical mass, where fans will find whatever music they want and musicians will be able to perform, experiment and grow.

That should be here.

Philly needs this. With the homicide rate climbing and the unemployment rate dismally high, we need something to latch onto that we can celebrate. Philly needs to be something more than Killadelphia. And the reality is that we really are a music town.

We have an agenda with this magazine. We want to change the conversation when people talk about Philadelphia so that they focus on the positives – like our music scene – rather than the negatives.

If you want to be in the magazine, send us some music. We are always looking for talented people doing cool, new stuff. We try to cover a wide variety of genres, with people from all around the city. The folks we cover vary in ages, ethnicities, social and economic backgrounds, and a number of other ways. Their only common denominator is that they represent Philly. Proudly.

We don't do reviews or criticism. We try to tell the stories beyond the music so that readers get to know our local musicians the way we all know about the lives of Rihanna, Springsteen or fucking Justin Bieber.

We want to turn our local music folks into celebrities.

We are a DIY operation. No one tells us what to cover – not advertisers or labels or anyone else. Our staff meets and kicks around ideas.

This issue focuses on the ladies since in the past, we realized we've been a little heavy with the dudes. But this issue doesn't focus on what it means to be a female musician. Their struggles are really no different from that of the dudes. Rather, we're using this issue to celebrate people we should have been championing all along.

Got a story we should tell? Hit us up at jumpphilly@gmail.com.

- G.W. Miller III JUMPphilly.com

publisher G.W. MILLER III senior staff SOFIYA BALLIN, KELSEY DOENGES, LAUREN GORDON (EMERITUS), COLIN KERRIGAN, CHRIS MALO, MEGAN MATUZAK, BRANDEE NICHOLS, KEVIN STAIRIKER staff LAUREN ARUTE, RACHEL BARRISH, BRITTNEY BOWERS, MIKE BUCHER, CARY CARR, SERI CHAO, ANEESAH COLEY, CHESNEY DAVIS, GRACE DICKINSON, BETH ANN DOWNEY, MATTHEW EMMERICH, JESSICA GRIFFIN, ASHLEY HALL, SARAH HULL, MORGAN JAMES, RICK KAUFFMAN, DANA LUCCHINE, KIM MAIALETTI, JILLIAN MALLON, NIESHA MILLER, BRENDAN MENAPACE, ANDREW MENDELSON, CAROLINE NEWTON, ELIZABETH PRICE, MARIE ALYSE RODRIGUEZ, CHAD SIMS, KIRSTEN STAMN, BRITTANY THOMAS, BRIAN WILENSKY contributors SHARON CALVIN, BILL DiCECCA, TERESA McCULLOUGH, CARA STEFCHAK, ATTIA TAYLOR chief copy editor AARON JOLLAY assistants to the publisher MADDY COURT, BREE WOOD these folks believe in JUMP and we love them for it KYLE BAGENSTOSE, RUSS CAMPBELL, MEREDITH EDLOW, LAURA HUGGETT, MIKE MORPURGO, LIZ SCHILLER WE PRINT 10,000 FULL-COLOR ISSUES FOUR TIMES PER YEAR, IN MARCH, JUNE, SEPTEMBER AND NOVEMBER. WE DISTRIBUTE THEM FREE AT PHILLY AREA MUSIC VENUES, STUDIOS, RESTAURANTS, RECORD SHOPS, BARS, CLOTHING BOUTIQUES, GYMS, BOOK STORES, COFFEE SHOPS, UNIVERSITIES, CLUBS AND OTHER PLACES WHERE MUSIC LOVERS HANG OUT.

A Fresh Salon Experience with an Organic Twist

IF YOU WANT MAGS AT YOUR LOCATION, EMAIL US AT JUMPPHILLY@GMAIL.COM.

444 N. 4th Street, Philadelphia www.slicehair.com (215) 925-7542

JUMP is an independent magazine published by Mookieland Inc. The parent company is named after a dog. That's how corporate we are (we're not).

Free parking in the adjacent lot Tue-Fri 10-4.

Free parking on 5th Street every day.

Hair * Waxing * Tanning Mention JUMP and receive $10 off

This is a full-on, DIY community effort. If you want to get involved, if you have story ideas or if you just have something to say, contact us at jumpphilly@gmail.com.

Find us on online at jumpphilly.com or facebook.com/jumpphilly.

Follow us on twitter - @jumpphilly.

We really need advertisers. Advertising money allows us to print this magazine and tell stories about the awesome people doing awesome stuff in Philly. By supporting JUMP, you are supporting the local music scene.

Philly rocks. Spread the word.

JUMPphilly.com

Culture Clasher

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

Blayer Pointdujour and his band, The Rockers Galore, bring together a variety of sounds to create party music with a message, as Sofiya Ballin discovers.

“I study British music,” says Blayer Pointdujour.

“That’s my dream – to play Europe all the time. I really don’t want to tour the U.S. that much. I think we’ll go to California and do the West Coast thing but I really want to play London, Paris and Milan.”

When he says we, he means The Rockers Galore, his band that he collaborates with to create a fusion of punk, hip-hop, reggae and Haitian Kompa music.

“We never have any in-between fans,” he says with a laugh. “People either love it or they’re just like, ‘NO.’” They recently collaborated with the father of gangsta rap, Schoolly D, on Pointdujour’s new song, “Ominous Black.”

“The song is about not giving a fuck,” Pointdujour explains. “He fits that mold. He’s definitely an OG. He took his time. He needed his vodka, his chips. He wanted to sit and tell us stories first before he hit the booth.”

The song toys with the old-school versus the new-school concept, ultimately bridging the two ideas.

“I’m kind of a newcomer, trying to make my mark, and he’s an OG,” Pointdujour explains. “I did my part in the Italian market at night and its dark. His part has bright lights with girls around him.”

Born in Newark, New Jersey and being of Haitian descent, the diverse nature of his music seems almost inevitable.

“I have a huge Haitian family,” Pointdujour says. “We all speak a little French, a little Creole. Haitian church music was the first music I ever listened to.”

Pointdujour left New Jersey after high school and went to college in Phoenixville, where his musical influences took a turn.

“I got into rock, metal, punk, all of that,” he says. “When I got to Philly, I started playing drums in a rock band. Then I played in punk bands.”

As Pointdujour became immersed in rock ‘n’ roll, he longed to merge the new music with the sounds of his childhood. He began to experiment, mashing the different sounds.

“I started sampling things,” he says. “I found my reggae beats and put whatever I wanted on top of them, then picked what I was going to sing or rap.”

He joined forces with friends to form Blayer Pointdujour and The Rockers Galore in 2008. The band is currently composed of drummer Dan Peterson, percussionist Chuck Duquesne, keyboard player Tyler Hyduk, trumpeter Chris Tolomeo, guitarist Ian Nauroth and singer Camico Coumbassa.

Their latest EP Port Au Prince, named after the capital of Haiti, features “Iron Dread.” The song talks about Pointdujour’s uncle and his ability to rise above economic and racial oppression.

“In Haiti, my uncle was a philanthropist,” Pointdujour says. “He had orphanages, schools, a radio station, a nice house. He was used to militia JUMPphilly.com

coming through his house and putting AK-47s in his face and robbing him. He was very peaceful about it.”

In Philly – and the United States in general – Pointdujour believes we don’t appreciate the circumstances of people and what led them to take certain actions.

“Here, anyone gets robbed and it’s like, ‘Let’s throw the robber in jail forever,’” says Pointdujour, who works at Project H.O.M.E., an advocacy organization that seeks to end poverty and homelessness. “We don’t try to think about where these people are coming from. That’s what I try to bring forth in a lot of the songs.”

Pointdujour's next album will drop online on September 4th, with CDs at a.k.a. music. On the 7th, he and the band will perform at Milkboy to celebrate the release, which officially launches on iTunes on the 18th.

“For this next album, I’m trying to up the musicality a little more, get even more technical,” he says. “The band gets closer and closer. Instead of doing everything myself, they’re coming in to my home studio.”

Their music covers so much territory, Pointdujour simply says, “We play world music.”

7

The JUMP Off Photo by Kyle Costill.

The Darkness

Frankford/Kensington area dying in a four year span. But he uses such crushing experiences to fuel his work.

“I can’t say my life has been worse than anyone else’s,” he says. “I thought coming home from prison was going to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Then, with everything else that happened on top of that, I just wanted to laugh and say, ‘Seriously? Is this even real? Or is this a joke?’ So a lot of that definitely comes through in my writing.”

Even though the lyrics are a big part of Palermo’s role in Nothing, he sings a bit airy and often somewhat indistinctly when playing live. He says he wants the words to be audible

but he modestly says that knowing the lyrics almost ruins the experience.

“As someone who just wants to send a message across,” he says, “they’re just another sound in the scheme of things.”

Their upcoming EP, Downward Years to Come, which will see an October release on Baltimore’s A389 Recordings, follows in the steps of last summer’s Suns and Lovers EP that came out on Japan’s Big Love Records. That’s because they finally found the lineup and sound they like with drummer Anthony Rossi and bassist Richie Roxas of Pet Milk, who filled in over the summer. Thematically, things are looking to be just as dismal.

“The song ‘Downward Years to Come’ is mostly about the culture I come from and the people who come from similar places as me,” Palermo says. “Every other song on the EP is about a poet who had killed himself.

I make reference to them in the lyrics and I think anyone who knows those poets would recognize them in the lyrics.”

He mentions he’s never attempted suicide, and then takes a swig of his cider.

“It’s always in the air,” he says. “It’s natural.

I have family members who have done it and they never came across that way. It’s just always there. This is my nod to those people who have done it. They wanted to leave something behind, and they did. I have more respect for that than any of this bullshit we deal with every day. It’s the least I could do.”

a hip-hop artist in the same vein as Mos Def, Black Thought and Pharoahe Monch. Then, in 2009, he lost his day job as a public school teacher in Philadelphia. “I was really, really, low on shit,” remembers Thompson. He went home that day and wrote a song that eventually became the single “Comb My Hair,” a soulful song about shattered innocence.

Thompson found work as an assistant engineer at Larry Gold’s recording studio, where his college friend Ricky Friedrich worked as an engineer. Thompson began working with artists like Kid Cudi, Jill Scott and Dice Raw, and he frequently saw The Roots, who have studio space there. “It’s not the most money I ever made but it’s definitely the most important for artist development,” says Thompson.

As he started questioning his image as a non-native Philadelphian performing in the shadows of one of the biggest hip-hop bands in the world, Thompson started exploring his family’s Jamaican and Barbadian heritage.

“Ever since then, I’ve been on this lean where I’m just blending reggae-singer-man, soul and hip-hop,” he says.

To reflect his new artistic pursuit, Akilles became Fabian Akilles and released his debut album, Evil Round That Corner, in May. The seven-song album released on Friedrich’s

startup label, Bold New Breed, focuses on issues of greed and self-indulgence.

“It turned into this critique on why life is so difficult for certain people and not for others,” says Thompson.

In the song “Money,” Thompson speaks of the shortfalls of consumer culture with lyrics like, “Seems like everything I want, they can sell me.

But when it comes to what I need, they can’t help me.” The driving drum beats and catchy choruses inspire an urge to groove along.

Thompson spent the better part of his summer doing demolition work in a sweltering, 6,000-square foot Fishtown commercial building that is being renovated to house Friedrich’s Bold New Breed label. Both Friedrich and Thompson hold management positions in the company. Friedrich, performing as Ricky Radio, Thompson and Dewey Saunders, aka Dewey Decibel, are the only artists now but they are eager to expand.

They predict the space will open in September and be fully operational by early 2013 with a recording studio, space for video shoots, multimedia editing capabilities, lounge and a stage to host shows.

"Bold New Breed’s goal is to change Philly into a commercial hub where people come down and know they’re gonna get the talent," Thompson says.

Brian Wilensky learns about Nothing's new album, due out in October.

“Basically we just want to make music that makes people just want to quit,” says Domenic Palermo, singer and guitarist of Nothing.

He sits on the roof deck of his Old City apartment, drinking Crispin cider. It’s a cider kind of evening because a close friend from the U.K. is in town and that’s all his friend drinks.

But it doesn’t seem to be the cider that’s getting him to open up about his band. Palermo is confident and clear about his latest band’s intentions and his message within the music.

Nothing is a bit of a stretch from his hardcore roots with Horror Show. But working with a different longtime friend, local guitarist Brandon Setta, has been just right for Palermo.

Setta knows how to layer guitar sounds for Palermo’s bleak lyrics.

“There have been times that I’ve shown him stuff and he’s just like, ‘Damn, that’s dark,’” Palermo says.

Sure, there’s been some strife in Palermo’s life: two years in prison for getting into a fight that led to him stabbing someone, coming home and finding out an ex-Horror Show bandmate had been killed in a motorcycle accident, then three childhood friends from the

The Opportunist Photo by Michael Bucher.

Fabian Thompson rolls with punches, as Michael Bucher discovers.

For many across the country, the Great Recession has had a profound negative impact.

But for musician Fabian Thompson, it has been a period of artistic metamorphosis that transformed his sound and led to an exciting new venture in a startup record label.

Thompson had been performing as Akilles, 8

JUMPphilly.com

Photo by Rachel Barrish.

DeathFest In 2013?

Deathwaltz Media Group is a Philly promotion company with an ear for originality. Justin Berger started the company a year and a half ago after he realized that managing bands might be easier than making it in one. Our Brian Wilensky talks to Berger about the business.

Philly hasn't had a major annual festival until the announcement of the Made in America Festival. Why do you think that is?

The reason there hasn't been a major music festival in Philly is because there hasn't been a promoter that is willing to give it a shot. There is an enormous amount of work that goes into making a successful festival. It's really a goal of ours to put together a large festival one day. We realize, however, that it’s important to have the perfect team to make such a thing possible. So this year we made it a priority to be involved in some fashion with every major festival so that we can start to assemble a team of the baddest motherfuckers in the business. We are focusing a lot of our time to making this goal a reality.

DeathFest? We're still working on a title.

What does Philly offer to you as a promoter that other markets don't?

Until recently, there weren't really any promoters in Philly that worked with everyone.

It made it very difficult to get things done.

For some reason, I haven't had any issue working with the majority of venues and promoters in the city. I like to think it's because everyone that works for the company is charming, good-looking and hard-working, but I think the times have just changed. Everyone knows it’s more important to work and prosper together, rather than compete. I'm not sure our neighboring cities have this theory down yet.

You work a lot with jam, dance and world music. What draws you to those genres?

I started really promoting when I became fascinated with world music. The shows were almost exclusively at The Rotunda in West Philly, and always free or with a donation. The shows were part of a project I called the Diaspora Series, which focused on experimental world music, and all seemed to have an audience of avant-garde musicians who sat down in chairs and studied the musicians pretty hard. The change in direction happened when I began helping out in a managerial role for the band Grimace Federation. They had abandoned the jam scene for a few years and I felt it was necessary to have them get back into the jam/ electronic world. When I made the transition to the more accessible live music, I saw that crowds began to flock and even combine. Since then, I have had a lot of fun placing two or three bands on a bill whose scenes never seemed to intermingle.

What do you look for in bands that send you material?

We look for new, fresh artists that defy a single genre. We aren't too interested in any acts that keep it safe. I grew up listening to a lot of fusion, and the idea behind Deathwaltz is to really push the genre-bending as far as we can. I like to see how motivated they are before working with them.

Torch Singers

Medea photo by Bill DiCecca.

Maddy Court talks to the former wedding singers/performers from Medea.

Named after a dog, Medea is a wedding band gone rogue. Founding members Pat Robinson and Irene Lambrou met while playing the local wedding circuit in 1996. In 1999, they started Medea as an outlet for their original music.

“At a wedding, you're there to provide a service,” explains Lambrou, the singer, whose dog inspired the name of the band. “At a Medea show, people are there to see what you do.”

Medea's lineup has changed over the years but Robinson and Lambrou think their current lineup, including drummer Pat Domanico, guitarist Tony Winkler and bassist Rich Curtis, is the best incarnation of their project.

“The earlier versions of the band were more combustible,” says Robinson, who plays guitar and keyboard. “It was a heavier sound and it

JUMPphilly.com

was a lot more progressive.”

Their upcoming album, Some Other Life, due out in September, is the product of two years of hard work. It melds jazz and earthy tones.

The members of Medea have learned some things during 13 years on the scene. Most recently, they put their music online to reach a larger audience. They're not too stressed about Bandcamp, however. They know that their demographic is older, NPR-subscriber types.

“We're grown-ups,” summarizes Robinson.

“Our band is a testament to the staying power of great musicians in this city,” says Lambrou.

Young Veteran Rachel Barrish meets Lucy Stone, a 20-year old who began performing when she was 12.

Lucy Stone’s life is crazy these days. She constantly bounces from place to place – singing, writing, recording and going to school, all while managing to maintain a social life.

“I drink, like, six of these a day,” Stone says, referring to the iced coffee in her hand.

She has strawberry hair and she sports a tattoo on her arm of a candle burning at both ends. It's a philosophy that she lives by; work to the bone, but have fun.

She writes all of her own material, with her style varying from indie rock to sweet, soulful melodies, crossing over to folk.

She grew up in nearby Flourtown, an only child whose parents introduced her to greats like Elliot Smith, one of the main musical influences in her life. Her parents used to harmoniously sing The Beach Boys’ “Surfer Girl” to her every night. When Stone was 14, her dad punished her by taking her to a Belle & Sebastian show with The New Pornographers.

She began making and performing music when she was 12 years old. At 14, she and her best friend created a Duke Ellington tribute band called Yuke Ellington. She has literally been in 10 bands since she was 14 – and she’s only 20 now.

Stone came to Philly to participate in Drexel’s Music Industry program.

Her main project now is her Lucy Stone outfit, which includes two guitarists, a bassist and a drummer. Each serves an additional role to the project. Drummer Sean Donaghy is the booking agent. Bassist Paul Impellizeri is the manager. Guitarist Brandon Bost is the producer. Guitarist Isaac Louis is the publicist.

They released an EP, Would You?, in July and then spent the summer performing around the region – from the Arts Festival at Penn State to Musikfest in Bethlehem. They opened for Rusted Root at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park.

This fall, Stone and her bandmates will tour the Northeast, Midwest and Canada.

9

Photo by Chris Malo.

Four Goofy Girls Who Shred Misstallica is more than a Metallica cover band, as Chris Malo discovers. They are pure musicians.

One repeatedly falafel belches throughout the interview. One works at the zoo and doesn't want to tell her age. One talks about the chicken pox scar on her face and weird encounters with Facebook stalkers, including the guy who asked what she thinks about small wieners. And one is a crossword champ who is pretty much silent the entire time.

Maybe not be what you would expect of the country's only all-female Metallica cover band, aptly named Misstallica.

Sitting in the dressing room before their first show at the TLA, lead vocalist and guitarist Gina Gleason (the James Hetfield of the group), lead guitarist Leanne Martz (part Dave Mustaine, part Kirk Hammett), bassist Teddi Tarnoff (the band’s Ron McGovney/Cliff Burton/Jason Newsted), and drummer Kaleen Reading (Lars Ulrich) repeatedly describe themselves as four goofy girls.

It turns out to be true.

Most of the band members are products of the School of Rock. Back in 2008, the girls – three of them are 20 years old and the fourth won't reveal her age – played as a King Diamond cover band, aptly named Queen Diamond.

Then they started playing Metallica songs, specifically the ones from Master of Puppets.

From there, it took on it's own life.

“We loved rock and metal,” Gleason explains.

She started her musical career on the upright bass. Reading began as a guitarist playing Black Sabbath material but when she sat 10

behind her first drum kit, it just made more sense to her. Martz has always played guitar.

Tarnoff's background includes singing opera and playing the violin. All had been fans of speed metal.

“The classical background helped us applying things to metal,” Gleason says, “like shredding.”

“It helped us be appropriate in technique and know our shit going in to it,” adds Tarnoff.

Technique is something that the early albums of Metallica burst with. Misstallica only plays songs from the first four Metallica albums.

“That is the thrashy, shreddy, really badass stuff,” Gleason says. “I think people really appreciate when they come to see us, they know they're going to hear that old school, classic thrash metal stuff.”

The girls agree that the early Metallica albums had a feel to them that sonically captured a particular time. It's that era the girls want to replicate, which for a variety of reasons presents various obstacles.

“Anything off And Justice For All,” says Martz. “‘Dyers Eve.’ ‘Blackened.’ ‘Harvester of Sorrows’ was a bitch to learn for me.” “‘Trapped Under Ice,’” Reading adds. “I'm not sure if it's technical but it's a physical thing.

There is a very intense double bass.”

There is also the issue of four women trying to fill the shoes of a huge, internationally-loved band with a hardcore fan base that loves hyperaggressive, testosterone-fueled music.

“Because we are all girls, we have to be that

much extra on our game,” Gleason explains.

“At so many shows, there will be the front row of dudes with their arms crossed saying, 'Let me see if she gets this solo right.' Then you do and they are like, 'Oh shit!'”

It can be very difficult scheduling gigs and practices around each band members' jobs and their other musical endeavors – between the four of them, they play in at least six other bands. But their hard work is paying off.

Misstallica has played everywhere from Alaska to the United Kingdom. Gibson Guitars named Misstallica as one of the top five allfemale cover bands, and last year they were profiled in the New York Times.

One of their biggest highlights came in June when James Hetfield's guitar tech invited the band to Metallica's own Orion Music Festival in Atlantic City. The highlight came as Reading was sitting at the drum kit.

Suddenly, in walked Lars Ulrich.

After the girls were introduced to Lars as the all-female Metallica tribute band, Reading introduced herself by saying, “Hi. I'm you!”

The greatest compliment they ever received was after a show when someone told them when they closed their eyes during the show, it was as if they were transported back to the '80s, listening to Metallica play.

“Tribute bands are a novelty,” Tarnoff explains.

“But there is a difference between those who do it, and those who do it well. And that's where the legitimacy comes in. We try to be as authentic as we can. We're still girls but that's kind of the point. If that is how we have to get your attention, that's fine. But if you come out to a show you will see we are serious about the music.”

JUMPphilly.com

Analog Vision Quest Shari Vari makes electronic music the oldfashioned way, as Maddy Court learns.

Void Vision is the name Shari Vari gives the gloomy, labyrinthine electronic music project based out of her Fishtown basement.

“I call it synthpop,” she says. “I get lumped in as cold wave because I’m associated with Wierd Records but I feel like my music isn’t that minimal. It’s a little more complex.”

Void Vision’s original incarnation as a full four-person band was short-lived. Soon after founding the project in 2009, Vari and guitarist Hayden Payne decided the project worked best as a synth duo. A year or so later, in the middle of recording their first 7-inch record, Vari and Payne decided to part ways after artistic differences made collaboration impossible.

“They were 98 percent my songs,” Vari says. “I had put a lot of time and effort into it. I believed in it. I just kept going. It was my project. Usually in guy/girl duos, the girl isn’t very technical. She’s just a front, eye candy. But I wrote all these songs and did all the directing.”

Now 27, Vari is emerging from a two-year recording absence with a new, yet-to-be-

JUMPphilly.com

named Void Vision LP. The album, which she expects to complete by November, features “To the Sea,” a waltzlike ballad about love gone wrong. It’s a heavy, emotive song befitting of someone whose love for electronic music is rooted in childhood nostalgia growing up in Holland, Pennsylvania.

“I was always really tuned in to the music in commercials, video games and TV shows,” Vari explains. “I used to watch my brother play a lot of video games. I would try to transpose music onto the piano.”

When she was 12, Vari’s brother introduced her to Buzz Tracker program, minimalist software that allows users to make electronic music. As a teenager, Vari used the fledgling Internet to indulge her interest in synthpop and obscure retro music.

“The Internet helped me a lot because I was out in the middle of nowhere growing up,” Vari offers. “There were no other kids at my school who were into the same music as me. I had 13 channels on my TV. There were no music shows. I found things by downloading stuff from the Internet.”

Today, Vari is the web animator behind the hoagie-ordering computers at Wawa. She uses computers at work but would rather create her music on the analog synth and drum machines that fill her basement. Much of her equipment dates from the '70s and '80s. Vari believes that technical limitations spark creativity and make

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

The JUMP Off

artists work with more thought.

“You can do anything on a laptop,” she says.

“I prefer people in rubber monster suits to computer-generated monsters. Special effects take away from the creativity. You don’t need computers to make cool things.”

Vari’s attention to craftsmanship and ability to alchemize old into new material shines through in each Void Vision song.

11

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

The JUMP Off

Setting Fire To The Rain Sofiya Ballin gets the story behind the deeply personal new music Selina Carrera is prepping to release.

Selina Carrera enters her apartment slightly breathless, bringing not only the flurry of her day with her but rain from outside. She apologizes for being a bit late. Her copper curls bounce as she walks down to the basement that was once a makeshift studio.

“Today was a bit crazy,” she explains. “I got back from New York at 6 a.m. this morning.”

After attending a writing session with producer G*Lee and contributing vocals to Lee’s collaborative project, !LLMIND, Carrera made her way back to Philly.

“I came back for my older cousin’s birthday,” she says. “She does a lot for my grandmother, who I’m really close to. I wanted to make sure I got out there.”

The Philadelphia-born and -raised songbird then meets up with her bass player to go over a song she wrote for the “Let it Bump” festival.

“I happened to come out of a dream singing this melody and these lyrics,” she explains. “I had my phone right next to me so I recorded it and when I woke up I finished it.”

Carrera’s freestyle spirit is one of the traits that makes her a fixture not only in the Philadelphia music sphere but also the poetry scene.

“Art shouldn’t be pressured,” she says. “Music is the universal language, so when it speaks to you, you’re just a vessel for whatever is trying to communicate.”

Carrera was exposed to music at a very early age. Her father is a Latin percussionist and DJ. He introduced her to Brazilian music.

Carrera grew up with people playing congas in her basement. Her mother is a dancer. Her brothers introduced her to Wu-Tang. She developed an eclectic ear and a strong voice.

“It was always apparent that I could sing,” she says. “My mom has photos of me grabbing the microphone when I was six or seven.”

Lauryn Hill’s album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill inspired and influenced Carrera.

"She’s just so soulful, her voice, her rhythm patterns" she says. "She made her pain so pop.”

12

Carrera attended the Girard Academic Music Program but it wasn’t a great experience.

“I was one of the kids who got picked on a lot,” she remembers. “I was one of the only mixed kids in the whole school. With the Italians, I wasn’t Italian enough. With the Puerto Ricans, I wasn’t Puerto Rican enough.”

Carrera felt more at home after transferring to the High School for the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA).

“It was so diverse – kids from all over the city who were in love with music and in love with the arts,” she says.

It was in the soundproof rooms at CAPA that Carrera found her voice.

“I was going through a lot of growing pains,” Carrera says. “I would get it out by talking with my best friend, freestyle singing all these songs. I didn’t have any outlet for that emotion, which is when I started writing massive poetry.

I have stacks of books of poems and songs.”

Carrera signed with Sony at age 20, working as a songwriter for Monarch Music group, as well as becoming a member of AxiXs, a group created by The Fugees’ Pras Michel.

“I got to see the world,” Carrera says. “I’ll always love and respect Pras for giving me that opportunity.”

The songstress has no regrets and gushes about performing with Diddy in the Ukraine and watching the rain in Johannesburg.

“I saw a cloud this thin,” she says, raising her hand and forming the tiniest pinch. “Rain was falling underneath it and it just kept going.”

Carrera then found herself coming full circle when she auditioned in front of Lauryn Hill to become her backup singer.

“It was the most amazing feeling I’ve ever felt in my life,” she says. “I was so humbled,

but still I felt validated at the same time. She would communicate through her manager that she was very fond of me and my energy and my style. One time she called the engineer to ask my opinion on how I felt the rehearsal was coming along. I felt really honored.”

Carrera walks out to her car, which she says has a good sound system. She wants to play some of her new music from her upcoming album, which will be her first official solo release. The night air is still wet but it’s finally stopped raining.

“I’ve been getting into a really good writing space,” she says as she plugs in her iPod. “In the midst of going through changes of life, it’s kind of hard to write because you don’t know what the outcome is going to be. Now that I’m kind of grown, I’m separated from that form of self and I can look back.”

The first track plays. It’s slow, calm and turbulent all at once. It starts to rain again and Carrera’s voice matches the backdrop.

“It’s called ‘Fuck What They Say,’” she explains. “It’s about being in a relationship that everybody else is against.”

She plays “Move” next.

“This is for when you don’t want to think about anything and just dance,” she offers.

Then, “Come Closer,” her personal favorite, clicks in. She moves her fingers like a conductor directing the beat.

“It’s very progressive, experimental,” she says.

After doing nearly 50 features for other artists, solidifying her name as one of the leading ladies in the Philadelphia music scene, this album is for Carrera by Carrera.

“This is the first time I’ve had complete creative control,” she says as the rain beats down faster. “It just feels right.”

JUMPphilly.com

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

Americana Charm Brittany Thomas travels on a musical journey with The Lawsuits.

It’s a typical sweaty summer day when The Lawsuits play their set at a block party on Passyunk Avenue in South Philly. But it only takes a few measures of their blues-soaked music until the crowd forgets about the unrelenting humidity and starts toe-tapping and head-bobbing just as heavily and genuinely as the band members do.

The Lawsuits take the audience from the gritty, concrete city and put them in a place that feels more like an open meadow beside the Mississippi River – just one of the places the band sings of longingly.

Vocalists Vanessa Winters and Brian Strouse keep perfect sync as they harmonize angelic, folk-rock melodies that gush with true-blue, Americana charm. There's something about the harmonies that give off a Rolling Stones kind of feel. Strouse has a slightly gruff, Mick Jaggeresque sound while Winters contributes a delicate harmony that singlehandedly possesses the power of an entire backup choir.

The band formed in 2007 when Strouse, Winters and her longtime friend Brendan Cunningham were all sort of thrown together by mutual friends.

They later added drummer Josh Friedman and Noah Skarof, a multiinstrumentalist who plays banjo, guitar, mandolin, slide guitar and sax.

"Two years ago, we didn’t even make a footprint in this city," says Strouse, who also plays lead guitar and writes many of the songs.

Then, in 2011, they dropped their first album, Darleen, named after an infamous 1987 Winnebago Cerro they drove on their first tour. All the bandmates except Winters, who chickened out, have a tattoo of the RV. “We drove 10 hours back from the Outer Banks and it exploded in Delaware," says Cunningham. "We were so close to home and we couldn’t do anything, so we just drove it with fumes coming into the car, going like 15 miles an hour on 95 during rush hour."

"It was terrible," says Strouse. "Everyone was asleep and I was just driving. Terrible."

Things have been going much better lately. In April, they released their

Heal Thyself

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

Cara Stefchak confronts self-doubt with the women from Trophy Wife.

When trying to compare themselves to a fictional duo, singer/drummer Katy Otto and singer/guitarist Diane Foglizzo of Trophy Wife find similarities to the comedic Muppet duo Bert and Ernie.

"They’re really good friends but they’re really different and sometimes they need time apart,” says Foglizzo, the darkhaired member of the band. “But they love each other.”

If the fictional roommates traded in their Sesame Street residence for a Fishtown apartment, got matching tattoos and tackled some heavier issues in their sing-alongs, the comparison would gain some strength.

In July, Trophy Wife released its nine-track

JUMPphilly.com

HOT LOVERS: (L to R) Noah Skarof, Vanessa Winters, Brendan Cunningham, Josh Friedman and Brian Strouse. latest album, Hot Love, and celebrated with a show at Milkboy. They have performed around the city and region in front of packed crowds.

Some of the successes certainly could have something to do with Winters' obvious sincerity and hometown-girl appeal. The opera-trained songstress at the front of the band says she just feels like one of the guys.

“It’s kind of empowering a little bit because there aren’t many females out there in our circle," says Winters.

Her bandmates are quick to boast about her talents, like finding harmonies and belting it out without needing the slightest bit of guidance.

“Nobody’s telling her what to do," says Skaroff. "She just trusts her ear, has a great voice and is just a totally organic part of the band.”

The Lawsuits are certainly not lacking in passion. They are constantly evolving artistically and experimenting with genres and sounds.

"Brian is just one of those people that’s constantly creating," says Friedman. "Every practice, he shows up with two or three new songs.

We’re just constantly absorbing and spitting out new material."

sophomore album, Sing What Scares You. “Confronting self-doubt is kind of where the title comes from,” Foglizzo says. “It’s about finding ways to heal yourself in a really destructive society and then also sharing that sense of doubt and fear, and maybe hoping that other people don’t feel so alone.”

The album comes two years after the band’s debut full-length, Patience Fury. With their newest release, the two tried to expand from doing just harmonies or solo singing to having different parts that overlap, along with call and response lyrics.

More imagery was used in the writing to describe more, as opposed to just telling.

“Katy had some vocals on the first record but I really think on this record, she challenged herself to be as much of a vocalist in the band as I am,” Foglizzo says.

“The first record was very personal but it felt a little more big picture. I think a lot of the songs on the new record really come from a lot of shit we experienced.”

The two lived apart a year during the writing of Sing What Scares You. Foglizzo lived in North Carolina while Otto remained in Philly before they reunited as Fishtown roommates.

“At first we we were like, ‘This is amazing. We can practice in our living room all the time,’” Foglizzo says. “But then it got hard and we went through some hard times where it just felt like too much.”

They recently moved all their practice gear to a space at the Girls Rock Philly headquarters, where Foglizzo works as the first paid, fulltime staff person and program director.

“The instruments don’t stare us in the face, being mad at us when we don’t play for a while,” says Otto, who works for the Service Women’s Action Network and New Paradise Laboratories. “Our band is part of our life, so it’s not agenda and goal-oriented as maybe some other people’s bands. But we take it seriously and understand how to make it have sustainability.”

They are considering doing a home recording for their next release, which they are already in the process of writing.

“I like things that confuse me musically,” Otto says. “I realized lately that stuff I can’t really put my finger on, that’s where I want to go.”

13

Photo by Colin Kerrigan.

The JUMP Off

Honest And Unresolved Frances Quinlan's solo project became a family affair, and then they found bass player Tyler Long, as Cara Stefchak learns. The end product is a powerful, haunting sound.

Frances Quinlan remembers a time she had to get in touch with her inner Lois Lane.

Hop Along’s singer-guitarist sits outside Fishtown’s Kraftwork Bar with brother, Hop Along drummer Mark Quinlan and bassist Tyler Long, recounting how her 7-year-old self was made to sing the 1978 Superman love song “Can You Read My Mind” during a short stint in vocal lessons.

“My parents were like, ‘She really likes to sing. Let’s deter her as much as possible by making her sing Tina Turner, Bette Midler and the theme song from Superman,’” says Frances, now 26. “Of course I ended up loving Bette Midler.”

She picked up a guitar years later when her oldest brother Andrew took her to the Quakertown Flea Market – dubbed “Q-Mart” – where she bought a purple guitar for $50.

The two would go on to play in a project called Brother and Sister. That lasted until Frances left to study painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. There, she would write material for her first, folksy solo album Freshman Year in 2005.

“When I started solo I always wanted a band,” she says, “but I was just starting out on guitar so it was rough on the people jamming with me. When I recorded my first album, I put a ton of stuff on it, just crammed it literally with bells and whistles. That was the closest I could come to having a band kind of experience.”

After graduating from college, Frances remembers a serendipitous moment. Her brother Mark’s band was folding and she was able to begin recording music with him.

“I really needed to go to another level with what I was trying to do and it eventually all came together,” says Frances, who remembers practicing with Mark in their parent’s driveway. “We couldn’t really find a bass player who could really stick with us until Tyler came around. Finally, I feel like we have a really JUMPphilly.com

THE DISOWNED: Frances Quinlan (center) with brother Mark (right) and Tyler Long. strong core.”

“Our first practice is funny to think about,” adds Mark. “I was in this band where I hit as hard as I could and played as much as I possible could.”

Mark moved to Hell's Kitchen to follow his fiancé, who attends medical school in New York, but he commutes to work at WRTI 90.1 FM in North Philly. He dedicates each Tuesday to Hop Along practice.

Being in a band with your sibling means things can get a lot more heated than a normal friendship would, Frances says, but situations also diffuse a lot more quickly.

“Whether or not we agree on our musical interests,” says Frances, “now, I think, we have really begun to communicate well together, especially with this latest record.”

The band’s debut album, Get Disowned, was released in May on Hot Green Records. The label is run by Algernon Cadwallader guitarist Joe Reinhart, who produced and played assorted guest parts on the 10-track album. It was the label’s first non-Algernon release.

“He is completely integral to every single thing we did on this record,” says Mark of Reinhart.

“He is an incredible visionary who knows immediately how to play to the strengths of every musician he’s working with. And he’s charming as hell. God, he’s charming.”

The record is the result of a long, two-year recording process in North Philly’s communal workspace, Big Momma’s Warehouse.

“It gave us a lot of time to really think about everything and really give ourselves to every

song,” says Frances, who did the album’s cover artwork.

Frances says the album centers around “wanting to go back but being unable to, and the bitterness in that and the bitterness of one’s own helplessness in the world.”

Frances and Mark experienced their stepfather getting in a very serious car accident – a moment that Frances says made her think a lot about the things that she has valued, the regrets around those values and how she treated people because of her own desires.

“I’ve always written dark lyrics,” she says.

"But when you have a 19-year-old girl voice and you’re trying to sing about death, I don’t think people quite pick up on it as much as when you’re 26 and screaming it kind of aggressively. It’s not at all about a solution.

Every song resolves in, ‘Now what do I do?’”

“Even musically it kind of does that,” adds Mark. “It kind of feels unresolved at the end of the songs. I’d like to act like that was my intention but it kind of just happened that way.”

“It’s where we were,” says Frances. “It’s honest, at least.”

Hop Along begins a 45-day, full U.S. tour in early September with shows nearly every day.

They’ll wind up at The Fest in Gainesville, Florida at the end of October.

“Without the supportive people in our lives, there’s no way we’d be able to do this,” Mark says. “It’s really important to have that tightknit group of people behind you who you can truly say you love and that love you. That’s the key.”

15

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

The JUMP Off

Pain Packaged In Pop Music Herbie Shellenberger assembled an all-star band of local musicians and asked Adriane Dalton to front the five-piece post-punk band, as Brian Wilensky learns over dinner.

It’s 8:35 on a summer night in South Philly.

Three of the five members of Pet Milk are sitting in the Broad Street Diner at the corner of Broad and Federal with a hankering for grilled cheese.

Herbie Shellenberger gets his with American cheese. His bandmate and fellow guitarist, Richie Roxas, gets one with American and one with cheddar, both with tomato. Meanwhile singer Adriane Dalton takes advantage of breakfast being served all day and orders a mushroom and swiss omelette.

The other two members of the band, drummer Josh Agran and bassist Adam Herndon are across the street at the band’s rehearsal space, practicing with their other band, The Glowtones.

Almost the entire band shares roles in other Philly bands. Agran’s also a part of Paint it Black. Roxas was in Hail Social. Herndon’s got his plate full with with two other projects; A Sunny Day in Glasglow and Faux Slang.

Shellenberger was once in Brown Recluse.

Meanwhile, this is Dalton’s first band she’s played in.

“It was a little intimidating at first, but it’s helpful in some ways,” Dalton says about having such seasoned bandmates. “Josh sings in a barbershop quartet, so he helped me with vocal parts and harmonies in the studio.”

Shellenberger, the mastermind behind the crunchy pop-leaning, post-punk sounds of Pet Milk, has been working on material with Dalton for a couple years now.

“We’ve known each other maybe six years, just from going to shows around Philly and having mutual friends,” Dalton says. “Then one day, he sent me an email with some songs and asked me to sing on them.”

Shellenberger just wrote a batch of songs that he felt would be best suited with female vocals and simply asked Dalton to be the voice on them.

“But it’s Herbie’s concept,” Roxas says.

While Shellenberger’s muse is alive throgh 16

YOUNG AND DISSATISFIED: Herbie Shellenberger (left) developed the concept of Pet Milk but Adriane Dalton (right) fronts the band that balances brooding lyrics with pop sounds.

Pet Milk, the bandmates work as unit – even though at the moment, Roxas and Dalton almost seem like accompaniment to Shellenberger at the diner. Whenever he speaks, it’s like they know not to interject.

They let him explain that Pet Milk represents the realities of being young and dissatisfied.

“Our lyrics are inspired by things like having a week and a half until your next paycheck and having only $40 to spend until then,” Shellenberger says. “And walking around town in the rain without an umbrella and feeling like you’re in a German film from 1970 or something like that.”

But he gets cut off by the arrival of their dinner.

The pause in his explanation makes it seem even more heartfelt and sincere, much like his demeanor. He’s tall and soft-spoken despite his words having to make their way through a woodsman-like beard. And as Shellenberger continues, his eyes get just a tad more glassy.

“A lot of the themes could seem personal,” he says. “But I’ve written things that she [Adriane] sings, so it’s like, ‘Who’s the one actually saying that?’ Or sometimes I’ll write things that are hypothetical or someone else’s experience.”

Putting it like that almost sounds like he’s telling a fictional story, even writing for a screenplay. Which probably comes from Shellenberger’s biggest hobby – film. And by film, he’s into the true stuff: reel-to-reel. He works at the International House. He studies

and makes films. He even recently shot a video on 16mm for Bleeding Rainbow.

The films that he draws inspiration from came out of Britain in the 1950s and 60s, known as kitchen-sink dramas. According to Shellenberger, they’re relatable to Pet Milk’s tunes since they’re generally about young love that doesn’t work out.

He’s been working with Dalton on lyrics, and he jokes that she should take over that end of the writing process.

“I kind of fucking hate lyrics anyway,” he says after dipping the corner of his grilled cheese in ketchup and taking a bite. “I can easily come up with a melody and maybe something like what I want the lyrics to sound like but sometimes not actually get the lyrics for months on end.”

They’re almost through mastering their debut LP. It will be released on Batimore’s Fan Death Records and will likely hit the streets in the winter. But the band is approaching their first full-length with an open mind, adding more synths, making it a bit more atmospheric, Roxas says. The new album will be a step away from what’s heard on their earliest demo recordings and their self-released 2011 EP, Philadelphia Punklife.

But Shellenberger won’t be leaving his post as Pet Milk’s primary writer. And Dalton’s female vocals will still be first chair.

“Female vocals just fit this band,” she insists.

And that’s a recipe that listless Philadelphians will continue to eat up.

JUMPphilly.com

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

Living Out Destiny Aneesah Coley meets the West Oak Lane singer sensation and humanitarian.

Suzann Christine says she was always singing. Since the age of 5, she loaned her voice to church and talent shows, but she didn’t think about turning her passion into a career.

“I didn’t really come to the conclusion that it was something that I may want to pursue until probably, like, 2010,” says the 22-year old singer/songwriter who grew up in the city’s West Oak Lane section. “Not that long ago.

And it was just something that I really wanted to do. I felt like I couldn’t run from it.”

Inspired by Mary J. Blige, Lauryn Hill, Beyoncé and Teena Marie, Christine says she really enjoys being able to express how she feels through music. She hasn’t released a full album yet but she’s managed to build a fan base by releasing singles, doing shows and contributing to various records with other local talents including Chill Moody and Lee Mazin.

“It’s just gonna be a matter of getting everything together,” she says, “deciding which songs I’m gonna put on the project and which songs I’m not.”

She’s a versatile artist who tackles various genres including hip-hop, R&B and pop.

She earned the chance to perform at this year’s Radio One Fest in Miami in July after entering her single, “Closed Casket” to a contest advertised on OurStage.com. She beat out more than 1,400 entries from across the country. At the fest, she performed before T.I., Wale, Melanie Fiona, Monica, Young Jeezy and others.

“I love her,” says Craig White, owner at Sound Doctor Productions. “She’s very beautiful, obviously talented, a fabulous writer, and she can really, really sing."

The Girls High graduate aspires to be someone who young girls and people in general can look up to. She definitely wants to be a voice for women.

“I feel like we go through so much and we let men kind of get us in a place where we hate each other,” she says. “That’s not the way it should be.”

Christine finds herself to be relatable because a lot of her songs are about things that she’s actually lived through. Music is very powerful, she says. The messages that artists put out can really affect people, changing the way they feel and act. This is why she wants her music to be able to speak to people, to encourage them.

It’s fulfilling to her when her music can be the reason why someone was able to get through a tough situation.

Through her non-profit organization, SCH Creative & Performing Arts Inc., she gives back to the community. Beginning in October, the organization will offer classes in photography, dance, vocal music and music production at the Philadelphia Center for Arts & Technology in West Oak Lane.

“At the end of the day you have to live out your destiny,” Christine says. “You have to live out your dreams.”

Photo by Sharon Calvin.

Music & Education

“It was two ladies who had an after-school program for young girls, 13 to 17,” Love recalls.

“It was a DJ class but it taught them more about self-empowerment, to be yourself, free to venture into things that you’re interested in and not worry about it being a male-dominated situation.”

When The Girls’ DJ Collective folded, Love had received the blessings of the organization’s founders to go on and do her own similar thing.

Her students come from all walks of life, staying true to the institute’s motto, “Where Everyday People Become DJs.” She teaches students of various ages, interests and professions. One student, an accountant named Ravi Jackson, has amassed a huge following as an event DJ, specializing in Bhangra and Bollywood music.

Another student, Reza Sayah, is a Pakistanbased international correspondent for CNN. He sought out lessons from her during a visit to Philadelphia.

Love teaches on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings at MMDJI after finishing her day job as a prison recreation specialist.

She gives her all when instructing, offering students four two-hour classes as a course.

“I can teach a person that has no skills how to DJ basically in two hours,” she says with confidence.

Amongst the various things that she uses as teaching tools are Technics, a 57 mixer, Numark NS7 and Serato Scratch Live. Students learn to mix, blend, go from one genre to the next and also how to find their “one,” their rhythm.

Students also learn about professionalism and the business side of DJing.

“I love teaching more than I like DJing because I wanna create monsters,” Love admits.

Business has been so good, Love started schools in two other locations – in upstate New York and Greensboro, North Carolina.

Her old mentor, DJ Smooth, operates both.

For the past 22 years, Love has worked in the federal prison system. A former social worker, she calls hers the fun job in the prison system, Aneesah Coley learns about the long time DJ who is encouraging women (and men) to spin. where the prisoners come to classes, learn beneficial societal skills and earn certificates you sound like the radio.”

Lisa Love remembers being 18, living in upon successfully completing courses.

Then she asked him to teach her the craft, upstate New York, visiting a club one night To her, it’s both challenging and rewarding. which he did. He became her mentor, where she saw DJ Smooth on turntables. It Born in Southwest Philadelphia in a Catholic encouraging her to land her first job as a DJ. was 1984 and she had grown up listening to home for children and unwed mothers, Love Love has been DJing ever since, performing the radio. Like many others, Love had never had a tough time growing up, even facing with or opening for the likes of Bilal, Floetry, seen a live DJ before, even during her early homelessness at one point. Today, stability is Jaguar Wright, Jill Scott, LL days in Philly. She was amazed to see someone really important to Love, Cool J, Musiq Soulchild making music using the ones and twos. which is why she plans to More Than Music DJ Institute and DJ Jazzy Jeff.

“I was looking at the turntables,” she keep her job at the prison Check out their offereings at And now she’s turned remembers. “He had a mixer. I didn’t know alongside her jobs as a www.morethanmusicdjinstitute.com the tables – in addition what none of that stuff was but I just knew that DJ and teacher until she to spinning and mixing he was making it happen, and making it sound reaches retirement. professionally, she teaches people the art of like what I was used to hearing on the radio.”

She says there is neither fear nor intimidation DJing from her studio in Kensington.

She started going to the club whenever Smooth in being one of only a few local female DJs. It She founded the More Than Music DJ Institute was spinning. inspires her to go hard.

(MMDJI) in 2007 after being inspired by the “I would go on Fridays and Saturdays and just “The females, we’re so small a percentage in volunteer work she did for an organization stand there and watch him,” Love explains. the world,” Love says. “I just tell them, ‘Go out called The Girls’ DJ Collective.

She eventually went up to him and said, “Yo, there and do it. Don’t be afraid.’”

Lisa Love's DJing 101

18

JUMPphilly.com

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

This Place Rocks

Arts Alive In The Basement Rachel Barrish goes downstairs at the Wolf Building and finds an arts wonderland.

Studio, run by Peter Tramo. It is an up and Creative Industry Workforce Grant in 2010 to running facility where bands and musicians launch the project. may come to rehearse, record, mix and master.

After that, they began the slow, organic Underground Arts is dedicated to promoting process of clearing out the basement and a variety of arts but music has been one of the turning it into a 12,000-square-foot creative major draws. Bands such outlet for people to see and as Fishbone, Black Dice, be seen.

Festival Bar @ Underground Arts El Malito & the 33rd When you walk into Underground Arts now, Century and City Rain Opens at 10 PM every day from have packed the intimate you enter the main September 7 to 22. room. performance space with Find the performance schedule at room for 250 seated or The majority of the www.livearts-fringe.org booking is done in-house 600 standing. There is a but they have also teamed full bar and kitchen. Beyond up with Sean Agnew from R5 Productions, as that space is a whole other room, called The well as the Electric Factory’s agency, Bonfire Black Box, which is primarily used for theater LLC. and dance performances.

“Producing other types of work makes us The fall schedule features a diverse lineup different,” says Reuben. “Broader acts can including California post-hardcore band Hot Snakes, stoner rockers Red Fang, the Jon experience new arts and people can form new Spencer Blues Explosion and alt-pop duo The relationships here.”

Hidden in the back is Lorelei Recording Helio Sequence.

Music, Movies & More Just a few blocks up 12th Street from Underground Arts, in a former tombstone showroom that is better known as the former home of Diplo's Mad Decent, is another newish arts venue, PhilaMOCA. The sparsely decorated space plays host to a variety of exhibitions and performances. And since Eric Bresler, operator of Cinedelphia.com, took over curation of the space last winter, they have been doing more with movies and music, including the Tuesday Tune-Out series. Every week, a band performs, followed by a film presentation. In November, JUMP will coordinate the series. Check philamoca.org for details.

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

Head down the steps of the Wolf Building, on Callowhill at 12th Street, to a colorful hall that leads into a vast space with a stage, concrete pillars and a world of potential.

Underground Arts, a venue for theater productions, performance art, comedy, poetry, dance and music, has been quietly becoming more and more popular over the past few years, growing in size and steadily adding amenities.

This fall, the basement venue will be the official bar for the Live Arts/Philly Fringe Festival, hosting the Late Night Cabaret as well as other performances.

Even before becoming Underground Arts, the space already had a somewhat rich and colorful history. It had previously been used as a storage space for the Convention Center and at one point, the room was used to film videos verging on S&M material.

The owner and operator of the building, Gary Reuben, got the idea to create a venue after his son used the space to put on a theatrical production of Appetite, which was directed

by Pig Iron Theatre Company alum Sarah Sanford.

Then, everything came together.

Reuben teamed up with his business partner, Gary Reisner, to develop a sustainable place where emerging artists could display their crafts and talents. They received a $50,000

THE WHAT?: The Quelle Source (right) performing at PhilaMOCA. JUMPphilly.com

19

Photos courtesy of the Office of the City Representative.

Music & Politics

A Love Rekindled

As City Representative, Melanie Johnson represents the mayor and the city, handling all sorts of events, like the Welcome America celebration and the Fourth of July Jam. G.W. Miller III talks to the West Philly native about her role in promoting the city.

When the promoters talked to the city about Made in America, was it an easy thing to say yes to because we're a city that loves music?

The mayor had to make that decision. And the mayor, as I’m sure you know, is a huge lover of music – all kinds of music. The man is never without music.

You deal with commerce but you also work with the folks marketing the city.

The city doesn’t have a whole lot of money.

One of the ways we’ve been able to do what we do is through events like Welcome America. I use our special events as marketing tools.

Can music play a role in marketing the city?

So many people have come out of here in the past 10, 15, 20 years. You have such diverse artists as Jill Scott and Pink. Then you have a group like The Roots who have been around much longer than many people know. They are Grammy Award winners and they have a genius in Ahmir (Thompson). He plays with everyone from classical to rap. Working with him has helped us grow Welcome America. We couldn’t have gotten Lauryn Hill without him.

We’d like to do a huge music festival here in Philadelphia. It’s really the only big city that doesn’t have a huge festival. That’s something we’ve been talking about over the years.

We helped launch the Jazz Coalition two years ago. I was part of the Mellon Jazz Festival as a student and I loved it. I remember one night, I was at the Academy of Music where Sarah Vaughan and Miles Davis were on the same ticket. It was the same night that Wynton 20

REPPING PHILLY: Melanie Johnson (above, left) grew up near 52nd and Girard. She's with actor Hill Harper (above) and artist Common (below) during this year's Fourth of July festivities.

Marsalis introduced Christian McBride, who was about 15 years old at the time. I left that show and went to the African American Museum where Betty Carter was performing with Abdullah Ibrahim. I was the MC at that concert because I was on WRTI. You hosted a music show?

Yes. My show was on Saturdays, overnight.

were taking care of a 7-year-old kid. So, I had to make a decision. I talked to a bunch of friends before coming back. There just happened to be a job opening up as deputy press secretary for Mayor Rendell.

I’m a Philly girl through and through. I love this city and I have to say I didn’t always love this city. I left this city because there were so many things happening that I didn’t like about the city. I had to leave.

What were you spinning?

Jazz. All jazz. Big band. I was sax woman. And I was a Lee Morgan fan like you wouldn’t believe. I also loved vocals. I loved female groups and I would play them all the time.

How did you not wind up in the music industry?

I did. After I left Temple, I went overseas and worked for the BBC in London. When I came home, I became the producer of Blue Stage, which was a blues program on NPR. I was on NPR for five years. I stayed there until I came back to Philly for a job with Ed Rendell.

How did that happen?

My grandmother got sick. It was her and my mother living together, along with my brother’s son. My mother wasn’t well either. And they

Did the city change or did your perception change?

Meeting Ed Rendell made me change. Ed has such a love for Philadelphia.

It is hard to be around him and not fall in love with this city. Working for him really gave me a new perspective of Philadelphia. He gave me my ability back to love this city.

I had traveled around – London, Paris, Italy, New York. My whole world had expanded. I didn’t think I’d come back. Life is funny. And life is really funny that I’m in the position that I’m in as the marketing, promotion and branding person for the city of Philadelphia.

Who would have thought that I’d love this city so deeply again?

Do you make time for music anymore?

Not as much as I should.

JUMPphilly.com

Cover Story

THEY'RE OUT OF COLLEGE

R

achel Gagliardi and her Slutever bandmate Nicole Snyder squint their eyes to adjust to the late morning sun. Gagliardi adjusts her mussed red hair and straightens her oversized black T-shirt while BUT THEY'RE STILL Snyder fumbles with a VHS tape and pops it into the machine. The movie, It Takes Two, a Mary-Kate and Ashley classic, starts mid-film.

Gagliardi squeals when the tape starts at her favorite scene – the one THE where one Olsen twin enters the “haunted” mansion and finds her portrait hanging on the wall. Then, a ghostly figure, actress Jane Sibbett, glides down the hallway wearing a white robe and white face cream.

Gagliardi and Snyder laugh hysterically as the Olsen twin runs down the stairs and out of the mansion, screaming the whole way.

The Slutever duo loves all things brat life – like the Olsen twins – looking up to them with childlike admiration. The bandmates pull off the Olsen twin vibe by frequently interrupting and finishing each other’s sentences.

“If we could shoot a video anywhere, it would probably be in the Mall of America,” Gagliardi says. “It would be us hanging out at the mall but us, like, riding the rollercoaster, going mini-golfing and doing, like, all the Megan Matuzak hangs with the house-party heroes from Slutever. weird mall things.”

Photos by Marie Alyse Rodriguez. Styling by Linda Smyth.

Snyder speaks up in her mellow and crass way, pointing out that MaryHair by Juaquin Cameron at Richard Nicholas Salon. Kate and Ashley already made that music video.

BRAT PACK

JUMPphilly.com

29

Cover Story

“Yeah but we would combine that with ‘Pussycat!’” Gagliardi exclaims, referring to one of Slutever’s hit songs.

E

not the best quality but they’re still the most basic – you record straight to tape.”

Gagliardi, who graduated from Drexel a few months before Snyder, notes that many of these bands they met on tour wanted to trade tapes. Also, labels like Burger Records in California have a huge army of kids who order and support the cassette revival movement. Although generally small, there are pockets of thriving DIY culture that are taking it back to the basics, and Bratty Records plans to be in the same vein.

“If you are intentionally going for a lo-fi sound, it makes sense,” Gagliardi says. “It is really affordable and I can charge $3 per tape. I would rather people spend $3 and have some physical art then just give us $3 and be like, ‘Oh, you guys can just like have it.’ I know people like to support. I do that. I like to give touring bands money. I would rather just be like, ‘Take a tape.’ I’m really into physical stuff. Tapes are so classic. If we weren’t supported by our label, Bantic Media, we wouldn’t have put out a vinyl.”

verything about Slutever reeks of the 90s teenager aesthetic; their love of bootleg Simpson’s memorabilia, the duo’s striking similarities to Beavis and Butthead, even the name of the band.

Alicia Silverstone’s Clueless, a staple for all '90s girls everywhere, represents the band’s world: annoyed by their parents and pretty much everything else, yet spoiled with an overflowing closet of clothes, shoes and accessories.

They are the perfect brats, and the sound of Slutever’s music is, well, bratty to match – loud and fast, yet irresistibly grungy.

Gagliardi and Snyder, who originally met in high school in Bucks County, both play the drums and guitar. The girls swap instruments mid-set during shows and recording depending on who wrote the majority of the lyrics and guitar parts for that song. They front their raw, aggressive sound y some sheer stroke of with angst-ridden lyrics and earshattering bratty belting. hazy luck, Slutever caught Formed in 2010 while the two were the fancy of producer Kyle “Slick” Johnson and the duo landed roommates and students at Drexel University, the band has become studio time with him. Slick is a punk a staple on the local house-show kid all grown up who has seen a few scene. They have even elbowed their indie and punk high rollers – from Modest Mouse to Wavves – pass way into major venues around the through his Fancy Time Studio in country, into major festivals like Kensington.

Bitch Fest and they’ve performed “Much of what they had done exclusive recording sessions with previously sort of fit the ‘Brat Punk’ major outlets. bill perfectly,” Slick says. “It was not They have a cult following. They roll recorded in a beautiful, high fidelity their eyes at creeps and crave pizza way. The songs were full of great on the daily. Now, both members moments of haphazardness and it of Slutever – still in their early 20s was all quite unpolished. I think it – operate their very own DIY record was perfect for who they were at the labels on top of everything else.

WHATEVER: Nicole Snyder (left) and Rachel Gagliardi and their toys, time. I think they're ready to try and Snyder’s label, Mallrat Records, and the girls at play (right). see where they can go from there.” started as a senior thesis for her The DIY process previously left the duo to their own devices. Recording music industry major at Drexel. Mallrat’s first release was a Philly-born, in a monitored manner with Slick at Fancy Time, however, has changed melodic punk band, Cousin Brian. In June, Cousin Brian’s debut album, the Slutever duo’s idea of what they can do and what they want to become.

First, was released digitally, as well as on Coke-bottle clear 12-inch vinyl.

Slick’s talents pushed the band forward, especially in terms of the duo’s For Snyder, working with such a band speaks volumes about the mantra songwriting ability. of Mallrat Records.

Gagliardi and Snyder recently wrote the song “1994” in the studio with “Nirvana? They’re dead,” she says. “But that’s like the kind of music I Slick. They had never co-written a song with someone else before. The want to put out on my label – punk, grunge. Those are the two things I’m track is a likely candidate to be a single, used to tease their upcoming EP, really into. Any bands that fall under that aesthetic.” which is due out by the end of the year. It will be the duo’s third EP. Slutever’s brand of shit-fi, brat punk is well suited to the slacker “Change is what keep things interesting, and I mean that in a much mentality of Mallrat. Snyder plans to put out some Slutever stuff in broader sense than just in music,” Slick expounds. “Slutever has the collaboration with Gagliardi’s label, Bratty Records, this fall. ability to change and I saw that while we were recording ‘1994.’ They Bratty Records seeks to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on have the ability to adapt to new situations. That is something that I hope what seemed to be a lost medium for music: cassette tapes. Gagliardi’s doesn't change about them as people.” first choice for a release was Slutever’s very own “Pussycat.” The cassette They are fresh out of college and ready to get down with full-time itself is bright pink with “Pussycat” printed on the label in puffy pink Slutever wheeling and dealing. It’s time to get serious, while continuing bubble letters. The experience it generates is a physical one, symbolic of to not give a shit about anything. It could be a challenge to many. For the strong DIY culture the girls decidedly believe in.

Snyder and Gagliardi, it’s the preferred lifestyle.

“When we were on tour,” Gagliardi says, “I saw so many bands with “The thing is, we are really into cartoons,” Snyder explains. “We are tapes and so many of them were on small labels. They are so cheap and, really into The Simpsons and Beavis and Butthead. Our songs are really like, I have a cassette player in my car. If tapes are two or three dollars or personal and they’re not, like, trying to be poetry. We just tell it like it is.” something, I’ll always buy them because I like the art. I like that they’re

B

30

JUMPphilly.com

JUMPphilly.com

31

PAST PRESENT FUTURE AND

Suzi Analogue’s music combines old-school style soul crooning with hip-hop and electronica, creating a mesmerizing, futuristic sound.

She signed a record deal with a Dutch label when she was 19. Since then, she’s collaborated with the likes of Stalley, Quelle Chris and La Melodia. She recently teamed up with LA beat maker Tokimonsta to form Analogue Monsta. They released an EP, Boom, in August.

The Virginia native bounces across the country and around the world but calls Philly home. Our Teresa McCullough talked to Suzi about her "Raw & B" sound.

32

What shaped you as an artist?

I grew up at the same time as Timbaland and Missy were getting popular, so it really inspired me as a kid to appreciate good, out-of-the-box music.

By middle school, The Neptunes were coming out, so I was listening to that music. But even before then, the radio was playing a lot of R&B songs that The Neptunes were already producing and writing for. I was just following who was making what and producing what and why things sounded the way they did. Now that I’m 24 and I’m listening to new things, I have a really good frame of reference for the different regional music that’s been coming out, especially the East Coast.

At what point did you realize shit was getting real?

I guess when I got asked to send a demo over to Amsterdam for Dopeness Galore Records. That was in 2006. I was actually a freshman at Temple and I was just putting my songs up on Myspace. I got serious about my music after that and what my possibilities could be. They started working on music with me and every step after then has just been an eye-opening experience to where things could go, where things could lead. They flew me out to do a session with an artist, Georgia Anne Muldrow, and we put out a record, NNXT. That really inspired me. With every step, everything that comes out, you know each flight makes it all more real.

You signed a record label in Amsterdam at the age of 19. What was that like and how did you balance school and your singing career?

With the things that I’m into, I always felt multitasking would be a big part of my career. You know, I was taking 18 credits. Then I was trying to get out of class to go fly somewhere or record somewhere. And it was really surreal. At the time, my friends didn't understand. Maybe they still don't. But it was definitely a crazy experience to be doing that at a young JUMPphilly.com

Photo by Teresa McCullough.

Cover Story

age. I was actively having musical experiences, meeting musicians and just vibing with them, playing them my stuff and them playing me their stuff. In school, it did get tough. As a senior, I was really over it. There were just so many different things I could do, so I was just over school. I was probably burnt out too ‘cause I was taking so many credits. I had to make sure I graduated on time because I knew if I stayed in school past my time, then I would be unhappy on the music side. So I made sure I was sticking to school, you know?

How would you compare Philly/NYC/LA fans to Europeans, and how they accept you as an artist?

For my music, the people who love it are anybody who listens to a lot of music – music from the past to modern day. I've added both elements, so it doesn't matter what country you're from or what age you are, really.

If you listen to a lot of different music, you will have a good grasp of musical references. In every city, each scene changes based on the venue.

Where does your inspiration come from? Who are some people that inspire you?

My inspiration comes from my experiences, you know? Where I grew up, where I’ve gone, the past, the future, the unchartered territories.

I’m just an explorer. That’s my nature.

There's a lot of conversations in my music. My musical style is influenced by jazz, hip-hop, everything, even classical. I listen to the emotions they provide – everyone from Billie Holiday to Moodymann to RZA, Pharrell, Betty Davis and, you know, my friends.

How would you characterize your music style?

Just raw, really raw. It’s progressive and its imaginative. It’s not within the confines of genres. Just raw. Nothing that’s too manicured, although I do like a good manicure. I call it “Raw & B” sometimes.

I see you're really big into nail design. When did that start?

I mean, because I use my hands to create, and they are seen in performances, and I’m always meeting new people and shaking hands, I want my nails to express my style. It’s just the last piece of putting myself together. I studied in Tokyo and met a lot of Japanese nail artists while I was there. I wanted to share that fun with everyone when I came back to Philly, so I started Nail Tite (a nail art service). It’s just a fun thing to do.

It’s a great service. I love talking to people and having appointments. It’s the time when I can really have good talks with people. Even if it’s just a manicure, people want to express themselves. And I’m in the business of expression.

What are some of your alter ego names and how did you get into them?

Every alter ego is based off of something that’s happened, or a reaction, something I haven't tapped into fully. It’s something that doesn't explain me to the fullest but something that’s a part of me. You know, like “Barbie

JUMPphilly.com

Digital.” And none of this has really been released. But I have a few different characters that will be released in the future. I don't ever want to feel limited, so sometimes you have to create a whole new artist just to understand and follow something new.

If you could chose anyone to collaborate with, who would you pick?

The RZA because he just inspires me so much. Missy Elliot cause she inspires me so much. Those are the two that I always dreamed of collaborating with. Their work helped me understand myself more as an artist.

What are your thoughts on the youth in Philly?

I really hope the kids in Philly get opportunities to explore their interests and create positive situations for themselves. Philly is the home of street style as we know it, you know, since Urban Outfitters headquarters is here.

Those designers come from the city and are taking cues from the city kids, college kids and the real people who are actually wearing the clothes. It all works together, so it's important the youth are positively guided.

What are your plans for the future?

Where do you see yourself in three to five years?

I'm working now to be able to work steadily with some kind of creative company that will just let me do the things that I do, and that will hopefully fuse into what they do. I want to work with different companies as an outlet to focus my art, which I’m doing right now with Scion with the Analogue Monsta project. They have given us the opportunity to really focus on the project and what we're doing with that.

On a bigger level, I would love to be a creative director of some company that is in need of a focused creative revival. Through my own projects – Nail Tite and SWRV.biz – I focus a lot on developing strong visual and text content, and the whole package and the presentation of the project. That gets people get excited. As long as people get excited, you can manage your vision.

I want to keep playing shows, for sure, and visit places I haven't visited yet. And interact with my listeners. I don't want too much. I just want to keep doing it.

What kind of advice would you give young artists trying to make it?

They have to go out and find experiences. They have to be able to synthesize their own experiences. They can’t just try to be what’s hot.

They have to have real-life intrigue. If you are an artist and you’re not sharing your experiences, then you’re doing a disservice as an artist. If you can offer a whole other style and a whole other world, it will work.

But first, you have to be okay with yourself and tap into it. Be okay with yourself, and then go. If you don't understand yourself, you are most likely not going to stick around. So in short, figure it out!

33

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

Shining Leicht On Local Music Veteran radio personality Helen Leicht continues the fight for Philly music despite personal battles, as Beth Ann Downey discovers.

I

t’s Helen Leicht’s day to be visible.

She hustles around Saturday’s installment of the XPoNential Music Festival, shuffling between stages to introduce bands and performing the other duties necessary of the assistant programming director of the radio station throwing the festival.

But she’s also enjoying herself.

After settling in for a set backstage, Leicht bobs her head and takes photos of an act she most likely had a hand in booking for the festival or put on air at some time.

Between performances, there’s virtually no artist who exits the stage without talking to Leicht, a 61-year-old with blonde pinwheel curls. Most artists hug and thank her, and take in her warm smile and words of encouragement.

She’s a woman who’s more become visible within the local music community, even though she built a 35-year career mostly by being audible only. Her voice, a stalwart force championing local musicians and bands, has been present on Philadelphia radio since 1976.

even though there weren’t many women on-air when she started out.

“When I said ‘I think I’ll be on the radio,’ even my uncle said, ‘It’s only for men. You don’t want to be on the radio,’” Leicht recalls. “I thought, ‘You don’t say that to me.’”

Even in her early teens, Leicht remembers spending most of her time at concerts – The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, The Supremes among many others. But when she cites the reason she always knew music would be part of her career, only one band comes to mind.

“I love music, and the Beatles, they were important to me,” she says. “I think I know, and have known all along, how important music was to people by taking the calls on the radio. If somebody calls me up and they’re having a bad day, they’re celebrating or they’re taking their kid for their first ride when they’re 16 and they have a song [they want me to play], there’s always something connected to music. Music is really a powerful thing.”

Right from her start as a midday host at WIOQ, Leicht knew she wanted to share this love with listeners. She began her “Leicht Lunch” and eicht grew up in a house where the radio “Breakfast with the Beatles” programs, and still was always on. Her late uncle, Joseph T. hears praise from DJs across the country for Conaway, was the general manager of the pioneering rock station WIBG in the 1960s. His ARMS OF A WOMAN: Helen Leicht in the providing the precedents.

When she started at WXPN in 1990, Leicht example led to the development of her dream, studio (top) and with Amos Lee.

L

34

JUMPphilly.com

Photos courtesy of Helen Leicht.

Cover Story

After her mother passed away, she knew she needed to get her own health worked part-time as the noon to 3 p.m. host on Saturdays. Seeing that checked out. But she had a festival to help run, then a Bruce Springsteen the station was dedicated to playing artists from across the country, tribute to throw and a five-day per week show to continue. Months piled she asked the then program director if she could cater her show toward on before she finally went in to have a cyst doctors had found removed – another initiative. one that blood tests said wasn’t harmful.

“I really wanted to help the artists in Philly because XPN was always But when Leicht woke up from helping other artists,” Leicht says.

“They did play local artists but they the surgery, she was told she had weren’t doing what I wanted to do. ovarian cancer.

I wanted to reach out and get them After taking the necessary few to come to the studio and sing. So months off to recover and start with the director said ‘Hey, if you want to treatment, Leicht came back on the take it on, OK. It’s up to you.’” air without explaining her absence.

She started asking for submissions The first time she mentioned and scheduling guest spots for local it was to promote a run for the artists. Some of the first unknown Sandy Rollman Ovarian Cancer Philly artists Leicht spun on her Foundation. Though she knew program were Ben Arnold and John she’d have the support of artists and Flynn. She heard Amos Lee play listeners, Leicht says it was hard to in the hallway at a Folk Alliance publically admit at first.

Conference and asked him to come “I was a little nervous,” Leicht says, on her show. That’s when many fighting through tears. “I’m still listeners first heard hits like “Arms getting monitored. But I had my of a Woman.” one-year anniversary [in 2010] and These and many other Philadelphia it was Free At Noon with Dawes. musicians are not so unknown They were great. They were really today – getting record deals, touring so great. My daughter and husband nationally and embodying the were handing out the little teal industry ideal of “making it.” ribbons.”

And they have Leicht’s voice to Leicht proudly wears teal, the thank for that, as music lovers all color used to make people aware over the state and across the country of ovarian cancer, today at the have come to listen to her and trust festival, and is now a voice in her judgment. the community for the National “That’s why I love XPN,” she said.

Ovarian Cancer Coalition. Their “We are a member-supported motto, coincidentally, is to help station, so I don’t have to test the “break the silence.” record. I can just, after all these “I know, as a woman, I need to years, you hear it and you go ‘I know let women know because I never this is a great song.’ I just felt the knew,” Leicht says. “I never knew need to nurture the artists that we why I had pelvic pain, or when you had in our area, and do it in a bigger felt really tired or when you felt way. We played some of them but bloated for no reason, when I would you really need to nurture them and wake up in the morning and I would give them an opportunity to know be exhausted and I couldn’t even sit that if you write a song, you might at the dinner table. As a woman in get it on the radio.” radio, and as a woman who’s been Because Leicht wasn’t afraid to in the business and doing this for 35 speak up, we can now enjoy XPN years, why would I not talk about it features like her Philly Local Pick of if I’m trying to help people? I really the Day and the weekly Local Music want to help. I want to help women.

Hour. Her initiative also paved the I want people to know that you just way for The Key, the XPN-run music don’t know. You have moms and blog dedicated to covering the scene, sisters and friends and you need to and the Free At Noon concert series. be paying more attention.”

Leicht’s influence on the local scene eicht’s 23-year-old daughter, can still be felt today. She can’t Rachael, is with her at this leave the XPoNential fest without festival, as she has been a handful of CDs and many thankyous from artists, members and RADIO DAYS: Leicht over the years with (top to bottom) Tom Petty, for every one either of them can Sean Lennon and Ryan Adams. remember. She has her mom’s fans. blonde curls and she gets emotional he’s aware that her voice is listened to but she lost sight of that for hearing her mom talk about the difficulties of the last few years, which a little while in 2009, when she blamed chronic fatigue and pain on includes a hip replacement in January. the stress of caring for her ailing mother, who had been diagnosed “She’s my biggest supporter and I’m proud of her,” Rachael says. “I was just talking to Dan [Schwartz] from Good Old War and he was saying how with lung cancer.

L

S

JUMPphilly.com

35

Photos courtesy of Helen Leicht.

THE SURVIVOR: Leicht at WXPN with Dawes, her husband and daughter on the one year anniversary of her cancer surgery (top image). Leicht with World Cafe host David Dye and Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits (below).

DJ Kid Roc DJ Kid roc plays all the new hip hop and some old school stuff that will have your grandparents dancing and club shaking.

For booking info, contact djkidrocbookings@gmail.com or (267)-650-1538 Follow him @DJKidRoc1

I was just like my mom, and how much he loved her... She doesn’t just play music on the radio. It’s not like DJing, when you come in and you have an interview, you talk, you play a song and then you go home. This is, like, her entire life.”

Artists like up-and-coming Americana band The Bailey Hounds know this first hand. Bassist Chris Cardillo says it was Leicht who sought them out after hearing one of the band’s recordings. She played their songs on the radio and helped them land a spot in the XPoNential Festival lineup, ultimately allowing them to play the biggest show they’ve ever done.

“For us, that was certainly the biggest support that we initially received,” Cardillo says. “It helped get our music to so many different sets of ears.

Helen has absolutely been one of the most kind and helpful supporters of our band, and we're really thankful to have her in our corner.”

L

eicht struggles to gloat about the affect her initiatives may have had on countless careers of local musicians, and the Philly music scene as a whole.

It’s even harder for her to say that she’s a cancer survivor.

But if there is one thing that’s easy for her to articulate, it’s the gratitude to those who have let her voice into their homes, cars or workspaces for 35 years, and have allowed her to do what she loves.

“I don’t think anyone has stopped me from being who I am,” she says.

“I’m just Helen. I don’t feel like I’m anyone other than Helen, the mother of two kids and a wife. I love that because I’m the same basically all the time. I enjoy that.”

JUMPphilly.com

Radio Lifer

Brandee Nichols meets Wendy Rollins, the Radio 104.5 DJ, assistant program director and the station's bridge to the local music scene.

W

endy Rollins traces her love of radio back to her high school days, when she lived and breathed for the local alternative station, 99X in Atlanta.

“One day I tuned in and they were playing Jane’s Addiction,” she remembers. “I was like, ‘What is this? I’m into this!’”

From then on, she was hooked. She even recorded the station on cassette tapes while she was at school. Rollins began listening to more than the music, paying attention to what the DJs were doing as well. She was astonished when she learned that one of the female DJs was also the program director.

“Wait a minute, there’s a woman running this?” she remembers thinking.

“That blew my mind. So I just decided that’s what I wanted to do.”

That essentially launched a career in radio that has bounced her across the country and back. Rollins is now the assistant program director at Radio 104.5 here in Philadelphia. She helps run the station, organizes studio sessions and giveaways, keeps up with the website and works on the Live at 5 sessions, a weekly studio session for local bands. And she hosts a weekday show from noon to 6.

“Everybody says – and it’s true, ‘Once you get into radio, you really can’t get out,’” Rollins offers.

S

he started her radio career while in college working on her communications degree.

“I always tell people you don’t have to have a degree in communications,” she says. “You just have to have hands on experience.

You have to be involved. That will get you further than anything.”

After interning at WCHZ in Augusta, Georgia for all of two weeks, she was asked to fill in on the overnight shift. During her second night on air, JUMPphilly.com

there was a nearby carjacking where someone was shot. The blood trail led to the station.

“I called up my boss,” Rollins recalls. “I was most concerned to let him know that I didn’t have any dead air.”

After college, she DJed in North Carolina for a few years. By then, she knew she wanted to become a program director. She did a brief stint in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and then became program director at an alternative station in Reno, Nevada. Despite having the highest ratings the station had ever seen, her position was eventually cut.

Rollins moved back home to Atlanta and took an office job. But it wasn’t long before the world of radio came knocking on her door. For the next year, Rollins worked her nine-to-five office job during the week and all weekend at 99X, the station that spawned her love of radio.

She eventually moved on to a station in Charleston, South Carolina.

Then, in 2007, Radio 104.5 launched and program director John Allers offered Rollins the assistant program director position.

N

ow, she’s the go-to contact for the local music scene at the station.

“I think there’s a lot happening,” she says. “I’ve been pretty impressed with what’s out here in comparison to some of the other towns I’ve been in. There’s definitely some talent out here.”

Rollins also does a lot of the band and artist interviews for the station, including a memorable session with Courtney Love (in the above photo).

“I was really terrified of that one,” Rollins remembers. “Courtney’s team was like, ‘We just want to give you some warning because if it goes wrong, she might hit you.’ They literally said that to me!”

Despite half the interview being pure gibberish, the conversation flowed.

“When she left,” Rollins says, “she gave me a hug and was like, ‘I don’t know your name. It’s been very nice meeting you.’”

The station just celebrated its’ fifth birthday, meaning this is the longest run Rollins has had with any station.

“I just don’t really belong anywhere else,” she says. “I feel like I still have work to do here.”

37

12 WOMEN

Cover Story

WHO MAKE THE

MUSIC SPIN

We solicited your opinions via Facebook and Twitter regarding who are the noteworthy, influential or under-appreciated women in the Philadelphia music scene. Here are some of the women you told us about who keep the party going, as Kevin Stairiker reports. Art by Matt Bourque.

Monika Not many college students in JULIEN Philadelphia can say they’ve done so much for music at this point in their lives.

Julien launched Local Loves Music last spring while she was a senior at Drexel. The program has been fostering the city’s music scene by advocating for local talent and bringing music people together.

Stacie

For six years now, Stacie George has been one of the people who brings big name acts to Philly. As the Senior Talent Buyer at Live Nation, she is responsible for booking artists for venues such as the TLA and the Borgata Casino.

GEORGE

Jessica As the founder of Rock To The McKAY Future, Jessica McKay has been crucial in simultaneously helping Philadelphia kids get introduced to music and waving the flag for after-school programs.

Lisa

Photographer Lisa Schaffer has been documenting Philadelphia music for a long time now, from live shots of national touring acts to photo shoots for local bands like Good Old War and Hezekiah Jones.

SCHAFFER

Denice

Denice Frohman’s face is FROHMAN probably already familiar to many Philadelphians as the one plastered on subway walls in the UnLitter Us ads. Along with that achievement, however, Frohman is the Program Director at the Philly Youth Poetry Movement and is also a poet, songwriter, artist and MC herself.

JUMPphilly.com

Allison

The Philadelphia Orchestra is back, and at the helm once more is president and CEO Allison Vulgamore.

Already a 30-year veteran of numerous orchestras, Vulgamore is looking to bring back prominence to the debt-ridden orchestra, which is still one of the best in the world.

VULGAMORE

Joan

With literally too many achievements to list in this small space, it’s safe to say that Joan Myers Brown is legendary in the world of dance.

As founder of Philadanco, the International Association of Blacks in Dance, and the International Conference of Black Dance Companies, Brown would already have a place in the history books. And that’s without naming the dozen or so other recognitions she’s amassed throughout the years.

MYERS BROWN

Nikki

Though born in Minnesota, Nikki Jean has belonged to the city since 2005 and since then has been making major moves with her music. Last year she released her album Pennies In a Jar, which featured songs co-written by luminaries such as Burt Bacharach, Lupe Fiasco and fucking Bob Dylan.

JEAN

Tanikka

Songwriter and artist Tanikka Charrae has been out making Philadelphia proud for a while now. Recently, she’s been on tour with Lauryn Hill singing backup and was credited on a song on the recent J. Cole album.

CHARRAE

Gun$

Regina "Gun$" Garcia decided GARCIA long ago that there weren’t enough female MCs represented in hip-hop, so she is making some major steps to change that. In 2009, Garcia, along with DJ Prowl, started Double Dutch, an all-female DJ night at The Barbary. Last year, she organized the “Bad Bitches Bomb First” mixtape, featuring notables such as Azealia Banks and Kreayshawn.

Sara

Another woman with numerous SHERR accomplishments to her name. One of the more impressive is the long-running concert series, Sugar Town. Every month for more than a decade now, Sherr has been shining a spotlight on female-centric acts via Sugar Town, in venues like the Balcony Bar at the Trocadero and the old Tritone. She's also a music journalist who champions local acts, she volunteers with Girls Rock Philly and she hosts one of the best karaoke nights in town.

Sonni

With her band The Underwater singer-guitarist Sonni Shine has been on the road recently, promoting their album Que Se Queda. At times steeped in reggae and at others entrenched in funk jams, Sonni Shine and the Underwater Sounds have a sound all their own.

SHINE Sounds,

39

est. 2006 COMBAT CRISIS is...

Elisha Cause- Vocals Anthony Edge- Guitar Jonas Image- Bass Adam Bomb- Drums

To watch Combat Crisis perform their brand of melodic street punk is someting of an anomoly. In a scene of dyed hair & thick skulls where women are sometimes seen and treated as an after thought, very few lead singers comand the respect and admiration that Elisha Cause does. To see her and CC whip the crowd into a frenzy and control a mass of leather jackets and studs is truly a sight to behold. MB

MODERN BROPAR: How’d you and Elisha come to meet?

ANOTHONY EDGE: I went to see some friends play a local suburban show when I first saw FTC(the band that preceded Combat Crisis) which Elisha was the singer of. I loved and ended up joining the band a few months later.

Up until that point I was oblivious that there was even a punk scene still around.

MB: What are the greatest challenges related to being a female singer in a scene who’s majority is males?

ELISHA CAUSE: I think there is a stigma on female punk singers, or an assumption that the music will not be as hard/ aggressive as our male counterparts. There isn’t enough female fronted punk bands that write about subjects we can all relate to; make a testoterone fueled crowd go crazy and thrash around, and in the same breath make girls want to join in. It takes alot of energy and tolerance to be a front person in a street punk band.

You get spit on, beer spilled on you, busted lips from the mics, etc. I tend to get trampled, being only 5’3”, but there are no complaints here. I’m not saying most girls could not handle that, but most girls would not want to, otherwise they would be doing it.

MB: Do you feel resentment, rejection or isolation from other women in the punk rock scene who sit on the sidelines(ie: those who don’t have the courage , talent, guts or drive to start their own band or label?

EC: Good question. If there is resentment from other females (or males) in the scene, I am completley unaware of it. I do get girls and guys that say “I wish I had the guts to do what you do”, so “courage” is an apropriate word to use for this question. I think that if someone REALLY wanted to do what we do, they would. I used to faint durring the first few songs of every show... I mean literally, faint. You get passed the stage fright and stop caring what people think. If you are writing music for the right reasons, it doesn’t matter what the majority thinks. If someone resented me for doing something I love, I wouldn’t care one bit.

MB: If you could change one thing about the current punk/ hardcore scene in Philly, what would that be?

AE: More young kids! The torch needs to be passed, and I’m seeing fewer new faces as time goes on.

MB: What drove you two to start a label?

AE: As long as Elisha and I have been working together, I’ve done all he recordings for our bands. I had wanted to start a label for a while. I have always respected the DIY ethics and those indeividuals who push their influence as hard as they could to help support a scene. There are alot of good, positive people working selflessly for this subcultre’s existence- musicians, writers, photographers, promoters, etc. -and I wanted to do more. Dischord Records formed in the 80’s based on an idea of documenting the punk scene in D.C. and I like the idea of creating a time machine, if nothing else.

MB: How has Combat Crisis evolved if at all since you first began?

EC: Like any band that has played for five plus years, we are better musicians, we are smarter bookers and promoters.

We are aware of our boundries and limitations. In any walk of life, whether buisness or play, when people start a project there are unavoidable stages that will be reached. Those levels are forming, storming, norming and performing. I can easily say we are in the performing stage.

Food That Rocks

The Mecca of Korean Fried Chicken And K-Pop Seri Chao meets the team that makes the tastiest chicken in the city and knows how to throw a good party. Photos by G.W. Miller III.

Y

ou know you’ve found the Mecca of Korean fried chicken Park opened Café Soho, her first restaurant venture, about five bliss when you come face to face with the statue of a years ago with the intention of introducing Korean fried chicken mysterious red monk that greets you at the front door. The to Philadelphia. The décor of the restaurant is a reflection of her next thing you should anticipate is the wait. You’re not the only impeccable taste. The ceiling is a beautiful black tile that reflects one who’s been salivating all day. the glow of the red-leather booths Welcome to Café Soho. and other color accents that flow Shining liked a crowned jewel on throughout the restaurant. In the Cheltenham Avenue, the Seoul-chic middle of the ceiling hangs a huge, lounge serves up the tastiest chicken white orbital chandelier that brings wings in Philadelphia. It’s true. Ask all of the aesthetic nuances together.

“It was pretty busy earlier but Micheal Solomonov, the James Beard Award-winning chef of Society Hill’s it’s died down a bit tonight,” says Zahav and the uber-popular Federal manager Sean Jeon, who is dressed Donuts. He’s such a huge fan that in a slim black suit.

Federal Donuts serves chicken wings Hungry patrons usually show up much later in the night, he says. inspired by Café Soho.

Magical seems like an unusual When Park decides that everything is under control and she can call it and even tacky way to describe the feeling you get when you’re eating a night, Jeon escorts her to her car, fried chicken but there doesn’t clutching her Louis Vuitton bag. seem to be a better way to describe the gluttonous rampage you will WORKS OF ART: Every chicken wing at Café Soho is fried hen he returns, the music experience at Soho. suddenly kicks up a notch twice and hand brushed to ensure balanced flavor. and the young crowd seems more alive. Perhaps it’s because they’ve been drinking n most nights, owner Sue Park stands firmly, surveying the restaurant like the general of an army while her watermelon soju all night or because of the infectious sounds infantry of servers hustles back and forth with large trays of K-Pop blaring throughout the restaurant. Forget about the of perfectly fried chicken. language barriers one might have difficulty with. This music is

O 42

W

JUMPphilly.com

catchy enough that you don’t need a translator to enjoy it.

“There are people who aren’t Korean who ask me for the name of the artists,” says server Ji Kwag. “ They want to hear more.”

Kwag rattles off names of Korean groups like Big Bang and Girls’ Generation. The song that’s currently playing is by the Wonder Girls. It’s a pulsating, rhythmic blend of old-school dance and catchy vocals.

“All of the music you hear is on my iPod,” Kwag boasts. “It’s a collection of my favorite music.”

Tucked in a corner of the restaurant is a tiny stage with a microphone. In between serving wings and drinking soju, a couple of the staffers will serenade the crowd with popular songs.

It’s something new that they’ve been doing for a few months now and the patrons seem to enjoy the live action.

Kwag jokes that Jeon makes him sing in between serving.

But he actually enjoys performing every once in a while – he’s competed OH KA PARTY PLACE: The K-Pop adds to the at several singing atmosphere, as does the watermelon soju competitions. (top image) and the bubble tea (bottom).

“Some of the guys are really good,” says Jeon. “It’s just a good way for them to have some fun at work.”

K-Pop is definitely one of the main reasons why people clamor through the doors at Soho.

“That’s the reason why people are flocking to oh ka, which translates into Five Street,” says Kwag of Café Soho’s location just off 5th Street. “It’s just a cool place to enjoy music and eat good food.”

Q

uality and detailed preparation, however, appear to be the main reasons why Café Soho has been so successful. “ The cooking process itself is a labor of love,” Park says.

The wings are fried twice to ensure that each wing is crispy on the outside and perfectly moist on the inside. The final step is to hand brush each wing and drumstick with one of their signature flavor blends to ensure a well balanced flavor distribution in each bite. “Our Soho wings are a perfect example of cooking as art,” says Park.

It was Park’s idea to create an environment built on her Korean roots, to serve the community that she’s been active in for years.

The restaurant has been so successful that they opened a second location in Blue Bell.

“Everything about Soho has been my mother’s creation and hard work,” says Park’s son, Minu, who also works at the restaurant.

Sue Park exudes a confidence that can be intimidating to those who aren’t familiar to her but it’s a hardly the full story.

“Once you get to know my mother,” says Minu, “you’ll love her.”

Find Café Soho (215-224-6800) at 468 West Cheltenham Avenue.

JUMPphilly.com

Elena's Soul photo by Emmett Culhane.Others by G.W. Miller III.

Food That Rocks

Study Away Fueling Up IMM IGR ATIO (00 N OF 1) FIC E 17 R

OCT

2005

DU BL IN(67) AIR PO RT

“

For this issue, we're profiling restaurants that feature live music – in addition to serving top-notch food. None of these places is in the heart of the action but all are worth the effort to visit.

- Kevin Stairiker

ER ION OFFIC IMMIGRAT 9 )

(304

05 3 1 MAY 20 )

Elena's Soul

W (3 HEATHRO

Dream.

Discover.”

— Mark Twain

Program Destinations Dublin London – Optional credit-bearing internship component Los Angeles – Credit-bearing internship component New York City – Credit-bearing internship component

http://sct.temple.edu/studyaway

If a restaurant has the word “soul” in the name, there’s a good chance that we’re going to like it. Elena’s promises both soul food and soulful music, and there is usually the kind of friendly, diverse crowd that makes West Philly such a great place. They also feature weekly karaoke, blues and jam nights.

4912 Baltimore Ave. ElenasSoul.com

Teri's Diner Teri’s Diner is a dive bar. However, it’s also one of the best dive bars in South Philly. In the daytime, Teri’s is your typical diner serving up your favorite assortment of cherished breakfast foods. But when day turns to night, the diner transforms itself into a fully functioning bar. DJs, live bands and joy await.

1126 S. 9th Street 267-761-9154

Ortlieb's Lounge Any establishment boasting a weekly funk and soul open mic jam has to be great, right? And you can order something called a “Frito Pie” (a cosmic mixture of cheeses, sour cream, vegetarian chili and Fritos)? This isn't the Ortlieb’s of the old days but it is a great place for nightly music and quality Tex-Mex dining.

847 N. 3rd Street OrtliebsLounge.com

North Star Bar Over the years, the North Star Bar has played host to both nationally touring acts such as the Lemonheads and Dick Dale, and an endless number of Philly bands trying to get their foot in the door. The North Star also boasts an impressive happy hour drink selection and an even more impressive menu.

2639 Poplar Street NorthStarBar.com

Relish The cornerstones of this Oak Lane eatery are modern Southern cuisine and traditional live jazz, and they deliver on both.

Owned and operated by the Bynum brothers, who also run Warmdaddy's, Relish offers a casual yet classy setting for date nights or Sunday jazz brunches. Plus, their entrée menu alone will have your mouth watering.

7152 Ogontz Ave. RelishPhiladelphia.com 44

JUMPphilly.com

Monday 9/24 Hot Snakes Underground Arts $18 21+

SEE THESE SHOWS Thanks to TheSwollenFox.com for listing info.

Check the site for complete listings.

SEPTEMBER Saturday 9/1 and Sunday 9/2 Made in America Festival ft. Jay-Z / Pearl Jam / Skrillex / Miike Snow / Afrojack / Calvin Harris / Odd Future / D'Angelo / Maybach Music / Passion Pit / Santigold / Dirty Projectors / X & more Franklin Parkway $99 ALL AGES Wednesday 9/5 Sunn O))) Union Transfer $20 sale ALL AGES Thursday 9/6 Kreator / Accept / Swallow the Sun The Trocadero $24 ALL AGES Friday 9/7 Blayer Pointdujour / I Yahn I Arkestra / The National Rifle / Philadelphia Slick Milkboy $10 21+ Saturday 9/8 WHYY Connections Festival ft.

Yo La Tengo / Frank Turner / Maps & Atlases / The Lawsuits / Fabian Akilles River Stage at the Great Plaza FREE ALL AGES Sunday 9/9 Philadelphia Doo-Wop Festival ft.

Fred Paris and the Five Satins / The Del Satins / Charlie Gracie & more River Stage at Great Plaza FREE ALL AGES Monday 9/10 Sondre Lerche / Fancy Colors World Cafe Live $15 ALL AGES Wednesday 9/12 Jaill / Fergus & Geronimo / Tough Shits Johnny Brenda's $10 21+ Wednesday 9/12 Maximo Park World Cafe Live $16 ALL AGES Thursday 9/13 The Woggles / Palmyra Delran / The GTV's Kung Fu Necktie $10 21+ JUMPphilly.com

Friday 9/14 Orion Freeman The PSALM Salon $16 ALL AGES Friday 9/14 William Elliott Whitmore / Samantha Crain Underground Arts $15 21+ Friday 9/14 Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby Tin Angel $12 21+ Saturday 9/15 Lotus / Ghostland Observatory / MiMosa / Michael Menert / Sonic Spank FDR Park $39.50 ALL AGES Sunday 9/16 Bon Iver / Anais Mitchell The Mann Center $29.50-$49.50 ALL AGES Sunday 9/16 Firewater / Skeleton Key Johnny Brenda's $12 21+ Tuesday 9/18 The Corin Tucker Band Johnny Brenda's $12 21+ Wednesday 9/19 Stephen Marley The Trocadero $25 ALL AGES Thursday 9/20 Purity Ring / Evian Christ First Unitarian Church $12 ALL AGES Friday 9/21 Ghostface Killah & Sheek Louch / Saigon / Jawnzap7 / B.A.R.S. Murre The Trocadero $25 18+ Friday 9/21 Ben Howard Union Transfer $20 ALL AGES

Monday 9/24 The Native Cats / Pet Milk Kung Fu Necktie $08 21+ Wednesday 9/26 Down / Pentagram / War Beast Electric Factory $29.50 ALL AGES Thursday 9/27 Grimes / Elite Gymnastics / Myths Union Transfer $16 ALL AGES Friday 9/28 Andrew Lipke / Railroad Fever FDR Park FREE ALL AGES

Thursday 10/11 Riverboat Gamblers / Cobra Skulls / Freshkills / Ma Jolie The Fire $12 ALL AGES Thursday 10/11 The Mountain Goats / Matthew E. White Theatre of the Living Arts $18 ALL AGES Friday 10/12 Calexico / Dodos Union Transfer $20 ALL AGES Saturday 10/13 Peelander-Z / Electric Eel Shock North Star Bar $12 21+

Friday 9/28 Minus the Bear / Cursive / Caspian Electric Factory $25 ALL AGES

Sunday 10/14 The Temper Trap / The Neighborhood Union Transfer $25 ALL AGES

Friday 9/28 Perpetual Groove / BAM! / Tweed The Blockley $13 21+

Wednesday 10/17 Soul Rebels The Blockley $15 21+

Saturday 9/29 Early Ape / Grubstake / Satellite Hearts Milkboy $8 21+

Friday 10/19 My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult North Star Bar $20 21+

Sunday 9/30 The Antlers / Port St. Willow Union Transfer $15 ALL AGES

OCTOBER Monday 10/1 Big Business / House of Lightning / L.U.N.A.R Revolt Johnny Brenda's $12 21+ Monday 10/1 Tennis / Wild Belle Union Transfer $15 ALL AGES Wednesday 10/3 Polica / Gardens and Villa Union Transfer $15 ALL AGES Thursday 10/4 The Dig / The We Shared Milk Kung Fu Necktie $10 21+ Saturday 10/6 Blue October Theatre of the Living Arts $30 ALL AGES

Saturday 9/22 Little Big League / The Downtown Club / Ryan Belski Kung Fu Necktie $8 21+

Saturday 10/6 The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Underground Arts $15 21+

Saturday 9/22 Mambo Sauce / Shinobi Ninja / Kuf Knotz / Chocolate Milk The Blockley $12 21+

Sunday 10/7 Iration / The Expendables Theatre of the Living Arts $17 ALL AGES

Friday 10/19 OFF! / The Spits / Double Negative First Unitarian Church $15 ALL AGES Tuesday 10/23 The Sea and Cake Union Transfer $15 ALL AGES Thursday 10/25 AC Newman First Unitarian Church $15 ALL AGES Friday 10/26 Aimee Mann / Ted Leo Union Transfer $32.50 ALL AGES Friday 10/26 Brandi Carlile Merriam Theater $35 ALL AGES Saturday 10/27 Citizen Cope Electric Factory $39.50 ALL AGES Monday 10/29 The xx / Chairlift Electric Factory $30 ALL AGES

NOVEMBER Thursday 11/1 The Toasters World Cafe Live $12 ALL AGES Saturday 11/3 Social Distortion Electric Factory $30 ALL AGES

45

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

Liner Notes

From Inconvenience to Independence Philly musician Attia Taylor was forced to take the stage alone. She conquered her fears, had fun and learned about herself along the way.

E

ver since I started writing and singing, I just knew I would need someone to help me out and back me up. A part of being a solo artist is trusting yourself. I never truly trusted myself until I had to.

This year I was asked to play a few shows at South by Southwest.

I asked my five piece band to travel along but they couldn’t go.

I was afraid. It was always my dream to hop on stage and create a full and luxurious sound by myself because that would be the moment I knew that I had complete control over my music. This “inconvenience” was the time for that because I was not turning this opportunity down.

M

usic is in my blood. It became an obvious variable a long time ago. My fascination with sound started with the use of Styrofoam plates and cups to make shakers and drums when I was very young. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so I always had to be resourceful. When I got to high school, I became jealous seeing independent female musicians because, for some reason, I thought there couldn’t be too many if there would be room for me. I kept asking myself, "How come they get to be that confident?"

To give you a good idea of my musical past and love for sound, I used to adore hip-hop. This was '90s hip-hop. My grandmother bought my sister and I a Biggie Smalls CD after we begged and begged her for almost a week. I was also a fan of anything poppy and colorful. Somewhere along the way, I ruined my Fisher-Price cassette player listening to the soundtrack to Beauty and The Beast on repeat. I have remained somewhat consistent and keep all of this in mind when I’m working on my music now. I always need a chilled out, down-tempo beat and a flute or keyboard to wrap around it and charm it up.

W

hen I started planning for my performance in Austin, just the thought of being alone on stage and making all of those ideas come to life seemed extremely daunting.

The best thing I could do was suck it up and make it work. At the time, I was living in a tiny apartment with my family and there was virtually no space to practice. Not to mention, I was in the middle of a 16-credit semester at Temple and working. I was calling it South By South Stress because I had no instruments, no space and no idea how I was going to turn songs that I had already worked on for two years with a band into songs that I would play live, alone, halfway across the country in just a month.

The first thing I bought was a set of brand new speakers. I had no one to listen so I had to videotape my set over and over

46

and critique it. I figured my laptop would be a good idea to use because it’s what I use to make music in the first place. I bought a 25-key midi-controller to make travel lighter.

Then, I got what I have wanted for the past 2 years – a Boss vocal loop pedal (I swear I kissed the package when it arrived).

There was something special about hearing my voice six times at once and looping words like “wild forest” that still makes me so content. I used sound clips of French people speaking on a train during my trip to Boston, employee training videos I found online, strange British cartoons and anything else that seemed interesting. I wanted every odd sound in my set. I love the feeling of taking things that aren’t traditional or safe and making them catchy. I even decided to loop a slide whistle for a circus of strange sounds. I had so much fun with the production that I forgot that I had to pack it up and take a three-hour flight in a week.

I went over my set vigorously, practicing every morning and every night. I made tons of new songs, worked on older songs, and recreated my entire sound.

H

ere I was, finally solo, being that woman I always wanted to be and navigating the world of electronics. In high school, I wanted to be this “woman who made music.” I wanted to figure out how everything worked. I wanted to navigate sounds on my own. I listened to Frou Frou and The Bird and The Bee and completely fell in love with their ability to make music that caught my attention and wasn't cliche or cheesy.

Through the force of nature, everything worked seamlessly. If I could do it all over again, I would have given myself a little more time but I’m glad I was forced to seize the day. I am much more confident now than I have ever been about my abilities.

I had no idea that I was capable of manipulating my own sounds live. Even though my old neighbors hate me now, I’m sure, I created a set full of plush, whimsical songs, learned how to be truly independent on stage and I got to play at SXSW, for crying out loud.

Attia Taylor is an East Falls native and an alumna of Girard College, Temple University and Girls Rock Philly. She co-founded Lady.Bang.Beat., a blog that champions the efforts of female musicians.

JUMPphilly.com

ISSUE #7

FALL 2012

FREE! TAKE A MAG

W

SHO GS! IN

LIST 45 P.

SUZI GOES GLOBAL

SUZI ANALOGUE IS TAKING ON THE WORLD

INSIDE: SLUTEVER, PET MILK, VOID VISION, TROPHY WIFE, MISSTALLICA, THE LAWSUITS, UNDERGROUND ARTS & MUCH MORE