JUMP winter 2014

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ISSUE #12

WINTER 2014

TAKE A MAG

ALI WADSWORTH

ON HER OWN

IS

(WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM HER FRIENDS)

THE WALLS ISSUE: THE DISTRICTS, VINNIE PAZ, BALANCE AND COMPOSURE, BURIED BEDS, DILEMMA & MUCH MORE

CONTENTS | Issue #12

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WINTER 2014

THE JUMP OFF Static Sessions at Drowning Fish Studio, Buried Beds, Cee Knowledge, Voss, Chase Allen, Dilemma, Balance and Composure, Auctioneer, Lux Perpetua, Baa Ram Ewe, Ex Friends, The Four Notes, Chris Forsyth and Cassavetes.

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THIS PLACE ROCKS Don't Tread On Me House, Shorty Boy-Boy and Studio A, Sofar Sounds, Ars Nova and Johnny Brenda's.

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MUSIC & POLITICS Former Philadelphia mayor and Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell says the arts sparked the city's revival.

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MUSIC & EDUCATION Super-producers Carvin & Ivan benefited from the kindness of their mentors. Now they're mentoring the next generation of music makers.

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COVER stories: The WALLS ISSUE Ali Wadsworth has been making music with friends for a long time. She finally released her debut solo album, with great thanks to the friends she made along the way.

Rob Grote of The Districts says his band has gained some momentum recently. That may be the understatement of the year. The young band is poised to explode on a national level.

Gravelly-voiced rapper Vinnie Paz may be Philly's most successful independent artist. But he also battles a mental disorder that traps him in his own mind.

Music has an effect on us. If it didn't, we wouldn't listen.

But do violent lyrics bring about violent behavior? In a city with a crime problem, it's a question worth asking.

Sayso was a member of famed Philly rap crew, RAM Squad. Now he's serving a life sentence in prison, convicted of a murder he says he did not commit.

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FOOD THAT ROCKS The North Star Bar has long been a place to catch a drink and a great show. You can also see musicians up close and personal in their intimate Victorian Dining Room.

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INSIDE VOICES Sammy Roland arrived in Philly as a teenager and he was nurtured by the Philly music scene. Also, Ron Gallo and his band, Toy Soldiers, took over the former studio of Dr. Dog.

COVER PHOTO: Ali Wadsworth, by Michael Bucher.

BACK COVER: Vinnie Paz, by Marie Alyse Rodriguez.

CONTENTS PAGE: (top to bottom) Chase Allen, by Jessica Flynn; Baa Ram Ewe, by Michael Bucher; The Districts, by Kate Harrold.

JUMPphilly.com

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publisher G.W. MILLER III managing editor CHRIS MALO deputy editors BETH ANN DOWNEY, NIKKI VOLPICELLI contributors SEBASTIAN ADE, NAVEED AHSAN, KYLE BAGENSTOSE, SOFIYA BALLIN , RACHEL BARRISH, TIMOTHY BECKER, KATE BODNAR, MICHAEL BUCHER, CARY CARR, SHARON CALVIN, ASHLEY COLEMAN, ANEESAH COLEY, KEVIN COOK, DARRAGH DANDURAND, CHESNEY DAVIS, GRACE DICKINSON, KELSEY DOENGES, KEVIN DORAN, MATTHEW EMMERICH, JESSICA FLYNN, SHAUN FRAZIER, JEFF FUSCO, RON GALLO, JESSICA GRIFFIN, KATE HARROLD, TYLER HORST, LUONG HUYNH, KURT HUNTE, GRETA IVERSON, ROSELLA LaFEVRE, MINA LEE, MATTHEW LEISTER, MARISA LYON, MORGAN JAMES, PEAK JOHNSON, GABRIELLE LAVIN, RICK KAUFFMAN, MEGAN MATUZAK, KATE McCANN, NIESHA MILLER, TIESHA MILLER, BRENDAN MENAPACE, BRENDAN MULVIHILL, CAROLINE NEWTON, ED NEWTON, BRANDEE NICHOLS, TIM O'DONNELL, ELIZABETH PRICE, URSZULA PRUCHNIEWSKA, ABIGAIL REIMOLD, DANA RICCI, MARIE ALYSE RODRIGUEZ, SAMMY ROLAND, CHAD SIMS, KEVIN STAIRIKER, THAD SUZENSKI, BRITTANY THOMAS, RYAN TREITEL, JONATHAN VAN DINE, ZAKEE VAUGHN (R.I.P. YOUNG MAN), JARED WHALEN, BRIAN WILENSKY, BREE WOOD chief copy editor AARON JOLLAY

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. IF YOU WANT MAGS AT YOUR LOCATION, EMAIL US AT JUMPPHILLY@GMAIL.COM. 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). We have no corporate overlords and we receive money from no one except advertisers. And we really need advertisers. I mean really.

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.

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, email us at jumpphilly@gmail.com, tweet us @JUMPphilly and find us at facebook.com/jumpphilly.

Philly rocks. Spread the word. facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Publisher's Note

Breaking Out My grandmother went into hospice care more than a year ago, so I started driving down to visit her in Elkton, Md. a few days per week.

After she passed away six weeks later, I continued the trek every week to spend time with my 90-year-old grandfather.

It’s a grueling commute, about an hour each way, most of it on a boring stretch of bland highway. The traffic often blows and I’m usually exhausted from my regular job teaching and my not-so regular job as the publisher of this magazine.

But I’ve come to enjoy my weekly travels as they allow me that rare opportunity to blast my music. By the time I get back to Philly, I’m usually hoarse from singing along.

See, at home I use a bicycle for transportation, and I refuse to wear headphones while doing that. While I’m writing stories or editing mag content, I can’t listen to music … because I will sing along.

The car has become my sanctuary and the iPod on shuffle is my salvation. Last week, I randomly listened to Lee Morgan’s bop trumpeting followed by Eric B. & Rakim’s “Paid in Full,” followed by Sun Airway’s dreamy “Oh, Naoko.”

Japanther’s “First of All” came on when I pulled up to my house so I sat in the car for another two minutes bopping my head and pounding on the steering wheel (with poor Mookie, my dog, sitting in the passenger seat).

Within the confines of my car, I have control. Being boxed in, it seems, can be a good thing every once in a while.

The theme of this issue is WALLS. As you read through, you’ll see a common thread binding the pieces together: Auctioneer and Toy Soldiers within their respective studio walls; Sayso, the former RAM Squad rapper, behind prison walls; Ali Wadsworth metaphorically breaking out of the walls of a band to become a solo artist.

We tend to build walls around ourselves, looking to create our own comfort zones. For instance, I know that I, personally, tend to be provincial, only going out in Northern Liberties, Fishtown and the nearby environs. South Philly? Ugh. I don’t think I’m alone.

Our mission at JUMP, however, is to get people to break down their walls. We want them to listen to music beyond their regular interests and travel beyond their own worlds. We want people to see that there is so much more out there.

That's why we present such a range of topics and styles in this issue (and every issue, for that matter). From Vinnie Paz of the legendary rap crew Jedi Mind Tricks to the rising indie rock superstars The Districts, we offer a sampling of everything the Philly music scene has to offer.

Go find some music. Blast it in your car or at home, or in your headphones at work, school, on the subway, wherever.

And if you ever have suggestions for music or artists we should be paying attention to, hit us up at jumpphilly@gmail.com.

- G.W. Miller III JUMPphilly.com

The JUMP Off

INSIDE: STATIC SESSIONS at DROWNING FISH p. 8 / BURIED BEDS p. 9 / CEE KNOWLEDGE p. 10 / VOSS p. 12 / CHASE ALLEN p. 12 / DILEMMA p. 13 /

Photo by Timothy Becker.

BALANCE and COMPOSURE p. 14 / AUCTIONEER p. 15 /

JUMPphilly.com

LUX PERPETUA p. 16 / BAA RAM EWE p. 16 / EX FRIENDS p. 17 / THE FOUR NOTES p. 18 / CHRIS FORSYTH p. 19 / CASSAVETES p. 20 /

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Photo by Timothy Becker.

The JUMP Off

Uncut Punk The Static Sessions video series, filmed at Drowning Fish studio in Port Richmond, spotlights local punk and hardcore bands.

“Red is better than yellow but green might be best,” videographer Nic Justice says to his brother, engineer/producer C.J. Blair.

The duo are setting up for their next Static Session, a project they started to showcase local Philly punk and hardcore bands through uncut, live performance videos shot in the studio Blair manages and co-owns, Drowning Fish.

It’s a few minutes after quirky post-hardcore band Quiet Arcs dragged their gear up the rickety metal staircase and through the maze of warehouse studio space that Drowning Fish occupies on the edge of Port Richmond.

Red is a bright color for the microphone cord that Justice is hoping not to catch in the frame while filming the band’s set. It’s better than yellow, though. Green - already plugged in and adding to the rainbow of color that feed back to Blair’s recording equipment in the adjacent room - is no longer an option.

Justice then settles on a blue cord and tests the camera view. His tripod sits on top of a rolling rig fashioned out of white piping and skateboard wheels, then stabilized by huge clamps fastened to the large floor rug.

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“We only have one camera angle,” Blair says while still tinkering with cords and gear. “We could have more if we wanted to. That’s not the hard part - finding other people who would be interested in filming. But it’s like, these are live, raw, in-studio sessions, and the idea of one camera angle is because when you go see a band, and you’re two feet in front of them, that’s the way you view the band.

“So that’s what I think is cool and really valuable about what we do for bands so it’s like, for people who haven’t seen these bands. It’s a way for people to check them out before they actually go to the venue.”

Justice and Blair are originally from Reno, Nev., and moved to Philly after Justice was through hopping from New York to Los Angeles with various film crews. Blair moved here after he was laid off from a commercial recording gig in Nashville.

“We’ve been here a couple years but we’re still pretty new to the area,” Blair says. “The punk and hardcore community is normally kids who grew up together and really tight-knit and stuff like that, so it’s still a building process.”

This aside, Philly has been welcoming to these brothers. They call it a very “manageable” city with no shortage of good punk bands. They recorded their first Static Session this past April to better showcase this local talent. They book most bands through word of mouth from friends or through other bands who come in.

“There’s, I think, a lot of people doing the indie music kind of singer-songwriter video stuff,”

Justice says. “Those are great and we listen to that stuff plenty, too. But bands like this, I don’t think really get the outlet. This is definitely the stuff we grew up on and it’s kind of an under-serviced thing. It’s a scene that we totally believe in.”

And the bands are grateful, especially because Justice and Blair do all of their Static Session work pro-bono.

“They’re taking time out of their schedule to allow us to do this,” Larry Wiechecki, vocalist for Quiet Arcs, says of Blair and Justice. “It’s a piece of media that we typically wouldn’t have available to us, so just that alone is incredible, to help out local bands and the local scene.”

“For better or worse, you can’t just write a good song and it gets noticed,” adds Justice. “It’s tough, definitely. But I also think videos help make music even more of a collaborative thing, more than it already has been.”

Justice and Blair try to make Static Sessions standout from other videos through stylistic differences. They blend black-and-white b-roll and integrate soundbites from band members saying funny things to open their videos.

Outtakes from the session with Quiet Arcs will hopefully include extensive commentary on the ‘Goths vs. Juggalos’ debate, or Wiechecki accidently hitting himself in the face with the mic, cameras rolling.

For him at least, blue was definitely not best.

- Beth Ann Downey VIDEO BROTHERS: C.J. Blair (left) and Nic Justice, with Quiet Arcs behind them. facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Stories Told (And Retold) In Spirit

Photo by Timothy Becker.

Buried Beds, which takes its name from Philly history, created a concept album based upon folktales new and old.

In the beginning, there was … well, not much.

But humanity has a way of filling in the blanks. Every civilization has its own origin stories, myths held so close to the heart that we put them on par with empirical discovery.

Buried Beds knows a thing or two about origins and apocrypha. The West Philly-based chamber pop band’s name dates back to a youthful 1793 Philadelphia, when panic from a yellow fever outbreak led citizens to bury the beds of the infected underground. With Buried Beds, as with cultural apocrypha, there’s always a story behind the story.

Nowhere is that more apparent than with the band’s newly released fulllength, In Spirit, which dropped in October with a Boot & Saddle record release show. Eliza Jones, who splits songwriting and lead vocal duties with lifelong friend Brandon Beaver, describes the follow-up to 2010’s Tremble the Sails as a challenge that forced the band to break down walls in their songwriting style.

Instead of having the freedom to write about whatever they wanted, the band decided to write songs that were rooted in the mythology of various cultures.

“With this album specifically, we really challenged ourselves to essentially write a concept album where every song on the album had to be a story that was being retold,” Jones says. “So it started with folktales and then it got into other things that we consider modern folktales.”

But beyond drawing upon the influences of storytellers who preceded them, Beaver takes the songwriting process a step further by creating his own folktales on songs like “Widow’s Cup” and “Oh Lonely Fortress!”

“If every song is just this literal translation, that’s not as interesting to me,” JUMPphilly.com

Beaver says. “It went different directions but still under that umbrella of fairy tale, folktale kind of thing. ‘Widow’s Cup’ was just one. I saw the title - I don’t even remember what the story was - but it had the word ‘widow’ in it. So I just went, ‘Oh, I’ll just create a story about a really sad widow.’”

Backed by Jones’ keyboards and Beaver’s guitar licks, the album’s keystone is its mix of bouncy pop and haunting, atmospheric soundscapes led by Hallie Sianni’s piercing viola - not a violin, she is quick to clarify. Sianni joined up with Buried Beds nearly eight years ago - a drop in the ocean compared to Jones and Beaver’s history together - at the prompting of an Internet ad.

“Since then, I’ve come to know their world and their friends and it doesn’t feel like that’s how we connected,” says Sianni, whose reserved demeanor is more than offset by the sprightly effervescence of Jones and Beaver.

The album finds itself in the fortuitous position of introducing Brooklyn songwriter Kevin Devine’s brand-new Devinyl Records. Sianni describes Devine’s honest presence as a primary reason Buried Beds was attracted to the idea of working with him.

“There’s just an authenticity about Kevin and the people he plays with,” Sianni says. “He just really enjoys playing music and happens to have made a success out of it.”

Jones describes the relationship as more than just business-oriented.

“Kevin is one of those people we just had a total spirit connection with,” she says. “We connected on a friendship level and also on a musical level.

So when we were going through the process of trying to figure out how we wanted to release the record, we all mutually decided it made sense to put it out on Kevin’s new label.”

With the backing of the proper label, In Spirit will see its vinyl release in 2014, but not before a series of videos to accompany each song on the album.

“In a sense, it’s the sister part of this record,” Beaver says, joking that they’ll finally finish the videos by spring of 2016. “Every nuance has to be interesting to look at and that complicated everything. It will be worth it in the end.”

- Kevin Doran BEDMATES: (L to R) Eliza Jones, Brandon Beaver and Hallie Sianni.

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Still Cool Like Dat

Cee Knowledge was a hip-hop pioneer with Digable Planets. And he's still at it.

In April of 1994, the Digable Planets walked out of Radio City Music Hall stunned to be holding the Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.

In reality, says Cee Knowledge (aka Craig Irving – or Doodlebug, as he was then known), the crew was just happy for the invite and the chance to kick it with some of the established legends of the music world.

“We all had our parents with us, which was a surreal situation,” he reflects wistfully. “I got my moms sitting right next to me and there are all these luminaries of the music and entertainment world around.”

“The Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat),” the first single off Digable Planets' debut album, Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space), was nominated alongside some heavy hitters of the early '90s rap charts and no one inside their camp thought they had a realistic chance of winning the award.

“I’m thinking, ‘Ok, Dr. Dre and Snoop got this,’” Cee Knowledge recalls.

“And when they said our name it was like time stopped.”

He was - and still is - flabbergasted.

“I thought, ‘Did they just say Digable Planets?’” he remembers. “Then my mom nudged me. ‘Go, get up there!’ And I was like ‘Oh, oh shit!’”

The now 46-year-old Cee Knowledge spent his formative years in the Mount Airy and West Oak Lane neighborhoods. By the time he was ready to set off for Howard University, the concepts of black empowerment, socialism and insect theory – the idea that the strength of a community lies in how well its denizens work together, free of personal agendas, for the greater good of all, much in the way insects build hives and nests – had already been ingrained upon him. That combination of ideals and concepts would evolve into the themes of Digable Planets' dense lyrical style.

“My father was part of the Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, so I always would hear stuff like that,” he says. “When I was a little kid he would tell me about the teachings of [Ahmed] Sekou Toure and Kwame Nkrumah and things like that. I wasn’t really super active yet but I was conscious of it. My mom was a little more conservative, but she knew what time it was.”

He speaks with the same tone of honesty and humility you hear in his rhymes. It endears you to him, like a long lost friend or a cousin you had never met. He seems to be someone who has no walls around him, personally or creatively.

“He is one of the coolest, kindest, most humble people that I know,” says Gary Dann, manager of the Boom Room studio and the drummer in Cee Knowledge’s current band, the Cosmic Funk Orchestra. “He believed in me and took me around the world playing drums with Digable Planets for a couple years.”

With Reachin’ having just celebrated its 20th anniversary, rumors about another Digable Planets reunion tour began to circulate.

While Cee Knowledge admits he would love for that to happen, it is most likely just a dream for the die-hards, as each member of the group has moved on to new chapters in their respective lives and careers.

Since the Planets dissolved - first in 1995 and again in 2011 after a few years of touring, Cee Knowledge has mainly performed and recorded with Cosmic Funk Orchestra. They are currently working on a new EP. Cee Knowledge brings to the Orchestra the same type of insightful and uplifting rhymes that defined the Digable Planets' steez. The new music has a similar groove as the woozy jazz loops laid over crisp break beats employed by the Planets.

The new material is amplified by a live and funkier version, which gives that Cee Knowledge flow a little extra oomph.

All in all, he is one happy funkonaut.

It is clear that he has always made music from his heart in the hope that it could reach yours. He is proud of his contributions to hip-hop history and looks forward to building on his legacy.

Though music has its fits and starts, he is still riding a natural high.

“I feel good about life, man,” Cee Knowledge notes. “I got my family. I got my health. I’m doing what I love to do. You can’t really ask for anything else.”

- Shaun Frazier

Photo by Marie Alyse Rodriguez.

The JUMP Off

facebook.com/JUMPphilly

/ˌfōtəˈjenik/ — adjective — Producing or emitting light. Find out why at www.EveryoneIsPhotogenic.com JUMPphilly.com

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Straight Outta L-Town Voss may have started as a joke but the rapper is on point now.

Sweat drips from Philly-based rapper Voss' forehead, nose and chin. Dressed simply and chicly in a black tank top, simple gold chain, grey jeans and boat shoes, the 25-year-old rapper bounces from one end of the stage to the other, even jumping off to sing the chorus to his recent single “Tarantino.”

The room is warm and energetic, with fans pressed against the stage upstairs at Milkboy for the MC's last night of his Reservoir Dogs tour.

Bouncing hands are up in the air and rarely come down, except when Voss closes his set with a word of appreciation for any support and a vow that he will continue creating great music for those who want to hear it.

The crowd wants to hear it and Voss knows why. He says he takes pride in his writing.

“I don't make fast food rap," he says of his lyrical ability. “I want to make something you can feast on but you can still enjoy. The taste will hit you right away but then you will taste a new flavor the next week."

Though the rapper is good at feeding the needs of his audience, it is never at the expense or limitation of his creativity.

“I just rap, I rhyme words,” says Voss, whose grunt-like voice is streamlined with precise delivery. “I don't see why I should limit myself to one type. I understand the commercial importance of finding a niche but I'm too eclectic to put myself in one lane.”

He says he started listening to hip-hop when he was 10, becoming a dedicated fan of legends like N.W.A., Public Enemy, Rakim and Big Daddy Kane. He reminisces on his first rhyme as a 14-year-old, called “Straight Outta L-Town,” a humorous ode to his hometown of Levittown, Pa., which he spit over N.W.A.'s “Straight Outta Compton” beat.

“A lot of my friends heard it and laughed at it and thought it was funny,” Voss says, “but then people started telling me I should really start to rap.”

At the time, Voss says he was only joking around. He didn’t think he could ever be like his favorite rhymers. But after listening to more obscure artists, he began to feel there was a place for him in the rap game.

“There are more lanes to hip-hop than just what I was hearing initially,” he asserts. “So, I started building up from there and I just became more confident in my ability to write serious rhymes, just because of the people telling me I could do it until eventually I believed them.”

At 16, Voss started performing and recording. He also started battling. In 2012, Voss took the stage at BET's 106 & Park Freestyle Friday, winning five times in a row, earning him Hall-of-Fame status.

Fellow rapper Taizu has seen Voss in action many times. The two went on tour this past fall.

“He's good with crowd control,” says Taizu. “He knows what songs to pick for what environment. He knows what's going to get people excited. He knows what's going to get them to throw their hands up. He plays on to that really well, which is important as a performer. The ability [to] tune into the crowd and give them what they want.”

Even with all of his steps toward success, Voss says he's still learning as he goes, dealing with the challenges being an up-and-comer can present.

“You got a guy still making Eminem jokes in 2013 and if I can get that same guy to buy a shirt at the end of the night —which is what happened — I can do anything,” he says. “Those obstacles are always going to present themselves but at the end of the day, people respect talent. So if I can show them that, I have nothing to worry about.”

- Chesney Davis

Brand Manager Chase Allen was a football star. Now's he's a rapper and budding entrepreneur.

It’s around 9 p.m. on a Friday night and sound check commences inside The Fire on Girard Avenue. Allen Hamilton III, better known as Chase Allen, is the headliner for tonight’s show.

But sitting by the curb at a table outside, he appears relaxed.

“I’m just a performer tonight, just like anybody else,” explains the 24-year-old hip-hop artist/ songwriter.

His demeanor is completely composed.

A native of West Philadelphia, Allen played football during the majority of his youth.

Positioned as a linebacker, he was skilled and quick on the field - hence, his stage name.

After Pop Warner practices, he’d spend time watching his two older brothers - one who made beats and another who both rapped and made beats - as they created music in their bedroom closet, which was their makeshift recording studio.

“I just sat there for like three hours and just watched,” Allen remembers.

Football, however, remained his primary passion. He was set to play for West Virginia University after graduating from Overbrook High School in 2007 but a motorcycle accident just

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two weeks after graduation altered his future. He shattered his ankle. The linebacker in him had to take the bench. The artist stepped on to the field.

“I was in the bed for a month and a half with my leg up just writing raps in my Blackberry,” he recalls. “I wrote so many raps.”

He dropped his first mixtape in 2010.

From his very first mixtape, Follow Da Leader, to D.A.R.K. (Define a Real King), his fifth and latest

project released last fall, he presents honesty, a slice of his life.

“I don’t rap about fake things and stuff that I don’t live,” he declares.

Music has afforded Allen great opportunities, such as opening up for J. Cole and Diplo at the University of Pennsylvania’s Irvine Auditorium in 2011 and performing at the 2013 A3C Festival in Atlanta. While his career in music is his main priority, Allen also plans to grow his brand, Bank Account Mafia, otherwise known as BAM, into a full-fledged lifestyle and business enterprise.

Looking down at the black BAM T-shirt that he is wearing, Allen explains the meaning of the three tuxedo clad men with a mafia-inspired style and moneybags for heads on the front. Getting money is not the sole objective. BAM is also about having a fearless ambition.

“That’s cliché to say that it’s a lifestyle but it really is about self-worth and improving your self-worth no matter what you do,” he says.

“Whether you are an individual going to school, getting your master’s degree or whether you’re following your dreams trying to become the next entrepreneur, it’s really just improving yourself.”

For Allen, pursuing music goes beyond the desire of fortune and fame. Hip-hop is more of a pursuit of freedom.

“It’s like a room where you can do whatever you want,” he says. “That’s what I think hip-hop is.”

- Aneesah Coley facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by Jessica Flynn.

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

The JUMP Off

Finding The Magic Moment

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

Calling Dilemma a producer doesn't do justice to the multi-talented musician/artist.

Late in the evening, music producer Dilemma walks in the B room at MilkBoy Studios and slaps five with fellow producer/engineer Joe Gallagher, a.k.a. Joe Logic, who is laid out on the peanut butter-colored couch, gearing up for a long night.

When most people are winding down for the day, Dilemma’s work is really just beginning.

"I stay up all night in those late-night studio sessions because there is something called ‘the magic moment’ that happens, usually after 3 o'clock and before 8 o'clock in the morning," Dilemma says and snaps his fingers. "At any given time, the magic spirit will come by and whisper something in your ear and that magic happens, everything comes together."

Sometimes the magic moment is when Dilemma finds the perfect sound to complete a track, or when he gets in the booth and lays a melody of gibberish over the music that may be used as a guide for the artist to finish the song later.

Reaching into his book bag, Dilemma pulls out his laptop, plugs it into the console and begins playing tracks that he worked on this past week. He scoots up in his chair, adjusts his rose-patterned hat and hits the space bar on his keyboard as Gallagher listens and gives JUMPphilly.com

his feedback on each one. The two speak in production language, which sometimes includes words like "warmer," "fatter," and more often than not, just sound effects instead of actual words.

You can’t identify Dilemma by what has become a watered-down definition of a “producer.” Not just a “beat maker,” he excels at vocal production, songwriting and engineering. He is a creative ball of energy, full of ideas that come to life in his music. He’s thinking about it all the time and even puts down ideas in an app on his phone.

“One of the things that he does really well is his understanding of arrangement," Gallagher explains. "It comes from him being a talented writer and performer.”

The University of the Arts is what brought Dilemma to Philadelphia in the early 2000s.

He played saxophone and studied to become a music teacher. The idea of becoming a producer had never crossed his mind. It was there that he roomed with longtime friend (and now musical director to the stars), Adam Blackstone. He taught himself how to produce on equipment left behind by Blackstone while he was away touring.

Working diligently at perfecting his craft, Dilemma eventually became a part of the

resurgence of Sigma Sound, helping to bring the studio back to prominence within the Philadelphia music scene. He was one of the first in-house producers at the renovated studio, and has worked with some rap juggernauts like Meek Mill, Black Thought, Chill Moody and Joe Budden.

Dilemma recently put out a remix project that is a unique mash-up of Nas' Illmatic and Kendrick Lamar's Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, entitled illkidmaticcity. He even had the opportunity to share the project with one of the original Illmatic producers, Large Professor.

His production has opened numerous doors for him outside of the music industry, as well.

He produced the theme music for TV One’s new series “Verses and Flow,” which just entered its third season. He also just wrapped the first season of Fuse TV’s "The Hustle After Party," where he served as co-host/DJ. Dilemma created all the music played during the live performance and interview-based show.

With a TV show, noteworthy production credits and finding himself instrumental in the movement of the next generation in hip-hop and R&B music in Philly, Dilemma remains in awe of the power of music.

“You never know when you are going to make that record that could possibly change the world, or get to that person who hears it and goes on to change the world,” he says. “That makes the late nights worth it.”

- Ashley Coleman

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The JUMP Off

Suburban Punks in The City

Photo by Jonathan Van Dine.

Balance and Composure grew up playing Philly. Now, two of five members call the city their home.

Stepping out of his back door into the South Philly air, Jon Simmons lights up a cigarette while taking a breather from the small party inside. This gathering is one of several celebrating a week full of accomplishments. The day prior, Simmons and his band, Balance and Composure, released their second full-length album, The Things We Think We’re Missing. Tomorrow, he and the band’s four other members will pile into their van and embark on a month-long U.S. tour followed immediately by a full tour to include dates in Europe.

“It’s been a long day,” Simmons, vocalist and guitarist says, sporting a ruffled-to-the-side hairdo, a pair of jeans and one of an endless supply of band T-shirts.

His backyard is no bigger than an average dorm room. Two blocks from Geno’s Steaks, the house is tucked away from most of the city’s noises this time of night - just the hum of a generator and a repetitive bass drum from speakers inside are audible. Simmons and his roommate, B&C’s guitarist Andrew Slaymaker, banter with one another over the best and worst parts of tour life.

Best friends tend to act that way.

Balance and Composure played their first show in December of 2007 at Siren Records in Doylestown, the band’s hometown.

The five 20-somethings have come a long way since then, signing to No Sleep Records in early 2009 and releasing their debut full-length, Separation, in 2011.

The Things We Think We’re Missing debuted at number 51 on Billboard’s Top 200 Chart, number 3 on the Vinyl Chart, number 16 on the Rock Chart

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and number 19 on the Indie Chart.

The band approached this album differently from prior releases, spending two weeks secluded in a cabin in East Stroudsburg, writing day-in and day-out. The result is a highly focused collection of songs.

“I feel like it’s how we’re supposed to sound, so it could be the next step for us,” says Simmons.

Each song is an explosion of anthem-like instrumentals balanced with Simmons’ somber yet impacting vocals. The lyrics, amplified by the music, carry the listener through an emotional journey of personal struggles.

“I tend to write a lot about spiritual things,” says Simmons. “Spiritual battles you have with yourself, like growing out of the religion you grew up with. It’s a really desperate record – like a desperate need to be okay.”

Reviews for the album have been positive. On the day of the release, the band received an influx of social media attention. While mostly from distant strangers, some things stood out, like the L.A. Kings tweeting, “@balanceandcomp album of the year,” to which they could only reply, “@ LAKings: Thanks, but Flyers forever.”

Simmons finishes his smoke and steps inside.

The walls of his living room are decorated with art and posters. Below a Nirvana print rests a vast record collection that could spark envy in any analog junkie. Though they grew up and started the band in Doylestown, Simmons and Slaymaker made the move to Philadelphia in May 2013, mostly out of boredom.

“There’s just so much more to do in Philly,” says

Simmons. “In Doylestown, it’s the same five bars and you run into everybody you know. We just needed a change in scenery and we’ve always loved Philly.”

Growing up as suburban punks who commuted to shows at the First Unitarian Church since they were 15, Philadelphia has always been a home away from home for them.

“Some of our best shows have been in Philly,” says Simmons. “We have the most support [here].”

The other three members of B&C - Erik Petersen (guitar), Matt Warner (bass) and Bailey Van Ellis (drums) - are content to stay out of city limits.

“They like the suburbs,” admits Simmons. “It’s annoying.”

After practicing as many as four times per week after a full day’s work, the mystique of being a working musician can get a little washed out.

The months between tours foster anxiety and an eagerness for the guys to hit the road.

“You need it,” says Simmons. “You want it done by the end of tours, but after a month back you’re like, ‘Ok …’”

Slaymaker adds, “Touring is just so much more fun than fucking working a job and getting up at 7 o’clock in the morning.”

As Simmons and Slaymaker continue entertaining their guests, the night seems very normal. Though the conversations include chatter about last-minute booking details and upcoming tour dates, the party is not unlike the many others happening in South Philly. The two guys are assimilating quite well after jumping ship on suburbia and taking advantage of Philly.

“I don’t think I’m going back,” Simmons says.

- Jared Whalen

FLYERS FANS FOR LIFE: (L to R) Bailey Van Ellis, Erik Peterson, Andrew Slaymaker, Jon Simmons and Matt Warner. facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by Kate Harrold.

Walls Of Sounds When you listen to Auctioneer 's recordings, you can almost hear the spaces they recorded in. At least the bandmates can.

It's a dimly lit studio in the basement of a hive of recording spaces that sit on American Street, in an unassuming warehouse that acts like a peninsula of life beside a wide plain of nothing - cement, road, an office building that's been closed for hours. It's spacious.

"You laugh so hard," frontman Craig Hendrix tells keyboard player Jesse Moore, who roars with laughter.

Then, they launch into "Devil is a Mockingbird" with the rest of their indie pop band, Auctioneer, which also includes bass player Todd Erk and drummer Tommy Bendel. The studio is cavernous - it makes everything a little more huge - and you can hear Moore's belly laugh through the sound of their playing.

"With Craig, he's always thinking about space and sound and how to push yourself to write new music," Moore says. "I always feel like whenever we start working on music, no matter how grand or simple the song is, the theme that's always there is that it's very composed. It's very considerate."

Their last album, Future Faces, was no different - louder and wider than the band’s 2011 self-titled EP, for which Hendrix adopted a more stag songwriting technique. He says Future Faces, which dropped last June, was a "band" record, crafted with super-sonic deliberation, marking out each musician's deep strengths with a variety of paced arrangements.

"I do think I'm learning not to cram too much shit into one song, which I've definitely tried to do," Hendrix says with a grin and then trails off.

Moore laughs and so does the rest of the group, all-knowing-like.

"Density was paramount to songwriting in my opinion for a long time," Hendrix goes on to admit. "It was always like a Crayola 64 box, taking them out all at one time."

Space - in music, in location - it's an instrument in itself.

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SPACE MEN: (L to R) Jesse Moore, Craig Hendrix, Todd Erk and Tommy Bendel in their studio.

Anything you do within a space, whether you're practicing, writing, recording, sharing - it has an effect on that thing that you're practicing, writing, recording, sharing. It's a consideration that goes lengths in songwriting, as well.

"I think any time you record music, the place that you record it incorporates itself with the sound that ends up in the final project," Hendrix explains. "Our current space will contribute in that way. Whenever I listen to whatever we record in here, for the rest of my life, I'll be able to hear the space. I'll be able to hear the room, which was how it is with Future Faces and how it was with other - Nikki Volpicelli recordings we've done."

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Lux Perpetua started as a solo project but it has grown in members and evolved in sound.

Lux Perpetua is adventurous. And they’re openminded. But Lux Perpetua has only been “they” for about a year.

Singer/guitarist Justin Wolf and bassist Matt Gibson have known each other for years, having grown up together in Charlottesville, Va. They met drummer Spencer Carrow while working together at Mambo Movers, a relocation company known for employing lots of creative people, such as musicians, artists and writers.

Before Wolf teamed up with his moving partners, he’d written and recorded everything by himself.

It was a “labor of love” sort of project, with Wolf basically releasing albums for years, just to hand out to his friends. That sort of independence allowed Wolf to play and write however he felt inclined, which shows on his recordings.

“I really enjoy when a song speaks to me,” Wolf says. “Heavy Shreds the Left Hand was kind of written through the recording process. I’d write a rough outline and then kind of jam and edit it into a full song. It was a weird way to record but it was a fun experiment.”

That may explain the many parts and variety of the 2011 Heavy Shreds’ songs, for example, the change from mirage-like and angular “Little Slice of Heaven,” to the many movements of “Here Comes the Red Witch.”

Gibson and Carrow joined Wolf over the last year, making Lux Perpetua a three-piece band rather than Wolf’s exclusive recording project.

His unconventional songwriting has meshed well

IN THE LUSH: (L to R) Justin Wolf, Matt Gibson and Spencer Carrow. with Gibson and Carrow thus far.

“Now we’re able to communicate with each other like a band,” Gibson says, “which is to play and jam and get ideas that way. I feel we have the best of both worlds. There’s a prominent songwriter and there’s a rhythm section that can bounce ideas off each other.”

As the band has practiced together, they’ve been increasingly satisfied with being able to put each other’s personalities into the songs. Wolf has been open-minded about finding an outlet to change the Lux Perpetua recording process. It changed in October with their first EP as a three-

The Odd Squad The Filoromo sisters have created music together for more than a decade. Their latest project, Baa Ram Ewe, is loud and whisical.

Baa Ram Ewe isn’t just that chant from the movie about a pig. It’s a sister act between Meghan and Maura Filoromo, two 20-somethings from West Philadelphia who took their love for an underrated, selfless Babe and turned it into a power-pop ensemble.

“It’s whimsical,” says Meghan under a smile. “It’s fun to say and it sticks out.”

The sisters have been writing and performing together since the ripe ages of 10 and 6. They may have changed their name from The Odd Squad, Oak Oak Okay and Dear Deer, but they are keen to continue the traditional theme of internal woes and worries.

“We write a lot about not knowing what we’re doing and portray that in a way that’s interesting,” Meghan says.

And interesting they are. Aside from collecting field recordings of dripping water and dismembered construction sites, Maura plays the keyboard and dabbles with a guitar. Meghan

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SISTER ACT: Maura (left) and Meghan Filoromo. hits away at the drums, glockenspiel and her homemade instruments. To create tambourinelike apparatuses, the young artist fills heartshaped chocolate boxes and empty pill bottles with keys and organic materials like bits of pine cones, acorns and pine needles.

It was a mere two years ago when the girls first hit the stage after years of practice at the Girls Rock Philly studio space and in Meghan’s lounge room.

The sisters premiered live at Old City Coffee.

“We were too loud,” Meghan says with a laugh before offering a kind-hearted, “Whoops.”

Loud is the essence of Baa Ram Ewe, which

Photo by Mchael Bucher.

Three-Lux

piece band, Make Your Purposes Mine. It clocks in at 12 minutes and is largely ambient, aside from the chaotic climax of “The Loop.”

“It’s sort of progressive rock but not in a cheesy way,” Carrow says, making an overarching statement of the band’s sound. “Our live set is now all over the place. Some of the songs have a more crowded vibe and some are more conventional rock songs.”

The direction of the band seems to be turning toward a heavier sound in comparison to what’s coming on the band’s first full-length, Hehbehdehbehbehdeh, which drops in March. Wolf recorded the majority of that album himself.

Mountain Man’s Amelia Meath contributed vocals. Gibson played bass and Phil Pardell played drums on a few songs. As a whole, it’s mostly as experimental as the title suggests.

“Until recently, it’s been all me recording,” Wolf says. “It’s been interesting translating all the songs live and figuring out the songs that way because it changes them quite a bit and makes the other guys’ personalities come into it.”

For a short time, the band tried out additional members - like a second guitarist and a female vocalist, but things basically didn’t work out. According to Carrow, the extra guitarist essentially just told the three current members of the band that they didn’t need him, which actually worked well for a band that has been working so well together with their current lineup.

“When you work together as a band as a whole, you’re all contributing the same amount of sweat into the project,” Wolf says. “It’s always felt disingenuous when there’s a primary songwriter who writes the music and says, ‘No, this is how you play that part.’ I don’t want it to seem like it’s just my band.”

- Brian Wilensky is a meld of punk and pop, influenced by the Ramones, Beatles, Beach Boys and Beirut.

Last summer, the duo hit the West Coast for their first short-length tour, which Maura refers to as a “tourcation.” They only played three shows - in Portland, Long Beach and San Francisco - but the sisters agree that the tour was valuable.

“One thing we were able to do was become more relaxed with playing live,” Maura says. “We just got more comfortable with saying, ‘OK. We’re ready. Let’s go.’”

The girls continue to reminisce about their tourcation and the positive reception they encountered, which they really appreciate.

“You can kind of say it’s this cute thing these sisters are doing, but they’re really great at it and you can tell they’re sincere and love what they do,” says the girls’ friend Andrew Keller. “It’s conscious and symbolic pop about serious issues and it just works.”

Though the band doesn’t have any shows for the future on the books, fellow musicians and friends of Baa Ram Ewe have been known to ask them to join in performing at Philadelphia cafés and bars.

And until then, the girls plan to record more songs and go with flow of things.

“We can’t end,” says Meghan. “We’re family.”

- Shauna Bannan

Photo by Mchael Bucher.

The JUMP Off

facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by Darragh Dandurand.

Ex Friends For Life The members of Ex Friends have a combined 120 years of experience.

When a history teacher, a woodworker, an illustrator and a music therapist combine creative musical forces, you find a project that's been carefully carved from multiple, colorful backgrounds. That’s the makeup of Ex Friends, known best for their pop-based punk songs that are aggressively captivating and totally “gritty Philadelphia,” with a layer of scariness over them.

Joel Tannenbaum and JP Flexner got to talking about starting a band while at Riot Fest in 2011. Flexner was filling in on drums for the band Weston and Tannenbaum was playing his first show in 13 years with his band, Plow United. They decided to combine Tannenbaum's songwriting with Flexner's drumming and design skills, promptly forming Ex Friends with bass player Audrey Crash and guitarist Jayme Guokas. Two years and two 7-inch records later, the band has no plans of slowing down.

They've opened for Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg with Andrew W.K., Doc Hopper and The Dead Milkmen. Noisey recently endorsed their latest music video for "Dirty Ben Franklin," a song that showcases the band’s local roots.

Tannenbaum finds lyrical inspiration in The Kinks' Ray Davies for his approach at writing about politics through people and their stories.

"It's about all of the things that are messed up about the city but also beautiful," Tannenbaum says. "In terms of the lyrics of that song, I guess that the idea is that, before anyone built a European-style city here, there were people who were here before and were all kind of displaced by that process.

And the city itself is violent and dirty, as you know if you live here. Whenever I'm walking around this city, as I've been doing for most of my adult life, I feel like the ghosts of whatever were here before kind of are present and are a part of that violence and disconnect."

Crash is a classically trained musician and longtime Philly punk music figure who performed with bands like Myles of Destruction and the allfemale three piece Firepussy. She and Guokas, formerly of Men in Fur and still active with Glitter, in combination with Flexner's professional punk-pop art designs and Tannenbaum's years of fronting Plow United, have acquired quite a following here.

"I don't think we have a particular fan base," says Flexner. "I think we're four people with a combined 120 years experience on this earth who have made contacts who are friends with us who will come hang out with us on a Saturday night."

"And then there are the people we've never met before and they're there because something in the words or the music or the art spoke to them and connected with them and then they usually become friends," adds Tannenbaum. "That's usually what happens. I guess if you were to ask me what I think punk music is all about, I guess it would be that."

This past November, Ex Friends released their first full-length, Rules For Making Up Words, put out on Less Than Jake drummer Vinnie Fiorello's label, Paper + Plastic. They're working on a third EP, to be released by Arik Victor and Creep Records, who also put out the previous two 7-inches.

"I think we all have that mentality that we're just going to keep playing music until we die," says Flexner. "These are four lifers you're dealing with."

- Brittany Thomas

A FRIENDLY CUDDLE: (L to R) Audrey Crash, Jayme Guokas, JP Flexner and Joel Tannenbaum.

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Photo by Michael Bucher.

The JUMP Off

The Citywide Specials The Four Notes, not the drink specials, are the main attraction at Bob & Barbara's.

It’s early on a Saturday night at Bob & Barbara’s Lounge, before the crowd comes in, but there’s already money in the tip jar.

The Four Notes open their marathon 9:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. set with a sweet, jazzy jam. Kelvin Nathaniel faces the amp to tune his guitar. Billy Holloman sways at his organ, feeling the music.

Wayne Morgan jams on the drum kit he rolled into the South Street bar about an hour prior. His lips keep time with the beat of the music he’s creating.

Fill-in saxophonist Sam Reed wipes sweat off his brow, even though the set has just begun.

Jamming out this long groove seems to be something The Four Notes do for themselves to get ready for the night. By 11 p.m., the bar will be packed with dancing 20-somethings who slug PBRs and Jim Beam shots in this, the home of the Citywide Special. There will also be an older crowd of regulars to hear the band play their set of jazz, rock and R&B staples - perhaps the most popular being their rousing rendition of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”

You can see from their faces that these musicians have seen, heard and done it all. They provide the music that anyone can dance to, anyone can drink to, the music that can break down the barriers of the young and the old in search of a fun night out.

“It’s really all about the people,” says Nathaniel.

“We want the people to enjoy themselves. When they leave here and come back, I know they had a good time. That’s really what it’s all about. When I see the same crowd, and the more they bring friends with them, I’m like, ‘Wow, OK. We must be doing something right.’”

Though Nathaniel, Morgan and Holloman took up their Saturday residency at Bob & Barbara’s just about a year ago, they’ve been playing and coming here for as long as they can remember.

They knew the original owners, Bob Porter and Barbara Carter. Nathaniel carries fond memories of sitting with Porter early on Mondays, when the bar used to hold open mic nights.

“He liked music,” Nathaniel says. “He enjoyed jazz music, so that’s why he kept the bands here.”

The current owner, Jack Prince, also a “musical connoisseur” according to the band, is a former partner of JJ’s Grotto. That venue boasted live jazz entertainment, as well. Prince acquired Bob & Barbara’s in 1994, and then the building next to

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it, expanding the bar to its current two addresses.

Technically, each half of the bar has its own address.

“Before, when it was just a single address, it was really small,” Nathaniel says. “Every time somebody went to the bathroom, you had to move left, right, to the side. I used to come in on Monday nights and play and I’d be in the corner between the two bathrooms. Every time someone would come, I’d have to lift the guitar up and wait until they opened the door and then put the guitar back down. It was pretty tight, so I think he made a big improvement by making the place bigger.”

Despite the changes to the venue, one thing has always helped it stand out - the Hammond B3 organ. It fills out melodies and bass notes during The Four Notes’ sets, and it saw several other talented players before Holloman.

“Bob & Barbara’s has been here for a long time, maybe 30 or 40 years, and they always had an organ,” says Nathaniel. “I think this is the only place left with an organ - a real Hammond B3 organ.”

But what they haven’t had until recently is a younger audience coming in week after week to appreciate music that was written before they were born.

“A lot of people are not really in tune - mentally, physically and educationally - to what good music is,” Morgan says. “A lot of people only know what they hear. I’m not against rap or anything because

there is a place for everything but the young people come in here and actually come up to us and ask us, ‘Well what was this song? Who was this by?’ We really love that."

He goes on to point out that many of the samples used in rap are taken from the music he and his peers actually created.

"Our audience can come in here and actually see guitars,” says Morgan. “They can see an organist, they can see a drummer, they can see a horn player - actually creating this music. And they love it. And I love that so very, very much.”

“I think it’s all the universal aspect of it because they see it actually being done right before their eyes,” adds Nathaniel. “It’s not sampled or anything. It’s not on vinyl or the laptop. It’s four guys actually producing it with their own hands.

I think they’re amazed and they enjoy it and it sounds great to them. They recognize some of the things we do and they appreciate it. And I appreciate them appreciating us.”

When The Four Notes finish that opening jam, the growing crowd claps. It's not a polite, barband-that-everyone-is-trying-to-talk-over kind of clap. It's real. Because for the young or the old, the rich or the poor, the greatest of live music lovers or those who come out mostly for those $3.50 Citywides, The Four Notes are still the main attraction.

- Beth Ann Downey THREE NOTES: (L to R) Wayne Morgan, Kelvin Nathaniel and Billy Holloman. facebook.com/JUMPphilly

The Cosmic American

Photo by Michael Bucher.

Chris Forsyth bends guitars to make amazing sounds

Chris Forsyth lights up sound - whether it’s through his jammed-out, haze-dream supernova solo work (like on 2012’s Kenzo Deluxe LP), the Velvet Underground-like experiment in psych (via his past work with the group Peeesseye), or his most recent vehicle, The Solar Motel Band.

The 40-year-old calls his sound ‘cosmic Americana,’ which started as a genre tag a reviewer gave his music and then ended up sticking.

“Categories are useful,” admits Forsyth. “It’s an attempt at some other way of talking about the music. There are American roots in the things that I do.

There’s also a psychedelic thing running through it, so it sounds good to me.”

Indeed, this is what runs through Forsyth’s newest body of work, the fourpart Solar Motel suite for which he decided to put together a full band. Grooves and riffs are established in early parts and expand into cowbell-infused guitar freakouts with a huge driving pulse. It’s psychedelic in the way that “Black Sabbath” (the movie) is, with technicolor lights and cascading rhythms. "Part I" and "Part II" work as bookending guitar workouts based rhythmically in Forsyth’s muted strums and come together to form an impressive sound.

"Part III" and "Part IV" reveal the definite Americana vibe, proving the tag sits correctly in description. All four parts seem to run the gamut of sounds that a guitar can be bent and shaped into making.

Forsyth and the rest of the four-piece Solar Motel Band were able to hone in on what these compositions could really become through extensive practice last June during the group’s month-long residency at Ortlieb’s. The band played two sets every Thursday night of the month.

“Honestly, I think we were kind of blowing people away,” Forsyth says, referring to his improvisational technique. “There’s a real alchemy within the band when we perform live. There’s no substitute for that. You can’t plan or make it happen.”

Forsyth received his first guitar at age 14 after seeing Randy Rhoads, former guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne, on the cover of a Guitar magazine.

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“Playing guitar is a social thing,” Forsyth says. “Playing guitar at 15, you become the focal point ... and there’s the girl thing ... but it soon becomes a cosmic thing. I remember sitting in my room, strumming a D chord, hitting it over and over again and thinking, ‘It feels so good.’ I try to get that same feeling of hitting that D chord over and over when I was 15 every time I play, though. Age or experience brings some sort of conceptual gravity, but that first instinct is still an ideal.”

Solar Motel drummer Steven Urgo sees Forsyth as the ideal musician for a few different reasons.

“He’s a total virtuoso as far as guitar playing goes,” Urgo says. “The crazy thing is that he’s also a really good songwriter. A very rock ‘n’ roll songwriter, at that.”

Since moving to Kensington from Brooklyn in 2009, Forsyth has found himself in an ideal place to make music unencumbered by some of the restrictions he felt were palpable there.

“Philly’s great,” Forsyth says. “It actually reminds me a lot of Brooklyn when I first moved there. It’s cheap and if there’s something you want to do, you can just go do it. There are places to play and there are good musicians. It feels like a community.”

It was in Brooklyn that Forsyth first explored the outer reaches of guitar music, through his work with Peeesseye and his other musical endeavors.

“I was playing with a bunch of rock bands before investigating improvisation, drone and minimalism,” says Forsyth. “I did that for six or seven years but I was always attracted to the different textures of rock music.”

Forsyth recently embarked on a solo tour through Europe, where audiences cast a curious eye on his experimental style of guitar playing. He is used to being considered one the strange ones, musically-speaking, so he had not expected those overseas to be as receptive to “cosmic Americana” as the Americans themselves.

“There’s an exoticism in Europe,” Forsyth says. “People in Europe my age didn’t grow up listening to rock bands. They grew up listening to techno.

There’s not many people who can convincingly bend a note on the guitar or whatever, so it’s like, ‘Oh, who is this primitive American street musician?’”

- Kevin Stairiker

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Photo by Jessica Flynn.

The JUMP Off

The Band To End All Bands Cassavetes includes musicians who all perform in other bands. But this is no side project.

It would be metaphorical if Fishtown’s Kung Fu Necktie was fixed with a revolving door. That’s what Cassavetes, the Philly-based band who is playing there tonight, has become for to various punk musicians in search of ’90s rock nostalgia.

Cassavetes began in 2004, when founders Josh Agran and Pat McCunney started writing melodic, grungy rock 'n’ roll as an outlet different from the punk bands they’d performed with since elementary school.

“We were writing this stuff from being influenced as guys that were in punk and hardcore bands, involved in the West Philly Stalag 13 scene,” says McCunney, Cassavetes guitarist and former member of Kill The Man Who Questions. “But the type of stuff we were writing was completely removed from that, so it felt fresh and reminded us what we listened to before we got into punk.”

With at least 10 or 20 songs under their belt by 2009, the two musicians started trying to put a band together. But much harder than the musicmaking was finding a steady line-up. Mike Polizze (Purling Hiss, The Loved Ones), Justin Collier (Man Overboard), Sean McGuinness (Pissed Jeans), Ryan Ellis (Pony Pants), Brad Wallace (Orchid, Transistor Transistor) and Ben Pierce (Restorations) have all come and gone

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from the Cassavetes roster over the years.

In December 2012, after a brief stint with the name Night Genius (which Agran admits wasn’t a group favorite but was decided in the throes of line-up frustration), Agran and McCunney finally found members they believed would stick. They were Jon Murphy of Sore Saints on drums and Steve-O from The Holy Mess on bass. Two or three weeks after their first practice, the group was in the recording studio.

“It came together very fast,” says Murphy.

“We hit the ground running,” adds Agran, vocalist and guitarist for Cassavetes, who also plays guitar in Paint It Black.

Chris Sigda (Likers, Koji) ended up taking over bass duties after Steve-O quit due to The Holy Mess commitments. Agran, McCunney, Murphy and Sigda are now the ones sitting here, scarfing food and passing around pitchers of Kenzinger at Johnny Brenda’s after the KFN load-in. The guys joke around, discuss other local groups and upcoming shows. Agran and Murphy walked half of the short distance between venues holding hands. It’s also McCunney’s birthday.

It’s clear these guys know each other and see each other quite a lot. They cringe at the term "side project" being associated with Cassavetes.

“This is my outlet for everything that I want to write guitar-wise,” says McCunney. “It’s me, and that’s refreshing because I’m not trying to sound like this band or sound like this genre. It’s just whatever comes out. It happens to be heavy rock.”

“I absolutely adore being in Paint It Black,” Agran adds. “But now it has kind of taken a backseat in my life. We’re still playing of course and we’re still making records. But stepping back gave me more time to pursue this band, which is mine and Pat’s

baby that we’ve been working on for so long.”

Currently, Cassavetes has a three-song EP of older material that’s available online and about to be released on tape. It’s aptly named Cassavetes, a Tape, and was recorded a few weeks into the previous line-up. The band’s upcoming fulllength was produced by Jeff Zeigler of Uniform Recording (Kurt Vile, The War on Drugs, Purling Hiss) and features collaborative songwriting with only a few examples of older material.

“In my mind, the best bands utilize their bandmates to the nth degree,” says Agran. “Chris actually wrote a song on the record by accident or spur of the moment. I’m not the kind of person who is like ‘I do everything…’ I’m very open to other people who I respect.“ “It’s collaborative as fuck,” adds Sigda. “It’s kind of a mixed bag, the full length. It’s not so much like the demo at all, with good reason.”

With that same "good reason," Cassavetes has translated their new-found and long-awaited energy from the studio to their live show. The set has more structure and better flow. They just bought a brand new, very blue tour van.

The bandmates hope to tour soon but they also enjoy the thriving, incestuous scene that made them who they are. Though all members in other projects have no plans to slow down, Cassavetes has their full, undivided attention.

“I didn’t want to do this band unless I was focusing on it fully,” says Agran. “I always knew, no matter what, for the amount of years we were working on it, that I wanted it to be done right. I was willing to wait for as long as it took to find the right mix of dudes, and we found it.” - Beth Ann Downey SET ROSTER: (L to R) Jon Murphy, Pat McCunney, Chris Sigda and Josh Agran. facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by Darragh Dandurand.

This Place Rocks

DIY From The Start The Don't Tread On Me House offers good times in the basement of a rowhome in East Falls.

“No one ever really thinks that there would be a house venue in East Falls,” says Jake Detwiler, founder of the Don’t Tread On Me House and one of the three people that live in it. “It’s kind of like uncharted territory.”

The 19-year-old music producer from Willow Grove alternates between playing with his nose ring and tugging the strings of his gray hoodie as he talks about the DIY venue, which he started in May. It’s the only house venue he knows of bringing shows to East Falls.

“None of this was planned,” Detwiler confesses. “My roommates and I were just looking for a place in a decent location that was cheap. We have a relatively cool basement, neighbors that don’t care about the noise and there’s a recreation center across the street where people can park. Everything was just kind of serendipitous about the situation.”

The Don’t Tread On Me House looks like a normal, run-of-the-mill, 20-something’s townhome on the first floor. There are a couple hand-medown couches in the living room and some posters tacked to the walls.

Downstairs, next to a washer and dryer, there’s a collection of band stickers and beer labels that are beginning to take over the air vents. One of the side walls has blue, green and purple paint splashes that draw your eyes toward a drum kit at the end of the room. Behind that, there’s a wall-sized canvas drop with a hand-painted version of the Don’t Tread On Me flag. Twinkling, multicolored little lights are woven through the rafters of the gritty, unfinished ceiling like kaleidoscope constellations.

“When there are shows on, it’s super crazy,” Detwiler says. “We never expected as many people as we’ve gotten. We must be doing something right because it seems like a lot of people like what we’re doing.”

As he pushes his sleeves up and uncrosses his legs, Detwiler reveals a tattoo of a keyboard running up his left forearm. He has been into music most of his life, coming to Philly for shows for years now.

“I still can’t believe that I am lucky enough to have fallen in with a group that are consistently good people,” he remarks. “In Philly, people network. But they network because they like each other. I figured that all you really have to do is not be a dick. If you are a good person, people will keep wanting to work with you.”

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After meeting Kyle Graham, the sound engineer at The Fire and manager of the venue’s upstairs studio space, Fresh Produce Studios, Detwiler started assisting with production and engineering tracks in the studio last year.

“Jake introduced himself to me at a show when I was doing sound,” Graham remembers. “He was looking to intern or something. I wasn't able to offer him a job but I gave him a tour of the studio and he's been consistently bringing in freelance.”

Since then, Detwiler has been booking bands, live recordings, rehearsals, producing and various other projects at the studio.

“I can’t help but get involved with the process of songwriting and what the artists are doing when I work with them,” Detwiler says. “It’s their life, their music, their art. But if there is anything I can do to amplify that, then I feel like I have to. I love getting up close and personal with the art I’m helping to produce.”

Though he is a musician at heart, Detwiler also appreciates the process of cutting his teeth in the business end of the industry by bringing bands through the front door of his home.

“It’s all about balancing those different aspects,” Detwiler reflects. “As a producer, I get off on taking someone’s art and helping them get a little push that they couldn’t have had themselves. But it’s also weird walking the line of running a house venue, which is really underground. It’s not that legit but we want it to be.”

“There's a personal-ness to house shows just by virtue of being in someone's home that you can't get in any other setting,” Graham adds. “It just takes a lot of pressure off the performers when you're not up on a stage, under lights. It's usually a little easier to get people to come out.”

They have brought in acts all the way from California and Vancouver.

“We started out like most of these venues start out - we would book our friends,” Detwiler says, adding that only a few days after the first show, he started to receive emails from managers of bigger bands asking about booking Philadelphia gigs.

While no one is pretending that the house venues of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods can compete with the TLA or Union Transfer, or even shows in the next neighborhood over, Manayunk , Detwiler is trying to make an experience that anyone can enjoy.

“The Don’t Tread On Me House is offering a place in the area to see bands and shows that everybody can come to,” Detwiler says. “People come out just to see a band that they’ve been watching for a long time or to have a beer and spend some time with their friends in a cool place.” - Darragh Dandurand

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This Place Rocks Photo by Kate McCann.

STUDIO BOY-BOY: Josh Pannepacker in the expansive Studio A.

Spirit In The House

Josh Pannepacker's Shorty Boy-Boy project is set to drop a new album, thanks in part to a new home-away-from-home, Studio A. Josh Pannepacker is a lot more reserved than his on-stage antics suggest.

He speaks deliberately, planning each sentence before opening his mouth as he prepares a cup of tea in the kitchen of Studio A in South Philly. Since getting back underway with his weirdo-pop pet project, Shorty Boy-Boy, Pannepacker has spent more time in Studio A than he has his Northern Liberties apartment. If he’s not working on his own music, he’s directing videos or working as engineer for someone else’s project.

“It's my home,” he says, only half joking.

But it easily could be. After a brief, quasi-retirement, dropping in and out of other bands and getting a day job, this month, Pannepacker is finally set to release the latest Shorty Boy-Boy full-length, his first since 2006’s whimsically titled Kicking Your Ass, Then Smoking Your Grass.

Roadblocks to the completion of the new record (which he says will be titled Spirits in the House) range from tragically breaking his wrist after providing an ill-fated piggyback ride, to the decidedly more positive experience of

Studio Home-Home

The building that houses Studio A has a rich musical history and a world of opportunities for artists.

Studio A is like a Swiss Army knife for creative types. It has a soundstage, cameras, lights, a soundproof recording booth and a mixing room. Every step of the creative process is covered. Tracking sound, recording video, even

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drumming with Sun Airway during their fall 2012 tour with M83.

Actually, the two events sort of overlapped.

After the tour, Pannepacker played two more Sun Airway shows with what he thought at the time was a sprained wrist. When he confessed his worries to guitarist Chris Doyle before that second show, Doyle handed him a bottle of whiskey and suggested, “This will fix it.”

Pannepacker couldn’t be more excited about the time he’s found to put finishing touches on his new material. If he was playing shy earlier, he’s dropped the act now as he previews a few new tracks in the low-key mixing room upstairs. Unable to hide a smile, Pannepacker starts air-drumming and dancing in his chair. He's as chipper as a little kid proudly showing off what he made at school that day. It's a glimpse of the gleeful energy he brings to his live performance, where he's been known to pull self-described “stunts and stupid shit,” like playing in a sleeping bag or encouraging audience members to play the snare drum with trash bags.

Although Shorty Boy-Boy comes alive on the stage, it's in the studio that Pannepacker truly seems to feel at home. He's played nearly all instruments in his songs and has recorded himself for years now. For a long time, the spaces in which he created his music didn't get much better than his dad's basement or his apartment but limited resources never presented a problem for the intrepid self-producer.

“As long as I have four walls and a ceiling, I can record on anything,” says Pannepacker.

The most recent set of four walls fell into place after Pannepacker met engineer Mattias Nilsson in 2009 at Larry Gold’s “The Studio” (now Milkboy).

Pannepacker was interning for a now-defunct production company recording hip-hop artists. It was as a part of that team when a strong friendship between Nilsson and Pannepacker quickly formed. Before long, the two began recording together out of Studio A. Since then, Nilsson has been at the mixing board for every Shorty Boy-Boy recording. The guys are also largely responsible for developing the group’s endearingly bizarre music videos (like one where they send a dog across the Ben Franklin Bridge or another that invokes the bearded spirit of David Bowie). Most of these videos were filmed at the studio on a very tight budget.

“You have to be creative with what you have,” says Nilsson. “Josh figures out a way to make it happen.”

Conceptualizing the strange and extraordinary is not unfamiliar territory to Pannepacker, who’s used arpeggiators, synths - even a cardboard box - to color a few of his newer tracks, resulting in a goofy, "Monster Mash" feel.

Song lyrics are often just as carefree as their melodies. One of the tracks features words that are no more than the off-the-cuff result of a one-take improvisation performed in Pannepacker’s bedroom. Though his lyrics are not always so lackadaisical, Pannepacker makes it a point to keep things from straying too far away from the bright side.

“Sometimes I think about lyrics but if it gets too heavy, I make puns,” he explains.

Even if some other venture pops up along the way, Pannepacker says Shorty Boy-Boy is here to stay.

What started as a way to goof off became one of Pannepacker's most cherished projects and has even served to include great friends he’s met along the way. The Shorty Boy-Boy band, or Pannepacker’s “traveling circus,” is a revolving door of musicians and other pals which (at the time of this interview) feature Nilsson on bass guitar, longtime Shorty Boy-Boy member Artie Smith on guitar, and Ilana Worrell on keys and vocals.

“It's been out of this world to me,” Pannepacker says. And whether it’s a broken body part, an impromptu touring schedule or a change in studio space, he admits, “I don't see any limitations but myself.

- Tyler Horst performing live - the possibilities all exist at Studio A. Though the company is very new, the building has a lot of history. Tucked away on an unassuming side street in South Philadelphia, the space has been everything from a root beer factory to a television studio to a little place called Indre Studios (once the home of WXPN’s World Cafe Live). Artists from Ray Charles to Radiohead have passed through, and more talent is likely to be drawn to its current incarnation.

“I want this space to be comfortable for people who are used to recording at home,” says sound engineer Mattias Nilsson, who works alongside Josh facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by Ed Newton.

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

Sounds From A Room For more than two years, Sofar Sounds, an international movement, has been creating intimate events in unusual places in Philadelphia.

Sofar Sounds brings together music lovers of all kinds and exposes them to artists in small, intimate gathering spaces, usually in private homes.

“It definitely gives people a chance to experience music in a different way,” says Carolyn Lederach, who brought the international movement, which originated in a London living room in 2009, to Philly in November 2011.

“A lot of musicians have had positive experiences because the audience is attentively listening, which is something that doesn’t always get to happen."

The name Sofar is an acronym for “songs from a room,” which is the title of a 1969 Leonard Cohen album. Musicians usually perform acoustically with people sitting at their feet. There are rarely any other sounds competing for attention during shows.

Lederach, a Penn State graduate, now organizes events with Ken Winneg and Davis Jameson Howley. Winneg picks the house venue and handles donations. Howley acts as the show host.

“It allows me to meet people on tour and anyone who loves music,” says Howley, who is also the lead vocalist of Commonwealth Choir.

Among the local acts that have performed are The Lawsuits, Toy Soldiers, Satellite Hearts, Turning Violet Violet, The Districts, Kwesi K, Maitland, DRGN King, Commonwealth Choir (in the image above) and many more.

The Sofar Philly team continuously receive requests from bands - local and touring - to play shows. Venues are often volunteered by someone who’s been to a past show. Fans are notified of show dates and general neighborhoods but details are withheld. About a week before shows, the team reveals the address. However, they don’t make public the bands that will play.

“That adds to the intrigue,” Winneg says.

Since 2009, the Sofar movement has expanded to more than 40 cities around the world, from Atlanta to Auckland, and from Buenos Aires to Barcelona.

The trio in Philly hope to continue building on what they’ve done the past two years. They’ve held shows nearly every month since the series began and attendance has steadily increased.

“I love the music and I love being part of the Philly music scene right now,” Winneg says. “I want to help bring people together. We’ve had 17 shows so far and they all have been phenomenal.”

- Naveed Ahsan Pannepacker and a small team running the space.

Judging by the chilled out mixing room upstairs, he nailed it. There’s even a kitchen on the first floor for artists who might feel the need to cook up a bowl of macaroni and cheese to power through those last few hours of recording.

Studio A has recently hosted painting shows, album release shows and parties with international DJs. Studio manager Lance Davis says few people realize there’s a full-purpose soundstage and multimedia workshop right there, but that’s all starting to change. “It’s finally starting to show its face,” he says.

- Tyler Horst JUMPphilly.com

From The Margins

Mark Christman of Ars Nova has been promoting experimental sounds in Philadelphia for more than 13 years.

In the early evening, the main dining room of City Tap House is packed with your typical happy hour patrons. Loosened ties, unfastened top buttons and the clean-cut office crowd greet visitors with polite glances and nods as one makes their way into the well-lit bar. Among those inhabiting the bar, Mark Christman waits patiently for his next round of port.

“I can assure you, this is not my scene,” Christman politely jokes.

Carrying his drink, he leads the way to the outside seating area that overlooks a University City street congested with rush hour traffic. Below, a group of circus performers juggle and teach fascinated children on a practice tight rope.

“Believe it or not, I actually hired them,” Christman points out, referring to the jugglers, as he sips from his chilled tulip glass.

By day, Christman, a Drexel University alum, is the acting communications manager for the University City District, a civic program aimed at community revival and development. But for the last 13 years or so, he has also commanded the reigns of his own brainchild, Ars Nova Workshop.

Similar to UCD, Ars Nova is a nonprofit organization based out of West Philly that has a renewal task of its own: promoting jazz and experimental music in contemporary culture. “[Philadelphia was once] a jazz town that bred these amazing, not only jazz artists, but American artists,” explains Christman. “Over time, popular music changed things. DJ culture has changed things. Disco changed things. Jazz has definitely become a more marginal art form. But I found myself at a youngish age very interested in music that was exploratory. I was interested in the changing American landscape, and a lot of this music embodied those certain progressive directions. It was all very seductive to me.”

Christman began to find opportunities to host concerts in Philadelphia under what he describes as “very DIY-type settings.”

“Maybe this music doesn’t belong in a club,” he recalls thinking. “So I created an environment in which I hoped that mission would be clear.”

Acting as and intermediary between audience and artist, the project has found itself boasting lineups with some of the biggest contemporary names associated with the art form, bringing these names to somewhat unconventional venues around the city, like the Art Alliance, International House and the Shivtei Yeshuron-Ezras Israel synagogue in South Philadelphia.

Partnering with Hidden City Philadelphia, Ars Nova recently brought its favored styling to many rehabilitated landmarks around the city as a part of the Hidden City Festival. The series coordinated events that combined both organizations' inventive ideas of contemporary artistry allowing the visual to overlap with performance.

With more than 500 events under its belt, Christman’s vision has been incredibly successful in creating a haven for jazz, experimental and improvisational musicians alike.

“We’ve been able to present the biggest names in jazz and improvised music in the last fifty years,” he says, “everyone from Cecil Taylor to Anthony Braxton.”

- Ed Newton

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This Place Rocks

5:00 p.m.

What's So Great About Johnny Brenda's?

Group photo by Michael Bucher. Other photos by G.W. Miller III.

Musicians love to play the little room that features beads leftover from a Bollywood movie that was filmed there. There are a lot of reasons to love the Fishtown club. One is the fact that nearly everyone who works there is a musician. Our G.W. Miller III documented the day in the life of the place during the restaurant's 10-year anniversary party last fall.

Musicians arrive and carry their gear up the steps near the kitchen, walking through amazing odors.

5:12 Cheat sheets with show and artist details are left around the venue so that staff can speak expertly about the performance, and bands know when they play.

6:08 "This is your home for the night," production manager Greg Mungan tells the artists when they arrive.

A longtime musician who has toured extensively, he knows that kindness can help make bands feel comfortable. A Mediterranean platter awaits the bands in the green room.

7:16 Sound tech/lighting guy Paul Cobb (right) has been in numerous bands.

Door man George Kelley played in several punk bands, including Stun Guns, Trash Monkeys and Harry Pussy. Barback Joe Harkinson played bass in hardcore band Quit Life.

8:23 "He's, like, one of my best friends," Mungan (right) says about Chris Ward (left), the talent booker. "We rely on each other to do our jobs," responds Ward, who also is the drummer half of the groovy indie rock band Pattern is Movement. The pair essentially have the STAGE HANDS: (Top row) Greg Mungan, Kyle Andrews, Pete Girgenti; job that Brandy Hartley did alone. "We want (middle row) Barrett Lindgren, Tiffany Yoon, Paul Cobb, Nicky Devine every night to feel special," Ward says. (bottom row) Jay Laughlin, George Kelley, Chris Ward. Paul Kimport 11:01 hangs on the left side of the scaffolding and William Reed on the right.

11:46 Paul Kimport (left) and William Reed (right), who also own Standard Tap together, opened Johnny Brenda's in 2003. That opened the floodgates for a new era of Fishtown - and that was part of the vision. So was music, which they began offering in 2006. They run a non-corporate operation, with many people getting jobs there because their friends already work there. To celebrate the 10 year anniversary, Kimport and Reed took the whole staff - around 75 people - camping for the weekend.

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On this night, the Brad Hinton band is releasing their latest album and the room (and stage) is full of friends of the band. "If they ask us to come back, we'll pay them," says Rob Battle, the singer from Barren Wells, the opening band of the evening. "You can't ask for a more beautiful stage."

12:53 a.m.

It's a massive party and every Philly indie rock musician is here. The place is so packed, folks hang out on the sidewalk. facebook.com/JUMPphilly

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File photo by G.W. Miller III.

Music & Politics

Propelled

By The Arts The city was broke when Ed Rendell became mayor of Philadelphia in 1992. He helped engineer the Avenue of the Arts, which directed money to arts related projects on South Broad Street, including the Kimmel Center. The idea was to use culture to draw people to the city and spur economic growth.

The former Pennsylvania governor spoke with our G.W. Miller III about the results.

Is it possible to use the arts - specifically music as an economic generator for the city?

Arts and culture, including music, shows, opera, dance, those things are an important driver.

Probably nothing propelled the city’s turnaround more than the Avenue of the Arts.

generating interest in coming back to the city.

We did that in conjunction with a lot of other things. We did the Wednesday Night Out program, the Welcome America celebration. I wanted to make the city a place that was fun, where things were happening, with great entertainment options. The Avenue of the Arts led that.

How did the Avenue of the Arts come about?

When I was elected mayor, during the transition, I looked at a lot of different plans. Someone handed me a plan that was by the Central Philadelphia Development Corporation and it talked about making South Broad Street the Avenue of the Arts. I liked the plan. I thought it was one of the things we could to jumpstart the economic turnaround. I went to Governor Casey and got $74 million in state funds and the rest is history.

I’m told that when the plan was first forth, you weren’t really sold on it. You went home and talked to (wife) Midge and she was the one who was sold.

I won’t say that I wasn’t totally sold but Midge certainly put it over the top.

Why? What did she see?

I think she saw that this type of performing arts district could be extremely attractive to high-end individuals. Remember, we wanted everybody but at that point, most high-end people had already fled the city. So there was no building going on in the city, no businesses in the city, and everyone was leaving or looking to take the first available option out of the city.

Even when we announced the Avenue of the Arts with Governor Casey - even before there were bricks and mortar, that announcement began

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Nothing does it as well as arts and culture and it’s not just at the high end. For example, our Fringe Festival has been a tremendous motivator.

It’s one of the things that young people find so attractive about the city and they’re now coming back to the city in droves.

The Avenue of the Arts led to a resurgence of Old City, which led to a resurgence of Northern Liberties and elsewhere. Artists seemed to spread all over. How do you continue this growth?

You continue it by continuing to do fun things, festivals on the Avenue, finding new venues. The Barnes was a huge thing for the city’s economic future. Once the Barnes moved downtown, that was the end. Now everyone wants to live downtown. Every high-end person is leaving the suburbs to come in. The visual arts match the performing arts on the Avenue. I think Travel + Leisure magazine named us the number one city for arts and culture in the U.S. That’s pretty impressive to beat out New York and Chicago.

Are there things government can do beyond the Avenue of the Arts, which is the high-end driver?

Are there things government can do for artists?

The government, what we did for the Avenue, was generate the important capital dollars and we can continue to do that for new projects like the Museum of the American Revolution, which

hopefully will be built. But the basic thing that government can do – and our major foundations should do this too – is get back to giving operating support to arts groups, big and small. Nowhere in the world can arts groups make it on their own on what they charge for tickets or what they can raise in contributions.

Is it possible to create more zones like the Avenue of the Arts? Maybe Frankford Avenue or Passyunk?

You’d have to have some infrastructure. You can have street festivals where you emphasize music anywhere, anytime, and we should do that. The Philadelphia sound is famous. A lot of things started in Philadelphia. We have a great, rich musical history and we should continue to play on that.

As a sports fan, the Avenue of the Arts almost seems a little out of character for you.

I did it because I understood the economic impact that it would have. That, to me, was my most important long-term job as mayor – to turnaround the economy of the city. The shortterm job was to eliminate the huge deficit we had and to get the city on sound financial footing. In the long-run, none of that would have mattered without an economic revival.

You’re hustling all the time. Is there a song that pumps you up?

A lot of songs get me pumped up. I used a song for all my campaigns, the last five that I won – two for mayor, three for governor (the primary and two general elections) and that was from Godspell, “(We can build a) Beautiful City.” It’s a great campaign song. facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by Michael Bucher.

Music & Education

Inside The Dash of Life

Ivan Barias and Carvin Haggins were fortunate enough to be nurtured in the music industry. Now that they're major players in the game, they're educating young people about careers in music.

On an adverse trip to Baltimore for a funeral, Grammy-nominated producer Ivan Barias remembers being confronted with one of the most important questions of his life.

"How are you living your life inside the dash so that you are making a difference in the world?"

Barias recalls the minister asking at the funeral.

The minister went on to explain that when a person dies, there are two dates on their tombstone - the day they were born and the day they died. But more important than those dates was what the person did in the dash that separates them. Prior to his encounter, Barias, along with writing and production partner Carvin Haggins, were approached by their management team about how they could give back and leave a legacy bigger than the records they were creating.

So they decided to really focus on getting a program for students off the ground.

The result is Destined to Achieve Successful Heights (D.A.S.H.), a non-profit organization that is the collective work of both Barias and Haggins, along with Michael McArthur, Jerome Hipps and Brandon Pankey. The program gives high school students insight into careers behind the scenes in music, sports and entertainment.

"Most kids want to be in the spotlight, and want to be the stars,” Haggins explains. “But there are some keynote positions that they can play in this game for the rest of their lives - and get richer or as rich as the artists.”

In 2005, the group decided to bring students to their studio, Home Cookin', which was located on Delaware Avenue. It was a four-week summer program where they had students from all over the city come down and listen to speakers from a variety of different careers in the music industry.

Some of those early supporters of the program included radio personalities Dyana Williams and Q Deezy and music executive Kevin Liles.

After that first session, D.A.S.H. began to partner with multiple schools and afterschool programs, including the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Technology (PCAT). Students have the opportunity to learn first-hand from Barias the basics of music production (including creating

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tracks using Logic Pro software and learning and understanding music terminology). Barias stresses the importance of education all around.

“We teach them math, whether they know it or not,” Barias explains. “We’re teaching them how to count bars. We’re teaching them tempo. We’re teaching them what a BPM [beats per minute] is.

I always ask them, ‘Do you know what else they measure with BPMs? Your heartbeat.'”

After the first session, Haggins comes in and takes them through the process of songwriting.

Creating music is just a piece of the bigger picture for the program.

“The main focus is to give them that behindthe-scenes look,” Haggins says. “So, they will have field trips to see live concerts but before they see the concert, they see how the concert was set up. Somebody put the lights up, somebody put the speakers up, somebody set the stage and all of these different jobs that are available that are right here in the music industry.”

Barias and Haggins cite the legendary DJ Jazzy Jeff as the mentor who inspired them to take the time to teach the younger generation of music makers. A Touch of Jazz was Jeff's studio in

Philadelphia and it became the home base for many of the prominent producers that emerged from the city. It was also there that Barias and Haggins met and were able to hone their skills as music creators.

“That was the single most important thing that happened to me in my career,” Barias says.

Jeff took a chance on them and the two went on to produce for Philly artists like Musiq Soulchild and Jill Scott, and later for an array of artists in the industry. Barias and Haggins laugh when recalling how much equipment they broke and speakers they blew while learning the ropes.

“How dare we walk away from that and take that blessing and say we’re not going to help anyone else?” Haggins asks.

Teaching keeps their perspective fresh and in-touch with what young people want to hear.

Barias finds it refreshing that his students aren’t yet tainted by the politics of the business, while Haggins finds that the students’ passion helps reignite his enthusiasm for music. It’s their hope that, as educators, they will be able to nurture a new generation that will exceed the success they have reached.

- Ashley Coleman

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Cover Story

Going

S ol o Friends with the

help of

After years of performing with groups, Ali Wadsworth finally put out her own album, with great help from the connections she has made along her journey.

Story and photos by Michael Bucher.

I

t’s 20 minutes before Ali Wadsworth is to perform at Greenfest Philly and she’s still waiting for her band. She’s scattered, unable to think clearly and finish thoughts.

“I got like 50 songs,” explaining how many submissions she had to chose from when making her debut self-titled album, which dropped in the fall.

And then out of nowhere, “Oh my god. Where are you guys?” to no one in particular, looking down at her iPhone that is so badly cracked in two spots you can see it’s internal components.

Wadsworth has pale purple hair and comfortably walks among the crowd in a long black sundress. Behind the stage, she pulls out a 16-ounce Mason jar filled about an inch high with whiskey and takes a nip. She’s not feeling well this morning and whiskey is her medicine. The sick feeling might have something to do with her as-of-yet, unaccounted for power trio of Joe Bisirri on guitar, Brendan Cunningham on bass and Josh Friedman on drums.

Bisirri played a huge part in recording and producing her self-titled album.

Cunningham and Friedman are members of another Philly rock band, The Lawsuits. Through years of active participation in Philly’s rock ‘n’ roll/ folk scene, Wadsworth could make a few calls and have a full orchestra to fill in if needed.

But right now, she just needs these three.

This uneasiness is a familiar feeling for Wadsworth. At times, it’s as if her

JUMPphilly.com

musical career relies on the assistance of others. Luckily, she has a personality that naturally attracts relationships – friendly and intimate. These have been the source of both pleasure and pain. Or at times, both. But as she learns to leverage these relationships with her own energy, she gains the creative support and inspiration needed to be a true frontwoman.

J

uicers, middlers and rockers. Every song in the world can be be put into one of those categories, according to Wadsworth’s father, Dave Wadsworth.

Juicers are slow, ballad songs. Middlers are mid-tempo, in-between songs.

Rockers explain themselves. Her father has a formula for where and how many of each should appear on an album and a different combination for a show. And there can never be enough rockers. From AC/DC to ZZ Top, Dave raised Wadsworth on classic rock, setting the musical foundation that she never outgrew.

As a little girl growing up in Houston, Wadsworth would sing and play music with her father. With his close friend, the three would perform for people in the neighborhood who often hung out at their house. Her father and his friend would write and practice fun ‘rockers’ in his garage recording studio.

“Come on baby, come on ma, let’s go out and get bombed,” Wadsworth sings from rote memory. “Cause I gotta get this evenin rollin’, soooo, let’s get drunk

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Cover Story

encouraged theme nights and organized an open and go bowling.” continue singing and recording by writing her a She went on to study classical opera in Russia, mic night Olympics. song called “A Little Bit of Heartache.”

“If you give her an idea she likes, she gets really musical theater at Summit Senior High school “He wrote it based on conversations we had excited and vocal about it,” Osterle says. “It rubs in northern New Jersey, then sang jazz at the about Andy and it was so fucking spot on,” says off. It makes things seem more exciting. That’s University of Vermont and has now settled on Wadsworth. “I remember the first time I sang it. the perfect personality that you would want for an rock ‘n’ roll.

It was a week after he left and it was at the Italian event like that.”

“I’ve never met anybody who is a more natural Market Fest or something. I was crying while During this time, there was an endless stream singer than her,” says Dan Schwartz, guitarist for I was singing it. And I was crying while I was of ideas coming to her. She was meeting tons Good Old War. singing it in the studio.” of different Schwartz and musicians Wadsworth a n d started informally songwriters. playing together She started in Vermont other bands, before moving like the allinto a small female rock apartment on Mt. group called Vernon Street Goldiebox in Philadelphia and a around 2003. They s u p e r g ro u p recorded together c a l l e d and eventually Fantasy realized they S q u a r e had something Garden, special.

With which she drummer Andy still considers Nick, Schwartz the best band and Wadsworth she’s been in. formed the She started creative base of doing backup Unlikely Cowboy. vocals for They played other bands regularly in the through open city and even mic night. performed at After about the Philadelphia a year and Rodeo & Fall a half, the Festival, for THE ARTIST: "I've never met anybody who is more of a natural singer than her," says Dan Schwartz. scene at The which Wadsworth n election night eve, Monday, Nov. 3, Fire fizzled out and Wadsworth began bartending believes the invite came due to the band’s name.

2008, The Fire held their own election. at Fergie’s. Three years ago this past October, “That band really taught her how much she loved It was to determine the president of making music with people,” says Schwartz. “I she took over open mic night there and brought open mic night, a popular gathering for the city’s don’t think before that she knew what was going along Osterle to continue hosting. The crowd folk musicians and acts, like Hezekiah Jones, The to be her life goal.” changed, introducing her to even more bands in Spinning Leaves and Toy Soldiers. On the ballot Wadsworth recalls first being drawn to fame. She the city, like The Lawsuits, Levee Drivers and The was Wadsworth, who bartended and always lent a thought she would make a good famous person Districts. Other regulars include Chris Kasper, hand on open mic nights, and Jonas Osterle, who and she’s probably correct. She is eccentric, Ross Bellenoit and Sonja Sofia. officially hosted the event every Monday night. affable and armed with a smile that draws people “It’s about beginning that creative relationship,” They each got on stage and delivered passionate in. Continuing to work toward a full-time music says Osterle. “A lot of times, the seed of that speeches. Osterle’s platform was based on big career, her priorities have now changed. relationship is planted at open mic. Or the seed is city values. There is disagreement as to the exact “The goal is to be respected by the people I planted elsewhere and is germinated at open mic details of Wadsworth’s speech but Osterle claims respect,” says Wadsworth. “To get props from the because it’s a place you can practice in front of a she promised the crowd she’d flash her breasts. bands I look up to.” live audience.”

Regardless, it never happened. But Wadsworth Wadsworth and Nick dated for roughly two The problem for Wadsworth is she can plant too won in a landslide, 12-4. years while playing together. One day in 2006, many seeds. She can become overwhelmed by “Youre not gonna beat Ali in a popularity the group was hanging out in their practice space different obligations. contest,” says Osterle. “It’s not gonna happen.” which doubled as Nick’s apartment in Northern “She’s hyper creative,” Schwartz says. “She’ll get so Wadsworth became so popular at open mic Liberties. Out of nowhere, he broke the news he many ideas and then honing them down becomes night that she actually stole the job from Osterle. was moving to Los Angeles in two weeks. the hard part.”

He trained her before he went on tour with his “What?” Wadsworth remembers asking. “Are Being on her own musically was difficult former band, The Teeth. you breaking up with me in front of Dan and because it was up to her to decide what took “When I did get back, Ali had sort of won over quitting the band in the same day?” precedent. the crowd,” Osterle says. “I would say it was clear.

It devastated Wadsworth. She promised herself “I get really stressed out trying to balance all It was no longer my shift.” she would never date someone in her band again. these things that are important to me,” says The open mic night was a desirable shift and “It ruined something that was so important to Wadsworth, whether it be a friend’s birthday now Osterle was out. Wadsworth sensed he was me,” she says. party, an album release party or working on her pissed but instead of grudge-holding, Wadsworth After Nick left, they tried to hold the group own music. and Osterle collaborated to make open mic together but it was too difficult. Wadsworth’s While balancing between personal and private, night different. They did silly skits between acts, heart wasn’t in it anymore. Dan pushed her to or between fame and fortune (fortune as far as a

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fortunate music career), Wadsworth has always remained accessible. It is not uncommon for those who have seen her perform to approach her afterward.

Between her sets at Greenfest, a man with a gray ponytail approaches her.

“Hey Ali, I really enjoy your singing,” he says. “I saw you at Folkfest a couple weeks ago.”

“Aw, thank you,” she replies.

It happens wherever she goes.

W

important the album represented her, her blood family and her music family which includes the community of Philadelphia musicians.

Moriarty describes her voice as “Janis Joplin-y” with a loud scratching element. She can make a sound that forces an audience to notice and then she goes beyond it.

“A lot of what I was trying to do with her singing is get her to wait, wait on that thing,” he says.

“Wait for the bridge or the later chorus to get

Being given these songs and then having to decide which to cut was like asking her to pick a best friend, which would be difficult given how many people she holds dear to her. With the help of Moriarty and Bisirri, they came up with 10 songs from 10 different writers.

The decision to go with so many diverse songwriters led to the next hurdle for Wadsworth: how to make them all cohesive.

“I know I have a big, powerful voice,” notes Wadsworth. “But I didn’t trust that it wouldn’t sound lame like a mix CD.” During recording, her relationship with Gallo started to deteriorate. What started out as an innocent collection of songs written for her about heartbreak became deeply personal. A song like “Where Is Your Love,” written

by Gallo, became extra painful. A song by Adrien Reju called ”Still Not Over You” strikes the raw emotion felt by a partner before they can let go.

Now, she could sing these songs with a personal connection and force absent before.

“I feel like there’s these songs where Ali’s really good at conveying ‘angry as shit,’” says Bisirri.

Instead of allowing the anger to kill the project, she used it as a positive force.

“It’s shitty when I don’t put myself first all the time,” says Wadsworth. “I feel like that’s why things are finally starting to happen for me.”

adsworth is seated in her living room surrounded by cardboard cutout figures.

The details of their faces are outlined in black ink, made to resemble some of her closest songwriter friends. With only her voice and hand gestures, she goes from seductive host, to infomercial saleswoman, to nurse, to carnival ringleader, to cheerleader, back to ringleader, to self-assured artist, to female comic book villain, to game show host, to founding father in 28 seconds.

“With the help of many great friends (ringleader), I have conceived a record I believe will one day receive accolades (artist) from aliens visiting our planet (villain),” says Wadsworth.

She then gives the audience a sample of her product: a song with Schwartz on acoustic guitar and Tim Arnold from Good Old War singing backup vocals, seated on opposite sides of her. It’s all part of her video on Kickstarter to raise $8,000 to produce her album. ack at Greenfest, The project exceeded her goal Wadsworth’s band and raised $8,790 from 212 arrives with only a few different backers. minutes to spare.

After spending years being a backup or co-singer, On stage, they begin tuning their instruments and testing Wadsworth says she finally the sound levels beneath the had the courage to be the shade of a canopy. Wadsorth frontwoman solely in charge takes her shoes off - playing of her career. When the idea without shoes is a kind of rule. came to her, it was important Before the band strikes their that she follow through. She first note, Wadsworth places emailed friends she met a bottle of water next to each during her time at The Fire, STANDING ON HER OWN: "I know I have a big, powerful voice," Wadsworth says. of the musicians feet - just Fergie’s and from playing because she’s mindful of her own needs now bigger.” shows throughout the city, soliciting them for doesn’t mean she forgets about the well-being of As Moriarty was pulled toward other projects songs to include on her album. The number of people continuing to support her passion. at the studio, Joe Bisirri began taking over submissions climbed into the fifties.

She introduces herself to the audience and starts much of the day to day duties for Wadsworth’s With Ron Gallo, the lead singer and guitarist album. Bisirri, who also played guitar for a lot with a song called “Long Hours,” a subdued juicer for Toy Soldiers, Wadsworth approached Bill about overcoming a painful experience through of the recording, was tasked with combining Moriarty of Waking Studios with the project. the grind of working.

Wadsworth’s musical ideas with the songs Gallo and Wadsworth were dating and his band Closing her eyes, she hits that special power written for her into a cohesive record. had just finished recording their album with “She wants to really tune in with the lyrics, take she’s learned to restrain and cries, “And these Moriarty. looooooong hours, gives me peace of mind.” the melody of the song and find a register where It became apparent to Moriarty that she liked she can show off what shes got,” says Bisirri. to rock, and rock loudly. Moriarty thought It was

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Cover Story

The bandmates from The Districts moved to Philly from Lancaster County and now everything is coming together. They signed with Fat Possum Records and they're working on their next album.

Story by Nikki Volpicelli. Photo by Kate Harrold.

R

ob Grote leads The Districts by hissing passion from his mouth. The word "vocal" doesn’t seem to do that sound justice.

It’s more raw, the wrenched feelings making the noise sound feral, like the raccoons that haunt the backyard of the North Philly apartment he shares with the rest of the band.

The guys - Grote, along with Mark Larson (guitar), Connor Jacobson (bass) and Braden Lawrence (drums) - moved from Lititz, Pa. to Philly earlier this year after releasing their first full-length record, Telephone. That was recorded and put out while they were still students at Warwick High School.

The apartment they share near Temple University campus features a steady line of Beatles records running behind their couch as wall art.

They don't go to the university, unlike most of those who live nearby in frat houses, student housing units and dorm quarters. They started at Temple last fall but quickly gave up heaving book bags to focus on lugging guitars and drum kits and other gear to venues.

Now, they perform alongside acts that are well past college age. The Districts play for audiences often taken aback by their youth, considering the group’s vintage sound and Grote's grumbly, mature voice - and the fact that in November, The Districts signed to Fat Possum, the same label that’s home to the Black Keys, Dinosaur Jr., T. Rex and The Walkmen.

"It's not the craziest I've ever heard but we've gained some momentum," Grote says about the Districts’ rapid ascent. "I guess things have been moving decently since 9th grade. I just kind of want to see what happens. I don't think we would've balanced both [college and recording]."

The other guys nod in agreement. They nod in agreement most of the time, like when they agreed to put aside some individual musical influences (including the Dave Matthews Band) to form one unit of pulsing, wrecking ball of ballad-y river rock. This is a group of guys that write, practice, perform, record, live, eat, sleep,

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drive and see shows together. The Districts is a “group” in every way you dissect the word.

"I think it’s the kind of band," says producer Bill Moriarty, "that if you take one member out and try to add another, it wouldn't work perfectly.

They're playing along together all the time. It's a sloppy band but they're tight as a unit."

Moriarty, owner of Waking Studio, recently added The Districts to his roster, which already includes Dr. Dog, Man Man and The Lawsuits.

He's recording and working on the "scaffolding" that will be the outfit's second full-length record.

T

he world these guys live in might seem unorthodox, an alternative to a predictable post-teenage life. Each member will always have a unique camaraderie in their shared experience. Being in this band seems to have created a union without any visible cracks, a defense from some of the more trivial stuff that’s affected many breaking artists who lacked that same netting.

Moriarty calls it always “hitting together.” And while the group relies on Grote's lyrics to drive what it is that they do with their individual instruments, it’s not with an iron fist. It’s instinctual. One leader is just one leader, it’s not going to be the ‘thing’ without all of its parts.

If you take one member out, it wouldn’t work perfectly.

"Mark and I are very into guitar solos," Grote says, emphasizing the word “very.”

"I was really into being a rockstar," laughs Mark Larson. "So I was really into Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, all those big solo guitarists."

According to Grote, The Districts write enough dueling guitar parts to satiate the both of 'em.

A Districts song has a sickness, the kind that leaves you in cold sweats. Vocals brim with passion, in-your-face aggression. The temperature dips and swells hyper-purposefully.

Pixie-like. Rabid, tense, a flirting line between human and animal.

No one in the group is older than 21 but each member's musical integrity runs laps around their lifelines, which is most obvious when they play live. Moriarty, the one man who's not in the band but is still present throughout the recording process, considers it “compelling.”

"You can tell they mean it," he says. "There's gonna be a lot of people seeing it and turning to their friends like, 'Whoa, did you just see that?'

That can only grow to more people seeing them live."

Proof might be in the HotBox Studios session the group recorded early in 2012. The Philly-based studio lets artists perform one song live before they mix and master it. Each session is filmed and posted on to the studio’s YouTube page.

The Districts performed a striking execution of "Funeral Beds” off Telephone. That video put the group on the map. Former HotBox producer Greg Fernandez texted Grote to tell him the video made it to the front page of Reddit, a website that calls itself the "front page of the Internet."

“I didn't even know what Reddit was," Grote admits with a laugh.

The video has received more than 300,000 views to date. Huffington Post Teen published it too and it was included once more on Reddit, sparking another spike in viewership. But views and videos are not what really counts to the guys. facebook.com/JUMPphilly

“There's not the same connection as playing in front of actual people," Grote reasons, "which feels more real than a YouTube video. You're actually experiencing it. You see these people in real life."

This group is not phased by the strange world of Internet sensation. The Districts are still just a group of friends who took a blood oath in 9th grade to stick together as a band so they could perform a show at a coffeehouse somewhere in Lancaster one weekend.

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utside of their home, the guys stand in the corner by the backyard fence. To their left is a graffiti mural depicting the cover art of Daniel Johnston’s Hi, How Are You? album. This is the work Johnston dubbed The Unfinished Album back in 1983, a few short years before a manic episode on a small airplane caused the once under-the-radar songwriter to think he was Casper the Friendly Ghost. Johnston threw

JUMPphilly.com

the keys out of the window and crashed the plane to the ground. Surprisingly, he survived.

In any case, The Districts bandmates all stand too close for comfort to the trees, where those raucous raccoons like to come in and out of, taunting the roommates only to scurry back up into the branches to hide.

Tyler Oliveri, one of two roommates not in the band, walks into the yard at the perfect time.

The “perfect time” is seconds after two collegeaged guys finished furiously blinking the lights from their second-story window and dancing frantically, putting on a show for the guys in the backyard.

Grote mentions that the neighbors have been acting strange tonight and Oliveri takes it as a cue to remove his shirt and prepare to fight the raccoons. He heads toward the corner of the ring.

Hurriedly, hilariously, Grote explains he was talking about the human neighbors in the second

story window, who were also shirtless. Frat bro stuff. Not racoon stuff.

A moment can show a lot about a group of humans. This one tells a lot about The Districts’ members relationship with their world. In between a childish, fantastical musician’s dream and a scary, dangerous, wild unknown is where they sit, together.

As they sit, they laugh nervously but happily.

They wait for the next thing to come their way.

Because here they are, navigating the stuff that young people navigate while also navigating the stuff that most musicians, whatever their age, are yearning for.

And they must be good folks if they’ve got people in their corner, willing to fight wild, North Philly raccoons bare-chested for their honor.

BLOOD BROTHERS: (L to R) Connor Jacobson, Rob Grote, Mark Larson and Braden Lawrence.

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Vinnie Paz never gave in to the major labels or

anything else that stood in his way

34

JUMPphilly.com

Cover Story

H

e is one-third of Jedi Mind Tricks, onefraction of Army of the Pharaohs, onehalf of Heavy Metal Kings, one-fifth of vodka into the studio session, and one focused and funny yet tortured and conflicted man.

Many details about Vincenzo Luvineri — aka Vinnie Paz — are well known, well documented and can be found with a simple Google search.

Paz was well known for the “I don't give a fuck” attitude long before there was a texting shorthand for the phrase. Not that he doesn't give a fuck about his music, the topics he raps about or his fans. He just never cared about the industry part of the game, and if staying true meant staying in the margins, it was a space he was only too comfortable to occupy.

Known for a voice that sounds as if a bulldog is dragging you across a gravel pit by the scruff of your neck, Paz’s sometimes controversial, sometimes contradictory, but always unapologetic lyrics have resonated with legions of fans, sometimes, at the price of putting himself in the media spotlight.

That transparency and opening up doesn't mean he has been completely forthcoming about everything in his life.

“I'm very consumed with everything that is bad. I'm consumed with death. Rather than living life, I am worried about how and when I'm gonna die. It's a fucked up way to live. I have depersonalization disorder and it runs my life,” Paz explains about the disorder that he has only recently began speaking about, despite having suffered from it for more than 15 years. “I am never able to live in the moment. Ever. I'm so envious of people who are.”

S

Story by Chris Malo.

Photo by Marie Alyse Rodriguez.

JUMPphilly.com

itting in a chair at Found Sound Studios, an H2O hat crowns Paz’s head and a black T-shirt covers a torso he is slightly ashamed of. He rocks camo shorts and a pair of black and blue Nike Air Maxes as his arms work a bottle of Grey Goose and seltzer water sitting in a trashcan full of ice. The liquids are mixed before the ice is scooped with a Styrofoam cup and deposited in a red Solo cup. Paz reaches into the can, grabs a few pieces of ice, wets and then wrings his hands to clean them. The routine is repeated throughout the night.

Paz alternates between spitting out Pesci quotes from “Goodfellas,” watching a laptop that constantly plays one of the 30 or so fight DVDs from a stack next to the computer, talking with his longtime manager and lifelong friend Yan, discussing tracks he will work on with engineer/ producer Scott Stallone and explaining his affliction - how it has and continues to effect him.

According to the Mayo Clinic's website, “Feelings of depersonalization can be very disturbing and may feel like you're losing your grip on reality or living in a dream.” There is a sense from one with depersonalization disorder that things around aren't real or they they are observing themselves from outside their own body.

This description goes on to note that symptoms include feeling they're an outside observer of their thoughts or body and a numbing of their sense of the world around them. But also, “Awareness that your sense of detachment is only a feeling and not

reality.”

How does Paz deal with such a crippling disorder?

“I deal with it poorly” laments Paz. “I take medication. It doesn't work anymore. I have been on medication for 14 years. It probably hasn't worked in six. So, now is the crossroads. What do I do? Do I spiral and become some J.D. Salinger shit where I don't leave the crib and I drink my own piss? Or do I become proactive in other ways?”

The answer is not a simple one. It is a complex dilemma, further complicated by cultural and generational influences.

“I'm so cynical,” Paz admits. “I'm an Italian kid whose family is from Italy, from South Philly. My father who passed away in '88 would strangle me if I was to see a therapist. We don't believe in that shit. That's the crossroad I'm at. I don't know what's going to help me. Because the medication doesn't work and I don't believe in psychotherapy.

That's not recently. That's right now. What am I going to do with my life?”

Paz fears becoming a recluse, like Salinger, one of his favorite authors.

“I haven't toured in eight months because I can't leave Philly without freaking out,” explains Paz.

I

t wasn't always like this. In retrospect, the touring and seeing the world was the best part. Performing in Australia. Rocking Bogotá and almost getting kidnapped. Shows in Istanbul and seeing the Blue Mosque. When tens of thousands of attendees at the 2009 Openair Frauenfeld festival in Switzerland abandoned 50 Cent’s performance to rush the Jedi Mind Trick stage, as a puzzled Lloyd Banks and miffed 50 tried to regain their composure. Those are the moments Paz cherishes.

At the time, he hated it. All of it. Except the physical act.

“Those hours are the best hours of my life,” he says about being on stage. “I love where I've been.

It's an honor. When I'm performing and there's 2,000 kids in Oslo, Norway singing my words? Yo. I'm humbled. It's beautiful. I'm one with them.”

Paz and his cohorts got there not by following the conventional major label route, but by creating their own path, on their own terms. It is hard to argue that signing and kowtowing to a major is the only way to go when Jedi Mind Tricks shared a bill and stage with Kanye West, Lil Wayne and the aforementioned 50 Cent in front of more than 100,000 fans over the course of a weekend at Openair Frauenfeld. It is the path of most resistance, but it also gives the artists complete control of their own destiny.

“Paz is one of the most successful artists to come out of Philly,” says fellow Philadelphia MC, Reef the Lost Cauze.

The two became friends after crossing paths in 2005, when Paz came out to the record release for Reef’s debut album, Feast or Famine. The two clicked and Paz invited him to become a part of Army of the Pharaohs.

“What he’s done is unparalleled as far as independent Philly artists go,” Reef notes. “What he was able to do completely independently is inspiring and it’s the blueprint that a lot of artists like myself try to follow.”

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Cover Story

But it's not simply highlights from life on the road, touring the world. There was a three-week tour of Canada, not sleeping, in complete panic, sitting on the end of his bed in a hotel, feeling a complete loss of control, feeling impending doom, the depersonalization disorder debilitating him, the meds not working.

“The way out? Just end it,” Paz recalls thinking.

“Blow your fucking brains on the wall. But I can't do that. I have a mom, my brother, my niece. I have a son now.”

Paz's son, Marciano, lives overseas and recently turned one year old. Although he is off-andon with Marciano's mother, Paz is in constant contact with her. And Paz is as much a part of his son's life that distance and disorder allow. From admitting to dropping more than $1,000 on Polo for his son's birthday, to Skype conversations with his son or admonishing the mother for letting Marciano play with his half-sister's pink toys, there is no being around Paz - watching and listening to him speak about his son - and not know it is one of the reasons he is alive today.

Y

oung Luvineri's namesake comes from the world of boxing. Aside from family and music, boxing is the thing Paz holds closest to his heart.

“Boxing and music saved my life,” Paz says.

That endless loop of boxing matches that plays in the studio, regardless if anyone is watching, is a small testament to this. Professing an eidetic memory, he can recall obscure boxing facts and details, like the punch sequences to countless fights. Paz’s love for the sport is something inherited from his father. As the Mike Tyson versus Lennox Lewis fight plays in the background, Paz recounts the time his father took him to see Tyson fight Tyrell Biggs fight in Atlantic City for his 10th birthday. Despite the love for his hometown and Biggs being from Philly, the young Paz rooted for Tyson, crying when he lost the first two rounds.

“My pop smacked me and told me to get my shit together,” remembers Paz, adding that his father then directed him to, “Watch what he does.”

Tyson came back to win the fight with a right hook TKO in the 7th round.

But with Italian blood coursing through him, Paz knew there was one boxer who personified the family spirit and mindset - untied and undefeated World Heavyweight Champion Rocky Marciano.

“Bang the body! You don't got the headshot...

Bang bang!” an excited Paz shouts as he jumps from his chair, shadowboxing as he explains Marciano’s winning technique. An understandably weary Stallone is encouraged to put up his hands as he sits in his chair in front of the studio console so Paz, into the second bottle of Goose, can demonstrate.

“Bang the body dog,” Paz barks. “My father used to say, 'Bang the body and the head will fall son.'”

Tears slip from Paz's eyes and that voice of gravel begins to soften. But only a little.

“My father used to say it over and over again in Italian,” he says, his voice now trembling. “'They're always going to be bigger than you.

Always. You're little.' And I'm still little. Bang the body, the body will fold. Then hit them with the uppercut.”

JUMPphilly.com

Paz continues, although it is not entirely clear who is talking - himself, his father, Marciano, Marciano's corner man, his memory or the vodka.

“My pop schooled me on this shit,” Paz says.

“My pop knew what heart was and what skill was. I apply that to rapping. My father was like, 'Marciano wasn't the best but he wouldn't fucking lose!' He knocked Jersey Joe Walcott out. He knocked him through the ring. But he wasn't that skilled. They said, 'Look, what are you gonna do?'

He said, 'I'm not gonna lose. I'm not gonna lose, Pop. Are they better than me? Yeah they're better than me. But your heart ain't bigger than mine.

You're heart ain't bigger than mine!'”

Paz is yelling. Then he calms down.

“They all crumbled in the end.”

and never really asked for anything back.”

When Stallone wrote the hook for the beat, it gave Paz the idea to do the track about his depersonalization disorder.

“It’s the first time I saw him shy away from a subject,” Stallone says, with the perspective of someone who would know.

From the beginning, Paz knew he wanted a woman to sing the hook and he flew in Yes Alexander from Iceland to do the hook.

But there was still the task of writing the song.

“Can I do this and make it good?” Paz pondered “Not, ‘Can I write about this?’ I can write about it for a whole record. Three records ...”

He wondered if the subject was too esoteric.

Would enough people get it so that it mattered?

“I don't think I deserve anything. I don't think I'm here to think myself to be deserving. The earth doesn't owe me anything. I owe the earth.“ - Vinne Paz

U

ntil recently, Paz had never discussed his depersonalization disorder. But on his latest album, Carry On Tradition, which was released in October, he opens up on the track, “Is Happiness Just A Word?”

“It's literally my heart on a record,” Paz says. “For me, it's satisfying. It felt good.”

He heard the beat and passed it on to Stallone to write a hook. The two have known each other since 1998, when Paz passed him a test pressing of Jedi Mind Tricks' 2000 album, Violent By Design. At the time, Stallone was working at the legendary Ruffhouse Records. The two have gone on to work together on almost every project that Paz has done since that time. Stallone also went on to produce, engineer or write for acts such as Lauryn Hill and Britney Spears. He recently mixed Danny Brown's Old album.

“This dude is the reason I am at where I am at,” Paz says emphatically.

“This is the relationship, this is the music I base and judge all other projects on,” Stallone says. “It is literally the litmus test for all other projects. Is it as cool as this? Well, no. But is it cool enough?

Yeah. Or does it pay enough? OK, fine. But is it going to be this? No. Is it going to be this relationship? No, it won't be. Does it rank? OK, maybe I'll take it on.”

P

az’s circle seems to have gotten smaller over the years. Stallone describes early AOTP sessions as having nearly 30 people smoking and drinking in the studio. For this album, it was essentially the two friends the entire time.

“This is like making a record with your brother,” Stallone says. “It's not something you can manufacture.”

Time has seemed to turn some friends into acquaintances and other friends into family.

“More of a friendship than a music relationship,” says Reef about his good fortune to have crossed paths with Paz. “That’s my man. I’m forever grateful and indebted to him. That’s my big brother. He has done a lot for me and other artists

Could he make it knock in the speakers even if it goes over someones head?

“How do I make this sound dope about something so complicated?” he recalls wondering.

Managing to make the disorder understandable and yet personal in two verses of such a difficult subject matter was not something Paz took lightly.

He thinks his best verse was the overlooked and underappreciated 16 bars on “Crows Descend Upon Me.” But looking back over the course of his career, he is definitely proudest of “Is Happiness Just A Word?”

Like any industry veteran knows though, it is a team effort, even if Paz ends up with the credit.

“It’s his almost as much as it is mine,” Paz says about the contributions Stallone made in making the track happen.

“Absolutely does not,” Reef says when asked if Paz gets the respect he deserves. “I’ve seen the impact and power he has. His success is inspiring.”

“I don't think I deserve anything,” says Paz. “I don't think I'm here to think myself to be deserving. The earth doesn't owe me anything. I owe the earth.”

R

ight now, it is after 4 a.m., and Paz needs to get in the booth. He needs to record verses for the upcoming AOTP album.

The same beat has been playing for three hours.

He has synesthesia, a neurological condition where Paz sees music in colors. This track is, not surprisingly, black and red to him.

Paz begins fixing a drink and unearths his rhyme book. It’s filled with bars and verses shaped by the likes of Dostoyevsky, Kenny Powers, Kubrick flicks, Slayer, black metal from Scandinavia, Frank Zappa, Kafka, Bill Hicks, Bukowski, Valdamar Valerian and the thoughts, views and perspectives of an artist who has stood up to the industry, stood up to the man and now finds himself battling himself.

He rises from his chair, swigs from the cup, puts on a new fight video and saunters into the ring.

37

Cover Story

What is the

IMPACT Music?

of

Music has an effect on us. If it didn't, we wouldn't listen. But do violent lyrics bring about violent behavior? In a city with a very real crime problem, it's a question worth asking.

Story by Peak Johnson.

Photo by Kevin Cook.

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ont Brown and Pace-O Beats of The Astronauts drive through Southwest Philadelphia, anxious to start their tour of their old neighborhood — near 54th and Trinity streets, where much of the inspiration for their music is derived from.

They park a few blocks away from Mont’s former home. As they walk down Trinity, Brown takes a moment to look down at the very spot where a friend was gunned down a few years back. He was targeted, Brown says, but no one really knows why.

The Astronauts’ music represents the truth of what they and others have experienced – it’s sometimes violent and otherwise off-color, much like the way life was when they were growing up and still is for some of their friends today.

“I’m the one who does the lyrics,” Brown says. “It’s no hold punches. Everything I’m saying is real.”

In his song “All I Had,” the chorus rings: “I do this for my mom, I do this for my son / I do it with this rap or I do it with a gun / I sell a little crack just to eat a little lunch.”

But The Astronauts also try to motivate people to do better. They took their group’s name from Guion “Guy” Bluford, a West Philly native, who in 1983 was the first black astronaut to enter space.

“It’s a message,” Brown says. “It’s ‘Mona Lisa,’ like a picture that is being painted. We’re not lying, that’s first and foremost. These are real situations. Everything we rap about is the God’s honest truth. Nothing is fabricated. And I’m just telling these kids that Guy Bluford, he made it and we can make it just as well.”

Last summer, The Astronauts hosted a huge block party in Southwest Philly called the Stop The Violence Festival. With proceeds benefitting the Mothers in Charge Foundation, the intention was to bring the community together to show there are ways to interact peacefully.

“There was no violence the whole day,” Brown says. “We just proved right there that we all can come together for one common goal and that’s exactly what happened. I’m around this shit everyday, I know that we got so much potential to do better.”

Brown continues the tour, coming to a friend’s home, which is now abandoned. On the wall is a

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collection of old gum that is plastered to bricks, forming the words “54th and Ghetto.”

It’s the same rawness and bluntness of this mixed media graffiti that Pace says The Astronauts employ in their songs. A level of ratchetry grabs people’s attention.

“It’s quicker when you try to give a message, I mean, especially in our culture as black people,” he says. “If you’re glorifying it, I think people are just going to go with the flow.”

And not hiding the ratchetry or debauchery of life from art, Mont adds, is actually a positive thing for his people, his community.

“I’m literally telling you what we’re doing, you know, in the neighborhood that I’m from,” he says. “The neighborhood respects me and him for doing this. No matter what I’m talking about, even though we’re from the ghetto, it’s still a positive thing that we’re doing.”

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n our modern media-saturated world, where violence is regularly portrayed on television, in movies, in video games, in music and readily available anywhere on the Internet, the question of the impact of such messages is open for debate.

Music affects people. That cannot be denied. We would not listen to it if it didn’t. But what are the lasting impressions that it leaves?

A 2006 study conducted by the Prevention Research Center at the Pacific Institute for Research Evaluation found that listening to rap and rock music positively predicted aggressive behavior.

Does violent, misogynistic or slanderous language make such ideas acceptable? Does it encourage us to live a certain lifestyle? Does it glorify the negatives of society?

Or, as Mont and Pace say, is music simply a direct representation of life, a relatively easy way for artists - and listeners - to have a voice in this world?

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certain kinds of music make people commit certain acts of violence?

“Not necessarily,” says Tim Whitaker, the executive director of Mighty Writers, a non-profit writing program for school children that received a grant to do a project about radio that catered

toward blacks in Philadelphia between 1950 and 1979. “I think that’s like taking something in a vacuum and pointing a finger at something more complicated than that.”

But music can influence the way a person thinks and feels, he says. He describes himself as being one of those white kids who listened to black radio when he was growing up. So much of the music being played on stations like WDAS and WHAT was being ignored by mainstream radio.

These stations gave a voice to a community that otherwise did not have many outlets anywhere else, and thus became a powerful vehicles. What Georgie Woods played over the airwaves became popular. What Mary Mason said was gospel.

What Jocko Henderson did inspired.

There’s been rapid change in the music industry, Whitaker notes, making it hard to see where the future of music is going. Record companies and commercial radio have lost their grip over popular cultute, so the traditional ways of success in the music business don’t work anymore. Today, artists can create YouTube videos and reach a level of fame that is unregulated by record companies or radio stations.

Popular music always reflects the times that we live in, like it or not, says promoter Sara Sherr, who has hosted the monthly women’s rock series, Sugar Town, for 11 years. Artists can choose to rebel against conventional wisdom, she adds, with varying degrees of success.

“I think often the music is a reflection of their lives,” Sherr says. “I don't think it's the sole cause of violence. Violence has always existed in our society. I don't think it was invented by rap videos, Marilyn Manson and Columbine, metal, etc., etc.

Go back further and there's violent imagery in the blues and in murder ballads.”

The biggest difference between the music of today versus that of the past, Sherr says, is the technology that’s readily available. It's now easier for people to make and produce music and to be heard.

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rtists, producers and promoters in the thick of the current Philly hip-hop scene all have their own relationship with violence and music.

Hip-hop artist Jakk Frost says that his music is a reflection of what he might have gone through.

“I’m not in the rush for people to think I’m the realest rapper,” he offers. “I have multiple messages. I don’t think there is anything wrong with rappers making violent music for entertainment purposes. I’m not a onedimensional rapper. I don’t have no problem portraying myself as a ghetto superhero.”

Frost says that artists should be left to their own devices, without having others dictate to them what should be said. The violence in the world isn’t caused by music, he says. In Philly, the violence that gets discussed in music is rooted in the lack of educational opportunities, family structure and overall frustration about employment prospects, he adds.

“This is bigger than music,” he says. “We let the cops discipline our kids. That fear of consequence is what’s missing. It is affecting our youth to ART AND THE ARTIST: Mont Brown of The Astronauts and his tattoo repping SW Philly.

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a certain degree. But art is always going to be a reflection of life.”

Video producer Jay Wes says that the context in which violence and aggression is portrayed matters and it can also be interpreted differently.

“It all depends on the people who are receiving the message,” he says.

Wes, who makes videos for Philly talent like Suzann Christine, ICH Gang and Arsin, sometimes presents graphic scenes of murders, beatings and drug dealing. At times, there is an overarching message of stopping violence but at other times, it seems gratuitous.

“I always say there are certain messages for certain people,” Wes says. “Depending on what kind of person you are and what your surroundings are, it might seem offensive.”

Wes adds that even though some music may be negative, it can still make you think.

“Hip-hop is the only music where street credibility comes into question,” he says. “R&B, pop, country? They don’t care about that.”

Wes says that if he were to go to any neighborhood in Philly and announce that he was making a hip-hop video and needed shouts from anybody, you would see most people shouting, “Murder Capitol” or “Killadephia.”

“See, most of these guys are glorifying the violence,” he says. “Yeah, I like it. I like hiphop. But to keep it real, it comes down to the surroundings and the parents.”

Promoter and Ruffhouse Records Vice President Jimmy DaSaint is an obvious supporter of hiphop music, but does not support the negativity that is perpetuated in some music today.

“The music from the past was so much better,” DaSaint says. “More meaningful, more creativity.”

Music influences the youth in the way they speak, their attitudes and even fashion sense, DaSaint says. But music isn’t the source of the ills of society. It’s a reflection of them.

“I can’t blame a person shooting up a school on music,” he says. “It’s deeper than that. Philly is a violent city. It’s filled with a lot of poor, uneducated people with no jobs and they think the only way out of the situation is with violence.

You have to rob people to go get a better car or steal from people to get a better house. Poverty makes you do negative things.”

DaSaint started promoting and working with artists before he was locked up in 2000 on drug dealing charges. When he was released in 2009, he turned his life around and is now successful in the music industry and as an urban novelist who writes about street and prison life.

“I just write what I know, and I know that life and that world because I was a part of it,” he says.

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t Lucky 13 Pub in South Philadelphia, Chris Fear, one of the vocalists in wrestling-themed hardcore band Eat the Turnbuckle, mentions a recent Facebook conversation he had with a friend about a 13-yearold boy who killed his 5-year-old sister after practicing WWE-style wrestling moves on her.

He elbowed, kicked and jumped on her, causing severe blunt force trauma, multiple internal injuries and internal bleeding. The boy later told detectives he knew the wrestling matches he

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watched on TV were “fake.”

Made up of Philly hardcore all-stars, Eat The Turnbuckle puts on a wild show, with bottles smashed against heads, money stapled to band members and all six members covered in blood by the end of the show. It’s violent and aggressive and real – there’s definitely no ketchup or red syrup involved.

It feels good to get aggressive, Fear says, though he admits that there are audience members who sometimes take it to an unwanted level. But the number of people who go over-the-top is minimal compared to the number of fans who just like the music as an outlet.

“I feel like more often than not,” he says, “the people who do something over-the-top are

his father, Bucky Davis, who was a leader in the Junior Black Mafia, the powerful and violent drug dealing organization that ruled the streets in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

“He was a true hustler,” Mont says. “So in that respect, yeah, definitely I am inspired by my father. I think I would take his heart and willingness to grind.”

Mont doesn't know the exact story but says that his father was approached by a couple of guys who gunned him down. Davis was 22.

Mont now walks along Chester Avenue and points to the different shops, bars and restaurants where his father was known and respected.

“He used to run this whole strip,” Mont says. “He was that guy, the Southwest King.”

“This is bigger than music. We let the cops discipline our kids. That fear of consequence is what’s missing. It is affecting our youth to a certain degree. But art is always going to be a ref ection of life.”

- Jakk Frost people who have mental issues because they are living vicariously through the music. If that music didn’t exist, that person might not have experienced that because their imagination was not activated. Music makes you feel. Music activates feelings.”

A person without a lot of social interaction, he continues, may rely upon music to learn social norms or to solve the problems within themselves. People like that are going to style themselves around music because they don’t have an identity.

Despite their bloody stage show, Fear sees Eat The Turnbuckle more as raising awareness for wrestling and wrestling heroes. It’s pure entertainment, not life coaching. Still, show attendees often get riled up and start throwing elbows in the pit.

“There is definitely a contingent of fans who want to get in on the action themselves,” Fear says.

Eric Miller, editor of MAGNET magazine, says that most people want to listen to music that will support the mood that they’re in. Music may resonate more because it’s something you listen to over and over again, whereas not many people will watch a movie or TV show more than once.

But no matter what form of media they may intake, Miller says the responsibility for people’s actions is ultimately on them.

“I think if you listen to a song or watch a movie and you go out and do something stupid, then you’re sort of a dumbass,” he says. “I mean, if you see a video that is violent and you go out and do something violent, I think more responsibility falls on you and not necessarily the person who’s in that movie or who sang the song.”

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n a city with a very real crime problem, where the schools are under-funded and job prospects for young people can be grim, does portraying reality ultimately do more harm than good?

Past or present, rock or hip-hop or blues or metal, can art depicting violence be considered fuel for the fire, or does it provide a much-needed outlet to rap, sing, paint or play, rather than do?

Back in the Southwest Philly, Mont talks about

Many people in Southwest Philly now look up to The Astronauts, largely because The Astronauts took the initiative to do something. Where his father once reigned, people wave or nod to Mont, and a few people reach out to shake his hand or say hello. An elderly woman in front of an immaculate home asks about Mont and Pace’s plans to build a park in the neighborhood.

Music has been his salvation, Mont says. It keeps him sane.

“There’s a separation between Hollywood shit and documentary shit,” he says. “We do a real life kind of music. That’s what it is. Just the truth. I might talk to my friend. He might tell me about a situation that he might be going through with his baby mother or his job just fired him. I just try and talk about the real shit. No ‘all these diamonds around my neck or new cars,’ because that’s fake.

It’s not for me. Here, ain’t nobody doing that.”

In Southwest, life is more humble.

“Niece need Pampers, my aunt got cancer / On top of that, Section 8 trying to take our house / Lookin’ in the sky like God, what is this pain about? / Can’t face our problems, so we take drugs to fade ‘em out,” Mont raps in "All I had." “Play the cards you was dealt because life is a gamble / Stand tall, fuck the law ‘cause goin to jail don’t scare you / Why would they fear you when death is right near you? / We’re screaming our for help, but them crackers don’t hear you.”

Pace says that people in his neighborhood change their appearances depending upon what their favorite rapper is sporting at the time, and that kind of influence should come with responsibility. While The Astronauts are not at that mainstream level of success, they do have people who look up to them and try to emulate their actions.

“Even I need to take a step back from myself, from doing certain shit,” he says. “That’s the hard thing about being a rapper.”

And when they rap about violence, Pace knows that the ultimate message of peace isn’t always received.

“They want to take what you say out of context,” he acknowledges. “But music is an art form.” facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Cover Story

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sayso began writing letters to JUMP in 2011. Because he was in prison in central Pennsylvania, however, we couldn't easily catch up with him. He sat down with freelance writer JUELZ and they crafted this story and the handwritten Q&A on the following pages.

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t’s a beautiful day but Sayso has to spend it inside, something he’s endured since 2005.

That’s the year U.S. Marshals kicked in the doors of his home and arrested the promising MC. Sayso was arrested for a murder in West Philly.

The victim happened to be a close friend.

“Shit is crazy,” says Sayso, now serving a life sentence at Graterford Prison. “These people accused me of killing my boy, my heart. It’s not right.”

Born Yasin Frankie Rodriguez, Sayso fell in love with hip-hop during its golden years after hearing N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton.

After a lengthy juvenile bid, Sayso came home with a sharp flow. His old head Hak took him all around the city for battles against MCs almost twice his age. Then he was asked to perform at house parties, cookouts and local shows.

A violation of his probation sent him away for a few more months. After serving time, he had a chance meeting with an A&R rep in New York.

Sayso signed to Loud Records after executives heard the then-teenager’s flow.

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round the same time, Ronnie “Bank” Johnson was putting together a rap group out of the Richard Allen Projects.

Under his company, Bank Management & Entertainment, Bank created RAM Squad. The name came from the Richard Allen Mob, the underworld organization based in the projects.

RAM Squad began doing big things, putting Philly on the map. The collective of artists paved the way for many others, such as D.O.D., Major Figgaz, Philly’s Most Wanted and State Property.

“Cousin Bank was family,” says Sayso. “I knew they were doing their thing but I was too.”

JUMPphilly.com

Sayso never released an album under the now defunct label. Instead, he was given a check and dropped from the company that once had Wu-Tang.

“I wasn’t upset,” he says. “I left with something nice.” Around $250,000, he claims.

Barely out of high school, Sayso was wearing high-end labels and jewelry, driving cars and living in Center City. He invested $100,000 of his newfound wealth in the local drug trade.

Though now knee-deep into the street life, he still pursued music.

In 1996, he was invited to Club Fever by Bank for a RAM Squad show. The group was promoting their Operation Lock the City album. As they rocked the crowd, Bank pulled Sayso on stage and Sayso closed out the show with them.

Backstage after the show, Bank gave him a varsity-style RAM Squad jacket.

“I’ll never forget that,” Sayso says. “He said, ‘You RAM now.’ I was in.”

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ow a member, Sayso was more focused on his music. He spent most days in the studio and nights doing shows.

After returning from California one night, Sayso pulled up to his Chestnut Hill house and parked his Lexus GS300 on the corner. As he approached his home, a van pulled up and two men jumped out with guns. Sayso was shot numerous times.

He was rushed to the hospital with fractured ribs and gunshots wounds to his left arm, right knee, right calf, left shin and upper thigh, as well as a graze to his head. He survived the attack, thanks to the bulletproof vest he was wearing.

Upon his release from the hospital, he moved in with this then-girlfriend and her family. He hit

the studio hard and released a CD, The RAM Son. One week after the release in 1997, Sayso’s mentor, Ronnie “Bank” Johnson was fatally gunned down in front of a barbershop at 18th and Susquehanna streets.

Just two weeks after the funeral, The RAM Son sold 1.2 million copies, according to Sayso.

“I did 1.2 million on a mixed CD back when that shit was unheard of,” he says. ”Nobody was doing that. Bank didn’t get to see that. He would have been proud of me, I know. I miss him.”

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ays after Bank's death, Joey Merlino, then the reputed head of the Philadelphia mafia, approached the RAM Squad members and became their patron. He reportedly saw them as an investment.

But Sayso was again convicted on drug charges.

While he was away, RAM Squad released more albums and signed with Universal. After poor sales, they were eventually dropped.

In December 2003, the group lost their lead artist when federal authorities arrested Tommy Hill, whom had just released his solo debut album, Hill Street Blues. After reports of Hill’s cooperation with authorities, RAM Squad sort of fizzled.

(Hill moved to Atlanta after serving two years on drug charges. He was fatally gunned down in 2011 outside an East Mount Airy bar.)

Sayso returned from prison and hit the scene as a solo artist and CEO, having started Black Water Entertainment.

Everything crashed in 2005 when he was arrested for murder. He was convicted and sentenced to life without parole. After spending six years at the State Correctional Institution at Rockview in central Pensylvania, Sayso was transferred to Graterford in November.

His case, he says, has been reopened.

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facebook.com/JUMPphilly JUMPphilly.com

Cover Story

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sayso asked that we provide his mailing address. Send mail to Yasin Rodriguez, HG3130, Box 244, Graterford, PA 19426-0244.

JUMPphilly.com

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Photos by G.W. Miller III.

Food That Rocks

An Intimate Space at a Famed Venue The Victorian Dining Room at The North Star Bar offers acoustic performances, good beers and quality food every Monday night. space. “It's not as divey. It's more classy.”

The North Star Bar, situated in a 125-year-old building at 26th and Poplar Walker plays first and the atmosphere is relaxed. He interacts with the small streets, offers the perfect blend of a local bar and a great place catch a show. crowd between songs. Jokes are made. The geneses of songs are explained.

From Elliot Smith to Fall Out Boy, and the White Stripes to Life of Agony, When it is time to let his fingers work the guitar strings, Walker turns inward, countless bands - big, small and before they became big - have played the connecting with the song. intimate space.

The best of both worlds, it is small But the music is just one of the attractions of the famed venue. enough to feel personal but big Clustered in various groups around enough to be professionally run and the tables, people float in and out actually sound great. during the sets, often leaving emptyWhile the main stage has earned the North Star its reputation as one handed only to return with a beer.

Occasionally, food arrives, such as the of the city’s live music staples, lesser mandatory-to-try Brie L.T sandwich known is the weekly acoustic music a twist on the traditional B.L.T., made showcase, the Victorian Dining Room with Brie cheese and apple aioli, is series, held Monday nights on the second floor. served on a toasted baguette. More often than not, people return just with Slide through the front door and up a brew. the stairs and you’ll find a dim room If you walk in the front door of the with little music equipment. The musicians on this cool fall evening North Star, you find yourself at the cozy bar where you will be greeted are 25-year-old Brian Walker of A by a bartender offering more than 20 Day Without Love and 20-year-old different bottled or canned beers, or Josh Miller. It is Walker's second time playing the Victorian Dining Room one of the 12 drafts on rotation.

Happy hour runs from 5 to 7 p.m. and Miller's first.

“It's a different vibe here,” West Oak UNPLUGGED: Brian Walker of A Day Without Love (above) and the and features $3 beers and reasonably Lane native Walker says about the White Cheddar Boys (below) performing in the Victorian Dining Room. priced yet delicious finger foods to

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facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by Chris Malo.

nomnomnom on.

If you are feeling really hungry, they have that covered too. Larry is the modest, one-man operation who holds it down in the kitchen (but prefers to remain relatively anonymous). The menu is simple but not boring. It is one of the reasons bands love to eat here, especially if they are touring. Everything is fresh (except for the shrimp) and it shows in the quality and taste of what Larry pumps out. The mussels, the fish, everything are all fresh. The burgers are a lean 90/10 with very little fat. The bread comes from Wildflower Bakery.

The fries are hand-cut. Not bad for your local watering hole.

Most evenings, the dining room adjacent to the bar is filled with happy patrons dining on the mussels, mac-n-cheese or quesadillas. On Monday nights, the room is packed with you Quizzo nuts. Occasionally, patrons will be serenaded by musicians who entice them to come hither up a flight of stairs to the Victorian Dining Room.

Sloan, who prefers not to reveal his last name, has owned The North Star for 13 years.

Roughly six years ago he decided to transform the upstairs space from a work and storage space into a dining room. The walls and ceiling were painted, curtains were hung, track lighting installed and a sound system was brought in.

The pièce de MORE THAN MUSIC: The North Star Bar. résistance is actually something he trash-picked from the curb across the street. The large piece that now hangs on the wall behind the performance space is comprised of three long mirrors framed in an ornate, molded plaster frames. They hang horizontally, creating a large art piece that fits the Victorian space and vibe perfectly.

Since the initial transformation, the room has been open for dinner nightly and occasionally booked for private events. Three years ago, the booker at the time, Andrew Miller, pitched an idea to make Mondays more profitable: combine dinner and music. The space offered great acoustics and an intimate feel in a setting with an unpretentious atmosphere. People could hang out, drink a few beers and grab a bite to eat, all while taking in the up-close musicians who wanted to unplug, in all senses of the word.

The free, weekly Victorian Dining Room series was born.

They gave it a run and right off the bat, it seemed to resonate with both musicians and with customers. On more than one occasion, Sloan heard the music escaping the Victorian Dining Room, which is near his office space, and he was forced to pay attention.

“When bands are unplugged and you strip them down, put them right there, it’s a whole different thing,” he notes.

It has never been a moneymaker. They sell some beer and a few dinners, but that has never been the point.

“Just the cool points is just awesome,” he adds. “It’s magic.”

When it is Miller's turn, he plugs his '64 Fender into the small amp and begins to sing and play. The talents of the Mayfair native as a songwriter, singer and guitar player surpass his age. By decades. The audience silently focuses as Miller soulfully works his vocal chords and fingers.

Not that it is all serious. He manages to wrap an enigma in an enigma as he folds a cover of Coolio's “Gangsta's Paradise” inside of his cover of Blackstreet's “No Diggity.” Well done.

The performance part of the evening comes to a close around 10 p.m. If only there was a relaxed place where artist and audience could grab another beer or two, hang out and talk. So everyone heads downstairs.

- Chris Malo JUMPphilly.com

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Inside Voice

Raised By the Philly Music Scene

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have been booking shows and bands in the Philadelphia music scene and nearby areas since I was a ripe, young lad of 15.

The first band I was in was a prepubescent, mildly embarrassing (as all first bands are), pop-punk band called Dope Sick Girls. During that era, another bandmate and I would spend hours aimlessly emailing venues, booking agents, press contacts, record labels, party houses, older kids in the scene and every other imaginable (and unimaginable) contact. This was almost always to little or no avail.

While this haphazard way of putting ourselves out there was not always effective, it worked sometimes.

And sometimes was good enough for us. We were only kids.

Eventually Dope Sick Girls split up into numerous bands and we all found our respective sounds and scenes (or so we thought). As separate entities, we all continued to spread out, finding gigs through word of mouth and through people we met at shows, parties, etc. Being from the suburbs just north of Philadelphia, all of us would routinely play shows at dives, 18+ venues and anywhere that would allow us even a few minutes of performance.

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hen I moved into the city, I found that the connections seemed to sprout up more than they ever had before simply from associating with new people who knew about newer sounds, looks, gear, bands, houses and anything at all.

Since I’ve made contact with the Philly music scene at its heart, I have beheld a sea of possibility.

My involvement in the music community underwent a massive transformation as I began utilizing connections with people met in person rather than those with whom my only correspondence had been the Internet or phone calls.

Being in the core of it all - where everything is happening - had the greatest impact on my learning and has continued to influence my understanding of both music and people. Working together with other people for the sake of a greater goal evokes a feeling of eternal connection to something important and larger than myself. It is this collective, work-together ethic that makes the underground Philly music scene so enchanting and great to be a part of.

My self-reliance has grown immensely and not due to some misplaced sense of importance but because I have seen how tenaciously and passionately others work. My experiences with people with mutual desires and passions have deeply affected my view of obligation to the scene and how one should go about being a part of it.

If anyone ever doubted the possibilities of interacting and working within a music scene of so many differing personalities, and developing these interactions into the production of great music and swooning feelings in the

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modern age, have them move to Philadelphia and they must surely change their minds.

Dom Angelella and DRGN KING provide an archetypal example of how to be a team player and help out the community, simply by pushing yourself and your friends toward the same level of awesome that you would wish to see in the world - or at least in a city like Philadelphia. Ruben Polo is another who books well-coordinated house shows throughout North, West and South Philly. These shows integrate bands that play well together and thus push the scene to riotous new heights on every possible occasion.

There is a special magic to house shows that propels the spirits of those present into a fiery teenage hell haze full of sex and sweat and intoxicants so that omnipotent inebriation seems to put the crowd into a place out of time, where the physicality of the moment supersedes all thought.

The last show I booked was at The Puke Palace on Sydenham Street in Templetown. The show featured Suburban Living from Virginia, Districts from Massachusetts, Let’s Go To Peru from Illinois and locals Dream Safari, Pill Friends and Pillow Fights.

The turnout was satisfactory for that of a Temple party full of ravenous youngsters but something about the blend was off and I thoughtlessly booked an imbalanced combination of locals and touring bands. This miscalculation led to more of a vomit-drenched cacophony than a show where bands could fully express themselves as the main attractions.

It is all too common for a college house party show in Philadelphia to take on the look of some demented carnival of debauchery (which, c’mon, has its merits too) rather than a place to see and appreciate the musical act for what it is. As much fun as there is to be had in going absolutely ape in a group of drunken kids, some musicians get kinda mad when no one wants to watch them over the punch-drunk sorority girl puking in the backyard.

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espite all of my immeasurable growth in the music scene, things like this still happen. I’m not going to say that some of the shows that I book or play are not going to turn into volcanoes bubbling with teen angst but the fact remains that these shows are done by us and, whether people appreciate them or not, they are ours.

People might turn their noses up at the raucous noises or the unruly teenagers but we will nonetheless continue whatever it is that we are doing, for the love of our friends and for the love of the music, if not out of spite for those who doubt us.

Cheltenham native Sammy Roland, 20, is the frontman of Vivre Sa Vie. He now lives in Girard Hall, a warehouse/music space, with seven other people. facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

Educated by Dom Angelella and inspired by Ruben Polo, young Sammy Roland is quietly making a name for himself in the Philly music scene.

He writes about arriving as a teenager and learning from his mistakes.

Inside Voice

If These Walls Could Talk ...

Top photo by G.W. Miller III. Bottom image courtesy of Ron Gallo.

Ron Gallo and his bandmates in Toy Soldiers recently moved into Meth Beach, the studio formerly occupied by Dr. Dog. He writes about the legacy they've inherited and the impact the space has had on the band.

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eth Beach is a musical oasis surrounded by dilapidated shores where occasional waves of maniacs and junkies get lost at sea and wash up on North American Street looking for a cure.

Desolation emphasized by a vast thoroughfare making it look like the old wild west on, well, crystal meth?

Who knows where the studio's name came from but I imagine it has to have something to do with this really strange juxtaposition of musicians providing a bright and sunny soundtrack pouring out the windows and reverberating across a dark and seedy land.

used to make "Easy Beat," "We All Belong" and "Fate," the answer was pretty simple.

On move-in day, I understood why they left it. It was a big, disassembled pile of circuit boards that was really just a nuisance at the time. However, after weeks of it just sitting there in a big dumb pile, one day I grabbed a ladder and whatever screws and nails I could find laying around and began attaching the circuit boards to the wall.

A few hours later, I had a circuit board face for wall art and inspiration.

B

efore this space came along, doing band things like writing, recording and practicing music were a rare occurrence off the stage. We would seek out some haphazard situation - a basement or a friend's living room. We could buy some pizza and beer and they'd let us make noise for a few hours. Other than that, we literally practiced on stage at shows.

I figured getting a place like this would provide motivation to do the tedious task of scheduling five people who live in different cities and make it a little more exciting to

O

ne day I got a call from Zach Miller of Dr. Dog in regards to their aforementioned Kensington studio of six years becoming vacant as they moved on to another home. He mentioned he wanted to "keep it in the circle" and gauged my interest in taking over the locally notorious spot.

The allure of this proposition was really exciting.

The records they made there were the soundtrack to my earliest days in Philadelphia. I was 18 years old, living in my first house - a pretty relentless party spot during a time when all the romance of the unknown still added to many sunshiny afternoons, and even more late night drunken stupors. Frankly they're some of my favorite, most nostalgic records made in this city and beyond. And now, seven years later I'm getting the opportunity to become a part of the place.

F

make music and things.

So far, it has surely gotten us on our way.

We recently shot an Out of Town Films live session in front of a small live audience at Meth Beach as a preview of our new album, The Maybe Boys. We also shot a video of all of us playing with devil sticks for an upcoming music video during a party we had at the space.

Long story short, off the road we're feeling like a band again!

inancially it wasn't feasible for just my band to take it over - let alone on my own. But I was determined to find a good group of bands to go he room is not just a set of walls. There are in on the space with us. It seemed too good to pass up. ghosts of music's past lingering, weird writings After months of meetings, conversations and on the wall and just some magic energy that personnel changes, we finally had a group of four bands makes Meth Beach a place full of character.

- Toy Soldiers, TJ Kong and The Atomic Bomb, Purples And that's not even mentioning the urban nightmare and Cold Fronts - to take over the former home of Dr. BEACH BUM: Ron Gallo at Meth Beach happening all around it outside. Let's just say when I Dog. We have called that big old room at American and (above) and his artwork (below). leave alone some nights, I'm not taking my time getting Diamond streets home since May. things into the car. I'm often barreling out of there I always sensed just from their records, live shows and passing conversations nervously, constantly looking all around.. that Dr. Dog was a pretty brilliant and quirky group of people even away from As a new band, I think we all hope to carry on the legacy that Dr. Dog built music. That really showed through in a lot of the remains left behind at the while using this room and we want to ensure that good things continue being space when we moved in. From the hanging umbrella's, mysterious Sharpie made there. messages written all over, bags of ponchos, fireworks and old clothes to the In the meantime, we should probably think of our own name for the place. mixing console they made their first few records on.

Maybe finding out what other hard drugs are popular in the neighborhood When Zach asked me if we wanted to inherit their old sound board they would be a good start?

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