Winter 2017: DISSENT

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ISSUE #23

WINTER 2017

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CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS

SH*T? THE DISSENT ISSUE: HOW THE PHILLY MUSIC SCENE IS DEALING WITH THE NEW POLITICAL LANDSCAPE OF AMERICA ...

CONTENTS | Issue #23

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WINTER 2017

THE JUMP OFF Die Choking, The World is a Beautiful Place and I am No Longer Afraid to Die, Slaughter Beach, Dog, Ruin, Chaplain Mahdi Sufi El, Ninth Floor Mannequin, Flood the Drummer, Emily Robb, Rabble Rousers New Year's Brigade and Elissa Janelle Velveteen (right).

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THIS PLACE ROCKS The squad from REC Philly recently launched Live! at William Street Common in West Philadelphia, just blocks away from the beloved but defunct Blockley.

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MUSIC & EDUCATION Jazz Lives Philadelphia aims to introduce jazz music to a younger audience.

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COVER stories With the new president, Congress and impending Supreme Court justice, things seem rather dire. But Philly artists are taking a stand. Philly musicians Rodney Anonymous, Katy Otto, Alex Smith, Perry Genovesi, Dick Rubin, Leanne Martz and Bets Charmelus present their tales and offer their words of wisdom for surving the road ahead.

Mannequin Pussy and The Spirit of the Beehive, like many other bands, are performing at shows to benefit organizations at risk because of the new government.

The new government won't change much for The Kominas, whose families all have roots in the Indian subcontinent. They have been dissenting ever since the band formed, more than a decade ago.

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FOOD THAT ROCKS West Philadelphia's Dahlak Paradise offers an unusual dining experience, as well as a communal affair ... with music.

FRONT COVER: Rabble Rousers New Year's Brigade, by Ben Wong.

BACK COVER: The Kominas, by G.W. Miller III. CONTENTS PAGE: (top to bottom) Elissa Janelle Velveteen, by Ben Wong; Jazz Lives Philadelphia at The Met, by G.W. Miller III; Alex Smith, by Ben Wong.

JUMPphilly.com

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publisher G.W. MILLER III managing editors BETH ANN DOWNEY, CHRIS MALO photo editor CHARLES SHAN CERRONE contributing editors TYLER HORST, BRENDAN MENAPACE, BRIANNA SPAUSE contributors LISSA ALICIA, MIKE ARRISON, KYLE BAGENSTOSE, KEVIN BARR, GABRIELA BARRANTES, VINCE BELLINO, MICHAEL BUCHER, JUMAH CHAGUAN, ASHLEY COLEMAN, KEVIN COOK, DARRAGH DANDURAND, CHESNEY DAVIS, MATT DEIFER, RACHEL DEL SORDO, GRACE DICKINSON, EMILY DUBIN, BRANDEN EASTWOOD, MEREDITH EDLOW, LAURA FANCIULLACCI, DUSTIN FENSTERMACHER, ERIC FITZSIMMONS, CHIP FRENETTE, JEFF FUSCO, JENNIFER GRANATO, JESSICA GRIFFIN, JARED GRUENWALD, DAN HALMA, BRAE HOWARD, MORGAN JAMES, JOSEPH JUHASE, SEAN KANE, EVAN KAUCHER, RICK KAUFFMAN,KARA KHAN, DONTE KIRBY, HANNAH KUBIK, MINA LEE, MATTHEW LEISTER, DAN LEUNG, ERIN MARHEFKA, MEGAN MATUZAK, TERESA McCULLOUGH, JOHN McGUIRE, MAGGIE McHALE, NIESHA MILLER, DAVE MINIACI, ELIAS MORRIS, SAMANTHA MOSS, TIM MULHERN, IAN NEISSER, MAGDALENA PAPAIOANNOU, NATALIE PISERCHIO, ANDY POLHAMUS, CAMERON ROBINSON, DAVE ROSENBLUM, BONNIE SAPORETTI, IAN SCHOBEL, EMILY SCOTT, CASSI SEGULIN, ROSIE SIMMONS, MORGAN SMITH, KEVIN STAIRIKER, SYDNEY SCHAEFER, BRIAN WILENSKY, BEN WONG, CHARLES WRZESNIEWSKI 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. We take all the money that you pay to buy the magazine and we spend it on hookers, drugs and booze. Because people in the mag biz are big pimpin' and living large. It's true. Want to see my pimp cup? Nah. You'd be jealous.

We are not influenced by advertisers or people we do business with. We put together the content in every issue based upon what we see happening around the city. We point out stuff we think you should know about.

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 or find us at facebook.com/jumpphilly.

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

Publisher's Note

In My Humble Opinion When I first moved to Philadelphia to work at a city newspaper in 1994, I was a registered independent. I was trained as a journalist in college, and I came away with the notion that you never reveal your own particular biases when reporting information.

I was so naive.

That lasted about an election or two, until I realized that in Philadelphia, you almost have to be a registered Democrat if you're going to have any say in how our city is run.

The Dems have had a stranglehold on city politics for more than 60 years and the voter registration leans about 7 to 1 in favor of Democrats to Republicans. That means elections in Philadelphia are decided during the primaries. And if you are a registered independent, you can't vote in party primaries.

I ultimately relented, reluctantly, as I still believe in the grand ideal of objectivity, even though I realize that it is an unattainable goal.

In this magazine, however, you will never find a staff writer using the first person voice. Never, except in this column, that is. But you will never read about our opinions about bands, people, places or anything else. We never say whether an album is good or bad, or anything even remotely similar.

We've had staffers ask to write in that fashion. It's a way for a young writer to create an identity, to build their brand, to establish their voice. Most magazines have a voice, they argue, and JUMP should take a stand on things.

But who are we to say what is good or bad? If a band, club, person or whatever has loyal fans and hearty followers, they are worthy of coverage, no? Our job as journalists is to document whomever or whatever is making waves, whether we like them or not.

Clearly, times have changed. The old rules of journalism have been left by the side of the road. We now have news organizations that outwardly support candidates, endorse ideas and otherwise present their views as though they are facts, which they most certainly are not.

And on a near daily basis, our new president undermines the Fourth Estate, proclaiming that the media is full of lies. It serves him well by telling the public that the media cannot be trusted, he is essentially saying that he is the only person you can trust.

That is simply dangerous, especially when you have one party running the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. The watchdogs of society are more important now than ever.

Still, we are not going to give you our opinions of the new administration, nor their policies. Instead, we present to you the DISSENT issue, chock full of stories about how Philly music people are dealing with these radical changes. And starting on page 24, we provide a platform where a bunch of Philly musician/activists present their firt-person, expert views of the new world order.

Enjoy. Organize. And get active.

- G.W. Miller III JUMPphilly.com

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facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by Charles Shan Cerrone.

The JUMP Off

INSIDE: DIE CHOKING p. 8 / TWIABP p. 10 / SLAUGHTER BEACH, DOG p. 11 / RUIN p. 12 / CHAPLAIN EL p. 12 / NINTH FLOOR MANNEQUIN p. 14 / FLOOD THE DRUMMER p. 15 / EMILY ROBB p. 16 / RABBLE ROUSERS NYB p. 17 / ELISSA JANELLE VELVETEEN p. 18 /

JUMPphilly.com

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Photo by Charles Shan Cerrone.

The JUMP Off

Hard and Fast, but Lasting Die Choking songs, albums and shows are frantic. But the messages will stay with you.

The three men in Die Choking don’t have to walk far to get to their preferred watering hole, Boot & Saddle in South Philadelphia. They get together at drummer Josh Cohen’s, just around the corner, before coming in for some drinks and bar food.

“Are the tots fried in the same oil as the wings?”

Cohen asks the server.

It’s not surprising to find a strict vegan in the ranks of a grindcore band. The aggressive genre, which shares much of the same musical DNA and ethos as punk, often features blunt messages about politics, social justice and authority growled over blastbeats and twisted guitars. Die Choking fits in that tradition, with a fast and complex sound but a bit more finesse to their lyrical approach.

“I didn’t want to write from a preaching standpoint,” explains bassist and vocalist Paul Herzog, who looks like Weird Al Yankovic if the musical comedian had grown up listening to Napalm Death rather than polka music.

Herzog writes all of the lyrics for the band, which feature anti-establishment messages conceived in a way so as not to become stale as soon as the present moment passes into history. Rather than focusing on the issue of the day, Herzog says the band’s message is a broader critique of

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capitalism, empire and fascism.

In the video for their song “Dead Figurehead,” directed by Mitchell Luna and Josh Mahesh, and created before the presidential election, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are both lumped in the same company as past presidents Barack Obama, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, along with fascist dictators Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin and Hitler.

The bandmates are deeply concerned about a Trump presidency but say that musicians will have to do more than write kickass protest music to have an impact.

“To say your next album is going to be awesome [because it’s a rebuke to Trump] is a bullshit shortcut answer to criticism,” says Herzog.

While maintaining the anti-authoritarian line in their songwriting, Die Choking says it’s also important for them to walk the walk. That means conforming the practices of their band to the causes they care about. Cohen, for one, is diligent about making sure the band does not print merch on clothing made in with sweatshop fabric.

“It’s a tough pill for me to swallow when bands who are political sell shirts where you know kids get their hands cut off making them,” he says.

Shortly after the election, the band headlined a show at Kung Fu Necktie and donated all of their pay and merch sales to Standing Rock and Planned Parenthood.

But, true to Herzog’s words, the band does not spend time preaching at their shows but gets right down to business. Leora Colby, co-owner of Sit & Spin Records and bassist for Philly hardcore band Dysogyny, has one word to describe Die Choking’s shows: “Intense,” she says. “Not a lot of stops, not a lot

of breaks. They build this momentum and toward the end of the set, you see an explosion of energy from the crowd.”

Burning through a set and only pausing to stop once or twice is no simple task for Die Choking.

Their latest release, III, clocks in at less than 15 minutes long, but it’s 15 minutes densely packed with dizzyingly fast riffs and complicated drums.

Playing straight through the album is the musical equivalent of sprinting a marathon.

“There needs to be a sense of immediacy,” says guitarist Jeff Daniels about their songwriting.

“The magic happens when we write together in the live room.”

There’s little hesitation or second-guessing when it comes to putting together a Die Choking song.

When it clicks, it clicks. Bang it out and move on to the next one. Every song in their catalog was written sequentially, so their discography is also a one-to-one representation of their evolution as a band. Die Choking is so keen on keeping the songwriting fresh that when they went to record III with producer Will Yip, they hadn’t even finished the album yet.

“We wrote the last song in the studio,” says Cohen.

Die Choking is fast, but not sloppy. Though they want to take more time than usual writing the next record, they operate in an unhurried rush.

They want the music to hit hard and fast, but the message to make you think long and carefully.

Cohen says that if anything, he wants to see people in the DIY scene take steps out of their comfort zone and take the concentrated energy generated at shows into real community action.

“Dissent has to start locally,” he says.

- Tyler Horst facebook.com/JUMPphilly

JUMPphilly.com

Photos by Ben Wong.

The JUMP Off

The World Is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die is putting 2016 behind them. They asked that the story that ran in the printed edition not be made available online.

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facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by Jessica Flynn.

Second Life, Dog Slaughter Beach, Dog started as a cure for writer's block but the project , which is more fictional than personal, has become something larger.

Jake Ewald, one half of the main songwriting axis of Modern Baseball, hit a creativity wall.

Rather than bashing his head against it in hopes of getting through, he just went around. His detour involved stepping away from the hyper-personal subject matter of Modern Baseball and channeling experiences and emotion into fictional characters in a fictional world. The result was Slaughter Beach, Dog, and the debut album, Welcome, which Ewald did entirely on his own (save for a guitar solo by Modern Baseball’s bassist, Ian Farmer).

Now, the album is out. Ewald sits in B2 in South Philly, fresh off a Modern Baseball stadium tour with Brand New and The Front Bottoms, and getting ready to leave for a week in Australia for a festival and a few headlining gigs.

He has a decaf coffee.

“I was kind of having writer’s block with Modern Baseball, which had never happened before,” he says. “Since most of that stuff is pretty personal, I decided to try to write a few songs that were specifically not personal. It’s still inspired by personal experience but it's mostly fictional characters. And it was challenging at first. But the fact that it was more of a project made it a little easier to get stuff out. And then, once I got a few songs out, I was able to get stuff going.”

This project meant that Ewald, 23, of Point Breeze, was fleshing out fully detailed characters with individual traits, backgrounds, experiences and stories.

“I kind of just sat down one day,” Ewald says. “I didn’t want to do anything crazy. I tried to just come up with personalities - life stories that weren’t all that different from my own or people that I knew. They’re all just 20-somethings who fall in love and live close to each other, and deal with a lot of the same problems my friends do. I tried to create more details than necessary before writing a song because then I’d have a lot to pull from when writing a song. So that was kind of neat.”

Ewald describes a lot of things as “neat,” and his tone is hushed. The album deals with themes like deaths in the family (also a major theme of Modern Baseball’s Holy Ghost), imperfect home life and drug dealer friends.

JUMPphilly.com

After creating this world, named after a real-life place between Philadelphia and his parents’ house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Ewald thought the best way to release it was through Lame-O Records, run by his friends Emily Hakes and Eric Osman. They put out the first Modern Baseball record when they were all in college.

“This was my first time doing an LP with them since the first Modern Baseball record,” Ewald says. “Just how much they’ve grown, and the resources they have now, is so cool. They’re still my best friends and they’re totally down-toearth and down for whatever.”

“It felt extremely close to home the whole time, considering we’ve known each other for so long,” says Osman. “I think that since Jake is such a close friend of Lame-O and supporter of Lame-O, when a project he was doing had a full-length record, it was a little assumed on both sides that it would be a Lame-O release.”

Ewald felt the same but remembers that Osman gave him a few opportunities to go for bigger labels. Ewald shook the idea off with a laugh.

“There were a couple times in the recording process, since the recording process was so long, when I’d be giving him updates, talking about how excited I was,” Ewald says. “There were times that he would say stuff like, ‘Are you sure you want me to put it out? Do you want me to help find someone bigger who could do it, or someone who could promote it more?’ And I was like, ‘No! I want to do it with you guys!’”

Ewald got everything he wanted.

He got out of his writing slump (and wrote half of the acclaimed Holy Ghost) and he got to put out his project with his friends. Now, like any writer (though Ewald is quick to downplay his own fiction writing abilities, citing challenging creative writing classes he took at Drexel and his lack of patience), he’s got his next work in his sights.

“I think, technically, I have enough songs now to do [another album],” he says. “It feels really silly, because the other one just came out. But Modern Baseball’s about to do a lot of stuff in the spring. After that tour is done, we’ll probably record the new record and have it out, maybe, the end of this year or early the year after.”

But mostly, Ewald is just playing the waiting game for a slight name change.

“There was a band from Denmark or something called Slaughter Beach,” he says. “It was like, pretty cool pop music, but I didn’t know how serious they were. So I added the 'Dog' at the end.

“The plan is to eventually drop the Dog” if they break up one day.”

- Brendan Menapace

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Photo by Ian Neisser.

The JUMP Off

Power of Thought to The People Chaplain Mahdi Sufi El uses music to shatter bias, tear down barriers, heal people and influence the way other people think.

Defying Genres for 30 Years Philly hardcore punk legends Ruin recently re-released their discography from the '80s.

Glenn Wallis remembers his first punk show featuring Pure Hell — an energized concert in 1979 at The Hot Club, a former venue at 21st and South streets. Shortly after that, Glenn, along with his brother Damon Wallis, recruited “Vosco” Thomas Adams, Cordy Swope and Rich Hutchins to form Ruin in 1980.

Releasing two albums during the next seven years, Ruin sustained a successful, albeit short, career before making a decision to disband and pursue other interests.

It didn’t take long for the reassembly to occur, as Ruin came together in spurts from ’96 through ’97, as well as in ’13. Each revival attracted attendees, as long-standing fans and newcomers alike flocked to the hardcore punk band.

A party and accompanying show in December to welcome the re-release of their discography on vinyl was no different.

“I saw them at a loft party at their debut in North Philly in ’81,” explains attendee George Shirley.

He went on to see the band several times after, enjoying the mix of metal and hardcore punk exhibited on their first album, He-Ho. Prior to the show, the group explains the history of their band and the music scene of Philadelphia.

The six members - with both original drummer Hutchins and Fiat Lux-era drummer Paul Della Pelle in attendance - joke with each other as best friends might.

“We always wanted to touch and affect people” says Glenn Wallis.

The members of Ruin are critical of the musical identities bands in other cities perpetuated.

“Whether you’re in Boston or D.C., they looked

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exactly alike,” Swope says. “Their music all sounded exactly the same. They all listened to the same bands. They beat each other up in the same way.”

All agree Philadelphia’s artistic eccentricity was a core proponent of the music scene, especially how bands started and how the Philadelphia audience explored new bands. But they also claim Philadelphia’s music fans weren’t a large enough group to propel niche bands to stardom. To be a successful meant the band had to attract fans of different genres.

“Philly was the biggest small city in the world,” Swope summarizes.

“There’s a lot of conformity within the global punk scene,” Della Pelle reinforces. “The punk scene mindset was sort of a fashion conformity thing, which to me is kind of anti-punk. Ruin defied the genre.”

And perhaps they did.

Ruin is perhaps most known for what Hutchins calls their "Buddhist sympathies,” something not entirely common or associated with punk and hardcore genres. The bandmates are somewhat divided on what that means but they agree on some level - each band member practiced Buddhism during their initial years.

“When we started wearing white clothes, it just added to the mystique,” Glenn says.

Their getup was a memorable part of the performance, as well as the candlelit stages and group chants before some shows.

Not that there was an intention of converting others to Buddhism.

“It was scary,” Swope says. “It became cliché to go home and tell your parents you do all these drugs. But to tell your parents you’re Buddhist?”

Whatever their spiritual beliefs may be, they tapped into something deep with their fans.

Glenn left the idea of future shows in the air with an innocuous “maybe,” despite the ever-present loyalty of their fan base. “[The best bands are] very real and unadorned,” Glenn states. “I hope that’s why people respond to us the way they do.”

- Samuel Trilling

Political unrest comes and goes with the seasons, but Chaplain Mahdi Sufi El has always been an activist. It’s in his blood.

El identifies as a Moorish-American. He descends from an ancestry of the slave trade from Northwest Africa to the United States, those removed from their native culture and forced to grow new roots with the European settlers. El says it is his place in this world to share the universal message of his people through music, based on simple concepts - love, faith and sovereignty.

“Music is the only thing that can penetrate belief systems, that can shatter bias, that can heal people,” El says. “It can transcend language barriers and culture. Music is the only thing that can effectively change a person.”

El finds that music is the only true unfiltered expression we have, that no one can take away.

Upon this principle, he embarked on what has been a twenty-year career in what he calls “artivism.” It began in the late ‘90s with some small West Philly clubs and DIY mixtapes in which El raps about empowerment and selfgovernment, while supporting his community through nonprofit work.

“He gives positive raps, giving the youth something different - a real beat, and a message,” says Running Bear Thunderbird, the Chief Minister of Security of the Yamassee Nation of Native Americans and an indigenous colleague of El’s. “There’s no other way to wake people up and get recognition. Someone needs to tell people the truth so they can start living true. When you find somebody in his position who is trying to bring about change, of course you grab on.”

El has been finding alternative ways to practice his role as a Moor and his passion for activism in Philadelphia since. For seven years as a local producer, El worked out of LAVA, a community center for radical media and organizing in a West Philadelphia. There he founded the Young Broadcasters of America in 2005 to help youths learn how to make it in radio and TV. El’s most recent project was producing the work of his wife and fellow minister in the Moorish faith, Natalie “Poetica Bey” Natema. The pair released Legend of facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by Brianna Spause.

Poetica in October and threw a Sovereign Sound Social party to release the album, advertising the event as an “open mic with a conscience.”

Natema says in each step of his journey toward activism, El finds a way to incorporate music into the process to bring people along.

“It’s all one, in a way,” Natema says. “At LAVA, Chaplain would give people a place to sing and express themselves and end up ministering in the process. It’s not all art, and it’s not all activism.”

In his current projects, El has made moves to weave his artivism into the infrastructure of the city government, while self-producing and releasing creative works that correspond with his morals.

El has been performing the song “Da Gavel” since 2007, a song which he describes as a “courtroom showdown of an indigenous man on trial and the language he used that enables him to command the court and save him from being convicted for a would-be victimless crime.”

In 2013, El says he became a magistrate in JUMPphilly.com

the first Philadelphia Interfaith Court and the Criminal Justice Center, which provides a faithbased alternative to family court for indigenous people and members of any religion who require counseling, child-support or custody hearings.

“I have a lot of civic-minded material that has been kind of ahead of its time,” El says. “My music has evolved over the years, dealing with sovereignty and indigenous people’s rights, Moorish information and heritage and what people might look at as new aged science.”

Additionally, El works as a liaison between the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the 18th Police District to educate officers in areas of diversity and human rights. In turn, he released “BrokenFeather” in 2014, a short documentary responding to the reality of police brutality.

In December, El shared a piece of his Moorish culture of self-government when he published his book, “Uniform Barter Code & Sovereign Marketplace Directory,” which he calls a blue book for bartering and understanding the value

of goods. The Philadelphia Museum of Art took an interest in his principles of an alternative local currency and invited El to participate in Philadelphia Assembled, a two year multimedia project focusing on the resilience of this city. The project will have installments throughout the museum and the city.

El says starting out as a young hip-hopper taught him the personal resilience to fight negative stigma and share music that would bring the power of thought to people. Activism through art has become a pluralistic journey for El to spread information and the sovereignty of his Moorish people.

“Activism is accomplished through music best because music is still the best expression of mathematics that we have,” El says. “Math is the universal language, but the best expression humans have of [math] is the musical tones and scales. As we get disenfranchised and people lose hope, music is the only thing that will restore faith in ourselves and the world.”

- Brianna Spause

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Photo by Ben Wong.

The JUMP Off

Occupational Therapy Ninth Floor Mannequin began after Jarrod Pedone spent 12 days in a coma.

The scoring for Tim Burton’s “Edward Scissorhands” is what got Jarrod Pedone more serious about music while in high school.

“A really well scored movie, a perfect scene and a perfect piece of music is just about better than anything,” Pedone says. “I love playing in bands but I love the way music can fit into film.”

Pedone, originally from Staten Island, attended Berklee College of Music for film scoring, with drums as his principal instrument. He graduated in 2006.

“I love writing music for film, but it’s a harder thing to land than starting a band,” says Pedone, who moved to Philly in 2008 after touring for a year and “being an early-20s fool and playing basement shows.”

Pedone, who has often been a drummer for various bands, started his project Ninth Floor Mannequin after recovering from a traumatic brain injury in 2012.

He released the album Green & Blue for Blackness this past summer, which included his lyrical commentary on episodes of “The Twilight Zone,” as well as on his own accident.

Pedone says he always had scattered ideas of writing music.

“I had random ideas I started recording and then started laying them down, and those eventually led to full songs” Pedone says. “But there was no time frame, no band members. Just me in my free time.”

But after a car hit him in Fishtown in 2012, he became more determined to finish making an album. While living in the Philly neighborhood and out for a run one night that September, an inebriated driver hit Pedone at roughly 40 miles per hour. Pedone slid under the car.

He was in a coma for 12 days. The first thing he can remember is waking up at his parent’s home in Staten Island four months later with minimal recollection.

“You’re so out of it, so you don’t really understand what’s going on, the gravity of everything,” Pedone says.

Pedone says soon after coming to consciousness, he began sneaking off to his room and making music. It was during this period of outpatient rehabilitation that he began mixing his unfinished

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work and making Ninth Floor Mannequin into a full-fledged project As part of his recovery, Pedone had speech and occupational therapy, but it took him some time to realize that making music was a therapy of its own.

“Once I was doing it, I would finish a song and I would think back and realize that there is a lot of organization, calculation, some math, a lot of tasks,” he adds. “There is a hierarchy of importance to follow, so later on I thought, ‘Yeah this is kind of what the occupational therapy was doing,’ but more advanced because I had to perform it, analyze the song and what the problems were. In retrospect, it was therapy, but that wasn’t the plan.”

He compiled the “scrapyard of stuff,” wrote four more songs and turned it into a full album.

Pedone says it may have been six years ago that he recorded the first note of the album, but it didn’t fully come together until he finished the last song this past summer.

The culmination of the album made Pedone realize that Ninth Floor Mannequin had become a real project, which scared him.

“I just can’t sit behind a stage and play drums,” he says. “I have to put this stuff online and meet with people and talk about it. I play drums in other bands now and that’s still easier. It’s a lot less stress.”

Another project Pedone took on after the accident was scoring a short film titled “Pixel Painter,” but the musician says he can’t recall writing the music. His memory can be unreliable at times but

four years later, it is getting better.

“It is unpredictable and there are entire groups of people who I don’t remember meeting,” he says. “Music, it’s nice to listen back because it’s like listening back to a different version of yourself.”

For his first show, Pedone’s band will be made up of friends from Berklee as well as members of the other band he plays drums in, The End of America.

Lucas Madrazo, Pedone’s college roommate, says he thinks this project helped bring Pedone back to “baseline” after his injury.

“I think it was his way of maintaining momentum after something like that happens, which is a long recovery that will continue forever,” says Madrazo, who will play bass in Ninth Floor Mannequin. “As a close friend, I can only think that it was sort of therapeutic.”

Pedone says his hard drive is filled with several new ideas, but he wants to put recording on hiatus until after the music materializes on stage.

He takes turmeric and rosemary supplements everyday and is still working on his memory and coordination. He recently read an article that says memory can come back after as long as nine years depending on the injury.

“That is why I do such strange things all the time,” Pedone says. “I walk on curbs in a straight line. I am just always working on things to get better. Still, with music, left hand stuff, I work on left hand drills all the time. I just need to keep going.”

- Emily Scott facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by Cassi Segulin.

Drumming for Justice Christopher "Flood the Drummer" Norris uses drumming - and music in general - to get messages of tolerance, equity and unity to the masses.

A video on the Flood the Drummer Facebook page opens with Christopher Norris seated onstage behind just a snare drum. He starts playing and the beat builds as pieces of the kit are added. A high hat and then the toms are introduced. Then the bass drum and more cymbals. Soon, his hands are flying over every surface of the set.

The faster he plays, the more comfortable he seems.

When it is just Norris and the snare drum, he shifts uncomfortably. But now, the full set is assembled and he moves smoothly as if by memory, or maybe intuition.

“Drumming is like meditation,” Norris says.

“It brings your right and your left brain into synchronization. When that happens you're allowed to experience a greater self awareness, a higher level of consciousness.”

Norris, 29, of South Philadelphia, still answers to Flood the Drummer, though most people come to him these days through his words. The CEO of the news and event company Techbook Online writes for sites like The Good Men Project and he hosts a weekly radio show on 900AM WURD, where he tackles issues ranging from policing to education and politics.

He’s taller in person than he seems in the video.

Leaning forward on a couch in the lounge of the Center City Marriott, Norris explains that the drumming and the writing, the music and the politics, aren’t different things. They’re connected in meaningful ways.

“I see drumming as a way to draw attention to a cause,” Norris says. “It’s a way of getting at different people It’s all about outreach, how do you use what you have to get what you want? And in this case, that’s justice.”

Like his drum set, his political life has been built piece by piece, from the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 to the Mayor’s Commission on African-American Men in City Hall today. Along the way, he’s advocated for education for voting rights and participation, and for better relations between the police and the community.

Gregory T. Walker recounts how Norris brought these threads together in 2014 when he held a “Drum Duel” at City Hall. The drumming competition doubled as a way to teach people about the voting process and get them registered Walker is the creative director for the Brothers’ Network and vice chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee. He met Norris in 2011 and was impressed by the young man’s knowledge and maturity. Five years later, Walker still speaks about Norris with a sort of awe.

JUMPphilly.com

“I think what’s unique about Chris is not this moment in history, but what he’s been doing for the last 10 years,” Walker says. “He’s not someone who said, ‘Oh my goodness, we’ve had a change in government.’ He was doing this during the Obama administration as well.”

Norris was appointed in October to the Mayor’s Commission on African-American Men, putting him in a position to bring the issues he cares about right to Mayor Jim Kenney. It’s a role change that can be uncomfortable for someone who has protested from the streets for years, but Norris is focused on the issue and this a chance to have them heard.

Norris’s friend Asa Khalif is one of the leaders of Black Lives Matter in Pennsylvania. Khalif is happy to have someone like Norris in City Hall, but warned his friend not to compromise his values.

“I told him, as soon as he told me he was getting the appointment, ‘As long as you don’t forget who you are. You a black man. Get the hell up

there and remember, you’re Christopher Flood the Drummer. That’s what got you there, don’t forget,’” Khalif says.

If there was any concern about Norris letting his guard down, the election of Donald Trump in November put that to rest. Norris has been open about having a slant toward social justice in his writing, and he says it will be important for journalists, politicians and anyone in power to be clear and firm on their values in the coming years.

The people on the streets - Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ, immigrants, socialists - will have to work together and should extend a hand to people who supported Trump if they find he doesn’t keep his promises, Norris says.

“All of our causes make sense and all of our causes are connected,” Norris says. “The more that you can consolidate power and then take that power to the system, the better the chance you have at achieving social justice.”

- Eric Fitzsimmons

15

Photo by Kevin Barr.

Retro Cool to Nurse the Soul Emily Robb tackles serious stuff while making fun, catchy music with her band Louie Louie.

Within the new political landscape of the country, the cathartic nature of music has rarely seemed as important as it does now. Emily Robb, vocalist and guitarist of garage-pop quartet Louie Louie, sees music as medicine for those hurting.

“People need to be nursed, and music can nurse people,” Robb explains while she takes a seat in Benna’s West to escape the South Philadelphia cold and snow.

At a time when many Americans are fearful for their futures, Robb believes music serves as a source of comfort, compassion and even motivation.

“People need support and encouragement,” she continues over a croissant. “People need sad songs to cry to, love songs to connect with and songs to help them because it’s all a very human thing.”

Robb’s own relationship with music began as a student at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, where she took as many music courses as she could despite being an English major. After college and a brief stint working as a receptionist at a music school, she moved to Montreal where she began working with Zachary Fairbrother and joined his psychedelic rock group, Lantern.

In 2010, the band migrated to Philly, where they met their drummer Sophie White. Since her move to Philadelphia, Robb has continued carving out her own space as a musician while working with other talented women. She attests to gaining a lot

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of experience in the fall of 2014 as the bassist and vocalist of experimental pop ensemble Myrrias, alongside Mikele Edwards, April Harkansan and Casey Bell.

As a woman in the music industry, there has been a fair amount of overwhelming and sometimes belittling experiences, which Robb channels into her creative process. Her deeply personal songs oftentimes focus on female empowerment, equality and compassion.

Robb formed her latest group, Louie Louie, in the winter of 2015, recruiting sister Jenna Robb and friends Leslie Burnette and Emily Eichelberg. Besides Emily Robb, the band is entirely comprised of first-time musicians. The self-taught women of Louie Louie do it all with no promoter or booking agent behind them. In a male-dominated industry, making their own path has been an empowering adventure.

“Being in an all-lady band is probably the most fun a person can have,” Burnette says. “We also really lucked out finding each other. There is a lot of mutual respect and not taking our individual selves so damn seriously.”

Each member contributes to the collaborative effort it takes to make the band happen.

“Everyone has their one extra thing they bring to the table,” Burnette says of how the women work together. “Em Robb writes the tunes. Jenna makes our costumes and merch. I do the hair and Em E. makes our show posters. We're like a made-forTV movie or some type of machine covered in dry shampoo and glitter.”

Louie Louie’s songs may be incredibly catchy but there is far more to them than just that. Emily Robb writes emotionally driven songs inspired by her own experiences and the social and political events of the world. “Drums Not Guns” discusses gun violence, lambasts the CEOs of firearm

companies and criticizes the lack of gun control in the country. Meanwhile, their first soul-tinged single, “After Me,” addresses the complexities of being a woman in a man’s world. Emily Robb sings about the desire to be strong and confident, all while your space is constantly being invaded by catcalls and the very real fear of walking home alone at night.

These songs are showcased on Louie Louie’s first studio album, Friend of a Stranger, slated for release in February. The album was recorded straight to tape in a whirlwind, six-day-long session in Montreal.

“Not every band is ready to just lay down live takes of an album's worth of songs,” says Christian Simmons, a former Lantern drummer who helped with the production, “but Louie Louie had rehearsed pretty well and everything worked out well.”

Louie Louie’s expertly placed harmonies and upbeat surf rock-inspired guitar paired with Emily Robb’s assertive vocals address modern day issues while still harkening back to an earlier time, and that is no coincidence. Robb’s inspiration runs the gamut from girl groups like Martha and the Vandellas and The Supremes, to classic soul artists like Irma Thomas and James Brown.

“I guess I am drawn to music that means something and takes chances,” Emily Robb explains. “I think the music of the ‘60s was revolutionary. The social climate was revolutionary and exploratory.”

Now, with an increasingly polarized nation, the political and social climate has regained a sense of urgency. Naturally, the tone of music is poised to become more revolutionary and defiant.

“I think that there is probably less hesitation now and less second guessing yourself when it comes to expression,” Robb says. “Things feel far more dire. I feel like we are all sort of waiting to see what is going to happen.” - Jennifer Costo facebook.com/JUMPphilly

The JUMP Off

Winning with Number Two

Photos by Ben Wong.

The Rabble Rousers New Year's Brigade mocked the Mummers Parade judges with a skit that featured an unflushed turd and a giant toilet.

On Jan. 1, 2016, the annual Philadelphia Mummers New Year’s Day parade was full of its usual colors and costumes, but it was also full of some thinly veiled (if veiled at all) bigotry. Groups like Finnegan’s lampooned Caitlin Jenner’s transition by wearing high heels and dancing to “Dude Looks Like a Lady.”

Others wore culturally insensitive costumes meaning to represent Mexican people.

It wasn’t a proud moment for Philadelphia, but to say that it was an anomaly in the parade would be ignorant. Jesse Engaard, 34, of Kensington, recognized the parade’s shortcomings, and wanted to change it.

He did it in a way that he calls “protesting the parade in its own language.”

He and his friends created the Rabble Rousers New Year's Brigade.

“We just started doing it in our own spaces in Kensington, in the warehouse spaces that we were living in,” Engaard says. “We had a really good time and a lot of really amazing people joined in. We won second place the first time we went out, and we won first place the second time we went out.”

Engaard and the Rabble Rousers went out with the Good Timers group in 2016, but, after what happened with Finnegan, they didn’t want to be involved with that group anymore. The higher ups didn’t respond to the controversy in a way they felt was enough.

So how do you fight the less-than-savory aspects of the parade? Well, you create a giant structure of City Hall that turns into a casino in a skit called “The Big Rock Candy Bailout.” Or, as they did at the 2017 parade, create a caricature of the parade itself on the float, complete with an unflushed turd with a ribbon. That skit, Engaard says, was a jab at the judges. And, unlike others, the Rabble Rousers weren’t trying to win.

Quite the opposite.

“It’s our goal to be disqualified, to tell you the truth,” he says. “All we’re trying to do is make everybody laugh. And I think the judges are going to laugh at themselves. I think the Mummers are going to laugh at themselves. And anyone who’s not laughing at the end of it should be thinking long and hard about why they’re not laughing.”

The thesis of their skit is the problem that, despite the city’s efforts to crack down on some performances that erred on the side of bigotry (complete with sensitivity training), the judges have never spoken out against it.

They’ve even rewarded it.

“It’s critical of the judges of the parade,” Engaard says. “They are responsible for condoning the type of humor that puts people in danger and that, you know, dehumanizes entire populations of people in the city. Everyone is like, ‘Oh, god, that’s awful. Oh, what a bad skit.’ And then they get third place! And it’s like, what the heck? Who are those judges? No one knows who they are or exactly how they’re judging.”

Engaard and the rest of his crew didn’t put together some rinky-dink protest to disrupt the parade. They’re still Mummers, after all. And they needed their band. That’s why Engaard recruited some friends in the West Philadelphia JUMPphilly.com

Orchestra and the tuba player from the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Even though the cutting satire is what some might see as the Rabble Rousers’ focus, Engaard is mostly excited about the music.

“I’m really excited this year because we had a core band,” he says. “I love West Philly Orchestra. The music is a direct way to interact with people.

That’s why I wanted our music to be really good this year. As much as I’ve tried to make our skits complicated and communicative, it really comes down to the music that helps us.”

David Fishkin, who plays saxophone in West Philadelphia Orchestra, was originally hesitant to do the parade. However, when he heard about the Rabble Rousers’ standpoint, he felt it was too good to resist.

“Jesse Engaard is a friend of mine, and he asked me earlier this year if I’d like to be involved,” says Fishkin, 38, of Manayunk. “And I wasn’t sure because West Philly Orchestra plays an annual New Year’s Eve show that’s usually pretty intense. And after the election, he contacted me again and said that the Rabble Rousers plan to take on the racist bullshit that is overtaking our country. And I said, ‘Count me in.’”

The problem, according to Engaard, isn’t that people are setting out trying to be as racist or as homophobic as possible. It’s just that many don’t understand. He remembers what it sounded like during the sensitivity training sessions, which were voluntary, but the way Engaard makes it sound, encouraged for every Mummer to attend.

“I remember people kind of saying under their breath, ‘Eh, freedom of speech,’” he says. “That’s like code for, ‘If I want to be racist, you can’t stop me,’ and also, ‘I don’t care about minorities. I don’t care about vulnerable people. That’s not my responsibility.’ They resent people telling them that they have a responsibility to just be nice! They resent that. There are people sitting in the back talking under their breath. You can tell they’re there, but they don’t speak out. And then, when they’re criticized, they’re the ones who freak out because they’re not used to being questioned or given a hard time about anything.”

And this was the year that they forced the other groups, judges and spectators to really take a look at the bigger picture.

Engaard feels like they, as a group, have really stepped it up this year. They marched in costumes just like everyone else. They drank beer in the morning just like everyone else, and they hit “Two Street” later, just like everyone else. But they tried to really hold a mirror to everyone watching this time. And that, he thinks, is the most Mummerish thing you can do.

“I don’t think we’ve been very dissenting of the parade up until this year,” Engaard says. “But I think that, in my mind, what we do fits in perfectly with the tradition of the parade, which is to make a mockery of what is established and to make fun of the most powerful people. I think what we do is perfectly in line with the parade, which is why we’ve been welcomed with open arms and congratulated a million times throughout our existence. I always thought we’re leading by example. We show what we think the parade should look like, and I thought we were very successful because we were winning prizes. But then, I realized what the parade needs is to be accepting of critique and be more critical of itself and be more thoughtful. That’s why this year we’re being the voice of dissent to the parade in its own language, which is satire.”

- Brendan Menapace

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The JUMP Off

Popaganda Machine Elissa Janelle Velveteen crafts catchy tunes that critique our culture.

Sheltered. Censored. Segregated.

That’s how Elissa Janelle Velveteen, 30, describes growing up in a loving, yet conservative household, as a preacher’s daughter.

“Music was the bridge for me to get out,” Velveteen says. “I grew up singing in the church choir, where the principle taught was to be humble because you’re not singing for yourself. You’re singing for Jesus.”

At first, the singer-songwriter felt selfish commanding attention on stage. Velveteen says the showy, “Hey! Look at me!” attitude she found in the entertainment business was foreign, yet a lifestyle she welcomed to make her voice heard.

“I like to use music as a vehicle,” Velveteen says.

“This is fun, but the reason I dedicated my life to it is because you can change the world with it.”

She calls it “popaganda.” It’s catchy music with meat to it, and it has a few goals.

“To reach and help people,” Velveteen says. “To inspire people. It’s not necessarily about me but you do kind of have to flag people down like, ‘Hey! I have something to say.’”

As with most things, Velveteen believes in starting small.

In the issues she cares about, Velveteen has the whole - we might not be able to stop Walmart right now from paying inhumane wages to factory workers overseas, but we can all stop shopping there, right? - kind of attitude.

She brings focus with her raspy, sharp vocals in Molly Rhythm, the eclectic eight-piece rock/ska/ punk band where she is one of the two dueling female vocalists.

To start off her career in Philly, she played her dark, cathartic originals on stage at The Fire’s weekly Monday night open mics. For 10 years, she was so reliable, they brought her on as a host and a bartender.

On a cold December Wednesday, Velveteen graces the same stage in a retro pair of lilac trousers and an intricate tulle hat. The Fire is having their annual Holiday Party. The smell of chili and the sounds of Velveteen’s vocals fill the small room.

As the night winds on, Velveteen plays the majority of her new album, One Sunken Ship. The

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set is like a journey as Velveteen dances from the acoustic guitar to piano to ukulele-and-kazoo combo and back again, practicing her popaganda by painting a realistic picture of society as she sees it.

“Y’all want to hear a little ditty about police brutality?” Velveteen says as she leans into the microphone, before going into “The Devil’s Hands.”

In the overall catchy tune, Velveteen begs the question, “Where do you get the nerve to call protect and serve legal abuse?” moving on to social commentary like, “We’re changing the channel, but not our behavior. Ignoring our neighbors and waiting on a savior that will never come.”

Lori Johansson, bassist of Molly Rhythm, says Velveteen’s lyrics are what have always drawn her

into her music.

“She makes important points on big issues in a very poetic and thoughtful way,” Johansson says.

“Her songs command you to pay attention to certain points with her ever-changing riffs and deliberate pauses.”

Velveteen says live performance is where she truly finds the most comfort. The act of engaging people with her message and the spirit of protesting society's norms works best when she feels like she can engage one-on-one with people in a crowded room through music.

Johansson sees the charming effects of propaganda in both Velveteen’s solo and band performances, from the inside out.

“Words mean something different to individuals facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Staying Golden

Photo by Brianna Spause.

Roger Harvey has toured around the world and continues to do so.

But he's sort of settled in Philadelphia. For now.

and they create synapses in your brain,” Johansson says. “If you hear new thoughts and ideas, it can increase brain plasticity to help you come up with new thought patterns. And music is a wonderful way to help people remember what you are saying.”

Josh Aptner, founder of Deviant Philly and drummer in the progressive rock duo Air is Human, also recognizes the sense of magic Velveteen finds in live performance.

Velveteen was the first artist Deviant Philly, an art collective new to the city, produced an album for. Aptner says when they were recording One Sunken Ship in the studio, something was missing and they couldn’t quite put a finger on it.

“Then we realized, it was the audience,” Aptner JUMPphilly.com

says. “She’s a performer, through and through.

Even if you just meet her in person you can tell.

She’s very gregarious. She’s more comfortable in that setting.”

To solve the problem of the studio stuffiness, they threw a big party and recorded the album live, and outdoors. Velveteen says she is pleased that you can’t tell the recorded album is live, adoringly calling the sound guys all wizards.

“We really wanted that live magic,” Velveteen says. “That’s when I thrive, when I can look at people and I can see them reacting to the music and get them dancing. If they relate and enjoy it, great! Maybe they’ll never reach that level like, ‘Oh fuck! That song is about sweatshops,’ but you’ve given them something. Maybe it’s a piece of you

that makes them forget about their problems for a second.”

For Velveteen, the ability to get up on stage and share her thoughts through music is like putting herself on the autopsy table, and encouraging her audience to take a look around. She says experiences are all relatable if you boil them down enough, and she wants to share her coping mechanisms with others.

“I feel like everyone is so alienated now, they’re so alone in their own pain,” Velveteen says. “We are more or less pack animals in the way the reward centers in our brains work. Most of us unless you’re a sociopath, we want to care about each other, and I want to make that happen for people.”

- Brianna Spause

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This Place Rocks

Can this New Venue Bring the Fun Back?

The squad from REC Philly recently launched Live! at William Street Common in West Philadelphia, just blocks away from the beloved but defunct Blockley.

Philadelphia has become known as a hub of cultural inspiration. It harbors creatives of all types, providing a space of sanguinity and support. On any given night, one could easily find gigs or events of varying types for varying preferences.

One neighborhood that seems to be particularly lacking in substantial venue spaces, however, is West Philly. Sure, there is a plethora of infectious musical stimulation and undeniable energy, but since the demise of The Blockley in 2013, there has been a notable lack of physical spaces that can cater to this.

Dave Silver and Will Toms, both 25, the c0-founders of REC Philly, the fast-rising creative agency, are looking to remedy the situation.

In December, REC Philly opened their very own venue, Live! At William Street Common. It's located just off of the University of Pennsylvania’s campus, at 39th and Chestnut streets, about two blocks away from where Ghostface Killah, Mobb Deep, DMX, Cam'ron and many others performed at The Blockley during its last year in operation.

“The geography is one of the big ways it fills its [The Blockley’s] void,” says Silver of the new venue space.

There are some exciting arenas for performance, like The Rotunda and Café Live, but they serve a different audience, says Silver.

“World Café Live doesn’t really cater to college students or younger people,” says Silver. “There’s nothing wrong with that. They produce great shows.

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But it’s not really in a Millennial demographic. The Blockley [had] more live music that students could easily go to and see a cheaper show with really great emerging talent. Since it closed in 2013, I can’t think of anything else there is [like that].”

The Rotunda's offerings go far beyond music, so the focus is different from William Street Common.

Silver and Toms, as well as REC Philly’s A&R director Tim Montgomery, also 25, operate as a complete unit.

They are all still quite young but that does not deter their motivation whatsoever. They maintain a palpable and infectious spirit and don matching jackets - Toms refers to it as their “squadliness” - and are constantly bouncing ideas off of each other. In their own words, REC Philly is its own “agnostic” entity, striving to aid artists and creative entrepreneurs of all genres and backgrounds.

“We’re not catering to a specific genre,” Toms says.

“For the two years we’ve been around, we’ve been catering to the hip-hop and R&B and alternative rock side of things. That’s just been our corner. But for this new venue, we’d really like to open it up.”

The space itself is rather intimate and somewhat rustic. There are two floors, with the lower level able to hold a much larger crowd of around 300. The Blockley, by comparison, could hold around 800 people, though it always felt much smaller. The upstairs room at William Street Common can host around 70 to 100. Silver notes that ideally, the upstairs will soon become facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photos by Dave Rosenblum.

a balcony area overlooking the first floor.

The venue will serve as a showcase for local talent and eventually host national acts as well.

“We want to be bringing names that you wouldn’t think would come to such a small space,” Toms explains. “All-in-all, I think it’s just a really cool addition to our tool kit of REC Philly.”

Dave Patten, a local Philly musician who has teamed up with REC Philly in the past, agrees that this new space will ultimately have a positive impact on the music scene in the city.

“These guys have a ton of momentum behind their movement, and with that they offer a platform that comes with built-in exposure for every musician and artist on board,” he notes. “That's half the battle in the oversaturated music market as an independent artist – finding an audience who will listen.

REC Philly now makes it possible for indie artists on their grind to be heard. I can't commend them enough for what they're doing for the music community in Philly.”

Silver concurs, saying this new venue is really just a culmination of the evolution of REC Philly and its mission, which is to provide resources to the creative community in Philadelphia. He says that the offer to run the venue felt like a huge opportunity not only for them, but for the scene as a whole.

Silver says that they are open to all types of event ideas, and they hope to curate an exciting community around that.

“They've created a sense of unity where artists can help to elevate each other in cooperation,” Patten adds. “From my experience, music is unfortunately the most cutthroat of all entertainment industries, so it's amazing to have an outfit whose sole purpose is to assist and promote indie artists. REC Philly has done nothing but positively impact the Philly music scene.”

Operating their own venue was always a long-term dream, but not something that the REC Philly squad expected to achieve within just two years.

“We’re still young,” Silver notes, speaking of the team, as well as the organization. “The overarching thing, though, was that this [venue] is needed for our community. We really just couldn’t walk away.”

Toms agrees, smiling.

- Maggie McHale “It’s really bringing the mission to fruition,” he says.

JUMPphilly.com

Music & Education Photo by Mike Arrison.

When did you first realize that jazz would be an integral part of your life?

I started playing saxophone when I was 10 or 11, when I was in 4th grade, and I didn’t even know really what jazz was at the time. But I knew that I really wanted to be in the jazz band at school. I really enjoyed listening to them. After I started practicing the saxophone, I was at summer camp with a teacher who worked with me really intensely on the pieces of music for the jazz band.

That’s when it opened the doors for me to learn more about it.

In high school, I started learning more about organizations, like Jazz at Lincoln Center, and I didn’t even realize that something this big existed for this music that none of my peers were listening to. It was kind of a moment where I was like, ‘Maybe I can have this be a big part of my life, if not my whole life.’

How did you develop the three focal points (performance, education and community outreach) of the organization?

The three focal points kind of came about as a group effort. We were working on our mission statement and we were trying to make a statement that allowed us to grow, but also rooted us in the values that we wanted to expand upon in the organization. Just having those performance and education components involved the community so much, that needed to be an integral part of our mission.

How can the community outreach and education aspects connect to jazz as a tool for dissent?

It’s talking a lot about freedom, and being able to express yourself. Thelonius Monk, he said, ‘Jazz is freedom.’

The Freedom of Expression Jazz music, in its very existence, is syncretic rebellion.

During slave revolts, drums could be used to signal an attack on the masters.

Consequently, the Georgia Slave Code barred not only the use of drums but also loud instruments of any kind – fundamental building blocks of African music and culture.

Defining elements of African ethos – the call-and-response, the essentiality of performance and, perhaps most notably, the striking presence of lush rhythmic content – 22

all grew to define jazz as a genre.

Fast forward to Philadelphia, 2017.

Sarah Leonard, co-founder of the organization Jazz Lives Philadelphia, sits at Euphoria Café in Northern Liberties with our Ebonee Johnson.

Leonard's organization, founded in 2014, aims to introduce jazz music to a younger audience via performance, education and community outreach.

It’s a perfect afternoon to talk about that swing.

When you’re performing with a group, you’re able to express yourself, even when you’re playing a melody. People, whether or not they’re students or young kids or adults, when you give them jazz as a tool to communicate to others, I feel like you’re giving them a tool for dissent, because of the improvisational aspect of jazz. When people realize how it had its origins, and how it blossomed into what it was in New Orleans, and then it made its way around the rest of the U.S., giving people those bits of information, and then giving them tools to know that they can express themselves in this way.

Generally, why are jazz music and music education both important to the future of Philadelphia’s culture?

John Coltrane lived here for some time. The Heath Brothers are from Philadelphia. We have Christian McBride, who is a really big force in the jazz world today, and he comes back to Philadelphia, and he’s really proud of his city. And for him to show that pride is really important. One of the strong reasons that we had behind our education program is that we realized that a lot of young facebook.com/JUMPphilly

students weren’t being introduced to jazz. For kids to not be introduced to jazz, they’re not really able to know what it is, and they hear all this other music that is just not very musically rich in terms of the way that it’s composed or arranged.

Music education is important because music is important for kids.

Music is an art form that really helps transcend regardless of any kind of background. Music helps people to understand others and show them a different mode of empathy.

What are your future plans for the organization?

At the moment, we are working on our education programs for the first half of 2017. So we have about 8 to 10 schools that we’re going to be going into.

I would really like to see a program similar to a program in New Orleans. Their slogan is ‘No excuses.’ They provide everything for the kids – they provide instruments, they provide T-shirts, they provide food, they provide transportation. I would love to have a program like that arise.

JUMPphilly.com

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Cover Story

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facebook.com/JUMPphilly

With the new president, Congress and impending Supreme Court justice, things seem rather dire.

But Philly artists are taking a stand.

On the following pages, you'll find words of wisdom from local musicians who recognize the challenges ahead.

And they're making plans to survive.

JUMPphilly.com

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WE NEED TO ORGANIZE. NOW. Essay by Rodney Anonymous.

Photo by Charles Wrzesniewski.

Remove your shoes / laptop in a tray.

Trade a little freedom for a little safety.

- Angelspit, “Thanks for Your Cooperation”

I

n an alternate reality, Bernie Sanders won the 2016 presidential race. And if we’re going with an alternate reality scenario, we might as well dream big. So let’s also give ol’ Bernie a talking golden unicorn sidekick named “Living Wage”and have Assemblage 23 play the Inaugural Ball. In this world, Prince, David Bowie and Florence Henderson (TV’s Mrs. Brady) are all still alive and doing just fine.

Ted Nugent is settling into his favorite buffalo hide chair to type out a piece on his made-from-baby seal computer keyboard about how to fight back against the coming changes to our government. And that’s OK. Or, at least, it would be OK if Ted Nugent – even alternate reality Ted Nugent -weren’t such an asshole.

F

or many of us, it seems like we’ve been waking up every day since the morning of November 9th in a nightmarish dystopian alternate reality, one in which the new president/reality show producer is an egomaniacal bigot with misogynistic tendencies and ties to White Supremacist groups.

It's a world in which former Texas governor Rick Perry, the man who forgot the name of the Department of Energy during the Republican presidential debates, has been tapped to run that very same agency. A world where Cindy Brady is apparently a raging homophobe (et tu, Cindy?).

The irony being that, for years, the Other Side has been living in a strange alternate reality wherein the president of the United States was a secret foreign-born Muslim who was planning to outlaw Christmas, confiscate all guns and force dissenters into FEMA camps while Hilary Clinton conducted Satanic rituals beneath pizza parlors.

Crazy, right?

Now, keep in mind that Alex Jones, the man who helped peddle many of these nutjob conspiracy theories, now has the ear of the most powerful man in the world. No wonder Uncle Henry believes that millions of illegal immigrants voted in the presidential election and that thousands of Muslims celebrated the 9/11 attacks by dancing upon New Jersey rooftops?

A

lternate reality Ted Nugent would probably tell his readership that the most logical response to a massive political shift would be to arm themselves and to wave their guns around whenever and wherever possible. But that’s not our way, and it sure as lack-of-shooting wasn’t the way of Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King, Gandhi or Bobby Brady (so I assume, as Bobby was always the yin to Cindy Brady’s yang).

Our way is to organize.

After all, our organizational skills ended Jim Crow laws, brought about same-sex marriage and have kept Creed off the radio for over a decade so far.

And we need to get organized NOW. We need to do this for the sake of the most vulnerable among us. I’m a straight white man with a college education (or “An Elite Libtard,” a term I now wear as a fuckin’ Badge of Honor. Shit, Luther! I’m having Elite Libtard business cards made) and I’m worried.

I can’t even begin to fathom the apprehension my Muslim, LGBT, and immigrant friends, neighbors and family members must be feeling right now.

They’ve got the guns but we’ve got the numbers Gonna win / yeah we’re takin’ over - The Doors, “No One Here Gets Out Alive”

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o you know two or three people who are as concerned as you are?

Good. You now have a starting point. The next step is to organize your friends into either an email or Facebook group. Hell, there may already be an existing one that you could all join.

Yes, it’s a small start, but remember that it only took ONE person to turn to another and say, “Damn, we really need to get Creed and Cindy Fuckin’ Brady off the radio.”

Once you have your group together (you’ll want to grab the name “The Sane Bradys” early because once word gets out about Cindy, EVERYBODY is going to want to call their group that), you’ll want to set a weekly goal. I suggest something along the lines of “Call your senator and/or congressperson and ask that they do X”.

No, don’t call them and ask them to do Xtasy. The “X” is just an Elite Libtard way of saying “fill in the blank.”

By the way, when you call your representative, try to leave a succinct message like, “Please vote against the confirmation of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. Thank you.”

DO NOT leave a message along the lines of “Rex Tillerson is an evil tool of the Fascist Corporate Establishment and must be STOPPED before he breeds an army of Exxon-approved Lizard People.”

That’s not helping. Although it probably wouldn’t be the craziest call your representative gets that week, especially if your representative lives in Ted Nugent’s voting district.

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hat? You don’t know the name of your senators or your congressperson? That’s nothing to be ashamed of, as long as you go online and fill in that gap in your knowledge. And it can actually be kind of fun if your representative has a silly name. My congressperson’s name - I shit you not - is Bobby Brady.

Did you also know that your representatives have local offices (which I assume where all designed by famous architect Mike Brady) and that you and your friends can turn up there and ask for a meeting with your representative (Be polite! Don’t rant about Exxon-approved Lizard People).

That’s because you are your representative’s boss. And people tend to get shit done a lot more quickly whenever the boss will be coming around.

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K, people. We’ve got Social Security and Medicare to save and the registration of Muslims to prevent. Let’s get to work. In the words of Ted Nugent, “If you don't crush evil, then evil will get you.”

The people have the power The power to dream / To rule To wrestle the world from fools It's decreed the people rule - Patti Smith, “The People Have The Power”

Rodney Anonymous is a member of the legendary Philly punk band The Dead Milkmen.

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MAKE PUNK A THREAT AGAIN Essay by Katy Otto.

Photo by Rachel Del Sordo.

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here has never been a better time for us to come together and think about this as artists, musicians, writers, activists, punks, organizers.

We need each other to build resistance, to amplify messages, to organize against the violent, hateful, bleak vision a Trump presidency offers us.

We’ve needed it all along to fight injustice and oppression wherever we see it.

I had a mom who infused a belief in social change work and activism in me over the years. She had been involved in anti-war organizing and the Civil Rights movement, and was a public school teacher and educator professionally. There is so much she taught me just by example about fighting for what is right and sticking up for others growing up.

In high school, I began to get a global perspective by getting involved with Amnesty International and beginning to understand the breadth of human rights violations happening all around the world. Toward the end of high school, feeling overwhelmed, despondent, but also desperate for a place to try to make change, I stumbled upon a local band in my DC metro area home that went by the name Fugazi.

It is not an understatement to say this changed my life.

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ugazi was powerful for a number of reasons, as all of us who had the opportunity to see them live and hear them can attest to. But one of the core reasons they were powerful beyond belief from my vantage point was because of their relationship to the broader community. I mean this in a host of ways.

First, every single show this band played in Washington, DC was either a rally to raise political awareness or a benefit for a local organizing project or nonprofit group. They regularly performed with and championed go-go music – a potent and unstoppable genre completely indigenous to Washington, DC, similarly informed by underground networks and DIY ethics. Frontman/ guitarist Ian MacKaye ran a label and put out friends’ bands, focusing strictly on DC. They also regularly had fantastic local groups open up for them.

In college, my first band, Bald Rapunzel, was lucky to be one of those groups.

But it was more than a strong movement of undeniable art centered on these four (white, straight, cisgender) men. Their local shows were produced in conjunction with an incredible grassroots activist organization called Positive Force.

I stumbled on my first Positive Force meeting while still in high school, when I wanted to do a large-scale benefit for my Amnesty chapter. The meeting was like nothing I had ever been a part of – a ragtag group of people, diverse in age, gender and race, coming together to discuss an array of resistance projects, ideas and efforts. I also was not made to feel like an interloper as a brand new person to the group and as a teenager. I was invited in, encouraged and supported.

This space was a vital training ground for activism that would inform the entire course of my life. Quite simply, they made revolution irresistible (I am borrowing that phrase from the brilliant writer and activist Toni Cade Bambara). We had book discussions, delved into theory, and grew to challenge ourselves and one another. There were people of all political stripes, from liberal Democrats to green anarchists in the group, and we talked across differences.

I had a regular weekly meeting space to engage in political education.

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his is where we need to focus efforts in the era of an incoming Trump regime. We need to come together like never before, in real time and space. The Christian Right has a great advantage in the regular

meeting space/community that is formed by church. The left needs something similar – and music and art can provide this. We gather for our exhibitions, punk shows, book events. We form community. We create space to talk and to connect. Now is the time to make this explicit and intentional.

One of the groups that has most inspired me in terms of their ongoing community connection, grassroots activism and political education in the past few years has been the Moral Mondays movement in North Carolina.

This leaderful movement was fueled in large part by the energy and passion of Dr. William Barber, a Protestant minister, NAACP national board member and political activist. Beginning in April 2013, he led regular “Moral Mondays” civil rights protests - on Mondays - in the state capital of Raleigh. He has regularly talked about the urgency of building community and coalition in order to advance social change.

Punk and independent music are similarly situated to inspire hearts and minds, to draw people in to movements for resistance. Bands can organize benefits and rallies, use their music and their microphones to speak truth to power and talk about things that matter to us.

It’s no coincidence that the Trump transition team struggled to find artists to play his inauguration. Our communities reject his rhetoric, vitriol and hate.

We can be unapologetic in naming this and in trying to strategize about how best to put our bodies on the line, particularly for those most vulnerable and likely to be most harmed in the course of his presidency.

We can use the Internet to connect but we have to get out of our houses regularly and talk to one another. We need regular meetups, like Moral Mondays or Positive Force meetings, where someone can stop by for the first time, learn, plug in and become politicized. We need to take some lessons from the past – our organizing has to be empowering, collaborative, and enjoyable. This is urgent work. All of our efforts are needed.

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am also now the mother of a toddler, and I deeply believe that we have to strategize about ways to engage parents in these fights. That includes in punk/arts communities. Can meetups or events offer childcare? Can we think about different roles someone might be able to play in a direct action if they can’t risk arrest because they are the sole guardian of a kid? We need to be creative. We all have parts to play, and we can support each other with a range of tactics.

I feel grateful that in its nearly nine years, my band Trophy Wife (a partnership with my best friend Diane) has been a ongoing dialogue and offered me space for political education. There is so much I need to study, explore and learn in order to be the strongest proponent for social justice I can be. We need to encourage this in each other and try to build all of our capacity.

None of us is perfect – we have a lot of learning to do, especially from one another.

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ow is not a time to be shy. Our shows, bands, DJ nights, venues and group houses are powerful. We wouldn’t be targeted by hateful altright trolls on 4chan and Reddit if they weren’t.

We can, in fact, make punk a threat again.

Let’s dedicate ourselves to being about more than the loudest, most brutal band or the next big thing on Pitchfork. Let’s ignite a movement that is centered on ending oppression, fighting back, and changing the increasingly terrifying world we see in front of us.

Let’s dissent – through joyous, communal song.

Katy Otto has performed in numerous bands, including Trophy Wife and Callowhill. She also runs Exotic Fever Records.

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KEEP DREAMING Essay by Alex Smith.

Photo by Ben Wong.

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he walls crawl with mold. Shoddy paint jobs peel like cracked skin, revealing the pink, fibrous flesh of insulation. Nails protrude the wrong way on the floor boards. And I'm surrounded by sound.

After I make my way down the steps, into the dense thicket of bodies pressed up towards a band, I sidle against the side wall and feel the thick, cool concrete slab through my sweater. The band is called Disappearances and, full disclosure, they're shredding the place up. Their intricate guitar lines slither in and out of existence - noise for noise's sake, crashing down like lightning as it cuts through the thick, plodding angular basslines.

The singer growls into the mic, a throaty rush of words and distorted phrases that nobody can really make out. But everyone nods along, strangers mostly, connected through the bashing, all of us souls riding on the vibrations of the crash symbol.

It's nights like this, in junk basements in some stranded part of post-Temple North Philadelphia, that the world feels like it's going to erupt into a thousand rainbows casting prismatic light onto vast lush fields or turn to a dusty barren wasteland, where we are all living out of hollowed out Corollas, all of us left to fight over scraps and cans of beans.

On these nights music grabs hold and either strangles or gives life.

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fter the band's set, I make my way up the steps, an even more treacherous journey than the descent. The door is locked. It's pitch black and, as I'm the guy in front of the restless line, I'm fidgeting with the knob. I don't live here (does anyone?) and I don't know how to get this thing unlatched.

“You've got to jiggle it,” someone on the bottom step implores. “I know, it's difficult.”

“There it is,” I say.

The door creaks open and I'm washed in the incandescent light of someone's living-slash-merch and amplifier-storage room. It is a familiar scene. As I tuck myself into my jacket and make my way to mill about outside, a sudden wave of danger flits over me like a spectre. I look up into the trees, smell the night air, watch the moon, glance at the other bands loading in equipment.

I should be freaking out. I should be thinking claustrophobic thoughts of nightmarish fire hazzards. All I can do is nod at the guitarist pushing an amp up the sidewalk and say, “Watch those steps.”

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nce, in my home state of North Carolina, I went to see Rage Against the Machine, Atari Teenage Riot and Wu-Tang Clan. Yes, they played the same show.

We were ushered into a giant field, a parking lot with the scenic grandeur of a mass grave. We shuffled over the rocks and mud and walked through the gate.

Shirtless white youths sprawled for what seemed like miles.

ATR was playing their caustic mix of hardcore, ultra-digitized technoinspired electronica and shouted political missives. They were just, like, three crust-punks on a stage about the length of a full city block, and they did all the best they could, pogo'ing like mad to try to induce the crowd.

I thought then, “Man, this would probably be sick in my friend's living room.”

It was a thought that seemed preferable when a 6-foot-5 redneck rocking a bandana and jean shorts walked by yelling “Wu Tang! Wu Tang! Wu Tang!” while he waved his shirt around him.

Eventually, he'd get his wish. The Wu took the stage and managed to, as they said in the parlance of the day, wreck shop despite the suspicious absence of

Method Man and Ol' Dirty Bastard. Mosh pits erupted all over the lawn, down the small hills and across the coliseum floor, just shy of the barricade.

As a sea of young people who looked like they'd just as soon drag me behind their Jeeps in the eastern Carolina mud bashed each other's heads in to 36 Chambers, I started to feel strangely claustrophobic. I felt like I ultimately didn't belong there.

The surrealism reached its peak when friends of mine from a band called Rent America took the stage before Rage. They were three humble, sweet young dudes in a thrashy, emo-y hardcore band from a tiny town and they were invited on stage to talk about something I'd heard them talk about before their sets at various teen centers, skate parks and dive bars - the war for oil in Nigeria, about Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni 9, African freedom fighters who were murdered by their state for standing up to Shell Oil's exploitation of the area.

When Rage finally raged, urging the crowd to “take the power back” and admonishing governments for “killing in the name of,” the Marines went ape in ecstatic delight. A ghost-like sense of ennui settled over me as I stared blankly into the dawn.

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'd seen Rent America in a barn and they did in fact talk about the Ogoni 9. Present at that show were future members of the Ku Klux Klan wearing the teenage disguise of punk rock - the tattered clothes, the spikey hair, the Screeching Weasel patches. Those kids would grow up to hate.

Rent America blazed through 15 minutes of music so intense it was as if I could visibly see every discordant note lift out of their amps. And while a few of those drunk punks would never make it out of the trailer park mentality, plenty of the kids there, exposed to ideas and sounds and movements by this wild band, exposed to a new vision for how to live a life in a disturbingly commodified world, did escape.

Lives were changed that day.

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e call them safe spaces. They are refurbished warehouses, reconfigured teen centers, re-structured barns. They're somebody's basement or living room. They're cramped practice spaces spilling over capacity. They may not be “safe” in a baseless, orthodox sense, but the feeling and dreaming, the movements, that are born in these spaces give rise to any and everything imagined.

Everything that finally makes it to MTV, that lands, somehow, on Paris runways, concepts that find their way into government, medicine and social services - all of these things started in the intimacy of creative spaces reimagined from the dirt.

I know that we are supposed to fear the coming state of things. I know that this new regime has empowered the so-called alt-right to invade our safe spaces. I know that in the wake of the Ghost Ship fire in California and the Pulse shooting in Orlando, that we are supposed to be cautious, to tread into these places with fear and lightness of step.

I also know that whatever “they” give us - either a Gattaca-esque false utopia or a Mad Maxian hellscape - we will need safe spaces, autonomous zones and artist hovels even more fervently than we do now.

We will need to continue to dance, to uplift, to wheat-paste, to raise voices and fists, to jury-rig those symbol stands with duct tape for microphones, to cobble together a sound system, to be vigilante, to spend those nights with ink stained fingertips Xeroxing a new world, dreaming it up.

Alex Smith is an artist/musician/writer with Metropolarity and he performs in the band Solarized. You can follow him at Alexoteric.xyz.

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AMPLIFY THE MOVEMENT Essay by Perry Genovesi.

Photo by Joe Piette.

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usic alone won’t get us through the next four years but it'll be the soundtrack to our protests and the wave on which we ride surfboards of organizing into our communities.

We're just days into the new year and benefit shows are already sprouting up for crucial organizations like Community Futures Lab, Black and Brown Workers Collective, New Sanctuary Movement, Planned Parenthood and more. With the J20 Coalition and Workers World Party, we - the bandmates from Bike Crash - helped organize and play a benefit show to raise money for a bus to the counterinaugural protests.

This is all good, though it’s no utopian "Make Punk Rock Great Again" thing like some folks have suggested.

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ur DIY spaces across the U.S., which, in their very existence, resists capitalism, are under attack. White supremacists have swirled out of the muck.

The new administration brings new threats to our poor and marginalized folks, and many of these folks intersect with who listens, plays and goes to shows in our communities of music.

So there are always boxes to check off on our list of DIY show organizing resolutions - book musicians of color and pay them, keep making shows affordable, keep telling bros to fall back. Make sure your show is more diverse, and not just cis white guys in the spotlight.

We get called a cute band because there are two girls and a boy harmonizing even though that’s a topic we criticize on our first tape. Our newest tape, Surprise!, which is due later this year, features songs about how media manufactures fear and consent, settler-colonialism in South Philadelphia,

reproductive rights, another helping of food songs, and more.

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magine a branch and a root. Trump’s a dumpster fire for sure but he’s representative of a much larger system which tramples working and poor folks.

And while Trump’s administration threatens us, so did the alternative. Any politics of the two-party capitalist system will aim for more snatch-andgrab war, deportations, profit off our schools and public spaces shuttering, and kicking down our black and brown, LGBTQ, disabled, elderly, however oppressed fam.

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nvision music as the soundtrack which can power a movement to swap out this system for a healthy socialist economy with housing and jobs as human rights, health care, transit justice, funding for music and arts and more.

We’d recommend getting involved in the struggle, and then start that band and make the songs you’ll sing while pouring in the street and pouring soft pretzel salt into fascists’ wounds.

If you have to work to survive (even if you’re lucky enough to pay your bills through your music!), you’re in the tremendous multi-national global working class. We staff the shops, and restaurants. We helped build the schools, streets and lay the SEPTA tracks.

Organizing to take these spaces back is the tune of 2017.

Whether that’s fighting gentrification, abolishing the School Reform Commission, calling for community control over the police, or ending stop and frisk, our music must amplify this mass movement.

Perry Genovesi plays guitar and bass and sings for Bike Crash, which also includes Candy Johnson and Meghan Filoromo.

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Caroline Lee wanted to connect the dots between immigration and storytelling, so she wrote about her family’s journey. Penn’s Master of Liberal Arts opens up a world of possibilies.

To learn how we can help bring your ideas to life, visit

www.upenn.edu/myMLA

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GO SCORCHED EARTH, BABY Essay by Dick Rubin.

Photo by Frank Lanigan.

it all started a few months ago. one night, up late reading fake news articles, i came across a story about billionaire entrepreneur, elon musk. it turns out elon believes we live in a computer simulation. in fact, he’s got a team of physicists working round the clock to figure out how to escape our false reality. at some point, though, this knowledge fell into the wrong hands. and well, that’s how we got our tweeter in chief. in 2015, somewhere deep in the basement of trump tower, the donald had a religious experience. in a vision, the machine gods imparted to him the very rules of the game we all play. at last, he understood. in this simulation, you can say or do ANYTHING you want…and the bots will love you for it. the more outrageous, the better. if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. if you were an artificial intelligence from the 23rd century, wouldn’t you want entertainment? ancient rome had its gladiators, green bay has its packers. the future silicon overlords have us, the american people. it’s been fun. but this is a game we won’t be playing anymore, thank you very much. on january 20, 2017, the MINKA community opted out. gathered together for our Deviant Diskotek party, we drank from a vat of specially prepared Kool-Aid. in that moment, we left our earthly bodies behind and transcended to the next dimension.

at first, it may be uncomfortable to face this truth. soon you’ll find it liberating. i lived my last months on earth in a state of bliss. i pushed the boundaries of pure hedonism. i had sex with strangers at all hours of day and night. i stole from the rich and gave to myself. eventually, i saw myself for what i am – a god. the master of my own destiny. isn’t that what we all yearn for? to act as we please without the fear of what others might think? should we not seek to embody that most american of values: freedom? in the end, don’t we all want to be DONALD TRUMP? some guy named clausewitz once said that “politics is war by other means.” so here’s my advice: go scorched earth, baby. i’m talking sherman marching on atlanta. tom brady shredding the cleveland browns. embrace the spirit of nihilism. forget the rules of capitalization. forget any rules at all. while you’re at it, go write some dope lyrics, paint a masterpiece, sell somebody a lemon on a used car lot, serve up a dank cup of coffee, make something that is weird, create something that is uniquely you, or go sit in front of the TV for the next 40 years. FUCK IT! and fuck what your friends think because our next commander-in-chief doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks.

now, as we gaze down at earth from our new perch, we can’t help but laugh at the futility of our previous lives. running around a digital playground, desperate to protect our fragile sense of self, we were the authors of our own suffering. what kind of existence is that?

the machine gods are listening. what do you have to say? or are you too afraid to say it?

if you’re “alive” and reading this, i guess ritualized group suicide wasn’t for you. honestly, if you want to remain part of a lowerdimensional plan, that’s your business. but heed these words, my friend.

i wish i knew how it would feel to be free i wish I could break all the chains holding me i wish I could say all the things that I should say say 'em loud, say 'em clear for the whole round world to hear

the world you know isn’t real. hell, maybe your friends aren’t real. maybe even your beloved pet pomeranian is just a compilation of 0’s and 1’s.

in the words of NINA SIMONE:

Dick Rubin is a visiting professor at MINKA University. His mother describes him as a “nice boy but a little unhinged.” Typos, punctuation errors and other mistakes are intentional.

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DON'T LET ANYTHING STOP YOU Essay by Leanne Martz.

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

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’ve been playing the guitar since I first heard AC/DC’s Back in Black when I was 10. My brother was the first one to play the album for me, and after that first and singular time hearing "Hell’s Bells," I was doomed to an entire lifetime of rock 'n' roll. I was instantly running around in my parent’s basement dressed like Angus Young, perfecting his duck walk and flipping through guitar catalog’s, plotting how I could somehow afford a Gibson SG. There wasn’t a single AC/DC song you could mention to my 10-year old self that would have been unknown to me nor unable to be played on the guitar.

I was on a mission to do literally everything I could to be a part of this music that completely changed the way I saw the world.

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hose days turned into months, and then eventually turned into years. I never stopped playing but over time, the idea of being in a band seemed less realistic and ultimately disheartening when I found myself scrambling to figure out what to do with my life as I entered college.

I actually became dreadfully close to hanging up the whole guitar playing thing but by chance, I was hired at a Guitar Center in the spring of 2010. I was skeptical of this new job I had, especially considering the company’s reputation and the fact that the hiring manager didn’t even look at me during the entire interview. But I was cool with jumping in and seeing what happens.

I’d been playing long enough to know the ins and outs of the gear.

I learned to love working in a guitar shop but it was also the first experience I had with this whole concept of pre-judgement that I would later get to know very well in my life.

Right away, I found that a lot of old dudes who came in were perfectly okay with either pretending I wasn’t there or straight up telling me that I’m not capable of offering insight to their incredibly complex and calculated purchase of a pack of Ernie Ball strings. I rolled my eyes more than I ever got legitimately pissed off in these situations but after a while, it made me wonder if this was real life and if some dudes actually thought this way?

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mmediately after I started, Guitar Center hired another girl named Gina, a chick who could shred the guitar to absolute pieces and played in this all girl Metallica tribute called Misstallica. Every single person that saw her play - customer, employee, or whoever - instantly dropped whatever expectations they had. It was glorious and inspiring to me, changing every standard I had set for myself as a guitar player.

We immediately became best friends and she invited me to join the almighty Misstallica, a band that gave me a few of the best years of my life. The girls blessed me with the art of shredding and taught me how to remain fearless on stage, regardless of how many people expected us to fail just because of our gender.

Even more than that, I was having real, genuine and wholehearted fun for the first in my life. Seeing the transition of folded and stagnant arms to head banging and flailing in the crowds became merely the icing on the cake.

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isstallica ended after I was only in the band for a few brief but awesome years. We chose to explore different careers and see what else this life had to bring us besides shredding Metallica

tunes.

I spent another brief period of time playing guitar with Gina in Las Vegas but hastily moved back to Philly during the spring of 2015 feeling the strongest sense of home and belonging here. Another entire year passed that I spent

tinkering with the ideas of starting something new, joining something, but leaning toward just not playing at all. I felt I had lost something unique and special that couldn’t be reconstructed But then I was like, "Who am I kidding? I’m starting a new fucking band."

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t was easy to round up a couple of punk badasses. Matt Bradley and Phil Bookbinder both came into the picture, two seemingly polite and quiet gentlemen who can instantaneously turn into salivating man-beasts behind a drum set and bass guitar. I also invited my longtime friend from art school, Emily Youcis, to sing. I thought it would be cool to pick back up on a semi-comic band (Emily Pukis and the Vagrants) that we had started years and years ago together, before I had decided I was going to take a music career seriously. Emily and I had always shared similar ideas and bonded over art, rock 'n' roll and old fashioned girl power. The music we made together completely revolved around those ideas, and for a minute it seemed like we were going to have something good going again.

But what happened next was like a Hiroshima-level blast to our band. Last summer, Emily outed herself as a white supremacist and alt-right enthusiast.

Stories about her and her new political views spread quickly through every media outlet in Philly and around the world because of the Internet.

I saw the videos and articles at the same time as the rest of Philly. I was appalled and found myself cursing at this stranger whom I thought I had known. Without hesitation, I left the band, essentially dismantling it.

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felt overwhelmingly ashamed and embarrassed for a person I tried to share an opportunity with. I was now associated with an ignorance that didn’t represent myself and I hated it to no end.

Again, I began teetering back and forth about the idea of whether or not to continue performing at all.

But then I was like, "Who am I kidding? I’m starting a new fucking band."

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PRINTER was born in 2016 but I like to think that 2017 is the official beginning. I pulled Matt and Phil back into the project with me. They’re more than cool dudes. They’re like brothers to me. They do the dirty work of giving unorganized and sloppy riffs an actual backbone.

SPRINTER also features Lauren Tsipori, another former Misstallica guitar shredder who has remained on the scene for years. Lauren’s awesome to me for a lot of reasons but particularly because she brings me back to why I play music in the first place - it’s fun and its ours.

It’s going to look like whatever we want it to look like, regardless of the past, where we came from or whatever baggage we’re helping each other shake. We have this relationship where, as songwriters and as people, we are pushing each other to reach outside our comfort zones. It hasn’t left a lot of room for things to get boring. In fact, as a musician, I think I’ve been moving from being a thrash guitar player to more of a songwriter.

I’m not really sure if this is because maybe I have new perspective. Maybe it's because 2016 left some turds in my brain. Or maybe I’m just getting old.

Maybe it's all of the above.

Regardless, I’m just a 25-year-old chick running around with an SG. I'm exactly the person I dreamed I’d be when I was 10.

Things will be difficult with the political climate and the emotions that it will evoke. But 2017 will be the year of SPRINTER. And we're looking forward to sharing it with all of you.

Leanne Martz (in green) performs with SPRINTER. She previously performed with Misstallica and Emily Pukis and the Vagrants.

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DARLENE CAVALIER

The Science of Cheerleading is an interactive book designed Traveling with and working for a band isn't the romantic experience to help cheerleaders achieve a greater understanding of how portrayed by Hollywood and mythologized in popular culture. It's hard work, as and why certain movements work through science, technology, many folks based in Philly will tell you. engineering, and math. Made possible with support from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, this highlyStory by Beth Ann Downey. engaging and informative ebook is available for Lead photo by G.W. Miller III. free at the iTunes store.

Portraits by Natalie The Piserchio Burroughs Wellcome Fund is a private Find out more at sciencecheerleader.com 38

foundation located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Find out more at bwfund.org JUMPphilly.com

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START THE REVOLUTION Essay by Bets Charmelus.

Photo by Grace Dickinson.

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egardless of the outcome of this election, we knew this regime change would send shockwaves that would be felt down to our own communities.

The day after the polls were tallied was one full of impassioned Twitter diatribes, tearful phone calls from family and close friends and a general sense of distress. It was on this day that we made the decision to record and release a war song for the inauguration.

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e couldn't just stay pissed off. We couldn't just stay afraid.

We needed people to know that as black artists, it is our duty to try to encourage those around us as well as anybody who will listen. Most of us feel powerless and misrepresented. This is exactly why it is important to create art. Art gives us power. Art gives us a voice to tell the story from our perspective.

Art is a catalyst to revolution.

Bets Charmelus is a member of ill Fated Natives.

DO YOUR PART The new political landscape puts a lot of people, organizations and services at risk.

Some organizations have been targeted for defunding. Communities of people feel imperiled.

Much needed services could disappear under the new presidential administration.

Here are just a few organizations that could use your support - financially, morally and/or physically.

Al Aqsa Islamic Society

Juntos

Natural Resources Defense Council

This South Kensington organization features a school and a house of worship but it has also been a champion for tolerance for all people. alaqsaislamicsociety.com

Juntos is a South Philadelphia-based Latinx organization that fights for immigrant rights. vamosjuntos.org

Led by scientists, lawyers and advocates, he NRDC champions people, plants, animals, the environment and nature in general. nrdc.org

Committee to Protect Journalists

Mazzoni Center

This nonprofit promotes freedom of the press around the world. cpj.org

The Mazzoni Center is the only health care provider in Philadelphia that specifically targets the LGBTQ and trans communities. mazzonicenter.org

HIAS Pennsylvania

NAACP Legal Defense Fund

This Philly-based organization helps immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers find homes and jobs, and assists them in integrating into society through language classes and other services. hiaspa.org

This nonprofit has been fighting for racial justice for 75 years. They also champion economic fairness, voting rights and quality education for all. naacplegaldefensefund.org

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Planned Parenthood For more than 100 years, Planned Parenthood has provided affordable medical care to women, and not just abortions. Their services center on preventive, primary care for all people. plannedparenthood.org Southern Poverty Law Center SPLC fights hatred and bigotry around the country through litigation and advocacy. splcenter.org

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Cover Story

THE

AWAKENING

The fears created by the new direction of the United States government have fired up bands like Mannequin Pussy and The Spirit of the Beehive, who are now playing benefit shows and doing whatever they can to combat intolerance and injustice.

Story by Dave Miniaci.

Photo by Michael Bucher.

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s the cold wind swirls outside, Marisa Dabice sits with her tea in both hands, remembering the moment she realized Donald Trump was actually going to win the presidential election.

“We were playing a show in Tulsa, very poetically in the middle of the country,” recalls Dabice, the singer for Philly punk band Mannequin Pussy.

“Usually when you play a show, it’s easy to block out life outside yourself and focus on what you’re doing. But that night there was a different atmosphere.

There were no TVs, so people were checking their phones. One of the opening acts asked nervously during their set if we had a new president. By the time we were heading back, time felt like it was going in slow motion. There was a heaviness.”

The sting of the election has been felt around the country. But there are people like Dabice who are doing something about it.

Mannequin Pussy played a benefit show and has at least one more lined up.

They are one of many bands in Philly and around the country answering the call to action.

“Those first few hours, you really wonder how something like this could happen,” Dabice (pictured at right) says of the election. “Then you really have to ask yourself how you can act in response to this. Anyone who felt even mildly upset by this, it’s their responsibility to act in their life in some way.”

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ouring the country led to a lot of revelations for Dabice and her bandmates. Leaving the Philly bubble and seeing the South and Midwest exposed them to a wide array of political opinions. Dabice recalls arguing about abortion with a strong Trump supporter at one tour stop.

“It wasn’t a huge surprise but it still felt shocking,” Dabice says of the election result. “We've toured the country the past two years. You meet a lot of people and you see a lot of things. I never got the sense that people were all that enthusiastic for Hillary Clinton as a candidate, and there were a lot of people who were enthusiastic for Trump.”

The band’s December show at Everybody Hits was never supposed to be a fundraiser. After a lengthy tour to support the band’s new album, Romantic, Mannequin Pussy was returning to Philly for a “homecoming” show. But around the time of the election, the focus shifted from it being simply a concert to being a benefit.

Dabice was chatting with friend Pat Conaboy, drummer for The Spirit of the Beehive, who was also playing the show. The election lit a fire inside both of them.

“I feel like, with this election, a lot of performers also became spokesmen,” he says. “Philly has been really just a music scene. People haven’t really been focusing on stuff outside their own scope. This election made me realize people need to focus on the community and not just themselves. I think people are realizing now it’s not time to mess around.”

The Dakota Access Pipeline drew their attention, and Conaboy says it was one of the first mainstream politicized issues that spoke to him. They decided that’s where the money would be best spent. The bands raised more than $1,000 and the proceeds from that show went to the Standing Rock legal defense fund.

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annequin Pussy wasn’t done. A second fundraiser is planned for February, and Dabice says the band hopes to play more throughout 2017.

That show, on Feb. 24 at Johnny Brenda’s with Abi Reimold, King Azaz and Caracara, will benefit the Trevor Project.

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The Trevor Project is a national suicide hotline and help center for LGBTQ youths and young adults. Founded in the ’90s, it has helped thousands of people.

“When we were thinking of what (the concert) should benefit, I was really thinking of people who were most affected by this election,” says CJ Harvey, a photographer who has been planning and organizing the show. “They [the LGBTQ community] have been through a lot and are really hurting right now.”

Harvey was traveling with The Lawsuits for their tour that departed for Atlanta from Philly on Election Day. Everyone spent the day in the tour van getting election updates.

“We just kinda realized we were fucked,” she says. “We felt helpless and weird and awful and I was just wondering what I could do to help. I started planning these shows in that van.”

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any musicians aren’t just dwelling on feeling helpless but are making plans to be vocal, raise awareness and funds.

“It was kind of an awakening for a lot of people,” Conaboy says of the election.

Conaboy and his band are playing another show at Everybody Hits to benefit Philly organizations Black and Brown Workers Collective and Community Futures Lab. Black and Brown Workers Collective advocates social justice for workers of color in the city while Community Futures Lab is a group documenting and preserving the history of North Philly as it undergoes redevelopment.

Dabice says she knows several bands doing benefit shows around Philly - and around the country - and Harvey is planning more benefit shows throughout the year. She knows many musicians who want to help causes that need it, such as Planned Parenthood.

“It’s kinda crazy that we’re still having to hold a lot of benefit shows,” Harvey says. “It’s hard to control what’s going on in the government and the next four years are going to be really important. We’re still fighting for rights and it’s 2016, almost 2017. But there are a lot of people who do care and are willing to go out of their way to help.”

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here is a quote on the poster for the Johnny Brenda’s show that reads, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Facing the unknown, Dabice says she hopes people can stick together against hate, and it doesn’t end with the shows.

She explains being well read, seeking out legitimate, helpful organizations and writing and calling your congressmen and representatives are good ways to be part of the solution. And she notes while it’s easy to avoid talking to the other side of the political spectrum, especially family, it’s important because understanding someone with a different set of beliefs and having a conversation is invaluable.

“I love dissent. But right now is a scary time to be a dissenter,” Dabice says. “There’s a crackdown on safe spaces for artists. We’re going to have a president who isn’t emotionally capable of handling any sort of criticism. He is trying to intimidate the press. We have to not be afraid. This is not the time to retreat into yourself. This is the time to look around you and see who else is ready to move forward, hands together.”

You can't sit this one out, she adds. It's an important time to be an artist.

“What else is there?” she says, her voice trailing off. “What else are you planning to do? We just have to do something. I’m not going to be a bystander while the country burns down.” facebook.com/JUMPphilly

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Cover Cover Story Story

THE KOMINAS:

WEIRD BROWN GUYS BAND IN A

The Kominas aren't going to change because there's a new president in office.

They've been dissenting since the band began more than 10 years ago.

Story by Tyler Horst.

Photos by G.W. Miller III. JUMPphilly.com

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facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Cover Story

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he Kominas slide into Manakeesh in West Philly and order tea.

They are all here but guitarist Shahjehan Kahn, who is away visiting Pakistan.

“We should find somebody to fill in,” jokes guitarist Sunny Ali, gesturing to the mostly Desi clientele at the Lebanese bakery.

It’s a way to laugh about a problem that The Kominas encounter often - not being seen as themselves, but rather having identities projected onto them.

They’re just “interchangeable brown people,” according to drummer Karna Ray, and even moreso now that the President-elect has threatened to put people that look like them on a registry.

“Our existence is an anti-Trump message,” says bassist Basim Usmani. “A lot of people don’t want us here.”

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he Kominas are all Desis, meaning their families have roots in the Indian subcontinent. Since the mid-2000s, when The Kominas first started playing their genre-bending and politically charged punk music, and especially now under a Trump presidency, it doesn’t matter whether or not any of them or their family members are Muslim. What might matter to some people the band passes on the street is that they look like they could be Muslim, and therefore a threat.

It also means that they’ve been called on to compose some kind of a response to the election. Will they fight back using their music?

“It’s not like we’re going to make a song that disses Trump and it’s going to save the day,” says Ali. “The way we experience Trump and the current political situation is different than the way Green Day or Bono feels it,” says Usmani. “There’s so many aspects that can’t be addressed in an anti-Trump song.”

While the election results came as a shock to many liberals in the country (Ray says the band also indulged in some of the widespread optimism that said Trump could never win), The Kominas say they’ve never had the privilege of being able to ignore xenophobia and bigotry.

“A lot of the feeling about Trump being elected and people being more conservative or racist is a ‘called it’ feeling in the most bittersweet way,” says Usmani. “For 10 years, we’ve been putting out music talking about this stuff and we had a lot of pushback. I think that has changed.”

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eeling pressure from both sides to defend or live up to their identities has made the past few months more stressful than normal. Fortunately, relieving that stress and celebrating their own creativity is exactly what the band was created for in the first place.

“Whenever the world presses itself on us too much, [the band is] a good thing to burrow into and feel comfortable,” explains Ray. The current four-piece lineup of The Kominas was solidified three years ago, and all the members agree that since then they’ve really hit their stride.

“We’re family now,” says Kahn, calling in later from Boston. “These guys are like my brothers.”

In 2015 they released Stereotype, 10 tracks of high-energy punk that also dip into elements of reggae, hardcore and other genres. The lyrics, written mostly

by Usmani and Ray, explore race, police brutality, mental health and more through different characters’ eyes.

For their upcoming album, The Kominas are trying to push themselves deeper into personal territory.

“It feels like the band has more of a personality that exists behind the ideology as opposed to being a political artifact, which is why the songs seem a little more personal in a way,” says Karna.

“It’s kind of a sad boy album,” Usmani interjects. The others laugh and nod in agreement at this much simpler assessment.

“The new music is like virtual reality,” says Ray. “In a time when personal identity is so extracted from somebody, you become a shadow figure of what

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you want to be. You kind of want to plant in somebody’s mind the ideal version of yourself. We’re just trying to create empathy.”

“People don’t know what’s going on behind brown eyes,” Usmani adds with a giggle.

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t’s not that they want to ignore politics. They can’t. It’s that expressing their own individual experiences as “four weird brown guys in a band” becomes enough of a statement on its own.

“Our music is more important to people right now, regardless of what the issues we’re covering are,” says Ali. “We had two shows right after the election that sold out, in Boston and New York. That’s never happened before.”

“Everyone loves them here,” says Philly artist Camea Ayewa, who performs as Moor Mother. “They are speaking things that are their truth, saying that it’s okay to be who you are. You don’t have to fit into these boxes.”

Ayewa started working with Ali when he was in his old band, Sunny Ali & The Kid, and has been The Kominas go-to connection to the Philadelphia scene.

“She’s the only one that books us here,” says Ali.

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o if you were able to put on a VR headset loaded with The Kominas’ perspective, you would find not only exhausting interactions with post-9/11 paranoia (as in their song “See Something, Say Something”) but also references to their favorite cartoons (their self-titled album contains the song “Ren,” about one of their favorite episodes from the Ren & Stimpy cartoon).

Sometimes the two intersect. Usmani says he is working on the lyrics to a song written from the perspective of a sympathetic monster. It’s inspired by the anime series about vampires called Hellsing, but he says it can also reflect the perspective of a Muslim American who has been unfairly made the monster of his own country’s culture.

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his past summer, The Kominas embarked on a full U.S. tour called “Rock Therapy,” hoping to give people a release in the midst of a fraught election season.

“Initially we thought about planning the tour around where [Trump’s] rallies were,” says Kahn. “But then we thought, 'Fuck this guy. It’s too easy and it’s giving him more fodder.'”

“The evidence was staring us in the face about how comfortable people are being racist now,” says Usmani. “Some of these places, especially the ones that came into play during the election, we drove through and we probably could have called it right then and there.”

Kahn recalls driving through Tennessee and seeing a Confederate flag hoisted above the highway, or stopping at gas stations in rural areas that sold T-shirts that said things like “Terrorist Hunting License” or “If At First You Don’t Succeed, Reload.”

But while the band did see some of the worst of the country, they also saw things that gave them hope.

One show they all recall fondly was playing for the East Bay Rats in Oakland, California. The East Bay Rats are a motorcycle club who also host regular fight nights in their outdoor boxing ring—in short, the kind of people you might expect to proudly wear a “Make America Great Again” hat.

But the Oakland show was actually a benefit to raise money for a women’s boxing gym in Karachi, Pakistan. It was also one of the most high-spirited good times The Kominas had all tour.

“It was kind of a trip to see old white biker dudes and queer brown kids moshing together,” recalls Ali. “Just the improbability of that show was so satisfying,” adds Ray. As they gear up for the impact of the new president The Kominas are preparing for the worst but also continuing to do everything they can to create spaces where the best can happen.

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A Taste of East Africa West Philadelphia's Dahlak Paradise offers an unusual dining experience, as well as a communal affair ... with music.

A rush of scents reaches out upon entering Dahlak Paradise. A potent mix of earthy spices from Ethiopia and Eritrean cuisines with the fragrance of hookah fills the air. In the background, music is heard as patrons take turns singing for Tuesday night’s karaoke session. Prior to the noise, everyone sat in intense silence during President Obama's farewell speech.

For the crowd gathered at Dahlak, from young to old, black to Middle Eastern, white to Asian, gay, straight and transgender, this establishment is a safe space for anyone and everyone.

Dahlak is family owned and run currently by the owner's son and manager, 28-year-old Ephream Amare Seyoum. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Seyoum began managing Dahlak at 17 when his father passed.

"I was uncomfortable at first because I wasn't a sociable person like my dad,” says Seyoum. “It was too much at first. There was a lot of pressure and I had to be the man of the house. But I wouldn't change it for anything. I learned a lot about myself."

Founded in 1987 by the late Amare Solomon and his wife Neghisti Ghebrehiwot, Dahlak is easily accessible along the 34 trolley line. Located in the heart of West Philadelphia at 4708 Baltimore Ave., Dahlak is near one of the main trolley stops. It's as if the city itself pulls travelers into Dahlak’s waiting arms with the delectable flavors and enticing music.

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Sitting at the bar eating an injera roll, musician Ethan Coken recalls one of his favorite times in Dahlak.

"One year, for Easter, Ephream brought in a traditional Ethiopian band,” remembers Coken. “Where in else in Philly can you find that? A little taste of East Africa."

Music has been a part of the restaurant since its inception. Each night of the week, there is usually be some form of music, whether it's live bands, jams or even show tunes. It all started with Solomon’s love for music.

"My dad always had an ear for music,” Seyoum explains. “Musicians from the neighborhood would ask him if they could play here. He would have jams in the Cave, the basement downstairs."

On the outside of the building is a sign, illuminated with beautifully sleek script announcing the restaurant’s name for all to see. Inside, Dahlak is separated into three sections. The main dining area is filled with round tables. One room over, filled with cushioned seats, low wicker seats and tables, is the performance area.

Decorating the walls of both rooms are photos of past patrons, paintings, maps and delicate and intricately made masks. In the third section, one finds a bar with a patio in the back. Outside, in the parking lot, a mural with Solomon in the center, shows just how much Dahlak has an affect on the community.

After performing a song by The Fugees, Alex Wiles explains the atmosphere of Dahlak.

"Dahlak creates a space that's focused on people," he says.

Dahlak has held events such as Spoken Word for the Queer Community. The owners promote this openness in a strong way, most notably through food and music.

Jenny Marie Chindamo has been coming to Dahlak for years. Covered in tattoos, she can often be seen singing and helping proctor the karaoke. facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photos by Ryan Geraghty.

Food That Rocks

"This is a very open environment. It's the most diverse I've seen in awhile,” Chindamo expresses while taking a break from singing. “The music is very diverse. They will have anything from hip-hop to folk to funk."

Seyoum relates his views on his restaurant to his views on the recent election.

"I do not agree with the views of Trump,” he explains. “I am surprised by the nation lining up behind this, but I haven't heard the other side and why they voted for him. I want Dahlak to be a place where everyone can be one and I can listen what the other side has to say."

Seyoum makes sure his establishment works toward breaking down social bubbles and preconceived notions about people. No matter one’s lifestyle, in Dahlak, all are welcome. This can be seen as people converse around hookah or chat while waiting for the next song.

In the time Seyoum has been the manager, Dahlak has stayed strong and true to its roots and familial atmosphere. The menu is full of many traditional Ethiopian/Eritrean foods such as Seyoum’s personal favorite (Ye) Beg Tibs, lamb neck cut and braised in a tomato/onion based stew, known as wat, with berbere. One of the more popular items is the (Ye) Doro Wat, two chicken drumsticks covered with the zesty wat, spicy yet flavorful mixing so well it causes a tingling sensation on the taste buds. All of this is placed on top of an injera with another two pieces on the side.

"We stand out because we make our own injera and berbere,” he says. “You're not a real Ethiopian restaurant if you don't!"

Both are traditional foods from Ethiopia. Injera is a spongy bread that when JUMPphilly.com

used to scoop up food, absorbs all of the flavors it's being mixed with. Berbere is a blend of spices, including ginger, garlic, chili pepper and others, adding an exciting mix of flavor with any food it touches.

The food is served without forks, to be consumed with only the eater’s fingers.

"People always look at me like, 'Y'all don't got forks?’" explains Samantha Shepard, a bartender at Dahlek’s for three years. “But once you describe it, they understand it."

Seyoum describes the process of eating with one's hands as a rite of passage within Dahlak, so much so that his father would actually feed patrons out of his own hands. In Ethiopian culture, this is known as "gorsha," an act of kindness for loved ones.

"This wasn't just for show but was how my father felt toward people, even if meeting them for the first time," says Seyoum.

Combining an authentic, ethnic food experience while connecting to the local community has always been a part of the restaurant’s ethos.

"I moved into the area in '99,” says patron Daniel Powell. “I remember Solomon always being well dressed and asking how my day was. He was a good man. My daughter painted a birdhouse. I brought it here and they hung it out back on the tree. Even when they cut the tree down, they still kept the bird house. It's still hanging in the back."

In the coming year Seyoum is looking to expand Dahlak to another venue more focused on the music scene, geared toward more up-and-comers and to give people a place to be heard.

"Why say no?” asks Seyoum. “I want to give them a platform, a place that inspires.”

- Cameron Robinson

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WINTER 2017

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THE DISSENT ISSUE: DIE CHOKING, RODNEY ANONYMOUS, KATY OTTO, ALEX SMITH, RUIN, CHAPLAIN EL & MUCH MORE!