Fall 2013 JUMP: The Issues Issue

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MARTHA GRAHAM CRACKER IS A

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THE ISSUES ISSUE: SEAN AGNEW, COMMONWEALTH CHOIR, BEANO, AMANDA X, CAYETANA, GUN$ GARCIA & MUCH MORE

CONTENTS | Issue #11

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FALL 2013

THE JUMP OFF Commonwealth Choir, Beano, Batcave Studio, Lyrispect, Koji, Billy Barton of The Charley Few, Amanda X, Little Big League (right, top), Cayetana, Hip-hop cop Howard Rubin, Gun$ Garcia (right, middle), DJ Ben Arsenal, Taylor Dunn, Johnny Showcase, Tom Moon, Cookie Rabinowitz, Dockument, Pattern Is Movement, Mary Lattimore and Laser Background.

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THIS PLACE ROCKS Phenomenal Records in North Philly is more than a music store with a studio. It's also a place where musicians and artists come to network.

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MUSIC & POLITICS June O'Neill manages The Philadelphia Cultural Fund, which allocates city money to arts organizations.

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MUSIC & EDUCATION Many of the musicians you see rocking out on stage were actually trained in classical music. And they still use those skills.

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COVER stories: The ISSUES ISSUE We all have problems, right? As you read through this issue, you'll see how many local artists faced challenging issues and then battled past them.

Martha Graham Cracker and her Cabaret put on one of the most entertaining live shows in town. But not everyone is happy to see a really tall, really hairy drag queen show up at their events. Well, those people are losing out.

Sean Agnew (right, bottom) went from throwing shows in grungy homes and small joints to running the beautiful new venue, Union Transfer. Did he sell-out the DIY scene? Or is he still a punk at heart? Also, we talk with our favorite bouncer, Union Transfer's Wes Smith.

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FOOD THAT ROCKS Proud Philly rapper Jakk Frost likes to invite local and touring artists to his house for some home cooking. And he tells us about some of his favorite restaurants.

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INSIDE VOICE Brendan Mulvihill has been booking DIY shows for years.

Someone asked him why a recent show cost $8. He explains the philosophy and economics of DIY shows.

COVER PHOTO: Martha Graham Cracker, by Michael Bucher.

BACK COVER: Sean Agnew, by Jeff Fusco.

CONTENTS PAGE: (top to bottom) Little Big League, by Megan Matuzak.

Gun$ Garcia, by Abigail Reimold. Sean Agnew, by Jeff Fusco.

JUMPphilly.com

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

WE PRINT 10,000 FULL-COLOR ISSUES FOUR TIMES PER YEAR, IN MARCH, JUNE, SEPTEMBER AND NOVEMBER. WE DISTRIBUTE THEM FREE AT PHILLY AREA MUSIC VENUES, STUDIOS, RESTAURANTS, RECORD SHOPS, BARS, CLOTHING BOUTIQUES, GYMS, BOOK STORES, COFFEE SHOPS, UNIVERSITIES, CLUBS AND OTHER PLACES WHERE MUSIC LOVERS HANG OUT. IF YOU WANT MAGS AT YOUR LOCATION, EMAIL US AT JUMPPHILLY@GMAIL.COM. JUMP is an independent magazine published by Mookieland Inc. The parent company is named after a dog. That's how corporate we are (we're not). We have no corporate overlords and we receive money from no one except advertisers. And we really need advertisers. I mean really.

Advertising money allows us to print this magazine and tell stories about the awesome people doing awesome stuff in Philly.

By supporting JUMP, you are supporting the local music scene.

This is a full-on, DIY community effort. If you want to get involved, if you have story ideas or if you just have something to say, email us at jumpphilly@gmail.com, tweet us @JUMPphilly and find us at facebook.com/jumpphilly.

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

Publisher's Note

No, You Suck.

You got a problem with us?

Apparently, some of you do. Over the past two-and-a-half years, during which we created 10 prior issues that we released for free, people have accused us of being bad journalists who have poor musical taste, who pander to the whims of major corporations and who will do anything to make money.

We have been labeled as too hipster, not hipster enough, too urban, anti-female (because we always have too many dudes in the mag), profane, stupid and a bunch of other stuff that escapes me right now.

Personally, I have been called a jerk, an asshole and a dickhead. I should clarify: That was actually one guy who hated on me after I made a joke during a speaking event. I told the audience that JUMP only covers Philadelphia and I mentioned an email that I received from the handlers of an amazingly talented teenage rapper from Camden. Despite the young man's skill, we won't cover him in the printed magazine, which is reserved for folks within the city limits.

Our mission is to promote talent in the city, and attract more talent to come here. We want a buzzing hub of creativity. I casually suggested that the teen rapper move to Philly. Then we'll cover him.

The gentleman hater went on a tirade about socio-economics and justice. The young rapper didn't choose to be born in Camden (insert joke here) and maybe he couldn't afford to just move to Philly.

When people yell at me, I tend to respond with really sarcastic responses, which I did at the event and later on Facebook. That only agitated the hater all the more.

The mature thing would have been to further explain the mission of the magazine and tell the dude that we are all volunteers who have other jobs. We can't be everywhere and we can't be everything to all people. I could have said that we do the best with what we have, in a specific area, so that we are not even more diverse than we already are in the magazine (we cover all genres of music, which can confuse small-minded people only interested in the genre they prefer).

But being a dick is so much more fun than being mature.

Throughout this issue, you'll notice that many of the stories follow the common thread of people taking issue with the story subjects in some fashion or another. In a small big city, where everyone knows each other and we know so much about our big players (hello, Sean Agnew?), it's easy to form opinions and gossip about each other.

But that's really not what this super-awesome edition of JUMP is all about. We honestly don't care about that TMZ-style gossip shit.

Does anyone? Ugh. As you read through our stories, you'll notice that every one of the people mentioned actually surmounted the issues that challenged them. This is the “Issues� issue but it is really an edition that focuses on the triumphs of these folks.

Read. Enjoy. And if you still think we suck, let us know at jumpphilly@gmail.com. But you may not like the response.

- G.W. Miller III JUMPphilly.com

The JUMP Off

SCENE STEALERS: The guys from Commonwealth Choir moved to Philly and now they're everywhere. (L to R) Maurizio Mazza, William Chamuris, Davis Howley, Nick Cislak and Jim Keifer at their Fishtown headquarters.

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facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by Michael Bucher.

INSIDE: COMMONWEALTH CHOIR p. 8 / BEANO p. 8 / BATCAVE STUDIO p. 10 / LYRISPECT p. 11 / KOJI p. 12 / SOUTH PHILLY PUNX SCENE p. 14 / AMANDA X p. 16 / LITTLE BIG LEAGUE p. 16 / CAYETANA p. 17 / THE HIP-HOP COP p. 19 / GUN$ GARCIA p. 20 / BEN ARSENAL p. 20 / TAYLOR DUNN p. 21 / JOHNNY SHOWCASE p. 23 / TOM MOON p. 24 / COOKIE RABINOWITZ p. 26 / DOCKUMENT p. 27 / PATTERN IS MOVEMENT p. 28 / MARY LATTIMORE p. 28 / LASER BACKGROUND p. 29 /

JUMPphilly.com

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The JUMP Off Photo by Michael Bucher.

In Harmony In Pennsylvania The guys from Commonwealth Choir grew up in Doylestown but have found a home in Philly. Well, most of them, at least.

The five-minute warning is given just as lead vocalist and guitarist Davis Howley and keyboardist William Chamuris wrap up an unplugged runthrough of “Let’s Make It Right.” Hastily scribbling a set list together against the vanity in the basement of the North Star Bar, the members of Commonwealth Choir get ready to “go to work,” as Howley would say.

Having just changed into their “work clothes,” which consists mainly of cut-off shorts and button-down shirts (with more unbuttoned than not), the five 20-somethings who comprise the band approach the stage the same way they have dozens of times since coming together in the spring of 2012 – with hearts full of loyalty for their hometown audience.

But Commonwealth Choir has two hometowns to give their loyalty. With the exclusion of bassist Maurizio Mazza, who moved to Philly in 2009, all of the members of Commonwealth Choir grew up together in Doylestown, and two of the five still live there.

The rest of the band’s migration to Philly began in 2012 with Howley moving in with Mazza, and Nicholas Cislak, lead guitarist, moving to Northern Liberties shortly after. When it came time for the three of them to move again in December, the solution was obvious – move in together. And so they did, moving into a Fishtown house with plenty of space to become the Philly headquarters while drummer Jim Keifer and Chamuris held ground in Doylestown.

“It all worked out perfectly,” says Cislak. “Now, three-fifths of the band live together and we have a place to practice and record and hangout all together.

We’re at the peak of being productive right now.”

The roar of the crowd as Howley greets the audience at the North Star, as well as the band’s growing prominence in the Philly scene, are signs of this peak for the Choir boys.

The band’s first single, “Rest,” was released in May and has carried the band across WXPN’s airwaves, onto Spotify playlists and into iTunes libraries.

CHOIR BOYS: (L to R) Maurizio Mazza, William Chamuris, Davis Howley, Nick Cislak and Jim Keifer at their Fishtown headquarters.

Emphasizing bright-sounding tones and well-arranged harmonies by Chamuris and Cislak, Commonwealth’s long list of original tracks are both unique and creative while remaining catchy.

The band is influenced by their background in both folk and hardcore music.

“There’s a ton of crossover between the two,” explains Howley. “It may not come across to you as a listener but for us, it’s like we are gonna play this song like it’s a super hardcore song and we’re in a basement and no one cares.”

While that hardcore influence may not be evident through a pair of headphones, it comes across strong in their live show. Watching Howely leap with his guitar makes you half expect a dance pit to form around you. This only escalates when Chamuris, sporting a ginger beard large enough to give Thor envy, takes one hand off the keyboard to start pummeling a floor tom, further accentuating the driving drums.

“I like telling stories,” says Howley, the primary lyrics writer. “It gives people an opportunity to love music but also follow a story if they really want to.”

- Jared Whalen

Photo by Tiesha Miller.

From The Choir to Center Stage Beano grew up singing in church. This fall, he'll release his first solo project.

Barton Joseph French, Jr., better known as Beano, sits on a stone wall in the center of Rittenhouse Square. A man he doesn’t know approaches him, congratulating him on his recent success and hard work.

“You don’t know how often that happens,” says the 24-year-old wearing a maroon and green AnmlHse fitted cap, khaki colored pants, Jordan sneakers and a blue camo hoodie.

He is modest and grateful after the acknowledgement.

Before appearing on Chill Moody and Hank McCoy’s Valentine’s Day mixtape Who Do You Love and performing in front of a sold-out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe with his Talent Island collective of artists, the singer was once known for performing at open mics at the Walnut Room.

But Beano’s performance experience started in his church choir when he was 13-years-old.

“My mom was like, ‘If you’re going to sing, you’re gonna get your voice strong by singing in the choir,’” he says. “That was my vocal training right there. My vocal coaching was Sunday mornings at

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nine o’clock service.”

His first childhood memory with music involved his mom yelling at him about singing Dru Hill’s “In My Bed” in church. “'No, we’re in church!'” he remembers her barking.

The singer played football for West Catholic and Ben Franklin High Schools and was a top-ranked running back in the city. He claims he once ran for more than 500 yards in a game.

“A lot of people don’t know my first love was football,” he says.

His mother was a gospel singer and his father was a guitarist. Being raised by musicians helped him listen to music differently than most people.

“I was at the Justin Timberlake concert,” he says.

“Everybody going crazy over the lyrics. I’m going crazy over transitions, changes and harmonies.

It’s a different type of way you listen to music when you’re brought up in music.”

The vocalist has performed alongside the likes of Ryan Leslie, The Dream and Musiq Soulchild.

Opening for other artists has allowed him to study their performances and improve his own stage presence.

In July, he was given the opportunity to headline a show at The Blockley, where he performed all new music. He admitted to being nervous because he was unsure how the crowd would react. But they loved it.

“It’s always scary because you don’t know how anybody’s going to respond to something they never heard before,” he admits.

Over the past few months, Beano has performed at MTV's O Music Awards, Hot 97’s Who's Next? showcase and at Harlem Day with his close friend Chill Moody. It’s been a long time coming but the singer will finally release a solo project this fall.

“I wanted myself to be at a point where I was so comfortable that I knew they were gonna love this music,” he confesses. “Now, I think it’s time. I found who I am.”

-Niesha Miller facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by Kevin Cook.

The JUMP Off

Underground Leaders Veterans of the industry, the guys from Batcave Studio help the next wave of rappers.

After ringing the bell, stepping through the black door past the security camera and into the greenwalled world of Batcave Studio, you will likely be greeted by co-owner/producer/engineer Rug or co-owner/studio manager Biz. Rug likes to talk.

Biz likes to listen. Not that Rug talks too much and Biz has nothing to say. It is almost the opposite.

Both spent years in the trenches of Philadelphia and in the rap game, not only to survive, but to try to pass on their knowledge and experience to those who walk through their studio door.

“We cater to the independent artist. We give them the attention,” Rug explains. “Me, as an engineer, I give my music the attention it needs to make it the best it can possibly be. I want it to come out of here sounding a certain way.”

The sound Rug produces has been utilized by the likes of Philadelphia rappers including R.A.M. Squad, Major Figgas, Freeway, Oschino & Sparks, Beanie Sigel, the Young Gunz and Meek Mill.

“I’ve been working with Meek since the beginning," Rug states. “All the Flamerz mixtapes except the first one. I been recording Meek for six years.”

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It was in part the buzz of that series that led to Meek signing with Grand Hustle before eventually signing with Maybach Music Group.

Although not credited, a lot of the work that was done on Meek’s Dreams and Nightmares album originated with the Batcave team. What they have received credit for at Batcave Studio is recording Meek's verse for Rick Ross' Grammy-nominated “So Sophisticated” track from Ross' 2012 album, God Forgives, I Don't. Not only do they have the credit, but the gold plaque to prove it. Any strain in the relationship between the two parties has been squashed. Recently, the team from Batcave went to New York City to work on Meek’s upcoming mixtape.

“The album's just about done,” says Rug. “We finishing up the mixing for his upcoming Dreamchasers 3 project.”

Back in Philly, Rug, Biz, engineer/producer Don Groove and engineer Jordan Hooks have a constant stream of artists filing in through the doors, going in and out of one of the two booths or the pre-production room in the studio.

“Raekwon’s been down here. Lupe, Waka, Redman, Jadakiss,” Rug says, while looking around the room. “Last year, Will Smith came down and got in the booth. We did Wyclef’s listening party here. That was pivotal for me. He set his chair up in the big room, pulled out his guitar, live, right there.”

Local artists AR-AB, Ape Gang and Quilly Millz have been a part of the wave of artists flowing in.

“We are working with a lot of the independents,”

Rug says as Biz nods his head to concur. “It keeps us busy.”

While Rug is the man behind the boards, Biz is the man behind the artists.

“I try to give artists a real shot,” Biz explains. “I know how the music business works. I'm helping them reach milestones as far as credibility in a way that I’m not a marketing firm looking for credit. I’m pushing an artist to the front because that's where they are supposed to be.”

Biz is in charge of managing the studio but it’s easy to get the sense that it is really just the vehicle he uses to reach young artists.

“I keep order, I keep it music,” Biz explains. “I teach artists to keep whatever their issues [are] outside of music, outside of Batcave. I teach MC camaraderie, and I teach MCs how to be MCs without them even knowing it.”

It is both Rug and Biz’s backgrounds that have allowed them to bring two distinct but valuable perspectives to Batcave Studio, resulting in accomplishments for themselves and many others that record there.

“I think success professionally is still being alive, doing what you are doing,” Rug says with a smile. “Your business still able to be noticeable or relevant — I think that’s success. Being able to keep doing what you do.”

“Personally,” he continues, “I think it’s just being happy. Success is being happy.”

- Chris Malo

COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS: (L to R) Rug, Biz and Don Groove in the Batcave Studio. facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

A Spectrum of Talent Nurtured by the Black Lily, Lyrispect wants to inspire others.

"I wonder sometimes at what point do you get to claim the place you've been in for so long,” says Nina “Lyrispect” Ball, a Baltimore native who has lived in Philly for more than 12 years. “You know, because no disrespect to Baltimore – I love where I'm from, I'm proud of where I'm from. But I've been in Philly since I was 18. I'm 30 now.”

Lyrispect says that the community of artists here is like a family. She was instantly swept up by the local art scene upon her arrival to study at Temple University. DJ Ryva Parker saw her and invited her to perform spoken word at the famed Black Lily, a weekly showcase of female musicians and artists.

“I ended up coming about three times even though I was underage,” Lyrispect

recalls. “She would always get me in and I would always hit the stage. To be a part of that legacy was amazing.”

As an artist who is concerned with societal issues and the uplifting of underserved people, Lyrispect strives to open people’s minds and to preserve culture and history through her work.

“I always make multiple references to books, to places, to historical events, to keeping the memory of our ancestors alive in one way or another,” she says.

Lyrispect has worked hard to disseminate her own words and messages across the city. Anyone passing by 15th and Catherine or 24th and Ridge will find Lyrispect’s writing physically featured on two stand-out murals. As part of a collective called Spoken Soul 215, she also serves as the executive producer of The Harvest, an event she states as being “the largest monthly open mic experience in the tri-state area,” held at World Cafe Live.

With music being a passion of hers, Lyrispect plans to pursue hip-hop beyond the stage at The Harvest.

“I just want to make sure that my content is strong and consistent,” she explains. “I don't want to be a lazy hip-hop artist or be a novelty because I'm a woman with some level of intelligence, you know, that's not talking about sex or whatever. I feel so liberated when I freestyle.”

During A Night of True Magic with Mos Def and Lyrispect, a show she hosted in 2007, Lyrispect showcased her hip-hop skills as she performed some rhymes she had written.

“It was like my first time rocking some hip-hop on such a large stage and just kind of being fearless,” she remembers. “So I just never forget the crowd, the rush, the feeling."

Not limited to just being an artist or a poet, Lyrispect admits her urge to teach college master's classes. She already teaches youth creative writing and public speaking through DJ Beverly Bond’s Black Girls Rock! Queens’ Camp for Leadership & Excellence and has been a teaching artist for 14 years.

“I put in a lot of time with the younger kids,” she says. “I'm ready to be teaching some adults.”

There is certainly a spectrum to Lyrispect as she has a range of talents, which is part of the origin of her stage name. “Lyrical respect,” she states. “Lyrical aspects. Lyrical spectrum.”

- Aneesah Coley

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

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Photo by Abigail Reimold.

The JUMP Off

A Emo-Punk Proponent of Positivity

Koji writes songs about life's trials and tribulations, letting his fans know they aren't alone.

About a dozen kids wait outside the Barbary at 4 p.m. in 90 degree heat.

They wait to enter the only Philly date on rhythmic-acoustic punk artist Koji’s summer tour with Turnover, supporting the release of his first fulllength album, Crooked in My Mind, which came out in April. A few carry cans of food, which Koji put out a call for earlier in the week to counteract the growing problem of food insecurity in Philadelphia. The first 10 to bring cans win a free copy of his 7-inch record.

Koji has become known for more than just his music. His activism and awareness of social issues, for everything from child soldiering in Uganda to Pennsylvania’s problems with hydraulic fracking, have labeled him as some sort of punk scene Gandhi – a proponent of selflessness and positivity.

But selflessness doesn’t always ensure that things will go your way. More than 40 minutes after the doors are supposed to open, Koji emerges from the venue and informs the crowd of now 20 or more that the show will have to be moved to a house in West Philly due to a booking error. With the knowledge that everyone might not be able to make the trek across town, Koji straps up to play an acoustic version of his new single “Chasing a Ghost” as a videographer for Philly-based blog PropertyofZack records the session.

“This is just making the best of a challenge,” Koji says before teaching the chorus of the song to the crowd so they can sing along in the video.

Being a DIY touring musician – and doing it full-time for the past three years – Koji has become accustomed to remaining positive in the face of adversity.

“After that much DIY touring, you’re just used to everything going wrong,” he says reflectively a few weeks later over iced coffee at Mugshots in Fairmount.

“You can handle it well or not well. I’ve seen it done both ways to the extreme.

So, I just try to be a good example and not get flustered because at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter how happy I am. My job isn’t to make myself happy. It’s to, I guess at a minimum, entertain but at best to uplift people, so I can't be upset.”

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Despite the venue switch, Philly showgoers brought out about 100 pounds of food, which was then donated to a local food bank. Koji said he thinks it’s important for his late high school- to young professional-aged fan base to not only be aware of the issues that affect their local communities but to become engaged with making a difference.

“I think that’s the most egotistical time after, like, being 2 or 3,” Koji says.

“Developmentally, I feel like young adults are going through a second preening.

It’s a crazy, hormonal, egotistical time when you’re trying to figure out what your life means and having direction. To get people talking about that and also give context to a person’s experience in a city is really important to kind of help ground ourselves, but also kind of have a better sense of unity with the rest of the community. When you participate, that’s such an important thing because you can read about it and care about it. But if we don’t marry those nice thoughts and words with action, it doesn’t really mean a lot.”

Koji, 26, whose real name is actually Andrew Shiraki, grew up in Harrisburg, and wrote his first petition when he was in fourth grade in order to get his school’s dress code changed so that girls couldn’t wear hats, since boys weren’t allowed to. He started playing in bands a year or two later. Inspired

by Green Day, Rancid, Refused and H2O, he realized that music could be used as an outlet for change.

“My favorite bands were bands that had a social message and they always had benefit shows so I thought that was what I was supposed to do,” Koji says.

“I’ve been doing pretty much the same thing since – 13 years of benefit shows.”

Koji’s call to activism is apparent but his dedication to social justice isn’t always apparent in his music. He still writes of his own life experiences – his own feelings of doubt, loss and fear – but believes his loosely-drawn narratives make it easier for people to relate to and project their own meaning.

This is apparent on Crooked in My Mind, Koji’s first full-length album, having only released a series of EPs and splits on Run For Cover Records since 2010. facebook.com/JUMPphilly

“When I’m writing, I go to the most vulnerable place,” Koji says. “This record, Crooked, was a really important work. How it fits into my life is it’s really just saying that I’m here, I’m still here after what I’ve gone through. To come of age, you think that you arrive at the other point of that part of your adulthood and just have a plan. I kind of got through those really tumultuous years and I realized it just keeps going. To kind of reconcile the weight of life and really take ownership and have a sense of personal autonomy, having a sense of freedom, being in a really centered and grounded place, that’s a daily process.

I guess Crooked in My Mind is me working through that and recognizing that I will continue to.”

Koji has had what he calls his own “lifelong battle with depression” but never realized how impactful his record could be for “a lot of kids in crisis.” At many of his shows, fans share stories of how his music has helped them through everything from depression or self-harming to being oppressed or bullied based on race, gender or sexual orientation.

“To be able to reach those kids is something I’m still formulating words for,” Koji says. “It wasn’t really a consciously intended thing. It’s just people keep connecting with it. I guess to make an impact, there is healing in a way, for me, and again a reminder for my own self that I’m not alone. It’s really special that music can reinforce the good parts of our humanity and give us strength.”

Willie Rose, drummer and band leader for Koji’s touring band, says Koji retains a certain intimacy with the audience by getting off the mic and talking directly to the audience. Even after the show, he’ll spend time talking to fans with no agenda besides connecting with people who connect to his music.

“I’ve never seen someone have such a close relationship with all of his fans,” Rose says. “A lot of kids will come up and they might have issues they’re dealing with in their lives. They’ll hear something that he says on stage and they’ll talk about it afterwards, which is really crazy. I’ve never seen something like that. He’s there to help people. That’s his whole message.”

When not on tour, Koji has called Philly homebase for the past eight years.

He enjoys the fact that there are so many creative people working in this city and it’s just as easy to find a folk show as a metal show on any given night.

“It takes a lot of moving parts to make a music scene happen,” Koji says.

“I feel like there’s a lot of really good energy here, real enthusiasm and real engagement with one another. I think things come in waves, and we caught a really good one in the last few years.”

- Beth Ann Downey JUMPphilly.com

Photo by Michael Bucher.

The JUMP Off

Living Punk, 24-Fucking-7

Punk isn't a fashion statement, says Billy Barton of The Charley Few, it's a way of life.

You either get it or you don't.

Billy Barton is about to play a punk show in South Philly. He’s standing in a parking lot across from JR’s Bar, off of West Passyunk Avenue, drinking with his band, The Charley Few, before they play a tribute to Oi! show as part of the lead up to the annual Philly Punx Picnic. A green bandana is tied around Barton’s Mohawked head and he wears no shirt underneath a jean vest covered in patches.

The parking lot crowd has grown to 20 or more by the time his band’s set rolls around. That’s when it’s time for Barton to roll their amp across the street, plug in his bass and sound check.

Before they start, Barton is sure to carefully hang a black cloth that spells out “SPP” in white masking tape. The acronym for the South Philly Punx, this matches a patch on Billy’s vest, and is the scene which most in the room identify themselves as a member.

Barton has become, rather inadvertently, a champion of this scene, and in turn, a preserver of punk, after a letter he wrote this past February to the Philadelphia City Paper was made public. It called out a writer for, as someone from Barton’s background would see it, mislabeling the band Pissed Jeans as a punk band.

“That story was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” he says. “There’s a long history in Philly music journalism about being very lazy, and making statements that no one is going to call you on. I just got sick and fucking tired of people calling shit punk that isn’t punk.”

The letter never ran in City Paper but was forwarded to Philebrity and was soon splattered across Facebook pages and Twitter timelines. But upon reading it, there is an obvious theme of punk being more about the community than the genre.

Barton calls the true Philly punks those who “will continue writing songs and making art and playing benefit shows and being loud and scary in order to wake up this completely wrong American society and tell you cowards and consumers to unite and fight the bastards for the better of us all.”

Barton himself is a little bit loud, maybe a little bit scary to a select crowd. He grew up in upstate New York with older brothers listening to Suicidal Tendencies, Anthrax, Metallica and Misfits. He’s been living in Philly for more than seven years.

Barton searched for a community, and finally

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found one through the SPP. Now, he sees punk through their eyes.

“Once I came to Philly and saw there are like 100 people who consistently go to shows, do shit, play music, have bands,” Barton says, “that’s when I was really radicalized by DIY punk. I just threw myself full-force into doing my own thing and contributing my own way.”

Not everyone in JR’s tonight looks like Billy.

There are tattoo-less girls in short miniskirts clutching Kenzingers and guys in khaki shorts and

collared shirts who arrive late, like they’re coming from a business meeting. There are people who mosh during The Charley Few’s set but not to the disruption of others who stand still, peacefully bobbing their heads.

Are they punks? The answer to that seems to depend on each individual’s commitment.

“Every person you talk to here is going to have an opinion of what punk is,” Barton says. “I’m just giving you my opinion. There’s not much to explain. You either get it or you don’t. You’re either facebook.com/JUMPphilly

living it 24-fucking-7 or you don’t. It’s not like what kind of shirt you wear or what kind of band you’re into or where you go. That has nothing to do with it. We fucking cook food together, we work together. A lot of us are in the service industry – bartenders, bar backs, servers and whatnot. We hang out together. We help each other. There is no affectation, there’s no presumption. This is what we do.”

Leora Colby, one of the organizers of the Philly Punx Picnic, says the “x” that the South Philly Punx took on signifies a way of life.

“I think punk music is the anthem of the lifestyle,” she says. “So the lifestyle, you commit to it. Of course, the music is popularized and exploited in a lot of ways in the media and stuff. A lot of times, punks will say music loses its punk status once it comes to a certain level of popularity. But when you’re talking about punk as a lifestyle, it’s a totally different entity, which I think is why, over the years, we’ve kind of taken on the “x” in punx.

That kind of implies a whole subculture beyond what might be on the surface.”

Colby says that Barton’s argument that the DIY punx subculture is a “totally different world” is a valid one. But the fact that the masses are quicker to name Green Day or Rancid as punk bands rather than Combat Crisis, Nightfall or Bucketflush really isn’t such a bad thing for the SPP, she adds.

“What a popular magazine or periodical like City Paper sees is on the surface,” Colby says. “What’s

JUMPphilly.com

on the surface are bands that are playing Kung Fu Necktie, bands that are playing the TLA and the Trocadero. Those are the ones that are on the surface, those are the ones that you’re going to see and those are the ones that are going to define it for the popular culture. I think what frustrated Billy is that they weren’t seeing what was underground. But that’s because it’s underground and that’s where it needs to be. That’s how it exists in it’s purity. Once you start pushing it beyond the underground and try to push it up to the surface, it starts to get diluted.”

Ryan Maroney, or Ryan “Unpatriotic” as he is more widely known, started his own zine to ensure that SPP happenings were better documented. Called If The Kids Are United after the Sham 69 song, Maroney drops five or six issues a year around the city.

Zines like his that highlight the local scene are what make up for the lack of coverage in the bigger publications, Maroney says.

“If they go and look in the right places, I think the Philly punks do a good job of posting stuff up in the city,” he says. “I can think of half a dozen places off the top of my head where there’s always local punk show posters and activities hung up.

The Philly punks, they do a good job of promoting from within.”

And they must be doing something right – punks from Baltimore, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and even Japan made it out to some of this year’s five-day Philly Punx Picnic.

Though outsiders were present and evident, Colby says there are no qualms with expanding the community for those who belong.

“I feel like what punk always was, always is and always will be is a home for the outsider,” she says.

“It's kind of an oxymoron for it to become popular culture because we’re here to accept those who aren’t accepted by popular culture. So a certain part of it needs to exist in its subculture, in its underground world for it to exist in the true form that it needs to be – the home for everyone else."

The last song The Charley Few plays during their set is called “All We Have.” It starts out with a sweet bass line from Barton and erupts into a gang-vocal anthem about the SPP community, stating “All we have is ourselves in the end /All we have is our love and our friends.”

This is what Billy Barton’s punk is about, and he wishes we all understood without him having to explain it.

“We need this,” he says. “We love this. This is our life. This is not like, ‘Oh, this is what I’m going to do for a few years.’ These are all highly creative people who live for their art. It keeps us from homicide and suicide, and we’re all fucking friends, and we live for this shit. I really don’t know what to say. It’s like trying to explain eating a steak to a vegetarian or trying to get a Soviet peasant to fight for democracy. If you don’t get it, that’s fine because very few people are going to get it. That’s why it’s a subculture, it’s a small thing.”

- Beth Ann Downey

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The JUMP Off Photo by Jessica Flynn.

All Girls, No Riot

The women from Amanda X aren't political.

They just want to have fun making music.

Photo by Megan Matuzak.

Amanda X is the Kensington-based, bedroompop band made up of the three women sitting at the Aramingo Diner, joking about menu items, discussing the issues they face and commenting on the oldies coming through the stereo.

“We aren’t riot grrrl,” says vocalist and bassist, Kat Bean. “We aren’t even political! We just happen to all be women who want to play together.”

Despite what one might assume, Amanda X was not founded on the basis of starting a girl band.

In fact, their origins are far more innocent – the bandmates just wanted to learn new instruments and jam together.

The trio began when singer and guitarist Cat Park was living with Tiffany Yoon, who was learning to play the drums. Park wanted her to continue, so she asked Bean to play bass with them – despite the fact that Bean was not a bassist at the time.

Park laughs about trying to write the best break-up album of her life. Bean discusses her songwriting process - her songs are mostly about feeling passionate about something and then suddenly feeling emotionless, apathetic and the journey that goes along with that.

“I write the drum parts,” Yoon offers with a laugh.

The three are all members of the music scene outside of the band. Park also plays in Band Name and Manners. She and Yoon have a studio in their house. Yoon previously played in Primitive Fool and spent time as a music photographer and writer. Bean participated in the collaborative band The Weeks, in addition to making solo music.

Each brings their own musical background, but

Amanda X is their first all-female effort.

The band faces the normal issues of tour – what bands they will play with, where they will sleep, how to carry so much heavy equipment.

But being an all-female band, those issues are, at times, magnified. Though shows are usually booked based on genre, Amanda X has been been booked with other girl bands based solely on that fact that they’re all girls. Awkward moments arise as people attending their shows struggle to make sense of their music.

“I’ve never played in a band where gender roles are questioned,” Park states. “We don’t want to be pigeon-holed into that.”

But it has worked to Amanda X's advantage in some cases. Not only have they been exposed to people who may not have otherwise seen them, but the band has also been asked to play shows based on a theme rather than a genre, such as “Dress Fest” and “Ladies Night.”

THE GIRLS IN THE BAND: (L to R) Tiffany Yoon, Cat Park and Kat Bean.

Because they are mostly playing basements and house shows, they carry their own equipment up and down stairs. When guys see them, they often try to help them out.

“It’s nice to be offered help,” Bean says. “But sometimes it feels more like they think we’re incapable or infantile.”

Park recounts a show she was playing when a guy came up and took cables out of another girl’s hands to show her how to correctly roll her cables.

“Guys don’t do that to other guys!” she argues.

“When people fuck shit up it’s because they’re negligent,” Bean adds. “It has nothing to do with being male or female. It’s not a female-bound issue. If we aren’t doing something right, it’s because we’re inexperienced or don’t care. It’s not because we’re women.”

- Jessica Flynn

In The Show

Little Big League dropped their debut album in July. They hit it out of the park.

Michelle Zauner, lead singer and guitarist for Little Big League, has never seen the movie her band is named after.

“I don’t like sports, I’m an indoor kid,” states Zauner, who is miniature in stature compared to her three male, sports-loving bandmates: drummer Ian Dykstra, guitarist Kevin O’Halloran and bassist Deven Craige.

But Little Big League’s name refers more to the dynamics of their personal brand of melodic pop punk and their “team spirit.” The oxymoron was intentional and humorous for the Fishtown foursome. They’ve even considered getting mesh band jerseys.

STEPPING UP TO THE PLATE: (L to R) Ian Dykstra, Michelle Zauner, Kevin O'Halloran and Deven Craige.

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to pin down – she definitely has her own unique cadence for words. The band’s music as a whole forces listeners to let go of that desire to name an influence and instead invites them to just give Cayetana their full, undivided attention.

"I wouldn't know how to describe us,” says Koch. “Someone once said we sounded like a Seattle band. I don't know what that sounds like.

We sound like rain?”

After a few months of sporadic local shows, including opening for The Thermals in May, Cayetana played a volunteer show to raise funds for Ladyfest Philadelphia – the local version of an annual music festival that was started in Olympia, Washington by Sleater Kinney and friends in 2000. Cayetana then took on a 10-day tour across the Midwest in August with Philly indie post-

O’Halloran and Zauner met in a creative writing class while the two were college students. At the time, Zauner was in a band called Post Post, a melodic-pop, all-girl band. O’Halloran joined the band as a bassist two years later.

In 2011, Post Post broke up, O’Halloran graduated from Haverford College and Zauner graduated from Bryn Mawr College. They decided to move to Philadelphia and start a new band together.

They picked up Dykstra, who had played drums for several bands, including Titus Andronicus.

“I was attracted to the diversity that we were all mutually into, from hardcore to pop punk and melodic music and being interested in the possibilities of converging all those things,” Dykstra explains. “I feel like our band has a lot of different flavors of those things in it. It’s diverse.”

By October 2011, they added bassist Deven Craige, and Little Big League began working on their 7-inch record, which they later recorded with Kyle “Slick” Johnson at Fancy Time Studio.

“Our only other release was a two-song, 7-inch that we recorded not long after we were a band,” Craige says as he strokes his sizable beard and

adjusts his Misfits T-shirt. “By the time we got to writing and recording this, we were way more comfortable with each other as players and we had a more realized vision of what we wanted the band to be.”

They began writing their first full-length album in 2011 and performed most of the material live before they even entered the studio.

Songs transformed and congealed with each performance and then went under the knife everyday, for 12 hours at a time in practice.

“What am I supposed to be feeling at every single moment of this song?” Zauner says, explaining how the band used a chalkboard to document evolution of their songs. “Do these two seconds playing this one thing have a purpose and what does this purpose accomplish?”

They recorded the album in a small, now nonexistent home studio in the Berks Warehouse, and it wasn’t completely finished until February.

Their debut album, These Are Good People, dropped in July.

These Are Good People, as a record title and mantra for the music, has three different story

themes – power dynamics in relationships, why bad things happen to good people and realizing the wealth of friendship they have found. Songs like “Lindsay” and “My Very Own You” personify these concepts.

“I sometimes wonder if I am writing love songs for women in a way of trying to embody a male body,” Zauner says about writing songs from a male perspective. “I think that songs that men write for women are a lot better and more romantic than songs that women write for men.

I wanted to do that.”

These Are Good People was the skeleton key that unlocked Pandora’s Box, and there’s no turning back now.

“It’s one of those things that you have to remember when working these shitty jobs: to support this really great band instead of the other way around,” Zauner preaches earnestly about keeping positive initial perspective. “You want the security of having a job when you get back from performing or you have to remind yourself that you’re not destined to be a barista, pizza delivery boy or a waitress.”

- Megan Matuzak

Photo by Kristin Guessford.

If one were seeking a female, indie-punk band representative of the real, raw, 21st century 20-something woes and wows of life, Cayetana would be the go-to.

This three-piece, South Philadelphia, Vespariding gang is a charming group of gal pals with a sweet demeanor off-stage. On stage, vocalist Augusta Koch, drummer Kelly Olsen and bass player Allegra Anka are a boisterous force to be reckoned with.

“The running theme of our music, I guess, is life,” says Koch, who also plays guitar. “Being alone, dealing with change, being stressed out, friendship, Philadelphia.”

As one fan once told them, they sound something like “if Alanis Morissette fronted a punk band.” But Koch’s vocals are a tough thing

punk band Ma Jolie. Part of the tour included a show at Weapons of Mass Creation, a combined graphic design/music fest in Cleveland, where Braid and The Appleseed Cast also performed.

Despite having a fairly rapid success story since their formation in September of 2011, Cayetana is still moving forward with modesty as they work out kinks in their sound, developing their self-taught instrumental skills and writing and recording their first full-length album on a friend’s record label, Tiny Engines.

“The highlight for us so far, besides becoming really good friends, has been The Thermals show at Union Transfer," says Koch. “That was crazy because we made a joke and said, 'Well, we're not going to play any shows unless The Thermals play,’ and then we got asked to play! It was so scary but so great! It was like Hogwarts in there and we didn't really know how to sound check. That was funny. Everyone thought we were really lame."

Trial-and-error music-making has lead the members of Cayetana to an inspiring friendship, where practice is fun, writing is natural and every show is an exciting new experience.

As a testament to their camaraderie, in July, the girls all got matching tattoos – a bundle of three arrows, representing their friendship.

“You don't always get a group of people where everyone wants to put in the same amount of work,” says Anka. “I think that we work so well because we are all equally dedicated to getting better and not letting each other down. We have this really good momentum where we are all on the same page. It's really nice, very satisfying.”

Cayetana will spend the fall recording their debut album (they released a demo EP last year).

You'll likely catch them riding scooters, playing shows, working and hanging out around the city.

“In the last few years, female musicians have been popping up out of nowhere in Philadelphia,” says Koch. “This is the most fun ever – to just hang out with girlfriends and talk about music.

There's a lot of great girl bands in Philly, and a lot of just great girls."

- Brittany Thomas

Three Arrows of Friendship Augusta Koch (L to R), Allegra Anka and Kelly Olsen talk about life in their band, Cayetana.

JUMPphilly.com

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Bottom photo by Chris Malo. Other photos courtesy of Howard Rubin.

The JUMP Off

The Hip-Hop Cop Howard Rubin has protected some of the biggest names in music.

“I’m 5-feet tall,” says Howard Rubin sitting in an empty room off the reception area of the North American Motor Inn on City Line Avenue where he moonlights as a guard. “I have a Napoleon complex. I will move crowds.”

Dressed in an officer’s uniform, complete with his firearm on his hip, the 45-year-old native of Northeast Philadelphia lays out his 30-year career providing security for some of the biggest names in the rap game. In fact it was one of rap’s most celebrated icons that gave him the nickname he is most known by in the industry.

There are stories. A lot of stories. Alleged sex with a Miami rapper’s dancer.

Allegedly saving a well-known Queensbridge MC from gun charges. Hiding an artist out after alleged relations with a groupie who may or may not have been of age. Oh, and then there is the time he was shot in the neck at close range with a .45-caliber handgun.

Being small in stature but huge in giving and getting respect is a thread that weaves through his life. It is a philosophy that almost killed him, has kept him alive and guided him through a long and unblemished career protecting rap music’s rich and famous.

Rubin began doing security work after graduating from Northeast High School, working events like the Thanksgiving Day Parade. Eventually, he provided security for groups like New Kids On The Block. When he started doing private security, Rubin became a Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Officer, an agent of the state, through training with Pennsylvania State Police.

It was his relationship with music industry veteran Big Scott Shepherd that segued Rubin into the rap world. Around 1993, Rubin began providing security for the Bad Boy Records roster of Biggie Smalls, Junior Mafia and Lil’ Kim. It was Biggie who looked at Rubin and told him he reminded him of Sweetchuck from the Police Academy movies. He began calling Rubin “Sweetchuck, the Hip-Hop Cop.” The name stuck. From that point forward, whenever artists came through Philly, Rubin served as their point man on security.

“With my Napoleon attitude, I would go in, set up security, make sure everything was calm, cool and collected, and I just played my part,” Rubin notes. “They had somebody they could trust. Somebody they respected. And someone who wouldn’t disrespect them or what they were doing.”

Being in such close proximity to artists who don’t always adhere to the letter of the law can put one who is supposed to uphold the law in a precarious situation. It is something Rubin has had to deal with on many occasions.

“I have to play both sides of the fence,” Rubin says. “I have been with Method Man and Redman when there was so much weed smoke being blown that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. You have to play both sides because your job is to protect your artist at all costs. They are smoking so much weed, it can put them away for life but that’s where you have to balance.

As a police officer, you try and balance the scales of justice.”

The worlds Rubin straddles met in a violent collision in West Philadelphia on Dec. 15, 2010. These days, he provides security for champion boxer Danny Garcia, but at that time, Rubin provided security for Philly boxing legend Bernard Hopkins. Rubin was going to escort Hopkins' wife to a Janet Jackson show but first he needed to get the brakes fixed on his 2002 Cadillac Seville.

Waiting inside the Sunoco while the car was being serviced, an argument broke out between Rubin and someone who had taken anti-freeze without paying. Tensions quickly escalated when he felt the owners of the service station were being disrespected. Eventually the thief left, only to return 20 minutes later – with a pistol.

“I remember him pointing the gun at me,” Rubin says. “It was a .45 automatic.

He says, ‘Who you disrespecting now?’ Not thinking, I try to run out of the JUMPphilly.com

MUSIC MUSCLE: Howard Rubin with Beanie Sigel (top), Jay Z, and in uniform (left). store. The first thing that went through my mind was, ‘I want to get away.’ I run to the door and I heard the flash. That was the .45-caliber bullet going into my neck.”

Rubin points to the inch-and-a-half long scar at the base of his skull, less than a half-inch from his spinal cord. Shot on a Wednesday night, he went into surgery to remove the bullet on Friday and left the hospital on Saturday to recover at his sister’s house. He attributes being alive to one factor.

“Being determined,” he says. “Knowing that I put my life out on the line for other people, now the tables turned because I’m a victim. I’m a victim of a violent crime. I felt what I did was right. Protecting the people behind the counter from someone who was disrespecting them.”

He returned to his day job as a school police officer at Multi-Cultural Academy Charter School only four months later. The fact that there are no long-term physical repercussions is a miracle, he says.

Two weeks after Rubin was shot, a car chase with Rubin’s assailant ended when the suspect opened fire on police. When police returned fire, they shot and killed the man.

“They killed my shooter but now I have to be the frontline and walk with those individuals whose shooters have never been caught yet,” Rubin says.

“By standing as one unified force, we can make a difference. A lot of people are too afraid to do it. I fight everyday to be better than what I was yesterday. I never stop fighting for the artist I protect because thats my job.” - Chris Malo

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Photo by Abigail Reimold.

Photo by Timothy Becker.

The JUMP Off

Bad Bitch, Guns Blazing Gun$ Garcia is all about female empowerment but she also wants all the local DJs to work together. There's money to be made.

There are so many now. That's what Regina “Gun$” Garcia, heralded DJ associated with the Mad Decent collective, feels about the number of women in hip-hop who share her endeared title of a “bad bitch.” These women, Garcia’s contemporaries, haven’t so much crawled out of the shadow of their male counterparts as much as they crashed in, guns blazing, with confidence and innovation.

“Girls can rap now,” Garcia says.

And they even get respect for it. Like the women she features on her turntables or selects for her pumped-up mixes, such as Azealia Banks and Kreayshawn, Garcia never feels the need to diminish her femininity or prove her creativity in spite of gender. She insists it is part of why she has been able to carve out a niche and seen success as a result.

“There’s sexism all the time,” she asserts. “People give me back-handed compliments all the time and you have to just not care. I’m not a good DJ in spite of the fact that I’m a girl. I think that’s part of the reason why I am. I know what girls want to dance to because I like to dance.”

An alumna of the all-female Moore College of Art and Design, it's easy to see why she has such an affinity for strong women. That foundation is also why she's never hesitant about being competitive with men or women, always going for what she wants. But going for what you want can have its challenges.

“It’s so hard to work for yourself,” Garcia admits, “because I don't want to work. I’d rather sit around and do nothing. So when you have to be like, ‘OK, now you have to go home after you’ve just worked six hours and do more work researching music on the Internet,’ or whatever it is that I’m doing, it’s not always the most fun. But you have to do what you’re passionate about or else it’s not worth it.”

This passion has also prompted Garcia to share her knowledge by teaching other now-known Philly DJs such as Uncle Ron, Suga Shay and her Yellow Girl Mob partner, DJ Yolo Ono. “I think that her ability is to see the bigger picture and think about the fine balance of being a woman doing something – but also kind of not limiting yourself by that, like almost as if it's a gimmick,” says Yolo Ono. “I think it comes from a really genuine place of being empowered and representing women overall.”

All of this, Garcia says, is part of her desire to see more unity among the DJ community in Philly.

“I’m trying to make a joint force with all of us girl DJs from Philly,” Garcia says. “I think that’s what’s kind of been missing as far as relations between DJs, whether boy or girl. There’s money for everything we make and we can all make it a lot easier if we do it all together.”

This month, Garcia will release the sequel to her 2011 mixtape Bad Bitches Bomb First, a project that helped solidify her place as a crowd favorite.

“The first time I did it, it was actually really hard to find girl rap music that I felt like applied to the parameters of ‘bad bitch’ music,” she says. “Now, it’s like, there's too much. So I have the opposite problem.”

And what a good problem to have.

- Chesney Davis

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A World of Sound

DJ Ben Arsenal has assembled a team of party people in North Philly.

In the basement of the architecturally impressive Window Factory Arts – yesteryear’s North Philly industrial beacon repurposed as a collection of arts studios, DJ Ben Arsenal has created a den for multi-genre production called Elevate Sound Studio, home of the WorldTown party movement.

WorldTown has hosted some of the wildest parties in the various locations throughout Philadelphia, from clubs such as Underground Arts and the beloved Fluid, to anonymous warehouses and lofts in North Philly and Kensington. WorldTown’s collection of DJs seamlessly mix Brazilian, West African, West Indian, Middle Eastern and Balkan riddims. It is not unusual to see people like West Philadelphia Orchestra’s Petia Z at Elevate Sound’s socials. Each WorldTown bash integrates electronic and world beats – think Mad Decent’s Jeffree's releases but with emphasis on Philly and design.

Born Ben Schneible, Aresenal is a 25-year-old cultural arbiter originally from Montpelier, Vermont. The Temple University alumnus is a true lover of the party scene, and always has been.

“I was always the one in high school organizing parties,” he explains. “I eventually realized the importance that music played in having a really really good party.”

It’s his appreciation of a good – no, epic – party that inspires his dedication to the profession.

“I went to France and was blown away by people actually mixing songs,” he reminisces. “They only played the best part of the tracks and the parties were awesome. The flawless flow of tunes, the energy and the massive sound systems. There’s nothing like walking into a venue that has a good vibe, people dancing and some killer tunes on.”

Acoustic integrity is important to the Elevate Sound team, which includes co-founder Eric Bogacz, a Chicago native, and Nick Miles. Arsenal connected with Adrian Lu, then an architectural engineering student at Drexel University, to scope the acoustics of the space. Lu assisted Elevate Sound during his coop with Walters-Storyk Design Group, the firm whose founding partner John Storyk is famously known for designing Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios.

“At the moment, we're working on getting a frequency response of the studio so that we can tune the room,” says Lu, who’s currently working on a master’s degree in audio acoustics at the University of Salford in Manchester, England.

“This will make sure Ben and Eric can hear the true sound of their mixes.”

Miles created Elevate Sound’s slick website. Hailing from Southwest Philadelphia, the 28-year old Miles is high-energy but easy-going. His mother sung with The Odette’s. His father, Johnnie C. Hightower, was a guitarist for the Philadelphia-based funk band The People’s Choice.

Arsenal feels good about the team he has built.

“Philly – Vermont – Chicago!” Arsenal proudly says of his Elevate Sound Studios crew. “Triangulation.”

The three amigos have diverse origins but one clear goal: to continue to build their party and production haven for Philadelphia talent.

- Morgan James

VIEW FROM THE TOP: (L to R) Nick Miles, Eric Bogacz and Ben Arsenal on the roof of their North Philly studio space.

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Driving and Rhyming Taylor Dunn played in the Sweet Sixteen round of the NCAA basketball tournament in March. He dropped his third mixtape over the summer.

Photo by Brendan Menapace.

Taylor Dunn has a lot on his plate.

He’s got a rap career that’s been growing stronger and a new mixtape out.

Add to that the fact that he is a college student studying biology and gearing up to take the MCAT. Oh, and by the way, he also plays basketball for his school, La Salle University, the same La Salle that made it to last year’s Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament.

“It’s hard,” Dunn says. “School is first and then comes basketball, of course.

Those two things need to be my priority. But music isn’t just a hobby to me. It’s not just something I do when I have free time. Usually I can build up enough material during the school year and basketball season to release a tape, like I did this summer. I think it’s a good balance. It does get hard but I think I do a pretty good job of it.”

Catch Dunn in the studio and he’s constantly moving around the room, tweaking different things on monitors, discussing lines and generally just handling things like, well, a point guard would on the basketball court.

“I’m trying to produce and rap,” Dunn says of his latest release, Collective Theory, which came out in July. “I’m really hands-on with what I’m doing because I want everything to sound like it’s a movie within itself, and give the listener a different feeling every time. I don’t want two songs to run together in somebody’s head.”

That’s one goal that Dunn and his production team have accomplished very well. The album displays their huge variety of influences and, as the name of the mixtape states, it’s truly a collective effort from all angles of production.

Music that has a wide spectrum of influences can sometimes be forgettable and disjointed, but that’s not the case here. Dunn forgoes redundancy and maintains a very strong sense of identity on every song.

His two other teammates in production are Philly-based Philth Spector and UK-based Phill Blanks, whom Spector and Dunn call a “wizard.” Blanks sometimes makes upwards of seven beats in one night. The three have kept a pretty strong work ethic through the process of creating Collective Theory.

“We didn’t want to settle,” says Spector. “People liked Taylor’s first tape. We built on that, and then we built off of the next one, and on this tape, we just wanted to keep building and making it better.”

Dunn’s first effort, Daydreamin’, came out in 2011. Then there was October 2012’s On the Contrary, which got some positive attention from blogs and magazines. Collective Theory was named one of the top mixtapes of July by ok-tho.com and was a top release for a week and a half on DatPiff.com. Dunn is hoping to gain even more of a following with his latest release.

“Hopefully people latch on, especially in this city,” he says. “In Philadelphia, once they ride with you, they ride with you. Cassidy could be doing Mother Goose rhymes and they’d still be coming. Same with guys like Freeway.

Everybody who plays in Philly, he’s at the show doing his songs and they love him. That type of reception is what any artist would want.”

Dunn isn’t your average rapper, not by a long shot. He balances playing Division I hoops with his studies, while making rhymes on plane rides to games.

The guy has a whole lot to be cocky about these days but that’s not what you hear in his music. Instead, you hear a sense of joy. It’s obvious that Dunn takes real pride in what he does and he is having a great time making music with his friends in Philadelphia.

- Brendan Menapace JUMPphilly.com

Photo by Ryan Treitel.

The JUMP Off

Totally Groovy Fun Johnny Showcase and the Lefty Lucy Cabaret perform wild soul with gaudy live performances that you have to experience.

You take a chance any time you receive a call to meet up with South Philly theater performer and musician David Sweeny.

Sometimes you’ll find a sweet, funny and expressive 33-year-old. But on days like today, you’ll find a crude crooner clad in red flared pants, an orange brocade jacket and a button-up vest exposing a large gold medallion around his neck and tufts of chest hair.

Today, Sweeny is his stage persona, Johnny Showcase. Joined by his Lefty Lucy Cabaret, the band has been weaving their wild soul music with gaudy theatrical live performances since 2007.

Other members of the group wander around the Italian Market in South Philly, dressed in equally distinguishable attire. It’s hard to know if you should call them by their real names (Vince Federici, guitar, Micheal Baker, tambourine and backing vocals, and Adrienne Mackey and Liz Filiers, choreography and backing vocals) or their Cabaret characters (Vinnie “The Lion,” Showcase’s spiritual adviser Rumi Kitchen and the two halves of “The Truth,” respectively).

The band is shooting a music video for the song “Hit It From the Back” and they step inside The Rim Café on South 9th Street to get a few takes. The café owner is blaring the band’s music and handing out frozen chocolate espressos like he is taking a queue from their song “Cocaine Sandwich” (“Hey whatcha sharin’/ gotta give a piece to me”).

By this time, with the large sunglasses removed from his face, you can see David Sweeny again. Though it was his alter ego and bandmates who helped bring him here, Sweeny is happy to be one of Philly’s most trusted groovemakers and party-starters.

“If it was just David Sweeny playing, people would be like ‘eh,’” he says.

“But if you can channel songwriting through a character, you can say and JUMPphilly.com

do whatever you want. Then there are eight people behind you saying the same thing. It’s like, numbers make it true. What has drawn us together is the theatricality of it and the joy of it. That’s actually more of what’s kept us together. It brings joy to other people and it brings joy to us. We get to sing and dance and make people laugh at the same time. Those are like the three most beautiful human reactions and experiences happening simultaneously.

When that’s happening, it’s infectious.”

The group’s shows are for swing dancing and sing-alongs. What this collection of musicians, singers and dancers enjoys most about the project is that it allows the ability to let go and to take the audience along for the ride.

“It was really hard for me to put on this character at first because I was having so much fun I just wanted to smile all of the time,” says Filiers, who is one half of The Truth, the stern-faced back-up singers and dancers for the Cabaret.

“One of the rules of The Truth is that you have to be completely vacant and it’s been hard to just contain my excitement so that I can get into character fully.”

“The lyrics are smart and funny,” says Adrienne Mackey, the other half of The Truth. “It’s like right brain and left brain. They’re both useful. It just depends on what you’re trying to do. If you want to sit and contemplate and go inward, then that’s one kind of music. But if you want to be outward and dancing and grabbing somebody and just like smashing their face in yours ...”

Johnny Showcase and the Lefty Lucy Cabaret are perhaps best known for its feat in 2009 of putting on a full stage show to Prince’s album Purple Rain.

Though the show has gone through multiple levels of theatricality since then, Sweeny says the band is now focused on perpetuating the fact that it is “a band and this is a dance party.”

They are constantly writing new music and are making a serious push to play and be recognized outside of the city. Their efforts have recently paid off, as the band has started playing in New York City at Rockwood Music Hall and have a gig at Manhattan late-night music bar Fontana’s in September.

“If we just play in Philly for our friends, then that’s a good career, if that’s all that happens,” Sweeny admits, “but we’d like to play for other people because we feel like it could spread out.”

Whether it’s Sweeny or Showcase you meet on the street in Philly or anywhere else, you won’t be disappointed.

- Beth Ann Downey

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The Second Life

Longtime Inquirer music critic Tom Moon wasn't allowed to play his sax professionally. Since he left the paper, he's been making new music.

Tom Moon is taking back cocktail hour.

The 52-year-old saxophone player, along with his Latin jazz-inspired group Ensemble Novo, are aiming to bring chill music back to Philadelphia clubs.

Their new album, Blue Night, which dropped in July, displays the full fervor of a repertoire that, as Moon jokingly describes, “falls between the early bossa nova and 1975, when things get to be very electric piano-ed out in Brazil.”

“I wanted to make a lounge record,” Moon says. “I wanted it to be very chill, approachable and you could put it on, and boom, it’s cocktail hour. At our show last night, someone said to me, ‘This is better than a margarita!’ I said, ‘Can I quote you on that?’”

The way Moon describes their music is filled with both scholarly knowledge and a natural giddiness to share. Moon has been providing paths to hundreds of artists for decades as a music critic featured in national publications like Spin and Esquire, and on NPR’s All Things Considered.

Moon’s journalism career began innocently. He was in it for the free records.

“During sophomore year of college, I saw one of my friends on campus carrying a stack of vinyl,” recalls Moon. “He said, ‘I’ve been doing these little record reviews in the school paper and they give you free records!’ And I thought, ‘Well, that sounds pretty good.’”

While working on a degree in jazz with a focus on saxophone, he began contributing to the University of Miami’s school newspaper. After graduating, Moon spent a few years reviewing jazz shows for the Miami Herald while also playing gigs. In 1988, he came here to work for the Philadelphia Inquirer as a music critic – but it came with a catch.

“I had to sign a contract saying, ‘I will not derive any income from playing music while I’m in your employ,’” Moon says, citing traditional journalism ethics. “I still practiced and attended jam sessions every once in awhile. They didn’t want me to curtail all activity. I just couldn’t get paid for it.”

Throughout his 18-year tenure at the newspaper, Moon’s saxophone never rusted but he admits he lost skills and the drive to play. When his stay at the Inquirer ended with a buyout in 2005, Moon dove into writing the seemingly impossible book 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. After compiling choices that he’d sought out during interviews with people as varied as Tom Waits and Madonna, Moon spent three years listening obsessively to nearly every style of music he could find, turning a grand idea into a reality by not doing much of anything else. It was only after the excessive touring to promote the book that he thought about playing again.

“I remember being in my office, sending emails, trying to find work and then 11:30 in the morning rolled around and I thought, ‘Well, what now?’” Moon says. “I was in sort of a dark patch at the time and during that point, I was probably no good to anyone and I wasn’t really writing, so I found myself playing as a stress relief. It was interesting to see what I remembered and what I had totally lost.”

Moon’s resurgence back into being a musician was not an easy task. He started attending jam sessions at Milkboy Coffee in Ardmore, and was nervous to be playing alongside recent college graduates. But Moon linked up quickly with guitarist Ryan McNeely, who was in the Milkboy house band, and the seeds for Blue Night were planted.

“I hadn’t played in a really long time and I was worried,” Moon says. “I don’t remember what tune I suggested, maybe ‘Once I Loved’ or another Joe Bean tune. He knew it and it was great. He’s quite the scholar on Brazilian music. I remember as soon as it was over, I was thinking, ‘This is the most fun ever!’”

The twenty four year-old McNeely has similar feelings.

"Playing with Tom is a pleasure because he's such a fanatic about music," he says. "I don't know anyone else as eager and willing to put up with all the hassles and roadblocks in the way of performing live jazz for audiences as Tom. He is able to draw from his vast listening and reviewing experience when playing and can be the critic when trying to edit an album together."

Moon’s new ambitions for Ensemble Novo are purely to entertain audiences in a way that doesn’t belittle their sensibilities.

“Can five or six people get together and play something that’s gentle and has ripples instead of anything big?” he asks. “It’s challenging.” - Kevin Stairiker facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by Michael Bucher.

The JUMP Off

VETERAN ROOKIE: Sax man Tom Moon at Milkboy before a recent performance.

JUMPphilly.com

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Photo by G.W. Miller III.

The JUMP Off

Success In The Making Cookie Rabinowitz has worked with big names. Now he's pushing his own stuff.

The studio inside of Cookie Rabinowitz’s home is filled. Filled with studio equipment, filled with music, filled with crap. A blanket hanging from the ceiling cuts the room in two. One side has freshly-painted orange walls, sound-dampening foam nailed to the ceiling, a workstation with a computer and a huge monitor attached to the wall. Who knows what lays on the other side of the curtain?

Cookie puffs on an e-cig obsessively and a nonstop plume of smoke wafts from his mouth, past his oversized glasses and over his head.

“I tell rappers that come in here you can smoke your weed,” he says, laying out the parameters for imbibing. “If you have to do a bump, that’s cool.

No needles. That’s my only ground rule.”

He continues, recalling the time he let a rapper do some mixes here while he wasn’t in the studio, only to come back to find a crack bag on the floor.

He did what anyone under 40 would do in 2013.

He promptly posted a pic of it to Instagram.

Cookie’s music is self-described as “indie alternative rock” despite the fact some of his biggest breaks have not come from that genre.

Sure, he licensed some of his music to be used on ABC’s “Men in Trees” and CBS’s “Ghost Whisperer,” although he wasn’t mentioned in the credits. There was a cartoon pilot he did with Orlando Jones that they pitched to the Cartoon Network (which was rejected), which led to Jones covering Cookie’s music in his “Tainted Love” series on Machinima, the video game resource.

But connecting with Philadelphia rap legend Schoolly D has given Cookie opportunities he would not have been able to manufacture on his own. For one, he was afforded a chance to play on and record the theme song for Adult Swim’s “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” with Schoolly in his studio. While his name does not appear in the closing credits for this either, Schoolly provided the bridge leading to Cookie playing bass guitar on the HipHopGods tour with Schoolly, Public Enemy and X-Clan.

“They let me shine – I played my guitar and they let me sing a tune on their tour,” Cookie says about being allowed to play his own music at their shows. “My shows, there are about 12 people. At their shows, there are 3,000 people. And when I was put in that environment, the crowd was really

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responsive to it.”

While appreciative and honored by the opportunity, it has left him confused.

“My music is not hip-hop and it's not R&B at all,” Cookie explains. “But for some reason, in the indie alternative rock where I have been putting myself, it doesn't seem like it’s what people are into. But when I’m put in situations in front of a primarily black audience, they love it. It’s an observation. I don’t understand it.”

Still, Cookie continues to find himself working with those in the rap game. He has produced and recorded tracks with Freeway, Sandman and Peedi. There is an upcoming European tour with Doodlebug from Digable Planets in September, and an EP from the duo that will be released in October. The collaboration with Doodlebug will be the first time he has released a professionally mastered body of his work.

Like many other artists today, he is looking for the secret formula to get his name, or more precisely his music, out there and heard.

“No matter how good your music is, I think today you need that magic behind what you are putting out,” he says with both resignation and understanding.

“I’ve been making music all my life but I’m just starting now to think I’m really onto something,” he explains enthusiastically. “My rent’s paid. If I really want to go crazy and get a cheeseburger, I can buy a cheeseburger for no reason. Or really go crazy and pay my moms taxes on her condo.”

But on a bad day?

“For all intents and purposes, I’m a middle-aged man,” Cookie says. “I don’t have a license, I don’t have a car. I think I’m here, I’m making these tunes and nobody really gives a fuck. Am I being self-centered? If I’m here and making all this music and it's not doing good in the world, should I do something else?”

There is a strong desire to have a positive impact

on the planet, giving whatever he can, and there is a certainty the will do it through music. Like most people, he has his an inner conflict regarding direction and purpose.

“On a good day, I feel like I’m killing it,” he muses.

“On a bad day I feel self-centered, so engulfed in this music stuff and theres not a whole ton of people saying this is effecting me in a positive way. So at that point you’re just Bon Jovi.”

However, the path from idealistic theories to practice is not always clear.

“If someone wants to buy my shit, if they feel that way about me, if they want to come to my show, then I want them to spend their money,” Cookie explains. “But I don’t ever want anyone to support me. I don’t like that, ‘Support your local artist.’ I want to feel like I’m supporting you. I want to support your day, making you feel a little better. That’s what I want to do. I want to give, not expect and take shit.”

Working with big names or getting his music on television is far from his ultimate goal. Instead, his one aspiration is to make music with a positive message that resonates, without being preachy.

“I want to write songs that talk about things but not tell people what to do,” Cookie says, looking forward and backwards at the same time.

“A lot of that positive influence in music comes from Curtis Mayfield, from Sly of course, Marvin Gaye, that genre of music,” Cookie offers. “I listen to [Stevie Wonder’s] Songs in the Key of Life every day. If I had a dream about a career in music ...”

Cookie trails off, his face nearly completely shrouded in nicotine vapor after taking a monster drag off the electronic device.

“I heard Sly is living in a van in San Diego or San Francisco, one of the two, where he’s got a mobile studio and is making music,” Cookie says. “I don't know if it is true or not but I’d like to cut a track with him in his van.

“I think that would be badass.”

- Chris Malo facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

Live First, Record Later

The dudes from Dockument have performed at some of Philly's most popular venues. And they've never even released any recorded music.

The formation of electro-rock band Dockument was natural, almost anticipated. Frontman and guitarist Jarrett Zerrer, keyboard player Julian Wallace and bassist Patrick Lieberman have been jamming together since high school. They graduated from their childhood love of classic rock to a modern appreciation of EDM, now drawing on their background of playing guitar to create dance-friendly, improvisational, electronic-based music.

“We’re always saying, ‘Document that,’” Zerrer recalls as he and the other band members sit in a cozy booth at Spruce Hill’s Local 44. “That was kind of a running joke when we started with the band because we are such jammers.

But a lot of our ideas just come on the fly like that and they’ve been getting fleshed out pretty well.”

What’s been unnatural is Dockument’s upbringing through the Philly music scene. They've already played such sought-after venues as Johnny Brenda’s, Milkboy and an inaugural show at Underground Arts – before releasing a single track online. It was apparent that new fans didn’t need to know the words to get down on the dance floor. They are far more than a plug-and-play type of electronic band.

“I pride myself on that because I can be more dynamic with these guys,” Wallace says about playing keys and doing some live computer work. “I can change key on the fly or do something crazy on the fly. A lot of DJs don’t do that, so I’m just more about playing from the heart.”

“Since our first show, we’ve gotten a lot more comfortable with our set,” Zerrer adds. “It’s gotten even more dynamic, more upbeat and even more dance-friendly. Everything is a lot more loose as far as us up on stage and the sound feels a lot more fine-tuned. Right now, since we don’t really have any music released, it’s good because we’re able to feel things out live and kind of see what people are digging right now. So, we’re kind of lucky in that element.”

Zerrer himself is becoming more comfortable with his first experience as a band frontman. Having spent more than two years as guitarist for electro-duo

City Rain, Zerrer says he’s taking what he learned from that experience and having fun navigating a whole new vibe on stage.

“You can really just sense that we’ve been playing together for a while and that we all have similar styles and tastes in music,” Zerrer says of their live sets. “We kind of just have the creative freedom to go around in the recorded version, or in our live versions where we can do whatever we want. It’s funny because a bunch of people have come up to me already and been like, ‘I had no idea you had that style or that you were like, that comfortable coming out of your shell like that.’”

The dudes of Dockument plan to release a single soon. They are unsure whether or not they will follow that with an EP or a full-length.

“We have it,” Lieberman says. “It’s there. We just have to fine-tune it.”

In the meantime, the band is experimenting with a stripped-down version of their live set – potentially providing Dockument with a whole new dynamic.

“That will be going back to our roots,” Wallace says, “so it should be cool.”

“We could go into a radio station next week and play a stripped-down version and we’d be good,” Zerrer adds. “Even a couple months in, I can tell that we’d be comfortable with anything that comes our way.”

- Beth Ann Downey JAM BAND: (L to R) Patrick Lieberman, Jarrett Zerrer and Julian Wallace recently formed Dockument, but they've played together for years.

The JUMP Off Photo by Kate Harrold.

Parallel Patterns

The guys in Pattern Is Movement found time apart was beneficial.

Photo by Urszula Pruchniewska.

The thing about making things is you're rarely ever going to think they're good enough yourself, as the maker. Anyone who knows that feeling can understand why it's taking Pattern Is Movement four years to complete their newest self-titled record, the fourth release from Philly's mad-sound scientists.

Pattern Is Movement has seen some members come and go – three to be exact – but what's stayed constant is two of its founders, Christopher Ward and Andrew Thiboldeaux, who admittedly learned how to play music at a young age through each other.

"Chris and I have been making music together in some capacity for 20 years," Thiboldeaux says. "I think that musical alliance is present throughout all of what we've produced together, independent of who else has contributed to that or had a stake in it."

The group garnered a lot of attention with its 2004 release, The (Im) possibility of Longing, which was critically acclaimed. Pitchfork said, "Pattern Is Movement more than transcending the math-rock tag, and their senses of songcraft and pop accessibility greatly outpace those of just about any of their peers." Prefix web magazine said it was "a promising debut that challenges structure in the same ways as Tortoise and the Sea and Cake." Ward admits that the record took forever to create but "no one knew it took forever because we weren't a band yet."

That was years ago, and in between then and now the group released All Together in 2008, a record Ward explains was "rushed" and "not well-received" due to a pre-booked tour and impending release deadline.

"With our previous releases, we pushed records before they had time to mature,” Ward remembers. “That's what I'm most excited about with this record. I believe it had time to marinate and I'm 100 percent proud of it. Also, I had a lot of changes in my life, and taking that time helped me figure out a lot about who I was and what I wanted to communicate with my parts."

This wasn't easy. The record, which is now due out in January 2014 on Portland’s Hometapes Records, is actually the second run of the new release.

Ward and Thiboldeaux worked tirelessly, to the point that Ward says, "I was struggling to get perspective on the record. I seriously had kind of a breakdown because I was like, 'I don't know if this record is awesome or if it's a piece of shit.'"

FULLY MATURED: Christopher Ward (left) and Andrew Thiboldeaux.

They weren't completely confident that it was a fully concrete piece when they handed it in to their label. What happened next? Nothing.

Ward is not sure exactly what the label said about the record but he knows it was something along the lines of "this isn't finished." That's when they decided on a different approach – to separate.

Ward and Thiboldeaux worked independently from each other so that they could gain a perspective they maybe never had in the decades they've spent learning and playing music together. They tracked separately, gave each other constructive criticism over the telephone and then took some time to feel out the music on their own, practicing their own parts in the pattern.

"When you think about being in a relationship with someone, it takes time for your feelings to develop and come to the surface, to tell someone how you really feel and thats what this record is about," Ward says.

Both musicians understand that it worked. This record is their proudest accomplishment to date and they're in no rush to slam it out into the world until they fully know it's ready to be out there. What would those young kids who met and started making beautiful music together think about their older selves' latest record?

"I think our 13-year-old selves would have loved this album,” Thiboldeaux surmises. “I have a lot of respect for those guys! I did fantasize when I when was a teenager about being completely immersed in music and I think what I'm experiencing now is pretty close to that."

- Nikki Volpicelli

The Solo Harpist Mary Lattimore, whose debut solo album, The Withdrawing Room, released on Desire Path Recordings this past summer, started playing the harp when she was 11-years-old. Now, 21 years later, she corresponds with our Urszula Pruchniewska about her influences, dreams and day jobs, and sheds some light on the actual weight of the large instrument.

The Withdrawing Room is your solo debut. What's to like and what's not to like about creating your first solo record?

I love having a solo record out and feel really proud of it. I had a lot of help, though. Jeff Zeigler (of Arc in Round and Uniform Recording) played synth on it, recorded it and mixed it. I liked making it because we just sat down and improvised and it was really from the heart and the soul, not the self-conscious brain. I guess what I disliked the most about making the record was having to find someone to put it out, sending it to people with hope that they'd want to press it and work on it.

It's no fun to put that kind of pressure on people,

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facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by Timothy Becker.

Paisley-Popping Child's Play

Andy Molholt's new project, Laser Background, harkens back to his childhood and all the fun and confusion that came with that.

The bouncer at Kung Fu Necktie deliberately checks IDs at the front door for everyone who steps in from the Friday evening rain. But it's a mystery that Andy Molholt got in so easily. The founder of paisley-pop project Laser Background wears an oversized white tunic that hangs nearly long enough to cover his shorts. Despite his beard, he resembles a child playing dress-up in his parents' bedroom.

That's fitting given the ethos he's crafted for Laser Background and its upcoming full-length, Super Future Montage. He calls the album his life's work, including songs whose roots date back to five years ago, when he was working with idiosyncratic psych-rock group, The Armchairs.

“The whole point of where I was trying to go conceptually with Laser Background is about childhood and about how weird it is to be a kid,” Molholt says. “I just remember being super confused and having a crazy imaginary world that I was like, 'This is way more fun anyway.'”

Molholt calls the album, which drops on Sept. 25 with release show at a Johnny Brenda's, a “psychedelic action/adventure album,” incorporating a dreamlike atmosphere that makes heavy reference to falling sleep, waking up, candy, birth and death.

But childhood serves as the backbone for Molholt's creative outlets, as evidenced by his flowing tunic and the yellow frog backpack he hangs from his mic stand pre-set. This show is the second of back-to-back nights for Molholt, who also performs with long-time friend Brendan Mulvihill in Norwegian Arms.

“Technically, I'm in like four bands right now,” Molholt says, detailing his turns with Ape School and Neighborhood Choir, in addition to fronting Laser Background and working with Norwegian Arms.

Molholt has something of an exchange program going, bringing Ape School's Michael Johnson to mix and produce Super Future Montage. He also trades bass duties with Neighborhood Choir's Bennett Daniels, who plays in Laser Background's live line-up.

Of his collaborators, Mulvihill is the most familiar. Molholt describes their first band, Shampoo Ridiculous, as two friends from performing arts camp being weird in their Hatfield, Pa. yards. Unfortunately, the fruits of Molholt's youth violin lessons couldn't carry the band through more than two songs before they folded and formed a real band years later.

“We both understand our roles very well and how we should work together,” Mulvihill says. “It's nice to have a person who understands your full spectrum of emotions.”

Super Future Montage, though, represents Molholt's first full-length individual effort. While his live band is well-staffed by friends, the album was written and recorded mostly on his own, with some help from Johnson's mixing experience.

“It's really smooth working with Andy,” says Johnson, who also teaches at The University of the Arts. “I don't go out of my way to change anything. I go out of my way to accentuate what he does.”

Music aside, Molholt does a lot. Beyond splitting music duties in four bands and working double duty at Pizza Brain and Johnny Brenda's, he's attempting to promote Super Future Montage via a fleet of homemade LEGO-structured QR codes routed to videos for each the album's 14 tracks.

This project isn't new to Molholt, as he successfully crafted his DIY promo toy for display outside Johnny Brenda's last year. But the scale of this year's project hopes to add New York, Brooklyn and Baltimore to the mix.

With that much work on his plate, Molholt says it's been a struggle for him to make time for fun. He uses familiar childhood imagery to illustrate the contrast.

“I use the Ninja Turtles analogy: When I'm not Leonardo, I'm totally Michaelangelo,” he says. “When I'm not trying to do shit, I'm ready to party.”

- Kevin Doran

but I had to kind of try to sell it because it was the first thing. Thankfully James Plotkin (the record's mastering engineer) linked me up with the Desire Path Recordings and so it worked out great.

all the time and I could see the results of his total dedication. Playing with Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) and his band helped with my confidence, improvisational-wise.

You've worked with some notable musicians – Jarvis Cocker, Thurston Moore and Kurt Vile, to name a few. Who are you hoping to work with in the future?

Do you work primarily as a musician or are you also a teacher?

List three words to describe yourself.

Weird, weird and busy.

Can you lift a harp by yourself?

In the future I'd love to work with my friend Sarah Neufeld, whose first solo violin record came out this past August. Brian Eno would be my dream. I'd also like to do something with Grouper, but I don't know her. Another dream is to improvise with Adam Granduciel (War on Drugs' frontman). I have lots of dreams. Michael Rother (krautrock composer) is another.

Who are some of your greatest influences?

My mom's a harpist and a big influence on me.

I was lucky enough to get to play and record with Fursaxa (Tara Burke) and Helena Espvall, who plays cello, and they taught me a lot, especially about the Line 6 pedal I have been using. I lived with Daniel Bachman (solo artist/guitarist) for a bit and he really inspired me because he practiced JUMPphilly.com

I have a bunch of jobs. I am a babysitter, real estate assistant and I work at a record store called a.k.a. music. I also sell pretzels at Union Transfer and put things into spreadsheets for people. I do get to play a lot though, and have several piano and harp students. I'd love to just be a harpist for a living. Maybe in the future!

Tell me a funny story about 'Mary Lattimore – the Harpist.'

I once played my pieces in an Arby's parking lot because the family car got a flat tire. I was going to miss the recital I'd worked so hard to play in.

It was my mom's idea, as we had to take the harp out of the car to change the tire anyway. She told me to just play the songs, so I did and everybody came out of Arby's to listen, including the people working there. The guy who changed the tire's name was Angel. I guess I was in eighth grade.

It's not that heavy because it's hollow. I can lift it. It's about 85 pounds. I have a dolly to cart it around on and I have a whole system of getting it into the car. The only thing I need help with is navigating a flight of stairs, but other than that, I'm pretty independent.

The harp seems to be played primarily by females.

Is this true or not true in your experience?

Yeah, I don't think it's true. In other countries, there are lots of guys playing harps of all sizes in a bunch of different musical styles. Men founded the two schools of harp technique that are taught in conservatories past and present. There's a great harpist named Jesse Sparhawk who's making gorgeous sounds with his harp here in Philly.

If you weren't a harpist, what would you be?

Maybe an art teacher somewhere, if I didn't have to wake up too early.

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Buy Music. Drop Rhymes. Make Friends.

Phenomenal Records is a one-stop shop for music-lovers.

Jay Lansky didn’t just come home with bags full of free swag when returning from weekend visits to New York City to see his friend who worked in sales for The Source magazine.

“I met the Jadakisses, the Erykah Badus, the Q-Tips, all through The Source,” says Lansky, for whom name-dropping is a form of communication rather than a means of impressing the person he’s talking to. “They would all come through the building, chill, let you listen to their music and you'd see what they got comin’ up.”

For a year, Lansky made these regular trips from his home in Philly to the Big Apple. Eventually, the meetings and conversations turned into useful connections and, in 2002, Lansky gave up his odd jobs at UPS and as a carpet cleaner to open up his own record store, Phenomenal Records.

Lansky invested his savings in a storefront in South Philadelphia before zoning infractions shut down Phenomenal, as well as the catering hall above Lansky’s shop. The next stop was the storefront he currently rents on Cecil B. Moore Avenue, near Temple University’s main campus.

With its location so close to thousands of university students, one might think Phenomenal Records has a substantial collegiate clientele. While that may have been the goal at first, it just isn’t the case, says Lansky.

“We used to do freshmen orientation days at Temple but it just never really couldn’t catch on, man,” he says over coffee at the nearby Dunkin’ Donuts.

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Photo by Luong Huynh.

This Place Rocks

He still has a lot of friends at Temple. He just doesn't need to rely upon them for income.

“I know a lot of the athletes,” says Lansky. “But you know, then is different from now. So now, we’re a little more comfortable.”

In 2006, Lansky opened the recording studio that sits in the rear of the space. He brought on producer Mike Washington, better known as Bear-One, to work as his sound engineer. Bear-One has a different impression of the store's clientele, indicating that students who come to buy music also want to schedule studio time.

“Being on a college campus,” he says, “everybody wants to be a rapper.”

Before joining Phenomenal, Bear-One worked for Universal Records and brought talent to the record shop for in-store visits. During his label days, Bear-One recalls Lansky being very supportive.

“Phenomenal was one of the best indie stores,” says Bear-One. “And Jay turned out to be a really good friend.”

Outfitted with Apple computers, Pro Tools and Beats by Dre gear, the studio has done everything from quick radio spots to full mixtapes for many independent and major label artists including Jadakiss, Method Man, Young Chris and Meek Mill. The latter was actually the first artist to be recorded at Phenomenal Records.

“Jay was like, ‘Yo, this is my young bol,’” Bear-One recalls of his introduction to Meek Mill. “I heard him and I was like, ‘Yo, this kid is incredible.’”

Bear attributes the success of Phenomenal to the combination of a retail store and recording studio – that it’s a one-stop shop for local artists and music lovers to convene, collaborate and conspire.

“That’s what separates us from other studios,” he says. “We have a retail space where people can come in, get mixtapes and meet artists. At the same time, we can take them in the studio and do whatever they need done.”

- Rosella LaFevre facebook.com/JUMPphilly

Photo by G.W. Miller III.

Music & Politics

City Money For Artists?

June O'Neill is the manager of The Philadelphia Cultural Fund, a not well-known organization that financially supports the arts in Philadelphia using tax dollars allocated by the city government. G.W. Miller III spoke to her about the 22-year-old organization and what they look for in applicants.

MONEY MANAGER: June O'Neill (right) with The Philadelphia Cultural Fund's only other employee, Michelle Currica, in their Center City office.

What does the Cultural Fund do?

What is the process?

The Cultural Fund distributes the city money that’s allocated every year to support arts and cultural organizations in the city.

We have a number of peer review panels, people from the arts community who sit on these panels that actually review the applications. It’s something the community actually does for itself because there are a lot of volunteers – up to 130 per year – who sit on panels, review applications and make site visits. And then we have a series of daylong panel meetings where we discuss the various organizations and every organization receives a score based on their panel review. Their grant is calculated by a formula based on the size of their budget, the score they received and how much money we have to distribute.

How much money is set aside for the arts? $1.84 million this fiscal year, 2013-2014. Four years ago, we had $3.2 million. They’re putting out not even $2 million and, just in tax revenue, $119 million is coming back to the city (according to a recent economic prosperity report). Even if they brought our budget up to $5 million, it’s like a pimple on the face of the city budget. Our budget should be more like $10 million. It’s a hard message to make people understand. The arts are still seen as something that is extracurricular.

evaluate what they do, and fiscal strength – the way they manage their money. We look for organizations that are sustainable and operating responsibly.

There have been a lot of music grantees, like Weathervane Music and Girls Rock Philly. What makes them stand out?

Weathervane is a really exciting program because it’s so different from other music programs that have been applying. Traditionally, we’ve had a lot of classical-type music organizations. I would love to have more applicants who are doing things other than classical. Girls Rock Philly is one of my favorites.

How many awards are given every year?

Did you grow up with an interest in the arts?

Last year, we made 270 grants.

Why was the Fund originally started?

Originally, the arts were funded from the city in what was called Class 500 grants. They were called that because they were a line item in the budget. In the '80s, when the city was really in dire straights, the money that had been going into that line item completely disappeared.

Leaders of the arts and culture community, particularly the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance and the Coalition of African American Cultural Organizations, worked with the Rendell administration and City Council to develop the Cultural Fund. The Fund is now represented by four members of City Council, four mayoral appointees and ten members of the community.

The Cultural Fund is a separate entity. We’re not the city. We’re a separate 501(c)(3) but we’re a quasi-city organization in that all of our money comes from the city. We don’t raise money from anywhere else. What we do is administer that process.

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Are there panels for different branches of the arts – painting, dance, music, etc?

There used to be. This year coming up, we’re going to a multi-year process. If you apply for a grant, you can be awarded one and for the next three years, you’ll get a grant. Every panel is now going to be multi-disciplinary and we’ll review organizations by the size of their budgets.

I actually was a music major my first two years at Northern Arizona University and then changed majors. I ended up getting my degree in Arts Management – before it was really popular. It was a new undergraduate program. It was the only major I could transfer to without losing all my credits that I’d done the first two years.

What was your instrument?

I sang.

Are there things you look for when deciding who gets grants?

These are general operating grants and not program grants. If you are a museum, you don’t apply for a specific exhibition or if you are a dance company, you do not apply for a specific performance. You apply for general operating money. Because of that, we’re looking at the entire organization holistically. We’re looking for the strength of their program, whatever that may be. We’re also looking for strength in their management and the way that they plan and

Do you still sing?

I don’t. I directed a church choir for years. I started the taiko drumming group (Kyo Daiko) and … well, I don't have much time anymore.

When are the applications due?

Sept. 30. We've tried to make the application process easy - it’s all online.

Find more details and the application at philaculturalfund.org.

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Bottom photo by Doug Seymour. Top photo by Rachel Barrish.

Music & Education

Classically Trained But ...

Many local musicians received a formal education in classical music during their early years. As they grew up, however, many moved on to rock, punk and other genres.

Giuseppe DiCristino remembers being enthralled by Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons as a child.

“Especially the ‘Winter’ movement, a very famous movement because it’s really, really fast,” DiCristino recalls as he sits on the porch of The Barnes Foundation, where he is a member, before taking a late-night pass through the museum’s collection. “So, it was very cool to hear that as a child and be like ‘Woah, that’s amazing.’”

By the time he heard The Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, DiCristino knew he wanted to play a classical instrument. He picked up viola and starting taking free lessons at his “rough” middle school in South Philly, and went on to attend Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts as well as Temple Music Prep at Boyer College of Music and Dance.

“I really, really loved playing and I practiced every single day,” DiCristino says of growing up playing viola. “I didn’t have technique or anything because I didn’t have strict private lessons but I just had the passion.”

That passion led him to study music further at The Boston Conservatory, but while working catering jobs to support himself between sporadic gigs, DiCristino started fiddling around with piano, bass and Pro Tools. He began to branch off from the classical music he grew up on.

“I started to get really into listening to everything, listening to electronica, hearing the sounds and the tones that they create,” DiCristino says. “You can create the tonality with just gear instead of using your fingers.”

He gave the $20,000 borrowed viola back to his Boston teacher, permanently stripping away the instrument that had rested beneath his chin for more than a decade. Now he cites bands like Daft Punk and Boys Noize for the music he makes as part of Man Like Machine, the Phillybased electro-rock band DiCristino started with his brother Joshua Bright and drummer Wesley Paul. He and his brother also run their own label, Collapsible Empire, through rented studio space at Aurum Recording in Manayunk.

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more free. That’s why I’ve been gravitating toward “I don’t need an orchestra, I have that with it for such a long time.” synthesizers, you know, and pedals,” DiCristino Classically trained pianist and vocalist Melissa says of his foray into keyboard playing and Menago went from studying songwriting.

Chopin and Debussy to playing DiCristino isn’t alone in applying the Warped Tour circuit with her his classical upbringing to more pop-rock band, June Divided. rockin’ genres of music later She met three of the band’s four in life. Writing and performing members while studying Music everything from EDM to rock to Industry at Drexel University. jazz, local musicians are using She enjoys the fact that they can their experience with these strict write by ear but also apply the theories and techniques to make music theory they all learned music better suited for little to create songs with complex bars and clubs than the Kimmel structure, nuance and depth.

Center.

“I can understand what’s going Christen Hooks, a classically on,” she says. “I can talk to my trained violist and pianist bass player about chord changes who studied with Philadelphia and I’m not just naming the frets, Orchestra members and played I’m naming actual chords. So it’s Carnegie Hall all before college, is now a violist for heavy rock MUSIC REBELS: Giuseppe a really, really useful tool. … It’s like an artform, and it kind of band Disco Machine Gun. DiCristino (top) and Melissa bothers me when people don’t at “It’s kind of funny because Menago do not do classical least learn the basics.” the guys in the front, at certain Stanford Thompson, CEO of points in certain songs, they’re music anymore. They rock. the tuition-free music education you know screaming. We have program Play On Philly!, wants his students to some pretty heavy guitar riffs in some of our have both the classical training needed to play songs, and then I’m playing viola on the side,” she their best but also the experience of making says. “Heavy rock with strings isn’t so common. more creative music. That’s why, in the upcoming But that’s part of the reason why I like it, because school year, they will introduce a POP Creates it challenges me to come up with parts that can fit program, which will integrate jazz, improvisation for that kind of music.” and composition into the curriculum.

When Hooks first started playing with the band, “They won’t get hit on the hand if they play a she had no idea how to function without sheet wrong note,” explains Thompson, who studied music in front of her. But she soon learned to play trumpet performance at the Curtis Institute. by ear and has enjoyed the room rock music gives “We’re going to take away all of those rules of her to improvise. reading music. Here’s your chance to be creative.”

“Sometimes I’ll push really hard on the bow and Thompson recognizes that the generations of get this crunching noise and that can fit with a lot avid classical music lovers is dying but he believes of the heavier stuff,” she says. “Other times I’ll just that the social aspect of appreciating live music make noise and not necessarily know what notes will keep any genre alive. or what rhythm I’m playing. In classical, you “Perhaps if they took all of the chairs out of never get to do things like that. Everything is very the concert hall and let everybody dance to measured and precise, so that’s kind of nice just Beethoven…” Thompson begins but can’t finish being able to play what you feel and not having to due to a fit of laughter.

- Beth Ann Downey play exactly what’s on the page. It’s definitely a lot

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Words by Kevin Stairiker. Photos by Marie Alyse Rodriguez.

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Cover Story

The Martha Graham Cracker Cabaret may be the most entertaining musical experience on stage in town, thanks to a hairy, 6-foot 2-inch tall drag queen with a booming voice and pistol-quick wit.

Story by G.W. Miller III | Photography by Michael Bucher

K

Don’t fuck with me, fellas,” Dito Van Reigersberg says into the microphone as he takes the stage at L’Etage. “It ain’t my first time at the rodeo.”

He hits the “fuck,” “fellas” and “first” really hard and then drags out “rodeo,” slowly stressing each of the three syllables, with the “o” lingering for an extra moment in the nearly empty venue. With his eyes wide open and his most menacing Joan Crawford glare, Dito dramatically cranes his neck to take in the whole room. The restaurant staff, who had been eating and chatting at the bar, now sit in rapt attention.

“That’s from Mommie Dearest,” Dito explains, referring to the famous 1981 movie about celebrity parental abuse that has inexplicably become a gay cult classic. “Yes, it’s going to be that kind of night.”

Then Victor Fiorillo starts pounding on the keyboard and Dito starts singing Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.”

It’s a surreal moment – Dito sports a pair of raggedy New Balance running shoes, white socks, faded purple shorts and a green T-shirt that reads, “I got ROLFED and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.” Yet, his face glows from a healthy dose of makeup and glitter.

His eyelashes are long and dark, set against a silver-blue eye shadow. His cheeks are rosy and his lips are a luscious red.

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Cover Story

It’s only rehearsal but Dito is prepared to become his alter ego, Martha Graham Cracker, the irreverent, pistol-quick cabaret goddess with hairy legs and an ever-growing army of loyal fans.

“Do I look like I’m melting?” he breathily asks no one in particular.

“It’s so hot in my dressing room. I feel like I look like I’m melting.”

For nearly an hour, Dito then prances around the room while belting out Neil Diamond, Toto and George Michael songs in his husky, Nina Simone-ish voice. In between jokes with the band, Dito is all business, working on everything from his vocal range and dance moves to the facial expressions and between-song banter he will offer in less than two hours.

It’s after 8 p.m. by the time Dito and the band are done practicing.

He dashes to the dressing room that has no air conditioning just as the doors to the club open. There’s a line to get in that is more than 70 people deep. Fans wrap around the corner, up 6th Street.

“I’ve been waiting for an hour,” says Tom Zerone, who is first in line.

“Martha puts on the best show in town.”

And then she spots a handsome man in the front row.

“I remember you,” Martha says, properly enunciating every syllable, sounding like a hoarse Marilyn Monroe. “You’re a special feature. You came with my DVD.” He’s Latin and chiseled and Martha is enamored. She hikes up her dress, does a curtsy, rolls her shoulders quickly and touches him on the chin. She then turns to her side and glances at him over her shoulder seductively and says, “Ole!” She stares into his eyes, seemingly forgetting that there are more than 125 people watching, and almost seems flustered for a second.

Then she adds, “Flamenco!”

N

he Martha Graham Cracker Cabaret is not a drag queen show.

Well, it is, at the most fundamental level since it does feature a 6-foot 2-inch tall man in women’s garb, including 5-inch heels and often elaborate wigs. But it’s so much more. It is probably the most entertaining, intellectual, complex and boundary-pushing musical stage experience in the city today.

Martha masterfully goes from delicately crooning Cole Porter classics to unleashing Whitney Houston’s greatest hits, with songs weaved together by Dito’s brilliance and Martha’s sass. Shows are full of unscripted pop culture and current events references made with amazing quickness. Martha dances around the stage and the whole room, teasing and flirting with fans along the way. It’s a very physical performance – she often sits on audience members and occasionally dry-humps them. Her comedic timing is impeccable, almost as impressive as the huge catalogue of songs she and the band know and spontaneously perform.

“I enjoy the challenge,” Dito says of Martha’s largely improvised performances. “I have to be alert, ahead of the audience, and that creates energy. The audience can feel that.”

Over the eight years that the Martha Graham Cracker Cabaret has been regularly performing, the audience has grown from a predominantly theater and gay crowd to a diverse group of fans whose only common denominators seem to be an appreciation of smart humor and the love of a well-done torch song. More than 1,700 people watched their show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art last year. And now the group is making inroads in New York. Dito and the band members are even thinking of taking the Martha show on tour.

“It’s funny,” muses Dito, now 40. “It’s gone from something I was nervous about doing, something I wouldn’t do in front of my mom and dad, to this. The world has changed. My mom and dad came to the Art Museum show and gave us a standing ovation.”

Still, in a post-Will & Grace world, when drag queens get reality television shows and we have openly gay athletes and politicians, a man in a dress can stir up controversy. But we’ll get to that later.

K

I’ve got to warn you,” Miss Martha says to the now-packed house as she returns to the stage dressed in a '60s retro-style sleeveless orange dress with a chunky turquoise-colored bracelet and a younger Elizabeth Taylor-era black wig. “I’ve been watching Mommie Dearest on DVD a lot lately.”

She’s saucy already, you can just tell. She makes fun of Nebraska, calls the audience members “commoners” and rambles on for several minutes about seeing Prince in a dream (he was dressed as a Mormon missionary and she told him to go away). She complains about the heat and tries to start the first song a few times but instead continues her monologue.

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SPECIAL FEATURE: Audience members at Martha Graham Cracker Cabaret shows often wind up as part of the entertainment, as this man in the front row did.

And like an awkward teenage girl who realizes she just embarrassed herself in front of the captain of the football team, Martha steps back, shakes her head and continues with her over-the-top, self-absorbed, dramatic ramblings as the audience erupts in laughter.

M

atthew Neenan, Dito’s boyfriend of 10 years, often tells people that he does not date Martha Graham Cracker.

“Martha is a bit more forward than Dito,” Neenan says.

“Dito is a bit more polite. Martha and Matthew would probably fight a lot, which is why I stay away from her.”

Whereas Martha has a façade of fearlessness, Dito is intelligent and compassionate, a gentle soul who almost seems vulnerable at times.

“Ironically, she’s much more ballsy than I am,” Dito says.

Dito grew up in suburban D.C., in McLean, Va. His mother hails from a small town in Missouri and his father is European – Spanish via Holland. Dito’s name is the diminutive form of his father’s name, Fernando. Both of his parents are linguists, which explains why Dito has such proper diction.

As a child, he was always singing. In high school, Dito found a home in the drama department and he developed a passion for performing.

At home, he would occasionally put on his mother’s makeup and try on her clothes but he didn’t know he was gay then.

“I’m sure a psychiatrist would have a field day with me,” Dito says with a laugh.

He continued his theater training at Swarthmore College, where he formed the deep relationships that ultimately made him call Philadelphia his home. It was during this time, in the early '90s, that Dito came out.

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“I was closeted,” he says. “The world was closeted. But it was the Will & Grace generation and I rode that wave.”

He moved to New York to become an actor and enrolled in the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. Original Martha, a modern-dance legend, had passed away a few years prior but her reputation persisted.

“I heard all these stories about how bitchy she was,” Dito remembers.

The singing, dancing, acting, cross-dressing and bitchiness all started coming together and Martha Graham Cracker was born.

“Martha was something I did in my living room in New York when I was in acting school,” Dito recalls. “She was invented in New York but she became a reality here in Philly.”

Dito moved back to Philadelphia where he, Gabriel Quinn Bauriedel and Dan Rothenberg founded the Pig Iron Theatre Company, which has gone on to major acclaim. The company has won numerous Barrymore Awards, a handful of OBIEs and a Pew Fellowship. Last spring, the Pig Iron Theatre was awarded a $60,000 grant to create “a multimedia opera in the tradition of Pink Floyd’s The Wall” in collaboration with Dr. Dog. Martha Graham Cracker began making guest appearances during shows with the The Brothers Sugarillo, a band that featured James Sugg, a Pig Iron Company member, and Victor Fiorillo. During those first performances, Martha actually went by the name Poly Vanna Cracker and she performed with a German accent. When The Brothers Sugarillo folded, Fiorillo suggested to Dito that Martha have her own show.

“I blame it all on Victor,” Dito says.

“I might have just pulled my groin. But it was motherfucking worth it.”

They began performing monthly at L’Etage in 2006 and making appearances at the Fringe Festival, the annual Pig Iron fundraising gala and elsewhere. Audiences flocked to shows, performances became more elaborate and the band grew – now including Rich Hill on guitar, Andrew Nelson on bass and Ned Sonstein on drums. But they never took themselves too seriously.

“We’ve fucked up so many things in so many ways,” says Fiorillo.

“People don’t seem to notice as long as Dito’s doing his thing.”

In New York, Martha would have been lost in a sea of drag queens and other talented people. Elsewhere in the country, there may not have been the support group that Dito and company have here, largely because of the theater community. In short, the incubation and evolution of Martha may not have happened anywhere else.

“I’ve grown to love Philly so much,” Dito says. “Martha is a Philadelphia phenomena.”

Last fall, Martha and the cabaret group performed in the ornate Mayor’s Reception Room in City Hall, surrounded by gilt-framed portraits of all the past mayors of our city.

“I’m in the physical center of our city, in drag,” Dito remembers thinking. “I couldn’t believe it.”

M

idway through Martha’s show at L’Etage, she’s really sweaty. Her broad shoulders are covered in dark hair that glistens because she’s been dancing, grinding, jumping on the bar and otherwise working the room. Her once immaculate orange dress is drenched, especially the back, which is now a deeper

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color except around her bra straps. The dress has popped a seam; there’s a tear under her hairy right armpit.

“Her actions and reactions are so full, you have to be careful how you dress her,” says Max Brown, the woman who has styled Martha for the past five years. “She rolls on the floor and flirts with the audience and you have to find something that will stand that without disintegrating.”

Brown, an archeologist who regularly travels to Italy searching for the location of the legendary Rape of the Sabine women, has dressed Martha as Marie Antoinette (including a huge wig and hoop skirt), Queen Elizabeth I and Marilyn Monroe (circa Gentlemen Prefer Blondes). She’s put her in cheerleader outfits, wedding gowns and the ugliest, bright-orange bridesmaid dress you have ever seen.

“He’s very attractive and he looks very good in women’s clothes,” Brown says. “We don’t hide the fact that he’s a man. We’re trying to show his best features in these clothes.”

Being a hot mess, however, is part of the show and tonight, Martha is working it.

“Gary, are you a jockey?” she asks a man sitting at the bar, an apparent inside joke.

“Not yet,” the man replies, inspiring a roar of laughter.

“I may be tall but I’m a lady,” Martha indignantly responds while backing away. Then she stops, leans forward and adds, “So if you’re going make an innuendo like that … say it right here.”

While walking back to the stage, Martha gives saucy, over-theshoulder looks at the young man and then breaks into a slowed-down, sensual version of Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me).”

She saunters around the stage and steps into the crowd, easing upon the Latino man in the front row. She sits on his lap. Then she climbs on top of him, enveloping him in her muscular arms. She gives a few pelvic thrusts while belting out the '80s hit.

When the song ends, Martha stands, smoothens out her dress and says, “I might have just pulled my groin. But it was motherfucking worth it.”

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imes have changed since Dito first came to the Greater Philadelphia region, for sure. There’s now a cable network dedicated to the LGBT community. Gays can openly serve in the military. The Defense of Marriage Act has been overturned.

But a man in a dress – especially one whose performances are so sexually charged – can still cause a fuss (even when his suggestive behavior is totally done in the name of comedy).

Last winter, a Haddonfield after-school program invited Martha to perform the cabaret act for children in kindergarten through the fifth grade. A few days later, however, Martha was disinvited after the program’s leaders got wind of the event.

“Is it OK for a drag queen to be around children?” Dito asks rhetorically. “Will it make them be gay or say, ‘I want to be in a dress?’”

He shakes his head and looks disappointed.

“I just don’t believe I’m going to ruin children,” he says.

(Christ Church Neighborhood House in Old City invited Martha to perform for children in response to the Haddonfield episode and indeed, not only were children not ruined but parents and children alike were massively entertained.)

A few months later, Center City Jazz Festival founder Ernest Stuart invited the Martha Graham Cracker Cabaret to participate in the second annual event. During the week before the festival began, Stuart received an unsigned email that read, “Really, A faggot drag queen at a Jazz festival? You are disrespecting your ancestors!”

“I've dealt with my fair share of shitheads in the past but that emailer took it to a whole new level,” says Stuart. “Anti-gay sentiments within the jazz community are not uncommon. Simply put, those sentiments ignore the contributions of gay jazz musicians whom helped lay the foundation of the music.”

Miss Martha used the email as fodder for her show, ridiculing the emailer for not realizing that Cole Porter, Leonard Bernstein and so

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Cover Story

Martha Graham Cracker performing at L'Etage, on a table, in 5-inch heels, using audience members for support. many others in the early days of jazz were gay.

Stuart now sits in with the cabaret crew, playing trombone in the band.

“What's not to like?” he asks. “Non-stop laughter, great music and beautiful people in the audience. I'm in.”

A

fter performances, it’s hard to look back and pick out the specific things Martha said or did that made the show so entertaining. There’s just so much that happens – the banter is so lightning-quick, the songs so well-done, the dancing so outrageous and the flirting, well, so hilariously awkward. The show is so layered and the character is so complex and fleshed out.

That’s probably why the crowds are so large and so diverse in age, gender, race, lifestyle, whatever. It’s not a gay show.

"A traditionally gay crowd out for a party would want to spend $5, drink a lot and see a tragedy,” says Ian Morrison, a drag queen who has performed as the outrageous Brittany Lynn since the mid-'90s.

“Spend $5 and you get what you pay for – girls lip-syncing to boring Top 40. You spend $15 or $20 and you want a real show. That’s what you get with Martha. It’s not lip-syncing. It’s all theater and all vision.

That’s what real drag is all about.”

Real drag. Putting on a costume and makeup and adopting a whole new persona. Not thinking about personal limitations or even reality.

Focusing on entertaining people, making them laugh by whatever means necessary.

“Martha allows me to express myself in other ways,” Dito says. “It’s an outlet for my energy.”

It’s a way for him to really be free.

“What’s great about it is that Dito is more Dito when he’s Martha,” says Martha Stuckey, who studied under Dito at the Pig Iron Theatre as part of the inaugural class in their Advanced Performance Training program. “Being in drag complicates the idea of gender. But they say that it’s not putting a costume on, it’s actually letting the person out.”

Stuckey, who moved to Philly from Minnesota to participate in the rigorous training, remembers the night she first met Dito. It was a somewhat formal event where the incoming theater students were introduced to the teachers. When she and a few other women entered the women’s bathroom, they found a dildo.

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“Everyone was blaming Dito,” Stuckey says with a laugh. “The drag queen always gets the short end of the stick.”

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artha ends the 90-minute performance at L’Etage with a rousing rendition of George Michael’s “Freedom 90” and then runs out of the venue, into the dressing room. For the next three or four minutes, the crowd howls and applauds and refuses to leave.

Finally, Martha bursts back into the room.

“What did I say, Christina?” she barks, continuing the Mommie Dearest theme. “No wire hangers ever!”

Her stern expression immediately commands the room and quiets the crowd. She then sings a delicate version of Cole Porter’s “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye,” with the high notes just out of her range. Her voice cracks, and Martha almost seems exposed for a split second.

Then she eases into a raunchy version of Prince’s already raunchy song “Darling Nikki.” Looking fierce, Martha stomps around, pets the Latino man in the front row and ends the performance with a series of poses – part Madonna-like voguing and part sequined Elvis-era martial arts stuff. With one final deep squat, the audience can see up Martha’s dress at Dito’s tighty whities.

In the dressing room a moment later, the wig is off and Dito fans himself with his hand.

“Oh my gosh,” he says, still sounding like the breathy Martha. “It usually doesn’t hit me right away like this but it’s so hot. I’m really going to feel it tomorrow.”

Neenan, Dito’s boyfriend, knocks on the door and enters.

“Were you here the whole time?” Dito asks.

“No, I just got here,” Neenan answers.

“You look so handsome,” Dito says, his voice returning to normal.

And then Dito turns his back to Neenan, a co-founder and coartistic director of Ballet X, who instinctively starts unzipping the damp orange dress.

“We are both in the performing arts, yet not in the same idiom, and that's been so healthy for our relationship,” Neenan says later. “Even though we have never really collaborated artistically, he has made me a better artist and a better man.”

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“I

'm a baby when it comes to beer," Sean Agnew says as he orders a pint of pale ale.

Nothing too heavy from the beer sheet at Center City’s Strangelove’s gastropub, which has a list that could wrap around the nearby block of 11th and Walnut. He's wearing a white T-shirt and basketball shorts and looks more like a gym teacher than a stakeholder in three notable Philly music venues. Still though, he looks more like he could fit that role than the grungy, DIY basement showman that he once was - or still is.

"They had shows up here, actually in this room," he says about the space that was once Doc Watson's, where kids were notoriously allowed to drink before they turned 21.

Then he goes on to tell about the mid-show bust.

"One time it got raided," he says. “They got all these underage kids and locked them in a room and were kind of like, 'Shh, be quiet.' The kids were like, 'Woah, let us the fuck out.' When the cops came, they heard all of

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this screaming and they opened the door and it's like, 20 high school kids running out. That was kind of the end, the tipping point for this place."

You can't see any testament that this space was ever a hideaway for that type of rebellious adolescence. Now, it's a hideaway for businessmen and women looking for a dimly-lit, after-work cocktail hour. But since some of Agnew's first memories of shows and venues and music in Philly, which began when the 35-year-old Ardmore native was a teenager taking the R5 Regional Rail into the city, the scenery has changed hands hundreds of times over.

Take the late '90s, when Agnew started booking city shows: "Spaces were used more,” he remembers. “Basically, anywhere that would be willing to have a show, we'd have it. This was before most bands had any booking agents or managers and before email so there was a lot of just phone calls and people like, 'Hey bands! You're coming through? OK. Here, I'll put you up upstairs above a barbershop on this day.'"

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Cover Story

Cover Story

T

oday, he deals in events on a larger scale. He's co-owner of the 1,200-capacity venue Union Transfer, the waterfront bar Morgan's Pier and the revamped Boot & Saddle in South Philadelphia, which opened this month. As if that wasn’t enough to fill his day, he still runs R5 Productions, the music-promotion company he started in 1996.

Agnew realized his potential in the DIY scene while attending Drexel University. He started volunteering at WKDU, the school’s student-run radio station where he met the friends who would eventually turn him on to underground shows around the city.

"So these warehouses were doing shows, and it was really cool to go there and just be like, 'Holy shit what is this?'” he recalls. “I mean, I'm from Ardmore and I used to hang out in the city a lot but I wasn't going to punk shows on 39th and Lancaster. So it was really cool and that's where I met a lot of my friends. Most of my friends today came from that era. The kids that have been working at R5 are basically from that era, whether they're the bands or they were doing the shows.”

than a decade, Gross remembers Agnew going on "marathon sessions" when he'd have a box of demo tapes and spend two straight days doing nothing but listening to them. He made his own show fliers. And he updated the R5 website with band bios, listening samples and new show announcements.

A

gnew held a day job as a "computer lab guy" at the University of Pennsylvania during the time when he started building R5, pulling in $10 an hour and working daytime shifts. That way he was able to sustain himself while giving bands all of the profits from R5 shows.

"At that time, I wasn't taking money from the shows," he admits. “I thought it was immoral. All the money was going to the bands and everyone who worked the show. It would be on a volunteer basis and be mostly my friends.

We somehow decided it was OK to take money to buy ourselves dinner at the end of the night, like, go to some really cheap diner or Mad Mex or [get] something to eat. I was living in a house that I didn't have to pay rent at, so I didn't have a ton of economic responsibilities.”

He says his second apartment, which was also in West Philly, cost $135 per month.

“It didn't take much to pay the rent,” he remembers. “It was just like, ‘Oh I can work two days [per week] and my rent's paid.’"

He was working on a degree in Information Sciences while living there. He might’ve finished two trimesters before he dropped out but he knew enough about computer sciences (at a time when most people didn’t) that he was confident he could easily find a job in the field, degree or not.

'

'

D

an Gross, a former Philadelphia Daily News reporter (who worked at the publication for 14 years), remembers the first piece he wrote for the Daily News. It was about Agnew.

“He ran a venue on Penn campus called 4040 [Locust Street],” Gross recalls. “That was actually one of the more interesting things Sean did. He opened this event space in conjunction with Penn in 2000 or so and they had shows there all the time. I don't think Penn was paying any money towards bands. I think they might've just given him free rent because they wanted more events on campus."

Gross mentions that once 4040 closed down, Agnew moved R5 shows to The Rotunda, a few blocks down the street, which is where he really thrived.

Agnew spent years booking, promoting and running shows in others' spaces, including the First Unitarian Church, Starlight Ballroom and the Ethical Society.

"I think there's something that's remarkable in what he's been able to do," Gross says. “He was usually booking the shows and mostly staffing them himself until maybe seven or eight years ago. That means for at least 10 years he was at most of the shows he was putting on.”

In addition to managing each show at each venue he was a part of for more

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UNIFORM CHOICE: It's rare but yes, Sean Agnew does smile every once and a while. On the previous page, he's backstage at Union Transfer. facebook.com/JUMPphilly JUMPphilly.com

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ric Bresler, owner of PhilaMOCA, says that the early R5 ska shows at the Church played a huge role in his interest in professionally run DIY spaces, and the organization still inspires him.

“Some people grow an aversion towards anything that becomes bigger and more popular as if evolution devalues things,” Bresler says. “Evolution is natural and a great thing in good hands. I think stagnation is a terrible thing. When something evolves to a certain point and just stops, that's what leads to disinterest and the dissolution of things like scenes. R5 continue to outdo themselves.”

Take last summer, when a Facebook event about a free Spacin’ show at Morgan’s Pier turned into a personal jab at Agnew, R5, the show, hot dogs, Diplo and anything else that some individual with a computer and a grudge could blame for being “bourgeois.”

Thing is, when people say Agnew is materialistic, capitalistic, misrepresenting the local music scene or whatever, they're forgetting about the decade he spent without his own space, salary, employees, partners, clout. His is a career that took nearly two decades to cultivate.

They’re forgetting the natural process of evolution.

And sure, if you only consider where he’s at now in his career, you might never believe he’s been ardent about the DIY/punk aesthetic all of his adult life. Again, he looks more like a gym teacher than a grungy basement showman. It’s when you see him in action that it becomes difficult to imagine there was ever a time when he didn't know how to work a PA system or deal with band managers and booking agents, or internet trolls.

“F

uck those kids and fuck those bands,” says Gross of people who take issue with Agnew’s current standing. “If they really want a show that badly, they can do what Sean did and what thousands of bands did. Let them rent a fire hall or let them rent a basement and let them flier, or whatever the Internet version of flyering is now, and see how hard that is. Then they will see.”

Agnew didn’t cultivate an almost 20-year career in the music industry by booking $5 basement shows alone. He also never went back to school. He evolved, slow-burning his way from there to here through a wholehearted DIY approach and he's built an impressively developed empire.

“Now I can pretend to be like, 'Yes. This was the plan,'” he says. “I knew this was all going to work out. But I didn't and my parents freaked out. I was so scared to tell them I didn't want to do this college thing anymore.

Looking back, I didn't even know you could do this as a career. I was just like, 'Hey this is way more fun than school,' and my parents were basically like, 'You're acting like a brat. Just go to school and deal with it.' But I didn't.”

JUMPphilly.com

Photo by Ashley Coleman.

"When I was booking shows [in the late '90s] it was just as a hobby,” Agnew says. “I never had a goal to start a business or do this forever. It was just temporary. It was fun and cool and I'd do it because I loved it. But I was just going to stick with computers and get a job with computers. The way that R5 grew – the first year I did six shows then the next year was 12 shows and the next 30 and that was around the time that I started getting shows at the [First Unitarian] Church – it was real organic. By then it kind of started to be an almost part-time job. I didn't have to make any dramatic leap of faith."

Even though he never figured the booking thing to be permanent, he still allowed it to consume him, taking up all of his time.

“It was the one thing that was totally distracting,” he says. “Basically, when all that was going on, I didn't give a fuck about school. I would miss this or that class and be like, 'Oh wait, I can go with this band to New York? I'm just going to miss two days of school.' That coupled with the radio station [WDKU], where I was just constantly introduced to new music and new people coming through."

Don't Mess With Wes

Wes Smith, the head of security at Union Transfer, may be our favorite bouncer in town. He uses kindness rather than brute force.

Wes Smith is not quite what you would expect from the head-of-security type – you know, the frowning, tough guy, waiting for a fight? He's not that.

He's fairly soft-spoken, a reader and a self-proclaimed “nerd.” Whether he defies your expectations or not, his calm demeanor still makes you think twice about wanting to push his buttons.

Smith’s temperament is easy as he leans back comfortably in his chair.

Listening to him tell stories about working over the years shows a more caring side of security. The danger seems almost non-existent in the way he speaks about being surrounded by skinheads, squaring up with a 400-pound guest and saving young women from the wiles of prowling patrons.

Smith started doing security during college but it certainly wasn’t his first choice for a career. He started out as a welder, found his way into computer programming and, after the Y2K bug hit, he had to reroute his path once again as jobs were being outsourced to places like Mumbai and Dublin.

When the programming work grew scarce, Smith began to do security for a few bars around town.

It was an invitation to a show at the First Unitarian Church that introduced Smith into a new scene he had never experienced before.

“Going to a show back in the day for me was going to the old Spectrum or The Tower before it got a facelift,” he says.

The hot and sweaty basement of the Church was far from those experiences.

A year or two after frequenting shows and doing freelance security gigs, Smith began doing security at the Starlight Ballroom before they got their own in-house team. He also worked for Joe Hardcore at the annual This is Hardcore multi-day festival.

“That was even more of a culture shock,” he says. “All these guys with tattoos up and down and on their faces. Real tough thugs. To be doing security for them was almost kind of funny.”

Most of the guests looked like they could've handled their own security, he says with a laugh.

Now settled into his current position at Union Transfer, among a few other freelance security projects, Smith believes that an emphasis on friendliness and customer service helps to keep order. You won’t find any “knuckledragging Neanderthals” on his team, Smith says.

Though Union Transfer does run a tight ship, all venues run into trouble here and there. One of the only shows they've ever had to cancel was a Moosh & Twist performance in February. A bus full of under-aged patrons showed up to the venue visibly intoxicated and the security team had to prevent them from entering.

“This kid passes out and he’s puking in his lap and his friends are recording it,” Smith says, shaking his head. “It’s sad but it’s a constant issue.”

Smith finds himself laughing at the outrageous things people try to get away with. Every week, whether it's a millionaire charity event or a death metal show, someone always seems to try to sneak something different into the show. Smith enjoys the challenge.

“I love it,” he muses. “I love the environment.”

- Ashley Coleman

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Photo by G.W. Miller III.

Food That Rocks

Home Cooking: Beards In The Kitchen Sean Price, Tek and Steele for his "Frost CookTV" series on YouTube.

A rowhouse nestled on a small block in West Philadelphia may look “Food is a good way to give invitation to the religion and to yourself nondescript but it is the home of Philly rapper Jakk Frost. Blending as a person. Period,” Frost explains about the significance of his in less than the house is Frost’s SUV, or his 6-foot-3 frame and 300 Islamic faith and food. "When the prophet Muhammad was still alive, pound physique as he lifts bags of ShopRite groceries from the back he said one of the best ways to spread Islam was to give a peaceful seat. Entering his home, the alarm system sounds and as the door greeting and to feed the people.” closes, it is hard not to notice the five ( yes, five) locks and the brace for a 2 by 4. There are enough fresh Frost is not the first to tap into pairs of Nike sneakers at your feet the idea of community by breaking bread. Hosting dinners has not that you feel like you may have to only furthered and deepend new climb over a small mountain to and existing relationships but also get further inside. After taking off your own sneakers, of course. affords him another angle, tied Frost is known for many things. into the music he creates.

“For me,” Frost explains, “it gives His rapping (creating anthems like “Philly Love”), his friends and me a chance to express myself through blogs without just saying, associates (such as Freeway), his grooming preferences (Beards ‘Yo, I’m the realest nigga alive,’ and pulling out guns and money are in the building!) and forever and jewelry trying to prove I’m so repping the city that he was born real.” in and loves.

What is lesser known is that Between rapping, readying the Frost is a beast in the kitchen and early September release of The Beards in the Building album with has developed quite the palette. his Beardgang Clikk (Frost, Over the years he has prepared Freeway, Malik B, Tek, Reef the meals for the likes of Philly rap vets Freeway, Beanie Sigel, Peedi Lost Cauze, Tana Da Beast and Crakk and Malik B, as well as FISH RAP: Jakk Frost on stage at The Blockley (above) and cooking in Sean Price), running his studio, recording, engineering, mixing Brooklyn Boot Camp Clikkers his West Philadelphia home (below).

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Photos by Chris Malo.

Rapper Jakk Frost fries fish almost as good as he fires up the crowd. And he invites Philly and touring artists to his West Philly home for meals.

Photos by Chris Malo.

and running his Beardshirts T-shirt company, Frost wants to find time to return to doing new episodes of "Frost CookTV." “Maybe get on a small station and see where it takes me,” he says.

“Have it where rappers come through the market on tour and want to go on 'Frost CookTV.' Where someone’s PR person would want to take them to do radio, TV, they'd also do 'Frost CookTV.'” He wants it to happen before someone steals the idea.

This evening’s menu is the quintessential Southern staple of fish and grits. He unfurls the white wrapping paper on top of the freezer containing the frozen leg of lamb inside from the animal he slaughtered himself. He reveals the night’s fish selection: whiting, flounder and catfish.

His philosophy when preparing food for his four children, wife, friends or 'Frost CookTV' is simple: “If I can cook it, you can cook it,” he says while flying around his kitchen, preparing the fish, readying an egg wash and preparing the base and seasoning bag with yellow corn meal, flour, Old Bay, Kosher salt, seasoning salt, cajun seasoning and garlic powder. “My rule is, once the seasoning changes the original color of the fish or meat, you know its seasoned properly.”

Filling a cast-iron skillet with oil, he offers a tip as he lays strips of fish in, causing the oil to spit and spatter.

“All pans claim the heat distribution is equal but it's not,” Frost explains. “ There’s always a hot spot on the frying pan.

Always. You got to know your hot spot. If you don’t know your hot spot, you’re going to be standing there forever. Or you’ll be burning shit.”

Moving on to the side CELEBRITY CHEF: Jakk Frost's raw order, Frost put grits, salt, materials – whiting, flounder and pepper, cheese and enough catfish (top), and after they are deepmargarine to give someone fried (middle). The chef with his creation a heart attack just by after preparation (bottom). watching it go into a pot.

“You got to know what you’re good at,” Frost says. “If you don’t know how to bake shit, don’t fuck with that oven. If you don’t have a good concept of cause and effect, you won’t be able to cook. Cooking is basically understanding what is going to happen to your food when you season it and heat it.”

It's the same thing with music, he adds.

“When you create something you have to understand what it turned into and why people like it,” he continues. “It's the same thing with food. You have to know your audience.”

The difference between cooking and music is just as easy to explain.

“With music, you can make some bullshit, and if it's presented right, everybody will like it,” Frost says with a laugh. “Only motherfucker that gonna like some bullshit that come out of the kitchen is someone who doesn’t know what good food taste like, or don’t care anyway.

No matter how you present it, if it get out there that it’s bullshit, ain’t nobody coming back to your spot.”

Dinner is served.

- Chris Malo JUMPphilly.com

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Food That Rocks

JAKK'S FAVES!

Here are a few of rapper/chef Jakk Frost's picks for good eating in Philly. – Compiled by Chris Malo

GiGi & Big R Caribbean American Soul Food GiGi and Big R show what is possible in food trucks - consistently great food. Fans of the jerk chicken, mac n’ cheese and yams swear by it. The heaping portions don’t hurt either.

Trucks are usually at 38th and Spruce streets and 30th and Market streets (215) 471-0164

Larry's Steaks Sure, it's a favorite of St. Joe’s students. Yes, members of the 76ers are known to frequent there after practice. And you may of heard about the legend of their Belly Filler cheesesteaks (it’s true). But the sandwiches are damn good. Very reliable. Really. Order a cheesesteak.

2457 N. 54th Street (215) 879-1776

Trolley Car Diner Hungover and looking for an alcohol-absorbing breakfast? Not hungover and looking for a belly-filling breakfast? Then make your way out to the Trolley Car Diner. The renovated and restored trolley car restaurant has been serving the Mt. Airy /Chestnut Hill sections for more than a decade - with quality food and community service. You’ll walk out feeling better, in all senses – guaranteed.

7619 Germantown Avenue (215) 753-1500 Jakk also recommends Dante & Luigi's (762 S. 10th Street), Ruth's Chris Steak House (260 S. Broad Street) and Wah Gi Lah Halal (4447 Chestnut Street).

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Photos by Gabrielle Lavin.

Inside Voice

Why DIY?

L

Brendan Mulvihill booked an event. And then someone ruined his night.

So he questioned why he books shows in the first place.

S

ast night a guy with a goatee and backwards hat broke my heart.

I had just started breaking down all the equipment and locking the doors at a DIY space in the Kensington section of Philadelphia. I had just started putting on shows here two days ago.

This goateed guy, who was at this show for an antifolk legend and an author reading from her book about gender and sexuality, walked up to me at the end of the night and asked me who ran the show. I told him I did, and then he said the first of two things that hurt my feelings “Why was this show $8?”

I was taken aback. He said it in a tone that is best described as condescending, like he knew better. Later, he would break my heart again when he posted to his Facebook that “it was the worst show ever.”

He also friended me, but I'm not sure why.

orry folks, but the Fugazi rule is dead.

Or at the very least, it's changed. What was $5 in 1986, according to every single inflation calculator I could find, is $10 today. So that $5 basement show you crave? True, Fugazi existed beyond the late '80s, and $5 in 2002 (just about when they stopped) is only $6.50 today. But it should really go without saying that when you're playing large rooms, even at $5, there's the chance volume will make up the disparity.

Honestly, why a show was $8 instead of $5 is inconsequential. If you're focusing on questions about ticket price, you aren't asking the right questions, and to me, that position illustrates a position of a poor understanding of DIY show ethics, economics and methodology. I think the idea that solely fliering for a show would make a huge difference in any market is woefully uninformed and ignorant.

Simply put, $5 isn't viable in most situations with the increased costs of touring. I'm not the first one to talk about this and for that reason I won't go too much into it. But $8 is a very reasonable price for a show in a space that has real costs.

In fact, essentially only $1.60 of every $8 the show took in last night went to the place hosting it. A small price for assuming all the risks (injury, damages) as well as actually having to buy/maintain the equipment and pay the electric bill at the end of the month. The band is ultimately a contractor, a transient. Yes, they pressumedly draw the folks to the space but they also get to leave at the end of the night with, at the very worst, no money.

Spaces have to deal with damages, theft, cleaning and utility costs. Maybe you don't clean your basement but that's probably also why it's really gross.

Beyond the pure costs of putting on a show, there's also manpower involved – my time, the church's time and the band’s time. The hours I put in organizing the show as well as the six actually running it? For that, I take nothing. Zero dollars.

You may say that nobody’s making me and that’s true.

I took this upon myself. But there’s no denying that I’m still donating my time.

O

ver the years, DIY show culture has changed.

The people who organize and host these shows in urban environments are getting more creative. They're moving out of sweaty basements and into new spaces that try to not only provide a place for bands to play for an audience, but also have at least decent sound and presentation. These people do this because they love music above everything else – and also because they know how awful it is to be on tour in a city where they know nobody and play a bad show.

It's disheartening.

I've spent the better part of this morning trying to understand why this guy would say such a thing.

Interestingly enough, it would be through the previous night's reading about gender and sexuality that would inform my current opinion. The author talked about the need to combat ignorance and inform people that things are changing. Specifically, through having a better understanding of these people's lives, we can be better people ourselves.

Sorry goatee guy, but I think you're ignorant.

A

s DIY moves out from basements and into more legitimate spaces, there's a shift in how show economics work. Basement shows thrive on their low overhead.

Usually the folks involved live at the space and are essentially sharing their rented space and PA equipment. There is a cost involved but it's less apparent and usually absorbed by those who pay rent in the house. I'm not an expert in economics but I do feel the need to explain what those differences are.

Simply put, space costs money.

This space where this show took place, an old church, takes a 20 percent cut of the door. Like many in our recovering city, this church is strapped for cash.

Churches also have space that isn't always used. Sometimes they actually even have the tools (PA, lights, stage, etc.) to produce a show, as this one does. This stuff isn't free. The electricity isn't free. There are concrete costs in putting on such a show, even if it's only accounting for wear and tear on equipment and paying utility bills.

There's also one of the core values of DIY, at least in my book – always pay the bands, and pay them as much as possible. When goatee guy asked me about the price of the show, I answered, “To pay the bands as much as possible.”

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I

guess only one thing remains. Why do I do it?

Because I love it. Because of the community it builds. Because some bands don't have the connections, influence or even the desire to put together a club tour but they make great music that should be heard.

I've talked to many of my DIY contemporaries about this and after these conversations, I believe the following to be universally true: We do this because when we were underage, we wanted all-ages options in a state dominated by 21-and-over clubs with ticketing fees. We feel personally motivated to have shows, host bands, bring people together and build a community.

So goatee guy, I hope this answers your questions.

Brendan Mulvihill plays in Norwegian Arms and DRGN KING, co-founded/ lived at DIY space The Ox, books at Johnny Brenda's and puts on DIY shows at PhilaMOCA, West Kensington Ministry and elsewhere. The images are from The Ox, courtesy of Brendan's former Ox-mate, Daniel Hughes.

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