Philadelphia City Paper, January 8th, 2015 by Philadelphia City Paper

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#$ * !% * ( " * ## #$ Get free in-person help signing up for a health plan that fits you, your family, and your budget. " Philadelphia Enrollment Assistance Center 100 N. 18th Street, Suite 300 Philadelphia, PA 19103 Scheduled appointments Mon-Fri 8:30am-6:30pm Walk-ins Mon-Fri 9:00am-4:00pm By appointment only Sat 9:00am-2:00pm

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Associate Publisher Jennifer Clark Editor in Chief Lillian Swanson Senior Editor Patrick Rapa Arts & Culture Editor Mikala Jamison Food Editor Caroline Russock Senior Staff Writers Daniel Denvir, Emily Guendelsberger Copy Chief Carolyn Wyman Contributors Sam Adams, Dotun Akintoye, A.D. Amorosi, Rodney Anonymous, Mary Armstrong, Meg Augustin, Bryan Bierman, Shaun Brady, Peter Burwasser, Mark Cofta, Alison Dell, Adam Erace, David Anthony Fox, Caitlin Goodman, K. Ross Hoffman, Jon Hurdle, Deni Kasrel, Alli Katz, Gary M. Kramer, Drew Lazor, Gair â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dev 79â&#x20AC;? Marking, Robert McCormick, Andrew Milner, Annette Monnier, John Morrison, Michael Pelusi, Natalie Pompilio, Sameer Rao, Jim Saksa, Elliott Sharp, Marc Snitzer, Tom Tomorrow, John Vettese, Nikki Volpicelli, Brian Wilensky, Julie Zeglen Editorial Interns Lauren Haber,Owen Lyman-Schmidt,SamYeoman Production Director Michael Polimeno Senior Designer Brenna Adams Designer & Social Media Director Jenni Betz Contributing Photographers Jessica Kourkounis, Charles Mostoller, Hillary Petrozziello, Maria Pouchnikova, Neal Santos, Mark Stehle Contributing Illustrators Ryan Casey, Don Haring Jr., Joel Kimmel, Cameron K. Lewis, Thomas Pitilli, Matthew Smith Human Resources Ron Scully (ext. 210) U.S. Circulation Director Joseph Lauletta (ext. 239) Account Managers Colette Alexandre (ext. 250), Nick Cavanaugh (ext. 260), Amanda Gambier (ext. 228), Sharon MacWilliams (ext. 262) Classified/Adult Advertising Sales Alexis Pierce (ext. 234) Editor Emeritus Bruce Schimmel 22

Bruce Schimmel founded City Paper in a Germantown storefront in 1981. Local philanthropist Milton L. Rock purchased the paper in 1996 and published it until August 2014 when Metro US became the paperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s third owner. citypaper.net

30 South 15th Street, Fourteenth Floor, Phila., PA 19102. 215-735-8444, Tip Line 215-735-8444 ext. 241, Listings Fax 215-875-1800, Advertising Fax 215-735-8535, Subscriptions 215-735-8444 ext. 235 Philadelphia City Paper is published and distributed every Thursday in Philadelphia, Montgomery, Chester, Bucks & Delaware Counties, in South Jersey and in Northern Delaware. Philadelphia City Paper is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies may be purchased from our main office at $1 per copy. No person may, without prior written permission from Philadelphia City Paper, take more than one copy of each issue. Pennsylvania law prohibits any person from inserting printed material of any kind into any newspaper without the consent of the owner or publisher. Contents copyright ÂŠ 2014, Philadelphia City Paper. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. Philadelphia City Paper assumes no obligation (other than cancellation of charges for actual space occupied) for accidental errors in advertising, but will be glad to furnish a signed letter to the buying public. 55

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contents Cover story, see p. 8

Naked City ...................................................................................4 A&E ...............................................................................................13 22

Events..........................................................................................18 26

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Food ..............................................................................................22 34

Sex .................................................................................................24 Hay representantes que hablan espaĂąol.

| P h i l a d e l P h i a C i t y Pa P e r |

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Cover illustration by MiChele MelCher design by brenna adaMs

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naked

the

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thebellcurve

city

CP’s Quality-o-Life-o-Meter

[ + 1] Forbes magazine announces that its annual “Under 30 Summit” will continue to take place in Philadelphia for the foreseeable future. This year’s featured speakers include the dude who wrote How to Sue for Your Inheritance — Now! and some smug little shit who made an app that counts carbs or crabs or something. 22 26

[

2] S EPTA Police are investigating a message found in a Frankford station restroom which reads “Shoot SEPTA cops” in shaky blue marker. There were many clues nearby, including several phone numbers, but so far all the leads ended in a good time. 31

[ - 1] A Delaware man charged with forging

his grandmother’s signature on checks apologizes to her on Facebook. Then he logs onto her account and clicks “like.”

CLASS ACTION: The DA’s Office dropped forfeiture action against the homes of Christos and Markela Souvelis of Somerton (at right), and Doila Welch, the lead plaintfiffs in a federal class-action suit challenging the civil-forfeiture law.

[ + 3] A dog named Kara is returned to its West Philly home after being on the run since 2012. “Hey. Still got the futon, I see,” says Kara. “But hey, those look like some nice new milk-crate ottomans. Very classy.”

[ + 3] Homicides and violent crime are on a sharp decline in Philadelphia, a trend Mayor Nutter attributes to work done by law enforcement and community groups. “But most of all, I’d like to thank the criminals who showed real restraint this year.”

[ + 1] A Philly.com video crew records a local man

doing 1,000 crunches on his 90th birthday. So far it has over a million cringes.

[ 2] White supremacist band Aggravated -

Assault allegedly books a show at the clubhouse of the Outlaws motorcycle gang in Kensington. Everyone agrees it could be an ugly scene if the band doesn’t learn “O Dem Golden Slippers” in time.

[ - 2] A Delaware County school is placed under

lockdown after an anonymous threat is made on the social media site Yik Yak. Look, we feel bad saying this, but: The Unabomber was kinda right about some things.

This week’s total: +1 | The year so far: +1 | P h i l a d e l P h i a C i t y Pa P e r |

Photo Courtesy institute for JustiCe

[ civil forfeiture ]

A well-oiled mAchine begins to sputter A court steps in and takes some of the steam out of the DA’s seizure of homes, cars and cash. By Isaiah Thompson

bout two and a half years ago, an elderly woman named Elizabeth young sat in Courtroom 504 in the city’s Criminal Justice Center before a judge who would shortly decide whether her West Philadelphia row home would be taken from her and sold at auction. young and her husband had purchased the home four decades prior, and she continued to live there with her son and two grandchildren. The Philadelphia District attorney’s Office had begun the seizure process because of charges against her son alleging the possession and sale of small amounts of marijuana. young was not a “defendant” in that she had not herself been accused of any crime. Even so, the Da was using the state’s “civil forfeiture” laws, which allow law enforcement to take property linked by a “nexus” — a term as vague as it sounds — to a drug crime. In this case, young’s son, Donald, had been accused of possessing roughly $20 worth of marijuana on one occasion and selling a total of $160 worth at other times. The question before Judge Paula Patrick was whether young

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should lose her house for a total of $180 worth of weed. Despite young’s testimony that she’d been in and out of the hospital all that year and was bedridden for much of it; that her son had helped care for her; that she had not known nor believed her son was dealing drugs; and that her son had lived responsibly and without incident in the house in the year following his arrests; the judge found that young was “not an innocent owner at all,” and should have done “something” — Patrick didn’t specify what the elderly woman should have done — “regarding the property and the activities of her son.” Having lost that battle, young’s attorneys — a team from the law firm Ballard Spahr that was representing her pro bono — tried a different approach. The seizure of her house, her lawyer argued, represented an “excessive” fine — which the Eighth amendment of the Constitution prohibits. young lost that battle, too: The court ordered her house seized and sold at auction. The house was forfeited and deeded over to the District attorney’s Office, still the owner of record. But that decision, as was widely reported last week, was overturned by a state appellate court in a decision that represents the latest, and perhaps the biggest, in a series of surprising developments that could radically shake the Philadelphia District attorney’s multimillion dollar civil-forfeiture operation and,

The charges involved $180 worth of weed.

>>> continued on page 6

✚ A Well-oiled Machine Begins to Sputter

[ the naked city ]

<<< continued from page 4

potentially, others like it around the country. The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court decision found that Patrick had erred in agreeing with the Da that the fine being imposed upon young — the loss of her house (as well as her car) — were appropriate for her son’s marijuana offenses. (Her son eventually pled guilty to a single count of possession with intent to deliver, for which he was sentenced to 23 months of house arrest — in young’s house.) It’s a turn of events that couldn’t have seemed more surprising three years ago, when City Paper detailed, for the first time, how the Da raises millions annually for its own use by seizing cash, cars and even houses from individuals who’ve rarely been convicted, and often not even accused themselves, of a crime. The reporting showed that civil-forfeiture cases are filed at an incredible rate and volume — possibly the greatest of any big city, though data is hard to come by — and pushed through a civil forfeiture “machine” in which the burden of proof is effectively placed on the property owner, not the Da, and in which the proving of criminal guilt is often irrelevant to the forfeiture process. In the years following that story and others, the Da’s forfeiture practices remained unchanged. The Da continued to seize dozens of houses, dozens of cars and millions of dollars in cash each year — often regardless of whether any criminal convictions had been secured. and Da Seth Williams said little by way of defending those seizures. almost no one, after all, was demanding a response: Local papers didn’t pick up the story; City Council, which appropriates the Office’s budget, didn’t ask Williams about forfeiture in his annual request for funding; and even a high-profile 2013 article in The New Yorker magazine, detailing the Philadelphia Da’s forfeitures of houses, didn’t seem to draw much of a reaction within the city. all that has changed, and to an astonishing degree. In august, the Institute for Justice and local law firm Kairys, rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the Da. Citing many of the findings in CP’s reporting, it charged that the Da’s civil-forfeiture apparatus routinely violates the constitutional rights of due process of those whose property is seized. That lawsuit, in turn, made its way onto a story on Cnn, and then, in October, the HBO show Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. Then, on nov. 13, CP reported that some houses the D.a. had seized via forfeiture came through cases conducted by the same narcotics cops now facing federal racketeering charges. The Da had long ago disavowed the cops’ testimony while quietly agreeing to drop or allow to be overturned hundreds of criminal cases those officers brought. at the same time, the Da’s Office doesn’t appear to be interested in returning anyone’s houses seized on those officers’ word. In December, Da Williams announced that his | P h i l a d e l P h i a C i t y Pa P e r |

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office was dropping two forfeiture cases named in the class-action suit and brought by Christos and Markela Sourovelis and Doila Welch (none of them accused of crimes themselves). It seemed to have been an attempt to redirect the negative spotlight away from the Da’s forfeiture practices. In a statement to CP, District attorney’s Office spokeswoman Tasha Jamerson argued, “The truth is that we resolve most of our real-estate forfeiture actions by agreement, just as we are doing here, and we have been doing that since long before this lawsuit was filed.” The statement is true — though the “agreements” are in fact legal settlements which can take a year or longer to resolve, and in which property owners often give up rights, including the right to contest a future forfeiture. But it’s no less true that

The DA’s efforts may be too little, too late. despite these agreements, the Da still proceeds with the forfeitures of dozens of houses every year. But if Williams is trying take the steam out of what appears to be mounting pressure over his office’s forfeiture program, the efforts might be too little too late. His announcement to drop the two cases only barely preceded the appellate court decision, which stated in no uncertain terms that they violated individuals’ constitutional rights to protection from excessive fines — a ruling which, in turn, prompted even more ink, when the Inquirer published an editorial calling on Williams not to appeal the case to the state’s Supreme Court, a decision which remains pending. It surfaced again in a Philadel phia magazine interview of former-D.a.-turned mayoral >>> continued on adjacent page

â&#x153;&#x161; A Well-oiled Machine Begins to Sputter

[ the naked city ]

<<< continued from previous page

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Civil-forfeiture is just prone to too much abuse.â&#x20AC;? candidate Lynne abraham this week. (abraham defended her own use of forfeiture laws but said she welcomed reform.) and several weeks ago, state Sen. anthony Williams, who is also running for mayor, quietly let colleagues know that he intended to introduce, along with co-sponsor state Sen. Mike Folmer, a bill in the state legislature that would require criminal convictions for forfeiture. (anthony Williams acknowledged in a statement to CP this week, however, that after hearing concerns by Da Williams (no relation), he is now â&#x20AC;&#x153;reworkingâ&#x20AC;? the bill; the statement didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t elaborate on what the concerns were.) If Pennsylvaniaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s legislature actually takes up, debates and even passes a bill restricting the use of civil forfeiture â&#x20AC;&#x201D; let alone to the extent initially suggested in anthony Williamsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; bill â&#x20AC;&#x201D; it would be major news. For all the attention civil forfeiture has been getting here and elsewhere, very few states have moved to change their laws recently, and much of the momentum for reform has come instead from court rulings. But even without legislative action, the Commonwealth Court ruling could have a profound

effect on the way the Da operates. The order â&#x20AC;&#x153;sends a cautionary note to the lower courts that they have to take these properties seriously,â&#x20AC;? says Louis rulli, a university of Pennsylvania law professor who heads its civil law clinic, which provides free representation to homeowners facing forfeiture. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It recognizes that civil forfeiture is just prone to too much abuse and that the courts must play a role in supervisingâ&#x20AC;? the cases, says rulli. How that decision will play out in real life, in courtrooms 478 and 504, where the civil forfeiture cases are processed, remains to be seen. But so far, that â&#x20AC;&#x153;machineâ&#x20AC;? has operated so smoothly largely because of a volume and pace employed not just by the Daâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office itself but by the judges granting the forfeitures at such rates. That may be about to change. (editorial@citypaper.net)

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a&e

artsmusicmoviesmayhem

soundadvice By Dotun Akintoye

Inez anD VInOODH

all i Hear are protest songs

➤ ouT of The late December lull came two

songs to make us eager for the 2015 release cycle to begin. The first was Kendrick Lamar’s as yet untitled effort with Thundercat, Bilal, Anna Wise and Terrace Martin, which they performed as the last musical guests of The Colbert Report. With obvious roots in Robert Glasper’s Black Radio, this jazz/neo-soul/rap witches’ brew chronicles a protagonist’s attempt to stay true to himself when confronted with various forms of advice/control. The latter comes from a white-male exec whose money the young ’un can’t help needing or loathing. Our hero grows agitated, starts in with, “What you do? What you say? I shall enjoy the fruits of my labor/ If I get freed today,” invites his friends one by one to take up the slogan, and finally takes off on a shouting, body-convulsing outburst, “Tell ’em we don’t die/ We multiply!” That would have been enough on its own, but NYE brought Kanye West’s “Only One,” featuring Paul McCartney and Ty Dolla $ign. Positioned as a matron’s lullaby for both her son and granddaughter, the naïve melody skirts sentiment, outrages those who still can’t stand Auto-Tune and recalls strippeddown Stevie Wonder (not John Legend, because it’s not unctuous, thank you very fucking much). It hits because it’s not denatured by studio gloss; because Kanye is willing to mumble some of the lyrics; because the vocoder has never blunted the quality of his expression; because he’s trying to forgive himself; and because “tell Nori about me” is undeniable. Love passed down through generations as a glimpse of resurrection: The notion makes “Only One” no less vital and defiant than Kendrick. Even a lullaby can be a protest song. (@dakintoye)

BANDCAMP HEROES: Cyberbully Mom Club, led by Shari Heck (left), had a very prolific 2014.

[ rock/pop ]

Waking Up to Us Five Philly acts you might’ve slept on last year. By Patrick Rapa

ony.com) is a gentle, uplifting acoustic album, with horns and tightly strummed guitars backing up Marchiony’s soulful croon. as you might expect, several notables from Philly’s formidable singer-songwriter scene (ross Bellenoit, Dawn Hiatt, Dante Bucci) show up to help out a woman who’s helped out so many of them over the years. ➤ Cyberbully MoM Club

➤ The CaTs

On Facebook, this South Philly band has filled in its genre tags thusly: “rock, old guy lo-fi.” not wrong, but definitely an undersell for an act this exciting. The Cats are gorgeous and inventive in a Guided By Voices/Breeders way, only young and full of vinegar. released back in april, Relax on Everyone (thecatsusa.bandcamp.com) is a loud, dirty, kinda sludgy/kinda vibrant chunk of poppy punk. The songs are short. The guitars know just the right moment to get all fuzzy and punchy, to make you want to move. Manon Gordan’s vocals may well have been sung through an arby’s drive-thru — in a good way — but when it comes to punk passion this band delivers. ➤ Dena MarChiony

after 12 years (and counting) at the helm of the Philadelphia Songwriters Project — a nonprofit that sets up workshops and other opportunities for young and journeyman songwriters — Dena Marchiony has finally stepped out of the shadows and dropped a record of her own. released in December, On the Way to Now (dena.marchi-

In the golden age of lo-fi bedroom-pop — circa 1999, somewhere in the Pacific northwest — ladies with ukes and dudes with Casio keyboards used to pour their hearts onto cassettes with no download codes and ship them out for three bucks a pop. There’s basically no way the youthful Cyberbully Mom Club, wayward brainchild of uarts student Shari Heck, could’ve experienced that era directly, but she woulda fit right in alongside secret stars like Super Duo, S and Get the Hell Out of the Way of the Volcano. Whether she’s going for dark and dissonant or pleasant and catchy, Heck often nails the mood with some memorable lines. “I wanna be the one you drunk-text first when you’re outta beer/ at 3 a.m., at some shitty house party in South Philly,” she moans on “Drunk Text romance.” Here’s a heartbreaker, from the song “Fight night Champion”: “all my friends are always doin’ drugs and getting high/ We gave ourselves 10 years to act like kids and fight all night/ and I wish I could have fought with you one last time.”

The Cats are gorgeous and inventive.

>>> continued on page 14

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✚ Waking Up to Us

[ arts & entertainment ]

<<< continued from page 13

The Bad Doctors are a West Philly new wave/post-punk trio. CMC’s recorded output — and there’s a lot of it; cyberbullymomclub.bandcamp.com lists eight releases, all from 2014 — is mostly intimate and cozy. Usually you’re only hearing a plucked guitar and Heck’s sibilant vocals, gently layered. Lately, however, Heck has enlisted some friends (UArts students all) to turn CMC into a real live band, and they just wrapped up a tour with Pittsburgh emo act Fun Home. ➤ The Bad docTors

Somehow I lost track of this West Philly new wave/ post-punk trio and was pleasantly surprised to find that they’d dropped their first full-length over the summer. Burning City (baddoctors.bandcamp. com) is darkly jubilant, powered by pulsing synths, danceable beats and Matt Korvette’s casual-sneer vocals (way up in the mix). For starters, check out “In Time of Plague,” a Bad Religion-esque ditty about earthquakes, fire, floods, blood and a chorus insisting “there’s nothing wrong here.” The Bad Doctors are highly recommended for wearers of dark eyeliner and all

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appreciators of poetically grim dispositions. ➤ GhosT Gum

So far, the only thing we’ve got from this shoegazing four-piece is a four-song, bedroom-recorded demo called Demos 2014 (at ghostgum.bandcamp.com). It’s a bit muddy and sometimes those swirling guitars bleed into the many, many cymbal crashes, but the promise is clear. The noisy maelstrom brings to mind Owls and, of course, Glocca Morra, the longtime Philly punk band a few of these guys used to play in. Fans of Velocity Girl will appreciate the way singer Carolyn Haynes — of the dear departed Catnaps — comes leaping over the noise. We need to hear more from Ghost Gum. (pat@citypaper.net, @mission2denmark)

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COMING UP THIS JANUARY CHERRY POPPIN’ DADDIES “Zoot Suit Riot” High Energy Swing Music Fri, Jan 9

DUSTBOWL REVIVAL Engaging Americana Mash Up Thu, Jan 15

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GIRLS GUNS & GLORY Modern Roots Rockers w/ Sarah Borges Fri, Jan 16

DANA FUCHS Immensely Talented Hot Blues Rocker Sat, Jan 17

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EARL DAVID REED “The Secret To My Unsuccess” Comedy Tour Fri, Jan 30

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movie

shorts

Films are graded by City PaPer critics a-F.

PETER TRAVERS

“A TRULY GREAT AMERICAN FILM. ‘Selma’ isn’t just a biopic. By seeing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through the prism of one crucial event, the film offers a rousing portrait of a born preacher not without sin. It’s in the quiet moments of humor, heartbreak, and stabbing self-doubt that we see a man in full.

”

ONE OF THE BEST

FILMS OF THE YEAR

ONE OF THE BEST PERFORMANCES OF THE YEAR .

NEW YORK FILM CRITICS ONLINE

David Oyelowo as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

BOSTON SOCIET Y OF FILM CRITICS

Predestination

: New mr. TurNer | B+ Mike Leigh’s biopic on English landscape painter J.M.W. Turner opens with a vivid Dutch sunset, where two women walk against the backdrop of a windmill and a sky hued purple and orange. The shot ends on the rotund, top-hatted silhouette of Turner himself, as if the artist has strolled into one of his own canvases. any suggestion that the beauty of the art is embodied in the person of its creator is quickly dashed, however, by Timothy Spall’s grudgingly articulate portrayal. Spall’s Turner expresses himself through a range of grunts, growls, purrs and cackles as vibrant and subtle as the colors in his palette, albeit with the opposite effect. His cockney-accented voice emerges buoyantly in jibing giveand-take with his fellow artists, but devolves to a sub-verbal level the more genuine the situation. The artist is depicted as having a violent appreciation of beauty, driven to expectorate his emotions — literally, in some cases, as he spits on a work in progress while stabbing at it with his brush. Sex for Turner is sudden, brusque and rutting; while hurt, as when the British public mocks his ethereal later canvases, is expressed via an intensification of his perpetual glower. Leigh foregoes the cradle-to-grave biopic approach, leap frogging through the last quarter-century of Turner’s life to focus on the ugly, earthbound realities behind the artist’s increasingly diaphanous work.—Shaun Brady (Ritz Five)

OPENS FRIDAY, JANUARY 9 EVERYWHERE CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR THEATRES AND SHOWTIMES / NO PASSES ACCEPTED

ATTENTION AMPAS AND GUILD MEMBERS: Your card and picture ID will admit you and a guest to any performance as follows (subject to seating availability): CINEMARK will admit guild member only: AMPAS, DGA, PGA and WGA (Valid 7 days a week). REGAL will admit: AMPAS, DGA, PGA and WGA (Mon-Thur only). Please check newspaper circuit listing for theatre locations & showtimes. Theatre list subject to change.

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predesTiNaTioN | C+ regret lies at the heart of most time-travel stories, the desire to somehow go back and unmake the mistakes of the past. The tension between fate and reinvention is loopily explored

in the Spierig Brothers’s latest, Predestination, which reunites them with their Daybreakers star Ethan Hawke. The actor plays a Temporal agent, a time-traveling lawman out to stop a terrorist known as the Fizzle Bomber. He arrives in 1975 new york, where he sets up as a bartender and encounters a down-on-his-luck patron whose strange yarn quickly supersedes the action-movie premise suggested by Hawke’s mission. The film is an adaptation of robert a. Heinlein’s 1959 short story “all you Zombies,” a sci-fi spin on hard-boiled detective fiction that could have made a nifty Twilight Zone episode. Though the Spierigs add a couple of extra knots to the ourobouros-like story, the unraveling of the convoluted tale means that the film spends too much time explaining itself to ever be fully engaging. and once the first few twists are revealed, the audience can easily iron out the remaining kinks long before the characters get around to them. There are delights to be found along the way in the retro-futuristic design of the film’s alternative space-age history and especially in Sarah Snook’s star-making, gamutrunning performance.—SB (wide release)

: coNTiNuiNg Big eyes | BSubtle (!) for a Tim Burton movie, Big Eyes makes it a point to take on topics many members of the ascot-tying art community find gauche — commerce, sexism, publicity. That doesn’t mean this biopic of bedraggled painter Margaret Keane is a revolutionary bit of work, but it deserves a little credit for making sure the right people squirm. Keane’s distinctive waif paintings, featuring kids with peepers

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events listings@citypaper.net | january 8 - january 14

[ a failure pile in a sadness bowl ]

METALOCALYPSE NOW: Mayhem plays Union Transfer tonight. ester segarra

Events is our selective guide to what’s going on in the city this week. For comprehensive event listings, visit citypaper.net/events. iF yOu Want tO Be listed: Submit information by email (listings@ citypaper.net) or enter it yourself at citypaper.net/submit-event with the following details: date, time, address of venue, telephone number and admission price. Incomplete submissions will not be considered, and listings information will not be accepted over the phone.

1.8

thursday [ black metal ]

MayheM $20-$25 | Thu., Jan. 8, 7:30 p.m., with Watain, Revenge and T.O.M.B., Union Transfer, 1026 Spring Garden St., 215-232-2100, utphilly.com. no band in the history of black metal embodies the music’s blend of the extreme and the ridiculous quite like Mayhem, pioneers of the controversy-riddled 18 | P h i l a d e l P h i a C i t y Pa P e r |

norwegian scene. The band has persisted for 30 years despite losing key members to murder, suicide and generally erratic behavior (survived would be the wrong word given their high casualty rates). They’re currently touring behind Esoteric Warfare, their seventh album and first with new guitarist Teloch. —Shaun Brady

[ pop/rock ]

allison CrutChfield $5-$7 | Thu., Jan. 8, 8 p.m., with Told Slant, Eskimeaux and adult mom, Golden Tea House. Formerly of P.S. Eliot and still of Swearin’, allison Crutchfield recently put some really pretty, lo-fi pop songs up on her Bandcamp page as a solo EP of sorts called Lean in to It. They seem to have been made on a cheap Casio keyboard: tinny synths and programmed drums and Crutchfield’s crooning that soundtracks that space

between falling in and/or out of love. —Marc Snitzer

[ soul/samba/rock ]

[ jazz ]

$12 | Thu., Jan. 8, 8 p.m., Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill, undergroundarts.org.

ernest stuart $5-$10 | Thu., Jan. 8, 7:30 p.m., Collingswood Community Center, 30 E. Collings Ave., Collingswood, N.J., 856-858-8914, jazzbridge.org. Though its public face is as a presenting organization bringing local jazz luminaries to neighborhoods throughout the city (and beyond), Jazz Bridge’s founding mission involves aiding jazz and blues musicians with medical, legal and other forms of assistance in times of need. Those identities rarely converge so immediately as they do in this show, which was originally scheduled to be a performance by longtime Kool and the Gang trombonist Clifford adams. It has instead become a benefit for the ailing adams, in urgent need of a liver transplant. —Shaun Brady

J a n u a r y 8 - J a n u a r y 1 4 , 2 0 1 5 | C i t y Pa P e r . n e t

ChiCano BatMan/ las Cafeteras

Chicano-soul bands who play long, lingering, belt-bucklepolishing dances did not fade away with Sunny and the Sunliners. Chicano Batman’s pensive La Tigresa, released in 2012, proves the tradition is still vibrant. Their tour partners, Las Cafeteras, can take Chicano identity into future and past, all within one song. “La Bamba rebelde [rebel’s Bamba]” features the old instruments — acoustic strings with scraped jaw bones and pounding heels for percussion. The future comes in lyrics: “I don’t believe in borders” in one verse and “I don’t believe in racist laws” in another. Their bilingual reimagining of “This Land Is your Land” keeps the

spirit of Woody Guthrie alive too, adapting a known tune for contemporary messages. —Mary Armstrong

[ classical ]

PhiladelPhia orChestra $40-$158 | Thu., Jan. 8 and Sat., Jan. 10, 8 p.m.; Fri., Jan. 9, 2 p.m., Kimmel Center, 300 S. Broad St., 215-670-2300, philorch.org. The core romantic German repertoire is a great strength of former PO boss Christoph Eschenbach, who (graciously) returns to his former podium to conduct the brilliant Symphony no. 2 of Schumann, and two works of richard Strauss. The ebullient Horn Concerto no. 1 — which Strauss wrote for his father when the young genius was only 18 — will feature the fabulous first chair of the orchestra’s horn section, Jennifer Montone. —Peter Burwasser

1.9 friday

[ rap/pop/dance ]

rustie $12-$20 | Fri., Jan. 9, 8:30 p.m., with Nadus, Union Transfer, 1026 Spring Garden St., 215-232-2100, utphilly.com. Distorted rap-dance music — with a few fingers in the pies of shoegaze pop and grime — that’s rustie’s sonic bag on Green Language (Warp). Judging by his lyrics, rustie is really into Egyptology and birds, and he’s worked those things into the 3-D component of his sure-to-benuts live show. —A.D. Amorosi

[ multimedia ]

the art of noise hiP hoP ProjeCt $5-$7 | Fri., Jan. 9, 10 p.m., Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St., 215291-4919, kungfunecktie.com. This record release party for

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saturday [ tribute ]

Rent-a-Cops

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Scrantonicity, but the renta-Cops do feature Philadelphia notables Michele Lynn, Valentina raffaelli, Jimmy Faber and Josh Steingard. Get there early for reverend TJ McGlinchey doing his best Tom Petty. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Sarah Heizenroth

[ rock/pop ]

eRiC Bazilian/ Wesley staCe $20 | Sat., Jan. 10, 8 p.m., Tin Angel, 20 S. Second St., 215-9280978, tinangel.com. This intimate, â&#x20AC;&#x153;in tandemâ&#x20AC;? show starring two veteran Philly singer-songwriters should be a charmer. Bazilianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best known for fronting The Hooters in the â&#x20AC;&#x2122;80s and writing pop hits for himself and others ever since. Stace, meanwhile, is the artist/novelist who previously recorded under the name John Wesley Harding and who still hosts the Cabinet of Wonders music/literature variety shows (sometimes heard on public radio). Who knows what theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll cook up together? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Patrick Rapa

[ events ]

[ rock/pop ]

Weyes Blood $10 | Sat., Jan. 10, 9 p.m., with Darksiders and Strawberry Hands, Johnny Brendaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, 1201 Frankford Ave., 215739-9684, johnnybrendas.com. natalie Mering used to play with Jackie-O Motherfucker and is a known ariel Pink collaborator, so we should have figured her solo stuff would be SHaWn BraCKBILL

4"5

Malik B of Phillyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s legendary roots crew also features live performances by local hip-hop acts Carl Madison and Grand agent, renaissance woman L.y.r.I.S.P.E.C.T. and Delaware rapper KaE Hock. Oh, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an art show. Pieces by Ebony r & Emerge will be on view alongside rob Woods, known for his off-the-wall Depressed Punx series. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Sam Fox

weird. under the name Weyes Blood, Mering unspools the most utterly disarming and alluring Ouija-folk. Pianos and strummed strings mingle with strange hisses and echoes from

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foodanddrink

what’scooking r ya n S C O T T

By Caroline russock

➤the week in eats

The Big Philly Beerfest | Fri.-Sat., Jan. 9-10, 7:30 p.m. $45-$55 ➤ Can’t wait until June to get your beerfest on? We’ve got you covered. The first annual Big Philly Beerfest is taking over the Convention Center with two nights of tastings from everyone from Abita to Voodoo Brewing. Bonus points for Beerfest funds being raised for Animal Rescue Partners. Pennsylvania Convention Center, 1101 Arch St., bigphillybeerfest.com. Basic Charcuterie Class | Wed., Jan. 14, 7:30 p.m. $75 ➤ Kensington Quarters, the newly opened Fishtown restaurant, bar, butcher shop and classroom, is unveiling its second-floor demo space with a series of meat-centric tutorials. This week, they’re focusing on charcuterie basics, simple make-athome projects with big wow factor. Think pork rillettes, chicken-liver mousse and a handful of basic cures that are totally doable in your home kitchen. House butcher Bryan Mayer will be heading up the 90-minute classes and using sustainably raised products available in Kensington Quarters’ butcher shop. Kensington Quarters, 1310 Frankford Ave., 267-314-5086, kensingtonquarters.com. Philly Chef Conference | Sun., Jan. 11, 2 p.m. $20 ➤ This industry conference at the Drexel Center for Hospitality and Sports Management is opening its doors to the public for the first time this year and the lineup is killer. For three hours your $20 entrance fee gets you a chance to hear from panels on topics that include where the Philadelphia dining scene will be in 2020 (starring Marcie Turney, Jeff Benjamin and Kevin Sbraga, among others) and an in-depth discussion on the intricacies of what Pennsylvania liquor laws mean to restaurateurs and consumers. Mitchell Auditorium, Drexel University, 3140 Market St., hsm.drexel.edu/du/phillychefconference. Got A Tip? Please send restaurant news to restaurants@ citypaper.net or call 215-735-8444, ext. 207. 22 | P h i l a d e l P h i a C i t y Pa P e r |

CURE AND COOK: House-cured pastrami and parsnip ravioli at Kensington Quarters. neal SantOS

[ review ]

Bound By trust At Kensington Quarters a variety of cuts, all sustainably raised. By Adam Erace KenSinGtOn QUarterS | 1310 Frankford Ave., 267-314-5086, kensingtonquarters.com. Restaurant: Sun.-Thu., 5-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5 p.m.-11 p.m. Butcher shop: Tue.-Sat., 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Appetizers, $11-$16; entrees, $24-$26; dessert, $9-$10.

ainted onto the whitewashed cinder-block wall in the industrial dining room of Kensington Quarters, an earnest motto in sturdy black type delivers a promise: All goods and services proudly bonded by trust. Beneath, butcher-block tabletops slide back and forth on floormounted I-beams, two-tops becoming fours and eights with gentle nudges as salumi mavens, teachers and tattoo artists meet for sustainably raised snacks and bourbon cocktails on Fishtown’s hottest strip. When they entered, they passed under the restaurant-cumwhole-animal butcher shop’s logo, a disembodied handshake tattooed on the building’s façade above a fringe of sea grass in up-lit oval aluminum planters.The motto and the logo are the old-timey stuff of a bygone era, when a gentleman’s word meant something. “The whole concept is us forming relationships with farmers,” explains Michael Pasquarello, who owns Kensington Quarters with

J a n u a r y 8 - J a n u a r y 1 4 , 2 0 1 5 | C i t y Pa P e r . n e t

wife, Jeniphur, and butcher Bryan Mayer. “We didn’t have them sign documents, they didn’t make us guarantee to buy 300 head of cattle — we shook hands with them. you as a customer coming through the door, you’re trusting us. The handshake is the ultimate agreement.” I thought about that promise as I sipped a Thompson Sour, a walkin-the-woods rye-and-maple cooler, and started in on baker Michael Olone’s chewy house-baked sourdough. Earlyish on a weeknight, the neighbors had yet to convene in Kensington Quarters’ main dining room. By dessert they would settle in for appetizers, turning over their trust to the Pasquarellos, Mayer and chef Damon Menapace, a Vetri refugee with knacks for charcuterie and pasta-making. Eating at any restaurant is an act of trust: I will give you money, you will give me food and service that does not suck. That’s the innate agreement of dining out, whether it’s a sevencourse tasting at Laurel or a sandwich at John’s roast Pork. Most restaurants operate under this agreement; I’ve never seen one state it outright. Kensington Quarters promises to make you happy and promises you can trust that they’re sourcing meats in ways that are healthy for animals, humans, the local economy and the environment. and they do so without the zeitgeist-mandated dose of farmer worship. Curious about the contents of the butcher case? Mayer, a veteran of Fleisher’s in new york, will be happy to explain. Having a working whole-animal butcher shop within a restau-