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“I’m not old,” and other stories from my actual life.

March 12, 2009 by krisis

Before we head into a week of Kelly Clarkson coverage (just kidding!) (but not really!), here’s a brief interlude from real life.

(1) Today at work we had a meeting about social networking.

I make it a point not to talk about work so much, but this seems like a big milestone. After all of my years of harping about dragging ourselves into a new digital era I was in a meeting about figuring out how to drag ourselves into a new digital era. My work life has officially merged with my home life.

In said meeting was a hyper-intelligent new employee from elsewhere in the company who joined to chip in her expertise. I expect to be her employee by 2013.

At one point I was trying to articulate how some social networks make a certain amount of sense to me, while others do not. My overly long introduction to that thought was, “It’s not that I think I’m so old (maybe I am), but… [insert communications nonsense here].”

Meeting newbie came back with, “Oh, I don’t think you’re old.”

I should mention that I shaved prodigiously this morning and look about 12.

Somewhere in NJ Kate is still laughing at me.

(2a) Is it just a given at this point that we’re all having nightmares about an imminent, complete, worldwide, economic collapse?

I mean, I am certainly not denying the existence of a recession, as the evidence is all around me in my group of close friends. Those nightmares were already existent, thank you very much.

No, this is more global, and more systemic. Like, I just had a dream that I was camping in a derelict, foreclosed row home (possibly just down the street from here), and that the banks were going house to house to take the squatters prisoner to work in their slave camps. They were executing the infirm and the socialists on sight.

Something like that, anyhow. Are you having those nightmares too?

(2b) I generally hate when people blog about dreams. Isn’t real life wonderful and terrifying enough? Dream posts are really the only things I ever redact – I write them all out and then think, Who in god’s name is going to stick around after hitting this tripe off of a Google search?

(3) As to my sudden subconscious fixation with us going the way of Mad Max (before subsequently going the way of Waterworld), maybe it’s just because I was reading about motel homeless earlier.

Okay, honestly? It’s more because of my trip to F.Y.E. to buy the Kelly Clarkson album, which is the only reason I would ever set foot into that abomination of a retail establishment.

I detest F.Y.E. on principal – that a chain with so little relevance or personality could supplant Tower Records as the sole national record-seller is inherently offensive to me. Seriously, they could be a chain specializing in argyle socks and turn-of-the-century coffee pots and I feel like the retail experience would be exactly the same.

Anyway.

This afternoon the sales floor was barren. A group of teenagers were lazily playing Rock Band off in one corner. There was a single cash register open, doing no business whatsoever.

I was accosted by five employees in quick succession within 90 seconds of entering the store. Each of them asked if they could help me find anything, with a certain lingering desperation in their eyes. Like, “for the love of god let me help you find something; if I don’t sell at least two CDs every hour they’ll fire me.”

I started assigning them trivial tasks, just to clear the cannon fodder. One lad I engaged with couldn’t find an explicit version of a Pink album and mumbled some mea culpa like, “You know I could just burn that for you or something did you want maybe a Pink Floyd album instead you know I went to college to get this job please just kill me.”

I did a lot of nodding and backing away, and found myself cornered by another sales associate in the classical section.

It took a while to escape with my Kelly, who always leaves me feeling obligated to stimulate the economy by purchasing music at irrelevant brick and mortar retailers.

(4a) The house at the end of our block burnt down last week. The debris is still on the sidewalk, giving off a certain hickory flavor.

Last week I wouldn’t leave the house for work until the firemen stopped looking concerned. In row homes that’s only eight doors from here.

(4b) I spend all this time (and money) acquiring Kelly Clarkson albums and guitars and French graphic novels, and all of that could burn away in a matter of minutes. Or the renegade banking enforcement brigade could kick down my door and take everything in the financial holocaust.

It makes me think about the intangible things in my life that have value. I guess in that way social networking is a beautiful matrix, containing all of the memories you might have lost in the flames.

My songs can never burn down. My blog can never burn down.

(fin) I’m just going to keep living my life, going to meetings, and creating things.

And listening to Kelly Clarkson albums.

pipes and glass

March 9, 2009 by krisis

A long time ago I had a neighbor, freebasing cocaine at his kitchen table.

That came later, though.

Curled around my first guitar on the front step, maybe? Must’ve been. I don’t remember how else he knew I could play. I remember our porch, and his hammers on Ziggy. That’s exactly what I wanted.

We became a pair in his basement from time to time, him showing me barre chords, my explaining why you might retune.

I didn’t have that in my life at the time. I had Gina, still several months of skepticism about my guitar playing before she’d be of much help. No one else to take an interest. Certainly not an adult example.

(My mother’s boyfriend had played guitar, maybe, in the 70s? Some distantly removed time. He had sliced the tendon on his pointer, and could no longer play barres. Useless to me. He had a clumsy way of making a C chord, remembering it a half-fret at a time.

Inwardly I swore: no forgetting.)

So there I was, in the neighbor’s basement. We had known him forever, anyway. He was fifteen years older? Feels like he was much older than I am now. At least seventeen, if he remembered Bowie like that.

I noodled on his ancient synthesizer and he restrung his Yamaha 12-string. “Like Bowie’s.” And he told his story.

He was heavy into music, writing his own all of the time. He went on a cruise ship or some other inane vacation, to play. And someone said, one night, to him – very serious about his music. They said to him he sounded like something or some other thing. It was probably the 80s, so probably some other awful thing. Richard Marx, let’s say.

And he said, “Peter.” He said my name in this very convivial way, like, we’re just two Italian guys shooting the shit. It was not a way men usually said my name. Still not.

“Peter, I didn’t know if it was a compliment. I hadn’t heard anything new in a year. All I would listen to was myself.”

I was incredulous, still a fan more than a musician. How could he turn off everything else? It seemed likely a lie.

I got too familiar, I guess. The whole family lived there, and I got used to poking my head in if I got home late from rehearsal and the light was on.

I put my head in, and there they were, him and his best friend. Hardware on the table, but not the tool box like usual. Pipes and glass?

Pipes and glass, and he said, “do you want any” or maybe “you don’t want any,” and I, numb, just walked back across the porches to my door.

Figures, the one guy who could say my name like that and mean it and play those little hammers. But I knew what my goal was – I would have to learn my barre chords before there’d be any excess.

I forget him for a year or so, here and there. There are other stories – driving to the music store in South Philly, the time I almost cut my finger off and he came over because my mom was at work. That bass in pieces in my closet.

I’ve still never been that freebaser at the kitchen table. I must not be good enough at barres. But, now I know what it’s like to only listen to myself, to not want or need anything else.

I understand him that much.

thoughts right now / subway ride

March 2, 2009 by krisis

I ran into one of my favorite professors today on the subway, trundling to work in this non-event of a snowstorm.

We briefly caught up (me, married! him, reconstructing his house! my band, awesome!), and the conversation then turned to my blogging proclivity and how I have yet to abandon it. Which, (a) hilarious that my senior project adviser still asks me about my blog five years after the fact, but (b) way to stick the personal “blogger / songwriter” branding so that it’s the first thing he thinks of, even five years after the fact.

(me, old!)

Anyhow, us being two massive communications nerds having a conversation about communications on the subway, I sketched out the situation. Longest running, blah blah, own a single topic of conversation, blah blah, more magazine style content. Hit tracking, publics, &c, &c. Minus points for not somehow mentioning Cultivation Theory to prove that I am actually as big a nerd as I represent myself to be.

And, you know, as I was being my hip nerdy self for sixty seconds of subway exposition, it occurred to me that I spend more time plotting about blogging than I actually spend blogging.

It’s not such a bad thing, really. Well, it’s a medium bad thing. It’s equally good and bad. I love planning and organizing things so much that sometimes I’d rather not ever do the actual thing.

(This is actually a running theme in my life. See also: song database but no new recordings, exercise plan but no new muscles. The only time it works in my faovir is when having a plan inherently leads to the plan being success, as with a budget.

Anywho…)

There is technically a column I was going to post today. Well, it being 11:35, I think maybe technically has edged into theoretically. But the fact of the matter is, after a non-stop weekend of alternating social engagements and hardcore freelance writing and editing, I am in no mood to write a column.

And that, my friends, is the difference between a blog and a magazine. I can own all the topics I want, but there will still be this inanity sandwiched between.

God bless it.

Classic Modern Classics

February 25, 2009 by krisis

There is a wonderful meme sweeping the illustrators of blogland wherein they render an antiqued paperback cover for a modern classic.

I first caught this meme earlier in the month from the blog of author Martha Wells, who pointed to these clever Harry Potter covers, in the style of classic Penguin books. The same artist – M. S. Corley – also took a shot at Lemony Snicket and Spiderwick. I recommend spending a few minutes with Corley’s blog during which you scroll down to some of his prior work, much of which is fascinating.

However, that one blog didn’t push my to my posting tipping point – I needed a reminder. Earlier today I caught a link from Neil Gaiman for illustrator Mike Baker‘s entry for a classic Coraline.

Apparently Baker caught the bug from Spacesick, who rendered covers for cult cinema classics like Back to the Future and Highlander. Some of them are particularly excellent – I might print a set and wallpaper my cube.

Finally, Storyteller’s Workshop offers a primer on how to achieve the effect on your own.

If you have seen this meme elsewhere on the web please point me towards the art so I can update this post or pen a sequel.

Philly: Seen on the Scene

February 19, 2009 by krisis

I didn’t do quite as much crazy seenery this past week, but in making it an eight-day week of scenery I made this post extra-long.

Oh, also? I’m an obsessive-compulsive singer/songwriter/lunatic who had kinda forgotten why he was a journalism major.

I quite explicitly did not do any kind of scene seeing over the weekend, save for a brief interlude at K&L’s housewarming party, where every person from every part of my life all collided in one shiny-drunk lump. Seriously, it could have only been odder if my mother was there. Still, much fun had.

Every Wednesday: LP Open Mic @ Intermezzo (3141 Walnut)
Hosting an open mic is a nervous endeavor. Sometimes it seems as though no one will show up, yet you find the lineup extending past closing time. On other occasions the room seems full, but you still wind up vamping for an hour by yourself at the end of the night.

Last week’s open mic at Intermezzo was definitely the former. Dante Bucci played host, and delivered a typically spectacular set on his hang drums. A new attendee, Ebony Butler, played two hyper-pop songs (Maroon 5 and Sara Bareilles) and one equally catchy one of her own. Her vocals were effortless – we were all big fans.

Otherwise, it was a stuttering night – over and again it seemed as though I would have to jump up to play filler, but more people kept popping in.

One of those poppers was the elusive Doc Terry. He makes once-monthly appearances at our little shindig, but when in the month he arrives is always a surprise.

Doc (named thusly for being a rural veterinarian) was the man who introduced Dante to the hang, and together they form the mystifying pair of ufo-playing phenoms called the The Hang Brothers. However, at Intermezzo Doc Terry typically plays his hammer dulcimer.

(Yes, this means I saw people perform on hammer dulcimer two nights in a row at rock open mics, as there was also one at Luloo the night before. How likely is that, exactly?)

While Doc Terry delivered a typically mystifying set, Greg Morgan (AKA Audible Eye) arrived with a small group in tow. Greg is a ubiquitous Philly subway musician – it seems like I see him every time I catch a train. He busks not only with guitar in hand, but with drums played by mouth, knees, and feet. Rather than err to the simplistic or repetitive, Greg’s simultaneous multi-instrumentalism tends to open up interesting textures in songs with deceptively simple chord progressions.

After introductions all around I suddenly found myself mixing Terry on dulcimer, Greg on vocals and guitar, and Dante switching between a single conga and playing the underside of his hang like a djembe.

Slightly stressful, but completely rewarding, because I got to hear Terry play dulcimer as a pop instrument – finding hooks and riffs instead of carrying his own independent melodies and harmonies. And, if it was fascinating on Greg’s material, it was doubly so when the impromptu band took a swing through “Stand By Me” while Greg’s friend, Nynee.

Afterward Nynee closed out the night with sparse, beautiful acoustic cover of Beyonce’s “If I Was a Boy,” and a soulful acappella turn on The Cure’s “Love Song” (a personal favorite). In retrospect, I really wish Terrry had played on the latter, as the riff would have been perfect on the dulcimer.

As we closed up I complemented Nynee heartily (she had never played guitar in public before!), and told her that if she ever wanted to do the Cure tune again I’d play guitar for her, and maybe even sing harmony.

Every Monday: Open Jam @ Connie’s Ric Rac (9th just under Washington)
Take note of this momentous occasion – I went to an open mic that I don’t host for two consecutive weeks. In fact, next week I’ll probably be back for a third.

Why? Because Connie’s Ric Rac is like Cheers with a 1000 watt sound system and a pet snake. Everyone wants to know your name, and they all hush up when you play a quiet song.

I was a complete nerd and brought my laptop to Ric Rac to take notes, anticipating much awesomeness, and I was ever so right.

Firstly, there is February’s guest-host Katie Barbato. We chatted it up before the mic kicked off, and uncovered that she knows indie rocker – and winner of both the New York Songwriters Circle competition and Cosmo’s Starlaunch – Mieka Pauley. She doesn’t just know her … she knows her from the 90s, when the two of them were on a comp together.

I caught Katie up on how Mieka’s Elijah Drop Your Gun came to be – the recording was funded by the donations of fans (like me!) – which makes it even more amazing that Amazon is currently offering it as a free download due to the crazy demand for Mieka after her contest wins.

From there I moved to enthusing over Katie’s album fronting the Sleepwells and it’s absolutely stellar vocals (as I have been doing non-stop for the past week), which lead her to re-introduce me to Matt Teacher, her guitarist and recording engineer.

I’ve met Matt Teacher once before, and in that venue he was introduced to me as a songwriter, but at present he mostly plays and records with bands in Sine Studios, where he is the owner and engineer along with best friend Mike.

Similar to Gina and I, the two of them connected in the eight grade – with the difference being that they connected as a band right away and knew by high school graduation that they wanted a career in music. They attended college separately and came back together to open Sine Studios. It looks ultra-nifty from their website, and at 22nd and Walnut it’s virtually around the corner from my office .

Matt and I talked about our endless acquisition of recording gear and how in high school I used to sample too low and wind up sounding like The Chipmunks when I tried to burn a CD. Although he was perhaps too humble to mention running Bon Jovi’s protools rig the last time he played Philly, Matt did cop to recording the Sleepwells disc, as well as working with Lickety Split host Dani Mari, and Ric Rac’s house band The Discount Heroes.

When I pressed him as to whether the in-the-family recording roster meant Sine might also be a label, he demurred: “We’re working in that direction.”

Having done some basic flexing of journalistic muscles I thought had permanently atrophied since college, I pushed my luck a bit and asked if I might stop by for a tour sometime. Matt, being awesome, one-upped me and said I should aim to come to one of the studio barbecues over the summer.

By this time Katie had opened up with a fantastic and totally chill set, especially a powerful take on her “Undertow.” I immediately began to reprogram my setlist a bit from the uppers I intended on.

Katie was followed by one of my major local favorites (how many favorites can a man have?), Aaron Brown. Aaron and I have developed a knack for unintentionally stalking each other across town, hitting the same open mics on the same nights. We talked hitting the Monday night @ The Fire in March – and if it would be even worth the effort with Ric Rac right in my backyard.

I gladly lent Aaron my guitar for his set. He always makes it sing, as his songs are chock full of jazzy chords and weirdly chromatic changes, and the result is a beautiful duet with his remarkable soul voice.

I detest making so facile a comparison as to Stevie Wonder, as Aaron Brown’s delivery leaps across the R&B divide to rock in an instant, as on the stuttering 6/8 tune he delivered mid-set (“fragile”?). It’s as if Adam Levine from Maroon 5 could actually sing as well live as he does on the record, and then decided to cover an obscure Rufus Wainwright take on a Stevie Wonder song. That’s what Aaron sounds like.

Speaking of Rufus covering others, the churning arpeggios on Aaron’s last tune evoked “Hallelujah,” but his song was at once pretty and grounded in asphalt. Rufus and Leonard don’t drive you to AC like Aaron does.

Mark my words, I will have him over for a recording session this year.

At this point my jotted setlist was in complete disarray, because how in the world do I follow the two of them? I pinch-hit a trio of “Glam / Standing,” “Something Real,” and “Better,” and it was a rare right move. “Something Real” continues to astound me with it’s ability to shut down an entire room of conversation – I don’t have too many songs that do that. “Better” was awesome, as “Better” always is and will continue to be once Arcati Crisis starts playing it.

Alright, that’s enough rapture about that. A few quicker hits?

I re-met Henry Martin, who Gina and I acquainted ourselves with on a late Thursday at Blarney South ages ago. He’s got a wonderful voice – a Moody Bluesish piece of classic rock in the modern day. Home team The Discount Heroes were awesome as usual in full band arrangement, including Ian on bass. They play great knee-slapping rock, and sing Southern-influenced down-home harmony.

I also shot the shit in a very I-talian way with Frank, a Rac-regular who sometimes has his own showcases. He kindly enthused over my “All My Loving” from last week. I also chatted up Arthur AKA Solo Moon, maybe a mad scientist? His inventions are online for us to discover; he curates the Electric Fortune Cookie.

The great thing about Ric Rac is that it’s got a big stage, complete with amps and a kit. Bands just get up and go. In that vein, I loved loved loved Try Angles – a two-piece playing a blues stomp that I am journalistically required to compare to White Stripes. Except, I actually like Try Angles – there’s meat underneath the riffs, aerobic and thick. A new unfinished song fucking leapt across the stage for our necks in a tangle of blues and prog. And, I DON’T EVEN LIKE THIS KIND OF THING.

I briefly quizzed drummer Adam after their set. What was their deal? How did they compel me to like them so much?

Apparently singer Matt C. has done his singer/songwriter thing for an eternity, but Adam added himself just in September to create their special alchemy. Adam professed love for jazz and Zappa, and I honestly believe they both come through in his skin pounding. Also, he was just a nice dude – when I expanded on my recent wedding he said he wanted to do a dance because I have good music and a good life.

Seriously, Ric Rac is Good People.

(Good lord, can you imagine if I start bringing my laptop to every open mic, going all embedded journalist on all the natives? Can you seriously keep up with a 3000+ word weekly column?)

Tuesday: I took a nap
It was awesome.

Every Wednesday: LP Open Mic @ Intermezzo (3141 Walnut)
Yes, we’ve circled all the way back to Intermezzo, with Gina hosting this iteration.

This week was more of the unexpected – a full house of Lyndzapalooza artists – Gina and I (both solo!), my new client Joshua Popejoy, Aaron Brown (again!), Brian Flanagan (playing awesome new tunes), and John Glaubitz (who we did not manage to tempt to play).

I’ll spare you the rapturous rapture about these guys – they’re all great. They kept our guests pinned to their chairs for the duration of the evening until AC took over to play to a small-but-appreciative crowd of stragglers. We nailed a particularly impressive “Don’t You Want Me” – I was in super-good vocal shape, which I further flaunted by singing an additional solo set of “Like a Virgin,” “Since U Been Gone,” my new “Message,” and an acappella verse and chorus of “Take on Me.”

We closed down the shop with “Noncommittal” and chat of breaking the fourth wall, and headed back to the car.

Coming up!
There are seemingly a thousand shows that I want to see tomorrow night, so I’m thinking you should go to some of the ones I can’t make it to.

Melodic hard-rockers Tremor will be at JR’s bar @ 22nd and Passyunk. Personal favorite Up the Chain splits a bill with The Great Unkown @ JD McGillicuddy’s, 2626 County Line Road in Ardmore. Alexandra Day opens for Kate-fav Carsie Blanton at Barrington Coffee House

As for myself and Gina, we will be installed at the esteemed Ric Rac to catch The Discount Heroes monthly showcase, a stellar bill of Blueberry Magee and His Hot Five, Shackamaxon, and Hezekiah Jones. It’s only $10, rather than the kidney or lung you might expect to contribute to gain entrance into such a show.

Next week I’ll be hitting Ric Rac again on Monday for Katie’s February swan-song, as well as maybe Time at 13th and Sansom on Tuesday, but if I find some ambition I could truck up to The Draught Horse on Temple’s campus to hang out with LP Artist Josh Albright at his new open mic.

Alternately, if you’re free on Tuesday you can head down to The Shubin Theatre at 4th and Bainbridge to catch Gina in a debut reading of a play by Mark Wolverton based on his recent biographical novel A Life in Twilight: The Final Years of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Then, on Wednesday you should join me at Chris’s Jazz Cafe at Broad & Sansom at 5pm sharp to catch the beautiful and always amazing Alexandra Day play a special happy-hour set, after which you should catch a trolley up to Intermezzo to hit our open mic, as hosted by the girl who put the Lyndz in Lyndzapalooza, Lindsay Wilhelmi.

Finally, a few future plugs: Dante Bucci @ Tin Angel on 3/22. Brian Flanagan playing a set on a bill with our buddies Year Long Day @ Tin Angel on 3/25. The two foremost hang players on earth – one of whom happens to be Dante Bucci, the other being Many Delago – at Milkboy on 4/22.

In other news…

I’ll end with a bit of good news / bad news.

Bad first: we’re actually not doing a show on 2/28 with Joshua Popejoy. It’s slightly disappointing, but it leads to good news: we can promote our amazing seventh annual spring music festival for three entire months without another gig stealing it’s thunder.

So: This year the festival is on Saturday, May 16, and it is called BYMfest (AKA Back Yard Music Festival, an ironic title seeing as this is the first year it will be held at Snipes Farm, rather than an actual back yard). BYMfest will feature eight solid hours of music. So far the lineup includes Arcati Crisis, Joshua Popejoy, Reed Kendall of Up the Chain, Suzie Brown, and Sisters 3.

Honestly, that’s already a bill I would pay dozens of dollars for, and it’s only HALF FULL. Check the Seen on the Scene action next week for further bill announcements, and a presale link where you can buy tickets for $15.

Seriously, I kid you not, $15. That’s a half hour of music for every dollar. You can’t even steal music for that cheap.

Mark your calendar right now. Seriously. Don’t even read the byline until you’ve marked it.

Marked?

Okay.

Peter is a Philadelphia singer-songwriter, half of the band Arcati Crisis, and Director of Communications for Lyndzapalooza (LP).