This week­end Philly’s best nomadic book­ing part­ner­ship, Plain Parade, signs off after four sol­id years of crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed book­ing. Their final two shows will be host­ed at Tri­tone and the M‑Room, their two most sta­ble venues since leav­ing Doc Wat­son’s, and both nights will fea­ture bands they’ve cham­pi­oned since Plain Parade came on the scene unabashed­ly in sup­port of local music.

It was an amaz­ing, if at times heart­break­ing under­tak­ing: Maria and Sara shoe­horned more local acts onto bills that would’ve oth­er­wise nev­er mate­ri­al­ized any­where oth­er than a week­night slot open­ing at the Khy­ber, or maybe on a Sun­day night if no one else was around. Not only were they under­dogs in the scene, they were lit­er­al­ly beneath the under­dog; how often do you hear about DIY, queer-friend­ly, cryp­to-fem­i­nist women pro­mot­ers mak­ing it — much less suc­ceed­ing — in a city as big and tough as Philadel­phia, in an indus­try dom­i­nat­ed by swills and philistines?

So while Sean Agnew got acco­lades for tak­ing it to the man, and the Man took every­thing else, Plain Parade sub­sist­ed on a steady diet of care and affec­tion for inde­pen­dent music and art, empha­siz­ing local acts over well-fund­ed nation­al [and inter­na­tion­al] tour­ing pack­ages, though they scored their fare share of those too. When they once took a prover­bial bath one fate­ful Decem­ber, it was on such a fly­er, demon­strat­ing that the name brand focus that dri­ves so much of the music indus­try is only so much hype. That they per­se­vered despite such frus­tra­tions in a mar­ket known for its sec­tar­i­an squab­bles was their own prayer for the city.

In oth­er words, you’ll be missed.

So if you’re in the area be sure to get out tonight to Tri­tone to see the Notekillers, a Thurston Moore favorite as well as local noiseniks Clock­clean­er, and/or tomor­row night at the M‑Room for Drag­on City, Philadel­phi­a’s most dev­as­tat­ing shoegaze onslaught.

[Inci­den­tal­ly, those Doc Wat­son’s days were crazy. And by crazy I’m refer­ring to the ratio of med stu­dents gone week­end war­rior who want­ed to hear Dave Matthew’s “Crazy” on the upstairs juke­box while play­ing pool and drink­ing over­priced beers while indie rock­ers and assort­ed hip­sters shuf­fled polite­ly into the per­for­mance space to hear the likes of Alan Sparhawk and his Chair­kick­ers crew, French Toast, This Radi­ant Boy and, most unlike­ly, Cher­ry Coke. And who could for­get the Hal­loween show, com­plete with bob­bing for apples? A favorite!]