music

Whither Original Geek Jobs?

When I was grow­ing up, I always dreamt of work­ing at a record store. Whether I was in Kutz­town, NYC or Philly, I’d always drop off an appli­ca­tion and say a prayer for a few hours a week at a cool shop, most­ly to sub­si­dize my record habit.

Now those gigs, along with sim­i­lar ones at book and movie rental shops, are dis­ap­pear­ing. What’s a geeky kid to do for those jobs we take on sum­mer break, or those we take after, say, get­ting out of grad school?

Sure, you can always sign on at a temp staffing firm, but where’s the fun in that? I know plen­ty of peo­ple who’d soon­er take a job that paid less at a cool shop. What those gigs don’t have in pay, they make up in pres­tige. How can one do under­em­ploy­ment in style these days?

I Met Ryan Madson at Yo La Tengo

Proof that Philly’s still weird: I met Phillies’ set-up man Ryan Mad­son at the Troc’s down­stairs bar at Yo La Ten­go last Thurs­day night.

He was floored by the band, call­ing it “pure music,” ask­ing if they were on iTunes and was just an all-around sweet guy. He also shared that his dad played in a band like that in the ’70s. (Ryan, if you ever find this post, can we talk about your dad’s band?)

Me? I played it cool. You see, Ryan Mad­son is one of just two Phillies that I have a rehearsed sto­ry about their career. My Mad­son moment? 7 relief innings against the Mets. He gave up a homer to Bel­tran in the 13th, but I told him that he real­ly showed some­thing there. Gut­ting it out as a strug­gling young pitch­er ain’t easy any­where, let alone Philly, but he did it. Can’t wait until he’s our clos­er in 2012.

Yo La Ten­go? Pre­dictably great, although the cru­el wheel (pic­tured above) fell on Sounds of Sci­ence, Part 2. Ouch. Def­i­nite­ly a “for fans only” set that was a slow burn. They fin­ished with a daz­zling sec­ond set that blew Ryan Mad­son’s mind. “Does­n’t it sound like 6 peo­ple are on stage?”

Party Photographers, Slutever at Younglove’s

Caught some amaz­ing local bands at Youn­glove’s last night. Final­ly saw the Par­ty Pho­tog­ra­phers, who total­ly lived up to the hype. Real­ly fun band. Friend­ly peo­ple, too. Check them out over on their Band­camp page. Watch them play Fleet­wood Mac’s “Rhi­an­non” in the video above.

Sur­prise of the night was Slutev­er, who filled in for a last-minute can­cel­la­tion. They were AWESOME! So much fun. You should prob­a­bly get Sor­ry I’m Not Sor­ry right now.

Spe­cial thanks to Mark and Erin for the lift and the banh mi! Thanks to Youn­glove’s, too! Great lit­tle spot and Dock Street is right across the street. Hard to beat if you’re thirsty and want a bite to eat before a gig out in west Philly.

In Praise of Local Music

Know what’s been on my mind late­ly? Local music! Lots of it. I just caught the Purl­ing Hiss bug last week . Just got hand­ed the new Prowler CD by my favorite bar­tender at Mem­phis Tap­room, Kei­th. Ran into Ports of Call there, too. Snagged the new Woe disc. Watch­ing Shak­ing Through videos with Par­ty Pho­tog­ra­phers and Read­ing Rain­bow. (Give Shak­ing Through some mon­ey, okay?) Picked up the new Sun Air­way LP. Need to get that Night­lands record ASAP. Turns out there’s more to the Philly music scene than Dr. Dog. Who knew?

Lots of peo­ple did. I’m lit­er­al­ly the last guy to the par­ty. Why? Nev­er paid much atten­tion to the local scene when I was com­ing up as a rock crit­ic because Doug Wallen had that beat cov­ered like a blan­ket and I was­n’t all that impressed with what was hap­pen­ing back in the mid-’00s, apart from bands like Man Man and Espers. That’s changed. And how.

Sure, some of it can be chalked up to me not being paid to care about music any­more. Lis­ten­ing to new music became a chore. Feel like I missed lots of great stuff because I tuned out, but now I’m back with open ears. In fact, I’m arrang­ing inter­views with some of the bands list­ed above now. Can’t wait to chat with some of these artists and show­case a renewed Philly music scene!

So tell me: who are your favorite local bands?