Tag Archives: Philadelphia

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?”

What Cliff Lee Means to Me

I ran a quick search of the archives here at Ram­say­ings before I start­ed writ­ing this post. Felt sure I’d writ­ten about Cliff Lee before, because, real­ly, how has any­one with an inter­est in the Phillies not writ­ten about him? Whether it was his acqui­si­tion at the dead­line in ’09 or his inex­plic­a­ble trade before Roy Hal­la­day arrived, I’ve some­how man­aged to not direct­ly address the mag­i­cal left hander.

My first mem­o­ry of Cliff Lee is a fond one. Char­lie fell asleep on my chest while we laid on the couch, watch­ing Cliff car­ry a no-hit­ter through six innings. It was every­thing skep­ti­cal Phillies fans want­ed to see in their new stud pitch­er. I mean, how many play­ers had we acquired in the past that just did­n’t work out? What is Travis Lee up to, after all? Lee’s acqui­si­tion showed that the Phillies orga­ni­za­tion was seri­ous about being a con­tender and not just a flash in the pan. It was a refresh­ing change from my youth, when the Phils were rou­tine­ly a door­mat and most Philadel­phia teams found unin­spir­ing ways to trade away their top-tier tal­ent for lit­tle return.

That was just how we felt when Lee was trad­ed in the 2009 off­sea­son. Three nobod­ies who aren’t even seen as devel­op­ing tal­ent that can suc­ceed at the pro­fes­sion­al lev­el. We may only ever know Tyson Gillies for his run-in with the law last year. It was about mon­ey and restock­ing the farm sys­tem, we were told. Seemed an awful way to dis­pense with a play­er who sin­gle-hand­ed­ly pitched us back into the ’09 series.

Now it seems the Phillies are aton­ing for all of Philadel­phi­a’s sports sins. It’s as if Ruben Amaro is mak­ing us for­get every bad trade and draft pick and free agent acqui­si­tion. Makes it eas­i­er to for­get how Barkley and Schiling exit­ed or how Shawn Bradley arrived. It’s a reas­sur­ance that last sea­son was a pre­cur­sor to the fall. We’re not sell­ing off yet. The Phillies are trans­form­ing Philadel­phia into a knowl­edge­able, pas­sion­ate base­ball town like it’s nev­er been before. The Four Horse­men ride!

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.

Check Out Nightlands New Video

My friend Mark made it. It’s pret­ty cool, so I’m shar­ing it, but chances are you saw it on Pitch­fork or pret­ty much every blog in the known uni­verse. It’s that good! So are Night­lands. Can’t wait to see them play the Ox in late Jan­u­ary. It’s gonna be down­right cozy in that icebox!

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?