Tag Archives: Philadelphia

Quick Shout to Some Locals

Want to know the secret to qual­i­ty blog­ging? It’s easy: pub­lish or per­ish. It’s a les­son I’ve tried to give myself here, off and on, for a good, oh, six (sev­en?) years since the days I was an under­em­ployed ex-grad stu­dent rail­ing on Blog­ger. With every relapse I promise to write more. To recom­mit to this often very reward­ing, if lit­tle read, blog. Too often it’s in vain.

I know I’m not alone. One of the meth­ods I think I’ll employ to revive Kens­ing­ton Blues is to reach out to the local blo­gos­phere more fre­quent­ly. You know, the pow­er of pos­i­tive rein­force­ment. Not only is it good to encour­age the folks you like most online, it’s mutu­al­ly reward­ing. Just the sort of thing to make you get back into the game.

In light of this, I thought I’d men­tion two folks whose work has­n’t gone unno­ticed by this read­er. Marisa has brought her old stand­by, Apart­ment 2024, back to life with a love­ly assort­ment of pho­tos and brief descrip­tions. It’s the sort of thing that I often dream of doing, a thought that usu­al­ly cul­mi­nates in me won­der­ing if it would look bet­ter on Word­Press or if I should just ditch and move to Tum­blr. It’s the per­fect way to doc­u­ment a life. No hifa­lutin man­i­festos here, just great pic­tures and notes on a sim­ple, ele­gant life. Hats off!

I’d be remiss if I did­n’t men­tion my co-work­er Karl Mar­ti­no’s work over at Philly Future. Kar­l’s been the care­tak­er there since my ear­li­est days of dis­cov­er­ing the Philly blo­gos­phere. You want some­one up to their ears in hyper­local? Kar­l’s been doing it before that became a buzz­word. Hell, I’ve often thought that if philly.com were seri­ous about rein­vent­ing itself, they’d ask Karl what he was able to fig­ure out so long ago.

Late­ly, Kar­l’s been play­ing cura­tor once again, bring­ing a bit of that Dar­ing Fire­ball mojo to the site. If you’re a cyn­ic like me who thinks blog­ging is, like, total­ly dead, think again. Kar­l’s still find­ing great folks doing cool stuff in the Philly area. Stop over there and spend some time catch­ing up.

My Two Cents on Philly Beer Week

Philly Beer Week real­ly works for a select con­stituen­cy, main­ly the guys who are cov­er­ing the local beer scene. The rest of us can par­take in the bajil­lion events hap­pen­ing all over the place if we like, but if arti­cles like this one are any indi­ca­tion, Philly Beer Week has more in com­mon with the local music scene in Octo­ber than any­one would like to admit. Guys, all these events do is just can­ni­bal­ize each oth­er! (Hat tip to Lew Bryson for shar­ing that link on Face­book. I would’ve total­ly missed that piece in all the hoopla.)

I noticed an insight­ful tid­bit from Mithras, a great Philly blog­ger I’d not read in a lit­tle while. He wrote:

I under­stand that bars have to pay a fee to PBW to par­tic­i­pate. One bar own­er told me it was $500. With 1,000 venues, that’s a lot of rev­enue. Of course it’s in PBW’s inter­est to have more and more events — but it’s not in bar own­ers’ or in beer drinkers’ interests.

So there’s the fol­low the mon­ey angle, if PBW orga­niz­ers have no skin in the game for week to be a suc­cess­ful one from a stand­point of curat­ing a great city­wide beer experience.

Of course, I’m with the folks who just think that hav­ing Philly Beer Week dur­ing the first week of June is just sil­ly. I man­aged to get over to Mem­phis Tap­room — which is lit­er­al­ly around the cor­ner from my house, as I’ve writ­ten repeat­ed­ly — exact­ly twice. Helen and I squeezed in a quick din­ner and drinks before the Erykah Badu con­cert and I made it back over one evening for a hasty Hap­py Hour with Char­lie in my lap. I prob­a­bly drank three beers total at Mem­phis Tap­room that week, which is actu­al­ly few­er than most weeks.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the idea of mak­ing a fuss over Philly Beer Week. When I talk to beer-lov­ing friends who live else­where they nev­er for­get to remind me just how lucky I am to be a Penn­syl­van­ian, PLCB notwith­stand­ing. We need to cel­e­brate what makes this state so spe­cial to the micro­brew cul­ture that’s matur­ing into a sus­tain­able busi­ness and not just lux­u­ry brews for beer snobs. But aren’t we cel­e­brat­ing that very thing night­ly in this town? Do we real­ly need big­ger, bet­ter, faster, more? Philly Beer Week is verg­ing on SXSW Music in terms of sheer scope and insanity.

Jack Curtin seems to feel the same way. Sure, March can be tricky, too, what with the whole St. Patrick­’s Day thing, to say noth­ing of the impend­ing 96 team field for March Mad­ness, which may add an addi­tion­al week­end to the pro­ceed­ings. Fac­tor in the lousy weath­er we had this win­ter and maybe Philly Beer Week dodged a bul­let by mov­ing to June. With any luck, the orga­niz­ers will work some of the kinks out for next year and it’ll be the dream event every­one wants it to be.

(In case you’re won­der­ing, I drank a delight­ful impe­r­i­al stout from Brew­Dog called Tokyo. I thought it’d do me in. Need I men­tion what an amaz­ing job Leigh, Bren­dan and the crew do over at Mem­phis Tap­room dur­ing Philly Beer Week? No Repeat Beer Week for me is the epit­o­me of what makes Philly such a great beer town. My neigh­bor­hood bar can cre­ate the entire expe­ri­ence in a micro­cosm! As they say where I grew up, ‘Nix besser!’)

Erykah Badu and Janelle Monae

Caught them at the Tow­er The­atre Tues­day night. Cap­ti­vat­ing show. Janelle Mon­ae is an incen­di­ary per­former. I feel bad for any artist who has to fol­low her act. She’s James Brown rein­car­nate with a dash of Sun Ra’s out­er space imagery for good mea­sure. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen any­one sing and dance so well in a live set­ting, much less the some­times hol­low Tow­er, which can be a tough room to warm up even for sea­soned performers.

Her ener­gy com­plete­ly over­shad­owed Bilal’s set, who coast­ed a bit on the strength of the home­town crowd. I must admit that his cov­er of Led Zep­pelin’s “Since I’ve Been Lov­ing” you was a bit inspired, although his band did­n’t real­ly have the chops to real­ly dri­ve it home. As Dan DeLu­ca observes, Bilal had what it takes to be a neo-soul star in the mak­ing back in 2001; now, some nine years removed, who does­n’t shud­der when they hear “neo-soul?”

Erykah Badu mes­mer­ized the audi­ence. Her mere pres­ence com­mand­ed the room’s atten­tion and she held it for two hours, pos­sess­ing them with a mix­ture of songcraft and guile. Badu is a for­tu­nate mem­ber of the neo-soul scene, expe­ri­enc­ing some­thing of a renais­sance since she began the New Amerykah series in 2008. She’s incor­po­rat­ed ele­ments that draw on Par­lia­ment and Funkadel­ic, updat­ing her once staid, Star­bucks soul sound. Even the stuff from her 1997 debut, Baduizm, did­n’t sound dat­ed thir­teen years on. She is a singer at the height of her pow­ers and if you miss her, you’re real­ly miss­ing some­thing special.

Free Energy — “Bang Pop”

[myspace]http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=105056239[/myspace]

I know I haven’t post­ed any­thing music-relat­ed here late­ly. I got myself wrapped around the axle there for a bit about the future of music and could­n’t find a way to unwind. Pret­ty sure I’ve put that behind me and will hap­pi­ly be post­ing more stuff that I like here.

So Free Ener­gy? I’m real­ly into their lead sin­gle, “Bang Pop.” I know it got a whop­ping 8.1 on Pitch­fork, yet it’s failed to real­ly catch fire online, at least from where I sit. Does it rein­vent rock music? Nope. Is it still a ton of fun? Yup! If I weren’t on baby duty tonight I might’ve snuck over to the First Uni­tar­i­an Church tonight to see them in per­son. If you were look­ing for a sum­mer jam that’s not by Ludacris or Katie Per­ry, you’ve prob­a­bly found it in this gem.

A Quick Word on Philly Pizza

The Philadel­phia piz­za scene is hor­ri­ble. I know Doug Wallen ded­i­cat­ed a small part of his life to assess­ing the Philly piz­za cul­ture and I’m sor­ry to not have tak­en part. I have, how­ev­er, sam­pled more than my fair share of piz­za and, con­trary to pop­u­lar belief, nev­er favored any par­tic­u­lar spot just out of dumb neigh­bor­hood loyalty.

Part of the prob­lem is that peo­ple will set­tle for bad piz­za. I would not. I tried piz­zas all over town in a quest to find some­thing I could hon­est­ly endorse with­out reser­va­tion. It was impos­si­ble. Peo­ple would rec­om­mend their favorite spots and I’d bring a pie home only to dis­cov­er their favorite was­n’t up to snuff.

Helen and I had been feast­ing on Gian­fran­co’s piz­za, which I would pick up down at 3rd and Mar­ket. It was­n’t bad and was a far cry bet­ter than most of the deliv­ery spots that serve Port Fish­ing­ton. (I’m sor­ry Rus­ti­ca, but your piz­zas are all too smoky and sog­gy for my per­son­al taste. San­tuc­ci’s isn’t bad, actu­al­ly, but out­side the deliv­ery range.)

We decid­ed enough was a enough and dri­ving that dis­tance for piz­za was just sil­ly. We searched the neigh­bor­hood for some­thing decent, but Cas­sizzi’s was­n’t cut­ting it. We final­ly had to break down and take the nuclear option: call­ing ahead for pick­up at Tac­conel­li’s.

I’ve put this off for some time. We know it by rep­u­ta­tion and had even tried it a cou­ple times, but weren’t so blown away that it seemed worth plac­ing a piz­za order at 11 a.m. Piz­za is a spon­ta­neous dinner!

Well, after two con­sec­u­tive nights of Tac­conel­li’s piz­za, I can safe­ly say we’ve been con­vert­ed. It’s worth the has­sle, espe­cial­ly if you live with­in five min­utes dri­ve of Tac­conel­li’s like we do. We’re no longer piz­za nomads, wan­der­ing Philly’s desert.