Jeffro Kilpatrick: The Rhythm Of The Artist.
Text and art by Jeffro Kilpatrick.
On Saturday, I have an art show at Masthead Gallery based entirely on some of my favorite songs and lyrics. The title of the show is “Norris Street MixTape.”
My dad always had records on when I was a kid, and my grandpop had this extensive record collection of old timey music. Both my house and my grandparents’ house were on Norris Street in Fishtown, so I figure that’s where this all starts.
When I draw, music is always playing, giving my hand a rhythm. Music has a direct effect on my work that I can’t get from studying other visual art. You can absorb music and process it while drawing, and it can affect your line quality. These are the first pieces I started for the show. I drew both in my Moleskine sketchbook.
I drew this deep sea diver piece while sitting on the edge of one of the abandoned Greenberg piers in Fishtown.
It was 5 a.m. on a Sunday. I was drinking coffee and drawing as the sun came up. The E.L.O. song “Livin’ Thing” shuffled onto my iPod. Because I was tired, lost in the drawing and my music was so loud, I didn’t notice that the murky green water of the Delaware River was rising to the edge of the pier. A tugboat cruised by on the channel and pushed out a residual wave that eventually splashed over me.
I came out of a daze and realized that my feet were submerged in the Delaware River. It made me laugh. The tide was coming in, not going out. This piece will be fully colored when framed for the show.
The other piece is based on Nick Lowe’s “The Beast In Me,” which he wrote for his then father-in-law Johnny Cash. Cash recorded it on his American Recordings album in 1994. The song is simple and sad and beautiful. I’d say this is hands-down my favorite Johnny Cash tune. I heard it for the first time years ago in college. It’s gradually become kind of like my personal theme song.
There will be around 30 pieces in the show, all based upon songs with meanings to me. There will also be limited edition prints for sale. Plus, I will be giving away free, crazy CD mixes with every purchase.
The Spinning Leaves: Serious, Honest and Unbridled.
In the basement of the Wolf Building at 12th and Callowhill, a group of friends, family and newcomers are bathed by the cool purple lights in Underground Arts, a new creative incubator. By the merch table, Michael Baker’s red suit and shimmering ruby neck pendant draw people to the 7-inch copy of The Spinning Leaves latest EP Head Aglow.
Barbara Gettes’ boots click and clack as she approaches the table, and two musical architects of the indie/folk project, The Spinning Leaves, are united.
“There is an honesty that came out with the album,” Gettes begins
“Our first album was an explosion of love,” Baker continues as he adjusts his purple Hawaiian shirt covered in fish and seashells. “It was happy, magical and exciting!”
“And dreamy,” Gettes adds.
“This one is serious and honest,” Baker says, and then takes another drag from his cigarette. “It’s about power unbridled, fire and dreams.”
Head Aglow carves out the reality of the pursuit of love, music and life for the Spinning Leaves, Gettes notes with sincerity. The EP was released in late April, near the anniversary of the start of a cross-country tour last year. In the months after that adventure and their return to Philadelphia in August, The Spinning Leaves wrote Head Aglow, re-establishing the relationship of the bandmates and their ability to communicate through music.
“It’s about relationships,” Baker explains as he glances at Barbara. “When two people come together, they can just mess with each other in a zillion different ways. It’s the most beautiful thing to not be alone but at the same time you can hurt each other as much as you can help. It’s a beautiful, spacey waltz, a meditation on the fact that there are two people right beside each other and it’s beautiful that they are together. But there is beauty and ugliness to it all the same time.”
Gettes and Baker sing together throughout the track “Knife Arms.” They speak to each other in the song, revealing some painful truths. The track traces the ups and downs of a weathering relationship, which was hard to sing about at first Gettes admits.
The second track, “Shades of Red,” is about a burning fire. Baker notes that it was the only song they wrote together completely. Although they had so much to say to each other, music was the only way to fix the distance in their own lives.
“We had lost sight that music was our joy,” he says. “We were talking about what we were doing instead of doing it.”
Mallrat Records Drops Cousin Brian’s Debut Album.
Big ups to Nicole Snyder (above, right) of Slutever, whose newly formed label, Mallrat Records, drops their first official album today. It’s 11-tracks of upbeat, summer-sounding, new wave-ish, lo-fi punk from Philly’s own Cousin Brian.
The four-piece band’s debut album, First, will drop as a Coke-bottle-clear 12” vinyl (in a limited edition of 250 copies). You can preview the album below, and get your actual album next Tuesday at the release party at Hong Kong Garden (featuring Slutever, White Girls and Jackie Paper, as well as Cousin Brian). Pre-order the album here to make sure you get the special disc.
DMX @ The TLA (Eventually).
Text and images by Chris Malo.
Walking up to the TLA this past Sunday night for the “The Weigh In” DMX Promo tour, it became immediately clear that this was no ordinary show for Earl Simmons (aka DMX) when I bumped into Irv Gotti and his lovely companion getting out of his convertible Bentley coupe parked immediately in front of the venue.
South Street was looking like the Greek and everyone there was anticipating an epic night. And they weren’t disappointed. Even if Dog Man X didn’t arrive until nearly midnight.
Between 9 p.m. and X’s arrival, people tolerated the standard garbage rap, each group trying to out yell, out curse, out kill, out slang and out thug the next. There was one shining moment for the openers though, when Chinko Da Great took the stage. Dude was good, not a one trick pony like the 99 percent of recycled garbage out there. Good beats, his flow was on point, he enunciated each word, had a flow which he switched up, and wasn’t the only dude in his click that could rap. He was definitely the standout, but his teammates weren’t trash either. Don’t be surprised if you see him in the next issue of JUMP magazine.
Eventually one of the hosts of the evening, 107.9’s DJ Damage came clean and announced that DMX’s tour bus had “broken down” and that he was running late.
After Kid Cudi’s “private jet” issues and no-show at the Roots Picnic, I was a little skeptical. But a short time later when the Ruff Ryder‘s Philadelphia division took the stage in their leather motorcycle vests, I knew that the show would actually go on.
There are some rappers whose live performance is a crap-shoot. Some are great in the studio and terrible on stage. Other times, people are just too wasted to perform. And other times it seems like they don’t give a fuck and are inconvenienced by fans who paid money to see them do what has made them popular. (Increasingly, as rap is reaching its fourth decade, age is also becoming a factor. Fuck.)
But when the man clad in a black T reading “Made in the Ghetto” and a black bucket hat ran on stage, you would of thought it was a dude that was eager to get put on. Not someone who has been in the game for more than 15 years. It was as if X had something to prove. And with a spotty can’t-stay-out-of-jail track record as of late, maybe he does. But when DMX took the stage, all his sins were forgiven.
DMX tore it the fuck down. I’m not sure if the fans fed off of X’s energy or if he fed off the fan’s energy. It was probably some of both.
Starting close to midnight, the 45 minute set was full of some of rap’s most celebrated and classic tracks. He climbed the speaker tower to perform the Ruff Ryder anthem, and then took us to church with “Slippin,'” the single that put X on the map, “Get At Me Dog,” “Who We Be,” “We Right Here,” his verse off of Mase’s “24 Hours To Live.” You get the idea.
He commanded the stage – constantly in motion, animated, pouring out an entire bottle of Hennessy in the press pit, barking, growling, serenading the ladies, talking to the audience. DMX did not disappoint. At all. Even if he was crazy late, even if I stood for hours, even if it was only 45 minutes long, it would be hard to say it wasn’t one of the best and most memorable shows I have seen.
Get at me dog.
The Jeffrey Palace: Like a Hipster Frat House.
Text by Brittany Thomas. Image by Rick Kauffman.
When your house is, on any given night of the week, swarming with your bandmates, their bandmates and their bandmates’ bandmates, then the thing to do is just surrender and turn that place into an all-out underground music venue. Well, that’s the conclusion 23-year-old Victor Genarro came to, anyway.
The Jeffrey Palace started out a few years before Genarro got there in 2010 as a sort of home base for a group of local film students. But for the past two years, the place has been a rotating house of musicians. And while on any given night of the week it might appear to be a house of 20-something’s like any other, on at least one night per month, these people pack all four stories of their home by hosting shows that headline bands like Philly locals The Lawsuits and Toy Soldiers, Wilmington’s The Spinto Band and London’s The Brute Chorus.
“We had no neighbors and a ton of musician friends with awesome equipment,” says Genarro, who currently plays in three bands – Mount Joy, Rebecca Way and the Lesbians, and Los Ombres, all of which practice in the Jeffrey’s basement.
Five people reside among the dozens of guitars, bicycles and empty bottles.
“It’s a freakin’ hipster frat house,” Genarro jokes. “What can you expect?”
They’re really not trying to make the place anything more than what it is. They aim to provide an alternative space where bands can play and promote one another in a totally laid-back setting, where people can come out, have a few drinks, do some dancing and wind up mingling with the bands.
“We like to book our shows with really small bills, typically two bands and a DJ,” says Genarro. “We encourage short, tight, awesome sets where we say, ‘Play your best eight and kill it on the floor.’ Typically, we do one band at 11p.m. and the other at midnight. That way everyone’s drunk and trying to dance. It works out really well for both bands.”
For the more up-and-coming bands, the space provides an awesome opportunity to meet other musicians and play in a totally unpretentious, positive environment. For the better known groups, it’s a great break from the typical scene. And some big names have and will continue to make appearances at the Jeffrey, thanks to a sweet connection with the London-based collective SoFar Sounds.
SoFar Sounds does what they call “viral tours” in cities all over the world, where they host bands in more intimate, alternative spaces. When they book in Philly, the Jeffrey is their go-to spot.
“One night they’re here,” boasts Genarro, “and the next, they’re putting on a show in a $12 million loft apartment in South London!”
The place operates off of donations, with a good chunk going to the touring bands.
“We get all kinds of people here, from 19-year-old UArts chicks to 40-year-old dudes,” Genarro shares. “We see people come back to the door after finding money so they can donate. They’re having that good of a time!”
Ruben Polo: Emo Isn’t A Bad Word.
Our Elizabeth Price sits down with Ruben Polo, a guitarist with Facts, the 90’s era emo-style band, and post-hardcore/emo band Secret Plot to Destroy the Entire Universe. Photo by Rachel Wass.
Where are you from Ruben?
I’m originally from north-central New Jersey. I got lucky. I came up with bands from the New Brunswick screamo scene – The Assistant, You & I, Thursday. Most of the shows I went to were at a small club called Chrome in Perth Amboy.
When did Facts get together?
We started out of an old band I was in called Down, BEAST! There’s Brian Mach on drums, Douglass Horn on bass, Eric Picard plays guitar and Will Dickerson is our singer. We’ve been going strong since August.
You guys are recording right now, correct?
We finished up recording the full-length last month (March). Now we’re just waiting for the mixing and mastering to be done, which we’re doing ourselves. Dan Anderson, from my other band Secret Plot to Destroy the Entire Universe, has a background in mastering. He and I are going to put it out on vinyl through his Philly-based label, Kat Kat Records. This is Facts’ first full-length and we’re likely to have another EP done by the end of the year.
You shamelessly describe your two bands as emo. Do you see anything unique about the trajectory of the genre?
Oh yeah. Even little things like The Barbary doing Makeoutclub – the ad says in bold letters “EMO.” It definitely depends which generation you grew up in, and how you view the tag. To me the Cap’n Jazz scene got big here, about four or fives years ago. Algernon Cadwallader is a good example. It became a lot easier to do an almost emo/pop-punk that can get very loud and abrasive but still have very pretty guitars. It became fun again.
What do you like about the Philly music scene on the whole?
That if you put your ear to the ground, you can find a good show almost any night. There’s always something to do, and that really helps touring bands as well.
Have you always been based out of the Kensington-Port Richmond area?
I wish. I love it out here because no one can find me! All of my friends live in other parts of the city and they never want to come to Port Richmond because they’re scared of it. So, no one bothers me. And I have an excuse to not hang out!
Your house now, it has a name and you do shows out of it, correct?
Yes. TWOB-House, The Wrath of Bong. We’ve been doing shows on-and-off there for two years. It was great until a show in December got shut down. I did one more show in January and then called it quits for a while. Now, since I’m leaving (to tour) in three months I decided, fuck it. We’ll just stay until the cops show up.
You’re touring the country this summer with Secret Plot. Any shows here before you leave?
We’re trying to set it up. That band hit the ground running. We formed in November, toured in December. We put out a demo after four practices. Now, we just finished recording the drums for the full-length. I’m just trying to finish living out my stupid kid-in-the-van dream that I’ve had in my heart since I was a little kid. I’m giving myself until I’m 28. I’m 26 now. Just so I can say, “I’ve seen the country and played in someone’s basement in Utah.” Then I can go back and become, like, a normal person.
The Quarterly DIY: Your Website Is Your Home.
Anthony Caroto founded Origivation, a Philly music magazine, in 2001. He sold off the magazine in 2006 and then bounced around the country before returning to Philadelphia in 2010. Until very recently, he worked at The Grape Room in Manayunk, doing a variety of tasks including promotion and booking. For JUMP, he offers advice to young bands and musicians …
We signed up for MySpace, PureVolume, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, ReverbNation, GarageBand, BandCamp, Soundcloud and countless other help-your-band-get-noticed websites. Each site is slowly moving towards irrelevance – some have already arrived – as the next best thing waits for its moment to shine.
But through it all we’ve maintained a steady home, fortified from the fades of social media: our websites. Or have we?
Signing up for a social media site is easy and the allure is simple – it’s free and lots of other people already use it. Lots of people, but not everybody. To cast the widest net possible, your band needs a website. A http://www.[band name].com. All businesses need a website.
The benefits to having a website are instant. Potential fans have a starting point to discover your music, watch videos and know when and where you’re performing next. It also allows visitors to click their little hearts out and visit any of the social media sites your band is present on. This is, by far, more beneficial than just saying, “Check us out on Facebook, y’all!”
Now don’t panic – web design is not the big scary monster it used to be. In fact, the ability to build a site has been so dumbed-down for mass consumption that now anyone (including myself) can cover the basics.
To start, purchase the domain name of your band. If your band is called Taco Pudding, purchase TacoPudding.com. If you do this through GoDaddy.com, it’ll cost you $12.17 for one year – and that’s without all the add-ons like email (i.e. band@tacopudding.com), extra bandwidth, hosting, etc. You don’t need that stuff. Just buy the domain name. Forwarding this domain name is easy too. Just look for the tab that reads “domain management.”
So who’s hosting your site? Among your options are WordPress and CD Baby. WordPress is 100 percent free and easy to use. It’s synced up with Google Analytics and allows users to opt for the blog or static page format. CD Baby is also very good but will cost you $20 per month. The benefit of using CD Baby is that your site, and more specifically your music, will be distributed to all of the major outlets – iTunes, MP3.com, Amazon, etc. CD Baby is also tied in with managing your social media sites and allows users to organize and utilize an effective email list.
In the meantime, while your actual site is being worked on, it’s ok to temporarily forward your domain name to the social media site of your choice. Just be sure that the site you choose is up-to-date.
Jimmy Cliff @ The Mann Center.
Legendary reggae star Jimmy Cliff walked on to the stage Sunday at The Mann Center to the familiar sounds of the brass section playing the intro of “You Can Get It If You Really Want.”
It was a wonderful way to wrap up a long day of irie – he was the headliner of the Reggae in the Park festival – and it just got better. For his second song, Cliff performed a reggae version of Rancid’s classic “Ruby Soho” (Cliff covered the song on his 2011 album Sacred Fire).
Cliff seemed a bit hoarse but for a 64-year old who has been performing since before reggae actually originated, he was impressive. He sang, danced, plucked his guitar, banged a drum and revved up the crowd during a performance that became more and more energetic as the show progressed.
The only bad part was the crowd, which seemed subdued at the beginning of Cliff’s set. Most people sat in their seats even as Cliff bounced around the stage, kicking his gold shoes into the air.
When he played his 1964 ska classic “King of Kings,” he growled into the microphone and did some really awesome ska dancing (think: slow version of the mashed potatoes while moving sideways across the stage). His energy perked up the crowd, who rose to their feet and stayed there for the remainder of the set.
The left-handed Cliff played guitar for “Sitting in Limbo,” and he turned his anti-Vietnam war song into a riff against the war in Afghanistan.
Cliff and his nine-member band walked off the stage after about an hour of music and the crowd quickly began to disperse – even though Cliff had not yet played his biggest hit, “The Harder They Come.” It was disrespectful, really. Cliff is in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. He’s the only living musician holding the Jamaican title of Order of Merit. Calling him a legend is an understatement.
The band returned for a quick version of “One More,” and then left again. The small audience remaining cheered for more and Cliff obliged, playing his biggest hit for the final encore.
It was a classic performance by a consummate professional entertainer. He deserved a better audience. But the empty seats didn’t seem to bother Cliff at all.
Beres Hammond @ The Mann Center.
Jamaican reggae/soul singer Beres Hammond took the stage Sunday at The Mann Center just before headliner Jimmy Cliff played at the Reggae in the Park festival but gauging by the crowd’s reaction to Hammond, you’d think he was the star of the day.
Danzig Legacy @ The Electric Factory.
Text and images by Chad Sims.
For those who don’t know, Danzig Legacy is Glenn Danzig’s current touring project which includes songs from all three of the rock legend’s bands – Danzig, Samhain and Misfits.
The show last Thursday at the Electric Factory progressed in reverse chronological order of the bands before ending with a few last Danzig songs, including their biggest hit, “Mother.”
In a word, this show was epic. They played for just under two hours, and despite being 56-years old, Glenn brought the thunder for the duration. The man is a consummate performer who still has the pipes and the stage presence after all these years.
A pleasant surprise was current guitarist Tommy Victor (left), best known as the guitarist and singer of early 90s industrial thrash band Prong. His tone and performance added quite a bit to this show.
Having three bands worth of material to choose from, it was inevitable that some fan favorites would have to be left out. But the band definitely managed to hit most of their better known songs.
As would be expected, many in the audience were interested in hearing and seeing Glenn perform Misfits songs.
While the rest of the Misfits have been touring since the mid 90s, the band without him has always seemed almost like a cover version (which is somewhat true, as Glenn wrote most of the classic songs). It was great to hear him sing the songs that I have been listening to since high school including “Vampira,” “Night of the Living Dead” and “Last Caress.”
Long time Misfits guitarist Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein took the stage during this portion of show. Doyle’s stage performance is unusual to say the least but it was a treat to see him and Glenn on the same stage.
Kyng (below) and local metallers Samsara opened the show.
JUMP: The Philly Music Project 