Ron Gallo and The Lawsuits @ Spruce Street Harbor Park.
Spruce Street Harbor Park, a pop-up spot just below Penn’s Landing, officially opens today but last night, around 800 people were given early access for the #whyilovephilly party, which featured the record release celebration of Ron Gallo‘s debut solo album, Ronny.
Ron was joined on stage in front of the Christopher Columbus monument by members of his other project, Toy Soldiers, as well as Reed Kendall from Up The Chain.
Up The Chain kicked off the evening’s performances, followed by a rousing set from The Lawsuits.
Ron and the band then performed most of the songs from the new album and he sang a tribute of “That’s amore” to honor his grandfather, who recently passed away.
While the performances were great, the clear star of the evening was the illuminated park, with multi-person hammocks hanging from the trees and beer and food stations along the brand new, two block-long boardwalk. There are video games, bocce ball courts, a beer garden and lots of places to sit and chill.
This should be a fun spot to hang all summer.
We’ve got a pair of tickets for you to see Broken Bells at the Electric Factory on September 27.
Like us on facebook and email us at FreeJumpStuff@gmail.com to enter to win a pair of tickets (give us your name and put “Broken Bells” in the subject line).
Tickets for the show go on sale Friday morning. Check here tomorrow if you want to buy tickets.
The Delaware River Waterfront Corporation is the non-profit organization that manages Penn’s Landing and other publicly owned land on the river on behalf of the city and state. This summer, they have a lot of concerts, events and attractions planned, as they’re trying to get people to appreciate the underutilized space. Our G.W. Miller III spoke with Jodie Milkman, DRWC’s vice president for marketing, programming and corporate sponsorships, about the reasons behind their busy schedule.
This summer’s programming seems more ambitious than in recent years.
We’re really excited about the idea of the Spruce Street Harbor Park (in the artist’s rendering above). The idea is to create a park that many people can use in may different ways (it opens tomorrow). We’re going to hang hammocks from the trees so that people can come down and lounge in the garden. We’re building a boardwalk, literally, between Spruce Street and Dock Street on the waterfront. There will be funnel cake and midway type games, bocce courts and other things to activate the park.
Where did the funding come from?
It was funded originally by a grant we received from Art Place America, which provides funding to create great new civic spaces. We put in for a million dollars and we got around $300,000. We’ve had to fund the difference out of DWRC operating and capital. But this type of programming is very consistent with our Master Plan for the Central Delaware, which calls for a great civic space every half-mile along the central Delaware waterfront.
One of the challenges of the waterfront is that people say it feels disconnected from the city. We are trying very hard to improve pedestrian and vehicular connections between the city and the waterfront wherever possible. The marina here is one of the greatest assets that we have on the central Delaware River waterfront. Here, you can get in the water, you can feel the water, you can connect with the water.
You’re allowed to get in the water?
Well, you wouldn’t go swimming but you can kayak or ride a swan boat in it.
It sounds like you’re more interested in drawing in locals rather than tourists.
We want to reconnect Philadelphia with its waterfront. The more people that will enjoy assets like this will want to live, work and play in the city, which is ultimately the goal. We want to make the area more appetizing for when the economy bounces back and the development returns.
You want to show that there is feasibility to developing on the waterfront?
This demonstrates the potential of people finding the area and the value of this area.
Between The Buried and Me @ The TLA.
Text and images by Rick Kauffman.
For what may be their final show of 2014, Between the Buried and Me said farewell with one final stop in Philadelphia on Monday night. Having seen their recent tour with Meshuggah come to an end in New York City just two nights prior, the boys from North Carolina felt it fitting to make one final stop.
“We figured since we’d be passing through that we’d make one final in our favorite place to play,” guitarist Paul Waggoner said of Philadelphia.
Fourth of July is fast approaching and many folks are bailing all next week to hit the beach or whatever.
Philly seems to be trying to start the holiday season even earlier, as there are a ton of great shows on Thursday. Here are five shows to get you in the party mode.
Reef the Lost Cauze at Kung Fu Necktie
Our cover artist from the summer 2013 issue (above) headlines a night of local rap talent, including DJ Caliph, Johnny Popcorn, Milton and Slaughter Rico.
Ron Gallo, The Lawsuits and Up The Chain at Spruce Street Harbor
Ron Gallo, the frontman from local Americana faves Toy Soldiers, dropped his debut solo album on Tuesday. He’ll celebrate the release at the opening of Spruce Street Harbor, a stunning pop-up park just south of Penn’s Landing. The event is sold out but it’s probably still worth trying to get in. The park officially opens to the public on Friday.
Lovers League at Johnny Brenda’s
Lovers League, which is the pairing of Dani Mari and Reverend TJ McGlinchey, will celebrate the release of their debut album with a lineup of great area acts.
Former Blonde Gang frontman Bok Nero is now on his own. He headlines this showcase of local talent. The show is only $5.
The Antlers dropped their latest album, Familiars, a few weeks ago and it is sublime. It’s the first release in three years and it is getting rave reviews.
JUMP Presents the Red Bull Sound Select Featuring Spank Rock, Prowler, Mumblr and DJ SYLO on July 19.
We’re very excited to announce that our summer issue cover artist, Spank Rock, will headline the July Red Bull Sound Select show at Underground Arts on July 19. Tickets are only $3 if you RSVP here (you do not need to pay up front).
JUMP curated the lineup and we invited Mumblr and Prowler to open, with DJ SYLO spinning throughout the evening.
This should be a crazy party. Our last show, featuring the reunion of Plastic Little, was a blast (see here for photo evidence).
You can find out what’s in the summer issue of JUMP here.
Make Music Philly @ Molestice with Biadazminae, De Tierra Caliente , Black Dirty and More.
Text and image by Tyler Horst.
Make Music Philly day was in full swing all over the city on Saturday, even in the places that are harder to find. The Molestice block party may have offered it’s longstanding private tradition to a wider audience but it didn’t lose any of its intimate charm.
Mole Street, hidden between Race and Cherry, is an oasis of quiet in the middle of Center City. The big trees sprouting up from the sidewalk blanket the tiny block in calm, making it seem unbelievable that City Hall is only a few streets away. It’s got the quaint neighborhood vibe of the kind of place where you’d actually know the name of the person living next door, and the Molestice block party has been fostering that sense of community for 35 years.
Text by Rick Kauffman. Image by Timothy O’Donnell.
Sweating in the back of a tour bus in the middle of summer, no AC, wearing nothing but a pair of soccer shorts and a guitar on his knee while Ozzfest carried on outside, Between the Buried and Me bassist Dan Briggs felt that he and the rest of the band simply didn’t belong.
“It was lowest low of the band in the ten years I’ve been with them,” Briggs said. “We didn’t feel like we fit in at all. We were grouped in with these bands and we really wanted to step outside.”
Briggs had begun writing the tracks ‘White Walls’ and ‘Son of Nothing’ in the back of that bus, tracks that would become focal points on their breakout album Colors, released in the summer of 2007. Thrown in the mix just an album prior, Briggs, an Erie, Pa. native, felt like there just “too many cooks in the kitchen” while writing their third album Alaska.
Briggs joined the band in 2005, when the two remaining members of BTBAM, lead singer Tommy Rodgers and guitarist Paul Waggoner, were fit to be tied. After two full lengths, they were at wit’s end trying to write the third album and brought in Briggs, drummer Blake Richardson and guitarist Dustie Waring to move the writing process forward.
“We were all thrown in a room together,” Briggs said. “It was tough, it was sometimes a struggle to know where songs were going.”
But, in writing Colors, the first album written in entirety by the lineup appearing tonight at the Theatre of Living Arts in Philadelphia, would change the complexion of the progressive metal outfit, taking them from being pigeonholed in a congested genre to breaking out to new ears.
“Right after it came out, we were on tour with Dream Theater and Open,” Briggs said. “We got to do some heavy touring with Dillinger Escape Plan and Mushugga. That opened up a broader world for us to tour with bands that would have originally shied away from a band like us.”
Once the flood gates opening in the writing process from Colors, which draws influences from 70s progressive rock and fills with blues, jazz, bluegrass (yes, a banjo) and piano ballads all the while remaining true to metal roots, they started pouring all kinds of influences into the process.
“We thought, ‘let’s see what we can get away with,’” Briggs said of their 2009 album The Great Misdirect. “We were really throwing everything into the mixing bowl.”
However, on their most recent full-length, 2012’s Parallax II: Future Sequence, Briggs felt that the band “really honed in on our songwriting.”
Starting with what Briggs calls a “big, quasi-Rush inspired opening,” Parallax II was the first album that the band wrote as both vocally and conceptually continuous. The lyrics convey a story about an astronaut marooned in space, as he drifts further and further away from home he recounts all the emotions one feels as they say ‘goodbye to everything.’
“When writing something so thematic or conceptual, like when you look at ‘Darkside of the Moon’ they’re made up of five or six different themes, they take on different qualities depending on where they’re placed,” Briggs said. “It was important to start off big.”
Tonight, at the TLA on South Street, Between the Buried and Me will do it big on the final stop of their nation-wide tour. Doors open at 7:30, opening acts are Alustrium, Cognitive and Koanashi.
See here for tickets.
Images by Marie Alyse Rodriguez.
Eagles linebacker Connor Barwin‘s foundation, Make the World Better, held their debut fundraiser on Friday with a concert at Union Transfer featuring a killer lineup – Kurt Vile and the Violators, The Districts and The Tontons.
The $120,000 raised at the event will go to help renovate a playground in South Philadelphia.
To learn more about Barwin and his project, see our Q&A with him here.
Scenes From Make Music Philly Day 2014.
Images by Beth Ann Downey and G.W. Miller III.
We were all over the place on Saturday for the second annual Make Music Philly celebration. More than 300 musicians – ranging from classical pianists to funk masters, jammed at more than 56 locations – from street corners to the Great Plaza at Penn’s Landing, for a total of more than 200 free performances throughout the day.
JUMP: The Philly Music Project 