Month: August 2003

For all those interested, the signup list for this week’s open mic at the Tree House is back online. You can now sign up for a specific slot, which will hopefully make scheduling the performers each night a little less stressful for me. You can also add in your website address, since no one ever felt like signing in.

I hope you like it!

We had a nice turnout for Friday and Saturday’s Tree House shows. Sarah, Cathy, Roz, Jason, Willie, Adrien, and Keith put on a great show. I ended up going on fairly late tonight and busted a freakin string during “I’m a Lesbian Trapped in a Man’s Body,” but other that that it went well. Adrien let me borrow her guitar, which was awesome because I’ve wanted to play it forever. I learned how to play on a Guild and they’re awesome guitars.

Here are some pictures from the Saturday show.

To those of you who couldn’t make it to the Tree House this weekend you missed….

1. Adrien’s rocking cover of “Walk Like an Egyptian”
2. Seeing Dom without his Gilligan hat. I always thought for sure he was bald or had a fin he hid underneath it.
3. Willie adjusting the fan for the performers.
4. Roz playing “Christmas in a Trailer Park” in August without anyone making obvious comments about how far away Christmas is.

Thanks to everyone who came just to hang out!For those interested, my set included:

99%
Thesis
The Genius of it All
Nirvana’s Serve the Servants
I Hope I Die on the Moon
All My Dreams are in Cartoon
16 – 18
Headstart
I’m a Lesbian Trapped in Man’s Body
The Monkees’ Day Dream Believer
Beck’s Lord Only Knows
John Prine’s That’s the Way the World Goes ’round

Last Wednesday was an interesting night at the Tree House. Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to play for the first time since I started hosting. My Dad came out for the first time and I think he liked it enough that he’ll come back.

Just a reminder, the following open mic artists are playing TONIGHT:
Jason Wheatley
Roz King
Sarah Allen
Cathy McCleod

TOMRROW:
Willie Tapps
Adrien Reju
Keith Lewis
Ben Garvey

John Shaughnessy is also playing the Collingswood Farmers Market on Haddon Ave from 9:00AM to noon on Saturday.

1. Leo – A good classical guitar player.

2. Jason Jeffries – Thanks for helping me out with the sound check. Jason is an friendly guy and a solid songwriter.

3. Cynthia – I sent you an email.

4. Dom – Dom’s music has grown on me over the last few years. My Dad thought he was really good.

5. Mark Garvey – I was going to play my alien abduction song, “99%,” in honor of the Martian event, but my dad totally 1-upped me by playing John Prine’s “Melinda’s Gone to Mars.” He also played his favorite of the last few years, Todd Snyder’s “Plastic Girl.” He sounded great and I think he had a good time.

6. Matt Winn – Matt’s going back to college, so he won’t be in every week. His music is awesome and weird and we’ll miss it.

7. Roz King – No more electric shocks, so that’s a plus.

8. Phil – I let Phil sneak in a little early so he could get Straz home. He has a great sound and did a great cover of Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees” that I’m sure Jeanne loved.

9. Willie Tapps – He’s playing with us tomorrow night at the Tree House and it’s going to be great.

10. Ray McGeehan – Ray is really good, but was probably missed the rowdy jersey girls from last week.

11. 5ara4 A113n – Sarah is playing tonight at the Tree House and you should definitely check it out.

12. Adrien Reju – Her country song “Floating,” has been stuck in my head since Wednesday.

13. Keith Lewis – You can catch Keith on Saturday as well.

14. Dylan O’Hearn – Played a Jerry Garcia song and sounded good.

15. Cathy McCleod – Cathy once again closed the night with two songs and should be ready to play tonight!

If you were undecided about coming to my show on Saturday at the Tree House, consider yourself off the fence. Dylan O’Hearn cancelled and Adrien Reju is now filling the fourth slot. Anyone who reads this site regularly knows how awesome she is, and I’m psyched and honored to play with her.

See you Saturday!

The martians are closer than ever before, but that won’t stop Collingswood’s best open mic. Rumor has it that the following will make their way to our stage:

leo
dogwallet
5ara4 A113n
ray mcgeehan
Mark Garvey
Adrien Reju

Yes, you read that right. My dad is playing, so make sure you come out. Barring any alien interference the show will start at 8:00PM and run until 11:00PM.

See you there!

Update: Brian thinks the martian picture above looks a little too similar to this photo of me at Kelpius Cave in Wissahickon.

I am such a dumbass, but I’ll get to that later.

I always hear musicians praising The Fire’s open mic and last night I finally checked it out. I saw the sign out front, but even then I wasn’t sure this was the right place. I thought “Maybe the outside looks decrepit, but the inside is nice.” It wasn’t, but when I went onstage it became apparant why everyone likes this place so much. Saying their acoustics are great is like saying the Raft of the Medusa is a pretty good painting or Battlefield Earth wasn’t Travolta’s best work. I haven’t played every stage in Philly, but The Fire’s sound beats the pants off of The Point, Grape Street, Fergie’s and Doc Watson’s. The equipment they use is really nice, and the host said the room’s shape and wood walls diminish sound reflection. Even talking into the microphone seemed more natural.

The crowd was extremely dead and there weren’t even that many peformers. There were 2 or 3 people who were really, really, good, but I got the feeling it was an off night for the Fire, so I’ll have to check it out again sometime.

A girl going by the name of Birdie sang with a voice that hit that perfect range between being technically good and personally grounded. What I mean by that is it never sounded like she was singing to some collective entity called “the audience.” She sings to the people in the audience, and she either does it consciously or is a great faker.

I’ve probably heard of John Francis, but I don’t think I heard him play until last night. He’s got a lot of talent and the crowd loved his song about Philadelphia and smashing wine bottles on your head.

James Steward played great low-key, country-folk and absolutely tore ass on the guitar. Somehow this guy fit a million picks into a laid back song.

I am a sucker for local CDs and I got two last night. One was from the host, Cowmuddy, a cool Brit (I don’t know what he is, but he’s not British) who occasionally made comments to you through his microphone on the sound board. We should seriously have one of those at the Tree House. The other CD was from Alec Onsworth (that’s definitely spelled wrong). Alec’s demo could be a lost Violent Femmes record (update: Jeanne thinks he sounds more like the Talking Heads and I agree) and despite wanting to make a joke about how it should stay lost, I can’t. I found out this morning that I like it.

I got weirded out by one guy who mentioned astrological signs. I asked if he just liked remembering signs or did he actually believe all that bullshit. He believed it and I challenged him to guess my sign. He asked one question: “Do you have any reccuring ailments?” and I said I’ve never really had anything bad happen to me in my whole life. With that he correctly identified me as a Scorpio and I figure he’s either lucky, stalking me, or the real life Columbo and somehow figured out my birthday without me knowing.

Now for the reason I’m a dumbass. I looked on mapquest to see where The Fire was and for some reason I didn’t think it looked all that far from 8th and Market. Taking the high speedline was a BAD IDEA. I ended up walking more than 4 miles last night carrying my guitar and my feet are pretty sore today. I feeling like a freaking camel.

Update: Another performer I hung out with, Nelson Pavlosky, wrote something about the open mic in his blog

Ben has finally convinced me that it is a good idea to buy a guitar tuner. I’ve always thought that it would be really hard core if I could tune my guitar by ear, but I think I need to train my ear more, because my 2nd string always sounds out of tune either on the open string or higher up the fretboard. I had thought that that must mean that my guitar needs servicing. I was of course incorrectly attributing my mistakes to my equipment.

I dealt with this exact problem for years until I started properly tuning my guitar. Tuning them to each other is inadequate.

I’m a huge Pixies/Frank Black fan, but some of his newer stuff hasn’t been that great with the exception of “Dog in the Sand.” It’s nice to see his latest album, “Show Me Your Tears” getting good press from review from one of my favorite music sites.

I?m no Frank Black expert, but I know what I like. I like the sound of a band properly aping classic rock song structures, the vibe of an album recorded live, in the moment, and the scream of a grown man gone wild. Conveniently, Monsieur Noir and his merry band of papists meet all of the above prerequisites and then some on Show Me Your Tears, Frank?s sixth album with the Catholics and his fifth release this century.

Those of you wise enough to purchase this record should make sure to turn it up loud for the first listen so as to fully appreciate the bad-bitch theme song of an opener.

Hopefully this means Frank will come around to Philly again.

As far as we know, Adam Brodsky is still living through his goal to play 50 shows in 50 states in 50 days. According to his itinerary he’s in my homestate of Illinois today. Philly Weekly even let him even write about the trip so far.

The coolest thing ever just happened. I’m in the Florida panhandle, buying my daily $50 of gasoline and a Slim Jim and a bottle of reverse osmosis water, and the gum-chewing crackerteen behind the register is ringing me up while she’s talking to her much older, more sparsely toothed co-worker.

I’m not really paying attention to anything except my Slim Jim, ’cause, like all boys, I’m obsessed with my own Slim Jim and fearful that it’s too slim, or not slim enough, or whatever. And actually in this instance I see that I have chosen a nacho cheese Jim, when what I really wanted was original flavor.

This is distressing, almost so distressing that I didn’t hear my own name–well not actually my name, but one so similar that it made me look up, tune in and eavesdrop on the last part of the conversation. Adam Broad (rhymes with choad) ski (no pronounciatory difference from the -sky ending, but much more annoying).

“Huh? That sounds like me.” I thought.

Anyway, crackerteen was telling the middle-aged minimum-wage earner*, “Yeah, he’s driving around the whole country playing concerts.”

“Hmmm,” I thought, “that sounds familiar. I bet I could give that guy a few tips.”

“He’s setting some kind of record,” crackerteen continued.

“Hey, this is starting to get spooky,” I thought.

“So I went to the website, and it was all F-this and F-that and lots of talk about the Lord.” She actually called him the Lord. “He’s playing down there** tonight, but I told Holly not to go.”

I always hear about people trying to do things like this and I always assume that no matter how remarkable the attempt is, the person wouldn’t be doing it unless they were sure it could be pulled off. I don’t get that feeling at all with Adam. One flat tire or minor accident could ruin the entire trip. If he gets close to the end, I might even have to buy tickets for his last show on September 21st. Oh wait, I just realized he added The Velvet Lounge in DC. They don’t get any Senators, but at least someone recognizes them as a state. Hey Adam, I hear there’s a cool coffee shop opening in Puerto Rico soon.

This is old news by now, but a lot of people still haven’t heard about it. Phish bassist Mike Gordon was arrested for “child endangerment and trespassing.”

Last week at the Jones Beach Theatre in Wantagh, New York, Gordon was backstage taking pictures at a concert when he spotted a 9-year-old girl he wanted to photograph. So, he invited her to an enclosed boathouse behind the theater, an area only for use by state employees, state police said.

When the girl’s parents realized she was missing, they alerted the authorities. Not long after, security officers found Gordon with the girl on a dock. The situation became even stranger when it was discovered that the girl’s dad was a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. Displeased that his daughter had been led away without his consent, the father became irate and an altercation ensued between some of his biker cronies and Gordon. The bassist was intimidated and hit, but not seriously injured, said a source close to the band.

Gordon was arrested for child endangerment and trespassing into a closed area. The misdemeanor charge is punishable with up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Police said the girl was fully clothed when she was found, and a source close to the band insisted there was nothing inappropriate about the pictures taken by Gordon. Police have issued Gordon a court date, but the band source said the family has decided not to file charges.

At worst it looks like Gordon is a dumbass and not a pervert.

The first time you heard a Wesley Willis song you probably said to yourself, “what the hell?” I know I did. Sadly, he died of chronic myelogenous leukemia the other day.

“”Wesley will go down as one of the most unique songwriters and entertainment personalities in history,” Biafra said Friday. “What really struck me was his sheer willpower, his unrelenting drive to succeed and overcome his horrifically poor background, child abuse, racism, chronic schizophrenia and obesity among other things. He was the most courageous person I have ever known.”

Mr. Willis said he often heard voices that urged him to “do bad things,” and his music and visual art helped him to “quiet the demons in my head.” As a result, he became one of the most visible examples of what has been called “outsider art”–visual art or music made by untrained artists, many of whom suffer from mental illnesses.

Though he sometimes recorded with an improvisational noise-rock band called the Wesley Willis Fiasco, led by his friend Dale Meiners, most of his albums were taped on a primitive recorder and featured him rapping over the canned instrumental sounds preprogrammed into a cheap Technics keyboard. These songs usually found Mr. Willis paying homage to a rock band that he had just seen perform, and they invariably ended with the tuneless, shouted declaration, “Rock Over London! Rock on Chicago!””

We’ll miss you Wesley.