Shows

There’s too much to see, but the following shows are a must…

Tues March 24: Cotton Jones @ First Unitarian Church, opening for Human Highway

MP3: Cotton Jones-Gotta Cheer Up

(c/o Covert Curiosity)

Wed March 25: The Muslims (now The Soft Pack) w/ Friendly Fires @ First Unitarian Church

MP3: The Muslims- Grinding Halt

Fri. March 27: Say Hi @ Johnny Brenda’s

MP3: Say Hi- Northwestern Girls

Fri. March 27: King Django, Hub City Stompers, Wareika Hill, The Forthrights @ 941 Theatre (BYOB)
c/o PhillySka

Sat. March 28: Deer Tick @ Johnny Brenda’s (and also April 3 @ Olde Club Swarthmore College.

MP3: Deer Tick- art Isn’t Real (City of Sin)

(c/o HearYa.com)

Thurs. April 2: Digable Planets @ Johnny Brenda’s CANCELLED (they broke up… again.)

Fri. April 24: Simian Mobile Disco @ Pure

MP3: Simian Mobile Disco- It’s The Beat (Shit Disco rmx)

(c/o Covert Curiosity)

Fri. May 15: Etta James @ Trump Taj Mahal Atlantic City

And if you haven’t heard already, check out this lineup:

Sat. June 6: The Roots Picnic w/ The Roots, TV on the Radio, The Black Keys, Santigold, Kid Cudi, Asher Roth.
Featuring a special performance by Public Enemy, who will perform It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, backed by Antibalas and The Roots @ Festival Pier Penns Landing

MP3: Public Enemy- You’re Gonna Get Yours No preview. (From their first 1987 album Yo! Bum Rush the Show. I still have the original vinyl)

Where Have You Ladies Been All My Life?

How did these soul sisters fly under my radar all these years? It’s mostly late 60s early 70s soul, lots of it considered Northern Soul. Amazing stuff.

Here’s the best of the bunch, Dionne Warwick’s younger sister Dee Dee. How did Dionne get so famous when her little sister was belting stuff like this? She just passed away in October. Check out the drum breaks.

MP3: Dee Dee Warwick- Foolish Fool

Get her LP here.

Another Dee Dee and a Philly girl most famous for Mashed Potato Time. She was married to Kenny Gamble!

MP3: Dee Dee Sharp-I Really Love You

Get it here.

Brenda Holloway is so magnificent I couldn’t limit her to just one track. She was Motown’s forgotten artist, but it’s their loss:

MP3: Brenda Holloway-Every Little Bit Hurts

MP3: Brenda Holloway- Sad Song

Best known for her hit Clean Up Woman, Betty Wright recorded the way-overlooked 1968 album My First Time Around when she was just 14! Get the album here.

MP3: Betty Wright- Girls Can’t Do What The Guys Do

Here’s some great southern soul from Candi Staton, before she went gospel. From her best LP I’m Just a Prisoner.

MP3: Candi Staton- Evidence

From Melba Moore’s sophomore 1971 album Look What You’re Doing to the Man. You’ll recognize the oft-sampled opening riff right away:

MP3: Melba Moore- Medley-Walk A Mile In My Shoes/Twenty Five Miles

From the Stax Record label, southern soulstress Ruby Johnson:

MP3: Ruby Johnson-I’ll Run Your Hurt Away

MP3: Zulema-Giving Up

Everyone knows the queen of soul, but not this gem:

MP3: Aretha Franklin-I Can’t Wait Until I See My Baby’s Face

Jackie Moore, from Precious, Precious, The Best of Jackie More.

MP3: Jackie Moore- Precious, Precious

This list is getting long so I have to wrap it up. Two more:

MP3: Margie Joseph- How do You Spell Love (from 1973 self-titled LP. Get it here.

MP3: Helene Smith- A Woman Will Do Wrong

Get it.

Data Rescue to the Rescue

Prosoft Engineering’s Data Rescue II (Mac & PC) has made me a hero once again.
At least once a month a friends or coworker will mention that all their pictures stored on their digital camera inadvertedly got deleted.

JD had every picture of his kids stored on his camera going all the way back to Halloween. Every Christmas picture, every picture from their camping trip, all recovered with Data Rescue. (of course I have to look at them all, and man, I can’t believe the humongous of Christmas presents under their tree! I wish I would’ve saved the picture- you should have seen it).

The latest victim was my friend Yi Jiun. She just got back from hiking Machu Picchu in Peru. Her old camera screwed up and formatted the compact flash card before she could upload them. I took it to work, fired up Data Rescue from the CD, and within minutes, all 576 pictures were back. I asked her to take lots of pictures of the famous dry stonework- she took about 60!

So heed my warning: Upload your pictures from your camera often, and if you accidently delete them, buy yourself of copy of Data Rescue.

You owe me a beer, Yi Jiun.

North Philly’s Wagner Institute

Me, Dave and master of the minutae JB Farley (who’s also a contestant to be host of Local 44’s Quizzo night) went on a fieldtrip to the Wagner Free Institute of Science in North Philly. I’ve wanted to visit forever because one of its founders, Joseph Leidy, the father of paleontology, was a biology professor at Swarthmore College where I currently work. He was also a professor at Penn and the founder of the Academy of Natural Science on the Parkway (the oldest natural science museum in the US).
The place is really a science history museum. Scientists in the 19th century concentrated mainly on classification mainly because there was so many new species to be discovered at the time.

The place really hasn’t changed at all since it was founded in the 1880s.
I spent more time admiring the cases and the architecture itself than the specimens. It’s absolutely beautiful. I checked out photos on this flickr page but didn’t even know it had a great lecture hall, with seats which still have old-fashioned hat holders under each seat. I was able to take one picture of this old projector before I was told that photography wasn’t allowed.

It’s a gem. Go see it!

Philly Beer Week Wednesday- Atwater Block

Somehow I managed to go to the same bar (Bridgids) two days in a row for beer week. My friends were going so I joined up and now damn glad I did.
I got to hang out all night with owner and head brewer and fellow Michigander Mark Rieth of Atwater Block Brewery in beautiful downtown Detroit (cough).
Mark is a typical Midwesterner: no pretenses, affable, down to earth, and funny as hell. He was pouring his 9.5% doppelbock Voodoo Vator, Vanilla Java Porter and Cherry Stout. Along with him was Chris Hosbach from Stockertown Beverage (pictured middle above; Mark is on the right).

Atwater also makes a wheat by the name of Dirty Blonde which we’re gonna be seeing a bit more around here.

We ditched my friends and walked over to Belgian Cafe to meet some other brewers who were there for the Hook & Ladder dinner. We got to enjoy music by TJ Kong and the Atomic Bomb (pictured below, playing Fergie’s tonight)

Got to meet yet another brewer Dave Engbers from Founders (pictured with his partner below). I told him I am definitely visiting his brewery this summer. Then he headed off to South Philly to get a cheasesteak.

Also got to meet Kevin Weigum from Breckenridge Brewery out of Denver (below, with Mark) I couldn’t remember any of his beers off the top of my head (and none were on tap) but wish I would have told him how much I like his Batch 471 IPA.

The last person I met was High and Mighty’s Will Shelton from Massachusetts.

I won’t bore you with details of the evening (that’s my way of saying “I don’t remember a thing”) except that almost every brewer I spoke with mentioned the growth of “session beers” (lower alcohol easy drinking beers) and the love of cans. Good and bad news to my ears because I’m still loving the hops, malt and alcohol but would love to see all craft beer sold in cans.

Oh- one last thing- you may recall when I’ve written more than once about bringing old brands back from the dead, right? Mark talked of bringing back his old favorite brand but I probably shouldn’t say which.

Today is Friday the 13th and that means Friday the firkinteenth at Grey Lodge. I’d better get going before they’re all gone!

Ballast Point Brewing

Philly Beer Week landed on the same week as my spring break, so I’m going to try to hit at least one event a day.

Sunday I was fortunate enough to get to Bridgids and meet the great guys from Ballast Point. They had a firkin of Imperial Coffee Porter and regular kegs of Black Marlin Porter and Big Eye IPA.

I was really impressed with their IPA when I had a case a few months ago from Bella Vista, their main distributor in the area. Unfortunately, the keg at Bridgids was bad and they had to rush out and get another. After a nice chat with owner Jack White and head brewer Yuseff Cherney I like the brewery even more. Some cool things I learned from them:

They’re good friends with the other two big brewers from San Diego- Green Flash and Stone. They all started brewing beer together back in the day.

They’re not new, just new to us in Philly- they started around the same time as the other two.

Yuseff told me a lot of cool stuff about their pioneering neighbors Sierra Nevada which gave me newfound respect for them. (I also just read about this interesting new beer from them).

The hop shortage is NOT over- on the contrary. I assumed it was over based soley on the amount of big IPAs back on the market. They said most brewers just decided to deal with the 700% price increase and continue to brew the stuff they like.

Jack is originally from Pittsburgh and his older brother was Joe Paterno’s FIRST quarterback back in the sixties.

They make many other interesting styles that just haven’t made their was East yet. They promised to have a double IPA in the Philly market by June. Can’t wait.

I was also able to make it to Saint Stephen’s Green to meet the esteemed Larry Bell. Owner Jeff Keel also owns the Bishop’s Collar. BOTH bars had 12 Bells on tap (including HopSlam) and both got a visit from his majesty.

Bishops also hosted a 5k beer run yesterday with Adam Avery from Avery Brewery and Sam Calagione of Dogfishhead. I got to try Dogfish’s Red & White and Avery Maharaja, one of my favorites.

Google doc of entire beer week schedule here.

Here’s an interesting take on the week from Philadelphia Turkey.

My Ball

I thought this sad yet funny as hell picture deserved it’s own post.

Jackson’s sister had her 5th birthday on Friday. Since he’s only 3 he could never just sit there and watch as she opened present after present, so my wife did the right thing and bought him a present of his own. Lots, if not MOST of the crap they get will break within a day or two. A soccer ball is an exception, right?

He’s outside kicking it around the next day and within 5 minutes it rolls out into the street. A van is flying by and nails it instantly. BLAM!
It didn’t even stop. The worst part about it? It was a police van with two officers inside, and they saw us. And no, they weren’t on a call.

Luckily I had just lectured him on the dangers of chasing the ball into the street. That could’ve been his head!

MP3: Gregory Isaacs- Mr. Cop

MP3: Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry- Big Neck Police

Birthdays

There’s been a bunch of them lately. The most important being BadLuckCity’s second. Yep, this here site has been around for two whole years now. 242 posts, 308 comments and counting.

My first born is turning FIVE this Friday. Some would argue that her birthday might be more important to me than this silly blog, but I guess that would make them filthy liers.
PJ Sparkles PJ Sparkles PJ Sparkles PJ Sparkles PJ Sparkles PJ Sparkles PJ Sparkles PJ Sparkles PJ Sparkles!
Guess what she’s getting for her birthday?

A bunch of people hit the wall this year. The 4-0 wall. Friends Lisa, Charlie, Tim… fraternity bro William Quarterman II hit it just this past Sunday. MK hit it in November. Above is a ‘before and after’ at her party at Saint Stephen’s Green.
Man I’m gonna be bummed when I get there.

Tammy GURU hit 30 yesterday. She claims 30 is the new 20.

The Philadelphia Brewing Company is celebrating their 1 year birthday with a party at the brewery this Saturday and the launch of a new brew: a 10% ABV Imperial Stout awesomely named Shacka-maximum. As always they’ll provide the food entertainment and beer to all for free, plus they’re selling cases for only 20 bucks during the party. You’ll also get a chance to see their new pink pig lagering tank.
Saturday March 7, 1:00 to 4:00. I don’t know about you, but my liver could never handle this AND the Philly Craft Beer Fest the same day.

Speaking of beer, I still haven’t decided on which of the gajillion Philly Beer Week events I’m going to attend. I’m only allowed to attend one or two so I have to choose wisely… there’s just SO many choices and they ALL look fun. Let me know which one you’re hitting and I’ll just tag along. Last year I had the flu but luckily got that over with a week early this year (I was verticle all weekend- the mere mention of beer is still making me a little queezy but I’ll be over that in a few days).

Happy birthday to all!