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what i have figured out about this thing called the philly music scene.
there is a bigger, more diverse and interesting scene in the city than you would think if you went by the venues and what they book.
for the type of music i work in, the scene is restrictive--most folk who do "experimental" stuff play outside the city more than they do here. this across the board.
for myself, the big problem is no venues that have a decent piano that book more out stuff. nothing like tonic here.
more generally, there is a fairly big punk scene, for some reason, in west philly where i live.
many many "indie" bands--some electronic stuff...there is a knot of psychedelic bands in fishtown, gathering around bardo pond, it seems. who are nice folk. that particular fishtown cadre plays quite a bit in the city, and seems to draw psych bands from all over to come through philly. so they make the place better, even if their definition of what is possible is oriented toward electric instruments and repeating vamps.
there are some good clubs venues for these types of music.
and the khyber books enough japanese bands to keep things interesting (ghost is in town tonight, so this is on my mind)
there are some great jazz players in the city, but like experimental music, you dont get to see them that often because of the restrictive policies of the venues--a few jazz clubs, mostly reactionary museum-type places that pine for the days of bop, or that use music to accompany dinner.
one exception is the tritone, which books sun ra's arkestra fairly regularly. tonight, you could go see byard lancaster as part of a tribute to coltrane there.
that alone almost makes the philly music scene bearable.
bigger venues are clear channel hell.
of these, the smaller places have decent sounds (tla, troc)--the mid level space has awful sound (electric factory)--the really big ones are not worth the effort.
the city scene as a whole is still largely dominated by turntablists spinning various types of house--it used to be a good place from drum and bass, but the clubs seems to be moving away from featuring it so heavily as they did.
san fransisco's scene was much more varied and interesting. but i left there 3 years ago, so dont know what has since transpired. maybe someone else has more recent information.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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