Kelly White Explains It All: Why You Should Never Advertise The Address For A West Philly House Show In A Local Paper
Danger! Danger! owes its existence to crackdowns by the Philadelphia Department of Licenscing and Inspection (PDLI). After the major venue South Philadelphia Athenaeum was shut down in September, 2005, a number of its regular acts moved to 900 W. 47th. “The Lieutenant Inspector of Licensing and Inspection was there with the South Philadelphia police,” Brodie explained. “They busted down the door with their guns drawn in the middle of the night.” The house, as it turned out, hadn’t been zoned for residence. From that moment on, Danger! Danger! became the go-to house for rising stars in the underground music scene.
You think L&I can’t read? Word is they can and do when not crashing home-made ragers and sex clubs. So as soon as they read this piece in 34th St. Mag, or maybe this on BCO, or whaddya know, it might have been an ad in a local alt weekly that crossed an eye, L&I is about to bust Danger! Danger! House for reasons unclear:
International stars Bonde Do Role are scheduled to play Danger! Danger! on March 29th, but a recent crackdown by city officials has left fans worried that this show might be the house’s last. Brodie, however, finds no reason to be alarmed. “We have to keep going. You face the choice of either getting shut down or becoming a legitimate venue, and what we’re doing should not be seen as illegal.”
Uh, is that an official kick-me sign? When are you guys gonna stop giving your parents reasons to snoop in your room? Thursday’s Bonde Do Role & Plastic Little showjam has been moved to Broadzilla at Sal’s, and goddamn, it was not that one guy’s fault! Shit happens when you book bands fresh off SXSW to bang-bang in your crib and invite the entire city. So instead of trying to listen to bands in someones basement with 416 other people who have their elbows jammed into your ears, you’re gonna do the same thing Upstairs at Sal’s with significantly less room. To ease the pain, admission has been lowered to $5, and there’s some special guest business in the works. Our advice? Next time, be discreet. We think an underground text messaging campaign does wonders to spread the word.
Update: From the horse’s mouth, we hear a Penn professor is responsible for snitchin’, and the preemptive cancellation is a cautionary move. Also, northsouthwestwhatever, we doubt the Danger is hard to find.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:51 am
There is no 900 W. 47th Street, Only N. & S.
March 29th, 2007 at 8:44 am
Do you what the Athenaeum and Danger!Danger! have in common is that they both start running into The Man once they started doing shows with R5. It’s kind of surprising that no one mentions that. It wasn’t that long ago that every R5 venue was targeted by Clear Channel vis-a-vis L&I. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but… seems like more. D!D! shows have been written up in the Weekly and City Paper before, but it wasn’t until R5 started advertising the BDR show that trouble ensued.
March 29th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
34th st. mag pulled the article.
March 30th, 2007 at 11:15 am
oh yeah that’s right kelly…i forgot that you’ve been doing this house show thing for years…truly, your extensive experience should have been consulted before moving ahead with any and every minute, executive decision that D!D! could have collectively made…furthermore, they really should have told the papers what to write. journalists always do exactly what they’re told.
…you also certainly seem to have a firm grasp on the overall dynamic of the kingsessing neighborhood and it’s residents…”WEST” 47th street has always had a reputation for being a nice quiet area where simple folk like to rest their weary bones from a long, hard day of work at the ivy league school…those D!D! guys were certainly asking for it by inviting “416″ people from all walks of life into their home, disrupting the peaceful utopia that existed before their arrival
…they really should do what all genuinely talented and good-natured artists do, and move to an overpriced “hipper” neighborhood carved out of a former industrial wasteland. if only philly had such an area…it could perhaps be somewhere NORTHERN, as that is the historically quintessential direction of a Promised Land…and it would be a land where every man woman and child would enjoy many more LIBERTIES…yes, yes! what a great idea.
and maybe then we could get a bunch of directionless, 30-something socialites who fashion themselves journalists to team up with some mediocre sponsors/businesses, and then we’ll altogether synergize our efforts to raise the property value of this magical neigborhood even more! it’ll only be at the expense of the people who lived there before this grand idea, but fuck those assholes!
yes! kelly, get right on this okay? tell D!D! the plan, i’m sure they’ll be totally down. this is definitely going relinquish your intern status once and for all! blue skies ahead, kelly, blue skies!