SPIN Magazine Profile Of Philly Shows A Scene Gloriously, Immovably At Weird Mid-Point
Full disclosure: When our pal Gabe Boylan asked us for input on the “Philly, Rock City” feature that’s in the most current issue of SPIN (yes, they still make that magazine), we have to admit, we had to pause for a few moments. Why? The shitty/true way of saying it would be “All the awesome shit happened in 2004 and 2005.” The nicer, more hopeful way of saying it would be, “Well, you know, Gabe, it is the nature of all creative communities that there is an ebb and flow to the collective quality of that scene’s artistic output; and though the classes of ’04/’05 seemed to articulate and maybe even predict a city of the verge of major arts and culture breakthroughs, that only really happens every few years, even if you’re lucky.” Still, though, a bunch of our faves made it in there: Meg Baird, The Tough Shits, Kenneth Masters, Kurt Vile, and even some place called National Mechanics that we don’t really know much about. After the jump, take a gander, and maybe tell us in the comments who in your current Philly music lexicon is making this midpoint feel not so midpointy.
Click on either page to enlarge.
August 6th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
i can’t profess enough love for Drink Up Buttercup, and i once saw a band called Papertrigger at the Fire who i was convinced would one day really make a name for themselves. and while both bands are to the best of my knowledge ‘local’ i don’t believe either is from philly proper. so how far can you go before they stop being ours? and where is Public Record from? that saxophonist can WAIL.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Who edits this thing? They copy/pasted the wrong address for Medusa.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
I also think they made up that “Johnny Brenda’s has been the default hangout for musicians since it opened 40 years ago.” Mmmn yeah right. The only musicians hanging there 10 years ago when it was still an old man bar were the Mummers. Me thinks some hipsters were screwing around with the Spin writers.