Watch The Trailer For For Fear Of Heights, About Philly New Wave Legend Alan Mann

Alan Mann was Philly’s great New Wave hope in a time when the city had precious little of either — New Wave bands, or hope. What Philly did have then, though, is kind of what it’s always had: a tight knit music scene formed of small groups of like-minded bands, cheap rent (well that’s gone), and a kind of scrappy spirit that has likewise always melded well with the DIY ethos of punk and small-press local New Wave. 

From around 1978 up until his tragic death in 1983, Mann gigged around relentlessly with a short catalog of songs that melded the spirit of 60s-inflected New Wave and the nervy/louche/junkie-adjacent vibe of Television and The Only Ones. In that catalog, there’s one song that anyone who knows about him knows about: “Christmas On The Block,” a folk-rock-feeling heartstringpuller that was notably the first indie release to ever make it onto MTV and is now Philly rock’n’roll canon. 

It’s through that lens that director Rich Murray (who filmed the video for that song when he was still a student at Temple University) approaches Mann in his new documentary, Fear Of Heights. Told through archival footage, animation, and interviews with those who were there on the Center City club scene in that moment that maybe Mann was just a beat too early for. It’s a familiar story for sure, but both Mann and his Philly were completely one of a kind, products of a lost world — pieces of which you’ll wanna claw back passionately. 

Fear of Heights plays at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival’s opening night, Tues., May 5th, 7:30, Philadelphia Ethical Society. Tickets here.