You Philly kids have a lovely city. Thanks Selena, Jess and Jill for the eating and lodging suggestions. Highlights…
- Tritone seemed like it could be a cool bar except it was empty when we were there. There were two DJs spinning for five customers.
- For quenching thirst, we liked Jones’ “bug juice,” but not Miss Tootsie’s super-sweet iced tea that we had to dilute with a glass of water.
- At AKA Music we bought Sahara Hotnights, which we later learned cannot be ripped into MP3s! WTF RCA? Also two guys browsing the used CDs were talking about blogs. Your indie record stores are as dorky as ours.
- Mütter Museum has freakish anatomical specimens and antique medical instruments. And a massive colon eight feet in circumference.
- Liberty Bell = totally cracked. Crack is whack.
Here’s Mr. Ishkabibble making our sandwiches.
Ish told us Usher once came in and ate two cheesesteaks! Ugh YEAH!
Coincidentally Real World: Philadelphia premieres tonight. We hope there’s an episode about the Lewis & Clark exhibit at the Mütter. The RW house was at Third and Arch Streets in Old City, but we didn’t visit it.
Finally here’s a track from one of my favorite Philly bands. Roots-rockers Marah have been around for a decade, but got a lot of attention earlier this year when author Nick Hornby raved about them in The Believer. Singer/guitarist Dave Bielanko channels his hero Bruce Springsteen throughout the brilliant Kids In Philly from 2000, and even convinced the Boss to play on their follow-up album. My coworker (from Philly) is obsessed with this band and once lent me a pile of live concert bootlegs. I’ve been a bit Marah’d out ever since. But I’ll never get sick of “Round Eye Blues,” a rollicking Vietnam anthem that morphs into the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby.” It’s Marah’s best song.
Buy Kids In Philly here.
Here’s a picture of the lead singer.
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it sounds like you guys had a blast!
i still haven’t checked out the mutter museum and i’ve been living here since ’96! shame on me.
jill, you have to go! it’s so interesting! but don’t ask the gift shop clerk if they have any deformed baby keychains. she didn’t like that too much.
thats a good bruce springsteenish end of summmer song.
Agreed: Mutter’s lack of deformed baby keychains was a disappointment. But the wall of eye diseases was very educational.
Re: Sahara Hotnights MP3′s
I had no trouble ripping my CD. My copy had that warning on the cover as well. I remebered a while back about anti-piracy autoload software having a loophole, where if you hold down the shift button, the software doesn’t load. I tried it and it seemed to work because I’ve been enjoying the Hotnights on my iPod for a month now and they’ve played beautifully on my computer.
Scott:
You got Marahed out because after Kids in Philly, Marah’s albums were pretty much more of the same. However, their new disc 20,000 Streets Under the Sky is fantastic. If you haven’t listened to “Freedom Park” yet, please do. Even Nelly would like it, for obvious reasons:
http://mp3.insound.com/download.cfm?mp3id=2220
Plus, these guys tour constantly. Tix are usually $10 at the door and well worth the cost. Dave and Serge didn’t pay me to say that.
yahoo, i’m glad y’all had a good time! did you get to eat the mac & cheese @ jones? it’s my second fave dish next to the version offered up by dumont in williamsburg, BK. now THAT is a thing of gustatory delight.
did you two make like nerds and go to the franklin institute? that shit is my second fave science museum (not counting the american museum of natural history here) next to the science museum in boston. next up: the one in jersey city w/ the big dome.
I saw Marah years ago right when that record with Bruce on it came out. They were terrible. Cheesy, Dressed like sideshow rejects, horrrible on stage presence, but i must say, this song is a good tribute to born to run (the record not the song). Still, ranks as one of the worst bands i’ve ever seen.
do they have a keychain of an eyeball with a disease?
I thought Weird Al is a vegetarian?
Maybe Al ate there in his pre-vegetarian days?
The Tritone is a neat place, but I only went there when Mike Viola of the Candy Butchers was doing a residency a few years ago. They need to book more shows I’d like.
Kids in Philly is an amazing album.
Another good Philly band is Pilot Round the Sun. They’re weird, but I like them a lot. Check them out at pilotroundthesun.com and purevolume.com/pilotroundthesun
RW Philly… was… okay? The promise of “hookups” is a little weak. I liked that they cast not one, but TWO gay guys (one non-stereotypical one! How inventive).
WILL a bunch of attractive, skinny twentysomethings who think being on MTV is a great experience hook up? I’m on the edge of my seat.
Oh man, Scott. I LOVE Ishkibibbles. It’s really what I live for whenever I go to shows at the TLA. I run across the street for a cheese steak. Yum.
New York has pizza, but they don’t have cheese steaks like that.