Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

lyndzapalooza

Philly: Seen on the Scene

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In high school when I would procrastinate on homework X-Files was like the 2-minute warning on my weekend. If Mulder and Scully made it on screen before my assignments were wrapped up I’d be in serious trouble.

Since I’m always kvetching that I don’t get to tell you about all the awesome stuff I do every week, I’m going to bring back that dread high school tradition for that express purpose: Sundays nights I will rattle off my ravels and travails at length.

And, um, I have no idea where we left off. Before Christmas? After Christmas? Let me think…

Every Tuesday: Open Mic @ Time
On X-Mas Eve Eve I stopped by the new Tuesday open mic @ Time at 1315 Sansom (formerly Ludwig’s). It’s hosted by Pete G. (also the host of Fergie’s), and for the night was co-hosted by my multi-talented South Philly neighbor Michael Gall of Shackamaxon.

I played a lot of different open mics in Philadelphia in 2008, and no matter how nice the host or the equipment, or how good your songs or your playing, it often just comes down to the shape and mood of the room.

Time, as it happens, is a good shape and mood for me – or at least it was on X-E-E. The room is large and square with high ceilings and a low stage in the front corner – big enough for a songwriter, a reduced drum kit, and a slightly detuned upright piano. The low stage makes for an easy connection with patrons at the bar, and the depth/height of the room means everyone can see you playing.

I played first and had great fun warming up the room with some little played tunes, including “A Few Bars of Goodbye” and “Something Real,” plus a new one that I haven’t had a chance to record yet for the site. I wound up staying to last call to catch Ian (The Thief), James Cooper (bassist from Fergie’s), the lovely Francesca, and a host of other great local acts (links to come!).

Saturday: 80s Prom @ The Shubin
AKA my bachelor party. Seriously.

Sorry, kids, I have to come back to this one when I can ramble at more length (if such a thing is possible).

Last Mondays: Linda Cohen Benefit Open Mic @ National Mechanics
I suppose from there we can fast forward to the grocery store this past Monday. Elise, Steve, and I were in line at the checkout when I received a curious text message from one Victoria Spaeth, local songwriter, host of the Thursday evening open mic at Crossroads, and all-around booking machine: did I want to play a spot later that night @ National Mechanics?

Nat’l, on 3rd just under Market, is by far our favorite bar in Center/Old city – great beers and ciders on tap, pleasant pub atmosphere, and the best veggie burgers on the planet. I had done some inquiring over the summer as to whether they did any music to no avail, so I leapt right out of the checkout line to ring Vicky back and let her know I’d definitely come out to play the spot.

As it turns out, the night was an invitational open mic benefit for Linda Cohen, a pillar of the Philly music scene battling lung cancer. I arrived to find that I was on a bill co-hosted by the awesome Dani Mari, along with regular LP open micer Aaron Brown, Ian (twice in a week!), a slew of great local comedians (links forthcoming), and fucking KEN KWEDER.

As long time CK connoisseurs may recall, I met Ken in the middle of the street in University City while changing my guitar string in 2002. He was super-nice to me at the time, and I was surprised to later discover he is an underground songwriter of national renown, and known to tons of my pub-faring friends as well as my dad, who knew him in the 70s.

Anyhow, Ken was awesome, the comedy was awesome – the whole thing was awesome. Being a late and unknown add to the bill I was playing the last songwriter spot, post-1am. I was a little nervous in general, and even more nervous to be playing a super-late spot, as I’m historically not much of a drunk-bar-crowd pleasure.

Well, on this rare occasion I had nothing to be worried about – I was warmed up well, the crowd was nice, and the house speakers added a terrific bass whomp to my already percussive playing. I rattled off a muscular duo of “Shake It Off” and “Like a Virgin,” followed by another run through the brand new one (it’s starting to make sense).

The next benefit goes down while I’m out of town honeymooning; FaceBook it here. They also have a standing music/comedy night every Monday, and if you stop by you can talk to AJ re: booking.

(We also found out Vicky will be pinch-hitting hosting duties at the Tuesday night Lickety Split open mic on South Street, which is just up the street from my house!)

Tuesday: Alexandra Day @ Tin Angel
Gina and I met Alexandra Day while pinch-hitting a slot at Tritone in December 2007 (see, last minute gigs are always a good thing :), and I have been in love with her music ever since. Last spring she released my favorite album of 2008, No Castles No Moats, a luscious blend of piano pop, Philadelphia architecture, Maureen from Rent, and red wine.

I’ve made it a point to catch as many of Alex’s shows as I can since then, as based on the sheer, unbelievable amazingness of both her live sets and her disc I am confident she is mere steps away from a Regina Spektor-like blow-up in the near future.

Alex was opening for a night of song that I unfortunately skipped out on due to being a touch under the weather, but I did catch some of my favorites from her disc as well as a few of her new boy-crazy tunes like “Chemicals In My Brain” and “Red Heads.” She closed with her crushing X-Mas tune, “Bring It On Home,” which jerks tears out of me every damned time.

I’ll stop here, as I have another piece on Alex simmering at the moment, and I don’t want to steal all of my own thunder.

In other news…
I punked out on hitting Auction House for their monthly In The Round on Saturday because it was cold and I was deep into adding new features to my song tracking database. I missed out on a trio of Joshua Park, Scott Silipigni, and Steph Hayes – surely all awesome.

I also hit Wes and Gina’s for the Eagles game, where about half of everyone I know screamed at the television until our shredded vocals chords travelled back up the satellite connection and across the nation to Minnesota, resulting in McNabb finally connecting for a touchdown to seal the deal in the 4th quarter.

Never let it be said that I am a fan of Donovan McNabb. I’ll heckle him straight into the Super Bowl, if that’s what it takes. I am that committed.

Coming up!
I have designs on hitting the open jam @ Connie’s Ric Rac tomorrow night, but we’ll see if they hold up through a day at work. Tuesday would either be Time or Lickety Split if I get my ass out of the house.

The one place I will most assuredly be playing is Intermezzo at 3141 Walnut Street on Wednesday night, where I host the LP open mic. I’ll probably launch my solo opening set just shy of 8 p.m. – I’ll be playing the new tune and maybe some brand new covers. AC will likely grace the stage later in the night; music and drinks will continue through eleven.

Time to go watch some Supernatural DVDs…

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Peter is a Philadelphia singer-songwriter, half of the band Arcati Crisis, and Director of Communications for Lyndzapalooza (LP).

One Hang Drum Per Child (complements of Dante Bucci)

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The new promo video for One Laptop Per Child features my friend and sometimes percussionist Dante Bucci‘s original composition for hang drum:

Earlier today I briefly quizzed Dante on how this came to be, and he said:

The firm they hired to do the animation somehow came across my YouTube video and they wanted to use the song. It happened to be one of the songs I recorded but didn’t make it to the EP, so i had a good quality recording for them to use.

The hang drum (pronounced “hung”) is a ufo-shaped, hollow percussion instrument that’s not unlike an inverted steel drum. Each hang has a root note in the center and a scale surrounding it, as marked by tiny divets around the circumference of the instrument. Each year a limited number of hangs are made, in specific keys and scales.

At this point Dante is one of the international experts on the Hang. He’s taken the instrument to places other people hadn’t previously conceived – playing multiple drums at once, and tracking the hang against drums and bass on his new EP.

This tune – “Fanfare” – is my current favorite.

You can catch a set on the hang from Dante most Wednesdays (though not tomorrow) at Lyndzapalooza’s open mic at Intermezzo Bar & Café @ 3131 Walnut Street. You can also hear him playing percussion and singing background vocals at Mutlu’s shows in the Philly area.

how to find great music in philadelphia

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Last night we were all gathered around the door of our show, trying to entice a small trickle of patrons from the downstairs bar to come up and enjoy the music while watching the game.

We’re a bit threatening in our overwhelming friendliness and team t-shirts, and so any time more than three of us congregated in a clump I made an effort to peel away and lurk somewhere else. Maybe if we were summer camp counselors, but at a concert the sight of eight people in matching t-shirts advancing on you can be a little disconcerting.

At one point I peeled in tandem with someone else, and we got to talking about our trickle of visitors. “We have such great music here,” they said. “Why don’t people want to come in and hear it?”

It’s certainly true that we had great music – probably the best three-songwriter bill Philly would see all month – Josh Albright, Bevin Caulfield, and Blueberry Magee and His Hot Five. And, it’s my job to be able to be able answer their question with sophisticated marketing plans and communications approaches.

Last night my answer was much simpler. “Most people just don’t know,” I explained, “that this music even exists.”

That’s not a matter of marketing or communication – it’s really education. Much in the way we live in a liberal bastion of a city and frequently underestimate the power of people’s ability to disagree with our beliefs, we have also ensconced ourselves in a local music community that puts a huge value on genre-bending and sheer-musicianship.

It’s a community that I didn’t even know existed until earlier this year, and I’ve been a musician in Philadelphia for years. I really thought I was going to walk into a bar one day with some original songs, play them, and that everyone would fall madly in love with me. And, well, maybe they will. But there are a lot of other people out there deserving of that love that I never knew existed.

This year my eyes have been opened to just how much music is in the air in Philadelphia every night of the week. So many open mics. So many amazing local artists playing shows. How on Monday one of the most amazing shows I’ve ever seen could play to a room of just two dozen people. How our best-bill-of-the-month was playing to a small crowd of dedicated listeners and a bar full of football fans.

I’ve been lucky to experience the thrill of playing to a full house more than once this year, but I’ve played to exponentially more empty or inattentive rooms. Nobody likes the latter. But, I’m starting to understand that you can’t just fill that void with communication – that just informs people you already talk to, or marketing – that just reaches out to people predisposed to you.

What you need to fill that void is education. People need to understand that this creative community exists, that there is diverse music to be heard, and that artists all around the city are striving for an opportunity to express themselves.

Last night’s show was not Lyndzapalooza‘s biggest success, but it might have been the best reinforcement of our mission. We exist to celebrate creative community, diverse music, and equally opportunity expression. And, that celebration extends past the people who we already talk to, and the people predisposed to like us.

The celebration is for everyone.

Preoccupational Hazards

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Tonight was my one night off for the week, except I wanted to spend it on – do some blogging, maybe start my next Trio.

That wasn’t meant to be. I had some more pressing concerns to attend to, such as washing dishes and laundry. And, I’m not just talking about from a normal “chore” perspective. No. This was a no drinking glasses left and completely out of pants situation.

You might laugh at my situation. Ha!, you might think, he seems to be so together with his podcasts and his Groom Team, but it’s an illusion! You might continue to gloat, Aside from his yuppy job he’s living the slovenly, disorganized life of a lazy bachelor.

Yet, that’s just not the case – and not just because I’m living merrily in sin with Elise. I’m certainly spending time being clean, orderly, and tenacious outside of my yuppy occupation – it’s just that the time is invested in all of my yuppy pre-occupations.

At this point I have so many non-occupational jobs that it’s not unusual for a week to go by without me even finding the time to do a single load of laundry. Take this week, for example.

I spent half the weekend recording and mixing the four songs in the last two posts, and the other half working on an arrangement for Drexel’s all-female acappella group. Monday I spent a few hours cleaning up the back-end CK, and then I went to a concert of someone who is playing at my wedding. Tomorrow night I’ll be co-hosting an open mic with the other half of Arcati Crisis, and on Thursday I’m the artist liaison at our Lyndzapalooza Fall Mixer.

Did you catch all of that? Recording engineer, transcriptionist, network administrator, event planner, rock star, and A&R rep. That’s six hobbies that I’ve turned into part-time jobs. Hobs? Jobbies?

At least with the latter half of wedding, AC, and LP I knew from the start that I was getting into something that was both time-consuming and rewarding. However, the former three – CK, arranging, and DIY recording – all started out as innocent distractions from the rest of my life. I never meant for them to become staying up until 3am, working until I nod off in my chair sorts of engagements. It just turned out that way.

Is this insane or just slightly abnormal? Do you have jobs aside from what you do for a living and taking care of your home and family? If you do, did you choose to make them a priority, or did they sneakily transform into one over time?

Weary, but without wedding woes.

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I am profoundly tired.

The day that preceded that condition included some crazy legwork at the office, as well as three hours of hosting LP’s new Wednesday night open mic @ Intermezzo at 31st and Walnut.

However, the root cause of the weariness extends back several days, during which I have been trying to squeeze in more content than a day can hold. Much of that content has been wedding-related.

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A year ago I said,

I love all the dire wedding warnings that come from every quarter when you first get engaged. I suppose it’s a cultural hazing thing? I just don’t get it. Each of our favorite weddings were relatively lacking in insanity and drama according to the various brides. Also, we’re both OCD project managers with the same taste in everything.

Right. Remind me to come back and read this post in about twelve months and see what I have to say about it.

Well, I’m back a week shy of one year later to report that I still agree with that sentiment. Maybe you should ask me again in two more months.

In the past year I’ve discovered that weddings don’t have to be difficult projects filled with temper tantrums. We’ve certainly had some stressful moments, and we’ve argued and disagreed over a few things. I’m sure that’s true for every couple, no matter how in-sync they are. Yet, on the whole the entire planning process has been … well, mostly just fun.

It helps that we’re both OCD project managers with experience in communications and event planning. Elise methodically steers the critical path of our overall project plan, and I own a subset of tasks – one of which recently resulted in booking the fantastic Alexandra Day to play our cocktail reception. Anything that deviates from the plan is addressed or eliminated. Several cagey or uncooperative vendors have been jettisoned prior to signing a contract. All four sets of parents have been supportive and barely meddlesome. Whenever we get stuck we ask our parties for advice; they have solved every problem we’ve come up with so far.

The past week has been especially active because we mailed our invites on Monday. They are definitely amongst the top five most awesome wedding invites I have ever laid hands or eyes on. Not coincidentally, all five invites on my most-awesome list were at least partially self-designed and hand-made, with every aspect of their formats customized to the personality of the couple.

Elise and I started discussing our ideas for invites as early as January. At the time our wedding was still fresh news, rendering it the lead-in topic of every conversation. Since invites were one of the few things already underway I was eager to talk about our ideas to everyone. Surprisingly, I heard a handful of puzzlingly dismissive comments, usually along the lines of the following:

Me: “… and, we’re designing and producing our invites by ourselves!”

Them: “Oh, I guess you’re trying to cut costs, huh?”

Me: “Not really. We both do similar projects all day at work; we thought it would be fun to do one together.”

Them: “Yeah, sure, it’s neat when people find a way save money on their wedding.”

Me: “Actually, it’s more about designing exactly what we want.”

Them: “Yeah, sure, and you can do it really cheaply that way.”

Me: “I don’t think we’ll save very much. It’s just that we’ll have control over the quality.”

Them: “Yeah, sure, but they won’t be as nice as invites you buy out of a book.”

Me: “Um… [bangs head against the counter]”

Ultimately we did save some money on materials compared to “customized” wedding invites available from a book or online. But, that wasn’t the point, and it isn’t even a fair comparison. The definition of “custom” in commercially produced invitations is vastly different from our own, which features unique text and layout, high-end specialty paper, a bevy of custom shapes and die-cuts, and hand-embossing.

To get a better sense of how “cheap” our invites really were, I sought out a more realistic comparison. I showed a final invite to one of the senior designers at work and asked her to quote what she would charge to produce them as a freelance project.

Once she was done calling in other members of her team to marvel at our amazing paper, she conservatively estimated that she would have charged at least $700 for the design (not including costs for comps), $500 or more for the time Elise spent on hand-assembly (some of which she would have sent to a vendor for digital die-cut), and a 10-15% markup on our material costs. And, that doesn’t account for our hours of debate over colors, paper weights, fonts, and content, or our extensive usability testing with a series of prototypes,

Essentially, Elise put in the commercial equivalent of more than $1200 worth of woman-power into our invites. If you also factor in her material costs, we just sent out a fleet of invites valued at over $21 a piece, not including postage. And that’s the conservative estimate.

I haven’t done too much market research, but I don’t think that’s very “cheap” in comparison with the industry average, no matter what your definition of “custom.”

I think that even the cost-cutting crowd from above would appreciate all of the effort … if they received an invite. Which they didn’t. Why? Because I cut their rude asses from the guest list months ago … even before we paid for venues, meals, and dresses they were more interested in how much our wedding cost than in how much it was about us.

(Aside from that alteration, our final guest list was nearly identical to the list we originally drafted a year ago this week. Again, why does this cause people stress? It’s pretty simple. First, when you get engaged write out a list of all of the people who you might like to see when you get married, as well as those who want to see you when you get married – not because they expect to be invited or because they are calculating the tab in their heads, but because they care about you. (If you are me you will supply a draft of this list along with the engagement ring.) Then, check with your parents and close friends to see if you forgot anyone important (and by important I mean important to you). Next, stratify your full list in some way – like, small-wedding vs. large-wedding, must-invite vs. should-invite, A-B-C-D lists, 80/20 rule, or whatever. Once you have established a budget and looked at some venues it will be clear which version of that stratified list you can afford to invite. Finally, send invites to those people. The end. If that means you wound up cutting a cousin in favor of a co-worker, so be it. Life goes on.)

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As part of the invite process Elise built a staggeringly detailed web site that matches the overall look of our wedding “campaign,” and on it she placed the first three entries in my series of ten engagement posts.

Seeing as the wedding quickly approaches, I’m thinking I should write the other seven in pretty short order.

And rent a tuxedo. And buy my wedding band.

And go to sleep.