I already posted this on my music blog yvynyl but I gotta share with all y’all who don’t read that (yet!). This is the new music video from my pals Free Energy. The vid was directed by m ss ng p eces and shot on location at the dudes’ house party earlier this summer. I’m really in love with this song and the video – and well, as I said on yvynyl:

Philly + bikes + summertime + my neighborhood + cute kittens + my buddies’ band + a great house party + cameos of dozens of my friends (damn, i didn’t make the cut!) + one kick-ass party song makes this my favorite music video of the week. Then again, I’m biased.

My friend Lance Weiler has been working hard on a new project where creative people meetup and discuss the future of multi-platform story telling, open-source media making and cutting-edge technologies in the creative industries.

DIY Days will be in Philadelphia, happening on August 1st at University of the Arts. But if you’d like to get a jump start on the action, there will be a pre-party and creative meetup on July 8th.

The pre-party details:

Wednesday, July 8 :: 7-11pm @ Johnny Brenda’s
Presented by the WorkBook Project and PIFVA
$5 at the door or FREE for PIFVA members

Special performances by
* SCIENTISTS ARE THE NEW ROCKSTARS

* CHIEF WRECKEM’s ORGANS vs TURNTABLES

* Speed power points presentations about
the FUTURES OF ENTERTAINMENT.

* PLUS a number of targeted NETWORKING SESSIONS to help you meet others who are making creative work in PHILLY.

My neighborhood hosted it’s 3rd annual arts festival this weekend. I’ve been saying this is my favorite day of the year in Fishtown, a day when I’m extra proud to live here and be part of such a vibrant and wild-spirited community. What promised to be a rainy affair turned out to break free of the showers and even give me a sunburn. It was lovely, as always.

A big part of the festival, for those of you who don’t know yet, is the ‘Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby’. I took lots of photos of the derby and here’s a video of some of the best sculptures in action:

There’s another excellent night of avant/psych music at my friends’ house in Fishtown. Come on, feel the noise. From the desk of my friend Brooke:

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21
8:30 PM
@ 2037 FRANKFORD AVENUE
(between Norris + Susquehanna Aves. Enter around back on Sepviva Street)
$5 donation
byob

Hope to see you,
Brooke

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ZOMES

Lungfish’s guitarist Asa Osborne is back with an instrumental record chock-full of eerie fuzzed out loops and droning drums. Released under the pseudonym Zomes, this debut album is dark and cinematic with influences ranging from library music to East-German electronica.

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DANIEL HIGGS

Daniel Arcus Incus Ululat Higgs is a musician and artist from Baltimore, Maryland on whose behalf superlatives are destined to fail. It’s not that his artistic output – spanning three decades, numerous albums, books of poetry and collections of drawings – simply eludes classification, it defies it. Often we hear that a true work of art is meant to speak for itself, and with the work of Daniel Higgs the maxim rings truer than ever. His art is of the cosmos, we on Earth merely lucky that it happens to be confined to our atmosphere, in our lifetime. Higgs is known primarily for his work as the sole lyricist and frontman of the band Lungfish, a four-piece dedicated to charting, in this listener’s estimation, nothing short of the evolution of all species, known and unknown. That the band has undertaken this pursuit in the guise of a humble rock outfit, in the absence of any public relations fanfare, etanarrative, or manifesto has been enough to endear them to tens of thousands. They are enshrined as one of America’s last true folk bands, and Higgs anointed as a patron saint to artistic purity.

In recent years, Higgs has released a number of solo outings that can only be described as the ultimate in isolation, worlds away from the hypnotic, communal rock of his band. On Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot, Higgs weaves meditative, casually ruptured drones using acoustic and electric guitar, upright pianos, banjo and jew’s harp, recorded entirely at home on cassette recorder. He pairs the music with a series of paintings that call to mind religious iconography passed through the disfiguring surrealism of Miro.

Higgs has wedded his music and his visual art into a singular being, meant to be encountered as a conjuring force similar to that of the tarot experience. The yggdrasil is the great tree of Norse myth that connects all worlds of cosmology. Passing into Christian folklore, the tree is said to connect heaven and earth. In his relentless pursuit of the indivisible, Higgs travels up and down this spine and hatches a new transubstantiation of sound and image into life-form.

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BILL NACE (tbc)

Bill Nace is an itinerant guitarist in the improv-minstrel mode. His best known projects are X.O.4, Northampton Wools (with Thurston Moore), Vampire Belt (with Chris Corsano), but he is happy to work without a net in a variety of settings.

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OTTO HAUSER

(of Espers & Vetiver) solo

Philadelphia Phillies became World Champions last night, in case you didn’t hear. If you were in Philly last night, there wasn’t a chance in hell you missed it. The noise + celebertion + collective euphoria was unbelievable. Here’s a crappy, dark, blurry shot I took on my phone outside of Johnny Brenda’s in Fishtown. Probably 500 people in the street from all the bars in that area. Fireworks. Police. Crazed fans. Amazing.

Down on one of the backstreets among the broken down factories near the waterfront behind our house, hundreds of people gather on a nice day to race their tricked out four-wheelers. It is a crazy sight, to be sure. Nary a helmet in sight and outa control bravado, it’s really like the old wild west. Racing for money and honor.

After hanging out for a while this afternoon and chattin’ up a few of the racers, we’re convinced we must make a documentary about this amazing subculture. Stay tuned for that.

I guess they were demolishing the house next door and got a *little* too close. It’s amazing how often this actually happens. I’ve seen it several times in the past few years.

This kind of thing happened to my friends Nancy and Will, too. Their rental house’s facade was bowing out and one day just fell off. Wild.

Ariel Pink’s set was one of the best shows we’ve seen this year. Mesmerizing. It was last Friday night at the MRoom, ‘The Other Bar‘ as my friend Sammy likes to call it due to it’s proximity to our usual hang out, ‘The Bar‘, Johnny Brenda’s. Ariel jumped, writhed and moshed all throughout the crowd, working the room like a stadium concert. It was amazing. I hadn’t heard much of his music before then, but have been collecting samples all week since.

I’ve been a fan of the young opening band from Brooklyn called Chairlift for a while. They’ve got some great throwback synth-pop going on. I struck up a conversation with the band after their set and ended up inviting them to crash at our house for the night. Turned out to be fun, and we talked music all the next morning until they headed off to their next gig in Baltimore. Here’s their awesome single, “Evident Utensil“. I dare you not to like it.

Our house is across the street from a small park. Most of the time, I really enjoy this fact. I run there. I shoot hoops occasionally. I watch the people playing games. Our bedroom window has a vaulted view of the playground, and we often stand and watch the neighborhood energy.

However, once in a while, watching the park has a dark side. Like the other night when we watched two kids in the shadows, shooting up.

Or like last night.

Audrey and I were getting ready for bed. It’s about 1am. I happen to look out the window and notice commotion. Some screaming. A big group of young people scattering. A white SUV screeching to a halt, then gunning towards people. Then smashing into and through someone’s backyard fence adjacent to the park.

I’m not sure what’s going on. We watch, stunned. The SUV is snagged on the fence and is revving in reverse to get out. When it finally does, it squeals it’s tires and speeds away, barely missing a girl who presses herself up against a cinderblock wall to avoid being crushed.

The crowd reconvenes near that fence. It become clear that the SUV had intentionally run someone over. Smashed into them like a weapon. These idiot kids are picking that someone up by his limp shoulders and ankles, dragging him to the basketball court, under amber street lights. We think he’s dead. We call 911.

“Hello, 911.”

“Yeah, someone just got run over by a car near our house.”

“On Cedar and Lehigh? Yeah, we got it.” *click*

Okay. Minutes pass and no police show up. The crowd of older teenagers are screaming. More neighbors are coming to see what’s going on. The kids, circled around the boy on the ground, pick him up again. Two or three bigger boys drag him (he’s alive, but clearly barely conscious, he cannot walk) across the park and towards our house. I get a clear view of this kid as they cross under our window. He’s messed up. The kids drag him down the small side street.

“This is ridiculous. I’m calling 911 again. Why are they moving him when he is so hurt?”

“Hello, 911.”

“Yeah, someone just got run over by an SUV and the cops haven’t arrived and now some kids have dragged his barely concious body away from the crime scene.”

“Oh really? Well, he must have wanted to leave.”

“What?”

“Was he dead?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, what do you want me to do?”

“What the? Are you emergency services or what? They just dragged a barely concious kid away from a crime scene!” My heart is racing and I’m getting agitated by the flipant tone of the 911 operator. Now I see police pull up the crime scene. They shine flashlights all around. Only neighbors are there anymore, the kids are gone.

“Do you want to give a statement?”

“Yes, please, I just witnessed the whole thing. But I’d really like the cops to find this kid and make sure he’s all right. They’ve all left the crime scene, dragging a semi-conscious kid with them.”

“Look, buddy, there’s nothing we can do about that. What’s your address, I’ll send the cops over to talk to you.”

And that was that. I went outside to wait. Nothing. Not a peep. No cops, no ambulance. Nothing.

So then Audrey and I went to bed. Shaken.

And I dreamed about mountains.

Norm and I spent two hours and probably close to twenty bucks playing Big Buck Hunter on Saturday night at Paddy’s Well in Fishtown. I’m telling you, this is the best arcade game in the world. Anyone who wants to play soon, you’re on! Cheap drinks, good buddies at a dive bar with fun arcade games. You really can’t beat that for a late night weekend.

(Shot last night at the Penn Treaty Market on the corner of Girard & Frankford)

After a rollercoaster of a house-buying, mortgage-getting, Fishtown-loving, Fishtown-hating, cold-featin’, day-dreamin’ process, we FINALLY closed on this beautiful house this morning. Here’s me, pretending to sign one of the 1,000,000 legal documents signing my life away:

So Audrey and I are officially homeowners. Who’da thought! Us hippies. Crazy. We’ll have you all over for a fun party to celebrate very soon!