Bringing It All Back Home

Adam Brodsky and Todd Young want to folk you.

Anti-Hooters? Young and Brodsky are real,
and they are fantastic

Anthology of American Folk

Philadelphia folk ranges from legendary darkman David E. Williams’ quirky tales of woe to Keith Brand’s haughty hickishness. But few folkies know the many sides of this hollowed hull six-stringed beast as well as white-boy buddies Adam Brodsky and Todd Young. Sitting and gabbing away in their home away from home, George’s Fifth Street Cafe, the two seem to complement each other visually and verbally.

For several years, the stocky, fuzzy and gabby Brodsky, 30, and long-haired, lean, soft-spoken Young, 33, have both produced disarmingly raucous and vibrantly bittersweet folk. Young’s Here Comes The Music and Brodsky’s Dork (both Permanent Records) are fascinating sides of the same coin. The songs on Music are densely produced and full of quiet, romantic irony and oblique longing. Brodsky’s Dork is solo, stark and evil, a clown laughing in your face but crying on the inside. Both, in their own way, are uncompromising.

“Permanent’s more than a label,” says Brodsky of his homegrown company. “It’s a confederacy that allows for complete artistic integrity. I make my money singing. I can afford to put out records that I believe in thoroughly.” The theory is if you like Brodsky (who wouldn’t like a guy who tried and failed just last week to dye his hair blue?), you must like his taste and message in music.

The first offering is Young’s fleshed-out Moog-centric mossy rock. Young, who’s been on the scene since ’94, says he took his time recording over 30 songs, tunes he feels fits in with anti-folk’s punk-rock-without-the-Marshall-stacks mentality.

“It’s a conglomeration of stuff I like, the type of music wherein we could smoke a joint, a cigarette, come back,” says Young. Laid back, right? Hardly. Young’s music is witty and conversational, literary without being pretentious.

“When I first got on the scene, every songwriter was so Isle of Qso bitter,” jokes Brodsky. “I just wanted to tickle these guys. But Todd’s songs have a fun sense about them. Scaled down or made big with Moogs, they’re great songs. Plus, he’s a nice guy. He’ll make you a big breakfast with sausage and biscuits and really good orange juice. The kind with the pulp.”

Young’s songs are detailed pastoral pictures of life at “Flea Markets” and panoramic “Vampire” lust. He talks about cars and women and the cars and women he’s lost.

Young sees Brodsky as a craftsman, a sarcastic wordplaying guy who goes far beyond the fuck you of his songs to a deeper, darker fuck you.

“You realize at the heart of Adam’s blatantly bold words there’s a sad guy inside going nuts. When I write, it’s a train wreck, a non-thinking process. When Adam writes, he’s [word]smithing.” Anybody who can rhyme “tsunami” with “salami,” as Brodsky does, is okay by me. Brodsky’s tunes are brazen and mouthy; opinionated, laughable tunes like “Jesus Owes Me $50” or “Fuck You And The Sports Utility Vehicle You Drove In On” that willingly ridicule lifestyle, religion and love all at once.

“Frat boys love me because they think I’m misogynistic. Sensitive souls love me because they see me as blatantly honest,” he teases. The only people he doesn’t think love him are right-wing Christians offended by tunes like “Jump On a Cross And Die.”

As we’re talking, red-streaked folkie Mia Johnson walks in, kisses Brodsky and hands him a dried shapely leaf. Brodsky’s face, a dark mass of stubble and arched brows, brightens.

He found his inspiration for Anti-Hootsthe showy, near Slam-like open mike nights that started at The Khyber and will continue on a once-monthly basis at Nick’s starting Oct. 7in New York. Brodsky traveled to the East Village’s Sidewalk Cafe in ’95 and realized he was not alone.

“I thought I had invented something,” says Brodsky of the harsh folk he was laying down on Monday nights at New Hope’s Jon & Peter’s. “Here I am amongst all these dumb old hippies. I thought David Geffen would come and sign me.” Instead, he found a sense of family in New York underbelly singers Brenda Khan and Roger Manning.

“Between finding acceptance at the 1995 PMC, meeting idols like Khan and Hammell On Trial, and finding kindred folk like Young at The Khyber, Brodsky’s anti-folk destiny was sealed. “I had to do my own open mike thing because nights at the Grape Street suck. If you wanna have beers with Mike Dutton and Ben Arnold, more power to you. But most of the guys who play those are wannabe musician schleppers hammering ‘Me & Bobby McGee.'”

“Anti-folk is a deceptive phrase and purposely so,” says Brodsky. His goal is to take folk out of the ghetto of coffeehouses and into the rock clubs. Considering himself and Young pure folk singers, Brodsky is disgusted at what passes for folk.

“Joseph Parsons might be cool, great to listen to stoned, but he has nothing to say. The stuff Gene Shay, a saint in the folk world, plays on the radio isn’t folk. The true idea behind anti-folk is to go backwards, to delve into music with real content and message.”

Adam Brodsky reintroduces his monthly Anti-Hoots on Oct. 7 at Upstairs at Nick’s, 16 S. Second St., 928-0665. Todd Young plays at The Khyber, Oct. 28, 56 S. Second St., 238-5888.

SPACEJUNK

Want more frantic f-holes and sinewy vocals? Dig Tom Gillam and Mia Johnson, the Otis and Carla of the anti-folk set, at the Tin Angel on Thursday, Oct. 1. And on a singer-songwriter shimmering guitar note: Is June Rich this close to going separate ways? Penthouse and Phillymag peroxided photographer Tony Ward brings his sultry sex agenda to Saint Jack’s on Wednesday, Oct. 7, to celebrate the release of his bookish nastymasterpiece Obsessions. First he’ll sign a few boobs, I mean, books at Tower Books The Animation Art Resources Gallery (118 N. Third) hosts John Stango as he debuts new Technicolor Pop rantings on Friday, Oct. 2 Happy Anniversary: cheers to Meiji-en, DelAve’s decade-old jazzy Japanese waterfront restaurant, which celebrated last week with Trudy Pitts, Mr. C. and our illustrious Mayor Ed cramming handfuls of cold, unshelled shrimp down his gullet. Cheers also go to Second Street’s The Plough and The Stars for one year’s worth of aged-scotch debauchery and friendly chatting. If you’re still feeling celebratory go to Evolution on Friday, Oct. 2, and help the stark techno/hip-hop palace roll in year three with DJs Tripp, Rob Lee and Joe Cas FAARM, a non-profit art/architecture organization, will open its delightfully decorative (still using the original drug store ad windows space on 126 Market) Oct. 2 with an exhibit titled Views by members of the young architects design program When Bruce Willis joined Gov’t Mule at TLA for several harmonica-driven numbahs last Thursday night, photographer Stephanie E. Jenningsbusy gathering material for her upcoming Boys In Blonde Wig exhibit at Phantom Gallery (35 N. Third St., Oct. 2)captured the moment tonsorially. The Mules donned the wig. Did hairless Willis do the same? Looking for a rumbling drum ‘n’ bass night? Check out Fluid’s Thursday Platinum. This week’s hosts Diesel Boy ‘n’ Method 1 bring in DJ/programmers Skynet, Stakka and MC Raggadan from Ram ‘n’ Audio Blue Print Records Swing it! Joe Wood‘s jump boogie Hellzapoppin nights’ve moved to Five Spot’s first floor. Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday Wood and Dante spin the classics while upstairs Bobby Startup ‘n’ Denney DJ to the scent of Dave Heydt‘s table-side kitchen wizardry.