Also this issue: Back Again Singer/actor Jimi Mooney's punk-princess alter ego finds love as Helen Back. -A.D. Amorosi Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers -Sam Adams The Slats -Patrick Rapa Brother JT -Brian Howard Luciana Souza -A.D. Amorosi Billy Joe Shaver -Sam Adams The Swords Project/ The Gloria Record -A.D. Amorosi DJ Nights -Sean O'Neal

November 27-December 3, 2002

music

Diesel Dork

Hard travelinâ: Brodsky sings low in his sweet chariot.

Anti-folk hero Adam Brodsky returns from touring with a new CD and an all-star cast to play the release party.

by M.J. Fine

If it seems like Philly’s been quieter of late, maybe it’s because we’ve grown more reflective in these uncertain times. Or it could be we’ve been shamed into silence by the decibel ratings that have started popping up in restaurant reviews. Or maybe it’s just that local loudmouth and regular Fergie’s Antihoot host Adam Brodsky has been on the road much of the year. But don’t worry; he’s coming home with a new album, Hookers, Hicks & Heebs (Soiled Doves, Country Gentlemen & the Shoah), on his own Permanent Records. And with more than a dozen performers set to play Saturday’s record release party, things won’t be quiet for long.

Like fellow music mogul P. Diddy, Brodsky is no stranger to catered shindigs with local luminaries singing songs with his name on them. But while that rascal Puff flies his friends to Paris for private parties, Brodsky's new road pals are coming here to play for the people.

"The last two releases, for Dork and Folk Remedy, saw mostly local folks playing these songs," Brodsky e-mails from a Greenville, Ala., motel. "But with more national touring in the past two years, this crop will have folks from Oklahoma and a few from New England and other parts, as well as a nice crop of local rock stars."

To save the world from a dozen different versions of "Diesel Dyke," Brodsky had his guests -- including Ben Arnold, Stargazer Lily and Kevin Hanson -- clear their covers in advance. "It was really first-come, first-serve," he says. "You know, different songs resonate with different people and more than a few folks made sure they picked songs that didn't have 12 verses."

Hookers, Hicks & Heebs has more than its share of songs that feel a lot longer than 12 verses. Even Brodsky is intimidated by "Sweet Queen Jane," and that's one of his favorites. "I don't really know all the words, and it is eight minutes long so I don't get to sing it much," he says.

The album title gives the chosen people last billing, but two six-minute Holocaust epics -- "The Ballad of Abraham Gottleib" and "Talkin' Warsaw Ghetto" -- put a decent percentage in the Jew column. And Brodsky's got more Shoah tunes in the pipeline: "There already is ŒThe Gaucho Named Klaus' [on Dork] and now these two and there's another one I wrote about Hitler's paintings and there's one about France."

The whores get a whiny "Thank You," 17 verses of cancer, pimping and infomercials. "I like that song," Brodsky says, "because I accomplished what I set out to do, I told a compelling story, and I also made a sympathetic case for what is not a very sympathetic event, a 35-year-old fucking a 15-year-old prostitute."

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Country folk don't get a song of their own, but there's plenty of fiddle and banjo as a nod to them, provided by the Acoustic League of Justice. An updated "Hard Travelin'" deftly slips 401(k)-worryin' cubicle dwellers into Woody Guthrie's workers' paradise, and "Rejection" makes the most of Brodsky's so-called Jewgrass sound. "I love bluegrass," he says. "I also love baklava and Volvo P1800s; that doesn't mean that I can create them."

With an addictive chorus, raunchy biblical references and Amber deLaurentis' Hammond B-3, longtime crowd pleaser "Betrayal" has all the ingredients of a Brodsky standard, but HHH's highlight is "Uncivil Rights," which pokes -- with dry wit and just the right amount of restraint -- at John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney and their cronies for using freedom as an excuse to strip away Americans' civil liberties.

Brodsky's secure in his homeland -- "I can say ŒWawa' without having to explain myself" -- but he's a ramblin' man, and he'll be going back out on the road soon enough. He likes the challenge. "There's also a cool thrill in softening the hearts of people who just came in for beer or coffee," he says, "and against their will, first they stop talking, then they chuckle against their better judgment and hopefully in the next little while they are singing ŒHookers and Blow' and buying records and telling me that I'm their favorite Jew and stuff like that."

That could explain why Ross Greenawalt's coming up from Tulsa, Okla. Or maybe he just wants to see if Philly's really gone quiet. But there's no chance of that while Brodsky's here.

Hookers, Hicks & Heebs release party, Sat., Nov. 30, 9 p.m., $8, with Ben Arnold, Brian Seymour, Stargazer Lily, Amber deLaurentis, Antje Duvekot, Jim Boggia, Rich Kelly, Lisabeth Weber, Butch Ross, Kevin Hanson, Shakey Lyman, Stucco Lobster Breadbox, Todd Young, Ross Greenawalt, Case 150 and Rob Getzchman, The North Star, 27th and Poplar sts., 215-684-0808.