The Music Issue

There Is No Book

We chose the CliffsNotes motif for our how-to guide to the Philly music scene, but it’s not really a perfect fit. CliffsNotes (ugh, can you believe that’s how they write it?) are a study aid intended to supplement some classic work of literature. When it comes to local music, there is no one book. Hardly anybody’s writing it down at all.

Makes me think of Beowulf. Bear with me here.

You know the most remarkable thing about Beowulf? It’s not the time he ripped off the arm of Grendel, the shadow stalker, stealthy and swift. Nor was it his underwater battle with Grendel’s mom, the wolf of the deep. It wasn’t even his kamikaze confrontation with the fire-dragon.

It’s that we heard of him at all.

Nobody knows who first thought up the heroic epic poem Beowulf. It might have been as early as the 600s or as recent as the 900s. For hundreds of years the Beowulf story was preserved only through the oral tradition. It was a great literary whisper-down-the-lane, with each reteller adding new details, metaphors and, occasionally, a non-pagan deity.

Seeing as how there is no Guide to Making it in the Philly Music Scene, aspiring musicians have two options: A) Find somebody who knows what to do and get the cheat sheet via the grand independent music oral tradition, or B) Learn everything themselves, thereby encountering the same shames and humiliations their predecessors suffered on their journeys.

We’re all for A, but not everybody knows somebody who knows how to recite Beowulf. So, what you’re holding in your hands is a Cliff Notes (damn it, that’s what everybody calls it) guide to the Philly music scene, a user’s manual based on stories told to us by those who’ve been through it before. It’s for the B people. We would have written the whole book, but we still needed to put other things in the paper this week. —Patrick Rapa

Ready!

Mary Armstrong talks to some local instrument makers. It's more than just Chris DiPinto (but we got him, too).

They say "those who can’t, teach." But that’s not really true (and it’s awkwardly phrased). Michael Pelusi gets the lowdown on working musicians who regularly pass their craft on to the next generation.

"Musician wanted" ads are journeys into the unpredictable. We asked a few artists who’ve used them to share their cautionary tales.

Ryan Godfrey thinks your band name sucks, so he invented the City Paper NameBrain. Feel the brain.

If you're serious about this band thing, you're going to need to rehearse. We've assembled a few practice space horror stories from embattled bands.

Set!

Eventually you're gonna want to cut an album. Instead of giving you the standard story on local recording studios, we decided to focus on the mysterious art of mastering. John Baker of Maja Audio Group almost explains.

If you don't want to spend every waking hour burning your CDs in your den, you might want to check out Helen i-lin Hwang's interview with Anne Ballen-Ladenson of Disc Makers.

At some point you have to make a decision: Do you put the album out yourself or look for somebody to do it for you? Singer/songwriter Cynthia G. Mason discusses the financial realities of independent music. (Cynthia was also kind enough to pose for our cover. That's her on the left, too. We think she's the neutron bomb.)

Presentation counts. We asked gallery owner/artist Shelley Spector to critique recent album covers, from Aspera to Ween.

Go!

Andrew Parks sat down with The Heads of State, a couple of R5-related poster silk-screeners. You don't know 'em yet, but you've seen their stuff.

You know what you need? Some moves. M.J. Fine asked people with stage presence about the tricks of their trade.

Who says you don't hear local music on the radio? Most people, and they're mostly right -- but there are exceptions. John Vettese gets the story from Tommy Conwell and other DJs rooting for the home team.

What is Gocco? Juliet Fletcher unearths the secret to great fliers with Melissa Kramer of The Snow Fairies.

And you¹ll want to play a show at some point, right? A.D. Amorosi confers with every local booker who had a minute to spare -- from Gina Renzi of The Foundation to Geoff Gordon of Clear Channel -- about policies, promotions and pet peeves.

Lastly, we asked Adam Goren -- who used to book himself on four-month tours as Atom and His Package -- to write up 10 tips for taking your show on the road. He gave us 11.