Icepack

Amorosi on the news, nightlife, gossip and bitchiness beats.

by A.D. Amorosi

Hey there, li'l FM radio dudes. If you're reading this on Thursday, beware of your Friday. Beware. Beware. (I'm doing my Martin Landau-as-Bela Lugosi voice from Ed Wood.) Anyone who still listens to radio in the afternoon knows Philly stations are dropping their toppers like Jodie Foster did her girlfriend. Hard. Kidd Chris, Chris Booker. If you have a top-rated show — and I'm looking at you, Smerconish — find a walkie-talkie. Or get a side gig. Like Pierre Robert. Now, he and WMMR aren't going to quit each other until Jerry Garcia rises from the dead, but he made his own wine Pierreno Grigio with the Chaddsford folks and he's hosting tastings/pairings/meet 'n' greets at joints like White Dog Café (June 2, have the Kung "Pierre" Tofu) and Moshulu (June 12). I don't know if I'd drink a Kidd Chris wine. Maybe a Mad Dog 20/20 blend. But jocks, you gotta think about your future.

► Stay on dial: WXPN's World Café show with David Dye just got hooked up with Steve Lillywhite (U2, Peter Gabriel, everyone) to produce bits for their new series "Lillywhite Sessions at Avatar Studios." The first one's with Zooey Deschanel's She & Him, June 11. Maybe she'll explain why Happening turned out so dreadful.

► Fine-boned folkies Buck and Shanti Curran of Arborea fill Green Line Café May 31 with lutes 'n' flutes from their eponymous new CD. Philly's Helena Espvall of Espers is on the disc. Woodwose, and Alexander Turnquist open. Hum.

► Philly painter/graphic-iste Joey Feldman — a Details mag pick-to-click — is, along with his usual gazillion things, now doing Web animation, site design, videos and T-shirts for Train, the very burly pop band. Grr.

► Hairdressers on fire: June 2 finds the scissor sisters of Follicle (18th and Chestnut) celebrating their salon's third anniversary with Zivelle Arts and a Vango after-bash with its Monday nighters, Ms. Cyoni Dahling and Mr. Robbie Tronco.

► 'Member I wrote in March that S. 17th's Architect's Building/AiA Bookstore would become a Kimpton Hotel? They just got $50 mil from Wachovia Bank for a 200-plus-room Hotel Palomar for 2009. AIA and its tony new bookstore opens its doors at 1218 Arch June 2. Bring on the Louis I. Kahn Memorial Lectures and the black Christmas trees. 

Academy of Natural Sciences: Family Four-Pack of Tickets | Mango Moon | Prive | Bliss | Raw Dawgs Saloon | Cream and Sugar | S & H Kebab House | Cafe Nola | Copabanana | Hollywood Tans: $50 for $25

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

► Are you paying attention? Know the Fillmore brand (based on the late Bill Graham's enterprise) that got splayed across Live Nation venues in 2007? Philly's Theater of the Living Arts (TLA) included? It's Fillmore no more for Larry Magid's TLA. Look inside. Look at the listings. Gone. I hear pictures of Graham have been taken down. No word why — but I like it. Fuck Fillmore. Now we want to know what's going on with the Tower Theater. No shows until Carlos Mencia, Nov. 21? Have the projectors been removed from the third floor to make way for a VIP lounge?

► Can you break a ten?: $9.27 gets you into Brat Productions' cyber-stalking Katharine Clark Gray thriller USER 927. Now that's marketing. Check that from June 6-22 at St. Stephen's Theater (10th and Ludlow). 

► Producer Mark Dahl has stepped away from Uncut Productions. Sad that. Hi to Jordan Stalsworth who's in as producer in time for Uncut's Jena Serbu flick Eye of the Tiger to debut at Media Bureau's Philly Film Fest in July.

► I hear KeVen Parker — founder of Ms. Tootsie's Soul Food Café — is readying his KDP Lifestyle boutique and KDP Lifestyle Suites, very nearby Toots like any second. And I know Jose Garces' Chilango at 39th and Chestnut — the one with Lucha Libre décor — opens any sec. But what's up with this Building E on N. Second Street boite I keep hearing about? 

► WHOWHATWHERE: During X's gig last Thursday at TLA, Billy Zoom, X's oddball guitarist, got all kissy-faced and chatty with audience members. But not after the show — in-between show's end and its encore as if he'd forgotten he had a concert to finish. Philly gets expat cabaret pianist/singer/actor Andy Prescott back from Hollywood for his "East Coast Piano Bar Reunion Tour" starting May 30 at Castello's in North Wales, Pa. Kisses! Ani DiFranco tapes a private gig for Ovation Network at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts May 29. My "anatomy of a marketing scheme" bit comes from Power Plant owners/hosts Chris Meck and photographer Jim Graham whose 230 N. Second St. studio was used for Mark Selinger's Marley & Me poster shoot. For four hours, Marley the puppy, Marley the big dog, Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston got the film's PR shot there. Sabrina's catered the affair. "They had simple food requests," says Graham. "Totally easy — her only special request was string cheese. ... She was pleasant, cordial, chatted with everyone and was so much prettier in person than in pictures. I thought he'd be more outgoing but he quietly kept to himself," says Graham. "We even changed the toilet seats for them. They were very impressed by that. I guess we really go out of our way."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)