June 3- 9, 2004

music

icepack

by A.D. Amorosi

How did I spend Memorial Day weekend? 1. Memorial-izing. Hoping there wouldn't be more kids to memorialize. 2. Reading Ian Kerner's She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman, smugly knowing its fine points back-to-front before cracking the cover. 3. Pondering the fearful thought that Dick Clark would hire Ryan Seacrest for his American Bandstand update or, worse, that he'd do it himself. 4. Waiting for the Jerry Lewis telethon. 5. Contemplating pain-in-the-ass celeb Cuba Gooding Jr. He barely just arrived to film Shadowboxer, but he's already hit 32º, Cuba Libre, Continental and McCormick & Schmick. Make a movie, whydoncha? You don't see John Canada Terrell — here filming White Men Can't Rap — making an ass of himself. Who would care? 6. Celebrating Philly's only victory as of late: We killed Hoffa! 7. Watching pitifully dressed prom kids pour from the Bellevue, knowing they'd be the next batch of flabby, midriff-baring chicklets and rowdy red-faced yabos at Tiki Bob's, a place where patrons get arrested for allegedly punching cops. Welcome to summer, assholes. … Rumor has two local favorite restaubar concerns (one with a private aprés-heure license) vying for space in the basement of Roy's. … Former Manayunk gallery owner Catherine Starr opens a new gallery this week in Long Beach Island's Beach Haven area. Unlike her old salon (vintage clothing, retro furniture, etc.), the new space focuses on fine arts. Look for her first show with Philly post-pop painter Tim Bowen in July. ... Back in the good-old bad-old days of Philly's hard-ass grunge-metal scene, Bayen Butler was king of the six-string — a guitar hero not only for the unsung Mama Volume and the She-Males, but for RuffHouse's sole rockers, Dandelion. Butler took time off, and he gathered new material for a soft singer-songwriter approach he'll debut live at Bar Noir's Monday Night Club on June 7. "Roll over Jim Croce and tell Neil Diamond the news," says manager/band member Dennis Rambo. … Un-reality TV: Not only did Patrick Rogers hold Dancing Ferret Inc.'s 25th Dracula's Ball at Shampoo on Saturday, but National Geographic's cable channel filmed it. Billboard wrote about the ball and Ferret's work in the goth scene. … WhoWhatWhere: Behind you. Cuba Fucking Gooding. Bernie Robbins Jewelry hosted a visit from jeweler-to-the-stars Michael Beaudry at their Lancaster Ave. location. Vanna White had to hand more than a few people vowels while hanging out with her Wheel of Fortune crew at the Academy of Natural Sciences. … DJ A.D. — that's me — starts weekly Friday happy-hour joints, Biz, at Tragos, June 4. … Conshohocken's Fayette St. got Maya Bella this week, a molto-primo Italian-electric BYOB restaurant from the husband-wife team of Ken and Angela Shapiro of (respectively) Le Bec-Fin and Rouge fame. … With Striped Bass booming, Stephen Starr will concentrate on his Arcadia supper club at the N.W. Ayer building on Washington Square, with designated chef Marcus Samuelsson (Aquavit, Riingo), set to open in late June/July. After that and Continental: 2, he's outta town with second locations for Morimoto and Buddakan in NYC's meat-packing district. He's also got a new hot spot sprouting along Ocean One in A.C. … The women of Cue Records are curating "For Women," an all-female art show inspired by Nina Simone, at Union 237, with Too-Fly, Swash, Shiro and more on June 4. … NoLib's Music Fest 3.5 does its Saturday-in-the-park thing June 5 at Liberty Lands Park (Third and Poplar) with Mazarin, Cordalene and other people who don't live there. Speaking of Cordalene, Mike Kiley is curator/artist in residence at The Fire's Sunday Bloody Sundays, a series of acoustic solo sets from Philly frontmen and frontwomen. Starting June 6, look for a month of Sundays starring Shai Halpern (Capitol Years), Amy Pickard (She-Haw), Kyle Costill (Trouble Everyday) and more. … Bad Luck Riot-er Jeff "Met" Thies starts his reign at the Manhattan Room (Girard and Front), June 5 with an opening alterna-music bash followed by weekly nights like Thursday's Phono-Graff (DJ Swift, old-school hip-hop, graffiti, guest chef Schoolly D) and Sunday's Godfather Four (all-you-can-eat Italian food, mob movies). … Goodbye/Hello: Brad Caldwell left his bartending post at Sisters for a gig in New Orleans. DJ Larry Kleppinger left Woody's to open the Woodside Inn in Schwenksville. DreamWorks-turned-Kelly-Boyd publicist Monique Bhalla left the PR biz. She's attending UPenn's grad school to get her master's degree in elementary education. And Dan Contarino, who left Shampoo under the sort of scrutiny and rumor-milling reserved for Rumsfeld (he'll tell you!) is organizing June 6's Studio 54 celeb reunion party in NYC. And deepest condolences to the friends and family of Michael Tayoun, the one-time operator/booker of his family's Old City restaurant/nightclub Middle East. The charming, wonderful hothead, whose bookings were as adventurous as he was, passed away suddenly and tragically last week.

-- Respond to this article in our Forums — click to jump there