Icepack Illustrated: Comcast, Commonwealth, Connor Cruise, Wayne Coyne, etc.
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
News, gossip, goings on.
Brian Roberts and Comcast, come on down. You just acquired — at the right price of $45 billion — Time Warner Cable, the second-largest publicly traded cable-TV company in America, with the addition of markets in New York City and Los Angeles. Still, Comcast promises to get their cable repair truck to you during the appointed times. Man, they’re good. Combine this report with the Wall Street Journal’s news that Comcast is bidding for “pay window” rights for Despicable Me 2, means that it’s jumping on Netflix’s grave before its funeral.
Vedge’s Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby’s upcoming Rittenhouse joint on S. 19th Street has a name and a website, V Street and vstreetfood.com.
Can I tell you something about a Phoenixville-based band, Commonwealth, coming to the North Star on Feb. 14? Bobby Waterman’s spirited indie-pop ensemble got together in 2013, dropped their debut EP, Music for People, mere months ago on Dullest Records, and their personal vibe is as open-faced and jovial as their sound. It’s a Valentine’s Day gig, sourpusses. Go see Commonwealth and c’mon get happy.
South Philly Barbacoa, the lamb-centric barbecue joint from chef Benjamin Miller and wife Cristina Martinez, will not enter the broken-plate-and-busted-tile covered walls of Isaiah Zagar’s mosaic warehouse on Watkins Street. No word on who changed whose mind as yet, but we hear the married lamb broasters are still looking in the area, you know, to keep that name of theirs.
Right before one-time Carolina Chocolate Drops cellist-turned-solo artist Leyla McCalla stopped by Tin Angel to celebrate the release of her solo debut Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute to Langston Hughes, I asked her about her time living in Maplewood, NJ, as a kid. “If anyone calls me a Jersey girl, it’s hard for me to not be slightly offended. I was born in Queens, NY and my family bought a house in Maplewood, NJ when I was 5 years old. I lived there until I was 15 when my mom got a job working with refugees in West Africa and we relocated to Accra, Ghana for almost two years. I moved back to NJ for my senior year of high school, making it the third high school I attended within four years — yikes — and then was accepted to Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.” Since none of her family lives in New Jersey anymore, it’s hard for McCalla to think of New Jersey as any kind of home base.”All that said, I have to admit that sometimes, just sometimes, you can hear a hint of a jersey girl in my speech.” Thereyago.
In the maybe-they’re-open/maybe-they’re-not-file: Philly’s Department of Health shut down the Farmers’ Cabinet on Monday (it reopened Feb. 12), this right after it re-opened after the Matt Swartz fake-out license debacle closed it. Oy. That same co-owner is currently out on bail awaiting trial for forgery and tampering with public documents.
There’s an interesting two-night stand at HQ Nightclub at Revel in Atlantic City this weekend. DJ Steve Aoki — the man behind the recent 3OKI SERIES on his Dim Mak label — will spin there on V-Day, Feb 14. Aoki is always smashing, but it’s the Saturday DJ that’s doubly curious: Connor Cruise, son of Tom Cruise, is off and spinning and will appear at HQ on Feb. 15. Cruise mixes?
The most interesting aspect of Iron Chef Jose Garces’ week is that he popped the top on two new spaces that have a large public staging component to them. A lease on 2401 Walnut St. and its large all-glass front will certainly allow for a test kitchen, the long-rumored relocation of his offices (from the Cira Center, blocks away, across the Schuylkill), and what’s being called a mixology lab with test items being served in the glass-fronted dining area. Voila! Then there’s Volver, his long-awaited Kimmel Center boutique dining boite that should be open in April that got a sneak peak this week. The most fascinating development of the 112-seat Kieran Timberlake-designed Marguerite Rogers-décor-ed Volver is that it will house a performance kitchen for its tasting menu as well as a caviar/champagne bar, It’s nice to see Garces letting his theatrical hair down.
WHOWHATWHERE: Lineman-turned-culinary entrepreneur Albert Haynesworth was in Philly for the opening of the new Burger Fi on N. 12th Street. He’s a big deal B-Fi franchise owner in Tennessee, so yeeehah. This kinda-sorta has a food WHOWHATWHERE feel to it: Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne made one of his Record Store Tour stops at Mike Hoffman’s a.k.a. in Old City the other day, hawking the 30th anniversary volumes of The Flaming Lips first EP and 2nd Cassette Demo housed in a hand-crafted, custom-made solid white chocolate skull (yes, each skull, selling for like $375, contains a special Golden Coin redeemable as admission to any headline Flaming Lips show in the world. The only tiny problem? The skulls were kind-of melt-y and wilted when they made their way to a.k.a. Just saying. Vice President Joe Biden (don’t run in 2016, Joe) unveiled Amtrak’s new Cities Sprinter locomotive (doesn’t that sound old fashioned?) at 30th Street Station. Way over in Delaware, Motley Crue drummer-turned-DJ Tommy Lee opened the new Delaware Live venue in Wilmington with DJ Aero by his side. Even farther out, in Broomall, PA, Damon Feldman did a good thing by steering clear of anything exploitative in regard to George Zimmerman’s boxing career.
