What I have learned from my time in Philly

20 Differences between Life in Philly and Life in California...

1. Apparently I have a "California accent." My co-worker said, "You sound like you're gonna fall asleep in the middle of a word. Your speech is relaxed." Another girl said I sounded like a surfer chick. People here have warped views of California.

2. If you move here from California, the number one question you will hear is, Why the hell did you move here from California?? (Most accepted answer: it's cheaper.)

3a. Puppies poop a lot. Since it is a $300 fine in Philly if you don't clean it up, I've been seen picking it up six to seven times a day!! (Grocery store plastic bags are like gold now.)
3b. Puppy parks are great fun and great relief for the dogs and owners alike! We get a break from the dog, they get to rough-house with other dogs. They even provide plastic bags to clean up after them!

4. It is a $300 fine to cruise South street with a loud radio.

5. Even numbered streets in general are one-way and run North. Odd numbered streets in general are one-way and run South. In general, numbers on buildings correspond to what street they interesect. (e.g. 1800 Market is on 18th & Market). Come on, San Francisco, catch up and learn some organization!!!

6. People LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE the Eagles here. To an obsessive degree. The city in general is a lot more alive and active when home games are happening.

7. Something worse than snow: ice storms. This is when it rains but it doesn't get cold enough to snow, the rain freezes in the morning, and you get a big ice rink in the streets of Philadelphia! (Not a fun ice rink though... we're talking broken legs and ankles here.)

8. If you say you are a techno DJ, most people won't give you a sour look.

9. Lots of Philly people think LA is California. According to them there are lots of hippies and rich and famous people there, and everyone surfs and wears bikinis all year long and it never goes below 70 degrees. I get a lot of shit whenever I say it's cold, which is usually when it gets to around 40 degrees. I'm sorry, I know it gets colder but 40 degrees is still FUCKIN COLD!

10. People in Philly like to eat. There is food of every ethnicity represented and there are lots of restaurants-cafes-eateries-diners-bistros-fine dining-food trucks on every block.

11. Every pizza place has about 100 items on their menu, but they all have the same things. (If you look at one, you've seen them all.) You can have a cheeseburger delivered to your house! And the places don't close at 10 pm!

12. Every place that serves Philly cheesesteaks boasts that they have "The Best Philly Cheesesteak in the City," except for the place that I think has the best philly cheesesteak in Philly... Ishkabibbles, but they claim they "invented" the Chicken cheesesteak.

13. There is no sales tax on clothing or shoes. :) There is only 6% sales tax on everything else.

14. Philadelphia is currently under construction. That is the ENTIRE CITY! Real estate is good right now because people are buying places and fixing them up. It is good for the city because it is revitalizing the neighborhoods. It is bad for the city because house prices are going up and people can't afford to buy houses here.

15. Philly is the new Brooklyn. Brooklyn is the new Manhattan. Manhattan is some whole new thing that we can't explain. "I miss the old New York" is a sticker I saw in some bar in Manhattan.

16. If some event is happening in Atlantic City, you are not supposed to say it is happening in Jersey, or people will laugh. "God Hates New Jersey" is a shirt I saw some dude wearing. I think people think AC is it's own state or something. ("It's not Jersey, it's AC!!")

17. Do NOT expect good customer service in a fast food restaurant. Most people say something to the effect of, "What do you want, here it is, cya next time." Some people are straight up rude. I saw one person yell at Mike for asking for an extra sweet & sour sauce. Another girl was singing when I walked up to the register, and didn't stop even while i was ordering.

18. Two often heard terms at 611 Records? "Hey guy," and "Yea buddy!"

19. They don't have as many spiders here, but they do have centipedes. Personally, I find them creepier. More than eight times as many legs, AND they run fast AND they bite??? No thank you!! I've seen these both inside and outside the house. YUCKK!!!!!!!

20. Somewhere around 5% of the gross city revenue goes towards city beautification. That means, hundreds of sculptures, fountains, wall murals. This one crazy guy Isaiah Zadar has hundreds of mirror/tile mosaics all over town. The murals I've seen are extremely detailed and some are slightly 3D.

611 Fridays!

611 had it's annual sale last night, and it was a fun little party with free food, drinks, and fatty deals on everything in the store. Wally took to the decks, lots of people showed... And the usual people were there, Chris Kaos, Devant, Nigel, Mike Panik (of course), Bones, Kevin... It was the first of 611's Friday nights, where all the resident DJs and special guests will be spinning all the vinyl for sale in the store! Frankie Bones is spinning next week. It sounds fun and challenging to me, to try spinning new records I don't have, and good for the people in the store, because they can hear all the new stuff we have! I can't wait to play at one. After the sale, we headed home where I dealt with a rather messy dog issue. I won't go into detail here, you really don't wanna know. Let's just say he had a bath today.

After the cleaning up, we headed down to to Fluid for "Freak," a monthly electro/techno/wave party. This month Nigel was their special guest, and it was a Costume Party, so it was people-watchin' fun! I thought the pick for the winners was well deserved, as the two Ghostbusters were completely decked out in the jumpsuits, the backpack guns, "Egon" even had the goggle contraption. It was great! I also rather liked the "Elle" costume (from Kill Bill). Nigel played lots of fun songs by Depeche Mode and Vitalic, and some other really rockin' tracks. He finally told me the name of this song I love that I never knew the name of... (It's called "What We Sell" by Komtron). Kevin Kong, who was quite drunk on scotch, I found out later, asked me while we were on stage to push some buttons on this electronic doo-hickey I didn't recognize. Having had the cosmo and a rum & coke, I was already feeling a little buzz, so I just started pushing random buttons, not really knowing what I was doing. Finally I realized I was controlling the colored lights in the room to do certain patterns. I found this to be pretty fun as buzzed as I was. We stayed until the last record played.

Whistle 5

I haven't been to a party like Whistle 5 since... well, since Whistle 4. There is something really cool about hanging out behind the scenes amongst a fully packed party. Now that I am officially a member of the 611 staff, it was kind of fun to represent in the brand new 611 t-shirt and schmooze around with people. Sure, there was a fair share of truly fucked up people... I mean, there was some serious drug usage going on in that club. This is one thing I still do not envy about the superstar DJs I know. A super sweaty guy came up to Nigel and started blathering on about something incoherently... Nigel handled it well, but those are the types of fans I don't think he particularly likes talking to.

I am still pretty amazed by the amount of full-on ravers still doing the complete get up. I'm talking tiger striped fuzzy pants, heaps of candy beads, pacifiers, blinking mouth lights, and dancing with glowsticks. The funny thing is a lot of them were older, some even looked to be about in their 30's!

We arrived at the party fashionably late, at about 1 am, right when Nigel took the decks in the outside tent. We made our way to the tent, and I noticed that every room was packed with people. We stuck around to see some of Nigel's set, and then realized that the bar was closing in the next half hour, so we hurried to the 21 and over room to grab a drink. I got a red bull and vodka (being that I had 4 hours sleep the previous night from having puppy issues...)

We walked up to the bar and who do we see, Mr. Charlie Feelgood, the famous DJ hailing from Baltimore. He looked pretty spiffed out in his velvet blazer, sipping on his drink. He mentioned something about Ketel One, and I looked at Mike and said, "Charles knows whats up!"

I downed my drink, and Charles glanced at his watch. "Only 15 more minutes til the bar closes, you guys want a drink?"

I asked for another of what I was drinking, and Charles replied, "With Ketel One?"

"You know it!" I answered. Charles was such a sweetie for even buying me a drink at all, but he went the extra mile and got the good stuff. After guzzling that one down, and counting the beers we had before we got there, I had a pretty nice buzz going on as we headed back to the main tent.

Backstage with Nigel, we caught up with his girlfriend Carli. Nigel was finishing up his set so we chit-chatted with his girl, and then got up on stage and danced a bit to hype up the crowd. Then came the CD throwing, which makes the crowd go nuts. I grabbed a few and did the same, some girl in the front row was waving her arms wildly and Nigel as he threw over her head. I handed her one promptly (remembering what it was like to be that girl in the front row who missed out!) and she smiled widely at me. Next came the mad autographs of posters and CDs, etc. As Nigel handled his fans, Donald Glaude surprised me by handling the decks. I hadn't seen him in years, and the last time I saw him he scratched over all his songs and played a bunch of cheesy vocal house. This time he was playing some harder stuff, and chopping it up a bit, doing cut-ins and using his mouth to move the crossfader around. He even played one of my old favorites, that song "Rock Right" from back in the day. I was pretty impressed but for me the song selection kind of soured in the second half of the set, nothing really bad, but nothing I was too excited for either.

We headed back to the 611 Booth where the boys were slanging 611 Gear and music. As we stood there, we looked over and there was DJ Funk and friends. He walked over and talked with us for a bit, and told us he was going on at 330 am. Oof. I didn't know if I could last that long. We were chillin for awhile when I looked over and saw Dave Mass headed toward the 611 booth. Everyone put their hands up and said "Heyyyyy!!!!" and he ran over and gave us all hugs. Dave Mass, the man who sold me records everytime I visited 611, and also the man who poured me drinks at O-Bar. He went off to join the military and had been in Alabama for awhile, and it was a wonderful reunion for him. And he came bearing gifts! I scored a Mass original painting! It was an excellent addition to our newly arranged living room. After a while of hangin, we decided to go check out the main room and see what was happening there.

I never quite figured out who was spinning in the main room when we got there but it was sounding pretty good. We ran into my friend Suzannah, who was representin' in her I Love the DJ tanktop. I met some of her crew and we went up to the loft next to the DJ booth to get away from the crazies.

Overall it was a really fun night of socializing and people-watching, and all around good music. I was pretty surprised with most of the DJs I heard that night, and pleasantly surprised by some of the sets I heard. DJ Icey even played harder than his usual Florida breaks style. Mike and I had an awesome time. We went to say goodbye to Nigel and Carli and he tried to convince us to stay for DJ Funk, but we were suddenly starving and running out of energy.

We had a nightcap at our favorite diner, Silk City, as it was nearing 5 am. After a good hearty breakfast, we headed home.

I wish I wouldn't have had a second nightcap with coming home to the dog's crate being filled with a very undesirable amount of solid waste which he had trampled all over throughout the night. Instead of getting my much needed sleep, I spent the next 1/2 hour cleaning up pieces of shit out of a cage. The dog then followed me upstairs and as I was loading the messy towels into the washer, proceeded to poop in the hallway, which I didn't notice, and ended up stepping in. Ah the joys of puppyhood. Sometimes they ain't too damn cute.

The job I've always wanted!

So I'm workin for peanuts. So what. How many people get to have a job doing the thing they love, involved in an industry they have a lot of passion for, working for the mentor they have always adored from its humble beginnings at fan status. I had often dreamed in my earlier days of spinning records of working for 611 Records, even as just a lackey in the record store. I mean, what DJ wouldn't enjoy listening to records and talking music all day? And even more exciting is working as the new mail-order and internet salesperson, talking with people throughout the US and getting them the music they have been searching for. It is exciting to be paid to bring people music, and to be on the forefront of the East Coast scene.

Here is the e-mail I sent to my friends, to try to get the ball rolling... :)

Alright Hardcore Trout kids. I now work for 611 so I'm gonna be having access to vinyl to sell you guys. There may be some discounts, especially if you buy a lot. If you are interested, please e-mail me producers and/or tracks you are looking for. If it is older it may be in the vault upstairs. I will be sorting through tons of vinyl and making lists of stuff we have... let me know if you want to know what's on the list. New stuff will be ordered at 611 too, and now the new stuff will be available for mail order. Check out our new site at http://www.611records.com. Vinyl will be uploaded to this site as it becomes available.

Oh my, I am such a DJ. I forgot to mention that we don't only carry vinyl! We also have a full clothing & accessories line, cds, record bags, DJ equipment, and music related DVDs. Our first deal we are offering is a free t-shirt with every $100 purchase. More discounts to be announced!

I am excited to be a part of this awesome team!

My new puppy dog

I was talking to a friend of mine (who is a dog person) about how I have never really had a dog of my own. He asked what kind of dog I would want, and I said I had always wanted either a yellow lab or a golden retriever, but my living situation never gave me the opportunity. I said it would be wonderful to have one now because it would give me an excuse to go exercise and go to the park in my new home.

A few days later, he showed up with this cute little labrador/golden retriever mix for me as a housewarming gift! He is 7 weeks old and absolutely freakin' adorable. I named him Icarus, but I call him Rus for short. He is quite a handful, but he's so gosh darn cute I can't stay mad at him for more than a few minutes. Now having never had a dog before, I am learning all the joys and hardships of taking care of such a tiny animal who "doesn't know any better." But it is amazing how much companionship and love the little guy gives me, after just a couple days of hanging out. Everywhere we go people gush about how cute he is and compare him to the dogs on the puppy chow commercial and the dog in the Charmin' commercial.

In a basement full of 99 cent records with the Godfather of American Techno

Most of my new East Coast friends laugh at me, but it is a bit strange to me that I am getting to meet and befriend some of the DJs I used to idolize when I first started trying to DJ. These were the producers that I bought records from when I started playing.

Imagine my delight when my new friend Suzannah decided to meet up with her old friend Frankie Bones. That's right, "the pioneer of the American rave scene, from the Brooklyn underground." If you don't know who he is, just google his name. He started raves in the US and played and produced internationally. He took us record shopping at Repo Records on South Street where he dove into these boxes and crates of used records in the bargain basement. We only had 10 minutes until the place closed, and all I gotta say is this man knows what he's talking about. Even with the time constraint, he was pulling out all sorts of gems and handing some to me saying I "needed" them. Who was I to argue, this man has knowledge about these things, and he knows what i like, and they were only 99 cents anyway, so...

I came out with two rare Nigel records I didn't have. (I just need two now...) He also handed me a few I had never even heard of and they came out to be old classic techno songs I had heard before... I really can't think of a better man to go record shopping with. What fun.

I must add that Suzannah was a very fun girl to hang out with as well. It was her birthday and we went record and clothes shopping all over the city.