Ramblin' Mann

A big strapping backslap for homeboy Billy Mann.

In case you were wondering where I went last week, well, I just want to tell you that May is officially National Masturbation Month. The legal holiday, started in San Francisco, encourages people each day to start work an hour later. Be good to yourself is their motto. Well, I got carried away.

Which brings me to my favorite jerk-off, Billy Mann, who called me from NYC on Secretary's Day. He was getting ready to play to a boat full of sneakered women motoring around the Statue of Liberty.

"I love the promotional wheel. It's surreal," says Bill. "It's like one minute you're pushed on stage to duet with Sting, the next you're doing a radio 'Meet 'n' Eat' where they serve up cheesesteaks. They want to make you feel at home. You do three stations a day and all of a sudden you're thinking, 'Geez, why couldn't Philly be the home of carrot juice or something healthy?'"

If you don't know Billy, he's a ramblin' man who started his path at the High School For Performing Arts. A local singin' and songwriting, neobeat, Mann was a nondenominational gospel-folk type who didn't waste his time hangin' around Philly too long. He was producer Ric Wake's (Whitney Houston) first signing on the DV8 label thru A?, just cause he happened to be in the right stairwell (more on that later) at the right time.

"I left here to play, to experience. I landed in Miami, Auburn, Alabama, England, San Fran. Wherever I could set up a teepee. I did odd jobs: pizza guy, telemarketing guy, valet parking guy. Worked selling futons, too, but I got fired because I fell asleep on the job. Literally."

Though he left Philly quicker than you can say Tim McCarver, his soulful, gritty pop songwriting (employed by folk like Chaka Khan and Diana King) always had a voice that remained home-grounded, rooted in sweet R? and tragic street opera.

"I wanted everything LIVE — gritty acoustic guitar on top of a Hammond B3 and a 60-piece string section. I wanted wood, real flutes. I feel like we accomplished that — a stew, street soul mishmash."

Food analogies aside, before the record was done producer Wake took the young Mann through Europe to let him show off the fruits of the union.

"Before the record was finished, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page heard my stuff through my manager and dug it. Next thing you know, they asked me to open for them in Barcelona. I'm playing to 50,000 people, walking into the stadium through the ticket holders line with a guitar on my back and I'm thinking, 'Am I really opening for Led Zeppelin?' Humbling, strange — especially when Robert Plant lets you use his dressing room because you don't have a toilet in yours."

Surely being "acknowledged by the masters" is devastating, but the product has to be there first. On Billy's debut disc, the angelic qualities of his work (not to mention that euphoric cover art) are pure pop sheen.

"The songs come from so many different perspectives: being broke, travelling, having your heart broken over and over." They're political and worldly, but most of all they harken to a moment where every kid wanted to sing on street corners, not shoot up or play cranked to 11.

A tune like "Back in 69," though, has another vibe altogether. Led by Chic drummer Omar Hakim, the song, "written not about the '60s but about when I had this shitty day and wished I could just be back in my crib where nobody gave me any hassles," threatens to go prog-rock — a funky spin through Topographic Oceans in the Court of the Crimson King. Mann's voice sails through the clouds in a heaven-driven alto met by hellhound baritone moans. To say he can pitch a bitch better than George Michael or Smokey Robinson might sound extreme, but I ain't hedging a bet.

Which brings me to the stairwell where he was "discovered" by Ric Wake.

"It's a stairwell on 56th between Broadway and 7th in New York, near the Brill Building. I like playing in stairwells because of the acoustics. Ric was visiting friends, looking like any other guy on the street, and he heard me jamming to myself. He asked if I minded if he sat and listened. I said no, but asked him if he was in a band. 'Sort've,' he said. The next thing you know, we exchange numbers and I'm recording in his Long Island studio. He picked me up at the train station driving a beat-up Toyota Camry. This guy's not about pretense. That same vibe, no matter how 'produced' the record feels, is what the record's about. He wanted everyone to hear me the same way he did. Except for the stairs."

Billy will be opening for Sophie B. Hawkins at the Electric Factory on May 11.

SPACEJUNK: Wife killer/film guy Larry Stromberg, star of Vent Man, looks awfully familiar. Film screenings? Other massacres I've attended?... Who comprises the clubowner BIG FIVE who're running around town, acting tough, making bulk deals on assorted goods ("I want 2000,000 drink umbrellas NOW!"), advertising rates with newsprint and radio and dealing with folk in a Napoleonic fashion? (Hint: we know one of them is really short!) ...Governor's reprieve: J.C. Dobbs'll be staying open, booking shows to the end of May, at least, despite any rumors to the contrary; floating words about new owner Jeff Fusco pulling out of the deal... "Nocturnal Ecstasy." Dat's the name of the collaboration of Patrick Rodgers' Dancing Ferret Concerts and Jerry Blaze's Black Vatican Productions, which starts their industrial/gothic all-ages soirees at Middle East every Sunday eve, starting May 12. They'll be using steady DJs (Matt & Mad Dog), a coupla rotating spinners (all this motion's makin' me queeeeezy), as well as bringing in national/local shadowy bands to play — Nature (on Zoo) and Acumen — plus the usual retinue of tattoo, piercing and leather vendors. Rodgers will also be holding a live action Vampire Ball, Sat. May 11 at the Bank... Another one down: congrats to the Troc's managing guy Malcolm and his gal pal Erin on their engagement... Gary LaJeunesse and his Catering By Design just opened a cafe smack dab in the middle of Boyd's clothing on Chestnut St. Spill that cappuccino on my Brioni and I'LL KICK YER FUCKIN' ASS... Another one down: Joe Rudiak GONE from WRDE... Happy B-days to Pezperson Mary"Not the Invisible Rabbit"Harvey, Bistro Bix boss Chad Pierce, Love Lounge's Bob"Hey Boy"Denney, NBC10 trafficbeauty Max Vierra and promowhiz/mailbag regular NathanLerner... Lewis' Tunnel Part Deux: Steve Lewis from NYC club The Tunnel is apparently hooked up wit da boys from Egypt —Larry Cohen and Joe Grasso — to do not one but TWO clubs in Philly; one opening around June and another in Sept. Club #1 is located at the dock of Egypt (directly behind) and will break ground next week. The other space, a warehouse (behind the Mobil station off Springarden) sold at auction for something around $160,000, will open in Sept./Oct... Psyclone Rangers and new bassist Brian Murray (late of Gas Money) are off to tour the West with Kelly Deal and England with GasHuffer... You can call WMMR's honey-haired Elise Brown"Racer X" since she got into a 12-car pile up testing out the big dunes along Highway 666 last week. She's recovering nicely but alas there'll be no driving songs during her sets... For those of you looking for old pal EFC/TLA loading captain Boz, he is there no more; he's been fired from his longtime gig. Now ye olde Boz is cooking at Garden Court Cafe in Norristown between Main and DeKalb Sts. He'll fry a steak but just don't ask him to load it in... Jim Lesser's 111 afterhours thing may just have a longer wait than expected. The LCB is busting his balls for no good reason, apparently. More soon... After fumblin' with the Khyber jukebox after playing with Mind Science of the Mind last week, Jeff Buckley revealed he'll have his own new record out in January, produced by TV stringer Tom Verlaine.