Also this issue: Massive Masquerade -Bruce Schimmel Whittle Me This How does Edison Schools expect to get away with it all? -Jonathan M. Stein Judgment Day Common Pleas Court Judge William Mazzola's now-famous courtroom scolding of convicted murderer Ira Einhorn. -William Mazzola Saddam It All -Howard Altman

October 24-30, 2002

mailbag

Letters to the Editor

by the Readers

High and Low Notes

(Re: "The Lowdown,"Lori Hill, "No More Monkey Business," Brian Howard, The Music Issue, Oct. 17, 2002)

An interesting note of a synchronistic nature concerning your look-to-the-past issue. Mike Brenner, ex-Low Road, was actually writing for the Welcomat at the time, when Monkey 101 sent a raw practice tape to him which he gave a fairly positive review. He was the first Philadelphia writer to see or at least review Monkey 101 live. If the Welcomat had archives the article would definitely be worth looking up. It was pretty much our first show, or one of our first, at the now-defunct Barbary. Mike's glowing review illuminated the tunnel I could barely see and catapulted Monkey 101 at least to play live a few more times.

Bob Turri
Philadelphia

(Re: "All You Zombies," Frank Lewis, The Music Issue, Oct. 17, 2002)

Thanks for that trip down memory lane. My freshman year at Atlantic City High I led The Hooters crusade. We got about 3,000 in but when we heard the high numbers from the big Philly schools we gave up. Then I realized what a friggin' waste of paper that contest was!

Nancy Falkow

Indre Studios Manager/Publicist
PHILADELPHIA

(Re: "Where They Were Then," A.D. Amorosi, "Those Were the Frickin' Days," Patrick Rapa, The Music Issue, Oct. 17, 2002)

Philadelphia's first "electric room" wasn't The Trauma, but the short-lived David Carroll venture Kaleidoscope, in a converted movie theater on Main Street in Manayunk. (David's always been ahead of his time!) The much larger capacity Electric Factory squeezed him out of business, as it also vanquished the neighboring Trauma.

Joni Mitchell (with and without her then-hubby Chuck Mitchell) played 2nd Fret, not at the name-aping Second of Autumn. Manny Rubin's Market Street Opera House was at 22nd and Market, not 21st, in the same structure that later housed Harlow's and then Vampire.

Before it became the Bijou Café, that basement club at Broad and Lombard had some great years as the Showboat Jazz Theatr [sic], the Spivak brothers' introduction to entertainment promoting. The same room also served time as Chances Are, Philly's first "singles" bar. A block away at Broad and South was another stellar jazz joint, Pep's, still resonating on live albums cut there by Yusef Latef and Cannonball Adderly.

That was Inquirer music scribe Jack Lloyd, not "Jack White," whom David Fricke called on in his P.R. days for The Main Point, before David ventured upstairs to visit this writer at the Daily News.

Stephen Starr actually booked Pat Benatar first into his (mostly comedy) club Grandma Minnie's, in the 100 block of Chestnut Street, not at Starz, his Second and Bainbridge spot which had its heyday in the late 1970s. Starr then became the chief talent booker (not David Carroll!) at Ripley Music Hall, located in the former South Street site of the Ripley clothing store and now home to Tower Records.

Jonathan Takiff
Philadelphia Daily News

Editor’s note: Well, A.D. warned readers that “The wheres and whyfores of [his] nightcrawling have slipped away.” He also addresses the inaccuracies in this week’s “Icepack.”