December 9-16, 2004

naked city

fine print

Independent No More

If you want to annoy your fellow neighbor on the subway, you'll have to start bringing a boom box onboard. The Philadelphia Independent, the monthly newspaper with a modus operandi as lofty as its 17-inch margins, will soon close after three years and 21 issues.

"I didn't want to make the Independent shorter or smaller, because that was the point from the beginning: making this enormous artifact that had some of the best long-form writing and reporting in the city," says founder/editor/publisher Matt Schwartz. "So eventually, it had to stop."

The Independent hit local shops in January 2002. Its goal was simple: Lend a voice to the voiceless. Or as the flagship editor's note stated: "Our streets are filled with secret artists, poets and scholars. Each is unknowingly collaborating on a much larger project, a constellation so large that no single view can encompass all of its points. We want to connect the dots. In your hand is the pen."

Many people were willing to connect those dots for free—about 75 writers in fact—but that still left a core group to deal with the everyday concerns of running a low-budget newspaper. Steve Ushioda was solely responsible for maintaining circulation and advertising accounts. Christine Smallwood assisted Schwartz with the macro and micro editing from issue to issue. And while each saw a steady increase in circulation, subscription requests and ad revenue, the burden of the business side never changed.

Many viewed the paper, with its unique content and aesthetic, as a nonfiction form of The Onion: a snarky and smart take on current affairs that was unmatched in this city. The headlines alone (a recent highlight: "Necks Elect Noose," after the presidential election) felt like a labor of love. The colonial design looked as if lifted off the hot presses of Benjamin Franklin.

The paper's folding begs the question of whether Philadelphia was ready for a publication like the Independent, an assertion Schwartz is quick to strike down.

"Philadelphia is the only reason the Independent survived for as long as it did," he says. "There is a strong and growing community of bright, creative people here who want to see something happen and are willing to pitch in. If you can't make it here, you can't make it anywhere."

The local editors of Rockpile, a monthly indie rock magazine, can second that emotion. Last week, editors Michael McKee and Allan Kemler and art director Matt McGlynn orchestrated a bloodless coup, purchasing the glossy from founder and publisher Joe Kirschen. As McKee toasts this amicable transition, he is also humbled by the closing of the Independent.

"The Independent is an example of people creating something unique in spite of what everyone else is doing," Kirschen says.

As of this month's issue, due out in a few weeks, the Independent's presses will halt, leaving Philadelphia with a hole to fill beyond simple shelf space. Sure, we've got our two weeklies, one of which is about to undergo a transition of its own as the Philadelphia Weekly last week fired publisher Nancy Stuski, the paper's fifth publisher in eight years.

"The hole is the difference between the tremendous energy and breadth of Philadelphia and the narrow, piddling views that actually make it into Philadelphia's papers and glossy magazines," Schwartz explains. "My hope is that we made more people aware that the hole is indeed there, and that you don't need to be very old or wealthy or experienced to go out there and start filling it."

--Andrew Parks

Battle Tussle, Part 2

Rock 'n' roll may never die, but it must be hard for aspiring Philly bands to have much faith in one of its time-honored traditions: the Battle of the Bands. Just weeks before Coyote Ugly on Third Street went the way of the Maui Entertainment Complex, a scandal rocked a BOTB there [Naked City, "The Good, the Band and the Ugly," Brian Hickey, July 15, 2004]. And it (allegedly) went a little something like this:

The judges decide one band—Easily Amused—deserves to win the months-long competition that ended with a July 7 final play-off. The bar manager tells them he thinks another band—Lip Splinter—should take the $1,000 grand prize. The emcee gets onstage and announces that the judges' original pick won. The manager goes berserk, screaming, pushing and chasing people down the streets of Old City before giving the loot to his pick.

A violation of musical mores, no? Well, all might not be lost.

Just last week, Easily Amused almost got to tell their story in Philadelphia Municipal Court. When representatives of Coyote Ugly—the Philly bar has since closed, so attorney Ron Gordon named their affiliate in Boston as defendants because they were listed on the event tickets—failed to show, a judge awarded the band a $1,500 judgment. (The extra $500 is the fee that the band could have charged to perform that night.)

That decision can be appealed within 40 days, but calls to Coyote Ugly Boston to inquire whether they'd fight back went unreturned. Meanwhile, both Gordon and band manager Yaron Gabai are happy with the outcome.

"We really wanted our day in court and wanted to testify, but everybody thought that [Easily Amused] won anyway," says Gabai. "We never thought we didn't win the Battle."

For his part, Gordon says it'll be difficult to actually collect the default judgment from the out-of-state defendant but predicts there could be more courtroom gigs ahead.

"Since these bands were encouraged to sell tickets on their own, under the presumption that there's a contest and it's really not a contest, it's something that the District Attorney's Office should look into," he says, referring to potential fraud charges. He also echoed Gabai's sentiment of bringing a class-action suit against the chicks-dancing-on-bars chain. When contacted for comment Monday, DA spokesperson Cathie Abookire invited Easily Amused to contact their office about the matter.

--Brian Hickey