Big in Japan

Philly's music folk are a pretty parochial lot. Often, they like the people they know in whatever neighborhood they know them from and whatever bar they drink at and that's that. Of course there are exceptions and cross-scene pollinations: Everybody in West Philly loves The Capitol Years. Who in Fishtown doesn't dig Stinking Lizaveta? The Roots — they belong to us all. But the success of bands on labels large, small or self-owned is probably gauged on these bands being your hipster homeys and how often they've been booked at your local watering hole. Plastic Little, The A-Sides, Nouveau Riche, Yah Mos Def, Birdie Busch. Shall I go on? OK: The War On Drugs, Blood Feathers, Make A Rising, Dr. Dog, The Teeth. We love you all. And we know where to find you.

But there's a legion of acts you should know, ones you have never met that are thriving without you. Or your fandom. Or your palsy shoulder grabs and PBR rounds.

How about that, hipster doofus?

Here are a few acts that happen to be signed and unsigned, big and bigger, without one iota of your help. Or mine.

Sure, Steph Pockets has always had a friend in Will Smith — known him since she was a kid in West Philly. (He was supposedly her date for career day in fifth grade). Pockets was inspired by The Fresh Prince's success — but her soft, jazzy hip-hop with smart, positivist lyrics, her Lauryn Hill joie de vivre? She's made that successful on her own. In Japan, yet, where Pockets had underground success with the album My Crew Deep in 2004 on Tokyo's Handcuts label. She's also hit the Japanese charts by producing and writing for a handful of Japanese pop and hip-hop artists including Def Jam Japan's AI (not that A.I.). It's not that she hasn't done stuff in the States. She's on the O soundtrack. She's played a lot of music conferences. Hell, she has a studio in West Philly with her husband, Bump (with whom she now works and writes) and records with locals like drummer Tony Catastrophe. But Japan's her moneymaker. So much so that she's just hit the charts big in Japan with her new single co-starring Speech (of Arrested Development) as well as readying her next album, Can't Give Up, for her new label, Sony. Act like you know and start hitting Amazon Japan.

Listen, brother. (I'm talking in my Hulk Hogan voice now.) Anyone who lives at the intersection of bald-o rawk and goatee grunge should find this "born and raised on the streets of Philadelphia" quartet — so says their bio — up their alley. Oy, who writes these things? Anyway, there are elements of Alice in Chains and Live in Octane's clean, sharp, big sound. Octane gigs at the Cell Block and Whisky Tango and plays crunchy power ballads at sports bars in Bellmawr, N.J. You may not like Octane. Fact is, Octane didn't like each other. They were supposedly ready to break up after recording and self-releasing their CD Rise Up. Then a funny thing happened. They started getting radio airplay throughout the country — including local hits at WMMR-FM and WYSP-FM. Their album ratcheted up points on Billboard magazine's "Heatseekers" (which is weird because they're unsigned). They even got a bizarre sponsorship with LUKOIL, who did a free gas coupon thing with Octane in August. This is the scene in the movie where Capitol Years just has to scratch their collective head and say, "What the fuck?!"

The South Philly-born composer of rousing chamber music — elegant, rich works based on the writings of Poe, Browning and Sandburg — may be dead. I mean he is definitely dead. But that hasn't stopped the Daily News' Tom DiNardo from reviving the name, legend and cherished under-recorded lush sound of the self-taught pianist. DiNardo once helped to raise funds for a recording of Cascarino's William Penn opera (based on Penn's Prayer for Philadelphia ) as performed in 1982 at the Academy of Music during a celebration of the 300th anniversary of the city's founding. 

But DiNardo can also be found executive producing a newly released Naxos label CD of never-before-recorded Cascarino chamber pieces, recorded at Germantown's First Presbyterian Church in 2005 with a new ensemble, Philadelphia Philharmonia. It ain't Tupac. But it's close.

Philly's unheralded house-and-hip-hop lord has dropped a few truly thick artist CDs in the last two years (Beat Journey, Three Piece Puzzle) as well as a few mix CDs (Timeless Vol. 1, Houston We Got a Solution). Jarel has his own label (Label Who?) and even another name he records under (Dr. Who Dat). 

Do you know his music, filled with languid tracks, silly funk and Afro-Brazilian touches that any fan of King Britt and Jazzanova — both of whom he's worked with — would love?

Do you know Jarel? No? No worries. The MC/musician/producer born Omar Jarel Gilyard has moved around so much since he was a kid (Brooklyn, Houston) he's probably used to being a man of mystery. Starting his rap life as part of H-Town's underground hip-hop scene, Jarel became a major part of Black Lily events at the Wetlands in NYC. He befriended Public Enemy's Hank Shocklee, worked with Lizz Fields and produced and played on bits of Connecting the Dots, Rich Medina's debut CD, before moving to Philly. Once he got here, Jarel dropped the manic Three Piece Puzzle — a Native Tongues-inspired work — under his name, as well as Dr's Who Dat's spacey debut disc, Beat Journey. Maybe being as busy as he is (he just formed the Shape of Broad Minds group with several other MCs) keeps you from getting to know the real Jarel. I'll get his address. You bake the cookies.

One day you're gigging at Medusa, The Five Spot and the coffee bars near Penn State's campus singing cranky, romantic, soulful songs with strange, image-laden lyrics in a high, full falsetto. The next day, you're flying first class to Los Angeles with the head of the Island Def Jam Music Group. That's singer/keyboardist/lover man J. Hill's experience in a nutshell. Or it's The J.Hill Experience's experience — depending on whether or not he keeps playing with the band that's backed him so ably now that he's been signed, personally, by L.A. Reid. Either way, what's weird about Hill's story is how under-the-radar he's been. In fact, even now, rather than bask in seminotoriety, Hill's supposedly got his head down in his Fender Rhodes' electric piano and Korg Minimoog composing his debut CD for 2007 release. The West Philly native — not unlike John Stephens before he became John Legend — has been playing a brew of jazz, funk and classical music since his childhood. While attending Penn State, Hill's brew steeped long enough to become a smoky, soulful, occasionally rocking thing with songs like "Leave a Message" and "I Miss Her" sounding like the missing link between R. Kelly and Cody ChesnuTT. After opening shows for Gerald Levert and Legend himself, Hill found himself attended to by Reid. And the rest — we hope — is history.
  The fact that American Idol producers won't come to Philadelphia (thank God, really) doesn't mean we lack for scrubbed-spiffy song-stylers of varying degrees of quality. Curly haired Justin Guarani — the "J Man" as he calls himself — hails from Doylestown. Dog-faced Bianca Ryan — the 12-year-old Philadelphian singer and America's Got Talent winner — signed with Simon Cowell's SYCO imprint on Columbia. But Mayfair's Joanna Pacitti has them both beat. Not just because the kid who'd wind up as the single-named Joanna sounds like a more soulful clarion cross between Kelly Clarkson, Pat Benatar and Mariah Carey without the multioctave range. Not because she's adorable. Rather, because the kid did everything from sing weekly at her dad's barbershop to appear on The Al Alberts Show. And Geffen has since put Joanna and This Crazy Life's best songs in front of live audiences from strip malls to Sheryl Crow shows, as well as opening Nick Lachey's tour, which made its Philly stop on October 6. Look, hipster asshole — you didn't like Kelly Clarkson's first album, or her run on American Idol. But now, I guarantee you, you're dancing to Clarkson remixes and hanging onto her SPIN magazine cover like it's the chick from The Distillers. Joanna's got pipes. You'll be framing her SPIN cover in 2007. Trust me.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)