Concerted Effort

A Philly poet writes up real life and rock shows in his debut collection.

by Sam Tremble

I'm browsing through some pics on the Disco Biscuits' MySpace page. Under the album tagged "NYE 07" there's a shot of balloons and confetti falling over a crowd in the Tweeter Center. Somewhere under the blue lights is poet Paul Siegell, copywriter for the Inquirer, whose first book, Poemergency Room, just came out on Otoliths press, and inside his head, a poem is forming. "*12.31.06 — The Disco Biscuits — Tweeter Center, NJ*," to be exact. It's one of nearly a dozen poems about Philadelphia concerts in his new book, which largely catalogs contemporary city life without cliché in visually startling compositions.

Amber Bramble FREEZE FRAME: Paul Siegell's Poemergency Room gets equal inspiration from the corporate 9-to-5 and the Disco Biscuits.

City Paper: After reading one of your poems, I've been wondering: Have you ever really dropped a deuce in one of your dreams?

Paul Siegell: Y'know, I've been waiting for that question. I think so, to be honest. It didn't actually have anything — all right, well, I think so. I remember waking up and thinking, "Did that just happen?" Wow, I'm putting myself out there.

CP: What actually constitutes realworldolescence?

PS: Wow, that's everything right there. Being new to this thing that you hafta go to work, you go to college, and you gotta find this job or else, you have these bills to pay and all the sudden you're out in the world and you graduate, y'know, if you have this background and you're lucky enough to go to college. And then: Now what? Did I lose my freedom? The ability to party? Now I have to go to this job and I have to wear maybe a tie and maybe a button-down shirt or whatever, shiny shoes. And it's a struggle. ... Y'know, I guess it's just that awkward stage of being in your early 20s, your early-mid-20s. Like, this is what it's all about? This is why I went to school? This is what I'm supposed to be doing? There's always that question: What do I wanna do with my life? Well, I don't fuckin' know.

I mean, obviously [realworldolescence is] a wordplay. ... It's just growing pains basically. Going to work but still not feeling that you're doing what you wanna do.

CP: So you say you collect jobs as well as you quit them. What's your résumé look like?

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PS: It depends on what one you look at. It's kind of a chop shop. I work in a creative field, so no one really expects you to be at a place longer than two years. Not everything in the book is autobiographical — sometimes it's just me writing, y'know? But that one piece [*to answer the new interview*], that day actually did happen, and I did quit this job down in Atlanta where I was. It was one of those dramatic quits: "I am so out of here, take this and shove it," y'know? ... My résumé, it's professional, it is. Nothing on there is a lie, either.

CP: Now, what is it about the Disco Biscuits that moves you to write poetry?

PS: Are you a fan?

CP: I'm not not a fan, but they're not one my particular favorites.

PS: Have you ever seen a show?

CP: No, I haven't.

PS: They're fucking good! They're really good. They've taken me to that next-level-kind-of-musical-moment-experience-thing. I mean, I came out of the Phish scene, y'know? I did all the Phish shows out on tour and all that stuff. But even before Phish ended, I listened to Bisco.

The transfusion concept that they do — they way they get the jam-band thing, the electronica, trance, four-to-the-floor kind of "untz" once in a while, it's interesting.

The way they do their set list, it's fucking brilliant. They invert songs, they'll play songs dyslexic ... they just mess with their audience. They'll play the ending first and the beginning as the ending — they're basically teaching their audience how to listen to them. Everyone — Phish, Dead, Bisco, whatever it is — everyone's keeping track of the set list cuz everyone wants to know what songs they heard and all that crazy stuff.

I like the potential for what happens when I go to any concert ... when I go to a concert I'm dancing my ass off, I'm totally in it and for some reason it just makes me think. The Disco Biscuits make me think.

(s_tremble@citypaper.net)