Icepack

Amorosi on the news, nightlife, gossip and bitchiness beats.

by A.D. Amorosi

While I follow up on my usual spate of Philly rumors — and when I say "follow up" I mean read my new David Carr book and sip on a Virgin Mary with extra horseradish until someone responds to my texts — I'll turn my attention for a sec to Atlantic City. Still waiting for Teplitzky's to open in the Chelsea Hotel? Not yet. Couple weeks left, according to those close to owner Stephen Starr. Until then, need I remind you the Chelsea Hotel and its 5th Floor complex of SoHo House-like spaces the Living Room, the Game Room and the Terrace Lounge opened Saturday? The gents who run NYC's tony Beatrice Inn — Matt Abramcyk and Paul Sevigny, bro of Chloë — are all over this 5th Floor baby and they're looking to fill the space with the lauded gentry — their old NYC friends, new Philly friends and pals like Maroon 5 who took the 5th Saturday

► No, Philly's Foundation for World Music and Arts didn't get schmoked-up and forget to give Damian and Stephen Marley their Marley citation award when the bros played TLA last week. t's just postponed. The Marleys will get their due when they return to the TLA in October

► Last time we checked on the what-what of Philly freak-folk goddess/classical guitarist Linda Cohen she was gearing to gig with Fern Knight and attempting to book beyond her annual fall event. Now, during the week of the Philly Folk Fest, comes a show at Tin Angel reuniting her with harpsichordist Michael Kac of Mandrake Memorial fame Aug. 15. "We played together years ago as a duo called A Musical Offering," says Cohen. "Then he took off to California to earn his Ph.D. in linguistics which he teaches now at the U of Minnesota and I got more serious about writing my own material." The duo started again when they recorded 1998's Naked Under the Moon with Craig Anderton, Kac's old Mandrake bandmate, as producer

► Sure Dean Ween is, hmm, in Ween. But he's also a wizened fisherman who's surely wet his rod in the streams of New Hope. During his recent world tour, Dean hit some fishing holes with fellow anglers and filmed it. You can see the humorous results broadcast on brownietroopfs.com. Check out Dean and Gibby Haynes (Butthole Surfers) now

► With the recent news that Olga's Diner in Joisey reopened after a little tax-related scare, I thought I'd check in on Philly's still-living legend, The Melrose. You know, the Depression-era spot at Passyunk-Snyder's triangle with the motto "Good things to eat, around the clock" that sold last summer to Michael Petrogiannis and his bros who own like nine other diners. What we're hearing is that there're bunches of old-school regulars unhappy with the food. How anyone can fuck up burgers and cheesecake is beyond me. "I don't know what it is, Ang, but it's not the same, not great," notes one anonymous fortysomething who's been Melrosing since childhood. "My crew feels likewise." I know people who have crews, see. Don't call this a review. Call it a warning

► Philly boys Dan May (a former opera singer) and Dennis Rambo (still a tall man) wrap bandanas around sticks and make like troubadours so to present May's fourth dramatic art-roots CD Long Road Home at 19th and Spruce's Academy of Vocal Arts Aug. 14

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

► A story with heart: Philly's most sauntering jazz pianist/vocalist, Jessy Kyle, not only beat cancer over the head. She got married and she's having a baby. "I'm very happy the way it's all come together — that I'm having a baby proves those docs wrong," says Kyle. "I really couldn't be happier — OK, maybe only if we sold a bunch of records," she laughs. She's talking about her One Wish CD with guitarist Paolo you can buy at jessyandpaolo.com

► Brothers Dan and Tim Lynam and their singing/bass-playing buddy Jon D. are Heavy Hand and their debut CD, End of Sensation, has that whole Zep/Soundgarden blues garage vibe to it. Bang. Pow. It was recorded by Aderbat drummer Todd Schied at his studio with A-bat singer Matt Taylor in on the session. Heavy Hand get heavier still at Khyber Aug. 14. Do this. Then stick around at Khyber Aug. 15 for Scott La Rock McLeod to whip out his dick with his holeandaheartbeat.com rap-porn band Hostile City Scumshot Crew. "We're like a tattooed white boy version of 2 Live Crew," notes LaRock. "Bukkake Boy moved from Germany just to start this project with me." Porn starlet Paige Taylor (30 movies under her belt) MCs

► WHOWHATWHERE: Just when you forgot the show was about Philly, a whole slew of Cold Case players took up the Pat's/Geno's lane of Ninth Street for pickup shots over the weekend. Philly MC Kevin "Skyrocket" Williams performed his deeply poetic "The Obama Song" for a massive Barack Obama theater-arts fundraiser at Fifth Floor Theatre on the campus of New York University with a kit-n-kaboodle of Broadway stars from Hair, Mamma Mia! and Company

► Which reminds me: Gillie Da Kid, signed to Koch, is dropping his first single "Do Your Job" while readying his major-label debut, The King of Philly

► Say your gentle farewells to escalator operator/Philly musical treasure Robert Hazard 6 p.m., Aug. 15 at the First Unitarian Church at 21st and Chestnut. Say a prayer for Isaac Hayes, too.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)