Icepack

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


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Published: Apr 7, 2009

(This article has been corrected)

►Lemme 'splain Icepack's new format in cinematic terms. I'm getting "20 Against 20" with a back end like Denzel. I lay out a minimum in the front — the paper — get back-end bigger online and pass the savings on to you. That reminds me. PhillyCinefest '09 is over. No more Connie Stevens being led around by anyone other than birthday boy Thom Cardwell. No more Jeff Daniels being a dick to TLA folks or the mayor. I hear he blamed his douchiness on his rigorous Broadway schedule. Hey, Jeff, I was on Broadway. It was crowded but I had a Diet Pepsi and felt better. And I'm not a prick! ICE-HOLES might disagree. Fuck you. Fest organizers go through this every year: Dermot Mulroney once didn't show up to a house party he was supposed to. John Leguizamo left one early and went to Pearl. GET CONTRACTS with riders that SPELL OUT the obligations of actors when they appear at the Fest. Bitches: You're ours when you're here. How was the C-Fest, Ray Murray, booking agent and co-organizer/sponsor? "A success." Murray says about 66,000 paid customers (this compared to 64,500 in 2008) for more screenings but fewer parties in 2009. "Maybe the fight [between TLA and Philly Film Society] intrigued and motivated people, but the audiences liked what they saw." Murray went on to call it the best of his nine-year reign, satisfying despite "the fight, little to no government grants, and decreases in advertising. It won't make money, but the deficit — to be covered by TLA — will be significantly less than projected. Ego-wise, a boost, proving something to my distractors — but that's just me and my now plump ego."

►Black Rock isn't just a nickname for the CBS Building. It's a punk-funk movement plain-n-simple. Guitarist John Cecil Price is at the forefront. I dared him to come up with something that defines Black Rock so his Baptist Preachers planned an April 15 Pay Ya Taxes/Preacher Sheena b-day bash at the Troc. Goldiebox'll be there; Pillow Theory whose forthcoming CD is produced by TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek, too. Better still — London Victory Club is on the bill. The brutal band named after the aged Chestnut Street disco features Chuck D (who plays with Price's Philly Unlimited Orchestra), members of Phil Moore Browne with K-Mass and Kid Kreyol. This shit'll HURT.

► You gotta put Black Landlord on the Black Rock list. To bolster the release of BL's Addicted to Distraction, Maxx Stoyanoff-Williams is going back a-ways. He and Bob Bannon'll strip down the Black Landlord and go unplugged at National Mechanics April 13. But there'll also be previously unseen video of Maxx when he was in Philly's live rap act The Goats, courtesy Rich Murray. Though they were hip-hop, The Goats was Black Rock at its most ferocious. Murray captured The Goats backinaday as Ruffhouse's videographer. Along with his and Woodshop Films'/Andrew Geller's vids, Murray'll screen his debut feature, the Ruffhouse-r known as Snipes. Reminisce!

Icepack ONLINE EXTRA!

► Looks like Transit, the Sixth and Spring Garden dance hall owned by the Weiss Bros (Pure, Woody’s, Bump) is no more. Yet, their neighboring Palmer Social Club flourishes. Go figure. I hear that a Weiss management team took out all equipment from the towering venue once known as The Bank (under Stephen Starr’s reign). Though the venue hasn’t operated as a regular-hours club, it has opened its doors to Making Time and Paperstreet events. Not enough ducats for the brothers Weiss, apparently, as rumor has ’em not renewing their lease.

► When Band of Outsiders play Tritone on April 11, know that they’re the NYC '80s post-punk equivalent of the band they’re playing with that night — Witchtrialz. While Witchtrialz features members of Executive Slacks and No Milk, the rough edges Band of Outsiders worked with Ivan Kral and A Certain General. There’s all kinds of history, old and new, to be had with this one.

► Philly's Eddie Bruce – crooner/event-booking entrepreneur — has left his EBE Entertainment company (amicably) to do his own thing (parties, cabarets), including his Tony Bennett songbook show at Metropolitan Room in NYC April 12.

► If you could, like we said last week, revive Chestnut Cabaret, why not Jimmy’s Milan? In an article by Rick Nichols in the Inky about Table 31's transformation from steakhouse to Italian joint, T31 operative Joe Wolf drops a reference to the old, formerly-mobbed-up S. 19th St. dining location, claiming it as inspiration. Which reminds us that rumors have circulated in the past about a J'sM revival, and we're hearing them again. Or at least my tipster was told by some chooch who might have some money and the Milan ties to maybemaybeMAYBE to make it so. (This item has been corrected.)

► My favorite Souf’ Philly transplant/multi-media artist Ryan “Wian” Trecartin, and his pal Lizzie Fitch are heading (from April 11 to May 16) to Elizabeth Dee Galley in NYC, with Trecartin also in the massively marvelous and influential (trust me, people will talk about this event for years) The Generational: Younger Than Jesus at the New Museum, New York, from April 8 - June 14. Trecartin is a star and you, you’re Clem Snide in comparison.

► The Dive on S. Eighth St. sadly lost a Saturday night Queer Dance Party to Sal's now that DJ Kit & Just Jess start “In Stereo” at U-of Sal’s April 11. Five dollar cover gets your first draft beer for free. “This ain't a fashion show,” says Kit. “Dress to dance.”

► WHOWHATWHERE: Sure Phillies’ Cole Hamels and wife Heidi got a Philly Style mag welcome into their Residences at Two Liberty Place condon’t on Monday. At more than $2.2 million for three-bedrooms, with ex mayoral candidate Tom Knox as your neighbor (he was at the party), and with air conditioners that might work properly, I’m hearing, the joint was super-hot with sweat beading off some swells like whores in a church pew. Attendees also included ESPN's Sal Paolantonio, Chuck Peruto Jr., ex-Sixers GM Billy King, weather stud Doug Kammerer, 610 WIP's Howard Eskin, Paul Rosen, Alycia Lane, John Bolaris, John Colabelli and Dan Gross all eating chef Daniel Stern's fare (he’s opening a restaurant on the high rise condo’s 37th floor). Lane there with Gross? I can’t imagine she loved that. Maybe she was overtaken by another brand of troubling media exposure. We heard that Lane told guests that she was pretty shaken up a few weeks back when Law & Order had a Lane-like tale of woe (co-anchor cyber-stalking) where a Lane-esque character was murdered, which really dredged up some horror for her. I saw the show. I was pretty scared too.

► WHOWHATWHERE, CINEFEST EDITION: While in town to CineFest, The Brothers Quay went to Silk City and loved at least two of their brunches. French actor Julien Baumgartner had supper at Bistro St. Tropez with Entertaining Pictures’ Rich Wolf and gal pal/cruise event director Susan Helfrich. We’re pretty certain nightlife entrepreneur David Carroll celebrated his birthday at Strongbox with well-dressed-man Peter DelloBouno and ex-restaurant manager Brett Brassler (currently nursing a broken ankle). CP’s Rodney Anonymous and the rest of his Dead Milkmen played a surr-prise gig at Pi Lam’s Human BBQ XXI last Saturday. Rory Culkin flew into Philly for the CineFest screening and G Lounge afterparty for Lymelife. It’s not enough that 19 year old Culkin got into G. Rumor has it that Culkin and Lymelife screenwriter/director Steven Martini (who was trying to kiss a girl or two, too) got red-eyed-y high in G’s downstairs’. Several witnesses claim to have seen and smelled the two. Casey Jones. Re-up. The Bochetto & Lentz-managed a capella quartet from Philly, Ju-Tuan, was real best-of-show for Philly film professionals of late, what with doing singing appearances at their offices for the Explicit Ills afterparty as well as performing during Sharon Pinkenson’s Philly Film Office jamboree at Chifa. And while we ponder the myth of whether or not DJ Lee Jones really did spy Nicole Richie at Little Pete’s (she has been known to snack at the near-by Snackbar) riddle this: Might Lee and his Sundae company be moving his haunted house-music bash, Sundae, to that newly erecting Delaware Ave. club called Octopus?

► Comedian Keith from the Up the Block hosts birthday shenanigans for William “Spank’ Horton, April 10/11 at the Laff House comedy club AND the after-parties at Level at 2102 Market

► Rumor has it that one of those Make U Famous LLC projects that former MUF partner Mary Patel is suing over, Andre Duze’s graphic novel Hollow-Eyed Mary, is coming out in a rush release within the next two weeks. The author is rumored to be way un-happy, too, especially since its publisher allegedly tried to use his REAL name, “Andre Wilkinson,” on the cover (his lawyer is said to have intervened this week and got Duze’s name re-instated, but with no bio on the author page.) Wilkinson/Duze, too, is supposedly waiting to get paid. And with that, since April 7 was the deadline for the defendants in the the case to file a responsive pleading, we phoned Melanie Miller at Cozen O'Connor, MUF’s lawyers, who connected me to Cozen O’Connor’s Justin Wineburgh. Originally David Wisniewski (Patel’s lawyer) told me during the start of their suit that Ms. Miller claimed (to him) that there is no more money left at MUF. Wisniewski told me, too, that Ms. Miller claimed to him that Patel's $300,000 investment can be accounted for and was legitimately spent, but, as of April 6, still refuses to provide any sort of accounting to he or Patel. Patel then filed a motion for an accounting. That said, when Wineburgh did file a responsive pleading for his defendants, he filed what is known as Preliminary Objections that, in essence A) asks the court to dismiss Patel’s claim, B) says that Patel is not entitled to an accounting and C) that the money that Patel claims were “personal loans” were indeed gifts (Remember kids, Patel used to date one of MUF’s brothers). “There has been absolutely no showing whatsoever of an entitlement to an accounting,” says Wineburgh in an e-mail. “Plaintiff and her counsel clearly do not understand the law of Pennsylvania on these issues, and by now bringing a motion with the court to seek an accounting, Plaintiff has again burdened our legal system with another meritless filing. My clients intend to challenge the motion, as appropriate, and Plaintiff's misplaced request will undoubtedly be denied by the Court.” Defendants claim that Mary Patel's complaint has no legal basis. Wisniewski thinks “the facts are on Mary's side and we are confident that she will prevail.”

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)