Icepack

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

by A.D. Amorosi

If you've loved Birdie Busch, you've witnessed her transformation from gossamer folkie princess to rootin' tootin' rodeo queen with a sweet country lilt. How's it feel to be a cowgirl without the blues and an honest-to-God anthem maker with her 2006 standby "South Philly"? "As someone said to me at WXPN's Free at Noon two weeks ago, 'I never thought I'd be listening to a song about 29th and Diamond with a pedal steel in it,'" laughs Busch. She claims her cow-poking around is not a traditional C&W revivalism. She just likes old things — aged National Geographics, the Isleys. "The short history of American music is a precious care of mine. And hearing Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger in the station wagon repeatedly when I was 5 leaves its mark." When she does a Johnny Brenda's hootenanny Sept. 17 with Hezekiah Jones, expect new instrumental pieces, lesser-known Springsteen covers and American Primitive guitar done on her old '58 electric Kay. "The show'll be a curve ball," says Busch.

► More baseball analogies? After what exec chef Adam DeLosso and Jose Garces did with its Trading Co. liquor license and reservation seating (reported on Meal Ticket by me, A.D.), Jose has finally put together a crack lineup around exec chef Dave Conn (from Village Whiskey) for JG Domestic's Oct. opening. Bill Hanson (Buddakan), sous chefs Joel Mazigian (Trading Co.), Josh Massaro (Chifa) and Matt Hiesch (Distrito) — a real team of all-stars. And honk when you see Garces' Guapos Tacos truck at Whole Foods' 30th birthday party Sept. 19 in the Art Museum area.

► Drummer Hoagy Wing wouldn't say much about his upcoming reunion show with Eliot Duhan/Todd Young's Fug-ish EDO (co-starring Stinking Lizavetta at Clark Park Sept. 18) save to say, "According to Eliot there will be at least 50 copies of our new disc available." Skronk.

► Uptown downtown shuffle: Jolly Weldon of Dueling Piano Bar (20th and Chestnut) opens a crab shack at ye old Mio Sogno spot at 15th and Oregon this month. East Passyunk's health-conscious Fuel takes a second bite at 12th and Walnut.

► After doing their thing with fellow Jerseyites World at Large and the quaint Tea Club at North Star, the art-popping Banned Books pair with Philly's just-reformed Mount Joy, at National Mechanics, Sept. 20.

► Now that Live Arts resurrected Egypt, the flashy DelAve club of the '80s, for its Festival Bar, is a reunion of the old E crew due? Yes. Check Ice Cubes on Critical Mass.

► Where'll you be on Sept. 21 in regard to Mumia Abu-Jamal/Daniel Faulkner movies? Tigre Hill's The Barrel of a Gun at the Merriam or Johanna Fernandez's Justice on Trial at Ritz East? View with your conscience.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)