Printer-friendly versionI recently heard someone make a comment that "there just aren't enough live music events happening around Philly for anyone to write about." With all its earsplitting guitars, pounding bass drums and screaming vocals, it's amazing to me that some members of the Penn community still haven't heard the sounds of the hardcore scene pouring out onto the streets of Philadelphia. Surely you must have noticed the crowds of young kids with pierced faces loitering outside of houses-turned-venues, or at least heard the menacing noises of Penn's very own Balboa resonating out of the basement of the ATO house. Yes, the punk rock-hardcore-emo scene is alive and well in Philadelphia, bringing a ruckus and damaging ear drums every week of the year.
The strength of the Philly hardcore scene has been demonstrated by its amazing resilience over the past few years. 4040 Locust, the Rotunda, the Killtime on 39th and Lancaster and its neighbor, Stalag 13, are just a few of the local venues that had thrived and were subsequently closed down. However, due to the persistence of certain members of the hardcore community, bands have found new venues in some rather unlikely places.
Funrama, in the basement of an inconspicuous house at 41st and Baltimore, provides an intimate and cozy atmosphere for bands and their fans, with the smell of kitty litter and moisture from leaky pipes adding beautifully to the grassroots, gutter punk aura. The Unitarian Church on 21st and Chestnut and, recently, Calvery Church on 48th and Baltimore, also occasionally host shows on evenings and weekends, after the nice old ladies and organ players have already gotten home. Just a little further away are the Owl Cove at Temple University and, my personal favorite, Lasalle University, where I saw Bane and caught a fist in the mouth last year, in the Dunleavy Room. Of course, there's also the Pi Lam house on Spruce Street, which hosts shows every once in a while.
Shows usually cost anywhere between five and 10 dollars and include anywhere from three to upwards of six bands at a time. Small Brown Bike, the Hope Conspiracy, Converge, Poison the Well, Bane, Dark Day Dawning and 7 Seconds are just a few of the more well-known bands who have played here in Philly churches, basements and holes in the wall over the past year. New, young, talented bands are constantly playing shows and making names for themselves in the scene. And for those of you who are still disappointed that hardcore music doesn't have anything to do with porn, I can tell you from experience that there's a good chance you'll see at least one naked guy in a circle pit at a Rambo show -- I saw one just about a month ago at Funrama.
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Guess they'll never spell our name right, but it warms this old timer's heart to see the scene's alive and well in Philly, not like it is here. Stay united.
Big Sister Bibiloni, guitarist/science teacher
NYC
ninjas are totally sweet.
philly hardcore, watch out for Xtickle fightX. we will rock you.
armando
if you knew anything about the punk scene in philly, you would not say it's "alive and well."
christine, student
punkadelphia
cfisher3@sas.upenn.edu
Christine.
With all due respect, fuck you. You have no clue what you're talking about. What element of the punk scene are you implying is "dead?" Hardcore? Streetpunk? New school/pop punk (cringe)? All of them are alive and well in this city, and if you're too blind to see their massive growth in the last couple years, that's your problem. were you at Slaughter and the Dogs a month ago at the Pontiac? Did you see the 150-200 kids there going apeshit? Were you at This Day Forward/Everytime I Die/A Life Once Lost in Bensalem? 500 kids. 500 kids fucking shit up. Now tell me this scene is dead.
The Michael, your mom
fuck you
Saretsky@sas.upenn.edu
I live above the "inconspicuous" funrama at 41st and Baltimore and its the worst.
Punk sucks. Despite the occasional talented performer, its basicaly music degenerated into a bunch of people that take too much speed using a $30 overdrive pedal and playing the only two chords they know.
Go be angry somewhere other than my basement.
punk sucks
punkssucks@shittymusic.com
1)punk was designed to make people angry by government factions with the mk ultra project and stuff...over the years the good punk kids have evolved and tried to keep the rage in the energy of the music only...in other words CALM THE HELL DOWN :)
2)the question is...
did the punk scene get better?
did the punk scene get worse?
or did the punk scene we use to know completely die and turn into wutever the hell it is now???
we used to have like 3 exclusively punk venues...now we have none
the kids used to think uniting us would only make us stronger...now the kids like belonging to the kuler "punk" groups
i also feel that the kids now all listen to music that moved completely away from punk...when there's revolutionary new styles of music that i would still call "punk"
randy
hey guy who lives above funrama....metal jim??..haha..
al roker deathcult wind ensemble played your basement.
someone
someone@someplace.net
dear christine - please don't say the music scene is dead cuz its NOT. the two biggest reasons i came to this school was because of nursing and the punk/hardcore scene we have here.
i'm really enjoying both thank you. the shows are amazing. our local bands are too. and all the bands that tour through here name philly as one of their favorite places to play because we have some awesome energy.
-christine tarn is my name
shame to my name
tarn@nursing.upenn.edu
look, i know the scene isn't dead. but it isn't doing so well. yes, there are shows. people go to them. but i've lived in philadelphia my whole life. if you look in northeast philadelphia, the scene has hardly no youth coming into it. it practically rolled over and died recently. try finding venues for all the 15 year olds who want to play shows and meet people, and can't afford the killtime or what was 4040. i'm not so much talking about the popularity of bands rolling into philly that like to play here, i'm talking about the chances that local bands get. there is without a doubt less shows than there used to be. sure, some colleges host shows sometimes, but those cater mostly to students. i could go on and on, but i really don't feel like it.
christine, student
not a shame to the name
cfisher3@sas.upenn.edu
I stumbled upon this and would like to say I was at that a life once lost show. Mayhem. There is a good scene if you know where to look. A life once lost is not what I would call punk but if your into punk there most certainly is a good scene in and around Philadelphia.
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