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A Little Rough Around the Edges:
Get Experimental with the Philadelphia Fringe
Around Labor Day each year since 1997, the Philadelphia Fringe Festival has taken over Old City Philadelphia. The FringeFest has tripled in size since its inception and has been received with tremendous attention, support and community involvement. In 2000, the sixteen-day Festival drew over 32,000 people, with over 700 artists and company members performing more than 500 performances. The Philly Fringe presents a full spectrum of colorful work that falls within, between and sometimes beyond the standard categories of theater, dance, performance art, music, poetry, puppetry and visual arts. National and international performers come out en masse to present new visions and thought-provoking work. This year's event will take place August 31 - September 15.
More information is available at http://www.pafringe.com
Tapping the Vein
Out of the darkness, into the light...
Philly’s founding un-goths prepare to unleash a nuclear blast of a full-length CD.
Tapping the Vein’s name implies the exchange of pain for pleasure, and that sensual tradeoff hangs heavy in their music. With their two EPs to date, Butterfly and Undone, TDV crafted a wide-ranging sound that’s found fans in wide-ranging audiences, material with a pop sensibility that tempers darkwave tones floating through lush layers of samples, loops and percussion. Singer Heather Thompson, drummer/ programmer Eric Fisher, bassist Joe Rolland, and guitarist Mark Butler just wrapped up work with producer Scott Stallone on their first full-length offering, The Damage (Caipiranha/Nuclear Blast). Unsung Hero talked to the voice of the vein, Heather.
UH: Philadelphia has such diverse musical cultures, and your sound is accessible on different levels. Looking at the city, where would you say you fit in?
HEATHER: We play to too many different people to fairly say that we claim a scene. We play at regular clubs and bars, goth events, whatever we have to do... We do specifically goth-industrial events, but the next weekend we will be playing at a pub. And at some of the shows, the audience is very mixed. I mean, you have people in the audience in black vinyl and then right next to them a dad with his kid. It's really cool, I think. Everybody is so nice. Very supportive. We are very, very lucky.
UH: How has the band changed since the last EP?
HEATHER: From the Butterfly EP to the Undone EP, the changes are in the personnel. We had a different guitar and bass player at the time, so writing styles were a little different, maybe. But from Undone to The Damage, I think we have stayed consistent.
UH: What's the writing process for the band?
HEATHER: We have a few different ways that we bring ideas into the band. Sometimes it starts with a loop that Eric creates. Other times Mark comes in with a song, music complete for the most part, that we may change a little here and there and that needs lyrics and melody line. Other times it is my idea and I plunk the whole thing out on a little Casio keyboard so that they can hear it and then we all make changes from there. There is not one writer. We feel that we all contribute.
UH: What are your favorites from the new album?
HEATHER: “Sugar Falls” is really cool. It's a song that I brought in and played from top to bottom on the little keyboard. It ended up too poppy after it was all said and done. Not dark at all like I had originally intended. Now, it is dark and creepy but still hooky, I think. Who knows? But everybody ended up being really, really happy with it after kind of fighting it for a while. It was kind of cool to finally say "Now that's what I was hearing from the beginning!" As far as "The Ledge" goes, this was just the opposite. Very easy song. Mark came in with a tape of the whole thing. We made very little changes, if any. I added the lyrics and melody line. Eric added a lot of programming and loops but kept Mark's original programming as well. It came together very quickly.
>> Relevant Info:
web: www.tappingthevein.com
e-mail: info@tappingthevein.com
booking: info@tappingthevein.com
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Philly Style
• d.x. ferris
CARFAX ABBEY
Editor’s note: Tapping the Vein and Carfax Abbey join the Unsung Hero Concert Series w/ Spinebelt & 51 Peg Friday, September 21, at Philadelphia’s the Balcony.
It’s not a bad thing, but Mid-Atlantic music fans are a little spoiled: We tend to forget that, in most cities, scenes just wishful thinking, in reality not much more than a group of people who have nothing in common except forking over a cover charge. Philadelphia’s industrial-goth scene is one of the better examples of authentic homegrown love leading to an interactive clubbing experience. Tapping the Vein and Carfax Abbey are at ground zero of a music community with international connections.
Carfax keyboardist & sampler David explains the symbiotic fan-band connection: “We get to go out and meet our buddies who come out to see us. They get to mingle and talk to us. We get to meet the other bands, they get to meet their fans there, and it’s one giant exchange of information and networking. You go to have a good time, but you end up getting six different business cards.”
Being accessible has lead to a cottage industry whose currency consists of goodwill and music. David proudly and humbly acknowledges Carfax’s corps of fans — “Abbeys.” Gradually culled from crowds at Dancing Ferret shows, Wednesday-night Nocturne at Shampoo, and John Rambo’s nights at Ulana’s, the legion acts as an informal volunteer multimedia division, documenting the band’s special-effects theatrics. Singer Gary constantly researchers new body paint designs for shows when Carfax effects artist Vince doesn’t turn him into a fluke-man monster or gunshot victim. Loyal fans never see the same show twice.
“The fans are our life's blood, obviously,” says David. “Without humans who identify with your music, you are nothing — see all of the Carfax Abbey fan sites that have been created recently. We have people doing photography, videography, T-shirts, design, all because they enjoy the band. We have a massive corps of people who come to nearly every show, even the ones out of town. I can't even begin to thank the fans enough.”
Carfax formed in 1996, taking its name from the British estate Dracula purchases in the Brahm Stoker novel. The name and the band’s witch-rune logo imply that the band would be goth as night, but their music leans toward the industrial — metallic vocals, big beats, guitars. Like its sister band Tapping the Vein, Carfax’s material is accessible to audiences beyond initiates of the culture. The pillars of the scene are far from a vampire clan.
“Not that I’m claiming that Carfax started a scene in Philly, but I think that people were hungry for a show,” says David. “And since then, we’ve seen a lot of bands incorporate elements of light or bodypainting or really cool costumes. The eye candy aspect of it really helped, as well as the music being decent.”
In addition to drawing record-setting crowds with similar regional acts including Torsion, Tapping the Vein, Burned and Baltimore’s 51 Peg, Carfax regularly play with national acts such as MDFMK, The Nuns, The Crüxshadows and The Genitorturers. Regular top-twenty apearances on MP3.com’s industrial-metal charts helped lead to a critically acclaimed slot on Dancing Ferret’s national compilation The Succubus Club .
The breaking bad news for the Abbeys is that the band’s second full-length CD is on hold; the good news is that it’s on hold while the band go back into the studio with producer Scott Stallone, who is engineering a bridge from the scene to the dark world beyond the city.
“I think the scene has really gelled around everybody who’s involved. Tapping the Vein signing with Nuclear Blast, to me, is evidence to me that there is signable material in Philly now, and there is a good scene.”
>>Relevant Info:
web: www.carfaxabbey.com
booking: John Ruszun @ 215.781.5948, cfxjohn@bellatlantic.net
public relations: tkurtz@bellatlantic.net, 215.428.3417
downloads: www.mp3.com/carfaxabbey
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