Friends,

Please join us for our First Friday Open House, featuring the long-awaited return of our friend Chuck Treece & The Vegan Pork Rinds, starting at 9:00 p.m.

For those of you who are relatively new to the Turtle First Friday thing, Chuck Treece is an old friend and longtime staple of these shows -- this is his fifth show here since 2000 -- and he's been one of Philly's best and most respected musicians for well over a decade.  His web site is a work in progress, but even the temporary splash page shows the incredible breadth of his work -- skater-punk pioneer, hip-hop innovator, hard-rock icon and session man to the top acts in the industry -- and I do mean the top acts.  Don't make me drop names.

Chuck always plays with great skill and great feel.  More than that, he always plays with obvious joy, just one more thing that makes him a fun guy to call in on a session.  The Vegan Pork Rinds is basically his musical playground -- an excuse to call in a bevy of his talented peers and basically shred for three hours.  Tonight's group will be anchored by Tony Whitfield, Steve McKee and Dave Manley -- all tremendous musicians and bandleaders in their own rights.

It's really kind of ridiculous.  You should come see.

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Thrilladelphia.  I have about five pages of stuff I should have already blogged about this.  I'll just give a few highlights and links.

We saw almost 40 different bands play out of the 63 in the festival.  Some amazing performances, and we definitely discovered some talents we otherwise wouldn't have known about.  New friends and new favorites.  We'll talk more about them later.

We recorded the first two shows and got to work with six exceptional bands.  The tracks from those shows have already gotten airplay on XPN as well as Jon Solomon's Local Support podcast.  You can hear a few of these tracks on our MySpace page.

It was big, it was fun, it was well-attended, well-covered and well-received.  And after another couple of weeks to recover, I'm sure I'll be eagerly awaiting the next one.

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So much more to talk about, but it's going to have to wait.

But this video is pretty hilarious.

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First Friday Open House ... doors open at 9:00 p.m.  As always, feel free to bring along anyone and everyone whom you think might appreciate it. We look forward to seeing you.

Turtle Studios, 225 Quarry St., in Old City Philadelphia
just off 3rd Street between Race and Arch

JSL

This thing has been "secret" long enough ... our free showcase + soiree in a few hours features two great acts, one exciting new group and one that is already on a major tour.

Now making the jump from local favorite to national act on the rise, National Eye is touring in support of their debut record "Roomful of Lions" on the Park The Van label.

The DrugByrds is the latest project for Joey Sweeney and features members of over a dozen other great Philly bands, both past and present.

We'll have free food and drink, and it should be a great early-evening hang for everyone ... rain or shine.

Friends,

Please join us for our First Friday Open House, featuring one of our very favorite bands, Like Moving Insects, starting at 9:00 p.m.-- and with a bonus pre-show starting at 8:00 p.m.!  (More on that in a minute.)

Like Moving Insects actually made their Turtle Lounge debut in late 2004 at a special event for Figurehead Productions.  Like many before us and many since, we fell in love with their mingling of subtle tones and rhythms into Southern- and occasionally jazz-tinged songs, elements found in every instrument and voice in the five-piece ensemble.  I can't really do them any justice at all in trying to describe their sound.  This is a special band that you really need to hear for yourself.

LMI has decided to make their next CD release a live recording, and in fact this show is it.  So while there will be a few old classics, most of the songs performed at this show will be their more recent material, as yet unrecorded and unreleased.  We're really pleased to be collaborating with them on this special project.

As a special bonus this month, Arts In Motion will be featuring music and gigantic projections outside the studio starting at 6:00 p.m., followed by live music upstairs in our live room starting at 8:00 p.m..  It's a little hard to describe exactly what Arts In Motion is -- organization? band? idea? philosophy? ethos? -- and an hour on the phone with their founder, composer Eric Haeker, brought me no closer to the answer.

Here's what I have figured out.  Arts In Motion is bringing traditional classical music to young and modern audiences through collaborations with visual artists, poets, electronic musicians and other artists.  As a preview of their upcoming April 21 concert, a small ensemble will be performing pieces for piano, violin and laptop, including exceprts from a new composition they have commissioned from our buddy Mary Bichner of Box Five.

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Thrilladelphia.  The subject leaves me speechless, other than the next four paragraphs.

In a couple of weeks, the city is going to be blanketed with coverage of this festival, the brainchild of our own prodigal engineer Jeff Anderson.  It's hard to believe that what started as a fun little one-weekend four-club scheme just two years ago has now grown to a 62-band, 14-sponsor, 10-venue, 6-record-label, music-scene-devouring, 11-headed beast.  Unbelievable.  I remember when Turtle Studios was pretty much the biggest sponsor of this thing -- and now Tower Records and XPN are in on the act.

XPN in fact will be broadcasting live from our April 22 afternoon concert as part of the festival, and they've asked us to record that show, as well as a secret VIP show the night before, for broadcast later that week.  Who's playing?  I can't tell you -- all I can say is that it's two secret Philly indie rock all-star groups.  That's the Saturday afternoon show at Turtle.  As for the Friday night show, not only can't I tell you who's playing, I can't even tell you where it  is.  You're just going to keep your eyes peeled.

I will divulge that my good friend Alec Meltzer will be making his long-overdue debut in the Turtle Lounge as part of the Saturday show.  So that narrows it down to about nine bands.

But anyway, it isn't just that I'm proud of Jeff for everything he's been able to accomplish with Thrilladelphia, and I'm proud for Turtle Studios to be a part of it.  Even aside from that stuff, it's just great to have a big rock music festival in Philly that doesn't suck.  There, I said it.  Every Thrilladelphia showcase has been stocked with great bands, some signed and many unsigned, the great majority from Philly.  This year's shows will be no exception, so if you've been wondering where the fresh original music is in this town, you really need to check these shows out.

More info at the Figurehead Productions web site.

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And speaking of mad schemes kinda-sorta hatched in our basement ... I've had the rare pleasure the last few months of watching a great band come together right in front of me.  That band is The Lowlands, an original bluegrass-roots-folk band anchored by our own ace producer and bass player Jeff Hiatt, and fronted by three -- three! -- of Philly's most admired writer-songsingers, Adrien Reju, Todd Barneson and Chris Kasper.

Holy shit, these guys are good.  They are going to own this town by Thanksgiving, with far-reaching consequences for the price of pumpkins, drugs and real estate.  Don't say I didn't try to warn you.

You can and should catch The Lowlands this Wednesday, April 12, at the Tin Angel, where they will be releasing their eponymous debut EP, produced at Turtle Studios of course.  Also on the bill that night will be Johnny Miles, an enormously talented young songwriter and musician whose debut CD will be hatched out of our control room in another month or two.  I can't go to this show because I'll be out of town, and I'm pretty bummed about it.  So please, go in my place and, you know, "represent" or something.

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And speaking of mad schemes kinda-sorta hatched in our basement ... we've been overwhelmed with the response to Todd Horton's Pianadelphia project since I announced it last month.  Since that time, the city's best mastering engineer signed on and agreed to give it a final polish.  Except that after spending a long day listening to it, he informed us that he couldn't improve upon it -- that it is already recorded and mixed so well, and so consistently, that it just doesn't need any mastering at all.

I hate to just blatantly brag about something like this, but I am just so blown away by this assessment, and so impressed with Todd, and with Jeff and Jason who assisted him with the tracking, that I just had to say something.  We are now in discussions with several record labels and sponsors and should have a release date in another month or so.  Oh, and there might just be a documentary, too ...

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First Friday ... doors open at 9:00 p.m. for Like Moving Insects upstairs, and at 8:00 p.m. for Arts In Motion upstairs.  As always, feel free to bring along anyone and everyone whom you think might appreciate it. We look forward to seeing you.

Turtle Studios, 225 Quarry St., in Old City Philadelphia
just off 3rd Street between Race and Arch

JSL