‘RIAA! Freeze Motherfucker! Slowly Step Away From The Computer!’ BY MICHAEL FICHMAN A blog called Thou Shall Not Leak (shouldn’t that be “shalt?”) has gotten all sorts of attention on it’s first day, thanks to the internet sleuthing of my homegirl Maura‘s posse at Idolator. Here’s what the single, solitary post on TSNL had to say: Hi, Instead of doing what everyone else has done and create a blog to leak music to people ahead of release dates illegally, I thought (largely since I work in the industry and people’s lack of care or respect for the hard work […]
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MAIL BAG: “Good Taste Is The Enemy Of Creativity” — Pablo Picasso, Spanish Cubist Painter, 1881-1973
J, I’m sure you knew what I was gonna say before you even opened the email, but that shit is in poor taste.These gifs provide a very cheap shock, and it’s the cheapness and casualness that I believe underscores both of our points. I understand that you are trying to put a shocking face on violence in Philadelphia because you think it’s being ignored to a certain extent. However, it comes off as childish and unthinking because of its comic nature and the ease and frequency with which you put up those types of graphics. Your motives are unclear and […]
POP IN TAPE: Hot Wax In The 215
VINYL SOLUTION: Jerry Weber of Jerry’s Records, Pittsburgh, PA — the man who taught a generation of yinzers to love records BY MICHAEL FICHMAN Every summer, I troll around the streets of Philadelphia on sunny Saturdays and Sundays, looking for records. Behind mattresses and shitty table lamps, there are stacks of moldy gems waiting to see the light of a crisp diamond stylus. There are Al Greens who have gone decades without singing sweet romance, Bohannons who haven’t put their lifts on since the Carter Administration, Dwight Yoakam’s dry and desiccated like roadkill ten miles outside of Bakersfied. A typical […]
POP IN TAPE: Stop Snitchin’ Is A Slogan, Not A Solution
BY MICHAEL FICHMAN Last Sunday, when Cam’ron appeared on “60 Minutes” (videos here) and tried to explain how his credibility as an artist was subject to his obedience to the Code of the Streets, he neglected to acknowledge the consequences of an imperfect code. Furthermore, he didn’t rhyme the same word over and over again, nor did he suggest that he and Anderson Cooper should tip Cristal and run trains until Gawker or Bossip find out. But I digress. The “Stop Snitchin” credo is rooted in the distrust borne of centuries of systemic racism — much of it at the hands […]
POP IN TAPE: Open A Can Of ‘Shh’ & Keep It On The DL
BY MICHAEL FICHMAN Props to the Popped Festival — a massive undertaking that has gone reasonably well thus far. To see the back-porch house show cats making moves and slinging in-kind donated energy drink, it makes you feel proud. We’ve crawled from the mud-caked basements and now we are basking in the light for all to see in our hirsute, road biking glory. Shit, even though there’s a one-to-one musician/promoter/DJ/photographer/blogger to fan ratio, it still feels like a bona-fide event rather than a rearrangement of furniture. But in an ironic twist, as the Popped Festival protrudes its proud, puffed-out chest and […]
POP IN TAPE: Hot Wax In The 215
BY MICHAEL ‘Fich’ FICHMAN Baseball is America’s perpetually redeeming characteristic. I care too much — I’m a harsh critic, a cynic. Sometimes I’ll hate something just on principle. I think too much, can’t relax. I’m always thinking about which 10 things I need to be doing, instead of doing them. But in the spring, I’m mellowed out and ready for baseball. This is a music column. However, I used to be a sportswriter and hey, a guy can like both pickles and ice cream, sometimes at the same time. I’m gonna throw together some kosher dill pistachio mint for yinz […]
POP IN TAPE: Hot Wax In The 215
BY MICHAEL FICHMAN I’ve worked on and off in sports journalism (professional, then amateur) for about seven years now. Periodically, the small-mindedness of a niche-interested group becomes apparent. For example, when a talented football player like Barry Sanders retires before his time, sportswriters lose their fucking minds. “How could he do that? He’s just walking away?!” When Michael Jordan came back for the umpteenth time (or decided to play baseball for that matter), people whined that he was tarnishing his legacy, as if MJ himself hadn’t created it. Most sportswriters and hardcore sports fans were once aspiring athletes, moon-shooting idealistic […]
POP IN TAPE: Hot Wax In The 215
I OWN GROUND HOG DAY BY MICHAEL FICHMAN I have a sort of musical synesthesia — all the great albums I have enjoyed in the past are locked into my memory as the soundtrack to a particular time and place in my life. These associations transcend rhetorical constructions: Midnight Marauders is endless hours in the back of the family car on an epic roadtrip. Devin the Dude’s Just Tryin’ ta Live is the summer I drove a construction truck up and down the hills of Pittsburgh. Neil Armstrong’s epic Originals mixtapes are 2003’s kabob and box wine barbeques. And goddamn […]
POP IN TAPE: Hot Wax In The 215
THIS WEEK: A YOUNG PERSON’S GUIDE TO SYNTHETIC SPAGHETTI By MICHAEL FICHMAN Party people seem to fit in to three categories- music nerds, people who only want to hear music they know and people who like partying but don’t care about music. Needless to say I’m in the first category and the last two types of folks really grind my gears. But being a DJ is about compromise. You have to strike a balance between the plebian tendencies of the masses and your own conceit. It’s not unlike working food service, you kind of hate the people on the other […]
Introducing POP IN TAPE: HIP-HOP IN THE 215
SOMEBODY’S ON THE CASE — THEY BETTER GET ON THE JOB BY MICHAEL FICHMAN It’s not easy for a scene to stay relevant in the era of the 24-hour news cycle and the iPod attention span. Trends eat their tails so fast these days. Underground rap went from “knowledge equality” to rapping about rapping and bitching about shiny suit syndrome. It faded into obscurity. Furthermore, bloggers and barflies want to be the first to dig up a fad and then be the first to put it down as plebian and overwrought. Rick Ross rose and fell before summer 2006 had […]