MF DOOM is blasting on my speakers. I’m sitting at my desk, sifting through Philadelphia Reddit threads. Spittin like a bionic sneeze that freeze vodka / Just to clear the air like the ionic breeze quadra. Doom is one of the most acclaimed musicians to rise out of the underground music scene. Coming up in New York, he started out under the Doom pseudonym by going to open mic freestyles wearing a stocking over his head. Now his signature metal mask is everywhere. I’ve seen it on t-shirts in New York and I’ve seen it walking down a street in Rome styled to look like a gladiator. Maybe I’ll find the next stocking headed DOOM here in Philadelphia.
One of my warmest memories happened on a cold night in February when I was still new to this city. A concert to celebrate Beethoven’s 250th birthday, my roommates and I excited to attend. We dressed up and felt distinguished. We sat and listened to Beethoven’s five piano concertos. We ended the night getting lost in the streets of Philly, eating mediocre ice cream on a cold winter night. The concert was at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia’s first major music venue dating back to 1854. With its opening kicked off a rich history of music in Philadelphia. Later came iconic venues like the Met, The Mann, and the Theater of the Living Arts. But under that surface of big stages and bright lights is a parallel history of vibrant underground music. From punk shows on South Street to house shows in West Philly, for years the city has been known to have a robust “DIY” music scene. And I was determined to find it.
My freshman year of college my friends and I would regularly attend stand up comedy shows held in someone’s basement. It felt raw and real, not warped by the veneer of large budgets and famous celebrities. This is what I was hoping to find in Philly DIY shows. The thing about finding DIY shows is the truly underground stuff is spread by word of mouth. I started by sifting through website forums and r/philadelphia on Reddit. The immediate issue I ran into was that almost all the information was out of date. Everything regarding the topic seemed to be posted years ago. I finally came across a thread discussing this. It turned out that DIY shows used to be posted about a lot on forums, but had since moved to more personal information spreading. You either knew someone or you didn’t. I, unfortunately, didn’t. I finally stumbled across a small website maintained by a single person posting every public music show they could find. The shows ranged from large stadium concerts to small bar venues. It wasn’t quite DIY but it was a start. I eventually found a show playing at The Pharmacy.
The Pharmacy is a small coffee shop in Point Breeze, their website listing the normal cafe fare: cappuccinos, mochas, and hot chocolate. But under the surface of an otherwise normal coffee shop lies a slightly unknown venue for small music performances. My friends and I were the first to arrive forty minutes after the advertised start time of the show, so early the ticketer assumed we were a band playing and didn’t charge us entry. We stepped into an aggressively intimate venue, smaller than expected with the feeling that we were backstage. There was only one room divided in the middle by a wall. On the left side there were drums and amps set up, the other a scattered mess of band equipment, chairs, and free merch too small to fit on any adult. The room smelled of coffee and BO and was filled with the sound of a band doing its soundcheck. The feedback of an imperfect audio setup screeched through the small room. The band in question consisted of five people. The guitar was cool, crisp and soulful. The drummer was deaf in one ear. We leaned against the wall as they played Helter Skelter on an unplugged guitar, waiting for the show to start. I felt out of my element, unsure how to hold my body. But as we spent more time in the space, I began to feel more and more at ease.
People began to arrive: you had your flannel shirted hipsters holding IPAs; your punks with dyed hair, alien converse, and rings on necklaces; your biker couples with more leather and metal studs than I’ve seen in a year. The place began to fill, but even more people sat on the stoop outside, smoking, drinking, and chatting with each other. It was clear the show wasn't starting for a while, so we got our hands stamped and went in search of some food.
Most places were closed except for one pizza shop so small you had to turn sideways to squeeze through the door. Their menu was a beguiling mix of pizza and Mexican fare, a sign reading “Half Off: Pepperoni Pizza and Mole Cake.” They only had one pizza ready to be reheated, mushroom and chorizo, which we paired with tangerine Jaritos and ate under the blue neon light of an open sign.
We made our way back to The Pharmacy right as the first show was starting. It was a singer-songwriter named Vassal - a lone woman with a guitar - aged around twenty one. I found out later she had been performing since she was fourteen. Not many people came inside from the stoop to see her, something that made me sad. I soon found out why. She played fiercely and aggressively, in place of a pickguard, a deep groove where she had worn away the guitar from hitting it. She was filled with a passion that didn’t necessarily manifest as talent, performing an awkward mixture of guitar strumming and spoken word poetry. Her voice was raw with the anger manifest in her lyrics. While she wasn’t traditionally good she grew on you, and by the end of her five song set I felt I understood - and appreciated - what she was going for. I could tell it disappointed her that not many people came inside to watch her perform, despite having been billed as the headlining act. You could feel that it was something she worked hard for, mentioning in passing the many miles she’d spent in a van traveling to shows over the past four weeks. And yet, despite achieving headline status, most people remained outside The Pharmacy, trying to escape from the polarizing quality of her music. But inside - despite a lack of numbers - Vassal was cocooned in a warmth of support I’d never seen for an artist. There was her mother and boyfriend hyping her up from the sidelines. The other bands that would later play cheering her on, supporting a fellow musician. And us - my roommates and I - out of our element but content, clapping as loudly as we could. She ended the set with a thank you to everyone who listened, a tinge of bitterness underlying her gratitude. I made a point to congratulate her on a good show later in the night.
Think Machine followed Vassal, a punk rock outfit of a guitarist/lead singer, a bassist, and drummer. They were all our age, around twenty one, and the bassist reminded us of a punk Michael Cera. Almost everybody came inside to listen, and within thirty seconds of playing the sea of people stuffed into the small room had all started head banging to the beat. The band played like they were letting out something trapped within them, their music distorted, angsty, and raw, beautiful in an ugly way. The wailing guitar was accompanied by crooning out of tune vocals, creating a dissonance so intoxicating it made the back of my brain itch. While the music had little harmony the band did, their small and accidentally synchronised movements indicative of how much time they spent practicing. Soon, the bassist became so overwhelmed with his riff that it took him to the floor; on the ground he continued playing. My friend leaned over to me and shouted above the blast of the speakers, I haven’t seen someone play bass like that since Lenny! When their set was done we made our way home - wrapped in the warmth of a shared experience - made cinnamon rolls, and went to bed with our stomachs full of pastry and our hearts full of joy.
The Pharmacy show lodged itself in my memory in a way few experiences have. It was a near perfect night that I never expected to experience. But a different opportunity for another underground music show soon presented itself that would rival the Pharmacy show. I had gotten into a private Facebook group dedicated to Philadelphia DIY, and found a listing for a night of music and spoken word poetry held in a skatepark under a bridge in Greys Ferry (more accurately a section of Philly called Forgotten Bottom, a name that amused me). I normally stay away from skateparks under bridges at night, but the endorphins of the Pharmacy show still raced through my veins and I knew I had to go.
I took a different friend to this show, and the trip to get there on public transportation was long and arduous, a fact that wasn’t helped by me taking us on the wrong trolley. I questioned whether any show would be worth the trip. After about forty minutes we had finally gotten to the bridge in question, albeit on the opposite side of the river we needed to be on. As we crossed the bridge - a fairly busy four lane motorway - we wondered if the show was still going on, as we were there two hours past the advertised start time. We weren’t bothered either way, our attention instead focused on the headlights of passing cars casting giant orange shadows of us against the big warehouses beyond the bridge. As we finished crossing the river we looked over the edge of the bridge and saw it: a small stage with a grouping of a few tables and tents, string lights sparkling like stars amongst the dark. We rushed to the end of the bridge, our excitement rejuvenated by the sight of the show.
We made our way off the bridge and down a small bike path, surrounded by distant echoes of civilization - concrete stairs and sidewalks - now rundown and overgrown with plant life. As we rounded a corner everything came into view and we were overwhelmed by an environment unlike anything we had ever seen before. We were greeted by a skatepark with a gravel and grass embankment that expanded outside of the bridge into a larger green space. The show was confined to the space under the bridge, an eerie yet comforting environment that smelled of dust, incense, and weed. Bats flitted overhead and the sound of cars drifted down around us, a car occasionally causing a clang to echo through the space. On one end, four tables were set up where a few artists were selling crystals, rocks, and jewelry. The tables were surrounded by orange string lights and red japanese lanterns, a sharp contrast to the stage opposite them where LED spotlights washed the underside of the bridge in cool blue light. Another light caught my attention; at the very edge of the skatepark a single spotlight was set up illuminating a wall, the jet black silhouette of someone painting graffiti standing out in stark contrast.
We didn’t know what to do at first, awkwardly standing at the edge of the space. I leaned over to my friend. What’s wrong, you’re the most social person I know. She turned to me. Just give me a moment to adjust. Soon we did adjust, and made our way to the tables, talking to the artists and even buying some jewelry. You look like a scrapbook! one of the artists told my friend as she put hers on, a collection of Playboy magazine clippings sewn into vinyl and affixed to a chain. We walked over to a tent where they were selling food by donation. The table was filled with moon cakes, bagged snacks, and boxed Japanese tea. As we munched on mooncakes we made our way to the graffiti artist. As we got closer I could make out the scattering of their art supplies along the top of a halfpipe, a large dog sitting contentedly watching the painter work. We watched them paint for a few seconds until they noticed us, greeting us with kindness and explaining their work. It turned out that she was a recent Temple graduate and had been painting the wall for the past twelve hours to have it ready in time for the premiere of a skate video at the park the next day.
About an hour after we arrived the show began. A Japanese woman mounted the stage and spoke into the microphone. Before we start the show I’d like to do a connecting ceremony. She gently and kindly asked all who were willing to stand in front of the stage and form a circle. My friend and I were the first ones there. As others joined and we formed a circle, the woman began laying in our hands lengths of thin red cloth all tied together and forming a rope. She told us to close our eyes and think about the meaningful connections in our lives and these connections would be embedded in the rope. As everyone closed their eyes she briefly misspoke - due to slightly broken English - and said we’d stay in the circle for thirty minutes. Everyone looked at each other with apprehension. Another woman leaned over and whispered to the Japanese woman. I am sorry, not thirty minutes, three minutes, she corrected herself, laughing.
As I stood there with my eyes closed I reflected on all the people in my life that were meaningful to me. Soon my attention turned to the others in the circle who were taking part in the ceremony with me. I truly did feel connected to them in the strangest way, if not through some spiritual connection then through one of shared circumstances. It was a similar feeling to the one I had at the Pharmacy show, watching Vassal perform and mingling with people on the coffee shop’s stoop. For the first time I didn’t feel like an outsider of the bridge gathering. I felt like I belonged. The woman slowly collected the rope from each of us without a word, gently resting her hands on ours as she took it. When she had collected the entire rope she wrapped it around her neck and wore it like a scarf. The connections you thought of will be embedded in this rope forever and I will protect them until the day I die. After the circle had dispersed her friend held her as she cried.
We then lit incense for our ancestors and whispered messages into small pieces of paper that were soft as cloth. I dropped my cloth into a ceramic vase later to be burned, and returned to sit with a view of the stage for the music to come. I looked around and truly saw the people at the gathering for the first time. There was an air of solemnity across the crowd, and as I studied each person I was struck with how strange each one was. These were people that normal society would grind up and spit out for daring to be different. The Pharmacy had the hipsters, goths, and bikers. The Bridge had hippies, punks, and spiritualists. Here, under this bridge as well as at the Pharmacy, there was no judgement. I turned my attention to the sticks of incense, the last one having just been lit. They stood out of a bowl of dry rice, tall and proud, their tips orange and ablaze like a tree on fire.
We were only able to stay long enough to see one act, a woman called Slipstream. Her voice was ethereal and hauntingly melancholy, echoing around us all and filling the emptiness of the quiet crowd. Smoke began to seep off the stage, the blue neon light reflecting and refracting through it. Emotion filled the woman as she sang, causing her to constantly move positions. In just a few moments she would go from standing, to crouching, to curled up in a ball on the floor. She didn’t seem to notice the audience and cared little about any stage presence - sometimes she’d be crouched behind monitors completely obstructed from the crowd. All that mattered was the music. It was eerily beautiful; the only issue was when it moved from vocalizations to lyrics so ridiculous I had to stop myself from laughing.
My friend and I left after Slipstream was done, unable to stay for further acts. Sitting in an Uber on the way home, the experience felt surreal: I was just under a bridge, I kept thinking. I hadn’t necessarily found the underground music scene I had hoped for but I had found something. Moments of enchantment that created nights unlike any I had before, characterized by unexpected human connection. As we drove into the night my mind swirled contentedly with images of piano concertos, winter time ice cream, mexican pizza, and burning incense.