It’s no longer an aberration for artists to collaborate in the cloud, given the ease with which most of the world accesses high-speed internet. And A Sunny Day In Glasgow—collectively based in Philadelphia, Brooklyn and Sydney, Australia—creates the sort of impressionistic guitar pop that feels ripe for working in the ether. But that doesn’t mean the process of writing fine new album Sea When Absent (Lefse) across three cities and two hemispheres was ideal. In fact, the method was so present that it became a centerpiece of its narrative. The band will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on the band.
Josh Meakim: So as it turns out, I’m not a very good writer. I attempted to write a few clever and quirky blurbs about movies plots involving Tom Hanks and the cast of Three Men And A Baby. Later, I abandoned them realizing I couldn’t read my own handwriting (were ballpoint pens always so difficult to operate?). So, I’m going to totally cop out and write my first article thing as a list, because lists are fun. List are also easy.
So here’s my first confession: I was once a MAGNET subscriber. I was thrilled to discover that there was a Philly music magazine that was so good. You can imagine my delight when, at long last, I discovered that I would finally be able to impose my own impeccable taste on its readership.
Confession number two: I was once featured in a photo within this magazines pages where I was extremely unflattering. I assure you that bad lighting and a very poor sweater choice was the culprit. Anyway, here are some reasons why I love the city that birthed this music magazine I’m guest editing.
Datagarden: Started as a record label and forum to explore the relationships between electronic music, nature and science. I think I’m paraphrasing their mission statement. Over the past few years, I’ve seen them present some pretty amazing interactive music/art exhibitions and sell some truly inspiring electronic music on plantable download cards. More recently they have developed a box that converts plant or human biorhythms into MIDI data. Vibes coalesce to create a zone. Its truly amazing.
Myrrias: One of my favorite new Philly bands. Three-part female vocal harmonies above droned out repetitive jams. I think they are in the process of recording an album, and I’m confident in saying its going to be amazing.
Fountain Porter: So, believe it or not, I have a regular day job when I’m not being in some cult band or writing some longwinded shit on the internet. As a result, I drink beer at times. There’s a bar pretty close to my apartment (please don’t stalk me; it’s so not worth it) called Fountain Porter. In my opinion, they have an impeccable draft list, and they play only vinyl on a lonely record player at one end of the bar. It’s probably the only place I can listen to an entire Butthole Surfers record while debating which sour beer I’m going to drink first. It appeals to both my music and beer snobbery. One time, the owner was like, “I’m going to put on some bad Can,” and it was awesome. I was there about 30 minutes ago.
