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Don't
Look Back
Donovan helps the Tin Angel celebrate a decade of success.
JONATHAN VALANIA
jvalania@philadelphiaweekly.com
 Michaela
Majoun spills her wine. "That's good luck, Luv," Donovan
tells the 'XPN morning diva, patting his napkin into the spreading
pool of Merlot.
Yeah,
that Donovan. Sunshine Superman. Hurdy Gurdy Man. Wears his love
like heaven. He's in town to mark the 10th anniversary of the
Tin Angel, where he's holding court for the local media on a gloomy
Election Day afternoon, answering questions, telling stories and
singing songs of luh-uh-uv.
These
days Donovan looks a bit like Anthony Hopkins in a Richard Simmons
wig, but his voice is still like butta, and those songs,
well, they remain some of the most deathless psychedelic pop ever
cut to vinyl.
The
usual suspects have been rounded up: Ed Sciaky's hungry; Michael
Tierson has some brain-twisting trivia question about the B-side
of some single released only in Azerbaijan or something; Jonathan
Takiff wants to know if Michaela Majoun is mad at him because
of the mean story he wrote about 'XPN new studio/venue plans in
the Daily News (more on this later).
Fox's
Gerald Kolpan is, as usual, hogging all the interview time, meaning
everyone will have to wait even longer for the free buffet to
start (and Sciaky's not happy about that). Fresh Air's Amy Salit
is convinced that she personally offended him when she asked if
he threw the bottle out the hotel window in Don't Look Back,
sending Dylan into a fit of rage. It could be, she fears, an international
incident.
Now
Donovan's expounding on the story of how "Mellow Yellow"
became linked with the old hippie myth that you could get high
by smoking banana peels. Even Donovan wasn't quite sure how the
connection came about until a few years ago when he showed up
at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame for Acid-Rock-Gods-Get-in-for-Free
Day or something of that order.
At
some point, Donovan is signing autographs when Country Joe-the
guy who led the "F-U-C-K" cheer at Woodstock-sidles
up to set the record straight. Country Joe tells Donovan that
back in '67 he and the Fish came across a giant banana left behind
from a carnival or something. In need of a little publicity, they
strapped it to the back of a flat bed truck and drove it through
Haight Ashbury, bullhorning the bogus virtues of smoking banana
peels as a legal alternative to marijuana.
Hippies
made good copy back then, and the press had a field day with this.
Within a matter of days an unsuspecting Donovan releases "Mellow
Yellow" and voila ... a hit song about smoking banana
peels is born.
The
truth, says Donovan, is a little more risque: An e-lectrical banana
is actually a vibrator, which had just come to market, forever
changing the history, not to mention the frequency, of the female
orgasm. And then he fires up a Chiquita the size of Wawa hoagie.
Okay,
so maybe that last part didn't happen.
Ten
years ago Rich Machlin was just another pioneering restaurateur
in Old City-which, back then, was lot less velvet rope and a lot
more "blue collar and back office."
Machlin
was an avid WXPN listener who found it increasingly difficult
to tolerate the lack of creature comforts at the city's live music
venues-things like a seat, a hint of air conditioning and nobody
spilling beer down your back. Eventually, Machlin and his partner,
Jude Erwin, bought the building that housed their restaurant,
Serrano's. But as part of the deal they inherited a second-floor
tenant, an after-hours club called Purgatory, which he less-than-fondly
remembers as "the most notorious after-hours club in the
city."
With
the intention of turning the second floor into a live music venue
featuring the kind of strummy singer-songwriter fare as heard
on WXPN, Machlin donned "a bulletproof vest, went upstairs
and politely asked them to leave." He decided to call the
place the Tin Angel in honor of his old Boston University roommate's
derogatory term for folksingers-as in, "Get that fuckin'
tin angel off the stereo and put on some rock 'n' roll."
Machlin
hooked up with Larry Goldfarb, a local impresario who got his
start promoting at the Academy of Music back in the '70s, booking
people like Smokey Robinson and Tom Waits. In the '80s Goldfarb
booked the Empire Rock Club, bringing in a steady stream of heavy
metal hair farmers like Poison, Cinderella and Britny Fox, as
was the style of the day.
"Rich
said to me, 'Can I make any money booking original music?'"
Goldfarb recalls. "I said, 'No.' He hung his head down. 'But,'
I said, 'I can increase your dinner business by 40 percent,' and
his eyes lit up."
Over
the last 10 years Machlin and Goldfarb have built the Tin Angel's
reputation into a national destination for WXPN-style performers,
booking people like Ani DiFranco, David Gray and Everything but
the Girl when they were still up-and-comers. It's become a semi-annual
tradition for Glenn Tilbrook to lead the crowd out of the Tin
Angel and around the streets of Old City Pied Piper-style, strumming
an acoustic guitar and singing Squeeze's greatest hits. All of
which has helped the club has garner a local reputation among
the over-30 crowd as the city's premier listening room for unplugged
music.
Still,
if the future of the club was in doubt 10 years ago, not much
has really changed. A number of venues have sprouted up in the
city and the suburbs that target the relaxed-fit crowd. Ironically,
the biggest perceived threat is the radio station that more or
less spawned the Tin Angel: WXPN.
The
folks at 88.5 FM recently announced plans to build a new studio/performance
venue in the Hajoca building at 30th and Walnut. "I make
no bones about it: It's bad for us," says Machlin. "At
the same time, I don't think it's good for the station. Having
a direct economic involvement with bands will put their playlists
under suspicion. The perception will be that playing their venue
will be a conduit to airplay."
"Our
business is all about getting the acts. It's not a walk-in business,"
says Goldfarb. "People don't walk in off Second Street and
plunk down $15 to see a show at the Tin Angel."
It's
hours later, and the first of Donovan's sold-out two-night stand
is about to begin. A guy who looks like a refugee from Cheech
and Chong's Up in Smoke stands outside the Tin Angel in
the rain holding a sign that says "NEED ONE TICKET."
Around
the bar downstairs at Serrano's, Machlin shares a belly laugh
with perennial local contender Kenn Kweder and the host of WHYY's
You Bet Your Garden, Mike McGrath, who possesses a speaking
voice that could grate cheese, and he's not afraid to use it.
The stairs leading up to the Tin Angel are lined with barely twentysomethings
seated in the lotus position-these would be the flower grandchildren,
I suppose.
Ticketless,
they are grateful for the chance to hear the Hurdy Gurdy Man through
the wall. Local opener Nancy Falkow turns in an impressive set
of chick-folk. (Later, Donovan will praise her pipes and tell
her they are "karmically connected.") Then Donovan takes
the stage and leads the crowd through a sing-along of his groovy
songbook, spinning yarns of beatniks and Beatles, love-ins and
pot busts.
For
two hours it's 1967 inside the Tin Angel. Outside it's America
2002. And if you listen closely you can hear the distant rumble
of the country falling to the Republicans, who, it's safe to say,
don't know the words to the songs of luh-uh-uv.
Jonathan
Valania (jvalania@philadelphiaweekly.com) interviewed Joe Queenan
in last week's issue.
PW
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