Lou’s Restaurant and Bakery in Hanover, New Hampshire, set the precedent for my parents’ obsession with brunch places. The omelets are fluffy, the muffins are loaded with goodies, and the line is always out the door. My parents found diners with bangin’ brunches in all my siblings’ college towns but I was skeptical about finding one in Philadelphia.

It didn’t take much research to find out that I couldn’t have been more wrong. Now that I’ve brunched at the two frontrunners in Philly — Honey’s Sit ‘n Eat and Sabrina’s Cafe — I know I’m supposed to place myself in either camp, but the delicious brunches I ate at both establishments have transformed this task into a struggle. So, I’ve shifted my focus elsewhere: the peripheral features of a truly excellent brunch.

The Wait. You’ll have to wait at both restaurants, without question. At Sabrina’s you can head around the corner and stroll through the Italian Market, but your name may get skipped over. Twice. However, this can (and did) happen to even the most vigilant diner. Honey’s, on the other hand, is located in a decidedly un-happening section of NoLibs so you’ll have to settle for free coffee at the curb, served by the delightfully good-humored host.

The Sides. For those who, like me, measure the quality of an omelet by what comes on the side, Honey’s has one-upped the competition. The accompaniments at Honey’s, a self-described “Southern Jewish” eatery, range from latkes to corn muffins to buttered challah. The home fries at Sabrina’s are some of the best I’ve had but they don’t stand up to a buttermilk biscuit.

X Factors. Other elements that may make your decision between Honey’s and Sabrina’s easier:

Sabrina’s is a BYO, so you can bring along a bottle of bubbly for a hangover-busting brunch.
It’s dolla’ bills only at Honey’s: they don’t accept credit cards.
Sabrina’s is a few blocks further from the nearest subway stop… but you’ll need to walk off that stuffed French toast.
Local foodies: Honey’s scores bonus points for buying eggs from Lancaster County and supporting Buy Fresh Buy Local.

You’ll get inventive and high-quality diner food at either café so it’s best to simply consider the options a blessing. After all, I can now have a rotating brunch regimen whenever my parents visit.

Sabrina’s Café, 910 Christian St., 215-574-1599
Honey’s Sit ‘n Eat, 800 N. Fourth St. (at Brown St.), 215-925-1150

- Maura Goldstein

Here’s the rest of Street’s interview with Wes Anderson, Jason Schwartzman, Roman Coppola, and Waris Ahluwahia.

Street: Any crazy experiences on Amtrak?
Schwartzman: Hmm, I only travel by private rail, so I had to think for a second what Amtrak is. Actually, I’m not much of a train enthusiast. Roman, you are, right?
Coppola: I love trains and private rail. I read Private Varnish which is a magazine that deals with that topic.

Street: The visual style in this film distinct from your others. It’s meticulously beautiful, but you also let the landscape and settings speak for themselves. I was curious how you planned that out.
Anderson: Well, we didn’t want to go to India to build it. We wanted to go there and discover and learn. Take the photograph on our promotional poster, for example. The photo could’ve been taken on a set, but it’s the entirety of a roadside shrine. It’s truly a place we found on the side of the street, and it’s exactly how we found it. The intricate design was not ours — it’s theirs. India started as the backdrop but became the subject matter. We found lots of places while scouting, and it’s truly surprising how much we found on the first trip that ended up in the final cut. Also, when we embarked on the trip, we had a story of three brothers, but we didn’t have a sense of India, so India, in the film, wasn’t what it became later on. The country as the setting was also based on my love for Satyajit Ray.

Street: It’s fascinating that the three of you wrote it together. How did you handle any disagreements?
Coppola: We actually got along very well. When we started out on the project, I felt like we knew the movie already. It existed. So when we were writing it wasn’t inventing, it was uncovering. When something felt right, we all kind of knew it was there and it resonated. It took over a year and half working on it, going over it, being in contact with one another constantly.
Anderson: We felt like we could take our time.

Street: Was it important to feel like you all were in a brotherhood?
Anderson: We were all friends already, but yes, we became closer friends by spending so much time together. It was all a bit automatic. We would all stay together and get closer.
Schwartzman: We slept together. We would share hotel rooms, and we even shared a bed one night. I think Roman was huddled near the window.
Anderson: Well, we’ll be sleeping together again tonight on the bus.
Schwartzman: Yeah, the Patron Tequila Express. We’ll be taking that one, alright.

Street: To get a bit more personal, how did Owen Wilson’s recent suicide attempt factor into the movie? His character, Francis, also bares the scars from a recent suicide attempt, and I was wondering about the relation between the two?
Anderson: Well, first, when Owen went through what he went through, I was not thinking about how it might affect the script. My thoughts were with him and his situation. But he is the one with a right to speak to that personal incident, and he will do that soon. As for the movie, things kind of developed how they would, and the final result is a product of letting the story unfold, the characters become what they needed to be.

Street: How are your films progressing as far as characters go?

Anderson: Well, I go one at a time. But my next movie, based on the Roald Dahl story, Fantastic Mr. Fox, is very different. It’s an animated, stop-action movie with George Clooney, and it’s slated for release in 2009.

Street: How do you get Bill Murray to work with you considering he doesn’t work very much these days?
Anderson: Well I have all the private numbers, and I know where he lives. And all of us have had experiences working with him, so when we got the idea of him playing this small character, we called him up.

Street: You’ve worked with great casts for all your films. Who would you like to work with next if you could choose anyone?
Anderson: Clint Eastwood. But he’s kind of tough to get. But actually, that’s the first time I’ve thought of working with him. And, you know, it would be really challenging to direct someone with such authority. Like with Gene Hackman (The Royal Tenenbaums), he doesn’t like to be directed, but it’s exciting to work with him because you see what you wrote being brought to life in unanticipated ways. I’d like to work with Meryl Streep as well. It’s so much fun when an actor just does it, and it happens in front of you. When people play the scene and make it work immediately—that’s nice.

Street: Why are you fascinated with characters that experience failure?
Anderson: The idea of failure is more interesting to me than the idea of success. Like in The Royal Tenenbaums, there is a failing family composed of individuals who are each very accomplished. But in this movie, how does it tie in? Well, each brother is in the thick of things. They’re in the middle of avoiding failure.

Street: I’m thinking about the perspective of your stories and where you derive your themes. In your ’20s, do you think there’s a big stage of testing, and you look back on it all in your ’30s, and it looks like a smoking wreck? Are your films about dealing with that wreck?
Anderson: I think you act and think a certain way when you’re a teen, and then time passes, and you look back when you’re 40. You look at the paths that people have taken, and it’s surprising, amazing, or just what it is. I like the comparison to a smoking wreck.

Street: How is the arc of your personal life different than what you anticipated it would be when you were younger?
Anderson: There is such clarity in that question. Well, I think I thought I’d be married by now. When you devote yourself to something like film — to your work — it’s hard to find a family and make a lot of space for other things. I’m willing to compromise and sacrifice, but I haven’t done that yet.

Street: How do you bring out the humor in these train wrecks?
Anderson: The things we [the writers] found funny were almost always the things we found funny about real life — our life. So many emotions get mixed together and one doesn’t know how to feel in certain contexts, so I don’t like having to pin it down. I’d rather have my films be too complicated than the other way around.

- Daniel Schwartz

Wes Anderson’s new film, The Darjeeling Limited, threatens to roll upon us like the nippy fall weather. And as the air gets colder, Street suggests that you retreat to the nearest station, purchase a train ticket, and conserve some body heat in a local theater. Go on, warm your hearts and minds with this acclaimed moviemaker’s latest feature about three re-united, eccentric brothers trekking across India by train. The Darjeeling Limited is one hell of a cinematic curry spiced and sweetened to ‘Andersonian‘ perfection. When Street sat down with Anderson, Roman Coppola (co-writer), Jason Schwartzman (actor/co-writer), and Waris Ahluwahia (actor), we were indeed treated to a feast of words and anecdotes. Enjoy.

Street: What is India like as an up-and-coming country? Did you notice more modernization and western-oriented progress?
Wes Anderson: I’ve only been going to India for three years so it’s hard to say. As much as you see the appearance of new technology, you also see so much recycled, reused, antiquated tools and objects. Across so much of the country there are things the people have had for years and years. Only in the biggest cities is where they’ve had so much of that rapid change. Please, Waris, what’s your experience been like considering you were born and grew up there?
Waris Ahluwalia: It’s true. I see the societal changes in small things we do here. Like with textiles, there is a big difference between fibers like cotton and polyester. Here in the US, everyone wants cotton or something natural, but in India, polyester is what’s desired, which is kind of funny. Also, here people want tailor-made suits while in India it’s all ready-made goods.

Street: What was more foreign to the Brothers, their relationships with each other or their relationship with the land?
Anderson: I’d say it’s both. It’s about how they’re going to bond with themselves, and how they’re going to deliberately plan on having such a powerful experience. Yet, they’re not tuned into each other or the new, different culture around them. On some level, they’re earnest to learn and grow but they’re not ready to do it.

Street: Which brother do you most identify with?
Anderson: We [Anderson, Schwartzman, and Coppola] wanted to make this as personal as we could. While writing, we always used our personal experiences to answer the question, what happens next? All three of those characters have facets of all of our lives. In the writing process, we went to India to write on a journey, we acted out the whole movie while traveling. Jason would play Jack, Roman would play Peter—
Roman Coppola: Dastardly, if I may add.
Anderson: — and I played Francis.
Jason Schwartzman: We were trying to put things in the movie that were things all people could relate to — personal things.

Street: Alienation, family strife, dysfunctional individuals — these are such common themes and topics in your movies, including this one. How’d that enter your mind while creating this film?
Anderson: We started out with this script not wanting to involve parents. But somewhere along the way, parents became such a big part. There’s the Father constantly mentioned throughout the movie and then, of course, the Mother they’re traveling to at the end. Ultimately, I don’t want to repeat myself, but I think on a film-by-film basis, and we should do what we want. And I don’t mind my movies being connected to each other. Everyone has their own experience when they watch a movie, and that’s out of my control. But what I can, [what] is in my control, is the ability to make all the decisions that are right to me and that are right to the story; I don’t want to be too self-conscious. And, you know, if at the end of my career my films sit together on a video store shelf very nicely in a little box set, then I’m okay with that.
Schwartzman: If I may jump in, I don’t think this film is very similar to his others. The intent was different and the environment was a huge aspect. I think Wes embraced the unpredictability of India and this is the most raw and wonderful film he’s made yet.
Anderson: Thank you, Jason.

Street: What inspires this interest in all these common themes?
Anderson: Well, I don’t know. The Father just kind of fell in there, and in fact, we had the Father cast as Donald Sutherland even though we didn’t write any scenes for him [laughs]. I wish I had more specific things to point to.

Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, and Adrien Brody in Darjeeling

Street: What was the thinking behind the movie’s music?
Anderson: Well first, I was inspired by Satyajit Ray’s films and Renoir’s like The River. Those were some of my first inspirations to go to India and work there. I also had a CD of music from Ray’s films, but then as we went along, I started picking more and more from his movies. Then my composer when to Calcutta, and met with Ray’s son. We picked more and more things, adjusting them slightly, but more or less keeping them the same. Ray himself composed much of the music in his films, so it really is his music. Then we went to the Merchant Ivory films and found other songs. It started as making homage to Ray, connecting to his movies, but then it became the whole sound of the movie.

Street: Were there any happy accidents on set that were anticipated but incorporated into the final product?
Anderson: Hmm, I’m not sure.
Coppola: Actually, we were scouting and rehearsing the scene with the feather ceremony on the sand dune, and while we were walking over a steep hill, I jumped over and started running down the hill. One second I was at the top of the dune, and then I just disappeared over it, almost rolling my way down. It was spontaneous but a little detail that caught Wes’s attention and we put it in the film. However, most of the script was highly adhered to during filming. The script and final product are very similar, which is generally true for all of Wes’s movies.
Schwartzman: No words were improvised, but the environment was unpredictable to the point where no two takes looked the same. We would be filming and then all of the sudden a cow walks into our shot so Take Three had a cow in it.
Anderson: Take Five would have a cow and a traveling market. And then Take Nine, we would be in a tunnel.
Schwartzman: The scene moves really quickly so you never want to get lazy. I’ve never gotten lazy for the record. I don’t do that (laughing). But there are things you never consider if you’re on a stationary set. Outside, and in India, there’s a lot to take into account.

Street: In the course of making this film what’s the funniest thing that happened?
Anderson: India is a place where you see a large, five-person family on a motorcycle. Then, let’s say you have a flatbread truck and its filled with … what do you guys think?
Schwartzman: Hay. Definitely hay.
Anderson: Yeah, hay. So you have a truck filled with hay, and it’s just overflowing, three times the height of the truck itself, and it’s absolutely comical in dimensions.
Schwartzman: One time, I saw a baby elephant on a pickup truck. Then I almost got crushed by another elephant with boy eating sugar cane on its back. It’s also crazy how many people are there sometimes. Just the sheer numbers of human beings in these spaces.

- Daniel Schwartz

Check back here tomorrow for more on The Darjeeling Limited, and hey, while you wait for that, take a look at Wes Anderson’s companion short film, Hotel Chevalier, which you can download here.

30 Days of Night
Directed By: David Slade
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George
Rated: R
Three out of five stars

- Michelle Nguyen

High expectations were not had for 30 Days of Night — not to be confused with Josh Hartnett’s “tour de force” 40 Days and 40 Nights — but this horror movie is a welcome departure from the influx of unentertaining horror films in the past year.

This adaptation of Steve Niles’s comic book series stars Josh Hartnett and Melissa George as an estranged couple residing in a small Alaskan town. Every year, the sun doesn’t rise for one month, leaving the town enveloped in darkness. It is the perfect playground for the vampires who come to feed.

Hartnett and George, as well as a motley crew of others, are left to play a chilling game of survival against the vampires. While the leads contribute mediocre performances, Ben Foster, playing a cunning character called the Stranger, was a surprise. Impressive acting, plus some great makeup, makes for a disturbing portrayal.

Of course, 30 Days of Nights contains typical horror film moments: the semi-developed love thread, the jump in your seat from surprise scene, massive amounts of gore. Despite these clichés, the film has its merits. The realism of the vampires adds to their intimidation: sullen skin and blood stained mouths were the only characteristics separating them from the townspeople. The serene Alaskan setting functions as a stark contrast to the massacre of the innocent, while the scarlet blood accentuated against the snow is nicely juxtaposed. Overall, this movie is a standout in its genre, not to mention a great alternative to Saw XXVI.

Halloween is fast approaching, and the question is lingering in the air: what will your costume be? A Hanes v-neck isn’t going to cut it; it’s time to branch out from the everyday wardrobe into something a little less comfortable, possibly virtually nothing at all. But how trashy is too trashy? Let Street be your guide! It seems only right to help you out, because next week we’ll just go right back to making fun of you.

Yes, you.

The answer to that trashiness question, by the way, is whatever you’re into – pick a spot on the Street Slut-O-Meter to see what your should wear. Stick with us and you’ll be the hottest kid at Amy Gutmann’s party. Don’t even pretend you weren’t planning on checking that out.

Squeaky Clean
Get eleven of your closest friends together and be a walking game of beer pong. Tape red posterboard around your body and attach styrofoam to your shoulders. Re-stack if people drop out throughout the night (but only once, obviously). That kid in your hall that no one likes – he can be the ball.

Borderline
This is when the Mean Girls animal ears come out – nothing says “I’m really creative and like to take risks” like being a black cat or a bunny (Playboy connotation optional). As long as the ears are on, it really doesn’t matter what else you’re wearing. And for all you brats who didn’t go to a public school… bitch… break out the old uniform and be Britney Spears circa “Baby One More Time”: minimal effort, maximum exposure.

Or you can just dress like these two…

Play Dirty
Be a PennQuest Leader. If you have to wear clothes, just make sure you haven’t washed them since NSO. Don’t shower.

Taking Out the Trash
This is that section for half-naked/psuedo-slutty costumes: the Little Mermaid, Tom Cruise a la Risky Business, Amy Gutmann at Celebration on the Green should all do the trick.

Superman that Ho
Bring back Britney, only this time it’s circa yesterday. Shave your head and leave the underwear at home. Eat a ton of candy and drink enough beer to intoxicate a Beluga whale — it’s OK, you’re supposed to be fat. For guys and girls who want to stay classy, there’s always the Adam and Eve option. Put the Ivy back in the Ivy League and wear nothing but leaves on the 31st. Is it cold outside, or is it just you?

- Jessica Goldstein

Lars and the Real Girl
Directed by: Craig Gillespie
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider
Rated: PG-13
Three and a half stars

- Kira Muratova

“Oh, that can’t be good” was the thought that went through my head when I saw that the only other directing credit Craig Gillespie had was Mr. Woodcock. But I was as pleasantly surprised by this film as I hope you will be.

The title character in Lars and the Real Girl is a socially awkward individual cherished by his entire town, so much so that the townspeople agree to support his delusion that a sex doll he purchases on the internet is real. Despite the premise, the film does not use the sex doll to get cheap laughs.

Instead, she serves as a catalyst for Lars’s transformation, and as we watch Lars gradually learn how to open up, the audience starts to echo the mindset of the townspeople. We abandon our initial labels of Lars as just another freak who needs to be taken to a hospital and “fixed,” but rather, encourage him to leave his traumatic past behind him and allow himself to be reborn. After all, the movie is all about learning to love one another.

Although it is true that by the end of the film, some people in the audience were still shaking their heads and laughing in disbelief, the majority was silent. They were won over, just like I was. In my opinion, anyone who can make a poignant drama out of a film involving a sex doll has got talent.

Here’s the trailer:

Dan Snaith, better known by his performing alias Caribou, has been rocking hipster socks since the start of the new millennium. As of late, his blissed-out organic glitch has evolved into a unique brand of summery ’60s psych pop. He’s currently trotting the globe in support of his new album Andorra, but took a break from his spreading of the gospel of Brian Wilson to kick it with Street.

Street: You’ve got a pretty intense tour schedule from now through early November. How is the road treating you so far?
Caribou: Things are good. We just drove through the Swiss Alps which was pretty beautiful and now we’re in Italy on our way to Milan. The gigs have been great so far. We’ve been touring for about three weeks
so far.

Street: Who has the best fans: Canada, the States, or Europe?
Caribou: Now why you gonna go and make me choose favorites? There are good towns everywhere and some towns that aren’t so good, but obviously if I’m going to have to pick one favorite, I’m going to say Canada.

Street: Your new album, Andorra, has more traditionally structured songs than your previous releases. Did you make a conscious decision to move in that direction on this record?
Caribou: When I started out I didn’t know what direction the album was going to go, but as I was working on it, it became clear that I was really excited about focusing more on compositional ideas ― melodies, harmonies, countermelodies, arrangements and song structures — than on the last records. I’d never tried to make pop music before and there are so many incredibly written pop songs that I love that I wanted to try squeezing my music into that format.

Dan Snaith aka Caribou

Street: I recently saw your video for “Melody Day.” It’s pretty wild. What’s the story behind it?
Caribou: It’s directed by a Swedish director, Daniel Eskils. I was put into contact with him by my label in Europe. He pitched the storyline and location which was out on the island of Gotland, off the Swedish mainland. It’s where Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman lived (until he passed away a couple months ago) and filmed a bunch of his films. And Tarkovsky filmed one of his films there as well. Part of the video was basically filmed in Bergman’s backyard.

Street: Kieran Hebden of Four Tet fame recently did some DJ sets opening for you, as well as a remix of “Melody Day.” How did that relationship get started and are there any plans for some more extensive collaborations?
Caribou: Kieran’s one of my best friends and the reason my music started being released in the first place. I worked in the UK one summer when I was a student and went up and talked to him after a show that he was playing at a festival there. We got along immediately and we kept in touch. We flew him in to DJ at a club night we were running in Toronto. I played him some of the music I was making. He passed it along to The Leaf Label who put out my first records and the rest is
history. I’d love to work on more music with Kieran but we’ve both been so insanely busy for the last few years it’s been hard. Maybe one day!

Street: You seem to have really embraced the whole Web 2.0 scene ―Myspace, Flickr, Youtube. How has the nearly constant feedback from and contact with your fans affected you, if at all?
Caribou: I’m a bit of a ludite, but it’s great to have the feedback from people who have listened to the album or come to the shows. It doesn’t affect the albums, but as far as touring goes it’s great to have that contact with people and to get an idea of where people want us to come and play. It’s always really amazing to hear from people from all over the world who are hearing the music.

Street: What’s on your iPod right now?
Caribou: I don’t have one, I’m afraid. Going to get one soon. I’ve been listening to my friend Koushik’s new album, Out My Window, which is coming out on Stones Throw.

Street: Any long term plans in the works?
Caribou: I’m not good at planning a long time ahead… we’re going to be touring for the next year and then I’m sure I’ll be dying to get back to record some music. That’s about as much of a plan as I have!

-Adam Drici

Tony Gilroy

Many years ago, Tony Gilroy was in a band and bartending. Since then he’s written several films, including all of the Bourne movies, and now he just directed his first movie, Michael Clayton. After a strong showing at the Toronto and Venice Film Festivals (the festivals that premiere all the Oscar contenders in the fall), Gilroy sat down with Street to talk about his directorial debut.

Street: You have an interesting directorial debut in that Sydney Pollack and George Clooney, both directors, act in it. How did that impact the experience of directing?

Gilroy: Sydney came on early on. I’d written the script for Castle Rock. It took a long time to write, and it came out more a little more complicated than we thought… Sydney got a writing sample and said, “I want to direct the movie,” and I said, “I’m not letting it go,” so he said, “Let me help you get it made then.” He has an amazing track record of helping first time directors. I didn’t have Sydney and George come for the first 3 weeks of shooting, but it was definitely the way to go. Most importantly they’re directors, but they wanted to be actors on this. It was only a benefit.

S: Coming from a screenwriting background, how has that affected the way you direct films and what made you want to direct?

G: It’s ultimately incredibly frustrating. In the three films I made with Taylor Hackford, we made them shoulder to shoulder all the way through. He’s a great friend. He’s a brother. We’ve been all over the world together. Even still, it’s frustrating. It’s his movie. In the end it’s his choices. I’d think, “I wish he had done this…” And that’s the best of it. That’s the utopian version, and believe me, it falls off after that really precipitously. You want responsibility for your work. Can I get one that I’m totally to blame for? I think if you’re writing really well, you’ve directed every movie you’ve written. If you’re a writer and you’re directing a movie because you wanted to protect your script, you’re screwed. That’s the wrong reason to do it. The big advantage is that you’re the one who can be there and change it. You know its like, “Oh, this isn’t working, let’s do it a different way.” You’re free to do it. You can write on set. You know the material well enough.

George Clooney as Michael Clayton

S: Could you discuss your writing process for Michael Clayton?

G: There are different phases of writing. There’s a huge beginning phase. The beginning for me is just making a big mess. The environment and character were just so unbelievably rich that it was really hard. At one point I thought I could make a television series out of this. I had so much material. I had hundreds of pages of crap. Do I know then? No, I’m fishing around. Then I have fear set in, and my wife starts yelling at me. And then there’s a moment which I try to do it very quickly, and I just can’t take it anymore. I try to see if I can make a movie in four days or a week and do every scene in the movie really quickly. At that point I’m still letting things happen in front of me. When that’s done. When I have a 40, 60, 80 page document, at that point I have a movie. It’s not a script yet, but if at that point I don’t know what the movie is about then I’m screwed. The last part is very tedious in trying to make all of that very pretty and elegant.

S: How was the film received in Toronto and Venice? Did anything surprise you?

G: It went very well. What surprised me? I didn’t realize how high the stakes were until it was over. Not to be naïve, but I didn’t realize what a beauty pageant it was and how important it was until it was over, and we had come out really well. Someone came to me and said, “The buzz is really good, and you guys are winners in this. Here are the winners, and here are the losers.” Then I went, “Wow it’s over? That’s it?” There are so many people who have crashed their ship on the wreckage of these film festivals. I was blissfully unaware. Then we played at a hall with two thousand people. I’ve never seen a movie with two thousand people before. It was amazing.

-Kevin Koplan

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
Raising Sand
1/5 Stars

The best way to judge a plant is by the fruit it bears. That being
said, who would have expected Robert Plant to produce such a rotten
crop? His new album Raising Sand is quite possibly his worst piece of
art yet. Aside from the disappointing fact that the album in no way
sounds like Led Zeppelin, Raising Sand lacks the creativity associated
with Plant.

The album begins with a folky, country sound that is maintained
throughout the entire album. The subsequent tracks include an overuse
of cheesy slide guitar and lyrics like, “Leaves were falling, just
like embers.” The midsection of Raising Sand is reduced to slow,
sporadic guitar picking, redundant drum beats and standard chord
progressions, ornamented with lyrics of lost love and broken
friendship.

The only time the album makes any positive impression is with the
song “Fortune Teller.” Perhaps the only reason it does so is that
Plant switches his voice back from that of a down-and-out country
singer to his distinctive, Zeppelin sound. But just when Plant makes a
rebound, he cuts back into the same, dry blues sound that only
80-somethings would find interesting. Regardless of your curiosity
about Robert Plant’s artistic endeavors since his hey-day as lead
singer of the Mighty Led Zep, do not buy this album.

- Evan O’Donnell

The Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey may have taken the stage later than expected, but trust me, it was well worth the hour-and-a-half wait. The members of the Tulsa, OK-based jazz fusion trio (none of whom, interestingly enough, is named Jacob Fred) performed on Monday, Sept. 17, at World Café Live, their second visit to the venue this year. The band, who played on WCL’s laid-back, sexy-atmosphered upstairs stage this time around, visited the popular West Philly concert destination while on tour with jam guitarist Steve Kimock this past June.

JFJO, a group known for their meandering, funk-driven improvisational grooves, was formed in 1994 and cites performers as disparate as Charles Mingus, The Flaming Lips, and Neil Young as key influences to their truly sui generis style. Bassist, bandleader, and “effects wizard” Reed Mathis showed himself to be an exceptional, albeit unconventional, musician, often using acid jazz guitar tones (how he achieved these timbres on an instrument of such a low register, I do not know) and playing his instrument as such. Jason Smart’s elaborate drumming patterns provided the perfect complement to the playing of both Reed and keyboardist Brian Haas, who traded force as lead instrument throughout the performance. For good measure, the band also threw in a couple of jazz standards, including a funked-up version of Louis Armstrong’s swinging “Song of the Vipers.” JFJO seamlessly blends avant garde jazz with rhythmic psychedelica into something marvelous, a sound that’s easier seen live than described.

-Shane Tepper