Stuff to do in Philly?

[Nedmundo]

I

I am fairly certain those other two shops are closed. Philly is in really bad shape when it comes to music stores. There is Bluebond which has a nice selection (for the space), helpful workers, does good setup work, decent prices, but it is small and they can only keep so much stuff in stock (what they tend to have is good quality stuff but don't expect much in the way of bass amps).

A new place just opened down the street from me. I give it a year tops. The guy is a musician and probably could tell that we needed another music store in town, but he has no idea how to run a music store. I don't either, but I know you need more than 3 kinds of bass strings and 5 kinds of guitar strings. I know that when you only have 5 basses and maybe 15 guitars you don't need 2 large conga sets. Oh and no pedals at all, not even a tuner pedal. I hope this was just because he just opened but I am not holding my breath.

Unfortunately, other than a few specialty stores (violin store, accoustic guitar store, accordian store?!) there aren't any other music shops. There isn't even a big box store those are over in Cherry Hill or up in King of Prussia.

Where's the new place? Doesn't sound like much, but I'm curious.

Also, don't forget DiPinto Guitars on Girard. It's a bona fide Philly based guitar company, and Chris DiPinto is often there. He's a great musician and very cool guy. The shop is cool too, with lots of DiPintos of course, but cool vintage stuff as well. Dipintoguitars.com

Philly is an amazing restaurant town. Chinatown, near Reading Terminal, has fantastic Vietnamese, Thai, and even Burmese food. The other great places are too numerous to mention.

The bad rep of the sports fans is not entirely deserved, at least not in the post-Vet era. Lots of the booing and carrying on is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Phils games are great.

 

[Tractorr]

Where's the new place? Doesn't sound like much, but I'm curious.

It is on Passyunk a couple blocks north of where Passyunk crosses Broad. I don't know the name of the place. I will probably go back in a few weeks to see if the guy has any new inventory but things do not look promising.

 

[circuitspore]

Thanks again to everyone for their suggestions. There were a few things that I wanted to do but didn't have time to, but I'll be in Philly again in February so I will try to finish out the list.

Anyway, here's the run-down of my trip:

Had cheesesteaks at both Jim's and Pat's. Preferred the onions/whiz from Jim's but I thought the steak at Pat's actually tasted better. Stayed away from Gino's because my reserved sensibilities were accosted by Gino's tacky neon lights / decor.

Wandered down to South street a few times. It was okay, but nothing I'd really recommend to someone visiting Philly. But, I'm not really a 'nightlife' kind of person, so I may not be the target audience, as it were.

Reading Terminal Market is amazing. I could live there. Had a Dinic's roast pork sandwich with provolone and spinach. I thought the sandwich was okay, but my foodie buddy that joined me (he took a bus down from NYC), thought it was amazing.

Had dinner at a couple upscale restaurants; would have rather had dinner somewhere in Reading Terminal.

I made a morning of going to the Edgar Allen Poe national historic site, Christ Church and the US Mint. The E.A. Poe house is scantly decorated but well done nonetheless; it was cool being in the same room that he wrote some of his tales. Christ Church was cool from both a historic and religious perspective. Being able to worship/pray in the same place as our founding fathers was a unique experience. The US Mint was nothing to write home about, as far as I was concerned.

We spent some time at Shofuso Japanese House and Garden, which was really cool. Apparently that house was built for MOMA back in the fifties and then moved to Philadelphia some time afterwards. A beautiful and peaceful house and garden. Learned a little bit about 'wabi-sabi' while I was there (might explain why I like well-worn vintage instruments).

The USS New Jersey was cool, if a little run-down. We have the USS North Carolina docked here on the coast of NC, and it is in much better physical shape than the New Jersey, and the 'museum' items (display cases, guide notes, dioramas, etc) seem to be nicer. But, I have a personal connection to the USS New Jersey as my paternal grandfather served on it from 1950-1954 while he was in the Navy. While touring the ship, there was a display case of articles donated by sailors that had served aboard the ship. One such item was a leaflet from an on-ship evening of entertainment. The leaflet was positioned so that I could see my Grandfather's name on the inside list of performers! That was really cool. I'm a third generation musician thanks to my Grandfather and his siblings' interest in performing.

Lastly, we stopped by two of the supposed 'best' record shops in Philly. The first was 'Sound of Market'. It was billed as two stories of great records. There were some cool 12" singles on the R&D/Soul/Rap floor, but zero vinyl on the rock/jazz floor. After that we proceeded to 'Beautiful World Syndicate' on Passyunk Ave. Now that is a real record store. Loads of great vinyl in that place.

My idiot self totally forgot about DiPinto guitars. I can't believe I did that! Especially since my friend asked if there were any good guitar shops in Philly (we're both musicians).

One thing I found weird about Philly is that everything seems to close early. All the 'touristy' stuff closes at 5pm on the dot. Businesses seem to close early as well. Heck, even the downtown CVS closed at 8pm! They stay open to 10pm or midnight down here in NC.

Overall I'd say Philly was alright. I definitely like NYC better (sorry!), but I could occupy myself in Philly for a good while. Thanks again for the input!

 

[MJ5150]

Very cool of you to circle back to fill us in and share your thoughts.

I was mostly glancing through your recap until I got to the story about your grandfather. That is very cool, even in awesome territory.

-Mike