July 10, 2004: Philly Free School 1

The first Philly Free School was held on the late afternoon into evening of July 10, 2004. Nick Gruberg had not yet been adopted into the fold; Mike Land showed up in August, ready for action. That night, it was just myself and Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum. We got a miracle to dovetail with the Hinge Northern Liberties show; it was a bright, sunny summer day, and the sunset (the Highwire bay windows faced west) was gorgeous. I read On Jazz and a few other things; Golden Ball did a musical routine not unlike London Free School era Pink Floyd; I had imported Luke Fishbeck and Lucky Dragons from the Hinge show; CaConrad read briefly; and (God help me!) I think there was another band who played that night, but I can't remember who. What I do remember is that the laissez faire attitude of the Highwire rubbed off on us, as we served all kinds of "refreshments" which had been provided for us, so that by the end of the show everyone had a nice, dreamy buzz on. Philly has decent space-cadet karma.

Another factoid to set in place about the Highwire, and the Gilbert Building; it was on the third floor, and most Highwire patrons took an elevator, followed by a long, white-painted, winding hallway, to get there. This means that for the duration of the Free School shows at the Highwire, we felt secluded enough from street-level action to party in peace. This wasn't true in Northern Liberties; there, it was more a matter of luck. It was also true that the first show employed only the main Highwire space (here pictured), not the factory space adjacent to it, which would come in handy that fall when we expanded our repertoires. By 2005, our productions at the Highwire were quite baroque, between where the refreshments were, where the performers were, and what was happening back and forth between the two spaces.