Post by Fuggle on Aug 17, 2006 9:13:45 GMT -5
Wild at Heart
A founder of Philly’s punk rock scene keeps the madness coming.
by Mike Newall
Illustration by Paul Hoppe
On hot summer days I sometimes sit with Mikey Wild at the Italian Market sidewalk cafe where he peddles his magic marker paintings for $2 a shot.
Demented great-uncle of the Philadelphia punk scene, Wild was once frontman for the Magic Lanterns and a songwriter of such punk classics as “I Was on Dope,” “I Hate New York” and “Vincent Price Wasn’t Very Nice.” He was once an opening act for Lou Reed, and he’s been the unofficial mayor of South Street since legendary rocker Alan Mann adorned him with a sash and crown at a boozy party at Dobbs in the ’70s.
“You think of punk ethos and you think of Johnny Rotten, a suburban kid who was trying to be this anti-person,” says Randy Bucksner, the former saxophonist for the Alan Mann band who recently booked Wild to play a Dobbs reunion concert at World Cafe Live on Oct. 7. “But Mikey was just naturally like that. There was nothing affected about him. He wasn’t trying to be good. It was who he was—this crazy little guy with spiky hair in a black leather jacket up there singing his crazy songs. Audiences loved him.”
“He was one of the most natural punk rock frontmen I’ve ever seen,” says Ed Wilcox, a drummer for the Magic Lanterns whose 1998 documentary Mikey Wild: I Was Punk Rock Before You Were still sometimes airs on DUTV-54.
There are others who consider Wild an entertaining joke. Clearly these are people who haven’t enjoyed his conversation.
“I’m becoming Vincent Price,” he said the other morning, while leaning back in his chair and slowly bringing a Parliament Light to his lips.
Wild thinks the 3-foot plastic skeleton sitting up on the footstool in his bedroom is haunted by the ghost of Vincent Price.
Late at night, once everyone is asleep, the skeleton will tiptoe down the hallway, past his mother’s room, down the stairway and out the front door. Strolling down Ninth Street, the skeleton will gradually take the form of a man—not Wild, not Vincent Price, but some unrecognizable person.
Once properly disguised, he’ll drink whiskey at 12 Steps Down and let the night take him where it may. Wild always awakens to the sound of the skeleton’s returning footsteps.
“How you doing today, Uncle Vinnie?” he’ll say.
The skeleton rarely replies.
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Here at the table a teenage store clerk starts to sweep the sidewalk.
“Hey, get away from us,” screams Wild, spit flying from the corners of his mouth. “I’m doing an interview here. You’re like a monkey on my back, man.”
The store clerk laughs.
“Take it easy, Mikey. I bought one of your paintings the other day.”
“Whatever, man. I’m the king, man. King of Philadelphia.”
Wild’s only studio album Mikey Wild and the Magic Lanterns: I Was Punk B4 U Were Punk, was released in 1999 to mostly positive reviews. It’s still played on college radio stations and on dive bar jukeboxes in cities like San Francisco and Detroit, where Wild enjoys a small but loyal following.
Here in Philly he was recently “suspended” from his favorite Ninth Street coffeehouse for bothering female customers. “He’s very loud and sometimes says perverted things,” says a store employee. “He sometimes tells our female customers they don’t need bagels because they’re too fat already.”
At first glance Wild’s magic marker paintings look like X-rated versions of grade school sketchings. But as is the case with everything about Wild, closer examination reveals equal parts madness and genius. My favorite of his drawings are Cat Smoking a Cigarette, A Ghost Taking a Shower and A Man Sitting up in His Coffin—He’s Like Laughing.
“They’re all great,” says Wild, laughing and slapping the table. “Boy, this is going to be a good article, man.”
He only recently began performing live again. Earlier this summer he teamed with local hard rock band ScareHo for a show at Club 218 on South Street. He peed onstage during the closing number “Chicks With Dicks.”
“The audience was a mix of shock and laughter,” says ScareHo’s Fran Vox, a fan of Wild’s work.
“Mike’s one of the most soft and sincere guys I know,” says Vox. “The other night I took him to see Gary Neumann at the TLA. He loved it. He was clapping like a little girl.”
Here at the table, Wild takes out a set list for the songs he’s composing for a Halloween night show at the Khyber. The list is written in magic marker. The first song is called “Bitch Slicer.”
“It’s about a girl,” says Wild, “and she’s a bitch and she has a chainsaw, and that’s why they call her bitch slicer.”
Then he laughs his Vincent Price-like laugh and says, “It’ll be so scary. The scariest song ever, man.”
A founder of Philly’s punk rock scene keeps the madness coming.
by Mike Newall
Illustration by Paul Hoppe
On hot summer days I sometimes sit with Mikey Wild at the Italian Market sidewalk cafe where he peddles his magic marker paintings for $2 a shot.
Demented great-uncle of the Philadelphia punk scene, Wild was once frontman for the Magic Lanterns and a songwriter of such punk classics as “I Was on Dope,” “I Hate New York” and “Vincent Price Wasn’t Very Nice.” He was once an opening act for Lou Reed, and he’s been the unofficial mayor of South Street since legendary rocker Alan Mann adorned him with a sash and crown at a boozy party at Dobbs in the ’70s.
“You think of punk ethos and you think of Johnny Rotten, a suburban kid who was trying to be this anti-person,” says Randy Bucksner, the former saxophonist for the Alan Mann band who recently booked Wild to play a Dobbs reunion concert at World Cafe Live on Oct. 7. “But Mikey was just naturally like that. There was nothing affected about him. He wasn’t trying to be good. It was who he was—this crazy little guy with spiky hair in a black leather jacket up there singing his crazy songs. Audiences loved him.”
“He was one of the most natural punk rock frontmen I’ve ever seen,” says Ed Wilcox, a drummer for the Magic Lanterns whose 1998 documentary Mikey Wild: I Was Punk Rock Before You Were still sometimes airs on DUTV-54.
There are others who consider Wild an entertaining joke. Clearly these are people who haven’t enjoyed his conversation.
“I’m becoming Vincent Price,” he said the other morning, while leaning back in his chair and slowly bringing a Parliament Light to his lips.
Wild thinks the 3-foot plastic skeleton sitting up on the footstool in his bedroom is haunted by the ghost of Vincent Price.
Late at night, once everyone is asleep, the skeleton will tiptoe down the hallway, past his mother’s room, down the stairway and out the front door. Strolling down Ninth Street, the skeleton will gradually take the form of a man—not Wild, not Vincent Price, but some unrecognizable person.
Once properly disguised, he’ll drink whiskey at 12 Steps Down and let the night take him where it may. Wild always awakens to the sound of the skeleton’s returning footsteps.
“How you doing today, Uncle Vinnie?” he’ll say.
The skeleton rarely replies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here at the table a teenage store clerk starts to sweep the sidewalk.
“Hey, get away from us,” screams Wild, spit flying from the corners of his mouth. “I’m doing an interview here. You’re like a monkey on my back, man.”
The store clerk laughs.
“Take it easy, Mikey. I bought one of your paintings the other day.”
“Whatever, man. I’m the king, man. King of Philadelphia.”
Wild’s only studio album Mikey Wild and the Magic Lanterns: I Was Punk B4 U Were Punk, was released in 1999 to mostly positive reviews. It’s still played on college radio stations and on dive bar jukeboxes in cities like San Francisco and Detroit, where Wild enjoys a small but loyal following.
Here in Philly he was recently “suspended” from his favorite Ninth Street coffeehouse for bothering female customers. “He’s very loud and sometimes says perverted things,” says a store employee. “He sometimes tells our female customers they don’t need bagels because they’re too fat already.”
At first glance Wild’s magic marker paintings look like X-rated versions of grade school sketchings. But as is the case with everything about Wild, closer examination reveals equal parts madness and genius. My favorite of his drawings are Cat Smoking a Cigarette, A Ghost Taking a Shower and A Man Sitting up in His Coffin—He’s Like Laughing.
“They’re all great,” says Wild, laughing and slapping the table. “Boy, this is going to be a good article, man.”
He only recently began performing live again. Earlier this summer he teamed with local hard rock band ScareHo for a show at Club 218 on South Street. He peed onstage during the closing number “Chicks With Dicks.”
“The audience was a mix of shock and laughter,” says ScareHo’s Fran Vox, a fan of Wild’s work.
“Mike’s one of the most soft and sincere guys I know,” says Vox. “The other night I took him to see Gary Neumann at the TLA. He loved it. He was clapping like a little girl.”
Here at the table, Wild takes out a set list for the songs he’s composing for a Halloween night show at the Khyber. The list is written in magic marker. The first song is called “Bitch Slicer.”
“It’s about a girl,” says Wild, “and she’s a bitch and she has a chainsaw, and that’s why they call her bitch slicer.”
Then he laughs his Vincent Price-like laugh and says, “It’ll be so scary. The scariest song ever, man.”