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 BERKFINGER, frontman of Sydney’s hot young things PHILADELPHIA GRAND JURY, tells JODY MACGREGOR why they are on fire right now.
When Philadelphia Grand Jury were last in Brisbane it was the first show with their new drummer who goes by the name of Calvin – just Calvin, which in a band with guys named Berkfinger and MC Bad Genius seems positively plain. Previous drummer Dan Sweat left to devote himself fully to his other band, Art Vs Science, leaving the Philly Jays in the lurch until they remembered seeing a funk band with an impressive drummer. That drummer was Calvin and that funk band was the awesomely named Professor Groove & The Booty Affair.
“We invited him to a gig expecting him not to like the music or want to play with us because it’s completely not what he’s done in the past,” says Berkfinger, “and after the gig he came up and was hugging us and it was his favourite thing in the world and he wants to play every gig this year.”
That’s a familiar feeling for anyone who has been to one of their shows. With unparalleled energy, Philadelphia Grand Jury make even their gimmicks feel sincere, whether it’s pre-recorded patter played on a sampler or the way Bad Genius casually hands his bass away to someone in the crowd while rocking all the way out the venue’s door at the end of their set.
“He just throws the bass away and it ends up in someone’s hands,” Berkfinger says with awe, “but I’ve stopped doing it because my guitar that I use is a 1969 Silvertone and it’s beautiful. I didn’t realise how much it meant to me until I handed it to the crowd and this guy had it and apparently earlier MC Bad Genius had thrown a tambourine out into the crowd and hit his girlfriend in the head, so he was standing there waiting to beat us up and then I gave him my guitar. He went, ‘Great,’ and just walked off with it and almost got out the door. The bouncers were like, ‘What are you doing with that?’ But he almost got out the door of this crazy club with my beloved guitar that’s irreplaceable.”
Despite lacking guitar-hurling antics, their two shows at the Troubadour are not going to be restrained. “We’re gonna for the first time ever play for more than 30 minutes. We might even play for 40,” he says. “I don’t know if I should tell you this, some people might get angry with me for spoiling it, but we’re actually gonna build a volcano. You’d have to ask Bad Genius how it works, but we’re building a volcano out of papier-mâché or something stupid and he’s putting all this kit together and it’s gonna burst out and explode at the back of the drums and the problem is we’re gonna have to clean that up on the first night and reset it up for the second night. He was only gonna have one volcano for each major city. We’re not sure whether to have two volcanoes for Brisbane or just have the volcano on the second night.”
You can catch PHILADELPHIA GRAND JURY, volcano or no volcano, at The Troubadour on Friday Nov 13 and Saturday Nov 14 with Kid Sam and Young Heretics. HOPE IS FOR HOPERS is out now through Boomtown.
    
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