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Big Fish
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I'm including this article previewing a new documentary about local Philly rocker Kenn Kweder not because you would have heard of him outside, well, Philly, but because he's a type you know well: the local rock hero who never made it out of town. He was a name when I arrived at college in the 70s -- that poster with Ruby shooting Oswald was EVERYWHERE -- and while others of the era had at least a little success on a national scale (The Hooters were based at a club down Lancaster Avenue from my place; the late Robert Hazard had a hit with the awful "Escalator of Life" and wrote "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"; Pretty Poison had a hit, too, and The A's released an album on a major; Ben Vaughn ended up working on music in Hollywood (notably on "That 70s Show"))(, Kweder just stayed in Philly, playing the clubs, drinking, never going further. Every town has a musician who can play clubs every night but is unknown anywhere else, a comedian who may have worked up to feature for a touring act at a local club but never tried to make it in New York or L.A., an actor who's in every local production but just couldn't being himself or herself to go to Hollywood. Who's yours? (Philadelphia Inquirer)
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