Bacon Brothers

Clumsy chord changes! Weak, raspy vocals! Tepid fretwork! The Bacon Brothers have all this, and more! The vanity rock band of Philadelphia native Kevin Bacon and his brother Michael performed at the Electric Factory Friday night, leaving not even a chalk mark on the timeline of rock history. And the brothers knew it; between songs they shared self-deprecating anecdotes. (For instance, when the band played at Liz Taylor's birthday, Kevin's guitar was screechingly out of tune.) These asides were a lot more entertaining than the music.

The way Kevin Bacon sees it, being in a rock band pretty much fits into the same category as, say, playing a gay hustler, or a playboy astronaut, or - in the case of best-picture-nominated Frost/Nixon - a very loyal and uptight aide to a disgraced ex-president. "It's all about taking risks as an artist," the 51-year old actor and Philly native said recently by phone. "I find that whole process challenging, but also energizing. " In the more than 14 years since the Bacon Brothers were officially launched at what was supposed to be a one-time gig at the TLA, these two siblings have toured extensively and have put out six albums together (their latest, New Year's Day, features a family photo of preteen Kevin hanging out with his mandolin-strumming big brother, Michael, on the cover)

IN SOME WAYS, it was sort of an imperfect storm - a bad initial set of circumstances that seems like it is coming out sunny. "We were thinking of ways to promote 'New Year's Day,' which we thought was the most commercial song off our CD," said Bacon Brothers older sib Michael Bacon, from his studio in New York. He is primarily a film-music composer, while his brother, Kevin, is known mostly as an actor. "I came up with a storyboard for a video, and we thought we should get real Mummers into that video.

Kevin Bacon doesn't play a lot of goofballs. His characters tend toward the intense and unstable, their eerie focus sometimes shading into outright creepiness. But in the Bacon Brothers, his musical duo with his older brother, Michael, he plays a different role. At Camden County College's Dennis Flyer Theatre on Thursday night, he shook his hips and banged on bongos, his lanky frame swaying to the easygoing grooves oozing from the four non-Bacons behind him. Bacon, 50, may be weary of the comparison, but his swinging knees and jutting heels inevitably conjured up Ren McCormack of Footloose, although on stage he burned more cool than hot. With a career spanning 14 years and six albums, the most recent of which is New Year's Day, the Bacon Brothers are well past the vanity-project stage.

In a twist of roles, actor Kevin Bacon will star as himself on Sunday, playing rhythm guitar and singing lead vocals with the Bacon Brothers, a group he and his older brother Michael formed last year. During a recent telephone interview from his home in Connecticut, Kevin Bacon said he calls the band's style of music "Fo-So-Ro-Co," an acronym for folk, soul, rock and country. "I have a very eclectic musical taste. I would say that, probably, if anything, Fo-So-Ro-Co is another word for pop," said Bacon, 37, who grew up listening to everything from Motown groups to the Spinners, and Bruce Springsteen to the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and the Police.

Under different circumstances, Kevin Bacon might have set his sights on a career in music rather than motion pictures. The determining factor, it would seem, was his older brother, Michael. "I remember hearing Kevin saying that 'music is kind of covered in this family, so I better try something else,' " Michael Bacon said before the Bacon Brothers opened for a weekend engagement at the Sands. That's right. After a successful acting career that includes about 30 films, the 38-year-old Kevin Bacon is back to making music with Michael.

The stage billing for their Philadelphia debut as The Bacon Brothers is certainly equitable, though Michael Bacon knows "half the people who come out to see us will probably be there to see my movie-star brother Kevin up close. Hey, they'd come to see him open a supermarket. " Yet in a perverse way, Michael sees that as an advantage. Most people expect a movie star's concert turn to be, well, nothing more than a vanity project. The Bacon Brothers are something else. "The first job we ever played a couple months ago was at a small radio station in Connecticut," said Michael.

A funny thing has happened to the folk rockin' Bacon Brothers on their magical mystery trip. What started out as a lark - their variation on the theme of a rock 'n' roll fantasy camp - has turned into a reasonably successful sideline career for the Philadelphia-born brothers - 51-year-old film scorer Michael Bacon and his 10 years junior brother, the hard-working Hollywood actor, Kevin Bacon. "As the Bacon Brothers, we started out driving around in a station wagon, setting up our stuff, plugging in and playing, then waiting 'til the owner paid us so we could leave," noted Kevin in a call from Orlando, Fla., where their Y2K tour was kicking off at the House of Blues.

In X-Men: First Class , one of the summer's box-office hits ($320 million worldwide and counting), Kevin Bacon stars as a maniacal mutant super-villain. Later this month, the Philadelphia born-and-bred actor can be seen with Steve Carell in the comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love . "I've always mixed it up," Bacon says on the phone from Los Angeles, where his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, is shooting the final season of The Closer . "That's been my MO. I don't want to do one kind of movie.

In the middle of an apartment stuffed with memorabilia, 80-year-old Joseph Pollock opened a dark-colored yearbook from West Philadelphia High School dated 1940. "I want to show you one or two things within this book," he said. "It won't take long. " There's a young Pollock reading the daily announcements to his senior class. "I dressed them up. I made them interesting. They paid attention to me. " There's Pollock, senior-class president, standing with the other class officers.

In X-Men: First Class , one of the summer's box-office hits ($320 million worldwide and counting), Kevin Bacon stars as a maniacal mutant super-villain. Later this month, the Philadelphia born-and-bred actor can be seen with Steve Carell in the comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love . "I've always mixed it up," Bacon says on the phone from Los Angeles, where his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, is shooting the final season of The Closer . "That's been my MO. I don't want to do one kind of movie.

VICE PRESIDENT Joe Biden will speak Nov. 14 at the grand-opening ceremony of the National Museum of American Jewish History. NBC News' chief foreign-affairs correspondent, Andrea Mitchell , a former KYW NewsRadio and KYW-TV reporter, emcees the event at the museum's new home, 5th and Market. Jerry Seinfeld and Bette Midler perform Nov. 13 at the museum's grand-opening gala. The 10,000-square-foot museum cost $150 million to build, $25 million of which was donated by fashion mogul Sidney Kimmel 's charitable foundation.

IT'S YEAR No. 2 in the Age of Obama - Are times better? Perhaps, but the lingering trauma Gives us pause as we brace for a new year again, A new decade, in fact - it's 2-thousand-and-10! Happy New Year to all (our hearts are a-flutter) - To our embattled mayor, Michael Nutter, And his harried predecessor, the guv, Lame-duck Ed Rendell. Heavens above. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), is that really a D? (Will Joe Sestak add "ex-" in the spring prima-ry?

IN SOME WAYS, it was sort of an imperfect storm - a bad initial set of circumstances that seems like it is coming out sunny. "We were thinking of ways to promote 'New Year's Day,' which we thought was the most commercial song off our CD," said Bacon Brothers older sib Michael Bacon, from his studio in New York. He is primarily a film-music composer, while his brother, Kevin, is known mostly as an actor. "I came up with a storyboard for a video, and we thought we should get real Mummers into that video.

When I was a kid, my dad advised me not to hold grudges. He saw revenge as a powerful but ultimately empty motivator. Dad was the exception in our clan. Most of my family never forgets even the smallest slight. (My grandmother is still sore over all the times I whipped her in Scrabble.) We just file the snubs away and dust them off when the time is right for reprisal. I believe most therapists would find that approach entirely healthy. It's been two years since the Phils were unceremoniously dismissed from the playoffs by the then-sizzling Rockies.

Kevin Bacon doesn't play a lot of goofballs. His characters tend toward the intense and unstable, their eerie focus sometimes shading into outright creepiness. But in the Bacon Brothers, his musical duo with his older brother, Michael, he plays a different role. At Camden County College's Dennis Flyer Theatre on Thursday night, he shook his hips and banged on bongos, his lanky frame swaying to the easygoing grooves oozing from the four non-Bacons behind him. Bacon, 50, may be weary of the comparison, but his swinging knees and jutting heels inevitably conjured up Ren McCormack of Footloose, although on stage he burned more cool than hot. With a career spanning 14 years and six albums, the most recent of which is New Year's Day, the Bacon Brothers are well past the vanity-project stage.

The way Kevin Bacon sees it, being in a rock band pretty much fits into the same category as, say, playing a gay hustler, or a playboy astronaut, or - in the case of best-picture-nominated Frost/Nixon - a very loyal and uptight aide to a disgraced ex-president. "It's all about taking risks as an artist," the 51-year old actor and Philly native said recently by phone. "I find that whole process challenging, but also energizing. " In the more than 14 years since the Bacon Brothers were officially launched at what was supposed to be a one-time gig at the TLA, these two siblings have toured extensively and have put out six albums together (their latest, New Year's Day, features a family photo of preteen Kevin hanging out with his mandolin-strumming big brother, Michael, on the cover)

Settlement Music School, one of the proudest entities in a rich musical city, has been leading up to its 100th birthday this year in stages. Its plan to select 100 alumni honorees began with 20, then a large batch of 40 last year, with the final 40 announced yesterday. That unveiling came with a splash of drama, thanks to the previously honored Bacon brothers - actor-musician Kevin and rock-band leader-composer Michael - who emerged from an eight-seater Cessna Citation Excel at Northeast Philadelphia Airport's Hangar B. It was an offbeat intro to a varied list, one that includes Curtis Institute's founder, Mary Louise Curtis Bok Zimbalist, an early Settlement supporter, as well as soul singer Lady Alma Horton, a Settlement alum.

In the middle of an apartment stuffed with memorabilia, 80-year-old Joseph Pollock opened a dark-colored yearbook from West Philadelphia High School dated 1940. "I want to show you one or two things within this book," he said. "It won't take long. " There's a young Pollock reading the daily announcements to his senior class. "I dressed them up. I made them interesting. They paid attention to me. " There's Pollock, senior-class president, standing with the other class officers.

This weekend, the Philadelphia Folk Festival clocks in with its 39th annual gathering at the Old Pool Farm near Schwenksville, but it hardly shows the usual signs of looming middle age - resting on its laurels or trading on tradition. In fact, this festival got over its old-fashioned ways early on. Originally nurtured by scholarly folk purists (such as program director Ken Goldstein, a professor of folklore at the University of Pennsylvania), the festival was focused on presenting pure, unpolished practitioners of the "oral folk tradition" - ancient blues raspers, hillbilly-ish country cousins and yawn-inducing, 12-verse-spouting balladeers from across the seas.