Read John Kim Faye’s ‘The Yin and the Yang of It All’? Now hear his band the Caulfields play their first Philly show in decades
Faye's memoir tells the story of a ‘mixed-up, mixed-race kid.’ On Tuesday, the Jenkintown-based singer-guitarist will headline Ardmore Music Hall.
John Kim Faye has been a fixture on the Philadelphia music scene for three decades. He has played in bands like Beat Clinic, John Faye Power Trip, IKE, John & Brittany, and most prominently, the Caulfields, the 1990s rock band that looked to British bands of the New Wave era for inspiration and released two albums on A&M Records.
Now Faye has written a lively memoir with a lengthy title about finding music as a refuge in a world where he was never quite sure where he fit in. The Yin and the Yang of It All: Rock ‘n’ Roll Memories From the Cusp As Told By a Mixed-Up, Mixed-Race Kid begins with series of questions. “Where the hell was K-Pop when I needed it? Or Kim’s Convenience? Or Parasite? Or Pokémon, or Squid Game, or any of the things that have come to be signify “Asian cool”?
Growing up in Newark, Del. — the son of a Korean mother and an Irish father who died when he was 6 — Faye writes, “nobody called me cool. They called me a lot of other things, though.” What follows is a compelling narrative about Faye’s adventures in the Delaware and Philly music scenes, first with Beat Clinic and then the Caulfields, the quartet named after Holden Caulfield, the Catcher in the Rye anti-hero.
On Tuesday, the Jenkintown-based singer-guitarist will headline Ardmore Music Hall, performing with the Caulfields in the Philadelphia area for the first time since the 1990s. He’ll read from The Yin and the Yang and be joined by guests including fellow Delawarean and rising star on the Philly scene Sug Daniels, who he teamed with on the recent single “Lightning In The Bottle.” $18-$49, 7:30 p.m., April 25, Ardmore Music Hall, 23 E. Lancaster Ave., Ardmore, ardmoremusichall.com.