World Cafe Live CEO announces a town hall meeting as a new concert series gives home to shows moved from the venue

Teleported, a concert series by Philly independent music promoter Dave Kiss, will present six shows originally planned to be at the World Cafe Live that are now being moved to other venues throughout the city.

The group of shows, which kicks off with legendary Brazilian tropicalia band Os Mutantes at PhilaMOCA on Thursday, is officially titled “A Concert Series for Philadelphia Venue Workers.”

Each event will be staffed by at least one former World Cafe Live worker who is among the many employees fired last month. The labor unrest started after staffers walked off their jobs last month during a Suzanne Vega concert, complaining of “unfair treatment” and “hostility and mismanagement” by the venue’s new leadership team.

Former World Cafe Live workers will also have an information table at each of the shows, and a portion of the proceeds will go to their cause, Kiss said.

Along with Os Mutantes, the Teleported series will include Bear Ghost and Spacemen Bob at Warehouse on Watts on July 16, Timalikesmusic at Johnny Brenda’s on July 18, podcasts Upstairs Neighbors on Aug. 7 and This Paranormal Life on Aug. 9, both at First Unitarian Church, and TWRP at Underground Arts on Oct. 1.

The same night as the Os Mutantes concert, World Cafe Live CEO Joseph Callahan, who told The Inquirer last month that World Cafe Live is “here to stay” and there is “zero probability” of the venue closing, is holding a town hall meeting in the University City venue’s downstairs Music Hall. The same space where Os Mutantes was scheduled to perform.

The town hall, which begins at 5 p.m. Thursday, is planned to be “an open dialogue with the World Cafe Live Board of Directors,” according to a social media post by the venue.

“We’re committed to transparent communication and addressing key topics that matter to our community,” the announcement states. “Whether you’re a former or current employee, union representative, artist, talent manager, media, influencer or local supporter — your voice is essential.”

Attendees can register at contact.worldcafelive.org, and the free event will also be livestreamed.

Kiss has been an indie promoter booking shows in Philadelphia for over a decade at venues like Kung Fu Necktie and Silk City. He was the principal booker for Chinatown’s Trocadero Theatre before it closed in 2019, and made headlines with a Laura Jean Grace show at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Northeast Philly,

In April, Kiss placed his first show at World Cafe Live, a sold-out date with Irish band Ye Vagabonds in the venue’s upstairs Lounge.

He decided to pull the Os Mutantes show from WCL, he said, because WCL blocked him on Instagram while he was trying to work with the venue to promote the show. “I have no idea why,” he said. “They’ve proven to be a communication black hole where emails go in but no responses come out. … They’re not proving to be good partners.”

Kiss said that he had always dreamed of putting on a show in WCL’s Music Hall, where a performance by Ronnie Spector in 2019 brought him to tears.

“What always attracted me to World Cafe Live was they did a certain kind of music that they presented in a certain kind of atmosphere, and they were the best at it. And now it seems like they’re not going to be,” he said.

Since taking over the nonprofit venue from outgoing CEO Hal Real this year, Callahan has emphasized plans to embrace the metaverse so that bands “can monetize their brands globally and we can bring the world to the World Cafe Live, virtually and digitally,” he told The Inquirer in an interview last month.

Kiss says that sales for his shows ground to a halt after news spread of former employees protesting outside the venue. The venue’s production staff recently joined IATSE Local 8.

“It just seems like no one wants to support this venue anymore,” he said. “LL Cool J didn’t play this past weekend because he didn’t want to cross the [city’s] picket line, and it just seems the concertgoers of Philadelphia don’t want to cross that line either.”

Kiss says that three of the Teleported dates — Bear Ghost, Upstairs Neighbors, and Paranormal Life — were events that booking agents had planned to place at WCL. But when he attended the National Independent Venue Association’s conference in Milwaukee last month, “the agents sought me out to move their shows and give them to me.”

Callahan did not immediately respond to a request to comment on this story and the Teleported Festival, which Kiss says he expects to grow in coming weeks. Tickets for Teleported shows are available at DaveKissPresents.com.

In other World Cafe Live news, Philly band the Tisburys is scheduled to perform Friday at Free at Noon. That weekly concert series takes place in the WCL’s Music Hall but is presented by University of Pennsylvania radio station WXPN-FM (88.5), which shares a building with the WCL though it is a separate business entity.

The Tisburys posted on social media that it plans to go ahead with the show, after consulting with WCL workers who have an Instagram presence at @saveworldcafelive.

“We have decided to keep our scheduled WXPN Free at Noon performance,” the band wrote. “We are using this opportunity to speak freely (read: in opposition) of the new CEO and leadership in a public manner at their own establishment.”

Last month, Callahan, who made headlines last year when he brought The Portal to Philadelphia, told The Inquirer that though the WCL and XPN are and will remain separate entities, they will continue to work together.

“I committed to [WXPN general manager] Roger LaMay that I would make sure the World Cafe Live was here in perpetuity,” Callahan said, adding that WCL will be available to the station for Free at Noon as well as events like the annual NON-COMMvention, which is held at the venue in the spring.

That relationship, which Callahan characterized as “like a family,” will remain, he said. “Absolutely. 100%. They don’t need to worry.”

Editor’s note: The story has been updated to reflect that striking World Cafe Live workers have joined IATSE Local 8.