PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A South Philadelphia punk band is about to become internet famous. LongFriend TimeFriend's rendition of a classic hit has thousands of clicks online, and it started as a fundraiser.
The band, comprising longtime friends Caleb Delp, Lou Fantini, Mike McMahon and Pete Imbesi, asked people they know to send ideas for songs to cover. Their plan was to record the requests for $50 each to raise money for studio time to produce their first album.
Never did they expect someone to suggest "Here Come the Sixers," nor that the song would gain them so much attention.
hey, can you tell we're psyched for the return of @sixers basketball? here's our birthday present to @BenSimmons25, a punk cover of "here come the sixers."hope the rest of the league is ready to hear a whole lot of this jam next month!#HereTheyCome #Summer76 #76ers #sixers pic.twitter.com/w7ciQOcCtk
— Longfriend Timefriend (@LFTFtheband) July 20, 2020The song has been played thousands of times on YouTube. It has even earned the band a booking on the SportsRadio 94WIP morning show.
"We all really love the original," Fantini said. "But obviously, that's not quite in our style. We're recording in a basement, so we really leaned into the high-energy, lo-fi punk sound that is really associated with our city. And we had as much fun with it as we could."
Not only did they have fun with it. They also reached their Kickstarter goal. Soon they'll head into a studio to record an album, and they will probably be asked to play this jam every time they're on a stage.
