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Best Of

Best Of 2017: Live Music

“The bandleader is indicative
of nothing or everything

Depending on the day.”
-Gabrielle Calvocoressi, “In the Darkness of the House of Pleasure”

I’m pretty sure live music was the first of these lists I started 15+ years ago (any friends going back to the email list days or early LiveJournal, feel free to correct). It’s been a guiding light. It’s how I’ve met most of my dearest friends and made many of my fondest memories. Even as I grow old and share the frustration with some trappings, I’m still invigorated by a great show. Nothing else gives me that instantaneous body-and-soul charge.

I saw around 130 shows this year. After a hard, hard deliberation – getting it down from 35 was more difficult than previous years – here are twenty still gnawing at me. Rather than ranking, they’re presented in chronological order. In Columbus, unless otherwise specified.

  • Dirtbombs and Soledad Brothers (The Magic Stick, Detroit, 12/31/16) – Rock-and-roll motherfucking church. Maybe the greatest rock band of my adult life – and still my favorite outlet for the prodigious craft and imagination of Mick Collins – came back to their hometown to prove they can take the crown any time they want it. From the first crunch of their take on Mitch Ryder’s “Motor City Baby” this only let off the throttle long enough so we could feel the sweat on our skin and catch the fire in each other’s eyes. Soledad Brothers reminded me how much I dug them too with raunchy, swinging sweetness.
  • Sinkane (The Basement, 02/22/17) – Columbus expat Ahmed Gallab, Sinkane, just gets better. This six-piece version plus horns was an ecstatic trip through his beguiling new record Life and Livin’ It with a couple rearranged classics. Chants like “We all gonna be all right!” (from “U’Huh”) and wry observations like “Telephone”, welded to ornate and liquid melodies and deep grooves. Glad-you’re-alive music.
  • Still Dreaming (Wexner Center, 03/29/17) – Chuck Helm’s valedictory season at the Wex didn’t miss a single step in his jazz game. All 6 shows could have justifiably hit my top 20. This new quartet from Joshua Redman played and wrestled with the rock-solid melodies and mystery of his father Dewey Redman’s group Old and New Dreams and new work using that as a jumping off point. Four mammoth players in the service of the kind of pure dialogue jazz does better than any kind of music. Sparks flew between Redman’s sax and Ron Miles’ brass as they shot screams through with sweetness and shadowed bravura with a wishful baleful edge. All in the deep pocket of one of the best rhythm sections alive, Scott Colley and Brian Blade.
  • 75 Dollar Bill and Sue Garner (Ace of Cups, 04/04/17) – 75 Dollar Bill is a perennial favorite. It’s heartening to see this Che Chen and Rick Brown project breaking through to broader appeal. Their set dissected the irreducible DNA of music, leaning into the gorgeous impossibility of separating melody from rhythm. The opening set from Sue Garner was a reminder of the malleable nature of song. Her artful miniatures like ice stabbing into the listener’s heart and melting into a glowing, shifting, enriching light.
  • Wadada Leo Smith Great Lakes Quartet (The Stone, NYC, 04/23/17) – One of the absolute masters reminding us how great he is. Brand new compositions that felt like the quaking, painful renewal of a mighty earth. The quaking, flame-kissed rhythm section of Mark Helias and Marcus Gilmore, Jonathon Haffner’s lustrous alto sax, and Smith’s singular trumpet tone ripped into this material. An artist just getting better and better.
  • LA Witch (Berlin, NYC, 04/25/17) – There’s something magical about seeing a band come to the next level right in front of your eyes and Berlin is an intimate venue that lends itself to those moments. LA Witch destroyed me on a weeknight with sticky, growling songs that felt like Wanda Jackson’s vocals over heavy shoegaze with just enough girl-group swing and garage punch to keep the floor bouncing.
  • Kris Kristofferson (Southern Theater, 05/17/17) – Watching this lovely victory lap of one of the great American writers revisit songs I never thought I’d hear live, I found myself thinking of John Berger’s writing about the poet Nazim Hikmet and Juan Muñoz. That sense that the greatest dream we can carry in this age is fraternity, of carrying hope in our teeth. It’s all there. And I might have cried like a moron.
  • Vijay Iyer Sextet (Wexner Center, 05/20/17) – This was a tribute to Chuck Helm’s cultivation of relationships. Columbus had the pleasure of watching Iyer evolve into one of the strongest conceptions in American music This sextet, underpinned by longtime collaborator Stephan Crump on bass and Justin Brown on drums, added heavier flavors of New Orleans funk and second-line into these sparkling compositions. The front line flanked steady foil Steve Lehman with Mark Shim and god-almighty Graham Haynes with Iyer at its beating heart. A flood of images and ideas that rewarded constant, dedicated attention while still being some of the most accessible music I heard all year.
  • Sarah Shook and the Disarmers (Ace of Cups, 07/20/17) – Sarah Shook and her cracking band sum up everything good about raw Americana right now. Shit-kicking dance beats underscore Shook’s characters grappling with connection and try to find a place in the world on songs like “Nothin’ Feels Right Like Doin’ Wrong”. All delivered in Shook’s intense twang, stylized but not doing an impression of any specific model. What Sekou Sundiata used to call “dance and stand still” music.
  • Priests (Ace of Cups, 07/21/17) –  Priests’ new material on 2017’s Nothing Feels Natural they were touring here was several steps beyond and this show was every single thing I want in a rock band. They kept the energy and ferocity of their early hardcore days but opened it up to other textures. One of my favorite rhythm sections working today, Taylor Mulitz on bass and Daniele Daniele on drums, danced through slinky rhythms that reminded me of the Cure, blended the Clash with krautrock and go-go, and ripped into classicist, raging punk rock, all with giddy ease. They presented a perfect backdrop for GL Jaguar’s immediately recognizable guitar and Katie Alice Greer’s sharp lyrics and intense, riveting presence.
  • Lydia Lunch’s Retrovirus (Ace of Cups, 07/25/17) – This show on Anne’s birthday was a better victory lap than I could have ever dared hope from an artist who meant more to me than almost any other. Lunch, in remarkable voice and wielding her volcanic presence, led us through a retrospective set of all highlights. Backed by a crack band with Child Abuse-frontman Tim Dahl on bass and Bob Bert on drums and perfect guitar foil Weasel Walter. This wasn’t nostalgia, and it wasn’t pandering to who we used to be, it was a reckoning. It was a reminder of what still lives in those songs.
  • Greg Cartwright (Cafe Bourbon Street, 07/31/17) – One of my favorite songwriters working today, revisiting a tiny room with an old friend, Andy Robertson, and even sticking around to spin records? An evening I couldn’t believe I was lucky enough to be with my friends for. A fascinating look at continuity and evolution in someone’s writing, the way work done 10 years ago takes on new textures, reflected in the light of more recent songs. A new song with lyrics “I think the devil works in a pharmacy…” that might have set a new bar for the brand of heartbreak his work owns. His set at GonerFest was also exquisite, but this was a perfect Monday night.
  • Coathangers (Ace of Cups, 08/02/17) – They were also great in a larger venue in Brooklyn in the Spring; I have a hard time believing the Coathangers ever have a bad set these days. Fist-pumping rock-and-roll with shout-along lyrics and pure, glowing adrenaline.
  • Chuck Prophet and the Mission Express (Natalie’s, 08/03/17) – Chuck Prophet is a true historian of the music who distills everything he’s learned into songs that sound like no one other than Chuck Prophet. Preoccupied with death and fighting stagnation, as on “Bobby Fuller Died for Your Sins” and “It’s Been a Bad Year for Rock and Roll,” and my favorite, the tribute to Suicide’s Alan Vega, “In the Mausoleum.” This show made me think about rock-and-roll and its ritualistic ability to move beyond the adolescent, the creation myth also talking to us about burying our dead.
  • Sheer Mag and Flesh World (Ace of Cups, 09/12/17) – Over the last couple years, the world’s come around to realizing the self-evident fact that Sheer Mag are the best live rock-and-roll band touring. This trip, supporting their phenomenal new record, Need to Feel Your Love, felt like a victory lap and an open road. Their blend of Thin Lizzy twinned guitar riffing; crisp, stomping rhythms and post-hardcore singing from one of the greatest lead singers working, Tina Halladay, is an irresistible combination. Anyone who claims to like rock-and-roll and doesn’t love this band? I’ve got nothing for you. Up and comers Flesh World also blew me away here, extra impressive when the headliner took my head off.
  • Khruangbin and Chicano Batman (A&R Bar, 10/03/17) – Chicano Batman’s sweetly fuzzy psych-Delfonics blending with Khruangbin’s majestic low-rider R&B reconfigured as Thai lounge music. I wish there’d been more room to dance, but I was gobsmacked to see this many young people – and people I didn’t know – loving this kind of music.
  • The Bad Plus Bill Frisell (Lincoln Theater, 10/08/17) – This astonishing set brought together a group that helped define the Wexner Center’s jazz aesthetic under the great Chuck Helm and a titan who he helped give that shine to in his days at the Walker. It was everything good about both of their approaches. This paid tribute to The Bad Plus’ first iteration’s dogged determination to delve into whatever they were investigating – Ornette Coleman or Stravinsky or Milton Babbit or Sabbath – and come out feeling like themselves. And it was a fresh pair of eyes on Frisell’s fertile ’85-95 quartet as his writing came into its own but with the tools of everything he’s learned since in its execution. You could come in off the street not knowing anything about either artist or this oevure or you could come in having gorged yourself on it in High School/college and this was a knockout punch either way. Thank you, Chuck Helm. (For a little bonus, check out Helm’s writing about this pairing for co-commissioning body The Walker Art Museum, one of the best pieces ever written about TBP.)
  • Jon Langford’s Four Lost Souls (Hogan House, 10/13/17) – Jon Langford’s voice gets sharper and clearer with every passing year. This new project designed for two other voices with his, Tawny Newsome and Bethany Thomas, with lead guitarist and harmony vocalist John Szmanski, was another take on the dark and joyous heart of America. It was a balm to be in a great-sounding and well-appointed basement (seriously, try to hit a Hogan House show, they’re fantastic hosts) with other listeners, basking in the flame of these songs on an unseasonable warm fall afternoon. Feeling like we’re all receiving “A message from the heart of the world.”
  • Man Forever (Double Happiness, 10/14/17) – This is the kind of show too big for our fantastic gallery/diy spaces but many rock clubs – with the aid of Jen Powers and Fred Pfening here, who should not be ignored – wouldn’t have booked. Kid Millions’ Man Forever was avant-garde technique and forms – played gorgeously by a band that included members of Tigue – comingled with samba and go-go and heavy, swinging rock. An electric dance-party baptism.
  • Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds (Double Happiness, 10/23/17) – If you asked me what’s good about rock? What’s good about live music? It’s all right in this show. A co-bill with NYC DJ Jonathan Toubin for Halloween had Congo’s quicksilver band in full costume going through a series of songs that touched on the holiday and songs that just reminded us all how good it felt to dance with like-minded people. Boundless joy and magic and love.
  • Mountain Goats (Newport, 11/09/17) –The Mountain Goats have grown into their show as a show, they were one of the most comfortable bands I’ve ever seen on the Newport stage. Their new record, Goths, about growing older and the way structures that once empowered us and showed us a bigger world close in around us, was a perfect spine for this subtle, intimate-in-surprising- ways show that felt like it drew us all in. My favorite icepick-in-the-heart line of all year, from “Andrew Eldritch is Moving Back to Leeds”, got extra juice from singer John Darnielle leaning over his fender rhodes and twisting the corkscrew just a little with “There will be goodbyes by dozens. You get to practice being brave.” Like that pain is a gift. Because, somehow, it kind of is.

And, because festivals are not going away, we should celebrate what’s still good about them. My favorite 20 sets, mixed up, from my favorite festivals throughout the year. Again, all are in Columbus unless otherwise specified.

  1. Antibalas (Black Swamp Music Festival, Bowling Green, 09/09/17)
  2. ESG (West Fest, Chicago, 07/07/17)
  3. Golden Pelicans (Cheap Heat, 04/14/17 and GonerFest, Memphis, 09/30/17)
  4. Los Nastys (RuidoFest Afterparty, Chicago, 07/07/17)
  5. Screaming Females (Sick Weekend, 03/23/17)
  6. Magic Factory (GonerFest, Memphis, 09/29/17)
  7. Sweet Knives (GonerFest, Memphis, 09/28/17)
  8. Molly Burch (Sick Weekend, 03/24/17)
  9. Watu Utongo (Villagefest, 06/10/17)
  10. 1-800-Band (Sick Weekend, 03/25/17)
  11. Dana (Sick Weekend, 03/25/17 and Cheap Heat 04/15/17)
  12. The Echo Ohs (GonerFest, Memphis, 09/30/17)
  13. Bloodbags (GonerFest, Memphis, 09/28/17)
  14. Danny and the Darleans (Cheap Heat, 04/15/17)
  15. Bobby Selvaggio’s Red Rhinoceros (Rubber City Jazz and Blues Festival, 08/26/17)

 

 

Categories
Best Of

Best of 2015: Live Music

“Every good thing we dared in winter
arrives by springtime: a whipporwill
among the pines, a colony of memories
like muscadine on a vine double-thick
as a boy’s arm, redemption reaching
into its roots before an afterthought
steals back the sweetness. Something
lost in the rearview mirror shifts,
& here we are again on the dance floor
at the Silver Shadow; the boys & girls
reeling out to the edge of fingertips.”
-Yusef Komunyakaa, “Always a Way”

I felt a little bit like I was stuck in neutral for big chunks of this year. Had a hard time getting out to see as much music as I would’ve liked. Part of that was balancing the demands of freelance writing and a day job that kicked up a gear but a lot of it was that devil ennui. My mission for next year is to work a little harder to get out, and especially try harder to take a chance on things. The rewards are worth it.

That said, I still saw over 100 shows in some of my favorite cities and – one of the best parts of doing this review ever year – I’m reminded of how exceptionally good so much of it was. I’ve been very lucky in very many respects – I just need to get better at reminding myself of that. Rambling thoughts about the scene follow the list. Left off Big Ears Festival in Knoxville and Hopscotch in Raleigh because I could have filled the list just with sets from both of those. I saw more great music in those combined six days than most people do all year – plus ate amazing food, drank beers that don’t come up here and saw great friends.

Like everything else, all shows are in Columbus unless otherwise mentioned.

  1. Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Real Enemies (written by Argue and Isaac Butler), 11/18/15 (BAM Harvey Theater, Brooklyn) – By this time, pretty much any year I get to see Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society – along with Guillermo Klein Y Los Guachos and Orrin Evans’ Captain Black, one of the few wildly new big bands swinging for the fences – seems assured of a spot on this list. Argue’s writing is that strong and his team of players is a finely tuned machine. But even I didn’t expect this to wow me the way it did. A look at corrosive paranoia, and the very real roots of it, the way history will leave scars on all of us. This collaboration with writer Butler was the most successful multimedia work I saw this year and the music with some narration and fragmented video that broke my heart. As good as the other elements were, the music never ceded its primacy: from Ligeti-recalling wind quintets to intricate ’80s cocaine R&B to expansive works playing with country-inflected styling to the kind of propulsive, noir-drenched snapshots the band excels at, this was a dazzling tour of the dark corners, shattered windows, and dread-soaked cul de sacs of the last fifty years.
  2. NOTS and Raw Pony, 08/15/15 (Dude Locker) – For their 7″ release, Raw Pony, rapidly cementing their status as one of the most exciting bands in town, brought in Memphis’ NOTS cresting the wave of deserved praise for their self-titled debut, in my favorite double bill of the whole year. Boiling-over deep grooves, scuzz-caked guitars, clipped but anthemic harmonies, this was everything I wanted from rock and roll to an attentive, enthusiastic crowd on a gorgeous summer night.
  3. Robbie Fulks, 10/09/15 (Natalie’s Coal-Fired Pizza) – There’s some (I think) deserved gushing about Natalie’s in the round-up below but what I might have loved them most for this year was bringing Robbie Fulks back to town for the first time since Little Brothers (a private wedding gig notwithstanding). Fulks might be alt.country’s Balzac, training a razor-sharp eye on the intersection between classes and ways in which classes never get to intersect and boiling that down to the catchiest roots music you’ve ever heard. Bringing an acoustic quartet that orbited around violinist Shad Cobb, bassist Todd Phillips (founding member of the David Grisman Quintet) and a terrific young mandolin player whose name I can’t seem to find anywhere, this was one of the best, leanest sets I’ve seen in almost 15 years of seeing Fulks live. A consummate performer who will make you laugh and cry at indignity and rightly rage against shame and complacency.
  4. Brett Burleson Quartet, 01/09/15 (Dick’s Den) – One of our finest guitarists and bandleaders, Burleson’s annual shows around his birthday are an oasis in the middle of winter. Because of the punishing cold, this year’s felt like an oasis for lots of people – it was the most crowded I remember and people came to party. His working quartet – saxophonist Eddie Bayard, bassist Roger Hines, and drummer Ryan Jewell – are a well-oiled machine and they worked intricate, complex material around a set full of long pieces that got an entire bar dancing to jazz that was never dumbed down, never pandering. One of those nights where having to squeeze through rows of people to get a drink felt like a blessing and the inch of sweat-condensation on the windows felt well-earned.
  5. Maria Schneider with the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, 05/02/15 (Southern Theater) – I don’t see as much of the CJO as I should because – much like the Columbus Symphony – the repertoire usually isn’t to my taste. But bringing in the finest big band composer and conductor working today, Maria Schneider, shined light on what an amazing collection of musicians Columbus is lucky to boast and how lucky we are to have a leader like Byron Stripling in town. This was 90 minutes of exquisitely deployed color and rapturous tension that’s still echoing in my head.
  6. Secret Keeper, 06/15/15 (Natalie’s Coal-Fired Pizza) – Mary Halvorson’s my favorite guitarist working these days, full-stop, and this duo with bassist Stephan Crump (who also appears on this list with the Vijay Iyer Trio) was full of intriguing, complex music that invited the audience to try, just try, to unpack it. Full of spidery melodies tearing and reshaping themselves, cubist looks at small gestures from every angle, hard flamenco over dry-wind arco playing, songs that feel like lava coalescing into earth. This was everything.
  7. Six String Drag, 04/03/15 (Natalie’s Coal-Fired Pizza) – The resurrected Six String Drag, one of alt.country’s brightest lights when that kind of thing mattered, felt and sounded better than ever. Kenny Roby’s lead vocals and rhythm guitar still perfectly mesh with bassist Rob Keller in harmonies that could rival the Everly Brothers and a band that balances raunch and delicacy like the best rock and roll. As honest and heart-wrenching as your first love and as weighted with memory and portent as growing old, to a beat that begs you to dance, their live performance of “Kingdom of Getting it Wrong” might have been my favorite five minutes of music all year.
  8. Antibalas with Guests, 11/18/15 (Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn) – I hadn’t checked in with the US’s reigning afrobeat kings in a while but something had to be good to make an impression after having my brain massaged by Darcy James Argue and they more than rose to the challenge. This final night of their Brooklyn Bowl residency found them without their usual lead singer so we were treated to a set heavier with raunch instrumentals, rarities and awesome guest singers including Quantic (leading the band on a righteous cumbia), Sarh Nguajah (from Broadway’s Fela!), and soul legend Lee Fields. If you didn’t dance until you were sore to this you should have your pulse checked.
  9. Elysian Fields, 11/14/15 (The Owl, Brooklyn) – One of my favorite bands in a 20th anniversary residency. We caught them on the night they were doing Afterlife with Jennifer Charles and Oren Bloedow backed by Rob Jost, Glenn Patscha, and Max Johnson with an assist by Max Moston. Their textured, noir-pop made for an emotional, moving show in the wake of the Paris attack with the band’s deep ties to the city of light and a packed room in their new venue, The Owl, in Prospect-Lefferts that didn’t have its liquor license yet but the heady emotions (and strong tea) were more than transporting enough.
  10. Deaf Wish with Unholy 2, 10/07/15 (Double Happiness) – Australia’s finest noise-punk band have morphed into one of the best live rock bands I’ve ever seen over a few years of constant touring. This appearance at Double Happiness was a grimy victory lap, loud and almost unhinged, and righteous. Perfect support by Unholy 2 who are going through another chrysalis period and coming out as a more three-dimensional band with interesting samples and a deeper line in syncopation.
  11. Shamir, 11/16/15 (Bowery Ballroom, Manhattan) – Shamir, R&B wunderkind, proving the hype is more than deserved. A killer small band with a woman playing the best Bernie Worrell-style pop funk keys I’ve heard in a long time, a man who was a phenomenal drummer, and a female backing singer playing with gender roles and distortion. This was an epic, sexy, raunchy dance party across sticky floors.
  12. The Bad Plus Joshua Redman, 10/20/15 (Wexner Center) – As good as straight-ahead jazz gets in the best-sounding room in town. Adding the x-factor of Joshua Redman’s burnished, warm tone and his melodic writing helped push the Bad Plus into orbit with particularly fine performances out of drummer Dave King. A night that sets the bar high for anyone wanting to push the boundaries of and dig deeper into genre at the same time.
  13. Haynes Boys, 06/26/15 (Ace of Cups) – This Comfest bill – Haynes Boys, TJSA, and Poets of Heresy was geared toward a crowd a little older than I am but those were all some of the first local bands I saw when I was in High School and the Haynes Boys were the first local band I loved all the way. That too-young melancholy is given extra ballast to steer from the years that have gone past. These songs that try to make sense of that time as you leave your 20s and you realize some of your friends are sick, some of your friends are dying or already dead, where sometimes the world has a patina like a nicotine-stained encaustic, punch twice as hard now lyrics of disappointment like “I knew things were getting bad when I started to count on one of the blackouts you might have,” and “She drives me to work in the morning, I wash her dishes at night.” Catharsis never heals as long as you want it to but once in a while an hour’s enough to get you to the next place.
  14. Vijay Iyer Trio, 04/16/15 (Wexner Center) – Iyer made maybe his best trio record this year and that’s saying something. This set with Stephan Crump on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums encompassed everything from Thelonious Monk to a kaleidoscopic, gorgeously shuddering tribute to techno pioneer Robert Hood. Big tent, pulsing, quick witted jazz not hemmed in by any boundaries whatsoever.
  15. Sleater-Kinney with Waxahatchee, 12/05/15 (Newport Music Hall) – There’s something eminently satisfying when a band you loved so much as a teenager and into your early 20s reform and deliver on every ounce of promise and memory. The backdrop looked like skin being shed or a slow-mo explosion behind the three players and the blistering almost two hour set felt like burning indifference off all our eyes. Fierce, wild joy.
  16. Dave Douglas Quintet, 11/19/15 (Jazz Standard, Manhattan) – Douglas’ newer quintet finally hit a level of comfort where I no longer miss the old quintet at all. I was lucky enough to catch the first set of this victory lap at the Jazz Standard toward the end of the touring cycle for their beautiful new record, Brazen Heart, and it was everything I want straightforward jazz to be. Sexy and warm with an ease that never slipped into taking anything for granted. Douglas and tenor player Irabagon have a sense of harmony that bursts through the rafters and the rapport through the rhythm section of Matt Mitchell on piano, Linda Oh on bass and Rudy Royston on drums was like five undeniable heartbeats at once. Sublime.
  17. Mountain Goats, 04/22/15 (Wexner Center) – Mountain Goats keep making great records with Darnielle’s uncommon empathy and bone-deep understanding of Blake’s world in a grain of sand. The record they were touring this cycle, Beat The Champ, might be the best Mountain Goats record yet and the selections they did this time, from the mood-piece “Luna” to the easy mourning of “Animal Mask” through unlikely sing-along “Foreign Object” meshed perfectly into a brilliantly chosen setlist. The juxtaposition of songs had an arc and a swell right through a cathartic finish about why people make art, why the desire to put your mark on the world is universal, and how that ties in with a need for community with set closer “Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1” through the anthemic encore of “Legend of Chavo Guerrero,” “This Year,” and “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton.”
  18. Snakeoil, 05/09/15 (Constellation, Chicago) – In a great Chicago trip full of awesome friends, terrific food, good theatre, and great music, this was the cherry on the cake. Tim Berne’s riveting chamber-jazz quintet with thorny, twisting lines woven between his alto and Oscar Noriega’s clarinet over a shifting bedrock of Matt Mitchell’s piano and Ches Smith’s drums and percussion, lit up and shadowed by Ryan Ferreira’s guitar was like nothing else I heard all year.
  19. Orgone, 08/27/15 (Woodlands Tavern) – West Coast funk band Orgone returned to Columbus to a pretty decent crowd this time who came to get down and in the five or so years since they last graced our stages they’ve only grown in power and confidence. After a great opening set by Chicago’s lean and mean funk outfit The Heard, Orgone came out with a set heavier on vocals but still a rich clinic in rhythm and power in one of the best live music bars for dancing like a moron.
  20. Weyes Blood, 01/15/15 (Cafe Bourbon Street) – Weyes Blood went with a more streamlined, song-focused approach this time, almost more Joni Mitchell and Eric Andersen. The songs were so beautiful and her approach was so immediate, within three songs I didn’t miss some of the wildness that’s been stripped away. In a room I’ve seen swallow fragility with bar noise and nervous energy, she held us all in the palm of her hand and knew exactly when to twist the knife.

 

Across the Columbus scene, 2015 felt like a year of minor changes, regrouping, retrenching. The big thing in my little corner of town is Jeff Kleinman left Ace of Cups, somebody I personally like and consider a friend who booked some fantastic edgy bands that might otherwise never have come here. It’s good for Jeff to focus on his band, Nervosas, who made one of my favorite records this year, plus that kind of a move always brings new energy and new ideas. Into that steps Bobby Miller who booked great shows all around town when I was in college and has kept his hand in the game over the years with the Slum-B-Q, Megacity Music Marathon, and most recently 4th and 4th Fest. I can’t wait to see what Miller does with the infrastructure of Ace. A similar move at Cafe Bourbon Street with Kevin Failure stepping down to only book one-offs and local musician and artist Albert Gray taking the reins – it’s almost entirely to Kevin’s credit that Bobo reclaimed its crown as the bar for rock on the fringes and Gray’s taste means that shows no sign of abating soon.

A couple new (and new-ish) venues on the South end and near West side give reason to have additional hope for those new ideas and established ideas finally getting a chance to fly. Visual art collective MINT, on Jenkins St south of Greenlawn, have taken up the mantle of Skylab, Firexit, and BLD Warehouse which was much missed with booking a lot of interesting techno, noise (including heavy hitters like Wolf Eyes) and even free jazz. Kyle Sowash, hardest working man in Columbus rock, partnered with Justin Hemminger and independent rock radio CD1025 to turn their instudio live space Big Room into the fully operational Big Room Bar with a cool bar repurposed from the Veterans Memorial stage imprinted with bands that played that storied hall, good sound, and a vibe that pleasantly reminds me of an old VFW. Sowash is already using that stability of a home base to book the the cream of the more established local rock and touring heavy hitters like Helado Negro and Kelly Hogan. People living south of I-70 who want to hear some music now have a few options to complement the fully-come-into-its-own Double Happiness. Strongwater, in resurgent Franklinton, books interesting rock into its packed schedule of parties, receptions, etc. The Walrus on the south edge of Downtown is still feeling out its identity but they’ve got a terrific stage in a beautiful bar; I’ve heard some great jazz there and singer-songwriters like Matt Munhall and Talisha Holmes have packed people in.

On the roots spectrum, Rumba Cafe’s ownership change late last year booked less I’m personally interested in but when my path led me there it’s still one of my favorite rooms and there’s already stuff on the 2016 books I’m salivating over. Woodlands’ empire grew into the satellite rooms and they cemented themselves as a force to be reckoned with, well-staffed bars that are comfortable to hang out in with great sound and a firm booking identity.

Natalie’s continued to grow and thrive. It tied with the Wexner Center for the most shows to appear on my Top 20, with three, and there were another half-dozen in strong consideration. I got a little good-natured grief for my referring to them as “City Winery with some Midwestern ‘aw shucks,'” but I stand by that – they found a way to translate Dorf’s model to bring in a new audience that might not have seen live music in years and without alienating the core, and they did it with humility, hard work, and confidence. They also support the scene to a pretty great degree, I’ve seen their owners at other shows this year more often than I’ve seen owners/bookers outside their own bar (with the exception of the aforementioned Kyle Sowash). They’re a rare venue that does everything right – the food isn’t an afterthought, I start to crave that pizza if I haven’t had it in a few weeks, the cocktails are approachable and balanced, the staff is top-notch, and sound is always fantastic. Their relationship with Alec Wightman’s Zeppelin continued to bear fruit with countless sold-out shows and even more in the pipeline for ’16 as did their work with veteran Bruce Nutt. But what’s key is the way Natalie’s uses those outside bookers to complement their aesthetic, they use it to build instead of using it as a crutch. There was a well-heeled threat from Notes in the Brewery District which opened with a booking policy that struck several people I talked to, and myself, as Natalie’s South but without the good will, the skillful negotiation of the press, the depth of its bench, or its relationships with national booking agents. I’m rooting for Notes, I think this town could support another adult venue with a slightly more buttoned-up demeanor but the way they did it out of the gate honestly didn’t make me rush to go there.

Brothers Drake might have been the success story of the year with great music finding a bigger audience than they would have elsewhere in town because booker April Kulcsar understands the symbiosis between the bar’s audience and the kind of music they can be open to – I saw big crowds getting down to things as diverse as Chicago’s scrappy afrobeat up-and-comers Gramps the Vamp, Detroit’s riotous funk ensemble Third Coast Kings, and NYC torch-song rockabilly Miss Tess and the Talkbacks. Plus, bands that crystalized in part at BD like Angela Perley and the Howlin’ Moons and Playing to Vapors are rocking bigger stages and sending ripples through the national touring communities.

Wexner Center focused its booking with the strongest slate of jazz I can remember and almost no ephemeral blog-rock, as evidenced by tying with Natalie’s for most shows on this top 20. I can’t wait for the jazz shows in Winter and Spring, plus the first Yo La Tengo trip to town for a set of their own music in years (Little Brothers? The Factory?) and whatever else they bring.

So what I’m trying to say is, keep your ear to the ground. Go see some shit, Columbus. The bounty is rich and the cornucopia overflows.

 

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“Hey, Fred!” 09/21/15-09/27/15 A biased and idiosyncratic Top Five

Music


September 21: Russian Tsarlag and Secret Boyfriend. Skylab Gallery, 57 E Gay St. 

Carlos Gonzalez, who records under the name Russian Tsarlag, makes a kind of narcotized, melted bedroom pop. Tsarlag rises above the vast morass of that genre with a keen ear for detail, a respect for the sensuality of noise, and a commitment to an emotional reality. His work reminds of me of looking at a Lucio Fontana canvas, peering through rough slash marks into a barely glimpsed world you need to fill in the details of yourself. Gonzalez has also been gaining more and more notice for his comic book work, there’s a terrific interview about that with him here: http://www.tcj.com/let-your-dreams-touch-air-an-interview-with-carlos-gonzalez/

His tour partner here is Ryan Martin, Carrboro-based singer-songwriter who makes beguiling work under the name Secret Boyfriend. Local openers include Mark Van Fleet, whose now-infrequent shows are always a treat and worth investigating, and Swen.

Doors at 8:00pm. $5 cover.

September 23: Rafael Toral and Ryan Jewell. MINT, 42 W Jenkins St. 

I wrote this up for JazzColumbus. Please see preview there including video, highly recommended.

Show starts at 9:00pm. $8 cover.


September 24: Sheer Mag. Ace of Cups, 2619 N High St.

Philadelphia’s Sheer Mag are at the forefront of the new riff-rock revival. Merging singer Christine Halliday’s punky howl with overlapping guitar riffs reminiscent of Thin Lizzy and Cheap Trick and a throbbing rhythm section, they make everything you grew up loving sound brand new again without ever getting too shiny.

Locals Worries and Cochina open.

Doors at 8:00pm. $7 cover.


September 25: EZTV and Shilpa Ray. Rumba Cafe, 2507 Summit St.

I’ve been a big fan of Shilpa Ray since her band Beat the Devil came through town regularly 10ish years ago. She’s never made a bad record but her new album, Last Year’s Savage, is one of my records of the year so far and might be the best thing she’s made. A melange of raw rock and roll, grim Patsy Cline-style torch balladry and even flecks of mutant disco, it’s the best series of musical settings for her torrent-of-lava voice. Never miss an opportunity to see her come through live.

In an interesting paring, she arrives opening for Captured Tracks’ EZTV whose clipped, soaring, hooky pop will be great in its own right and should be a terrific palate cleanser after Ray. Columbus’ finest raw pop proponents, Connections, open.

September 26: Obody. The Summit, 2210 Summit St.

Obody, percussionist Sarah Hennies’ new chamber-derived project, works with sensuous distortion and disjunction in as beautiful a way as I’ve ever heard it done. Rich tempos you can get lost in and tones that won’t let you be.

The local support is also a who’s who of people who can plumb the fissures in what we know and what we think and come up with gold like you’ve never seen. Faster Island who I haven’t seen yet but have been on my list and I’ve heard nothing but raves. Mike Shiflet whose records like Sufferers and Llanos come closest to a fusion of noise and classical as anything I can think of and he’s collaborated and toured with Hennies many times. Envenomist, the beautiful, brooding electronics project of David Reed (who also records as Luasa Raelon and collaborates with people like Larry Marotta and Rocco DiPetro) doing a rare live set. If you have adventurous tastes, this might be the sleeper best show of this great, great week.

Doors at 9:00pm. $5 cover.

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“Hey, Fred!” 09/14/15-09/20/15 A biased and idiosyncratic Top Fiveart

As I settle back in to my hometown and the routines of work and life, there is no rest for the wicked this week. I could have easily filled a Top Ten and still had to leave interesting, valuable stuff off – all this recommended in addition to three plays I’m reviewing and probably a record or two.

Visual Art

After Picasso: 80 Contemporary Artists. Wexner Center for the Arts, 1847 N High St.  

This has been one of the strongest years for the Wexner Center’s visual arts exhibitions in recent memory. The group show Fiber, the new Catherine Opie work, and the Jack Whitten retrospective all astonished me. From all accounts, they’re ending on another high note.

It’s almost impossible to imagine a 20th century without the hand of Pablo Picasso – through his long career, his wide-ranging stylistic experiments, and his constant devotion to the truth, Picasso created the template almost all artists have to deal with either for or against to this day. After Picasso, organized by Dirk Lucknow, general director of the Diechtorhallen in Hamburg, attempts to show the breadth and depth of responses to Picasso’s work. It includes 80 artists as diverse as Cindy Sherman, Maria Lassnig, Khaled Hourani, Robert Longo, and Wolfe von Lenkiewicz.

Opening Reception Friday September 18 kicks off with a curator’s talk by Dirk Lucknow at 5:00pm and goes until 9:00pm. Free to the public. The exhibit runs through December 27.


Us Is Them. Pizzuti Collection, 632 N Park St. 

One of the most important things an artist can be is an articulate canary in the coal mine. If an artist has their receptors tuned and ready to receive, they know when the air’s rotten and they know when there’s not enough oxygen to breathe. Even better than that canary in a mineshaft, they have the tools and the empathy to explain on an emotional level why things are fucked and do it in a way that continues to resonate into other times.

The new exhibition at the Pizzuti is the kind of who’s who of the artists making the biggest splash on the global scale we expect but with an eye toward how their work intersects with and delineates the million spiderweb-crack crises threatening to blow our world apart. Names like El Anatsui, Nick Cave, Mickalene Thomas, Aminah Robinson, Kehinde Wiley, and Carrie Mae Weems have given me some of my most moving experiences with visual arts and there are at least 10 artists I haven’t investigated yet at all. One of the things I most look forward to this fall.

Opens to the public Saturday September 19 and runs through April 2, 2016.

Conception and Reduction: Recent Landscapes by Eric Barth / Line and the Landscape: Recent Drawings by Marc Lincewicz. Keny Galleries, 300 E Beck St.

Keny Galleries is one of our steadiest, most consistent commercial galleries with terrific retrospective shows and classic artists represented but also with an eye toward people making timeless work now. Their September-October show reunites Eric Barth and Marc Lincewicz who have an interest looking back but doing it with sharp, clear eyes.

Lincewicz’s recent work has seen himself delving deeper and deeper into a deliberately raw line that makes his new landscape investigations incredibly moving. I have a hard time looking away from his work, it’s always something I can get lost in. Barth’s work I don’t quite as well, this will be probably the third exhibition of his I’ve seen, but it feels like color is more important in his newer pieces and with his jaw-dropping compositions I truly look forward to seeing these in person.

Opening reception 5:30pm Friday September 18. Exhibition runs through October 30.

Music

September 17: Chuck Prophet. Natalie’s Coal Fired Pizza, 5601 N High St.

Chuck Prophet, since leaving Green on Red at the vanguard of the paisley underground wave of cowpunk, has quietly built up one of the most impressive catalogs of songs of anyone working today. He’s made a bigger splash on the mainstream with his collaborations with longtime friend Alejandro Escovedo on Escovedo’s Real Animal and Street Songs of Love records, but under his own name he makes smart, literate, soulful rock and roll with deep grooves and huge hooks.

His new record, Night Surfer, is a complicated, thorny rock rock record with the same care for arrangements and thick, twangy guitar he always brings to the table. Expect that to be hit heavily but in this rare solo acoustic show (leaving his crack band The Mission Express at home) look for a diverse set list that hits all periods of his career including favorites of mine Age of Miracles and his big-hearted paean to San Francisco, Temple Beautiful.

September 20: OBN IIIs. Cafe Bourbon Street, 2216 Summit St. 

For meat and potatoes rock lined with all the best parts of punk, there isn’t a better band working today than OBN IIIs. I first saw Orville B. Neeley’s eponymous group at Gonerfest 8 when they stole the whole damn festival – saying something since I also got my lid flipped by Royal Headache, Straight Arrows, Deaf Wish, Shannon and the Clams, Reverend John Wilkins, and early sets by Ex-Cult and The Fuzz (still called Sex Cult and Aquafuzz, respectively) that same weekend.

Back then they struck me as a young Eric Davidson fronting the Dictators – controlled rawness and intersecting edges and exploding, angry pop hooks. They’ve subtly evolved to incorporate Neeley’s terrific guitar playing and to cast a wider net over rock and roll history, making muscular record and a coiled, ferocious show that incorporates elements of The Stooges, The Saints, Thin Lizzy, and even in the one song on WFMU I’ve heard so far from the new record Worth a Lot of Money, Cheap Trick circa In Color. Not to be missed if you want to remember how fresh and exciting rock and roll can still sound.

I have not found anything out about start time or who’s opening or how much cover is about this show – if I find that information before I’m traveling, I’ll try to update this.

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“Hey, Fred!” 08/17/15-08/23/15 A Biased and Idiosyncratic Top Five

Visual Art

August 21: NSATSAT&A. MINT, 42 W Jenkins St. 

MINT’s one of the new loci for the experimental art and music community in Columbus. This new group exhibition, subtitled “surveillance + security + sexuality” has me incredibly intrigued. This feels like a show you don’t want to miss in your town.

Karen Azoulay, from Toronto now based in Brooklyn, works in a variety of media whose forms seem to hover around a sensuous, ecstatic, apocalypse. When Glenn Ligon wrote about a New York exhibition of hers he said, “Suffused with humor and melancholy her work reveals an interest in mythology, literature and alchemy as well as Las Vegas spectacles, the work of Yayoi Kusuma, opera and Renaissance painting.”

Angela Jann, returned to Columbus after getting an MFA at Pratt, is a painter who deals in a knives-out surrealism leavened with a winking pop art absurdity.

Ann Hirsch, based in Los Angeles, works in video and performance interrogating how technology shapes gender and human relations. What I’ve seen gives me a strong Laurel Nakadate vibe which is high praise, Nakadate’s made my visual art of the year list at least once and barely missed it a few other times. Maybe the artist I’m most interested in checking out.

Kathryn Shinko recently finished her MFA at Kent State and works in textiles which is a medium I’ve been ravenous for since the Wexner Center’s Fiber show finally opened up my half-dead eyes.

Beny Wagner is based in Berlin. His moody, intoxicating, textured work in video and installations has gotten heavy praise from Artforum, Kaleidoscope, and other sources.

Opening 7:00pm-10:00pm. Free.

Music

August 19: Alanna Royale. Rumba Cafe, 2507 Summit St. 

I doubt it’s a surprise to anyone who’s ever sat with me in a bar with a jukebox for 20 minutes, much less read this column for a week or three, that Alanna Royale’s right up my alley. Catchy, sultry, sweaty retro soul with an immediately identifiable voice and songs that hold their own against history.

If you like The Right Now, Robin McKelle, or I’d even wager to say JD McPherson or St. Paul and The Broken Bones, this is a must-see. The kind of Wednesday night that makes however much you hurt on Thursday worth every bit.

Local funk-inspired jam band The Floorwalkers close the night.

Doors at 8:00pm. $10 tickets available at http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=6010225

August 21-23: VIVO Music Festival. Garden Theatre, 1871 N High St.

More than once I’ve lamented that the biggest gap in Columbus’s musical landscape is contemporary classical (new music, whatever term you feel you want to use). We’ve got decent symphony and chamber orchestras but despite two very fine music schools Columbus doesn’t get the same kind of flood of young, excited players doing exciting, new programming out of the classical realm as we do with jazz.

So I’m very excited by the prospect of this first year of the VIVO Music Festival. Organized by violinist Siwoo Kim and violist John Stultz this has the potential to be the exact kind of antidote I (and at least a few others I could name) have been hungry for. Partnering with the Johnstone New Music Fund they’re putting on three shows at the Garden Theatre.

Friday, 8:00pm: 8 Strings, 9 Tails. This program presents Dvorak’s Terzetto, Mendelssohn’s Octet for Strings and John Zorn’s Cat O’ Nine Tails (Tex Avery Directs the Marquis De Sade), the latter of which was a massively formative experience for me. I remember the day I bought Zorn’s String Quartets at Shake It Records and put it on my friend’s stereo in college. I was hooked, my friends.

Saturday, 8:00pm: In the Dark. Performed in the Garden’s smaller Green Room space, this program features Georg Friedrich Haas’s String Quartet #3, “In iij, Noct,” played in complete darkness.

Sunday, 4:00pm: Unstrung. This program experiments with a conductorless chamber orchestra of some of the most promising classical musicians in town. The repertoire includes Bach’s Third Brandenberg Concerto and one of my favorites, Astor Piazolla’s  Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.

A terrific interview with the artistic directors is available at WOSU and $15 reserved tickets for Friday and Sunday (Saturday is free) as well as more info are available at http://www.vivofestival.org/

August 22: Dave Holland Tribute. Dick’s Den, 2417 N High St.

A quartet of our finest younger jazz players including maybe our hottest rhythm section – Max Button (drums), John Allen (bass), Zakk Jones (guitar), and Danny Bauer (piano) team up to take on the oeuvre of maybe the finest straight-ahead jazz composer since the ’70s, bassist/bandleader Dave Holland.

Holland’s one of the few artists of any stripe I think I can literally say I’ve never heard a bad record by. He writes ballads that will make your wine taste sweeter and you fall in love more with the world, uptempo ragers that will make you bounce off the wall or ruin your pants, and abstractions you can get lost in for days. And this is a perfect group to play those perfect songs. Watch summer start its fade over a nice glass of rye whiskey while the music takes you somewhere else and also plants you back in yourself.

Starts at 10:00pm. $4 cover.

August 23: Publicist UK with Young Widows. Spacebar, 2590 N High St. 

Publicist UK hit my radar when I saw they had guitarist David Obuchowski from Goes Cube who I loved. Fronted by Zachary Lipez of Freshkills with a rhythm section held down by David Witte (Municipal Waste) on drums they merge a young Nick Cave delivery to pummeling almost metal drums and bass for charcoal drawings of a scorched Earth I find intoxicating.

Rounding out the bill are Louisville’s Young Widows who plow the fields of a clench-jawed shadowy ecstasy that reminds me most of Swans. If you dread Mondays anyway, come to this show and let your darkness come out of your pores and join the vibes in the room. Locals Hadak Ura, with whom I’m not yet familiar, open.

Doors at 8:00pm. $12 cover.

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“Hey, Fred!” 08/10/15-08/16/15 A Biased and Idiosyncratic Top Five

Music

August 11: Frau with Birds of Hair and Katherine. Cafe Bourbon Street, 2216 Summit St.

Frau from London are a breath of fresh air, taking classic punk tropes and stylistic signifiers and injecting enough acid in their veins that they feel brand new. Great songs that break into wild, unpredictable noise, this is the kind of show Bobo excels at.

Birds of Hair are one of my favorite, favorite bands that almost never plays. Marcy Mays from Scrawl and Night Family on guitar and vocals, Sarah Yetter from Frostiva and El Jesus de Magico on bass, and Jen Burton, now mostly known in town as an entrepreneur for The Barrel and the Bottle and Seventh Son Brewing but with a long history of fascinating music with bands like Face Place, on drums. A noisy, riotous band that reminds me of everything I love about rock and roll.

Katherine were one of those bands I wished I saw more in town, great songs and an earnestness that never got cloying. One of the two members is moving to Philly very soon so this is both a reminder that nothing gold can stay and that you should get out and see the bands you love while they’re playing because you don’t know when it’s going to stop, but mostly this will just be a great show.

Doors at 9:00pm. $5 cover.

August 13: Danny Bauer. Dick’s Den, 2417 N High St.

Danny Bauer, recently profiled in JazzColumbus, has over the last couple years established himself as one of the city’s most versatile pianists, a first call for a lot of musical situations. I’m very intrigued to see this new group he’s suggested (in the above interview) skews toward the avant-garde.

Bauer’s assembled an incredibly strong lineup of players. John Allen, rapidly becoming one of the finest bass players I’ve ever seen in town and Ryan Folger who’s worked a lot with those two and Zakk Jones combine for what should be a tight, swinging rhythm section. Aroh Pandit on trumpet astonished me with John Allen’s quintet at Dick’s not long ago. Justin Dickson on saxophone from that Capital University axis I haven’t seen as much but I’ve heard great things. The most intriguing x-factor for me here is the addition of Annie Huckaba on vocals who blew me away in CATCO’s brilliant production of [title of show].

Show begins at 10:00pm, $4 cover.

August 14: Maceo Parker. Scioto Mile, 25 Marconi St.

Popular music of the last half of the 20th century would look a hell of a lot different if it weren’t for the great Maceo Parker. A key player in the JBs and the best lineups of Parliament-Funkadelic, his unmistakable gritty tenor sound has enlivened records from Keith Richards to Dee-Lite to Prince without even getting into all the samples.

Maceo invariably has one of the best live bands touring. I still talk about that joint tour with Ani Difranco in the late ’90s as one of the five best shows I’ve seen of any genre. Funk/rock/pop royalty doesn’t get any higher than this and you’d be a fool to miss a chance to see one of the true, unassailable living legends.

August 15: Nots. Dude Locker, 527 E Hudson St.

Nots is one of the most exciting rock bands I’ve seen in years. Based out of Memphis and led by Natalie Hoffman and Charlotte Watson, when they take the stage it’s a torrent of sparks and heat and acid. They put out a record on Goner last year I can’t stop listening to. They blew the roof of the tent off at 4th and 4th a few weeks ago and we’re very blessed to have them back in town so soon.

This is also the 7″ release party for one of the best bands in town, Raw Pony, making this even more of a don’t-miss for anyone who likes rock and roll. The bill’s rounded out by the spacier rock of Sex Tide and elder statesman Mike Rep.

https://youtu.be/ubrrJWGvo3o

August 16: Eric Taylor. Natalie’s Coal-Fired Pizza, 5601 N High.

I’m not sure I can think of a better songwriter than Eric Taylor – I know for damn sure I couldn’t name more than five. His ability to zoom in from universal aphorism to the most perfect of details and, in turn, reveal the universal in that, bringing Blake’s the world in a grain of sand to life, is the kind of dazzling writing that makes me want to work much, much harder.

Taylor fuses a deep empathy for his characters to heartrending earworm melodies. He can say more in a couple lines – like the opening to “Big Love”, “I found your name and number / On a pack of matches / Thought that I might call you up / And talk about myself” – than most people ever do in whole books or records. Do not miss this. I can’t recommend anything higher.

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“Hey, Fred!” 08/03/15-08/09/15 A Biased and Idiosyncratic Top Five

Music

August 4: Gramps the Vamp and Urban Tropic. Brothers Drake, 26 E 5th Ave.

Gramps the Vamp refer to what they play as “doom funk” and it’s definitely an ominous but sensual sound. The closest comparison I can make is to Budos Band’s recent turn toward ’70s soundtrack influences on their record Burnt Offerings and the snaky brass definitely recalls that but the country could use more bands like that, not fewer. I missed them on their last trip through town during June’s Gallery Hop but I’ve got no intention of making that mistake this time.

Locals Urban Tropic open.

Show starts at 9:00. Free show.

August 5: Ursonate Guitar Quartet. Huntington Recital Hall, Capital University, 1 College Ave, Bexley, OH.

The Ursonate Guitar Quartet, named after the famous Dadaist sound-poem by Kurt Schwitters, brings together four of the finest guitarists in town. Well, three still in town (Larry Marotta, Aditya Jayanthi, and Dennis Hodges) and one visiting expat (Aaron Quinn). These four have all done work blending jazz, classical, eai, and noise and I can’t wait to see what this configuration brings in the beautiful sounding Huntington Hall at Capital.

Show starts at 6:30. Free show.

August 5: Polikarpa y Sus Viciosas. Legion of Doom, 1579 Indianola Ave. 

Legion of Doom is that rarest of things, an elder statesperson in the world of house shows. Through a combination of a forgiving landlord and good taste in residents who genuinely want to preserve this tradition – the disallowance of alcohol and drugs at the shows probably helps – it’s a rock in a scene where sometimes venues barely last a season.

Even more impressive, Legion continues to book interesting acts more commercial venues probably wouldn’t touch. This week it’s Colombian agitpunks Polikarpa y Sus Viciosas. Names for Policapra Saliverrieta, a legendary figure who was executed in the name of Colombian revolution, this group has been making fiercely political, vital music since the mid-’90s full of hard drumming and catchy, abrasive hooks. The bill’s rounded out by Philly’s Ramones-inspired Dark Thoughts and locals Surfin’ Safari.

Doors at 8:00pm. $5 donation strongly encouraged.

August 7: Locusta. Ace of Cups, 2619 N High St.

Locusta is one of my favorite metal bands in town – dense, atmospheric songs that shift from mood to mood and tempo to tempo without ever going in so proggy a direction that it loses that visceral crunch. Their blistering live show hasn’t been seen in town for over a year so expectations are high they’re going to explode on Ace of Cups’ bigger stage and strong PA.

The undercard’s not shabby here either. Lexington’s Tombstalker do some of the best punky black metal around right now, caked in grime with huge, bone-rattling riffs. Locals Fever Nest plow a different intersection between black metal and punk rock, built around mood and tension – even sporting a great Birthday Party cover. Discrow’s a little earlier in their development but I hear lots of potential in their grind.

Show starts at 9:00pm. $7 cover.

August 8-9: Festival Latino. Bicentennial Park.

Festival Latino might be my favorite festival all summer – certainly of the mainstream mass appeal fests, nothing else even comes close. The best food and the widest range of interesting music.

Especially for a total Latin music dilettante like me, I always walk away exposed to some things I really love.

Highlights from my early research I’m looking forward to:

Saturday:

3:00pm, Al Son del Iya: This Columbus-based act led by percussionist/bandleader El Negro Tino Casanova does smoking, sultry salsa in the Fania records mode with a repertoire that hits the classics like Willie Colon, Ruben Blades, and Celia Cruz and plays them with a remarkable fire.

4:00pm, Jose Peña Suazo y La Banda Gorda: Peña Suazo’s Banda Gorda out of the Dominican Republic plays blistering-fast merengue with extra Caribbean flavor but without losing that light, high touch. I’m not sure there’s a better band to see on a summer afternoon.

6:45, Luis Vargas: Bachata’s having a moment in the mainstream US press right now with lots of articles and think pieces about Romeo Santos, Prince Royce and Aventura. The Dominican’s Luis Vargas might not have the name recognition of those aforementioned artists but he’s wildly popular and boasts a haunting, sexy, unmistakable voice that reminds me of Raul Malo and Roy Orbison. This is not to be missed.

Sunday:

2:30pm, Ritmo Ondas featuring Zancudo: Rachel Sepulveda, known largely as one of Columbus’ finest jazz singers (see Jazz Columbus’ terrific interview) has always also worked in Latin forms. Ritmo Ondas is a versatile band that can hit a range of styles – I heard nothing but raves about their “From Cuba to Brazil” program at CityMusic earlier this year – and augmented by Victor Zancudo, one of this town’s fastest-rising Latin singers, this should be magical. Sepulveda’s leaving Columbus for grad school soon so don’t miss one of the last chances to see one of our finest talents.

4:15. Banda Machos: Banda music is also having a moment breaking through to other audiences, though in a smaller, more underground way than bachata discussed earlier. Banda Machos, out of the Jalisco area of Mexico, helped forge a modern style of banda through fusion with cumbia and ranchera styles. Some of the best, hardest hitting dance music you’ll see.

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“Hey, Fred!” 07/27/15-08/02/15 A Biased and Idiosyncratic Top Five

Literary

July 30: Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse. Wild Goose Creative, 2491 Summit St.

This benefit for the Women’s Fund of Central Ohio brings together four fascinating artists and personalities to riff on apocalyptic themes through their true stories.

Amy Turn Sharp, local poet and organizer of Word Church, speaks about Pestilence. Amy Dalrymple, designer and proprietor of Made by AmyD, talks about War. Emily Toney, from ARC Ohio and the Greater Columbus Arts Council, discusses Famine. Amee Bell Wanzo, frontwoman of garage rock band Trachete, wraps it up with Death.

Show starts at 8:00pm. Suggested donation of $5.

Music

July 29: Aaron Lee Tasjan and Lilly Hiatt. Natalie’s Coal-Fired Pizza, 5601 N High St.

Columbus expat Aaron Lee Tasjan’s songwriting has exploded through his stints as a vital player in NYC’s roots-rock scene – including work with Kevin Kinney, Keith Christopher, and Pat Green – and more recently in Nashville. It’s heartfelt, surprising work with big hooks and an eye for detail that reminds me of Robert Earl Keen and Jon Dee Graham and a voice that’s more his own every time I hear him.

If an occasional return of the prodigal son isn’t enough to get the roots fans out to this, the other side of that coin should be: Lilly Hiatt. Hiatt’s second album, Royal Blue, is one of my favorite discoveries of the year reminding me of early Amy Rigby with a contemporary sheen of synths and big, dark drums wrapped around rock-solid songwriting. The kind of show Natalie’s does better than anywhere else in town.

Show starts at 9:00pm. $10-15 tickets available at Vendini

July 29: Liver Quiver. Brothers Drake, 26 E 5th Ave.

Another favorite expat – of more recent vintage – also returns home this week, jazz and classical guitarist Aaron Quinn. One of my favorite of his groups, Liver Quiver, a trio with Alex Burgoyne on sax and Seth Daily on drums reunites at Brothers Drake for a Jazz Wednesday.

Liver Quiver has a unique empathy that almost reminds me of some of Chris Speed’s groups, partly because Seth Daily does the best drumming in a Jim Black mode of anyone in recent memory. It’s a little spikier and a little edgier than that free Wednesday series usually gets, drifting into both chamber music and free improv territories, but it should be as refreshing as a cold gin drink while the sun melts away through that big open door.

Show begins at 8:00pm. Free.

August 2: Natalie’s Anniversary Celebration: Bobby Floyd Trio. Natalie’s Coal-Fired Pizza, 5601 N High St.

I think it’s pretty clear from the volume of these writeups that I think Natalie’s has added something really special and really needed to the Columbus scene. So consider this me raising a glass to Natalie’s and to having many more anniversaries.

The whole weekend is packed with Columbus favorites that showcase the breadth of the room’s interesting booking but, and again, no surprise, I’d steer you toward our finest organist Bobby Floyd and his trio with Derek DiCenzo on guitar and Reggie Jackson on drums. As good an example of classic organ jazz as you will hear anywhere – New York, Chicago, LA – and not playing as often as they used to with both Floyd and Jackson touring with Dr. John these days. Two birds with one stone and one of the best pizzas in town.

Show starts at 8:00pm. $10 tickets available at Vendini.

August 2: Richard Thompson. Dublin Irish Festival, Perimeter Drive, Dublin, OH.

The Dublin Irish Festival is one of those things it’s easy for locals to take for granted. It’s huge – one of the biggest Irish heritage festivals in the country – and has all the problems that come along with that, but it’s gotten that huge because its organizers have spent many years and no small amount of money turning it into a well-oiled machine huge acts love to play and love to come back to.

One of the best-sounding festivals I’ve ever been to, which will be doubly important when it hosts a return appearance by British singer-songwriter Richard Thompson. While talked about more as an electric guitar virtuoso, I’ve seen him in both guises a number of times and my favorite shows are solo acoustic where he’ll highlight the newest records (the new, very good, Jeff Tweedy-produced Still and the even better Buddy Miller produced Electric from a couple years ago) but he’ll dip into his extensive catalogue, he’ll dust off surprising covers. It’s as close as I’ve ever seen a singer-songwriter come to walking on a wire (if you’ll excuse the borrowing or even if you won’t). If you love songs, storytelling, guitar playing, this is an example of the very highest peaks of those arts.

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“Hey, Fred!” 07/20/15-07/26/15 A Biased and Idiosyncratic Top Five [Anne Courtney Birthday Edition]

The overarching thing this week is, of course, my better half’s birthday. Happy birthday, Anne Courtney! I love you, baby. In conjunction with that, there’s a greater chance you won’t see me at these shows with the commensurate wining, dining, and fête-ing. So get out there and mix it up on my behalf. Secondarily, this continues the summer of rocking retro sounds with both some classic shit and some new artists plowing those still-fertile fields.

Music

July 21: The Rezillos with Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, Senor Citizen and the Border Patrol. Ace of Cups, 2619 N High St.

Scotland’s The Rezillos burst into the first wave of UK punk with their barbed hooks, stop-start grooves and ominous B-movie sheen. Their first record, 1978’s Can’t Stand the Rezillos is a stone classic with a similar place of pride in that early Sire Records lineup as the Dead Boys’ Young, Loud and Snotty and Richard Hell and the Voidoids’ Blank Generation. They reformed for periodic tours a little over a decade ago and word from everyone I’ve heard is it’s still a funny, sharp, intense show.

Rounding out Ace of Cups’ terrific coup in booking this are Columbus ’90s heroes TJSA and manager Aleks Shaulov’s Senor Citizen and the Border Patrol who are steeped in this same kind of late ’70s raw rock and roll. A rare chance to see full-stop, no-qualification-needed, legends at play in a sweaty club. Fuck what you’re doing Wednesday.

Doors at 8:00pm. $12 tickets available at http://aceofcups.ticketleap.com/rezillos/

 

July 22: Alice Bag with Sex Tide and Raw Pony. Cafe Bourbon Street, 2216 Summit St.

Also starting in 1976, The Bags were part of maybe the most diverse punk scene of the first wave, LA. They only put out a handful of singles and compilation tracks, most notably on Dangerhouse Records, but those few songs sent shockwaves through the nascent underground scene. And – in a “Did you love well what very soon you left” way – they continued to reverberate with band members going on to be integral parts of 45 Grave, The Gun Club, Sisters of Mercy, and Catholic Discipline.

In the intervening years, frontwoman Alice Bag wrote one of the best rock memoirs, Violence Girl. This tour bringing her to Bourbon Street finds her promoting her second book, Pipe Bomb to the Soul, culled from journals she kept on a trip to Nicaragua in 1986. This stop promises a mix of readings and songs.

Supporting Bag are two of the finest rock bands in Columbus right now, Raw Pony and Sex Tide.

Starts at 9:00pm. Alice Bag scheduled to read/play first. $5 cover.

July 24: James Cotton. Scioto Mile, 25 Marconi Blvd.

James Cotton is one of the few living links to the purifying groundwater from which most American music post-WWII sprung. Very few people still touring can say they played with Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters at the height of those two legends’ powers, which is not to discredit Cotton’s own stellar work starting in the late ’60s, especially his work with pianist Otis Spann. From Sun Records through working with Johnny Winter, Cotton’s the real deal.

An unmistakable stylist, his harmonica has been copied by almost everyone to pick up a harp since but never as well. You can hear his using the harp to lead a horn section echoed in The Blasters and his throaty conjuring of other sounds in Charlie Musselwhite. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still see the real thing while you can. At 80 years old, there may not be many more chances.

Starts at 8:00pm. Free.

July 24: Pigeons with Crystalline Roses. The Summit, 2210 Summit St.

NYC’s Pigeons make a blend of introspective rock that slips between signifiers. Led by Wednesday Knudsen’s voice, guitar and occasional reeds, Galaxie 500 seems like a heavy touchpoint for this band but I also hear Spanking Charlene’s mellower moments and even some of Husker Du’s mournful aggression. Their new record, out in May, The Bower, is revelatory. Summer songs heavier on the melancholy of memory (or maybe the melancholy of memory).

Massachusetts’ Crystalline Roses is a throwback to the best stuff I heard at the height of the freak-folk era – PG Six, In Gowan Ring, B’erith, Sharron Krauss. Great, echoey songs that use their twists and turns, that use mystery, to keep that spark in them alive instead of using it to obfuscate some lack of meaning, some thing not thought through.

Doors at 9:00pm. $5 cover.

https://youtu.be/R0SeHRy2W7Q

July 26: JD McPherson. Park Street Saloon, 533 Park St.

JD McPherson might have the best shot of crossing over of any roots-rock act I’ve seen in many years. A great-looking guy with an intense charisma and a live show that’s nothing short of incendiary. With his new one Let the Good Times Roll, he also finally has a record that’s as good as he is.

I saw him at Woodlands Tavern a couple years ago with a rhythm section anchored by Teen Beat from Los Straitjackets doing a set of Specialty Records-style vintage R&B and early rock and roll – despite the lazy writing you might have heard, while rockabilly’s in his toolbox, it’s not most of what he does – and it might have been the wildest, most ecstatic crowd I’ve ever seen in that club. He had that audience – especially the ladies – eating out of the palm of his hand for a set that, honestly, might have gone a little long for me but there was the very real danger he’d be torn apart if he stopped playing. I walked out of there with my shirt sticky and translucent and definitely a believer. Maybe the best dance party of the summer but, even though it’s in the more spacious Park Street Saloon this time, I wouldn’t expect it to be any less packed. Come ready to move.

Jake La Botz, Chicago blues of a more recent stripe than James Cotton referenced earlier, opens.

Starts at 9:00pm. $18 tickets available at http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=5806335

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“Hey, Fred!” 07/13/15-07/19/15 A Biased and Idiosyncratic Top Five

This is a stacked week befitting the beginning of the hottiest, stickiest parts of summer. A big chunk of the word-count here is dedicated to Columbus’s best-rebounded festival, the Jazz and Ribs Fest. Growing up, I saw amazing things at this fest including David Murray and Oliver Lake, but there was a long period where it basically cratered, locked into a morass of midtempo, smoothed-out mediocrity. I’m happy to say it’s come back to the point where – while not on the level of Detroit or Chicago – it’s a damn fine festival again that brings in interesting acts we wouldn’t likely see otherwise and provides a fantastic showcase for our local talent.

Visual Art

July 18-19: SPACE (Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo). Northland Performing Arts Center. 4411 Tamarack Blvd.

Bob Corby (Back Porch Comics) is one of those not-sung-enough heroes in town whose names I try to make sure I call out. He saw a gap and a way to capitalize on all the independent comics creators in the region and he saw a market for another comics show that wasn’t beholden to superheroes and non-comics-celebrities, a lower-key Midwestern riff on MoCCA, SPX, and APE and by God he did it. One of my favorite events in town where I’m constantly inspired by the talent and the plethora of voices making vital work.

This year’s going to be a little bittersweet for many of us in the local arts – and particularly comics – community because we’ve so recently lost Valerie Starr (referred to last week). She and Talcott sold their whimsical, funny, wise work at the show every year. So that should be an extra reason to go out and spend some money. Find something new. Talk to someone you might otherwise not have.

10:00am-6:00pm Saturday. 10:00am-5:00pm Sunday. $5 per day, $8 for the weekend. Exhibitor List and more information available at http://backporchcomics.com/space.htm 


July 18: A Celebration of Life: Aminah Robinson. Columbus Museum of Art, 480 E Broad St.

Aminah Robinson was one of the finest artists to ever call Columbus home. Work that was striking in its first blush but kept revealing new information and new sensual pleasure. Soulful, rich, intense, and thoughtful paintings, murals, and other media.

Columbus Museum of Art has a strong collection of her work and it’s only fitting they’re hosting a celebration of her life on this Saturday. Her work is on display in their Forum gallery and a presentation including speeches and music by Columbus institution Arnett Howard starts in the Cardinal Health Auditorium at 3:00pm.

Music

July 15: Kate Wakefield and Rural Carrier. Used Kids Records, 1980 N High St.

Kate Wakefield, opera singer and cellist from Cincinnati, has been amassing a strong critical buzz. She builds songs from loops but in a way that reminds me more of William Basinski and Antony and the Johnsons with elements of early Owen Pallett than the showy way that kind of technique often comes across. It’s haunting, gripping work and should be a wonder in Used Kids who have really stepped up their show game over the last few years.

Wakefield’s on tour with Rural Carrier, Jacob Koestler from Cleveland’s project built around shaky, unstable tones and drones rising up through the cracks. It’s beautiful, meditative work.

The locals on the bill I’m honestly not familiar with – Field Sleeper and Slime Scapes – but if the bookers were confident to put them on this bill I’m in.

6:00pm-9:00pm. Donations encouraged.

July 16: Wolf Eyes. Mint, 42 W Jenkins Ave.

Wolf Eyes are a shining example of a band not burning out and giving in after their moment of mainstream attention – epitomized by two records on Sub Pop – and at the forefront of what felt like a new American noise zeitgeist has passed. These Detroit heroes doubled down on their blend of cathartic, ritualistic throb and continue to make some of the best records to come out of this amorphous scene. Their dubbed-out, narcotized abstractions over the years have made one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen.

The rest of the bill is nothing to ignore, either. Rev//Rev is a new industrial project from members of Lafayette’s TV Ghost, one of the most exciting rock bands of the last several years, and people I trust have been raving since their last trip through town. Muscle Puzzle and Melted Man are two sides of the still-vital Columbus noise scene.

Doors at 9:00pm. $10 cover.

July 17-19: Jazz and Rib Fest. North Bank Park.

As stated above, this has reclaimed its place as one of my favorite summer festivals in Columbus. This year’s particularly special since it’s the first time – I think – Red Baraat have ever played Columbus. They played after my pal Mike Gamble’s wedding in Hudson, New York, and I can’t wait to see them again. Below is a smattering of personalized – as is the wont of this column, I won’t talk up what I can’t get behind – recommendations:

Friday:

1:00, North Bank Park: Keigo Hirakawa Trio. Dayton’s Keigo Hirakawa has an interesting approach to the piano that is clearly coming out of the post-Monk school and in the same vein as Brad Mehldau and Ethan Iverson, there’s also an appealingly rough rhythmic touch that reminds me a little of Borah Bergman. If you have the day off or if you work downtown, take a late lunch and see this.

3:30, AEP: James Gaiters’ Muv-Ment. Anyone who’s read this blog at all knows I think Gaiters might be the best drummer in town. Muv-Ment is still the best vehicle for his soulful, fascinating compositions. We haven’t seen a lot of Muv-Ment shows in town since the release of his great record Exodus last year partly because Lovell Bradford no longer lives in town so this is a reunion you should do everything in your power to check out. Also playing Natalie’s Saturday night with special guest Pharez Whited.

5:00, AEP: Rad Trads. NYC’s Rad Trads are a party band who are part of the same scene with Hot Sardines, Bria Skonberg, and Bombay Rickey, younger folks carrying the torch of institutions like the Nighthawks. The best writeup on them in town is friend Andrew Patton’s writing for Jazz Columbus. They fuse classic small-group territory orchestra swing with ’60s and ’70s growling soul and funk a la The Meters and the JBs. Get your weekend started right with this set. Also playing Brothers Drake Saturday night.

7:00, North Bank Park: Pharez Whitted Sextet. Pharez Whited was the first local jazz player – other than people who already had a national/historical rep like Gene Walker or Hank Marr – whose playing I ever loved. His sharp, metallic, post-bop trumpet tone cut through a smoky bar, a fine restaurant, or a concert hall like nothing I’d ever heard before. Beyond that, his writing was top notch and he played with the most exquisite players (including a young James Gaiters). It was fire every time he got on a bandstand and the crowds went crazy. He’s gone on to greener pastures in Chicago now but it’s always a treat when he comes back through town and this might be one of the highlights of the whole festival.

9:30, AEP: Eddie Palmieri Latin Jazz Septet. Eddie Palmieri is one of the absolute legends of Latin jazz. From his ’60s work with Cal Tjader to his soul-salsa blends of the ’70s and ’80s to his hard driving work today there’s never a bum note or a bad choice when Palmieri’s behind the piano and his bands are never less than excellent. One of the cultural highlights, not just music, of the year.

Saturday:

11:00a, Jazz Cafe: Tom Davis Quartet. Tom Davis might be my favorite jazz/classical guitarist in town right now, certainly my favorite guitarist on the rise – so no slight to Brett Burleson or Larry Marotta. He’s got a mastery of tone that most people would envy, you can tell it’s Davis on stage within three notes even if you’re between two loud barflies trying to order a drink and on the far other side of the bar. His trio work’s great but when he adds another melodic voice, whoever it is, it’s seismic, stratopheric, and enthralling.

2:30, North Bank Park: B Jazz and the Jazzhop Movement. B Jazz (real name Brandon Scott) is a keyboardist and songwriter with a gift for infectious R&B melodies. He first hit my radar through the Liquid Crystal Project (with J Rawls) and really got my attention through his work with Talisha Holmes. I’ve never heard a bum note he’s played and his writing is astonishing.

3:00, Jazz Cafe: Zakk Jones’ Screeching Owl. Zakk Jones is one of the fastest-rising guitarists in town and he’s grown by leaps and bounds in the couple years he’s been on my radar. His main project, Screeching Owl, put out a fantastic album earlier this year with bouncy melodies and harmonies – especially among the horns and vibes – that just glisten. Great review of this record by Andrew Patton here: http://www.jazzcolumbus.com/zakk-jones-screeching-owl-dreams-of-yesterday-ep/

5:00, AEP: fo/mo/deep. Fo/mo/deep inhabit a rich, funky fusion that’s melodic enough for the smooth jazz fans but can shake the walls on a regular basis. Their Headhunters vibe is big and intense like a summer thunderstorm, this is the perfect bridge between day and night.

5:00, North Bank Park: Carsie Blanton Trio. Carsie Blanton has a rootsy torch song quality with a voice steeped in history but a fresh voice that flashes like a hidden stiletto. If you like Eleni Mandell or Cassandra Wilson like I do, this is a set definitely worth checking out.

7:00, North Bank Park: Willie Jones III Quintet. Willie Jones III is one of the finest bebop drummers in that classic style, having played with Horace Silver on late tours and Wynton Marsalis’ Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra as well as on a couple fantastic Cedar Walton records and recently with tenor revivalist Javon Jackson. His bringing his own quintet which recently has included Eric Reed, Jeremy Pelt and Dezron Douglas so don’t sleep on this.

9:00, Jazz Cafe: The Admirables. The Admirables are one of the most buzzed-about Cleveland funk bands right now. A righteous live show with great songs both original and repertory. Going to be a drenched, funky good time on a Saturday night.

9:30, North Bank Park: Red Baraat. This is my personal highlight of the festival. Sunny Jain’s ragtag virtuoso A-team Red Baraat played the afterparty for my great friend Mike Gamble’s wedding to Devin Febboriello in Hudson, NY, a couple years ago. It was the kind of sweaty, righteous party to finally cracked the shell of my hangover and made me feel gloriously, hummingly alive again. They’re touring behind their best record yet, Gaadi of Truth, which at this midpoint is a strong contender for my records of the year and while Columbus expat Jon Lampley isn’t joining them on this set word is he’ll be in the house and so should you. If you love world rhythms, catch call and response, and music that reminds you how good it is to be alive, don’t miss this no matter what else you do.