Music

When Ben Folds performs with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra April 9 at the Ohio Theater, the acerbic singer/songwriter will be making his second stop in six months and his fourth such visit since 2013 to the Capital City. Those who saw his Nov. 14 show at Express LIVE will most likely be in for a totally different experience. And that show was different from the 2014 concert at Columbus Bicentennial Park or the one he gave with the Ben Folds Five in 2013 at the Lifestyles Community Pavilion.

In a telephone interview from New York, Folds said that aspect is one of the many things he enjoys about his career.

“That whole 360 life thing makes me happy,” said Folds who was a judge on NBC’s acapella singing competition show THE SING OFF from 2009-2013. “I can go do an NBC television show, walk off that stage and walk onto another and play ‘Bitches Ain’t Shit’ by Dr. Dre, then go play with an orchestra, and then do a chat roulette gig. I dig that.

Just as I love America but Americans not so much, so it is with music and musicians.

Case in point: went to a Columbus Symphony show Saturday night and the two main dudes never showed up. Neither Tony "Big Fish" Dvorak or Franz "Hot Panz" Hadyn bothered coming to their own show, the ingrates.
 

Heard they were on Bill Clinton's friend's Lolita Express, partying with babes one-one-hundreth their age. Or maybe they were in rehab? I got in by claiming I was Barb Zuck's personal yoga trainer. That's the kind of night it was.
 

Thus it was a hastily-called crack pick-up band of chicks'n'dudes string players ripped from the bosoms of a number of Franklin County's lucrative if somnambulistic weekend rest home tour gigs around Franklin County were slapped together by an equally hastily-flown-in 'guest' conductor named Robert "Howdy Doody" Moody.
 

A few weeks ago, an acquaintance handed me a CD of his high school aged son's band, apparently with the wildly misguided notion that I have contacts in the music industry. He followed up a week or so later, and I gave it a quick guilty spin in my car before calling him back to tell him it was actually pretty creditable. I mean, most of the lyrics appeared to be riffs on a killer house party in Bexley last summer, but the band could play and it sounded professional quality.  

Where was this when I was in high school? In the summer of 1995, my senior year, I had a Yamaha MT120 4-track recorder, the purchase of which had nearly bankrupted me, a collection of RadioShack microphones and an ever dwindling supply of cassette tape on which I made horrific basement demos. My band was so bad I don't even remember our name (Bohemian Snowbeast maybe?), but that didn't stop us from mailing tapes to every record label under the sun.  

The first time I can remember talking to Correy Parks was directly after a #BlackLivesMatter march took over High Street from Goodale Park in route to the Columbus Police Headquarters. The intent of the protest was to deliver a letter demanding a Civilian Review Board to monitor Law Enforcement misconduct.

This was in Late November of 2014. It made the news as people taking over a major road and then crowding the circumference of the Police Headquarters would.

Here we are in Spring of 2016. I've always been curious what happened from that.

I met up with Correy for this article last week to talk about his newest album, “The Road Less    Traveled.” which takes it's name from a Vermont Poet Laurette Robert Frost writing about perseverance.

Currently, Correy is perhaps the most buzzing new rapper in Columbus. He was named to the Alive's Bands to Watch. He has been packing venues throughout town. The single for “On Our Way” (featuring Yogi Split) has gotten the attention of national press outlets.

(At press time, he was just featured on MTV.com.)

Rolling Stone calls them “the best band you probably haven't heard.” Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman gushes about them on his blog. And by the time they play their just-added July 26th show at the Newport Music Hall, the place may just be too small for them.

They are Lucius, and they are something special. And they have roots in the Buckeye state. Fronted by flamboyant look-alike singers Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe, Lucius treated the joyous, swooning sold-out crowd at Cleveland's Beachland Ballroom Friday night to their unique sonic and visual onslaught. It was a triumphant homecoming for Laessig, who grew up in Fairview Park (And no, she had no idea who Tom Cousineau was when I dropped his name).
 

For some reason I can't for the life of me recall, I was thinking about the time I saw Leslie West of Mountain play at the Agora way back in the '70s. Why was I thinking about it? Oh, I know why: I was transporting to my crammed house the two wooden stools from my ghost of a record store along with a bunch of other junk I didn't want to leave to the advancing Mexican asbestos-removal army. And the memory just sort of seeped into my consciousness.

Because: Leslie West--whose band name was sort of his nickname and not for a powerful build which he did not have--walked out on stage with his awesome little vintage Gibson Melody Maker guitar and had to sit on a stool.

Because: he was so damned fat his legs couldn't support his humongous-ness. I remember estimating his weight pretty near 400 pounds.

And the stool? Well, the significance of that was how the stool, you know, sort ofdisappeared into him as he sat down on it. I mean, it looked like his body just sucked that piece of convenience furniture like Scotty beaming up Spock.Gone!

Vince Staples is one of hip hop's brightest stars. Alright?

I mean that in both the sonic vision he took with NO ID on his latest album, “Summertime 2006.”

NO ID is the Chi-Town producer who played a huge roll developing of the careers of Common, Kanye West, and has risen to become the VP of Def Jam Records.

Even if the NO ID produced  Jay-Z song “Death Of Auto-Tune” didn't exactly end Autotune.

(See TLOP or Future.) The anthem is a banger.

Vince Staples' Summertime 2006 was released on NO ID's Artium Def Jam imprint and Blacksmith (owned by Talib Kweli & Corey Smith.)

It's not only that Staples is making phenomenal records with NO ID.

I'm also saying his interviews are usually insightful like his music.

However this is going to be the worst Vince Staples interview you will ever read because we had to reschedule due to my error.

Well a family member of mine was sick....but excuses are useless.

Vince Staples can't ask you to read his lyrics off your phone while the beat plays at his concert and then say, “my nephew has the mumps.”

It’s election season, and already we’ve had two instances of those amusing quadrennial scuffles between Republican politicians and leftist musicians. Donald Trump repeatedly played Neil Young’s “Rocking’ in the Free World” at a campaign event, prompting a statement from Young’s camp that he was “not authorized” to use the song. Previously, the band Survivor sued Mike Huckabee over the use of “Eye of the Tiger” at a rally celebrating Rowan County, PA county clerk Kim Davis’ release from jail following a stint for contempt of court for refusing to marry same-sex couples. 

It’s a strange phenomenon, made more so by its reliability. Bumbling Republican candidate blasts song from campaign bus or whatever.  Artist sends irate cease and desist letter and copies the media. Politician quietly drops the song with vague apologies. Liberals pass it around as the latest evidence of the candidate’s brain damage, and get a good chuckle out of the whole thing. It’s extra fun if patriotic themes in the stolen songs turn out to be rather sarcastic, such as Young’s “Free World,” Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” or John Mellencamp’s “Pink Houses.” 

One of the things that I always loved about coming of age in Columbus, Ohio is running into Umar Bin Hassan of the Last Poets randomly at the now-defunct Monkey's Retreat Bookstore. He hung out with Carl who owned Roots, and Adrian Willis aka DJ True Skills, who ran a Hip Hop boutique called Thieves World in the late 90's/early aughts.

I bumped into Umar in late November at the New Harvest Cafe & Urban Arts Center and we had a conversation about Isis, how he got down with the Last Poets, and Kanye West.

Umar had this to say about Isis, “The greatest Jihad is called the Jihad al-nafs. That's the struggle with your own demons. Your own gins. Anyone can go out talking about killing other people.Beheading other people. It's about who you are. What position are you coming from?”

A few weeks later, the shooting occurred at the Eagles of the Death Metal show in France.

So he turned out to be prophetic as a poets often are.

First things first. It must be noted that Young Thug was not wearing a dress when the crowd sang line for like with him from his verse on T.I.'s “If ain't about the money.” from at Newport January 23rd.

If you're not familiar with Young Thug; he is from Atlanta and often referenced by the fact he is a Blood that boasts Rich Gang Affiliations as well as your usual Waka/Gucci overlaps.

He has a stream of consciousness, sing-songy cadence that is post-Lil Wayne/Future in terms skating with melody and sometimes not discernible.

Rappers like Thug, Rich Homie Quan and Migos are developing a nuanced version of Weezy.

Why do I mention him wearing a dress? Because dudes who rock the same circuit as Kevin Gates and Plies with the word Thug in their name don't usually wear dresses. Sort of. 

Young Thug does.

 I could go through several theories on why gender fluidity exists in Blood Branded rappers compared to similar organizations. My guess it boils down to the people involved, molly commerce, prison culture, New Orleans Sissy Bounce and perhaps just the entertainment industry.