Music

In the increasingly rare moments that I spend on Facebook, I have been seeing a bunch of articles about what bartenders think of you based on your drink order. These are all purportedly written by real bartenders, most of whom seem to have a healthy talent for plagiarism (which I support). Some of these are actually pretty good – the “Patron Margarita: I wish to spend $12 on a drink that will taste exactly the same as its $8 counterpart” appears in most of them.
  But it does get me thinking about the rampant on-stage boozing engaged in by many local bands, an activity in which I have at times enthusiastically engaged. Whether subsidized – in whole or in part – by live music venues or paid for in precious band cash, it’s a fact of life. A local act playing a local bar has an absolute right to shamelessly indulge in the drink of their choice, and if you don’t like it the Palace Theatre is right down the street.

   Mac Miller performed at the Promowest Pavillon Sunday.  Miller just dropped a new album called “G.O.O.D. A.M” and is touring in support of it. He recently switched from Rostrum to his own REMember imprint through Warner Brothers.

   They gave him 10,000,000. I actually sat here trying to figure out the mathematical equation on how to recoup 10,000,000. The first conclusion, I landed on was this is this is why I don’t have 10,000,000 dollars.

   On the Big Sean record “Control,” Kendrick Lamar listed off who he considers his peers and competition. Mac Miller was listed next to J. Cole, Drake, K.R.I.T, Meek Mill. Pusha T, Tyler and more as contenders in barber shop arguments of “Where I’m From” or “Til My Lungs Collapse” listings of the current era of emcees.

   Like Tyler, K.R.I.T, and J.Cole, Mac Miller also produces which I think shows a desire for sequencing as opposed to just rapping over some drums.  I’m sure this not only aids in creativity, it also makes 10,000,000 dollars easier to recouped because Mac doesn’t have to pay for producers.

It's beginning to look like political season has finally arrived, and it isn't just that we have two debates under our belt and primaries about to begin. The telling statistic is that fully 85 percent of op-ed writers, most of whom ought to know better, have finally succumbed to the temptation of reacting to some piece of insane gibberish emanating from our dear friend Donald Trump. It's the journalistic equivalent of a weekend off, a “phone it in and come to bed honey” moment. More fool them – the man is plainly a Democratic plant, as is his friend Tom Brady.

  But this is a music column, and we don't ask the easy questions here. If you want to know John Kasich’s stance on net neutrality, the Dispatch would be more than happy to oblige you. Here, however, we roll up our sleeves and get down to the ugly core of what makes someone deserving of the presidential office – if a candidate was a Kinks songs, which Kinks song would they be? Cue “The Contenders,” in alphabetical order:

“88 Like We Bringing the Rooftop Back.”- Iggy Azealia or Nas

“I didn’t meet Rakim til later with Scott/I remember we were jammin’ at the Rooftop.” - Krs-One

Columbus Hip Hop holds a special regard for Bernie's Distillery similar to how people in New York discuss LQ or the Rooftop or L.A people speak on the Good Life. The talent nurtured at the Short North Record Store Groove Shack in the mid-90’s called the grimy dive-bar home when MHz, Weightless, S.A. Smash and J. Rawls rose to worldwide prominence.

  Bernie’s was a home that had character to hold up to the talent-level thanks to a crew of deejays (the Fonosluts) and the location’s campus slum punk rock nature. (The Fonosluts were Detroit transplant DJ PRZM, DJ Lo-zone, DJ Pos 2 and host So What?)

  This month presented itself to reflect on the weekly Fonosluts Hip Hop event that existed from ‘99-2005.

  First off because Bernie's is set for not-to-exist after December 31, 2015.

  Secondly, it was the last Daymon Day in this form.

You get three things in spades with new Keith Richards album: feel, feel and more feel. You don't automatically think it--that comes second. You...feel it. But of course. Then you think, ah, the old bastard's back, nice, so let's cop a feel--or 15. With a dozen-plus-three tracks on Crosseyed Heart, the ageless aging dude's third solo album released last week, it's a quiver-full of Keith's many trademarks. Dirty guitar chords, night-cat rockers with leather-jacket desperado charisma, surprisingly tender ballads, reggae grooves better than what you hear on the radio, and oh my, oh, there's more.
  Verdict: it don't quit/it won't quit. It just rolls a bit more subliminally than it appears. That's Keith's magic and that's why we love him, right? Goddam right.

Monday, the Tenth day of August in the Hundred-Score-and-Five-and-Tenth year since B.C.(E.)
  We wanted to see Die Antwoord and we got word the opener, Get Weird, wasn’t worth watching, so DJ and I intentionally showed late just as the wayward warmup got offstage and what we’d paid to see got underway. The LC Pavilion was filled with White people from all walks-of-life and economic backgrounds. But so many White people at a hip-hop show? Why?
  White rappers.
  I played “spot the other non-Whites” and found a total of maybe two-dozen Brown people and ten Black people, not counting those who appeared masked onstage. I may have miscounted, but the multitudes were White. I felt like Ahab, swallowed into the Great White Whale.

Here at the Free Press’s Department of Etiquette and Common Decency, we have been receiving a great deal of inquiries with respect to the propriety of male musicians performing onstage while wearing shorts. It is not entirely clear as to whether these queries are being propounded by the genuinely confused, anticipatory contrarians, or outraged audience members seeking something definitive in writing. Regardless, it is apparent that the wearing of shorts on stage is becoming increasingly frequent, and that the issue needs to be conclusively addressed.

  As a general matter, the answer is that shorts (or cut-offs, umbros, jams, jorts, hot pants, bermudas, footer-bags etc.) should not be worn by any performer who is or might be in view of an audience and is not AC/DC’s Angus Young. Most sources agree on an exception for certain members of thrash metal bands, and there appears to be some support in instances of life-threatening heat (although this is far from universal acceptance). Beyond these carefully circumscribed exceptions, however, there is uniform consensus that wearing shorts on stage makes you look like a fucking idiot.

When Kix Roxx takes the Jazz Meets Origami Festival stage with his band, Razor Dragon Assault, he’ll be doing so for the final time.
  “I’m tired of being the only purveyor of eardrum destroying thrash that plays the Jazz Meets Origami Festival, and I feel that another finger-tapping wizard of shred should have the opportunity to rock the brains out of people drinking lemon shake-ups in the park,” Roxx said by phone during a break from recording RDA’s latest album, tentatively titled “Space Demon Wizards of the Night.” “We’ve been doing this for seven years now, and half the audience has plainly memorized most of our dive-bombing pinch harmonics and floating arpeggios – we can see them walking away as soon as we begin our first song! It’s time to usher in new acts like Flaming Sword of God to scorch the souls of those waiting in line to fold paper into amusing shapes.”

Imagine waking from your own funky dream world right into another's--or, exactly how nice is it is to wake up with a Jimi Hendrix song playing in your head?
  Very nice, indeed.

  Especially when it's a relative obscurity from the magnificently surrealistic epic Electric Ladyland, which I've spent quite a bit of time rediscovering this summer as part of my parole.

  Ah, I know what you're thinking, stupid hippie: Obscure Electric Ladyland song? Ain't no such thing, m-a-n. I've tripped 457 times to Electric Ladyland and there are no obscure songs. Dude, duke up your puts, I mean, put up your dukes. Ain't no obscure songs on Ladyland!

  Calm down, Comfest crud. You and I are on the same side. But if you'll gimme a minute, I'll explain.