Music

An evening with Columbus' next best punk band: Yuze Boys

I went over to Columbus punk outfit Yuze Boys’ north campus house early last week. They were in the middle of recording their demo which will be released on Athens’ punk label, “Gnarly As I Wannabe.” We sat down, and somehow landed on the subject of sex in automobiles. I just thought we were just building rapport. Yuze Boys’ drummer Winston Hightower divulged that he “had sex in a soccer mom’s van.” It wasn’t with a soccer mom. I did not find out if Winston’s sexual partner played soccer or perhaps had a sibling who did. Perhaps that makes me a bad reporter. Bassist Kyle Bergamo likes to have sex up against the wall. Anyway. This conversation led to pertinent info: Yuze Boys formed because Nervosas’ Jeffrey Kleinman was living behind Cafe Bourbon Street in his van.

2014: Drunken nights and mind-blowing performances

It was a five-way tie for best concert of the year 2014 for this hombre for the longest time. I savored for months after attending each of the following: Santana at the LC Pavilion; the Blasters at the Rumba Cafe; Big Sandy at Natalie's; the Pixies at the LC Pavilion; and Dr. John at the Park Street Tavern. So who kicked it the best, who took my soul, my sacred booty, my mind (or what's left of it) and changed me, rearranged me and made me a better methane-breathing earthling? Ginger Baker drum roll, puh-lease, maestro... Dr. John, the New Orleans voodoo-dispensing, night-tripping, Columbus-musician-employing roots genius of geniuses. I've seen him at least once every decade since the '70s and this, this was the time and place and with a band nearly entirely permanently populated by Columbus musicians that was the best ever. Ach, mein gott, I felt like I was on a Mississip riverboat cruising the shoals from Mobile, Alabama, to the Crescent City to Terrabonne Bay as it transformed the Park Street Tavern into a sweaty brothel within loaded with more moist and sensually good-dancin' white girls than I've ever seen in one place in this hoary old white-bread town.

Five unanswerable questions dominate the universe yet must be asked anyway:

1) Does time really exist?

2) Is poetry dead and did the Koch Brothers kill it?

3) How important was the moon in humanity's spiritual evolution?

4) Is this new animal therapy for depressed gorillas morally right?

5) Why are the Spikedrivers not a national phenomenon?

  OK, so I don't go see them for a couple of years (the Spikedrivers, not the Koch Brothers whose calls I refuse to take anymore because I took a ten grand grant on a pigeon research scam I ran on 'em concerning the Jim Rhodes statue on the Statehouse lawn. Don't ask about the details, suffice it to say they've relegated me to the dead debts section of their political funds portfolio though I told 'em to sell my debt to the city of Detroit--more later).
  Which was a good idea--time away from the living entity of which you are enamored. Return a time later and you can see how they've evolved, aged, matured; or devolved, decayed or gathered the moss of immaturity and contempt from too much familiarity from being in the same places with the same faces.

Free Sylvie T-Shirt Campaign Raises Money For Mid-Ohio Foodbank

If you type in the hashtag #FreeSylvie on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter you will find images of various rappers, musicians, artists and high school kids wearing a shirt that bears the image of Sylvie Mix and the call for her liberation.
  Sylvie is not a rapper arrested for drugs or murder. She is not a political prisoner.

Sylvie Mix is a 16 year-old Columbus Alternative High School AP Physics student whose mother Maika Carter and friend Thom Lessner came up with an innovative form of discipline that raised a decent amount of money for the Mid-Ohio Foodbank by selling the aforementioned Free Sylvie T-Shirts.
  Sylvie’s explained her peer pressure induced crime.

Listen Dylan Fans, I’m About to Save You a Hundred and Twenty Bucks...

Last week, the word came down that Bob Dylan was releasing another one of his generally excellent bootleg series, this time the full 1967 recordings known as The Basement Tapes. Like a good little Dylan fan, I immediately toddled down to Barnes and Noble on my lunch break to pick up a copy, with the purpose of (1) entertaining myself on a scheduled trip to Cleveland and (2) reviewing it for The Free Press.
  Once I arrived at the store, I was unable to find anything on the new arrivals rack. Undaunted, I bounced up to the counter and made inquiries, which resulted in a computer search. I was then led to the box sets area, and as panic began to set in I was presented with an giant package with a price tag of around $129.00. Dear heavens. Even with my trusty membership discount this was one I would have to bounce off the wife.

An Interview with Spinal Tap

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last two months, you know that English heavy metal band Spinal Tap is coming to Ledo’s Tavern on Halloween night (Friday, Oct. 31st). Having been a huge Tap fan since their psychedelic period in the late 1960’s, I was absolutely thrilled to sit down with singer David St. Hubbins and lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel to discuss the upcoming show.

 

FREE PRESS: So to begin with, Spinal Tap hasn’t toured in at least a decade. Why did you choose to kick this tour off in Columbus?

ST. HUBBINS: Well, we used to have a tendency to confuse Columbus with Cleveland and Springfield, which saddened our Columbus fans tremendously.

TUFNEL: We felt we had a karmic debt, so to speak.

ST. HUBBINS: Exactly. So to square things with the universe, we decided to start the tour in Cleveland.

FP: How did you settle on Ledo’s Tavern as a venue?

ST. HUBBINS: Well, there is a great deal of mystical symbolism in the letter L

TUFNEL: And they had the best insurance.

Histories of ages past, unenlightened shadows cast, down through all eternity

Not only is my middle name Donovan, I'm a huge Donovan fan. And while I often refer to my Irish-Slovenian hot headed jugulars for those many times when I get p.o.'ed, truth is there is a folk side to me. Not everything's gotta be “Street Fightin' Man” for me, though it took me decades to stop passing over soul ballads when I played my favorite R'n'B dance records.

In reality, as much as I loved Donovan I never spent much time listening to whole Donovan albums. There was one called something about, I don't know, “Farting In the Wind,” or some such overly sensitivity to some mythical Anglo-Irish Western wind. Whatever. The material was sorta substandard. I mean, thanks to Mickie Most, legendary '60s British record producer, it is mostly Donovan's Most-produced hits that slayed me like a dragon: “Mellow Yellow,” “Wear Your Love Like Heaven,” “Eptistle To Dippy,” “There Is A Mountain,” “Jennifer Juniper,” “Lalena,” “Atlantis,” “To Susan On the West Coast Waiting,” “Barabajagal” and one of the heaviest songs ever made, “Hurdy Gurdy Man.”

Show Recap: The Girls!, Nervosas & Pink Reason at Blackheart Festival

Kevin DeBroux of Pink Reason proclaimed something to the affect that ‘We Need Harm Reduction Policies in Ohio’ from the Stage at the Summit towards the end of his bands’ rowdy and pulverizing set at the first annual Blackheart Festival.

 

The Blackheart Festival was event to celebrate the life of Joey Blackheart who played guitar in the Girls! who died in July due a complication with substance usage.

 

The Blackheart Festival was raising money for to develop Harm Reduction Programs in our area. Harm Reduction helps manage the negative affects of behaviors like recreational drug use and sexual activity by providing access to things like clean needles, opoid replacement, condoms, and designated drivers.

 

This was the first Pink Reason show in awhile, and I can say it was also the culmination of one the better nights of music in recent memory.

 

Video Premier of The Ipps Everything Is Real

The Ipps were nice enough to have the Columbus Free Press debut their video for “You Need To Bleed” off their new record Everything Is Real which was released on Spencer Morgan’s SuperDreamer Records.


The clip itself is a bleached-out, psychedelic colorful foray in bubbly liquids that resembles a 70’s PBS Science show if the science show was an art show instead.


If the clip reminds you of the Times New Viking/Columbus Discount Records-era of Columbus,Ohio music that is because the Ipps are made up of 3 members of Necropolis (Emily Davis, Bo Davis, Matt Bisaro.)


The other member is Michael O’Shaughnessy who played in another CDR band: El Jesus De Magico.


Obviously the song references the controversial medical practice of Bloodletting.

Interview: Sinkane’s Ahmed Gallab Discusses Mean Love & More

The driving force behind Sinkane, Ahmed Gallab, is from everywhere: Brooklyn, Sudan, London, Boston, Utah and Ohio.
  In recent times, he also has been everywhere. Sinkane just released an album, Mean Love, on DFA records which seamlessly blends African, Country, reggae and soul influences while having a dialogue on human interaction and existence.
  The past year saw Ahmed music directing a series of performances of Afro-Electronic genius William Onyeabor’s music called “the Atomic Bomb Band.” Members of Sinkane were joined by people from Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem, the Lijadu Sisters, Money Mark and more. A highlight of “the Atomic Bomb Band” was a performance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, that had David Byrne singing “Fantastic Man” next to Gallab.
  Although Ahmed has been all around the world and lives in Brooklyn, I will always view him as an extension of here. He went to OSU, and was heavily active in the Columbus DIY, and Hip Hop communities.
  Sinkane will play the Wexner Center on October 30th so I interviewed Ahmed about his album and life.

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