Music

Ryan Jewell will be jazz drumming along with musicians Robert Heinz, Bret Burleson, and Eddie Bayard at Dick’s Den on Sunday, January 25th. In addition to being an in-demand jazz musician, Ryan has also played with revered noise artists such as Jandek and Mike Shiflet. He has also been a member of Complete Strangers, Terribly Empty Pockets, Pink Reason, and PHS. You can check his new murky psych-folkish group Mosses on Jan. 30 at punk house VVK. “My favorite music is either extreme outsider art that is inept in some ways. Or it’s highly virtuosic.” Jewell explained his various musical passions while sipping tea in a Clintonville home where he was pet-sitting a friend’s ferrets. While Jewell has an extensive and diverse body of work, perhaps his most unique recording was made while unconscious, and literally brokenhearted. In January of 2013, Jewell recorded his open heart surgery at OSU’s Richard M. Ross Heart Hospital. “It was like a birth defect thing.” Jewell said, speaking of the life-threatening misshapen heart valve that put him under the scalpel and bone saw. “It didn’t close up properly.

Reviewing a Bruce Springsteen album presents something of a challenge. The first problem is the temptation to view his current work through the lens of his earlier offerings-- after all, this is the guy who recorded Nebraska, probably the most downright terrifying album ever recorded. The second is Springsteen's political legacy. I'm particularly sympathetic to music with a political bent. To be honest, I want his music to be good. High Hopes ain't Nebraska, it isn't even 2005’s Devils and Dust. It's an erratic album, and only a few tracks delve into the icy creepiness which is my favorite thing about Springsteen. Overall, though, it’s a better effort than 2012’s Wrecking Ball and 2009’s Working on a Dream. Half of the 12 tracks are pretty good, and a couple are really good. As my wife points out, that's a decent shooting percentage these days. The album really is a grab bag. Musicians and producers vary from song to song, three songs are covers, and two songs are re-workings of older tunes. Springsteen is joined on seven of the 12 tracks by guitarist Tom Morello, who really does some nice stuff.

David versus Goliath: me and my High Street record store against the Ohio State University.

Who shall win? First, what's the problem, mate? Ahem, ah yes, the problem--as stated by OSU is, ready tailgaters?--the level of volume my lone, beat-up, pathetic six-inch sidewalk speaker puts out during store hours. You're thinking, aren't you? How could some dinky record store (our motto: small and getting smaller) and it's dinky speaker get phone calls and visits from the Columbus Police? At the behest of America's biggest university? How? Well, I'm not kidding. And it's been happening for some years. Backstory, please, right? Here it comes. I've been putting some sort of speaker out on the sidewalk every morning since Moses wore short pants. I give it a little volume so passersby get a little groove on for the few seconds they're walking by. Not hugely loud, not usually.

“Forward Ever” is a new Third Thursday monthly reggae night at Café Bourbon Street that sets off Thursday, January 23. Flipp-A, Jah Shaolin, Timothy Blender, Ashley, DJ Johnny Bananas and host Mario Rankin are the driving forces behind “Forward Ever.” Jah Shaolin said the goal of “Forward Ever” is to “spotlight the broad spectrum of Jamaican music for both reggae fans and novices alike.” Jah added, “I will focus on the 70s and 90s for this night. Tim & Flip have the 80s covered, Johnny loves early reggae (60s-70s), and Ashley loves roots reggae in general.” Ashley is a 20 year-old man from Zimbabwe who connected with the other guys at the Israel Vibration Show at Al Rosa Villa on March 07, 2013 and by shopping at Roots. Eventually, they all bonded performing at Chef Orlando’s Bistro on Shrock Road. When asked how he got into reggae, Ashley responded matter-of-factly, “I grew up on it.” Ashley got into deejaying because artists he likes such as Dennis Brown, Hugh Mundell and Junior Clark 's music was primarily available on vinyl when he moved to Columbus, saying, “Vinyl was limited. It was the way to check it out.

Last week’s passing of Phil Everly serves as a reminder that almost nobody is left from the great Rock 'n Roll era, the first post-big band suburban teen explosion – Little Richard, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran to name some. Many died young, a few are still hanging on, but this time is about to pass completely. Reconstructions of that period from this point out will likely be forensic, as is this essay. But them’s the breaks with history. "Rock ‘n Roll,” that most thoroughly useless of musical definitions, purportedly encompassing everything from Bill Haley to Slayer. Ha ha. I have a vague recollection of a music genre chart which showed plainly enough that "rock 'n roll" is just a mixed drink, straight 50/50 combination of Blues and Country (or perhaps Western Swing – it was a long time ago). Beyond that I can't pretend to guess. Wherever it came from, at some point some genius tacked high school lyrics onto the primal, syncopated rhythm called back-beat, and record companies started making astonishing amounts of money.

When the Temptations pull into Columbus on Thursday, Otis Williams will be continuing to keep a promise he made to former bandmate Melvin Franklin some 50 years ago. When the two were teenagers, Williams and Franklin vowed they’d remain a part of the Temptations as long as they could perform. Even after Franklin died in 1995, Williams has remained with the group through a series of changes. “We made a pact when we were teenagers we were going to do what we loved and we weren’t going to let anyone stop us,” says Williams, the last remaining Temptation for the Motown super group. “We’re a small microcosm of the people who get to do what they love to do (for a living). A lot of people on this earth can’t say that. You take that as a special thing and you treat it as such.” The current alignment of the group, Williams, Ron Tyson, Terry Weeks, Joe Herndon, and Bruce Williamson, will perform 8 p.m. Thursday at the Jeanne B. McCoy Community Center for the Arts (100 W. Dublin-Granville Rd. in New Albany). In all Williams has seen 20 other members come and go through the Temptations.

The band's picture on the flyer turned me off: I smelled Stone Temple Pilots. The dead-on angle of the lead singer whispered 'Scott Wyland' which in my world is a term for “asshole.” Besides the face, the vest too bespoke of one of the worst lead singers in American fool's gold history. Oddly, both the fellows to the right of him also struck more than a sliver of a STP/Scott-Arseland chord. Wow--three STP clones in one band. Memo to me: avoid. Then a couple of dudes of whom I have musical respect expressed enthusiasm for the flyer-ed band's upcoming Friday night gig at Woodlands Backyard. On occasion I listen to people. So I went. Verdict: unfuckingbelievable! The Jim Jones Revue, from England, last weekend, was the single best rock'n'roll show I've seen in recent or even distant memory. I was naturally high for three days. To paraphrase the socialist douche bag/rock critic Jon Landau who taught Bruce Springsteen how to read by tearing his Marvel comics out of his hands and shoving “Das Kapital” down his blowhard north Jersey throat: I have seen the past, the present and the future of rock'n'roll--and it is monsoon-like sweaty, Betty. And redemptive.

Issa Israel broke down for me the vision of Dirty Triff: “It was a term I coined while making music with B-Banga. I wanted to use a word to describe the lifestyle that I felt that the young artists of the city were going through while trying to get their art out there.” Issa continued, “I didn’t want to use cliché words like club kids or other words that are used to describe that lifestyle. I used Dirty 'cause when you think of dirty, you think of raw. I chose trifling because it's the same thing but even nastier. Something that society looks at as the bottom. It's the lifestyle of any medium whether it's models, promoters or graffiti artists. That whole lifestyle of just wanting to put your artwork out.” Saturday’s Dirty Triff installment dubbed “Cometh Thy Children of the Night” will include some friends Issa has made since moving to New York City. Dirty Triff is bringing in WestGay party promoter B. Ames. Issa describes B. Ames as “a phenomenal, voguey drag-artist.” B. Ames has made mixes for RuPaul’s Drag Race and has also done remixes for Alyssa Edwards from the aforementioned reality show.

Everything I know about jazz I've learned from watching Treme on HBO. That fact not withstanding, I spent the evening of Wednesday December 18th, 2013 at the Brothers Drake Meadery and Bar absorbing the Ben Johnson Quartet. This experience seemed to me to be everything modern jazz should be, despite the fact I know nothing about modern jazz. Regardless of how you define it, Mr. Johnson and company played jazz for the modern age. Aaron Quinn on guitar, Dan Shaw on keys, and Ryan Jewell on drums accompanied the aforementioned Johnson on bass in a set consisting of jazz tributes (it does not feel proper to call them covers) of well known nineties songs. It's as accessible as it is impressive, a perfect fit for jazz Wednesdays at the Brothers Drake. Although, while sipping some damn good apple pie mead, I did find myself wishing I was in some dive bar filled with cigarette smoke where the beer is served warm and in cans. But, barring that momentary lapse of reason, the classiness of the venue held it's sway from front to back and beginning to end. The first set of the inaugural performance involved noticeable nerves, yet still sounded smooth.

Guess what Joe Peppercorn's 12-hour Beatles tribute at the Bluestone the last Saturday of 2013 took me back to? My Beatles-loving childhood? Well, of course. But that wasn't the biggest--or best--surprise of the night. The music? Again, sure--but the music is always and will always be with us. Timeless, by God, and eternal—hopefully. OK, here's the really amazing thing I felt very deeply that wonderful, extraordinary Saturday night in that amazing old stone church, especially during certain songs from Joe's rendition of “The White Album.” I can't remember exactly which song it was that I first noticed but all of a sudden, looking up at the folks on the balcony, looking behind me (I was close up to the front of the stage), doing a 360 and seeing everyone in the place clued in to the song, the vibe, the band--well, that communal feeling I used to get at Comfests of old when there was just one big-ass stage and we'd all get swept up in the celebration of great music happening right in front of us. That, you know, Woodstock feeling. Corny but...the feeling of gigantic oneness. Of mass warmth.