Local

When you book some dates at a recording studio, it’s fairly common practice for the engineer to ask you what bands you sound like. It isn’t intended as an insult to your originality, it’s just them making sure the right microphones or whatnot are available. An engineer friend of mine periodically exhibits frustration with bands that insist that they absolutely don’t sound like anybody else. It is these bands, he says, that 99 times out of 100 sound exactly like someone else.
  And that’s a pretty good rule of thumb, in music and perhaps in life generally. I would expect that it’s actually a fairly widespread belief, even among degenerate Free Press readers. But humor me for a second, folks, while I review a record from a band that honest-to-God doesn’t sound like anybody else.
  A year and a half ago I did a concert review of a band called the Devil Doves, who I stumbled into following a Blue Jackets game. They’ve finally gotten around to putting out an eponymous debut album, which is, like, fantastic. And also very hard to adequately explain.

Hundreds of Columbus citizens marched in solidarity with the demonstrators in Baltimore asking for justice for Freddie Gray, who was killed while in police custody. The protestors started at the OSU Student Union and marcheddown High Street through the Short North on Saturday, May 2 during Gallery Hop. They gathered on the cap north of downtown to talk about their request to meet with Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs and discuss an initiative for a Civilian Review Board of the Columbus Police.

The Central Ohio Worker's Center planned and numerous other local organizations supported a march and rally to raise the minimum wage in Columbus on May Day, May 1st. See the photo slide show below. (Photos by Bob Studzinski)

A Black man in Columbus fatally shot the mother of his children and her brother. Recently another Black man fatally shot his 28 year old ex-girlfriend in front of their children in Chicago, Illinois. What is the reason for this behavior? Is it that we as a Black people don’t love each other? Why are Black men killing the mother of their children? Is the love gone?
  Author, Radio and Television Personality, Khari Enaharo, deals with this issue and more in his upcoming book “Sex Code War.” I had the pleasure of hearing Khari give a speech recently called “Black While Loving.” He also honored me with an interviewed later. Khari gave several examples of how we can determine if “the love is gone.”  “…The love is gone when mass respect is replaced with mass disrespect, when physical abuse takes the place of a tender touch the love has gone, when a male refuses to work and take care of his children, his woman and his household, the love is gone.”

The Salt of the Earth may be the most gut-wrenching journey you’ll take this year. Also, the most moving.
  The documentary is about Sebastiao Salgado, a Brazilian-born photographer who has devoted most of his career to recording the struggles and sorrows of humanity. The quest has made him the witness to famines, wars and genocides, along with their painful aftermaths.
  Like Joseph Conrad, he and his camera have peered into “the heart of darkness,” a task that inevitably has shaken his faith in mankind. “We are a ferocious animal,” he says, speaking in subtitled French.
  Narrating his own photos of some of recent history’s worst examples of man’s inhumanity to man, Salgado adds that everyone should view these images “to see how horrible our species is.”
  At times like these, one might well wonder whether The Salt of the Earth is titled ironically. Thankfully, life eventually finds a way to uplift Salgado’s spirit—along with ours, making the documentary the cinematic equivalent of a fire-and-brimstone sermon that ends with the joyous promise of redemption.

If you ever threw a plastic bottle in the wrong receptacle at Comfest, you may have encountered our zero waste hero, Bill Finzel. The most memorable vision a festival-goer may remember from Comfests past would be Finzel’s head popping up out of a dumpster as he retrieved some wayward recyclable materials.    

  “Bill has been an active proponent of recycling since the early 70s. He made recycling at events mainstream,” Greg Maynard said of his friend and fellow Comfest volunteer. It is true enough, as Comfest was certainly one of the first, if not the actual FIRST, festival in the city to have recycling containers on the grounds.

SEX 101

A few conversations have brought it back that sometimes we need a refresher course, back to basics. While it's Springtime and the birds and the bees are doing their thing, let's talk about some fundamentals of what it means to get it on, and how it can be a great experience for all parties involved. Consent is your first priority. If you don't have a partner's consent for sexual activity, it's no longer a sexual act, it's an act of violence.  

Anatomy

Learn what all the parts are and how they operate. The clitoris contains at least 8,000 sensory nerve endings – twice as many in the entire penis. These nerve endings run down “the legs” of the clitoris and continue in a Figure 8 around the anus – like an uneven infinity symbol. When clitoral and vulva tissue is stimulated, sometimes it expands. The tissue will be full of blood and grows, some to a much larger proportion and the color of the tissue changes too. If this occurs with you (or your partner), you are normal.

Protection

JEFF GERMAN AT NATALIES. On Saturday, April 15, I went to Natalie’s Pizza for Jeff German’s half-CD release party. Jeff is due to release his second record on Slothtrop Records later this year, and his label was releasing an early five-song “maxi-single.”
  I had a chance to listen to the single itself, a song called “Woodshed,” and a few of its supporting pieces on the drive up. Woodshed conjures a time warp between present and past, a place that has still has eight tracks, black and white TVs, and affordable vintage guitars. It might be 2015, it might be 1972, which fits right in with German’s history of writing to a mythic past, where long roads still lead to nowhere and strangers still ride into town and take an inconspicuous seat at the back of the bar.

Surly Girl Saloon announced rather abruptly that this would be their last week in operation. I stumbled in Wednesday Night not fully aware of the importance the Short North Bar’s Open Mic Night had to local comedy for the past 9 years.
  There were 60 comics signed up to pay their last respects.
  The comedy night will be moving next door to Barrel on High. But still, bars have different cultures that surround them. Chemistries and friendships between workers, patrons and owners all play into people’s personal histories and experiences with places they hang out.
  Surly Girls' closing comes on the heels of the Milk Bar shutting down in the Short North.

Here's my open letter to Campus Partners, OSU's development arm which recently bought nine acres of High Street, from 14th to 17th, promising to raze and re-do the entire area real pretty-like.
  Ahem, dear sir(s) and/or madame(s),
  It's recently come to my attention that my way of making a living, indeed my gay (1890's sense) lively, lifestyle of music and commerce is soon to go the way of the buffalo, the Indian, the Edsel and Don Kirshner Presents Rock Concert. Is there any way you can build around me?
  You don't seem to understand the cultural impact of your actions. The kids crave authenticity. Suburbia, for all its delivery of paradise and safety, simply does not belong on High Street. High Street is supposed to be a little bit wild, a little bit dangerous and a whole lotta untamed. Lemme tell you a little story.