Author Archives: Joel Oliphint

Tonight @ Bluestone: Justin Townes Earle

MP3: Justin Townes Earle – Rogers Park (live at the Castle Theater in Bloomington, Illinois)

When Justin Townes Earle came to Columbus in the past, he’d always play the Rumba Cafe, even though he outgrew the venue pretty quickly. It made for an intimate show, but it was crowded, and if you got close to the stage you were one of the lucky ones.

Now that the Rumba’s Todd Dugan is booking occasional shows at the Bluestone, Columbus has a chance to see Earle with a bit more elbow room, good sight lines and some stained-glass ambience. After seeing Lucero in the space last month, I was also impressed by the quality of the live sound, something Rumba has become known for. …Think a smaller, classier Newport with better sound.

Tristen opens tonight’s show ($17, 18+, 9pm). Dugan’s next big Bluestone show will be Watershed‘s CD release show on June 8.

Video: R. Ring – “Fall Out and Fire” + Tree Bar show tonight

Here’s a just-released video of the Breeders’ Kelley Deal and Ampline’s Mike Montgomery aka R. Ring performing in the basement of the Texas State Capitol building during this year’s SXSW. The beautifully hypnotic “Fall Out and Fire” is from a forthcoming 7-inch on Misra Records.

Columbus folks can catch R. Ring tonight (Wed, 5/9) at the Tree Bar with Feature Films and Joel Walter with Keith Novicki ($8).

Listen: The Walkmen – “We Can’t Be Beat”

This low-key track is from The Walkmen’s new record, Heaven, produced by Phil Ek and out May 29 on Fat Possum. In the press release, singer Hamilton Leithauser says, “The detachment you can feel throughout our younger records is gone. We felt like it was time to make a bigger, more generous statement.”

Listen: Blastronauts – “No Me Gustan Pantalones”

We like shorts because we have great legs
And we can’t do splits in our pants
We like shorts because it gets too hot
And we can’t express ourselves

Forget all this “May the 4th be with you” stuff. Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo, and to celebrate, here’s a song about shorts called “No Me Gustan Pantalones” written by students at Grizzell Middle School and performed by James Allison’s Blastronauts.

The partnership is a result of the Dick & Jane Project, which I wrote about in The Other Paper recently. This track comes from the new CD Momentum, on which Grizzell students also partner with Columbus musicians Glenn Davis, Andrew Graham, Joseph Anthony Camerlengo and others.

Video: Way Yes – “Walkability”

Walkability will be reissued by Lefse Records on June 19. The Beef Company Films video was directed by Greg Kissner.

Listen: Crooked Fingers – “Bad Blood (acoustic)” premiere

Crooked Fingers’ Breaks in the Armor was one of my favorite records released last year — Eric Bachmann’s best since Red Devil Dawn, I’d argue. If you pre-ordered the album through the Merge store, you also got a bonus download with acoustic versions of the songs. Now Breaks in the Armor: Acoustic Demo Version is getting an official release on iTunes and the Merge store. Give a listen to the beautifully stripped-down “Bad Blood” below:

Bachmann said of the demos, “Recording a stripped-down version of a song reveals its flaws. It also lets you hear the space you have to work with before you crowd it with ideas that can muddle the point. I don’t like to add drums or arrange songs with Crooked Fingers until I feel like the writing itself has reached a point. That’s why I record demos as stripped-down versions…
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MP3: Black Bananas – “Rad Times”

MP3: Black Bananas – Rad Times

The Nelsonville Music Festival kicks off two weeks from Friday, and one of the bands playing that opening night is Drag City‘s Black Bananas. If that name isn’t familiar to you, you’ll likely recognize singer Jennifer Herrema’s former bands, Royal Trux and RTX. Black Bananas is actually the same lineup as RTX, but on the band’s new album, Rad Times Express IV, Herrema and her crew take the sound not so much in a new direction as much as they widen its scope. The metal, funk, psychedelia, electronic blurps and classic-rock nods (track 4 = Heart’s “Magic Man” in space) swirl together in a pleasantly noxious brew.

I’m also gonna argue that out of all the women who’ll be performing at Nelsonville, Herrema is by far the toughest. Just look at that video.

Localized Internet radio: Bandwidth, CLM Radio, DeliRadio

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In the past month, I’ve seen more and more Internet entrepreneurs get into the streaming radio game, but with a local angle. These three, in particular, have potential for people who want to listen to music coming out of their hometown. Columbus bands: These ventures are still in the beginning stages, and they rely heavily on bands creating their own profiles, submitting their own music, etc. So if you want to be heard in this way, follow the links and get in touch.

Bandwidth
Bandwidth isn’t finished yet, and the name is just a working title, but you can see a demo of the app in the video above. The app is the brainchild of Bullet Jones singer Ryan Cox. He explains it this way: “Bandwidth is essentially Pandora for local music. Specifically, it is a free music/radio streaming app with content comprised entirely of local musicians from around the country. A listener will be able to populate a streaming radio station on any number of criteria, including genre, locale, similar artists, etc. So, for instance, if I were so inclined, I could listen to a station with all of the rock bands in Chicago, hip-hop acts in New York, or country artists in Nashville.”

Cox is hoping for a closed launch in Columbus this summer and a nationwide release next year. Bands can contact Cox [ryanpatrickcox at gmail.com] to submit music.

ColumbusLocalMusic.com’s “CLM Radio”
Columbus Local Music launched in January with the tagline “Listen Local.” According to CLM, “The website suggests local artists to listeners based upon personal preferences. After a listener specifies their favorite musical genres and bands, the website can use that information to make suggestions from their catalog of Columbus artists and bands. Suggestions are made based upon listeners “tagging” bands as sounding similar to more well-known artists. With each new “tag” the service gains a better understanding of what a band sounds like, which will in turn help others discover their music.”
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Why “Record Store Day sucks” arguments suck

This Irish Times article titled “Why Record Store Day can’t bring the good times back” was the final straw in a series of bah-humbug complaints posited by music fans about Record Store Day. Of course the day has its faults, and of course it can be abused, but I’ve yet to hear an argument that convinces me it’s a bad idea. The arguments usually go like this:

1. “Record shops are not just for Record Store Day.”

True. But that’s a pretty terrible reason to be a Scrooge about a day that brings in money for the record stores that so-called True Vinyl Collectors frequent all the other weeks of the year.
a.) It’s snobby and smacks of the type of record-snob elitism that keeps average Joes out of record shops.
b.) I’ve spoken to several shop owners who say that every year RSD brings new people into their shops, and a good chunk of those people then become regular customers, which means that this complaint is actually an argument for RSD.
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Polaris Amphitheater demolition nearly complete

Columbus Business First reports that Germain Amphitheater, which most people still refer to as Polaris Amphitheater, is nearly gone. All that remains is the steel pavilion.

Developer NP Ltd. bought the property for $5.5 million earlier this year. From Business First:

“That pavilion is major amounts of steel. It takes a lot to do that,” [NP managing director Franz Geiger] said. “We’ve taken down all the graffitied buildings and the ancillary buildings.” NP hasn’t decided what it will do with the site, though Geiger expects it to be a mixed-use development, he said.

See Cary Whitt’s two sets of Polaris post-mortem pics before the demolition began.