Category Archives: Cleveland

Brite Winter: Cleveland’s outdoor art & music fest on Feb. 16

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I love the audacity of Cleveland’s Brite Winter festival, the brainchild of Jimmy Harris and Emily Hornack (formerly of Case Western Reserve). On Saturday, Feb. 16, in the dead of winter, Bad Racket Recording’s Thomas Fox has booked 48 bands to play outside on six stages. And it’s all free. Here’s how they explain it:

There might be snow, there might be rain, it might be cold, it might be a blizzard, but it doesn’t really matter. This is Cleveland, and we’re going to play outside. Going on our fourth year, we’ve had more support than ever before, as our region has decided that waiting for summer to have fun is not an acceptable way to live. Sure, we’ll have to work a little bit harder for to get what we want… that’s just like us too.

Check out the lineup below, which includes Columbus bands like The Floorwalkers, Maza Blaska, Saintseneca, Tin Armor and others. Full schedule here.
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Video: Dolfish – “I’d Rather Disappear than Stay the Same”

Via American Songwriter. Dolfish’s album of the same name is out 10/31 on Afternoon Records. You can stream it in full over at Paste.

Radiohead tour includes stops at Blossom on June 6, Riverbend June 5

Radiohead added some US tour dates for the summer, including a welcome date at Cleveland’s Blossom on June 6 with Other Lives and Riverbend in Cincinnati June 5. Tickets for the new dates (in ital) go on sale Thursday.

Radiohead 2012 North America dates:
03/05 – Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center *
03/07 – Austin, TX @ Frank Erwin Center *
03/09 – St. Louis, MO @ Scottrade Center *
03/11 – Kansas City, MO @ Sprint Center *
03/13 – Broomfield, CO @ 1stBank Center *
03/15 – Glendale, AZ @ Jobing.com Arena *
04/09 – Seattle, WA @ Key Arena *
04/11 – San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion *
04/12 – Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl *
04/14 – Indio, CA @ Coachella Music Festival
04/17 – Mexico City, MX @ Foro Sol ^*
04/18 – Mexico City, MX @ Foro Sol ^*
04/21 – Indio, CA @ Coachella Music Festival
05/29 – Mansfield, MA @ Comcast Center
05/31 – Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center
06/01 – Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center
06/03 – Washington, DC @ Verizon Center
06/05 – Cincinnati, OH @ Riverbend Music Center
06/06 – Cuyahoga Falls, OH @ Blossom Music Center

06/08 – Manchester, TN @ Bonnaroo Music Festival
06/10 – Tinley Park, IL @ First Midwest Bank Ampitheatre
06/11 – Auburn Hills, MI @ The Palace of Auburn Hils
06/13 – Camden, NJ @ Susquehanna Bank Center
06/15 – Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre
06/16 – Toronto, ON @ Downsview Park

* = w/ Other Lives
^ = w/ Caribou

(via Consequence of Sound)

Donewaiting 9: Bill Fox

MP3: Bill Fox – I Only Did it Cuz I Felt So Lonely
MP3: The Mice – Little Rage

I think we’ve spent plenty of time talking about Bill Fox’s two solo albums and most recent record, One Thought Revealed, so let’s take a second to revisit Fox’s beginnings with Cleveland power-pop band The Mice. Fox started the band with his drummer brother, Tommy Fox, eventually bringing bassist Ken Hall on board. The For Almost Ever EP came out in 1985, and it made a believer out of many, including Bob Pollard, who shares Fox’s love of tasty hooks and faux English accents. “Not Proud of the USA” is like a Cleveland kid’s version of the Sex Pistols.

A full-length, Scooter, followed in ’86, adding some jangle to the fuzz and further perfecting that mix of power and pop. (Superchunk later covered the track “Bye Bye Kitty Cat.”) You can now download both releases as one, For Almost Ever Scooter, courtesy Scat Records. A final album, Canterbury Bells, was never released, but you can probably find it if you dig around the Internets a bit. Continue reading

Download: Chip Tha Ripper “Tell Ya Friends” Mixtape

Chip Tha Ripper returns with new project that features production from Lex Luger, Hi-Tek, Dot Da Genius and more.
Wale, Kid Cudi, Krayzie Bone are some of the notable guests on this here tape.. Peep the tracklist after the jump.

Download Tell Ya Friends at Live Mixtapes

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MP3s: Los Nombres – “To Be Sure” & “Todos” (Numero Group reissue)

MP3: To Be Sure
MP3: Todos

Today Numero Group, Chicago’s masters of the amazingly detailed reissue, takes another dip into Ohio’s unsung soul history with a self-titled release from Los Nombres. Los Nombres were a late 60s Latin Soul group from Lorain with a sound matching up with their more famous counterparts in New York and Los Angeles. Fresh off their two Grammy nominations for their recent monster of a Syl Johnson anthology, Numero continues to release lovingly crafted reissues of unheralded classics.

MP3 Premiere: Bill Fox – “Whithering Soul”

MP3: Bill Fox – Whithering Soul

That right there is the album art and single for the first widely released Bill Fox record in more than a decade. One Thought Revealed comes out Jan. 17 through Jar Note Records, but you can preorder the CD now.

In one sense, the album is exactly what you’d expect: superb songwriting from someone CMJ once called “one of the most important artists of our day.” It follows the folk-inspired trajectory of Fox’s previous solo records (Shelter from the Smoke, Transit Byzantium), but One Thought Revealed isn’t a rehash of what Fox has proven he can do. It takes chances. There’s a saxophone solo. There’s giant, reverb-drenched snare hits. On “Whithering Soul” you’ll hear some in-the-red organ battling for rank with Fox’s dusty vocals, threatening to steal the song from a desperate man.

I’m sure Fox will have copies of the CD on hand at Donewaiting’s 9-Year Anniversary Show Feb. 3 with Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments (playing Bait & Switch in its entirety), P Blackk, Sundown, Zero Star and DJ Detox.

Also, file this under awesome but frustrating: In late fall, Gregory Lee Boyd’s tiny Cleveland imprint Treasure Records put out a Bill Fox cassette of previously unreleased material called Before I Went to Harvard. It’s an incredible record that plays like a bunch of Shelter and Byzantium outtakes that should have never been outtakes. (“Chain to Your Heart” could even pass for an early Mice demo.) But there were fewer than 100 released. Boyd is doing another small run, but it’ll sell out soon (or already has), and these songs deserve to be heard by many, many people.

I was able to obtain a copy (thanks Kyle Sowash!), so here’s a shot of the cassette front, which has the track list: Continue reading

MP3: Lolah Brown- “Here I Am” (Produced by Fly Union)

MP3: Here I am

Cleveland R+B singer Lolah Brown becomes one of the rare human beings to get an original Fly Union produced beat without FlydotU flowing on it.
Beautiful song.

Chomp: Done Waiting

Soundcloud: Done Waiting

Cleveland’s Cloud Nothings have certainly been on the DW radar of late, what with their appearance at this fall’s Ohio Film + Music Fest and a new album recorded by Steve Albini slated for release in January. However, the band’s Joe Boyer (also of Total Babes) has just upped the ante with his new side project, Chomp. This week our friends at Exit Stencil Records announced that a full-length Chomp album is tentatively planned for April, and gave us the first Chomp track for the world to hear, called…Done Waiting. An uplifting pop gem that instantly earned a place in our hearts. At the end of the day, aren’t we all just done waiting?

Bill Fox reveals new album details in interview

Bill Fox at the Treehouse, July 2010

Bill Fox — he of Cleveland’s The Mice, subject of Joe Hagan’s 2007 legend-establishing piece in The Believer and an Overlooked in Ohio alum — hasn’t released any new music since his two decade-old solo albums, Transit Byzantium and Shelter from the Smoke (the latter of which was reissued on vinyl in 2009 by Robert Griffin‘s Scat Records.) Nor has Fox granted an interview in years.

So I didn’t expect much more than a polite decline when I contacted Fox about his upcoming Columbus show on Saturday (details below). To my surprise, he emailed responses to some questions and revealed a new album coming in January:

As far as new material is concerned, there will indeed be an album released in January. The record is titled One Thought Revealed and will appear on Jar Note Records, a label which is being created by [friend and manager] Tim Rossiter. The CD was recorded autumn 2009 into last year with a couple of tracks written right around that time, a couple others around the millennium’s turn and several more 2006/2007, to the best of my recollect.

Read the full interview over at The Other Paper, where Fox also talks about Nada Surf’s cover of “Electrocution” and his song “Men Who are Guilty of Crimes,” which soundtracks a recent Occupy Wall Street video by ex-Clevelander Michael Nigro.

Bill Fox will play Cafe Bourbon St. (2216 Summit St.) Saturday (11/5) alongside acoustic sets from Jim McKeivier and Marcy Mays (Scrawl). Doors at 9 p.m. Cover: $6.