Aquamarine, the seven-song EP released in January and available to download for FREE, is not something you’d typically expect to come out of the Columbus music scene. In a city that is recognized by national press for it’s lo-fi/shitgaze sound, Love Culture in the antithesis of what we’ve allowed to pass as “good” music for the past decade which means, of course, they stand no chance unless they move to a more supportive city like Chicago, L.A., or New York.

Though I’ve yet to catch Love Culture live, I suspect a lot of time and thought is put into the presentation of the music – everything from the lighting to the clothes that are worn are planned out in advance to create the most memorable experience for those who pay a cover charge. At least that’s the impression the music gives – it’s polished and radio-ready although given an actual major label recording budget, Love Culture has the potential to create something truly epic. As it stands, Aquamarine hits all of my right buttons (I hear everything from BRMC to Silversun Pickups to the aforementioned Smashing Pumpkins and Kill Hannah in their sound) and is one of my favorite local releases of the last 10 years.

Hell, even the band member’s names sound like those of rock stars – Tristan Swan (vocals/guitar), Raleigh Swan (guitar/keys), James Levesque (guitars/keys), Sky Cunningham (bass), Robert Fisher (drums).

Catch Love Culture, Main St. Gospel, Wolf Ram Heart, and Alert New London at Skully’s, March 9. Admission is free.

Thanks bustown, last nite was all the way live. Word to the wise: if your chest is hella will farrell, jumping on stage w no shirt=bad look.

rj twitter again:

@wesflexner @donewaiting thanks for setting last nite up PROPERRRRR.

Keep reading for more photos.

photos by dkline

Soul Position Reunion with Blueprint

@printmatic- good to see you fam! Let’s make the soul position 3peat happen this year. Cause this year, suckers are goin…..

….commisioner crotchbuttons #pause

…sometimes a phone call can make your day….

“i love the scene that created me..copywrite..blueprint..envelope…thought set…i love columbus”

DJ Detox spun in between groups and kept the mood perfect and warm played everything Jay Electronica and Blakroc early, as well as local Hip Hop classics like the RJD2 produced Mhz song “Rocket Science” and hip hop staples like Black Sheep and Tribe leading up to RJ’s epic headling performance.
NP of Thought Set was showcased during their opening set.(He is the third guy on “A Son’s Cycle” off the Colossus. And was joined onstage by Envelope for “Turn It Up”. Enphanate dropped a 5 minute long, jaw-dropping accapella that had patterns and punchlines.

Happy Chichester started his set beatboxing through a pedal that looped it, which he sang and played over.

I didn’t catch much of Kenan Bell’s set because I had to run around.

This all took place during a blizzard.

I think his performance was more refined than the opener that I came to see, the Muthafucking Gaslamp Killer.

Gaslamp Killer

Of course,Gaslamp only did a dejay set so maybe he was just playing his part as an opener.
The Los Angeles DJ/ producer/Flying Lotus/Stones Throw affiliate awkwardly blended a broad spectrum of music. Dropping everything from Turkish Psych to Indelible Emcees to NIN to Snoop Dawg to Dubstep.
Someone yelled play some dubstep while he was playing dubstep.
Womp womp womp womp in Charlie Brown teacher voice as they call dubstep on the Hollertronix board…dubstep is truely the new drum n bass.

The Summit was packed from front to back when he performed with a good amount of ravers, and hippies.
If a dejay is from Philly, Bmore, BK or another East Coast city the crowd is gonna be more preppy either hipsterhopped or indie rocked out.
If a dejay is from out West then hella hippies will be in the building
Make sense. Hippies get their trends from SF.
Hipsters..out East.
Gaslamp is from LA.  He is white and has dreads.
Though I was surprised by the patchouli in the air, I still enjoyed his performance.

The crowd at the sold-out Summit loved it. Before Gaslamp ended his set with Live @ the BBQ and Mr. Sandman, Gaslamp announced that this was the best show on the tour so far.
He had a huge line at the merch booth so I guess you will be seeing Gaslamp tshirts around town.

Kurt Vile and the Violators’ stop in Columbus on NYE eve pretty much lived up to my expectations. The loud psych numbers (“Hunchback,” “Freak Train”) were head-crunching and fist-pumping, and the acoustic selections (“Heart Attack,” “Dead Alive”) echoed with robust fingerpicking and Vile’s casually tossed-off vocals.

Matt Whitehurst of openers Psychedelic Horseshit probably said it best when he announced from the stage that listening to Vile will be like, “When you’re shaving but you don’t have any shaving cream and you’re just, like, shaving your face off… but pretty.”

“Freak Train” was a highlight of the night for me; guesting Rich Horseshit (above, right) on sax was a perfect fit for the controlled chaos. I’m also partial to the talk-singing and “knit me a sweater” Joni Mitchell references on “Dead Alive.”

The Childish Prodigy-centric set was interrupted a few times when the sound cut out. Each time there was some awkward/bummer silence, then Moons Dustin would emerge from the back of the Summit with some sort of wrench in his hand. Weird. The Violators were somehow able to jump right back into the middle of “Freak Train.” (Not so much “Good Lookin Out”).

A few complaints: It was short (though I can’t blame them with all the power outages; just imagine if that’d happened at Jay Reatard’s Summit show…). And I would have liked to hear just a track or two from God is Saying This to You, maybe a couple of them solo? And I’m still waiting see him bust out his banjo skills… But I’d listen to this set all over again.

Great seeing Tommy Jay (above), too. His solo acoustic set, combined with Psychedelic Horseshit’s raucous performance (punctuated by a sorta awesome dub jam), were good precursors to Vile’s split personality.

Kurt Vile set list:
Hunchback
Freak Train
Monkey
Heart Attack
[Can’t decipher my chicken scratch--anybody?]
Dead Alive
Freeway
Good Lookin Out
Breathin Out

Showing their love for Columbus – a city that is a regular tour stop – The Willowz kicked off their short December tour at Cafe Bourbon Street this past Friday night with a tight and efficient 40-minute set heavily loaded with tracks from Everyone (physical release: Dec.15).

If there were opening night of the tour jitters, they weren’t obvious – no miscues on lyrics, no starting or stopping a song too early, no confusion about the setlist. The interaction with the small – but attentive – audience was limited, a few Columbus references and a lot of post-song ‘Thank you’s’ delivered by singer Richie James Follin with a southern twang. Darren, Pete and I tried to determine where Follin was from and if the accent was real and in the cab on the way home we came to the consensus that the twang wasn’t real. (Mr. Follin, please correct us if we’re wrong).

(Darren and Pete)

As with previous Willowz material, the new stuff is heavy on the bluesy, hard garage rock which I’ve often compared to the White Stripes. When trying to sell a co-worker on going to the show by giving her a copy of Everyone, she said their stuff reminded her of Led Zeppelin and Wolfmother, neither of which I would have compared The Willowz to but after seeing them live for the first time, I think I can kind of see where that comparison was coming from.

Not really sure how many songs The Willowz played during their set but I’m guessing they played somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 songs including “Cons and Tricks” from 2006’s Talk in Circles. This song was my introduction to the band and it remains one of my favorites though there are a number of songs on Everyone that are equally as good.

A good night overall that would have been a lot better had the show started earlier. I “get” that Friday night shows aren’t going to start at 9pm, especially when there are only two bands on the bill, but 11:30 seems too late to kick things off.

Maybe I’m just becoming my dad.

View all of Rachael’s photos from the show.

At 9:09, a text arrived from Justin Hemminger of SPD GVNR: “Uncle Bob is here.”

Being a fan of GBV, and having seen Pollard get hammered at random Ohio bars over the years, this revelation shouldn’t have alarmed or surprised me. Pollard is a drinker. He is as well known for his obnoxious love of modest lager as he is for his high kicks and prolific songwriting. What made these text messages goofy was the fact that last night was Guided By Voices Appreciation Night at The Treehouse. Bob was there to listen to, as Kyle Sowash remarked, “a bunch of shitty bands play his own songs.”

Organized by Sowash, our berg’s enigmatic, happy and handsome, rock and roll prince, GBV Appreciation Night featured 10 or 11 Columbus bands playing nothing but GBV songs. Because if there is one band that most of us turds can agree on, the band is GBV.

When I finally got to the Treehouse, with my guitar and tacklebox in hand, all the slack motherfuckers set to play were both giddy and nervous. Pollard, his brother, Nate Farley and some dude that looked like a young Gary Busey (wearing camoflauge cargo pants), were at a table in the back of the tree room sucking down Miller Lites. A friend of a friend told me he heard Bob say, “I can’t wait to hear my fucking songs, maaaan.”

Peppercorn, pack leader of The Whiles, was all nerves. “I shoulda spent more time with the lyrics,” he said as we high-fived. Thirty minutes later into the night, the While’s were spot on during “Dragons Awake!” and “Postal Blowfish.”
Pollard hugged Peppercorn after the Whiles finished their set and instructed Joe, “you can play me in the Guided By Voices movie.” Joe had a face boner for the rest of the night.

As the Cabdrivers played, I hid in the back of the tree room. Everyone, including Pollard, was impressed by the Cabdriver’s rendition of “Cut Out Witch.” “Better than we ever diiiid it,” Farley said to Bob.

To stave off an allergic reaction to antibiotics, I was pretty juiced on Rolling Rocks and Benadryl by the time me, Adam Dowell and Dan Bell played our four songs. Bell had us drink Rolling Rock since all of the songs we played were from Propeller and Bee Thousand. It was GBV’s swill of choice back then, long before Bob and company started counting calories.

I’m not trying to glorify the modern molotovs. I’m actually trying to justify using cheat sheets with scribbled chords on them, because EVERY other band, at least the ones I heard and saw, played their sets from memory with a spirited, surgical focus. However, in retrospect, playing a lot of wrong chords may have been a more honest replication of the Crying Your Knife Away recording.

Bob bumbled out of the room at around the same time that SPD GVNR was about to play. It’s too bad, because he missed the best set of the night, including monstrous renditions of “Motor Away,” “Dayton Ohio Nineteen Something and…,” “Official Ironman Rally Song” and “Bulldog Skin.”

Everyone sang along.

—————-

Other highlights:
THE KYLE SOWASHES – “I am a Tree” & “Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory”
ANIMAL CUBES – “Glad Girls”
WOOSLEY BAND – “Do The Earth”
ERIC NASSAU – “As We Go Up, We Go Down”
BOOKMOBILE – “Watch Me Jumpstart”

Billy Peake is the lead singer/guitarist of Bicentennial Bear.

Boston Rapper Edan dropped psych-hop classic Beauty and the Beat in 2005. So long ago, that alot of us thought dood was a done deal. The album was so layered and textured that maybe it was impossible to follow-up.
Luckily, Traffic Entertainment broke Edan off with their back catalog of early 80’s rap, disco, funk and punk records.
This gave Edan more than enough to obessess over.

Like normally some 80’s Hip Hop throwback would make me want to vomit on the nearest nerd wearing a Jurassic 5 shirt. But there is no corny staleness on this.
The best I can describe is like this: Imagine its 1979, Hip Hop is burgeoning but you still listen to Black Sabbath. One night you smoke dust before painting a Subway Car. Afterwords, Your painting partner invites you to a park jam in the South Bronx where doods are relaying all kinds of records and chanting wild shit over a p.a. You’re buzzed off the xylene in the paint, and the joy of just doing your name big. You are faded and amped at the same time. Although you’re bugged out a little, you’re a chill bachleour. Still a royal charmer; So thru all this you pull a flygirl in tight jeans while still feeling really wavy.

There is no rapping by Edan on this. Which is however you feel. Some people think his 88 Big Daddy Kane rhymestyles are hard. Some people think it shows that he doesn’t listen to enough Freeway or Joey Jihad.

Just blends, backmasks, distorts,clavichords, kazoo’s, pedals, flanges. Echo Party keeps a fun, pleasent disorientation throughout the mix.
When he doubles up the vintage rap chants, its some thing like this: “i got a new rap. it’s all about space. i got a new rap. it’s all about space.space space space space.” then will add some other old rap shit like, ‘the economy, sucks, everyone is terrible. do you want to stay here or go to outerspace?’
Anyway. The top video is a good sampling of what the mix about. The bottom video is Edan handmaking the covers for the vinyl of Echo Party

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mustaine and co. turned in a great 1.5 hours (20 songs) worth of classic Megadeth hits plus a handful of new ones.

Read the full show review and see more pictures over on AtomicNed.com.

I remember the first time I heard the name Andrew Bird. Though I’m somewhat ashamed to admit this, it was Friday, April 13th, 2007. (Yes, the last time he played the Southern Theatre.) The sweetly meek Chicagoan happened to be one of the faces I was serving at a restaurant that afternoon. I had no idea of the talent sitting in front of me and was honestly just happy he was polite and low-maintenance.

Two years later…

With the melodies still reverberating through my head a full week after the his Wexner Center show at the Southern, it’s safe to say the sold-out show was worth it’s equivocal weight in musical gold. (And I officially feel stupid.) Between the consistently eloquent tone of his lyrics and his equally impressive skill as a one-man ensemble, Bird himself proved to be a Noble Beast. His endearing awkwardness in small-talk between songs filled the theater with a charm that was inescapable. Bird encored with St. Vincent and covered Bob Dylan’s “Oh Sister,” which was a true treat.

Opener St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark) played an electric set that primed the anticipatory mood of the evening. Clark is touring on her newest album, Actor, which is a mature progression from the last. (I’ve found it impossible to stop listening to either.) She somehow managed to juggle a perfectly rosy demeanor with some bad-ass guitar playing in a way only someone who had once been in a 23-piece band could.

Both acts continue separate tours through the end of the year.

MP3: Nothin’ to Lose

Dragged Out, the 2006 debut album from Columbus’ The Lindsay, remains one of my all-time favorite Columbus releases. Unfortunately, due to the death of their label and, I don’t know, real life, the foursome has been unable to issue an official followup over the last three years. Though this has obviously been a disappointment to their fans, the band has soldiered on and used that time to become one of the top live acts in town while also sharpening their material on the live stage. The band is now able to reward the vigilant for their patience by issuing a new EP entitled Syrup Bag.

Syrup Bag is a 7-song ball of energy that includes versions of “Change My Oil” and “Thurston Moore Sed” that have been reworked since their previous appearance on the 2007 cdr Live At The Fillmore West. As soon as the intro to opener “It’s Not Easy” ends, the music rings with an emotional intensity that lasts throughout the EP’s 23 minutes. The band uses this fire to cover a relatively large range of moods for seven songs, boisterously bouncing from anger to cheeky contentment relatively easily. Despite all of these shifting elements, the material also displays a sharp focus on crafting a cohesive batch of scrappy bursts of song.

Lead vocalist John Olexovitch guides the ship with sharp wit and self-deprecating humor to spare, whether describing band communication problems (“Band Meeting”) or telling jaunty tales of the rock ‘n roll struggle (“Nothin’ To Lose”). The rest of the quartet carries their weight just fine though, with a tight rhythm section, chewy lead guitar parts, and backing/duet vocals courtesy of bassist Gretchen Tepper that follow Olexovitch’s lead perfectly.

Syrup Bag comes into existence with a release party at The Summit on Friday night (10/23). Besides the title attraction, the bill also boasts sets from fellow local stalwarts Brainbow and Outerspacist. More details here. Serious party for an album worth celebrating.