TJSA

Sundown

Zero Star

Bill Fox

Sundown

TJSA

P. Blackk

Check out the rest of the picures.

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.

Above is an mp3 of one of my favorite Mice tracks off Scooter, “Little Rage” (which Fox has been known to play solo from time to time), along with an mp3 of “I Only Did it Cuz I Felt So Lonely,” a Mice-evoking song off Fox’s recently released limited-run Before I Went to Harvard cassette.

Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, Bill Fox, P. Blackk, Zero Star, Sundown and DJ Detox will play Friday, Feb. 3, at Ace of Cups. Note: That’s a lot of bands, so this will start earlier than most shows. Be sure to get there by 10pm to see Bill Fox.

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:

This here weblog has been around for almost a decade, and that’s reason to celebrate. We’ll do that by bringing three amazing bands, an emcee and a deejay to Ace of Cups on Feb. 3 in Columbus, Ohio. Needless to say, you should come celebrate with us:

Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments are not just reuniting for this show. Ron House, Bob Petric and crew are playing their seminal 1995 Onion/American record Bait & Switch front to back. Rick Rubin would be proud. Wes Flexner also informed me that TJSA was once featured in Egotrip magazine, one of the greatest hip hop magazines of all time, which is fitting, considering our next artist…

Zero Star, via Wes – “Zero Star has proven to be one of the coldest rappers in Columbus by making classics with the late DJ Przm, the venerable Blueprint and upstarts like J. Maggz and Chozin, as well as dolo appearances on Grindtime and 107.5′s ‘In The Booth.’”

Bill Fox: We talk about Bill Fox almost as much as the Black Keys on this blog. The Cleveland troubadour who used to helm The Mice has become one of my favorite songwriters of all time, and by the time Feb. 3 rolls around, he’ll have a new album to play behind. But really, even without a new album, any Bill Fox show is a big deal and rare treat.

Sundown: It was probably only a matter of time before TK Webb put together a band here in Columbus after moving from Brooklyn (Kansas City before that). He chose the right partners: Dustin White (Moons), Blake Pfister (Moon High) and Grant Driskell (TV Eye). Don’t sleep on the band’s debut cassette EP, Mansion Burning, and keep your ear out for more stuff the band is currently recording.

DJ Detox: If you’ve been coming to this site for any period of time, or you even occasionally attend shows, you know Detox. He’s one of the most in-demand deejays in the city. He’ll spin tunes between sets.

Feel free to RSVP on Facebook.

UPDATE: P.Blackk added to the show!

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.

Last year, at a rare in-store performance at Lost Weekend Records, Cleveland’s Bill Fox played a tune called “Men Who are Guilty of Crimes.” I don’t know when he wrote it, but it felt particularly timely last summer, given that the cleanup of the BP oil spill was ongoing and the song implored Congress to “put the blame on BP.”

Ex-Clevelander Michael Nigro realized the song’s 2011 potential as the anthem for the Occupy Wall Street movement and tracked down a recording of the unreleased tune to soundtrack an OWS video montage called “Faces, Signs and Sentiments at Occupy Wall Street.” Check it out, above. (HT: I Rock Cleveland.)

Bill Fox was slated to play the Megacity Music Marathon last month at Woodlands Tavern but couldn’t make it. Fortunately, he’s coming back to town Nov. 5 for a show at Cafe Bourbon St., along with two acoustic sets from Jim McKeivier and Marcy Mays (doors at 9pm, $6).

“Men Who Are Guilty of Crimes” lyrics:

Oh canvassers, activists, congressmen plead
Put the blame down on Dow, put the blame on BP
But the ones who are guilty are the ones we don’t see
These men are guilty of crimes

Polluters of earth, they stand far away
They lay in their mansions, they hide away
Send down their lawyers, send them for pay
To get themselves out of their crimes

Now this earth is yours and this earth is mine
This earth has been trampled for a sad design
Children are poisoned, there’s lives on the line
These men are guilty of crimes

Crimes against love, crimes against birth
Crimes against women and flesh of the earth
Crimes by the men who would lead us to dearth
These men are guilty of crimes

In a downtown skyline, towers they leap
To the birds of the air where the soil’s not deep
And every day there are contracts to keep
Signed by men who are guilty of crimes

Crimes against me, crimes against you
Crimes against many for the profit of few
What can be done? What will we do?
These men are guilty of crimes

Then a courtroom, some corporate judge will sound
Pounding his gavel with the lights all around
And the only ones who will not be found…
Men who are guilty of crimes

MP3: The Bygones – Losin’ Blues
MP3: 84 Nash – The Giggle Party
MP3: Bigfoot – Hey Nadine
MP3: Bill Fox – Appalachian Death Sigh

As we’ve mentioned previously, Bob Miller’s PBR-sponsored Megacity festival debuts this Saturday (9/10) at Woodlands Tavern, and it’s a reunion-heavy lineup: 84 Nash, The Cusacks, The Bygones, Bigfoot, plus the original lineup of Tree of Snakes and Chris McCoy‘s first Columbus show in a year. Bill Fox is coming down from Cleveland, Wussy and the Seedy Seeds are coming up from Cincinnati, Kevin Failure of Pink Reason is coming from his overseas tour (where apparently he broke some ribs).Plus plenty of other great Columbus bands, many of whom have something special planned for Saturday.

Also, I wrote a story for this week’s Other Paper about Megacity and the other two music fests coming up in the next two weeks, Music Week Columbus and Independents’ Day.

Here’s the full lineup and set times for Megacity’s three stages (two indoor, one outdoor):

RED STAGE
12:30 The Salty Caramels
1:30 The Cusacks
2:30 Swimsuit Edition
3:30 Nick Tolford & Co.
4:30 Mt. Carmel
5:30 The Bygones
6:30 The Lindsay
7:30 Tree of Snakes
8:30 84 Nash

BLUE STAGE
1 The Spikedrivers
2 Flotation Walls
3 The Kyle Sowashes
4 You’re So Bossy
5 Chris McCoy & Sean Beal
6 Bill Fox
7 Saintseneca
8 Bigfoot
10 Psychedelic Horseshit
10:45 Radio People
11:30 Pink Reason
12:15 The Unholy Two
1 EYE

WHITE STAGE
12:30 The Parishioners
1:30 Mr. Tiger
2:30 TK Webb
3:30 Andrew Graham + Swarming Branch
4:30 Bird & Flower
5:30 Drunk on Horseback
6:30 Tin Armor
7:30 Alleyes Path
10:15 Professional Wrestling
11:15 The Seedy Seeds
12:15 Wussy
1:15 Washington Beach Bums

P.S. Thanks to Minimum Tillage Farming for the Bygones and Bigfoot mp3s, and Wilfully Obscure for 84 Nash. Download full albums at those sites.

Sometimes i think I should have went to weird college. Antioch had that graffiti student union and real cool laws that encouraged dirty talk.
And then there is Oberlin which never seems to sleep on the raps, and also the rock n rolls. Saturday, May 14th, Slick Rick the freakin’ Ruler will play Oberlin along with the new Ed Mcmahon, Questlove , Bill Fox, Columbus’s Andrew Graham & the Swarming Branch and more as part of Jackfest
A bunch of Oberlin bands and others like the Born Ruffians are also peforming.
Click this link to learn more about Jackfest.
Click on this link that was on the page I just recommended.

But in terms of new stuff, here’s what I liked this year, starting with national releases and ending with Cowtown LPs.

1. Strand of Oaks – Pope Killdragon
I didn’t immediately hit repeat when I heard this album, but once I came back to it, I never stopped. Who knew a record with songs about John Belushi (from the perspective of Dan Akroyd), a 12-foot man and JFK could be so engrossing. Devastating, too. If you think Tim Showalter is just another pretty-voiced folkie, the layers of synth and Sabbath-like riffs on “Giant’s Despair” prove otherwise. The best way to get Killdragon digitally or on vinyl is through Strand of Oaks’ Kickstarter page.

2. The Black Keys – Brothers
Ditto Duffy.


3. Anais Mitchell – Hadestown
A folk-rock opera about Orpheus sounds like a terrible idea. Thanks to Mitchell’s clever arrangements & talents like Greg Brown, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and Low Anthem’s Ben Knox Miller, it’s a tour de force.

4. Sam Amidon – I See the Sign
Sam Amidon takes old songs and makes them new. Oh, and R. Kelly songs, too. Fans of Nick Drake and Sufjan will dig this. Feb. 18 show at the Wex with Brian Harnetty is icing.

5. Local Natives – Gorilla Manor
No new ground broken, but I’ll take these songs any day over a lot of the big-name, anthemic indies who released albums this year.

6. Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest
People seem to either love or discard Bradford Cox. I love him. Album cover disturbs me.

7. Sufjan Stevens – Age of Adz
I went from disappointed to intrigued to enraptured with this album.

8. Spoon – Transference
I’m still waiting for Spoon to release a bad album.

9. Lost in the Trees – All Alone in an Empty House
Prediction: By this time next year many more people will know the name Ari Picker. He can strip a song down to its bones on one song, then compose a rich orchestral piece the next. Wex show Jan. 30 (more icing).

10. Patty Griffin – Downtown Church
I don’t imagine many Donewaiting readers are into country gospel. (I’ll echo Duffy’s preamble about what makes DW great.) When it’s done this well, I’m a fan. Guests include Buddy Miller and Emmylou Harris.

Mention-worthy:
Justin Townes Earle – Harlem River Blues (underrated b/c of daddy)
Surfer Blood – Astro Coast (kids are all right)
Shearwater – The Golden Archipelago (Meiburg the magnificent)
Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More (It’s in my most-played, so I must like it)
Sun Kil Moon – Admiral Fell Promises (underrated guitarist)
Love Language – Libraries (underrated b/c of …)
Vampire Weekend – Contra (Better than the first)
Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (“That’s why your Winslow”)
Mavis Staples – You are Not Alone (Legend made even better by Tweedy)
Lower Dens – Twin-Hand Movement (Jana Hunter > Devendra Banhart. Much greater.)
Mountain Man – Made the Harbor (Who needs instruments?)

Columbus albums
Like I said, Gibson Bros., but I’d remiss not to mention Columbus Discount Records‘ two other reissues I loved: Ron House’s Blind Boy in the Back Seat and Nudge Squidfish’s 20,000 Leagues Under Nashville. I liked some EPs, too (Way Yes, Spruce Campbells’ 1st) and a 7″ (TNV’s “No Room to Live”) or two, but I’m sticking with albums here. As usual, I’ll also clarify that I’m not separating these lists because these are somehow inferior or can’t compete with national releases. I just like doing it this way.

1. Super Desserts – Twee as Folk
Can’t say much more about this band and album that I haven’t already said. This is the Desserts at the top of their game.

2. The Black Swans – Words are Stupid
One way the Black Swans have honored the memory of violinist Noel Sayre is to still include him on this album, a meditation of sorts on how language fails us. It’s light, it’s dark, it’s great.

3. Time and Temperature – Cream of the Low Tide
I don’t know if this is an EP or an album, so I’ll say it’s an album. At long last. More from Val Glenn, please.

4. Ghost Shirt – Daniel
I don’t think you want to hear me talk about this band anymore, either. This record was a pleasant, late-fall surprise.

5. Micah Schnabel – When the Stage Lights Go Dim
It makes sense that the songs of the Two Cow Garage front man hold up with just an acoustic guitar.

6. Andrew Graham & Swarming Branch – Andrew Graham’s Good Word
I’m still surprised by how little press this Mexican Summer release got. “Take it Easy on Kathy, at Least she Can Dance” is one of my favorite Columbus songs released this year.

7. Nick Tolford & Company – Extraordinary Love
Soul! At least go download “End of the Night.”

8. The Kyle Sowashes – Nobody
“I threw up at Tee-Jaye’s on Wednesday night/ Pale-faced and clammy I was something of a sight/ We played a show at some basement bar/ And while they couldn’t pay us/ They gave us PBR/ So I took it as a challenge/ I tried to drink them all/ Each one went down better than the last as I recall/ And I’d forgotten to eat dinner/ I realized too late/ I got double dragon before the waitress brought my plate.” Long live Kyle Sowash.

9. Deathly Fighter – Completely Dusted
I remember seeing Deathly Fighter awhile back and being bored. It’s not usually my thing. But this album keeps me coming back. I think I like it for the same reasons I like the XX and Burial. Not that DF sounds anything like those two, but there’s something about a record that’s simultaneously chill and pulsing…

10. Earwig – Gibson Under Mountain
Didn’t get to this one for awhile, but now find myself humming these songs all the time.

Mention-worthy:
Phantods – Creature (need to spend more time with this)
Bookmobile – The New Patriot (bittersweet)
Two Cow Garage – Sweet Saint Me (consistency)

Recorded on June 4, 1988 at Mather Courtyard on the campus of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland Ohio, power-pop legends THE MICE perform two songs that began their appearance on the WRUW radio series LIVE FROM CLEVELAND.