At this year’s Daymon Day people painted a mural that honored deceased local icons and members of the community Daymon Dodson,  DJ Przm, “E”, Camu Tao, Todd Minton and Andyman on the back of a handball court at Tuttle Park in Columbus, Ohio.

Check the mural out after the jump.

Daymon Dodson

DJ Przm

Emmanuel “E” Martin

Camu Tao

Todd Minton

AndyMan Davis

Ohio-based collective Higher Level Art pays tribute with this “Good Apples Better the Bunch” Steve Jobs graffiti mural.

Check out the entire Steve Jobs “Good Apples Better the Bunch” Memorial mural after the jump

MP3: Ohio Classic

Chozin Beatz (ft P. Blackk & Lxe For the Uncool)

Dope beat. Two elite Columbus Emcee’s? What could be better?

MP3: Hitlers In Brazil
MP3: Skitzo Brain
MP3: Killa Poe Lease (Kill the Police)

I wrote an article on Screaming Urge in this week’s The Other Paper. Screaming Urge were a pioneering punk band from here in Columbus that had their last performance on Saturday. The band had a lot of interesting things to say, so I figured I would post the interview with Columbus legends on Donewaiting.

The three above songs are off a cd Screaming Urge just released called Gory Years. Gory Years has remastered versions of Screaming Urge’s two albums, and their coveted 45. Classic material recorded from 79-81. I believe you can obtain a copy of this cd by contacting Screaming Urge’s Facebook.

I interviewed Michael Ravage (MRav), and Myke Rock (MRock) for the Other Paper story. Dave Manic, who also played in Great Plains, was not there for the interview because he lives in Erie, Pa. Dave Manic did play the reunion show. (Shirtless but without a half-beard). Danielle Kline who took the photo for the Other Paper story also asks a few questions.

W: What was Columbus, OH like in 1978?

Michael Ravage: We couldn’t get into any clubs. They wanted bands like McGuffey Lane. Cover bands. There was no punk. There was us, The Blades, (two bands whose names I couldn’t make out.hopefully someone post the bands names in comments)

W: How did you get into punk?

MRav: I was listening to a lot of Iggy Pop so that’s how I got into it and then went from there to the Sex Pistols.

W: Where was your first show?

MRav: Believe it or not it was at the Campus Methodist Center. I invented a thing called the ‘Nowhere shows’ they were called “Nowhere Fests,” we couldn’t find any place to play. I rented out the hall and we called it “Nowhere ’78″ we brought the four punk bands together to play and that was our first show.

W: What was the response like?

MRav: It was packed. The response was overwhelming so we did it every year after that up until 1996.

W: What were some bands that played the Nowhere Fest?

MRav: Hal and Maggie, Scrawl, RC Mob. All the big bands in town. What was that band Ron House had before the Great Planes? Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments. A couple hundred bands; it was always once a year.

W: Was it always at the Methodist Church?

MRav: No, too much happened at the Methodist Church that one time for them to ever have us back. They made me sign a contract that said no beer would be brought in. We brought beer, windows got broken, people moshed, people were throwing things. I owed them a lot of money after the show.

W: Did you pay them?

MRav: yeah, i took money off the door. Admission was only a dollar, but i had to take money off the top to pay for the broken windows.

W: So after you started throwing the festival did the bars start letting you play?

MRav: After the clubs started noticing that those drew big crowds then they started letting the punk kids in. Clubs like Major Chords, Mister Brown’s, Bernie’s of course, Apollo’s before it got too uncool.

W: So you joined the band in ’79 right?

MRoc: Yeah

Mrav: The bass player before him, i don’t consider a member of Screaming Urge at all. I consider him [MRoc] the original bass player the other guy was only in it for 5 months. He wasn’t a punk bass player, back then you couldn’t just find a punk bass player. There weren’t that many punks there just weren’t any around. So that guy filled in for a few months but Mike was true punk. His first song in the band was called “Fuck You.” He said that, I said, “You’re in the band.”

W: What areas of Columbus are you guys from?

MRoc: I’m from South Linden area but as a teenager I kinda grew up on campus. I would go home twice a week.

MRav: I didn’t move here until I was 21. I was a river rat from Marietta, OH.

W: There a lot of people from Marietta. Have you ever seen the Mothman?

MRav: I’m not sure.

W: When did you put your first record out?

MRav: 1980 we put out a single. We put out a 45 which goes for a lot of money on ebay now. We started recording in 1979. We didn’t get the vinyl out until 1980.

W: How did word spread about your record?

MRav: Remember these were all DIY releases. We were almost on Stiff Records but our manager blew that.

MRoc: Mainly it was word of mouth but we were also on focus magazine and then there was one before that. Monthly Planet.

MRav: Those helped a lot. We were the first punk band on the cover of Focus Magazine.

W: Where was Focus Magazine based out of?

MRav: Columbus.

MRoc: This was the predecessor to The Other Paper.

Hands me scrapbook, I start flipping through it

Screaming Urge Magnolia Thunderpussy 1980

MRav: We’re proud of this we played the first “Rock against Racism.” With Bobby Seale.

W: Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers?

MRav: Yes.

W: What year was this?

MRav: 1979

W: So Bobby Seal spoke?

MRoc: Yes Bobby Seal is a cool guy. We’re all cool with Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers.

MRav: And a lot of other people showed up that day too. The drummer of the New York Dolls. He came out with a surprise band. Jerry Nolan, he signed our drum heads and everything. We opened for the Ramones, of course, at the Agora

W: What year was that?

MRav: October 10, 1980. That was with Joey, Johnny, Marky and Deedee. We had to trade dressing rooms with them.

MRoc: That was Johnny’s birthday and they had a party. It was so completely trashed that they asked us, “Hey guys, can we switch dressing rooms?” We were like, “Yeah, pretty sure, you’re the Ramones.”

MRav: Joey was the nicest of the Ramones.

W: The Agora’s a pretty big venue. Punk must have gotten pretty big in Columbus by then?

MRav: We started in ’78, by 1980 we were able to go our first tour.

W: Where all did you tour?

MRoc: Our first tour took us from Ohio through Texas. East coast.

MRav: Do you know Ron House?

W: Yeah.

MRav: I saved his life.

W: How’d you do that?

MRav: He went with us on our first trip to New York, the first time we played CBGBs, on the way back I was driving…we had a blow out I was able to keep it under control. I saved Ron House’s life.

MRoc: The funny thing about the Ramones show, Marky Ramone, the drummer, that was the last show he played of the tour, there was a local woman

MRav: We’ll actually name her. Maureen Healy (check her out on the Facebook). She’s one of my Facebook friends, she’s very proud of this

MRoc: He was pretty taken with her and he decided he was just gonna hang out here. We played a couple parties with her. We played with him at the Dyke House.

Danielle: That’s the Legion of Doom

MRoc: It took years for him get back in the good graces of the Ramones.

MRav: So Maureen basically broke up the Ramones for a little whole.

MRav: The middle of the tour they had to stop it for two months.

Danielle: Who filled in for them?

MRav: Nobody, they had to stop the tour.

W: ‘Cause he wanted to hang out with a girl?

MRav: Local girl. She’s very proud of it.

W: So when you were touring Ohio, where did you play?

MRoc: Cleveland. We played Akron a couple times.

MRav: We played a huge outdoor festival in Dayton for some veterans.

MRoc: It was a family event.

MRav: We had this song called ‘War’ and there were all these veterans in the crowd, before we did the song MRoc yells to the crowd, “This is for all you shell-shocked mother fuckers.”

MRoc: There were thousands of people out there. It was definitely a mismatch for me.

MRav: We went with it, they booked us.

W: This was the late ’70s early ’80s, did people harass you for being punk? Did you have to fight people?

MRoc: We got close.

MRav: When we went down south we got in a lot of tiffs because hearing us on a record they’d book as a punk band, but then being southerners they’d be surprised when a black guy would walk in. They’d say, “Nah, nah, nah we can’t let you play here.” We’d say, “Why” and they’d be blunt and say, “You’ve got an n-word in the band”

MRoc: What was that one club in Marietta?

MRav: Marion. Even in Marion, OH they wouldn’t let us play.

MRoc: Yeah, yeah we had all kinds of problems. That was before I was wearing the flag.

W: So when people would say, ‘You can’t play,’ what would be your reaction?

MRav: We would say, “Fuck You”

MRoc: On show we actually had to wait, go play the show, and leave immediately. The bikers said I wouldn’t be safe. We didn’t have bodyguards. Club said, “we can’t guarantee your safety so you’re gonna have to leave right now”

W: What did you make of that?

MRoc: Well I was shocked. You don’t think of the northern part of the United States being like that.

Danielle: Did you ever have that problem in Columbus?

MRav: We had problems with singular people. One club we were playing in town an old man decided to come up to the stage and say, “A white maaan and a nigger.”

W: So you would spray paint your name on things right?

MRav: I never said “we” would spray paint our names on things. Someone would spray paint our name on things.

W: Did the police ever show up to one of your shows and ask why are you spray painting your band name on things?

MRav: No, not really.

MRoc: I talked to one officer and he just kinda said, “Hey, watch yourself.” This was after we did these guerilla shows. We did a show at 11th and High in the open on south campus, right there on the side walk. Of course we knew we’d only get through 2, maybe 3 songs before the cops would get there. So the cops would come and be like, ‘we just want to shut you down, we don’t want to take you to jail.’ We had a conversation with the chief of police and he said ‘you gotta stop the spray painting.’

W: About the graffiti, where did you spray paint?

MRav: On 8th and high, 13th and high. On the side of the Agora. They also didn’t know what to call us. They would call us new wave, they would call us punk.

W: You guys were a punk band though, right?

MRoc: Punk is a lot of stuff.

W: Was ‘Screaming Urge’ the only graffiti you saw around town?

MRav: The Colons, the Blades. We weren’t the only graffiti band. Local Gallery, the Warps. Sometimes you’d see ‘Screaming Urge’ spray painted on the walls and someone else would write ‘sucks’

MRoc: I thought we were friends.

W: Was that the only graffiti around campus?

MRav: yes, there’s nothing like the graffiti that’s out now.

MRoc: And if people didn’t know, then sometimes they’d would think we were a gang.

MRav: Channel 10 did a news story about the gangs in Columbus and showed some Screaming Urge graffiti.

W: Did you guys know Jim Shepherd?

MRav: Yes, extremely well. His ex wife lives down the street from me.

Screaming Urge Max’s Kansas City 1981

W: You played in Max’s Kansas City in 1981?

MRav: We took 9 people in our van to Max’s Kansas City. That was exhausting cause we slept in the van. 9 people with sweat dripping off the top of the ceiling. It was cold out but not with 9 people in a van. …One of the girls that we brought with us, Dana, the owner of Max’s Kansas City wanted her to stay in New York because he fell in love with her.

W: Let’s flash forward, 32 years later, what is this cd you gave me?

MRoc: We’re not calling it a CD release party but we are releasing the CD. It’s 2 albums and a 45 on one cd.

MRav: Remastered.

MRoc: Remastered, reordered and a new song list. More in the order than the albums themselves. It’s programmed.

MRav: It’s got 25 songs on it. It’s a good deal. Cheap! We’ll be selling them on our Facebook page too. Cheap!

W: Do you guys get on the net and read up on your following? Are you surprised that people worldwide know who you are?

MRoc: I am surprised because honestly i used to own them as frisbees but now you put on a screaming urge album…

MRav: You google Screaming Urge…

MRoc: People will be bidding hundreds of dollars for the same album.

MRav: I get on my email, we’re more popular in Japan and Italy then we ever were in America. We were on one of those ‘Killed by Death’ series’. No 6. I think that’s what spread us worldwide. I think the bootlegging by Killed By Death spread us to Italy and Japan. I open up my email and sometimes its hard to understand, it will say “45 Homework Good Condition Cover must. please please please.”

MRoc: Now it’s insane, I wish I had a stack of them. I saw one put up by Used Kids that went for $300.

MRav: it’s the scarcity of it. There were only 500 of them.

Danielle: Did you get them pressed at Mus.i.col?

MRav: Yeah, I’ve got the receipt.

W: What do you think of punk these days?

MRoc: It’s a lot different. People talk about Green Day, it’s more pop than it is punk. I can’t really call it punk, there’s nothing really wrong with them. They’ve got some good songs and everything but they’re millionaires. It’s hard to be punk and be a fricken millionaire.

W: What do you guys do these days?

MRav: We’re still playing music even though we’re not in Screaming Urge.

Screaming Urge Columbus,Ohio 2011

W:What made you guys decide to do this last reunion show?

MRoc:The date had to be right for Dave. The venue had to be the right place. Plus we are gonna turn to dust here pretty soon because we are so frickin’ old.

MRav:I am 56 now.We are averaging getting together every ten years now. I’m not gonna be 66, and singing “Homework”.

W:What do you guys think of the Police State? Do you think we live in a Police State?

MRoc:More now than ever.

MRav:We have a whole song. You will hear it on the cd. We had to change the words around there. See where it says “Killa Poe Lease”?

MRoc:It’s taken to a whole new level nowadays.

MRav:That song is about the police in Columbus, Ohio.

W:When you write a song called “Kill the Police”..What is your motivation behind that?

MRav:This was back during the heydays. When the police were just beating up people.

MRoc:Brutalizing Minorities. Longhairs.

W:Do you think we are still in a police state?

MRoc:Definitely. But I am 48 now, so I am not really willing to step up and bear the cross so to speak.

MRav:He is the baby of the group. I had to have a note from his mom when we went on tour saying ‘Michael Ravage is in charge of my son because he is underage.’

MRoc:When I booked the first tour I was 16. I was able to get into bars. Get served.

W:Your father being a blues musician..What does he think about you being in a punk band?

MRoc:At first, he didn’t know what to think. But he saw that other people understood what we were doing. And now he is proud of it. I am proud to see him come out. He hasn’t seen us play in ten years.

MRav:Our families have always been supportive. My whole family is going to be at the show.

MRoc:I still kinda cringe when I do songs like “War”. Every other word is fuck. It had fuck here, fuck there.

Danielle:Why did Dave have a half-beard?

MRav:He thought it was good look.

Danielle:How long did he have the half-beard?

MRav:Most of the time we were in the band. We would get pulled over by the cops. And the cops would say, ‘you really have half a beard’. He’d go, ‘yeah, thats my look.’

Conversion goes various directions

The question comes up about Screaming Urge’s Break-up:

MRav: We broke-up in 1982. My brother was murdered. Cold-blooded murder. After he died in 82′..That was pretty much the end of Screaming Urge.
I didn’t want to play. I didn’t want to do anything. Screaming Urge lasted officially for 5 years. From 78-82. Since then it has just been reunion shows.
We had a 5 year run.

W:Is it weird that the band stuck with people this long?

MRav:It is weird, But now when I hear the remastered songs I think , ‘hey, we were pretty good’. Now they sound timeless.
We were both influenced by the Beatles. Alot of punks said ‘no, we don’t like the Beatles’. We wrote a whole song about the Beatles called “Merseybeat”.
We were saying, ‘it’s ok to like the Beatles’.

MRoc:I wrote a song called “We Are Mono”. It was kinda of a nod to Devo. Are we not men? D-E-V-O.

W:Did you ever interact with Devo?

MRoc:I was trying to get it set-up to do a few shows with them back in the day.

MRav:We know each other. The know us.

MRoc:They were on a Major Label. You don’t really get to make choices like that..

MRav:We opened for the Bus Boys. They were in that movie 48 Hours. We opened for them in Wisconsin.
We thought we going to be on Stiff Records. Our manager blew that deal for us.

Danielle:Can I ask a question? What kind of music do you listen to these days?

MRav:I like Radiohead.

MRock:I actually like Lady Gaga. More than her music. More just her philosophy of life. And her personna. She is more punk in my opinion than Greenday.

MRav:I like some Hip Hop…I like Jay-z. He is my favorite when it comes to Hip Hop. I don’t know why. He seems down to earth.

Columbus emcee/producer PATH’s third music video off his debut solo album “The Next Big Thing” which features Jacob Wright of I Am Mute

Filmed and Directed by Kyle Cardwell of Whoa Bro Productions

Fly Union drops a video for “Hard Sell”. The Catalyst , King Dom, and Hodgie Street ask you “Fuck Wit Me” er them . Le For the Uncool also has a new video for “the Format”. Rashad and Stalley do some sort of spage age pimpin after the jump.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Fly Union video for “Hard Sell” off of their debut album TGTC (you can download the album by clicking TGTC. It’s the only rap album thats been able to pull “Goblin” out of my cd player.

King.Dom, Hodgie Street, The Catalyst \"Fuck With Me\" Produced By The Catalyst

This song is absolute fire. King Dom says the only Charlie Sheen reference in the past three months that isn’t immeadeate grounds for dissmissal, “Corny rappers with your Charlie Sheen lines. I am at the crib blowing Charlie Sheen lines”. And didn’t follow it up with winning.
And i hate cocaine use.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You know how people get really stoned and run around the lights by the Wex late at night. This Le for the Uncool video kinda like that but with rap.

And last but not not least..Ohio ex pat Stalley and the C-O’s Rashad dropped “Chevy’s & Spaceships” everywhere to help celebrate Rick Ross dropping his Self-Made comp.

Zerostar82 drops “72 Dolphins” from his upcoming EP  Don’t Look Now.

This is another GRMM Hensley Video Production.

Path614 after jump 

Click here to view the embedded video.

Floating Away is the new video off of Path’s mixtape The Next Big Thing. The director credits are on the video I do believe.

Download the Next Big Thing here.

People the Sucko, Ender, Druid and Bazooka cameos in these videos.

The Black Keys’s art director Michael Carney won a Grammy for the packaging of the the Black Keys’s album Brothers. The Black Keys also won Grammy’s for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Rock Performance By a Duo or Group With Vocals.

I interviewed Michael Carney back in December for an article that I wrote in the Other Paper when he was initially nominated.

Here is the full interview where Mike talks about what is unique about Brother’s packaging, CCAD, Columbus, and more.

Where were you when you found out you were nominated officially?

I was in my apartment in Fort Greene with my friend Mike Swen refreshing the Grammy’s website when my brother called and told me.

Are you going to the ceremony?

Yes.

What was the last official ceremony that you have been to?

I guess graduation from Art School, unless a Trey Songs concert counts.

In this age of downloading…what role do you think art direction plays in what gets purchased, and what gets downloaded?

I have found in the past few years larger labels are actually willing to go over the top when it comes to packaging. It seems like right now it is really easy to get people to listen to your music, but to get people to actually buy it is a whole different story. There are so many bands that seem like they are huge because they get tons of press, but they don’t actually sell any records.

I don’t think good art direction means that a record will sell, but I do think that bad art direction could easily keep your record from selling.

Besides the accessible cover, what are some other things that were included in the art direction?

Normally art direction is mainly a stylistic thing, what colors and what fonts, how everything is executed. For this record I think the art direction was more about the personality of the packaging. Since the text was conversational (as if the record is talking to you) I think we were able to express ideas using the wording that would have been hard to communicate using just color and design elements.

Beyond all that, I printed everything that was related to this album. So we did not have to worry about the record label designing the disc, and some one else designing the stickers. This was the type of record art that only works if it is consistent, since it looks vaguely generic or not designed you have to walk a very thin line to make sure the style works in your favor instead of making your record look stupid.

How did you do the hypercolor thing?

I told one of the people at Nonesuch that I heard about color changing ink and I wanted to find out if we could source it and if we could do some test runs to find out how it works. She found a company that made it and I sent the art to a factory for mock ups. We got it back, thought it was insane so we used it. The funny thing is I didn’t really tell any one other than Pat and Dan that I used it, so when the final cds came back i got this crazy voice mail from the Black Keys management saying “the cds are misprinted. What are we gonna do…?” He was freaked out and I called him and I was like take the cd, and hold it up to your forehead for a minute then look at it. He did it and then lost his mind when he saw the heat sensitive ink.

I loved the poster insert. What does being able to freak a kinko’s copier help a designer? What is you history with b+w, flyer design?

I used to make flyers in for shows with my friend Martin and my friend Brandon. Basically the only rule was that you had to do everything in one sitting at kinkos using only what they had there and what you brought.
So we would bring old font books or rub off letters and then photos or magazines or whatever. We were working under alot of restrictions that you don’t have with a computer so I think we learned how to be very resourceful. Plus they stopped making font books a while ago so all the fonts we had were like pre 1985 so we kinda learned how to use old fonts as a way to reference something with out looking like your trying to be retro.

What did you make of your time at CCAD? What do think they helped you with? Where do you think they need improvement?

CCAD was weird. When I left to move into the dorm my brother (Pat from the Black Keys) gave me the Eightball comic with Art School Confidential in it (they made a movie out of it years later). I found that to be very similar to my experience. I thought it was kinda strange that I felt like an outcast at a place that was supposed to be only outcasts. I’m not saying that I was some emo tortured art school kid, but I made it a point to be more involved with what was going on in Columbus than what was going on at CCAD. In regards to the school itself, I honestly think if you want to go into a creative field you need to go to art school because you are given a chance to focus on your craft or your thought process. But at the same time my major was in time based media and I ended up being some sort of print artist so take that for what it is.

You are in a few graffiti crews BSA and PBJ. What is your graffiti history? What did you learn from graffiti writers?

A lot of my friends painted graffiti and it just seemed like a natural thing to do. I was never very good at it, but I learned a lot more hanging out with graffiti writers than I did hanging out with art school kids. I skateboarded growing up and I still skate, and most of the kids that painted graff skated too, so we could go skate and then go paint trains and then go to some terrible OSU frat party and drink free beer. I also learned alot about working with a limited color scheme and limited space and limited time.

What is your favorite project you’ve done outside of the Keys?

I don’t know. I have been doing this for like 9 years and I honestly feel like I am only recently coming into my own on it. Pretty much everything I have done I look back and wish I could go back and edit it. That being said I have done some stuff for Columbus Discount Records, and I love those dudes and I love working with them on stuff. I recently did some stuff for RJD2 that was pretty cool. There are some Heartless Bastards t-shirts that I did that I really like.

What is the importance of fonts?

I look at fonts like people, I either like them to have a huge family or to be really weird and have no family to speak of. I tend to use old fonts because font design as an art form died sometime in the 80′s (nerds are gonna be mad about that comment). Also I think fonts are a really good subliminal way of referencing other things, whether it is old records or whatever. Using the same font as something else is a good subliminal tip of the hat.

What was your first design?

Black Keys demo…

You were a sophmore at CCAD when you did your first National release. What was is like going to school while already working in your field?

Really weird. Everyone there was out of touch enough that no one knew about it so it was not that bugged out… by the third album (Rubber Factory) when they were getting big, it was super weird. I definately flunked a few classes on purpose so that I could get freelance work done.

What advice would you give any aspiring designers?

Stay focused, don’t look at the internet, buy a turtle neck.

What are a few Black Keys Columbus moments that stick out in your head?

Dan almost beating the shit out of some indie rocker for talking shit at the first show in Columbus right after the first record coming out. Pat and I held him back, but that guy was a real shit head, and he was friends of my friends. A few all night boozing sessions with my brother in my last apartment in Columbus, when they played at Used Kids around the first record. When they played with Beck at the LC.

What is the relationship of the Black Keys to Columbus?

I don’t know, for about the first five years I thought everyone in Columbus was mad at them, but I don’t think that is the case anymore.

What did you learn from Akron?

Science is everywhere.

You make electronic music. How are graphic design and electronic music similar?

I started making music as a creative outlet when I was struggling with the idea that almost all of the creative work I do is client based. I think graphic design and electronic music are similar because they are usually successfull or unsuccessful based on the person who makes its taste level. Graphic design is visual collage and electronic music, the way i think of it, is audio collage.

Copywrite, Jakki, the ghost of Camu and Tage rapping at the Carabar here in Columbus.

This song is off the Life and Times of Peter Nelson available at the finer record stores everywhere.

The lil homie Path celebrates his 21st Bday today by dropping a song off his album, the Next Big Thing. While that album title maybe showing a bit of rap modesty, I will say that Path has been really supportive of Columbus Hip Hop. Whether its opening up his studio to Fabrashay A for the Art Show or working with local legends like Met of Sa Smash, Meta4ce or Copywrite, in general Path is one of the few people in the current Campus music community that actually is an active student of his city.
These two songs will probably appeal more the Rhymesayer fans in our city than the cats that that grew up on Dipset but saul goode.
The Waking Life features his friend Jacob Wright from a band called I Am Mute.
Path’s Bandcamp