It’s that time of year again, when grilling meat, arm wrestling, and indie rock somehow end up together in awkward sentences (like this one). This weekend is the seventh annual Columbus Discount Records BBQ, where the local label shares the wealth and gives you a wealth of local/international talent to gaze upon for as free as possible. This year’s version of the tradition entails two star-studded rock shows (Friday night at The Summit and Saturday night at Carabar) as well as a multi-faceted get-together Saturday afternoon at CDR HQ (corner of Oak and Parsons, just up the street from Carabar). Highlights:

Friday night at Summit: Sets from local Uggs-rock veterans the Guinea Worms and the most-successful, longest-lasting Rock Potluck band ever, Sandwitch (featuring Ron House), are those most likely to slay. Omaha’s Yuppies will play the part of the noisy visitors from out of town, and the night will be rounded out by intergalactic party Mormons Outer Spacist and the sheer spectacle of the Unholy Two. You will probably leave this show wearing beer.

Saturday afternoon BBQ: Obviously, free PBR and grilled eats would be a highlight of any day. However, this party also includes your chance for eternal glory with an arm-wrestling tournament! The male and female brackets are both sure to be tough, but you still have a couple days to train. If all of this is not enough, local legends the Cheater Slicks will play a set in the CDR studio around 5:30.

Saturday night at Carabar: This is where the big guns come out, so hopefully you are not drunk enough or drunk enough to enjoy it. Local wonders (and musical inspirations to Beck) Times New Viking will headline and close the festivities. I am excited for another visit from the prolific globetrotter Dan Melchior, who will surely entertain with whoever might be backing him up, and a set from Harrisburg, Ohio’s favorite sons, Mike Rep and Tommy Jay, will lend some tuneful and grizzled character to the proceedings.

More information, conspiracy theories, and conjecture here.

I made a cassette dub of the La Bamba soundtrack when I was in high school. The movie was pretty good (from what I can remember) and did a bang-up job of showing the early days of rock n’ roll. Simpler times, simpler music, much of it with a rockabilly slant. Something about Heavy Trash’s third album, Midnight Soul Serenade, makes me think of La Bamba, like maybe had the duo (Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray) been around back in the ’50s, they’d have done the Winter Dance circuit with the likes of the Big Bopper, Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens. As with anything Spencer’s associated with, Heavy Trash can be a bit sleazy, a bit garagey, a bit blistering, but there is still the basic element of early rock n’ roll in the short blasts the duo spit out.

MP3: Gee, I Really Love You (from the Fat Possum release, Midnight Soul Serenade)

Cheater Slicks and The Unholy Two open this BenCo show. $10 will get you a night of noisy rock, $2 more if you’re over 18 and under 21.

This is anti-shitty band, death of the whatever kind of genre that includes the likes of brokeNCYDE, Millionaires, Attack Attack!, 3oh!3, et al. Look, I was a dumb kid once too and my musical taste to this day is most certainly questionable, but how in the world are people falling for this shit? Are the eight graders doing heroin these days? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. That said, if any of the aforementioned bands would like to be featured on a very influential music blog, hit me up, let’s party…Millionaires I’m looking at you.

In this episode of phalangic diarrhea i will relate hilarious anecdotes about the bands I saw and stuff I did, including but not limited to Jack White’s newest cash cow vanity project, some cougar “milf” lady that bought me and a few others some pizza, Cheater Slicks being good again, me being a lousy MC and Puerto Rican dudes liking tambourines. Also Mike O and Woody from Ravari Room oh man.

Pictured: The Lindsay@Rumba Cafe

Thursday night found myself at Rumba Cafe for The Lindsay against my better judgment and I only say that because i mean have you seen The Lindsay lately? I kid, I kid. Big fan big fan. Basically The Lindsay can rock a joint any joint go see them.

Pictured: Prison Mirror@carabar

Friday night was Chri$ Lutzko’s b-day @carabar. Prison Mirror is a “band” and they play “songs”. Prison Mirror is Tony and Mike O from El Jesus De Magico. There were some geriatric dudes there partying pretty late for a Friday and one of them approached me during Prison Mirror and asked me if what they were playing was a song. I told him it was 2. It’s basically ambient butterfly knife goth core. Go see them if you want to hear a song or 2. I hope when I’m 65 I’m still out and about doing shots at 11 p.m. on a Friday.

psychedelic horseshit followed the Mirror and tonight was a night i wasn’t feelin the phs. It was just Matt, Rich, a guitar, a sax and a table full if gear or something. It was punk.

Pictured: Cheater Slicks w/Don B@carabar

This is very important. Have you seen Cheater Slicks at all within the past couple years? I have and I gotta say I’ve been less than impressed, but I’ve been hangin in there for them due to the fact that the were one of my fallen brothers favorite band(R.I.P. Ryan Rollins), so I’ve been giving them the benefit of the doubt and I’ll tell you what, Cheater Slicks are an awesome live band again…not having seen them play in their prime this is what I would imagine they were like and am totally stoked to go see them play more. Dudes rock for a bunch of oldies.

Cheater Slicks@carabar

The Unholy Two followed with an aural assault that forced me out the door on account of they are loud. So there’s some new joint called Late Nite Slice that’s located in the parking lot next to Bodega. I was hungry and it was late so you know, I opted to have a late night slice. While waiting there was a table of about four 20 year old dudes and like some mid forties chick that didn’t appear to be related to any of them. They were all wasted and old chick bought everyone in line a slice of pizza. Good thing I didn’t have to actually pay for two slices to decide I didn’t like it. Basically what I’m saying is if there are tomatoes on it, it’s not only cheese.

Pictured: The Dead Weather@LC

That dude from The White Stripes and that chick from The Kills played an overpriced show at The Lifestyles Community Pavilion on Saturday and thanks god I’m not one of the suckers that payed $40 to watch old Jack indulge himself on drums. (GLO Deville). There was a good turn out which blew my mind. It was also a good show too, which surprised me as well. Basically if you expect the worse and hope for the best, you’re never disappointed. JW came out and strapped one on for like one song and at the end they did the back patting come out and hold hands for five minutes and bow like ten times. The show would have been better if it was a sold out Newport show. Details from the rest of the evening are spotty at best, you’ll have that from time to time amirite.

Sunday I attended a wedding reception for a wedding that happened like three months ago and I also was asked to MC, which I did very, very poorly. Bands played, The Lindsay did a mostly cover set and I drank til the keg ran dry. Congrats The Wagners!

Pictured: El Jesus De Magico@Ravari Room

I ended the weekend at The Ravari Room to catch El Jesus De Magico and Davila 666. El Jesus practice in a funeral home and feature Mike O on drums. Davila 666 are from Puerto Rico and like tambourines. Woody and The Ravari Room had some nice things said about them by the Nebula dude in the new issue of Decibel mag. Nice dude, cool room.

Pictured: Davila 666@Ravari Room

Duffy you should make that new photographer chick take pictures for me.

MP3: Mature Fantasy by Drummer

The Black Keys‘ Patrick Carney has assembled Drummer, a new supergroup of drummers playing all sorts of instruments besides the kit. Here’s how the line-up is looking:

Singer/Guitarer – Jon Finley (beaten awake, the man i fell in love with)
Guitarer – Jamie Stillman (harriet the spy, party of helicopters, teeth of the hydra)
Bass guitarer – Patrick Carney (the black keys)
Synthesizer – Steve Clements (houseguest)
Drummer – Gregory Boyd (ghostman sandman)

Pat has been working on a lot of interesting projects lately, like scoring an animated video for Art Spiegelman. Can’t wait to see Drummer live.

You can hear more music on their MySpace page. They’ve got their first show in Columbus coming up next week. Flyer magic:

Having good conversation is awesome. Learning stuff is cool as fuck. Live music rules. If only there were more hours in a day to TALK TALK TALK, LEARN LEARN LEARN, AND ROCK ROCK ROCK OH MAN.

I made it out for The Receiver cd release, $hithole Dayfe$t and saw an epic moons set.

MORE MORE

Pictured: The Receiver@Skully’s

I arrived at Skully’s too late to catch Hotel Eden‘s set, but last time I saw him dude was on fire. Reminds me of a way more fun, less pretentious Beck or something.

The Receiver decided to be a three piece this time and have Sean Gardner join them to fill out the sound and it worked well. I can’t really say much about the Receiver that hasn’t been said already so check ‘em out duh.

Pictured: Genghis Green@$hithole Dayfe$t

Soooo I basically went to my first house show or my first house show that good bands actually played at or something, $hithole DayFes$t Hou$e Party was partially curated by Chris Lutzko of The Unholy Two or something and was pretty fucking fun.

When I got there Genghis Green were playing, I was familiar with the name, though I had no idea what they were about or if they were any good. Turns out they’re pretty rad. Kind of like a noodly experimental pop backed by the drummer from Helmet. For realsies dude is bad ass. Don’t know when they are playing again exactly so keep your ears peeled.

Pictured: NLVR@$hithole Dayfe$t

I finally managed to catch the band formerly know as Hugs and kisses and had no idea what to expect. This time around it was basically an acoustic tribal jam session/weirdo acid freakout. The only instrument that was used was a beat up trash can. I’ve gathered that these dudes pretty much do whatever they feel like doing on any given day and keep it fresh by changing it up every time.

Pictured: Gigantopithecus@$hithole Dayfe$t

Gigantopithecus totally blew me away. Two dudes, guitar and drummer, total jammy yet proficient heavy instrumental stoner rick and dude can shrrrrrrrrrrrrrrred. No shit

Pictured: psychedelic horeseshit@$hithole Dayfe$t

After meetin Matt horseshit for the first time, phs suddenly made a little more sense to me than it did before or maybe it was just because they’re sound was meant for garages-dunno but it was my favorite psychedelic horseshit set I have seen to date. I’d love to know how their show at Bourbon Street was later on the same night. I can only imagine it was interesting.

The Unholy Two destroyed and kids were moshing or whatever it’s called. Oh man to be young and dumb again.

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY

After a long day of helping my brother from another mother work on a COMING SOON SUPER AWESOME BABY BOUTIQUE, I went with a different brother from another mother to check out a Ben Co Presents show at The Summit featuring the musical stylings of Astral Ride, moons and Pontiak.

Astral Ride are well on there way to being a sweet band and should consider using sweet vocal effects to make things sweeter. I look forward to seeing them play again. Go see them on May 21 at Circus.

Pictured: moons@The Summit

HOLY FUCK MOONS ARE FUCKING EPIC AS FUCK. Totally awesome, super tight, psych/stoner/prog/ mindfuck. moons drummer just might be the best drummer in Columbus NO SHIT

Pictured: Pontiak@The Summit

More like Deliverance the band. Dudes were bigtime creepy. Cool as fuck swampy stoner metal. Props to Ben Co for an awesome show.

I still haven’t got that new laptop yet.

I’m going to Rock on the Range this weekend. Wish me luck.

I took some [Expletive] pictures as well.

This week I saw some stand up at The Surly Girl Saloon and saw a few bands as well-specifically an impromptu Unholy Two set, ipps, You’re So Bossy, Dead Set Ready(twice),who happened to be playing right next door to The Death Set, Bosniacs, The Brown Notes who happened to be playing with a band called Downtown Brown and a whole bunch more. Check me out right here yo —

Wednesday I went to The Surly Girl Saloon for a very important business meeting and it just so happened to be open mic stand up, hosted by Sean Sommerville and quite honestly I was pleasantly surprised. I literally lol’d, though I didn’t stay all night….I’ve been there on at least one other occasion and it really is hit or miss….luckily what I caught were the hits.

On Thursday night(3.26.09)….I went to Circus to check out Dead Set Ready, The Brown Notes and some band from Detroit Downtown Brown. I asked one of the Downtown Brown dudes how he would describe their music and he said “butt funk”. MAYBE AFTER I WRITE A FEW MORE ARTICLES I WILL BE ABLE TO WRITE MORE ADJECTIVES ABOUT THEM. What I mean is that they didn’t impress me, but I’m a Mindless Self Indulgence fan so what do I know.

SERIOUSLY THOUGH-Dead Set Ready are a band to watch and are fun as fuck. They basically play mid 90′s warped tour punk rock and I mean that in the best way possible. It really is some super fun punk rock. Seriously. I saw them twice this weekend.

Pictured: Dead Set Ready@Circus

The Brown Notes are one of the few bands that play regularly that I’ve been yet to catch-TONIGHT WAS THAT NIGHT. The name has turned me off, not gonna lie, I figure [Expletive] band name, [Expletive] band. As it turns out that was not the case…What I’m saying is these dudes aren’t as jammy as I thought they’d be and are a super tight groove laden straight up rock band.

After the show at Circus I somehow ended up at Skully’s. I ran into the man,the myth, the legend, Zachery Allan Starkey and I’m pretty sure he told me he reads my column. On my way home from ladies 80′s these girls leaving Surly had beer to go. It was in a plastic bag. One of them set the beer down to put on her coat. This happened as I was walking by and I picked up the bag and kept walking…I gave it back and they gave me a 24 oz. PBR that I didn’t finish. OH WHAT A NIGHT

I was summoned to Surly on Friday by The Boss Man to check out the newest Sunken Treasure Records signee Bird and Flower and discuss my salary-I meant to get photographic proof that Robert Duffy is in fact a real dude and does go out to shows. Then I dropped my camera and it quit working. Then he asked me to leave because I was talking too loud and he didn’t want me to ruin
Bird and Flower’s set. Then he made co worker Ben C take me to the Bourbon Street/Summit Complex in the Donewaitng Hummer to go watch other bands to type stuff about. On the way there I fixed my camera so it started working again.

I had message board post conversations IRL on Friday night at Bourbon St. My life is so weird sometimes(all the time). I bounced back and forth between Bourbon Street and The Summit thanks to Benco who was presenting the show at The Summit-New More Switch Blades Tour, FEATURING THE DEATH SET, TEAM ROBESPIERRE, NINJASONIK, TOTALLY MICHAEL and CEREBRAL BALLZY (i copied and pasted that). Basically these dudes are from Brooklyn and they are cool.

Pictured: MORE LIKE THE SUCK SET

The good bands were at Bourbon St.

First was Miss Lara Yazvak of Tough and Lovely/Ill Fits fame-All i can say is if you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing Lara perform you are missing out-BIGTME

Pictured: LARA LARA LARA

Next were Bosniacs. They apparently don’t have a myspace page. Why they didn’t call themselves The Evil Means is beyond me.

Pictured: Bosniacs

Next up were Dead Set Ready-Like I said-saw them twice, band to watch, super fun punk rock

The Main Street Gospel closed out the evening-In case you didn’t know, Main Street Gospel have a new 7″ recorded by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys fame and Barry Main Street Gospel was kind enough to give me a copy. I just don’t have a turntable-BOTTOM LINE-MAIN STREET GOSPEL GOOD PSYCH ROCK YOU GO SEE THEM

Pictured: The Main Street Gospel

HOLY SHIT SATURDAY NIGHT WAS GOOD DRUMMER NIGHT AT CARABAR

Jordan Martin, Fern, You’re So Bossy, ipps and an “impromptu” Unholy Two set(2 songs).

This was one of the best nights of Columbus music that I have seen in quite some time. I missed Jordan Martin, but I do imagine the opportunity will present itself in due time-from what I gather this young lady deserves a write up of her own and you will hear the name again in the near future.

Next was Jeff Fernagle of Tree of Snakes fame/infamy. I don’t know if it was because I was drunker than Jeff or that Jeff was drunker than me or that both of us were less drunk than we were at any Tree of Snakes show but homeboy is hilarious-he types stuff sometimes too

You’re So Bossy just might be the best kept secret in town….in case you didn’t know, YSB is Sam Brown(The Sun, Gaunt, New Bomb Turks), Phillip Park(Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, Haynes Boys, Anna Ranger) and Jovan Karcic(Gaunt, Haynes Boys). Jovan is an amazing drummer. It was good drummer night in case you missed it. Go see You’re So Bossy@The Treehouse on 4.17.09 and Anna Ranger on 4.10.09 at the same joint.(this is what i gathered from my chicken scratches-don’t quote me).

Pictured: You’re So Bossy@Carabar

Soooo….ipps. Bo, Emily and Mat(sometimes) from Necropolis and Mike from El Jesus De Magico ……POOR MANS PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART. For real though, nothing like Necropolis or El Jesus-best non-CDR CDR band

Pictured: ipps@Carabar

After ipps were done Chri$ Lutzko Unholy Two asked bartender Cara if him and Bo could play 2 songs She said sure.

She thought he meant on the jukebox.

That isn’t what he meant

Pictured: 2 Unholy Two plus 2

DONEWAITING GO HARD

Feel free to post comments telling Duffy to give me a raise

• Columbus represent! The Unholy Two and Psychedelic Horseshit are among the bands performing at Sound on Sound.

• Huge huge huge show from Forcefield PR featuring Vivian Girls, Beach House, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and many more.
• Aquarium Drunkard is doing an event during SXSW Film/Interactive. Details here.
• Standard Recording and Craftster are joining forces for a party that features Haley Bonar, Daniel Martin Moore, and many more.