Pencilstorm's own and CD1025 legendary DJ Brian Phillips will be broadcasting live from Bonnaroo all weekend. Make sure to tune into CD102.5 for interviews and much more from ground zero of the rock n roll world. Visit his Jock page here for more info. We will be expecting a full recap upon his return.
Erica Blinn & the Handsome Machine by Ricki C.
Erica Blinn & the Handsome Machine will be headlining the Main Stage at the Columbus Arts Festival at 9 pm this Saturday night, June 7th, 2014, on the Downtown Riverfront.
First off, full disclosure: I have – on a very few occasions – worked as a roadie for Erica Blinn & the Handsome Machine, but I don’t want this piece taken as any kind of paid advertisement or boosterism. I have no financial interest in the band, I get paid a few bucks to wrangle guitars & merch once in awhile, but that’s not enough to convince me to conceive the rave you’re gonna view here.
I have only ever worked for bands I’ve loved – Willie Phoenix, Hamell On Trial, Watershed, The League Bowlers, Colin Gawel & the Lonely Bones, The Whiles – because if you don’t love a band enough to watch them a hundred different nights in a hundred different dives, why bother?
I'd watch a hundred nights of this band. I’d watch Erica and the guys a hundred shows in a hundred nights: I’d watch Erica belt out her incredibly well-written tunes like the bastard girl-child of Rod Stewart & Chrissie Hynde; I’d watch her peel out her rhythm parts from a low-slung Fender Tele like a Harley winding out on a Midwest dirt-track; I’d watch her wail harmonica solos like she was born on the South Side of Chicago rather than the West Side of Columbus; I’d watch PJ Schreiner bash out drum-pounding fever/beats behind her while simultaneously pitching in note-perfect harmonies along with bass player Mark Nye; I’d watch guitarist Greg Wise melting faces in the front row with incendiary riffs straight outta the Keith Richards/Fred “Sonic” Smith school of lead guitar, yet ultimately fresh, new, up-to-date and ROCKIN’. (I’ve only seen relatively new second lead guitarist Will Newsome twice, and he’s SOLID, my rock & roll brothers & sisters, but you’re gonna have to wait until next time for superlatives on him from me. I never rush my proselytizing.)
I first met Erica while I was working at Ace In The Hole Music when she was still a teenager. Her father Jerry – a key player in 1970’s Columbus rockers Black Leather Touch – shopped at the store and once when he brought Erica in with him I mentioned to Jerry that I had reviewed Black Leather Touch in Focus, a local rock magazine of the time. Erica got really hyped in that way only young teenagers can and said earnestly, “You don’t still have those articles by any chance, do you? I try to collect everything I can find about my dad’s band.” “You’re in luck, little lady,” I replied, “I am one of those egotistical motherfuckers who keeps EVERYTHING they’ve ever written.” I xeroxed the articles and brought them to the store for her the next Saturday. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Erica started performing at 14 years old and I watched her growing up in public over the next few years, throughout her scuffling days, playing with different bands in shifting line-ups, the songs always getting a little better, the stagecraft a little sharper with each incarnation. And then in 2010 there were the exponential leaps forward: hooking up with Colin Gawel of Watershed for co-songwriting sessions; catching the ear of producer Mike Landolt of Curry House Records; and forging a relationship with the rock & roll pride of Raleigh, North Carolina – Terry Anderson & the Olympic Ass-Kickin’ Team – for live dates and recording. The end result of those collaborations was Erica’s 2011 self-titled extended-play CD, six tracks of pure prime rockin’ perfection, led by “Choices” and Anderson’s classic “Weather Or Not.”
And then came the formation of The Handsome Machine: with longtime partner PJ Schreiner anchoring the drum-throne, bassist & harmony vocalist Mark Nye came on board first, followed by genius buzzsaw lead guitarist Greg Wise. The band – along with guest musicians Devon Allman, Aaron Lee Tasjan & Angela Perley, among others – recorded Erica’s new 12-track debut album “Lovers In The Dust” and hit the road to play any & every bar, dive & honky-tonk that would have them, all the while honing the blistering rock attack they lay claim to today. Second lead guitarist Will Newsome was added to the band after the album was completed to fill in some of the approximately one thousand guitar tracks that producer Landolt layered into the album, laid down by guitarists as disparate as Andy Harrison, Dave Bartholomew, Wise and Allman.
Maybe more than merely the band, though, it’s the Erica Blinn-penned SONGS the Handsome Machine are gonna throw at you that are going to have you standing staring mesmerized at the stage. “Whiskey Kisses” and “Sexy Mess” are going to ROCK you, “Let’s Give Love” and “Let Me Be Yours” are going to ROLL you, and if “One Of These Days” doesn’t break your heart on this upcoming warm spring Saturday night I’m inclined to proffer the opinion that you don’t have a functioning cardiac unit. And if the two minutes & twenty-seconds of “Home” isn’t the greatest individual rock song you’ve heard in the past five years, I’ll take back every word I've written in this blog.
I’d watch a hundred nights of this band.
I’m only asking you to watch one.
Colin Gawel and The Lonely Bones / The Randys Live @ Grandview Digfest Sat June 14th.
Colin Gawel and The Lonely Bones will be returning to the Grandview Digfest on Saturday June 14th. The event is sponsored by the Grandview Chamber of Commerce and will be held at the Grandview Yards. There are 23 different beers being served, including Bones bassist Dan Cochran's Four String Brew. The Bones will be hitting the stage at 6:00 for an hour-long set followed by one of our all-time favorite bands, The Randys. And admission is.......FREE! If you miss this, you are truly a jack-ass. See you June 14th at Digfest.
Ricki C.'s Rock & Roll Videos You Oughta See, part the third: The Neighborhoods / "Real Stories"
(Ricki C.'s Rock & Roll Videos You Oughta See will be a continuing feature in pencilstorm, at least until Ricki gets bored or the readership finds a way to make him stop. Videos will be mainly little-seen or off-the-beaten-rock-&-roll-path.
They're not exactly my answer/reply to Wal Ozello's Top Ten Rock Vocalists, but they all ARE rock & roll songs. None of them are show tunes.
Ricki will provide an intro to the videos of not-more-than-500 words, because we all know it’s impossible for Ricki to try to tell a simple story without going off into 10 different tangents and then forgetting altogether what he’s talking about.)
"Hey," you might be saying to yourself right now, "isn't the lead singer in today's video the guy I saw playing lead guitar last summer in the reconstituted Replacements?" Yes, astute pencilstorm readers, today's video features David Minehan of Boston's late-70's to early 90's favorite sons - The Neighborhoods - appearing at The Channel Club in their rockin' heyday of 1982. It's eminently possible I was in the audience at the show presented here.
From 1980 to 1984 I was working at Ross Laboratories, making a shitload of money, was newly divorced and occasionally flew to Boston on weekends just to see rock & roll bands. (This was made possible by the existence of People's Express Airlines, a bargain-basement airline that was EXACTLY like a Greyhound Bus that flew. The round-trip fare to Boston ON THE WEEKEND was $76. Admittedly it wasn’t exactly luxury travel, People's Express didn't even have chairs in their boarding area, you just had to sit on the floor or lean against the wall. Even Greyhound has chairs in their terminals, though you might not necessarily want to actually SIT on them. One Friday night, and I swear to God I am not joking or making this up, a gentleman of middle-eastern persuasion tried to bring a live chicken on the plane. After much animated discussion - not very much of which was conducted in English - he was dissuaded. He left the waiting area, went out to the parking garage for about two minutes, returned sans chicken and boarded the flight. I have no idea what happened to that animal that evening and I don’t want to know.)
The Neighborhoods soldier on to this day in 2014, playing occasional shows around the Northeast, and remain a fearsome live unit. In that circumstance, they share more than a little with their Columbus rock & roll brethren Watershed - a trio of rockers pounding out great rock & roll tunes to the faithful and winning new converts in their second century of playing the rock & roll.
Reasons They Never Made It In America - I fully admit, here I'm mystified, I thought The Neighborhoods had it all. They were just Kiss enough, but not TOO Kiss. They played great, they looked great, Minehan wrote TREMENDOUS pop-punk songs and possessed every single rock-star trait except fame. And, given that they were contemporaries of REM and The Replacements in the early 80's, I can't even say they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm frankly baffled how they weren't huge. Were The Neighborhoods one of the five best live bands I ever saw? Yes, they were, and I've seen a fuckload of bands in my 61 years on the planet.
Optional Extra-Credit Additional Viewing - Enter "The Neighborhoods" plus "Arrogance" plus "1979" and "The Neighborhoods" plus "Cultured Pearls" plus "2008" on YouTube for a thirty-year span of quality rock & roll.
Reelin' & Rockin' @ the Gateway: "The Kids Are Alright" by Ricki C.
The Reelin’ & Rockin’ selection for this month at the Gateway Film Center – The Who’s “The Kids Are Alright” – is, quite simply, in my humble opinion, the greatest rock & roll documentary ever made that doesn’t include any audience members being killed by Hell’s Angels. (Obviously, that leaves “Gimme Shelter” as the single greatest rock doc ever.) *
“The Kids Are Alright” was directed by 22 year-old Who fanatic Jeff Stein, who sported no previous movie experience whatsoever, let alone qualifications that would allow him to direct a major motion picture. But that was kinda the story of late 70’s movie-making: “Jaws” and “Star Wars” had come out of nowhere to become HUGELY POPULAR pictures and Hollywood studios realized there was a new youth demographic ripe for the picking. Then the Ken Russell-directed debacle that was The Who’s “Tommy” scored big in 1975, hence talented rookie Jeff Stein was handed the keys to the car & the editing room and “The Kids Are Alright” is the result. (By the way, I have never seen the movie “Tommy.” I will never see the movie “Tommy.” I wish the movie “Tommy” had never existed. On my rock & roll planet the mega-success of that movie is what forever stalled/stunted/killed Pete Townshend’s creativity in the 1970’s and ever after. But that’s a whole ‘nother blog for a whole ‘nother time.)
Okay, I’m gonna try to pitch this movie for every existing generation of rock & roll fan:
1) If you came of age in the 1960’s or 70’s this movie is a glorification of the greatest live rock & roll band of all time. And yeah, I’m very well-aware of the existence of The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin in those decades, and yeah I’m saying The Who were a better LIVE band than either one of them.
2) If you came of age in the 1980’s or 1990’s this film is a glimpse into the time before MTV existed, when power & passion reigned, when you didn’t have to be pretty & you didn’t have to be polite and a guy with a nose like Pete Townshend’s could still reign as a major media figure.
3) If you came of age in the 21st century this movie is a Masters Course on JUST HOW FAST rock & roll progressed in those long-lost hazy days between 1965 and 1969, when The Who moved from 2-minute songs like “I Can’t Explain” to the rock opera “Tommy” in just four short years. Bands nowadays go four years between CD RELEASES, let alone leapfrogging genres, styles & movements the way Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon did.
I’ve watched the DVD of “The Kids Are Alright” dozens, if not hundreds of times in the comfort & confines of my own home. I haven’t seen it on the big screen at a movie theater since sometime in the 1980’s. I can’t wait. – Ricki C. / May 15th, 2014
“THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT” WILL PLAY AT THE GATEWAY FILM CENTER ON CAMPUS
THIS WEDNESDAY, MAY 21ST, AT 8 PM. HAPPY HOUR BEGINS AT 7 PM.
COME TO HAPPY HOUR AND LET RICKI C. BORE YOU TO TEARS WITH LEGENDARY STORIES OF
HOW GREAT THE WHO WERE WHEN HE SAW THEM LIVE IN 1969 AND 1972, AND HOW MUCH
HE NOW WISHES PETE TOWNSHEND HAD DIED BEFORE HE GOT OLD.
A GOOD TIME WILL BE HAD BY ALL.
*For a rundown of a Ricki’s other Best Of lists, please see The Best Of Everything and The Best Of Everything, part two in his own blog Growing Old With Rock & Roll.)
Ricki C.'s Rock & Roll Videos You Oughta See, part the second: The Pop! / "Down On The Boulevard"
(Ricki C.'s Rock & Roll Videos You Oughta See will be a continuing feature in pencilstorm, at least until Ricki gets bored or the readership finds a way to make him stop. Videos will be mainly little-seen or off-the-beaten-rock-&-roll-path. Click here for part one.
They're not exactly my answer/reply to Wal Ozello's Top Ten Rock Vocalists, but they all ARE rock & roll songs. None of them are show tunes.
Ricki will provide an intro to the videos of not-more-than-500 words, because we all know it’s impossible for Ricki to try to tell a simple story without going off into 10 different tangents and then forgetting altogether what he’s talking about.)
The Pop! were a mid-to-late 1970’s L.A. band led by Roger Prescott & David Swanson. “Down On The Boulevard” was featured on their self-released indie album released in 1977, and that record is as great a slab of 12-inch vinyl as you’re gonna find coming out of the punk & New Wave days of late 1970’s Los Angeles. They later signed to Arista in the post “My Sharona” FIND-US-THE-NEXT-KNACK-NOW! signing frenzy in the great power-pop boomlet of 1979 & 1980. Arista inexplicably tried to turn a fundamentally great power-pop band into Talking Heads or The Cars, and the resulting album – GO! – was cold, sterile & overproduced. The Pop! were never the same again. This song, however, is great.
Reasons They Never Made It In America – Too long-haired & pop for the punks (plus knew how to tune and actually play their guitars); too punk & not Kiss enough for the great unwashed rock & roll masses.
Optional Extra-Credit Additional Viewing – Enter "The Pop!" plus “Shakeaway” on YouTube.