Folks, I'm not going to bullshit you. It's late. I'm tired. You probably are, too. I've cracked a few and I'm trolling through Youtube. It's a simple man's way to forget the Paris blues and unwind for a bit. So for your Saturday night freedom loving pleasure, enjoy this rare live recording of Y.O.Y.O.Y by John Lennon's and Elvis Costello's favorite American band: Cheap Trick. Those that know, will know why this is cool.
Willie Phoenix & the Soul Underground Set To Open Rosie Reunion Show at the LC, Friday October 23rd
The beating heart & soul of Columbus rock & roll - Willie Phoenix - will be opening the Rosie Reunion show this coming Friday, October 23rd at the LC. Doors are at 7 pm, the mighty Soul Underground (Myke Rock on bass, Kim Crawford on guitar & drummer-extraordinaire Jim Johnson) takes the stage promptly at 8 pm, so get out to the show early if you would like to witness the effortless command of a Big Stage that Willie Phoenix has been exhibiting in Columbus for close to 40 years.
Further, Willie's brand-new CD - Captain Psychedelic - will be available for sale at this show for the first time anywhere. Get 'em while they're hot.
(Incidentally, Pencilstorm's own Ricki C. will be wrangling guitars for Willie & the Soul Underground at this show, reprising a role he began in 1978 and continued up until 1990, when Ricki first met & befriended The Wire - soon to become Watershed - and established a friendship with Colin Gawel that continues to this day. Willie Phoenix has many times been the glue that binds the Columbus music scene together.)
Watershed Drinking Tour Stop w/ Marah, Celebrating Kids in Philly, October 16-17
Biggie has the van gassed up and he & Colin will be scrounging up change for the Penna Turnpike for a Watershed Drinking Tour date in the city of brotherly love the weekend of October 16 & 17.
Readers familiar with the book "Hitless Wonder" know Watershed has been known to schedule tour dates without performing. "It's a pain in the ass to move all the gear and we usually sell the same amount of swag anyway, whether the band plays or not." said longtime roadie Ricki C.
So on Friday October 16th, join Biggie and Colin at the South Philadelphia Tap Room for a happy hour celebrating the vinyl reissue of Marah's classic LP Kids in Philly. Showtime for drinking is roughly 8pm.
What's all this then?
Colin explains: "Off the top of my head, the best live bands I have ever seen are AC/DC, Dash Rip Rock, Cheap Trick, The Olympic Ass Kicking Team and Marah. Why wouldn't we drive nine hours for a happy hour party celebrating Kids in Philly finally coming out on vinyl? We have certainly driven further for worse reasons. To put this in perspective, our last two drinking tour stops were The Replacements in St. Paul and Jerry Lee Lewis in Memphis. That should show the respect we have for the mighty Marah. Besides, I've been to Philly like 10 times doing gigs but I've never seen anything more than the clubs on South Street and Biggie yelling "The Liberty Bell is around here somewhere." as we grind on steak subs at 3 am on our way out of town."
Due to high demand, there is a chance the band could add other dates to the tour. "We plan on checking out some history and arts 'n' stuff on Saturday but we can't miss UM vs MSU so we will probably hunker down somewhere close to Underground Arts Saturday before the big show that night. It's a big city so I assume there is somewhere to watch football around there. And yes, we know OSU is playing Penn State the same time Marah is on stage so please be respectful and don't tell us the score before we get back to our hotel to watch the tape."
For the latest details or suggestions on where Biggie and Colin should go, follow @watershed or @colingawel on twitter
The Columbus Zoo, Huntington Park and Global Village Host Maggie Brennan
If there are three things everybody in Central Ohio can agree on, it's that the Columbus Zoo, Huntington Park and WCBE Global Village Host Maggie Brennan always make the day a little brighter. And none of them break the bank doing it. Clippers tickets are just $6 for adults and $3 for kids.. A family Zoo membership for the entire year is something like $120 and listening to commercial free WCBE doesn't cost a penny unless you choose to chip in.
This Wednesday at the Rumba Cafe is your chance to chip in and see some of the finest musicians Columbus has to offer while doing it.
WCBE Benefit at the Rumba Cafe Wednesday October 14th with music starting at 7pm and food provided by CITY BBQ. Tickets just $9.50 and all proceeds to benefit WCBE 90.5
Featuring: Lydia Loveless, Todd May, Erica Blinn, Angela Perley and the great Jessie Henry.
And don't forget, Lydia will be performing with her full band the following night at Skully's Music Diner. The show is being filmed for inclusion in the upcoming film, "Who is Lydia Loveless?". Tiks for that just $5.
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominations, Class of 2016 - by Ricki C.
(Pencilstorm disclaimer/editor’s note: It’s not exactly a state secret that Ricki C. is not a big fan of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in general or of Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner in particular. As such, the following blog is not intended for the easily-offended or the politically-correct.)
“Ted Feigan’s idea of a producer was a guy who’d come to his house, have impeccable table manners, sit there and be respected by all his friends from the 50’s, and be loved by the brass at Columbia, so that if the act failed, it would be on such a high level it wouldn’t make any difference because all the players on the team were stars.” - Kim Fowley, in 1974, on Columbia Records’ choice for a producer for The Hollywood Stars, Fowley’s then-current hustle, immediately prior to The Runaways, his next hustle after that.
I’m always reminded of the Kim Fowley quote above whenever the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominations are announced every year. Now Fowley may have been a lot of things – scumbag/miscreant/lech, among others – but he was also one of the five most astute observers of the machinations of the rock & roll industry I have ever read. I also firmly believe that if you substitute Rolling Stone publisher/Rock & Roll Hall of Fame bigshot Jann Wenner for the above-named Columbia A&R man Ted Feigan you pretty much get the same picture. Jann Wenner has always been a starfucker of major proportions. (A joke that made the rounds of my reprobate 1970’s rocker friends: Q.) “Would Jann Wenner suck Mick Jagger’s dick if it would get him a dinner invitation to Mick & Bianca’s New York apartment?” A.) “Yes, if it wouldn’t muss Jann’s shirt.”) I firmly believe that if Wenner could have gotten away with not inducting anybody into the Hall of Fame after he got below the A-list likes of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Billy Joel, he absolutely would have stopped the nomination process, but now he’s stuck: SOMEBODY’S gotta pay the AEP bill to keep the lights on in Cleveland, and those induction ceremony concerts bring in beaucoup bucks, Jack.
But I digress, on with my rundown (literally & figuratively) of this year’s nominees:
CHEAP TRICK – Okay, longtime readers of Pencilstorm are obviously aware of our affection and our support for Cheap Trick, so I’m gonna leave that topic to Colin (founder & lead singer of a band named Why Isn’t Cheap Trick In The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, for Chrissakes) for a separate blog entry. My two cents? Induct these Rockford, Illinois rockers, NOW, if not sooner.
CHICAGO – Jeeez, these guys are Hackmeisters of the Highest Order, and we should be spending our time making sure they gets floated out on the Japanese current rather than being nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. ANY band containing ANY member (this means YOU, Peter Cetera) that participates in a Columbus Symphony Picnic With the Pops Concert should NOT be considered for the R&RHoF.
DEEP PURPLE – Deep Purple, really? If we’re gonna start nominating middling late 60’s-early 70’s English hard-rock bands, where are the nominations for the likes of Savoy Brown, Wishbone Ash or Blodwyn Pig? For that matter, where are the nominations for middling AMERICAN late 60’s/early ‘70’s bands like Steppenwolf, Spirit or Blood, Sweat & Tears? (I guess this is as good a time as any to insert my yearly “Why Aren’t Mott The Hoople In The Rock & Roll of Fame?” query into the proceedings. Hoople leader Ian Hunter DID write “Cleveland Rocks” in the course of his solo career, ladies & gentlemen.)
YES – Okay, I’ll kinda give you Yes. When I first met my good friend & decade-of-the-2000’s-employer Hamell On Trial and we started discussing our Rock & Roll History on long, middle-of-the-night car rides around the U.S.A., we concurred that we both loved the Fragile-era Yes for about 20 minutes in 1972, because they were just SO FUCKING DAZZLINGLY GOOD at their instruments. Then they went completely off-the-rails with that Tales Of Topographic Oceans crap and we realized that not only was there no heart beneath those heads, there was no genitalia either, at which point I made a hard left turn over to Aerosmith. (And it’s not necessarily Yes’ fault that they spawned the likes of Styx, Kansas, Journey, Foreigner, Marillion, et. al., but they do bear SOME responsibility)
JANET JACKSON, CHIC, NWA, The J.B.’S, THE SPINNERS, CHAKA KHAN – Before accusations of racism are aimed my way, let me say this, there are many, many African-American performers who belong in the Rock & Hall of fame: Chuck Berry (without whom rock & roll would not even EXIST, and who was subsequently jailed for his troubles), Jimi Hendrix, The Chambers Brothers, Arthur Lee & John Echols of 1960’s L.A. mainstays Love (who were a HUGE influence on Jim Morrison and his buddies The Doors), Living Color, etc. That being said, all of the nominees detailed above belong in a R&B Hall of Fame, which should probably be established in Memphis, where – let’s face facts – The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame SHOULD HAVE BEEN located. Come on, Alan Freed had a radio show nobody really listened to or cared about in Cleveland and our North Coast brethren get the Hall of Fame? Get serious. That’s not a musical or artistic decision, that’s just politics-as-usual and tax breaks for the already-wealthy.
(Actually, while I'm thinkin' about it, since Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band got inducted on their own in 2014, maybe James Brown's fine, fine, super-fine backing band, the always crack, right-on-the-money J.B.'s should be inducted in their own right this year. That's another group of musicians that made an already great frontman into a genius of the live stage.) (And that guy who brought all the capes out to drape over James' shoulders and guide him wearily off the stage at the denoument of "Please, Please, Please" should be the first ROADIE inducted into the Hall of Fame.)
NINE INCH NAILS – Wait, Trent Reznor wants to fuck me like an animal? I want him fucked out of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
STEVE MILLER – see above, Chicago, Hackmeisters of the Highest Order. How did Steve Miller, the Eagles and Elton John become the anointed Holy Trinity of Classic Rock and Oldies radio? Absolutely my favorite radio listening experience in Columbus is 9 am-noon Sundays on 93.3, when they replay old Casey Kasem Top 40 Countdown shows from the 70’s in their entirety. I love those shows for a number of reasons: 1) Because there are songs down there between 30 & 40 in the countdown that you have either NOT HEARD since the 1970’s, or HAVE NEVER HEARD AT ALL. 2) Casey’s truly fucking CLUELESS on-air banter and (largely) bullshit showbiz stories. (Plus I ace every one of his trivia contests.) 3) If for nothing else, the Kasem show provides PERSPECTIVE for what were hits and what weren’t. Example: “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ yet” by Bachman Turner Overdrive (or Bachman Turner Overweight, as my 70’s West Side compadres pegged them) PEAKED at number 26 or so. If all you had to go on was Classic Rock Radio, you would have to assume that tune was Number One for like nine weeks in a row.
LOS LOBOS – Actually I kinda love Los Lobos, so have at it, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, induct Hidalgo and Rosas & friends sooner than later.
THE CARS – The Cars first two albums are probably two of my favorite records of the late-70’s and I loved those guys beyond comprehension in 1978 when they first burst on the scene out of Boston: I loved the tunes, I loved their attitude, I loved their dress sense (fuck yeah, I was a skinny-tie boy back in the day), I loved their Whole Deal. So yeah, induct away. (By the early 1980’s, things were not going nearly so well with me and my New Wave Beantown Boyz: check out Fighting With Ric Ocasek in my old blog.)
THE SMITHS – Take everything I just said about The Cars and reverse it: I didn’t like The Smiths tunes, I didn’t like their attitude, I didn’t like their dress sense, I kinda didn’t like their Whole Deal. They were whiny, gloomy, dreary and generally English in all the wrong ways. (In that respect, The Smiths were the anti-Kinks.) And come on, The Smiths get nominated to the Rock & Hall of Fame BEFORE Detroit’s favorite sons, The MC5? That’s just misdirected rock & roll Anglophilia of the Worst Kind. The hell with Morrissey & Marr, gimme Tyner & Smith any day of any week. – Ricki C. / 10/10/2015.
PAUL McCARTNEY AND STEVIE WONDER VS. PAUL McCARTNEY AND MICHAEL JACKSON - BY SCOTT CARR
Just in time for his October 13th concert at Nationwide Arena here in Columbus Ohio, Sir Paul McCartney has released the latest in his ongoing Archive Collection re-issue campaign.
October 2nd brought newly remastered and expanded editions of his third and fourth solo releases, Tug Of War and Pipes of Peace. Over the past few years McCartney has been opening the vaults and giving his fans some rare gems along with remastered versions of some of his best work. The Archive Collection has already seen several titles from McCartney's post- Beatles band Wings including Band of the Run, Venus and Mars, Wings At The Speed of Sound and their classic live album Wings Over America, along with McCartney's 1970 solo debut McCartney and its follow up, 1980's McCartney II, plus Paul & Linda McCartney's Ram. This time around fans are treated to two underrated classics from Macca.
Tug of War originally began as the next Wings release, but a series of events - including the death of McCartney's Beatles band mate John Lennon in December 1980 - led McCartney to continue on as a solo artist. Tug of War is considered one of McCartney's strongest solo sets and has stood the test of time quite well. Tug of War was produced by George Martin and sounds amazing. The album features contributions from former Beatle Ringo Starr as well as Wings guitarist Denny Laine. Carl Perkins duets with McCartney on the track "Get It" and lays down some tasty guitar licks as well. Other guests include 10cc's Eric Stewart and influential jazz bassist Stanley Clarke. The albums highest profile guest is Stevie Wonder, who duets with McCartney on two tracks: "What's That You're Doing" and "Ebony and Ivory." The latter became the album's biggest hit and was a worldwide smash but for me it is definitely the weaker of the two tracks that feature Wonder. "What's That You're Doing" is an upbeat funky tune that McCartney co-wrote with Wonder and is one of many highlights on the record. Some of the album's best tracks are lesser known songs like "Wanderlust," "The Pound Is Sinking" and "Somebody Who Cares." The album's second single "Take It Away" was another big hit and helped push the album to platinum status. "Here Today" is the most poignant moment on the record, as it is a tribute to John Lennon which Paul has described as an imaginary conversation that the two may have had. Paul often performs "Here Today" in concert. If I had my way McCartney would break out "Ballroom Dancing" for his October 13th show in Columbus but I'm not holding my breath.
McCartney with Beatle producer George Martin at work on Tug of War. The two had not worked together since Martin produced the Wings track "Live and Let Die" in 1973.
Pipes of Peace follows pretty much the same formula as Tug of War but isn't quite as strong. Many of the songs for Pipes of Peace were recorded at the same time as the previous record and many of the same musicians are featured as well. McCartney brought in Michael Jackson to duet on two of the albums tracks: "Say Say Say" and "The Man," but unfortunately the chemistry that Macca had with Stevie Wonder did not repeat itself with Jackson. "Say Say Say" became a big hit but isn't one of McCartney's finest moments. The second track with Jackson, "The Man" fares a little better. Although Pipes of Peace isn't nearly as solid as Tug of War it does feature some great tracks. The albums title track and "So Bad" are among some of his best from the 80's. I wouldn't mind hearing "Average Person" when McCartney comes to town but again...I'm not holding my breath.
McCartney and Martin working on Pipes of Peace.
Both of the reissues come with a companion disc of unreleased goodies that are well worth a listen. McCartney completists will nitpick but I guess we can't have it all.
Paul's upcoming performance in Columbus is sold out and will no doubt be a magical evening of McCartney classics spanning his entire career. Earlier this year I attended Stevie Wonders Songs In The Key of Life concert here in Columbus and it was one of the best shows I have ever seen. In a surprising turn of events I got to meet Stevie after the show. It was a brief encounter but pretty cool. Stevie shook my hand and said hello and I told him the show was amazing and that up until that evening Paul McCartney was the best show I had ever seen, Stevie chuckled and said "Yeah, I've taught him a few things over the years." It would be nice if I could share this story with Sir Paul when he rolls into town on Tuesday.........
Scott Carr is a guitarist who plays in the Columbus, OH bands Radio Tramps and Returning April. Scott is also an avid collector of vinyl records and works at Lost Weekend Records. So...if you are looking for Scott....you'll either find him in a dimly lit bar playing his guitar or in a record store digging for the holy grail.
