Still Love Christmas and My 2019 Holiday Playlist - by Colin Gawel

Hi folks, just a pleasant reminder that when you are putting together your holiday playlist on Spotify or whatever, please don’t forget about our little tune Still Love Christmas. Every time you add it or share it online, some megacomputer in Switzerland makes a smiley emoji and eventually it starts sharing it all over the planet. If you want to hear it live, I will be performing with The Bowlers at Woodlands Tavern (1200 W 3rd 43212) Monday December 23 at 8pm. Free show! Your help spreading the music is much appreciated. - Colin

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Colin’s Christmas Playlist 2019

The title song to Colin Gawel and the Lonely Bones' December 2010 release. We shot the video at the "Still Love Christmas" release party at Rumba Cafe in Columbus, OH. COLINGAWEL.com


Record Review: Micah Schnabel / The Teenage Years of the 21st Century - by Jeremy Porter

Spotify Playlist - Listen while you read!

Readers of Pencilstorm might remember my piece from 2017 about Micah Schnabel’s new album at the time Your New Norman Rockwell. That record was a breakthrough for Micah, widely known as one of the songwriters and creative driving forces of the Columbus, Ohio based band Two Cow Garage. Left behind were tales of late night parties with other bands, odes to literary outcasts like Holden Caulfield, and laments about the one that got away. They were replaced by a more mature, albeit apocalyptic landscape of lost souls working in late-night convenience shops and the reconciliation that comes years after making the decision to put art before money and exist on the outer fringes of conventional society.

It’s been a busy couple years for Micah since that record came out, mostly spent on the road supporting it by himself (meaning no band. His partner Vanessa Jean Speckman’s pop-up art is an ever-present part of the show) including some significant time in the UK and a couple circles around the states. Last week, fans were elated to hear that he had a new record to drop, some aghast to learn that 9 labels had passed on it, one even offering to explain to him, after spending well over half his life on the road and writing songs, why no one would listen to it. That’s harsh, but hardly surprising given the drivel widely consumed as popular music these days.

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Enter The Teenage Years of the 21st Century - a new DIY collection of songs. The record plays like the next logical step after ...Rockwell - continuing on with a similar feel and narrative. The record starts with some jazz chords that set a pretty scene before we learn that “A nuclear war is knocking at the door…” and it’s pretty clear right off the bat that we’re not much better off than we were in 2017. We’re still led by morons, we still have no money, and we’re still just trying to sort out life on the fringes, balancing tne need to eat with the unwillingness to compromise our art. The politics of healthcare, white privilege, immigration, and the underlying anger and fear of Trump’s America are all explored to varying degrees, but with a questioning observational longing for equality and understanding moreso than the easier, more obvious, and lazy path of preachy righteousness that some more popular bands have adopted.

This record is a little more rock and roll and might resonate a little closer to the heart of die-hard Two Cow fans than YNNR did. There’s more driving drums and guitar riffs. Songs like “Gentile Always”, “New Shoes” and “A Celebration” would have fit seamlessly on the last 2CG record, with their call and answer guitars (mostly provided by the talented Jay Gasper), Springsteenish pianos, and sing-along choruses. Ever-present in all of Micah’s lyrics are the visuals - the baby boomer robbers wearing a Ronald Reagan ski-mask or late-night goofing around the radiology lab in a Maine hospital on an early Two Cow Garage tour. There’s moments of nostalgia too, which provide a brief and welcome break from the doom and gloom politics, singing about sleeping under a snooker table in Ireland, meeting Vanessa in San Francisco, and drinking red wine on the steps of an art museum in Croatia.

In “How to Ride a Bike” Micah sings about how expensive it is to be alive, but he’s quick to point out that being dead is a lousy alternative. In “A Celebration” he commits to getting up tomorrow to watch the sunrise. One common thread to his music over the years is just this - everything is a disaster, our systems are broken, people are lost, our world is plastic, but there’s hope, there’s a reason to get out of bed. A new album from Micah is just that.

You can order Teenage Years of the 21st Century on Micha’s Bandcamp page. The digital is available now and the vinyl is due in March.

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Columbus readers should plan to attend Michah and Vanessa’s 5th annual Holiday Office Party at the Rumba Cafe on December 18th featuring the first Two Cow Garage set in some time among other great bands and vendors, and a toy drive for Firefighters for Kids.

Jeremy Porter lives near Detroit and fronts the rock and roll band Jeremy Porter And The Tucos.

www.thetucos.com

Follow them on Facebook to read his road blog about their adventures on the dive-bar circuit.

www.facebook.com/jeremyportermusic

Twitter: @jeremyportermi | Instagram: @onetogive & @jeremyportermusic

www.rockandrollrestrooms.com

Ricki C. & JCE Talking Boston's Finest Sons: The Neighborhoods, including a brand new record.....

In the age of the internet, it’s possible to have a friend you have never actually met. Ricki C and JCE are fast friends after years of correspondence, and one of the things they have always agreed upon is the greatness of Boston’s best band, THE NEIGHBORHOODS. After literally years of anticipating a new record, it’s finally here. Titled “Last Known Address,” the new ‘Hoods record is worth talking about, so Ricki C hatched a plan to do just that. Below, he and JCE discuss the new record and The Neighborhoods in general, through a back and forth conversation. Here you go…..

How did you first learn about the Neighborhoods anyway?

JCE: I went to school in Charlottesville, VA, and I lived there afterwards - pretty much all of the 1980’s. One day, probably in 1985, this guy named Maynard was tacking up flyers around town that said “Fire Is Coming” (the band’s then-current indie release). Maynard played in local bands, managed a band and booked shows for bands he wanted to bring to town. Anyway, I had never heard The Neighborhoods until that day.

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RICKI C.: My high school best friend & bandmate Dave Blackburn (who taught me more about music and rock & roll than anybody else in my existence) moved to Boston in 1972 after intentionally flunking out of Ohio State University. My visits to Dave in Boston over the next couple of years is what launched my love of Boston rock & roll. That love affair started with The Modern Lovers, who Dave saw play at a high school – with a young up & coming band called Aerosmith OPENING the show – pretty soon after he got to Boston. Said love affair continued through the 1970’s with Willie Alexander, The Real Kids, The Nervous Eaters and about twenty more. (see appendix A below)

In mid-1980, on one of those visits, I happened on a new magazine called Boston Rock that featured The Neighborhoods on the cover of its debut issue and it was literally love at first sight. I sent away for their debut single on the Ace Of Hearts label – “Prettiest Girl” b/w “No Place Like Home” – when I got back to Columbus and the rest is history.

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The Neighborhoods in 1980 / David Minehan on guitar, John Hartcorn, bass, Michael Quaglia, drums.


What’s been your experience seeing them play—how many times have you seen them?

JCE: I saw that show in Charlottesville when I first heard of them, at a place called the C&O, I believe. After that I was hooked. I’ve seen them in their hometown of Boston at Bunratty’s, I’ve seen them in Richmond, VA Beach, at least twice in D.C. and probably at least three other times in Charlottesville. One time I even saw them at a frat party at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, VA. My wife (fiancé at the time) and I lived in Charlotte, NC, for a year. On our last night there, before we moved back home to VA, we saw The ‘Hoods play a club called The Pterodactyl. All the boys in the band were wearing matching black t-shirts that said “Fuck You, We’re From Boston” on the back. I’m forgetting some, so I would say I’ve seen them about 12 or 13 times. They are so spectacular live that me and my friends in Charlottesville would never miss them if we were within a couple of hours. My friends’ band 98 Colours opened for them sometimes and they slept on the couches and floors of people I knew on multiple occasions.

RICKI C.: Oh man, this live category has GOT to be the one where I’m most jealous of my long-distance compatriot, JCE. Virginia & Washington being on the East Coast means he got ‘Hoods live opportunities WAY more often than this Midwest/Ohio boy. I had to FLY to Boston to see The Neighborhoods in the early years. (Flying to Boston To See The Rock & Roll) Luckily, from 1980 to 1984 I was working in the stockroom of Ross Laboratories here in Columbus, and it was simultaneously the HIGHEST-PAYING and EASIEST job I ever had, affording me the cash to indulge myself in live ‘Hoods.

I never got to see the John-Hartcorn-on-bass era band but I know I saw the Tim-Green-on-bass Neighborhoods twice. I was still drinking heavily AND smoking pot in those early-80’s days, though, so those shows are kinda hazy. I don’t even recall what clubs they were at, but one seemed to be in a strip-shopping-center with a carry-out and maybe a laundromat or tanning place in it. For sure it wasn’t The Rat, which I had been to a few times earlier in the 1970’s.

By far my favorite place to see The Neighborhoods in Boston was The Channel, a 1700-person capacity bar near Boston Garden, right on a subway line, really easy to get to from my Commonwealth Motel Boston home base. As much as I’ve come to enjoy seeing bands in small (50-200 capacity) clubs, I dearly LOVE watching rock & roll bands kick out the jams in big-ass bars, auditoriums & theaters like the shows I grew up on in the 1960’s: Veteran’s Memorial (capacity 3172) and later the Columbus Agora (still in operation, now called The Newport, capacity 1500 or so).

The Neighborhoods @ The Channel, 1982 / Minehan & Quaglia, Lee Harrington on bass.

The Neighborhoods only played my home town of Columbus, Ohio, once, in May of 1986. This is a review I did of that show for The Noise, a Boston fanzine I dearly loved back in the day. (Along with Boston Groupie News and the short-lived Frenzy.) All tolled I probably saw the guys maybe 7 times, i.e. not nearly enough.

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Tell me about the best show you ever saw them play…..

JCE: That’s impossible. The show I saw in Richmond had my friends as the opener and The Neighborhoods had a guest guitarist that night. It was this guy from a Richmond band called The Good Guys. He was great and Dave Minehan loved him. He invited the guy, right there on stage, to officially join the Neighborhoods as a second guitarist, but the offer was declined. I honestly believe it was a serious offer though. Another good one was at a club in D.C. called 15 Minutes. They announced that they were calling it quits and it would be their last show. They played with a vengeance that night (the Dave, Lee and Mike lineup). Afterwards I got a CD signed by them and Dave wrote “Neighborhoods, R.I.P.” under his name. It was heartbreaking. All the shows in Charlottesville were good, because all my friends were always there and they knew us. They would take the stage and my friend Tracy would start yelling for them to play her favorite song, “Shake” before they even played the first note.

RICKI C. I’ve gotta say one of The Channel shows in either 1982 (when I went to Boston to spend my 30th birthday alone, when I was first sobering up), or 1985 were the most rocking shows I ever saw from David, Lee Harrington & Mike Quaglia. But that Columbus show in Stache’s - capacity 85 people (though the club owner once sold 300 tickets to a Dream Syndicate show there) - was the BEST show. When you pack the sheer excitement of a band like The Neighborhoods - who regularly played 1700 capacity venues in their hometown - into a tiny rock club roughly the size of some rich guy’s frickin’ LIVING ROOM, the magic was just OVERWHELMING.

Plus that show was the only time I ever got to talk to & hang out with the guys in The Neighborhoods. It was a genuine bonding experience for me, and I treasure that rock & roll memory TO THIS DAY, 33 years later.

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Rank their records from best to worst.

JCE: Reptile Men, The High Hard One, Last Known Address, Hoodwinked, The Neighborhoods, Fire is Coming, The Last Rat.

Hoodwinked and The Neighborhoods have mostly the same songs. Hoodwinked has that amazing cover of “Southern Girls” by Cheap Trick. Also, I am one person who happens to absolutely love the version of “Prettiest Girl” that is on the self-titled Atlantic release. A lot of people would disagree.

RICKI C.: Wow, their recorded output is a place we really diverge on The ‘Hoods. My best to worst: The High Hard One, Fire Is Coming, The Last Rat, and Reptile Men are the great ones. I haven’t absorbed Last Known Address enough yet to drop it into the canon, but I gotta think it’s gonna slot between Fire Is Coming and The Last Rat. Further, I find Hoodwinked and the self-titled Atlantic CD almost unlistenable. (Indeed, that Brad Whitford-produced record is why I couldn’t ever get people to take The Neighborhoods seriously when I pronounced them my “favorite Boston band ever” and “better than The Replacements” in blogs like this one, on my old site: Growing Old With Rock & Roll / The Neighborhoods “Cultured Pearls.”)

Then again, in the first decade of this 21st century I was lucky enough to be supplied – courtesy of Eric Law of Boston and Vic Gagnon of Ann Arbor, MI. (among others) – with a couple dozen live sets of The Neighborhoods from all over America stretching from 1979 to well into the late 1980’s, and any number of those live sets just MIGHT be better than any of the ‘Hoods official releases. They were just such a GREAT live band.

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Let’s (finally) get to the new record. Review it in 1,000 words or less.

JCE: Well, I obviously love it, since I have it ranked right after The High Hard One. First off, there are no clunkers on it whatsoever.

It starts strong with “Half Life” and if every song was about that good, I would be happy. But it gets even better.

I really get fired up starting with track two. “ByGone Era” is a killer, probably my favorite or second favorite on the record. I love the sort-of play on words, and the sentiment—is it ‘good bygone era’ or is it ‘goodbye gone era’? The answer is both.

Tracks 2-5 are my favorite, I think. Track 3, “I Go Dark” is strong. For track 4, we get “Billy the Kid” which is maybe my third favorite on the record. I like the slow, melancholy start and then the way it kicks into gear. Tracks 5, “Don’t Look Down,” is excellent and probably my second favorite.

Track 6, “In Case of Creeps” is great. Unfortunately, it has this section that is just talking/noodling that goes on way too long and ruins the song. I cured that by using iTunes to clip the song at the 1:45 mark. That way it’s short, but it’s perfect.

Tracks 7-10 are very good, maybe not great. Track 8 is called “The Stowaway” and it is my least favorite. Track 10, “The Parasites” is a song most ‘Hoods fans already know. It’s never been a favorite of mine but it’s still damn good.

Track 11 jumps up a notch. It’s called “The Tiled Room” and it has a Replacements vibe to me.

The record winds down with track 12, “We Are All Alone.” It’s a really cool slower song. I really like this one a lot, but I think because it is so repetitive that it would have been better if it were four minutes long instead of 5:26.

Overall, it’s just so good. After all these years I feared the possibility of disappointment, but to the contrary, this exceeded all my expectations. I will say that the CD packaging is really weak, but hey, it’s about the music, right? Still, after all these years some liner notes or lyrics would have been nice.

RICKI C.: I concur about the CD packaging. Artists & labels these days just seem NOT TO CARE at all about CD’s as a physical product, everything is just about downloads: Spotify and Rhapsody rule. I really miss jewel-case CD’s with cool covers and inside booklets with credits and lyrics, like JCE said. (I suspect that’s all just about economics in the indie world, and I FAILED Econ 101 in school all those decades ago.)

Musically the record is BEYOND solid: crunching guitars, cool bass, kick-ass drums, great vocals; what else and what more can a rocker gonna ask for these days? Plus, lyrically the songs are actually ABOUT something, and how many places do you get that in 2019, where every band I hear writes maybe two verses and then just bores us with a chorus until the (oftentimes merciful) conclusion of the tune? “Half Life,” “Bygone Era” and “Billy The Kid” are my early standout favorites. (And are you gonna find lyrics as sharp, heartbreaking AND insightful as “Standin’ here as sad as birthday candles blown out so long ago / If you could only tell us not to worry, ‘cuz everything is beautiful / We’d let it go” from “Billy The Kid” about a departed compadre on a rock record this year? I gotta doubt it.)

So the entire disc is kinda like a supercharged Cheap Trick rumbling with The Jam in a dark alley in Boston sometime in the summer of 1979, only with WAY better lyrics and I’m gonna leave it at that. David Minehan is absolutely one of my top 10 rock & roll songwriters of all time and bassist Lee Harrington comes up with a couple of solid tunes on this disc. Buy it, or download it, NOW!

The Neighborhoods, 2010 / Minehan & Harrington, John Lynch on drums.

Final words or stories?

JCE: I would just say that this has been a long time coming. I discovered a website called Hoods Online years and years ago. At one time, they would post a live show once in a while. I started getting emails from an email list I signed up for, and at one point, they were promising not only a new record, but the release of an apparently finished record called “Last of the Mohicans.” Neither ever came out, that was like eight years ago, or more. Then this one started being teased and there were even little clips of the songs on that website for a couple of years. Guitarist & main songwriter David Minehan is obviously a busy man, but it was so worth the wait. I hope I can see them play live again. I saw Dave play with the Replacements a couple of years ago and he is still just the best to watch.

Oh yeah, and thanks to you, Ricki C, for asking me to do this. You are a real friend, a great writer, and you have pretty decent taste in music. And thanks for the GIANT pile of live Neighborhoods CD’s that you gave me!

RICKI C: I can’t think of a better present for the rockers on everybody’s Christmas list than Last Known Address. It’s on Spotify & all that, or you can order from my favorite Boston-related merch outlet QRST’s Store, linked here…….Neighborhoods & Boston rockers merch.


Appendix A: the track listing of Ricki C.’s homemade-from-vinyl 2-CD set Best of Boston Rock & Roll

(note: I’ve made individual “best of” CD’s of The Modern Lovers, The Sidewinders, The J. Geils Band, Aerosmith, Reddy Teddy, The Cars, The Neighborhoods, Mission of Burma and 'til tuesday for my collection. These are the other Boston bands I love.)


CD-1 / Boston Rocks / 1975 – 1977

1) Kerouac

2) Mass. Ave. – Willie Alexander, indie single, ’75

3) Holiday Fire – Marc Thor

4) Boystown Boize – The Boize, split indie single, ’75

5) Prized Possession – Fox Pass, indie single, ‘76

6) Loretta – The Nervous Eaters, indie single, ’76

7) All Kindsa Girls

8) Common At Noon – The Real Kids, indie single, ’77

9) Lift Up Your Hood – DMZ, indie ep track, ’77

10) You Looked So Pretty When – Willie Alexander, indie single ’76

11) Boys & Girls

12) Romance – Reddy Teddy, album tracks, ’76

13) Hot For Teacher – Thundertrain, indie single, ’76

14) Pup Tune – Willie Alexander & The Boom Boom Band

15) Boy From Nowhere

16) Ball Me Out – DMZ

17) Better Be Good

18) Who Needs Ya – The Real Kids

19) I’ve Got To Rock – Thundertrain

tracks 14 – 19 from Live At The Rat album, 1976

CD-2 / Boston Rocks / 1978 – 1986

1) Baby Boom – DMZ, album track, ’78

2) Psycho Blonde – Pastiche, compilation track, ’80

3) Better Off Dead – La Peste, indie single, ’78

4) When You’re Young

5) Teenage Flu

6) Big City Rock – The Atlantics, album tracks, ’79

7) Everybody Wants To Survive – The Infliktors, indie single, ’79

8) I’m Talking To You – The Maps, indie single, ’79

9) When Things Go Wrong – Robin Lane & The Chartbusters, ’79

10) Stuck On The Same Refrain – The Peter Dayton Band, ’81

11) Ina’s Song – Limbo Race, indie single, ’83

12) Tiger, Tiger – Scruffy The Cat, indie ep track, ’86

13) The Room Starts Spinning – Classic Ruins, album track, ’86

14) I Want To Help You Ann

15) High On Yourself

16) What A Girl Can’t Do – The Lyres, indie ep tracks, ’83

17) Generic New York City Woman

18) Junk Train

19) Motherfuckers – The Blackjacks, album tracks, ’86

20) I Couldn’t Say No – Robert Ellis Orrall w/ Carlene Carter, ‘83

Slayer Concert Review: Columbus, OH 11/12/2019 - by Kevin Montavon


The Slayer "Last Campaign Tour" rolled into Columbus on Tuesday, Nov 12th. Having seen them nearly every time they have played Columbus since 1986, but having missed their last stop here, as well as this tour being advertised as their final trek, I had to catch this show. When the opening acts were announced for the tour, there was one act that sold me on going. In the opening slot was Phil Anselmo, the former lead singer of Pantera, and his band The Illegals, performing for the first time in decades a full set of that band's songs. I was a huge Pantera fan in their heyday, seeing them 17 times in the course of 7 years, from 1991-98. I was unfortunately also present at The Alrosa Villa in December of 2004 when Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell Abbott was murdered onstage along with 3 others during a concert by his follow-up band Damageplan. My Pantera bonafides run deep. I don't listen to the band that much anymore but they still loom large in my concert history. So there was no way I was going to miss this show.

I had received word from friends who saw tour stops in other cities that Phil was hitting the stage at 5 minutes to 6:00, so I made sure I was inside Nationwide Arena by 5:45. I went straight to my purchased seat location, towards the back of the lower level and took my seat in a largely empty section. The cavernous Nationwide Arena had been scaled down to half-size for this show, and the upper level had been darkened and curtained off. The result was a smaller arena feel, while still providing a venue 3 times the size of Slayer's usual spot in town, the Express Live Indoor pavilion. The only other time I had seen Slayer in an arena over the years was in 1991, on the Clash Of The Titans tour with Megadeth, Anthrax, and Alice In Chains...a show where they turned the reserved seating Battelle Hall, in what is now the Columbus Convention Center, into a raging general admission mosh pit where security couldn't remove the rows of seating fast enough. The show tonight was far from sold out, but it was a respectable draw for a record-cold November weeknight, and still over twice the audience size that Slayer normally plays to in this market. In fact the only larger audience they have played to in Central Ohio was when they played the main stage at Rock On The Range in front of a full soccer stadium.


At 5:55 PM, the houselights fell and The Amboy Dukes' 1967 album track "Down On Phillip's Escalator (D.O.P.E.)" played over the PA, as The Illegals took the stage. When the song ended, Phil walked onstage with arms raised. Taking the mic he said, "This is for Dime and Vince [Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul Abott, also deceased]", and the band launched into Pantera's "Mouth For War". The still-filling general admission floor became an instant swirl of moshing, and the audience took over backing vocal duties flawlessly. The band was tight as could be with the lead guitarist in particular channeling his inner-Dimebag. As for the man of the hour himself, Phil has seen better days. His voice and stage presence are a mere shell of their former glory. At one time in the 1990's no one could touch Phillip Anselmo on the stage. While it was somewhat disheartening to watch him slowly walk back and forth, throwing his arms in the air as if trying to start a Metal wave in the cavernous hall, it was also a testament to his status as an elite frontman that even in his diminished capacity he could command the attention of every eye in the house. For pure nostalgia it was great. The audience continued to sing along with every song, to the point where Phil would just let them sing the chorus of many songs. After a far too short 7-song set, he bid us all a good night and asked us to help him "end this the right way" as we all sang together "And she's buying a Stairway to Heaven." Should Phil eventually decide to do a full Pantera revival tour with the other surviving member, bassist Rex Brown, I would be first in line for tickets.

Ministry was next. They too have a unique connection to Pantera history in Columbus. They played here on the same night Dimebag was murdered. I had to choose between going to The Newport that night for their show, or the cheaper priced Damageplan show. As they hit the stage this evening, I once again was lost in the throes of nostalgia, as at least half of their set was literally made up of the dance songs of my college years. Industrial bangers like "Burning Inside", "Thieves And Liars", and set closer "Jesus Built My Hot Rod" had me time-traveling to the late 80's and early 90's Ohio State south campus bar scene. They even found time to squeeze in the 1,000 Homo DJ's cover of Black Sabbath's "Supernaut", which went over great with the metalhead crowd. Newly sober frontman Al Jorgensen, author of one of the most absurd autobiographies in music history, actually appeared to be having fun on stage. Amazing.

Primus took the stage next. On paper, the band sticks out like a sore thumb on this lineup. But in execution, the audience loved them. It didn't hurt that the house had filled up considerably during the course of the two previous acts. They played a set of career highlights, but the funnest part of their set for me was when they covered "Cygnus X-1" by Rush. I had last seen Les Claypool and company all the way back in 1994 when they opened for Rush on the Counterparts tour, and I had witnessed my final Rush show in this very arena, so the moment was a bit surreal. They finished their set with their mid 90's MTV hit "Jerry Was A Racecar Driver", sending the masses on the floor into another whirlpool of moshing.

A large curtain was dropped to cover the stage, and after listening to most of AC/DC's "Back In Black" album over the PA, the moment had finally arrived...Slayer were about to begin their final set ever in Columbus. If I told you I didn't go total fanboy when their intro tape started, and began screaming "SLAAAAAYER" at the top of my lungs, acting like a 15-year old girl in the throes of Beatlemania, I would be lying.
Slayer, being the extraordinarily consistent band they have always been on the live stage, played a set of songs covering all eras of their career. The big chestnuts of their catalog, the material from their first 5 albums, were mostly saved for the second half of the set, resulting in a crowd that stayed hot throughout the entire night. Speaking of hot, the pyro budget for this tour must be outrageous, as blasts of fire and large banks of flames burned behind them for a significant part of the show. I could feel the heat all the way at the top of the scaled-down arena. It was quite kind of the guys to keep us all so warm on a freezing autumn evening.

When the last notes of "Angel Of Death" had faded, the guys remained onstage with the houselights up, interacting with fans, handing out guitar picks, drumsticks, setlists, etc. They stayed out there for an extraordinarily long time, even as many people filed out of the building. For most of this time, frontman Tom Araya stood motionless at the edge of the stage just staring at the audience and the arena, soaking it all in. He finally walked around onstage a bit with the other guys until they all eventually left him by himself to speak to us one last time. His voice cracked as he said, "Thank you for being a part of my life." The mood was very somber, and you could feel Tom's sincerity that this really was the end.

As I type this, rumors of a Mötley Crüe reunion tour are swirling for 2020, and The Black Crowes are already comfirmed for a reunion next summer as well, illustrating that no one ever stays retired in Rock. But if this was indeed Slayer's final show ever in the Buckeye State, then it was a fitting end to the decades of destruction they have wrought on the concert scene. Long live FUUUUUCKING SLAAAAAYER

Movie Review: Western Stars / Bruce Springsteen - by Ricki C.

Okay, first off, it’s not exactly a state secret that Bruce Springsteen is one of my top three Rock & Roll Heroes of all time, the other two being – for those of you scoring at home – Elliott Murphy and Pete Townshend. (And Townshend has been useless to me from pretty much 1973 on, right after Quadrophenia, and all of The Who’s successive letdowns, including this year’s 5,237th Farewell Tour.)

But I digress………

Even though Bruce is my hero, there are always letdowns lurking on the winding path of rock & roll, and Springsteen’s Western Stars record is certainly one of them. I fully admit I couldn’t possibly have heard the album for the first time under worse circumstances, on the Sirius/XM radio E Street channel during a long car ride. Dave Marsh and some other Sirius stiff played the record all the way through with commentary every three songs or so, the commentary running largely to, “Oh, those songs were SO wonderful, showing the influence of Jimmy Webb while retaining Bruce’s genius for lyric writing; Oh, THAT set of songs was SO magnificent, evoking the mysteries of the landscape of the Southwest, mirrored through Bruce’s genius;” and, finally, “Oh, that closing group of songs were THE BEST songs ever written in the Sunshine Pop style of 1960’s California, only these were better because they grew from the mind & soul of Bruce’s genius.”

Truthfully, all I heard on that first car radio listen – and subsequent listening’s at home – was a fairly melodically boring record and not ONE great line of Springsteen lyrics. And don’t get me wrong, I FULLY appreciate and love that Bruce tried something different with this album – a unified set of songs, a sort of meditation on stalled stardom & The Southwest – I just think he pretty much dropped the ball on the TUNES, ya know?

Which brings us to the movie that premiered a coupla Friday’s ago: My thought was, “GREAT, I can see Bruce and some musicians with an accompanying string section play the songs LIVE, live is always the best way to experience Springsteen music.” But by halfway through the film (and believe me boys & girls, it’s a FILM, not a MOVIE; important distinction, MOVIES are oftentimes fun, films are almost uniformly boring) I found myself dozing off in my comfy Gateway Film Center seat. The songs – and, problematically, the Bruce commentary accompanying the songs – were just as boring live as they were on record. And all of those stock cinematic shots of horses running majestically through Southwest desert landscapes didn’t exactly liven things up.

Then, at the end, as a coup de grace, Bruce & the band undercut the entire premise of the Western Stars concept by essaying a cover of “Rhinestone Cowboy,” the Glen Campbell hit from 1975. THAT was when it hit me, “Damn, this lightweight Larry Weiss middle-of-the-road pap-pop tune from the mid-70’s is BETTER IN EVERY WAY than ANY of the songs from Western Stars: WAY more melodically memorable; sharper – if not exactly BETTER – lyrics; and far more FUN than anything else Bruce had trotted out in the previous 60 minutes.” And “Rhinestone Cowboy” is a TERRIBLE song that I turn off every time it comes on any of the oldie radio stations I have programmed in my car (and there are – I fully admit – a LOT of oldie radio stations programmed in my car).

One of the first – and, retrospectively, best – rock & roll lessons Willie Phoenix taught me when we met way back in 1978 was, “Never end a set of original songs with a cover, because then you’re just admitting you couldn’t come up with anything better than something that already existed.” I wish Springsteen had honored that sentiment in Western Stars.

Bruce, I’m eagerly lookin’ forward to What’s Next. – Ricki C. / November 1st, 2019.

a couple of videos to illustrate my point…….

I really believe either one of the GREAT 1960’s Jimmy Webb/Glen Campbell collaborations “Galveston” or “By The Time I Get to Phoenix” would have illustrated the “Sunshine Pop” connections to Western Stars better than this easy-listening pop song, and still would have kept the Western theme going.

Look ‘em up, cats & kittens.