R.I.P. Robin Williams by Ricki C.

Robin Williams killed himself today, and I find myself seriously bummed about it, certainly more bummed than I would have thought I would be.  (Maybe partially because I see on MSNBC that he was only a year older than me, and I DID NOT NEED that particular little stat.)

Usually, with celebrity suicides I’m more pissed-off than sad.  My close friends, musical associates and total strangers I encountered at gigs will tell you I was particularly savage towards Kurt Cobain when he blew his brains out in 1994.  (In my own defense, that was because Mr. Cobain was a rock & roll star – perhaps the biggest rock & roll star on the planet other than Axl Rose at the moment he offed himself – and ALL I HAD EVER WANTED TO BE SINCE I WAS 16 YEARS OLD WAS A ROCK & ROLL STAR!  I just could not process or abide that boy’s suicide.)

I have a very specific memory from September of 1978 when “Mork & Mindy” debuted on Channel 6 (ABC-TV) here in Columbus.  I had met Willie Phoenix and his band, Romantic Noise, that previous February.  And I had met the young girl I would break up my first marriage with the month before that.  And by September that girl, me, Willie, and some combination of Greg, John & Dee (the other Romantic Noise members), their girls, or just The Cookiebakers & such who hung around the band would gather around a TV somewhere, and laugh our asses off at Robin Williams in that show.

Willie and I were, in those days & months, embarked on a loud, sacred mission to bring some measure of innocence back into rock & roll.  In his punk/power-pop and my overly wordy West Side rock & roll we wanted somehow to counter the likes of Kiss, Led Zeppelin, Styx, Journey, Kansas & Foreigner, whom we perceived as debasing & degrading our beloved rock & roll with their “suck my dick” lyrical, musical & stage stances. 

And somehow, in Robin Williams & Pam Dawber as Mork & Mindy we saw that innocence being played back and validated to us on our televisions every Thursday evening.  Robin Williams was power-pop TV to us.

I’m not gonna go into all of Williams’ accomplishments here – the classic David Letterman appearances where he would just be OFF HIS BRAIN hilarious; his peerless performances in “Good Will Hunting” and “Dead Poets Society”; the first season of the aforementioned “Mork & Mindy” – you can get all that on Grantland, the Huffington Post and the 24-hour news channels with all their endless blathering.

I’m just gonna say, “Thank you, Robin Williams, for being Mork.” and end with the words of Bruce Springsteen from “Johnny Bye-Bye.” - “You didn’t have to die, you didn’t have to die.” – Ricki C. / August 11th, 2014

I'd Rather Clean All The Bathrooms In the Schottenstein Center Than See Journey Play There - by Wal Ozello

Journey's coming to Columbus, Ohio on September 9 to play the Schottenstein Center. Tower of Power is opening for them.

You couldn't pay me enough money to be there.

Even if you're not a fan of Journey, even if you hate Journey and everything it ever stood for, let me put this in clear perspective for you.

Seeing Journey without Steve Perry is like seeing the Rolling Stones without Mick Jagger. Led Zepplin without Robert Plant. The Who without Roger Daltrey.

Heck... it's like seeing the Jackson 5 without Michael Jackson.

What makes it even more pathetic of a show, is their new lead singer is a sound-a-like.  As if you're tricking me into thinking it's really him. Who are you, Obi-wan Kenobi? You think you can do a Jedi mind trick on me?

Thank you Eddie Van Halen for finding a David Lee Roth replacement that was totally different. While Van Hagar wasn't anything like Van Halen, at least it was new, refreshing, and exciting to listen to.

But I digress... here's the whopper.  Journey thinks they are going to fill a huge arena (the OSU Basketball team plays there) and have people pay upwards to $90 to see them. Folks, the nose bleed seats are $72!

There's a lot of better ways you can spend that $72.  Go see a movie, buy a couple of CDs, visit Colin's Coffee (shameless plug for Colin's shop), come to my book signing at Colin's Coffee on Aug 16 from 10 am to Noon (shameless plug for my new book Revolution 1990), or even donate it to a homeless shelter.

But for the love of God, please don't feed Neal Schon's ego with it.

Wal Ozello is  a science fiction techno-thriller novelist and the author of Assignment 1989: The Time Travel Wars  and Revolution 1990. He's a resident of Upper Arlington, Ohio, a frequent customer at Colin's Coffee, and a long-time Steve Perry fan.

Learn more about Wal Ozello and other Pencilstorm contributors by clicking here

Ray Davies is the Best Songwriter: Exhibit I

We didn't forget about our semi-regular Sunday series systematically laying out the case why Ray Davies is the best songwriter ever in rock & roll, we just got busy. I put out a new tune, click here to listen, and with summer and gigs and the coffee shop and... anyway, let's get on with it.  Enjoy! - Colin G.

 

Click here for Ray Davies is the best songwriter exhibit H

 

The Kinks -  "Working at the Factory" written by Ray Davies

Sure, Think Visual isn't a masterpiece relative to other Kinks efforts, but as always, it has a number of gems scattered throughout. Considering this is TWENTY FIRST album released by The Kinks makes the it that much more impressive. Or put another way, has your favorite band released twenty- one records? That's what I thought. Get bent. Ray Davies is the best. 

The Kinks Working at the Factory

"Working At The Factory"
 

All my life, I've been a workin' man
When I was at school they said that's all you'll ever understand
No profession, I didn't figure in their plans
So they sent me down the factory to be a workin' man

All I lived for, all I lived for
All I lived for was to get out of the factory
Now I'm here seemingly free, but working at the factory

Then music came along and gave new life to me
And gave me hope back in 1963
The music came and set me free
From working at the factory

All I lived for, all I lived for
Was to get out of the factory
All I lived for, all I lived for
Was to get out of the factory

Never wanted to be like everybody else
But now there are so many like me sitting on the shelf
They sold us a dream but in reality
It was just another factory
I made the music, thought that it was mine
It made me free, but that was in another time
But then the corporations and the big combines
Turned musicians into factory workers on assembly lines

All we live for, all we live for
All we live for is to get out of the factory
We made the music to set ourselves free
From working at the factory

All my life I've put in a working day
Now it's sign the contract, get production on the way

Take the money, make the music pay
Working at the factory
All I lived for was to get out of the factory

Never wanted to be like everybody else
But now there are so many like me sitting on the shelf
They sold us a dream that in reality
Was just another factory

Working at the factory

 

An Homage to "Repo Man" 30 Years On - by Nick Taggert

An Homage to “Repo Man” 30 Years On

You know the way everybody's into weirdness right now? Books in all the supermarkets about Bermuda triangles, UFOs, how the Mayans invented television? Well, they’re into celebrating anniversaries, too. Aging soldiers were trotted out to commemorate the 70th anniversary of D-Day and Baby Boomers got all gooey about marking 50 years since the Beatles first came to America. Anniversaries help us reflect on where we’ve been and how those events have shaped us. That’s why I find it somewhat unfathomable that another great cultural anniversary went uncommented on by the media: this past March marked 30 years since the release of the movie, “Repo Man”.

I was 21 when it was released and it came at a formative time when I was trying to figure things out; you know, finding an identity and a path worth pursuing, blah, blah, blah. Not that the movie helped me find a vocation. Repossessing cars from dildos who don’t pay their bills didn’t sound like an attractive career. And despite a burgeoning music scene in early 80s Columbus, I was not a white suburban punk and would never have dreamed of getting sushi and not paying for it. But the movie opened my eyes in other ways by introducing me to genres of music and humor that might not have otherwise reached the Westside of Columbus. 

Everyone has a movie they can quote ad nauseam: “Caddyshack,” “Slap Shot,” “Fletch.” For me, it’s “Repo Man.”  Like Pavlov’s dog, I can’t see a pine tree air freshener dangling from a rearview mirror without commenting, “You find one in every car. You’ll see.” Or reciting the soliloquy regarding John Wayne’s sexual preferences whenever the Duke’s name is mentioned. It’s some form of “Repo” Tourette’s, I’m sure.

“Repo Man” contains the perfect blend of wackiness and youthful ennui, and it sucked me right in. There are hardcore punks, car chases through the concrete riverbeds of Los Angeles, a ’64 Chevy Malibu with dead aliens in the trunk, and a deranged inventor of the neutron bomb attempting to keep the two hemispheres of his brain from exploding. Not to mention gun play and people getting vaporized. It’s intense! But as we learn from the film, the life of a repo man is always intense. 

The characters are memorable: Emilio Estevez in his finest role as punk turned repo man, Otto Maddox; curmudgeonly Harry Dean Stanton as the fatherly Bud; Tracey Walter as the wise car-yard philosopher, Miller; and all the other beer-monikered cast members and offbeat extras.

The movie isn’t for everyone. Commies won’t like it, nor Christians, nor ordinary fucking people. It might be a gender thing, too. The film does seem geared toward guys. Punk is a testosterone-driven art form and all the repo men are, well, men. My wife is not a big fan. But then she doesn’t like shrimp either. Or plate. Or plate o’ shrimp. She loves Monty Python, so it’s not as if she doesn’t appreciate silly or absurdist humor. Maybe she just needs to watch it another ten to twenty times. Like me.

Multiple viewings reveal layer upon layer of pop culture references that eventually enmesh the movie in a lattice of satirical coincidence, if you will. Scientology gets a poke in the eye when government agents are found reading Diuretics: The Science of Matter over Mind, and a term paper is waiting to be written comparing Bud’s “Repo Code” (“I shall not cause harm to any vehicle nor the personal contents thereof, nor through inaction let the personal contents thereof come to harm.”) to Isaac Asimov’s Laws of Robotics. (“A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”)

The movie is obviously peculiar, but it’s effectively peculiar. It not only entertains, it blows the mind, making our brains receptive to new and original ideas. The cerebral cortex can always use a good scrubbing. 

But what is the movie about? Punk rock? Aliens? Time travel? Nuclear war? How the fuck should I know? The only certainties are that it is funny and it has a killer soundtrack. From Iggy Pop’s title track to the teen angst anthem of Suicidal Tendencies’ “Institutionalized” (“How can you say what my best interest is?/ What are you trying to say, I'm crazy?/When I went to your schools/ I went to your churches/ I went to your institutional learning facilities?!/ So how can you say I'm crazy?”), it’s cool and it rocks and it’s infused with humor. There’s Black Flag’s “TV Party” (“We've got nothing better to do/ Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews”) and Burning Sensations cover of Jonathan Richman’s “Pablo Picasso” (“Some people try to pick up girls, get called an asshole / This never happened to Pablo Picasso”). And for some hip cache, there’s the Latino punk band, The Plugz, singing a Spanish version of Johnny Rivers’s “Secret Agent Man,” or “Hombre Secreto” as they say in the barrio. In the early 80s, punk rock was ripping the seams off the bloated music that came before it. And for a Midwestern boy raised on Top 40 and Album Oriented Rock, it kicked open doors of scary cubbyholes I might not have otherwise peered inside. 

Thirty years on, does the film hold up? Does one run the risk of seeing it again with mature eyes and concluding, as Otto does when watching a familiar band in a nightclub, “I can’t believe I used to like these guys.” In my humble opinion, “Repo Man” continues to entertain. The Criterion Collection released an enhanced 2-DVD set last year, so someone else must think so, too. (It contains the expected director’s and actors’ commentaries, but what makes it especially coveted is the rare TV-edit of the movie where “melonfarmers” replaces “motherfuckers”!)

No doubt if you pulled a core sample from the film, the plug would show ample evidence of the 1980s. There are people using phone booths (how quaint); Otto’s a cappella version of “TV Party” includes “Dallas” and “The Jeffersons”; and there’s the running gag of generic “Food” and “Beer” packaging, funny as well as nostalgic for those of us who remember those blue and white unbrands. 

I’m fond of saying “Repo Man” contains the meaning of life, but, of course, that’s hyperbole. For the vigilant viewer, however, there are enough meaningful aphorisms to fill a Mitch Albom book. For example, we learn food is more enjoyable if eaten off a plate; there is room to move as a fry cook; the more you drive, the less intelligent you are; and, while getting by however we can, we all gotta duck when the shit hits the fan. 

So, what’s the meaning of it all? There isn’t any! That’s what makes it so much fun. (Kind of like life?) Just sit back and enjoy the ride, as if cruising through the night sky of southern California in a glowing Chevy Malibu that is really…yeah, you got it…a time machine! It’s all part of the cosmic unconsciousness.

Stone Brewery in Columbus? Let's Ask Some Experts by Colin G.

I was talking to some people backstage before our show at Comfest and a couple of folks mentioned excitedly, "Do you know who is here checking out your gig and Comfest? The CEO and all the big guns from Stone Brewery. Rumor has it they might build a brewery here in Columbus." 

Staring out into the sea of Comfest mugs, I pondered for a moment and said, "Damn, I guess we do drink a lot of beer here in C-bus. A little more can't hurt. Better safe the sorry. Did they bring a keg with them?"

"Uh no, dumb-ass,  they are one of the biggest craft breweries in the USA. They didn't fly in with a keg for your band."

"Really? No beer and they still got backstage? This is a big deal, huh?"

"You bet. Now get onstage, we're running late..…"

Obviously, the idea of more beer being produced in my hometown is an exciting proposition, so I decided to ask some local experts what this would mean for Columbus and, additionally, who the hell is Stone Brewing anyway?

 

Greg May is a former Buffalo Wild Wings franchisee who now finds himself in the beer distribution business. His 17th Star Distributing is a start-up distributor focusing exclusively on craft beer.

Greg, What is it about Stone Brewery that makes them so special? Is there a certain beer they are famous for? Do you have a favorite?     

Big beers with big ABV have been a driving force in the growth and popularity of the craft beer industry, especially India Pale Ales (IPA's). Stone has been making big beers for a long time, before the wave hit, so they had a sizable head start in terms of building a loyal (some would say fanatical) customer base  Arrogant Bastard was first released in 1997. My personal favorite is the Enjoy By series of IPA's. These are IPA's intentionally built "not to last." They are given an "Enjoy By" date which assures that you are consuming the beer when it is at its absolute freshest.

Craft beer is exploding in central Ohio. Is distribution keeping up with demand?  

Distribution is still lagging demand by a comfortable margin. Demand continues to expand into some of the outer regions of the marketplace such as fine-dining establishments and even drugstores. That's right, Walgreen's is now selling growlers in some locations. 

How does having a brewery in Columbus help Stone with their East Coast distribution? Or does it?

According to one list recently published, Stone is the 10th largest craft brewery in the US. That puts them in the company of other large craft breweries like Lagunitas, Sierra Nevada and Oskar Blues, all of which have recently opened or will soon open East Coast brewing facilities. Trucking beer around the country is a big expense so as these breweries get bigger and bigger, they start to focus on reducing the cost of logistics and freight.

Greg, I want to back up to something you said earlier. You mean to tell me I could get my growlers and prescriptions filled at the same time? That is convenient! So how does all that beer end up in stores anyway? It looks heavy. 

Big breweries like Stone sell the beer to a wholesale distributor who then resells it and delivers it to the retailers. Most of the small craft breweries that have been popping up in the last few years self-distribute. 

 

Rick Kinsinger - A licensed Professional Engineer who has designed systems for craft breweries in Ohio. 

Rick, you have first hand experience with building successful craft breweries. If Stone were to open their first "East Coast" brewery in Columbus, how big of operation would it be and how many jobs could we be talking about?

Columbus is an ideal location for Stone.  With our proximity to both the Midwest and the East Coast, it’s easy to see why Stone is interested in Columbus.  They’re looking to ultimately produce 500,000 barrels of beer annually at their new facility.  To put that in perspective, last year Ohio produced about 1.1 million barrels of craft beer.  The amount of beer production that they’re talking about should make Stone the third largest craft brewery in the country.  I imagine they’re looking for space in the 150,000 to 200,000 square foot range.  That’s a really big brewery in the craft beer industry and it would be great for Columbus to attract such a high profile manufacturer.  Stone is planning to open a restaurant and bar attached to the brewery.  Including the restaurant, they’re looking at upwards of 400 new jobs. 

If you could offer advice to newcomers constructing a brewery in Columbus, what would it be? 

The City of Columbus is always willing to work with good companies who want to expand or relocate to Columbus.  As building departments go, I have always found ours to be reasonable and they will work to help new businesses.  If I had any advice for Stone, it would be simply: “Learn all you can about Columbus. You’ll like what you see."

 

Mark Pottschmidt - owner of multiple World of Beer locations in Ohio.

Mark, What makes Stone Brewery so popular?

(via text)

STONE IS ONE OF THE HANDFUL OF BREWERIES THAT HAS BEEN ABLE TO INTRODUCE CRAFT BEER TO BEER LOVERS ON A NATIONAL LEVEL, JUST AS DOGFISH HEAD, BELLS, DESCHUTES AND NEW BELGIUM HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO, AND IN DOING SO THEY HAVE CULTIVATED A GREAT BRAND AND LOYAL FANS.    

Do you have success with them at your WOB locations?

YES, WE HAVE A GREAT RELATIONSHIP WITH STONE WHO WAS SO IMPRESSED WITH OUR PRODUCT MANAGER AT OUR BREWERY DISTRICT LOCATION, KENNY WRIGHT, THAT THEY BROUGHT HIM TO THEIR CALIFORNIA BREWERY AND GAVE HIM THE RED CARPET TREATMENT!

What do you think it would add to growing reputation of Columbus as a "beer capital" of the Midwest if they were to build their first brewery here east of the Mississippi?

STONE OPENING A BREWERY IN COLUMBUS WOULD BE A REAL COUP FOR THE ENTIRE REGION AS IT WOULD NOT ONLY STRENGTHEN OUR GROWING REPUTATION AS A CRAFT BEER MECCA BUT ALSO HIGHLIGHT THE FACT THAT COLUMBUS IS BUSINESS FRIENDLY WITH GREAT DISTRIBUTION INFRASTRUCTURE.

 

Okay, beer nerds, there you have it. Better buy a back-up growler and an extra ping pong ball because it looks like you may need it. Chug!

Colin Gawel writes for and runs Pencilstorm. He plays in the band Watershed, owns Colin's Coffee and he likes beer, rock n roll and baseball, though the order varies.