When Dave Masica first joined Watershed in 1998, I really couldn’t believe my eyes and ears. “Where did you find this guy?” I asked Colin, marveling at how good a drummer Dave was and how lucky they were to find him to replace Herb Schupp (a noted skins-basher in his own right). “Oh, Dave was in some band that opened for us in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and when Herb left we called him up.”
I totally believed that story right up until sometime in 2005 when I joined the Watershed road crew and casually asked Dave at breakfast one morning somewhere in the south what band he was in before Watershed, up in Michigan. “Whaaat?” Dave replied, perplexed, “I was never in a band in Michigan.” “Colin told me you were in a band from the U.P. that opened for Watershed and they scooped you right into the van after a show.” “No, that’s total Colin bullshit,” Dave replied, “I was in The Point before Watershed.” “THAT’S where I know you from,” I said, “I saw The Point a bunch of times. I always thought you looked familiar. You guys were GREAT.”
The Point epitomized my central idea of rock & roll: that rock & roll should be Deadly Serious Fun. All of my favorite rock bands from the very beginning – The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Who, Mott The Hoople, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, The Dictators – were simultaneously intensely serious rockers with an equally killer sense of humor: Deadly Serious Fun. They didn’t take themselves too seriously, and they rocked like motherfuckers.
The Point – in their 1985-1990 heyday – were that kind of band. They would romp through their sets at Bernie’s or the Alrosa Villa (and, for that matter, they might have been the ONLY Columbus band to regularly play BOTH of those venues) playing a bizarre mix of originals like “Suzie,” “Big Dead Gay Vampire Monsters,” “Lemmings” and “Men Are Pigs” (their big hit song) with covers that ranged – in a single set – from Deep Purple to Devo to Cheap Trick. They were the only band I ever saw that played a Broadway show tune (The Beatles’ cover of “‘Til There Was You”) AND Nick Lowe’s “Heart Of The City” IN SUCCESSION and made it work. They were a killer power trio that could blend power-pop, metal & punk like they were meant to be blended. They were a throwback to an earlier, infinitely more innocent and great time in rock & roll when bands PLAYED SONGS THEY LIKED, no matter who originated them or whether they fit into any kind of “format.”
I must have seen The Point – “Merv,” “Greed” & “Dixon” by (nick)name – 20 times in that five year period and never once SET OUT to see them. They would just kinda appear from nowhere in front of me when I was out for the night on campus or up north at Alrosa, and they were never once less than white-hot GREAT and hilarious. But this was no joke band, my friend, those fuckers could PLAY. (This was roughly the same period of time I would go see Jim Johnson, Mike Parks & Phil Stokes in a band called The Retreads that mined a similar, though marginally more serious, style of Deadly Serious Fun rock & roll.)
Anyway, I could go on like this all day about The Point, but here’s all you gotta know: I know it’s tough to get your sorry rock & roll asses out of the house on a Monday night to go see a band, but The Point is starting at 8 pm; and campus isn’t far from anywhere in Columbus; and the “Gotham” season finale was last week, so really, what have you got better to do on a Monday evening than have a coupla beers and go see some Deadly Serious Rock & Roll? C’mon, people, in the words of Ian Hunter: “Just get yourself out on the street.”
Get to The Point. - Ricki C. / May 8th, 2015
The Point will play at Bernie’s Distillery,1896 N. High Street, just across the street from
the Wexner Center on the O.S.U. campus, at 8 pm on Monday May, 11th, 2015.
There’s no cover, admission is FREE, so whattya got to complain about?