My Days & Nights as a Pinboy for The League Bowlers - by Ricki C.

(editor’s note: For our younger readers who have no idea what a pinboy is, ask your aged grandad in the nursing home, or Netflix & Chill with that 1984 Nicholas Cage/Sean Penn flick Racing With The Moon. Good movie.) 


I guess I would have first witnessed the rock & roll assemblage that is The League Bowlers back in the 1990’s at The Library Bar just north of Lane Avenue on High Street.  Colin may have to correct my faulty memory, but it seems to me they only used to play once a year – like maybe the night before Thanksgiving – and then later it seems I remember them opening for themselves at Watershed shows.  That was back when Colin & Joe Oestreich both played guitar, Herb Schupp was on drums and Paul Beltz III on bass.  

I can’t quite recall the first time I saw the “modern incarnation” of the band – the one that recorded Some Balls – that featured Colin, Dan Cochran, Mike Parks and Jim Johnson, but it might have been at a bar at Easton that also featured video games for the kiddies.  I later became the de facto "road manager” of that band, and detailed the night they broke up onstage at the old Thirsty Ear on Third Avenue in Grandview.  (You can read all about that night – one of the Top Ten Best in my career of being a roadie, by the way – here at my old blog, Growing Old With Rock & Roll: The Friday Night Massacre: The League Bowlers Roll a Gutterball and Break Up Onstage.)

A couple of weeks after that blog first appeared back in 2012, I was handling guitars & merch sales for Joe Peppercorn’s band The Whiles at a gig at the old Kobo on High Street.  While we we were loading out gear at the end of the night Joe’s brother Matt and the other Whiles’ guitarist, Jake Remley, started asking me why I used Colin’s – and other people’s – real names in the League Bowlers blog, when it was obviously a fictional story.

“That wasn’t a fictional story, all of that happened just like I said,” I replied.  “The band ACTUALLY BROKE UP ONSTAGE?!?” Matt asked incredulously.  “Yes, I didn’t make up one word of that piece.  It may have actually been WORSE than I wrote it.”  Jake and Matt just looked at me in the dark, dumbfounded; I could tell they were trying to comprehend just HOW BAD things would have to get to have that happen to them.  Those Whiles boys are WAY too nice to each other; deep down they really aren’t rockers, they’re folk-rock guys.  (Although I did once witness a pretty good blow-up between the Peppercorn brothers just before a Comfest gig one Sunday afternoon in the 2000’s.  It was hardly an Oasis level/Gallagher brothers or Kinks/Davies brothers slugfest, but it was an impressive sibling dust-up nonetheless.)

My other favorite League Bowlers memory was during a happy hour show at the Rumba Café.  I was onstage handing Mike Parks a guitar when a discussion ensued about whether to debut the Bowler’s then brand-new cover of The Faces' “Maggie May” as the closer of the second set, or to save it for sometime in the third set.  (It should be noted at this point that "Maggie May" was probably the most, let's say, challenging tune in the Bowler's repertoire.)  That was when the future founder of Four String Brew – Mr. Dan Cochran – spoke up between swigs of the beer in his hand and said/slurred, “If we’re gonna play “Maggie May,” we better play it RIGHT NOW, because in two more songs’ time I am not gonna BE ABLE to play it.”    

I don’t think I have ever seen a more honest – or more self-aware – moment from a musician onstage.  Drink on, League Bowlers, drink on. – Ricki C. / 6/13/2016   


The League Bowlers will be reuniting onstage at Comfest, at noon on Sunday, June 26th, on the Off Ramp Stage.  I look for them to break up again right afterwards, so you might wanna catch the show, and the band, while you can.

League Bowlers Review by Stephen Slaybaugh

Before Stephen Slaybaugh moved on from Columbus to write for The Agit Reader, CMJ, The Village Voice. Paste magazine and many more, he was kind enough to write about The League Bowlers during his time at the Columbus Alive. Story below. League Bowlers reunion at Comfest, Off Ramp Stage, Sunday, June 26th, Noon.

Click here for League Bowlers story archive on Watershedcentral

Click here for League Bowlers on Facebook.

THE LEAGUE BOWLERS
SKULLY'S MUSIC DINER
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 26
by Stephen Slaybaugh
The Columbus Alive, November 20, 2003

Following in a long Columbus tradition, the League Bowlers have concocted enough tall-tales (connections to Axl Rose, stories about hitchhiking, fake Rolling Stone articles, etc.) surrounding the band that it's hard to distinguish the bull from the shit. Be that as it may, some things are known: The band is comprised of Colin Gawel, also of Watershed, on guitar and vocals; Jim Johnson, of Willie Phoenix's band, on drums; Mike Parks, of Godz fame, on guitars; and Dan Cochran, formerly of Big Back 40 and Feversmile, among others, on bass; and will be releasing its first CD, which this show celebrates.

The album, Some Balls (B Minus), following in another Columbus tradition, relates tales of drinkin' ("Been Thinkin'"), girls ("Pretty in a Slutty Way," "The New Girl") and, well, more drinkin' ("Saturday Night There's a Party"). The Bowlers match such timeless themes with a particularly impressive deluge of Midwestern-soiled rock that's at once casual and off-the-cuff as well as well-played, and it's worthy of the bandmates' lineages.

Things start early so everyone will have plenty of time to sleep off their hangovers before heading out for the holiday the next day.

When the Movies Ebb, The Comics Flow - by Rob Braithwaite

All this movie watching has put a damper on my comics reading. So I’ve eased off the picture shows for a bit to minimize this stack of unread issues. Some highlights are below.
- rob

cover by Gary Frank and Brad Anderson

cover by Gary Frank and Brad Anderson

DC Universe Rebirth
script: Geoff Johns
art: Gary Frank, Ivan Reis, Phil Jimenez (and many, many more)

Five years ago, DC Comics rebooted their entire universe. Called "The New 52" because DC released 52 titles, the carpet-bombing-over-quality approach, it wasn't regarded well. The historical timeline was muddied. (In a five-year span, Batman burned through three Robins, sired a 10-year-old son who was now Robin #4, and joined the Justice League.) Beloved characters were different in personality and/or level of extreme, that is if they even existed in the universe at all.

I started reading single issue comics shortly after the reboot. Before that, I had only read the occasional trade, usually Batman, so it was nearly all new to me. Most of what I read was fine — Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Batman had some strong stories. The final Justice League arc, The Darkseid War, was great. The Wonder Woman run from Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang was the prize of it all — but eventually I wasn’t reading any DC books on a regular basis. And frankly it sucked to only get a good superhero fix from Marvel.

Now, a fresh start. DC Rebirth does not dismiss the last five years. Geoff Johns deserves an award for the original and clever way he gets out of this New 52 corner, without disrespecting the work of so many people. He is also able to convey the emotional weight in a way that can be felt by someone who doesn’t know DC history.

Starting this week and over the next few months, DC’s entire line will restart with #1 after a title's respective Rebirth issue which will establish the status quo. So, if you’re looking to jump in, now the time.

Beasts of Burden: What the Cat Dragged In
script: Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer
art: Jill Thompson

The residents Burden Hill don’t know the horrors kept at bay by the brave cats and dogs of the neighborhood.

An issue of Beasts of Burden doesn’t come out that often. It’s always a treat when one does. The self-contained stories have a nice balance of horror, humor and emotion. Thompson’s paintings are expressive and beautiful.

Weirdworld
script: Sam Humphries
art: Mike Del Mundo
color: Mike Del Mundo with Mareo D'Alfonso

A great thing about comics is if one book gets too heavy, there’s something else to counter it. Weirdworld is full of wizards and magic and other things I’m not normally keen on, but this book has shown me that if there’s a good adventure and humor that I’ll stick around for a while. The art is some of the best I’ve come across. It’s probably the reason why I stuck with as long as I did. (“Did” because it seems to have been quietly canceled after six issues.)

cover by Jill Thompson

cover by Jill Thompson

cover by Mike Del Mundo

cover by Mike Del Mundo

cover by Mitch Gerads

cover by Mitch Gerads

cover by Nick Dragotta

cover by Nick Dragotta

The Sheriff of Babylon
script: Tom King
art: Mitch Gerads

The murder of an Iraqi police trainee under the supervision of the U.S. military in 2004 Baghdad brings together three people with varying and duplicitous agendas. Tom King worked as a CIA operative in Iraq and brings his experience to a story that becomes less about a murder investigation and more about the complicated relationships one must foster in such an environment.

Tom King is quickly becoming a name to trust. His Vision comic for Marvel is something special. I’ve heard great things about his Omega Men series. And now he’s the writer for Batman.

East of West
script: Jonathan Hickman
art: Nick Dragotta
colors: Frank Martin

“This is the world. It’s not the one we were supposed to have, but it’s the one we made. We did this. We did it with open eyes and willing hands. We broke it, and there is no putting it back together.” — from the cover of every East of West issue.

This is the story of the apocalypse. Every issue is a treat. Jonathan Hickman is an amazing writer. Machinations of politicians and religious zealots are put to the test and surprises abound. Nick Dragotta’s drawings are full of imagination, and Frank Martin’s colors are what make this book one of the most visually striking comics being published now. Love, love, love this book.

Southern Bastards
script: Jason Aaron
art: Jason Latour

Earl Tubb returns to his childhood home in Craw Country, Alabama after forty years. He isn't looking for trouble, but it finds him nonetheless.

Southern Bastards is one of the finest character yarns going today. Every issue enriches this world of football tradition, crime and bar-b-que. Every issue is thick with heat and tension. It's the only book I've read that makes you hate a character in one story arc then find sympathy with him in the next.

cover by Jason Latour

cover by Jason Latour

So, any of these sound good to you? I’m willing to gift a digital comic to anybody* who might want to try one. You’ll need a Comixology account (You can sign in with your Amazon account, because we’re all going to be one corporation someday.) Send an email to bobbybathwater [at] yahoo [dot] com with COMICS in the subject line, and tell me which one you’d like to try.

Or, if you are one for physical things and can pay for your own comics, drop by your local comic shop. They can help. If you live in Columbus, I recommend The Laughing Ogre (4258 N. High Street).

*I’m not sure what the cutoff will be, but this will be a limited offer since my lottery numbers have not yet hit.