Concert Review: Night Ranger 7/14/2017 - by Jeremy Porter

Concert Review

Night Ranger - Detroit Riverfront

July 14, 2017   by Jeremy Porter

 

Photos by Jeremy Porter

Photos by Jeremy Porter

I first saw Night Ranger some 30 years ago, in August of 1987, at the Upper Peninsula State Fair in Escanaba, Michigan. Concerts were few and far between in the U.P., so we didn’t miss them when they came, even if they weren’t our A-list bands. I was 2 months out of high school, and still reeling from missing Cheap Trick on the same stage a year earlier as a punishment for wrapping my parent’s Monza around an elm tree in downtown Marquette with an open Old Milwaukee in my hand. Great White opened, who I initially liked with their heavy metal debut EP, but quickly tired of as they started butchering the blues as only white dudes with poofed out peroxide hair can do. Brad Gillis, Night Ranger’s guitarist who replaced Randy Rhoads in Ozzy’s band and played on the live “Speak of the Devil” album, handed me his guitar pick after the solo in (You Can Still) Rock In America. They were great. It was a cool night, and sort of a symbolic end to my high school years.  

I loved (and still love) Don’t Tell Me You Love Me and (You Can Still) Rock In America, but, I didn’t hold their biggest hit Sister Christian in the same regard, preferring power ballads by slightly heavier bands like Scorpions, Ozzy and Cinderella. By the time I first saw Night Ranger I was listening to The Clash and Black Flag and driving to Milwaukee to see The Replacements, REM, and Hüsker Dü, but I never abandoned them. They were over-polished, but they had a certain power-pop element with ahead-of-the-beat energy and easy hooks that provided some salvage to the MTV onslaught of Tears for Fears, A-Ha, and other, less engaging drivel. Jack Blades was a cool rock star. I liked the way his bass hung low and sat on his leg, like a short, blonde Nikki Sixx with cleaner hair. And the harmonies, melody and lyrics of When You Close Your Eyes had me the same way some of the better indie songs of the time did, though I knew it wouldn’t make it into those conversations. I liked the line about “a hard night of drinking” which seemed like something other bands wouldn’t touch so blatantly in their radio hits. I wasn’t a fan of the Miami Vice look that they adopted, and I couldn’t put them on at a party with my friends, but It seemed to me like Night Ranger weren’t trying as hard as the other bands to be cool, and that made them even cooler.

[Now that I’ve spent 2 paragraphs justifying my appreciation for Night Ranger…..]  

So it’s 2017 and here I am again, at a Night Ranger concert. No one would go with me - my friends, band-mates and co-workers chuckled, as if I wasn’t even serious about it. My wife probably would have enjoyed it, but she was out of town. I spent the 48 hours before the concert talking myself in and out of going, but 6pm Friday night came and I was in my car with the Detroit skyline and it’s centerpiece - the Renaissance Center - looming in the distance. What the hell was I getting myself into? And really, this is what it’s come to? I am going to Night Ranger concerts by myself now?  Time to re-evaluate?  I stopped into the Checker Bar for a shot of courage and walked into the crowd.

The setting was a thin patch of concrete and stone between the Ren-Cen and the Detroit River in the center of the city. Somehow I managed to quietly and stealthily weasel my way into the “friends of the band” section (I am not a friend of the band and had no business in there) which offered a great vantage point. The 2 openers were local cover bands delivering largely predictable and generic-at-best classic rock staples. The first band’s version of Say What You Will by Fastway had me entertained for a minute, but the Bryan Adams, Billy Idol and multiple Led Zeppelin covers had me still questioning my decision to come. I almost left about every 3rd song, to be honest, but I stuck it out.  

Brad Gillis Rocking in America / Detroit.

Brad Gillis Rocking in America / Detroit.

At 9pm sharp Night Ranger came out with the 1-2 punch of Touch of Madness into Four in the Morning. “I get hiiiiggghhh when I want to” Blades crooned to the revved up Detroit crowd. This was their 35th anniversary tour and he didn’t let us forget it, incorporating the fact into virtually all between-song banter. They did a couple Damn Yankees songs, his band with Tommy Shaw from Styx and the Motor City Madman, thinking that the crowd would be more into hearing Ted Nugent’s name hollered out than they actually were. They also covered Alice Cooper (guitarist Keri Kelli did a stint with Alice) and Ozzy (noting Brad Gillis’ tenure in his band) and the energy level stayed pretty high throughout. Things really picked up towards the end. When You Close Your Eyes isn’t a full-blown rocker, but as I said, I’ve always had a spot for that tune. Don’t Tell Me You Love Me is arguably their finest moment - it pretty much kicks ass and stands up with most stuff from that genre, though I could have done without the transition into Hotel California and Highway Star in the breakdown, and (You Can Still) Rock In America holds it’s own as an anthem despite the easy and obvious patriotic plug. Sister Christian was in there too, giving drummer and second vocalist Kelly Keagy another opportunity to come out from behind the drums (set up stage left, at a right angle rather than center back) and croon to the ladies. Eric Levy even adopted the beard-n-beret look that original keyboardist Alan Fitzgerald had back in the day, rounding out the complete experience.        

The band was tight and energetic, looking fit and running around like dudes half their age, while still hitting the changes right on beat. The harmonies, often 5-ways, were impressive as hell.  The sound was surprisingly good, though I think at one point one of the mains blew, causing some cackling in parts. There was certainly a nostalgia-act aspect to the show, but it was ultimately better than that - the band was on fire, having a blast, and at least putting on like they believed every minute of it. The songs hold up surprisingly well, and even the deep cuts had some teeth. They could have skipped the covers and the Damn Yankees songs, but at the same time most that stuff is a part of this band’s past, so it wasn’t as frivolous as it might appear on the surface. I knew everything they played except the new one, and stayed easily engaged until the end.  

I can sure think of a few worse ways to spend a Friday night in Detroit with the wife out of town. I doubt I’ll head back down to the Riverfront to see .38 Special or Everclear, but I’d go see Night Ranger again. After all, there’s some comfort in knowing that (You Can Still) Rock in America.            

Touch of Madness, Four in the Morning, Sing Me Away, Somehow Someway, Coming of Age (Damn Yankees cover), Sentimental Street, The Secret of My Success, School's Out (Alice Cooper cover), Crazy Train (Ozzy Osbourne cover), Eddie's Comin' Out Tonight, High Enough (Damn Yankees cover), Goodbye, When You Close Your Eyes, Don't Tell Me You Love Me / Hotel California / Highway Star, Sister Christian, (You Can Still) Rock in America

Jeremy Porter lives near Detroit and fronts the rock and roll band Jeremy Porter And The Tucos. Follow them on Facebook to read his road-blog chronicling their adventures and see his photo series documenting the disgusting bathrooms in the dives they play. He's a whiskey snob, an unapologetic fan of "good" metal, and couldn't really care less about the UofM - OSU rivalry since he once saw The Stones at the Horseshoe. Still, go blue.     
www.thetucos.com
www.facebook.com/jeremyportermusic  
@jeremyportermi
www.rockandrollrestrooms.com

一番愛したバンドの一番好きな曲なのに、このパフォーマンスがyou tubeにUPされてないようなので、UPします。エンディングのアレンジ素晴らしい！

League Bowlers (featuring Guitar Slinger Mike Parks) @ The Fair, July 26th

The League Bowlers will be appearing at the Ohio State Fair Wednesday July 26th with Erica Blinn and McGuffey Lane. The show is free and runs from 7-9 pm. (Details here)  Also, the new League Bowlers CD Some Balls Deluxe will be available for pre-order any day now.  With so much Bowling going on, we thought it would be a good time to revisit this piece about the finest guitar player I've ever stood next to onstage, Mike Parks. - Colin G. 

-----------------------------------

(I'm having trouble coming up with anything new & coherent to say about Mike Parks right now, so I'm gonna harken back to a piece I penned for Pencilstorm in earlier, better days, January 27th, 2014 to be exact.

 I mean it all now as much as I did at that time, and then some.  I love ya, Mike. - Ricki C.) 

 

MIKE PARKS / GUITAR SLINGER / JANUARY 27TH, 2014

Today is Mike Parks’ birthday.  I’m not sure exactly how old he is, but he’s older than Mumford & Sons and too young for Social Security & Medicare.

I thought I first met Mike when I joined the road crew of Willie Phoenix & The True Soul Rockers in 1990, but after Mike and I got to talking one night at a gig and discovered our shared West Side roots, it turned out we had actually met – though fleetingly – 20 years earlier when I was a senior at Bishop Ready High School.  

The band Mike was in at that point – The Tree (which later went through various permutations and ended up as Pure Prairie League of “Amie” fame) – played a dance at Bishop Ready and my Catholic school nerd rock & roll friends and I put together a “light show” to accompany the appearance.  (Said light show was cobbled together from oils made with colored Jell-O and overhead projectors from the Bishop Ready audio-visual lab.  I think Life Magazine had run an article on “hippie culture” that week and provided a tutorial.)

The members of The Tree – including, I believe, longtime Parks friend & bandmate Phil Stokes – were drawn from that most dangerous of 1960’s subcultures: Greasers Who Took Acid.  Laid-back run-of-the-mill hippie types who did acid were problematic enough when bad trips got into the mix, but Mike’s particular band of brethren – working-class toughs who had formerly beaten up on longhairs before they discovered the pharmaceutical joys & benefits of the late 60’s – were a particularly volatile mix.  (Think, those clearly whacked-out-of-their-skulls bikers at the side of and ON the stage in the Rolling Stones “Gimme Shelter.”)

Anyway, The Tree sauntered into our Bishop Ready high-school gym like gunslingers: arrayed in a mix of boots, blue jeans & black leather jackets, topped off with the longest hair we had ever seen close up.  They looked, and moved, more like a gang than they did a band.  My friends and I were afraid to even speak to them.  After the dance, Mike came up to us in the gym at our pathetic little audio-visual station and said, “Hey, cool lights.”  We couldn’t have been prouder, but were struck so dumb by Mike’s acknowledgment of our existence that I think only one of us managed to stammer out, “Th-th-thanks.”  Mike just turned and walked off in a haze of badass guitarslinger cool.  (Somewhere around that time, Mike lived in the house The MC5 maintained at 1510 Hill Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan, FOR TWO WEEKS before the communal-living residents figured out that no one in the house knew Mike and that he didn’t belong there.)

By time we met up again 20 years later, Mike had become one of the five best lead guitarists I have ever seen in Columbus, Ohio.  (Actually, we later discovered I had seen him one other time in the intervening years, when I was writing for Focus magazine and reviewed Brownsville Station in 1978, a show Mike’s then-current band – Shakedown - opened.)  (Right around there Mike also served time in The Godz, see photo below.)  Mike’s white-hot guitar style was especially cool when he played alongside Willie Phoenix – no slouch of a lead player himself – in The True Soul Rockers.  Mike’s straight-ahead solid-rock lead guitar attack contrasted and dovetailed with Willie’s more idiosyncratic playing to killer effect in The Rockers: having Mike & Willie onstage together was like employing Duane Allman & Richard Thompson in the same band, no small musical feat and treat.  (Sadly, there is not one bit of recorded evidence of the dual-lead guitar fireworks Mike & Willie deployed nightly.  Tragic.)  (2017 editor's note: We have lately come into possession of a KILLER live show from the High Beck Tavern in 1992 that it would be great to release as an "approved bootleg" if we could get Willie Phoenix's permission.)  

One of the things I love about Mike is that he doesn’t just PLAY rock & roll, he actually THINKS about rock & roll, has IDEAS about rock & roll.  One of those ideas about rock & roll brought about his and my biggest dust-up ever.  By their natures, guitar heroes and roadies are gonna run into problems.  One night at Ruby Tuesday’s when Willie gave me the song list for the first set I had the bright idea that I would line the guitars up in the order Willie & Mike were going to use them, so it would be easier for me to hand them up to the stage between songs.  We didn’t have a guitar rack in the True Soul Rockers, just individual guitar stands.  More to the point, we had EIGHT OR NINE individual guitar stands between Willie and Mike, some with guitars in alternate tunings.    

As I was sorting out various Fenders & Gibsons, Mike walked up, watched for a minute and said, “What are you doing?”  “I’m arranging the guitars in the order you’re gonna use them,” I replied.  Mike was quiet for a coupla beats, then said, “You can’t do that.  It’s not very rock & roll.”  “I don’t care if it’s rock & roll or not,” I said, with an edge in my voice, “I’m juggling eight or nine guitars here and it makes things simpler.”  “It’s still not rock & roll, though,” Mike said, “I’m taking all my guitars onstage with me.  I don’t want you handling them anymore.”  I watched incredulously as Mike made six trips back & forth to haul all of his guitars up on the stage.  It was the one and only time in my roadie existence that I ever wished for a guitarist to break a string, so that I could refuse to help.

Mike and I got along ever so much better when I wrangled guitars for The League Bowlers – Colin’s offshoot covers band when Joe Oestreich first moved away and Watershed was on hiatus – and we could use Watershed’s guitar rack.  Again, Mike’s endlessly inventive lead guitar style – imagine Chuck Berry if Chuck had ever deigned to PRACTICE the guitar after 1957, or picture the bastard mutant offspring of Keith Richards & Wayne Kramer – was set off perfectly against Colin’s Cheap Trick-inspired stylings.  Mike’s playing in the Bowlers really was quite stunning.  He could play anything Colin tossed at him – from Gawel/Oestreich originals to Tom Petty to George Jones to Georgia Satellites to Dwight Yoakam – and, on top of that, Mike could play ALL NIGHT LONG without repeating a lick.  I’m pretty sure I saw, from my roadie station at the side of the stage, every show the latter-day incarnation of The League Bowlers played and I don’t think I ever saw Mike play the same solo twice.  (For a full eyewitness account of the last night of The League Bowlers when they imploded and broke up ONSTAGE at the old Thirsty Ear in 2008, check out Growing Old With Rock & Roll, The Friday Night Massacre, August 1st, 2012.)    

Happy birthday, Mike, it’d be great to see you on a stage again sometime.  – Ricki C. / January 25th, 2014

And now I will get to see him, this Wednesday at the Fair.  You oughta come, too. - Ricki C. / July 23rd, 2017

Mike (extreme left) in Shakedown, mid-1970's.

Mike (second from left) in The Godz, late 1970's.

Note: I am frankly amazed that Mike was not pistol-whipped by Eric Moore (extreme left)

for showing up at a Godz performance in this get-up.

Mike (extreme left) in The True Soul Rockers, 1992. Jim Johnson, extreme right, Koz & Willie in the middle.

 

Tags The League Bowlers, The Godz, Shakedown, Willie Phoenix & the true Soul Rockers, Columbus rock & roll, Willie Phoenix & the True Soul Rockers

Get to the Wex To See Gray Matters - by Anne Marie

Gotta Get to the Wex to see Gray Matters!

Those of us who live in Columbus (is Buckeyes the only collective word for us?) are so lucky to have such a vibrant music and arts scene providing a giant ever-changing playground for our personal entertainment.

Probably my number one go-to source for entertainment is the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University.  The Wex rocks! Every month when their calendar of upcoming events comes out, I can't possibly fit all the exhibits, films, theatrical and musical acts onto my calendar.

On exhibit now, but only for a few more days, until July 30, is Gray Matters. To me, the title of this exhibit was a little off-putting. It sounded a little boring. Gray matters. Dull, gray matters. Or, possibly worse, boring and cerebral. I already sometimes have difficulty figuring out what the heck some of the art at the Wexner Center even means. I wasn't sure I was up to an exhibit called Gray Matters.  

Luckily, last Thursday night, I threw caution to the wind and visited the exhibit and discovered that I could not have been more wrong! Gray Matters may be an exhibit showcasing 37 women artists who have produced art while limiting themselves to a palette of black, white & gray but the similarity stops there and the art is NOT BORING AT ALL!! I saw everything from paintings and sculpture to a disco ball made up of every known image of a solar eclipse ever recorded by humans to a video set in a morgue where the victim of a suicide and her animated organs and her ghost debate their demise.

Also luckily, there is a small but mighty exhibit guide that is free and readily available in various stands throughout the exhibit. The guide has concise, helpful details about each work. I walked through looking at each work, appreciating it at face value and trying to figure it out on my own. Only then would I read the guide and see how close (or sometimes far off!) my interpretation was from the artist’s reality.

Here are just a few of the pieces that you can experience if you get into the Wex in time to catch this great exhibit.

 

Lorna Simpson Left, Right, Black America Again (2016)

Lorna Simpson Left, Right, Black America Again (2016)

Rachel Whiteread Untitled (Cast Iron Floor) (2001)

Rachel Whiteread Untitled (Cast Iron Floor) (2001)

Tara Donovan Composition (Cards) 2017

Tara Donovan Composition (Cards) 2017

Each of these was a surprise to me in that there was so much more to them - in either artist intention/representation or technique - than immediately met my eye.

Untitled (Cast Iron Floor) is literally a piece of art on the floor and, unlike other usable pieces of art in the show such as tables, this one does not have a sign asking you not to touch the art. But I was still deferential and walking around rather than over the piece until called out by a burly security guard who instructed me to walk on it, adding that he does every day. I did and it was a strange feeling to trample upon something that an artist had created. It felt solid and I felt grounded while walking around and over it but wasn’t sure I was experiencing quite what the artist intended. Upon consulting the guide, I learned that artist Rachel Whiteread’s casts “materialize negative space...mummifying the air in the room and making it solid, transforming these voids into masses of memory and loss.”  Wow.  That merited another slow walk across while I pondered that some more.

I'll leave it to you to uncover the secrets of the other two - and the remainder of the works - if you make it to the Wexner Center by July 30th. Click here for more details.  #theWex #leapintotheWex #womenattheWex  - Anne Marie


 

WWE Great Balls of Fire: Jerry Lee Missed Out - by Big Vin Vader

WWE Great Balls of Fire: Jerry Lee Missed Out - follow @bigvinvader

I thought Money in the Bank was a pretty bad show, the most recent example of bad booking and missed opportunities in WWE.  The mere fact that RAW’s follow-up show was named Great Balls of Fire seemed like a major warning that it would be another let-down.  Imagine my shock when the PPV turned out to be a blast from start to finish, unexceptional in most aspects, but completely solid and entertaining with few of the frustrating choices that have marred WWE’s booking lately.  The name was announced months back, and seemingly failed to get a single vote of fan approval.  What followed were about a dozen different logos, speculation regarding the name selection, and involvement from Jerry Lee Lewis’ legal team.  It was about as bizarre as wrestling gets.

But then the build started to get really good, the matches looked promising, and it seemed like there was a chance for GBOF to actually deliver. Not only was the promise of an Iron Man tag match between the Hardys and Sheamus/Cesaro a perfect blow-off to their long-running feud, but the Women’s title match between Alexa Bliss and Sasha Banks was a fresh match in an era of repeats.  Much as they have their detractors, Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman have had several very good matches with one another, and the ambulance stipulation promised some brutal finality.  Best of all, Samoa Joe was presented as a legitimate, threatening challenger to Brock Lesnar’s Universal Title.  The build up to that championship match was one of the most successful things WWE has done in some time, making Joe seem the hardass, main event-level player he has deserved to be for his entire run in the company.  Even with the seeming certainty of Lesnar’s victory, the lead-up was so successfully executed that it seemed a sure-shot crowd pleaser.  Come the night of the show, nearly every match delivered on those initial promises, and even the lesser bouts on the card proved to be far more than satisfactory.

Initially, I was disappointed to see the Cruiserweight match between Neville and Akira Tozawa shunted to the preshow, but quickly regained interest when I realized just how into it the crowd was.  For a division that’s been long-suffering as far as fan interest goes (and certainly hurting from the abrupt release of Austin Aries), this was definitely a welcome sight.  Things didn’t advance much beyond a preshow-caliber level, but it was still a very capable contest from the two incredible cruiserweights.

Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt was a bit of a head scratcher, with the feud itself seeming to come about out of nowhere, but in the capable hands of those two wrestlers it was a solid if unexceptional match.  It was great, however, to see Bray pick up a clean win on PPV after the rocky year he’s had.

Enzo Amore vs. Big Cass was about as exciting in-ring as you’d expect from two such limited performers.  That said, they made the right call in keeping it brief and putting Cass over, and in finally splitting the two up for that matter.

Easily the match of the night was the Tag Team Iron Man Match, with both teams impressing in a hard-fought, genuinely unpredictable contest.  They made great use of the stipulation, with a number of shocking falls, including one for the odd couple in the first twenty seconds of the match.  From there it was hard-hitting action, with several memorable high spots, all leading up to some of the most exciting final moments seen on PPV in some time.  Matt got busted open bad after a dual dive with Jeff, and that hardway blood really contributed to the drama and excitement of the finish.  It was a perfect example of how blood, even accidental, can add to the sport.  Things seemed to be going the Hardys’ way until Cesaro scored a tiebreaker fall in the last thirty seconds.  Jeff caught a quick reversal and went for a desperation pin at the two-second mark and came up just short.  It was gripping stuff, and stole the show.

My personal favorite match, if not the outright best, was the Women’s Title showdown between Sahsa Banks and Alexa Bliss.  More on that one in a minute.

The Miz vs. Dean Ambrose for the IC title was an unexciting prospect, especially given how many times that exact match has been done.  It wasn’t bad, but it was one of the low points of the show, and I struggled to hold interest.  The Miz going over with some interference from his corner was the right call, however, and his reign looks to continue as successfully as it deserves to.

Reigns vs. Strowman had pretty much everything I wanted to see in their blow-off match, and it even came with some surprises.  The strikes looked stiff, and there was a ruthlessness in both men’s offense that took things up another level.  They wasted no time in making their way up the ramp to the titular vehicle and from there the intensity of the brawl only mounted.  Reigns lost the match for himself with a missed spear right into the ambulance, and what followed was some of the most insane, hilarious, and perplexing use of PPV time I’ve seen.  After escaping and subduing Braun into the ambulance himself, Reigns drove off to the backstage area and backed the vehicle into a semi-trailer before fleeing.  After about ten minutes of worked panic, Braun stumbled out (freed by the Dallas fire department and the Jaws of Life) bloodied, and limped off after Reigns.  Even if that was the evilest, most heelish thing Roman could do, he still seems to be a total face somehow.  Interesting.

Lesnar vs. Joe delivered on its promise, and of course offered up nothing in the way of surprises.  Joe looked like an absolute killer, jumping Brock before the bell and slamming him through the Spanish announce table before even a minute had passed.  From there, he dominated, locking in the Coqina Clutch several times and forcing Brock to nearly pass out.  There were some hard strike exchanges, a number of German suplexes, and even more surprising displays of agility from Lesnar.  Sadly, the whole thing only lasted six-and-a-half minutes before Lesnar broke another Clutch to hit a desperation F-5 and retain the Universal Title.  As much as they made Joe look great and cemented his main event status, this one could have gone on longer, if for no other reason than to cast to unpredictability over the seemingly-obvious finish.  Still, it was Brock’s best match this year, and a good showing for Joe in his first one-on-one main event.

 

The RAW Women’s Title match between Alexa Bliss and Sasha Banks was my favorite match of the night, and my pick for best following the Iron Man Tag match.  It was one of the best paced matched on the card, and delivered hard-hitting, impressive action for its entirety.  Alexa is one of my favorite wrestlers in either brand’s women’s division, and her ring work continues to improve with each match.  Beyond that, her heel character is one of the most successful and fully-realized regardless of brand or division.  Sasha is a fantastic wrestler and never fails to put on an impressive showing in the ring, but her face character does very little for me (and her trash-talk in the ring is groan-inducing).  Put together to fight for RAW’s top prize, it seemed certain that they’d put on a quality contest.  They definitely delivered, up until the weak count-out finish, and it was a great example of the match quality in the current women’s division.  That all said, I couldn’t help come away with some complaints.

GBOF had seven matches total, eight with the pre-show Cruiserweight Title match, and all but this one were men’s matches.  I realize that the men’s division is still the primary focus for most fans and that’s incredibly clear from the presentation and booking of the product.  The trouble is, as much as the company touts their progressive attitude and reminds us how far women’s wrestling has come in the last decade, things still have a lot of catching up to do.  And don’t forget, just as WWE’s changes come as a result of the attitudes towards women’s wrestling that they helped create years back, so too does the complete change of policy lie in their hands.  While they’re talking about the good they’ve done for women’s wrestling, they still fail to book more than one women’s match for every six men’s matches on a major show.  Occasionally, if we’re lucky, we’ll get two.  Are we to expect that we’ll never reach the day when PPV cards are evenly split between the sexes?

There’s a deep talent pool for each division in the company, and obviously not everyone can get extensive TV time or even deserves to be pushed to the top or upper-middle of the card.  But there’s no reason at all that the entire women’s midcard should be relegated to SmackDown and RAW while there are plenty of men’s filler matches slipped onto every PPV show.  Even before the brand split last year, the women’s division has been built around a few select women, namely Sahsa Banks, Charlotte, and Bayley (Becky Lynch fell to the wayside very quickly, unfortunately).  Since the brand split, others such as Alexa Bliss and Naomi have been given chances to shine and win titles.  But the problem is that there hasn’t been a whole hell of a lot of opportunity for the rest of the division.  There are occasional flirtations with main event status (as long as we remember that such status for the women falls behind even the men’s midcard status) for some of the others in the division, but they never seem to last.

There are so many great athletes in each brand’s division, and they can’t be said to be anything other than held back.  Whatever happened to Emma’s triumphant return?  Remember when Natalya’s heel turn seemed like a big deal?  What the hell have they been doing with Becky Lynch since she lost the title?  And how often do we see them in anything other than watered down, commercial-interrupted television matches?  Even if the matches were high-quality things would be different, as they’re all capable of putting on impressive showings, but the visibility and chances for advancement just don’t seem to be existent.  We aren’t going to see many serious contenders or plausible storylines until more time is given over to the women’s division.  Of course, this is no easy feat with five hours of regular cable television already feeling overstuffed with filler.  That doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room for either the athletes themselves, creative, or even the fans to get invested in matters.

But it’s still possible, as the final RAW, SmackDown, and NXT episodes of June revealed.  A women’s number one contender gauntlet match headlined RAW, the rematch of the beyond-frustrating women’s MITB match did the same on SmackDown, and Nikki Cross challenged Asuka for the NXT Women’s Championship in a Last Man Standing match on that program’s main event.  It was the first time that the women’s division had headlined all three shows in the same week, and of course WWE took every opportunity to announce that fact and gain press attention.  Why not just let that become a regular thing and not have to trumpet your own booking?  And why wasn’t there more backlash asking why it took so long when it seemed a pretty simple decision to make?  Regardless of all that, it was good to see this finally happen, and the matches themselves naturally were no slouches.  The NXT title match in particular was one of the best television matches I’ve seen in months, even topping most of the recent PPVs in terms of sheer excitement and quality.  So nobody should have any doubt that the women should be presented as stars and performers every bit the equal of the males on the roster, it’s just that the big event feel of this occurrence makes it seem like just an exception to the rule.

That being said, there are some positives to look forward to.  First and Foremost is the Mae Young Classic set to air this summer.  Pulling talent from a diverse range of indie promotions, similar to last year’s Cruiserweight Classic and this January’s UK Championship Tournament, the all-female event has generated a great deal of buzz already.  Given the overwhelming success of those two events, from both critical and artistic perspectives, the MYC looks to be a surefire winner, and at the very least will give a few dozen deserving wrestlers better exposure.  Not to continue with the negativity, since I’m really excited for the tournament, have been since it was first mentioned as a possibility last year, but there’s still the issue of exposure.  The CWC was one of the best-received programs on the WWE Network last year, and the UK tournament/division have produced some of the company’s best matches of 2017.  Despite all of that, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t feel the cruiserweights have been mishandled in the months since.  205 Live is a forgotten B-show, and the in-ring aspect that wowed fans previously has been severely watered down on the main roster.  And the UK division is simply a side function of NXT, leaving those great workers even less exposure within their respective division than either SD or RAW’s women’s divisions.

There’s no question that participating in the tournament will boost the stock of nearly every female wrestler who participates in it, but what after that?  Will there be a sub-women’s division centered around the trophy/belt or whatever prize is reserved for the victor?  Or will the upper-tier participants be inserted into the already-underrepresented women’s divisions on the main roster and NXT?  These questions will certainly be answered before long, and it really shouldn’t be anything other than exciting as more details of the tournament emerge.  It just seems like we’ll have to wait and see where things go, which is unfortunately what’s been happening all along.

Big Vin Vader covers WWE for Pencilstorm. Follow on twitter @bigvinvader

Baby Driver: A Movie for Music Freaks - by "Wild Jon" Peterson

A MUSIC FREAKS DREAM MOVIE!  I’m not big on the “Action Film” genre.  I mean, I love “Die Hard” and “True Lies” as much as everyone because those films are the ‘gold standard’ with dynamic character relationships and great dialogue.  

But you’ll never catch me at a ‘Fast & Furious’ or Mission Impossible franchise movie, nor did I even see ‘The Italian Job.’ Crash & Bang means nothing to me without a killer plot, great acting and the right amounts of romance and comic relief.

So I was reluctant when my friend and fellow movie, music & TV super fan Karena Liakos came to me singing the praises of one of the Summer’s big action films, BABY DRIVER.  But the hook for me that piqued my interest was how much she was singing the praises of the music soundtrack and how it “cut to the beat” of the action in both a thematic and very cinematic way!

I knew that Edgar Wright was a talented young director from 2004’s killer zombie send-up SHAUN OF THE DEAD, but I never was expecting something like this.  It scores on every level (Action, Comedy and Romance) in a big way!

The plot is fairly simple… a young guy  (Ansel Elgort) is the ‘wheel man’ driver for white collar crime boss (Kevin Spacey) who hooks him up with various gangsters (Jon Hamm and Jamie Fox) who perform dramatic stick-up robberies while he (The “Baby Driver”) zooms, bobs and weaves the getaway car through the streets of Atlanta, GA.  

Lots of directors have used music as a “foreground” element: most notably by George Lucas in “American Graffiti” and “Goodfellas” (or any film) by Martin Scorsese.

The unique angle here is that our leading man (“Baby”) does virtually everything in life hooked up to is I-POD’s Earbuds.  Entire songs often play throughout the film in real time, as he skips, dances, drives around and falls in love.  

And the sound mix in the theater mimics how he is hearing the music,  If a character pulls out Baby’s IPOD ear bud, then the right channel drops out of the main speakers and is heard as tinn-y  ambient sound, mimicking Baby’s “first person” perspective.

The plot reason for all this? He was in a car accident as a child that resulted in severe tinnitus.  So he needs music to mask the hum & pink noise in his ears/head.

A complete song list and link (with corresponding plot action) is provided below.  But the highlights for me included:

  • “Baby” dancing around the city to Bob & Earl's “Harlem Shuffle” while lyrical references and street life action are perfectly synced to the song.  A/V Synergy and visual choreography!

  • A gangster tries to make a prick out of Baby for listening to music during a robbery prep meeting while “Baby” is listening to Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers.  The thug even reads the song title “Egyptian Reggae” from his IPOD screen to embarrass him.

  • The instrumental “Let’s Go Away For A While” from the Beach Boys Pet Sounds LP plays as he admirers a pretty young waitress. (That title is thematic in foreshadowing their dreams of escape.)

  • The waitress is singing Carla Thomas’ “B-A-B-Y” as she works.  “Baby” doesn’t know the tune, asks her the name of the artist, and then runs out to local record store to buy it.

  • The waitress “Deborah” and “Baby” discuss human names in song titles. She knows “Debra” by Beck, but he teaches her “Debora” by T-Rex.  Being a dumb millennial who knows nothing about Marc Bolan and only sees the artist name on his small IPOD screen, Baby doesn't see the ‘dash’ in T-REX and tells the waitress that the musician’s name is “TREX”

  • Then there is the GETAWAY MUSIC, including “Neat, Neat, Neat” by The Damned, “Brighton Rock” by Queen, and “Radar Love” by Golden Earring.

  • Of course, the film ends with the obligatory “Baby Driver” by Simon & Garfunkel.

FOR COMPLETE LIST, CLICK HERE:

https://www.tunefind.com/movie/baby-driver-2017

Another use of ‘foreground music’ in the plot revolves around the fact that Baby carries around a tiny handheld recorder, catching snatches and snippets of character dialogue from everyday life, and then runs home to digitalize and manipulate it into mix tapes with looping, drum machines, etc.  This becomes a critical part of the film’s climax when Kevin Spacey finds out that he has been taping him.

A 95% ROTTEN TOMATOES rating says it all… as everything about this film is firing on all pistons.  This great action film is also a great comedy and romance movie!   It was written and directed by Edgar Wright, who also had a lot to do with the soundtrack selections (think of how Quentin Tarantino hand-picked every song in “Pulp Fiction").  With superb cinematography from Bill Pope and great ensemble cast, this movie not only has vehicular mayhem, but is also a MUSIC FREAK’S DREAM!

“Wild Jon” Peterson is the Host/Producer of SHAKIN IT RADIO on WCBE.  BABY DRIVER is now screening at the GATEWAY FILM CENTER, AMC LENNOX TOWN THEATRE, GRANDVIEW THEATRE & DRAFTHOUSE and SOUTH DRIVE IN.