Me and Bob Dylan - by Colin Gawel

Listen while you read! Spotify playlist of a recent Bob Dylan setlist

Bob Dylan is playing Mershon Auditorium, November 4th, here in Columbus.

So this Monday I am seeing Bob Dylan for the third time. Not to sound morbid, but odds are this is probably my final Dylan show. While I am a fan of the music and the man, I’m an even bigger fan of the myth. No single Bob record has impacted me the way some Springsteen records have, but Bob’s book Chronicles and the movie No Direction Home have both had a profound impact on my thinking as person and an - ahem - artist, if you will. 

In fact, as I am writing this at Colin’s Coffee between serving customers, I dug out my personal copy of Chronicles from the shelves. I used to underline parts of the book the way I suppose other folks might underline Biblical passages or whatever. The only other book I have done this with is Woody Guthrie - A Life, written by “a fella named Joe Klein” as famously plugged on Springsteen’s Live 75-85 collection. Woody begat Bob begat Bruce begat..….?

I guess the connection between those two books are that Woody and Bob are spiritual searchers. They never rest. They move forward even when - or especially when - they aren’t sure which direction is best. I guess the lesson I take away from this is in two parts: 1) Never stop trying, and 2) Trying something, even if it fails, is usually better than being scared to try anything at all. 

Or, to put it another way: 1) It would be a lot easier to NOT write this essay. 2)There is a good chance it won’t be very good anyway. But just engaging in the creative effort justifies the effort no matter what the result. That is my takeaway from Bob Dylan. 

You’ll notice I used the word “usually” two paragraphs up. This kind of mentality does open the door for some spectacular failures. As Ricki C. often says, “Bob Dylan has made more bad records than good records,” and I suppose he might be right. But still, that is what you get with Bob Dylan. He is on HIS journey and you are welcome to follow along. Or not. His live shows are the same way. Springsteen may drag you through the weeds, but eventually you end up at a shiny city on the hill. Bob might drag you through the weeds and leave you in a dark swamp. Then the house lights come on. 

Here are a  couple of passages I underlined in the Chronicles book. These are both from the 1986 tour when Dylan was backed by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers:

Tom was at the top of his game and I was at the bottom of mine. My own songs had become strangers to me. The mirror had swung around and I could see the future - an old actor fumbling in garbage cans outside the theater of past triumphs.

A bit later on the same tour:

The shows with Petty finished up in December, and I saw that instead of being stranded somewhere at the end of the story, I was actually in the prelude to the beginning of another one.

I like that. I want to think like that. 

As for the movie No Direction Home, in my opinion the best rock documentary ever made, it gave me the historical background on why Bob Dylan means so much to people older than myself. I wasn’t around to experience the 60’s with the times a changin’ and then changin’ again when Bob went electric. The Beatles might have been the big bang for rock n roll but Bob plugging in made a loud sound too. Or so I learned watching this movie. Growing up I knew Bob Dylan was important but I didn’t really know why. The music I heard never seemed to justify the hype. When he appeared with Keef and Woody at Live Aid I was excited because it was Bob Dylan making an appearance, but the music just didn’t move the needle for me. (As a kid) I vividly remember buying my first Dylan record at Used Kids when I was 14 or 15 years old. I said to Ron House, “I should probably buy a Bob Dylan record, right?” He came out from behind the counter, fished through the bins for about 30 seconds, handed me Highway 61 Revisited and said, “This would be good for someone like you.” Not knowing what that meant I promptly bought that record along with Dokken Under Lock and Key. 

And I suppose I identify with Bob on some vague Midwestern/Great Lakes level. When he talks, I just get it. I’m paraphrasing here but at one point in the movie he talks about growing up in the North and how the weather teaches you to think abstractly. When it’s hot, it’s eventually going to be cold, and when it’s cold it will eventually get hot.  I embrace that and every once and a while I’d like to think it filters down to songs I’ve written like “Superior” and “Cold Weather.” 

Anyway, that’s the story of myself and Bob Dylan. - Colin Gawel

(By the way, the first time staff writer Ricki C. saw Bob Dylan live was before most of our Pencil Storm readers were even born; read all about it here in Growing Old With R&R: Shows I Saw in the 60’s, part one; Bob Dylan & the Hawks, 11/19/1965)

If the Browns Lose to Denver Should Freddie Be Fired? NCP Has the Answer.

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There is only one question this week but it's a big one. Based on what we have seen so far, if the Browns lose to the Broncos this week, should Freddy Kitchens be fired?

Big $: My answer is short and sweet. The earliest I believe that firing Freddie could of been considered was halftime against the Titans. The latest it SHOULD of happened was immediately following the Titans debacle. The team was lost and looking for guidance and the coach was even more confused. This nonsense led to the team quitting and the filth and muck that attached itself to the season has yet to be shook. I believe we’ve reached manziel-ian levels of incompetence and the more it lingers the harder it’s going to be to right the ship. Freddie must go.

The Ice Cube: The answer is “yes, but ….”  I freely admit that the former used car salesman had me sold at the beginning of the year.  Given the way he had the offense clicking in the second half of last year and the “us-versus-the-world” rhetoric that flowed in his Southern drawl, I believed Freddy was the right guy to lead this team back to relevance.  I now have a severe case of buyer’s remorse.  I have had enough of the platitudes and excuses that now fill the post-loss pressers.  If he “doesn’t coach penalties,” then why the hell are the Browns still getting flagged a dozen times per game at the season’s halfway point.  If Freddy doesn’t coach them, he sure as shit doesn’t coach his players how to stop committing them, either.  It is abundantly clear that Freddy is not ready for his role.  He may be a proficient coordinator, but he ain’t head coach material, at least not yet.  It was maddening that the Browns still had multiple opportunities to make a game out of last week’s loss against the bulletproof Patriots.  But, like in too many instances throughout this season, Cleveland keeps pulling a Plaxico Burress and shooting itself in the leg with mindless penalties, unbelievable turnovers, baffling play-calling, and ridiculous replay challenges.  Should Freddy be fired if the Browns lose to Denver: Absolutely.  He has earned that fate, but Jimmy Haslam cannot pull the trigger now.  Who is going to take Freddy’s place, especially mid-season?  The first step is for Freddy to give up play-calling duties, so he can focus on his role CEO.  Maybe then he can finally start to show some growth himself. 

Buckeye Dominance; Young's Heisman Chase; UM Bouncing Back: Baver Answers Colin's Questions - Bye Week #2

Colin: Bad weather conditions and an agitated Badger squad closing to within 3 points in the 2nd half and then... total domination. Thoughts? 

Baver: As October comes to an end, there is no doubt whatsoever that Ohio St has been the best team in America to date. Now, that doesn’t guarantee them anything going forward, but it’s been the most dominating 8-game run I can remember in my 40+ years of being a hardcore Buckeye football addict.

Wisconsin may not be the team we once thought they were, but the Buckeyes scored a touchdown on every 2nd half possession except for the last one....the drive that ended in victory formation. Wisconsin still has a top 10 defense nationally in my opinion, and that was a beatdown. If the weather was better, the beatdown would have been worse.

Colin: Since it’s a bye week, your thoughts on impressive wins by PSU, Mich and the Gophers and what that means for the Buckeyes playoff chances moving forward? 

Baver: PJ Fleck has his kids believing...it’s what he does. The Gophers first four wins of the season were each by 7 pts or less, against less than stellar competition. Their last 4 wins? They beat Illinois by 23, Nebraska by 27, Rutgers by 35, and Maryland by 42. Can they hang with Penn St a week from Saturday? We shall see.

Michigan has now played 6 straight quarters of dominant football against two top opponents, and has a lot of momentum heading into November. Penn St? I still think they are the most talented Big Ten team OSU will face. 

Call it a cliché, but the Buckeyes biggest obstacle now is themselves, not Michigan, Penn St or any other B10 team. A year ago at this time, the 2018 Alabama team was on their way to becoming the greatest college football team of all time. At least, that’s what many in the media were selling. If you watched their final 3 games, that Bama team was nowhere near the team they were in October, and didn’t win the Nat’l Title, much less become the greatest team of all time. Hopefully, Coach Day can help these kids keep their minds right. If they can do that (and stay healthy), OSU will take care of Penn St, Michigan and the B10 West champ, and are Playoff bound.

Colin: Does an Oklahoma loss giving up 48 points combined with another Texas loss give the Buckeyes hope to make the playoff even with one loss? 

Baver: The Bucks would still have a decent shot I think of getting in if they beat PSU but lost to Michigan. OSU would still (likely) be East champs, and would still likely hammer the B10 West champ. There are so many other variables in play if OSU suffers a loss, I guess that’s the only hard take I have right now on a 1-loss Buckeye team making the Playoff.

Colin: Could Chase Young get invited to the Heisman ceremony and have you ever seen a more dominant Buckeye player at any position? (Let’s exclude Orlando Pace to keep interesting) 

Baver: After the clinic he put on against Wisconsin, the national media has jumped on board the Chase Young for Heisman campaign. The effect on the Heisman odds at the sportsbooks? A week ago today, Bovada had 17 players listed with Heisman odds, but no Chase Young. AJ Dillon was their last player listed, having 200 to 1 odds. Checking their live odds just now, Bovada has Chase Young on their board with 8 to 1 odds. An article yesterday noted BetOnline had just added Chase Young to their Heisman odds at 25 to 1. I just checked BetOnline’s live odds, and Chase Young is now listed with 6 to 1 odds. Can Young get an invite to the Heisman ceremony? Yep.

I could go on for a while on this topic, but the most dominating Buckeye player that I’ve seen play? You had to exclude Orlando, didn’t you? Ha....okay, you’ve made it harder. It’s a close call in my mind between Chris Spielman and Chase Young. Spielman wasn’t blessed with the skill set Chase has, but he had instincts like no other defensive player I’ve seen. Let’s definitely revisit in December after Chase finishes the regular season.

Colin: What other games and lines will you be keeping an eye on this week?

Pretty sad slate of games for October? Man alive. But you do have a top 10 matchup in Jacksonville, with Georgia and Florida. The winner of this one still has a shot at the playoff. I like the Gators +6½. The Bulldogs won going away in 2017 & 2018, but I don’t see Dan Mullen getting blown out in this game again this year. I think the Gators hang tough and have decent shot at an upset.

Along the same lines, I like Washington getting the points (3½) at home against Utah. I just do not see Chris Peterson losing his 4th game of the year on the first Saturday of November. The Huskies played Oregon pretty evenly and have had an extra week to prepare for Utah. I like Washington win outright. 

—Brent Baver and Colin Gawel

If You Don't Like This Band, You Don't Like Rock N Roll: Two Nights With The Hangmen - by JCE

editor’s note: Occasionally, at the end of summer vacations, copy gets “mislaid” here at the Pencil Storm offices, especially in election years when we add a political desk (actually a card table in the corner by the water cooler) to the mix. This JCE piece about The Hangmen actually somehow wound up in Sports editor Jeff Hassler’s in-box, and it took him OVER A MONTH to figure out that The Hangmen were not a team in either the NFL or Major League Baseball and forward it to the music department. (Personally, I have never been certain that that “medical marijuana” card Hassler is always flashing around the office is legit, since it seems to be printed on the back of an old Van Halen press release, from when Sammy Hagar was still in the band.)

Our apologies to JCE and to The Hangmen for the delay.

I was sitting at the bar in a club called The Broadberry in Richmond, VA all the way back in May.  I was with two friends waiting for a band called The Dirty Nil, who would be followed by the excellent Glorious Sons.  Behind the bar, there they have a big video screen showing food items and upcoming shows.  I glanced up and saw an announcement for a double bill of the Supersuckers with The Hangmen.  I almost jumped out of my skin.  I bought the self-titled debut record by The Hangmen (Capitol Records) in 1989.  I thought then, and still believe, it is one of the best records on the planet.  I have religiously followed the band’s career ever since, which is no small feat given their ups and downs.  They are pure rock n roll through and through.

The Hangmen were dropped by Capitol and picked up by Geffen, but their second record, which would have been called Suicide Doors, was never released.  Finally, a good ten years later we got the sophomore release called Metallic IOU.  Good God it was worth the wait.  The line-up went through changes but has been pretty stable since that 10-year layoff.  The constant is Bryan Small, one of my all-time rock n roll heroes.  Loteria followed in 2004, In The City was 2007, East of Western was 2012 and finally, the brand-new 2019 release called Cactusville.  Every one of them is absolutely stellar.  I had never seen The Hangmen play live.  I had never seen them come to a city anywhere near me.  I was like a kid waiting for Christmas from that night in May right up until the show on September 10th.

So I bought tickets and waited with anticipation.  In the week leading up to the show I told my amazing wife over and over that I wanted to meet Bryan Small and get a picture with him.  I am not normally such a super-fan, but I had been waiting 30 years to see this band.  I should digress for a minute and say that I also love The Supersuckers.  I had never seen them before either, but they were second fiddle on this bill for me, even though they were the headliners.

September 10th was a Tuesday. The show was going to be at a tiny club called The Camel (sister club to the larger Broadberry). I left work early and my wife and I headed for Richmond, which is a two hour trip. There were not many people in attendance, so I immediately met Eddie Spaghetti, main Supersucker.

JCE & Eddie

It wasn’t long after that I got to meet Bryan Small and talk with him for awhile. During our conversation I learned that Suicide Doors was not really the lost treasure I always figured it would be. It was a bad time for Bryan and he said the best songs on it made it onto Metallic IOU anyway. He was disappointed that the vinyl version of Cactusville had been delayed so they didn’t have any to sell. We talked about the set-list that was coming and the hairs stood up on my neck: it was perfect. I told him I had no idea how they had eluded me for 30 years, and if I understood him correctly, he said they had never played the East coast. He was extremely nice. They hit the stage soon after we talked, and I was in rock n roll heaven for 45 minutes. The set-list covered all of the records and every song was so f**k’n great that I won’t bother picking highlights.

JCE & Bryan

The Hangmen rocking The Camel Club in Richmond, VA.

signed set-list

We watched The Supersuckers of course, but after The Hangmen, well….  I had grabbed a set-list so I got Bryan to sign it for me and we headed for home.  A two-hour drive after a show like that one is no problem at all.  Shows like that can keep me energized and happy for days. 

The next night, still sizzling from an amazing show and so happy to have met one of my heroes, my beautiful & amazing wife and I hatched a plan to go see the same bill a few days later, Saturday, September 14th in Harrisonburg, VA at the Golden Pony. Our friend Kim came along to be indoctrinated into the rock n roll nirvana that is The Hangmen. We arrived to a similar, very small club with a small crowd. As I had hoped, the Cactusville vinyl had finally caught up with the band, so I bought one right away, ripped it open and got it signed by everyone. Bryan remembered us and was super gracious again. We also met the rest of the band: Angelique on bass, Jimmy James playing some smoking guitar and Jorge Disguster pounding the drums. The setlist was the same, which was fine with me. The Hangmen blew the roof off again and - for me at least - should have been the headliners.

Signed cover of green vinyl Cactusville record, Bryan’s guitar pick from the Harrisonburg show.

JCE w/ Angelique and Jimmy

I was so happy to get to see The Hangmen twice while I had the chance, so happy to get to meet some heroes, so happy to get the vinyl record, so happy----you get the picture.  These two nights were bucket list material for me.  Thanks for reading and letting me share my joy, and if you don’t know The Hangmen, check them out!

Bryan Small at The Golden Pony Club: JCE, JCE’s beer, and JCE’s wife stand front and center.

HELL YEAH.

Angela Perley Lets Go to Produce Solo Debut '4:30' - by Anne Marie

Angela Perley has been tracking sales of 4:30 like a proud parent monitors a newborn’s growth, curious whether the 70% male audience so far for the album will hold, whether the sale demographics will translate into tour audiences, and eager to glean whatever other information she can. She says she feels she’s been working on the album “for years,” but in a good way. It’s clearly been a labor of love.

Perley says that Angela Perley & the Howlin’ Moons had fulfilled their two-record deal with Vital Companies with 2014’s Hey Kid and 2016’s Homemade Vision, and she knew it was time to put what she had learned to work. Perley had been watching the recording process closely, taking detailed notes, and felt she “knew how to do it to keep costs as low as possible” while “maki[ng] it in a way to be true to her.” Perley and former Howlin’ Moon guitarist Chris Connor co-produced 4:30, named for her bedtime. Perley says she feels most creative once the world quiets down. She wrote the songs late at night and would bring them to Chris to lay down an electronic drum track. She and Chris would then try them out live with Jake Levy on drums.

Perley and Connor poured their own funds into 4:30 and that got them close, but not quite to the finish line. Perley realized she was approximately $13,000 short of what was needed to complete the final production and post-production work on the album and made the decision to crowd-source the remainder through Kickstarter. The all or nothing approach of Kickstarter’s funding platform made her “nervous” but she did her research and ended up exceeding her goal, raising more than $15,500.

Perley’s careful research and attention to detail can be seen in the amazing musicians she found to bring out the richness of her songs. Friend Patrick Sweany had raved about Nashville keyboardist Robbie Crowell (Kesha, Diamond Rugs) and it “just happened to work out” that the “one time” Crowell had free in January Perley, Connor and Levy were able to travel to Nashville to record. Perley also convinced Andy Carlson (R.E.M., Billy Bragg) to add strings and took the suggestion of Mike Landolt (Maroon 5, O.A.R.) - who mixed the record - to have Dave Collins (D’Angelo, Bruce Springsteen) do the mastering.

4:30, released August 2nd, appears to be getting the praise it deserves. Perley graciously accepts congratulations for the write- up and video premiere of single “Let Go” on Billboard. That article appeared under the tag “Country” and the author Gary Graff described her music variously as “psychedelic garage pop to melodic pop and heartfelt country and Americana.”  When asked how she would describe her sound, Perley says she mostly thinks of her music as “rock and roll,” but acknowledges that “it has country elements in there.” She says that she and Connor played at the AmericanaFest the past couple of years in Nashville and “she identifies with that term, too – somewhere in between.”

Perley is less willing to define her songs.  When asked about the story behind “Don’t Look Back Mary,” a slow, sad, achingly beautiful poem of a song, Perley will accede only that while there’s “a little of herself in it,” it was “inspired off of a couple of people” and that she “knows a lot of Mary’s”; women who are “a bit broken by some sorts of abuse over the years but still have a beauty and a strength.”

Photo by Mitchell Multimedia

A video for “Don’t Look Back Mary” by Columbus local Amber Thompson will soon be out. That video will join the existing video for the upbeat, rocking song “Let Go,” which Perley admits is her “favorite of the moment” – a “mental check for her to let go of some of the expectations of the music industry and her career.” That video by Dawn Aquarius uses full-on 70’s era Scooby-Doo style psychedelic animation to depict, in a wild tumbling visual feast, a girl listening to the song spin on vinyl, Perley and Connor playing guitars, rabbits spinning, butterflies emerging from chrysalises, and the lyrics “what a wonderful feeling, what a wonderful feeling” spiraling.

With the album’s successful release in the rearview mirror and these promotional efforts underway, it certainly must be a wonderful feeling!

North Coast Posse is Calling the Browns Upset - by Big $

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My son Owen and I went to the Seattle game two weeks ago. The good: It was a highly entertaining game with lots of drama. The bad: The Browns lost a winnable game.

So Question #1: What are your good and bad takeaways from that game?

Big $: The Seahawks game was incredibly disappointing, however when you rewind the clock to 2018, and examine how the Browns faired against quality opponents there is some room for optimism. The Browns were completely overmatched by the Chiefs,Chargers, Texans and Steelers last year. All things considered, they should of beat Seattle, who are a definitive playoff team. Therefore, I’m holding onto a kernel of hope that things are on an upswing.

Final question: What should we expect good and bad vs the Pats this Sunday?

Big $: As a native Clevelander and long time Browns fan, I’m a glutton for punishment. Therefore, I’m going out on a serious limb and risking devastating disappointment by expecting a Browns win. Baker ain’t afraid of no ghosts : Browns 31 Pats 20