"Hey, Fred!" 04/03-04/09/2024
Goings On in Columbus, OH: Columbus premieres of You Will Get Sick and Llontop | Turtle Boat Record Release | NERT Celebrates Three Years | Portable Paradise Poetry Celebration
Theater
04/04/2024
Columbus Premiere: Available Light’s You Will Get Sick by Noah Diaz
Studio Two Theatre, Riffe Center; 77 S High St
April 4-April 20, various times: Pay What You Want Tickets and More Info at https://avltheatre.com/avlt-23-24.html#ywgs
Available Light Theatre caps one of the strongest seasons in recent memory—both What the Constitution Means to Me and Ghost Quartet were on my Best Of List for last year, the latter one of the best things I’ve seen in ten years—with an acclaimed Off-Broadway play (it had a run at Roundabout I couldn’t make it to, but it was on my radar).
Noah Diaz’s You Will Get Sick has one of our finest theater makers, Eleni Papaleonardos, at the helm and features a return to the stage of a couple of our best actors, Rudy Frias (a key part of some of Available Light’s brightest gems) and Jeanine Thompson (a list of astonishing credits too long to recount), after years, along with a cast of people who’ve killed me more recently (Jordan Fehr, Cindy Tran Nguyen, Jabari Johnson). I’m specifically not reading much about this because I’m reviewing it for CU, and I’ll share that in a note when it comes out, but I couldn’t talk about this week without highlighting this.
Ohio Premiere: Anonymous Ensemble’s Llontop
Wexner Center for the Arts, 1871 N High St
April 4 through 6, 7 pm; tickets starting at $6 available at https://wexarts.org/performing-arts/anonymous-ensemble
The Brooklyn-based Anonymous Ensemble comes to town with a fascinating-sounding look at the language and culture of the Andean indigenous Quechua people, combining an installation with the poems and songs of lauded Peruvian poet Irma Alvarez-Ccoscco.
I previewed this for Columbus Underground based on a great conversation I had with co-founder and designer Eamonn Farrell, so I’ll let that do most of the talking, but this is the kind of interdisciplinary performance art no one in town brings with as much fervor or rigor as the Wexner Center. And I think this is another sign of the center’s burgeoning performing arts renaissance.
Music
04/04/2024
Turtle Boat Record Release
Long Street Studio, 300 E Long St
April 4: 8 pm; Free
One of the local jazz releases I’m most looking forward to and another example of the Jazz Arts Group’s renewed commitment to interesting local work, Turtle Boat (in distilled trio form) takes the stage at Long Street Studio on Thursday.
The first time I saw Turtle Boat a number of years ago (2016? 2017?), the bulk of their repertoire was Paul Motian tunes. As they evolved and wrote more, they brought the wide lens of their listening to bear on everything they touch and that all feels included on Fear is Heavy, I’ve Got Plans… Mostly written by leader-guitarist Abhilasha Chebolu with a couple of pieces by saxophonist Alex Burgoyne and Columbus expat (I think teaching at Ithaca these days) Dan DiPiero on drums, it’s a spiky, thoughtful thrill ride. And with the band scattered to the winds these days, don’t miss a too-rare Columbus set.
04/06/2024
Needle Exchange Records and Tapes Three-Year Anniversary Party
Needle Exchange Records and Tapes, 4290 Indianola Ave, Suite 201
April 6, 5-10 pm; Free
Columbus is blessed with many great record stores. When I had a good friend visiting from LA last year looking for somewhere to go crate digging with his daughter, I gave him the rundown on the spots he was familiar with and caught him up a little. Then I made a point of saying, “You know, for great prices and maybe the most unique selection of stuff you’re going to find? Needle Exchange is the not-quite-hidden gem right now.”
Celebrating its third anniversary, NERT is one of many expressions of the love of music, the great and idiosyncratic tastes, and the love of this town of Ian Graham. I’ve been knocked sideways by bands he’s been in - the wry Birthday Party-with-a-sense-of-humor PEGGING, the fractured psych of Terrestrials, the solo bedroom pop-punk of Ouija Boys, a short-lived project he was in with Myra Power of Miss May 66 called Thee Thee’s I saw once years ago at Double Happiness that has me still singing that “Everybody’s into that shit…” song to myself. Ian’s work as a DJ, as a record store clerk (manning Lost Weekend’s register, which this newsletter talked up the week I was out of town), and as a consistently friendly, enthusiastic face have all made the cultural life of my town and, by extension, my life and my town, significantly better. And that’s all without even knowing him well.
For the big third anniversary, NERT’s assembled a terrific lineup ranging from local legends like Ron House, grimy hip-hop from C.X. Muga and Skumlordt, gnarled synth-punk Ghost Beef, and more.
Because I’m not sure I can praise Ian’s other work this soon after without addressing it: For the 93X debacle, I have the utmost sympathy for my friends who work or worked at CD929, full stop and no qualification. But I was rooting for Ian’s plans and looking forward to a fresh face on local radio playing music I was interested in until it turned out to be an unsustainable endeavor. The most even-handed take on the mess I’ve read is - unsurprisingly - Andy Downing’s for Matter News.
Poetry
04/05/2024
Portable Paradise: A Poetry Celebration with Roger Robinson, Ajanaé Dawkins, & Cynthia Amoah
OSU Urban Arts Space, 50 W Town St
April 5: 7 pm
Free
I went through the pop-up exhibition Portable Paradise at Urban Arts Space last weekend, and it floored me. The mix of artists I’d seen there - and elsewhere in Columbus - and new to me, working through their conceptions of paradise struck a long-unstrummed chord in my chest and left me sitting around the corner at Parable mulling it over.
One of my favorite aspects of the show was its inclusion of poetry—from recordings of people like Danez Smith to written poetry on the walls dispersed among the art. So I’m looking forward to the poetry reading scheduled for Friday, headlined by British writer Roger Robinson, whose book that gave the exhibition its name won both the TS Eliot Prize and the Ondaatje Prize. The evening also features Ajanaé Dawkins, who curated the exhibit and is profiled in this terrific piece from Andy Downing at Matter News, poet, and teacher Cynthia Amoah, with music by DJ O Sharp, who’s probably best known for the packed party The Redo.