"Hey, Fred!" 06/26-07/02/2024
Goings On in Columbus: Dion Lunadon | Love Letter to this Bridge Called My Back Panel | Tim Easton | The Kutt 1 Year Anniversary | New Bomb Turks |
Music
06/26/2024
Dion Lunadon with Motorbike and DANA
Cafe Bourbon Street, 2216 Summit St
June 26: 7 pm
$13 tickets available at Eventbrite
Dion Lunadon made his name in the late ‘90s New Zealand band The D4 and as bassist for the fertile ‘10s period of New York heavy psych band A Place to Bury Strangers. For the last couple of years, he’s put out great, nuanced records - ranging from the snarling garage rock he made his bones on to intimate bedroom pop to industrial-tinged jams - on standard-bearer In the Red. He comes to Bourbon Street in advance of July’s Memory Burn and this is the kind of show Bobo does better than anywhere else in town.
It’s also the kind of show where you want to be there for the openers. Local heroes DANA just get better and better, with extensive touring and woodshedding new material. Cincinnati’s Motorbike marry a terrific grinding sensibility to irresistible hooks.
06/28/2024
Tim Easton
June 28:
Solo, 6 pm to 8 pm, Free: Lost Weekend Records, 2960 N High St
10 pm, sith JP Olsen and San Brown, $10 at Door: Dick’s Den, 2417 N High St
Tim Easton was the first songwriter in town I ever loved and I’d put his run of The Haynes Boys’ Guardian Angel, Special 20, and The Truth About Us up against any three-record run by anyone in the singer-songwriter, alt.country, or Americana genres. And we’re lucky that he comes back through town as often as he does - attentive listening rooms like Natalie’s, rowdier bars like Little Rock, private parties - but many of my favorite memories of him in the last 10 years have been in the late night confines of Dick’s Den.
We’re lucky enough to have him twice on Friday, around a Saturday Comfest set, which I’m sure will also be great: a songs-and-storytelling evening at Clintonville hub Lost Weekend Records and the can’t-miss bill at Dick’s of Tim Easton with the great JP Olsen (better known in the rest of the world as a writer and filmmaker, Olsen’s band The Beetkeepers helped kick off the last two generations of roots rock in this town, and their self-titled LP, along with Olsen’s collaboration with Easton and his Haynes Boys’ bandmates, Burn Barrel, set the bar impossibly high for anyone who came after), along with one of our finest songwriters and drummers, Sam Brown.
The biggest reason I wanted to preview this appearance is that Easton released my favorite record of his in many years - and an early contender for my top records of the year - with May 2024’s Find Your Way. I intended to write about it in a monthly (probably) record review piece of this newsletter; but since I’m still figuring out the format/timing on that, this preview seemed appropriate.
With organic and naturalistic production - the atmospherics are so subtle and beautifully deployed they feel like the room - by Canadian singer-songwriter Leeroy Stagger, and a loose but driving rhythm section of drummer Geoff Hicks and bassist Jeremy Holmes, Easton’s put together a collection of his most immediate, vibrant songs in a while. His knack for subtle lyrical twists that reinforce the tone by seemingly undercutting it is on full display, as in the shimmering wistful waltz of album closer “By The End of the Night” - “I don’t want to be foolish or dangerous - maybe just a little” - or the hard-bitten hope of title track “Find Your Way”, “All those corners that I cut just added to my debt. All these things I have to do are not burdens just yet.” The searching, questioning glow of “What Will It Take,” with Jeanne Tolmie’s astonishing harmony vocal and the shooting star quality of Daniel Lapp’s violin. His taste for vintage fingerpicked blues surfaces in a great example with “Arkansas Twisted Heart” and “Bangin’ Drum (Inside My Mind).” His interest in narrative surfaces in the cautionary tale of “Little Brother.”
What ties these 10 songs together for me is a radical empathy: a love for his fellow travelers, for the world, and (maybe hardest of all) himself. The song that I first fell for epitomizes this, a rare song I don’t think I’ve gone more than a day without playing since I first heard it: “Everything You’re Afraid Of.”
The rare “advice song” that doesn’t feel preachy or treacly - helped by the martial swing of Hicks’ drums and an underlying drone - delivered with a grin driven home by a close-up vocal that shows every bit of weather and texture in his voice. The gang-vocal responses on the lines, “Think of everyone you’ve hurt - starting with yourself. Every broken promise - starting with yourself. Every broken heart - starting with yourself,” crack my chest open every time. It’s a breathtaking reminder of how good he still is. And how much I need a song once in a while.
06/29/2024
The Kutt Record Store, 1 Year Anniversary
The Kutt, 2358 W Broad St
June 29: 12 pm, $5 cover starts at 5 pm with Breakin’ battles
The Kutt has been the most buzzed-about new record store in the last year. It offers a wide range of everything but a particular interest in jazz—it first hit my radar when a friend sent a link to one of its Instagram stories featuring an astonishing flip of jazz discs—hip-hop and R&B. The store - and its owner, Zachary Grashal (DJ Zerggyzerg) - also delivered on the promise of the record store as a community locus, offering a place to hang (every Monday, breakers and DJs gather; I got word their evening of Smoked In Ohio had crowds spilling out into the street in a way not seen in that part of the Hilltop for years) and giving back outside their walls, with Zerg giving his time to DJ at elementary schools, community festivals, and more. We’re only a year in and I can’t wait to see how The Kutt evolves.
As befits what’s already become an indispensable part of the fabric of Columbus, the store’s throwing an excellent birthday party. 20% Off All Day, and after 5 pm, a breaking competition judged by Vix Da Vapor of the MZK Worldwide crew, Kaleb “V-Nice” Murphy, who’s transitioning from B-boying to DJing, and Swift Lee from the Shaolin Funk crew. Music is provided by a couple of Columbus killers:- DJ Sinceer, who brings a ferocious command of any genre that gets people moving, from hip-hop to house, and DJ Pos2, who made killer mixes and produced tracks for legendary crews like the Fonosluts and Spitball and held down extended residencies in some of the rooms that brought the indie rock and hip-hop scenes together, like Bernie’s and Carabar. Don’t miss a chance to see him spin if you can. In happy nostalgia, as I did a little research, I stumbled on this preview of a night of Pos2’s I never made it to - or memories were blurry - by one of our best writers and thinkers about hip-hop, Wes Flexner, for the Columbus Free Press.
06/30/2024
New Bomb Turks with Married FM and Aleks and Marcy DJing
Ace of Cups, 2469 N High St
June 30: Doors at 5 pm
$15 tickets available at Seetickets
For somebody of my age and inclination, no band loomed larger in the consciousness than the New Bomb Turks. One great record after another, on acclaimed international labels from Crypt to Epitaph to Gearhead (I think the final full-length, The Night Before the Day The Earth Stood Still, is a slept-on classic, but it also came out when I was 22, so may have been right place/right time) and singles on more labels than I could count. And always, always, always deliver live, as anyone who saw the benefit show for Arturo DeLeon (who has a history with the Turks, doing the killer artwork for their opening salvo to the world, Destroy-Oh-Boy!) in February 2023 can attest. This early Sunday hometown gig is a warm-up for a week of European shows.
This also dovetails with one of my favorite monthly occurrences at Ace - former owner Marcy Mays and manager Aleks Shaulov spinning terrific records, back after a couple of months’ hiatus because Ace Mk 1 (and Little Brothers’ before that) bartender Gretchen Zimmer is back behind the stick after recovering from an injury. For me, the extra icing on the cake is Married FM, one of my favorite new Columbus bands, featuring Emily Davis (Necropolis, The Ipps) and Beth Murphy (Times New Viking). Married FM put out a self-titled EP that’s still stuck in my head - and getting played regularly around here - and made my songs of the year list last year. I missed their debut show here in town when I was at Big Ears in Knoxville, but rest assured, I’m getting to Ace early for this.
Talk/Literary/Visual Arts
06/27/2024
In Conversation With A Love Letter to This Bridge Called My Back
Urban Arts Space, 50 W Town St
June 27: 6 pm
Free, RSVP at Urban Arts Space
The anthology A Love Letter to This Bridge Called My Back is a contemporary reflection and consideration of the classic feminist text This Bridge Called My Back, edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa and provided the basis for a thought-provoking exhibit at Urban Arts Space. This Thursday, UAS brings together the editors of the new work, gloria j. wilson, Joni B. Acuff, and two of the exhibit’s artists, Sonia BasSheva Mañjon, PhD, and Keya Crenshaw. Their programming has been stellar this year and this looks to be as good as anything they’ve booked.
💕