"Hey, Fred!" 09/11-09/17/2024
Rhapsody and Refrain hits its homestretch | Werewolf Jones | Brother(hood) Dance | Sweeping Promises | Sierra Hull
Highlight From Last Week
I’m still chewing on last week’s Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit show at Rose Music Center - my favorite outdoor venue of that size, and it’s not even close. First, Alejandro Escovedo’s fascinating opening set. I’ve been seeing Escovedo for almost 25 years in a variety of band configurations and lineups, but (in the spirit of most recent record Echo Dancing) this was the most radical reinvention of some of these songs I’ve ever heard. Accompanied by Mark Henne on drums and loops and Scott Danborn on keys, and nodding to the organ trio tradition but also Suicide and no wave, they tore into classics like “Everybody Loves Me" with its swagger swapped out for a scraped-out desert-noir reflection; “Sensitive Boys” as a moaning indictment of a cabaret ballad; “Castanets” stripped down and with a straighter but textured hip-hop-ish back beat, turning up the call and response with he and Danborn throwing lines back and forth, “I like her better when she dance my way / Come on, dance this way!” At 73, his questing spirit and intense curiosity won me over even as I occasionally missed some additional melodic elements or some of the variety of rhythm I was used to.
And this was my first time seeing Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit with the current lineup, Anna Butterss on bass and Will Johnson of Centro-Matic on second drums/third guitar/harmonies/whatever was called for. Obviously the 400 Unit is one of the great units in rock in the best senses of that classic big-room-filling sense, but those shifts to the rhythm section both highlighted Chad Gamble’s unerring sense of when a song needs to groove and when it needs to stomp and added additional texture and nuance to Denny DeBorja’s keys. Butterss who - until now - I was used to thinking of as part of Jeff Parker’s orbit (with Daniel Villarreal, Josh Johnson, and others) though I know they’ve done great work with Phoebe Bridgers and other singer-songwriters brought an excitement and a new voice to these songs without taking them outside of what the audience who’ve been singing along to some of these for a decade wanted.
The stuff off Weathervanes in particular, maybe Isbell’s roughest, rawest record since he was in the Truckers, definitely benefited from that texture and heft, visible in the soaring, cathartic guitar duels between Isbell and Sadler Vaden (those intertwining cri de coeur solos on “King of Oklahoma” fucking broke me, and it was only the second song in) and the gnarled power of the borderline-prog “Miles” and the Dylan-on-trucker-speed tumbling words round “Death Wish” came to three-dimensional life.
Literary
09/11/2024
Rhapsody & Refrain 2024
Streetlight Guild, 1367 E Main
September 1 through 15, Sundays at 5 pm, all other days at 8 pm
Free
It feels like an incredible understatement and the most obvious thing in the world to say Streetlight Guild’s poetry series Rhapsody and Refrain is ending strong, but good lord. There’s not a weak show in these last five. My own schedule is ridiculous with a manager leaving (so a happy hour out in the hinterlands), dear friends in from out of town, reviewing at least one play, but if an hour gap opens when one of these things is happening, it’s where you’ll find me.
11 WED – Charlene Fix & Jennifer Hambrick - Charlene Fix is one of my great inspirations for never settling, for continuous improvement, for an insatiable hunger to go deeper, and she does it all with kindness as a guiding star; there’s no sense of steamrolling. With a career of wild acclaim as a poet and a critic and her excellent work as a (now emeritus) professor at CCAD, she still shows up at workshops to see other readings in the cultural fabric of this scene. And she’s one of the best writers you’ll ever hear read; her Jewgirl from Broadstone Books last year is staggering.
Jennifer Hambrick, I don’t know as well, but she’s always been another guiding light for following a career in an astonishing number of directions and doing them all beautifully. I saw her read before a Chamber Music Columbus performance a few years ago, and my jaw was in my lap; I had to dig out her books from my collection, had to. Also a photographer, a broadcaster, a trusted voice around what’s good in my town. Had a new book this year, A Silence or Two, so this should be a good chance to catch up with her newest work
12 THU – Bill Kerwin & Scott Woods - Scott Woods I’ve written about repeatedly here and I’m not sure I have enough praise for him; before I was lucky enough to call him a friend, he staggered me every time I saw him read, going back to when I was 18 or 19. And if you can see him in his own space, it’s doubly special - my eyebrows are still a little bit singed from a full Saturday Night set at Streetlight Guild back in 2023.
Bill Kerwin’s work I knew best was as a musician in Five Guys Named Moe, a terrific rollercoaster ride through the history of American music that I first checked out because two of its members came out of my favorite Columbus band, One Riot One Ranger. I’ve bought his mystery novel, having heard excellent things, but haven’t gotten to it yet. I feel totally comfortable given that bare-bones information saying what he’s bringing is worth hearing.
13 FRI – Stevi “DearMsStevi” Knighton & Rachael Scott - I’ve written about Stevi “DearMsStevi” Knighton here in the past and she’s an astonishing and crucial voice in our scene, also dedicated to mentoring and encouraging beginning artists.
I know Rachael Scott mostly as an actor. I’ve been trying to see some of the new work Columbus Children’s Theater is doing, and I’ve heard good things about her work there. So I don’t have personal vouching, but she’s been at earlier Rhapsody and Refrain iterations, and if she’s back, you know she’s good.
14 SAT – Soz Zangana & Karen Scott - Karen Scott is one of the most tireless supporters of poetry and literary arts Columbus has ever been lucky enough to have; we don’t appreciate her nearly enough. Her invaluable work on the Ohio Poetry Calendar, her constant raising up of other artists, and her keen critical eye - when I see Karen at an event, she’s one of the three or four people I can say I know I’m in the right place - are balanced by and feed her astonishing, sharply carved poetry.
I’ve only seen Soz Zangana read once, I think, at a too-rare visit to Writer’s Block in its later years, but it was astonishing. Staggering images, precisely calibrated.
15 SUN – Steve Abbott & Aaron Alsop (5:00) - Steve Abbott helped found the Poetry Forum, the long-running series at Larry’s (RIP) and then Rumba Cafe and Bossy Grrl, so brought a lot of us, including me, to poetry, an encouraging presence and also a high bar for standards for our own work. It’s fitting he’s part of the taking-it-home round of this series.
Aaron Alsop has made me cry in public more than once - I specifically remember a feature at a short-lived series at the Camelot Cellars space back when it was in the Short North - he doesn't feature nearly often enough and it’s always magical work.
Dance
09/13/2024
Brother(hood) Dance, Black on Earth
Wexner Center for the Arts, 1871 N High St
September 13 and 14, 7 pm
Pay What You Can tickets starting at $5
Tickets and more information: https://wexarts.org/performing-arts/brotherhood-dance-0
I interviewed Brother(hood) Dance for a preview for Columbus Underground, so I’ll let that do most of the talking. I will state that it was one of most electrifying conversations I’ve had this year and their prior piece was one of the best shows I saw in 2023. This look at black growers and our relationship with the earth as people comes highly, highly recommended.
Music
09/12/2024
Werewolf Jones with Day Residue, Big Time Sniper, and Pagan Car Bomb
Cafe Bourbon Street, 2216 Summit St
September 12: doors at 7 pm
$10 at the door
Two of Detroit’s finest practitioners of garage-punk lead a stacked bill at the finest venue for that kind of beautiful, snarling racket, Bourbon Street. Werewolf Jones balances surging stomps with sludgy broken-glass symphonies, bringing an amazing amount of sound for a three-piece. Day Residue has a post-punk swing on terrific records like Deadly Walk and a reputation for one of the best live shows in the town with some of the highest standards.
The locals are also not to be missed. I caught one of the first Pagan Car Bomb shows back in June, and they knocked me over. Fronted by Jon Slak, formerly of the much-missed band Sick Thrills, and stacked with other rock veterans like JR Fisher and Josh McGregor, they’re a burst of pure punk rock adrenaline. Big Time Sniper shares some members with Wasp Factory and add some fun noise elements to classic hardcore propulsion. I like the self-titled record a lot, and I suspect it will kill live.
09/14/2024
Sweeping Promises with DANA and Big Fat Head
Rumba Cafe, 2507 Summit St
September 14: Show at 8 pm
$10 Tickets available at
https://www.columbusrumbacafe.com/event/13698163/sweeping-promises-dana-big-fat-head/
Sweeping Promises blew me away at the first Gonerfest I saw them at in 2021, a scrappy New Wave-inflected duo (often with a touring drummer) with big hooks and a crisp post-punk energy stirred with enough beautiful raggedness to give it some textures I hadn’t quite seen before. By the time they played Columbus a few months later, they’d loosened up and the longer feature set reminded me they’re one of the best new rock bands I’d seen in a while. Their cross-pollination with one of my favorite Memphis bands, Optic Sink, led to a record - and another set at Gonerfest - that knocked me sideways last year, Good Living is Coming For You. Getting to see them with another year of touring is going to be a treat.
The locals here are perfectly chosen—DANA’s similar mix of rock-solid songwriting, electronics and noise, and dance-ready grooves feels like a natural fit, and they’ve been crushing lately. Big Fat Head, I finally got to see at the Seventh Son anniversary party, sounded great—big hooks, anthemic synth lines, and crisp post-punk drumming; their newest record, Bobo Rising, is a jolt of grinning electricity.
09/15/2024
Sierra Hull with Stephanie Lambring
Woodlands Tavern, 1200 W 3rd Ave
September 15: Doors at 7 pm
$25 Tickets Available at https://www.woodlandsproductions.com/tm-event/sierra-hull-w-stephanie-lambring-at-woodlands-tavern/
Sierra Hull hit my radar with her stunning mandolin work on Robbie Fulks’ most recent Bluegrass Vacation, and his effusive praise of her made me seek out her excellent records (I have a special fondness for the swirling 25 Trips). Opener Stephanie Lambring also has rock-solid songs and a little more of an indie-rock edge, playing with a cast of Nashville session killers, and her new one, Hypocrite, is as bracing as a well-deserved drink thrown in the face (with the level of catharsis varying for the thrower, the receiver, and the audience).
An excellent double bill, and the kind of show I love seeing at Woodlands and dearly wish they’d do more of.