The Freelance Mentalists.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Cinderella, Sweeping Up The Strobe
UWeekly 12-01-2010
4Play
By Don Allred
Freelance Whales/Miniature Tigers
Friday @ The Basement
Indie art-pop kiddies Freelance Whales have been tagged as "twee",
but especially live, there's also something hard-nosed and practical
about the compact, levitating density of this former sidewalk/subway
platform band. Five-part harmonies infiltrate stringed instruments,
glockenspiels, drums and sustained keyboard chords, like the rowdy
ghost breezing through FW's debut album, "Weathervanes." Miniature
Tigers tenaciously swept love's ashes through the Phoenix-to-Hollywood
mirages of 2008's "Tell It To The Volcano", and showtime can bring
sharper focus to the stylish highlights of 2010's "Fortress."
Question Mark and the Mysterians/Professors
Saturday @ The Shrunken Head
"The shadows were all I had/Until you came into my life," garage
pioneer Question Mark drawls in "Got To." Whether or not his seemingly
fickle muse actually ended up crying "96 Tears", she definitely
inspired QMM's 1966 classics. The original combo still cogently mixes
punky, speedy blues with Motown-informed flow. Mysterians peers The
Professors are veterans of Central Ohio's Dantes, Dominions and Mods.
They cover the Stones, Beatles, Animals, even Dylan and the Byrds, in
sonic strobe lights.
Here Come The Mummies
Saturday @ Newport Music Hall
Here Come The Mummies are reputedly full-time members of other bands
plus first-call session players, keeping all contracted identities
literally under wraps. With a line-up averaging nine members, counting
the full horn section, their rich vocal and instrumental harmonies
evoke Senior Prom and pep rally resplendence, plus band bus attitude,
as satire and sheer exuberance get acquainted. Grown-up proficiency
rolls though elements of Ellington, Chicago, yacht rock and
Parliament-Funkadelic. Salty social commentary even celebrates limits
of originality, in expansively pungent perspective.
Buke & Gass
Tuesday @ Kobo
Buke is Arone Dyer, who sings and plays a plugged-in, customized
baritone ukelele, with added pick-ups and strings. She can
simultaneously play an Indian keyboard banjo, via some of her pedals.
Pedals (triggering home-grown electronic sources and kick drums, for
instance) are also employed by Gass, AKA Aron Sanchez, whose electric
bass's range is extended with guitar strings. Buke's youthful voice
and tunes swing confidence and anxiety through the emphatic momentum
of rough-edged, adventurously analytical acid-folk-rock. She's an
"achin' pagan," and a better-equipped Cinderella. ¶ 12/08/2010 0 comments
4Play
By Don Allred
Freelance Whales/Miniature Tigers
Friday @ The Basement
Indie art-pop kiddies Freelance Whales have been tagged as "twee",
but especially live, there's also something hard-nosed and practical
about the compact, levitating density of this former sidewalk/subway
platform band. Five-part harmonies infiltrate stringed instruments,
glockenspiels, drums and sustained keyboard chords, like the rowdy
ghost breezing through FW's debut album, "Weathervanes." Miniature
Tigers tenaciously swept love's ashes through the Phoenix-to-Hollywood
mirages of 2008's "Tell It To The Volcano", and showtime can bring
sharper focus to the stylish highlights of 2010's "Fortress."
Question Mark and the Mysterians/Professors
Saturday @ The Shrunken Head
"The shadows were all I had/Until you came into my life," garage
pioneer Question Mark drawls in "Got To." Whether or not his seemingly
fickle muse actually ended up crying "96 Tears", she definitely
inspired QMM's 1966 classics. The original combo still cogently mixes
punky, speedy blues with Motown-informed flow. Mysterians peers The
Professors are veterans of Central Ohio's Dantes, Dominions and Mods.
They cover the Stones, Beatles, Animals, even Dylan and the Byrds, in
sonic strobe lights.
Here Come The Mummies
Saturday @ Newport Music Hall
Here Come The Mummies are reputedly full-time members of other bands
plus first-call session players, keeping all contracted identities
literally under wraps. With a line-up averaging nine members, counting
the full horn section, their rich vocal and instrumental harmonies
evoke Senior Prom and pep rally resplendence, plus band bus attitude,
as satire and sheer exuberance get acquainted. Grown-up proficiency
rolls though elements of Ellington, Chicago, yacht rock and
Parliament-Funkadelic. Salty social commentary even celebrates limits
of originality, in expansively pungent perspective.
Buke & Gass
Tuesday @ Kobo
Buke is Arone Dyer, who sings and plays a plugged-in, customized
baritone ukelele, with added pick-ups and strings. She can
simultaneously play an Indian keyboard banjo, via some of her pedals.
Pedals (triggering home-grown electronic sources and kick drums, for
instance) are also employed by Gass, AKA Aron Sanchez, whose electric
bass's range is extended with guitar strings. Buke's youthful voice
and tunes swing confidence and anxiety through the emphatic momentum
of rough-edged, adventurously analytical acid-folk-rock. She's an
"achin' pagan," and a better-equipped Cinderella. ¶ 12/08/2010 0 comments
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Post Yachts, Not Bills
Columbus UWeekly 11-24-2010
4Play
By Don Allred
Times New Viking
Wednesday@ Carabar
True to the paisley punk tradition, Columbus-based trio Times New
Viking are art school drop-outs, who learned to play on stage and in
their own basement studio/fortress, at variously tested North Campus
addresses. TNV allow some of their most consistently intelligible
lines to spell out: ""I make the same mistake every day/I walk the
streets and say/'Everything will be all right!' " That's what seems to
rattle soulfully resonant structures persistently glimpsed through
traffic. Ditto, "I get nervous when I'm high."
Hot 17 Showcase
Saturday @ The Rumba Cafe
The Hot 17 is a new annual guide to Columbus' independent musicians,
featuring contributions by area writers and photographers. Tonight's
showcase presents cinematically dynamic art-pop sextet Karate Coyote,
plus garage pilgrims Mors Ontologica's unstoppably personal testimony
regarding the OSU-verse. Also, Low Men bracingly reel in "Forgotten
War" and other exported realities, while singer/songwriter Jason
Quicksall deftly deploys all the melodies, metaphors and rhythmic
strategies required to keep sight of himself as a moving target of
complex clarity.
Charles Walker Band/Stretch Lefty/Mojoflo
Saturday @ Skully's Music Diner
The Charles Walker Band specializes in danceable r&b, funk and blues,
with diva Porsche Carmon electrically conducting us through original
songs, from acerbic social commentary to astutely grooving ballads
.Also, saxophonist/keyboard player Walker leads a tidal surge through
Mississippi wizard Robert Johnson's "Stones In My Passway." Other
covers include James Brown's "Get Up Offa That Thing" and Hound Dog
Taylor's "Gimme Back My Wig." Columbus' Stretch Lefty and Mojoflo
compatibly add reggae and hip-hop to the brew.
Young The Giant
Monday @ Newport Music Hall
Young The Giant's self-titled debut album begins with the plausibly
self-observant spin of a mental romantic, venturing forth into a
balancing act of expansively taut tunes and quirky lyrics. Hit-wise,
YTG hopefully won't need their slide into post-yacht rock for
economically (and otherwise) inhibited, yet Red Bull-sipping sons of
the beach, antsy enough to fantasy dance. Even as such, they score
some good stuff, with subtly exotic instrumental vigor always
encouraging the singing mastermind to go for real-life gusto,
especially on stage. ¶ 12/02/2010 0 comments
4Play
By Don Allred
Times New Viking
Wednesday@ Carabar
True to the paisley punk tradition, Columbus-based trio Times New
Viking are art school drop-outs, who learned to play on stage and in
their own basement studio/fortress, at variously tested North Campus
addresses. TNV allow some of their most consistently intelligible
lines to spell out: ""I make the same mistake every day/I walk the
streets and say/'Everything will be all right!' " That's what seems to
rattle soulfully resonant structures persistently glimpsed through
traffic. Ditto, "I get nervous when I'm high."
Hot 17 Showcase
Saturday @ The Rumba Cafe
The Hot 17 is a new annual guide to Columbus' independent musicians,
featuring contributions by area writers and photographers. Tonight's
showcase presents cinematically dynamic art-pop sextet Karate Coyote,
plus garage pilgrims Mors Ontologica's unstoppably personal testimony
regarding the OSU-verse. Also, Low Men bracingly reel in "Forgotten
War" and other exported realities, while singer/songwriter Jason
Quicksall deftly deploys all the melodies, metaphors and rhythmic
strategies required to keep sight of himself as a moving target of
complex clarity.
Charles Walker Band/Stretch Lefty/Mojoflo
Saturday @ Skully's Music Diner
The Charles Walker Band specializes in danceable r&b, funk and blues,
with diva Porsche Carmon electrically conducting us through original
songs, from acerbic social commentary to astutely grooving ballads
.Also, saxophonist/keyboard player Walker leads a tidal surge through
Mississippi wizard Robert Johnson's "Stones In My Passway." Other
covers include James Brown's "Get Up Offa That Thing" and Hound Dog
Taylor's "Gimme Back My Wig." Columbus' Stretch Lefty and Mojoflo
compatibly add reggae and hip-hop to the brew.
Young The Giant
Monday @ Newport Music Hall
Young The Giant's self-titled debut album begins with the plausibly
self-observant spin of a mental romantic, venturing forth into a
balancing act of expansively taut tunes and quirky lyrics. Hit-wise,
YTG hopefully won't need their slide into post-yacht rock for
economically (and otherwise) inhibited, yet Red Bull-sipping sons of
the beach, antsy enough to fantasy dance. Even as such, they score
some good stuff, with subtly exotic instrumental vigor always
encouraging the singing mastermind to go for real-life gusto,
especially on stage. ¶ 12/02/2010 0 comments
