It’s Small Business Saturday. It’s also Support Local Musicians Year. OK, the first one’s legit, and the second one is something I just made up. But if you go out to a locally-owned bar, restaurant, or club to see local performers, you’re supporting local businesses and you’re a patron of the arts.
Sure, you could drop a month’s pay on tickets to the next Taylor Swift stadium show. But for that same cash, you could support dozens of local musicians who are just trying to get by. Or doing what they love in the evenings while working a day job or three.
You don’t have to buy the merch… you can just drop some cash in the tip jar. Maybe it’ll help them put some gas in the van, or record their next release.
On Thanksgiving Eve, I went to Arnold’s Bar & Grill (Cincinnati’s Oldest Tavern) to see Maria Carrelli and her band play an album release party. The album was recorded live at Arnold’s back in the spring. The album artwork was done by my good friend Keith Neltner, who runs his own design studio. The record was pressed at MusIcol in Columbus. The record sleeve and jacket were printed at Otto Printing in Newport, KY. All small local businesses. (I need to note that the album giveaway was sponsored by Maker’s Mark, which is semi-local but far from small.)
“These aren’t just regular albums. There is a ton of work that goes into them. Releasing these Thanksgiving Eve albums for free has been a passion project for Arnold’s owner Chris Breeden and celebrated graphic designer Keith Neltner for over 5 years now,” the press release says. “They handle every aspect of this release from the vinyl pressing all the way to stuffing the records into the sleeves at the end. The project actually won multiple Cincinnati Addy awards over the years as well.”
From this article in CityBeat (a local news source)
The album went on sale yesterday at a bunch of local record stores:
Shake It Records, Everybody’s Records, Plaid Room Records, Torn Light Records, Phil’s Records, Hail Records and Oddities, Morrow Records, Black Plastic Records, Hey Suburbia Records, Three Feathers Records and Spiral Groove Records.
So before you go dropping a bunch of cash on “stuff”… think about spending some $ on the live, local music experience. It’s much more memorable, and much more rewarding.
Well thank goodness the powers that be are using Artificial Intelligence to solve climate change and make healthcare more equitable… oh wait, no, they’re using it to create a “new” Beatles song.
Because that’s what the world really needs… yet another song to go along with every other song in the Beatles catalog that has been overplayed over the past 60 friggin’ years.
I could go the rest of my life without hearing another of their songs and would be fine with that.
America, please stop with the Beatles obsession. For me. For you. For all of us. Two of them are deceased. It’s time to move on, not time to run some lyrics and melodies through AI and generate something that sounds vaguely like a Beatles song being performed by the Starland Vocal Band or the Ray Conniff Singers. It’s not just a bit cheesy, it’s full-on two-tons-of-Velveeta cheesy. It’s the aural equivalent of this:
The alleged song already has 17,635,546 spins on Spotify. And if you think I’m going to link to the recording of this Drab Four song, you’re more delusional than the folks who think the new song is good.
Here’s a song from an artist named Chris Catalyst. It has 6,516 listens on Spotify. But it’s a million times better.
Maybe Chris Catalyst isn’t your cup of tea. That’s fine. But please, for the love of music, go find another new artist… any new artist… and stop living in the past!
If you’re old enough to remember the 1990s, and if you’re even slightly into music, and you appreciate great writing, you really owe it to yourself to check out the 60 Songs That Explain the ’90s podcast.
Rob Harvilla, a senior staff writer for The Ringer, spends each episode breaking down a song from the ’90s. Actually, he spends about half of each episode on a series of digressions, often about his time growing up in northern Ohio in the 90s, before finally getting to the featured song. And the digressions are great – brilliantly written, completely engaging, and typically hilarious… and the humor is usually self-deprecating.
Writing about this podcast doesn’t do it justice… especially when it’s my writing. Just listen to the first three minutes of one of the episodes — pick any one, they’re all great — and you’ll be hooked.
Here’s the opening of the episode that covers Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!”:
The series (which is well over 100 episodes/songs now… Rob himself calls it “the world’s most inaccurately named music podcast”) covers all sorts of tunes from the ’90s – from pop to country to R&B to hip-hop to indie rock. Some songs were monster hits… some have been mostly lost to the mists of our memory. It doesn’t really matter, as they all offer Rob a chance to wax eloquently about music and life (not necessarily in that order).
(Apparently this podcast is the #1 music podcast on Spotify, so I’m probably about three years late in touting it… sorry, I was busy.)
Rob Harvilla just released a book to accompany the podcast.
This book description does the podcast justice:
Ringer music critic Rob Harvilla reimagines all the earwormy, iconic hits Gen Xers pine for with vivid historical storytelling, sharp critical analysis, rampant loopiness, and wryly personal ruminations on the most bizarre, joyous, and inescapable songs from a decade we both regret entirely and miss desperately.
A pickleball pal had free tickets, and I’d never seen KISS live, so I figured “why not?” Besides, this is billed as their final tour (although we’ve heard that from them before).
The show was at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum, a venue that’s seen better days. The same could be said for KISS. I think the last time I was in that arena, it about a decade ago, when I took my sons to see pro wrasslin’.
KISS has a lot in common with the WWE – both are heavy on showmanship. The concert featured (in no particular order): Flames. Fireworks. 40-foot inflatables of the band members. Smoke machines. Confetti cannons. Fake blood. Floating platforms. Paul Stanley gliding on a wire across the arena — Peter-Pan-like — to get to a smaller stage. Gene Simmons in a crane bucket that swung out over the crowd.
I went with my buddy Joe, and as he said after the show, it was completely over-the-top… and that’s exactly what we expected from Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley and friends (Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer served as decent subs for Ace Frehley and Peter Criss from the original lineup).
Here’s the thing though: Gene Simmons is 74. Paul Stanley is 71. They’ve been in this band for fifty years! And they’re still out there playing a two-hour set… wearing those giant super-soled boots… and getting in platforms that take them 40 feet above the stage, and, in Paul’s case, zooming through the air while hanging onto a trapeze contraption. While most folks their age are wearing sensible shoes and ordering the early-bird special at Denny’s, they’re rocking and rolling all night (but probably taking a nap every day). More power (and pyro) to ’em!
A week ago, I saw the best concert of the year. And Taylor Swift was nowhere to be found.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Taylor hater. Far from it. I have a ton of respect for anyone who writes their own songs.
But I saw a terrific band from New Zealand called The Beths at a small club in Cincinnati, and they hit all the right notes, literally and figuratively.
During the show, I just savored the sights and sounds. But after the fact, I tried to analyze why I liked the gig so much. And I came up with a few items on my concert checklist:
Great songs – it’s about the music, first and foremost. Lead singer/songwriter Elizabeth Stokes writes songs with hooks that are catchy and lyrics that are profound.
Live, not Memorex – The Beths are a four-piece band, and they play their own instruments, live, without backing tracks. I know a lot of bands are using pre-recorded tracks these days… but I don’t go to a show to hear studio recordings. Elizabeth Stokes has a great voice, and plays guitar as well. Guitarist Jonathan Pearce, bassist Benjamin Sinclair, and drummer Tristan Deck also sang backing vocals, which added greatly to the overall sound of the songs.
Setlist – The songs matter, but so does the sequencing, and the mix of “classics” to new songs. The Beths have released three great albums, without a bad song in the bunch, so they were working from strength, but their set featured really strong songs from each of the albums, with a nice mix of singalong anthems and quiet ballads. (You can listen to the songs from the set at setlist.fm.)
Sound system – All three of the above can be ruined by a bad sound mix. The Beths played The Woodward Theater and the sound was stellar, and the sound engineer kept the volume at a reasonable level. (If I had a nickel for every band I’ve seen where the sound engineer had the mix WAAAY TOO LOUD, I’d be able to afford better earplugs.)
Energetic band – The Beths were having fun on stage, and that can be contagious. A running gag was them shouting “O-H” and waiting for the crowd to reply “I-O!” (It’s an Ohio State thing – The Beths made no bones about the fact that they had no idea what the cheer was about, but someone had told them to do it at Ohio concerts.)
Enthusiastic audience – the folks at the show weren’t casual fans. That’s the beauty of being an up-and-coming band – the people who like you are dedicated, and are there because they like your music, not because your lead singer is on a Disney show or TikTok.
Intimate venue – all other things being equal, being able to get close to the stage at a club is so much better than an arena show with giant barriers between you and the performers.
There you have it, my Sonic Seven ingredients for a tasty gig. Not that you asked.
This KEXP live in-studio performance gives you a taste of what The Beths are like in a live setting.
This stripped-down set highlights the brilliant songwriting.
And here’s the title track from their brilliant new album:
Thomas Kuhl on We’re alive, because nothing happened.: “That is why we should celebrate every day when our feet hit the floor. Another to enjoy and share with…” Jun 25, 04:33
Thomas Kuhl on We’re alive, because nothing happened.: “This simply explains why we should celebrate every day our feet hit the floor. Another day to enjoy and share…” Jun 25, 04:31
Po on Here, There, and Everywhere: “I’m with you on all of that Damian. I’m exceedingly happy when I’m actually – with YOU – at such…” May 31, 13:52
blueandgolddreamer on Monday Fun-day: “I was just thinking about this song today. Every day I get closer to fine even if the journey is…” May 20, 03:30
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