4Play (April 2010)

 By Don Allred

APRIL 7:

Bad Rabbits

Wednesday @ The Basement

Boston’s Bad Rabbits flushed an album’s-worth of “dark rock songs,” then blasted off into funk-pop relief. The free download EP, Stick Up Kids, channels the potential darkness of freaky energy into weird science on the dance floor, just like Bad Rabbits’ inspirations, Michael Jackson and Prince, did in their prime. Beyond the beloved “Neverland,” these Rabbits are moved to call, ”Girl, let’s be realistic/See what music you might become!” They’re even better live, spanking that beat around vibrant waves of cymbals, raising the bath water and the roof.

Lackluster

Wednesday @ Skully's

 Jon Hayes recently summarized his Columbus-based band Lackluster's work in progress: "There aren't really any tracks that address issues from the point of view that someone else should have done anything differently. It's basically a look at something gone wrong, and stepping back to get a clearer idea and take personal responsibility." He's right. Check the posted version of "Liar," pulsing with compassionately persistent truth-seeking and unblinking self-awareness. The new album's completion continues; meanwhile, even Eddie Murphy's jumping reverie "Party All The Time" fits Lackluster's rocking live sets, in a typically revelatory way.

The Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt!

Thursday @ Café Bourbon Street

Feed the Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt! ‘s  I Love You And I'm In Love With You! Have An Awesome Day! Have The Best Day Of Your Life! your head, and you might find yourself traveling with commuters who are unusually bearable. They often shout, but gently and tunefully, mingling vulnerability and reassurance, explosions and flotations. Their shows are expanding thrift store galaxies of lights and costumes, which you can wear. Also, they’ll lead you in song and dance, or you can do your own, or just chill in orbit.

Owen Pallett 

Thursday @ Wexner Center

“Freed all the children/Seems there’s nothing more, “muses Lewis, the over-achieving anti-hero of Owen Pallett’s saga Heartland. Nevertheless, if he could reach heaven, “On the bridge of the animal process/I would sing to the masses/Oh, Heartland/Up yours!” Twisted visions get righteously processed in the carving strokes and blossoming outbursts of composer-arranger Pallett, liberating the flamboyance and atmospherics exhibited in earlier work with the Arcade Fire and Grizzly Bear. Current videos indicate that Pallett’s voice, violin and effects (plus possible changes of approach) relish the challenge of solo shows. 

APRIL 14 :

Wale

Wednesday @ Newport

Attention Deficit, rapper Wale's debut album (after free downloads like the Seinfeld-smoking The Mixtape About Nothing), suggests his Nigerian birthplace's afro-beat and his Washington, D.C. neighborhood's go-go, which both fold jazzy funk into sample-ready peaks. For instance, "Pretty Girls" balances Weensey's serenade and Gucci Mane's grit on flickering brass, over Wale's clear, peppery flow.  Educational opportunities also include Lady Gaga’s cameo, Kanye West studies, recognition of bulimia, love of Nintendo, and "TV On The Radio," featuring tourmate K'naan beaming phonemes through the antenna-ringing production of TV On The Radio's David Sitek.

The 5 Browns

Thursday @ Palace Theatre

The 5 Browns are piano-playing siblings, expressing themselves in solo performances, quintets, and, as ZZ Top would say, “All points in between.”  They dare the tides of Rachmaninoff and keep the night watch with Brahms. They dance the blues with Gershwin and Handy, then go Latin in the labyrinth with nuevo tango pioneer Astor Piazzolla. Their latest album, In Hollywood, meshes the spiked shadows of Bernard Hermann’s Hitchcock themes with Disney’s rising stardust, Philip Glass’ eerie meditations and Nino Rota’s sweet sorrow. Gimme culchah, 5 Browns!

Radio Moscow

Friday @ Summit

Radio Moscow slogged through Parker Gibbs’ mid-60s-style garage punk demos to power trio work-outs in a very late-60s-evocative summer of discontent, when mud is baked the hardest, and the only flash is from dented chrome and mirror shades. The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach channeled Radio Moscow’s self-titled debut through his Akron studio in 2007, and Brain Cycles rides the same blues-infused asteroid belt. Gibbs’ songwriting mostly personalizes gruff basics, but his lyrically stubborn acoustic slide through “Black Boot” is the pause that awes, and a refreshing set-up for more mayhem. 

 Phantogram

Friday @ Basement

Warped beats settle in around Sarah Barthel’s keyboard like pigeons. She wakes, gently greeting someone, "You almost died."  Guitars wrap around her like bells, one last time, as she ends up calling, "I wish you'd think of me/I wish I could believe."  Josh Carter eventually responds to someone or something, "Maybe someday I'll miss you/Maybe I'll pull my teeth." They deliver Phantogram (“the illusion of depth”)'s Eyelid Movies: catchy sounds bubbling up from the basement, luring ears back down though rusty walls and tender bruises, where other things still sparkle.

APRIL 28:

The Felice Brothers

Wednesday @ Rumba Café

On Yonder Is the Clock and Mix Tape, young Catskills-hatched Felice Brothers follow Dylan and the Band’s Basement Tapes route in reverse, back to the big city of dinosaur dreams. Echoing through subway hayrides, they cheer trains bound for Heaven and everywhere else, while moodily and shamelessly waltzing around the “Ambulance Man.”. He’s patient, but the Felice Brothers know he doesn’t have all day. Equally vivid is “Boy From Lawrence County,” whom they know they could track (if they knew you’d pay), because “He’s a friend of mine.”

Booker T.

Saturday @ Lincoln Theatre

Best known as co-leader of soul heroes Booker T. & the MGs, Booker T. Jones has also toured with Neil Young and the Drive-By Truckers, both of whom backed him on 2009’s Potato Hole. T.’s original themes proved arena-ready and headphones-friendly, while flying with a breezy salute to Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” and increased oxygen for the Truckers’ “Space City.” Newer material and MGs classics also suit his current crew, whose combined experiences with psychedelic blues, funk, and hip-hop converge in organist Booker T.’s intensely calm grooves and articulate sparks.

Lynn Miles

Saturday @ Maennerchor

Lynn Miles was recently spotted on YouTube, leafing through lyrics that list all the things she's tired of, ending with “singer-songwriters.” Ho-ho, she knows she’s in that game for life, as her steady voice gets deeper and darker, especially on full-bodied, country-tinged coffin-thumpers like “I Give Up.” On Live At the Chapel, Miles shifts into bruised cruise control for “Night Drive” and  “You Don’t Love Me Anymore,” a wised-up kissin’ cousin to the Eagles’ best ballads. Meanwhile, “Black Flowers” bloom so beautifully, as coal dust settles on their petals.

kOTO

Monday @ Scarlet and Grey Cafe

 EOTO began as an electronic experiment of the Sting Cheese Incident’s Michael Travis and Jason Hann. While other jam bands like STS9 extrapolated from 70s-based space funk, EOTO crunched their budding versatility into improvised patterns of shattered 90s motions and notionS. It's not techno or trance, but it’s good for bumping around. Strobe lights and high-stepping beats generally keep up with mysterious narratives of sampled kindergarten voices, tuneful percussion, guitars, bass, and cartwheels of static. Not necessarily all at once: there’s breathing room in EOTO’s little traveling volcano.