4Play (March 2010)

By Don Allred

MARCH  3;

Alkaline Trio
Wednesday @ Newport
Chicago's Alkaline Trio were punk magnets in the '90s, though their insomniac sonic chronicles gradually proved compatible with some metal, emo, and alternative-goes-mainstream (incl. arena) rock as well. The Alkaline ones' new This Addiction churns melodic momentum, while warmly assuring us, "Don't worry/I only feel good with you." They never feel too good with anybody. Classic/reflexive romantics sail forth with tragic sense intact, and  "Eyes melting in my skull."  AT ride big Midwestern skies (& parodic U2 coattails?) out toward another mellow blood harvest of spring fever, even cutting through crap phones on YouTube.

Hamell On Trial
Thursday @ Rumba Cafe
Hamell On Trial is the musical collusion of punk-folk pioneer Ed Hamell and his 1937 guitar, which cackles, "Hey sonny, wanna go for a ride?" So begins another dazzling spin of attitude and appetite, driving Hamell's live eruption of songs, stories, jokes and insults, along with the implicit theme of self-asserting, self-justifying bad behavior. Good behavior too, in the whole profane, pee-stained panorama of personal/political process, of life on (and as) trial. Yeah, it's a comedian's alibi, but thank goodness and badness that Hamell's even more of a musician.   

Prince Paul
Saturday @ Skully's
Rap's Prince Paul, from the nice suburb of Amityville, NY (as in The Amityville Horror, but don‘t believe all of the hype), produced his neighbors De La Soul's daisy-dizzy, proto-nerdcore experiments, times the observant horrorcore of Gravediggaz. Paul's hip-hopera, A Prince Among Thieves, and his brilliant Freudian slip, Psychoanalysis: What Is It?, also partied with these polarities, ditto his mellow-to-romping work with Handsome Boy Modeling School and Baby Elephant. Live, PP mixes everything from early Stevie Wonder to spaghetti western themes, while tonight's resourceful guests include Greenhouse Effect's Blueprint, Illogic, and DJ Raregroove, plus J. Rawls and DJ Inform.    

Warpaint
Saturday @ The Summit
Plausible intrigue keeps psych-out sirens Warpaint’s  Exquisite Corpse EP from getting lost in space. RHCPs Frusciante and Klinghoffer provide input, but mainly we’re fed cosmic musical clues and led far between the lines. “Billie Holiday” sometimes evokes Neil Young’s “The Needle and the Damage Done,“ appropriately for the subject, but why does the presumably innocent “My Guy” fit just as well? Maybe because spooky fixation is thee odds-rockin’ Warpaint. “Beetles” could be about bombs, drugs, finance charges, and/or music: things suddenly too hot to handle or let go. 

MARCH 10: 

This Moment In Black History
3/12 @ Carabar
Not all members of Cleveland’s This Moment In Black History are black, but all are historical. Drummer Bim Thomas has even done time with Columbus’s Cheater Slicks, and Challenger Street Gang-chain-reactor Christopher Kulchar’s organ gestures at nasty sounds with deep connections on TMIBH’s  Public Square. Every basement-cool move on this punk-packing set must ride with and counter invading hordes of urgently inquisitive, perhaps insatiable vibrations. We also get good screaming over the top and intelligent commentary around the margins, where it belongs.

Toubab Krewe
3/17 @ Newport
 North Carolina’s Toubab Krewe approach rock via African directions, and vice versa. Nowadays they’re automatically associated with Vampire Weekend, but the Krewe evoke and extend the Allman Brothers Band’s early exploration of rhythmic and tonal sources. Their 21-string kora and 12-string kamel ngoni can be played as harps or lutes, while infiltrating guitars, bass and drums. Live At The Orange Peel also attracts Umar Bin Hassan, of the proto-rap Last Poets, and Appalachian fiddler Rayna Gellert. Other shows are stashed at the band-approved archive.org, but be sure to check them out with 0 screens between.

The Magik Markers
3/23 @ The Summit
“America’s past pays America’s rent,” Elisa Ambroglio sneers amidst the lost highway traffic of  Balf Quarry, the Magik Markers’ current album. Familiar images and sounds of rebellion are too easy to fall into. So the Markers trace a place where sludge keeps speeding up, punk and metal elements turn pop and back, while busts of gutless dreamers seem headed for the mirror. The tension continues as Ambroglio’s voice and guitar spell out the lottery slogan, ”You can’t win/If you don’t play”, like a neon sign in the smog. Woody G salutes you, Markers!

Javelin
3/28 @ Café Bourbon St.
Javelin’s weapon of choice is the boombox. Also the turntable, the sampler, the guitar,  other stringed things and homemade implements .Their new album, No Mas, brings nerdcore pleasure and pain, dancing sunny side up. Rainbows may get a little distorted, but raindrops get kicked like soccer balls (and drum machines). A large female singer should kick into Javelin’s foreground occasionally, but they’re already squeaking, “You made a man of me!” They do test their cool on stage, racing between recycled devices of wonder. Talk about lust in the dust! 

MARCH 31: 

The Robert Cray Band 

Thursday @ LC Pavilion
Eric Clapton has never displayed more of an audacious flare than he did in the early 90s, when he challenged himself and singer-guitarist Robert Cray in concert. Some of this is evident on Clapton’s  24 Nights, although Cray’s own live albums are where he shines brightest. On Live From Across The Pond, Cray follows and pursues through desperate phone calls and dreamy shower stalls, parties and battlefields. In volatile ballads and fast vehicles, sometimes fueled by funk, soul, rock, and Caribbean sources, Cray’s blues are unmistakable.  

Robert Francis
Thursday @ Summit
"The moon, like a disco ball, hung low in the early morning sky, and within the hour, the sky began to erupt; the wind, tossing and turning, carried each and every color through and about the clouds." That's an update from singer-songwriter Robert Francis, heading out with his band. No disco, alas, but his music can move with this passage's insistently vivid drama of anticipation and apprehension. Lost love and re-discovered, still-youthful vitality slide and roll through luminescent folk-rock, as Francis swears, "I'll be gone by nightfall, " once again.  

The Black Swans
Saturday @ Rumba Café
 On  Words Are Stupid, Columbus Americana avatars Black Swans present language with a new set of sounds, poetically persuasive even when abrasive, and no stranger than George Washington’s wooden teeth. The late Noel Sayre’s violin and kazoo sometimes appear; their relationship always seems key. You could even call this “post-Americana," but only if you mean that the foreign intrigue of “Black Swans Tango” fits too. Despite an ear-popping flight, a typically stubborn romantic jumps onstage “with a band I cannot hear”, serenading his sweetie with very special delivery. Love conquers all! Also vice-versa, but still.

The xx
Monday @ Wexner Center
"Can I make it better/With the lights turned on?" Oh heck no, Romy Croft, you better just keep shaping and shading the space between and within you and your love with your voice and guitar. That's the way the post-punk wavelengths of the xx's self-titled debut album form a vessel of intimacy, even in cheap headphones.Their gracefully minimalist music seems centered around love's fearful power, but while Croft realizes, "You've applied the pressure/To have me crystallized," she's also guiding, at just the right speed.