Dirty Projectors - Wexner Center, 6-21

I imagine that by this point, David Longstreth, singer/guitarist and driving force behind Dirty Projectors, is tired of his band being referred to as “brainy.” It’s a tough tag to avoid when you’re a former music-major Yale grad who intricately crafts compositions that are near-impossible to categorize using other musical precedents.

The great thing about Dirty Projectors, though, is that anything that may come across as high-minded is balanced with something high-spirited, thereby dodging pretension. It takes significantly more knowledge and musical prowess than your typical rock band to sing and play the songs this band performed Sunday night at the Wexner Center. Yet the six musicians played with an organic ease and all the while maintained an electricity that was enveloping. (Not to mention the fact that, because the Brooklyn band’s van broke down in St. Clairsville on the way to the gig, they were playing with borrowed gear from the disappointing opener, Skeletons.)

Elvis Costello’s claim that writing about music is like “dancing about architecture” never rang so true as when attempting to describe Dirty Projectors. I could say that Longstreth conjures up the soulfulness and cadence of R&B singers; that the treble-heavy, snaking guitar lines have a distinct African influence; that the three supremely talented female singers contribute harmonies so complex that at times it’s difficult to even distinguish who’s singing; that the drummer’s big beats incorporate oddly-timed experimentalism, reggae and Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks.”

But none of that really does it justice, especially those ladies—Haley Dekle, Angel Deradoorian and Amber Coffman—whose vocal theatrics were consistently the highlights of the show. “Remade Horizon,” off the recently released Bitte Orca, began with an extended vocal intro of start-and-stop, staccato harmonies that sounded so intricate yet so precise, like an entire section of computer-controlled woodwinds. And Coffman’s lead vocals on “Stillness is the Move” showcased a freakish range that could hold its own next to Mariah Carey, a singer she closely resembled on that tune. Coffman threw herself into the song, and her dancing only added to the impact.

It’s a little tough to relate to the lyrics, though, especially in a concert setting. These songs take a little while to comfortably settle. But Longstreth seems to be a lyricist more concerned with how the words sound than what they mean. The singers’ inflections and affected pronunciations convey a word’s impact more than its dictionary definition. The concert opener, “Two Doves,” which featured only Longstreth on guitar and Deradoorian on vocals, was one of the few songs that was entirely decipherable, a (love?) song with a refrain of “Call on me” that starts off describing a lover as a “geranium kisser, skin like silk and face like glass,” but later as a “geranium killer, throat of soil and mind like stone.” The soft song was the closest Dirty Projectors came to a ballad, and it was the prettiest of the night.

“Bitte Orca” wins the prize for most frenetic, cacophonic and virtuosic of the night. The level of choreography was breathtaking, as were the women’s preternatural, siren howls. I also enjoyed hearing “Rise Above” from the album of the same name, which was Longstreth’s re-imagination of Black Flag’s seminal 1981 debut album, Damaged.

Brainy? Yes, but this band-of-the-moment is also a lot of fun.

Jenny Lewis with the Sadies - Wexner Center, 6-6

Before Jenny Lewis played the Black Box on the Mershon stage at the Wexner Center on Saturday, the venue screened Welcome to Van Nuys, a documentary about the making of Lewis’s most recent album, Acid Tongue. Much of the doc focused on guests who contributed to a track or two. There was Elvis Costello lending his scruffy vocals to “Carpetbaggers,” M. Ward playing some moody guitar on “Pretty Bird” and actress/musician Zooey Deschanel—who, with Ward, make up 2008 breakout duo She & Him—singing all sorts of oohs and ahs. There were some fun fly-on-the-studio-wall moments, but it also conveyed the feeling that these big names were an essential part of the songs.

The live show proved that isn’t the case at all. Lewis doesn’t need any help. She certainly has a terrific, talented backing band, but her shockingly strong voice carried the show. In fact, I’d take Lewis any day over Deschanel. Even when she’s singing in a low whisper, this redhead’s got soul.

The former child actress also has charisma to spare, hopping back and forth between playful dork (wearing her own shirt) and sensual diva (flaunting her curves). The crowd was putty in her hands, especially drooling fanboys, whose occasional between-song shout-outs (“You’re amazing!”; “How do you do that?!”) were some of the few low points.

Lewis got her start in indie-pop act Rilo Kiley, but her solo projects have found her pursuing a much rootsier vibe that, to my ears, fits her voice and songwriting style more comfortably. When the band left the stage to allow her to tackle some songs on her own, Lewis played an acoustic version of the Rilo Kiley tune “Silver Lining,” a song she said she has recently “reclaimed,” and it’s all the more gorgeous for it. Most of the songs came from Acid Tongue and Rabbit Fur Coat, the 2006 album Lewis put out with the Watson twins. Drummer Barbara Gruska and singer/guitarist Danielle Haim were more than capable of handling the country-style Watson harmonies and backing vocals from Acid, sounding especially nice on the gospel-tinged “Trying My Best to Love You.” And Lewis’s beau, guitarist and oft-songwriting collaborator Jonathan Rice, played the Costello role just fine on “Carpetbaggers.”

I’m not sure why the band chose to have its sound tech onstage during the entire performance—tuning guitars, scribbling things and looking awkward—but that was the only distracting element. The band buoyed Lewis superbly, from the loud, stompy blues of “The Next Messiah” to the backing choir effect on “Acid Tongue.” Columbus also got a taste of two new songs. “Just Like Zeus” was “kinda” about Lindsay Lohan (“Outside of Silver Lake, I am the biggest fake”), and “Big Wave” was the most epic rocker of the night. Both got me excited for what Lewis has in store for the next record, with or without high-profile guest spots.

Openers the Sadies from Toronto were impressive, too, though not quite as much as they were a few weeks ago playing with John Doe at the Rumba Cafe. While the Wex is a great place to have crystal-clear sound and a mostly quiet crowd, some bands just look and sound more at home on a cramped stage in a sweaty, crowded bar. Brothers Dallas and Travis Good’s virtuosic guitar skills still blew me away, especially Travis’s lightning-fast licks and liberal use of tremolo, which gave even his most country licks Dick Dale surf-rock overtones. His throaty singing was cool, too, but Dallas’s delicious baritone trumped it on “Anna Leigh” and “The Story’s Often Told.” In general, though, the Sadies let the guitars do the talking, throwing in lots of short-and-sweet instrumentals and approaching it all with ferocity.

It was the Sadies’ last night on this tour, and they were very gracious, thankful dudes. Hopefully next time they come through town it’ll be in a setting a little less stale.

mp3: Jenny Lewis - Silver Lining (solo live 4-13-09)

Jenny Lewis can sing

That may seem obvious, but listening to her records doesn't do her voice justice. She can really sing, and her show at the Wexner Center Saturday night proved it. Full review coming soon. For now, more pics from the show here.

King Khan & the Shrines - Wexner Center

I’ll admit that when I first heard about King Khan and the Shrines, I wrote them off as another gimmicky band with a retro schtick. It all seemed like a big joke—the outrageous costumes, the sweaty, man-boob-bearing bandleader, the various genre-aping from the ’60s.

But last Thursday at the Wexner Center, I became a believer. I was putty in Khan’s hands, and from the looks of it, the rest of the crowd was, too.

After removing the aforementioned preconceptions, listening to King Khan and the Shrines is like rummaging through a box at Used Kids and discovering a dusty LP with a faded cover image and browned record sleeve, putting it under the needle and realizing you’ve just discovered an unfairly discarded relic of yesteryear. Eric Khan, the Montreal-born son of Indian immigrants, audaciously borrows from classic soul (think James Brown and Little Richard) and filters it through the Rolling Stones. It’s garage rock/punk with boundless enthusiasm, not unlike Vice Records labelmates the Black Lips, but with more bombast, theatrics and a sense of humor that could make robots chuckle.

Khan’s lyrics aren’t just tongue-in-cheek. They’re completely over the top, which matched his leopard-skin coat and the band’s matching gold-and-black outfits (including Bamboorella, a go-go dancer who gyrated with pompoms throughout the set). This is a guy who wrote a chorus that goes “My baby’s fat, she’s ugly/She’s fat and she’s ugly but I love her.” You can find that one, “Took My Lady to Dinner,” on The Supreme Genius of King Khan and The Shrines, which Vice released in the U.S. last year as a best-of compiled from his previous internationally released material. (Vice also released What Is?!, featuring some of the same tracks, last month.)

It can be pretty hilarious (and raunchy) but this wasn’t a comedy show—even when Kahn came out shirtless for the encore, beer gut flapping, with a golden cape and battle helmet. The band played some great tunes, and played them well.

While Wexner Center crowds are usually pretty tame, Khan had the Black Box on the Mershon Stage going nuts the entire time. I’ve seen a little bit of moshing here and there when punk bands play the Wex, but this was a whole other level. A room full of twenty-something white dudes (and some women scattered throughout) freaked out to the Shrines like college girls at a fraternity party do when they hear “Come on Eileen.” Insane. I even saw a guy up front smoking a joint and then attempt to pass it to Khan, who either ignored it or pretended to ignore it—a prudent move, since security was all over it.

The Shrines—all 10—were no less tame. The keyboard player made Jerry Lee Lewis’s antics look tame, and the guitarist was never stationary for more than a millisecond. I loved the double sax attack, plus trumpet. Songs like “69 Faces of Love” just scream for that horn section. I didn’t hear the percussionist much, but his oddball stage presence just added to the ambience. “Land of the Freak” revealed Khan at his James Browniest, and “Welfare Bread” (“You don’t have to pay your bills anymore now/You just have to eat my welfare breaaaaad”) sounded most like authentic doo-wop.

The shout-out to the New Bomb Turks, “Columbus’s finest,” probably scored him some points with the crowd, but there was no ingratiating needed. Khan was indeed king.

Times New Viking <3 the Velvets

Just about any band that veers off rock’s beaten path owes a debt of gratitude to the Velvet Underground. The band’s Lou Reed-led, Andy Warhol-produced The Velvet Underground & Nico and pretty much each boundary-pushing album thereafter conveyed a message: Rock is something to be messed with. It can be a form of art, and, as such, experimentation is a part of the process.

Given that legacy, Columbus’s hometown breakout art-rock icon Times New Viking was the perfect pick to pay homage to the Velvets last Saturday in a Wexner Center concert celebrating the final weekend of the Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms exhibition. It’s probably not overstating to say that Times New Viking (and a host of other bands) wouldn’t exist without the Velvet Underground.

And yet, since TNV’s boundary-pushing comes in the form of fuzzed-out pop songs that rarely make it past the 2 1/2-minute mark, there was a palpable sense of a curiosity and anticipation surrounding this show. How would Times New Viking interpret a seven-minute, dynamic-laden song like “Heroin”? Well, the band proved right away that it doesn’t mind taking a break from short shout-alongs to get all long and droney, and even (no joke) jam. “That’s already longer than most of our sets,” joked drummer/singer Adam Elliott after the first song, “Run Run Run,” off The Velvet Underground & Nico, from which the band drew the bulk of its material.

Times New Viking also had some help from a couple of friends: Mike Hummel--the white-haired elder statesman of the Columbus rock scene who’s perhaps better known as Mike Rep of Mike Rep and the Quotas--added guitar and vocals, and Cincinnati’s C. Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core contributed squeals, squalls and drones on violin. TNV guitarist Jared Phillips used his usual Strat/Marshall setup, but singer Beth Murphy often took a break from the analog synth to play a bright red guitar. (If you’re counting, that’s three simultaneously strummed guitars at a Times New Viking show.)

The super group’s re-appropriations made for a mostly gratifying Valentine’s Day show. I’ll just get a couple complaints out of the way, the most glaring of which was Hummel’s guitar. It was consistently way too loud, which is a shame since the stuff he was playing added a lot. But he continually drowned out the rest of the band, especially Phillips. And while Yeh squeezed some amazing sounds out of his violin, often making it sound like a digital loop or guitar feedback, his contributions were hit and miss. He sounded great on the beautiful mess of “All Tomorrow’s Parties” and “I Can’t Stand It” but was inaudible on “I’m Waiting for the Man” and just in the way on “Femme Fatale”; I would have liked to hear Murphy’s synth instead on that one.

But the highlights were plentiful. Aided by strobe lights and a screen that showed mostly pixelated video of the Velvet Underground, the band nailed the loud-quiet-loud and fast-slow-fast dynamic of “Heroin,” which Hummel took growly lead vocals on. It was the best of the night. Elliott and Murphy’s tag-team vocals usually worked well, too, with endearingly imperfect harmonies--pretty, in an off-kilter way. And Murphy’s deadpan vocal delivery was a good match for Nico-led songs like “I’ll Be Your Mirror.”

Ending the night with “After Hours” off VU’s self-titled album--probably the only Velvets song that could be considered “cute”--the band invited members of RTFO Bandwagon to come up while Ron House took over vocal duties. Roses were handed out, and the crowd sang along. It was fun, it was goofy, it was a great ending to the night, and proof that even art-rock doesn’t have to take itself too seriously.

Hodge Podge

-- "We are beautiful, we are doomed." That's the title of one of Los Campesinos!' two albums released in 2008, and it's also a fitting description of the band's show with Titus Andronicus at the Wexner Center last Wednesday. Titus Andronicus has no qualms airing their grievances in a tortured, messy way, thrashing around the stage with the punk vigor and reckless abandon that can only come from New Jersey youth. And boy did they look straight outta study hall. Or, probably more accurately, detention. They're definitely too young to be singing "I don't think I've ever been so tired of life," but the fact that they don't realize that made the near-trainwreck all the more fascinating to hear and watch. Los Campesinos! cloaked similar sentiments in more playful melodies, equal parts beauty and doom. I loved the boy-girl vocals, the excessive use of xylophone, the spoken rants, the Welsh accents, and, above all, the exuberance. This is the first band to earn the explanation point at the end of its name.

-- Watching Times New Viking tackle tunes from the Velvet Underground on Saturday night at the Wexner Center was bizarrely entertaining. In one way, it's fitting for art kids like TNV to re-appropriate and pay tribute to art-rock forefathers like the Velvets. But it's also shocking to see TNV play a song for more than two minutes, much less to engage in a droney jam. It made for a (mostly) pretty fun hour, though. Full review in next week's Other Paper.

-- I admittedly wouldn't know about Other Lives if I hadn't received a PR e-mail blast about them. But they're playing a show tonight at the Basement, opening up for the Delta Spirit. It's mopey but pretty stuff, so fans of Hayden, Strand of Oaks and even Coldplay and Elbow should find something to enjoy.

-- Athens, Ohio boys Southeast Engine released one of my favorite albums of 2007, A Wheel Within a Wheel. I think I'm a sucker for alliterative biblical lyrics, but that aside, I also think it's (post?)modern Americana at its best. There's a new album, From the Forest to the Sea, out tomorrow. I'm reserving judgment on that one till I give it a few more listens--review coming Thursday in the Other Paper--but check out Southeast Engine's album release show this Friday at the Treehouse with the Kyle Sowashes, the Coke Dares and Frontier Ruckus.

Dean & Britta: 13 Most Beautiful... Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests

There certainly hasn’t been a lack of programming associated with the Wexner Center’s “Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms” exhibition, especially of the musical variety. And for good reason, considering Warhol’s inseparability from the Velvet Underground.

There was the Robert Forster event, at which the former Go-Between covered the Velvets; in February, Times New Viking will do the same. And last Thursday, Dean & Britta gave a performance that combined with Andy Warhol visuals to create a captivating hour of mixed media.

“Dean” refers to Dean Wareham, former frontman of genre-shapers Galaxie 500 and its successful follow-up, Luna, of which Britta Phillips eventually became a member. For this show, Dean & Britta performed (mostly) new music to complement 13 of Warhol’s famous “screen tests,” also throwing in a Bob Dylan cover (“I’ll Keep It With Mine”) and a Velvet Underground tune (“Not a Young Man Anymore”).

Warhol made around 500 of these screen tests at his studio, the Factory, each of them being shot with a 16 mm camera on 100-foot rolls of silent, black and white film. The films normally would have lasted 2¾ minutes apiece, but they were projected so that they ended up as 4-minute films, the slight slow-motion effect elongating and exaggerating any movements.

Some of the subjects seen in the featured screen tests were well known. A young Dennis Hopper cycled through several emotions, looking fierce, confused, amused and contemplative. Velvet Underground vocalist Nico, someone who was undoubtedly used to cameras, seemed bored and slightly annoyed. Lou Reed drank a bottle of Coke, making art of a mass-produced item—a concept made famous by Warhol.

Between a few of the songs, Wareham gave a little commentary on the video portraits. Sometimes the background was a nice addition, and other times I wished I had plugged my ears, because the story and emotions I was projecting onto the images were more interesting than the reality.

Take the screen test of Ann Buchanan. While Dean & Britta played a song called “Singer Sing,” the dark-haired, dark-eyed Buchanan gazed unfalteringly at the camera as tears began to well up in her eyes and eventually cascade down her face one at a time. It had me wondering what could be causing so much sadness in her life. Or was it something Warhol was saying in the background of the silent film that we, the viewers, weren’t privy to? And how did she remain so stone-faced with such internal grief?

Perhaps if I’d been more observant, I would have noticed that the tears were merely a result of not blinking for nearly three minutes, as Wareham noted after the song. That explains the stone face and lack of any visible grief other than the tears. Still, I like my version better.

Wareham’s comments about Freddie Herko, on the other hand, were a welcome—if a bit disturbing—confirmation of suspicions I already had. Herko appeared shifty and angry in his screen test, at times looking downright menacing. Something was not right with him, like a man searching for peace but finding the opposite. The band accompanied the portrait with a repetitive instrumental melody that built to an intense climax toward the end of the film.

Turns out Herko, a dancer, committed suicide soon after the screen test. At 29, he leapt out the window of a friend’s apartment. He also was a speed freak, which would account for some of the shiftiness, too.

During the performance, the musicians often faced the video screen, undoubtedly taking cues from the larger-than-life projections. The Velvets cover, appropriately played during Reed’s test, was the only real rocker of the night. Most songs were marked by Dean & Britta’s dream-pop vibe, a nice companion to the portraits.

Wareham’s voice oozed his usual indolent cool, and Phillips’s silky-sweet singing was almost as gorgeous as her runway-model looks. I couldn’t help thinking how well she would have fit in with screen-tested Factory starlets like “Baby Jane” Holzer and Ingrid Superstar.

Adding music to such an iconic project is a daunting and risky proposition, even for someone with as much cred as Wareham. But Dean & Britta’s pop and Andy Warhol’s art melded to make a most beautiful evening, indeed.

Also at The Other Paper

Chairlift w/ Moon High - Wexner Center, 11-3

You gotta hand it to the folks at Apple. They’re pretty good at finding just the right songs to soundtrack all those boldly colored iPod TV ads. The most recent commercial for the Nano is no exception. While watching those new gadgets bleed their vivacious colors, you’ll hear Caroline Polachek of the band Chairlift singing about handstand attempts over the bounciest bass line allowed by law. The song is called “Bruises,“ and it’s playful, catchy, hummable, vaguely familiar--all the things Apple is going for in hopes that those Nanos will fly off the shelves, economic crisis be damned.

But Feist has no need to worry. She won’t be relinquishing the iPod-commercial crown to Chairlift anytime soon. For many, “1234” served as a jumping-off point for discovering other gems in the Feist catalog, but judging from Chairlift’s sparsely attended show at the Wexner Center’s Black Box on the Mershon stage, an exploration instigated by “Bruises” turns up a lot of filler from a band still searching for an identity.

That’s not to say that this Brooklyn three-piece doesn’t have some stuff worth hearing, namely the songs where Polachek showcases her tremendous pipes. “Make Your Mind Up” was the most impressive of Monday night’s very brief set, as Polachek’s soulfulness spilled over the levee, revealing a beautiful vocal tone and an uncommonly high range. The song made her slightly bothersome theatrical gestures (draping herself over the keyboard, etc.) seem more justified.

“Bruises” came off just as it should have, and the short-and-sweet “Evident Utensil” was nice and danceable, despite some rhymes that felt a little forced. But the rest of the set was spotty as Chairlift attempted U2 (“Deer Hunt”), French pop and some industrial-inspired stuff.

“Planet Health,” the closer, mentioned something about a food pyramid, puberty and saying no to drugs, with a chorus of, “I’m feeling great tonight.” It’s a snoozer till the the song’s resilient outro (“Stop, drop and roll”), but by that time it was a little late, and I was still befuddled about this planet Polachek was attempting to describe.

Until Chairlift learns to consistently harness Polachek’s voice, sharpen its focus stylistically and mature a bit lyrically, it’s probably not worth filling up that Nano with more than a couple Chairlift tracks.

Moon High, on the other hand, has created and fully embraced a unique identity. The local band’s ultra-mellow, organic folk--an odd contrast with Chairlift’s synth-heavy sounds--is unlike any other band in Columbus, and you’d have trouble finding an equivalent outside of Ohio, too. People like to lump Moon High in with freak-folk bands, and David Fowler and Ryan Wells may take some inspiration from that scene, but reducing the band to that label does it a disservice.

Fowler and Wells shared lead vocal duties and switched between various acoustic guitars, banjo and cello throughout the set, accompanied by flute and violin at times from the two female background singers. Moon High completes its aesthetic visually with a couple of large, foot-switchable, white globe lights that I find more warm and peaceful than gimmicky.

Just about all of the band’s songs have a mournful vibe, and that consistency does come with a small price. If you head to a Moon High show with some sleep debt, the tranquility of “Lying Here, Dying Here,” “Where You Go” and other songs can become a bit drowsy. But these guys aren’t trying to shake the rafters, so I have a feeling that if you kicked back and closed your eyes at a show, they might take it more as a compliment than an insult.

Bon Iver, Bowerbirds - Wexner Center

Who knew Bon Iver could rock out?

Justin Vernon—the man behind the Bon Iver moniker—is known for the moody, ethereal songs he recorded during a winter spent secluded in a Wisconsin cabin. (If you’ve heard of Bon Iver, chances are you’ve heard the back story.) The woodsy retreat resulted in For Emma, Forever Ago, an album that will probably be perched atop more than a few Best of 2008 lists, including my own.

I knew Vernon had recruited a full band for the tour that stopped at the Wexner Center Sunday night, but I didn’t realize that band would be utilized to its full extent so often. There was a bassist borrowed from the openers, Bowerbirds, along with a drummer and guitarist, all of whom added backing vocals.

The band accompanied Vernon emphatically on familiar numbers like “Creature Fear” and “The Wolves (Act I and II),” filling the jam-packed performance space with powerful arrangements. It was wonderful.

The full-band mentality carried over to a couple of new tunes, too, both of which featured Vernon on the keys instead of guitar. “Babies” was a slow burner built around a repeated keyboard melody, dynamically adding more instruments as it developed. There was no verse, no chorus, just mood. Really lovely. “Blood Bank” was a rocker that found Vernon ditching his trademark falsetto for some deep, blue-eyed soul.

The new tunes proved Bon Iver is a different animal than the average flavor-of-the-month buzz band. And if the sold-out crowd wasn’t already an indication, the artistic yet accessible new songs suggested Bon Iver’s next release will increase his fan base far beyond a cult following.

It doesn’t hurt that Vernon is such an unassuming, affable guy. Oozing genuine humility, he couldn’t stop thanking the crowd for being so great. He was right, too—the audience was exceedingly respectful and attentive, as Wex crowds usually are.

The night had some hushed, spare moments, as well. The band left the stage for “re: Stacks” so that Vernon could convey the intimacy of the song on his own, and the selection was none the worse for it.

The set climaxed with a version of “The Wolves (Act I and II)” that had the entire crowd singing “What might have been lost” at the top of their lungs along with the band, followed by a stirring encore cover of Sarah Siskind’s “Lovin’s for Fools” with the band joined by Bowerbirds around a single mic.

For those who have yet to check out Bon Iver, it’s probably becoming annoying how many superlatives are thrown around about the bearded minstrel of the forest. But Vernon is one of those rare artists who actually live up to, and surpass, the hype.

I can’t think of many bands that would be fitting openers for Bon Iver, stylistically speaking, but Bowerbirds filled the role just fine. The trio played songs off its debut, Hymns for a Dark Horse (which was re-released this year on Dead Oceans), but it also played quite a bit of new material. It all sounded pretty similar, but fortunately Bowerbirds’ brand of folk doesn’t get tiresome.

Singer/guitarist Phil Moore used his full, slidey voice to accompany the casually creative strums of his nylon strings. Beth Tacular played accordion that was as awesome as her name, and multi-instrumentalist Mark Paulson handled bass notes on some sort of floor contraption, along with violin. Drum pieces were split among the three.

The trio’s harmonies were the best part of the set, but I welcomed the new song in which Tacular handled a verse on her own, just to spice things up. The song also had a quicker tempo, something I hope to see more of on the band’s next record.

These New Puritans w/ El Jesus de Magico, Wexner Center

There have been quite a few good shows around town recently, so maybe that explains why the Wexner Center was so empty for These New Puritans on Friday. Whatever the reason, those who were absent missed a brief but exhilarating performance.

These New Puritans are all the buzz in the UK, taking post-punk cues from likely sources such as the Fall and Gang of Four. With bands like Bloc Party cropping up all over the place the past few years, it seems like the whole post-punk revival thing has been done to death. But these youngsters draw on their influences while managing to sound fresh as ever.

Musically, TNP (or TNPS, as they’re sometimes called) were all about the beat. Singer Jack Barnett’s twin brother George kept the pounding rhythm with a huge bass and floor tom sound, spanking those skins as hard as he could while keeping perfect time. Jack’s vocal delivery was equally rhythmic, delivered in quick, emphatic cadences. In “Swords of Truth” he sang, “This music is weightless,” but it felt as bottom-heavy as ever.

The vocalist also performed in some sort of chain-mail outfit, which made him look pretty silly--like a cross between a small bird and an underfed, teenage Julius Caesar. To complicate matters, Barnett assumed something akin to a hip-hop persona, gesturing wildly with his hands and constantly reminding the audience of his band’s name and the current year.

But the rhythmic nature of the vocals actually wasn’t too far removed from rap. Barnett would often put his guitar aside to slam the words down your throat without distraction. And how odd those words were, waxing philosophical on the meaning of numbers in “Numbers,” and doing the same for colors in “Colours.” On “Elvis” he revealed his paranoia: “We’re being watched by experts, and what will happen next, we hold the clues.” Honestly, the stuff is cryptic to the point that I can’t tell if it holds weight or if it’s a bunch of faux-intelligent college-freshman observations, but it worked well with the music nonetheless.

Just a couple complaints: The bassist needs to stick to bass and stay away from vocals; Barnett does it best. But at least he was obviously into the music, whereas the woman at the Macbook, while easy on the eyes, barely moved and had a permanent look of boredom and gloom on her face. If you can’t muster up the energy to move to those beats, it’s time to man your computer from the sound table.

Opener El Jesus de Magico has become a big name in Columbus in the last year or two, second only to Times New Viking and the rest of the shitgaze trifecta (Psychedelic Horseshit, Pink Reason). El Jesus’s sound is really just a stone’s throw away from that crew, but I must have been absent when they passed the El Jesus Kool-Aid around. To my ears, everything El Jesus does the aforementioned Columbus bands do better. TNV has better pop hooks, Horseshit’s experiments with noise are more interesting, and Pink Reason’s use of heavy reverb and delay come off as a stylistic preference instead of a crutch. On Friday, singer Jon Witzky’s ultra-spaced-out vocals were delayed past the point of art-rock and into the comic realm. Trying to discern a single word, even when Witzky spoke in between songs with no other instruments playing, was utterly pointless.

To be fair, I didn’t mind the band’s Funeral Home Session seven-inch, and drummer Michael O’Shaughnessy (of the funeral home family) is entertaining to watch live. The band also had a few things going against it on Friday. The somewhat intimate performance space felt cavernous with only 30 or so people in the room--the smallest crowd I’ve ever seen in that space--but the same crowd in a smaller dive bar probably would have created more energy. Plus, the volume was up so loud that all the instruments combined to make a giant ear-bleeding noise. I know, it sounds like a whiny rock critic thing to say. Rock shows are supposed to be loud. But this was in the painfully loud category where it takes away from the enjoyment rather than adding to it.

I can respect a band for creating a distinct, consistent sound and aesthetic--one the band obviously believes in. It just didn’t make a believer out of me.

mp3: These New Puritans - Numerology AKA Numbers

Bon Iver's coming to town

August 3rd at the Wexner Center. Yessssss.

Man Man, Yeasayer - Wexner Center, 4-15

At the Wexner Center, even the most lively bands have a hard time getting the crowd physically moving. It’s certainly nice that the venue’s Mershon, Black Box and Performance Space audiences are reverent and attentive, but for some of the more frenetic concerts, the Wex can sometimes feel a bit too stiff.

Man Man took that challenge and came out on top, working the crowd into an absolute frenzy with its boisterous brand of circus rock. The Philadelphia band--whose members go by Honus Honus, Chang Wang, Sergei Sogay, Cougar and Pow Wow--played in its trademark white with partially painted faces, and mustachioed singer/keyboardist/percussionist/squeaker Honus went a step further and also wore short, white cutoffs. His endless exuberance was contagious.

While the band employed two principal percussionists, everyone on stage was a percussionist at some point, often simultaneously banging on tom toms to create a tribal feel. As goofy as these guys are, they’re also experts at finding a groove and seeing it through. Other instruments that were passed around or shared included saxophone, trumpet, xylophone, melodica, keys (the car variety), pots and various squeaky things that wouldn’t look out of place on a kid’s first bike.

Most of the material from the new album, Rabbit Habits, was a delight to hear and see live. Kicking off the well-attended show with “Mister Jung Stuffed” and “Hurly/Burly” set the tone for the night with a rambunctious, playful vibe. The chantey rhythm and dynamic pauses of “Big Trouble” worked exceptionally well, as did the falsetto chant mid-song: “You walk like a man, but you talk like a fool. You strut like a stallion, but you hump like a mule.”

Apparently the all-white getups weren’t enough for “The Ballad of Butter Beans,” so Honus threw on a black-and-gold sequined top and a gold headband for that song, which especially showcased one of the adept drummer’s talent.

What’s probably most impressive about Man Man is that it can be so over-the-top playful, yet it’s also apparent that the songs are by no means a bunch of jokes. There’s humor, for sure, but Honus means what he says, and being both jovial and earnest is one of the hardest feats to pull off. Take one of the songs from the encore, “Van Helsing Boombox.” It’s a fun, raucous tune, but the hook, which is repeated several times, isn’t the least bit cheery: “When anything that’s anything becomes nothing, that’s everything, and nothing is the only thing you ever seem to have.” It’s downright depressing, but you’ll find the band reveling in the tragedy rather than sulking.

While Man Man’s set felt nicely organic, Yeasayer’s songs were much more digital and scripted than I had anticipated. The whole set was accompanied by computer visuals that seemed to be used more because they looked cool and trippy rather than because they had anything to do with the songs themselves. The programmed vibe wasn’t necessarily bad, just unexpected.

Singer/keyboardist Chris Keating’s stop-motion tics made him look as if he were constantly being hit in the face by small mammals, but it was usually more entertaining than annoying. The band as a whole was spirited and engaging--that, along with the visual effects, inspired a fair amount of hippy dancing.

Yeasayer has a definite “world music” influence, but there weren’t sitars or anything. Just guitar, bass, drums (parts of which were electronic), keys and synthesized sounds. But amid the knob-turning and effects pedals were some pretty great tunes. “Sunrise,” “2080,” and “Wait for the Summer” are the band’s best songs and also happen to be the first three tracks off Yeasayer’s 2007 debut, All Hour Cymbals. They worked well live, though I’m still not too sure what the pretty-but-ominous tunes are supposed to convey, and whether I should care about it. But at least they sound nice.

More pics.

St. Vincent with Foreign Born - Wexner Center, 2/24

It would have been a colossal waste of talent if Annie Clark, who goes by the stage name St. Vincent, had been content to remain in her support roles for the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens. On Clark’s 2007 solo debut, Marry Me, she showcased a knack for crafting orchestral pop that’s a bit too trippy for an iPod commercial--St. Vincent is perfect for those who like a chanteuse more quirky than Feist but not as operatic as My Brightest Diamond.

Not coincidentally, those two artists played the Wex recently, but Sunday night St. Vincent topped them both on the Mershon’s black box stage. It surprised me. For some reason I never gave Marry Me much more than a cursory listen last year, but hearing and seeing Ms. Clark live was mesmerizing. In a black dress that starkly contrasted her ghost-white skin, ruby lips and cherry red guitar, she was a beautifully striking presence onstage amid what she referred to as a “psychedelic forest.”

Clark’s slightly dorky sense of humor made her all the more endearing; she used adjectives like “pretty radical” and told embellished stories about blaring Chicago in a touring caravan of Chevy Camaros. Like her wide range of theatrical facial expressions, Clark’s exceptional voice took surprising twists and turns, all the while retaining its smooth overtones.

But what was most impressive about the show was Clark’s virtuosic guitar skills. She kicked off the set with an extended harmonic intro riff to “Now, Now,” and throughout the night deftly and effortlessly carried or accented the tunes with inventive six-string arrangements. She silenced the room with quiet finger-picking on the encore’s Jackson Browne cover, “These Days,” and filled the stage with distorted dirtiness on “Your Lips Are Red.”

The rest of the band--violinist, drummer and bassist/multi-instrumentalist--provided ornate landscapes that were sometimes noisy and sometimes lush but almost always worked well with each song. Programmed background loops added another layer, but for the most part the four-piece filled the sound themselves. It was all highly orchestrated yet still left plenty of room for spontaneity.

For a few tunes the rest of the band left the stage while Clark entertained the crowd on her own. Her solo version of the Beatles’ “Dig a Pony” was a surprisingly inspired choice; somehow she made the song sexy. It also gave away her love of a great pop hook, which can be heard most clearly in “Marry Me,” probably one of St. Vincent’s catchiest songs. The band extended the song live with a handbell intro that for some reason reminded me of that “Little April Shower” song from Bambi. But before I could conjure up more of my childhood, the song kicked in with sparse drums and Clark on piano. “Marry me, John, I’ll be so good to you. You won’t realize I’m gone,” she sang, then later revealed more of her intentions: “Oh, John, c’mon, we’ll do what married people do… We’ll do what Mary and Joseph did without the kid.” How very un-saintly.

The Mershon stage wasn’t nearly as full as the previous week’s Vampire Weekend show, but hopefully Clark sticks with the solo career. She was made to be a front woman.

Los Angeles band Foreign Born played the support slot pretty well, its set getting better as it went along. The sound was jittery, foot-stomping indie pop led by singer Matt Popieluch and his strummy acoustic guitar. The four bearded fellows used prerecorded loops, as well (creating a background choir to nice effect), but the most prominent part of the set, unfortunately, was a piercingly loud electric guitar. At a quieter volume it would have provided nice counter melodies to the vocals, but instead it drowned out Popieluch and repressed the bass, drums and acoustic deep into the background. Set closer “Union Hall” from the band’s ’07 debut was a highlight, as was a new song called “Vacationing People” that will hopefully find its way onto Foreign Born’s next record.

(Photo courtesy raynach)

mp3: St. Vincent - Marry Me
mp3: Foreign Born - Union Hall

Vampire Weekend - Wexner Center, 2/14

Here's my Vampire Weekend live review running in The Other Paper today. I had no time to write this, so it's not my best work, but it should at least give you a taste of what the show was like. Oh, and the buzz doesn't appear to be slowing down. VP graces the cover of this month's Spin.

(Photo from the show by Kim Rottmayer of Picturethesound.com. View the full set here.)

"All the hoopla over Vampire Weekend, this year’s most talked about buzz band, is a bit baffling. While it’s not every day that a band plays Afropop-influenced, danceable indie rock in sweaters, this stuff probably won’t blow your mind. And that’s important to remember, because it’s not supposed to. Vampire Weekend just writes simple, fresh-sounding pop songs, and it does it well.

The Columbia grads perform the songs pretty well, too, as they showed the sold-out Valentine’s Day crowd at the Wexner Center last Thursday. For the women who were without dates that night, singer Ezra Koenig seemed to fill the void in a pinch; the girls were swooning. Must be the sweaters. Koenig also flattered the crowd with compliments about Columbus, particularly its impressive but under-appreciated population, and it came off as genuine rather than pandering.

The show didn’t reveal a whole lot more about the band than its self-titled debut has already shown. Most of the renditions were faithful to the album, without many surprising flourishes. And since Vampire Weekend only has one full-length record that clocks in at 34 minutes, the show was less than an hour with no encore. So in typical Vampire Weekend fashion, this wasn’t a knock-your-socks-off performance, but it was good enough that I caught myself with a goofy grin on my face several times. They’re just so darn likable.

Drummer Christopher Tomson carried the show with his contagious enthusiasm and mix of rock and world rhythms. On some songs the beats themselves served as the hooks. Each hit was nice and high in mix, too. Keonig’s clean, sprightly guitar playing with lots of tremolo was a nice counterpoint. All four members were politely energetic, which is more than I can say for the crowd. There were a few people on the Mershon stage’s black box going nuts the whole set, but most everyone was hesitant to move around too much until the last song, “Walcott.”

The band threw in two non-album tracks that bode well for Vampire Weekend’s future. “Boston,” a demo song the band has now dubbed “Ladies of Cambridge,” was more punky and frenetic than any other tune--like “A-Punk” with more balls. (It’s relative, though, in the context of Vampire Weekend. The up-tempo track still didn’t have a hint of fuzz or distortion.) Hopefully it finds its way onto a b-side or the next album. Another untitled new track was also surprisingly upbeat, and Koenig attempted to squeeze as many words as possible into the song. Breaking it down to half-time later in the tune was a nice touch.

Vampire Weekend didn’t phone it in for any song. “A-Punk,” “Oxford Comma” and “I Stand Corrected” all rang true, and the live arrangements left the songs courteously uncomplicated. For Vampire Weekend, simple really is better.

Sam Rosen kept things simple as well, but with a muddy, distorted, percussive guitar carrying each song, though not very well. None of the songs had much of a hook; whenever I anticipated a welcome change-up coming, it usually devolved into more banal guitar licks. The lyrics similarly felt like streams of consciousness haphazardly set to the music. Rosen’s stage banter also was particularly awkward, especially when he laughed loudly after most of his comments as the crowd stayed silent.

Vampire Weekend has a stint coming up with the Walkmen in March--now that would have been a better lineup."

Times New Viking - Wexner Center, 1-25

Times New Viking will most likely be the most polarizing band of 2008. Previously, the Columbus noise-pop/garage-punk trio were able to stay on the fringes, garnering mostly praise from its dedicated followers. Fans of Times New Viking’s lower-than-lo-fi sound gobbled up previous releases on Siltbreeze, but as respected as the resurrected label is in some circles, its reputation and influence pales in comparison to the band’s new label, Matador--considered by many to be the pinnacle of the indie rock world.

So while TNV wasn’t exactly hard to avoid before, it’s firmly planted at the forefront for the time being, and on the heels of an 8.4 rating by Pitchfork, people are listening. The reactions, though, are not even-keeled. Scanning through some recent emusic.com user reviews of the band’s Matador debut, Rip It Off, you’ll see “I like the noisy, lo-fi thing” and “This band actually is quite good” alongside comments like “Distorted, irritating, poorly recorded garbage” and “Listen to this if you want to blow your brains out from the stress this will cause.”

I guess I’m in the minority, because before Friday night’s record release show at the Wexner Center, I didn’t love or loathe Times New Viking. What I found appealing in the band’s fun, super-catchy pop songs was always undermined by fuzzy layers of pretension. The busted quality of the recordings wasn’t an impenetrable barrier aurally, but I couldn’t help thinking that all that messiness was affected and overblown--DIY gone too far.

On Friday night, however, all that perceived pretension melted away to reveal a band that was just plain fun. Times New Viking made a believer out of me.

The band played what it professed to be its longest show ever, which made for a whole bunch of manic, noisy pop songs that usually hovered around the two-minute mark. Early on in the set, drummer/vocalist Adam Elliot introduced one song as “the only dance song we have,” but that was entirely untrue. In fact, there was a sizable group up front that danced and moshed to the entire set. A few times I had to look around and make sure I was still at the Wexner Center. (It also should be noted that a local band headlining a Wex concert is a rare feat, and the room was packed.)

Times New Viking’s love for Guided By Voices is even more apparent live as each no-frills tune was playfully and expertly deconstructed to its bare essentials. The best songs featured keyboardist/vocalist Beth Murphy prominently, particularly “My Head,” “Devo & Wine,” “Faces on Fire” and “DROP-OUT”--a song the band screwed up, then reluctantly (but fortunately) restarted. Most of the reluctance came from guitarist Jared Phillips, but skipping the song entirely would have been the height of live-show laziness; as someone in the crowd noted, the song is only a minute long.

Everything TNV does, from the fuzz to the minimalist drum kit, is intentional, yet the band’s laid-back approach and rough-around-the-edges musicianship gave the set a feeling of playful spontaneity. That mood also lightened up dark lyrics such as “Everything that you know has been an accident” and “I don’t want to die in the city alone.” The band describes its lyrical approach as “romantic nihilism.” Perhaps that’s why Elliot dedicated to several songs to dead rock stars and Heath Ledger.

And, I’ll have to say, it was nice being able to hear the vocals rise above the clutter and the drums really carry the beat of the punky tunes. On TNV’s albums the snare tends to sound more like someone tapping tin foil with a twig.

If you’ve yet to see Times New Viking, the romantic nihilists will probably be in your hometown before too long, and you just might love them. If not, you’ll hate them.

More photos.

mp3: Times New Viking - DROP-OUT
mp3: Times New Viking - (My Head)

Jose Gonzalez, Wexner Center, 11-30

I’m a sucker for mellow, acoustic songs with literate lyrics. So I expected to be whisked away to a magical dreamland of engaging folk pop at the Wexner Center’s Jose Gonzalez concert Friday night. Instead, I ended up pretty bored.

Don't get me wrong, Gonzalez is talented. The man has complete mastery over his classical guitar, and deftly fingerpicks and strums his way through songs effortlessly, creating droning, hypnotic landscapes on the instrument. If he were merely the guitarist in a larger band, I’d probably sing his praises. His voice isn’t too shabby either. The soft tenor is pleasing on the ears, with no harshness to be found.

But...

Hearing Gonzalez live, all those mild, palatable qualities become dull. He’s like the hipster version of Jack Johnson--laid-back and mellow to the point of soullessness. Or maybe the singer-songwriter version of Al Gore--expressionless, robotic and lacking charisma. The performance just didn’t feel inspired, and he didn’t convince me that he actually meant any of the things he sang, which is a shame since he’s not a bad lyricist.

The tunes that worked best were songs in which his two percussionists added some depth with various instruments and vocal harmonies. Other bright spots of the night were a few of Gonzalez’s most popular songs, which are favorites for a reason. On “Fold,” “Down the Line” and his cover of the Knife’s “Heartbeats,” his personality shines through in the creative vocal performances that complement the melodic guitar hooks. He’s also good at keeping the songs short and sweet.

I envision these stronger songs on a mix CD that a guy makes for his girlfriend. “I’m in love with those two Jose Gonzalez songs on the mix,” she says. “They’re sad but so pretty.” She then decides to go buy his two albums, but after a few listens she realizes that all she really needed were those two songs. The others are more of the same, yet not as compelling. “Sad but pretty” eventually becomes “tiresome and repetitive.” Then they break up.

A few more similar pics on the Flickr page.

Feist, Wexner Center, 11-18

The Wexner Center has hosted some great shows this season, and the Feist show in Mershon Auditorium Sunday night was just another feather in its cap. Not long ago, it would have been tough or impossible for Leslie Feist to fill out Mershon, but thanks to a critically acclaimed album released this year (The Reminder) and a catchy tune featured in an iPod commercial (“1234”), the place looked just about sold out.

Feist has a pretty good indie rock resume, having played with Peaches (her former roommate) and Canadian indie supergroup Broken Social Scene. A Calgary-born Toronto girl, Feist has a knack for crafting neo-folk with overtones of jazz, indie rock and even African tribal music. (After all, the Wex doesn’t book artists unless they can be described as “eclectic.”) Her voice is her greatest asset, and on Sunday it sounded just the way it should. It’s like a good shot of whiskey--smooth, slightly smokey and warm on the way down.

Feist, in a tube top and jeans, played vintage-looking semi-hollow-body electric guitars most of the night on an unadorned stage with a large video screen behind her that displayed bright, solid colors (evoking an iPod commercial) or silhouettes of various objects such as leaves, pebbles and lace. The set list drew mostly from The Reminder, and listening to these tunes, it became obvious that all the critical praise for the album is justified. Songs like “So Sorry” and “The Park” had her play the role of an emotive folkie as well as anyone, “The Limit to Your Love” and “I Feel It All” proved that she can groove and “1234” shows that she’s not above writing a super-catchy pop song. (Those Apple folks aren’t idiots.) The instrumentation and melodic flourishes tend to be just what each song needs--nothing more, nothing less--and are varied enough to tickle your ear. Though there’s some room for adult contemporary appeal, the songstress is infinitely more interesting than a one-trick pony like Norah Jones.

The only snoozer of the night was “The Water,” mostly because it was the one song on which she decided to play piano. The piano was positioned off to the side, and as a result her back was to the audience, making for a boring rendition of the mellow tune. Contrast that with “How My Heart Behaves,” a piano-based song that starts off ominous and minor, then melts away into a major refrain with the lyrics, “A cold heart will burst if mistrusted first.” She wisely let one of her bandmates handle the piano for that one.

As usual, the Wexner Center crowd watched attentively and silently in their seats without ever getting, well, feisty. Butts were even planted for “1234,” despite Feist’s commercial-evoking head bobs and hip-shaking. I guess these concertgoers were too self-aware to let TV advertising affect their concert behavior. After all, they listened to Feist way before that iPod ad ever came out.

More pics below and on the Flickr site.

My Brightest Diamond with Tim Fite, Wexner Center, 11-13

It will probably take awhile for Shara Worden, singer/songwriter for My Brightest Diamond, to live down the fact that she toured with Sufjan Stevens as one of his Illinoisemakers. Stevens has become too big of a name not to mention it, and the tour is how Worden began to make a name for herself. But judging from the show at the Wexner Center Tuesday night, Worden can fill a stage on her own just fine.

With a voice like hers, touring as merely a background singer for other bands would be a colossal waste of her talent, which was meant to be showcased in the Wex’s minimalist performance space in the context of a three-piece band, as opposed to Stevens’s traveling orchestra. Worden played her semi-hollow-body guitar gingerly at times and aggressively at others while her excellent drummer held down the vacillating beats and the bassist established the groove. But the tastefully simple instrumentation was merely window dressing for what everyone came to hear--Worden’s voice. It was pitch-perfect, veering from rock to jazz to soul to opera, ethereal at times and raucous at others.

Worden has studied opera, and it shows. Yet, she’s also a Nina Simone fan, and that shows, too. The versatility of her singing allows her to pull off all sorts of vocal theatrics, from trembles to yelps to whispers, often within the same song. It was apparent by the covers she played, as well: “It’s Over” by Roy Orbison, “Feeling Good” by Nina Simone and “Tainted Love,” made famous by Soft Cell. They all sounded as good, if not better, than the My Brightest Diamond originals, which drew from the 2006 debut, Bring Me the Workhorse.

For some reason, Tim Fite is touring with My Brightest Diamond. His music can best be described as folk-rap, but the style changes drastically from song to song. It’s not even close to the same genre as My Brightest Diamond, and the pairing felt forced. Still, Fite’s an entertainer with a boisterous sense of humor who played in front of a video screen that mostly showed himself playing guitar and singing along to the songs. Fite looks like a younger Paul Giamatti, and decked out in seersucker pants with suspenders, he displays endless energy. The more rap-leaning tunes worked the best with all the pre-recorded loops, and “It’s All Right Here,” a rant against consumerism, was the true highlight of the set. The humor outside of the songs, such as a story about a rat named Juice who had an orange-scented hiney, didn’t work as well, and Fite’s sidekick didn’t help; he felt the need to explain jokes and chatter nonstop.

More photos on the Flickr page. (Not the best shots this time around, unfortunately.)

Wilco with Andrew Bird, Wexner Center, 10-16

Wilco did not disappoint last night, playing songs spanning the band's entire catalog and rocking for more than two hours. Tweedy was his laid-back, funny, captivating self, decked out in a big white suit with sparkly roses. But guitarist Nels Cline almost stole the show. His spastic, herky-jerky guitar playing was awe-inducing, an exercise in passion and precision. Wilco has three very capable guitar players, but Cline is a real virtuoso. Highlights for me were "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," "Handshake Drugs," "Airline to Heaven" and "Shot in the Arm." I hope they come back soon. A few more pics at the bottom.

Andrew Bird opened up. Bird's an odd... bird, but entertaining. He played solo and didn't quite have the loop-pedal thing down, so he had to restart a couple songs. But I liked his commentary on the mistakes, describing one screw-up as "discovering a different universe."

So I'm finally finished with everything for the next issue of The Other Paper. Phew. Reviews on Thursday will include Smashing Pumpkins, Bob Dylan/Elvis Costello, Wilco and Radiohead's In Rainbows. I'm spent.

Akron/Family - Wexner Center, Sept. 21

Akron/Family put on great show at the Wex, complete with various percussion instruments and cricket noises. Review coming in The Other Paper Thursday.

mp3: Akron/Family - Ed is a Portal