December 30, 2009 8pm
The Summit
2210 Summit St.
(614) 268-9377
$8 adv / $10 door
Ages 18+ - under 21 pay $2 surcharge at the door
in association with Donewaiting.com
Kurt Vile
http://www.myspace.com/kurtvileofphilly
Kurt Vile is a lo-fi indie rock singer/songwriter from Philadelphia who made his commercial recording debut in 2008 to much critical fanfare. Based in Philadelphia, Vile grew up outside the city in the nearby town of Lansdowne. His passion for music was encouraged by his father, a bluegrass aficionado who bought him a banjo. Vile eventually advanced from the banjo to other instruments, primarily guitar, and began writing songs that he would record at home. These lo-fi home recordings, often featuring drum machines and other one-man-band, lo-fi adornment, were compiled on a series of CD-Rs that Vile would release in limited editions. Meanwhile, in addition to his solo work, Vile began collaborating musically with singer/guitarist Adam Granduciel in 2003. Calling themselves the War on Drugs, Vile and Granduciel released an eponymous demo EP in 2005. Over time the War on Drugs grew to become a full-scale band, and following another self-released EP, Barrel of Batteries (2007), they made their full-length album debut with Wagonwheel Blues (2008) on the label Secretly Canadian. Around this same time, Vile made his commercial recording debut as a solo artist with Constant Hitmaker (2008), a full-length release on the label Gulcher. Comprised of home recordings previously released on CD-R, plus new material (most notably the stand-out studio recording “Freeway”), Constant Hitmaker was at first something of a sleeper hit in the indie rock underground. While some online publications were quick to champion it as one of the more notable albums of the year, it wasn’t until 2009, when Constant Hitmaker was reissued by the label Woodsist, that Vile began garnering widespread accolades. In the midst of the acclaim, Vile released the mini-album God Is Saying This to You? (2009) on the label Mexican Summer and The Hunchback EP (2009) on Richie Records. - ©1992-2008 All Media Guide, LLC
Tommy Jay
http://www.myspace.com/tomstalltales
The real treasure of this recent batch is the re-issue of Tommy Jay’s Tall Tales of Trauma — originally released as an Old Age/No Age cassette in 1986 it’s been generally unheard, ignored, and somewhat lost in the shuffle until the kids from Waverly so graciously unearthed it.
Tommy Jay has always been in the mix — writing songs and playing drums for the Quotas or the True Believers farther back, collaborating on a number of Nudge Squidfish self-releases — but even as an equal in the now legendary Ego Summit, his contemporaries main projects (V-3, TJSA, Bassholes) out shined Jay’s dark horse status. Only now does one realize that his “Novocaine” was the fulcrum of the entire project. He was the poignant, coherent, folkie among a barn full of well-medicated genius.
The balance between these crisp psych-folk nuggets and direct contact with the lunatic fringe (be it “little black jelly beans,” blotter, and blue oyster cults) make Tall Tales a rewarding time warp through twelve years of Central Ohio lore. In the record’s earliest documents (circa ‘74, Timberlake) the Velvet’s influence is obvious, not just on the cover of “Ocean” but also in “I Was There,” a jangly, kaleidoscope of bittersweet pop that never edits his repeated guitar freak-outs. Into the 80’s the specter of Lou Reed (or perhaps more referentially precise, the echoes of Mayo Thompson) loomed large in Jay’s voice, phrasing, and tragic moods evoked, still the mysticism of Harrisburg is the overwhelming resonate. May I be crucified for such statement, but Tall Tales is infinitely more colorful and strange than any Reed solo venture (save Berlin), because it’s the quirky folk record Reed never made. It tip-toes around Indian burial grounds, abuses cheap-drug in dingy basements, chronicles the lives of gypsies, tramps, thieves, murderers, the village idiot and the quintessential anti-hero in all of us (who may or may not still live on Weber Rd.)
Back to that lunatic fringe — the cast of characters Jay surrounded himself with give the songs their creepy (and often beautiful) skin. Squid’s pedal-steel synth on “Memories” transforms it into dim-lit neon honky-tonk or the flute and harmony provided by Jennifer Eling and Mike Rep respectively on the Joni Mitchell cover “Dreamland” is the closest thing to Laurel Canyon sunshine these ears have heard in the Columbus pantheon.
But the star here is Tommy Jay and his paradox sparring a warped ideal of weird America (”Last Hurrah,” “Fear of Shadows,” “The Bugmen”) against a couple shots at cult eternity (in the straight-faced demeanor of “Old Hemingway” or the heart-felt “Lust, Honor and Love”) is truly an emotional and sonic blur which always makes for the world’s most cherished and puzzling musiques. Treasure indeed. - Kevin Elliott
Psychedelic Horseshit
http://www.myspace.com/PsychedelicHorseshit
I never thought I would find the courage to disgrace a complete scene of music, but shitgaze really is abysmal. Another of these silhouettes of shite is ‘Psychedelic Horseshit’, I mean seriously which member of the band was drunk when that name was conjured up. ‘New Wave Hippies’ sounds like a toddler playing with something that has thousands of buttons. The guitars are scratchy, and deliberately out of tune. It’s almost as if this band has gone out of its way to completely undermine every musical convention every proposed. This band is either a load of idiots on speed who suddenly thought they could play music while tripping, and sounds like a very massive pile of utter drunken shit, or it’s just some very clever chimpanzee’s who’ve evolved and suddenly realise they ‘might’ be able to play some music. In one song, ‘Bad Vibrations’ the vocalist literally says over and over again ‘ahhoooowaaaooo oooo oooo oooooooo’. I’ve actually given up on summing up this utterly pointless way of life. I would rather shave all of the hair off on my body and commit myself to a life of celibacy and become a neo-Nazi. My flat mate has put this review out of its misery and very kindly summed up this entire music scene in two words, ‘utter bollocks’.