Howard Cohen, lead singer of the “Rumblings from the Big Bush” house band Cereal Killers, joins the “Rumblings” dynamic duo to talk about a fun gig the night before Thanksgiving, when he and his bandmates will be covering Elvis Costello & the Attractions songs as “The Distractions.” And they’ll be joined on the bill by the band Dot.Dot.Dot. covering R.E.M. tunes, and Chalk Eye. Howard also talks about 97Xposure and why he and his bandmates keep on keepin’ on.
Dot.Dot.Dot. – the band on the bill covering R.E.M. — includes Wes Pence of Middlemarch and The Ready Stance, as well as Justin Lynch (Filthy McNasty, Poke, and Wojo) and Aaron Zlatkin (Wojo) with Kyle Knapp (The Turkeys) handling the Michael Stipe vocal duties. You can read Brian Baker’s profile of the band in CityBeatfor more info.
Here’s a shot of Cereal Killers as The Ramones from Halloween last year.
And here’s Howard with his cherished 97X box cutter.
Well hello there, Stranger! How have you been? Vacay was great, thanks for asking. I know you didn’t miss me – even I didn’t miss me. But it’s not about missing me, it’s about not missing live gigs in the Cincinnati area. Let’s get at ‘er!
Tonight:
Ben Levin and Joe Tellmann will join other Pinetop Perkins Foundation Masterclass participants in backing Bob Margolin at the Lebanon Blues Festival. (Ben and Joe will also play with Bob on Saturday. The entire schedule is here.)
The Fabulous Thunderbirds roll into Ludlow Garage
Tab Benoit plays the Taft Theatre
Holy F*ck will be at Madison Live. I think they’re a gospel band.
The Actual F*ck plays Northside Tavern. I think they’re a hardcore band.
Ray Vietti & The Family Stoned will play a free gig at Carriage House Farm.
On Saturday you can see an Elvis Impersonator.
Wait, check that, I still have vacation brain… actually it’s Elvis Costello & the Imposters at Rose Music Center. Not to be outdone, Fraze Pavilion, the other Dayton area venue, has… Vanilla Ice.
Mr. Van Winkle, the erstwhile Ice, Vanilla, will be joined by a veritable Who’s Who of “Who’s That?” – All 4 One, Rob Base, Coolio, Tone Loc and Young MC. (Name two songs by any/all of those artist and win valuable prizes.)
Also on Saturday evening:
Ekoostik Hookah plays the old Annie’s
Ludlow Garage has Strangelove, the Depeche Mode Experience
Local artists Flying Underground (Brian Lovely) and Nick Kizirnis play MOTR
The Greg Brady hosts Dashboard Confessional and Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness.
Greg Brady dashboard confessionalEd McMahon in the wilderness
Daryl Hall and the Daryl’s House Band plays Timberwolf on Sunday, with special guest Todd Rundgren.
On Wednesday, RuPaul’s Drag Race is at the Mike Brady Center, and the Happy Together Tour comes to Fraze – The Turtles, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, The Association, The Buckinghams, The Vogues, and The Cowsills. Every orthopedic surgeon in the Dayton area should be handing out business cards at that show.
Thursday shows:
The Dead South and Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band play Annie’s.
Tower of Power and Lettuce (that’s two bands, it’s not the Smoothie/Salad combo at Jamba Juice) are at the Taft.
Whitehall plays Southgate
Mike Zito is at Ludlow Garage
The Casey Campbell Band does the free show at Washington Park from 7-9 p.m.
Last, and least, the Motor City Madman Ted Nugent plays the Rose Music Center.
Next Friday:
Steep Canyon Rangers are at Annie’s
Soul Pocket headlines the free show on Fountain Square
The Rose Music Center serves up the Smoothie/Salad combo twin bill of Tower of Power and Lettuce.
Add a shot of wheatgrass for just 50 cents.
Concert Shots
Lucy Dacus and Camp Cope put on a stellar outdoor show at the Burl in Lexington. List member Joe Sampson and I helped bring up the average age.
List members Dan Bockrath, Dave Tellmann and I thoroughly enjoyed the Adrian Belew gig at Ludlow Garage. We also had fun counting the # of old men wearing ponytails.
Classy Ken, your Clifton Concert Concierge
Speaking of the Ludlow Garage, if you purchase your tickets at their box office (open Wed-Sat 4-10 p.m.), you can avoid most of the dreaded TicketBastard fees. List member Ken Laube lives in Clifton, and I’m sure he’d be happy to walk up to Ludlow (quite frankly, he could use the exercise) and purchase the ducats for you.
… my wife and I were on the college radio station when she went to UVA. You’re surrounded by so much creativity—the other DJs are creative, but also the tens of thousands of albums from the past 40 years, all their funky, weird artwork, all their liner notes. It’s just so jam-packed, and 99 percent of them are forgotten. It was sort of this different idea about how, gosh, I’m gonna be forgotten too. So why don’t I have fun with this? And why don’t I make art feel like you’re going to a show, buying a T-shirt or a CD?
Steve Keene in the interview linked above
Album Cover of the Week
This week’s album cover is courtesy of list member Dave Green:
Sayeth Dave: You’d think this would’ve been a “blues” album, but that would be too cliché. My son picked this up for me for $6 since I am a casual jazz fan and previously 80’s Smurf collector (little known fact).
Yes, we’ve interviewed 97X station owners Doug and Linda Balogh before (check out Episodes 56 and 57). But they are such founts of 97X knowledge and stories that we had to go back to the well. In this episode, Doug does a 97X role call, we talk about 97Xposure, the station’s charitable endeavors, a Riverbend-adjacent party, and one of Linda’s decidedly unglamorous yet crucial behind-the-scenes role on the prize patrol.
Doug cited 97Xposure as perhaps the finest example of what made the station unique. Every year, dozens if not hundreds of local/regional bands would submit their songs, and multiple 97X staffers would evaluate them to determine a Top 20, and eventually a final four to play in a “battle of the bands” style concert, with the winner getting recording equipment and free studio time.
Sorry for the fuzzy photo
The 97X Modern Rock Cookbook featured recipes from band members, station staffers and listeners, and proceeds went to local charities.
Features “Dave’s Succulent Seven-Layer Salad”…
Doug and Linda mentioned Julie Maxwell’s tireless work to bring the Modern Rock Cookbook to life.
Julie Maxwell, always cooking up fantastic promotions.
Here’s an aerial view of the house in California, Ohio (near Riverbend) that hosted a 97X event on the day of the Elvis Costello/Crash Test Dummies concert. Crash Test Dummies showed up… but Elvis didn’t enter the building.
Hey kids, welcome to TWILM Version 2.0. Henceforth, in an effort to streamline this weekly hot mess, I’ll only tout shows where I’ve heard (or at least heard of) the band/artist. So instead of trying to cram 10 pounds into a five-pound bag, it’ll be more like eight pounds, six ounces.
Okey dokey, let’s get to the gigs. Frontier Folk Nebraska plays a free show in Southgate’s Lounge on Monday.
On Tuesday, Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus, OBE, is coming to the Taft. You may know him better as Elvis Costello, and he’ll be playing with his stellar band The Imposters. I’ll be in the nosebleeds with list member Barb Gardner, and the Cereal Killers will be in the audience as well.
Photo credit: James O’Mara
That same evening, The Kyle Gass Company (yes, that’s KG from Tenacious D) will be at Top Cats.
Thursday, Dustbowl Revival is at Memorial Hall, Birds of Chicago are playing Ludlow Garage, Greyson Chance is at Top Cats, William Elliott Whitmore is at Southgate with Samantha Crain as the opener, and The Hu has a sold-out gig in the Taft Ballroom.
Friday is a busy evening:
Houndmouth kicks off a two-night stand at Southgate House.
Wussy plays a sold-out house show.
Spyro Gyra is at Ludlow.
Ben Levin plays the Symphony Hotel (near Music Hall).
Beasts of Joy are at Bircus, along with something called Radiohead circus.
Adam Lee will be at Camp Springs Tavern. List member Keith Neltner, the proprietor of aforementioned Tavern, is really big on Mr. Lee, who has performed there before. Based on Keith’s reco, I plan to go to that show.
On Saturday, Billy Strings has a sold-out show at Madison Theater. Houndmouth is back for more at Southgate, and the Ben Levin Trio plays the Wiedemann Taproom.
Sunday, Ricky Nye has a solo gig at Wiedemann at 5:30, and Bill Kirchen’s Honky Tonk Holiday will be tearing up Southgate later that evening.
Hot Ticket Alert
The National is doing another “Homecoming” festival in Smale Park in 2020! The lineup in 2018 was fantastic, and I’m looking forward to more stellar selections this time around. Presale starts Monday. “Layaway options available.”
Video of the Week
Nick Cave is brilliant… and an absolute badass. Here’s proof:
Tunes I’ve been digging lately
The new Vetiver album Up on High.
Kids these days…
My goddaughter Libby is a Junior at SLU, and her sorority had a “rock and roll” party. She wore a Van Halen t-shirt, even though she admitted that she doesn’t know a single Van Halen (or Van Hagar) song. (Nobody knows any Van Cherone songs. Facts.)
Poseurs posing.
As if that weren’t bad enough, here’s more proof that kids just don’t have any appreciation for the previous generation of rockers:
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