Weekend Preview: Radney Foster, Asylum Street Spankers, Cleveland Bachelor, and more

Radney Foster, this Friday

Country fans who read this blog might wonder, “Where’s the country?” Well, here’s our Beachland response.

Singer/songwriter Radney Foster, who’s written tunes for the likes of Sara Evans and Keith Urban, rolls up to Cleveland this Friday, November 20th.

Foster started out in the late 80s as part of the hitmaking duo Foster and Lloyd.  After their split, Foster kept his writing pen sharp, his feet in Nashville, and the hits a-flyin’.  Here’s a young Radney Foster, humorously chronicling his adventures in the music industry:

Foster’s  tunes have been taken to the charts, such as “Again” (Brooks & Dunn); “Somebody Take Me Home” (Kenny Chesney); and “A Real Fine Place to Start” (Sara Evans).   He’s got loads of other talented friends, too, such as the ones that attended his musical 50th birthday this past July.  Though Foster’s not playing arenas and touring nightly in high-tech tour buses, he’s still lucky enough to do what he loves, and lucky enough to have enough country fans to appreciate him. You might just be one of those folks, too.

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Asylum Street Spankers, this Saturday

If the Asylum Street Spankers got any more ink, the makers of the Kindle would really have to start upping the ante. Paper would be practically gone if the Spankers were loved any further, and we’d all be thumbing those ballyhooed digital doohickeys instead of magazines. 

The reasons the Spankers aren’t filling stadiums might at least be twofold: 1. they’re an old-timey string band, and 2. they don’t use amplification.  Not exactly conducive to filling up Cleveland Browns Stadium–though we’re sure that big, drafty bowl by the lake could use some company these days. 

But the reason the Spankers are beloved by many is their buoyant sense of humor; their topical, sometimes raunchy humor; and their ineffable sense of swing. They’ve got songs about drugs, songs about beer, songs about right-wingers, songs about sex, songs about more drugs, beer…you get the idea. 

And sometimes they’ll have songs like this, the famed Muppets “Ma Nuh Ma Nuh” (or however you spell it):

Read a 2008 interview with the Asylum Street Spankers on the blog of Seattle radio station KEXP.  It’s informative, and you can always tool around the KEXP site, listening to great new music.  The Spankers play Saturday, November 21, in the Ballroom.

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In classical Greece, a laurel wreath was presented to exemplary citizens of the polis (city) for the excellence in various fields: athletics, oratory, and the like.  We here feel that Justin Vaughn, who cheerleads weary Cleveland with his voluminously thorough Cleveland Bachelor blog, should receive some visible sign of merit. If not a crown of leaves, then perhaps a ring of Slavic sausages from R&D, down the road from the Beachland.

For Cleveland Bachelor not only details how to properly fun and frolic in our city, but also now helps curate (a fancy hipster term for ’sponsor’, but without spendy advertising) shows at the Beachland, this Saturday the 2st of November, in the Tavern. Witness the debut of “The Cleveland Bachelor Show Of The Month”:

This show features the wildly eclectic Evangelicals (from Norman, Oklahoma, home of The Flaming Lips), Holiday Shores, and locals Mother Country Madmen.  Cleveland Bachelor does a much better job that we do exploring the bands on this bill, that we’ll just hand over the floor to him. Here he is, discussing Holiday Shores; follow his links, and you’ll hear Evangelicals take it over the top with ADDish prog rock that should appeal to Lips fans as well as late-night smokers still groovin’ on Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here.  This should be a good one to take meds to.

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BLK TYGR returns to the Beachland. Photo: Lou Muenz (loumuenz.com)

While Evangelicals bend minds and ears with layering and wild arrangements, Amherst MA duo Matt Valentine and Erika Elder (known as MV and EE) go for a foresty folk drone that invoke Indian ragas, Celtic reels, and Appalachian hoedowns.  Now, run that through layer upon layers of effects, and prepare to get soothed.

What’s also very neat about this Sunday night show is the ‘return’ of experimental CLE duo BLK TYGR, which features Michael Pultz (host of radio show “Defend Cleveland”) and writer/musician/ “art hero” R.A. Washington (proprietor of ClevelandTapes.com)

This duo were active a few years ago, when the Near West Side jumped with short-lived venues like Inside/Outside Gallery and The Church, when bands like Sunburned Hand of the Man and Six Organs of Admittance seemed to practically live in Cleveland.  BLK TYGR maintains they never really broke up, but took time off to live life, make music, and eat a few sandwiches along the way.  When a group makes music this distinctive and indescribable, breaking up is damn near impossible.   Their sound isn’t solely a product of skill, but rather two singular personalities coalescing into one presence.

BLK TYGR, live @ Beachland:

Also on this bill is Brian Straw, one of Cleveland’s best singer-songwriters, who now fronts new group The Buried Wires. This show takes place Sunday, November 22nd.

EAS
www.beachlandballroom.com

Nov 13 – 14 International Pop Overthrow festival featuring Bill Fox and Paranoid Lovesick

Bill Fox @ West Side Market, from his Shelter From the Smoke album

Remember delightfully crappy 70s kids show Land of the Lost?  We’re not talking the remake featuring the lumbering buffoonery of Will Farrell; we’re talking the one with a feather-haired family hiding from creaky, stop-motion dinosaurs (Ray Harryhausen winced loudly), befriending apelike jungle pals, and dueling with perma-stoned reptile dudes known as Sleestaks. 

Throughout much of its late 20th century history, Cleveland has very much been a rusted-and-busted Land of the Lost; economic woes have torn up the land like hungry carnosaurs, while folks walk ’round like Sleestaks wearing Browns jerseys.  Others are trying to find Land of the Lost’s magic stones, the ones that offer passage to a groovier place devoid of bad special effects and duff plotlines.  Now where exactly would that place be?

Meanwhile, back in 2009, a new generation of do-gooders and pundits are dilligently working to turn our low-budget dino-park into a digitally-enhanced New Jerusalem.  We applaud their efforts while sifting through the debris of Cleveland’s past.  Look closely enough, and you’ll find a Lawson’s sign, an empty bottle of POC, Ralph Perk, and musicians like Bill Fox (of The Mice) and Bill Stone of Paranoid Lovesick.

This weekend’s bounty of pop–the two-night travelling International Pop Overthrow–brings to light Messrs. Fox and Stone.  Much ado has been made of Fox’s hidden treasure status, based on his output with 80’s punks The Mice, his solo career, and a slew of articles written that corresponds to one of rock’s Good Standard Plotlines: “Whatever Happened To…?”

Which, in turn, dovetails with the “Influential Underdog” plotline.  The Bill Fox version of it goes thusly:  The Mice were a great rock band, made some cool records, kicked ass, and split up.  Singer/songwriter/guitarist Fox leaves and cranks out equally killer solo albums.   Somewhere down the line, he got a case of the willies, and just didn’t want to play in public.  Fast forward to the present day, where writers get a hold of the goodies, and start looking for the mythical musician.

Those pieces can be written about here, to an extent:  read cleveland.com’s piece and blog Beat For Two. Culturespill.com gets downright definitive, and if you think this blog entry is long–buddy, put your feet up and get cozy in your chair.  But it’s a killer piece.

Your best bet, friends, is just to check out Mr. Fox in vivo at the Beachland’s International Pop Overthrow festival on FRIDAY  night.  As your guide, check out the following Bill Fox songs on Myspace.com. Caveat: If you don’t like Bob Dylan in any way, shape or form, Fox might not appeal to you.  But if you don’t mind the lean vocal rasp, the romantic lyrical rambles through Catholic mythology, and a dying Cleveland populated with poets, politicians and drunks, you’ll love this stuff.

Far less weighty but also forgotten is Paranoid Lovesick, who hail from the ‘alterna-rock’ 90s while foresaking grunge groanings, or the clonification of whatever the hell was on the radio at the time.  In fact, PL sowed song-seeds gathered from the Raspberries, Big Star, Badfinger, and such melodically-minded groups.  That aspect, coupled with a super-fine production sheen, got Paranoid Lovesick on CLE station “The End” while propelling them through the Northeast Ohio rock circuit.  Though the denizens of underground Cleveland rock and the radio-friendly masses couldn’t figure the band out–too clean-cut, or not angry enough–this four-piece won over ears and hearts with their debut CD, a true gem called Molly.

Yet here’s where another Good Standard Plotline comes into play: “…And Then Tragedy Struck”.  PL’s friend and lead guitarist Rick McBrien tragically passed away, and the band fizzled.  Thankfully, the good people at International Pop Overthrow kept tabs on Paranoid Lovesick, and were able to get them on Saturday night.   Thrilled by the process of going forward while closing the book on Paranoid Lovesick, singer/guitarist Bill Stone and his comrades have released two lost PL gems: Suburban Pop Allegro and Tuxedo Avenue Breakdown.  After that, Paranoid Lovesick will fling its own ashes to the Collinwood wind, and another set of legends will sprout forth.

Cleveland music blog Addcited To Vinyl hashes things out in wond’rous detail, with the help of Mr. Stone.  If ATV doesn’t convince you, perhaps some lo-fi but ass-kickin’ vids will help:

Paranoid Lovesick, “Carried Away”

Paranoid Lovesick, “Big Star” (note the presence of people TOTALLY STOKED about the ‘95 Indians)

So perhaps with this year’s International Pop Overthrow, our Land will be a little less Lost, and Good Standard Rock conventions will be ditched…well, maybe for two nights, at least.

To find out who else is playing the International Pop Overthrow (folks like The Afternoon Naps, Good Touch Bad Touch, and others) get at www.beachlandballroom.com. Or call one of their friendly operators at 216-2383-1124.

EAS