2009 November | AQUABEAR LEGION

The Way It All Must End

by Bram Riddlebarger Your head bursting from sleep and sickness, you sit at the kitchen table and listen to Hank Williams moan from the stereo in the living room. Hank had just kicked it a week ago. His voice was more ghostly than ever. You shake your head. You wonder why Tom Robbins ended his books the way he does. Then you wonder why you thought Hank Williams had died just one week ago. Tom Robbins may have invaded your skull. It was possible. Telepathy or some crazy shit, you reckon. Maybe Tom Robbins is the cause of your throbbing brain. He could be up there, lurking like the ghost of Hank Williams between your ears. You flip the station on the stereo until you find something loud. Thoughts of exorcism run through the sickness in your head. Is Robbins dancing? The throbbing, you notice, does have a slow, two-four backbeat-like pattern. Almost rockabilly, but surely this couldn’t be true. Have Hank Williams and his Drifting Cowboys decided to play One Last Show, Exclusive, for One Night Only, with Tom Robbins as the entire audience, inside your head? Why you ask? Even cowboys get the blues or what?

Aquabear Legion is celebrating our 5th Anniversary with a concert and party at The Union on Saturday, November 21st! Come show support for Aquabear and Ohio music and join us for an awesome night. The Makebelieves (Athens) The Deathers (Cleveland) The Hairy Hearts godversussatan (Columbus/Athens/Lancaster) Weedghost (Athens/Dayton) Raffles all night for awesome prizes! Cupcakes! NEW Aquabear buttons and stickers! $12 Aquabear t-shirts! This night means a lot to us, hope to see you all there! Support Ohio Music! Support Your Local Aquabear!

RECORD REVIEW: We March – Creator/Destroyer – Non-Prophet, 2007

- by Pencil - Full length number three from Athen’s vanguard of punk/hardcore/garage/psyche, WE MARCH’s “Creator/Destroyer”, ranges from the speed and fury of 80’s H/C punk to scrappy garage stomp and murky psyched-out jams, but don’t think for one second that this is anything but the most scathing Punk record you’ve heard in a long time. While “the kids” are out there trying to recreate the past glory of these genres, WE MARCH manages to destroy them. Whether it’s uptempo ragers like “beep beep beep” or “the choice” (from their 7’’) or slower swaggering numbers like “never compromise” or “wash away” you come away with the feeling that, just like the first wave of punks (who had no reference to what they were creating, unlike so much of the rehash of the past ten years), these guys don’t care about emulating their heros, just about creating music on their own terms, and for almost ten years (!) they’ve done just that. Released on their own NON-PROPHET record label “Creator/Destroyer” proves that even in the 21st century, punk can still be original, exciting and inspirational. Highly recommended. Contact them: wemarch.net, myspace.com/wemarch wemarchbox@hotmail.com

RECORD REVIEW: Percolator – Man is Not a Bird, 2007

- by Brian Wiebe The relationships we have with music are as varied and complicated as the ones we have with people. Sometimes a song or album is love at first listen—swooning as I hit repeat for the fifth, sixth, seventh time—enraptured in immediacy. Other times, the relationship takes a little while to develop. Maybe I haven’t heard the album in the right setting, or maybe I haven’t heard it enough, or maybe I just didn’t understand it right away. But I keep listening until eventually a deeper respect forms because of the piece’s slowly unraveling mysteries and complexities. Percolator has managed to do both. Man is Not a Bird is an album that had me from the get go, and then kept growing on me.

by Kris Poland - Go West, Young Bands There is a place on West State Street where Athens music lovers can see some of the area’s best musicians display their talents. It is a place where engaging local paintings and photographs adorn the walls and where community members meet to consolidate support for the arts. It is a place that has been an invaluable resource for area arts organizations and individual artists since its inception. But its staff is unlikely to serve you vegan burritos. The place is ARTS/West, and Emily Prince hopes that it will increase its presence in the regional arts community for years to come. Prince is ARTS/West’s program specialist and directs many of this venue’s day-to-day activities. She describes her place of work as, “a venue and a little bit more.” Indeed. The administrative and artistic support that ARTS/West provides to Athens’ performing artists includes establishing press contacts and authoring press releases, organization of events, skilled instruction, technical equipment, as well as additional resources and services. A little bit more than a venue? Prince has a knack for understatement.

RECORD REVIEW: The X Bolex – This Time Next Year You’ll Be Oxidizing Stone – Tower Control, 2007

- by Brian Koscho - The X Bolex began as a solo project for then Small Object a drummer Nate Scheible while he was still living in Athens, Ohio. But, The X Bolex is now a full band made up of some of the greatest musicians in the Cleveland music scene. Nate also co-runs Zombie Proof Studios and recorded “This Time..” with fellow engineer Paul Maccarrone. In addition to Scheible (who has spent/spends time in Cleveland acts such as Self Destruct Button, Neo Nothing, The Washout Corporation, and Thee Scarcity of Tanks), the band is filled out by Matt Majesky (State of Ohio), Lou Arocho (Small Object a), and Dale Ursic (Homostupids, State of Ohio). Scheible’s songwriting has always been spectacular as have X Bolex’s previous albums, but there is something special that develops on their new record.

RECORD REVIEW: Machine Go Boom – Music for Parents – Collectible Escalators, 2007

- by Brian Koscho Cleveland’s Machine Go Boom has been one of my own personal favorite bands for years. Music For Parents is their second album after 2004’s Thank You Captain Obvious, both were recorded by Paul Maccarrone at Cleveland’s Zombie Proof Studios. Machine Go Boom’s music is an audio sugar rush, with band-leader Mikey Machine’s voice ranging from a beautiful swoon to the tone of a small child on Christmas morning after twelve cans of soda and an entire birthday cake. Mikey and the rest of MGB make music that really is a breath of fresh air.

The Aquabear Rant #2: Your Band Is At Least that Lame, Too

by Dan Majesky I guess I’m supposed to tell everybody why local music is the new black. 3 years ago, I would have shot myself in the face for even thinking about defending that position. Now? Fuck it, I’m riding the wave of the future. The hey-day of the low-level music tour is over. Gas prices were kept artificially low here for years, and now we eat the back-lash with A1 sauce. Used to be, anyone could tour for nothing and get paid decent. Your average band on the road these days bleeds cash out their eyes. Mid-to-low-level touring bands usually have aces up their sleeves (aka cash cows back home or mounting credit card debt) if they go out for more than one week a year.

by Rick Dodgson, Foreign Legion Correspondent It’s been a long time coming music lovers, but the end is nigh so raise your glasses and rejoice over the passing of the music industry as we have known it. Sony BMG, Universal, Warner Music and all the other corporate music money-pigs have been condemned to die, guilty of excessive greed and staggering cluelessness. 2008 will be the year of their destruction and I for one will be shedding no tears over their passing. Let’s face it, the major labels have been hanging around like rotting corpses for the past decade or more, putrid, wide-eyed and helpless in the face of new technologies and a disinterested MySpace generation. Stuck in an outmoded model of consumption, the majors have been desperate to recover the golden age of the 1970s with its pass-me-down groupies, mounds of cocaine and cash-cow platinum albums. But those days are long gone (unless you happen to be in Skeletonwitch). In 2007 you could make the top forty by selling just 20,000 CDs. That might sound like a lot to a Casual Future or a Southeast Engine, but in corporate terms those numbers speak only of failure.

RECORD REVIEW: Southeast Engine – ” Wheel within a Wheel” – Misra, 2007

Adam Remnant, Southeast Engine’s principle penman and visionary, is a Dayton native living currently in that mythical berg of Athens, OH… a town often described as sleepy, dreamlike… you get the picture. Let me tell you about the Remnant’s house: piano, keyboard, drum here, drum there, harmonica, violin, organ… zounds of guitars. And that is not to mention the collective musical talent of the various characters often to be found lurking in and about the Remnant household on a given day: Adam Torres (backing vocals, guitar) lends a capable hand in the realization of Remnant’s musical vision, with distinct vocal harmonies that have become perhaps the most recognizable aspect of the band’s sound. Jesse Remnant (bass, keys), another Daytonite and recent addition to the band’s live lineup, and Leo DeLuca (drums), co-founding member and major hunk, round out the live band, which has recently completed its first tour as a quartet.

RECORD REVIEW: Casual Future – “Footnotes in the City Lights”

On their debut album, Casual Future gets into character as musicians from the slacker set, slinging well-penned quips filled with cynicism and absurdity, while keeping pretty level heads. It’s a well-balanced act owing much to lead singer Scott Spice’s almost ho-hum delivery, dancing drunkenly over lyrics finely calculated and clever.