Category: Music
Album reviews, concert reviews, and personal music activities.
The bus tour only confirmed what I’d already felt about Cleveland; there are no bad neighborhoods to live in, each one has its own distinct flavor and style that is exuded in the work being done by their respective residents. That’s not a very good sentence. I went through St. Clair-Superior, Glenville, North Collinwood, University Circle/Little Italy, Buckeye, Tremont [I gave the tour here], Ohio City, Detroit-Shoreway, Bellaire-Puritas and Cudell-Edgewater and saw the gamut of Cleveland incomes and lifestyles. In each neighborhood we saw a project that was being funded by Neighborhood Connections. It was good for me to see that all the reading I did earlier in the year has been realized in the work of those who received the funding.
After the tour ended, I rode my bike back to Tremont, stopped at the Jefferson Library and double-checked the location of Straight Outta Compound II. It was on E. 63rd and St. Clair, and I wasn’t about to ride my bike back downtown, so I drove. This ended up for the best since I gave Lou a ride back to Tremont a few hours later. The Compound is a chain-linked dusty gravel lot and a few old brick buildings that many local bands use as practice space. I’d missed the first 4 or so bands, but caught 4 more while I was there, had some watermelon and a brat from the WSM, some ice cream and some indie girl eye candy. I saw State of Ohio, This Moment in Black History, Sounder and Argyle Denial before we hit the road for…
BLKTYGR, Home and Garden and The Red Krayola at Parish Hall on W. 62nd and Detroit. An almost mirror-hop rock-show-swap venue menu of bandaliciousness. My friend Wasco told me I should go see The Red Krayola, as it would likely be a once in a lifetime experience. I was utterly unfamiliar with them, but I’ve since done some research, since the show was so awesome. They’ve been around in one form or another since the mid-60s always ahead of their time musically. And, it seems, even ahead of most people who are ahead of their time. Their music was politically charged, but not heavy-handed like that sort of content often comes across. BLKTYGR was awesome too, it was my first time seeing them play. Home and Garden didn’t get me going at all though. They were too sorta jam-bandy for my taste. I ended up home around 1am, so I reckon I spent about 2 awake hours in my apartment on Saturday. All photos from the day are here.