Don't miss this Tribute to ELVIS Sat March 2nd at the Art Bar!
Bernie Love featuring Patrick Baxley, Jay Matheson, Marty Fort, and Kevin Brewer delivers the goods.
Early 9 p.m. show, 21+ Comedian Mike Reed kicks things off.
Bernie Love only offers this show about twice a year, so come on out!
More at www.bernieloverocks.com
On a Musical Mission The Musical Method Bringing An Indie Film to the Big Screen
When it came time to plan his third indie horror film project, Columbia filmmaker Christopher Bickel admits that he took an unusual route to get to the upcoming Pater Noster and the Mission Of Light, which involves a psychedelic thrift store record find that leads the main characters to a forgotten but murderous cult.
“Rob and Shauna Tansey, who supplied all the cool cars in Bad Girls sent me a message one day, at a point where I still had not figured out what I was going to do for the next movie,” Bickel says. “They had acquired an old school bus that they were planning on painting in psychedelic colors, like Ken Kesey’s ‘Furthur’ bus, and told me if I ever needed it for a movie, they’d have it available. So basically, I wrote a movie around the bus.”
In Bickel’s creative mind, if you have a bus that looks like a hippie cult transport vehicle, you obviously need a cult to ride in it, and if it’s truly psychedelic, the music should be as well.
“I based some of it off of The Source Family, a famous cult that had their own house band called Ya Ho Wa 13, and I found one of their records at a thrift store around that same time so I was obsessing over that rare, valuable record–so I wanted the cult in my movie to be like that, and have their own band.”
Bickel spent many years immersed in the punk and noise scene via his time with In/Humanity, Guyana Punchline, and Anakrid, so his thoughts went immediately to what the music that band might make would be like, and for that part of the process, he called in his many musical friends.
“Before the script was even done I knew that there was going to be an album’s worth of music from the ‘band’ in the movie, so I started asking around, told them what I wanted to do–that I wanted it to sound like music a cult would have made in 1972, if they were a little ahead of their time, and these are some of the themes in the movie–and I asked them all to get together and bring in their ideas for songs.”
The sessions at the Jam Room included a cast of musicians in and around Columbia, from Sean Thomson to Marshall Brown, Joe Buck Roberts, Stan Gardner, Kevin Jennings, Gina Ercolini, Alex McCollum, Darby Wilcox, Kevin Brewer, Tom Coolidge, and more, over what Bickel describes as a ‘miraculous’ two days.
“It should have been awful, but I feel like it’s the best record that’s ever come out of Columbia,” Bickel says. “Everyone showed up the first day and all the songs they had come up with were great. Everyone just played on each other’s stuff, adding parts, and locking in quickly. We came up with the basic bones for the entire album in those two days.”
As part of the promotional push to finish financing the film production and distribution, Bickel shot individual music videos for the album tracks and began releasing them once a week in November–two are out so far, with another due each week until they are all available online.
“Come Out and Sing, Father,” sets the scene perfectly of a slightly off kilter, cult choir sing-along. It’s a composition by guitarist and songwriter Joe Buck Roberts, who sings the lead atop a chorus of multiple voices and instruments including a zither, flute, violin, and more.
“A World Of Our Own,” increases the psychedelia with a song composed and sung by Stan Gardner that echoes the ‘80s paisley underground, but with a more danger-filled undercurrent.
It is the multiple levels of input from musicians such as Gardner, Roberts, and others that makes Bickel heap praise on how things turned out.
“There are three people that I think are mega-geniuses who worked on the music–not that everyone wasn’t amazing,” Bickel says. “Sean Thomson, Joe Buck Roberts, and Marshall Brown. Sean has a couple of instrumental pieces that he did which are perfect for the film, and Marshall gets the psychedelic stuff but he also gets the pop stuff and he and Sean both can just come up with so much on the spot, for songs they didn’t even write, had just heard for the first time and their parts just came right out.”
Of the remaining tracks yet to see full release, there are some that verge on Hawkwind psych-metal, hippie flower power era songcraft powered by Greenville’s soulful alt-country singer Darby Wilcox, and plenty of trippy, cult-ish chanting and vocalizing. Tim Cappello, the shirtless sax player from the ‘80s movie The Lost Boys, plays sax on one song, even. It’s a heady mixture of musical montage-making that’s potent even without the eventual pairing of the film visuals.
The craziest part of this story isn’t that a bunch of cool music got made for an indie film, however. It’s that the film isn’t even done, and Bickel himself hasn’t quite figured it all out yet.
“The film is not edited yet, and I haven’t put it all together so I’m not exactly sure where the music will fit, or even if all of it will fit,” he admits. “There will be some pieces that may not be in the movie at all, but I still consider them part of the ‘world’ of the film.”
It is that world-building that is the most intriguing part of making this film, Bickel adds, and how each step has led to the next in its creation.
“It was important to me that I had the world established first,” he says. “I have the short film in the can, ‘Wunderlawn,’ and the music kind of informed what we did for the short film, and then the short film has informed what we did in the feature. When we came together to do the shooting for the feature, there was already a world established for the actors to draw on for their performances.”
So, why do it in such an odd sequence? For Bickel, it comes down to one word: money.
“In a way it would make a lot more sense if the music came out closer to the release of the movie,” he says. “Because I don’t have any money, I have to raise money to finish the movie and the music has been the best way to support that effort– ‘Here’s something entertaining for free, and if you like it you can buy the record of it and if you buy the record of it that will pay for finishing the movie, which is the ultimate goal.”
Each film he has made, Bickel has raised the stakes, and the budget, to realize his vision for the next one.
“The first two were around $15-16,000 budgets, just enough to pay the actors and feed everybody. This one is coming in around $20-25,000,” He reveals. “Some of that came from donations before we started, there was also a little profit from Bad Girls and then the rest is what I’m trying to raise now. It would be nice if I could make enough to keep doing them.”
REVIEW: CMA's Baker and Baker present Zion. A Composition by Saul Seibert
Zion. A Composition
Live at Columbia Museum of Art
Thursday, Nov 17th, 2022
Baker & Baker Series
by Kevin Oliver
An ambitious instrumental and visual art piece conceptualized by Saul Seibert with help from artist Virginia Russo, multimedia from Ash Lennox, and a cast of fellow musicians, Zion. A Composition came alive in multiple dimensions on Thursday evening at the Columbia Museum of Art, as part of their ongoing Baker & Baker concert series.
Seibert opened the evening with a short explanation of the story behind the composition, and as he told the family background in front of multiple members of his own family in the audience, the anticipation in the audience built. The delineation of the three acts: The Diaspora, The Sojourn, and The Ascent, was a useful glossary of sorts for the crowd to reference, but as the piece unfolded, there was no visual division on screen or stage to indicate when one movement ended and a new one began. As such, at several lulls in the program audience members interjected applause and exclamations, seemingly unsure if something was ending or maybe just overwhelmed with appreciation of what had just transpired in a concluded segment.
With two of the three movements already released for a while prior to this live performance, and the third just completed, it was still a much different experience watching the musicians perform the entire piece live. Left to right, they filled the CMA stage: Seibert’s older brother Zach Seibert (E.Z. Shakes) sat quietly cooking up some sinister electric guitar tones, Marshall Brown contributed keyboard swirls of varying tone and intensity, Kevin Brewer held down the beats even as they came and went throughout, Darren Woodlief, also seated, provided a solid bass presence that asserted itself fully in the final movement. Sean Thomson was the musical wizard of the night, starting on spooky, sensual sitar and moving to steel guitar and some wicked electrified mandolin. Seibert himself stood center stage, hollow body guitar in hand throughout, the ringleader of this spiritual, musical circus troupe.
Every musical composition has an arc, that up-down movement that gives it an interesting story to tell. Zion’s first movement, Diaspora, came through as a slow-building bundle of potentialities, with the audience a bit on edge, unsure of where it might be headed, perhaps. The preshow preface alluded to one beginning to rid themselves of preconceived ideologies, attitudes, and casting those things out, and the music reflected such a sweeping task. Thomson’s sitar was prominent through the early passages, giving this portion a raga-like intonation that allowed listeners to settle into the aural universe of Zion.
As the middle section opened up, the music soared, searching for those times of sojourn, as the movement’s title suggests–those places of rest, as one searches for home. At times the band resembled arena rockers on an extended jam, bluesy and blustery and supremely confident. In these sections, the drumming and the guitars evoked the percussive jazz plains of Steve Tibbetts’ 1980s work, or a more democratic take on the guitar orchestras of Rhys Chatham. In between those searing, searching sections the dynamic shifted to hushed tones, leaving sometimes a single instrument moaning, or clicking along softly as the band reloaded for the next swell like a surfer coiling his muscles for the next wave.
It is in its final movement, however, that Zion finds, well, Zion. The Ascent is a lumbering leviathan of a groove, somewhere between Soundgarden-level grunge and the groaning Krautrock grooves of Can or Neu!, just a beast of a display anchored by Woodlief’s mammoth bass riffing. Again, however, there are interludes, lulls in the action. Life isn’t all one trajectory, after all, and neither is the ascent to Zion, musically speaking. The mountain does eventually get conquered, and in conclusion the music doesn’t so much fade away as plant itself on the peak and say “done.”
Visually, artist Virginia Russo’s live painting/art added a facet to the proceedings that didn’t have to be there, but the performance was richer and fuller for it. As the band’s musical arc proceeded to rise and fall, so did Russo at the front of the stage, clad in black with a rolled out white canvas in front of her. She proceeded to paint over the entire canvas with her hands, no brushes, and then pick up the fully paint-saturated canvas and cut it into long, increasingly narrow strips. Those, she then rolled up before pulling them back apart, one ripped square at a time. The squares were then arranged on a new, clean white canvas to make a totally different piece of art. It was a perfect visual analogy for the thematic elements of the musical composition and served to reinforce those themes as the audience both listened and watched the proceedings.
Other parts of her artwork for Zion were projected throughout as sometimes moving images on two large screens behind the musicians, lending a psychedelia gauziness to the already evocative visuals.
Overall, I’d call this a nearly unqualified success, to write and perform such a challenging piece of multimedia art here in Columbia. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything quite like it locally, and Seibert’s prior resume as a garage rock raconteur certainly wouldn’t have hinted at the possibility of something like this coming forth. Going in, Seibert told me himself that there would be very, very limited live performances of this project, and I understand why–the preparation and commitment of all the participants was fully on display for this one.
THE BEAT: 48 Fables - Here Ya' Go
This is the sound of a band so sure of themselves that they are comfortable trying on all kinds of different sounds and styles from country and blues to Celtic and rock ‘n’ roll.
48 Fables
Here Ya Go
Self-released
After a few years of trying out different configurations and lineups, Columbia’s 48 Fables have settled into a three-piece arrangement; ironically resulting in the fullest, most complete sound the band has produced to date.
The biggest change in the transition was adding lead vocals to drummer Kevin Brewer’s responsibilities, and he’s a natural–his slightly weathered, lived-in voice on songs such as the cautionary tale “Drink It Away,” is a raspier counterpart to bassist Kevin Pettit’s rousing shout on other tracks, such as the Cowboy Mouth-esque “The Fine Details.”
A trio can be a tough musical vehicle to create a diverse sound within (Think the singular, monolithic sound of ZZ Top), but with the variety of Chris Howard’s guitar tones and styles, there’s no danger of such sameness. There’s even an almost-Irish tune, sung by Kevin Pettit (whose tenure in the local Celtic rock act Loch Ness Johnny means he’s well suited for this assignment) and featuring some seriously frenetic drumming by Brewer. This is the sound of a band so sure of themselves that they are comfortable trying on all kinds of different sounds and styles from country and blues to Celtic and rock ‘n’ roll.
The other improvement may be the songwriting; there are plenty of bands that can produce a twangy hook, but to hang a decent lyric on it that tells a story is another thing entirely. “Girls Like Her,” lopes along like a lost John Prine tune with lines such as, “He met her on a Friday after the ball game, smoking a Spirit and laughing at hope / Found her a lighter, and sat down beside her, said I got something stronger if you’re not opposed.” By the end of the song, the titular girl is 80 years old, and the lyric, like her life, circles back around to the beginning lines.
If this had come out in 1997, 48 Fables would have been playing shows with Whiskeytown, The Bottle Rockets, and 6 String Drag. Rather than feeling dated or tied down to the late-90s “Great Alt-Country Scare” that made critical darlings out of those and myriad other twang-leaning acts of the day, the passage of 25 years means that the high-octane Americana of 48 Fables sounds fresh, fun, and meaningful again, and it stretches the definition of what’s possible within the genre.
by Kevin Oliver
Special Friends Free Concert Series Comes to Bourbon's Courtyard Saturday Night with Cap City Playboys
Free Concerts from the Chillest Place to Sip on Main Street?
Yes, Please
Capital City Playboys featuring l-r Kevin Brewer, Jay Matheson, Marty Fort
In keeping with his perpetual support of the city, restauranteur and hockey beauty Kristian Niemi is giving yet another gift to Columbia in the form of a free concert series in the swanky, yet comfy, courtyard of one of his prize restaurants and bar, Bourbon.
Located at 1214 Main Street, Bourbon is a whiskey bar with a menu that focuses on Cajun and Creole delights. Over the course of the pandemic, the intimate drinking restaurant expanded into its larger neighboring space, creating an adjacent bar and lounge with a partially covered multi-level courtyard, perfect for the city’s beloved shoulder seasons when breezes beckon us to sit outside and sip on something artisanal and, often, locally designed and created.
Last week, Brandy and the Butcher gathered a crowd and, this week, the Capital City Playboys will be performing one set only starting at 9 pm.
Kristian Niemi - photo by Richard Best
“I’ve always tried to support local arts, whether musical or in any of the other disciplines, so this was just a natural progression,” Niemi says. “We’ve been doing live music at Black Rooster all year; it was time to do it at Bourbon, also. This series should honestly be called ‘Kristian’s Friends’ Bands’ series since nearly every band has members that are close friends of mine, and I love to see them perform. I chose bands that are all very upbeat, rocking bands for this series. We’ll do more with other genres in the future, but this first series is definitely rocking.”
The series, sponsored by Jack Daniels distillery, runs through November 13th, and will include, among other Midlands-based groups, Glamcocks, Grand Republic, and will close out the series with Niemi’s self-claimed “best friend” and band, Tom Hall and the Plowboys. Niemi says that while he’ll start up a new concert series in the spring, he will continue to have live music on the patio, but it just won’t be concerts, per se.
“I want it to be a concert, not background music,” Niemi says. “I really want the crowd to get into it; to get in front of the stage and dance and sing along. I really want a concert vibe. These artists have spent a lot of time writing original material and I want it appreciated as a concert.”
Jay Matheson of the Capital City Playboys is excited about their show on Saturday night. “I know Kristian loves music and I’ll bet he would like to do more things like this just to be able to hang out himself and enjoy the show with friends,” Matheson says. “It’s a great space for a music show and the first one last week with Brandy and the Butcher was a really good time. Best fun I’ve had at a show in a while.”
“Jack Daniels distillery has signed on as our sponsor for this series, and as a part of that are giving away some cool stuff. In addition to us creating some special cocktails for the bands, Jack Daniels is giving away some swag and some bigger prizes that we’ll announce at the end of the series” Niemi says. “They’ll include bottles of their Single Barrel selections, some high-end swag, and even an exclusive VIP tour of the distillery followed by dinner.”
Columbia Representing at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame with Capital City Playboys, Hot Lava Monster & Students of the Columbia Arts Academy
When Marty Fort does something, he does it big and he does it right., as evidenced by the more than 1700 families who have enrolled their students in the Columbia Arts Academy, Fort’s multi-instrument arts education facility founded in 2003.
This weekend, Fort is doing what seems to come naturally to the artist/entrepreneur. He, his school, and a couple of his favorite SC bands are taking over the Foster Theatre at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. And while the most obvious audience of fans, friends, and family may not all be able to be there to cheer them on, (it should be noted that Jasper Project board president Wade Sellers will be on site, in a working capacity, of course), the rest of us can still watch the performance via a live stream either at home or a one of Fort’s three music schools in Columbia, Irmo, or Lexington where live stream parties will be held.
Shane Manning
Fort is super proud of his students, including one young man, 17-year-old guitarist Shane Manning, son of Shannon and Shawn Manning, who Fort identifies as “an amazing player” who is “on his way to great things if he keeps it up.” There are a total of eight kids taking this once-in-a-lifetime adventure with Fort and they will be performing with their instructors as well as each other.
Hot Lava Monster
In addition to the kids, Fort is taking along favorite local bands Hot Lava Monster—Patrick Baxley, Wes Pellerin, Jon Hawkins, Mike Schaming—and Capital City Playboys, with whom he plays himself, and they will also be performing
Capital City Playboys -
Capital City Playboys, whose membership also includes Kevin Brewer and Jay Matheson, recently opened for Cowboy Mouth at the Main Course on Main Street in Columbia and will be performing at the Art Bar on Saturday August 14th along with Greenville’s Silver Tongue Devils and Deaf Web’s Blues Intrusion.
Show Alert: Capital City Playboys CD Release This Saturday, September 26th at Art Bar
On Saturday, September 26, local lounge-rock trio the Capital City Playboys will release their first full-length LP, Bad Bad Man. The album’s lead single and title track is a kinetic burst of ominous, surf and blues-influenced rock and roll based around clean guitar lines and tight, unflashy rhythms. With guitarist Mary Fort’s deep-bellied croon leading the charge, one is almost reminded of Glenn Danzig and his early work with fuzzy doom-punkers the Misfits. The unrelenting gloom in his voice makes for an interesting contrast with the waves you can almost hear crashing somewhere in the background. This song belongs over the opening credits of a Tarantino flick. Don’t believe me? Just listen here. -Music Editor Michael Spawn
Garage/Rockabilly Band Capital City Playboys Are Throwing a Party This Saturday!
By: Casey White, Jasper Intern
The Capital City Playboys have been around since 2009, but its members have been playing in bands around Columbia for a number of years previously. Marty Fort (guitar and vocals), Jay Matheson (bass and vocals), and Kevin Brewer (drums and vocals) are veterans of the Columbia music scene, and with CCP they hope not only to bring new music to the capital city, but also some of that classic rockabilly vibe . The group will be bringing their classic rock and roll party energy to the Art Bar this Saturday night, along with Buck Stanley, Dixie Dynamite, and Beach Day.
Although the band formed in Columbia, Brewer has since moved to Georgia, due to his obligations to the U.S. Army. Brewer joined in 2004, becoming an official Army musician in 2006. Although serving has forced him to relocate, he says that being an Army musician is the greatest day job he’s ever had.
“Keeping CCP going does take a lot of work and, for me, a bunch of driving,” Brewer says. Although it takes a great deal of effort, and is a 308-mile trip each way, Brewer knows that playing shows with Fort and Matheson is the thing he loves to do most.
Although he doesn’t mind driving to play shows with his band mates, Brewer says that the distance does making writing new material more difficult. The group sends ideas for songs to each other when they get them, fleshing them out when the band can get together, i.e. when they all have the time. It is often difficult to find that time, because they all stay busy with their respective careers - Brewer in the military, Fort working for the Columbia Arts Academy, and Matheson working at the Jam Room.
Despite the distance, the Capital City Playboys plan to host a show that the people of Columbia will remember. Brewer also sees the performance as a reunion with the friends and family he had to leave when he moved to Georgia.
“I'm really excited about the show Saturday,” said Brewer. “Not only will it be an epic line-up, but for my wife Gina and I, it will be a bit of a family reunion. Many of our closest friends will be under the same roof for the night. You can expect a stellar performance from every band.”
Buck Stanley is a band fronted by another veteran of the Columbia music scene, Stan Gardner, and features CCP bassist Jay Matheson as well. The group plays what they describe as stripped down Americana, with pedal steel and fiddle players laying down healthy doses of twang-filled licks. Female-fronted Beach Day (hailing from Hollywood, Florida) will be performing their own compelling mixture of surf and garage rock, while Columbia’s Dixie Dynamite will be starting the night off with some old school country sounds.
The four acts make for a great bill, and promise a fabulous night of great music. Come on out to the Art Bar this Saturday, July 28th, and experience it!