Black AF - And Why Columbia Deserves More New Performance Art And Why That Art Must Come from Everyone

"Nothing is more empowering than being able to speak your truth."

Preach Jacobs - photo by Brodiemedia

One of the most telling signs of a healthy arts scene in a city is when performing artists and arts organizations no longer rely solely on art being fed to them from the outside or from a canon of tried and true productions, and instead look within themselves and to their own resources to create new art and make unique contributions to culture. While we rarely see performances of new works from our more heavily funded Columbia arts organizations who seem to be more incentivized to put butts in the seats of the expensive Koger Center than to challenge, stimulate, and yes, grow their audiences, it is the smaller venues and organizations – think Tapp’s Arts Center, Harbison Theatre’s Performance Incubator, and local bars – where we most often find new work being created and performed.

Thankfully, Trustus Theatre has a history of encouraging new performing arts via their Playwright’s Festival and sketch comedy programs and, this season, they brought it all home by presenting Constance, a new musical theatre production composed by Daniel Machado, Adam Corbett, and the Restoration and written by Chad Henderson, all Columbia-based artists. Interestingly enough, Constance sold out and came close to selling out on most nights, challenging the assumption that Columbia audiences are content with the same plays, compositions, and ballets their parents grew tired of decades ago.

Now, just one week later Trustus Theatre offers a brand new one-night-only original production written and performed by Preach Jacobs and directed by Kari Lebby – Black AF.

Black AF originated with Preach Jacobs who, at 34 is a well-known member of Columbia’s local music scene. “My grandmother passed away last year and it took a toll on me,” Jacobs says. “She came from a generation where black folks … didn’t talk about their lives. …But there would be moments where she would begin to talk and those were jewels for me. Her stories were fascinating and she gave me the understanding that everyone deserves to tell their story. Black AF is paying homage to my granny and ancestors because by telling my story I’m telling their story. Unapologetically black. Black as fuck.”

Jacobs enlisted the help of Columbia native actor/director/musician Bakari Lebby, 27, whose previous directing work has included Sunset Baby at Trustus and Some Girls at Workshop, who readily jumped on board. “We had talked about how we wanted to work together on something,” Lebby says, "and Preach said he had this theatre project that he wanted to do that was ‘part TED talk, part stand up, and part hip hop show.’ That sounded dope and innovative to me, and then he told me he wanted to call it Black as Fuck, which also appealed to my interests. Then we started really fleshing out the concept and content together.”

Both artists identify the importance of supporting black art and new art from traditionally marginalized voices as being integral to their decisions to go forward with this project. “Life is scary. Shit is cray. We need art to be able to confront, explore, and express our feelings as well as the feelings of others,” Lebby says. “Any art that is not ‘mainstream’ is critically important right now. Representation. Real representation.”

“It’s important as black people in America to not just have our stories told, but in fact we be in charge of telling our stories,” Jacobs adds. “It may seem like a simple idea but it’s something that we’ve been deprived of. In this current climate it trickles to other groups of people that haven’t had their voices heard. The Me Too movement is proof of generations of women that are finally being heard and able to tell their stories. Nothing is more empowering than being able to speak your truth.”

With any new performance art audiences may be uncertain of what to expect and whether to invest in the not-inexpensive ticket price of $25, but Lebby has faith in the format and the gifts Jacobs brings to the stage. “This show is not the average ‘one-man show.’ Yes, Preach will be occupying the stage the whole time, but there is a DJ. There will be some visual supplements. There will be musical performances and dialogues. The show is funny. The show is darkly funny. It’s also a bummer at times. It is also ceaselessly honest and in Preach Jacobs’s voice. He carries the show confidently.”

Jacobs emphasizes the role of “raw honesty” in the performance, adding that the show is “a love letter to my ancestors.”

With the title of the show being Black AF (Black as Fuck) it’s reasonable to question the audiences to whom the show might most appeal, so we asked both gentlemen why both black people and white people should show up, or even if both black people and white people should show up.

According to Lebby, black people should attend “because supporting black art is lit. It’ll be a good time. The more that we show up, the more opportunities that we can get and give to more artists of color. … These are conversations we need to be having with each other.”

Jacobs says, “Hopefully the black folks that show up can relate to what I’m saying. Having a shared experience is a type of emotional bonding that I look for with my art. Watching Black Panther resonated so much because of that fact. Black folks could relate.”

As for white folks, Jacobs hopes they will “come with an open mind and really hear what I believe are things that could help with dialogue about race relations. There’s not much in the show about black and whites dealing with each other per se, as much as it is embracing and loving myself. To learn that being black isn’t a curse is life changing but also a process. Some of these things might surprise them.”

Lebby adds, “I think checking out perspectives that you haven’t seen on stage before is cool. If you’re a white theatre person, yes, come see this show. It’s important. You don’t get to ‘support black art and then not actually support it.”

Black AF is a one-night-only event coming up Sunday, May 27th at 8 pm at Trustus Theatre and tickets are available at http://trustus.org/event/black-af/.

A free accompanying art show will also be held May 26th at Frame of Mind (142 State St., West Columbia, SC).

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- Cindi Boiter is the executive director of The Jasper Project and the founder and editor of Jasper Magazine

REVIEW: The Restoration's Constance - An Original Musical

by Jon Tuttle

Eight years and several iterations after its 2010 debut, the Restoration’s Constance is finally and fully on its feet at Trustus, and it is a monolith.  

A fictional musical saga set in Reconstruction-era Lexington, the play defies summation except to say they’re all there, all those primal southern tropes, like bigotry, miscegenation, old money, zealotry, revenge, hypocrisy, and violence.   It’s unwieldy and exhausting and overwhelming and an excellent example of what theatre is for. 

It’s elemental, is what it is.   It begins with fire—the actual fire set by Sherman’s troops in 1865 at St. Stephen’s Church—and ends in flood, the drowning of an entire town by an embittered native son.   It is earth, in its emphasis on home and land and the genius of place.    And it is air, or rather ayre, an aural palette of (how to describe it?) Americana/heartland/folk balladry. 

That Constance is a protracted labor of love between two old friends--Trustus Artistic Director Chad Henderson and The Restoration founder Daniel Machado--becomes obvious in its attention to detail and commitment of resources.   Henderson wrote the book, quilting together Machado’s songs with dialogue so assured you can’t hear the writing.  In directing it, he deployed many of the theatrical gadgets in his Swiss Army knife.  And he hired Tom Beard, always a pro, as musical director, and Jessica Bornick, whose costumes are terrific.  The result is a multi-media, multi-modal theatrical tsunami, more akin to Bernstein’s Mass than to the last musical you saw.

The flood scene, for instance, is magnificently effectuated by the “floating” of church pews by members of the ensemble.   The fire is a combination of lighting mayhem, percussive stomping, urgent strings and

choreography.   Virtually every scene introduces a fresh visual element--Brechtian projections, newsreel footage, scrim silhouettes, a cascade of flying paper, and (this was brilliant) an unruly mob armed with creepy flashlights marauding the auditorium.  Meanwhile, hanging ominously on the back wall: heavy ropes, impossible to ignore in a play about race.

And there are unmistakable references to Our Town, appropriate in such a panoramic homage to our town, such as the adult Constance’s observation of herself at different ages, or the funeral scene, or in Paul Kaufman’s (riveting) Reverend Harper, at first a unifying and benevolent consciousness presiding over these affairs like Wilder’s Stage Manager,  later reduced by time and tribulation to a ragged, wild-haired, raging alcoholic howling about the “Werewolf of Ballentine” and looking as horrifically grizzled as Steve Bannon on a good day.   

The cast itself is colossal, consisting of twenty-five actors led by Trustus veterans Kaufman and, in the role of the adult Constance Owen, Vicky Saye Henderson, whom I cannot review fairly because her singing beguiles me.   I think, however, she might be magnificent because what I wanted most was more of her.  

And here begin my apprehensions.  

The play is actually two, each its own act.  In the first, we meet teenage Constance (played by Brittany Hammock) and her love interest, the mixed-race Aaron Vale (Mario McClean).  So convincing is their chemistry, so harmonious their voices, so solid their performances, that the play is never better than when they are on stage.  Indeed, their scenes together provide the evening’s best moments and melodies (like “I Can’t Stop Wanting You”).  If such actors are the inheritors of Trustus’ reputation, then the theatre is in excellent hands. 

But the first act is so long as to test the limits of the even the most heroic middle-aged prostate.   This being a work-still-in-progress, further pruning is likely to be done.  A good place to start, so say I, would be the subplot involving a local troupe’s production of Othello, which seems to ape Waiting for Guffman and features the embarrassing caricature of a flaming primo uomo.  Or perhaps the glimpses we are given into the troubled marriage of Col. and Mrs. Palmer, he a pompous developer with an eye for the colored help, she a pious shrew competing for his attention.   To be fair, their story is actually quite compelling, particularly as it is embodied by Stan Gwynn and Len Marini, but it tries to compete with the real story here, that being Constance and Aaron’s, whose secret wedding in a short, lovely benedictory would have made an excellent act-closer.  And should have.  

Better there, so say I, than much later, at Aaron’s death scene, and for two reasons.  One is that it’s odd.  No sooner has he suffered an infarction than he calls for his guitar, sits up, and begs Constance, through song, not to “let my music die with me.  Don’t let it go into the ground with me.  Write it down, write it down, write it down for me.”   It’s a fine piece of music, but it would have made more sense had it been sung a capella, since he’s, you know, dying.  And until that point he hadn’t really identified so strongly with his music.  He took more pride, or so I thought, in his skills as a builder.   

At any rate, I was sorry to see him go, partly because I really liked him, but mostly because I knew the play had just created for itself a considerable structural challenge.  Conventional Dramatic Wisdom dictates that a second act must trump the first; it must quicken the themes and conflicts already established and more deeply develop its characters.   But now a romantic lead was dead, so that story was over.  Where to now? 

Conventional Dramatic Wisdom can be wrong, of course. Witness Robert Schenkkan’s 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning The Kentucky Cycle, a play very similar in texture and scope.  It’s actually nine different, barely-connected plays spanning two-hundred years and running six hours.  It shouldn’t work, but it does, and Constance shares its DNA.   And it attempts the same sort of narrative teleportation:  in Act II we are introduced to Thomas Vale, Constance and Aaron’s quadroon son, who now becomes our protagonist because Constance is glimpsed only rarely.

In an opening duet, ten-year-old Thomas (Henry Melkomian) and his friend Henry (Christopher Hionis) sing (quite well) that “I don’t understand” why race would separate people, and that refrain interweaves gracefully through the rest of the play, which is essentially a catalogue of young Thomas’ frustrations. These are (a) the death, in war, of Henry; (b) unrequited affection for Willodean, on account of the one-drop rule; (c) the foreclosure on the family home, and (d) there’s this hooker.   And so the stage is set for the violent climax, and when it comes, it’s a cathartic sensory spectacle played out before Constance’s eyes so that the full measure of her loss can be realized.   The whole act has the shape of a perfectly plausible plotline, the closing of a long and vicious circle, really the story of the South itself.

And yet….

Perhaps there are again too many distractions.   At one point, for instance, two of Colonel Parker’s mill hands interrupt a New Year’s Eve party bearing a bag of bloody cotton testifying to the death of Flora, the object of his unreconstructed lust.   But because the contents of the bag better resemble the offal of a difficult liposuction, his grief seems comical.  And then, for instance, there’s a song about Little Round Shoes, which “I don’t understand.”    And the cast turns over almost completely, as generations do, and I get that, but I kept wondering where Constance went.   When in the coda she is discovered, years later, recounting her story to a stranger on a train, she feels like a stranger on a train. 

And yet, and yet.

“Constance” means fidelity, commitment, perseverance, which perhaps explains the sensation of comfort attendant to our last encounter with her.   It is comforting, at play’s end, to look back upon her life and see so many familiar stories there, and so much sorrow, and more than that, so much goodness. 

The theatre’s purpose is tell stories of other people so that we can find designs for living our own real stories—which are unwieldy and exhausting and overwhelming.  They are epic poems, is what they are, and one ought to appreciate a piece of art that sings one.   

Constance may become a permanent part of Trustus’ repertoire, a play it can return to in years to come, and it ought to, because it’s uniquely theirs, and it’s ours, and it’s really quite extraordinary. 

Jon Tuttle is Professor of English and Director of University Honors at Francis Marion University and former Literary Manager at Trustus Theatre, where his play BOY ABOUT TEN will premier in August.

Focus on Jay Finalists - Those Lavender Whales in Music

We're chatting with the 2017 JAY Awards Finalists as we enter the last few days of voting and preparing for the JAY Awards (& Retro Christmas party!) coming up on December 5th

Those Lavender Whales - photo by Forrest Clonts

Jasper: What made the past year so great for you as an artist?

TLW: We were really happy to release our album, “My Bones Are Singing” this past spring and get to travel to a lot of new places playing those songs with friends.

Jasper: How have you grown as an artist over the past year and to what do you attribute that growth?

TLW: We’ve felt more focused as a group. That could be just having an album coming out, but it feels like we’ve really made an effort to move closer musically when we perform making things tighter and playing more as a family (less as individuals).

Jasper: How have you seen your arts community grow over the past few years and to what do you attribute that growth?

TLW: My favorite thing is seeing more murals around town. I love seeing murals in other cities. Seeing public art seems to scream to the average passerby that there is a thriving and working arts community.

Jasper: Why is art so important right now?

TLW: With so much negativity and uncertainty floating around, creating is a good response to express and process your views and feelings.

Jasper: What role does art play in your life?

TLW: There’s art on the walls of my house, I make up songs about doing dishes and going to work, my daughter performs dances for my wife and me in our house. I can’t speak for everyone, but art seems to always surround me and be intertwined with every part of my life. I just recognize it more at random times.

Jasper: What role does community play in the execution of your art?

TLW: From our meager beginnings emailing dorm room recordings to friends, to having our wider web of friends and family produce, mix, and master our last album, community has always played a huge role in our music.

Jasper: Who are some of your favorite local artists from an arts discipline other than your own?

TLW: Trahern Cook is a live painter who is always around local events. The way he uses the energy of where he is and allows people passing by to influence his painting is really amazing.

Jasper: Is there anyone you’d like to thank for their support of your arts career?

TLW: We love Columbia, and don’t think we could make the sounds we make in any other city. There’s such a vast array of different sounds and art coming out of this place that it’s great to be a part of it and be supported by it.

Jasper: Why should folks come out to the 2017 JAY Awards and Retro Christmas Party?

TLW: You get to sing along to some fun Christmas songs (if you want), get to dress up in some silly Holiday wear (if you choose), and get silly with a bunch of fun and friendly Columbia folks!

VOTE at http://jasperproject.org/jays

BUY Tickets at https://2017jays.bpt.me/

GIVE as part of #GIVINGTUESDAY at https://www.facebook.com/JasperProjectColumbia/

THANKS!

Focus on JAY Finalists - Tyler Matthews in Music

Tyler Matthews - 2017 JAY Finalist in Music - photo by Forrest Clonts

We're chatting with the 2017 JAY Awards Finalists as we enter the last few days of voting and preparing for the JAY Awards (& Retro Christmas party!) coming up on December 5th.

Jasper: What made the past year so great for you as an artist?

Tyler: Just getting to go full artist mode across several different disciplines, collaborating with talented people and working on awesome projects.

Jasper: How have you grown as an artist over the past year and to what do you attribute that growth?

Tyler: I’ve grown across the board in the area of problem solving, writing, and producing fast. When you start out at anything there’s a large amount of activation energy required to get past being a novice producer. After a certain amount of hours you reach a tipping point where the technical things that used to be difficult to understand are second nature.

Jasper: How have you seen your arts community grow over the past few years and to what do you       attribute that growth?

Tyler: I’ve seen the music scene continue to thrive because the energy from artists in Scenario Collective, Moas Collective, and WUSC has been embraced in Columbia by Arts & Draughts, First Thursday, and various events/venues around town. The film scene is thriving because of the leadership from Wade Sellers. The work he’s done with 2nd Act Film Festival has bridged more connections and brought more people to the scene than anything else I can think of in Columbia. (editor’s note – yes, that’s Jasper Magazine film editor, Wade Sellers – nominated for a boatload of Emmy’s, always eager to help  his brother and sister artists, especially with a hand-up. We love our Wade and are proud to have him on our staff and Jasper Project board of directors. And yes, 2nd Act film Festival is one of the primary endeavors of the Jasper Project, so you know, yays all around!)

Jasper: Why is art so important right now?

Tyler: Art is so crucial right now. At a time when there seems to be so much division and confusion in the world, art enables people to express themselves in a healthy, productive way. For some it provides a much needed escape.

Jasper: Who have been your major influences?

Tyler: Locally: Mason Youngblood, Chaz Bundick, Tucker Prescott, Pedro Ldv, and Wade Sellers. Globally: Hans Zimmer, Led Zeppelin, Deadmau5, Wes Anderson, and Christopher Nolan,

Jasper: Who are some of your favorite local artists from an arts discipline other than your own?

Tyler: Ed Madden and Tucker Prescott (um, hello, it’s us again. We just wanted to point out that Ed Madden is our poetry editor and has been since we started Jasper Magazine – we don’t know what we’d do without our Ed. Oh, and did we mention that he’s the poet laureate for the city of Columbia? So, again, yay!)

Jasper: Is there anyone you’d like to thank for their support of your arts career?

Tyler: Mason Youngblood and Tucker Prescott for inspiring me with their talents and encouragement. Wade Sellers for being a great mentor. My family for putting music in my life at an early age and setting a high bar with their own talents. The Jasper Project for caring enough about the arts community to assemble a great team that takes interest in South Carolina’s creative talent. (Aww, thanks Tyler!)

Jasper: Why should folks come out to the 2017 JAY Awards and Retro Christmas Party?

Tyler: Everybody who’s anybody is going to be there!

~~~~

VOTE at http://jasperproject.org/jays

BUY Tickets at https://2017jays.bpt.me/

GIVE as part of #GIVINGTUESDAY at https://www.facebook.com/JasperProjectColumbia/

THANKS!

Song Premiere: The Witness Marks - "We're in This Together"

"We're in This Together," the first effort from singer/songwriter Ethan Fogus' new band The Witness Marks (featuring members of The Boomtown Waifs and The Restoration), is a sardonic protest song with a Dylan affectation that gets its thematic heft from the sweeping indie-folk arrangement that recalls Bright Eyes circa-I'm Wide Awake, Its Morning. Lyrically the song swings hard at the current President's privileged obliviousness, crass misogyny, bellicose rhetoric, and racial resentment politics with a droll eye, but it's tied to a stately melody and a funeral hymnal poignancy brought about from the tumbling blend of fiddle and piano that carry the tune along. And when the rhythm section drops out on the spare, lilting bridge, the electric energy running through the tune becomes unnervingly clear. -Kyle Petersen

Celebrating Jazz on Main Street - by Mike Miller

This First Thursday Jazz is the Main Event

     Thirty years ago, a Columbia restaurant owner named Veron Melonas and his trumpet-playing pal Johnny Helms decided that Columbia needed a cool jazz party right on Main Street. Melonas owned the Elite Epicurean, a top-notch eatery right across the street from City Hall, and he said, “Why don’t we put the stage right outside?” Helms knew a lot of jazz players in New York, so he got on the phone and invited several of them down to the South Carolina capital city. Just like that, a jazz festival was born.

     “Jazz on Main” as it was called was first staged in July of 1987, and it ran for 10 years. One of the festival’s first performers, pianist Marian McPartland, called it “a true happening,” and it was pretty special. Musicians who came to Columbia during those years included trumpeter Clark Terry, saxophonist Jimmy Heath, guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, and bassist Milt Hinton, just to name a few.

     To celebrate the 30th anniversary of that first “Jazz on Main” show, November’s First Thursday on Main will become a jazz festival of sorts. But this will not be a nostalgic event. It will showcase many of Columbia’s current crop of talented jazz musicians, players such as Mark Rapp, Tony Lee, Amos Hoffman, and Sam Edwards. Columbia jazz veterans such as Dick Goodwin, Danny Boozer, Robert Gardiner, and Jim Mings will also be performing.  

     Festivities begin at 6 p.m., and there will be live music at several locations on Main Street. Trumpeter Mark Rapp is the prime mover on Columbia’s contemporary jazz scene, and his quartet will be performing in the Main Street Public House. The guitar duo of Mings and Monte Craig will be in front of Mast General Store, and a revolving array of local jazz stars, including guitarist Hoffman, bassist Edwards, trombonist Mitch Butler, and drummer Boozer, will play on a stage in Boyd Plaza outside the Columbia Museum of Art. Add trumpeter Goodwin and the Tony Lee Group to the mix on Boyd Plaza, and you’ve got one of the most impressive collection of jazz players to come together in Columbia in quite some time.

     Back in 1987, there was an impressive array of jazz artists playing around town as well. Goodwin’s big band played weekly shows in a club called Greenstreet’s. Guitarist Terry Rosen and bassist Frank Duvall could be heard often at happy hour in the Five Points restaurant Garibaldi’s. But the most adventurous jazz happening took place on Tuesday night in Pug’s, a Five Points bar named after owner Pug Wallace. Weekly jam sessions there featured players such as drummers Reggie Ritter and Ted Linder, guitarists Mings and Rosen, trumpeters Al McClain and Helms, keyboardists John Drake and John Emche, and saxophonists Hans Tueber, Roger Pemberton, and a teenager named Chris Potter. For Columbia jazz fans, those nights in Pug’s were not to be missed.

     Today’s Columbia jazz scene is just as vibrant, and truth be told, it’s more diverse and active than its counterpart from three decades ago. Jazz can still be heard in Five Points at Speakeasy’s on Saluda Street. But the epicenter for jazz has moved uptown to places such as Public House on Main, Gervais and Vine, and Pearlz in the Vista.

     Other Columbia nightspots are featuring jazz nights, and there are many other exceptional musicians playing around town than just the ones mentioned above. It’s a great time for jazz artists and fans in Columbia, and that’s why it seemed like a good idea to revive the spirit of “Jazz on Main” and celebrate this cool, complex, and free-flowing music in the capital city.     

REVIEW: Jellyroll & Delicious Dish - Secret World,

By: Michael Spawn

With the October 21st release of its latest studio venture, Secret World, Jellyroll & Delicious Dish have taken a swipe at the dubious notion that bar bands should stay in the bar.

A frequent presence on Columbia’s performance scene, the JR&DD business model is a humble but time-honored one: Get people in the door and keep them placated with songs they already like or love while generously peppering the setlist with original tunes that fit seamlessly in with the established favorites, unabashedly showcasing the influence of the artists who made the original songs possible in the first place. In short, it’s music for it’s own sake, playing for the love of the game--unpompous, void of ego or pretense.

So it is with Secret World. Produced by fellow Columbia music fixture Rev. Marv Ward, the eight original compositions (plus one reprise) that make up the record reveal a JR&DD firing on every cylinder. The songs of bandleader and primary writer Bentz Kirby, which tend toward the mellower side of country and folk-influenced rock, succeed because Kirby has the faith in them necessary to let them stand on their own merits, be they politically charged lyrics, singalong choruses, or stirring sentimentality. Due to a near-fatal cardiac episode five years ago, Kirby takes it easy on himself concerning his vocal work, which has replaced booming power with an easygoing sweetness that services the songs without trouble. The vocal thunder comes courtesy of vocalists May Evans Kirby and Jenn McCallister, who mostly do backup work but take the lead (and writing credit) on two of Secret World’s tracks,  the jazzy, sultry “Emotional Glasses,” and the blues ballad “Take Your Coat,” respectively. As with Bentz’s songs, these two highlight the talents of their creators and recreate the relaxed atmosphere of the best JR&DD shows.

In all, Secret World is refreshing release from a band whose simple love of their craft and disdain for gimmickry is evident on every track.

NUMBTONGUE at Jam Room Music Festival by Bria Barton

The Jam Room Music Festival is set to open Saturday, October 14, and one act in particular, NUMBTONGUE, is preparing to perform independently for the first time at the event.

Inspired by the likes of Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Emily Dickinson, and David Bowie—to name only a few of the countless creative minds that influence him—Bobby of NUMBTONGUE is an entity whose music and talents stretch beyond experimental. They’re bordering on the side of transcendental.

A self-described sugar addict with a tendency for sleepless days and nights, Bobby infuses and binds his music with pieces of deeply personal, historical, and natural.

He sat down with Jasper to discuss his recent album as well as his much-anticipated performance for The Jam Room Music Festival.

Q: A lot of your music on Exhumation had to do with your son and your feelings upon becoming a father for the first time. How has that dynamic been maintained (or not) now that he is a little older? How has that affected your writing process?

NUMBTONGUE: Becoming a father is certainly a sliver of what light Exhumation casts about me, but a sliver in a prism.  The theme thus far in the song that is NUMBTONGUE is largely one of self-fragmentation.  These songs are less an attempt to gather those fragments in a manageable whole as they are a building frustration at being unable to do so, mostly especially in a vacuum, alone. 

“The blind man blindfolded shuts his eyes, in the deepest cave, and it gets him high…” I say at one point.

So I fear saying that being a new dad is a dominant theme, as it may confound and confuse someone unaware of my aims. A hovering reality to be sure, that may help some listeners to know about me, but not required to understand what’s going on. 

Strangely most, if not all, of these songs began before I became a father. Records are about folding oneself inside out for all to see, and inevitably that part of my identity spills over, but often only as metaphorically parallel to the larger themes present. 

 I’ve said before in relation to this record that I haven’t fully processed becoming a father yet (not that one ever does), but it’s largely my inability to process such a blinding weight of self-identity (among many) that grips the other threads of me, each of which begin their own unspooling in the process. 

Who am I as a child and son?  

Who am I as a husband?  

Who am I as a citizen? 

Who am I as a sentient creature?

Who am I when truly alone?  

“Who am I that you would consider me?”

There was also an unexpectedly prescient tone of cynicism (for my personal life that is) present on the record, from a time when I was seeking merely to be more honest with myself, as someone prone to hope to a fault. 

Yet now I feel more fragmented and disillusioned than ever.  I told my mom recently that, “It’s not that I’m hopeless, I’ve just never hoped less.”  Which is an odd thing to say now as a father of two. 

But the year 2016 was a bleeding year for me for a number of personal reasons I won’t go into, and the burden of completing the nearly conceptually finished ‘Exhumation’ at the time without it becoming tainted by that dark year nearly killed my desire to complete the project entirely. The album was delayed for over a year.

It’s almost as if I’m only just now consciously processing what I was saying on the record without knowing I was preparing myself for an unforeseen fallout.  I finished it because I needed to begin the next chapter before anyone had even heard the first. So I’m grateful to have made this record for my future self to perform as an unexpected solace. It’s become quite the table of contents of things to come.

Q: Describe the logistical and creative differences between the experimental music you’re doing now and the “artrock” music you wrote with The Sea Wolf Mutiny.

NUMBTONGUE: In many ways Numbtongue is a culmination and continuation of the ideas explored in The Sea Wolf Mutiny. That may manifest itself in some unsatisfying ways to fans of that former project, but they shouldn’t necessarily be surprised.

The name NUMBTONGUE in part suggests this, in that I feel like I am saying what I was always saying, and in some ways it feels I’ve said nothing at all. I’m numb to the truth of it all because it’s all too real and overwhelming. I can’t feel it but I know it’s there, at once an inability to speak both from atrophy & overuse.

The primal idea of NUMBTONGUE, oddly enough, is actually pulled from a quote the very first drummer of TSWM Joel Eaton told me once. He left early on to live in NH but it always stuck with me.  He mentioned it in relation to some lyrics we were writing at the time during a rehearsal. I messaged him about it when crafting Exhumation trying to hunt down this quote that eventually inspired Track 6 “Disjecta Membra” as I couldn’t locate it on my own and never asked about it further at the time.

That track eponymously refers to the archaeological term for pieces of pottery recovered from ancient civilizations at dig sites, and he told me that disjecta membra poetae (or “scattered truth” if you will) was a phrased once used by a theologian-philosopher J. G. Hamann from his essay Aesthetica in Nuce: “The fault may lie where it will (outside us or within us): all we have left in nature for our use is fragmentary verse and disjecta membra poetae. To collect these together is the scholar’s modest part; the philosopher’s to interpret them; to imitate them, or – bolder still – to adapt them, the poet’s."

I would say that passage has been one of the key motives behind the themes of self-fragmentation explored in The Sea Wolf Mutiny and NUMBTONGUE.  I actually almost called the record Self Storage in light of the location it was recorded in. 

But the word ‘exhumation’ implied a resurrection of sorts, and ‘exhaustion’ as well, and I liked that it almost sounds like the word “human exhaust” in a sense.  More importantly, it is a rarely used form of a word normally saved for the context of exhuming a body, usually when investigating a crime or an archeological dig.  

In many ways, TSWM were trending in these NUMBTONGUE directions even before its hiatus, so this project was and is more an attempt to grow and stretch that sound we had found.  One with any knowledge of previous TSWM work will hear it’s hallmarks in NUMBTONGUE both lyrically and melodically.  

The themes of alienation; the shattering of the myth of self; yearning for a home I’ve never been to before; “do I actually control what I believe?”; searching for what ultimate reality we can all grasp as true together; and decrying my utter failure to gather the shards of us all to do so; “if heaven is there what is it like and who walks there? These are just a few things wrestled with here.

There is a meditation on Exhumation where I wonder “sometimes I wish we really could be born again” in a song that wanders in the dark while blindfolded hoping to bump into some kind of quantum god (Constant), and my son coos and whines in the background of a song about the flaws in our definitions of intimacy (Mirabal) that is as much about being a husband as it is being a bad friend or lover. These are very The Sea Wolf Mutiny subjects.

From a logistical standpoint, I decided to seek stylistic choices that pulled from my roots as a drummer at heart, learning to craft a song towards its moments of silence more effectively than I had before, seeking to serve that silence and space between the notes.  So I let songs be born from the drums and bass guitar more often then the process allowed in the previous band. This was as much about being different for it’s own sake as it was to serve the theme of fragmentation by starting with grooves only and almost no tones.  

I would also ask myself: “What can I get from almost nothing? What does it sound like to have just excavated guitar distortion like an artifact?” Because tonally I wanted to explore the more primal languages of rock and roll even further than I had so far.  This meant recording no guitar amps and plugging directly into an audio interface preamp, not only to keep quiet around my family but to get in touch with the raw electricity before any pedal or amp could touch the signal. I learned later this is called ‘console distortion’. 

I used to devote myself to a single instrument (piano) and single role as wordsmith and lead singer, but I decided I wanted to wear all the hats this time. Sometimes it’s easier to color inside your own lines instead of outside someone else’s. I decided to flesh out and build upon each rough draft layer by layer until I liked what I heard and it felt complete. The whole record sounds as if it’s a Salvador Dali painting drawn on notebook paper. 

It was interesting living into such a disembodied recording process: a bedroom holding my one year-old son recording vocals, a climate control storage crafting one song for seven hours straight, tracking back up vocals into a Mac mic while parked in my minivan as a train drove by. The list goes on.

For many of the more abstract moments, I felt like a foley artist for a movie sometimes in my gathering of sounds via my smartphone, specifically sounds of a scattered metallophonic quality: clanging children’s toys or wind chimes while some kids played by the pool. 

Technology available now makes one feel limitless, and I was interested in limiting myself within those limitless possibilities.  One way was to use only instruments nearby that I already owned, not buy anything new.  There was one element that nearly scuttled the whole thing: I recorded all synthetic drums save one tambourine.  However, I felt compelled to use one drum kit in logic pro to aid in my ‘sophisticated rough draft’ approach by keeping it intentionally boxed in, almost like it was the only drum machine I owned, so that anything that bloomed from it had believable roots. Since I had no drum machine and loved this one kit so much, I leaned in. 

There are drumbeats and melodies on Exhumation that date back to middle school for me.

I always dreamed of making a record alone: writing, recording, mixing, producing, mastering. I tend to write songs in a manifold way in terms of instrumental composition, but rarely would I complete them to the degree. So this record sounds like all of my private demos always sounded in my last band, I just decided to release them. So in a way my process is no different and this just where I’ve evolved to at this point.  It just so happens I needed to stop tinkering with it and release it into the wild, so here we are. 

I think of TSWM as it’s own experiment in deconstructing rock and roll, working out whatever my worldview was back then in broad daylight, meditations and prayers outsourced to other ears. All of which are present in NUMBTONGUE.  Another contrast was I wrote nearly everything from guitars and drums and almost nothing on the piano except for two tracks for the better part of 2 years. There was a comfort zone I wanted to challenge there in order to expand how I thought about rhythm, timbre and tone, since I didn’t have to feel trapped on a piano. I have however found my way back to the ivories of late. 

Q: You’ve never played JRMF with one of your own projects. How are you preparing to showcase NUMBTONGUE?

NUMBTONGUE: Practice, practice, practice.  I am eternally grateful for Danny, Steve, Phil and Adam diving headfirst into this abstraction of my self with me, as this music is interminably difficult to evoke live, even for it’s author.  I’m beyond proud of our efforts over the past 7-8 months to reify three years of work.  

Why did you want to be a part of JRMF?

JRMF has consistently honored the local scene next to many an indie juggernaut, and it seemed as good a time as any to finally present one of my own projects on it’s stages.  It’s actually odd it hasn’t happened yet.

What aspect of JRMF are you most excited about?

Performing on the same stage as GBV and HGM is pretty amazing. And sharing a bill with so many talented friends and scene mates (Valley Maker, The Lovely Few, King Vulture, Barnwell, Fat Rat) and having a chance to hear us all in a bigger way than normal always excites me. There’s no place like home.

What I’m looking forward to the most though is finally playing almost every track off of Exhumation in a live setting. And also, debuting a brand new song no one’s heard yet, a song you know is great, is forever my happy place.

What can the audience expect from JRMF and your performance?

They can expect a robust and sophisticated oeuvre from almost every artist performing. I can’t wait. As far as NUMBTONGUE, for those that have seen us live so far, there will perhaps be more keys present than usual from yours truly.  I’ve found myself returning to that home of late.  And it feels good.

Happy Birthday to Arts & Draughts AND The Whig!

 

The Columbia Museum of Art hosts the 21st installment of its Arts & Draughts series onFriday, August 14, from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. The CMA's quarterly night of beer, music, and art activities is also celebrating The Whig's 10^th anniversary with tons of things to do. "Having a program still thriving and growing after five years says so much about how Columbia has responded to this idea, and we're excited to celebrate this milestone with the strongest installment to date," says Phil Blair, owner of The Whig. "We've got an incredible exhibit, paired with the most genuinely talented musicians and wonderful human beings we know in this all local lineup, and a beer we made ourselves with the first brewery to ever participate in Arts & Draughts. Without a doubt this is the way we want to recognize our long standing relationship with the CMA and our 10 years of being in business on Main Street."

• Taste local food and drinks by The Wurst Wagen, Bone-In Artisan Barbecue on Wheels, Island Noodles, and Sweet Cream Co. The Whig's 10th Anniversary Ale brewed by Redhook debuts and a beer tasting of Kona Brewing Company's Big Wave Golden Ale is also featured.
• Live music is provided by Jade Janay Blocker, Bologna Eyes, Mustache Brothers, and Say Brother.

The CMA is also going all out with DIY and creative activities inspired by the exhibition From Marilyn to Mao: Andy Warhol's Famous Faces. "There's a lot of art in this Arts & Draughts. We really wanted to celebrate Warhol - both his ideas and his aesthetic," says Adult Programs Manager Glenna Barlow. "At our DIY station you'll be able to make your own Warhol-style piece with a simplified printing process and contemporary celebrity faces. We want to explore the question 'Who would Warhol be depicting if he were still around today?' Beyond that you can make your own digital selfie with a screen printing app and take a picture in our photo booth inspired by Warhol's famous factory." Guests can also get their own "15 minutes of fame" as Multimedia Production Coordinator Drew Baron records candid personal responses to the exhibition.

The night also marks the opening of Identity in the Community Gallery. Identity, featuring works by Michaela Pilar-Brown, Ed Madden, Betsy Newman, Alejandro Garcia-Lemos, and each artist's chosen protégé. Artist groups are:

Betsy Newman

Alice Wyrd

O.K. Keyes

Michaela Pilar Brown

Ariel Flowers

Roni Nicole Henderson

Ed Madden

Alexis Stratton

Alejandro García-Lemos

Mary Robinson

Anna Velicky

Kyle Alston

Kaitlyn Shealy

Identity is a collection of collaborative works or installations that seek to answer the enduring questions posed by Warhol's themes of fame, celebrity, and the public persona.

Admission is $9; $5 for CMA members, or become a member that night and get in for free!

For more information, visit columbiamuseum.org

Chris Compton & the Ruby Brunettes, Post-Timey String Band, Dr. Roundhouse, and Pharaohs in Space play at Conundrum for Food Not Bombs - a guest blog by Jeremy Joseph

My name is Jeremy Joseph. I am the organizer of a benefit concert series that brings together local musicians to help raise funds and spread awareness about the work of non-profits and charitable organizations in our city and statewide. I believe that musicians are in a unique position to help mobilize social and political action. We bring people together, we attract media attention, we have microphones thrust in front our faces, and we connect often disparate groups of people in one place and time through our music. That is a unique power that we are privileged to hold, and I believe we can use it for good.

I began this series over four and a half years ago in Washington, DC. Since moving to Columbia in 2011 to attend grad school for philosophy at USC, I have had the pleasure of so far organizing six concerts for great local non-profits including Transitions, Sexual Trauma Services of the Midlands, and the SC Progressive Network, in addition to working with many fantastic Columbia and SC bands including Can't Kids, Co., FatRat Da Czar, The Restoration, People Person, Release the Dog, and the Mobros. I have been truly impressed with the work of these organizations and delighted with the outpouring of support from local musicians and local media in helping to support their efforts. There is truly a caring community here in Columbia!

Friday, January 24th, I am very pleased to bring the seventh Columbia concert in this series in support of the local chapter of Food Not Bombs,who do remarkable work to feed people who are economically disadvantaged in our city, and spread a message of peace. The concert will feature performances by four excellent local groups: Chris Compton & the Ruby Brunettes, The Post-Timey String Band, Dr. Roundhouse, and Pharaohs in Space. It is not to be missed! Your entrance fee will go directly to help feed people in need in our city.

Lastly, I want to thank Tom Law for hosting each one of these concerts at Conundrum Music Hall. I cannot speak highly enough about this venue and its staff. It is unquestionably the best music club in the city and deserves your patronage.

Now, I want to turn this blog post over to Food Not Bombs for a few words from their representatives:

Columbia Food Not Bombs has helped feed people at Finlay Park since 2002. Started by USC students, Columbia FNB has evolved to sharing food with an average of 150 people every Sunday at 1 p.m. It's called a "sharing" because everyone involved helps. Some bring food, some serve food, some set up tables, and some clean up afterward.

Columbia FNB has also served the community in a variety of ways. In 2005, members helped feed Katrina survivors temporarily housed in South Carolina. Three years ago, FNB provided meals to the Occupiers at the SC State House. Columbia FNB members also feed people at the Winter Shelter and Transitions long-term shelter, both in downtown Columbia.

Columbia FNB is a community partner with Harvest Hope and receives donations from Food Lion, Rosewood Market, City Roots, and El Burrito. Approximately 35 volunteers prepare and share food each month. Excess food is shared with Hannah House, Sister Care, and the North Main Men's and Women's Shelters. Volunteers are always welcome, as are paper products, gas cards, and monetary donations. For more info call Maris at 803-331-6383.

"Planet Hopping" at the Harbison Theatre - a review by Melissa Swick Ellington

 

Planet Hopping Is Out of This World

The actor questions, “Is everybody ready to go back to earth?”

“No!” declares a young boy in the audience.

He was certainly not the only one who wanted to prolong tonight’s premiere performance of Planet Hopping: An Intergalactic Puppet Musical. This luminous collaboration between the puppet artists of Belle et Bête and popular “kindie” rock band Lunch Money reveals the theatrical magic possible when innovators imagine together. The performance quality easily rivals family-oriented productions I have attended at national theatre education conferences as well as various venues in New York City. Planet Hopping is a marvel that has been created right here in Columbia, and you don’t want to miss it.

Developed as part of the Harbison Theatre @ MTC Performance Incubator, Planet Hopping shares a voyage from earth to outer space with an emphasis on the power of friendship. Kimi Maeda brings engaging charisma to the play’s puppet hero (Stella Spark, “an astrophysicist when she was just a lass”), while Lyon Hill skillfully characterizes Stella’s sidekick marionette, the lovable and quirky robotic assistant Jack. Through Stella’s Planet Hopping technology, the audience accompanies the characters on a dramatic journey through the solar system, led by the appealing tour guide Mollinda (Molly Ledford). The incorporation of fantasy with scientific facts will delight both children and their adults.

The Lunch Money band members (Ledford, J.P. Stephens, and Jay Barry) are as captivating as ever, sharing clever lyrics and rocking tunes that resonate with music lovers of all ages. One of the production’s greatest strengths is the seamless inclusion of the multi-talented band members as purposeful characters in the story. The “Amazing on the Moon” musical number melds band, projection screen, puppeteer, and marionette in a charming sequence made extra special by a puppet moonwalking…on the moon. The crowd-pleasing “Big Ball of Gas” Jupiter rap performed by P.J. the “new guy” (Stephens) with beatboxing by Jack the robot (Hill) becomes a highlight of the show.

Planet Hopping benefits from an admirable unity of production design, with creative use of lighting effects, video projections, and shadow puppetry. Want to learn about zoetropes, moveable cutouts, marionettes, transparencies, scrims, and more? Check out a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the production here: http://www.harbisontheatre.org/behind-the-scenes-with-planet-hopping/. You can also read composer/lyricist Molly Ledford’s insights into the development of the show’s music, which includes “a bubblegum pop song about orbiting” and “a rockin’ number about enjoying 1/6 of our normal gravity on the moon.”

What a gift this collaboration is to our community. My six-year-old daughter spotted a promotional poster weeks ago and has been pleading to “go see the show Planet Hopping” ever since; I am grateful for her awareness and persistence, because this production is a one-of-a-kind experience. Upon receiving a sticker badge when exiting the theatre, my kid sighed happily, “It is amazing to be an official Planet Hopper.”

You can go hop planets with Captain Stella Spark and crew on Saturday, November 16 at 2 pm at the Harbison Theatre at Midlands Technical College (803-407-5011 or www.harbisontheatre.org).

Conductors Institute of SC offers behind-the-scenes look at the art of conducting

The Conductors Institute of SC is hosting conducting training sessions, free to observe by the public, June 3-15, offering the community a rare and insightful look at the art of conducting. The sessions available to the public include string ensembles, chamber groups, and a full orchestra, from 9 AM to noon and 1:30 to 4 PM, Monday through Saturday at the Koger Center for the Arts. More than 1,000 conductors have attended the sessions since its beginnings 30 years ago. Maestro Donald Portnoy, music director of the University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra, founded the Institute, which boasts a comprehensive workshop style structure offering students daily podium time and constructive feedback from veteran conductors. Portnoy is also the director of orchestral studies at the University, and has conducted orchestras all over the globe. These sessions are intended to provide aspiring conductors with first hand experience and feedback from professionals with experience in the commercial and academic music industries.

The sessions available to the public allow those not so musically inclined to observe the training an aspiring conductor experiences. The Institute offers a 15-day program for intermediate to advanced level of experience, as well as a 10-day program for those with less experience. Each session is designed to enhance orchestral command skills through interaction and instruction from composers and conductors from all over the world.

From the outside, the sessions appear formal, yet relaxed. The orchestra eagerly sits at the edges of their seats, awaiting the flourish of the baton with equal respect to the rookie and master conductors alike. Before attending the session, I always assumed the conductors were more for show than utility; however with each arm movement and flourish, I noticed a symbiotic response from the musicians. The harmony between the conductor and the musicians is incredible to watch, and I’m sure hard to achieve. The experience gained through these sessions provides conductors not only with further practice, but connections and dialogue with maestros and composers with whom they may not have another chance to interact. Acting as a fly on the wall in these sessions is a rare and unbeatable glimpse into the music industry, not often found on a college campus. The observers were a mixed bunch of students and music enthusiasts, encouraged by this rare opportunity in Columbia.

The Southeastern Piano Festival has teamed with the Conductors Institute of SC to allow the public also to observe the Conductors Institute Apprenticeship Program, June 12-13 from 10 AM to noon and 1:30-4:30 PM. This program is a collaboration of conductors attending the festival in a rehearsal style setting, also held at the Koger Center for the Arts. The 2013 Southeastern Piano Festival is from June 9-15, and features a piano competition, concerts, and guest artists. The University of South Carolina School of Music sponsors the festival, a platform for aspiring pianists, master-teachers and world-renown musicians, held each summer.

For more information about the Conductors Institute of South Carolina, click here, or contact the Conductors Institute at 803-777-7500, or email Charlene Rackley.

~  Sarah McNab, Jasper Intern

Tish Lowe exhibition, Claire Bryant & Friends concert in Camden

Two of Jasper's favorite artists, painter Tish Lowe and cellist Claire Bryant, are featured tonight at the Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County, in downtown Camden.  Lowe, whose work was profiled in the Jasper 003 cover story, will be on hand for a reception from 5:30 to 7:00 PM to kick off her exhibition "Contemporary Classics" in the Bassett Gallery.   From press material:

Letitia "Tish" Lowe is an award-wining American artist whose work is represented in private collections in Europe, Canada and the United States.  Trained at the Angel Academy of Art in Florence, Italy, Lowe specializes in portrait, still life, and figurative oil paintings in classic realist style.

Lowe captured the Chairman's Choice Award for her still life, "The Pram," at the International 2007 ARC Salon, competing with over 1600 entries, and won Best of Show for her "Portrait of a Young Woman" in a citywide competition in Florence, Italy. She took an Award of Merit for her painting "Spanish Bowl" at the 2011 South Carolina State Fair and was recently invited to participate in an exhibition in Leipzig, Germany.

"A classic realist, I seek beauty in all things and paint to help people see and appreciate that beauty," says Tish. "The human  spirit and the natural world inspire my art. I view outward appearances as expressions of the spirit and strive in my paintings to reflect the essence of the subject that makes it unique."

The exhibition will be on display through November 30; details can be found at: http://www.fineartscenter.org/events/2012/10/19/tishlowe/

Then at 7 PM, Claire Bryant & Friends will perform with the Danish String Quartet.

In its fourth season, Claire Bryant and Friends is an exciting collaboration between communities, campuses, health care facilities, and arts organizations across the United States and some of New York City's most sought-after professional young artists.  South Carolina native and Artistic Director, Claire Bryant, and fellow alumni from The Academy—a program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute, offer innovative and collaborative community and campus residencies through Chamber Music with the intention of deepening societies' relationship with the arts and music education. These musicians are dedicated to the importance of community connection, through work in the public schools, retirement communities, health-care facilities, departments of disabilities, community centers and other venues that make up the core of our society.

Camden native and cellist Claire Bryant (featured in Jasper 004) is joined by violinist Owen Dalby, both from the newly minted and acclaimed NYC chamber music society, The Declassified.

Friday, October 19^th at 7:00 p.m. will be the main-stage event at the Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County. Claire and her friends from NYC and Denmark will culminate the week’s residency with a full-length chamber music performance, featuring an all-romantic program from Eastern Europe with works by Ernő Dohnányi, Leoš Janáček, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.  Audiences will be transported by the Hungarian folk-styles of Dohnányi’s "Serenade" for string trio, experience passion and pain during Janáček’s “Kreutzer Sonata” for string quartet, and finally, will be enveloped in the Italian sights and sounds of Russian composer Tchaikovsky’s blockbuster for string sextet, "Souvenir de Florence."  Details are at: http://www.fineartscenter.org/events/2012/10/19/claire2012/

Album Review: Can't Kids - Brushes Touches Tongues

Full disclosure: I’ve always sort of been a fan boy of Can’t Kids co-founder Adam Cullum. From his heart-on-sleeve solo recordings in Falling off a Building to his multi-instrumental prowess and role as the energetic center of the literary-folk/pop group Magnetic Flowers, I’ve always considered him one of the scene’s finest assets. Whether you love or hate what he is doing on stage, it’s hard to deny the passion and instrumental power of his performances. And now, we have Can’t Kids.

The band was born as a duo, with Cullum and Jessica Oliver bashing out poppy tunes at deafening levels in the house they shared. The two frequently shared vocals and seem to (at least initially) take turns playing drums or guitar. White Stripes comparisons quickly followed, which is something the two found puzzling when I talked to Cullum back in July. At first I shared their confusion, but the more I’ve listened to this debut, though, I think there might be some logic behind the linkage, and it gets to the heart of what makes both groups tick.

We tend to think of The White Stripes as this primal blues-based monster, with the high octane riffs of songs like “Seven Nation Army” or “Fell in Love with a Girl” being exemplars of their muscular ferociousness. But this is also a group who made the largely marimba-based Get Behind Me Satan and featured such twee pop ballads as “We’re Going to be Friends” and “I Want to be the Boy to Warm Your Mother’s Heart.” These odd contradictions—of Son House and Burt Bacharach, The Sex Pistols and Belle & Sebastian—are actually what seem to capture the group the best.

Similarly with Can’t Kids, the initial reaction always seems to come from their loudest, most heavy-edged moments. The group’s sound seems frequently inspired by the pounding and propulsive electric guitars of 90s indie rockers like Modest Mouse or Pavement, with pounding drums and meandering, electric guitar riffs that often seem nearly unhinged. Correspondingly, there are maniacal shouts and misanthropic observations that also mark the best of Modest Mouse: see Oliver’s inflamed howl of “I wanna see this city burn/I wanna be Sheeeer-man!” on “Stab/Grab”  or  Cullum’s snarling, irony-tinged pronouncement that “If I had a nickel for every person that I hate/I could buy a fancy rifle and blow us all away” on “Dimes,” a line that’s a pretty direct rip from MM’s “Cowboy Dan.” They also, albeit less frequently, employ the sardonic non-sequesters of Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus (“Stab/Grab” is probably the best example).

But the group is also pulling from another set of less fearsome indie rock traditions—the literary grandiose-ness of something like “Ghost Killah” seems more Neutral Milk Hotel or Decemberists than anything else, and the frequent borrowing of commercial hooks (“maybe it’s Maybelline,” “line in shambles?/Try Campbell’s!”) or pointedly high-octane pop song structures (“It’s Yrs” or “Happy Hippie Songs”) seem to create similar sorts of contradictions that allowed The White Stripes to thrive.

The two members that Oliver and Cullum chose to add to the group emphasizes this odd dichotomy. (Formerly?) hardcore bassist Henry Thomas was brought into the fold to add a pummeling low end which frequently adds to the menace and mania of the sound, while cellist Amy Cuthbertson brings an obvious beauty and chamber-pop vibe to the proceedings. Of course, in a fitting irony, often times Thomas’ bass line propels a poppy tune like “It’s Yrs” and Cuthbertson provides a strong sense of foreboding with her dark string parts. So, either way, a sense of difference and discontinuity seems to be emphasized.

Still, for all that comparison does in fleshing out the conceptual appeal of the band, what really sells it is the obvious chemistry between Oliver and Cullum. The sense of friendship and community apparent from much of the lyrics, from inside jokes and a shared past to a sense of honesty and love among true partners, is evident from even a cursory experience with these tunes. In addition, their shared vocals, equal parts hooky melodies and shouted glee, have an infectious power that is one of the best illustrations of a band enjoying making music so much that you have no choice but to like it too.

If you can’t tell, this record gets two pretty damn big thumbs up from Jasper!

Can't Kids - Brushes Touches Tongues is available at Fork & Spoon records, here.

The Columbi-Arts & Music Show launches on WUSC 90.5 FM!

Hello Jasper Fans,

I just wanted to let you know about a new weekly radio show I'm launching this fall on our town's wonderful college radio station, WUSC 90.5 FM. The show is called The Columbi-Arts & Music Show (check us out on Facebook here) and will be broadcasting on Thursdays from 2-4pm each week. Each week I plan to talk about (and play music from) upcoming music shows as well as promote upcoming art gallery happenings, film screenings, dance performances, theater productions, etc. We'll be having special guests and DJs, live (mostly acoustic) performances in the studio, and will do our best to show off all this city has to offer.

So, if you like, please tune in, contact me with any arts-related events you have coming up, and enjoy having an anything-goes college radio station that dedicates 2 hours each week to talking about what's going on in the arts community.

Tomorrow will be our first show--tune in at 2 if you can!

Thanks,

-K. Petersen kpetersen@jaspercolumbia.com

Arts & Draughts at Columbia Museum of Art, this Friday, August 3rd - Art, Drink, and Be Merry!

Art, drink, and be merry!  On August 3rd, the Columbia Museum of Art will host its seasonal Arts & Draughts night. The event, according to CMA Public Programs Coordinator Shannon Burke, "gives people the opportunity to experience the Columbia Museum of Art in an entirely new way." And what a new experience it will be!

On this night, attendees will get to experience an explosion of the senses as the event gears to "expand a visitor's way of thinking about what they can see, hear, and explore at the CMA," according to Burke.

The night is truly an event. Filled with live local music and tastings of a special beer - this time a naturally cloudy Hefeweizen from Widmer Brothers - the evening aims to  get people in the door, then entice them to stay through the exciting escapades that take place thereafter. "By combining great live music and beer tastings, the audience stays and experiences all the CMA has to offer," Burke says. Specifically, A&D night's activities include exclusive tours, performances, scavenger hunts, and art projects.

A&D's inception was in January 2011, where it was held the first Friday of the month. Then, the aim of the event was to "introduce the CMA to a young adult audience when we had extended hours," Burke says. Now, the A&D is a seasonal event, and while the target audience remains constant, the evening has evolved. "A&D is always changing, so in a way if you are planning on attending the event, you should expect surprises. Expect new music, new beers to try, new performances, and great new ways to explore and enjoy the Museum as you never had before!"

This August's A&D will include a collaborative drawing table and multimedia games among other exciting activities. Live musical acts include DJ Matt Porter, Elonzo, Brave Baby, and Whiskey Gentry. Tickets are $8 for non-members and $5 for members, but if you become a member that night you have free admission to the event. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the party ends at 11 p.m.

~ Christopher Rosa, Jasper Intern

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 28^th, and experience it!

Record Review: Rev. Marv Ward - I Should Know Better

While we here at Jasper have been doing (what we believe to be) a great job covering a wide variety of arts activities throughout our fair city, one thing that has been lacking has been more frequent updates on the amazing quality and variety of local music releases over the last 10 months or so we’ve been active, which is something we’d like to change, starting with a rather under-appreciated aspect of the Columbia’s music scene: the blues.

While not the most blues-associated city in the world, Columbia definitely has a few blues-related things to be proud of: Word of Mouth Production’s annual blues festival in MLK Park, weekly jam sessions at Mac on Main’s, and Clair de Lune’s Blues Moon radio show on WUSC, just to name a few. Another highlight of the scene is Rev. Marv Ward, a longtime blues guitarist and songwriter who plays continually around the city. Earlier this year he released I Should  Know Better, just his third solo album since he started out professionally as a songwriter in the 70s. Ward got his start early as a guitar player in a variety of blues and rock and roll bands, and over the years has shared stages with the likes of John Hammond, Dave Van Ronk, Big Bill Morganfield (son of the great Muddy Waters), and Aerosmith, and this collection actually includes unrecorded songs from throughout his long musical career.

Despite the star power of his past, these days Ward is more comfortable hanging with a talented group of local musicians. Recorded at the venerable Jam Room, Ward’s core backing band for the record included longtime scene members bassist Mike Mahoney and Vic Scaricamazza on the drums, along with frequent contributions from harmonica player Mike Fore, slide guitarist Rusty Davis, and mandolin from Steve Bennett. Ward also makes harmony singers Jenn McCallister and May Kirby central to the record’s sound, particularly on the girl group/beach music-heavy tune “Ridin’ on the Daydream.” Two other musical kindred spirits from the scene, Bentz Kirby (Alien Carnival) and David Hane (Devils in Disguise), trade verses on the final cut, the classic country-inspired “Tennessee Whiskey.”

The record opens with four tunes that are in the center of Ward’s wheelhouse, all of which make use of classic blues structures and the veteran guitarist’s effortless lead work. Ward’s approach has always been a laid-back mish-mash of styles, but here he seems to square in on a John Hiatt-meets-Muddy Waters vibe that fits perfectly with his more conservative blues tunes. The second half of the record, as if to apologize for the more straightforward (although uniformly strong)   opening, sees Ward stretching his legs quite a bit. The title cut takes a Buddy Holly rhythm and far more overt R&B vibe than anything that came before it, and from there Ward includes a trio of English folk and Celtic-influenced tunes (“Wallflower,” “Dance of Kindred Spirits,” and “Come Down to the River”), the California country-rock of “Virginia,” and the aforementioned “Ridin’ on the Daydream” and “Tennessee Whiskey.” Ward even throws in a twist on a classic blues conceit with his boomer-come-hither tune “Come Over,” which takes the genre’s love of ridiculous metaphors (“if you got the cheese, baby, I got the wine”) into near-Spinal Tap territory.  Even if you are tempted to laugh, though, the song is saved by a ridiculously good hard rock riff and the fact that Ward can, well, play.

In fact, throughout the record (and despite the numerous guest instrumentalists and vocalists), Ward’s consistency as a vocalist, guitar player, and songwriter never falters. His playing rarely lets you forget he is a blues player at heart, but traces of such unlikely influences as Jerry Garcia and Neil Young seem to pop up, even though he tends to more concise and structured solos than either. As a songwriter, his rather humble approach to the long legacy of the styles he works with balances originality and homage in a way that many contemporary blues musicians often find difficult.

Having said all that, the most important thing to remember about Ward’s record is that it’s been made largely a document of the songs he likes to write and perform, and for the relatively small audience of South Carolinians who either already know his music well or who tend to gravitate to more laid-back roots music styles anyway. That it is so often remarkable is almost beside the point—which really makes it all the more remarkable.

- Kyle Petersen

Contact Kyle at KPetersen@JasperColumbia.com

Unique Perspective Tour at CMA Arts & Draughts tonight

A note from cindi --

Tonight, I have the honor of combining two of my favorite topics of conversation -- gender studies and art --  into a singular discussion when I host a Unique Perspective Tour as part of the Columbia Museum of Art's Arts and Draughts event.

I'll be talking about the duality of representations of women in the visual arts from pre-Renaissance through the 20th century, and how feminist theory informs this reality.

Essentially, we'll be looking at the social construction of women as either good girls (think Doris Day or the Virgin Mother) or bad girls (think Marilyn Monroe and Mary Magdalene) with little in between. Our permanent collection at the CMA is replete with images that reinforce this dichotmization of women into one of two categories. We'll take a look at some of these images and, at the same time, examine the icons and attributes in the paintings and draw some conclusions from these, too.

I recognize how hard it will be to tear yourself away from the outstanding bands the CMA has performing tonight -- Say Brother, Shovels and Rope, and the like. Not to mention some of the other cool activities those wild women and men at the museum have planned. But if you take a notion, join me upstairs at 8 and again at 9 as we talk serious stuff about an aspect of the role of women in the world of art.

And by the way, does our local art museum seriously rock or what?

See you tonight!

Tom Law Celebrates 4 Months at Conundrum with a Free Concert Featuring David Greenberger & The Shaking Ray Levis

Spoken word performer David Greenberger can claim the title artist in a number of ways.

As a young painter, Greenberger took a day job working at a nursing home to help pay the bills. But what he soon found was that, visual arts aside, the young man had struck gold in the form of the conversations he enjoyed with residents of the home. While most people who capitalize on conversations with the elderly focus on mining their memories, Greenberger is more interested in his subjects as individuals – normal and not-so-normal human beings with an agency and capacity to impact the world as much in their elder years as in their youth.

Greenberger began publishing a zine, The Duplex Planet, in 1979 in which he recorded his interviews with the residents of a Boston nursing home. He has since become a somewhat regular contributor to NPR’s All things Considered, developed Duplex Planet comics and CDs, and overseen spoken word performances of his collections – and he still publishes his zine.

But more importantly, Greenberger is coming to Columbia for a free performance, along with the Shaking Ray Levis, this Thursday night at Conundrum Music Hall. If you haven’t made it out to the coolest new music venue in the state yet, Thursday night’s concert and performance is the perfect opportunity. Conundrum is located at 626 Meeting Street, West Columbia. The show starts at 8 pm and, once again, it’s a free show and proprietor Tom Law’s special gift to the community.

And while you’re there, give Tom a pat on the back and wish him Happy Anniversary – it’s the 4 month anniversary of the hall.