Ron House

Ron House was a local legend in Columbus, OH. You could always find him behind the counter at Used Kids. However, his connection the music scene went way further back than that.

He played for the 80's underground band The Great Plains.

At some point, he crossed paths with Bob Pollard. Pollard told the story at a show once that Ron House introduced him to bands like Wire while hanging out at Magnolia Thunderpussy, another seminal Columbus record shop.

Eventually, House formed Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments. They played a handful of shows and had a ton of buzz.

Thurston Moore hand-picked them to play the second stage at Lollapalooza. I missed it because I chose to eat. My siblings saw the set, along with members of Brainiac, Pavement, and Sonic Youth. I ate something fried while Cypress Hill took the main stage.

I did see TJSA a few times around town, including once opening for Guided By Voices and New Bomb Turks.

Ron House once came to my college for a CD swap night. He liked all the pretty girls.

I'd see House for years after that in Used Kids. He always was pleasant. There were even a few times he rounded up a used version of something new I was about to buy, saving me a few bucks. I once saw him come in on a Saturday morning with his baby. That's sort of where the Ron House mystique ended for me.

Either way, Ron House is the Columbus music scene.

The Coctails

Not many people remember the Coctails. They were a band from Chicago who recorded on Carrot Top Records. They largely self-taught musicians who played a ridiculous number of instruments. The songs ranged from typical early-nineties indie rock to a sort of jazzy lounge-type of music.

I saw them on the second stage at Lollapalooza in 1993 and again in 1995. Then I saw them on their farewell tour later in 1995. They sold dolls of the band members along with their Cd's and t-shirts.

Members later went on to form several other bands, including Sea and Cake.

Sonic Youth Opens

I saw Sonic Youth open for another band.

Of course, it was long after they had established themselves as a top, mid-range draw. They had already headlined Lollapalooza. And they opened for Wilco who shared Jim O'Rourke.

Sonic Youth blew Wilco off the stage that summer night in Cleveland.

The Best Wilco Show I Saw

Wilco has generally disappointed me with their live show. They're a much better album band for me. They always seemed sort of stiff and unnatural.

However, they were great one night. I saw them play an outdoor show in Columbia, MO during my first fall in town. It was a place some of the band members used to come in their youth to see shows.

Actually, Uncle Tupelo used to play the Blue Note a lot.

Speaking of Uncle Tupelo, I saw Son Volt reunite at the Blue Note later that same fall.

Back to Wilco...Many family members were there for the show. Either the familiarity with the town or the fact so much family was there allowed the band to be at ease and loose. It was a great show.

Nels Cline

I am not a gigantic Nels Cline fan, but he has always impressed me when I've seen him live.

I first saw him play with Mike Watt at Stache's. That was a pretty awesome set. I was maybe three feet away from Cline's incredible performance.

I also saw him play with the Geraldine Fibbers and Porno for Pyros (with Mike Watt on bass).

The last couple of times I've seen him were with Wilco, a pairing which never made sense to me, but it worked.

I Saw Brainiac a Few Times

I saw Brainiac a few times. There was the time at Lollapalooza on the second stage in 1995. Then I saw them at Stache's maybe a couple of times.

I once took my sister who was in high school to a club in Dayton a day or two after Christmas in 2006. It was maybe a few months after Tupac Shakur died, but that didn't stop Tim Taylor from dedicating a song or two to his memory.

The most memorable show for me was the last time they played Columbus. There was a lot of buzz about the band signing to Interscope. They played hard and completely demolished the place...which literally happened a few months later.

Sadly, Taylor died in a car accident in Dayton. It was before they could ever finish their record.

Dave Doughman Sets Me Straight

I feebly tried to tell a story about Dave Doughman of Swearing at Motorists. He found my post and set me straight. In case you missed the comments, this is what he said...
wow, i had almost forgotten about that story... except, sorry, but i have to set you straight on a few details... the club was a sold out Canal Street Tavern, it must have been 2001 or 2002, because we couldn't get more than 50 people in the room until after we signed to Secretly Canadian... i did not notice this guy walk through the door, nor did i know who he was. and in fact he was not dating an ex-girlfriend, but stalking her (which i was only later told). what happened is:

we had started a song, when a beer bottle came flying through the crowd, just missing my head, but hitting the headstock of my guitar and knocking it out of tune. i stopped playing and started yelling "Who threw the fucking bottle?"
"you got something to say, come say it to my face, don't throw things you fucking coward!"
"Who threw the fucking bottle?" "come up here right now!" so as i am yelling this, some friends and fans who saw this idiot throw the bottle start pushing him from behind, towards the stage. as he
"arrived" at the stage, i resisted the urge to punch him in the face, and instead bent down and calmly asked him why he threw the bottle.
his answer was something like " She loved you, why do you hurt her?" that's when i offered him his money back and asked him to leave. he would not take my money, but started towards the door, yelling threats and more nonsense about my ex-girlfriend. that is when i ran across the table tops after him, knocking over everyone's drinks...
my good friends Rod Boggs and Tom Byrne stopped me from following him out the front door, but once i had returned to the stage, they ran after him, chasing after his car on foot, until he stopped in the middle of 3rd Street, and pulled "something" out of the glove compartment. they then decided maybe it was best to go back inside before he could get out of his car. we later heard he was riding around town, saying he was going to shoot me, but obviously he didn't want to shoot me too badly, as he never came to the after show party...

My brother was one of the 50 or so people at Canal Street that night. It's actually his story and I butchered it. In the spirit of accuracy, I'll leave the original post and this Doughman's account.

Crooked Fingers at Little Brothers

I saw Crooked Fingers play Little Brothers twice.

The first time was forgettable.

Eric Bachman played alone, opening for Superchunk. His dirge of a voice was barely audible over the talkative crowd.

What made his set even more forgettable was the fact that an unknown ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead also played on the bill. It was Trail of Dead's first gig with Superchunk since joining Merge. The lead singer at some point leaped into the crowd and screamed into the face of the biggest guy in the crowd.

(That happened to me once at Stache's when the front man for Six Finger Satellite screamed into my face while opening for Brainiac. I was not the biggest guy in the venue. But I digress.)

Superchunk played well.

Then, I saw Crooked Fingers in a nearly-empty Little Brothers on a cold, winter evening.

Crooked Fingers, now a three-piece, played their first three songs on the floor with no amplification. The third song was announced as a Prince song. Someone gave a sarcastic cheer.

Bachman gruffly replied, "Seriously, it's a good song." Silence.

They played "When U Were Mine". It was maybe the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.

The rest of the set was fine. My friend Brad yelled for a few Archers of Loaf songs to no avail.

Ugly Casanova and Iron and Wine

We saw Ugly Casanova play the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland.

There was a band opening to whom we paid little to no attention. It turned out the hushed band was Iron and Wine.

Some of Iron and Wine played with Isaac Brock in Ugly Casanova as well as members of Holopaw and Fruit Bats.

Brock did a lot of barking through his mega phone and even played "Styrofoam Boats/It's All Nice on Ice, Alright".

Hanukkah with Yo La Tengo

Every Hanukkah, Yo La Tengo goes on an eight-night tour. I was lucky enough to catch one of these tours. The band stopped off at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, OH.

I don't remember who opened, but I know they closed with "Nuclear War" as they weaved through the audience with bongos in-hand. I left with a t-shirt featuring a menorah with the flames spelling out "Yo La Tengo".

We drove home in the snow that night.

Beck and His Backing Band: The Flaming Lips

I saw Beck play in Mershon Auditorium on the Ohio State campus. This was in support of Sea Change.

His backing band was the Flaming Lips. Not bad.

Wayne Coyne split his time on stage between playing guitar and encouraging the audience to cheer.

Beck mentioned that the last time he had played Columbus, it was at Bernie's. I remember that show. Bernie's could fit 100 people and there was a line around the block. I didn't go.

The other two times I saw Beck was at Lollapalooza '95 and on his Midnight Vultures tour several years later.

The Mershon show was the best of the three.

Swearing at Motorists, Swearing at Patrons

Swearing at Motorists played this club in Dayton. Near the beginning of their set, Dave Doughman noticed a guy walk through the door. He recognized the dude and stopped playing.

Doughman proclaimed that the guy had to leave or he wouldn't play. It turns out this guy was dating Doughman's ex-girlfriend.

Without warning, Doughman leaped off the stage and chased the guy out of the venue.

Eventually, Doughman returned to play his set.

The Flaming Lips at the Newport

The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin didn't make sense to me until I saw it performed live.

In a half-full Newport Music Hall, the Lips put on a show with Sebadoh and Robyn Hitchcock. You could also rent a set of FM headphones as part of an experiment along the lines of their Zaireeka project. I opted to listen the old-fashioned way.

For this tour, the band played without guitarist Ronald Jones as a three-piece. Steven Drozd jumped back and forth between drums, keyboards, guitars, and samplers. Wayne Coyne played way less guitar than other times I had seen him.

Also new was the projection screen behind the band. This is where the new album began to take shape and make sense to me. They projected scenes from cult classic films as well as their own warped home videos. The performance was really low tech and a precursor to the extravaganza yet to come.

The Flaming Lips and Xmas Lights

I once saw the Flaming Lips at Stache's. They played in front of what felt like forty billion white Christmas lights. I still have the t-shirt from that show. It featured an alien on the front and read "The Flaming Lips Believe" and on the back was a picture of Santa with the words "Okla City".

Sleater-Kinney in Amsterdam

In 2000, I went on a trip around Europe. On that trip, I listened to a tape of Sleater-Kinney's All Hands on the Bad One...until my Walkman was stolen in Italy.

Anyway, at some point, we ended up in Amsterdam. I had checked some bands tour schedules before leaving the States and knew that Sleater-Kinney was scheduled to play Amsterdam sometime during our stay. It turns out that the show was that night.

I walked up to a ticket counter at the visitor center just outside the main train station in Amsterdam. I asked if there were tickets for the Sleater-Kinney show. The woman behind the counter had no clue as to what I was talking about, but she looked on the computer anyway. I was able to get two tickets for that night's show, 3-4 blocks from out hostile.

The show was in this old performance hall. The main room was primarily used as a dance club. For rock shows, you climbed upstairs to a rather dingy room with no chairs and a tiny stage.

Mary Timony opened. She was good, good enough that I bought her debut solo album at the show.

Sleater-Kinney was incredible that night. I was surprised by all the Americans in the audience, but enjoyed the show despite them. This was the first time I ever saw Sleater-Kinney.

I went to Anne Frank's house the next day.

The Best Show I Ever Saw

I remember seeing Pavement at the Agora Theater in Cleveland with the Dirty Three and Come. While I was hanging out in the lobby before the show, some kid asked me about my t-shirt. I was wearing my blue Archers of Loaf shirt that featured the same picture of a hockey player as their Vs. the Greatest of All Time EP. The kid couldn't get into the show since he wasn't yet eighteen.

I saw Archers of Loaf show was in Columbus, OH at a venue called Stache's. Stache's is no longer in the same location. Within a couple of years, the dark, dingy rock dive would be torn down in favor of a shopping center that would feature a Gumby's Pizza, a tanning salon, and an H&R Block storefront. This was same venue that Sonic Youth played in for the first time with drummer Steve Shelley. The place was a historical landmark of college rock and the indie scene.

It was my sophomore year in college and I was still learning about indie rock. Despite living in Columbus for almost two years, I had yet to attend a show at Stache's. Of course, they were constantly going back and forth between allowing those under eighteen through their doors. In fact, my girlfriend at that time hadn't yet turned twenty. We weren't even sure she'd get in, but it was announced that those under eighteen would be allowed in for an additional surcharge. Nineteen was fine.

Archers of Loaf were unknown to me just a couple of months earlier. I had only learned of them through a random track on the My So-called Life soundtrack that my brother and sister gave me the year before as a joke for my birthday. The song "South Carolina" was constantly played in my dorm room. It wasn't until about a year later that I had heard anyone even mention the band Archers of Loaf. This guy Brad was letting me in on the latest in upcoming shows. I was intrigued as soon as he mentioned Loaf playing Stache's.

The local free paper, The Other Paper, was pushing the Loaf show in the week leading up to the gig. The first local band I followed was the band Earwig. They were opening along with this band called Helium. Helium was getting a lot of attention since signing to the indie-rock label du jour Matador and featuring a member of math rock auteurs Polvo. It was going to be the indie rock happening of the spring.

Being the uncool hipster wannabe that I was, I wore my bright orange Weezer t-shirt and high school ball cap. It was the spring of 1995. My indie rock obsession was about to begin.

Earwig put on one of their more memorable shows that night. It's as if they knew that this was the show that could propel them to greater things...it ultimately wouldn't, but it felt like it could. They rocked through their set and finished with their typical closer, "Wounded Knee". This was one of those three part songs that was made to be a finale. It opened with a sparse guitar riff with plenty of space before rocking with an urgency that riled the crowd into a frenzy. The song finished off in similar fashion to the opening chords before breaking down into a punk rock deconstruction. My heart was pumping. Those around me had these wide-eyed looks of amazement on their faces. This was only the first band.

Our friend (another guy named) Brad who now plays for The Sun was raving about the next band Helium. He was a Loaf fan but was really looking forward to Helium's set. The buzz in the club was definitely about Helium.

Helium was fronted by Mary Timony who has had a solid career of her own over the last decade. The band's video which showed Timony dragging a hoe through a field had been displayed on Beavis and Butthead. The "animated" adolescent twosome of course made some comment about a "ho" as the video played.

My girlfriend bumped into Timony in the restroom. She warned my girlfriend that the stalls were a little scary. Timony later autographed a Helium t-shirt for her while Archers of Loaf played their set.

Helium's set wasn't all that energetic, but it rocked anyway. I still remember the old toy keyboard that Timony duct-taped popsicle sticks to in order to hold a note through one of their songs. I could barely make out her voice, but the band played a loud, raucous art rock. The set was able to live up to the buzz.

Archers of Loaf was up next. I had been anticipating this show for the past month when (the first) Brad had first mentioned it. He had loaned me their two full-length discs which I promptly copied. Icky Mettle and Vee Vee are still two of my favorite records to this day.

I had a spot right in front of the stage, leaning on the monitors. I was so close that bassist Matt Gentling nearly hit me several times over the bridge of my nose with the end of his instrument when he wasn't yelling a drunken "thanks" into the mic after every song. Eric Bachman, an imposing presence with his 6'5"+ frame and throaty growl yelled into the mic 24 inches to my left. Dana Carvey look-alike Eric Johnson was maybe five feet away, shredding the hell out of his guitar and distortion pedals. Mark Price was the most ordinary-looking of a band of ordinary-looking guys, but he could beat the skins into oblivion.

Archers of Loaf played a set that included their hits "Web in Front", "Harnessed in Slums", and "Wrong". During the set, Loaf played "You and Me" which led right into "Might" with a bang of the drums exactly like they had on Icky Mettle. I could see at least two other guys in the audience mouth "just like on the record" as I was thinking the same thing. They played "Audio Whore" and shook the ground beneath my feet as everyone screamed along. The band virtually played every song from their young catalog sans "South Carolina".

I saw Archers of Loaf play three more times after that and have seen Eric Bachman several times as his next incarnation, Crooked Fingers. Never did the band sound as good or rock as hard as they did that night. That show changed the way I looked at live music. There was an entire community of people who lived passionately for these regular guys playing guitars in crap dive bars. I think that I have been searching for a show like that Archers of Loaf gig for the past thirteen years. I want that high again.

So, when the kid at the Pavement show asked what he missed, I didn't have the heart to tell him what that show meant to me. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it was the greatest, most human experience of my life. So, I said it was "alright."

The Afghan Whigs with Marcy Mays

I saw the Afghan Whigs a couple of times in Columbus. Once, at the Newport, they opened their tour in Columbus.

Local heroes and the latest Central Ohio band to sign to a major label only to flop, Howling Maggie started things off. They came out in rather dramatic fashion, wearing cloaks and overusing the smoke machine. It was OK.

The Whigs, on the other hand, were great. They ripped through a set of everything from their Sub Pop days to the current release at the time, Black Love. The highlight was when Marcy Mays of Scrawl fame joined the band for a gut-wrenching performance of "My Curse."

Tppecanoe and Bob Too

I once saw Tammy and the Amps (later shortened to the Amps) open for Guided By Voices at the Southgate House in Newport, KY.

The Amps played about 2/3 Breeders' songs. These guys from above the band yelled for "Tippecanoe" through the entire set until Kim Deal obliged and played "Tipp City."

The GBV set was glorious to say the least. Bob Pollard was in his typical drunken form. This was maybe the last time I can remember audience members finishing songs for Bob near the end of his set. They unveiled "The Official Ironmen Rally Song" which I promptly purchased along with my Alien Lanes t-shirt.

The Breeders Help with "Shocker in Gloomtown"

On the same day my brother received career counseling from Bob Pollard at Lollapalooza, we saw the Breeders play. Since Bob forgot how to sing "Shocker in Gloomtown" during his set, Kim Deal asked the fellow Daytonian to join her on stage to give it another try. It worked this time.