Columbus Alive (2013): Estee Louder

Columbus Alive Locals - Estee Louder

March 13th, 2013

Their chemistry may well have something to do with their longevity: The band’s been at it since 1999. That’s when Estee Louder cut their first, eponymously titled EP, and started opening for legendary Columbus acts like New Bomb Turks and Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments. For the next five years, the band gigged around Columbus, and generally just had a good time. 

“Fun’s important,” Ray Ray said. “I like having fun.” 

Important to the band, and to someone trying to describe their music: Louder plays exuberant, galloping rock ‘n’ roll. Their songs are propelled by bright, maddeningly catchy guitar riffs and Light-Brown Wolfe’s hyperkinetic drumming. Of their first and only LP, 2004′s Ohio’s Best, Allen said, “It’s a good road trip record.” She’s right. Tracks like “Bob City” and “I Was a Teenage Mullet” are sun-drenched songs, concise and hook-laden, evocative of the open road and the - yep - fun that’s to be had on it. 

It was at a release party for Ohio’s Best, back in 2005, that Estee Louder played its last show. In the years that followed, the band went on hiatus though; according to Ray Ray, “We always kind of wanted to get back together.” And, now, that’s just what they’re doing.

Columbus Alive: Barnes back at carving, music (2016)

Columbus Alive, September 28th, 2016:

While taking a break from carving out a niche for himself in the local music scene, Ricky Barnes started carving out a niche for himself in the art scene. By carving. 

“I was trying to get the music thing going,” said Barnes of his ’80s/’90s-era alt-country outfit High Sheriff Ricky Barnes & the Hoot Owls, which released a few albums on Columbus label OKra Records. But after a day spent on the water, a friend suggested another pursuit. 

“I was the worst, laziest fisherman,” Barnes said with a laugh. “I would always pick up a stick and just spend the whole time whittling.” 

Barnes’ earliest carving efforts were busts made from blocks of walnut or basswood. He had no tools, he said, and walnut is among the hardest of woods. 

“I just started doing it more and more and then sharing it with people. The rest is history,” he joked.

Columbus Alive: Local Music - Grafton (2011)

Columbus Alive, May 30th, 2011:

A decade ago, Grafton’s early career as barebones garage punk hellraisers culminated in the self-titled debut Lou Poster had always imagined. 

“This first record, that’s the one I started envisioning from the time I was 19,” said Poster, Grafton’s guitarist, singer and mastermind. 

Two lineup changes and three records later, Poster and drummer Jason McKiernan will reunite with original bassist Donovan Roth on Friday to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the debut, 15 years as a band and Poster’s 35th birthday. 

They’ll play the entire LP on Friday, hearkening to when they were young guns of Columbus rock. 

“It’s more a celebration that we’re still alive,” McKiernan said. 

Poster relocated to Columbus in 1995 and moved in with McKiernan the following year. Soon they were bashing out bluesy punk rock inspired by Columbus duo The Hairy Patt Band. Gaunt’s searing pop-punk, Gibson Bros.′ howlin’ stomp and Monster Truck Five’s churlish noise-mongering were in the mix too. 

“All those bands that we were into were the guys that we were afraid of at the bar,” Poster said.

Columbus Alive: Exploring potential Columbus band/brand pairings

With the recent news that Bone Thugs 'n Harmony were changing their name to Boneless Thugs 'n Harmony, the Columbus Alive had a little fun thinking up band/brand combo's for Columbus. Here are some samples:

Van Dale/Chevrolet
Rebranding the local crew as Chevy Astro Van Dale somehow feels very Dale in its own right. 

Counterfeit Madison/Travel Wisconsin
Why settle for a “Counterfeit” when you can visit the real deal? 

Brat Curse/Johnsonville Sausage
The scrappy pop-rock band doesn’t even have to change the spelling of its name with this partnership. It merely has to pronounce it with a slightly different inflection. SOMEONE’S COOKING UP JOHNSONVILLE BRA-AAATcurses!

Top 10 Columbus Albums of 2019 by Joel and Andy at the Columbus Alive

A little late, but better late than never. Joel Oliphant and Andy Downing of the Columbus Alive both put together top ten lists for their favorite Columbus albums released in 2019. There is not much crossover, and many of the albums are available to check out at places like Spotify and Bandcamp.

Columbus Alive: Fatherhood Inspires New Whiles Album ‘Mercury Ghost’

Lots of bands come together and burn out in short periods. Luckily The Whiles, while only four albums deep, have managed to stay loosely together and put out material every few years. Here is an article from the Columbus Alive regarding their 2013 album Mercury Ghost.

When Whiles singer Joe Peppercorn and his wife had their first child seven years ago, it changed the way he viewed his role in the universe. 

“I describe being a parent to people as that ‘Back to the Future’ photo, where Marty McFly sees himself start to disappear,” said Peppercorn, clad in a Brian Wilson T-shirt at a Downtown coffee shop. “I think that’s a good thing, realizing how small I am and how many billion people [there are]. I never understood that until I had children and realized how much bigger the world is than myself.” 

That change of perspective worked its way into the Whiles’ excellent new album, Mercury Ghost, which the band will celebrate with a release show at Ace of Cups on Friday, Nov. 4. The lush, melodic pop record is the band’s fourth release on Anyway Records in a nearly 20-year career that has seen the Whiles flirt with major-label success and play alongside many national acts, especially early in its career. 

2012′s Somber Honey ushered in the second phase of the Whiles, in which Peppercorn and his bandmates accepted that mainstream success may never come, and that live performances and releases may be few and far between. But the chemistry and friendship among the members - singer/guitarist/pianist Peppercorn and his brother, lead guitarist Matt Peppercorn, plus bassist Chris Bolognese, guitarist/engineer Jake Remley and Cleveland-based drummer Paul Headley - glue the Whiles together. 

“It’s a very intense connection,” Peppercorn said. “That’s the only reason we’re able to still be a band. We can get together and it clicks. I think there’s an implicit agreement that if we get together and it doesn’t work, that’s when we should probably stop.”

Columbus Alive: Locals Only - Bob City

Back in 2009, after years of inactivity aside from a one-off show, Bob City go together to play at Cafe Bourbon Street. The Columbus Alive dove into the history of the band, including the important aspect of the Athens and Columbus connection, which has a ties going back decades as far as being a musical pipeline between the two cities. Here's a bit of that:

Back in the mid-1990s, Route 33 got a lot of traction from hard-nosed, whiskey-swilling rock bands. Athens and Columbus bands have always mingled to a certain extent, but the set of roughshod rockers who fellowshipped in those days left a legacy that extends beyond the fuzzy memories of a close-knit clique. 

So there’s reason to anticipate the pair of reunion shows this weekend that bring together long-lost rockers Bob City, Geraldine and (at the Athens show only, unfortunately) the Spiveys. 

Each of those bands merits an article of its own, but because Bob City represents the Columbus contingent - and because Grafton, the other Columbus band on the bill, is still together - let’s focus on Bob City, starting with a warmly remembered era of undergrad excess. 

“It started out like any band, just like a fun art project,” drummer Brad Swiniarski said. “The longer we did it, the better we got, the more seriously some of us took it.”

Columbus Alive: Interview with Flogging Molly drummer George Schwindt

Finding info on Eurogression is damn near impossible, but I did manage to track down this interview with former drummer George Schwindt with the Columbus Alive back in 2012 when he was touring with Flogging Molly. Here's a the Eurogression bit:

Alive: Tell me about the band you were playing with when you first moved to L.A. That band was originally based in Columbus? 

Schwindt: The band was called Eurogression. Yeah, we were based in Columbus. We had played around a bit in Columbus, and we’d gone to New York and played CBGB’s when that was still there, and that was great. It was different then because in order to get to where people could help with your career, you had to go to one of the music markets. That was before Seattle. And then when all that stuff started happening in Seattle, I mean, you couldn’t be in Seattle and not run into a label guy from somewhere. Whether it was L.A. or New York or London - everybody. I mean, they were all there. It was just saturated. That kind of changed, along with technology, I think changed the way the labels look at the world and who’s doing what. But back then, you said, “OK, well, we’re going to have to go to New York or L.A.” And I voted for New York, and everybody else voted for L.A. (laughs) So in that band democracy, we got in the moving van and went west. We played in L.A. for about a year, and then the band broke up, and I stayed out. I kept working with people, auditioning for different things.

Alive (2009): Hardcore meets dance floor

A 2009 Alive article on Scotty Niemet, who was an important part of the hardcore music scene in Columbus in the 2000s:

Scotty Niemet sits in Short North coffee shop-slash-scooter dealership Kickstart, waiting patiently to be interviewed. 

The setting is fitting. Lattes and Lambrettas don’t seem to belong in the same space, but neither do Niemet’s two most beloved pastimes, hardcore shows and dance parties. That hasn’t stopped him from becoming a major player in both arenas and, in the process, facilitating a spillover between the denizens of the city’s dingiest basements and its most avid hip-swingers. 

Niemet, 35, has been putting on house shows for almost two decades. During that time he’s become a respected fixture of the Columbus hardcore scene, both as a promoter of events such as More Than Music Fest and as a member of bands like Inept and The Lack. 

He’s been dancing for just as long, but mostly just throwing down at parties, not throwing them. That’s changed in recent years as Niemet has become just as active in party promotion as he is in hosting hardcore events.

Alive: Creative minds - The Central City Recording Guys

Columbus has always been home to a number of recording studios, some lasting a few years, and a are few lasting decades. Central City Recording was more the former than the latter, but still has an impact, per this profile in the Alive circa 2009.

The people behind many a recording studio have envisioned their business as a hub and catalyst for the Columbus music scene. Few have been as successful at realizing that goal as the brain trust at Central City Recording. 

“Our overriding mission statement is to provide a resource for the music scene and for the musicians here in town and as far as we can reach,” explained studio president Andrew Dodson. “To that end, it has always been important to us to be as active in everything as possible. If we can help out, we’re going to help out.” 

And they have. Dodson, Max Lewis, Ben Miller and Erik Smith are constantly seeking new ways to support the sounds coming out of this town. 

They’ve had a hand in events including the Rock Potluck, ComFest, Agora, Independents Day and the Here Comes Your Weekend Parking Lot Blowout. They rent their studio, a state-of-the-art facility in a Clintonville storefront, to freelance engineers and offer it for free to charity projects like Blues for a Cure. Dodson, Lewis and Miller teach classes at Jazz Arts Group’s Jazz Academy.

Alive: Main Offender

Back in 2009 the Columbus Alive ran a two-part piece on Tim Anstaett, former concert promoter and publisher of fanzine The Offense. Here's a bit:

In 1980, Anstaett helped ignite the local punk and new wave scene by booking bands like The Cowboys at South Campus bar Mr. Brown’s. 

After a few months, he grew tired of concert promotion and started a fanzine instead. The first issue of TKA Offense debuted on April 11, 1980, fully handwritten and printed in the basement of the insurance office where Anstaett worked by day. 

“I just slapped one together,” he said. “And then I thought, well, let’s slap another one together.” 

Soon the zines - semi-regular collections of reviews, interviews, quizzes and local scene reports from around the Midwest - became a hit. Despite (or perhaps because of) their homemade look and feel, the books gained distribution of about 1,000 copies in record shops around the country and even spread to England.

Columbus Alive: Debauched rockers Barbed Wire Dolls reform for one night to pay tribute to fallen drummer

Back in 2012, the Barbed Wire Dolls got together for a rare reunion show, as previewed by the Columbus Alive:

“Coming into [the group] we were already steeped in trouble,” said singer Johnny Weills, who will join bandmates Joe Maple (bass) and Jeffery Alan Dutton (guitar), along with drummer Zach Shriner stepping in for the late Johnny Bernardo, for a one-off reunion show at Ace of Cups on Friday, Oct. 23. “All of us drank heavily and imbibed other substances heavily. And aside from the whole intoxication element of it, we were always the guys that would go out and start trouble. A lot of it was intended to be good-hearted mischief, but it didn’t always end up that way. There were a lot of people in town who were like, ‘Man those guys are fucking scary.’”

Alive 2012 Q&A: Artie DeLeon and JD Dallas

Unfortunately, not a whole lot of articles on Dogrocket to share this week, however there is a Columbus Alive interview with guitarist JD Dallas, along with Artie DeLeon of the Media Whores, Martyr Colony, etc., regarding the passing in 2012 of Mark Farmiloe of the Econothugs.

(Dallas) We’re a little bit more mature. We pay a little more taxes. We’re probably not in as many bar fights as we used to be. Not as many. The one thing I heard after that show, the next day there was this silence. Everybody was like, did that really happen? Yeah, it did. And we actually took pictures this time. Everybody was like, I’m so glad there’s more to come because how depressing would it be if that was it? 

(DeLeon) I’m sure there were people who thought this was going to be a traipsing through the past and they were going to go through the motions. But every band that went up there went for the throat. It was totally for the jugular. Every band that went up there just punched everybody in the teeth. And it was succulent and you were showered in it. It was really electric and everybody went bananas for it.

Columbus Alive 2016: Greenhorn revisits past in rare reunion show

Back in 2016, brothers McGann and Spurgeon kicked the tires on Greenhorn for a rare reunion show and spoke to the Columbus Alive regarding their show at Ace Of Cups:

More than two decades after Greenhorn’s initial break-up, the rare reunion show remains a cause for celebration - a trend the band members attribute, in part, to the youthful confidence with which they forged the music. 

“I remember the days when Greenhorn first started playing and we had this sort of us against the world mentality,” said guitarist Mark Spurgeon, who joined his brother, singer/guitarist Dan Spurgeon, for an early January interview at a Clintonville coffee shop. “We really believed in what we were doing ... and when I remember the young man in me, I’m not surprised when people say, ‘That song is so meaningful to me,’ or, ‘That song defines my experience at [now-defunct rock venue] Stache’s.’

2008: Columbus Alive's Top 100 Columbus Albums of the Past 30 Years

Back in 2008, Chris DeVille of the Columbus Alive had the (un)enviable task of compiling "The Top 100 Columbus Albums of the Past 30 Years," which is archived over at RateYourMusic.com. As one might expect, this evoked some strong emotions amongst the message board commenters at the time at Donewaiting.com, from "you picked the wrong Gaunt album" to "who the hell are the Silver Wings?"