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.

Bored Out: Interview with Don Howland

In 2016, Ryan Leach at the Bored Out website conducted a lengthy and in-depth interview with Don Howland of Gibson Bros., Great Plains and Bassholes. Here is some of that:

Ryan: How did joining Great Plains come about? Did you learn bass to play in the band? 

Don: I did. I bought a bass from a kid in a trailer who needed money to buy a gun. Bass isn’t hard to learn. I was good enough to play pretty quick. There were only ten or fifteen people in the Columbus scene. Ron and I knew each other from the record store. Amrep (Michael Hummel) and Jim Shepard were around—all the Ego Summit guys. In a bigger city we would’ve likely been acquaintances, but in a city the size of Columbus we all became compadres I guess. I was the youngest in the group. I was an outsider, being from a white flight suburb, but it was no big deal.  Tim Anstaett of the Offense went to my high school, so when he moved back to Columbus from Florida there were two of us. 

Ryan: You wrote for the Offense and contributed to some of the last issues of New York Rocker. 

Don: That was thanks to Tim Anstaett from the Offense. He gave people free reign. Tim had an insane work ethic. Whatever his passions were at the time, he’d devote thirty-six hours a day to them. He wrote a telephone book-sized tome on bass fishing in Florida. Andy Schwartz and Ira Kaplan at the New York Rocker were very open to the fanzine vibe.  Through New York Rocker—I also sent some of my work with the Offense to him—I got to know Robert Christgau at the Village Voice. I started writing for the Voice. Christgau was a super nice guy. I probably learned more about writing and English from him than from anyone else, and I’ve taught English for twenty-one years. Christgau would spend two-and-a-half hours editing a two-hundred-fifty-word piece. That was a great experience. I started with the Voice in ’81 and wrote for them until the early ‘90s. There wasn’t a whole lot of great music going on then. The early ‘80s were rough. When punk died—and you could tell it died—hardcore came along and it’s like, “Shit. This is not the same. There are no girls here anymore. It’s just like a football game.” I wrote for Spin as well.

Video: Gibson Brothers Comfest 1987 whole show

Trouser Press on the Gibson Bros.

Trouser Press provides a nice overview of the Gibson Bros. and their related/connected bands in a 1990s write-up, here is some of that:

The Gibson Bros came howling out of Columbus, Ohio with a reckless, feckless brand of semi-competent minimalist American roots revisionism, twisting blues, hillbilly and gospel gems — as well as their own already bent tunes — dementedly passionate, loosely played music that never stooped to gimmicks or camp. The quartet, which included rock-critic-turned-drummer-turned-guitarist-and- singer Don Howland (ex-Great Plains), did their level best to put their town on the map. Although often compared to the Cramps (also from Ohio, as it happens), the Gibsons cast a wider musical net, digging their wildly reverbed guitars, super-simple drumming and Jeff Evans' frantic vocals into obscure blues and hillbilly tunes, gospel classics and derivative originals (where the lyrics can get pretty bizarre), all with equal fervor. Not always focused — or tuned up — enough to be enjoyable, the willfully hapless Gibson Bros were still capable of deep wit and high excitement. 

Big Pine Boogie boasts the hysterical mantra of "Bo Diddley Pulled a Boner," while Dedicated Fool (on which the group dispenses with bass and has a guest saxman on two songs) has clearer crappy production and reveals a taste for rock'n'roll ("Tight Capris," Elvis Presley's "Trying to Get to You," Alice Cooper's "Caught in a Dream") amid the blues ("No Way to Get Along"), gospel ("Lone Wild Bird") and junkabilly ("Poor White Trash"). 

After that, however, the quartet splintered, with guitarist (and OKra Records founder) Dan Dow and drummer Ellen Hoover leaving Evans and Howland to carry on the family name. On The Man Who Loved Couch Dancing, they explore unlikely new approaches while maintaining the Gibson Bros' tradition of good-natured obnoxiousness. The first half consists of home recordings made with Memphis guitarist Brent Stokesberry and drummer Ross Johnson, punctuated with a wacky assortment of samples and spoken- word tomfoolery; the music is even more casual than usual but has its moments. Side Two consists of sporadically absorbing live tracks recorded by a short-lived foursome with Pussy Galore/Boss Hog twins Jon Spencer (guitar) and Cristina Martinez (drums).

New Additions: Keepers seven inch single by Gibson Bros.

When I decided to dig into the Gibson Bros., I wanted to start at the beginning. That meant tracking down their first release, not only for the band, but for the Okra label as well - the 1986 seven inch Keepers. Appropriately, it sets up the sound of the band, that would stay consistent with the slightest augmentation in players and instrumentation - a lo-fi/garage interpretation of rockabilly and traditional country. This was, of course, wildly out place in the mid-80s alternative/indie rock world, which makes it all more the fascinating.

Know Yer Band: Gibson Bros

Band: Gibson Bros

Members
Vocal/Guitar/Banjo - Jeffrey Evans
Guitar/Vocals/Bass/Drums - Don "Chet" Howland
Guitar - Dan Dow
Drums - Ellen Hoover/Cristina Martinez/Rick Lilash
Guitar - Jon Spencer/Jack Taylor

Releases
1986 - Keepers 7" single (Okra Records)
1986 - Build A Raft album (Old Age)
1987 - Big Pine Boogie album (Okra Records)
1989 - Dedicated Fool album (Homestead Records)
1990 - Emulsified 7" single (Siltbreeze)
1990 - The Man Who Loved Couch Dancing album (Homestead Records)
1990 - Southbound 7" single (Glitterhouse Records)
1990 - Split album w/Workdogs, Punk Rock Truck Drivin' Son Of A Gun (Homestead Records)
1991 - Mean Mistreater 7" single (Homestead Records)
1991 - My Huckleberry Friend 7" single (Giant Claw)
1991 - White N*gger 7" single (Sympathy For The Record Industry)
1992 - Knock Down My Blues 7" single (In The Red Recordings)
1993 - Memphis Sol Today! album (Sympathy For The Record Industry)
1996 - Columbus Soul 85 album (In The Red Recordings)

Agit Reader: Ego Summit - Summit Talks

Veteran Columbus writer Stephen Slaybaugh wrote about Ego Summit for The Agit Reader back in 2008, here is some of that article:

When the annals for the rock scene of Agit hometown Columbus, Ohio are written, there are certain names that will stand out, their direct input and/or influence sewing a thread that cuts across decades and perhaps generations. Taking their cues from the “anyone can do it” ethos of punk, but losing some of the urbanity for distinctly Midwestern accents and skepticism, a close knit bunch of book-fed and alcohol-bred minds formed the nucleus of the indie-genous scene in the late ‘70s and throughout the ‘80s and into the ‘90s. Don Howland, Mike “Rep” Hummel, Jim Shepard, Tommy Jay, Ron House—among others, the contributions of these five to the Columbus pantheon (if there is one) can’t be overstated. Gibson Bros., Great Plains, V-3, Quotas, Bassholes, Slave Apartments—Columbus’ musical DNA can be traced directly to these bands. 

But despite crossed paths in various combinations, it wasn’t until a weekend in 1997 that those five all got together so that, as Hummel put it, “some documentation to that fellowship (would) be recorded on tape before the participants doddered off into old age.” With Jay, Hummel and friend Jerry Wick (of Gaunt) manning a four-track, the group convened at Jay’s studio barn in the rural suburb of Harrisburg and recorded over two days. The result was The Room Isn’t Big Enough, an album released on Hummel’s Old Age/No Age label under the fitting moniker of Ego Summit. While the contributors’ credentials spoke for themselves, the album received little attention when it was released.

Yet Another Fanzine: When Cows Ruled The Earth compilation

On occasion, in addition to the band releases, I'm going to post on rare/hard to track down compilations. Here is one such release: the cassette compilation When Cows Ruled The Earth from a 1985 edition of the Yet Another Fanzine zine.

Luckily, the Vinyl Mine blog posted extensively about the release, which includes tracks by Scrawl, Gibson Bros., Great Plains, RC Mob and more. Here's an excerpt:

Yet Another Fanzine were aptly titled since Columbus was a fountain of many, many zines including one of the grand-daddies - The Offense Newsletter. The music and scene echoed the proximity to Cleveland and the first punk wave (Peter Laughner and his gang of merry men) and later no-wave (Pere Ubu, etc.) as well as the Akron weirdness but with a friendly, bent elbows around the bar feel. One of those scenes where everyone knew everyone and pretty much liked each other. There's something about Ohio that drives a man person a bit crazy but in that nice mid-western way. Of course, having a huge University nearby also contributed to the pool of musicians,aspiring songwriters and most importantly bars and people with Daddy's cover charge money.  

I visited Columbus during this time, at the invitation of the great local college radio DJ (and psychologist), s. b. tobias who I met over the early Internet (the wild time between ARPA-net and Internet when several networks were duct-taped together). The weekend I visisted was also "Hands Across America" (no, we didn't participate) and we spent it drinking, hanging out with Ron House (then Great Plains now Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments), drinking, meeting Don Howland (then rock critic now 1/2 half of Gibson Bros.), listening to the Beastie Boys album, drinking and of course hanging with s. b.'s good friends Craig Koon and Keith Baker, who published Yet Another Fanzine and this tape. 

Wex Q&A - Matt Reber of New Bomb Turks interviews Amy Fusselman of The Bread Group

New Bomb Turks bassist and Wexner Center Store Manager Matt Reber interviewed writer/author/publisher Amy Fusselman last year for the Wex website, and dug deep into one of the lesser known Columbus bands of the 1980s, The Bread Group. Here is some of the interview:

Amy FusseIman was the guitarist in The Bread Group. I have been familiar with her writing since the Pharmacist’s Mate was published by McSweeney’s in 2001. Eventually, a thread on the Facebook page “Columbus Music Scene 1975-1985” led to our connecting, and to the reading and book signing coming up.  

What year did The Bread Group form and how long did you play together? 
I graduated from OSU in 1986 so it must have been a couple years before that. Our band was me, vocalist Frank Snider, lead guitarist Richie Athy, bassist Patrick Roetzel, and drummer Andy Izold. I played rhythm guitar. Patrick, Frank and I were all undergrads in the English department and the band stayed together until we graduated. We played mostly at a place called the IP Lounge, which was a bar on High Street run by a Greek gentleman named Louie. He also sold one-dollar gyro sandwiches which were the source of much morning remorse for me.  

What were your perceptions of the OSU/Columbus, Ohio scene at the time?
I was obsessed with music at OSU. That was my real focus of study. I was a DJ at the OSU radio station along with Frank, who was then my boyfriend and is now my husband. We saw bands constantly, mostly at Stache’s. Some of the most important audience-member experiences of my life were at Stache’s: The Butthole Surfers, Big Black, Pussy Galore, Agent Orange … I also vividly remember seeing The Cramps and X at The Newport and The Gun Club at a little bar called Crazy Mama’s. I was so lucky to see those shows!! 

I didn’t really appreciate how rich the scene was at the time. It was just people I knew doing interesting things. I saw Scrawl come into their power and that was really important for me to witness. I saw The Great Plains and The Gibson Brothers develop. Frank and I still quote Gibson Brothers lyrics: Big Pine Boogie!

Agit Reader: Feature - Bassholes Basement Tapes

For Agit Reader #77, Stephen Slaybaugh sat down with Don Howland of the Bassholes back in 2009 to discuss their latest release "...And Without A Name" released on Columbus Discount Records. Here's a snippet:

Do you think you’d have had the longevity that you’ve had if you were trying to do this full-time and were in a van together six months out of the year? 

DH: No, I went into the Bassholes hating touring, so that was never a consideration. Our one brush with fame, I suppose—on this level anyway—was when we had the Matador record. They wanted that over-produced double-album on In the Red (When My Blue Moon Turns Red Again), and instead I gave them Long Way Blues, which to me is by far the best record we ever did. It was just so freaking weird, they didn't promote us at all. We could have toured and played with Matador bands a lot, but we really didn’t do that. We opened a couple shows for Yo La Tengo. Man, talk about pain! Oh my god that was rough. I like people who have a particular sensibility to mine, and I don’t think there are that many.