Photos: Mr. Brown's Descent

Here is a collection of photos of Mr. Brown's Descent (later known just as Mr. Brown's) from across the web, a 70s/80s venue that hosted a variety of bands and artists:

https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p267401coll32/id/27272

https://ohiopix.org/record-display/p267401coll32/27312

Below is a collection of concert posters from the archives of Tim Anstaett (The Offense zine).

Crazy Mama's 40th Anniversary Show at Skully's on October 4th, 2019

Not too long ago, Bruce Nutt announced the 40th Anniversary show celebrating the legendary club Crazy Mama's with an all-star show. Nutt, who used to co-own the venue in the 1980s with his brother Charlie, provided the following update the Crazy Mama's Facebook page:

its' happening, crazy mamas 40th anniversary reunion show is now set for Friday October 4th at Skullys. What a night we are going to have. Live bands include the kings of Garage rock from new york The Fleshtones, The reunion of the hottest rockabilly band in the midwest The flyin' Saucers, Jack Neat will reunite with Nikki Wonder, Matt Newman and company, and central ohio music legend Willie Phoenix will tear it up with the soul underground. We have original mamas djs spinning throughout the night including Mary Margret, Darrell Sheehan, Tim Anstaett, Charley Wonder, and others. 

We will have vintage video and photos  and many surprises. The most important part of the evening will be seeing all of you come together one more time, cause we gonna ball till the walls fall. 

Looking at 7pm doors and 8pm showtime, will have more info as we get closer to the show.  Wanna see  all of the children of the night reunite.

Tickets are available via Ticketfly. Here's a vintage Crazy Mama's commercial for your enjoyment:

Donewaiting on Mark Eitzel (2012)

There aren't many write-ups specifically about the Naked Skinnies, probably due to the fact the band last just over a year and managed just one seven inch single, and Mark Eitzel (as mentioned in more than one article) isn't particularly interested in talking about it. Still, whenever he puts out new material, it occasionally gets mentioned, like this 2012 entry at Donewaiting.com:

Mark Eitzel and Columbus go way back. At one time Eitzel wrote for Tim Anstaett’s The Offence, and his early, Joy Division-esque band Naked Skinnies began here. They were the “hero band” of Ron House, who played lots of shows with Naked Skinnies and helped put out the band’s first 7-inch, “All My Life,” on “Naked House Records” in 1981. Eitzel formed the Skinnies, his precursor to American Music Club, with Greg Bonnell (AMC, Moviola), John Hricko and Nancy Kangas before heading out to San Francisco. Though Eitzel doesn’t recall the period with particular fondness and has yet to permit digital dissemination of the aforementioned 7-inch, it’s better than he remembers it to be and a fascinating look into how Eitzel started out.

YouTube: Cocteau Twins Fever on WBNS

If you're at all familiar with the history of Columbus music, this video should not come as a shock. In 1985, the Cocteau Twins came to Columbus on their first, short tour of the US thanks to the efforts of Tim Anstaett of The Offense Zine and Kurt Scheiber of No Other Records. You can read more about it here at this Dangerous Minds post.

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.