LOU MUENZ

Amy’s opening occurred on June 7 2013 at Chicago’s ZG Gallery. Additional photos are here.

amycaseypainting.com // zggallery.com

Friends of Ken Janssen organized a show at the Beachland Ballroom, Saturday night to celebrate 40 years of Ken and to raise money for the huge medical bills that Ken has amassed while treating the ALS he has been fighting.

Performers this evening included The It*Men that featured several hand-picked vocalists that Ken chose to take turns singing lead on each song, Cobra Verde, The Hot Rails, The New Lou Reeds and Charles Hill Jr, were the other performers. TNLRs opened up the night but I arrived just as the were finishing their set.

If you would like to donate to the Ken Janssen fund, go here.

My photos of the evening are here.

John Delzoppo [drums] + Brian Sedlak [guitar] have performed 250  shows together as the COTCB. I’m not sure how many of those that I’ve been to but it’s probably a ridiculous amount.

John Benson interviewed John Delzoppo five years ago, back when every two-piece were getting compared to the White Stripes or the Black Keys. I’m not sure how accurate Johns answers are, or if the writer was joking when he suggested that the band were ‘indie snobs’ [furthest from the truth] but it gives the reader some insight where the band was in the spring of 2008 -, Thank you Mr Benson.

For prosperity sake, I set my video machine down for their set and allowed it to capture the half hour performance. A YouTube playlist is below with their entire performance, save one song, if you can guess which song you’ll receive free tickets to their 20th anniversary </grins>.

A Cinco de Mayo Sunday show at the Happy Dog, headlined by Black Pus, the side project of Brian Chippendale of Lightning Bolt and the latest Thrill Jockey signee. Also on the bill were Swindlella, a noise trio that features members of Emeralds + Cloud Nothings. The electronic/drum duo of Joseph and Molly performing as Cereal Banter, opened the show.

All three of the bands were fueled by enlivened drummers that were rooted in their groups structure, not only with their drumming but with the use of vocals and/or electronics/synth. 

Fortunately the Happy Dog crowd came to hear good music and were not in the Cinco de Mayo jello-shot mode — there was no straining to hear over meaningless conversations during the more subtle parts of the performances.

The video playlist below has tracks from each band, more of my photos are here.

http://blackpusone.blogspot.com // http://tolmieterrapinpress.bandcamp.com/album/swindlella // http://cerealbanter.com/

The Unknown have been performing their brand of “punky power-pop’ for nearly a quarter century, not only around Cleveland but with national tours as well as Europe.

This show was a reunion show for The Unknown and despite a last minute lineup change [drummer], they still sound crisp and hold on to their loyal following.

The Zapguns opened up the show and performed a rousing cover of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”.

The video playlist below has a handful of tracks from Saturday night, my still shots are here.

http://www.theunknown.us/unkwebsite/ // http://thezapguns.bandcamp.com/

I have just about uploaded everything I’ve gathered from the two month LL season.

The final set from the Big Show included Fancy Bastards / ..and you will gnome us by the trail of bread / E=MCfunk [memorial] / Jean-Claude GodDamn / Rustbelt Revival / The Van Man / Kill It With Fire / Douglas Adams Family // Photos / Slideshow

All 42 bands [photos] that performed at the Big Show can be found here. The band practice photos that I was able to capture, are here. All photos pertaining to the 2013 Lottery League are here. My loumuenz.com posts concerning [photos, video + commentary] the 2013 LL season are here. That last link will have any future posting of videos or whatever.

http://loumuenz.com/tagged/LotteryLeague // http://lotteryleague.org

I set down my camera off stage to produce this video of the Queen Of Hell set at the Cleveland Agora. I did not figure in the vibration around the stage area buut the audio didn’t turn out nearly as bad as the livestream considering its still behind the scope of the PA.

Set three from this evening included: Disaster Transport / Dinosaur Throat / Feed Me A Stray Cat / Canadian Pharmacy / Queen Of Hell /  Charlton Heston’s Cold Dead Hands / SCMODS / Wyld Bal5 / Louise + ECT 3

Set III: Photos / Slideshow

Set four includes: Psychic Thrills / Surface Of The Earth / The Dirty Connotations / BAANTUU / Evil Asteroid / Comet 77 

Set IV: Photos / Slideshow

Part two of the Big Show at the Cleveland Agora. Bands included in the second set [4:45-6:45] include: Dinosaur Coffin / Sex Cake / Robosexual / Dark Magic Ponyride / Favorite Russian Spectaculars / How To Stay Alive In The Woods / VALISystem A / Sudden Onset / Jagues Jamz

photos / slideshow

http://loumuenz.com/tagged/LotteryLeague // http://lotteryleague.org

I shot quite a few photos at the Cleveland Agora and was able to catch all 42 bands. It is going to take me a few days to go through all 14 gigabytes of raw files, so I’m posting each of the five sets separably and hope to have photos from each band up by the end of the week.

This set includes the following bands: 38% Special / La Rascasse / Payback From Wayback / Amplified Gentleman / Shark Martian / Midwestern Electric / The Predicament / The Egons / Soy La Barba / Hot Dignity

Photos / Slideshow

http://loumuenz.com/tagged/LotteryLeague // http://lotteryleague.org

Fancy Bastards FKA band 14 are Robert O’Lexa, Jeremy Cottrell, Jesse Alison + Sebastian Wagner. This would be the last practice for both the Fancy Bastards and I. The band was working on their ten minute set and I was familiarizing myself with a vid-cam that I picked up on ebay, the jury is still out on that camera.

Robert and Jeremy both take turns on drums and guitar, Seb is on bass and Jesse was also on guitar. The Fancy Bastards take the stage tomorrow at 11:30pm on the JakPrints Stage. My photos are here.

http://loumuenz.com/tagged/LotteryLeague // www.lotteryleague.org// facebook.com/TheFancyBastards

The Predicament [band 7] are Ryan Foltz, Maude Lague and Louis Burns. Due to a personal situation, The Predicament lost a band member halfway through their Lottery League process. The three remaining decided to scrap the noise set that they were practicing with Jason and go with a rock/punk set. The band was tightening up that set, this rehearsal by running through the songs a few times until they were satisfied. The practice was accomplished in under an hour, they plan to have one more before their 3:30 set at the Big Show on Saturday.

Louis is the lead vocalist + guitarist, Maude was playing a Fender bass and Ryan was on drums and will be loaning his sweet drum kit for the event, as well as working the ‘Melt Stage’ on Saturday.

The video below has five minutes of the practice, my photos are here.

http://loumuenz.com/tagged/LotteryLeague // www.lotteryleague.org // https://facebook.com/wereinthepredicament

Amplified Gentleman have been doing business as a three piece that includes; Richard Raponi, Brandon Abate and Casey Ruic. The AG drew the short straw at the Space Rock compound this night and got the room with the McDuff drum kit. Brandon made the best of the situation and stacked the drums in place of a stand and used a folding chair as his stool. Casey forgot a microphone over a misunderstanding but he made do by handling the vocals w/o a mic. Luckily, Rich brought his guitar and amp or the band would have to change their name.

With that said, none of those issues seemed to have affected the morale of this two hour practice. You may want to be prompt when arriving at Big Show, the Amplified Gentleman will be going on at 2:45 pm. The photos are here, a three minute video is below.

VALISystem A [band 18] consists of Elliott Hoffman, Eric Koltnow and John Pasternak. They named their band after a Philip Dick novel, I’m currently reading ‘The Man In The High Castle’ but have yet to read any of that trilogy, Your guess would be as good as mine, why the band chose one of the last books published by the author.

VSAs beginning came to an inauspicious start when they had their guitarist ghost on them, as the saying goes, you can chose your friends but you can’t chose your Lottery League band mates. 

Eric was playing a vibraphone, the instrument is similar to a xylophone but has pedals that the user can use to damper the tone. The vibraphone also has aluminum bars that gives the tone a mellower feel than the xylophone. JP is the bassist and I’m guessing that this is the first time he has had a vibraphone in his band, Elliot rounds out the troika as the drummer, tonight those three were working on their continuity and tempo.

VALISystem A, might be performing the only jazz set at the Big Show, they go on at dinner time [6:15] on the Jakprints stage and should provide a good contrast to the long day.

The video below has the band going through the progressions of piece they were trying to complete, my photos are here.

20 years ago I worked for the Cleveland Indians video department. The late, great photographer Ron Kuntz shot this at the old Municipal Stadium, the photo would end up on GameDay magazine. 

Ron passed away  earlier this month, here is an article from the NPPA

https://nppa.org/node/44626

Queen Of Hell [band 9] is: Morte Treehorn, Matt Clement, Ed Stephens and Adam Spektor. QOH practice this evening was held at ‘The Hooded Tomb Of Doom’ AKA: Morte’s basement. The week prior, Morte had converted a dark quarter of his basement into a pimped out practice space, complete with Japanese screens flanking the hot water heater, bamboo shades covering the walls, oriental throw-rugs on the ground and strategically placed fog-machine and lights,. 

After the other band mates arrived, they all spent a few minutes to apply their makeup and don their robes/cloaks. Once the band assumed their positions, Ed was briefed on a few changes that were made the week previous during the practice he missed and soon, the Queens of Hell were rocking the Febreze bottle off the washer.

Morte takes care of most the lead vocals and had written some rich image inducing lyrics that were all neatly typed out on several sheets of paper. Adam shares lead guitar and vocals with Morte and described his vocals as sort of a sludged-out Bryan Ferry but Adams leads sounded to me, closer to Freddie Mercury, or at least in delivery. Ed was on a bass that had recently been customized, that guitar has a great sound, Ed undoubtedly had something to do with that. Matt Clement is another veteran of Lottery League, It has been a while since I’ve seen him on drums and forgot how well he is on them.

Queen Of Hell is another band that I’m looking forward to with their 8:15 performance at The Cleveland Agora.  The audio on my video below came out better than usual considering the cement basement, the rug and curtains that Morte had hung, happened to make a difference, having the mics properly wired never hurts, either. 

The photos are here.

loumuenz.com/tagged/LotteryLeague // lotteryleague.org // facebook.com/queenofhell

..And You Will Gnome Us By The Trail Of Bread [band 41] consists of Steve Lull, Shelley Grossman, Alyse Peterson and Graham Beck. Though i forgot to ask the band about how they came up with their name, it’s undoubtedly a take on that band from Washington.

Earlier this month, I couldn’t make it to a practice the band had at the Spitfire but by chance, I happened to be at the right place, right time for their Space Rock practice behind the blue door. This room is at the front of the building and the windows overlook Waterloo Avenue, it also appeared larger than the other practice rooms. 

This evening, ‘Gnome Us’ had Steve on lead guitar, Alyse on bass, Shelly had lead vocals + keyboards and Graham is the drummer. The bands practice was all business or it could of been that they had a friend [Marc] there recording each song, either way, their attention to detail was evident in the sound.

The vocals in the video below are not very audible. I’m curious how that audio recording came out. Photos are here. 

loumuenz.com/tagged/LotteryLeague // lotteryleague.org // facebook.com/gnomesandbread

Douglas Adams Family [the band was named on Douglas Adams 61st birthday] FKA band 42, is made up of; Ryan Yankee, Lisa Ellis, James O’Malley and Bryn Speidel. DAF had their practice at ‘Space Rock’, the practice space provided by the courtesy of [one of] the Leagues sponsors: Northeast Shores Development Corporation. This was the first time that I attended a practice here, though Cindy Barber was kind enough to give me a tour of the building, last month. The practice spaces are above the “Space: Rock Gallery”, which is on the ground floor of the storefront building on Waterloo Avenue, just a few strides down from the Beachland Ballroom. The gallery features rock photography and currently has work by Anastasia Pantsios, Karen Novak and Maura Robinson. The gallery plans to feature Cleveland area photographers, if you’re in the area, you should do yourself a favor and stop by, the grand opening is targeted for April and the art space is another great addition to the neighborhood. 

The Douglas Adams Family has Ryan handling bass and keyboards. Lisa is on rhythm guitar, James plays lead  and Bryn is on drums. I was told that each member shares on the vocals but they were only with one mic for this practice.

The band had a problem with that one mic and the vocals are pretty much nonexistent in the video I have below, That problem should be resolved by the time they take the stage for their ‘headlining’ slot of 1:15am at The Euclid Agora on April 13th. My still shots are here.

loumuenz.com/tagged/LotteryLeague // lotteryleague.org // facebook.com/TheDouglasAdamsFamily

E=MCfunk [band 31] consists of Peter ‘Salt Peters’ Woodward, Ted ‘Theodore Wigs Null, the Younger’ Flynn, John ‘Professor Void’ Cunningham and Ashante ‘AK Decline’ Allison. After going through their ten minute set at their practice space located in a Parma basement, Peter asked me if any other Lottery League bands are performing a Funk set. I believe he meant this current year but I had to think for a moment till i was able go out on a limb and say, of all the [100+] bands that have been created in Lottery League that E=MCfunk is the first band that has a full set devoted to Funk. I did no research for that conclusion and I’m relying on memory, so I could be wrong.

Peter has performed in rock and punk bands but it’s probably safe to say that he hasn’t fronted a Funk band, he pulls off just that while playing bass on 3 or 4 strings of a six string guitar that sounded convincingly like a bass guitar.  Ted was playing guitar with a slide, Tony was on keyboards and Ashante was manning the drums.

I’m not very knowledgeable about the Funk music genre but it sounded that E=MCfunk, gleamed most of their influence from listening to soundtracks of 70’s porn movies. With that said, it’s apparent that E=MCfunk has put some thought into their sound and I’m anticipating their midnight slot at The Eucld Agora, the night of the ‘Big Show’.

The videos below were shot in a small room while I managed to stay out of the way. This was a practice and Peter mentioned that they still lack a lil ‘pop’ [paraphrasing]. I was entertained but you be the judge. My photos are here.

http://loumuenz.com/tagged/LotteryLeague // lotteryleague.org // http://facebook.com/EequalsMCFunk