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>.
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.
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.
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
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
The Dirty Connotations [band 32] are; Ryan Kearney, Sarah Paul, Jeff Curtis and Ken Blaze. The band practices in a small upstairs room above the Spitfire. I was present for the third band practice and the four were going over three songs that sounded nearly complete. TDC are the first band I’ve sat in on that utilizes two bassists [Jeff + Ken], that sound more in the vein of The Fall than Sunn O))), Primus or Cleveland’s Megachurch. At first listen I thought a guitarist may have been using an octave-pedal or maybe a baritone guitar until I realized that there was actually two bassists, Either way, this gives the band a darker sound and works real nicely for them. Sarah takes the lead on most of the vocals and FX pedals though Ken and Jeff compliment her vocals on a couple songs. Ryan rounds-out the group with clean percussion work, I’m not sure if Ryan has ever performed with a punk band before but seems a natural with the ‘Connotations.
The two videos I have below were shot in a small, dark room with other bands jamming in adjacent rooms, therefore the audio and video is dim and noisy. My still shots are here.
http://loumuenz.com/tagged/LotteryLeague // www.lotteryleague.org // http://facebook.com/TheDirtyConnotations
This video is from February 8th and is the second half of my ride to work. I shot this handheld over icy/rough roads so the video is pretty shaky, which doesn’t bother me so much but may irritate others. The lens also caught some participation from the light snow/ice fall as well as the debris coming off my front tire.
I was riding a cheap Huffy mountain bike that belongs to a friend of mine that I was repairing. I wouldn’t trust my Fuji bike that has skinny tires and is harder to maneuver on icy roads especially when leaning into turns and only having one hand on the bars. Huffy or not, the wider tires make a huge difference on icy roads like this.
Nearly 180 people arrived at the Beachland Ballroom to get selected to one of 42 newly formed bands of the Lottery League. Part of the fun of the night is derived by all the unusual pairings that the hopper decides. Case in point, band 25 has Josh Banazak [Homostupids], Mike Rodermann [No Peace], Matt Taha [Filmstrip] & Nick Perry [not the PA Lottery official that was behind the ‘triple six fix’ that Nick had injected mercury in the ping pong balls so the winner would come up 666], knowing all four of these fellows, I wouldn’t of guess that at least a couple of them haven’t been together in a band before today, I’m highlighting #25 for future reference.
Another band that I’ll highlight will be #22 that has Greg Hyland [Twilight], Bill Weita [Fuzzhead], Tony Erba [Face Value/9 Shocks Terror] and Jack Storey [?]. I’m plenty familiar with Greg, Bill and Tony but I had to google Jacks Storey. The video above is two minutes of the eight that I captured of the draft and it just so happened that band 22 was completing their roster via the hopper as I was videoing. it will be interesting how #22 will incorporate Jacks laid back, singer-songwriter style to go along with Bills psychedelia and Tonys hardcore bass in the group, I somehow envisioned this scene from Animal House.
All 42 band rosters can be seen, below ‘the break’.
lotteryleague.org / @LotteryLeague / LL FB page / LL draft Photos.
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Lottery League 2013 got underway Friday night at the Beachland Ballroom. This will be the third season of the league and the first that incorporates technology with specially designed software for the draft process that determines compatibility, a dedicated website [that live streamed the entirety of the draft] http://lotteryleague.org and a Twitter account @LotteryLeague, LL still has their FB page http://facebook.com/LotteryLeague
LL3 is also larger than the previous two, having 42 four person bands, that is eight more than the previous high in 2010. With that said, the concept, rules and motives of the league remain the same, this interview w/ the ‘Council of Chiefs’ from whopperjaw.com does a good of job as any explaining the first part of this sentence.
I shot some ‘natural light’ pics after running out the door without my flash, those can be seen here.
The 2013 version of the Lottery League begins tonight [Friday Feb. 1, 2013] at the Beachland Ballroom/Tavern, when the draft commences. The draft is the most important night of Lottery League, It is the night where participants get selected to a band via getting their name picked out of a bingo hopper.
There are plenty of sites on the internet, some that I have listed below, that will explain exactly how the Lottery League process takes place, so I won’t bother you with all the details. I’ll be using the hashtag #LotteryLeague for my posts documenting LL related events such as the draft, practices, etc. I’ll also use this hash-tag on Twitter.
Below are archived links to photos, video and words I have from previous Lottery League events.
A few short practice videos from 2008, are here.
LotteryLeague.org / Official LL Blog / @LotteryLeague / Sissybar Blog
(Source: loumuenz.com)
Pat’s In The Flats annual Thanksgiving Day bash took place last Thursday with the Prisoners as the headliner for the second consecutive year. Shit-Box Jimmy has been around for a few years now and put on an excellent live show, their sound is a mixture of garage and rockabilly, more in the style of ‘Dead Moon’ than the Stray Cats.
Glass Cities has been together for about a year now but this was the first time I actually had a chance to see them perform. Checkout GC’s Bandcamp page for a better description of their sound.
I’ve posted about a dozen photos of the night, here. The YouTube playlist below has videos from ShitBox Jimmy + Glass Cities.
http://shitboxjimmy.bandcamp.com
http://buzzbinmagazine.com/home/2012/08/03/shit-box-jimmy-staying-true/
http://glasscities.bandcamp.com
http://clevelandprisoners.bandcamp.com/album/pass-the-stone
(Source: loumuenz.com)
The 31st annual Studio A Rama was held Saturday September 8th and I was able to catch five of the ten bands, those being; Death Of Samantha, Herzog, RA Washington + The Family Dollar, Dreadful Yawns, and Village Bicycle.
I’ve been experimenting with using dual cameras on some of the videos and I’m not totally dissatisfied with the results though it does multiply the editing processing time a good deal. The real hurdle with photographing Studio A Rama is when the evening comes and the stage lights go on. I’ve been to quite a few SAR’s but always forget about how those lights are directly pointed at the ‘front row’ of the audience and directly at any camera lenses that are pointed at the performers [the lights are pointed at the mic’s from above].
My still photos of the event are here. The playlist below has 13 videos contained within. I maybe adding a others in the near future but the editing process had me worn down so I figured I’ll ‘stand-down’ for a bit..
(Source: loumuenz.com)
