Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Music In The Night

It's like a trip to Cincinnati....

Brian Lisik (Akron, Ohio)
Pop/Rock
With a wonderful grasp of classic Pop/Rock, Ohio songwriter Brian Lisik makes music that is not "of" any specific era. With a tinge of twang, Lisik's songs ring with a melodic effortlessness that great songwriters like Paul Westerberg and Jeff Tweedy ooze on a regular basis. Happiness is Boring, co-produced by former GBV member Todd Tobias, came out last year; look for a DVD featuring footage from the tour behind that album in the near future.
Dig It: Paul Westerberg, Soul Asylum, Jesse Malin. (MB) - Cincinnati City Beat (9/26/07)

THE MIDPOINT MUSIC FESTIVAL IN CINCINNATI Sept. 28 was a real blast. After getting stuck in a traffic jam in Columbus for no apparent reason, and getting my unit stared at by some weird guy at a gas station bathroom with one toilet and a defective door (I think he was a Congressman, but I'm not sure..), we cruised into the Queen City to the sounds of The Small Faces First Step and Tommy Stinson's Village Gorilla Head as Craig finally woke up and uttered two of his only four comments on the trip: "Do you still have that magazine back there, Drez?" and "Jesus Christ Brian, stay in your lane!" (his other two comments were: "my tuner's not working" and "Gimme those keys, I'll load this shit up.."). The incredible Cincinnati Kathy came by - dressed to the nines I might add - and finally got to see the whole band, we met a really cool bunch of guys in a band from Chicago, I thought the Dirty Royals kicked English ass, and we're so sorry that we couldn't make it to Katie and Hilary's after party. Maybe next time. We're really sorry that we also missed meeting up with the Jack Fords for Skyline Chili 'cause we all got scared looking for the place amongst all the very nice, historic, boarded up dry cleaners, cash advance joints, and Chinese restaurants between 7th Avenue and Liberty (I know Brent, we're all puss-aes!!!). As Drez so poetically put it, "I'm not saying anything, but there are a lot of El Dorados down here" - which ranked as the second-best quote of the trip next to Steve's "I only ever owned one Beach Boys record, Endless Summer. Side one only lasts 10 minutes; I somehow expected it to be longer..." Thanks very much to Peter Kulik for his wonderful stage managering at Buddakhan and C.A. McConnell from Cincinnati City Beat for taking my CD at Kaldi's, where some guy named Levi was playing with even cooler hair than me.

Friday, September 28, 2007

Play a song

"You say you got a revolutionary song in your head
Don't worry yourself son, all the revolutionaries are dead"

- Play A Song For Mother c. 2005 B. Lisik (from the CD Happiness Is Boring - Cherokee Queen Records)

For the record. And for Ex Post Facto's lawyers. I can't believe it...Pennsylvania again. This, after the whole Giants of Science thing. Or who knows, maybe they are big fans. Will the real Brian Lisik please stand up?...

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Look Ma, I'm blogging!...

Okay, so here's the deal. I have no idea where this blog is starting, where it will end, what it's going to be about (exactly), how I'm going to get anybody to read it (which, considering the subject matter that some of the posts could explore, might ultimately be a good thing), or why I'm even doing this.

But I do know that I am very anal retentive when it comes to grammar and spell checking, so English teachers the world over should love me right off the bat.

For those not familiar with me - I'm very famous. I grew up (relatively speaking) and still live in and around Akron, Ohio - which I love so very much that I try and leave as much as humanly possible. I write highly personal diary-type emails to friends (and some folks who don't even know me) to purge myself of my inner demons, (I use a lot of parentheses), I play in a band that gets played a lot on local radio, I have a Website, and my hair is really cool and Rod-Stewart-ish looking. So basically, I'm every white kid on MTV after 1 a.m....I think. Is there still such a thing as MTV?

Only thing is, I'm in my 30s with two kids of my own who think I'm either really cool or should make a trip forthwith to the local Salvation Army and unload the old leather jacket, Hot Topic skinny pants and Chuck Taylors - cause even though I lost 20 pounds on tour the last six months, I'm still dad and those Cheap Hotel Pants (as Mr. Waress called them...you know, "no ballroom") are just embarassing....embaraassing...embare...I don't know how to spell that, so screw it.

By the way, you'll soon meet Mr. Waress, along with a host of other very interesting and bizarre characters (to me anyway) including the guys in the band - Steve Overend Outs, Drez, and Craig; a bunch of really cool people in other bands like Brent Scurvy and the mighty Bobby (after too much Skyline Chili) Fartina; Clock Eyes; The Carolina Tit Pimp; Elvis's-Drummers-Great-Nephew; Anus Young; Kris Jackofferson; Van Boreison; Ric Ocasuck; Rod Stupid and Ronnie Lame; and many many more. So hope you stick around. It's the inside joke with no punch line babies, so just hang on and enjoy it - as a girl I once knew used to say. Not really, I just made that up.

Right now though, I have to run - I'm moderating a political debate between four local school board candidates on a cable TV show. See, I told you non-believing sons-of-bitches that I was famous!

Cheers,
Lisik

P.S. BTW (see, cool Internet speak already..) I did ask people their opinions of whether or not I should do this blog. Asked them in my equally really cool band newsletter called Excess Baggage. More on that later too, promise. Anyway, a whole bunch of people (like, three I think) wrote right back, "yes, yes, do a blog!" So if this all ends up sucking real bad, or simply sucking the life out of me, I'll give you all their emails so you can yell at them. In the meantime, I just hope reading this helps keep all you kids off the street....and me to...'cause my wife hates that shit.