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.