A self-described “97X listener/scenester/scruffy little punky New Wave dude,” Howard started playing in bands as a teenager and has never stopped rocking. His current band, Cereal Killers, played their first gig at Sudsy Malone’s on Short Vine in 1989, and their current set list consists predominantly of songs that graced the 97X airwaves back in the day: punk, New Wave, garage rock… We chat with Howard about dropping The Village People for Generation X, college parties and car wrecks (they go together), what 97Xposure meant to his bands, the Modern Rock 500, and his side hustle as a jingle singer/voiceover artist.
Cereal Killers at their first gig, December 15th, 1989 at Sudsy Malone’s.
If this jingle has ever gotten stuck in your head, blame Howard (and Rob Fetters)
Howard’s day job is Field Sales Rep for Great Lakes Brewing Company, Ohio’s oldest and largest craft brewery. (He’s on furlough at present.) In 2018, Great Lakes announced an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), making every employee a shareholder.
Howard is an avid, voracious reader and has volunteered for several Books by the Banks events. (Read more in this Soapbox Cincinnati feature from 2011). In this short bonus clip, he suggests a couple of recent books that may be of interest to 97X fans.
For this episode of the podcast, as well as all recordings done since March, Dave and Damian have been practicing safe social distancing. Here’s Dave at his home set-up:
And here’s Damian’s janky set-up in the Party Dungeon.
Note the books (and cat litter bucket) used for the mic stand.
News broke today that John Erhardt of Wussy (and formerly Ass Ponys) passed away Monday. His longtime friend and bandmate Chuck Cleaver wrote a very loving tribute to him on Wussy’s Facebook page.
John gave us a beauty that we’ll never see again. A combination of love, friendship, stability and that amazing swirling sound. Truly a wonder. A backdrop to everything that we are, in the band and in life.
“Amazing swirling sound” is a great description of what John brought to Ass Ponys and Wussy.
To say we’ll miss him is an understatement. It’s not gonna be the same from here on out nor should it. Death’s like that. We’ll continue to keep making up stuff, play it to the best of our abilities and make more records. There will be a hole and we’ll likely leave it that way. You can’t replace some things.
Well put, Chuck. R.I.P. John.
John Erhardt at far right, with Randy Cheek, Chuck Cleaver and Dave Morrison in the Ass Ponys
If the world weren’t upside down, I would’ve been at the Robyn Hitchcock show at Southgate this past Sunday, and Greg Dulli’s gig at the Woodward on Wednesday. Instead I was stuck in my basement, staring at the same four walls. #FML.
Oh well, let’s make the best of it. Here’s another grab bag o’ recorded tunes and musical ephemera.
I love Chuck Cleaver, and I’m not afraid to admit it. I’ve loved him for decades, since his Ass Ponys days. So shame on me for taking so long to let you know that Wussy band members have been doing a weekly stream on Fridays at 7. Hat tip to list member Dr. David Reid for the tipoff. Last week’s show with Chuck and Lisa was exactly what you’d expect from them: weird, wacky… and absolutely beautiful. Lisa’s questions for Chuck were especially enjoyable… and they do a few Ass Ponys songs too!
The Broken Record podcast is consistently great. I absolutely loved this episode, which features an interview with Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley of Drive-By Truckers and stripped down versions of a few songs from their new album:
Curt Smith from Tears for Fears did a version of “Mad World” with his daughter Diva. Check it out on the Facebooks.
Bert Averre, the guitarist for The Knack, posted a fun video for “Bye Corona” (3 guesses as to the tune…) Bassist Prescott Niles joins him at the end.
I’m going to keep touting Waxahatchee until you admit that her album Saint Cloud is one of the best of 2020. Here’s her Tiny Desk (at home) concert with her boyfriend Kevin Morby, which features two songs from Saint Cloud, a Morby tune and a Songs:Ohia cover.
Billie Joe Armstrong has been doing a cover song every week and posting it on Green Day’s YouTube Channel. He calls it “No Fun Mondays”… and his cover of “Manic Monday” features Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles. He also riffs on Tommy James & The Shondells, Johnny Thunders, The Avengers and Adam Schlesinger.
Shameless self-promotion
Rob Fetters is never boring. I caught up with him to chat about his free house concert live streams (latest edition is below), get some Zen advice on coping with COVID fears, and hear his story about Ted Nugent… you can check out the episode on this website (which features bonus content) or on Podbean, Spotify or Apple podcasts.
“Paul is dead.” But John Curley is alive and well.
True story: a few days ago, the Afghan Whigs promoted our podcast interview with John Curley on their official Facebook page… but the way the photo and podcast description appeared, a few fans feared that it was some sort of obituary:
Sorry to scare you, Prissy! But the inadvertent “clickbait” resulted in a record-setting number of downloads for our podcast. Thanks social media!
Worth another listen
Heard this song on Sirius XMU Wednesday, and it brought back some fond memories of my 97X days:
That song is the title track from Bettie Serveert’s 1993 album Palomine. It holds up quite well. Check it out:
Worth another look
Swedish sisters with angelic voices? Yes please!
You’ve probably seen this video before, of an all-star crew doing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” at the 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, but watching Prince’s absolutely ungodly guitar work and seeing him play with Tom Petty always makes me smile.
In this coronavirus “Local Lockdown Lixx” bonus episode of the 97X Rumblings from the Big Bush podcast, singer/songwriter/guitarist Rob Fetters (The Raisins, The Bears, psychodots and solo releases) talks about the free house concert live streams he’s been doing every weekend, provides some Zen guidance on how to cope during COVID craziness… and tells the tale of a time long ago when Ted Nugent brought him from darkness to light. [Back then Ted called himself “The Motor City Madman” but was semi-sane. Now he’s a batsh*t crazy, gun-totin’, Trump-votin’ nutjob. – Ed.]
You’ll find links to Rob’s upcoming house concerts via his website, RobFetters.net. (His next show is Saturday, May 2 at 9 p.m. EDT.) You’ll also find links to the YouTube recordings of previous shows, and a great video for his song “Not the End” — also posted below.
(Due to scheduling conflicts, Dave couldn’t participate in this interview. You’re stuck with the schmuck, Damian.)
Bonus content for the bonus episode: Here’s Rob talking about how the “Not the End” video came together rather quickly a few weeks ago.
Rob’s been writing songs, playing guitar and singing for a looooong time. Adrian Belew produced The Raisins self-titled debut back in 1983. That platter featured the song “Fear is Never Boring” – a perennial 97X favorite. Here’s the original video:
Here’s the same tune, performed at the psychodots farewell show (with Bam Powell sitting in) back in November of 2018. (Shot/edited by Robert Mills, the same guy who did the “Not the End” video.)
But Rob was even in bands before the Raisins. In his teens, he was in a band called the Red Hot Tots… which would also be a great name for a side dish at Applebee’s.
Legendary Mad magazine illustrator Mort Drucker, who died on April 9th, did the album cover art for The Bears self-titled debut album. Here’s a CityBeat article about how that happened.
Rob’s house concerts are most assuredly NOT hippie-strumming-acoustic-guitar affairs…
Rob is plugged in and amped up (in more ways than one… the energy of that guy!) and can add backing tracks via his studio-like wizardry. Check out his most recent show below and you’ll see what we mean.
Let’s focus on the positives of the music world. Our favorite artists now have more time than ever to create new music. (Unless they lost their day job… or they need to get a day job to make up for lost touring income… welp, that positivity didn’t last long, did it?)
But hey, Lucinda Williams has a new album out today called Good Souls Better Angels, and new Lu is always good news. This record is gritty, greasy, gutsy and guitar-driven. Check it out on Spotify. Read the profile in the NYT. Here’s a track from it called “Man Without a Soul”:
It isn’t difficult to figure out who Lu has in mind with lyrics like this:
You bring nothing good to this world Beyond a web of cheating and stealing You hide behind your wall of lies But it’s coming down, yeah, it’s coming down
Want more new album good news? X has a new album! It’s their first disc in 27 years, and it features the original lineup of John Doe, Exene Cervenka, Billy Zoom and D.J. Bonebrake (best drummer name ever). Read more about it and stream the entire disc on Slicing Up Eyeballs, a great website for middle aged modern rockers.
The Pretenders also have a cool new song out. Here’s the video:
Liz Longley put on a great show last Friday. It was in Liz’s living room in Pennsylvania, when it was supposed to be in list members Dave & Jacqui’s home in Ft. Thomas, but Dave & Jacqui made the best of it:
The new releases from Laura Marling, Half Waif, Watkins Family Hour, Peel Dream Machine, The Chats, The Strokes, Lilly Hiatt, Catholic Action, and Why Bonnie are also worth a spin.
Coming up: the usual suspects
I’ll let you fish for yourself on the virtual gigs. NPR, Billboard and several other outlets have a running list of all the shows on the interwebs – YouGram, InstaFace, BookTube, etc. And if you’ve read this blog, you know about most of the standing gigs:
Radiohead streams a concert Thursdays at 5 on YouTube.
Amanda Shires (with Jason Isbell) does “Iso-Lounging” pretty much every day at 6 on YouTube.
Rob Fetters plays every weekend on YouTube (link via his website)
Speaking of Mr. Fetters, when he cancelled his gig at Roebling Point Books, they refunded the money that same day. Classy move! We’ve already discussed TicketBastard’s B.S. “refund” policy. Other promoters seem to be following their lead. The National’s Homecoming announced that refunds would be coming “in the next few days” on 4/3, and then on 4/20 there was another email saying we’d get a refund “within 30 days”. C’mon, man, millions of folks are out of work, and you’re going to sit on their hard-earned cash (Homecoming tix were about $120 for the weekend) for months?
Wait, I was supposed to stay positive, wasn’t I? Better fire up The Hold Steady batsignal:
Instagram is the worst of the virtual venues… the viewing area is tiny already, and then all the comments cover up half of that area. But this Waxahatchee set is stellar:
Robin James is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at UNC Charlotte and the author of three books… with a book about 97X in the works. She grew up listening to the station from age 11 on, including her time as an oboe major (yes!) at Miami University. Robin still has a fond place in her heart for the 97X/woxy.com music community, and the DIY ethos that made it truly unique. Dave and Damian talk to Robin about her research for the 97X book, the Modern Rock 500 and intersection of philosophy and music.
As a teen, the Modern Rock 500 was the closest thing I had to a catechismic text. I grew up on the other side of Butler County from WOXY, on the outskirts of Cincinnati. Every year I recorded parts of the broadcast on cassette and listened to the top of the countdown late into Memorial Day night. Radio led me to music I would otherwise never be allowed to buy or hear live (if I could even get a ride to Looney T-Birds, Everybody’s Records, Bogart’s, or Sudsy Malone’s).
My dad didn’t like music, and I didn’t have older siblings, so the Modern Rock 500 was the curriculum I used to educate myself about cool music and its history.
In May of 2021, Robin is scheduled to give a talk on the Modern Rock 500 at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland – a draft of that presentation is here.
You can also visit Robin’s Soundcloud to listen to a few of her lectures and some original compositions.
In our podcast, Dave and Robin mentioned the 97X Mission Statement. Here it is, direct from Dave’s basement:
To paraphrase Bill Medley: Now I’ve had… the quaran-time of my life… and I never want to feel this way again!
Music is about the only thing keeping me from going completely bonkers. I hope you are holding up well. Here’s the rundown on tunes for lockdown.
Liz Longley “at” Parlor & Patio tonight at 7:30!
List members Dave and Jacqui are turning their Parlor & Patio house concert featuring Liz Longley into a virtual event tonight at 7:30. Here’s the Eventbrite link. Just like usual Parlor & Patio shows, all ticket proceeds go directly to the artist.
Grateful Dead movie at 8 p.m. tonight
The Grateful Dead’s Shakedown Stream happens every Friday at 8 p.m. EDT on their YouTube channel. Tonight it’s a screening of the 1977 concert flick The Grateful Dead Movie. Future installments will include never-before-seen concerts from the band’s archive, as well as previously released shows.
Even when there are no shows, TicketBastard is still screwing us out of our money.
Excerpt from a CityBeat article: Most recently, Ticketmaster, which sells more than $30 billion in tickets per year, has made changes to its refund policy. According to The New York Times, the policy included refunds for postponed, rescheduled, and canceled events as recently as a few weeks ago. However, they’ve appeared to quietly adjust the policy, which now reads: “Refunds are available if your event is canceled.”
Weekly Warriors
Hats off to Rob Fetters, Jesse Malin and Bill Janovitz for doing an in-home set every damn week. And they’re so damn good. Fetters talked about The Bears album cover that Mort Drucker (R.I.P.) created (show is below — read more about that Mort Drucker cover art on CityBeat.) Malin covered The Hold Steady, the Replacements, the Rolling Stones and more (show is below). Janovitz covered John Prine, Tom Waits, George Jones and Big Thief… and he makes a different cocktail at the start of each show. (Link to his show is here on FB.)
Fetters is Fridays at 9 p.m. via a link from his website. Jesse Malin is Saturdays at 4 p.m. on YouTube. Bill Janovitz is Saturdays at 4:30 p.m. on his band Buffalo Tom’s Facebook page.
Celebrities, they’re just like us… or maybe just me
Bojack Horseman is one of my favorite shows, and it turns out Bojack and I are both in the non-Radiohead camp. Check out this magnified screen grab from a recent episode:
But I know list members Kevin Sullivan and Doug Hill-Harriss are still cuckoo for them. Doug also sent along a link to some Radio.com live shows. The Black Keys are on tonight at 9.
Other gigs include Sylvan Esso tonight at 8 and Brett Newski at 9. Get the links from NPR’s list.
Dan’s with the Band… and the other band
Dan Lewis is mad at me because I didn’t mention that Jesse Malin’s old band D Generation opened up for KISS at that show where he was backstage. And the guy giving the tour said “Nice guys, but they’re not very good.” Jesse has come a long way.
Tributes to Prine, part the second
Elvis Costello wrote a nice blog post about JP. And here’s Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires talking (and singing) about John.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxwJ2qQs4ZE&t=42s
Amanda Shires has a whole series of performances called Iso-Lounging on her YouTube channel.
Gigs, interviews, and clips…
https://youtu.be/uAYQUbh8HHA
Love Chvrches… here’s a nice “separate but together” song from them:
Musician. Producer. Recording Engineer. Photographer. Non-traditional college student… John Curley is best known for his work with the Afghan Whigs, but he’s also played in a few local bands, and produced and/or engineered music for hundreds, mostly at Ultrasuede Studio. He’s still playing, still producing, but recently went back to college as well. We chat with John about all those things — and the worst radio promotion the Afghan Whigs ever did — in this episode.
John Curley, WXPN/former 97X DJ Dan Reed, and Greg DulliThe Afghan Whigs original lineup. John at Ultrasuede Studio (Photo credit: Anna Bentley, the Cincinnati Enquirer)
After 25 years in Camp Washington, John’s Ultrasuede studio (formerly the historic QCA Studio A) was forced out in 2018 when a new owner bought the building . Check out this CityBeat article about Ultrasuede’s final days on Spring Grove Avenue.
Photo credit: John Curley
At the Spring Grove address, John produced and/or engineered essential recordings by numerous acts, including Joe’s band Wussy, The Greenhornes, White Stripes, Ronnie Spector, Patti Smith, Ass Ponys, Buffalo Killers, Magnolia Mountain, Pearlene, Heartless Bastards and Barrence Whitfield & The Savages. His early production successes include the Whigs’ covers EP Uptown Avondale and album tracks such as Congregation’s “Miles Iz Ded” and Gentlemen’s “If I Were Going.” He even recorded the violin-like whine that opens the Whigs’ Black Love album by ambient mic’ing the railroad tracks that wind past the studio and recording the sound of a freight train’s squealing brakes, which were later cross-faded in the mix with a Hammond B-3 organ.
Before we get to the virtual tunes, let’s have a moment of silence for John Prine, Adam Schlesinger, Hal Willner and all the other talented musicians we’ve lost to COVID-19.
As if we needed any more bad news, The National’s Homecoming festival has officially been cancelled. But list member Dale Doyle (the original D2) is doing the album artwork for Matt Berninger’s solo album and says the tunes are great. So we have that to look forward to.
It’s yet another week of live music lockdown, which stinks. But it seems like more and more artists are turning to the “home concert” option to stay connected. Here are a few of note:
List members Dave and Jacqui are turning their Parlor & Patio house concert featuring Liz Longley into a virtual event next Friday (4/17). This is sad news for people who like free pie (they serve it at intermission of their house shows), but good news for those who originally couldn’t snag a seat when the show sold out in 48 hours! Here’s the Eventbrite link. Just like usual Parlor & Patio shows, all ticket proceeds go directly to the artist.
List member Doug Hill-Harriss is still trying to convert me into a Radiohead fan, so he mentioned that they are posting a classic show every Thursday on their YouTube channel. Read more here.
What did I expect from a guy with a hyphenated last name…
Shawn Colvin is playing from her house on Saturday afternoon:
Rob Fetters will be doing gig #3 Saturday at 9 pm. Here’s what list member Lisa Collins had to say about his first show: LOVED the Rob Fetters show! Wow! Such a great songwriter!
Jesse Malin will be doing his third home show this Saturday at 4 Eastern on YouTube. Both previous gigs have been killer. (Last week’s show is posted below.) Don’t just take my word for it, here’s what Rolling Stone had to say in their “Best Streamed Performances of the Stay-at-Home Era” article:
For the past two Saturdays, Jesse Malin has been performing full two-hour concerts from his Manhattan apartment, each with their own theme. Dubbed “The Fine Art of Self-Distancing” (a play on the title of his 2003 debut, The Fine Art of Self-Destruction), the intimate gigs touch on songs from throughout his career, along with covers by Neil Young, Squeeze, and his old band D Generation. He also does a goofy show-and-tell routine and offers his recommendations for staying sane during quarantine: books by Alan Ginsberg and Debbie Harry, a doc on the Bad Brains, and what he calls Scorsese’s last great film, The King of Comedy. But it’s Malin’s stories — told by a guy who literally grew up in and around the New York punk scene — that are the rare gems, like one in which Joey Ramone tells off Lorne Michaels for never booking the Ramones on SNL.
And my boy Bill Janovitz from Buffalo Tom is doing his 4th weekly “Virtual Happy Hour” – last week’s 24-song set included covers of Hüsker Dü, Fountains of Wayne, Psychedelic Furs, Lefty Frizzell, Bill Withers and the Rolling Stones. His rehearsal version of the Fountains of Wayne tune is below.
Dan’s with the Band
“These virtual concerts are all well and good, but how about a story from list member Dan ‘Reds are gonna win it all’ Lewis?” you say…. So here’s Dan’s sordid saga about what went on backstage at a KISS concert:
My brother met the tour manager in our hometown of Lancaster Ohio (small world). He got us passes. If it wasn’t for a neighborhood buddy who I hadn’t seen in a while… back in eighth grade, if he didn’t invite me up to hear the new KISS record, I’d probably be a lawyer today. (I didn’t even like KISS but he had every Cream and Circus rock magazine …so very cool). So my brother says he’s got backstage passes for KISS. This is like 1998. I’m like, “I prefer to remember them from the Destroyer tour. But sounds like it would be fun.” Guy was great. Showed us the oxygen masks behind stage. Machines that blew the smoke out, then the machines that sucked the smoke back in!! (Because they were getting old, etc.)
There you have it, Dan Lewis’ tale of “sucking” backstage at a KISS concert.
Tributes to Prine
First Avenue Club in Minneapolis — documentary
List member Mighty Joe Sampson (as heard on the 97X podcast here) sent the link below. Cool doc celebrating 50 years of the iconic Twin Cities club. You’ll see some familiar faces mixed in the awesome archival footage
Gigs, interviews, and clips…
Shameless self-promotion
Sometime tomorrow, you’ll be able to check out a new episode of the 97X Rumblings from the Big Bush podcast featuring our interview with John Curley of the Afghan Whigs. NBD.
Hate to start on a sad note, but losing Adam Schlesinger from Fountains of Wayne and Ivy (and other projects) was a real kick in the trousers. This line from a Washington Post tribute sums it up nicely:
… his sharply tuned ear for both catchiness and emotion meant that Schlesinger could do something rare: He wrote songs that were not only wonderful but also could help you understand what it was that you loved about an entire genre of music.
Jesse Malin plays at 4 p.m. on YouTube. Last week’s gig is here (and below)
Bill Janovitz (Buffalo Tom) is doing another Happy Hour at 4:30 on FB (at that link he has video of his rehearsal of the Fountains of Wayne song “Hackensack”)
Rob Fetters is playing another “from home” show at 8 p.m.
FWIW, I think the Instagram interface is the worst of the bunch… small screen, and the artist is usually partially obscured by the comments stream.
Shows already recorded for your viewing pleasure:
Richard Thompson did a great gig. Then again, every gig he does is great.
If you’ve never checked out the Comedy Bang Bang podcast, you need to do so. And here are videos of the host (Scott Aukerman) and a frequent guest (Paul F. Thompkins) adding their own version of the Star Wars cantina music to classic scenes from several movies. The entire playlist is below… watch all of them as it has a cumulative silliness effect.
Adam Schlesinger’s passing reminded me of this great Robbie Fulks tune:
