Colin will be sitting in Willie Phoenix at Comfest, this Friday, 9 pm at the Main (Bozo) Stage.
Read MoreCensorship at Comfest: Noble or Treasonous? - by Pete Vogel
On Saturday, June 24th, a band by the name of Chickenhawk Birdgetters took the stage at the I Wish You Jazz stage at ComFest. They bill themselves as a “Jazz Offensive” and planned a “ComFest Offensive” for their 7pm performance. Chickenhawk Birdgetters have a vision for creating jazz music that “is dangerous once more.” They want to remove the shirt-and-tie formality of the genre and “give it a black eye.” They planned on playing “Fuck tha Police” by N.W.A. (Niggaz Wit Attitudes) and improvise their own version of the tune. Somehow word got to ComFest officials - and Columbus police - that the band was going to perform the song and they stepped in: They politely asked the band to refrain from playing it because they were fearful it would “incite a riot.” Here are some of the lyrics to “Fuck tha Police:”
Fuck that shit cause I ain’t the one / For a punk motherfucker with a badge and a gun / Ice Cube will swarm on any motherfucker in a blue uniform / A young nigga on the warpath / And when I finish it’s gonna be a bloodbath / Of cops dying in LA.
You get the gist: I listened to all 5:45 of it and it had over 90 curse words and threatened violence on cops four different times. To perform a jazz improv rendition doesn’t mean the band was going to perform the song verbatim, but the message was pretty clear: this was a provocative piece that would definitely raise eyebrows.
As a musician, I’d normally side with the artist and claim he/she has the right to perform whatever song they desire. But after learning the band’s intentions - and hearing the song in question - I actually sided with the police and ComFest officials on this one. This song, quite frankly, is in poor taste and isn’t a good fit for an open-air, free festival where ages range between 7 and 70. It’s also an affront to law enforcement everywhere: I am friends with several cops and they’d take offense to hearing this song played at a community festival. I had no problem with ComFest officials - and Columbus police - pulling the plug on this tune.
Granted, there’s so much more to the story and I wasn’t present at the show: I’ve heard all of this second-hand. The narrative has changed a lot the past three days as well: rumors circulated that the band was actually threatened by cops - and Comfest officials - and I’m not always sure who, or what, to believe. But I think the deeper question is this: Is censoring this type of music a noble act or treason?
Censorship used to carry an air of rarified dignity with it. I often think of Rushdie’s exile from Iran after writing The Satanic Verses or Kurt Vonnegut raising ire after penning Slaughterhouse Five. But in today’s climate, I’m not sure if people truly feel the sting of censorship anymore. We all have the freedom to voice our thoughts, opinions and art any way we want, any time we want, with little fear of reprisal. Sadly, we suffer from the opposite problem: we clearly lack the ability to censor ourselves, even when we should. In this 24/7, wild-west of social media, it’s not uncommon to take 29 pictures of our Cobb Salad when only one will do. [Or post too many cat videos.] Self-censoring is a welcome blessing in this regard.
Chickenhawk Birdgetters deciding to cover a hateful song about cop violence is simply not appropriate at an all-ages festival. And they shouldn’t have cried foul when the plug was pulled on them. Granted, there is a time and place for this type of music, and I’m not condemning the artists for creating it. But ComFest isn’t it. I wouldn’t walk into a church and play Nine Inch Nails: it’s in poor taste. I wouldn’t attend a children’s birthday party and play “Lick it Up”: it’s inappropriate. Artists have a responsibility to their audience and not the other way around. I think we’ve lost sight of that.
ComFest officials politely asked the band to censor themselves and not play a tune that could incite violence. They refused. Instead, they told ComFest officials that they wanted ComFest to admit “they were censoring a band.” The band wanted to pin themselves as victims: percussionist Joey Gurwin even put duct tape over his mouth to prove the point.
Of course, this warrants more questions than answers. To my knowledge, ComFest has never censored a band in the 40-plus-year history of the event. No band has ever had to provide setlists or even discuss their sets with officials. So how did the police and ComFest folks even learn of this?
After giving it some thought, I came upon a possible conclusion: the “leak” was intentional. Someone in their camp got word out about their N.W.A. selection and ComFest officials - and police - responded accordingly. But why would a local band cause such a commotion in the first place? One word: Publicity. [Call it “The Trump Effect”—it obviously works.] The band wanted to earn free publicity - and become heroes in the process - by becoming the first band to ever be censored by ComFest. It worked: an article was written about them in Columbus Alive, one of the organizers resigned and they have blown up the Internet the past four days.
It was a publicity stunt.
In this new era of publicity-at-all-costs - led by our Executive-in-Tweet - it’s no wonder that people are divided over this issue. But there is nothing treasonous about pulling the plug on such a hateful song as “Fuck tha Police.” To stand in front of a microphone and shout “motherfucker” at a bunch of ten-year-olds isn’t noble, it’s stupid. In my mind the ComFest Committee - and Columbus Police - got it right: they pulled the plug on an act that wasn’t willing to censor themselves. When artists don’t have the temerity to govern themselves for the well-being of the community, then others must step in and do it for them. Well done.
Pete Vogel is a drummer, musician, teacher, movie director and many other things. Click here to visit his website.
Guitarist Freddie Free Talks Haynes Boys with Colin G.
The mid-nineties were an exciting time in the Columbus music scene. I'm not going to bore you with a long history lesson, except to say my favorite band from that period was the Haynes Boys. This Comfest weekend, the self-titled Haynes Boys debut record is finally being re-released on vinyl and on I-Tunes. Not being a music critic, my best description would be it sounds something like Keith Richards producing Gram Parsons in his basement at Nellcote. I LOVE THIS RECORD. Pick up a copy here or better yet catch them at Lost Weekend Records Thursday, June 25th, at 7 pm; Ace of Cups Friday, June 26th, at 10pm; or the Off Ramp Stage at 1:55 pm, Sunday, June 27th for Comfest.
Haynes Boys guitarist Freddie Free (listed as Phillip Park on HB credits) was kind enough to answer a couple of my questions.
Colin - Do you remember your first practice with the entire original line-up of the Haynes Boys? Did it click from the start or did it take a while to jell? What was the first song you worked on?
Freddie - Yes, I remember my first HBs practice because I had a huge, swollen black eye from being punched in the face the day before, while ill-advisedly riding my bike through a crowd during "Heritage" weekend on OSU campus, almost immediately post-Rodney King LA race riots. It was my first real, direct experience of racial violence, and it was a real eye-opener... pun intended. So, that would put my first practice at around May or June 1992.
Colin - Where did you guys rehearse back in the day?
Freddie - Funny you should ask, because those first practices were actually held in the basement of the place where Tim Scholl, who I was in the process of replacing on guitar at the time, was living. Luckily for all of us, Tim Scholl seemed to have a remarkably tolerant attitude about that, despite the fact that he was understandably a little disenchanted with the band that point. But my understanding was that he had chosen to leave the band, and he and I have been friends ever since. And that place is about two blocks from where I live right now.
Colin - Did you frequent a certain bar before or after practice?
Freddie - I seem to remember that we did hang out a little bit at Dow's On High, as well as at nearby Staches, of course. Both of which places we would be come to play on a fairly regular basis
Colin - What was your first gig like?
Freddie - The first gig I played with Haynes Boys was at a well-respected restaurant and music bar called The Dell in Old Town East, where Carabar is now located, I believe. One memorable feature of The Dell was that a large stuffed Blue Marlin was prominently mounted above the stage, and was always a potential hazard to anyone playing that particular venue. I always had the feeling I was going to get an eye gouged out, or a limb gored by proximity to that thing...
I remember that Dan Dow of Used Kids Records and, I believe, Don Howland, both of whom were also in The Gibson Brothers (an important early influence on our band) were both present for that show, and that I sang the lead vocal on a cover of Big Star's "Way Out West" for the first time that night. Unusual, because Tim Easton was, by that point, lead vocalist on nearly every song we would play, many of which would be his original songs.
Colin - What was your favorite cover tune to slip in the set?
Freddie - Along with the aforementioned Big Star cover, we did things like "Cigarettes and Whiskey and Wild, Wild Women" and some really odd stuff too, like Ivor Cutler's song "Bugs." (I'm going to attach a long list here of cover songs that Aaron Rice recently compiled and posted on the HBs Facebook page.)
Colin - Did you guys get along personally while touring?
Freddie - We did all generally get along pretty well on the road, at least until we did our longest and most intense tour in 1994, when we spent a good part of that summer playing just about every club, pub and/or hole in the wall that the South of England, to some degree unwittingly, had to offer. The cracks began to show there, but I should also point out that was also the tour that made us into a "real" rock 'n' roll band, a band ready to make a solid first album a year or so down the road. When we came back to Ohio off that tour, we were a completely different animal, and ready to take on just about anything that would stand in the way.
Colin - Who did most of the driving?
Freddie - Jovan did almost ALL of the driving, most notably on the gruelingly-long English tour, where he was apparently the only one capable of driving consistently on the "wrong side of the road." as you do over there. That, however, did not prevent us from being pulled over once or twice by a curious Bobby or two, who wondered aloud what the hand-rolled cigarette in Jovan's shirt-front pocket really might be. "What's all this, then...?"
Colin - What music would you guys listen to while traveling?
Freddie - We would listen to all manner of music in the touring van or car, but one memorable, if otherwise uncharacteristic, ritual we developed specifically for that English trip was that, as a way of remembering our American roots and "grounding" ourselves to some extent, we took to listening to Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town and Nebraska albums back to back, and in their entirety every morning, over our usual Weetabix and tea breakfasts.
Colin - What shows/cities do you remember fondly?
Freddie - There are many memorable shows, but, among the most notable are: the first show we played at Stache's right after returning from England as, essentially, a whole "new" band compared to what we were before that tour; a show we played in Austin for SXSW in 1995 which more or less landed us a record deal; and a show we played in D.C. while on tour with Cracker, sometime around '97 or '98, which probably showed us at about the peak of our live performing capabilities.
Colin - Where did you guys stay while recording in Nashville?
Freddie - The recording studio there is Alex The Great, owned and operated by Brad Jones and Robin Eaton, who co-produced the record with the band. The studio had a large apartment attached to it, as well as, now, a large mastering facility, Club Roar, and other very useful spaces, like the big room with the ping-pong table where Club Roar is now. So we basically lived in the studio during those frantic seven days in which we recorded all the basic tracks and overdubs, and oversaw the mixing for what would become our debut record.
Colin - Did you tinker with the arrangements in the studio or pretty much lay them down as you had been performing them live?
Freddie - We had the arrangements before going in, and we worked closely with Brad Jones and Robin Eaton to see that the songs were basically recorded the way we were envisioned them, but we also incorporated some of their ideas too. It was a shotgun wedding that seemed to work.
Colin - What guitars and amps were you using to record?
Freddie - I'd fallen in love with Vox AC 30 amps, and it just so happened that they had a really sweet one at Alex The Great. I remember that Brad had a cool way of routing the Vox's amp signal back into itself in a loop from one in-jack to the other channel.
I played my trusty old 1972 Fender Telecaster and a mid-60s Fender Mustang I'd recently got. Tim, I believe, plugged his electric guitars into mostly Fender amps, or maybe a few odds and ends they had around. We may have occasionally amped an acoustic guitar as well, but Tim used a clean acoustic guitar on several songs.
Colin - Do you have an idea how many people are already familiar with the record or does it feel like a new release?
Freddie - There were a good number of people that liked the record when it first came out, and more so after we toured it for some time and were starting some radio airplay, particularly on the East Coast. Some people, like Joe Carver at Re-Vinyl records, obviously held it close enough that the record is coming out again now and is available on vinyl for first time also.
The remastering for vinyl and iTunes, plus the corrected sleeve art make it much closer to our original vision, so that does make it feel a little bit like a new record to me.
Colin Gawel's band Watershed played many shows with the Haynes Boys. He would also often show up at their gigs loaded and scream "Play Maryhaven Family!" He founded Pencilstorm.com and owns Colin's Coffee in Columbus, OH.
Willie Phoenix Comfest Set-List Wish-List by Colin G. and Ricki C.
Willie Phoenix will play this Saturday, June 27th, at 5:05 pm on the Bozo (Main) Stage at the 2015 edition of Comfest. As summer and warm weather bring out the most presumptuous aspects of Colin's & Ricki's personalities, they have seen fit to choose Willie's set-list for him. They did not confer on their choices and certainly didn't consult Willie.
Colin G. - Having played and attended countless Comfest shows, I will share my personal philosophy on what kind of set-list works best at the Capital City's biggest festival. Comfest is NOT the show to break out a bunch of new songs or take your crowd on a new direction or a jazz odyssey. Comfest is a show where the crowd consists of: A) people who haven't seen you in a long time; and B) people who are seeing you for the first time.
So, in my opinion, a Comfest set should be a good representation of your entire career so people get the proper idea of what your band can do best. It's a career-spanning greatest hits list. I'm not saying you can't mix in some new tunes, but don't forget to trot out that old warhorse that your die-hard fans love hearing. Oh, are you are tired of playing that one? Too bad. Just play the damn song and stop being so selfish. Do you think Cheap Trick loves playing "I Want You to Want Me" every single night for 35 years? They play it because the fans love it. It's a two-way street.
Having said that, this is the set-list I would draw up for Willie Phoenix for his Bozo Stage appearance Saturday, June 27th at 5pm. Ricki is the true Willie expert at Pencilstorm, but here is my two cents.
Fight / My Apartment / Heart Goes Boom / Willie's choice of a new song / She's So Powerful / Hey Little Girl / Willie's choice of a new song / New York Is Burning / Stick with Me / Gasoline
Click here to check out the Willie Phoenix Tribute Machine
Take it Ricki......
Ricki C. - Willie Phoenix’s Comfest 2015 set begins with rhythm guitarist Kim Crawford knockin’ out the riff to My Apartment on her trusty Fender Tele. Bassist Myke Rock and drummer Jim Johnson fall flawlessly into the pocket and the band riffs away that way for maybe a full minute before Willie throws in the lead guitar figure while still offstage. Willie saunters onstage from stage left, knockin’ out the riff, gets to the stage-center mic, throws up his left hand, the band stops on a dime, Willie informs us, “This is my apartment, you can’t tell me what to do, love” and the band is off to the races. By three minutes later, when Willie is yellin’ “This is my apartment / This is my ROCK & ROLL” the boys & girl have got the Comfest crowd in the palm of their hands, and Willie has once again laid claim to the legacy of Columbus r&r that is rightfully his.
An unseen roadie tosses Willie a harmonica rack from offstage, Willie drops it over his head in one fluid motion and – holy shit! – the band races into Electric Folk Dreamin’ Man from 1990 or so. They tear through three minutes of prime folk-rock/power-pop, and then – without missin’ a beat – Jim starts poundin’ out a slab of beatdown-boogie and the band snarls into the Z.Z.Top-inspired fever of Heart Goes Boom for ten minutes or so, effortless and rockin’.
Willie gives the somewhat stunned & reeling Comfest crowd a little breather after the opening onslaught with that new tune of his that namechecks The Velvet Underground, knocking out taut little lead breaks on his Strat between the verses. A roadie walks out and switches Willie’s electric for an acoustic and – holy shit, again! – Willie starts singing, “New York is burning, she won’t write / My heart is skipping lunch tonight.” The Soul Underground falls into line and the four of them bash through an absolutely majestic version of New York Is Burning. At some point in the song that unnamed roadie sets Willie’s electric out on the stage, on a stand back by Willie’s amp.
After raving vocally about New York burning, at the end of the tune Willie throws the acoustic to the offstage roadie, picks up his electric and rips into a pyro solo that illustrates & illuminates the title of the tune just like Hendrix did after Dylan’s line “And the wind begins to HOWL” in Jimi’s cover of “All Along The Watchtower.” Willie solos for three or four minutes; Kim, Myke & Jim bash the song to a close and without any break Willie is off into the inescapable, unstoppable riff to Gloria, and even I have to give him his due and that indulgence after the set he’s pulled off to this point.
Willie keeps Gloria to a taut ten minutes, the band waves goodbye and leaves the stage to a raving response from the Comfest crowd, then Willie walks back onstage alone with a beat-to-shit Ovation acoustic I haven’t seen him use since sometime in the 1970’s. He launches solo acoustic into a ten-verse autobiographical tune about the decades of his life he’s devoted to rock & roll. The chorus of the song is “All the places I’ve seen / All the people I’ve been” and it distills all the music Willie has played since the late 1960’s: from The Boppers to Little Eric to Romantic Noise to The Buttons to the A&M Big Band to The Shadowlords to The True Soul Rockers to the unnamed blues bands of the 2000’s right up to and through Blues Hippy & The Soul Underground.
I can’t believe my eyes or ears. The song is killer. It’s like one of those Rick Rubin productions of Johnny Cash in the American Recordings years. Willie punctuates the verses with wild harmonica solos from the rack around his neck, and you can’t even keep up with the words & images spilling off of the stage. There’s no pyrotechnics, no performance, no playin’-behind-his-back, no divin’-into-the-crowd; there’s just a man, his words, his guitar & harp. It’s mesmerizing. Willie finishes with a final harmonica solo and the crowd is almost too stunned to respond. Willie deploys one of his patented grins, flashes a peace sign and walks offstage to rapturous applause. All the places he’s seen. All the people he’s been. I wouldn’t wanna be the act that has to try to follow Willie Phoenix at Comfest. – Ricki C. / June 20th, 2015.
My Apartment / Electric Folk Dreamin' Man / Heart Goes Boom / Out Of Your Mind / New York Is Burning / Gloria / All The People I've Been
Below: Willie performing "Heart Go Boom" from the This One's For Andy DVD.
Willie & the Soul Underground performing “Gloria” @ the LC Pavilion, 10/23/2015 (added to blog a few months after Comfest)