F#(K Cancer: The Musical @ Shadowbox Live, January 17th-26th - by Ricki C.

(editor’s note: By the very nature of the show, and the title, this article will contain profanity, so it might not be for the kiddies…….)

First off, a coupla paragraphs of facts, then some of the usual senseless/nonsense Ricki C. commentary……..

Fact: The Shadowbox Live production of Fuck Cancer: The Musical returns beginning this Thursday, January 17th, and continues through Saturday, January 26th, ticket info and all that good stuff found here: Shadowbox Live, Fuck Cancer: The Musical.

Fact: Fuck Cancer: The Musical grew out of an idea by Shadowbox founder & creative mainstay Stev Guyer after he was diagnosed with cancer. There’s a really informative article from Columbus Underground about show author Jimmy Mak and the creation of the musical from when the show debuted last summer linked here, in case you wanna read all about it: Columbus Underground / F#(K Cancer: The Musical. (I LOVE links. As a lazy rock & roll roadie/blogger, they make my job SO much easier.)

Fact: You should go see this show. I will explain why in my commentary.

Commentary: I first heard about this production in a phone call from my good friend & brother in the rock & roll Ed Hamell (aka Hamell On Trial). Sometime in the spring of 2018 Ed phoned to say he was gonna be writing the songs for a musical about people dying of cancer for Shadowbox Live. “A musical about people dying of cancer?” I said to Ed, “That sounds cheery. I think you’re just the man for the job.” Hamell and Shadowbox go way back. In the late 1990’s – YEARS before I became Ed’s road manager in the early days of the 21st century – Shadowbox would book Hamell On Trial into their 2Co’s Cabaret venue on High Street in the Short North.

I have to say, though, at no time in the ten years from 2000-2010 that Ed and I crisscrossed these United States do I remember either of us saying, “You know what would be a KILLER (pun intended) career move? Writing the songs for a musical about people dying of cancer.” But here we are in 2019 and I have to admit, Fuck Cancer: The Musical is a pretty genius idea by both Mak & Hamell, and once the Shadowbox band & actors breathe life into the story and the songs, the whole deal becomes a genuine tour de force.

Full disclosure: At the time Ed and Jimmy were collaborating on the writing of the show, both my beloved sister Dianne and my dear friend Mike Parks – the lead guitarist of Colin Gawel’s band The League Bowlers – had just died of cancer. (My brother had also just then passed away from complications of heart disease.) Given those realities, I can’t really say I was prepared to actually ATTEND the production when it debuted in June, 2018.

In actual fact it took me until late summer 2018, to buck up and go to the show on August 26th, the very last day of the first run of the musical. Ed had come into town to see the show for the first time, to witness the culmination of the songs he had written but had never actually seen staged since the early rehearsals back in April or May.

By the intermission of the show, I truly, truly regretted waiting until the very last day to see Fuck Cancer: The Musical, because it meant I couldn’t go see it again the next day; it really was THAT great, and THAT powerful. Jimmy Mak’s book and Ed’s songs melded into a truly heartfelt, moving story. I fully admit, I was initially concerned that the show might be cloying, or overly sentimental, or – at the other end of the spectrum – too cutting, and therefor painful to watch.

In the end, Fuck Cancer: The Musical was none of those things: it was simply wonderful, and moving, and simultaneously heartfelt AND heartbreaking, in the best possible way.

And the best thing? This Thursday, I get to go see it again. If you haven’t seen the show, I gotta say: GO! If you’ve seen it before I’m betting – like me – you’ll wanna go again. Do it. – Ricki C. / January 14th, 2019.

Shadowbox Live's® original musical celebrates the stories of triumph, the pain of loss, and the hope we find during our battles with our greatest common enemy. Go to www.ShadowboxLive.org for show info!

Ace In The Hole Music Is Closing Next Week: You Should Stop In - by Ricki C.

Ace In The Hole Music Exchange (1153 Kenny Centre, inside the Kenny Centre shopping plaza, right by the corner of Kenny & Henderson Rds. / 614-457-5666) is closing its doors for good on Saturday, March 18th, 2017.  You should go there before it does. 

Owner/proprietor Mike "Pepe" Depew has kept Ace In The Hole going since 1995 - virtually single-handedly for the past seven years - but the crushing economic realities of keeping an indie record store afloat in our current downloadable music culture has made continuing the venture impossible.  (see store hours and closing-week discount schedule below)

I worked at Ace In The Hole for nine years in the first decade of this 21st century, 2001-2010.  I lived a pretty clichéd rocker existence that decade: I played action-packed acoustic solo rock & roll gigs; I served as road manager for Hamell On Trial, a punk-blast of MC 5-derived acoustic energy; halfway through the decade I signed on as merch guy & guitar tech for Watershed (and later for Colin’s spinoff bands, The League Bowlers and The Lonely Bones); and in between all that touring my day job was at Ace In The Hole Music.

I can’t tell you how cool that day job was.  Essentially I was getting paid to hang out and listen to music for eight hours a day, while talking ABOUT MUSIC to various strangers, friends & acquaintances who dropped into the store, both of which I WOULD HAVE DONE FOR FREE!!!  Other than a very short stint at Camelot Music right before Ace In The Hole, I had spent 25 years of my life working on receiving docks and in warehouses, unloading trucks and humping freight about for 40 bone-crunching/soul-destroying hours a week; BELIEVE ME, working in an indie record store work was better.

Plus I can’t tell you the number of good friends I made at that store: a local cancer physician, who – due to his rather retiring nature – I’m guessing would rather remain nameless here, who has subsequently become my sister’s oncologist as she battles cancer, and whose friendship has made that entire process SO MUCH EASIER; local rocker (and current Nashville émigré) Erica Blinn, whom I met when she was in her early teens when her dad – Ace In The Hole regular Jerry Blinn, bassist of the fine, fine, superfine West Side rocker elite Black Leather Touch – brought her into Ace, where she later became an employee; and, crucially, Joe Peppercorn – leader & master songwriter of first Mrs. Children, later The Whiles, still later the mastermind & driving force of the annual Beatles Marathon, perhaps Columbus’ finest yearly musical throwdown.

I met Joe one chilly Monday morning after I had co-hosted Invisible Hits Hour – Curt Schieber’s long-running Sunday night CD 101/102.5 record review show – the night before.  Joe came into the store – all but twisting a cloth cap in his hands like a character out of some Dickens novel – and said, “Are you the guy who was on Invisible Hits Hour last night?”  (I continually plugged my employment at Ace In The Hole on the show: why waste an hour of free advertising?)  “Did you like the show?” I asked back at him.  “Yeah, it was great.” he replied.  “Then yeah, that was me,” I said, brightening.  “What were you going to say if I didn’t like the show?” Joe asked, meeting my eyes for the first time in the entire shyness-slanted conversation.  “I was gonna say it was the white-haired guy who owns the store,” I said, “the last thing I need is little assholes coming in here and berating me because I badmouthed their favorite 311 record, and I can’t walk away from ‘em, because I’m at work.”

It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

There’s so much more about my nine years at Ace I’d like to get into: Watershed playing a great gig in the parking lot of the store on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon back in 2002, when The More It Hurts, The More It Works was brand new, YEARS before they ever became my employers (maybe Colin will write about that separately this week); the fact that Jim Johnson – ace drummer of various Willie Phoenix bands through the years & decades – was our record distributor throughout my employment and remains in that position to this day (plus he got me my job at the store, that’s a cool story in itself); but all that has to wait for a later blog, ‘cuz here’s what you have got to know RIGHT NOW!!!!!!! 
   
Ace In The Hole is open this week and next week Tuesday through Friday 11 am-7 pm; Saturday 11am-5 pm; and Sunday March 12th from noon to 2 pm or so, whenever the traffic and the conversation run out.  Final business day is Saturday March 18th, 2017.  All used CD’s in the store are 50% off; vinyl records $6 and under are 50% off (and, you’d best believe me, there’s still a BUNCH of great, cheap vinyl left in the store, I got that Brotherhood album – offshoot band of Paul Revere & the Raiders – for 50 cents last week, among others); vinyl $7-$30 is 20% off, and vinyl over $30 (and there’s some gems in that price range still there, too) is 30% off.  You really should go in and drop some cash, you could do much worse stuff with your time and your disposable music money until the 18th. – Ricki C. / March 6th, 2017. `

National Record Store Day, April 18th, 2009: Colin plays music, future Pencilstorm movie critic Rob Braithwaite reads the paper, local singer/songwriter John Vincent watches and waits for his turn to play.....

Hamell On Trial @ The Hungry Soul Cafe, Friday July 25th, 8 pm / Bonus Content by Ricki C.

So let’s say one day you find yourself thinking, “I wish I could go see the 1978 Clash, only instead of a four-man punk band, they would be rolled into one bald, sweaty guy with a 1937-vintage acoustic guitar.  And instead of being just deadly serious, The Clash would simultaneously be as socially conscious & hilarious as Richard Pryor was at his prime.  I wish I could go see a show like that.”

Well, dear readers, as always Pencilstorm is here to make your wishes come true: This Friday, July 25th, The Hungry Soul Café (downtown at 30 S. Young Street, phone 224-1944) will present Hamell On Trial, a solo acoustic rock & roll act that has been described as “Bill Hicks, Hunter S. Thompson and Joe Strummer all rolled into one” by Philadelphia Weekly and a “one-man Tarantino flick: loud, vicious, luridly hilarious, gleefully & deeply offensive” by New York’s Village Voice.   

Showtime at The Hungry Soul is 8 pm, tickets & reservations are $8 in advance, admission at the door will cost you a laughably minimal $10.  Parking meters around The Hungry Soul need not be fed after 7 pm, so parking is essentially free.  For more info and reservations, visit info@hungrysoulcafe.com.   

Please note: Video is not for the faint of heart. If you are easily offended, you'd best skip it.

Hamell On Trial by Ricki C.

Pencilstorm Conflict of Interest Statement: I served as road manager for Hamell On Trial for 10 years, 2000-2010, before knee surgery for a torn ligament sidelined me and made it infinitely more difficult to traipse around these United States hauling guitars & amps and making nine & ten hour drives between gigs. But make no mistake, boys & girls, for those ten years I worked every night in the presence of greatness, and I would mean every word of this blog whether I had ever traveled & worked with Hamell, or just stared up at him on the stage from the audience, awestruck from the other side of the footlights.

I first encountered the phenomenon that is Hamell On Trial at the South By Southwest Music Convention in Austin, Texas, March 1996, at a huge outdoor Mercury Records showcase – 10,000 people in the street on a gorgeously warm Texas afternoon/evening. Ed was signed to Mercury then, his first record, Big As Life had just been released, and they were using him to keep the crowd occupied between the other performers' sets (God Street Wine, The Refreshments, and Joan Osborne - for those of you scoring at home). While roadies scurried around changing out amps, drums, etc. Ed would play from the very front of the stage, maybe five songs at a time, three sets in all.

From the very first dive-bomber kamikaze guitar strums and the staccato spitting delivery of the best lyrics I had heard in years it was rock & roll love at first sight. The next day I lucked into seeing him at a really, really small coffeehouse in his allotted South By Southwest slot. I was there to see the act following him and had arrived early to snag a good seat. While Ed was setting up I thought to myself, "Cool, this is the guy I saw yesterday at the outdoor show, but how the hell is he going to play this tiny coffeehouse? He'll have to tone the act down so far it won't work."

Only he didn't tone it down. He played a fifty-seat coffeehouse at exactly the same manic intensity and nearly the same volume he played the huge outdoor show. People walked out of the place wincing and holding their ears during the first song. I, on quite the other hand, was in six-string sonic heaven. This was everything I had been looking for since I quit playing in bands and started doing solo acoustic shows: extreme volume and attitude, great lyrics, a sense of humor. This was fiercely intelligent rock & roll played on an acoustic guitar with no hint of lingering folkie kum-ba-yah-ism.

I saw him again in March 1997 at South By Southwest and he had a whole set of new songs potentially even better than the ones I saw him play just a year earlier (including "The Vines," the song that ended my 20-year career of warehouse work and sent me into music full-time.) In August of '97 he played Columbus and I cadged my way onto the bill as the opening act. I got to the club early, watched his soundcheck, screwed up my courage and walked up to him as he was packing up his guitar. I held up my CD covers to Big As Life and The Chord Is Mightier Than The Sword and said, "Hi, I'm your opening act and I just wanted to get the gushing fan stuff out of the way. Could you autograph these for me?"

I was fully poised, balanced back on my heels, ready to take off if he growled, "Motherfucker, do you think I don't have anything better to do than sign your little CD's?" Instead he smiled and said, "Ah, you got my CD's. Do people know who I am here?" I said, "Yeah, you get airplay on our local NPR station, I think it'll be a good crowd." I thanked him and started to walk away after he signed and he said, "Hey, come on back to the dressing room and we'll talk." I replied, "No, I don't wanna bother you." (First rule of opening acts: Never ever, under any circumstances, bother the headliner.) Ed said, "I'm in that car eight hours a day, every day, by myself, I never get to talk to anybody, come on back." I looked around. "Don't you have a roadie?" I asked. Ed replied, "Do I look like I can afford a roadie?"

It turned out we had bought all the same records in all the same years (Lou Reed, The MC5, The Stooges, Mott The Hoople, The New York Dolls, Patti Smith, Jim Carroll). We'd both witnessed nature’s most perfect rock & roll organism – The Who in 1969 – fifteen days apart: November 1st (me) and November 16th (him) when Keith Moon ruled the universe. We lived very similar rock & roll existences: i.e. played in bands for years, then went solo acoustic. We had the same kind of working class reprobate rocker friends; him in Syracuse, New York, me in Columbus, Ohio. It was like we were brothers who grew up in different zip codes.

When he was going onstage that night I said, "Hey, I've seen you play before, I know you're gonna break strings. Why don't you show me where your extra strings & tuner are and I'll switch them out for you if anything goes wrong." He just stared back at me and said, "Really?" "Yeah," I said, "doesn’t your opening act offer that wherever you go?" Ed replied, "No, nobody ever offers anything, anywhere, anytime."

I played roadie that night. I helped out around the Midwest after that. When tours with Ani Difranco came up in 2000 I got a tryout and made the grade. I stuck around. – Ricki C. / January, 2012

(editor’s note: As always, because it IS Ricki C. after all, this piece has been heavily edited & condensed from the original. For the complete blog, please visit Hamell On Trial, Growing Old With Rock & Roll, January, 2012.)

apropos of not much more than that I got to meet Wayne Kramer of The MC5 last Sunday at a Shadowbox Live gig, here's a bonus encore video of Hamell On Trial.