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Tin Huey members, Bizarros to headline at Firestone. Students also to play at benefit
By Malcolm X Abram
Beacon Journal music writer
Published on Thursday, Nov 05, 2009
Firestone High School in Akron needs some help with its visual and performing arts program.
There are several well-known graduates, aka Stoners, in the entertainment business, including Chrissie Hynde, both Black Keys members, Joseph Arthur, actress Melina Kanakaredes and . . . um . . . Angie Everhart.
But as the old saying goes, (place favorite Omniscient Deity here) helps those who help themselves, so this Friday night at the school's Linda B. Kersker Auditorium, there will be a fundraising concert called Stone Stock 2009.
Organized by theater director Mark Zimmerman and presented by the Friends of Firestone Visual & Performing Arts, the concert will feature a mix of Akron bands both past and present. Co-headliners will be the Bizarros and Three Hueys and a Houseguest which features — as you may surmise from the name — Harvey Gold, Michael Aylward and Stuart Austin of Tin Huey and Dave Rich of Houseguest. Austin and Rich are Firestone grads.
Also on the bill are local acts Christian alt-rocker Will Cleary, Dave Rich's other band, the guitar-driven Tiger Fighter, Akron-based indie pop band Maid Myriad, one-man band the Kristoffer Karter Show and student performers Polymerization, Assassin Broadcast, Granite Union and Katie Jetter.
If you go, be sure to ask one of the three Hueys about the band's new archival release on Smog Veil Records, Before Obscurity: The Bushflow Tapes.
The album, featuring cover art by award-winning cartoonist Derf and liner notes by ''the Dean of American Rock Critics'' Robert Christgau and his spouse, Carola Dibbell, is a collection of live, studio, unreleased and alternate versions of famous Tin Huey tunes and a couple of tunes from Ralph Carney and Friends (most of Carney's friends were Hueys) and some early takes on a few songs from the Waitresses, including The Comb (you know, the one about the girls who dance with the girls because the boys won't dance) and, of course, a Stooges cover.
Besides the relatively good sound, tracks such as the previously unreleased instrumental Right Now/Betty White show relative youngsters like me just how awesomely tight the geeky art-rockers in Tin Huey were back in the day (not saying that they're all loose and flabby now) and just how odd they must have been to many clubgoers back in the 1970s.
Tickets for Stone Stock 2009 are $10 and are available at Made-in-Akron, Square Records and Rubber City Clothing Co. All proceeds will go to the Firestone arts program.
Folk festival to open
It's been 43 years in the making and the time is now for the 2009 edition of the Kent State Folk Festival.
The folkin' festivities will begin at 8 tonight at the Kent Stage with some international folk flavor from Edwin Colon Zayas, master of the cuatro (it looks like a tiny guitar with five double-course strings).
Though I won't pretend to be knowledgeable about the jibaro style (Puerto Rican peasant music mixing Spanish and African influences) that Zayas favors, from the video clips I've seen, the dude can really work that tiny fret board.
In 2008, Zayas received a Grammy nomination for his album Reafirmacion and he has recorded more than 17 solo albums and appeared on more than 250 recordings by other Puerto Rican artists, including Marc Anthony.
He also has been awarded the National Heritage Fellowship, a lifetime honor presented to master folk and traditional artists by the National Endowment for the Arts.
If you dig the hip Spanish sounds of Mexican acoustic guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela, Zayas' playing and Afro/Latin grooves should get you grooving.
At 8 p.m. Friday, rock hall inductee singer/guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and singer/guitarist Greg Brown will perform.
Earlier this year, Kaukonen released a solo album, River of Time, recorded at Levon Helm's studio. Helm, former Band drummer, plays on a few of the songs.
The album mixes new songs with covers of songs by the Rev. Gary Davis, Merle Haggard and Mississippi John Hurt and is a pleasant, all-acoustic affair, and, of course, Kaukonen is still a heck of a guitar player.
Saturday night at 8 p.m, the venerated Del McCoury Band brings its tight familial vocal harmonies (Del's sons Ronnie and Rob are band members) and fleet fingers to the stage.
The Grammy-winning bluegrass band has been around for 50 years and has a new album, Family Circle, released last week that sticks to the traditional bluegrass blueprint. The McCoury band is widely respected and hailed by fellow roots music stars such as Alison Krauss and Steve Earle, with whom the band has recorded.
The band also has received verbal hosannas from folks such as Elvis Costello and has jammed onstage with Phish and has appeared at several Bonnaroo fests.
Next Wednesday at 8 p.m. will be the Old Crow Medicine Show, a traditional folk/bluegrass/string band with a rock and roll attitude, evidenced by some of the song titles and subject matter of its 2008 album Tennessee Pusher. The album includes the humorous Humdinger, the cautionary tale Methamphetamine (the band is against it), the Martin Luther King Jr. lament Motel in Memphis and the tender and funny heartbreak ballad The Greatest Hustler of All.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.
Details:
What: Stone Stock 2009
When: 7 p.m. Friday
Where: Linda B. Kersker Auditorium, Firestone High School, 333 Rampart Ave., Akron
Tickets: $10
Information: 330-873-3408
What: Masters of Puerto Rican Roots Music featuring Edwin Colon Zayas
When: 8 tonight
Where: Kent Stage, 175 E. Main St.
Tickets: $10, free for students with valid ID
Information: 330-677-5005 or www.kentstatefolkfestival.org
What: Joma Kaukonen and Greg Brown
When: 8 p.m. Friday
Where: Kent Stage, 175 E. Main St.
Tickets: $25, $45
Information: 330-677-5005 or www.kentstatefolkfestival.org
What: Del McCoury Band with Sarah Jarosz
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: Kent Stage, 175 E. Main St.
Tickets: $30, $50
Information: 330-677-5005 or www.kentstatefolkfestival.org
What: Old Crow Medicine Show
When: 8 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Kent Stage, 175 E. Main St.
Tickets: $30 in advance, $35 day of show
Information: 330-677-5005 or www.kentstatefolkfestival.org
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