MusiCal (January 2011)

By Don Allred

Girl Talk

“I know you’re not a leper”, Nicki Minaj murmurs over the undertow of Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear The Reaper,” as Ol’ Dirty Bastard tries to cheer up Radiohead’s “Creep.”  The Jackson 5 rattle free of paternal curfews, while Missy Elliot gets her freak on with the Ramones. So it goes on mash-up DJ Girl Talk’s All Day, where genre, gender, space, and time make hot speed bumps.

1/06 @ The LC Pavilion, 408 Neil Ave.

Doors Open: 7 p.m.

Matthew Hoover & The Supersaints

Columbus-based Matthew Hoover’s folk-country extensions plug into the truth’s corrosive glow, keeping shaded lights on all night. Call the husband who ritualistically seeks and serenades his bar-crawling wife an enabler, but he’ll continue: “Who am I, or anyone/To deny/What makes you feel loved?” Being alone is worse than having ghosts or shoot-outs, so Hoover’s wishful thinkers always find their groove. This show includes new songs, riding with selections from Talking to Ghosts.

1/08 @ The Rumba Cafe, 2507 Summit St.

9:30 p.m.

A Night at the Movies

Central to The Columbus Jazz Orchestra’s A Night at the Movies is the music of Henry Mancini, whose lyrical standards like “Moon River” and witty themes like “The Pink Panther” inspired the CJO and conductor/trumpet virtuoso Byron Stripling’s special guest, Dave Grusin. Oscar-winning composer Grusin is also a nimble jazz pianist. Along with Mancini and Grusin originals, expect other cinematic favorites, like “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” and “As Time Goes By.”

1/14-15 @ The Southern Theatre, 21 E Main St.

8 p.m.

Ghost Shirt with New City Gypsy & Old Hundred

Stirred by electric violin, along with the usual rock instruments, Ghost Shirt’s arc of catchy, combustible melody fills a volatile vessel of chamber-pop-rock that compresses without constriction. Idealistically epic guitar bards New City Gypsy continually find new focus for their rousing, rowdy complexity. Old Hundred fearlessly follow the barefoot by-ways of Americana and earthy urban folk-rock.

1/15 @ Kobo, 2590 N. High St.

8 p.m.

STOMP

Percussion/dance troupe STOMP started up during British economic doldrums, dedicated to making workday objects swing. Recent discoveries include inner tubes of giant tractor tires, elevating performers via cables. Paper, plastic, brooms and the flick of cigarette lighters continue to provide excellent textures, while trash can tones now sport Latin accents, courtesy of strip-lighting recycling containers and de facto drumsticks. Wherever rhythm’s waiting, STOMP knows how to find it.

1/14-16 @ The Palace Theatre, 34 W. Broad St.

1/14: 8 p.m. , 1/15: 5 p.m. & 9 p.m. , 1/16: 3 p.m & 7 p.m.

Full Belly Food Drive

2011’s first Full Belly Food Drive fittingly includes the vivaciously voracious psych-pop soul of The Town Monster, along with blues-rocking boxcar acrobats The George Elliot Underground, Mazka Blaska’s speculative world-music atmospherics, and stellar prog-rock navigators The Receiver. Bring three non-perishable food items, or five bucks. All proceeds go to the Short-North based NNEMAP Pantry, and all attendees receive a free compilation CD, with two songs from each of these bands.

1/21 @ Skully’s Music Diner

7 p.m.

Punch Brothers featuring Chris Thile

The Punch Brothers have sometimes been tagged as “progressive bluegrass,” ever since their 2008 debut album Punch showcased ex-Nickel Creek singer/mandolin player Chris Thile’s often funny, passionate, yet discreetly oblique divorce epic, “The Blind Leaving The Blind.” 2010’s Antifogmatic is named for an ancient beverage, highly recommended for its blood-warming, head-clearing properties. Whenever Thile’s tall tales test the weather, stage-savvy picking keeps the Brothers’ medicine show rolling along.

1/24 @ The Lincoln Theatre, 769 E. Long St.

8 p.m.

Kid Rock with Jamey Johnson

On Born Free, Kid Rock celebrates his fortieth birthday, with amazed gratitude that he’s gotten this far and is still enjoying himself. The friction and flow of his Midwestern country-blues-rock also roll the Kid unpretentiously, yet unavoidably, through challenging times. Rock’s community-minded, candidly self-described “stadium songs” are seen and raised by the calmly conversational drama of country balladeer/band leader Jamey Johnson, whose The Guitar Song brews forthright vocals and eerie instrumental implications.

1/28 @ The Schottenstein Center, 555 Borror Dr.

7 p.m.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo

For thirty-six years, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo have been the hardest-working and possibly the hairiest male ballerinas in show business. They’ve long since charmed world leaders, including Kermit and Miss Piggy, though you don’t have to know anything about ballet to get it. As blissful wood nymphs, water sprites, dying swans, and princesses of several conditions, they revel in the comedy of masculinity, eternally re-fueled by classical gas.

1/28 @ The Palace Theatre, 34 W. Broad St.

8 p.m.

Burglar & Friends

Those who missed Opera Columbus’s Kurt Weill review, Berlin to Broadway, should catch Burglar. This homegrown sextet generates their own Weill life of elegantly butt-thumping intrigue, via bluesy romantic scrutiny of unstoppably dynamic plot twists. For Burglar’s self-titled CD release party, some facets of their luminescence are compatibly refracted by the Phantods’ spooky adventures in self-improvement, Main Street Gospel’s planetary psych-blues, and the barbed-wire ‘n’ roses alt-country of Two Cow Garage.

1/29 @ Skully’s Music Diner, 1151 N. High St.

7 p.m.

Shadow Prophets

 Having survived a decade of Columbus, metal mainstays Inducing Panic morphed into Shadow Prophets, as IP’s sizzling siblings, singer/lead guitarist Jaime Price and drummer Joe Morton, merged with bassist/backing vocalist Jason Beck. So far, fate and doom are the spinning perimeters for Shadow Prophets’ points of departure, as armored hearts and minds blast artfully charred constellations back at falling skies and faithless eyes. 

1/29 @ Ruby Tuesday, 1978 Summit Dr.

10 p.m.