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Common with NSPCrew and Moe' Tre
Thursday · Bogart's
It's sometimes hard to remember how vital Hip Hop is to our city's visual and aural pulse when all around us, weekend in and weekend out, clubs and venues hypnotize us with almost-has-been reunion tours and young Country and Rock groups on their way up or down. To soothe our Hip Hop bellyaching, two turntables and a microphone aligned and De La Soul at the Mad Hatter, Common at Bogart's and Scribble Jam's upcoming 10th anniversary blowout appeared.
Every genre has its Common — an artist who's not quite as smart, on point or even as deep as he thinks he is, but who keeps at it anyway. During a career that's highly stylized and far from over, Common has yet to record his opus, to put the needle to the vein from which all his "shit's fucked up/I'm a sensitive Rap cat" observations flow, although he came damned close with One Day It'll All Make Sense. He backtracked into Heavy-Handed Tangential Rap with Like Water for Chocolate.
The reason potentially great poets disguised as MCs marketed as models get away with mediocrity is because Hip Hop, once the ugly skinny cousin who didn't give a fuck if we ever threw him a crust of bread, now wants some of that suburban cash being thrown around by whomever's throwing it. Mainstream media? Crossover dreams? Escape from the ghetto of the underground?
And therein lies Common's unspoken dilemma.
He's not arrogant like Kanye West ("We're all self-conscious, I'm just the first to admit it"), his latest producer/Svengali to declare that he wants and deserves the credit, the attention and the awards. So he tries reconciling his earthly self with his higher, backpacker/Conscious Rap-self, and he ends up suffering Hip Hop schizophrenia most of the time. However, when he's kept focused and on point as West keeps him on Be, with its tight, concise cuts and no interludes, skits or fillers, Common delivers deft, play-that-back-again word play that's immediately satisfying but that just as quickly evaporates. His best work is with other rappers, rappers who challenge him to step up his game and spit like he's on the corner in Chicago, like he acts like he's doing in his videos. Maybe in concert Common will drop all the pretense and postmodern black male angst and give the crowd the staccato grunge and sumptuous sparkle of "On the Corner" and "They Say," respectively. Respectfully. (Kathy Y. Wilson)
Robbers on High Street with Brendan Benson
Friday · Southgate House
Where are all these Rolling Stones comparisons coming from? Whether meant as an actual comparison to the Stones or code for "they sound like The Strokes," they're just way off the mark. Robbers on High Street are simply making pure Power Pop that doesn't ever wear a decade on its sleeve. Musically, their closest kin is probably Elvis Costello, with a hooky piano and guitar alternately dominating polished Indie Rock songs. They don't attempt obtuse lyricism, just go straight for the gut with a touch of wit here and there. Ben Trokan, the band's focal point and chief songwriter, splits time between the keyboards and guitar and belts out slightly gruff and understated vocals. When Steven Mercado adds his smooth harmony vocals and jagged guitar riffs, it's apparent that the RoHS' power is the pairing of these two. Not surprisingly, Trokan and Mercado are childhood friends from Poughkeepsie, N.Y. After playing and writing together for many years, Trokan moved to NYC, where he met drummer Tomer Danan. Meanwhile, Mercado hooked up with bassist Jeremy Phillips. The band's inception was when the powerhouse quartet first played together in 2001, and from their first recorded effort, the Thin Lines EP, it was clear they were not going to be pulled down by the Garage Pop undertow. Instead, there was enough Beatles influence to add a festive fringe to their angsty writing on that album, and their recent release, Tree City, has expanded on this imaginative streak. With this debut full-length on New Line Records produced by Peter Katis (Interpol, Mercury Rev), the Robbers are certainly not avoiding a commercial sound, but neither are they single-mindedly churning out cookie cutter Rock. It's a balance that they strike perfectly, delivering razor-sharp and energetic performances that are difficult to evict from both your head and your playlist. The Rolling who? (Ezra Waller)
"Spectral Sound Vol. 1 Tour" featuring Ryan Elliott, Bernstein and more
Saturday · Crush
For a lot of independent music, the label imprint an artist is attached can be as important as the artists themselves. While, of course, the musicians and performers are the life blood, being linked with a respectable indie can often be the main draw, attracting attention from a wider pool of club-goers, press and music lovers. For Dance music, it's no different, which explains why the current tour featuring acts from the Ann Arbor-based label Spectral Sound is promoting the label name as much any of the acts. Spectral Sound began five years ago as the "dancefloor offshoot" to the lauded experimental Indie Pop imprint, Ghostly International. The label quickly outgrew its side-project status, releasing acclaimed DJ singles from artists like Matthew Dear, Hieroglyphic Being and Osborne. The tour was inspired by the release of the two-disc set, Spectral Sound Vol. 1, an excellent introduction to Spectral that presents 13 of the label's crucial sides, with most of the entries being released in the CD format for the first time. The second disc presents the Spectral Sound sound in its natural habitat, as tour headliner Ryan Elliott crafts a mesmerizing mix disc that spans the history of both imprints. Elliott, a regular, popular draw on the Motown DJ scene and Dear's longstanding DJ partner, seems the perfect man for the job of remixing and crafting such a diverse, seamless collection of progressive, often spacious Techno. For the Cincinnati stop at Crush on Saturday, Elliott is joined by Bernstein, a DJ/producer/Electronic artiste who works in Tokyo, Cincinnati-based soundscapist Ish and Tread Vs. The Librarian, a collaboration/back-and-forth between artists from the local Race Car Productions and Zeropoint Records/Parcel Management indie dance crews. Progressive Dance music is alive and well in Cincinnati — check racecarproductions.com (the site of show promoters Race Car Productions) for the proof. (Mike Breen)
