Radio Free Tobias: June 2006

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Constant Columbus Battle of the Bands

Founded by a couple of gentlemen I know almost nothing about (other than that they both live in Columbus) started the Constant Columbus Podcast a few months back. It was similar to what I wanted to do with my first few podcasts, except they put more time into it, essentially.

Well, most of the entries are in, although the deadline is today (Saturday) so there will probably be a few last minute submission creeping in.

While not everything is my cup of tea (there's a R&B Jesus song and an "emo" song, among other things), the one thing I can definitely say I am impressed with is the variety of music that there is in Columbus. For a relatively small city, Columbus has several different thriving music scenes. Go over and give it a listen.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Pitchfork Music Festival

To be held July 29th and 30th, the Pitchfork Music Festival should be a pretty fun event. Unlike a lot of these mega-festivals that are springing up like honeysuckle or other such common weeds, this show features some great bands and only costs $30.

I know this kind of behavior is pretty archetypical of your typical pretensiuos music blog owner (*music blog owner*: hey check out this totally indie event! the Pitchfork music festival!) but this event seems pretty legit.

I know I'm speaking for myself when I say I don't have a couple hundy to drop on seeing the 20+ bands I would normally like to see perform solo, while getting tired after the first four or so before the Law of Diminishing Returns kicks in.

Not to mention Chicago is an enormous city and hotel arrangements should be pretty easy to come by.

Acts I am excited about:
Silver Jews
Band of Horses
Man Man
The Walkmen
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
Ghislain Poirier
Spoon
Yo La Tengo
Mission of Burma
Aesop Rock
The National
Tapes n Tapes

and a handful of acts I don't know on the smaller stages. I would normally assume they are really super indie and unlistenable, but this list on the whole is quite accessible, (Dvandra Banhart and all) so there's hope.

Chiciago is only a seven hour drive from Columbus. Only $20 for a single-day pass, and $30 for two.

Buy some hot tix!.

Steev Richter Skips Town

I totally dropped the ball on this one! This is not very timely, but I'll go ahead and say something anyways. On Saturday May 27th, Steev Richter and the Mannequin Band played their last show together before Steev departs for the Big City for his own devilish purposes. I bet he's doing all sorts of evil things today (it's 6/6/6 you know).

Well, even though there were some major problems with the sound system that I was never really made aware of, everything went swimmingly and 100+ people showed up to see our adopted hometown hero. Admittedly, I've seen Steev play a dozen odd times, but seeing him play "Hallelujah" (even though it was for the kajillionth time) made a pretty pointed impact on me.

Steev came to Mansfield in 2001 through a twist of fate, and stayed because of several more. He impacted a lot of lives here and now can take the extra wisdom that comes along with that back to New York with him.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Tiara breaks up

Tear.