Funk Babblings

If I were going to be in Columbus Saturday night (not Friday as I first said), I'd be at Skully's for the Third Annual Joe Strummer Memorial Clash Benefit Marathon. It starts a 6:30 with a showing of the film Rude Boy, followed by 16 bands performing three Clash or Joe Strummer songs each. I'd especially want to see The Secret Sound Of The NSA and Red Dahlia (whose music is much better than their web site design).

You say you're not in Columbus? Are you west of Ohio? Well, The Reputation may be coming to your town soon. For example:

• Sun Mar 13 - Lawrence, Kansas
• Thu Mar 17 (my anniversary!) - Austin, Texas (SXSW, which I want to go to someday)
• Sat Mar 26 - San Francisco

Say hi for me. :-)

Update: A bit closer to home, the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland has a couple notable shows this weekend.
Tonight (Friday) is a(nother) reunion of Columbus punk legends the New Bomb Turks. (I doubt I'll make it; besides being exhausted from work this week and not likely up for NBT punk, tonight is also the Canton Drum Circle Meetup, which I haven't been able to get to yet.) Tomorrow night (Saturday) is Alex Chilton, who I first knew only through the Replacements' great song about him, but later through his Big Star songs like "September Gurls", "Don't Lie To Me", and "In The Street" (which became the basis for the theme to "That 70s Show").

Well, I'd been hoping to head up to the Beachland in Cleveland tonight to see The Reputation, but since we're heading to Pennsic tomorrow and haven't done anything to prepare for it yet, that Cleveland excursion is looking doubtful at this point.

Oh yeah, and for those in Columbus, The Secret Sound Of The NSA is playing at Skully's tonight.

OK, it's almost another weekend, so I'd better write about last weekend before I forget....

I ended up spending most of my Marcon time in panel discussions, probably half of which were fan discussions about TV shows (lots of Firefly and Buffy fans) and movies, and the rest were about either old Sci Fi books or some issues raised in some Sci Fi. Actually the best part there was starting to get to know some of the people that went to so many of the same panels as I did.

But the highlights of my weekend were walking up High street for some music.

( Friday - NSA and some trauma )

( Saturday - Scrawl Rocks! )

Just today I realized that Ladyfest Ohio is this weekend in Columbus, and I might be able to go to some of it since I'll already be downtown for Marcon. Looks like there's a lot of interesting stuff going on, but of course I'm most interested in the music. Looks like a wide variety of styles.

The main highlight for me is the return of Scrawl, 11:30 Saturday night at Little Brother's. However, another one I hope to see the same night is Camora, 11:00 Saturday night at Club 202. Doing both should be interesting, but they're both great bands.

There are others I'm not familiar with but look interesting just from the descriptions... my initial list includes:

• Friday Night
  • Little Brother's
    • 7:00 - St. Sebastian
      
    • 10:00 - Di Di Mao
      
    • 11:45 - Frostiva
      
    • 1:00am - Tracy + the Plastics
  • Club 202
    • 11:40 - The Voodoo Dollies
• Saturday Night
  • Little Brother's
    • 5:30 - Deco Halo
      
    • 8:30 - The Fairmount Girls
      
    • 10:00 - Slumber Party
      
    • 11:30 - Scrawl
  • Club 202
    • 11:00 - Camora
      
    • 11:45 - Scarlett
      
    • 12:30 - Burning Sage
      

Of course, Friday night I'm already planning to see The Secret Sound Of The NSA at Bernie's.

Next trick is to compare this with the Marcon schedule and figure out my priorities and where to go when.

I realized a couple days ago that I'll miss Comfest in Columbus this year because we'll be at Pagan Spirit Gathering. It's not surprising that they conflict; Comfest is always on the last weekend of June (well, unless wedding planners book the park first), and PSG is always the week surrounding the summer solstice. There are enough non-overlapping years that I haven't had to get used to that conflict the way I've had to get used to PSG always conflicting with Father's Day. The trouble is that both events are important to me, but Comfest is more comfortable for me, especially with all the great music going constantly.

It also looks like Karen will finally get to drag me to Pennsic in August -- unless I'm working by then and can't get away. Or sneezing my head off. Should be quite an experience.

With two week-long camping events coming up, I'm starting to think that renting an SUV (gasp!) might be worthwhile. I wonder if there's some pay-for-miles-not-time deal I can make that will take advantage of not actually driving that whole week. What I really need is an expandable car (forget the flying car, I want to keep my foot) so that normally I can happily drive my beautiful and maneuverable little coupe, then when friends come along it becomes a four-door with plenty of legroom in the back, and when I need to haul stuff it expands into a truck.

Anyway, coming up next weekend is Marcon in Columbus. Only a bunch of geeks would spend Memorial Day Weekend cooped up in a hotel for three days, but it still can be fun. Maybe I'll wander over to Goodale Park at some point to try to make up for missing Comfest. And I'll definitely have to head up to Bernie's on Friday night to catch The Secret Sound Of The NSA celebrating their new release.