BCE Blogs: BC Rocks

My idea for Battle Creek's bailout

With $85 million ready to spent in retooling downtown Battle Creek for economic revival, here's what I'd do if I had just $5 million of that:

• $3 million: Help at least six live music venues start up downtown. Venues we need: another rock venue, a semi-large venue capable of hosting bigger names, a piano-martini bar that plays jazz music, a country venue, an intimate acoustic setup. This money could go toward helping new venues open or helping existing downtown venues revamp so they could better host live bands. Like Spring into the Arts, we need a summertime pub crawl every year.

• $500,000: An outdoor sound system that pumps music happening inside the venues out onto the streets. Also, they could play Christmas music during the Festival of Lights to help add to the festivities.

• $500,000: Hardcore promotion, including TV and radio commercials, newspaper ads, billboards, Internet advertising, the sides of buses, downtown signage. Do this as a co-op with the venues that start up and existing downtown businesses. They put in some money, Battle Creek Unlimited and the Battle Creek Chamber of Commerce puts in some money, and $500,000 turns into $1 million.
• $1 million: Revamp Kellogg Arena. Big names draw big names. With an improved arena that brings in bigger acts on a regular basis (a really, really big name for the unveiling of the remodeled arena), we’ll establish ourselves as a city worth visiting, and that will bring more acts.

NOTE: See the full story Thursday in WOW.

Your Xmas wish list

Some of the local bands who have released CDs year; all of these should be on your Christmas wish list:

King Of The Forest, “The Nerve”

Darling Down, self-titled

Kyle Jennings, “Long Black Cadillac”  (Disclaimer: Kyle is from the Richland area, but lives now in Nashville, Tenn.)

Lykin, “Dead Planet Red”

Ninth Street Bridge, “Goin’ Home”

Bits ‘N’ Pieces, “30 Years Older, 30 Years Wiser”

First Class Faux, “The Start”

Dali Rocket, “Incessant Love Tribunal”

Their Teeth Will Be Of Lions, “Everyone Made it Out Alive ... Almost!”

UPDATED: Local shows tonight, this weekend; multimedia

UPDATE!! This was posted about 2 minutes ago (4:30 p.m. Friday) on the Enquirer's MySpace page: Conversations Coffee is hosting open mic night tonight 7 - 9 pm. Music appropriate for all ages. 691 Capital Avenue,SW, Battle Creek.

Spoke this morning with Tony Fields, who will be featured in next week's WOW. Here's the interviews and the title track from his 2007 album.

---

Tony Fields' "Elegant Lady":

---

---

Interview with Tony Fields:

---

Also, here are some local shows happening this weekend:

• At Planet Rock: Slap Maggy and Nature's Element are on tonight; Slap Maggy, Man Unkind, Malice and Soligion are on Saturday, Absence Of Concern is on Sunday. (Click here to read last week's story on Man Unkind).

• At The Corner Bar: The Run-Abouts and Blitz & The Thundertones are on tonight; Gales, Edge From Falling, Out Fate In Hell, Within Trinity are on Saturday.

• At The Stagecoach Barn: The Bonk Bros. are on tonight and Saturday.

• At Bell's Eccentric Café: Greensky Bluegrass is on tonight; The Hard Lessons are on Saturday.

• At Good Times Bar & Grille: It's Blues Nite with Sam Moore tonight.

• At Green's Tavern: It's Hip Shot tonight and Saturday.

NOTE: For more local nightlife this weekend and through the week, click here.

NOTE: Click here to join a forum discussion on the best albums of 2008.

In today's WOW, multimedia

In today's WOW, you will find:

• This story on Lil' Ed & The Blues Imperials. Click here to read my interview with Lil' Ed Williams.

---

Lil' Ed & The Blues Imperials' "Life Got in the Way":

---

• This Rock Column: The Secretary of Sound

• This week's Top 5: Top 5 songs about revitalization

5. "Top of the Pops," by The Kinks

4. "Wonder Boy," by The Kinks

3. "Movin' On Up," by Primal Scream

2. "Shoot Down the Stars," by Gym Class Heroes

1. "Going On," by Gnarls Barkley

BONUS: TOP 5 SONGS I'M THANKFUL FOR

5. "Lust for Life," by Iggy Pop

4. "Make the World Go Away," by Elvis

3. "Sympathy for the Devil," by The Rolling Stones

2. "Thrift Store Chair," by Everclear

1. "Father of Mine," by Everclear

ALSO: Click here to join a forum discussion on the best albums of 2008.

What were the best albums of '08?

Click here to visit a forum where you can sound off on your favorite release of 2008. I want to start a month-long discussion through December, info from which I will use to write a Rock Column that will run Jan. 1, 2009.

 Among my favorites of 2008: 

Gnarls Barkley's "The Odd Couple" 

Everclear's "The Vegas Years" 

AC/DC's "Black Ice" 

Gym Class Heroes' "The Quilt" 

Weezer's red album  

We Are Scientists' "Brain Thrust Mastery"  

The "Shine a Light" soundtrack, by the Stones

Live music tonight

On the biggest bar night of the year, Planet Rock has a live show: King Of The Forest (including a new drummer) and Culprit. Check it out.

---

King of the Forest's "Volunteer":

---

The laugh-easy, it'll get better blues

Every once in awhile, I interview somebody who makes my job very easy. Lil' Ed Williams was that kind of interview.

He was quick to laugh in a very bluesy kind of cackle. He spoke charismatically, and oh so descriptively, full of imagery, like this little nutcracker:

“Well, you know, my uncle played slide, J.B. (Hutto), he played the slide. That’s one main reason, I was fascinated with the slide, when I saw him play. You know, the slide was shimmery. Back then, they didn’t have the 90-watt bulbs or the 100-watt bulbs; we only 60 and 40. And I think we had 40-watt bulbs, and so the house was pretty dim. And when he played, you could see the slide just shimmering when it moved. And it sounded good,  and I think that’s what brought me to it.”

When subjects start talking like that, you know your day is going to be an easy one.

The story, as they say, more or less wrote itself. I was but a vessel for ol' Lil' Ed's voice.

And Ed had some magic things to say, too. Like the mission of his music, which somehow aligned well with the very motto I try to take through life. Here's another quote from Lil' Ed:

"The way I try to present the songs, especially, when I’m playing a sad song, I try to present it where, you know, it’s sad right now but it’s gonna get better. My sad songs usually have a happy ending. It’s not about, ‘Oh, my baby left me and I’ll never see her again,’ it’s, ‘Oh, she left but hey, she might come back again,’ or, ‘Hey, I might meet somebody else,’ you know. My songs, it gives people the incentive of ‘Hey, hey, it might be bad right now, but it’s gonna get better."

"It might be bad right now, but it's gonna get better." I like that. That's why I was fascinated by Everclear instantly, because that seems their message, too.

Sometimes, it's good to sing those kind of blues that are all about exorcising inner demons. Scratch a little guitar lick and scream at the smoky corners of your soul, and you will feel better. But sometimes, it's just good to hear how somebody else got rid of the blues.

Click here to read my full interview with Williams.

---

Lil' Ed & The Blues Imperials' "Life Got in the Way":

---

The nobility of rock 'n' roll

The first thing that ever appeared in the Enquirer with my name on it was an editorial titled, "Black jacket doesn't mean a black heart." It was a lengthy think piece that basically said you can't judge the character of a person by their hobbies, habits or fashion. Here's an excerpt:

Chris, Barney and Kate were regulars and favorites at many parties, causing a ruckus and general disorder as often as they could.

The only thing any of the three of them wear now is camouflage and they are protecting all our freedom in Iraq, even as this is being written. So, the point which needs to be made here — the thing which must be understood — is that a black coat doesn't necessarily mean a black heart.

I was thinking about this column Monday as I interviewed the Lansing-based band Origin Of Fate.

With car troubles over the weekend that lasted into Monday, I didn't make it into the office, where I was scheduled to meet the band and their promoter, Scott Parks at 7 p.m. I called Scott to reschedule the interview, but he said he'd have a hard time reaching all five of the band members to keep them from heading down.

"Why don't I just come pick you up?" Parks said. "We'll go to a restaurant or something and do it there."

So he did. With all five musicians and myself piled into Parks' SUV, we went to nearby Ritzee Hamburgers, home of the 69-cent hamburger, to sit and have a couple pops while we chatted. With no hours posted on the door, we went inside the mostly-empty restaurant hoping for the best. It closed at 7:30 p.m., said Sarah behind the counter. It was 7:26 p.m. by Parks' watch.

But Sarah said we could order and sit and chat for awhile, even though I only had a Dr. Pepper and Parks was the only one who ate. We took a back corner table where we all would fit, me and five laughing musicians. Frontman Jasun Pierpoint is large, wide, bald, tattoos running down his arm. Drummer Aaron Kiss looks angry even when he's laughing. The only other customers in the place were this elderly couple having burgers and coffee at the table next to us. They looked scared, or at least put off, by our very presence.

When, at nearly 8:30 p.m., the restaurant finally turned off their lights and Sarah was out mopping floors, the band — a great albeit often foul-mouthed interview, which I didn't have a voice recorder for — thanked Sarah repeatedly for staying open, gave her a copy of their three-track demo, told me I needed to put her in the story.

I laugh to think of that old couple looking frightened or annoyed by the band, who were all nice guys, and I think it's funny that that happens a lot. Planet Rock — where Origin Of Fate is playing Dec. 19 and 31 — gets a bad reputation among certain circles for serving only roughnecks and being in a bad neighborhood. But there's more loyalty, familial love and honor in those noisy walls than almost anywhere in Battle Creek.

So, parents reading this now, remember that just because a singer screams some angst-ridden obscenity or even talks about getting high, it doesn't mean that roughneck wouldn't take the shirt off his back for your son or daughter, if he or she needed it. Or that he wouldn't be aptly appreciative and generous to a young girl working late in a burger joint on a snowy night some 70 miles from his home.

---

Origin Of Fate's "Diary":

---

VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR: 'Scary Monsters, Super Freaks' Christmas

In honor of the Holidays, here are some of my favorite Christmas music videos, starting with this weird duet with David Bowie and Bing Crosby:

And this is one of my favorite Elvis Christmas songs. There's no video for it, but it's got some nice old pictures of the King:

And, from one of my favorite Christmas movies, "Home Alone," we have "Carol of the Bell," probably one of my favorite Christmas songs of all time. It won't let me embed it, so you have to click the link.

Local shows this weekend

Some local shows happening this weekend:

• At Planet Rock: Trial By Life, Fifth Day Release, Dead Relative are on tonight; Elude Fearra,Demoniare Suicide, Sin Theorem are on Saturday.

• At Good Times Bar & Grille: It's Blues Nite with Sam Moore tonight.

• At The Stagecoach Barn: The Frankie Ballard Band is on tonight; The Avenues are on Saturday.

• At Bell's Eccentric Café: Zion Lion is on tonight; Strange Arrangement is on Saturday.

• At The Corner Bar: It's a "Funk Dub Extravaganza" with Oridjinns, Burnin' Man, Birianna Bee and Tree City tonight; Dan Cadillac & The Electric Racecars, Holding Mercury and The Extinctions are on Saturday.

• At Redrum: Within Trinity and Monuments Of Fiction are on tonight.

For more local nightlife happening throughout the week, click here.

For a listing of upcoming Michigan concerts, click here.