Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Live, Local Music is at Heart of Bad Racket Anniversary Show

Written by Priscilla Tasker

Camaraderie and music pulsed through the multi-colored paneled walls of Bad Racket Recording Studio in Ohio City as friends and artists gathered to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the business that is growing into a mainstay of the Cleveland music scene. An intimate crowd upwards of 60 people assembled to swill a few brews and listen to area bands play on the small stage centered in the studio chamber.

Ladybird and The Folk led off the night to entertain early arrivers with live incantations of spritely verse and acoustic-driven progressions.
 Bad Racket Anniversary Show! – October 21, 2011
©Bad Racket

An assorted mix of folk mingled in the dimly lit room around miscellaneous seating arrangements, a makeshift coffee table propped up by tires, and a piano bar, behind which was a keg of Buckeye Brewing’s Cleveland Beer Week “special brew” – a gift bestowed to the studio owners by its crafter. 
Humble Home emerged to the performance platform. Nebulous harmonies and ghostly minstrelsies soon filled and hung in the space with listeners yielding to the beauty of sound suspended in air. Many of the band’s songs are doleful and pensive in nature, but the four men delivered a lively set. To appease the congregation’s calls for one more song, the band closed with an upbeat work in progress, “Welcome Home,” giving witnesses a first listen to the song which had never before been played outside of the Humble Home practice space.

Humble Home at Bad Racket – October 21, 2011
©Bad Racket
Although Ladybird and Humble Home were the only artists promoted as part of the bill, Bad Racket invited several other musicians with whom the studio’s worked to take the stage. 
After a brief intermission, Thaddeus Greene and The So & So’s roused the company of music lovers with swelling vintage rock grooves, harkening to acid rock days. The band played as a duo, Greene and drummer Anthony Foti (also of Humble Home). With a few words, they paid tribute to ailing bassist, Matthew Augusta, who was unable to join them for the evening.
Thaddeus Greene at Bad Racket – October 21, 2011
©Bad Racket

The extended lineup drove the event well beyond its scheduled end time of 11 p.m. Tom Evanchuck and The Old Money strolled in close to midnight, after the band’s show at Wilbert’s, to set the party off with its blues-bound rock ‘n’ roll. The performance was marked by G. Patrick Jenkins III’s exhibition of his new lead guitar role. The energy of the full band behind familiar tunes sent a few individuals into a dizzying dance.
Cool Jason and Pat Mulloy wound down the night with a few good ol’ boy bar tunes before the crowd dwindled. There were only a hand full of people left talking and diddling around on the instruments strewn about the stage as Bad Racket’s Thomas Fox picked up the acoustic guitar to croon a couple of tunes in the quiet company of those who remained.


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Listen to The Rhythm Report's pre-show interview with two of three Bad Racket co-owners, Adam Wagner and Thomas Fox.


Read about one of many wins for Bad Racket in 2011 in this article: Last-minute music fest takes Rock Hall, Science Center


Bad Racket, LLC is owned and operated by Thomas Fox, Adam Wagner and James Kananen.

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