MUSIC Lighter than Air

BY ALAN SCULLEY

Early in their partnership in Air Supply, guitarist Graham Russell and singer Russell Hitchcock got a harsh lesson in how fleeting success can be in the world of music.

The two met in Sydney, Australia when they landed gigs in the chorus for a touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar in 1975. They hit it off so famously that almost immediately, they began spending time between Superstar rehearsals and performances working together on songs Russell had been writing.

“We both said together, are you interested in creating a band together?” Russell recalled during a phone interview. “And we said let’s use our time in Superstar to create a band, so when Superstar ended, which would be 18 months down the line, we had something to go to.”

Their first year-plus was nothing short of magical for the duo, who will play Cincinnati’s Hard Rock Casino on March 4.

While they toured in Jesus Christ Superstar, they were restricted from promoting themselves. But Russell and Hitchcock wrote and recorded songs and played some gigs while keeping their identities on the down low. They even released a single, “Love and Other Bruises,” which caught on with radio in Australia and became a chart-topping hit in 1976. This led to recording a self-titled debut album, which went to the top of the country’s album charts just as the duo was wrapping up their stint in the musical.

“It was so bizarre. We just left Superstar a couple of days [earlier]. We have the No. 1 single, and the next week we had the No. 1 album,” Russell said. “And one of our very first shows, because it was at the end of the year [1976] and we had this big hit single, they asked us to perform at the [Sydney] Opera House on the steps for 90,000 people.”

“We hardly had put the band together. We didn’t know what we were doing,” he added. “We had a good set. We played all of the songs from the first album, which at that point had only just come out. So for us, we thought ‘Oh my, this is great. This is how it happens all the time.’”

That good fortune continued. Rod Stewart had an Australian tour booked and noted that Air Supply had the country’s No. 1 single and album, so he asked Air Supply to open for him. Things meshed, and soon Russell and Hitchcock were off to America and Canada, extending their run as openers on Stewart’s tour.

Then came the reality check.

“We toured with Rod and we thought we’d come back to a hero’s welcome, ticker tape and the whole thing,” Russell said. “But they had forgotten about us.”

The pair couldn’t get gigs. Russell tried to sell some of his songs, to no avail, and before long they were basically dirt poor.

“But the great thing about that, which we didn’t realize at the time, was this: it made us dig in,” Russell said. “We didn’t give up and say, ‘Oh, that was great, playing with Rod, we had a big album, a big single. And now we’re going to get a regular job.’”

“No, we dug in,” Russel continued. “We dug in the trenches and we said, ‘No, we’re going to get back there’ because we’d already been to the U.S. with Rod, obviously, and we wanted to get back there. We didn’t want to be the biggest band in Australia. We wanted to be the biggest band in the world.” Russell set out to write new songs, and that group of 15 or so included familiar tunes like “All Out of Love,” “Chances,” “The Woman You Love” and “Lost In Love.” The latter song was released as a single in Australia in 1979, and the magic returned.

“It was a big hit again [in Australia],” Russell said. “But we still didn’t make any money. It wasn’t until Clive [David] heard the record, and unknown to us, bought the record, bought the rights, and released it.”

Davis is a record-industry legend known for helping to launch the careers of Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Whitney Houston and numerous others. He was president of Arista Records at the time and had yet to contact Russell or Hitchcock, so

Russell took the initiative.

“I called him up and I said ‘Is this Clive Davis?’ He said ‘Yes.’ I said ‘This is Graham Russell from Air Supply.’ And I actually reversed the charges. I didn’t have any money,” Russell recalled. “He said ‘Where are you?’ I said ‘I’m in France because I went to a publishing convention,’ which I missed because I got sick. He said ‘What are you doing there? Get back to Australia. We need that album straight away.’ And that was my introduction to Clive.”

It turned out Davis had big plans for Air Supply. On his way back to Australia, Russell stopped in Los Angeles to meet Davis in person, and that’s when he began to sense the magnitude of what was about to happen.

“He [Davis] said, ‘Lost In Love’ is going to be the biggest song of the year,’” Russell said. “I couldn’t really believe that, but he said it. He said ‘Get back there. Your career is about to take off.’”

And did it ever. The anthemic pop ballad sound of “Lost In Love” registered worldwide, starting a string of hits that turned Air Supply into one of the biggest acts of the ‘80s.

Over the next six-plus years, Air Supply followed the double-platinum 1980 Lost In Love album with four more studio albums, three of which went platinum or gold. The duo spun out hits like “All Out of Love,” “Every Woman in the World,” “The One That You Love,” “Here I Am,” “Even the Nights Are Better, “Two Less Lonely People in the World” and “Making Love Out of Nothing at All,” of which went to No. 5 or better in the United States.

The hits dried up toward the end of the ‘80s, but Air Supply kept touring with new albums and had major success over the decade-plus that followed in Asia, South America, India and elsewhere.

Over the past ten years or so, Russell and Hitchcock have seen a resurgence in their popularity in the United States. They continue to perform roughly 130 shows each year in a six-piece band format, surprising fans with a live show that’s more robust and energetic than the studio versions of their songs might suggest.

“It’s a rock-and-roll band in whatever form. We just play a lot of big, epic ballad songs, but we play a lot of other stuff, too that everyone knows,” Russell said. “But in essence, it’s a rock-and-roll band, and it’s loud and powerful. For the people that think it’s going to be Peter, Paul and Mary, they’re very much surprised.”

Air Supply plays Hard Rock Casino at 8 p.m. March 4. Info: hardrockcasinocincinnati.com.

Sound Advice

simmering keyboards intermingling as if they have a life of their own. “Pyramid Theme,” with its clanging rhythms and eerie mood, brings to mind a narcotically dosed version of something off of Radiohead’s Kid A. The most haunting tune here is “Smothered Inside,” which features Taylor’s most straightforward vocal delivery ever, a yearning ache backed only by droning electric guitar.

The remaining Brainiac members have booked a series of live shows in celebration of the EP’s release, including a stint opening for Scottish indie rock masters Mogwai in Europe and a trio of U.S. shows culminating with a stop in Cincinnati, which has long counted the Daytonians as enduring area heroes.

“For us, this is a way to still be in awe of Tim, to honor him, or else we wouldn’t do it,” Tyler Trent said in a recent interview with The New York Times. “And I wish people could see how much joy and life and healing Tim’s mom gets out of this. Tim was one in a million.”

Brainiac plays Woodward Theater at 9 p.m. Feb. 25. Doors open at 8 p.m. The Serfs will open the show. Info: woodwardtheater.com. (Jason Gargano)

Brainiac With The Serfs

Feb. 25 • Woodward Theater

Has it really been more than a quarter century since Brainiac infiltrated the ear canals of adventurous listeners across the Midwest and beyond? The Dayton-based quartet existed for only five years, but what a run it was, delivering three fulllength albums (1993’s Smack Bunny Baby, 1994’s Bonsai Superstar and 1996’s Hissing Prigs in Static Couture) and an EP (1997’s Electro-Shock for President) before a car accident took the life of dynamic frontman Tim Taylor in May of 1997.

Rumor has it Brainiac was on the verge of signing to a major label at the time of Taylor’s demise, which is hard to fathom today given that the band’s jittery brand of electro rock was moving into an even artier and more atmospheric direction as they went along. It’s nearly as hard to believe that Brainiac’s surviving members — bassist Juan Monasterio, guitarist John Schmersal and drummer Tyler Trent — are finally reuniting for the release of an EP of previously unreleased demos titled The Predator Nominate. The nine-song effort features a curious array of musical sketches, all under two minutes, representing the last of Brainiac’s recorded output. The instrumental title track sounds like an emission from another planet with

Brandee Younger

March 2 • Greaves Concert Hall

Contemporary harpist Brandee

Younger’s major-label debut Somewhere Different features her composition “Beautiful is Black,” which earned her a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition at the 2022 Grammys and made her the first Black woman nominated in this category. The album also received a nomination for Outstanding Album at the NAACP Image Awards.

Younger’s sound mixes jazz, funk, R&B and classical, often simultaneously. The exploratory music also has some psychedelic touches, similar to one of her influences, Alice Coltrane. Ravi Coltrane, the son of Alice and legendary jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, is a collaborator and is featured on her 2019 release Soul Awakening. In addition to Coltrane, Younger has worked in different genres with big names such as Pharaoh Sanders, The Roots, John Legend, Common, Charlie Haden and Lauryn Hill, amongst others.

Younger has been written about by the New York Times and Rolling Stone magazine. Her composition “Hortense” was featured in Beyoncé’s Netflix concert documentary Homecoming

In addition to writing and performing, Younger has served as a curator for concerts and festivals and is on the teaching artist faculty at both New York University and the New School College of Performing Arts.

After past performances at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Apollo Theater and the Museum of Modern Art, the dynamic and rising harpist’s stop at Northern Kentucky University will be free and open to the public.

Brandee Younger plays Greaves Hall at Northern Kentucky University at 7 p.m. March 2. Info: nku.edu/events. (Brent Stroud)

Crash Test Dummies

March 3 • Ludlow Garage

With one of the most distinctive voices in pop music, Brad Roberts brings his band Crash Test Dummies to Cincinnati for a career retrospective show.

After a 17-year touring hiatus due to Roberts’ back problems and several members leaving the band, this veteran Canadian group reunited and began hitting the road again several years ago, despite not releasing a new record since 2010’s Oooh La La! But with a solid American fanbase, the three-time Grammy-nominated Dummies have embarked on an extensive Midwest concert road-trip and will release their first single “Sacred Alphabet” this spring.

Debuting back in 1991 with their folk/ rock gem The Ghosts That Haunt Me, the Winnipeg-based Dummies quickly established their quirky, popular sound: songwriter and lead singer Brad Roberts’ coal-deep baritone and a rollicking musical cast supporting him with acoustic piano, accordion, guitar, violin, and mandolin. They even covered the Replacements’ prescient “Androgynous” with a stirring homage.

But it was their second record, God Shuffled His Feet, that gave them a higher profile, eventually selling more than five million records. With the help of radio’s then-new alternative rock format, they scored a huge hit with “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm,” which shot to No. 4 on the Billboard chart.

Roberts’ resonant voice always stood out on radio amongst the more common tenors. “My voice was stuck way down in this bass range, and I had to learn how to use that, and use it effectively. And in the end, instead of it being a barrier, it was rather an avenue, because people find it refreshing instead of alienating,” music blog Ear of Newt reports Roberts as saying in a 1991 piece in The Georgia Straight Crash Test Dummies play Ludlow Garage at 8:30 p.m. on March 3. Doors open at 7 p.m. Info: ludlowgaragecincinnati.com. (Greg Gaston)

Dawes

March 8 • Taft Theatre

Dawes just can’t stop, never going more than two years without releasing new material. The Los Angeles-based quartet’s eighth studio album, the evocatively titled Misadventures of Doomscroller, dropped last summer. Sure enough, it’s another tuneful set in the Jackson Browne realm of self-reflection and cultural assessment, backed by a tastefully rendered mix of rock, pop and folk, as well as a previously underutilized experimental streak.

“The more I’m honest with myself about whatever I want as a creative person — and when I’m making no concessions to what I think someone’s going to want or what a label might say, or a manager, or a friend — I’m rewarded for it every single time,” frontman Taylor Goldsmith told Paste about Dawes’ current creative direction in a July interview.

The nine-minute-plus album opener “Someone Else’s Café/Doomscroller Tries to Relax” veers off into jammy, jazz-infected territory via soaring guitars, dexterous rhythms and atmospheric piano and keyboard work. The next song, “Comes in Waves,” is equally searching, a wistful, meditative journey into the philosophical as Goldsmith sings, “I think I’ve found something in common/With nothingness and God/You stare at either in the face too long/They’ll do each other’s job.”

Nine-minute album closer “Sound That No One Made/Doomscroller Sunrise” all but confirms Dawes’ dive into Grateful Dead worship, as Jerry Garcia-worthy guitar excursions mingle with cosmic lyrics about life, death and everything in between.

And, of course, there’s inevitably a tour to match each new effort, another chance for Goldsmith to deliver his earnest lyrical observations and modest but often affecting vocals in a live setting. The band confirmed their latest tour with this Twitter post: “Happy to announce the Misadventures of Doomscroller headline tour. 2 sets. Just us. Long nights. Full hearts. Come early. We’ll have to break out the catalogue master lists and bingo cards as we try to get to every song we’ve got.”

No word yet on how many of Dawes’ more than 80 tunes will make the cut, but let’s hope the majority of the new — often otherworldly — stuff is explored.

Dawes plays Taft Theatre at 8 p.m. March 8. Doors open at 7 p.m. Info: tafttheatre.org. (Jason Gargano)

Crossword

Across

Mad Scramble

BY BRENDAN EMMETT QUIGLEY WWW.BRENDANEMMETTQUIGLEY.COM

1. They work on a case-by-case basis: briefly

4. Bottled water named after a nation

8. Billboard fodder

14. Kingston coll.

15. Computer with an M1 chip

16. Sarcastic diacritical added to beef up the “metalness”

17. *18, in most places

19. Minor gaffe

20. Like some lenses

21. *Metal alloy strip used in electronics and decorations

23. Inventor Howe

24. Transaction ___

25. Romantic getaway spot

26. Prepare leather

27. *Court records

31. Suddenly rather expensive part of breakfast

33. “Could’ve Been” R&B singer

34. Dog with a regal name

35. & Schuster (publishers of “The Cross Word Puzzle Book” in 1924)

37. “Carmen” composer

39. Indian colonial rule

40. Grad school hurdle

41. Help for those who get butterflies?

43. *Group with the 1989 hit “Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)”

47. “___ Wiedersehen!”

49. Woman’s middle name, often

50. Army member that makes tunnels

51. Thumper’s friend

53. *Floor model setting

57. “Animal House” dean

58. Gave for the time being

59. What the starting halves of each starred clue’s answer are, compared to their second halves

61. Deal with

62. Big party

63. Wrist band?

64. ___ Pieces

65. “Roar” singer Perry

66. Between-albums releases

Down

1. Sweet and soothing, as some sounds

2. Anatomical rings

3. *Some sports news regarding acquiring new players

4. Folder material

5. It has a big screen

6. Trevor Lawrence, e.g.

7. Brew that was frozen during production

8. Camagüey’s country

9. Certain insurers, briefly

10. Church coverings

11. Year of the (2023)

12. New Orleans university

13. Rear positions

18. Palindromic woman’s name

22. NWA rapper MC ___

24. PC key in the top row

27. Japanese sliding screen

28. Projecting window

29. Partie du visage

30. Beasts in a yoke

32. Ipanema resident in song

36. Avril’s follower

37. Sparkling wine specification

38. *Bench sharer

40. “Leaving the computer mid-chat” message

42. Underground diagram

43. NASCAR drivers Elliott or Hermie

44. Typical soccer draw score

45. Like rumpled beds

46. :(

48. Record book accomplishments

51. Masters flub

52. Sheet music abbr.

54. Heavy burden

55. French mother

56. Pindar’s verses

57. Light bulb measurement

60. “Just & Equitable Schools” org.

LAST PUZZLE’S ANSWERS:

Bertha G.

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