March 13-19, 2013 free-times.com
p u s w o r g s ’ t a p . t s
l va ti s e f l a u n n a to h c a o r p p a w e n ls a n ig s t n e m p lo e v e d d te s e r ar Educators Reject Zais’ Evaluation Plan, p. 8
Les Miserables Hits the Koger Stage, p. 18
Pinback at New Brookland Tavern, p. 57
CHANGING FACE Now 31 Years Old, St. Pat’s in Five Points Tries to Grow Up
M BY PATRICK WALL
ore than 40,000 people descended on Five Points for last year’s St. Pat’s in Five Points festival. That’s 40,000plus paying festivalgoers — roughly the population of Sumter. Including volunteers, sponsors, media, VIPs and Five Points employees, the number sails even higher.
The festival grounds — stretching roughly from Senate to Blossom going north-south on Harden, and from Laurel to Hilton east-west on Blossom at its widest stretch — cover roughly 1.3 square miles. Put in perspective: Every year on St. Patrick’s Day, the population density of Five Points is greater than that of New York City. So while that makes the festival profitable and pads the charitable donation the Five Points Association makes to nonprofits, it also makes for a less than ideal festival experience. And that’s what Five Points Association director Merritt McHaffie, in her first year as the chair of the St. Pat’s in Five Points Festival, wants to change. “It’s time for the festival to grow up,” she says. “It’s time to act like we’re drawing 50,000 people instead of 10,000.”
The New Boss
McHaffie, 33, took over the festival reins from Jack Van Loan, who resuscitated the struggling festival in the mid-’90s and stepped down after last year’s festival. But as the festival’s grown, its organization hasn’t accounted for the growing audience, still
contents:
Festival Map Band Schedule Free Times Stage Miller Lite/Rock 93.5/Fox 102 Stage WCOS Stage WXRY Local Music Stage Unofficial Stages 26
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treating it like a small block party instead the massive event it’s become. “They did it right once,” McHaffie says, “but they continued to do the same thing over and over again. My committee … is used to running a festival of 10,000 people. There just haven’t been enough changes to deal with the fact that now we have 40,000 people.” McHaffie knows the changes won’t happen overnight. This year’s the first of McHaffie’s three-year plan. “I have major changes for year two and year three,” she says. “You can’t change the feel, the clientele in even three years, but especially not one. It may sound like there’s a lot that we’re doing, but there’s a lot more that I want to do.” What she’s already done is significant, even if some of the changes will go unnoticed by casual festivalgoers.
Streamlined Logistics Getting into the festival, for one, is different. There are now separate lines for advance entry and day-of ticket sales. If that doesn’t sound significant, consider this: nearly threequarters of last year’s tickets — some 27,000 of 40,000 — were sold at the festival gates. Further expediting entry: ID and bag check stations are now outside the festival gates, and day-of tickets can now be purchased with credit cards. Advance ticketing has changed, too: Last year, tickets purchased through online ticket retailer eTix cost more than tickets purchased at the gates because of service charges. The festival’s now using Eventbrite, which charges lower service fees. The other noticeable change: The food trucks have been moved off of Harden Street and into four separate food court areas. Ten years ago, the food went on Harden Street, because that’s where all the people were. But because the crowd had grown so large, Harden Street, Five Points’ main artery, had free-times.com
what: St. Pat’s
in Five Points Festival
when: Saturday, March 16 cost: $15 at the gate; $12 in advance; $200 VIP (children 12 and under free)
tickets: Breakers;
Bones, Rugs & Harmony; Cycle Center; Good for the Sole; Five Points Pub; Tic Toc Candy Shoppe; Yesterdays; stpatscolumbia.com.
more: stpatscolumbia.com become almost completely clogged. “It was time to move it away, to spread that crowd out,” McHaffie says. “We have 50,000 bodies day of. We need to adapt.” And adapting means making the festival more convenient, and cleaner. The everincreasing number of festivalgoers has made cell phone service on the festival grounds spotty, and in some places nonexistent, so the festival’s bringing in a mobile cell site to increase bandwidth. Trash and recycling bins have been overflowing, so they’re being emptied more frequently. Waits for shuttles to and from the festival’s parking areas have been getting longer, so bigger buses are running more frequently. For the first time in 30 years, there’s an official, on-site festival headquarters. For the first time, there’s an official, pocket-sized festival program with maps and stage information. For the first time, there’s an official, on-paper emergency plan — one that’s been shared with both the police and the public. It’s small but significant fixes like that that McHaffie’s trying to make, fixes that can build twitter.com/freetimessc
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a solid foundation for future festivals. “To me,” McHaffie says, throwing up her hands in a mock-exasperated shrug, “it’s just like, ‘Duh!’”
Adult Appeal Too, the festival’s music budget got a bump — McHaffie says that’s the first thing she did as festival chair — and allowed for what looks like the most diverse lineup in decades. While it’s still heavy on modern rock and contemporary country, the changing face of the festival can perhaps best be seen atop the festival’s marquee: Arrested Development, a critically lauded hip-hop act, is the festival’s top musical headliner; it’s the first hip-hop group the festival’s ever put on one of its main stages. And while the socially conscious hip-hop clique hasn’t been culturally relevant since the mid-’90s, it’s a step in the right direction. “We made a very valiant attempt at getting the kind of music that will change the clientele,” she says. The larger goal is to change the face of the average festivalgoer to one who looks, McHaffie says, a little more like her: early to mid-30s, with a steady job, some disposable income. A crowd that’s more, in a word, adult. Popular perception of the festival is inherently tied to the larger archetype of St. Patrick’s Day: a day to get drunk in public, an image McHaffie’s trying to fight. “It doesn’t have to be a s#!tshow,” she says. “So let’s start changing that.” It’s not that McHaffie wants to alienate the festival’s younger, harder-partying audience, or get rid of that demographic entirely. But without changing the festival, those who’ve been going to the festival for five, 10, 15 years and have grown up — those who might have gone from booting on Harden Street to, say, baby-sitting their toddler — will simply stop coming, McHaffie says. “We have to let those people that are adults have a good time, too.” To that end, McHaffie’s opened up the luxury V.I.P. area, once reserved for the media and other cognoscenti, to the public at a premium cost. That way, the festival’s older (and more affluent) patrons can avoid the teeming masses if they so choose. All the tweaks — and they are myriad — to this year’s festival serve one express purpose: to better the overall festival experience. To turn it from a too-crowded human parking lot to a safe and comfortable, music festival-like environment. “My job taking over now is not necessarily to make 2013 better,” McHaffie says. “I hope it is, and I think it will be. But the changes we’ve implemented will make it a better festival, some of them are for the longevity of the festival to make sure it’s still here in 30 years.” “There’s a lot that we still need to do to change this,” she says, nodding. “Give me some time after the festival and I’ll write you my 10-year plan.” Let us know what you think: Email editor@free-times.com.
March 13-19, 2013
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March 13-19, 2013
READ ME!
Or: How to Survive St. Patrick’s Day in Five Points
C
olumbia’s annual St. Pat’s in Five Points festival is one of the biggest bashes in the Southeast. And while it’s mostly fun and games — literally — there are going to be forty-freaking-thousand partygoers in Five Points — many of them markedly plowed. But we’re all in this together, so let’s lay down some ground rules to get us through the festival in one piece, shall we? First and foremost, let’s tackle getting to the festival and where to park your vehicle. With so many people descending en masse on Five Points, finding a parking space within stumbling distance of the festival is a right herculean endeavor. If you’re not lucky (and/ or wealthy) enough to live in Shandon or in the university area, walking to the festival is probably out of the question; if you must drive, free parking is available at Capital City Stadium on Assembly Street. From there you can take advantage of the complimentary shuttle system, which will ferry festivalgoers to the Greene Street gate every 20 minutes from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. Additional shuttles run in 20-minute intervals with scheduled stops at Hand Middle School on King Street, dropping off at the Devine Street gate; andPark Street by the Koger Center (running from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m.), dropping off at the Greene Street gate. (Note: You park at your own risk at the trolley stops, and food, beverages, backpacks, coolers and containers are not allowed on CMRTA buses. Them’s the breaks.) If you do drive, we strongly encourage you to carpool. And should you drink — and don’t kid yourself, you’re drinking — we even more strongly encourage you to take a cab. Should you find yourself in need of a designated driver to ferry your perfectly pickled posterior back home, taxi cab stations are located just outside of each festival gate. The best part, aside from getting home alive and without a DUI citation: The Five Points Association and Checker Yellow Cabs will graciously front the first $10 of your ride to a home or hotel.
March 13-19, 2013
Free Alert Cab cab stations are at the Blossom Street gate near Wachovia, the Devine Street gate near Subway, and the Harden Street gate near Chick-fil-A. Additional pay-cab stations are at the Greene Street gate and the Blossom Street gate by BB&T. Once you get to the festival, you’ll enter one of two lines: If you’ve purchased your ticket, you’ll enter the advance ticket line; if you didn’t, you’ll enter a separate line where you can pay your way in with cash or credit card. (You’ll also have your ID checked before you get through the gates, so you can immediately grab a beer or five.) With the teeming masses descending upon Five Points by the thousands, even the hardiest of constitutions will be hard-pressed not to be overwhelmed by the sea of revelers. But our benevolent festival organizers have you covered: Should you need a place to escape the crowd (or just take a breather in between Irish Car Bombs), there’s the designated BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina Comfort Zone in the dead center of the festival at the Five Points Fountain where Harden meets Saluda. There, you’ll find fruit, water, juice, Band-Aids, diapers and, above all, a place to rest up for your trek between festival stages. (It’s also the home of the festival’s lost and found and information booth.) As gates open at 9 a.m. and close at 6 p.m., you’ll likely get hungry at some point during the day. A select few Five Points restaurants are open during the festival (try the shepherd’s pie at Delaney’s), and the festival has moved its eateries off of Harden Street and into four separate, smaller food courts at the intersections of Harden and Devine, Harden and College, Saluda and Greene and Saluda and Devine. (The food courts are within spitting distance of the stages, should you want to nosh and mosh at the same time.) (Oh, and in case of an emergency, safety plans are located in the festival pamphlet you’ll get at the gate.) And of course, there’s more live music than you can shake your shillelagh at, and full descriptions of each act are on the following pages. Festival details can be found online at stpatscolumbia.com, too. Have fun, may the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, and all that jazz.
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BAND SCHEDULE Official Stages FREE TIMES STAGE
Saluda Avenue at Blossom Street Rejectioneers RBTS Win Lefty at the Washout Natural Vibrations Arrested Development
Unofficial Stages DELANEY’S 741 Saluda Ave.
Noon 1 p.m. 2 p.m. 3:15 p.m. 4:45 p.m.
MILLER LITE/ ROCK 93.5/ FOX 102 STAGE
Harden Street at Greene Street Death of Paris IAMDYNAMITE Eve to Adam Foxy Shazam Chevelle
Noon-6 p.m. 9 p.m.-1 a.m.
HARPER’S 700 Harden St. Italo & the Passions Noon Mason Jar Menagerie 1:30 p.m. The Capital City Playboys 3 p.m. Marshall Brown & Shades of Blue 4:30 p.m.
12:10 p.m. 1:10 p.m. 2:20 p.m. 3:30 p.m. 4:45 p.m.
WCOS STAGE
Harden Street at Blossom Street Atlas Road Crew Ricky Young Aaron Parker Trent Jeffcoat Bryson Jennings Josh Thompson
J.J. Smith The Grand Folks
Noon 12:40 p.m. 1:30 p.m. 2:20 p.m. 3:40 p.m. 5 p.m.
WXRY LOCAL MUSIC STAGE
Harden Street at College Street Steel Rollers 12:40 p.m. Jahson & the Natty Vibez 1:50 p.m. Fusebox Poet 3 p.m. The Rival Brothers 4:15 p.m.
FIVE POINTS PUB 2020 Devine St. Greyson Hopkins 1:30 p.m. Whiskey Mikes 2:45 p.m. Bossman 4:30 & 10 p.m. The Herbie Jeffcoat Projekt 11 p.m.
KILDARE’S 724 Harden St. Long Miles Jordan Miller & the Executives Atlas Road Crew P.G.E. Wally Fattz J Chris & Nique Ben G Dylan Deekay Lucid
Noon 1 p.m. 2 p.m. 3 p.m. 3:20 p.m. 3:40 p.m. 4 p.m. 4:45 p.m. 5:15 p.m.
SHAGGIN’ ON SANTEE Santee Avenue at Blossom Street
Jim Quick & Coastline coverstory
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OFFICIAL STAGES T N E M P O L E V ARRESTED DE
FREE TIMES STAGE Saluda Avenue at Blossom Street
Arrested Development 4:45 p.m.
H
ip-hop was still nascent in 1982 when the St. Pat’s in Five Points Festival debuted, still starting to take its shape post-germination in street poetry. And though detractors were still decrying rap as a passing fad even through its golden age (widely considered 1986 to 1993), hip-hop, as an art form, has grown exponentially in critical, commercial and cultural relevance. And yet in 30 years, and though a few of its performers have incorporated hip-hop into traditional folk or rock milieus or featured guest emcees, the St. Pat’s in Five Points Festival has never featured a hip-hop act on any of its main stages. Seminal socially conscious hip-hop group Arrested Development is the first. “Now that makes us feel good,” says Arrested Development emcee Speech from his Atlanta studio. “It makes us feel bad that it hasn’t happened yet, but it still makes us feel good that the first time it’s happened is us.”
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“We’ve had a lot of those firsts in our career,” he adds, “in the sense that a lot of fans that we talk to around the world say that their introduction to hip-hop came through Arrested Development. I think our sound and our approach to the music is a gateway drug into [hip-hop].” Another first for the group: In 1992, Arrested Development took home the Grammy Award for Best New Artist — the first, and thus far only, hip-hop act to do so. “That was such a magical time in the genre,” Speech says of Arrested Development’s early ’90s heyday. “Diversity was celebrated. The music,” and he’s talking specifically about hip-hop, “was diverse and colorful. People could talk about various [social and political] issues without it being relegated to the underground. I love that time period, and we were blessed to be a part of that time period.” Indeed, Arrested Development, in 1992, looked like the future of hip-hop. It was named band of the year by Rolling Stone. Its 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days In The Life Of… was that year’s most predominant hip-hop record; it was voted the top record of the year in the Village Voice Pazz and Jop critics’ poll to end all critics’ polls, atop now-landmark records from the likes of The Beastie Boys (Check Your Head), Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth (Mecca and the Soul Brother, which features the classic hip-hop anthem “T.R.O.Y. (They Reminisce Over You)”) and Eric B. and Rakim (Don’t Sweat the Technique). Morally free-times.com
uplifiting, Arrested Development was part of a wave of rap acts — like Public Enemy, Brand Nubian and a Tribe Called Quest — that brought politically and socially charged hip-hop onto mainstream charts. The group’s biggest single, “Tennessee,” is a hip-hop hymn, conjuring powerful spirits of the wonderful and tragic history of being black in the Deep South over a moody, haunting beat. Its subsequent hits “Mr. Wendal” and “People Everyday,” respectively, set out to humanize the abstract social problem of homelessness and address, confront and reject the sexism, profanity and mindless materialism of so much popular hip-hop at the time. But Arrested Development “wasn’t just some weird group that a bunch of critics who probably didn’t listen to a whole lot of traditional hip-hop happened to like,” writes AV Club scribe Nathan Rabin in his Hip-Hop and You Do Stop series on hip-hop’s golden age. “They were fucking huge. The band sold four million copies of its debut. You know who sells four million albums these days? Just about nobody.” But two years later, it was over. In the wake of Dr. Dre’s The Chronic, gangsta rap exploded into the mainstream, and the funkand soul-derived G-funk sound became the dominant creative force in the genre for a decade or more. Arrested Development might have once been the future, but the future had other plans. The group’s 1994 sophomore album Zigalamaduni flopped; a year later, the group went on hiatus, succumbing to inner twitter.com/freetimessc
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turmoil. By the late ’90s, Arrested Development — despite a critical influence that can be measured in open-minded rap acts like The Fugees, Outkast and Black Eyed Peas — was a punchline, a hippie-rap relic, a great leap forward that couldn’t stick the landing. Why that happened, Rabin asserts, “has a lot to do with earnestness … one of the group’s greatest strengths … and its downfall.” So strong were (and still are) the group’s convictions — the topics of the songs on 3 Years read like a checklist of socially important messages, i.e. race, identity, political and social equality, etc. — that Arrested Development had the misfortune of being labeled hip-hop hippies. And history, the AV Club’s Rabin notes, has never been kind to hippies of any stripe. The group re-banded in 2001, and while it hasn’t reached its once-lofty level of commercial acclaim, Arrested Development is still a critical and college-radio darling. And it’s still on-message, still as hopeful as ever, still fighting for social change, political action, and black culture. Still railing against mainstream rap’s lack of substance. “Hip-hop’s not dead, it’s just buried alive,” Speech says, quoting Arrested Development’s 2012 single “Living.” “There’s a lot of great hip-hop being created right now, but most people don’t get a chance to hear it. Most people in the mainstream, they’re not aware. That’s what I mean when I say buried alive; the mainstream media has covered up or not allowed these other things that should be exposed.” “My hope,” he continues, “is that … we’re able to bring more of that back to the mainstream airwaves so that people can celebrate diversity and lyrics and [hip-hop] culture again.” Even 20 years past their critical and commercial peak, Arrested Development is a hip-hop anomaly not just in terms of subject, but logistically, too. Like Stetsasonic or The Roots, Arrested Development performs with a live band. “Even rappers who sample, they love live music,” Speech says. “What we love about the sample is that it feels live. Anybody who produces hip-hop will tell you they love that feel. And so when we come with a live presentation, it takes the art form to a place that we all, as hip-hop lovers, love to see anyway.” (To wit: see Kendrick Lamar’s performance with The Roots on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.) Speech concedes that Arrested Development, though it’s still steadily releasing new music, is a legacy act — “Whenever you’re a hip-hop group that lasts 20 years, that automatically makes you a legacy act,” he jokes — but the group hasn’t dulled with age, and neither have its enduring singles. “We’re gonna bring the heat,” Speech says. “We’re gonna bring the classics. It’s going to be a celebration of the legacy of hiphop music.” And, for St. Pat’s in Five Points, it’s about time. P. Wall
Free Times Stage continues on page 24 March 13-19, 2013
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Free Times Stage, continued from page 22
Rejectioneers
Noon
“H
ere’s some words, now sing them out / We’re screaming fire on a helpless crowd” spits lead singer Ben Walker on “Murderers,” the opening tune of the Rejectioneers first EP 25, a fleeting lyrical moment that poetically distills the band’s ethos. Walker writes emotionally heavy, undeniably catchy tunes and sings them at the top of his lungs, evoking the heart-on-sleeve romanticism of Jimmy Eat World and The Ataris; the rest of his band enthusiastically follows him down with the kind of electrifying and propulsive arrangements that these kind of songs need. Ultimately the band hits a sweet spot between indie guitar rock and accessible alt-rock, making it a fitting local representative at Columbia’s biggest annual festival. K. Petersen
RBTS Win
CHEVELLE
1 p.m.
A
sheville is a haven for Southern hippies — a hodge-podge of mountainous bluegrass and psychedelic jam-rock. Plus, it has the electronic Mecca in the Moog headquarters. So it’s no surprise the natives make music that’s some combination of the three. RBTS Win is a genre-bending electronic band, chock full of synthesizers, beat machines and pedals. The trio aspires to be several acts at once: vaguely trip-hop and cashing in chillwave. S. Till
Lefty at the Washout
W
3:15 p.m.
inning the prize for farthest distance traveled to play the St. Pat’s festival has to be this reggae band from Hawaii, known to its fans as Natty Vibes, which would distinguish it from the Five Points shop Natural Vibrations (but confuse fans of shop owner Jahson Wildes’ Natty Vibez ensemble). The Aloha State act has released six albums (its latest single, “Make You Stay,” was just posted online), and it’s played shows and festivals with Ziggy Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Prince, 311, SOJA and more. Fans of Southeastern reggae rockers Passafire will recognize many of the same kind of natural vibes coming from this group’s music. K. Oliver
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Eve to Adam
Death of Paris
12:10 p.m.
I
posed this question in my initial assessment of the St. Pat’s lineup, and I’ll ask it again: How is it that Death of Paris, which aims for and hits on a mainstream pop sound better than any other band in town, hasn’t played St. Pat’s’ modern-rock stage before? (Here’s how: The band’s lost the last two battleof-the-bands competitions — last year to Heyrocco, two year ago to Whiskey Tango Revue.) It’s unfortunate, really, as this band, one of the hardest-working in town, has the bonafides — Jayna Doyle’s prodigious pipes, Patrick Beardsley’s singing guitar, unflappable energy — to be on any of this town’s bigger stages. Don’t believe me? They’ll prove it to you. P. Wall
IAMDYNAMITE
2:20 p.m.
E
Harden Street at Greene Street
2 p.m.
The Clash may have been the first white rock band to incorporate reggae music into its sound, but it certainly wasn’t the last. The 1990s saw a flood of blue-eyed reggae from bands such as Sublime, 311 and Slightly Stoopid, and Lefty at the Washout is derived from these acts’ rock-inflected take on the genre. Throw in some ska, dancehall and hiphop, and it’s a laid-back party groove perfect for a mid-afternoon jam. The band’s Forty To Five came out way back in 2009, but it’s currently working on a long overdue followup. K. Oliver
Natural Vibrations
MILLER LITE/ ROCK 93.5/ FOX 102 STAGE
1:10 p.m.
W
hen you first hear this Detroit duo and its drum-pounding, guitar-grinding rock, you might think of The White Stripes. Iamdynamite is flush with energy, almost in a Warped Tour, synchronized-bandmate-jump way. The duo has the raw tenacity of The 13th Floor Elevators, but it’s polished its gritty garage-punk hybrid enough to sound similar to The Hives, The Vines, or any number of aughts-born garage rock bands. Iamdynamite has a knack for turning noisy, barebones rock into easily digestible radio-ready rock ‘n’ roll. S. Till
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ve to Adam’s story isn’t unique: Hard rock band gets signed to a label; it doesn’t work out. Hard rock band regroups, rebuilds, signs to another label. Hard rock band gets minor break (a prime slot of the 1999 Maximum Rock Tour, in Eve to Adam’s case), but the bottom drops out. Band loses members, management. Band regroups, rebuilds. Band tries to record debut record; label runs out of money. It’s a crazy roller coaster ride, the modern rock biz, and Eve to Adam’s been riding it since 1997. You’d think, after a while, motion sickness would kick in. But tenacity is apparently Eve to Adam’s strong suit; the quartet released Banquet for a Starving Dog on the rinkydink 3 for 5 records in 2011, and buffed its hard-rock cred with opening slots for Daughtry, P.O.D. and Three Doors Down. P. Wall
Foxy Shazam
3:30 p.m.
R
acism is never forgivable, and it’s hard to argue Foxy Shazam, a band of six nonblack dudes, doesn’t cross the line on the lead single from their latest full-length, “I Like It.” (Sample line: “My gangsta girl / With the weave and curl / And your sexy / Street-talking slang.” Oh, and the chorus: “That’s the biggest black ass I’ve ever seen / And I like it, I like it.”) However, Foxy Shazam is also a band so thoroughly obsessed with the classic rock canon and rock ‘n’ roll excess that it’s possible to read the song as a homage to the tongue-in-cheek bombast of Spinal Tap or some of the ill-conceived sarcasm of some of Mick Jagger’s less-than-enlightened lines (“Brown Sugar,” in particular). And setting the song aside, there’s so much to like about Foxy Shazam, a group that takes The Darkness’ love of all things pop-metal and glam and turns it up to 11: Queen, Journey, and Meat Leaf are the order of the day, and the band piles on horns and choirs with a gloritwitter.com/freetimessc
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ous lack of tact that is thoroughly infectious. The four albums the group’s released already feel like greatest-hits compilations from what should have been Freddie Mercury’s more eclectic second act in the ’90s. The band also stole the show at St. Pat’s back in 2010 with its crazy antics, from trumpet tossing to fearless entrances into the crowd to drum up excitement. And, of course, nobody can top lead singer Eric Sean Nally, known for giving his absolute all in live performances, with more microphone tricks and James Brown than you can shake a stick at. K. Petersen
Chevelle
4:45 p.m.
I
n his review of the trio’s 2011 record Hats Off to the Bull, allmusic.com’s Gregory Heaney sums up Chicago alt-rock stalwart Chevelle better than I ever could: “Imagine if Tool had a clean-cut younger brother,” he writes, “who, while bearing a strong family resemblance, went off and played ball for a state college instead of going off to art school before eventually getting lost at Burning Man.” Snark aside, Heaney makes a salient point: The trio’s lurching alt-rock is packed full of tight and muscular controlled-burn riffs, and the loud-soft dynamics lead to similarly explosive, cathartic choruses. (It doesn’t hurt, too, that singer Pete Loeffler’s melodramatic lyrics and mercurial vocal style nod heavily toward Tool’s Maynard James Keenan.) But while Tool’s big-brother influence is obvious, so, too, is Chevelle’s little-brother stiff-upper-lip divergence clearly refined. Rather than walk in the shadow of its forbears, Chevelle has grown into its own distinct entity — a fullthroated hard-rock band with a keen bent toward arty, off-kilter riffs that are sledgehammer hard but scalpel subtle — and clearly separated itself from its radio-rock contemporaries. In short: Chevelle is a modern-rock band that manages to be as interesting as it is accessible. How about that. P. Wall March 13-19, 2013
CANADIAN CLUB® CHAIRMAN
THIS WHISKY
MAKES EVERYONE
GREEN
WITH ENVY.
The ClubTM has arrived in Columbia. Join us for St. Patrick’s Day and throughout March at these fine establishments: Green's Discount Beverage 400 Assembly Street
2107 Greene Street
636 Harden Street
Tin Roof
Wild Hare Sports Cafe
Morganelli's Liquors & Wines Liberty Tap Room
Social Bar and Lounge
Jimmy and Sons Liquor Store
347 S. Harden Street (Rosewood Dr.) 3155 Forest Drive
®
March 13-19, 2013
Group Therapy Sharky's At Five Points
1022 Senate Street 828 Gervais Street
902 Gervais Street, Suite B 918 Gervais Street
Canadian Club® Blended Canadian Whisky, 40% alc./vol. ©2013 Canadian Club Import Company, Deerfield, IL. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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JOSH THOMPSON
BRYSON JENNINGS
Aaron Parker
1:30 p.m.
A
WCOS STAGE Harden Street at Blossom Street Atlas Road Crew
Noon
I
s it really a boon to win the Battle for St. Pat’s, the battle of the bands that determines who’ll fill the final slot, typically crack-ofnoon early, at the St. Pat’s in Five Points Festival? Isn’t it kind of like winning an NCAA Tournament play-in game? Sure, you win, but you have to play someone like Duke or Indiana. In other words, you’re faced with a pretty tall order — getting a crowd that’s at best just entering the festival gates or at worst
contents:
Festival Map Band Schedule Free Times Stage Miller Lite/Rock 93.5/Fox 102 Stage WCOS Stage WXRY Local Music Stage Unofficial Stages 36
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already drunk to pay attention to your band long enough to distract it from its next beer? Still, Atlas Road Crew probably won’t have that much of a problem: its rootsy Southern pop — not entirely unlike Hootie and the Blowfish’s — is laced with jam-rock tendencies that serve, strangely, not to distract from but to enhance the group’s tight hooks. Hey, a No. 16-seed has to be a No. 1-seed one of these days, right? P. Wall
Ricky Young
12:40 p.m.
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or the life of me, I’ve never been able to verify the claim in Ricky Young’s biography that he played baseball at the University of South Carolina (he’s not in the media guide’s historical list of letterwinners) and played for five years in the minor league (no stats, not even rookie-ball stats, appear on stat repository baseball-reference.com or baseball-almanac.com.) I suppose it doesn’t matter: Young’s a Nashville country singer, not a Louisville slugger. Young’s a nearcarbon copy of his buddy (and Sumter native) Lee Brice, covering the same down-home ground and with similarly gravelly voices (though Young’s is a register higher). Young’s album Spinning My Wheels even features a duet with Brice, the gritty “I Carry It With Me”; his most recent single is the more tender “Could You Love Me Again.” P. Wall
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aron Parker’s only been in Nashville a short while, but he’s already worked up quite the curriculum vitae: He’s written, his bio boasts, with hit songwriters Harley Allen, Brett Jones and Larry Bastian; he penned four tunes for Kix Brooks’ movie Thriftstore Cowboy; and he toured the South in 2012 with Travis Tritt and Corey Smith. So he is, as they say in the South, bona fide. P. Wall
Trent Jeffcoat
2:20 p.m.
L
exington native Trent Jeffcoat has one of those head-turning, classically deep country voices that makes songs about family, friends and failed romance resonate even more with anyone who can relate. He’d been working as a songwriter in Nashville for most of the past decade before relocating back home in 2012 to be closer to family. “I’m spending about half my time now here and the other half in Nashville and points in between, playing from here to Ohio and back,” Jeffcoat says, calling from a songwriting session in Nashville. Music City has been good to him, he says. “One of the big things has been working with some of the best musicians and songwriters,” he says. “My writing has definitely benefitted from being around them.” Jeffcoat’s sound is solidly in the traditional country camp, something he’s proud of despite the commercial limitations. “I’m not one to settle or conform too well,” he says. “I do my thing and some people love it; some could care less. I tend to not care for the ones who don’t care about me.” The latter side of that equation has been decreasing, at least with the younger crowd he sees lately. “I can tell a difference with the kids, the college age ones the last few years — when I sing a Vern Gosdin song they’re out there twitter.com/freetimessc
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singing along,” he says. “I do about half originals and half covers in my longer shows, playing Waylon, Hank Jr., and Keith Whitley; I do some newer stuff but there are any number of other bands around town doing that. I’d like to think that I may be the only person in that town that night singing what I’m singing.” K. Oliver
Bryson Jennings
3:40 p.m.
O
ne of the many University of South Carolina grads attempting to break into the country music business, Orangeburg native Bryson Jennings already sounds like he’s comfortable in the big leagues. In the six songs on his debut EP This Time Around, Jennings easily evokes comparisons to such chart-topping juggernauts as Zac Brown Band and Jason Aldean with his casually rocking tunes that demonstrate the mass appeal of those recent success stories. Each song also demonstrates that Jennings is an astute student of the building blocks of contemporary country, with nostalgic narratives of Friday night football games and lovelorn ballads mixed with laundry-list depositories of everything country. WCOS-FM fans should be able to proudly rock out to this native son. K. Petersen
Josh Thompson
5 p.m.
“O
ur houses are protected by the good Lord and a gun / You might meet ‘em both if you show up here not welcome, son,” Josh Thompson belts at the opening of “Way Out Here,” and that just about sums up his fist-pumping style of contemporary country. Thompson hits all the typical touchstones of knee-jerk, cookie-cutter country radio — beer, small towns, lovemaking to Merle Haggard cassettes — but he manages to carve a musical identity of his own. And he has a unique way with a lyric (see: “Sinner”), invoking Waylon Jennings but sounding more like Dierks Bentley or Eric Church. K. Oliver March 13-19, 2013
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WXRY LOCAL MUSIC STAGE Harden Street at College Street Steel Rollers
12:40 p.m.
A
self-described “variety string band” from Charleston, Steel Rollers take their name from Steel Reserve malt liquor — not a bad metaphor for a group that uses traditional string instruments in party-inducing ways. With acoustic and electric guitars, banjo, upright bass and harmonica, the instrumentation is there for an old-time or bluegrass sound, but Steel Rollers take it more in the Asylum Street Spankers or Old Crow Medicine Show direction, employing vintage sounds in the service of some hilarious tunes such as “Hoes Be Choosin.” K. Oliver
Jahson & the Natty Vibez
S R E H T O R B L A V I R THE Photo by Christian Barker
TY VIBES JAHSON & THE NAT
1:50 p.m.
STEEL ROLLERS
N
ot to be confused with the Hawaiian band Natural Vibrations playing across the festival (and an hour and a half later), this group is actually connected to the Natural Vibrations store as well as the reggae culture it peddles. Bandleader Jahson Wildes guides the group in a very traditional, roots-rocking reggae style that’s influenced by all the giants
of the genre. Songs such as the insistent “Real Reggae Souljah” and the languidly groovy “Rootsman Rebel” are indications that fans of Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff, and Bob Marley won’t want to miss this set. K. Oliver
Fusebox Poet
3 p.m.
B
ands like Foster the People and Mumford and Sons are f#!kin’ pussies, says this Charlotte alt-rock foursome. “Concepts that once dominated rock music such as attitude, intensity, and authenticity have been buried beneath the desire for a perfect formula that sells,” it writes in its bio, and Fusebox Poet “takes a modern rock approach,” it boasts, “blending the vintage sound of an organ with heavy guitar riffs and aggressive rhythms bearing similarities to bands like Foo Fighters, Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails.” Hell yeah fu … wait, an organ? “The organ,” the
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Festival Map Band Schedule Free Times Stage Miller Lite/Rock 93.5/Fox 102 Stage WCOS Stage WXRY Local Music Stage Unofficial Stages coverstory
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band continues, “combined with a fresh, powerful vocalist gives Fusebox Poet the edge and commercial viability.” Oh. Well, they got the commercially viable part right: The band’s 2010 self-titled longplayer is built on energetic riffs and strong alt-rock choruses. P. Wall
The Rival Brothers
4:15 p.m.
B
uilt around the rootsy acoustic tunes of songwriter and singer Bobby Sutton, The Rival Brothers have become a full-fledged rock ‘n’ roll outfit in the past year. Lead guitarist Philippe Herndon (mastermind of the local Caroline Guitar Company small-batch distortery) takes Sutton’s tunes to soaring heights, and local music scene veterans Jay Crosby (drums), James Ervin (bass) and Dave Britt (keys) add heft and hubris to the proceedings. This is the kind of sound easily taken for granted as just another roots-rock band, but the more they play out, the tighter these brothers get, which bodes well for their future. K. Oliver
SHAGGIN’ ON SANTEE Santee Avenue at Blossom Street Jim Quick & Coastline 2 p.m.
T
he Carolina Shag, the official dance of South Carolina, is different from the St. Louis Shag and Collegiate Shag. How? F#!k if I know. Maybe Jim Quick can tell you. P. Wall March 13-19, 2013
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UNOFFICIAL STAGES DELANEY’S
KILDARE’S
741 Saluda Ave.
724 Harden St.
J.J. Smith
Noon-6 p.m.
J.J. Smith certainly doesn’t sound like the Emerald Isle-est of names, but he’s a staple of the Irish pub scene with a deep repertoire to traditional Celtic tunes. He also shares a name with a renowned Gaelic footballer, so maybe we were wrong about that first part. P. Wall
The Grand Folks
9 p.m.-1 a.m.
HARPER’S 700 Harden St. Italo & the Passions
Noon
Greenville retro-rockers are working on a record at The Jam Room. P. Wall
Mason Jar Menagerie
1:30 p.m.
Upstate trio imbues a little deep-woods Appalachian psychedelia to its driving garage-rock. P. Wall
The Capital City Playboys
3 p.m.
“Let’s have a party,” goes the refrain of maybe the Capital City Playboys’ best tune. Should you need a mid-afternoon pick-meup, here it is. P. Wall
Marshall Brown & Shades of Blue
4:30 p.m.
Brown’s beautiful, Buckley-esque voice and bright, brilliant Beatles-esque tunes offer a revisionist history where Donovan was raised eating mustard-based ‘cue under Palmetto trees. P. Wall
FIVE POINTS PUB 2020 Devine St. Greyson Hopkins
1:30 p.m.
Solo singer-songwriter who mixes classic and contemporary covers with originals. P. Wall
Whiskey Mikes
2:45 p.m.
Local covers quartet tackles blues, soul and Southern rock hits. P. Wall
Bossman
4:30 & 10 p.m.
Brand-new local funk-blues trio fronted by former DejaVoodoo guitarist Nic Thompson (aside: it’s about time he got himself in a band again) and featuring bassist Barry Harp and former Funky Junk drummer Graham Scollon. P. Wall
The Herbie Jeffcoat Projekt
Long Miles
Noon
Long Miles plays a blue-eyed blend of rock, reggae, funk and hip-hop that’s easy on the ears and heavy on the groove. P. Wall
Jordan Miller & the Executives
1 p.m.
Atlas Road Crew
2 p.m.
P.G.E.
3 p.m.
Miller was once the leader of blue-eyedreggae act The Movement. Now, he leads this similar-sounding ensemble. P. Wall
A triumvirate comprised of local emcees (and B-FAM affiliates) Khidd P, Ox and Mike Buford. P. Wall
Wally Fattz
3:20 p.m.
J Chris & Nique
3:40 p.m.
After Ben G, Wally Fattz, an emcee with an easygoing flow and penchant for bright budsmokers’ anthems, is probably the BFAM crew member with the biggest breakout potential. P. Wall B-FAM emcees J Chris and Nique tagteamed February’s Band Geekz mixtape, a broad palette of pop-rap that showcases the duo’s remarkably versatility. P. Wall
Ben G
4 p.m.
It’s important to remember that while hip-hop hasn’t always had a main-stage presence at St. Pat’s in Five Points, unofficial side stages have been offering hip-hop of all stripes for years. Last year, local emcee Ben G’s B-FAM crew hosted a side stage in the parking lot of Grandma’s (now Kildare’s) that packed a crowd as deep as any main stage. This year, Ben G and crew are at it again, and Ben G’s cachet — thanks to constant touring of the Southern college circuit — has never been higher. Next year, don’t be surprised if he’s on a main stage. P. Wall
Dylan Deekay
4:45 p.m.
Lucid
5:15 p.m.
Dylan Deekay was dropping killer electronic deejay sets before EDM exploded. He’ll be doing it long after the trend has passed, too. P. Wall Energetic electronic music (i.e. trapmuzik remixes, dubstep mashups) characterized by grimy bass lines and crowd-pumping beats. P. Wall
11 p.m.
Brendan Bull mans the skins in place of Fred Burrell for this improvisational funkrock band’s St. Paddy’s Day performance. P. Wall
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