Brute Force Metal
By Jenna Croyle

Heavy metal is a major subspecies of hard rock, the breed with less syncopation, less blues, with more showmanship and more brute force. In Erie, Metal is more than a very popular style of music, with a huge fan base and musicians that perform for sheer love of the music they play, it is its own culture.
 

This week’s featured band, Sudden Impulse is at the forefront of the Erie Metal scene, creating music that is not only innovative and talent rich, but true to the metal roots with a thick, massive sound. Started in 2006, Sudden Impulse features Cody Hoepfl on Drums and vocals, Tay Gorman on Bass and Johnzo Cipriani on Lead Guitar and vocals. With influences of Sabbath, Nirvana, Lamb of God, Guns and Roses, Down and Dethklok, Sudden Impulse blends the classic Hard Rock and Metal sound with an original and modern style that is on the cutting edge of Erie Metal music.

The sonic sound waves pumping from their amps unleash a mind-scrambling, fist pounding metal frenzy that captivates their fans and acts as a musical beacon to anyone in earshot.

Among their many accomplishments, Sudden Impulse has released three CDs, along with several Live DVD releases. The band is also featured on the sound track of two national and internationally distributed films, House of Bedlam and Virgin Pockets, both independently produced in Erie.

Lead Guitarist and Sudden Impulse front man Johnzo Cipriani releases the sonic power of his electric guitar masterfully creating a musical tension and harmony with an explicit display of emotion that flows fluently throw every riff of every song.

Johnzo’s classic Metal shrieking vocals are not only powerful and energy driven, but are very versatile ranging from the multioctave and almost theatrical to the gruff and growling style that that is reminiscent of Motörhead's Lemmy.

The Sudden Impulse Bassist Tay Gorman plays a prominent role in the sound of this band, the low-end sound of Tay’s licks are wide both in complexity and rhythmic diversity. From doubling complex riffs and licks to keeping perfect rhythm and time with the lead guitar, Tay personifies what a Metal Bassist should be.

With an amazingly perfect trifecta of speed, power, and precision the Sudden Impulse Drummer Cody Hoepfl demonstrates an exceptional amount of endurance and talent maintaining considerable speed, coordination, and dexterity throughout each show, flawlessly playing the intricate patterns that the band’s music demands.

When it comes to extreme, Heavy Alternative Metal, Sudden Impulse represents the best the genre has to offer in Erie. With talented and versatile musicians that make up Sudden Impulse, this is the perfect band to listen to if you even like Metal at all.

Sudden Impulse is an energy driven brute force power Metal band, whose cryptic lyrics, unhinged music and shrieking vocals which unleashes their own brand of Metal mayhem that blow your mind and give new meaning to what a Metal band should be, all in their one of a kind, in-your-face style.

For more information on Sudden Impulse, show dates and CD’s, please visit their Myspace Page

How "Gospel for Teens" is Saving the Music

There's a street in Harlem that comes alive every Saturday with the sound of gospel music. As Lesley Stahl first reported last spring, you won't find any church there - just a brownstone full of teenagers and the woman who draws them in.

Her name is Vy Higginsen, a New York radio personality and theater producer. Five years ago she created something called "Gospel for Teens."

Never heard of it? Well, we think you'll be glad you did. And if you're thinking that Vy Higgensen thought up this program as a way to save the teens, you'd be wrong. She did it to save the music.

The faces and voices of Gospel for Teens include kids between the ages of 13 and 19 who gather in Harlem each week from all over New York and New Jersey to study the tradition and the art of singing gospel.

"It's uniquely American. It's a story of a people in song created out of an American experience," Higginsen told correspondent Lesley Stahl.

"And you are not gonna let it die," Stahl remarked.

"No," Higginsen replied, with a beaming smile.

Higginsen runs an advanced class, but each fall she brings in a new group, putting out a call for auditions in local papers, on radio, and in churches. She calls them her "beginners."

Yolanda Howard, age 14, had arrived by subway from the Bronx before the microphones were even set up. "I was so happy because I was the first person," she said.

And she brought along her friend Rhonda Rodriguez, who started off a little shaky. Asked if she was nervous, Rodriguez told Stahl, "I was really nervous."

When Stahl asked Rodriguez if she thought she had gotten into the program, she admitted, "No."

"Did they really have to be great in the audition?" Stahl asked Higginsen.

"Absolutely not," she replied. "They simply have to carry a tune. We don't expect them to be great. They're teenagers."

Of course great is welcome too. Higginsen's goal is to bring gospel to kids more likely to have been raised on hip hop. One girl who auditioned only knew the first six words of Amazing Grace. "That's why we have this school!" exclaimed Higginsen.

So she and the teachers she calls music masters - including her own daughter Knoelle - want to accept as many kids as they can, but there were a few who seemed to throw them, like 16-year-old Gabby Francois.

Something about her seemed to puzzle Higginsen. "I was curious. And I couldn't put my finger on it," she said. "What is it? There was something else going on behind the music."

While singing "This Little Light of Mine," Francois stopped singing mid-phrase, looking down and rubbing her eyebrows.

"Part of me wanted to say, 'Is this gonna be trouble?'" Higginsen said.

"Why didn't you say that?" Stahl asked.

"Something stopped me from saying it. It's almost like, 'I want to take a chance with this,'" she explained.

If there was a star of this audition, it would be 14-year-old David Moses from Brooklyn, who walked in just before the audition ended. He sings in his church choir and knew the song "Amazing Grace" all the way through.

"It fills me with a lot of joy when I sing. So I just sing," he told Stahl.

David Moses had heard about Gospel for Teens from a friend and thought his dad was going to drive him to Harlem that day.

"He said, 'Listen, Dad, you gonna take me to the audition?" I said, 'What audition?'" his dad admitted.

Turns out his parents had forgotten about the audition.

So they asked a friend to take David and hold up a cell phone during his audition so they could listen in.

"My son was singing. The place was going crazy. Let me tell you, the next week, I made sure Daddy and Mommy was bringin' him back to class," David's dad said, laughing.

And that next Saturday, there they were: the 46 kids Higginsen chose as her new beginners class, including Yolanda Howard and her friend Rhonda Rodriguez, who thought she wouldn't get in.

Gabby Francois also got in. Higginsen had decided to give her a chance.

Produced by Shari Finkelstein Higginsen scrapes together the money for this program from grants, small donations, and ticket sales; she insists that the kids learn to sing gospel for free.

"I want you to begin to shake your hands. Shake. Shake. Shake," she instructed her class.

Why shaking before singing? It's part warm-up, part message: leave everything but the music outside the door. Kids progress from shaking to shaking and stomping, to doing both and saying 'Ah,' then smiles.

"Any worry, any pain, any problem with your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, the dog, the boyfriend. I want that out now of your consciousness. That's your baggage. Leave the bags outside, because this time is for you," Higginsen explained.

"You feel all their troubles go?" Stahl asked.

"I feel it. I see it. The next thing I see (is) a smile. And I know that's when they're ready. And I'll make 'em shake until I get it," she replied.

And then music master Greg Kelly started working his magic. By the end of their first lesson, a single two-hour class, this group of 46 strangers had learned not one, but three songs, each in three-part harmony.

But a few weeks later, we were surprised to find Higginsen coaching the kids not on a challenging piece of music, but on something you'd think would be easy: saying their names.

It's an exercise she developed after the first auditions for Gospel for Teens, when she could barely hear the kids introduce themselves. And it troubled her.

"They were mumbling. And they were saying it under their breath. And I just (thought) 'This is terrible,'" she explained.

"To have those little teeny voices that you can't hear is almost to say, 'I'm ashamed,'" Stahl pointed out.

"I'm ashamed of who I am and where I come from. No," Higginsen replied.

The kids took turns saying their names, ages and neighborhoods, but when it was Gabby Francois' turn, she was silent.

This wasn't the first time Francois had drawn attention.

"Did any of the music masters come to you and talk to you about Gabby?" Stahl asked.

"Yeah," Higginsen said. "Chewing gum, slouching, watching, not singing."

So during the next break, Higginsen was in there, trying to draw Gabby out.

And that was just the beginning of the drama in the room that day: Rhonda, the girl who had been so nervous during her audition, meekly called out her name, and then got teary. She broke down.

"You wanna do it later? She's gonna do it later," Higginsen said, as Rhonda walked back to her seat. "But you're coming back!"

"At that point, did you know anything about what her personal life was like?" Stahl asked.

"Nothing," Higginsen said. "Only what was presented in front of me. I saw her tears. I saw her eyes. I saw her nervousness about saying her name. "

Later in the class, Rhonda came back to the stage and tried again, but still said her name quietly and through tears.

Higginsen started Gospel for Teens with the clear idea of leaving all the baggage at the door, but as she's learned - and as we saw - sometimes it creeps back in.

We wondered about Rhonda's life outside this place. What might make the simple act of saying her name feel so overwhelming? And when we asked, it led us to one of the toughest parts of New York City, the South Bronx, where Rhonda is being raised by Carmen Rivera.

Rivera is Rhonda's great grandmother, and she's had Rhonda since she was a baby. Rhonda told Stahl she knows her mother but that she only sees her two or three times a year.

"That's painful," Stahl said.

"Yeah. It's been happening all my life, so I'm pretty much used to it," Rhonda said.

And she's not alone: it turns out that the entire building where Rhonda lives is set aside for kids being raised by grandparents; Rhonda's friend Yolanda, who had been the first to audition, lives two floors up, with her great aunt Melvenia Smith.

Yolanda met her father for the first time ever just last year.

"He came to my house, and he told his big, elaborate tale about, 'I'm here for you.' He gave her $20 and, 'I'll be back on Sunday to take you to the movies.' She stayed home from church that Sunday, waiting for him. He never showed up and that's been a year ago," Smith remembered.

"I mean I forgive him because it wasn't his fault," Yolanda said.

"What wasn't his fault?" Stahl asked.

"'Cause he had to work. That was his excuse," she replied.

Yolanda wrote a song about it, which she agreed to sing for Stahl. "Even though I may not know you, I suppose. Even though I kind of miss you, that I know..."

"We are women. We can take the mother place, but we can't take the father place. 'Where is he?'" Yolanda's great aunt Melvenia Smith asked.

"Oh Daddy, Daddy, Father, where were you, when I needed you the most? Oh Daddy, Daddy, Father, where were you? And where are you now?" Yolanda sang.

"That is unbelievable. You're smiling, and I'm not. Why do you say you forgive him? I don't forgive him. I don't. You're a child," Stahl remarked.

But up on stage four months into this program, Yolanda was not a girl struggling with an absent father: she was one of 40 kids stomping and clapping and singing their hearts out in the first gospel music competition Gospel for Teens had ever entered.

"They tore that up. I'm sorry, they tore that stage up," Higginsen proudly said.

They won the grand prize in the competition.

"I just wanted to hug 'em. I wanted them to see what it feels like to win," Higginsen said.

And this is where the story should end, shouldn't it? But life is sometimes more complicated, as we discovered as the Gospel for Teens beginners moved into their second semester.

When Higginsen started Gospel for Teens, she had no intention of creating a therapy program for at-risk kids. And in fact many of the teens who go don't seem to be at risk at all. They come from stable, intact middle-class homes, like David Moses'.

Darrell and Veronica Moses sing with their children, and make sure they're home for dinner as a family every night.

"We have to raise our children. If we don't, someone else will, meaning the streets, drugs, gangs, you name it," Veronica Moses said.

"Do you think it's harder, to raise a young black teenager?" Stahl asked Darrell Moses.

"Yeah," he replied. "I grew up in the projects, and I watched my father go through a lot to hold onto his family. And one of the reasons why you see me here, not just my wife, but you see me here also, is because I vowed that I would walk this walk with them. They can turn around years from now and say, 'My father was right there.'"

Gospel for Teens has a theme song, "How Can Anyone Ever Tell You." Higginsen says she chose it for a reason: "I actually wept when I heard it. 'Don't let anybody ever tell you that you're anything less than beautiful,'" she explained.

"That song is designed to empower you and to think about yourself differently than you think somebody else may have thought about you, to change your mind," Higginsen added.

It certainly seemed to change something in Gabby Francois, who sang powerfully in front of the whole group.

"Gabby, of all people, gets up and starts singing this song," Stahl remarked.

"Surprised, I was surprised, touched. I mean, she wanted to," Higginsen said.

But what touched Higginsen even more was an e-mail Gabby sent when the year was almost over explaining what this place has meant to her.

Gabby read Stahl the e-mail. "I may seem quiet in class or upset, but it's only because I build up all my pain so I can sing it all out.... My mother doesn't really appreciate the fact that I sing. I actually snuck out for the audition for Gospel for Teens. That's why you never see her around or my dad."

"Miss Vy, you believed in me when no one else did. That's all I had to say," Gabby added.

"My God. We had no idea what it meant to her," Higginsen reacted. "It's a big lesson for me, because if I had only looked at her surface, that judgment, it's so quick to dismiss. Out. I don't like your attitude."

Then, one rainy Saturday in early May, just weeks before their final, end-of-the-year performance, the kids - and we - walked into something none of us were expecting. We found a shaken Higginsen reversing her own policy, and asking kids to bring their baggage in.

"How many of you have lost somebody recently?" she asked.

"Oh my God!" she said, when many hands went up.

It seemed more hands were up than down. "I lost my cousin when I was going into my sophomore year," Larry said,

Larry's cousin was stabbed to death in front of him.

Another girl told Higginsen her cousin, aged 13, died a year ago in a drive-by shooting.

The amount of violence and loss in so many of these young people's lives seemed to come as a shock to Higginsen. What prompted her to ask when she hadn't wanted to know?

It was the news that David Moses' cousin had just died - a 15-year-old like David, killed by a gunshot to the head.

Higginsen asked him to come before his classmates and sing it out.

"The music, the words are about struggle, and a lot of these kids are there.

They're struggling," Stahl remarked.

"They are struggling. We live in a violent society. So now what do you do with all that?" Higginsen replied.

"How do you get it off of you? How do you live?" she asked. "You have to go somewhere where there's sacred ground, where there's hope, where there's possibility, where there's a better life."

Which of course is exactly what gospel music was designed to provide in the first place.

"Do you tell the kids the history how this music grew out of slavery?" Stahl asked.

"I tell them that the first right as African-Americans in this country was the right to sing. That was allowed during slavery. Before reading, writing, school, church, we could sing," Higginsen explained.

So as Gospel for Teens erupted on stage for their big spring concert, before a packed hall, we're not sure how much the kids were thinking about this music's history, but for two hours, they sure captured its power. And when it came time for their theme song, Higginsen selected a surprise soloist: Gabby Francois.

"How do you think she did?" Stahl asked.

"I thought she was wonderful. She needed to sing that song," Higginsen said.

We wondered whether Gabby's parents had come to hear her sing this time. They had not.

"What do you think about these kids whose parents never come?" Stahl asked.

"I can only think that they do it anyway. With or without their parents, they do it anyway. So what does that say about who they are their commitment, their resilience, their drive. All of those things are necessary for success," Higginsen said.

And then came that moment they'd been preparing for: announcing their name, loud and proud, to the audience.

She didn't want them to just say their name - she wanted them to shout it, to belt it out, because, she says, of who they are, and where they've come from.

"They're survivors. Stand up, stand up and let people see you. Be proud of the fact that you are survivors," Higginsen said.

When it was Rhonda's turn - who had had trouble calling out her name during an earlier rehearsal - she nailed it.

"You spend nine months with these kids. You give them everything. And they finally get up for this performance," Stahl said.

"I couldn't stay in my chair. My heart's dancing. My mind's racing. I'm watching everything. And I'm watching everybody," Higginsen said.

And what she, and everyone else, saw that day was a group of teenagers transformed.

"I can't even describe it. It's the most wonderful thing I ever been a part of with my life,' Gabby Francois said.

David Moses told Stahl he'd "definitely" be back next year.

"What's going on inside?" Stahl asked Yolanda Howard.

"Joy. That's what's inside my heart all the time when I'm in here," she replied.

"Do you ever think that you're actually saving some of these kids?" Stahl asked Higginsen.

"I guess I'm thinking that this music can make it better. It will make life better," she replied. "It's victorious. And it grabs you. I mean it's like, 'Yeah, I gotcha. Whoo.'"

Gospel for Teens received a flood of letters and support after our story aired. Vy is saving up, in hopes of moving to a larger space. And it seems that when Yolanda's father heard her song, he reached out to her and they have seen each other twice.

Gabby Francois is now in college, but she hasn't been back to Gospel for Teens for awhile. She has to work Saturdays in a fast food restaurant. Auditions for Vy's new beginner's class will be held next month.

Six Great Invocations of Martin Luther King Jr. in Rap Music
By Thomas Conner

Young Jeezy, “My President” (featuring Nas), 2008
Jay-Z, “What We Talkin’ About” (featuring Luke Steele), 2009

Jay Wayne Jenkins, a.k.a. Young Jeezy, hopped right on the bandwagon during the last campaign and announced, “My president is black!” at the end of his album “The Recession.” The song — which celebrates “Mr. Black President” and boasts, “Stuntin’ on Martin Luther, feelin’ just like a king / Guess this is what he meant when he said that he had a dream” — appeared in the summer of 2008, casting Obama’s victory as a foregone conclusion. By January 2009, Young Jeezy and hip-hop icon Jay-Z performed several D.C. area concerts together just before Obama’s inauguration. By then, Jay-Z had released a single, “What We Talkin’ About,” in which he eventually dismisses a long list of diversions by declaring, “And now that that’s that, let’s talk about the future / We have just seen the dream as predicted by Martin Luther,” alluding to Obama’s election.

Common, “A Dream” (featuring Will.I.Am), 2006

In between tuneful choruses, in which Black Eyed Peas icon Will.I.Am sings on top of samples from King’s dream speech, Chicago rapper Common tries to come to grips with how King’s dream applies to his own struggles. “Hold the same fight that made Martin Luther the king / I ain’t usin’ it for the right thing,” he worries, acknowledging rap music’s “fatherly role” as well as his own efforts to take it “from a gangsta to a godlier role.”

Othorized F.A.M., “First Amendment,” 2001

This Staten Island quartet, launched as one of many rap groups under the nebulous umbrella of the Wu-Tang Clan, barely made a blip with this song, the title track to their debut album. But it’s a great weave of King’s “dream” speech into a lengthy rant about the dangers of remaining silent. The lyrics are a litany of then-current, pre-9/11 social concerns (as is the case with so much topical rap, it’s terribly dated now, citing “Dutch scud missiles, Elian Gonzalez”), but it’s all neatly connected to the past and to King’s inspirational text, which they sample liberally.

Three Times Dope, “Increase the Peace/What’s Goin’ On,” 1988

The debut album for Philadelphia trio 3XD included this hard beat, which samples not the Marvin Gaye masterpiece suggested in the title but speeches from King and Malcolm X. We hear King saying, “The substance of the dream is expressed in these profound words” as each verse gets underway, with rapper EST (Robert Waller) reaching conclusions such as “Unity throughout community is what I be tryin’ to see.”

Run-DMC, “Proud to Be Black,” 1986

New York’s Run-DMC pioneered the crossover of rap to the mainstream — all it takes is one video with Aerosmith — but hardly diluted their sound to do so. Their third album includes this schoolroom lesson on important black figures, such as Harriet Tubman and George Washington Carver, but strongly invokes King twice: first as a token of freedom for the Rev. Run (“Like Martin Luther King, I will do my thing!”) and then as a triumphant closer for the whole trio in unison (“What’s wrong with ya, man? How can you be so dumb? / Like Dr. King said, we shall overcome!”).

CD Review ~ Handsome Furs: Face Control
Reviewed by James B. Eldred

Handsome Furs is the side-project of Wolf Parade's Dan Boeckner, who formed the band in 2006 with his then-girlfriend, now-wife, Alexei Perry. Unlike the indie-pop sound of that ludicrously-acclaimed Canadian group, Handsome Furs are more low-key and low-fi, experimenting more with electronic music that has a slight rock edge.

Plague Park saw Handsome Furs dipping their feet lightly into the ‘80s with a post-punk sound and a decided Echo & the Bunnymen vibe; Face Control has the duo embracing the ‘80s completely, skirting back and forth between the post-punk sound of the first album and all-out synth pop dance music, which is just a really complicated way of saying that now they sound a lot like early New Order.

They sound so much like New Order, in fact, that they had to delay the release of the album because the song "All We Want, Baby, Is Everything" references New Order's "Temptation." The influence is obvious, but calling it a reference or sample is a little unfair, other artists crib more from their influences and get away with it on a regular basis (listen to Puddle of Mudd's "She Hates Me" and Suicidal Tendencies' "I Saw Your Mommy" for an especially egregious example)

Handsome Furs should have been given automatic legal clearance on any New Order reference, since just about every song on Face Control does New Order better than New Order has since the early ‘90s. The handclaps and low-fi sequencer sound of "Legal Tender" and "Evangeline" are both straight out of "Age of Consent," and the excellent "Talking Hotel Arbat Blues" combines grinding guitars and synthetic beats in a way that will make fans of Low-Life shudder.

Not all of Face Control is a New Order pastiche, though. "I'm Confused" and "Radio Kalininbrad" push the programmed beats to the side in favor of blues-driven guitar riffs. Boeckner also looses the reins on his voice a little bit during these tracks, approaching near-screaming levels on occasion, breaking free of the synth-pop monotone delivery he keeps throughout most of the album.

But aside from those two tracks, Face Control is really the next-closest thing to a New Order tribute record, but what's the harm in that? It's about time someone got past the shameless cribbing of Joy Division and moved on to the next logical step. And speaking of next logical steps, if these two are really serious about New Order, then they have to get cooking on some serious club-friendly 12'' singles ASAP. The world needs another "Blue Monday."

Journalist Shared Detroit's Techno Music With World

Before the Motor City became home to Movement, there was Dan Sicko, the pioneering journalist who provided one of the world's first definitive looks at the exploding underground electronic music scene.

Mr. Sicko died of ocular melanoma, a rare form of eye cancer, Sunday at his home in Ferndale. He was 42.

Mr. Sicko worked as a freelance writer for magazines such as Urb and Wired and released the acclaimed book "Techno Rebels" in 1999.

"Really, I know this is a serious statement, but he was the first guy who legitimized Detroit's techno history," Jason Huvaere, director of Movement: Detroit's Electronic Music Festival, told the Free Press on Sunday. "Now, the world is drowning in Detroit techno coverage. But before that, there was Dan, who not only understood the history of the city and electronic music, but he was the historian who put it all down on paper."

Mr. Sicko, who wrote "Techno Rebels" after being inspired by the experimental underground scene he witnessed firsthand in Detroit during the 1980s, went back to documenting artists such as techno's founding fathers Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson after the popularity for the genre and its Motor City roots soared to new heights.

In 2010, through the Wayne State Press, "Techno Rebels: The Renegades of Electronic Funk" was released, an expanded and cleaned-up second edition that explored in even greater detail Detroit's role of shaping techno.

John Cathel, best known as DJ Powdr Blu, said Mr. Sicko paved the way for DJs and fans alike.

"He might not have been a programmer, but through his language, as a writer, he played all the right keys," Cathel said.

Sicko's wife, Amy Lobsiger, said that she and her 11-year-old daughter Anabel are extremely grateful for the support that has been shown to them both financially and spiritually through www.mattsicko.blogspot.com . It's there that Lobsiger details the challenges Mr. Sicko and his family faced while fighting cancer, including medical costs.

"I was always interested in Dan's work before, but over these last few days we're now starting to grasp the impact he had," she said.

"This whole thing has been mind-boggling, a real stinker," Lobsiger said of the 2008 diagnosis. "But the community has been so supportive. It's really meant a lot to us."

Lobsiger said the "Dan's Story" Web site will continue to be used to keep people informed and that Dan's co-workers at the marketing firm Organic, where he was an assistant creative director since 2005, are looking into developing a Web page for his book.

As of Sunday evening, Lobsiger said funeral arrangements at St. James Church in Ferndale are still pending. She said visitation likely will be at Spaulding & Curtin in Ferndale on Wednesday.

Patti Smith - Profiles In Rock
By Rob O'Connor

Patti Smith won the National Book Award for her memoir, the New York Times bestseller Just Kids, which means there are a lot of new people milling about her work wondering what they should know.

Her record label just released Outside Society this week to help get new fans up to speed. So I thought I would offer up some truth from my end and answer your questions regarding this rock legend.

10) Why Is Patti Smith Important?: Well, I don't usually care for a word like "important," since it lacks the passion that music should evoke and it's often overused, but in Patti's case, I'll let it fly. She has proven to be a great inspiration to musicians and writers everywhere. She was unconventional at a time when being so could get you shot in many places outside New York City.

9) Why Should I Read Her Book Just Kids?: Ha ha. Yes. Don't let the National Book Award or "best-seller" status scare you away. Fact is, the book is a great read. She gets a little over-excited in spots, but it's like she's hugging you too hard because she loves you so much. Just don't think you can move to New York City and do the same thing. You can't. Not without a trust fund.

8) What Patti Smith Albums Do I Need?: Hmmn, this is tricky. If you want to get started, I would advise you pick up Horses, Radio Ethopia and find the first single, "Hey Joe / Piss Factory." Outside Society does include her personal notes on the tracks but doesn't go as deep as Land, her other anthology, but both are decent overviews, though since she lacked hits, what people consider to be her "best" work is up to the individual. To be really arcane about this stuff, try finding early bootlegs of the band when she did a lot of poetry and she was young and hungry. She captures NYC in the early 1970s quite nicely.

7) Can I Trust Reviewers?: No. You never should. These days with so many ways of hearing things for yourself, you should go into it with an open mind. Decide for yourself. For example, that paragraph above this one, it's only meant as a general starting point. If you end up liking Peace and Noise more than Horses, well, that's odd, but it isn't wrong. The problem with people with reviewing Patti Smith records is they either like her so much that she can do little wrong or they don't like her and are annoyed at all the glowing reviews and are out to make a point in the other direction.

6) Is She A Good Poet?: I'm going to say yes here. But it's important to hear her read it. Her delivery is every bit a part of it as the words on the page. She makes the words dance. Chances are, if you read it yourself, without her guidance, you'll read it wrong. I do.

5) Is She A Good Singer?: Yes and no. People like her. She gets her point across. When she sings solo, her voice is quite affecting. But getting her voice over a rock ‘n' roll band causes it to shred. However, this is fine. It's rock ‘n' roll. Anyone can sing it. Anyone should.

4) Was She Punk?: No. She was an early part of the scene that gave us New York City punk rock. But the beauty of all the "punk rockers" of that era was that none of them fit the straitjacket that punk soon became. That includes the Ramones, who were doing something new when they debuted. Patti wore a leather jacket, sometimes. Labels are for clothes.

3) Is It OK If I Don't Always Like Her Stuff?: Sure. You don't have to like any of it. There is no mandatory anything here. If you're a music fan, you should check her out. Chances are, you'll like something and maybe even love some of it. But you might not. You might prefer Supertramp. Or Metallica. Or Lionel Richie. Or Madonna. You might like it better when it rains out! I'm not the boss of you.

2) Why Is She A Woman?: Not sure what you're asking here! But it is completely ridiculous that there were so few rockers of the female persuasion for so many years. (I also used to wonder if record stores had some sort of "Men Only" sign on them that I couldn't see.) Otherwise, I think you need to talk to your biology teacher and chat about chromosomes.

1) What Lesson Should I Take Away From Patti Smith?: I think Patti said it best back in 1975 when she told her audience at the Bottom Line that rock ‘n' roll always went through rough patches, but that it was ok, since we made it up, and therefore we can always make it cool again.

Now, get crackin', youngsters! We're waiting!

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NEW FAN CONTEST!!

Shotgun Jubilee is in the market for a new logo! We'd like you the fans to show us what you've got! Draw something up, either by hand or with a graphic arts program and send us a .jpeg of your work. We'll choose the design we like the best. The winner will receive a free copy of our album! Please email all entries to ryan_bartosek@yahoo.com

Hundreds Pay Tribute to Cleveland Music Critic

Hundreds turned out in Cleveland as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame paid tribute to a woman whose long career put others in the spotlight.

The Plain Dealer reports the newspaper's late rock critic Jane Scott was remembered for her enthusiasm and her respect for music artists.

Scott died July 4 at the age of 92. Her reviews had made her a presence on the Cleveland rock music scene from the mid-1960s until she retired in 2002.

Sunday's memorial event at the Rock Hall drew almost 900 people. Those who shared memories of Scott included U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (koo-SIH'-nich) of Cleveland, who said she had an "infectious sense of joy."

Wally Bryson of the Raspberries said bands never felt they'd arrived until Scott interviewed them.