X_____X at the Beachland Ballroom 08.23.2014
(click photo to enlarge)
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Venue, Beachland Tavern, next to the Ballroom. 15711 Waterloo Rd, Cleveland, OH 44110
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Another legendary Cleveland band, Home and Garden opened for them.
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Beachland owner, and hostess with the mostest Cindy Barber records the action.
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John Morton either trying to get cables straight, or..
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...channeling Elvis.
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Setting up the Theremin.
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John and Andrew Klimek prepare/
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A quick Tony Robbins power huddle, or maybe fuck them...
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... and John launched into the first song.
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At the end of the day, X______X is another canvas for the artist John Morton to move through.
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Like a bulldozer moves through a wall.
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A great shot of musical history. John Morton the godfather of Punk, and the person credited with the first punk rock record, "Agitated" and...
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Craig Willis Bell, the bass player for so many seminal rock and punk bands, Mirrors, Rocket from the Tombs, and fill for so many bands from Dead Boys to X_____X.
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One of my best friends backing up one of my favorite classmates, how could this not be a good show?
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And a show it was.
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Whoa! Back to stage lighting.
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John pauses to talk with the fans.
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Craig and Matt hold the bottom together.
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John jumos in a "Bob Zimmerman" moment.
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And as I try to catch a shot of the sweat dropping off his nose, I can't but help think of Miles Davis.
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John was even starting to sound like Miles. John's voice came from the soft spoken guy singing too much, and yelling too much.
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The next morning at breakfast John told me how Miles lost his voice, than did a number of irish jokes.
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The young folks have discovered John, and so much of the rock and roll out of Cleveland in the 70s.
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They show up to see the legend that gave birth to their music.
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Recently Marcus Mumford remarked that folk and punk were similar. Music that was easy to play, hard to master, but something you can have fun with friends over.
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John checks the arraingments and play list.
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Out comes the Theremin, a strange musical insturment invented by Leon Theremin, and popularized by Moog. The theremin is in all of the space movies of the 50s and 60s.
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An easy insturment to make noise with, very tough to play the same again and again.
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John is a master, and at home with movements that look like arm movements in Tai-Chi, producing amazing notes.
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John was a huge fan of "Lothar and the Hand People," a Theremin band of the 60s. It is only here you can see the influences of John, most influences is not in his work. He does John Morton stuff.
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Still holding it down.
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WTF, is he wearing red crocs? Back to stage lighting.
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John back on his axe. John with the "electric eels" John helped to create much of the sound that is called punk.
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Between the electric eels and the Dead Boys, another Lakewood based band, you hear everything that is punk. But you heard it there first.
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John record "aggitated" was declared the first "punk recording" ever.
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John introducing the band. At breakfast he spoke of how great this tour was, and how much he enjoyed working with this version of X______X.
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Then there a ppeared a Sawz-All, and usually when power tools are introduced, trouble will follow.
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"The paper wondered if there would be power tools, well here they are," declared a defiant John. One of my favorite John Morton stories was when he called me and Jerry Gerson to help take down a jungle gym he had built in his living room. 3am, we arrived with chain saws and Sawz-Alls...
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Beachland owner, Cindy Barber catching the action on her phone.
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Look at how interntly the girl is watching John's guitar playing.
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The mileniums have really picked this up. And Cindy was not the only one recoding the show.
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But she was getting it from all angles.
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John once kicked a running law mower onto a dance floor, so it is with good reason I get nervous around power tools. Here some of the pipe John cut are being swung around like nunchucks by a fan!!!
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And all too quickly they jumped into their final number.
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And like the train wrecjk you cannot stop watching, the show built to an incredible level.
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Even this photographer got up covered his ears with a look of "No maus."
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X______X thanks for a great show, Cindy Barber, thanks for the venue and booking them.
