Next Saturday, the Merriman Valley will get a blast from the Bronx when hip-hop legend KRS-One performs at Club 4X on Akron-Peninsula Road.
KRS-One and Boogie Down Productions, the group he started with late DJ/producer Scott La Rock, are legends in a genre that tends to discard veteran artists, particularly emcees who don’t follow the current zeitgeist. KRS-One certainly doesn’t do The Whip or The Nae Nae, and you will never see him dancing like Drake in any video.
Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, KRS-One dropped many a classic, including The Bridge Is Over, My Philosophy, MC’s Act Like They Don't Know and the sadly still-salient, anti-police-brutality anthem, Sound of da Police.
KRS-One has often called his music (and his 1990 album) Edutainment using songs with pro-black and anti-mainstream messages such as the anti-violence songs Stop The Violence and Self-Destruction, and Jimmy, which promotes the use of condoms.
Keepers of the Arts, which is promoting this show, brought KRS-One to Akron for the now-defunct Akron Hip Hop Showcase at Lock 3 Park. This performance is sure to be considerably more intimate.
KRS is preparing a new album, Now Hear This, available for pre-order at www.krs-one.com.
Joseph Arthur at Tangier
One of Akron’s musical imports is coming home Wednesday to perform for hometown folks, family friends and fans.
Singer, songwriter, artist and proud Firestone Falcon Joseph Arthur is returning to the Tangier on Thanksgiving Eve with music from his most recent album, Days of Surrender, which was released in June on his Lonely Astronaut Records.
The album released on cassette adds a dozen mostly acoustic, guitar-driven tunes and quiet, emotional melodies to his already extensive catalog of albums and EPs.
Joseph, a successful visual artist who sometimes paints during performances, decided to offer fans some interesting and quite expensive formats for Days of Surrender. A limited-edition, USB-drive version that was paired with original paintings ranging from $2,300 to $50,000 was available at his website, Museum of Modern Arthur. It has since sold out.
Arthur also offered the lone CD print of the album direct from the mastering plant coupled with his old touring van, which was seized for $361 in unpaid parking tickets and subsequently auctioned off by the city of New York.
After locating and repurchasing the van, which contained some 1970s amplifiers and artwork, Arthur transformed it into an art piece that you can buy with the CD in the still-working player for $14,999.
Other options for live music on Thanksgiving Eve include local favorite Missile Toe, which will return for another holiday season of unleashing its punk-driven takes on classic Christmas and holiday tunes alongside some classic rock by artists such as Television and T-Rex.
Also on the bill will be thrash-surf band the Beyonderers and hard rockers Skychief.
If classic hip-hop doesn't float your post-Thanksgiving/post-Black Friday boat, Tangier will also see the return of the Holiday Stomp featuring rockabilly, surf, outlaw country purveyors the Walking Clampetts along with Half Cleveland, which features alumni of Tin Huey and the Waitresses.
Ian Anderson in Akron
Former Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson will return to the Akron Civic Theatre in April with his new show Jethro Tull (The Story), which incorporates many of the British rock group’s hits such as Aqualung and Locomotive Breath.
The updated version of the Jethro Tull (The Story) includes topical issues such as population growth and climate change and also contains many new songs written specifically for the updated piece.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758. Read his blog, Sound Check Online, at www.ohio.com/blogs/sound-check and follow him on Twitter @malcolmabramABJ.