Rock Music club to host Rock Columbus event at A&R Music Bar Saturday

Emma Dawson
Tue, 04 Apr 2023 23:56:45 +0000
Arts & Life, Instagram Page, News, a&r events columbus music scene, a&r music bar, Columbus, mudd, music, Neil Ave., Ohio, ohio state, ohio state lantern, rock music club, runner and bobby, saving escape, The Lantern

Flyers for Rock Columbus can be found all around campus. Credit: Emma Dawson | Lantern Reporter

People travel far and wide to see talented artists and spend a lot of money on nosebleed tickets, but for those in Columbus, talent is in their own backyard.

Ohio State’s Rock Music Club is hosting four music acts — Runner and Bobby, Saving Escape, MUDD and Simon Molnar — at A&R Music Bar for its Rock Columbus event Saturday.

Club president Raylee Smith, a third-year in international studies and Spanish, said the club got the opportunity to put on an event at A&R Music Bar through Smith’s internships with PromoWest, an entertainment promoter that owns several venues in the Columbus area.??

“They like to be very active in the Columbus music scene and help a bunch of local bands,” Smith said. “I asked them if this is something they’d be interested in, and they were like ‘Absolutely, let’s do it.’”?

While Smith said she loves going to the DIY venues in the scene, such as house shows, she thinks it is important for groups in the area to get exposure to more professional venues, which she said she hopes to achieve with the event.

“I think it’s overall a great way to give them experience, give us experience,” Smith said. “Everyone gets experience. Everyone gets to go to a show. It’s a good time.”

Charlie Collins, a second-year in civil engineering and vice president of the club, said events like Rock Columbus serve a dual purpose, benefiting both members of the Rock Music Club and the featured groups.

“We obviously have a platform, and we have a whole group of members who all like different things. It’s pretty cool to be able to introduce them to local scenes,” Collins said. “Our members can be introduced to these more local bands, and hopefully they’ll gather more of an audience from them.”??

Although the process of finalizing the lineup took nearly two months, Smith said she is confident audiences will be pleased with the selected bands.

“We have a very stacked lineup,” Smith said. “We wanted to make sure we had a solid lineup, not just random bands.”??

Tickets for Rock Columbus can be purchased for $10 online or at the Newport Music Hall box office. Doors open at 6 p.m., and tickets can be purchased at the door for $15.?

Runner and Bobby

Runner and Bobby frontman Parker Bailey, a senior in global commerce at Denison University, said he has a long love affair with music. After graduating from high school, Bailey said his band at the time broke up, but he wasn’t ready to stop creating.

“I still wanted to keep writing and pursuing music,” Bailey said. “I started writing a ton and getting a bunch of music out with no real intention of performing it ever, just as a creative exercise.”

Although Runner and Bobby has been releasing music since 2019, Bailey said this past year has been the first time he’s performed live since his high school days.

“I love it. I just love crowd interactions, just being loose,” Bailey said. “That’s probably where I feel the most comfortable.”

In terms of genre, Bailey described his music as indie rock but said he understands the phrase is “blanket enough to cover a bunch of bases.” Bailey said his work includes elements ranging from bossa nova to country.

Some of Bailey’s more recent singles are featured on his EP “Maui Tapes,” which was released on streaming services Friday.

For Saturday’s performance, Bailey said he is most excited about getting the chance to play with his band and the opportunity to take part in Columbus’ music scene.

“Columbus has a really cool music scene that I wish I had been more involved with at my time at Denison,” Bailey said. “I’m excited to meet the other bands, and you know, honored to play with them.”??

Saving Escape

It’s safe to say that the members of Saving Escape are veterans of the music scene.

The original four members – Kala Rose on vocals, Jacob Boldman on rhythm guitar, Charlie Graham on bass and Alex Muccino on drums – have been involved in Cincinnati’s music scene since 2014, Lee Sullivan, current Saving Escape guitarist who joined the group in 2021, said.

In the band’s earliest days, Sullivan said the group’s genre could be described as “straight-ahead hard rock.” After nearly eight years, Sullivan said the group has evolved into a more nuanced sound.

“We’ve been slowly incorporating little bits of jazz and psychedelia and stoner metal and kind of throwing everything on the wall and seeing what sticks,” Sullivan said. “If I were to tell someone what Saving Escape is, I would probably say like, if Gwen Stefani and Led Zeppelin collaborated with King Gizzard.”?

As for what to expect at this weekend’s performance, Sullivan said audiences should keep an ear out for some newer tunes from the group.

“We’re finishing up a whole new album actually right now that’ll probably come out in the summer,” Sullivan said. “We’ve been playing a ton of those [songs] at our last shows.?

MUDD

Indie-psychedelic-rock group MUDD features vocalist Vince Thompson, a fourth-year in marketing, bassist Steve Greer, a fourth-year in industrial and systems engineering, guitarist Collin Maria, also a fourth-year in industrial and systems engineering and drummer Nick Grover, an August 2022 Ohio State alum.

Over two months after the release of its first EP entitled “DESCEND,” Grover said the group is excited to hit another milestone with this weekend’s performance.

“It’s our first official, big venue, known place where a lot of other really big names have played,” Grover said. “It feels like, OK, this is clear evidence of progress.”

Thompson said audiences attending Rock Columbus can expect the group to play pieces featured on its EP, as well as original songs the band is set to release in the near future.

“We have little bits and pieces of songs that we’ve been working on for a good while that we’re trying to prepare for this show specifically,” Thompson said. “We always play covers and stuff, so we’ll stick to that too.”

MUDD may already have a “cult following” — according to the Rock Columbus Instagram page — that will no doubt show out to support the group, but Greer said he thinks everyone should reap the benefits of experiencing Columbus’ music scene in action.

“I genuinely think more people, if they would come to local shows, would just have better times on the weekends,” Greer said. “Yeah, there’s hidden gems, but just the feeling of going to a live show, if it’s just loud and sort of good, then it’s great.”

?Simon Molnar

Simon Molnar hails from Columbus, and came into the music scene with the release of his first album, “Why,” in 2021, according to an Instagram post from TeamBall Collective.

Molnar has since played a variety of shows in the campus area, including headlining a show at The Basement in December 2022, according to the Instagram post.

Molnar is self-described as a folk-rock artist, according to the Instagram post. His most recent release is his single “Shadow,” which was released in December 2022.

His website stated Molnar “writes and records his music inside his room,” a process that “creates an intimate songwriting experience and, with hope, allows Simon to communicate through his sound.”