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Tag: Joe Tomino

Roll Call, August 19: Kyle Kidd, Russ Lossing, Pablo Moser and Nicolás Ojeda

Published 19 August, 2022 By John Chacona

I get a lot of music for my consideration, more than 430 (!) new releases in 2022. Almost all of them are notable for something, and I’d like to give them their due. So, when I’m not previewing events in northeast Ohio or profiling regional musicians, I’ll offer hot takes on recent releases.

When I moved to Cleveland in late 2019, one of the bands I most wanted to hear was the Afrofuturist collective Mourning [A] BLKstar. You can probably guess why that remains on my to-do list nearly three years and several COVID subvariants later, but it’s taken on new urgency with the release of Soothsayer  (American Dreams Records), the spellbinding solo debut of M[A]B vocalist Kyle Kidd (all pronouns).

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Re-Birth: The Iconic Cleveland Improvising Trio Returns to the Happy Dog

Published 27 March, 2022 By John Chacona
Birth Josh Smith, Jeremy Bleich Joe Tomino
from left: Josh Smith, Jeremy Bleich, Joe Tomino

If you were born any time after 1975, you couldn’t avoid Jefferson Starship’s spectacularly dreadful “We Built This City on Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Even if that lyrical flex were true, it pales before the real-life exploits of the band Birth, who built the stage at one of the city’s great rock landmarks, literally. Next Saturday, the Cleveland-born band will return to that stage for the first time in many years, not with power tools, but with their instruments, for a long-overdue homecoming gig at the Happy Dog.

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Chestnuts Roasting When They Open Fire: A Togishi Seasonal Spectacular Returns

Published 20 December, 2021 By John Chacona

TogishiIn Japan the togishi is the skilled craftsman who polishes and sharpens the nihonto, the deadly sword used by samurai warriors to cut their enemies to pieces.

In Cleveland, Togishi is a trio of saxophonist Dan Wenninger, Mike Sopko on guitar and electronics, and Joe Tomino on drums and electronics whose improvised music cuts to pieces various genres including jazz, rock, contemporary classical and noise and reassembles them in a glorious freewheeling clatter.

Togishi will bring their usual sonic maelstrom to the Bop Stop stage Tuesday, December 21, but the trio will drop down the Hingetown club’s chimney with a surprise in their sack: tunes–and not just tunes, but some of the most recognizable, widely loved and, yes, even sentimental tunes.

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