R. Stevie Moore transformed Double Happiness into a grandpa’s living room Friday. Before settling into a mixture of warm but warped melodies and stream of consciousness poetry the revered, and influential outsider musician walked around the stage, peered out the window into Front Street and waved at whomever was outside the window in the Brewery District. After a surveying and claiming of his surroundings, R. Stevie Moore took out a phone and called who he claimed were the Columbus Police, and had a brief discussion about the fact he was going to perform. If you aren’t familiar with R. Stevie Moore; he is a 61 year-old man from Nashville, Tennessee whose output of 400 plus home recordings places him as a godfather of “lo-fi” music. He is Ariel Pink Haunted Graffiti’s dad for sure. From the stage at Double Happiness he busted out random mutterings that sometimes mixed hip hop referencing like “word is bond” with vague but succinct statements of fears and resonating aspects of the human condition mixed with almost commercial phrasings. Next, R. Stevie Moore settled in a song that was very warm, inviting but warped. After doing that, Moore walked through the crowd and picked up a couple of drinks from the corner, and headed back to the stage like your grandpa making himself a stiff wholesome after-work scotch. He went back into poems. One of the freestyle poems went something like this: “Death. Defrost. No cost. Tune that sucker. No cost. At any cost. “Slow cook. On low. I thought you were married to that man. Always save. It’s a pink slime. Re-sized to look like fresh cut. Ever see that chicken that you buy or order and hope it’s not that slime that makes Pepto Bismol get poured? KFC. It’s simply resized with oatmeal to make it look fresh cut. I don’t know what I am talking about...” His hearty voice and phrasing immersed you into embracing his words even if it was nonsensical at times. R. Stevie Moore played a few more songs backed by one guitar player and lo-rent drum machine. The white light illuminated his white beard during “Play myself some music.” as he strummed and sang. He played a few more beautiful songs before letting loose with an accapella of Nirvana’s “In Bloom.” Everyone would stood in confusion to what was happening, which lent Kurt Cobain’s lyrics a brief freshness of their original freak status that often doesn’t get felt now that Nirvana is a classic rock staple. Moore had a very Santa-Claus-meets-Bukowski aura. Mr. Moore leaned more on the Santa side if St. Nick brought the gift of acceptance for the world’s drop-outs. It was definitely a communion with a High Priest moment. I dipped out quickly, and poked my head into Nightmode, a darker wave dance party at the Summit. The place was bustling with excitement. It was cool to see a more artistic form of Electronic music receiving a vibrant response. Between, R. Stevie Moore, and Nightmode, it occured to me that I was somewhat being a but of weirdo and neglecting my official rap duties. So I sped over to the Carabar for the tail-end of Buggin’ Out. DJ Know 1, an affiliate of Fat Beats Records, was rocking the crowd. He teetered between Dipset, Hov and Dilla joints. Buggin Out had a toy drive that evening so Zero Star and DJ Pos 2 were able to give a car full of toys to children. The next night I went over to Strongwater Tavern for a disco party called Le Discotheque deejayed by Dave Espionage, and George Brazil. There seemed to be a strong bear aura in the room save for a white woman with dreads. I’m am no homophobe, despite sometimes being around Buju Banton records but still I wasn’t in the mood to explain that I am not a gay man with a beard. I am just a man with a beard. So I walked over to Rehab Tavern. There were 15-20 men in Red enjoying a rap concert. These men appeared to be Bloods but I didn’t ask if they were members of one of the more popular street gangs. I was impressed with Franklinton’s apparent diversity of bears and Bloods.

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