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Ocean Ghosts set sail for the bizarre

Greenon grads release their fourth album of ‘American world music’

Thrusty Rhodes (left) and Scotty Boombox have a cult following in Columbus as Ocean Ghosts. You might know these guys by the names J. Rhodes and Scott Shelton, members of the Greenon High School Class of 1996.

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By Andrew McGinn, Staff Writer 3:43 PM Thursday, March 17, 2011

ENON — Scott Shelton is sort of like Dr. Jekyll without the title of doctor.

He does, however, have a master’s degree, which he puts to use by day as a dean at a Columbus college — an institution he’d rather not name because he’s leading a double life.

His Mr. Hyde is Scotty Boombox, a turntablist, production whiz and one half of Ocean Ghosts, a bizarro music duo based in Columbus composed of two Greenon High School alums.

“I worry about people who don’t have an outlet,” dean Shelton confessed recently. “They end up shooting people or getting a DUI.

“Nothing against people who get DUIs or shoot people.”

So why the secrecy?

It’s not like he’s doing anything illegal — depending on your interpretation of copyright law.

“One of these days,” observed J. Rhodes, the Captain Beefheart to Shelton’s Frank Zappa; the Wreckx to his Effect, “he’s gonna have to go all in when we get sued by Rod Stewart.”

As Ocean Ghosts, Shelton and Rhodes aren’t interested in making money — the four albums they’ve made together since 2006 are available for free download — but this hobby of theirs has instead won them a following around Columbus and even gotten them some national press.

In 2007, Alternative Press magazine awarded their “Pepperoni Lovers” album a respectable three stars out of four.

Earlier this week, the duo — both of whom graduated from Greenon in 1996 — dropped another new album, “Die on Top,” on their website, oceanghosts.com.

They’ll celebrate Saturday with a show at the Rumba Cafe in Columbus.

On first listen, the music is like somebody’s idea of a weird joke, like some unholy mashup of Cee-Lo and “The Wedding Singer.”

Party jams by and for the terminally unhip.

Just give it a few minutes, though.

It becomes apparent they’re the Zappa and Beefheart of the hip-hop age — catchy enough to keep you interested yet odd enough that liking them becomes a badge of honor.

Shelton crafts the backing tracks by sampling old funk and disco records and Rhodes then provides the surreal social commentary to go with them.

On the new song “Sugar Fire,” the two notably indict former wrestling superstar Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka for allegedly killing a girlfriend and getting away with it back in 1983 — and they do so over a sample of David Bowie’s “Fame.”

“Someone called us the Jackson Pollock of white-boy rap,” said Shelton, 32.

“I thought that was perfect except for the last part. We didn’t want to be a rap group.”

To them, it’s nothing more than a big art project, borrowing a sound here and ripping off a sound there until they’ve created something they refer to as “American world music.”

“We’re Americans,” Rhodes, 33, proclaimed. “Just like our forefathers, we take what we want and make it our own.”

Their group name, they say, is a centuries-old Chinese slur for “white people.”

OK, would it help to know that Shelton studied art and technology at Ohio State, and has even taught art and design at the college level?

As for Rhodes, who grades standardized tests by day and goes by the name Thrusty Rhodes on stage, he can pretty much just thank drugs.

He initially left Enon to play Division III basketball at Occidental College in Los Angeles.

“I had a vision in life,” he recalled. “I was going places.”

Then he went to see Phish at nearby UCLA.

“I ended up eating an eighth of mushrooms during a Phish concert,” he confessed, “and I just wanted to freak out.”

He remembered seeing friends eating magic mushrooms at a Phish show the summer before.

“It didn’t seem like that big of a deal,” he said. “Holy smokes, did I miscalculate that.

“The next morning, I woke up and asked myself what do I want to do, play hoops or be a confident weirdo?”

Rhodes ended up transferring to San Diego State, where he co-founded “Kiss My Aztec,” a spoof of the daily campus newspaper.

He eventually moved to Columbus and reconnected with his high school friend after graduating “with a worthless degree in communications.”

What’s truly funny, however, is that for being such big fans of the late Zappa, it’s Zappa’s estate that might actually be the first to call out Ocean Ghosts for an unauthorized sample.

Thanks to their use of Zappa’s 1974 song “Apostrophe” on the new album, they received an e-mail purported to be from Zappa’s publisher, Munchkin Music, threatening possible legal action.

Could that be the thing to make Ocean Ghosts famous?

Rhodes has something else in mind.

“Hopefully we can lock up Snuka,” he said, “and use that as a claim to fame.”

Contact this reporter at amcginn@coxohio.com.