Friday, December 29, 2006

you can't spell "horsemen" without "semen" [WZRD]

Eazy-E - Radio
Hisato Higuchi - Guitar #5
Metatron - Tikkune Zohar #
Lozenge - El Bombo

The Residents - It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World (James Brown cover)
Gotan Project - Chunga's Revenge
Derrick Harriot - Message From a Black Man !
Dwight Trible - John Coltrane

JFA- Walk Don't Run (The Ventures cover)
Klaxons - Gravity's Rainbow #
Indian Jewelry - Going South #!
Glass Candy - Nite Nurses
Fluorescent Grey - I Am a Photograph of My Old Driveway, the edges of the photogragh are made of cow's teeth, as the cow's mouth closes i explode into a firework cloud of red andgreen dog biscuits #!!!

Dark Dark Dark - Ferment in Dm #!!!
Who Cares How Long You Sink - Leaves Rainbow #
Motorhead - God Was Never On Your Side #!!

Vlor - Wires #!!!
Lady Sovereign - My England #
The Stranglers - Hanging Around
John Medeski and Matthew Shipp - Eclipse #

Lee Scratch Perry - I Am a Psychiatrist #
Keith Morris - Nervous Breakdown

Morlokk - Storm the Catacombs
SunnO))) & Boris - Etna #

To Live and Shave in LA - Percent Obstruct Street #
Junkroc/Jello Biafra - Spoken Word House Mashup


Not only does Fluorescent Grey have the best name and songtitles of today's show, he made this rough ass IDM track out of calm-y nature clips

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

TwoSlaps Radio [WLUW]

100% Fuckhead Set:

Irma Thomas - While the city sleeps
Elvis Costello and Allen Touissant - All These Things
Fats Domino - BlueBerry Hill
Ray Charles - What'd I Say

Joe Turner - Midnight Special Train
Carla Thomas - Gee Wiz
The Clovers - Devil or Angel
Trevor Dandy - Is there any love
Ben E King - Spanish Harlem

Betty Wright - Paralyzed
Ms Tyree Sugar Jones - If you feel it
Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood - Tequila and chocolate
James Last - Soul March

Spanky Wilson and the Quantic Soul Orchestra - Waiting for your touch
Quantic - Bomb In a Trumpet Factory
Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - How long do I have
Booker T. and The MG's - Time is Tight

Gnarls Barkley - Boogie Monster
TV On The Radio - Let The Devil In
Dj Spooky That Subliminal Kid w/ Jack DAngers and Chuck D - Brothers Gonna Work it Out
DJ Shadow - Erase You

Scritti Politti - The Boom Boom Bap
GoldFrapp (DFA Remix) - Slide In

Peeping Tom - Kill The Dj (feat. Massive Attack)
KtheI??? - Go-Go-Go-Girls

[Every Monday night, Two Slaps Radio plays the best and most unconventional funk and soul in Chicago, with all of its roots and derivatives including acid jazz, doo-wop, brass band, girl groups and electro. Two Slaps radio can be heard live from 2-4am on WLUW 88.7fm and wluw.org]

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Every Fucking Wednesday?

Date: 12/13/06
Venue: Freeform Shuffle at Spot 6
Bands: Right-Eye Rita plus djs
Cost: Free
Things I missed to be there: In-One-Ear at the Heartland Cafe

Rita is in her full XXXmas mode right now, warbling electronic Christmas carols, but she's not much different than the last time I wrote about her so enjoy this picture I took of her.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Letters to Satan

Date: 12/13/06
Venue: Second City E.T.C. Theater
Band: Shellac
Price: $10
Things I missed to be there: I got there at 3 in the morning. If there was something else going on I demand to know about it.

It's 3AM. I've just watched an spelling bee where a lone contestant is playing for his own life. At blackout, one of the actors comes out and introduces:

"A band known for their mellow, James Taylor-like musical stylings...Shellac!"

And the band takes the stage. A couple of antique amps, glittery gold drum set, and a couple of guitars that look like they've been chewed on by cougars. Steve Albini comes out in an Upright Citizens Brigade t-shirt, toasting the Chicago expats and Second City rivals with a mischievous smile on his face that quickly moves into a sneer as he punches out the first chord. It's blisteringly loud and incredibly absurd. The stage is so close. And pastel. And well lit. I take a swig from the Fat Tire that was sitting at the table when I got there. This is awesome.

I've missed Shellac more times than I can count and for no good reason. I missed them when they played with Fugazi at the Congress Theater for lke 5 bucks, I missed them last year when they played like six shows in four days, I missed them the last time I was in New Orleans and they were playing the Tape-Op convergence, and I miss them every year at The Second City's annual charity fundraiser, Letters to Santa.



The idea behind Letters to Santa is that the Second City will stay open from 7pm Tuesday to 7pm Wednesday, charge ten dollars to come and go as you please, and alternate between music, comedy and improv. The funds go to providing holiday gifts to children in need. In addition to the door, there are auctions for things like a recording session with Albini, or a guitar of Jeff Tweedy's (who was the show's first musical act).

There was a time in my life where improv meant the world to me. I loved it as much as I loved music, but more because it was something I could actually do. I stayed in Chicago for college because there wasn't a better city in the world to do improv. In high school when I was training on the E.T.C. stage I would have dreamt about something like this, where the actors played out in the crowd so the band could set up on stage, at all hours of the night. It just seems like such a perfect fit for Chicago.

"We're gonna bring the doom and the angry, then the guys'll come back out and bring the funny, then we'll fuck it up again."



During their second set, Steve announced that he would match whatever money was offered up from the audience to watch his girlfriend slap him.

"Is she butch?"

"Full time or part time?"

"Forty bucks!"

When there's a lull in the bidding, she gets up and yells, "I'm from the South Side and I'm Irish!"

"One Hundred dollars."

The bidding ends at $140 for the slap plus a request. After the band closes with "Squirrels", a scene is performed about an office overrun by squirrels. It's one of the few scenes that doesn't work, but it's still pretty cool to watch.

[Other acts include Horatio Sans, Detholz!, Robbie Fulks, and Devil in a Woodpile. If you happen to be reading this right now, you can still catch the end. Upp...it's over.]


I couldn't find any good videos of Shellac, so here's one of Steve Albini's other great bands, Big Black. They reunited this year, and I missed them

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

TwoSlaps [WLUW]

Peter King - Ajo

Funkadelic - Adolescent Funk
Bobby Byrd - I'm Just Nobody Pt. 1 & 2
Sharon Jones - Hook and Sling Meets the Funky Superfly

The Honey Drippers - Impeach the President !
Harlem Underground Band ft. Willis Jackson - Ain't No Sunshine !
Nina Simone - Pirate Jenny !
The Goodies - Sophisticated Boom Boom !!!

Oh shit, it's a doo-wop set!
The Murmaids - Popsicles and Icicles
The Collegians - Zoom Zoom Zoom
The Viscounts - OO-oo-wee

Howlin Wolf - Three Hundred Pounds of Handlin Joy
Billy Ball and the Upsetters ft. Roosevelt Matthews - Tighten Up Tighter
Gems - I Can't Help Myself

Herbie Hancock - King Cobra
DJ Shadow & Keb Darge - It Ain't Fun, But It's Fun
The Soul Generals - Granma's Funky Popcorn

holy fuck, it's Las Vegas grind!
Tic & Toc - Jibba Jab
Jack Ross - Mumbles
DynaSores - Jungle Walk

James Brown - Let's Make Christmas Mean Something This Year Pts 1 & 2
Diana Ross & the Supremes - My World is Empty Without You (Tranzition Remix)

Fuckhead Set:

The Ronnettes - I saw Mommy kising Santa Claus
O Jays - Christmas Aint Christmas, Neww Year's Aint New Years, Without The One You Love
Shackleford Singers - God Is All Over Me
Bootsy Collins - I'd Rather Be With YOu
Gnarls Barkley - Boogie Monster

Quantic - Bomb In A Trumpet Factory
K The I ??? - Go go girls
DJ Shadow - This Time (I'm gonna try it my way)

Lee Fields - Take It Or Leave it
Lyn Collins - DO YOur Thing
MFSB - FAmily Affiar

Mae Young - The man puts sugar in my soul

[Every Monday night, Two Slaps Radio plays the best and most unconventional funk and soul in Chicago, with all of its roots and derivatives including acid jazz, doo-wop, brass band, girl groups and electro. Two Slaps radio can be heard live from 2-4am on WLUW 88.7fm and wluw.org]

Monday, December 11, 2006

Date: 12/10/06
Venue: Mister City
Bands:
Cost: Suggested 5

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Date: 12/9/06
Location: Sarah's House
Bands: None, mp3s of Lebanese pop and the on-and-off Berlin is Burning comp
Art: Miranda July recordings, a Jan Svenkmayer flick
Things I missed to be here: Far Rad and Big City at Spot 6, DJ Spooky at the Dark Room, Disrobe and Vietnam Werewolf at the new Lumpen Space, Environmental Encroachment in Ravenswood, Fetor at Cal's; Abrade and Tierra de Nadie at La Casa Maldita; The Wanderers and 4xxP in weird nonchicago places; Herc and TV Pow at the Strawdog Theatre; "afterparty with dykes and porn stars, come on out!" at Mark Bose's crib
Reasons I went: Sleepy. Lame. Sex. Blogging.

I fell asleep a few minutes after we started the Svankmeyer flick, which started with a raving Scandinavian psychopath whose tongue had been cut off and continued on full of claymation grossness. It gave me nightmares. The nightmares led me to believe that going out tonight would be a bad idea. They were full of symbolism and shit.

The real treat of the night was listening to Miranda July recordings. Miranda July is the performance slash every-other-kind-of-artist who made the film Me and You and Everyone We Know, which all the girls I know saw without me and love incredibly deeply (See also: Shortbus). I'm not sure [what to say next, hits "publish" years later]

Cocktastic Party Sauce

Venue: Quennect Four
Bands: Oskie Grey, Godtastic God Sauce, Me and DJ Demchuk
Price: $5
Things I missed to be there: Fuck the Cold party in Lakeview; DJ Falcon at Zentra; Mary Tyler Morphine at Cal's; DJ Rupture and The Ex at Empty Bottle; Eske, Pkdores, and Eat It Raw in NotChicago
Reason I went: Spinning, probably would have shown up anyway

At the end of the night, when Sam was driving me home with my equipment, he told me, "I really wanted to have a real art show, and not a party."
"Yeah, well, it's hard to throw parties and concerts all year round and then tell everybody 'Wait, this time it's different!'"


Oskie Grey at Quennect Four

I think Sam was a little sour because a lot of the crowd didn't get his set. As Oskie Grey, he plays ambient music and some dubby downtempo shit. It was tight but nobody in the room was there to appreciate shit, they just wanted to dance, and they weren't high enough to catch onto the mellow vibe and start working it to that.

I was asked to spin at what was essentially an art show at the undercover East Humbolt space, and when I got there there was some real good art on the walls but not much of it, and when I left I still had no idea who did what, which was fine by me cause the music was awesome.

Me and Dan traded off on dance-y rock shit: Les George Leningrad, Carpet of Sexy, Munich Machine, MIA, Tracy + the Plastics, The Soft Pink Truth, Anavan, et cetera. The track of the night was one of Dan's, a mash up of Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" with 50 Cent's "In Da Club".

We weren't the awesome part, but we were pretty good. The awesomeness came from the first band, Godtastic God Sauce (two myspace pages?). Despite the fact that they have the worst name of any band I've liked this year, they rocked my ass. Their music was all synth, beats and guitar, like live-band electro and hard-trance.


Godtastic God Sauce at Quennect Four

As a gallery show it was kinda lacking but as a party it had some real potential. There must have been a changing of the guard over the last year because I didn't know half of the hip kids runnin around (maybe I just fell off) but they were all pretty low-key. Unfortunatly the timing was off. Just as we were getting a lot of people going, and the drunks started requesting bangers they would've been too embarassed for sobere, it was Oskie's time to play and before he could finish, the cops had entered and told everyone to leave. Maybe the party had too much potential. I must say I was impressed though, at the evacuation. The Quennect Four boys have been doing this kinda shit for years so for them, clearing the place was old hat, but this was the first time in a long time that I've seen a sizeable chunk of sixteen-to-twentyone year olds evacuate a party without freaking out, yelling, running and making matters worth. Whoever this new crop of kids is, more power to em.

You can download mp3s of the entire Godtastic God Sauce album Victims of Manhood in mp3 here.

The Flim is Okie-Dokie

Date: 12/7/06
Venue: Quencher's
Band: Karaoke Dokie
Price: Free Admission, but too much altogether
Things I missed to be there: Les George Leningrad, Grace Kulpa and KK Rampage at Empty Bottle, DJs at Bar Vertigo
Reasons I went: Too drunk to leave

I've never ever liked Quencher's and now I know why. I've gone there too late. Quencher's is a great bar when there's no one there, full of no-frills sandwhiches and sides and exotic beer, like a low-rent Hopleaf.

But if I had shown up at the end of the night, rather than just had it all happen around me, I would have turned around, left, and gone back to the Mutiny.

Thursday was a shitty day. Only kinda shitty because I had just received a paycheck I was waiting for but downhill after that. I was supposed to DJ at Liar's Club but that was postponed so I had this big, free night spread out in front of me, where I would have to pay to get drunk. My girlfriend was having ladies night in my neighborhood at the Map Room but it was girls night out so I couldn't go. Meanwhile the heat was shut off in my place so I had to go somewhere, so I picked up my rat and left.

Les George Leningrad was doing a free show at Reckless Records. I couldn't think of a better way to kill time, especially since I've actually started to listen to my Les George records recently. It was my first time riding my tricycle in the winter and it was weird running it over ice. For some reason or another 1st Gear was shot and 2nd was jumpy and by the time I was in Wicker Park my hands were frozen into claws. Then something terrible happened. My chain broke. It's alright. I would watch the band, get drunk on whatever the special was at Pint, eat fried cheese and take the bus home. Then I realized that I'd forgotten my wallet. When I got to Reckless, Les George was already broken down and meandering about. I was starting to freak. I called Sarah, who uPassed me onto the train on her way to the bar, went home and started over.

Google Search: "bar food", "Logan Square"
Best Result: Quencher's

I grabbed my friend Margaret and went to Quencher's which was the closest bar food bar to my house. Their special was a thick, unnamed Chocolate Lager that actually tasted choclatey. They also had buffalo tater tots. My friends Kelly and Bettie showed up and it was starting to be a party. I snuck the waterbottle mojito out of my bag and chugged it, then filled it with a can of Sparks. By the time the band started setting up we had no intention of leaving.

I guess being a live-band karaoke band is a good deal for musicians, the same way being a club DJ is a good deal for me. You swallow your pride and give the people what they want to hear. I don't know how many of the members of the (wack-ily named) Karaoke Dokies were in bands but I'm pretty sure that their keyboardist played for the Sonnets.

They had a pretty good crowd, almost too-full of familiar faces. There was the older lady from all the punk shows that everybody calls Mom, there was the daughter of my last boss's boyfriend, a girl whose roommate gave me a handjob five years ago, and another DJ from WLUW. Still, I was determined to enjoy Karaoke and not just be cynical, and I did. The band had a good variety of songs, ranging from cheesy and guilty classic rock pop classics to predictable (but awesome) punk rock favorites. Margaret and I kicked ass doing The Dead Milkmen's "Punk Rock Girl". Then the four of us blew David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust".

Overall it was a fun night, but like I said, if I would have seen it coming in as an outsider, and not from my fuzzy stoop at the drunk table in the back, I never would have believed it.

Friday, December 08, 2006

Captured, Tortured, and Butchered [WZRD]

Since I have so much freedom at the Wizard, and since the record of these setlists is so meaningless, I thought that I would start and end with a video of my favorite artistsfrom the show. Here's the opening track from Pop Levi sings Blue Honey. It's name is in the title...


Now here's the setlist for the whole show:

It's a Trap - Hoy Decimos Basta
Pissed Jeans - Don't Need Smoke to make myself Disappear
Pterodctyl - I Can See a River/Goodand Evil

Jason Webly with Andrew Bemus - How Big is Tacoma
Devendra Banhart/Xiu Xiu - Split 7"
Make Believe - Small Apartment Party
Tijuana Hercules - Fighting Off the Evil Eye
M99 - Shut it Out

Disrobe - Lost Rights/Seething
Liberty Greg - Can't Stop
Tuxedo Killers - I'm Going to Sell those Kids My Bones/Amoeba Hat

The Like Young - Don't Get Dead
No Doctors - T-Bone Pt. 2
Numbers - Solid Pleasure

Lovely Little Girls - All theChildren of the World Born Up Dead/How Stunning I Looked

Panicsville - Boile, Baked, & Basted Babies
Cause Co-Motion! - ThisJust Won't Last
Metatron - Tikkun !

Pop Levi - Blue Honey !!! / (A Style Called) Crying Chic / Mournin Light
Parts & Labor - Take Us Back
Hrvatski - Une Drole De Journee
Matmos - On & On (Curtis Mayfield/Gladys Knight & the Pips Cover)
Kali Z Fasteau/Kidd Jordan/Michael T.A. Thompson -Levess, Lies & Lives


I played two songs by the Tuxedo Killers because I liked them so much

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Spot 6 and the Rumble in the Shuffle.

Date: 12/6/06
Show: Johnny Rumble, DJ Billy Oaks and DJ Geek at the Freeform Shuffle
Venue: Spot 6
Price: Free
Things I missed to be there: Sing Sing and Carezza at the Blog Cabin; DJ Rupture and The EX at the Hideout
Reason I went: Too cold/lazy to go to the Southside (this reason needs to die or I need to get my own car)


I have no tolerance for setlists that last longer than 30 minutes anymore. I can listen to a DJ spin bootyjams all night but I can't listen to the Boredoms pummel my ass for more than 45 minutes at a time. That was why Johnny Rumble, like so very many bands i've been seeing lately, got on my nerves. At first I was happy to see them. They were a rock band. Just rocknroll, no subcategories. Three cord melodies and feedback. Someone noted that "this is a natural progression of someone who grew up listening to a world of music where Kurt Cobain was already a dead hero."

Then their influence started to bleed through too much and they sounded like a soft Nirvana, which is kinda like Local H but without the pop chops. By the time their set got good for the hard jammy part at the end I already wanted them gone. They were annoying.

Speaking of annoying. I hate writing about the same show twice in a week like I'm doing here. It makes me feel like an underachiever. Not that there's much I can do about it, unless someone wants to pay me to write about shows, this will just be a blog and I'll just go to whatever shows I can, even if it means being at the same place every time, which brings me back to Spot 6.

I found Spot 6 a few years ago through my friend Budros (or maybe it was Boutros, fake names are annoying like that). He had just dropped out of Northeastern and was starting his burgeoning gig as a promoter with a goth night there. Though well conceived and fairly populated, it didn't work. The bar was a few blocks north of the general Punkin Donuts/Alley/Igor's Dungeon mallpunk strip, nestled right inbetween Boys Town and Wrigleyvile. It was death rock in a bright orange bar that was more used to club DJ and Mexican Karaoke.

The bars' owners must have a soft spot for death rockers though. I didn't think much about Spot 6 for a few years after Budros' show collapsed. Then I started hearing about shows there. This gothic beauty by the name of InGrog (again, a fake name, probably spelled wrong) was booking bands to play in the basement. Spot 6 was becoming a place where you could regularly see good experimental noise and hip hop, as well as industrial/EBM/fetish nights and straight up DJ nights. Now their location is paying off and I've noticed that on any night of the week, they'll pull in a fair amount of spooky kids AND Smart Bar rejects who all seem to feel at home there.

I think that's neat.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

TwoSlaps Radio [WLUW]

The Temptations - I Know I'm Losing You
Exodus Quartet - 18th Street
Shirley Bassey - Where Do I Begin (Away Team Remix)

Howlin Wolf - 300 Pounds of Joy
Rebirth Brass Band - No Shame In My Game
Showstoppers - Ain't Nothin But a Houseparty
Prince - A Rock in a Funky Place

Black Merda - The Prophet
Edwin Starr - Agent Double-O Soul
Donald Byrd - Beale Street
Voices of East Harlem - Choose Your Seat and Set Down

London Funk All Stars - Booyakka
Dyke & the Blazers - Don't Bug Me
Otis Redding - Day Tripper
Lou Rawls - Dead End Street
Ebony Rhythm Band - Drugs Ain't Cool

Papa Mali & the Instigators - Fire Water
Slim & the Soulful Saints - Fish Head
Axiom Funk - Free-Bass

Wilson Pickett - Funky Broadway
Solomon Burke - Got to Get You Off My Mind
Messengers - Hancock's Hideaway
Up, Bustle & Out - Hip Hop Barrio !
Marvin Gaye - Hitchhike !

Funkadelic - Lunchmeatophobia
Little Milton - Grits Ain't Groceries (all around the world)
Booker T & the MGs - Medley

Friday, December 01, 2006

Walking in a [WZRD] Wonderland

Jackie O Motherfucker -
Parts & Labor - Days in Thirds
Grey Ghost - Horns and Organ

Root Boy Slim - Don't make Me Stop
The Microscopic Septet - Baghdad Blues #
Emergency Broadcast Network - The Dreammaster
Rachel's - Moscow is in theTelephone

Velvet Underground - Sunday Morning *
Matmos - Reconstruction
Dead Boys - Sonic Reducer (live)
Winters in Osaka - Snout

Leonard Cohen - The Future
Defiance, Oh - Oh, Susquehanna!
Tom Waits - God's Away On Business
IfIHadAHiFi - (The HiFi Vs.) Potential Energy
Kraftwerk - We are the Robots
RJD2 - Since We Last Spoke

Sonic Youth and Lydia Lunch - Death Valley '69 !!
Vas Deferens Organization - Modular Squad !!


Kraftwerk - We Are the Robots

It's a Fuckheadfull Life, pt. 2

Date:11/31/06
Location: Bar Vertigo, 853 N Western Ave.
Cost: $5 suggested
Things I missed to be there: Urban Sandbox at the Ice Factory; Zoku launch with Autobot and Vyle at Sonotheque
Reason I went: I was spinning between bands

It's the first day of Winter in Chicago which means that, as if on cue, we're having a small-time blizzard outside as I write this, even though yesterday it was pouring rain. It's also Thursday, which means that it's time for Mister Fuckhead Presents, our good friend Arvo Fuckhead's gig over at Bar Vertigo in Ukrainian Village.

Bar Vertigo is simultaneously great and terrible. It has a corner bar vibe, which means that the Polish staff could really give two shits about you if you're not from around the neighborhood. It's also decorated as a homage to Hitchcock, which for some reason means a lot of red and concentric vertigo spirals everywhere. Anyone could play there, too, but barely anyone ever shows up, especially when it snows. But the first snow means that holidays are coming, or at least some time off work so everybody's in good spirits, and more than ready to be drunk already.

So what does Christmas mean for Fuckhead Present?
It means dance music and cabaret, apparently.

Two of tonight's performers have a lot in common. Schizowave's Lena Potopova and Right-Eye Rita both sing in throaty European accents, although Lena's comes from her native Russia and Rita's is more Vaudeville. They are both given to heavy costuming on stage and unpredictable live performances, Lena writhing around as some sort of tormented sexpot and Rita jabbing knives and tossing meat around like a performance art sociopath. As mentioned before, both have been tempering their cabaret chanteuse sounds with breakbeats and both sang fractured Christmas carols tonight.

"I went to a show where there were these...black guys doing hip hop and everyone had so much energy and were jumping around and I went into another room where there were white guys doing...you know, indie rock and...mothing, so I went back with the black guys. I just wish you all could be a little more... like black guys right now."

Lena fell over and got back up again and again during her ballads before surprising us with a rapid-fire rap in Russian, Rita handed out candles that dripped white and red waxall over the floor irritating the bartender who'd already decided that she didn't like her, and Khupera Tum played a soft set inbetween, full of lalalala's and violin.

For most of the night, the musicians and DJs outnumbered the crowd, but towards Rita's closing set, the place filled in a bit with drunken regulars and a group of dominatrices prepartying it on their way to Neo, which was just one of those great moments you get from seeing live music in this town, and the type of experience that almost makes it all worthwhile when you're hanging out after the show, helping Rita scrape wax off the floor so it can all happen again next week.


Yesterday ended with an Iggy Pop cover...so should today

It's a Fuckheadfull Life, pt. 1



Date: 11/30/06
Location: Spot 6
Price: Free
Things I missed to be there: The Groodies, The Reptoids and The Machine Media DJs at the Empty Bottle
Reason I went: I forgot that I was supposed to be DJing at the botle until I was already buttfuck up North. Oops.


It's Wednesday in Chicago, which means it's time for the Freeform Shuffle at Spot 6, a free weekly program of DJs and bands hosted by DJ Demchuk and Mister Fuckhead.


The name is kinda generic and very redundant, which makes it almost perfect. Freeform comes from a radio format where the DJs are allowed (and often encouraged) to play music from any genre. The Wizard (WZRD 88.3fm) is currently the only radio station in Chicago that utilizes a Freeform format. The term shuffle was invented for the function on cd players which would allow you to hear songs at random, an option which was not possible in any previous medium. The term has only recently come into vogue as MP3 players allow music listeners to carry their whole music library with them. The point of the show is that all the music is coming from a different place. One DJ might play trance, while another might play hiphop or funk or noise, or all of the above, with a jazz band closing the night, and so on.

The first DJs of the night were Icon (of the videogame dance combo Icon/Prix) and Rotten Milk (of the whatever duo Rotten Milk vs. Bubblegum Shitface). Icon kept it danceabley low key mixing up hiphop and IDM while Rotten Milk went for the booty jams, Miami Bass, mashups and little slices of guiltypleasure-style 90s house.

Then came He Not In. He Not In is a little bit of a lot of things. Sometimes they're a band, sometimes they're a DJ collective. They run Noisy Neighbor Tuesdays at Bar Vertigo and kill it around Wicker Park. Sometimes they have dancers, and sometimes they have explosions. I haven't seen it but I've heard that sometimes they have stilts. As a band they blend Post-Punk and House, and work their asses off trying to get their friends to dance. Halfway through their set, DJ Madrid showed up with a whole posse of crosseyed honeys and losers. By the time He Not In were finishing up (with a fantastic cover of "Now I Wanna Be Your Dog") they'd one over most of the newcomers, but they were only able to get their friends to dance.

...Not that getting hipster whitefolks to dance to rock music at a Wrigleyville bar isn't a great feat, in and of itself...

...it's just that these particular hipster whitefolk were the kind who reeeally reaaally wanted to dance...

....they just gave em a reason...

the last performer of the night was DJ Madrid, probly the most legit of all the DJs who've come through the Shuffle so far, and probly the only one with deeper crates than Rotten Milk's. I don't even know how to describe his set, so Ill sum it up in two songs. 1. He played a remix of "Sexyback" that took out all of the cool Timbaland parts, just leaving Justin Timberlake chanting over some drumnbass and 2. He mixed Ram Jam's "Black Betty" with some electro. Perfectl. r he had an electro remix of "Black Betty" which may very well be the coolest thing I've ever heard.



[Disclaimer: I work with Dan and Icon at WZRD, I work with Fuckhead at WLUW, Rotten Milk and He Not In have both DJed house parties I've thrown...everyone is tainted but DJ Madrid. Here's a video by He Not In]

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

TwoSlaps Radio [WLUW]

Tricky - Bom Bom Diggy Contradictive
Medeski, Martin & Wood - Chubb Sub
Sharon Jones & the Dapp Kings - Genuine

Darlene Love - Strange Love
Quantic feat. Spanky Wilson - Don't Funk With a Hungry Man
Alien Nation of Universal Mothers & Fathers - 80s Child
Little Richard - I Don't Know What You Got (But It's Got Me) Pts 1 & 2

Amp Fiddler - Ridin
Bernie Worrell - Jah Says You Can
Amon Tobin - Hat Pursuit

Jagoff - The Boogie Man
Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains - Junior
War - City, Country, City

Cookies & Dirt - Above the Bar !
Pharcyde - Ya Mama
Bomb Squad - Rip It Up
Outkast - Love Hater

Parlet - Cookie Jar !
The Ronettes - Be My Baby
Lady Miss Kier - Blow My Horn

Aretha Franklin - Rock Steady
O.V. Wright - Eight Men, Four Women
MWC - Certain Fate
Baby Huey - Mama Get Yourself Together

Black Bear Combo - October
Joe Turner - Flip Flop and Fly
Fats Domino - Ain't that a Shame

[Every Monday night, Two Slaps Radio plays the best and most unconventional funk and soul in Chicago, with all of its roots and derivatives including acid jazz, doo-wop, brass band, girl groups and electro. Two Slaps radio can be heard live from 2-4am on WLUW 88.7fm and wluw.org]

VeeDee


See that little blur under "VeeDee"? That's me and my friends. We've got a thing going where we do sets of all-Chicago music. Curtis Mayfield. Los Crudos. Will Oldham. My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult. Et cetera. It's yet another great excuse to go to shows I otherwise wouldn't have been able to pay for.

Last Friday was a Midwestern smorgasbord. There was Chicago's own VeeDee, Ohio's Beaten Awake, and Philadelphia's Pearls & Brass. I don't know if Phillie is actually in the Midwest, but for the sake of argument, lets just say it is. The bands couldn't have been more different from one another, at least as far as three bands playing rocknroll.


A not-great picture of one of the dudes from VeeDee]

I had only heard of the first band, VeeDee from a few samplers I'd heard them on. I thought they were a punk band, one of those hoity toity punk bands that only played in bars. I was wrong. They came out like a bunch of fat Ramones but their music came straight from the sixties. They had riffs that were uglier than Iggy Pop's dick, and then tall of the sudden hey would slow it down and give you this dreamy solo that Strawberry Alarm Clock could've gotten off on. Throw in some pre-mascara Alice Cooper and some light King Crimson and you've got a halfway decent analogy.

The other bands were a mess. I never thought a band called Beaten Awake could be so quiet and boring or that a band called Pearls & Brass would be so loud. I could've liked Beaten Awake, but whenever I started to, they'd outwear their welcome by playing for another three or four minutes. Too much ballad, not enough balls (and when you read this statemest, realize that it's coming from someone who was spinning Andrew Bird that night). And then came Pearls & Brass and they were a metal band. That came totally out of left field. On their myspace page, they describe themselves as Blues/Rock which is actually pretty apt, at least from the songs they've got streaming. They must've had a good produced, cuz someone really pulled the Skynyrd out of them for those songs. Onstage in Chicago, though, they sounded a little too close to Disturbed.


Here's Beaten Awake in Chicago a few months back

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

Lead in: Meshuggah - Straws Pulled at Random

A.G. - If I Wanna
Sun Ra - Island in the Sun
The Cupons - Turn Her Down

Der Dong Dang - Yipmerdai (from Thai Beat a Go-Go)
The Bad Plus - And Here We Test Our Powers Of Observation
The Quik -Bert's Apple Crumble
Irma Thomas - Time Is On My Side
Prince Conley - I'm Going Home

Billy Preston - Billy's Bag
The Whitefield Brothers - Prowlin
Catalyst - Ain't It the Truth

Trouble Funk - C
Parliament - The Greatest War

The BB Sing Funky Country - Paradise City
Evel Knieval - Ceasefire/Deadly Avenger
BST Collective - 06
Dr. Didg - Pianola Strut

Miles Davis - Spanish Key

The Blossoms - That's When the Tears Start
The Apollos - You're Absolutely Right
The Royalettes - There He Goes

[Every Monday night, Two Slaps Radio plays the best and most unconventional funk and soul in Chicago, with all of its roots and derivatives including acid jazz, doo-wop, brass band, girl groups and electro. Two Slaps radio can be heard live from 2-4am on WLUW 88.7fm and wluw.org]

Saturday, November 18, 2006

eirdway: pointless whining about a job that's really too good for me

Today was a fucked up day. I probably bring that upon myself, it was definitely an unlucky day for all parties concerned, whether optimist or pessimist. I had my headphones on, and I was trying to listen to Lateralus as I rode to the radio station but there were too many bumps and the batteries were too low to play more than a minute at a time.

At Kimball, I stopped at a liquor store where I tried to unload the last of this months' food stamps on some energy drinks and the cashier was giving off this really weird vibe. At first I figured he was trying to hide something illegal but the more he followed me around, asking me questions the more I realized it was about me. English wasn't his first language, so I couldn't tell whether he wanted to (a) fuck me, (b) kill me, or (c) induct me into a cult wherein he would revert to options (a) or (b). I left when he started asking if I would meet him somewhere, and as unconfortable as I must have looked, he still gave me handfulls of free candy as (enticement?).

I got to the station late, which was a bummer for the four or five people from the previous show who all wanted to leave and get Chinese food. I had left the house late but it was my own fault for stopping to gawk at the sun setting behind the statues on the school's lawn and then again at the twenty year old listening to Sousa marches with the door open in his office at the school newspaper (which somehow seemed weirder than any of the veryweird and/or creepy things I've seen and/or done at the station).

The show went well at least and set me in a good mood to spin at the club. The club that I would have to leave my bike and take the el to get to. The club that I would have to take the el to get to, unknowing that all the trains were rerouted so that there was no direct way to get to where I needed to be.

I watched gleefully as the cab driver drove for blocks without realizing to turn on the meter. This was bad karma for me, but I felt owed. When I offered him my card, he scolded me for not mentioning it earlier. The machine was broken so all I could do was give him the money I had, roughly half the bill. He was pretty genial, though, for a guy who had just let himself get ripped off, and that geniality stayed with me as things proceeded to fuck up at the club.

I got there and everything was all set up, except for my music. There was none. This may seem weird to you, that I, the DJ, wouldn't have my own music but that's how it works in the company I work for. Until I make enough to get a laptop, it's the only way I could keep up with all the pop and Top 40 that they want me to play (and I'm not particularly interested in on my own time). So I'm at a bar where I'm supposed to play, with nothing to play, until the manager finds me some old house cds from a few years back. I do the best I can til someone shows up with what I need, and by the time midnight came around everything was right back on course.

People were cheap tonight. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that someone shoud have to tip the DJ to hear a request, but there's this mindset where motherfuckers think they own you after throwing a dollar at you. I wonder if that's the way strippers or waitresses feel (not that I work as hard as either one). There's another thing that happens alot, confirmation bias. Whenever someone doesn't like what I'm playing they tell me that everyone is pissed and wants to dance, even if I can see the packed dancefloor from my booth. When someone wants to ingratiate themselves to me, and put themselves above the frattish masses, they tell me that they were the only one dancing to this song or that song, as if that will make me happy. In reality, it is the worst possible thing I could hear.

There was a girl like that tonight. An Indian girl named Shruti, a medical student who wanted to hear punk. I'm not sure if she was flirting with me. She waited til her second visit to the booth to tell me about her fiance at home, but she did tell me. Maybe she just thought I was the only person worth bragging to, maybe the dj booth was the best place to hide from the desi boys that flocked to her, maybe she thought there could be a real, human connection between us, and I'm too cynical. I know I'm too cynical, especally when it comes to beautiful women, and she was beutiful, so much so that it hurt, how many reasons there were we couldn't be together.

Oh well. Another day, another dollar.


To drive people away today I played

Trio - Da Da Da
Jill Sobule - I kissed a Girl
and some song by the band Chicago

Friday, November 17, 2006

Gah! I'm Late [WZRD]

Lead in: Deerhoof - Spiral Golden Town

Pere Ubu - Blue Velvet
Partyline - Zombie Terrorist
The Walkmen - Subterranean Homesick Blues

Bakelite 78 - St. James Infirmary Blues
Wovenband - Winter Shaker
KK Rampage - One Armed Man

Common Market - Succor MCs
ehleuchatistas - Lacerate
Craig Taborn - Junk Magic
Frequency Below - Chula's Dream !!!

Pets - Rock Josiah !
Caural and Transmission - Seamonster
Nimble - Comple Simplex (Down Words to Go Lisp and Moot) !!!
Yip-Yip - Banger: an Eating Contest/ To Catch a Beef / Familyman Conundrum
Anavan - Notoriety !
No Things - Gutter Lover !

Rose for Bohdan - Friends Forever !
Guther - Many Frames Per Second
Violins - Deify, Defy, Defile

Spaid Math - Sasquotch Joke?
Boduf Songs - 27th Raven's Head (Darkness Showing through the head of the Raven)
Las Guitarras De Espana - Tangos de Malaga

Brain...Taco...Salad - Boo/Boo/Scare/Ya
Form of Rocket - Men

Chicago Afrobeat Project - West Ganji

[All songs this week came from cds that are new to the station. Tickets were given away to Pere Ubu and Mahjongg but many more tickets failed to solicit interest]

I would very much like to see Yip-Yip now. In the meantime,there isa large quantity of awesome at their youtube page

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Weekend Roundup

It was an interesting weekend, if not particularly adventurous.

I left The Wizard on Friday to spin at a club gig on Rush Street. It was my first time spinning at a place I would consider a club and a complete 180 degree turn from what I'd been doing at the Wizard. Their rules stated hiphop but no rap, but the guy who set me up that day was able to level:

"You're going to need to play some rap to get the crowd going but no Fifty Cent, no Chamillionaire, none of that cars and guns bullshit."

It seemed like a kind of not-so subtle racism, designed to keep the club from going black, but truth be told, dirty hiphop is all the business men and women want to listen to anyway.

My favorite part of the night came after 3, when the boss told me to play shit to get everybody to go home. If I had known that I would have twenty minutes of this, I would have brought some antisocial music from home. Here's my Rock Out the Yuppies set:

Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear the Reaper
Radiohead - Karma Police
Charlie Daniels Band - The Devil went Down to Georgia
and as a subtle homage to Pump up the Volume, I played
Leonard Cohen - Everybody Knows

SATURDAY was Sarah's birthday and she wanted to party. Unfortunately, nothing was calling out to us too strong. We missed a hardcore show at La Casa Maldita with a band from Finland and a band from California, in order to go have dinner (fuck yeah, Udupi Palace!) so we ended up hitting up Quennect Four a new spot in Humboldt Park. Quennect for is run by a few people, including John Ibarra, formerly of the bands One Last Walk and the Black Polar Bear Returns, and the short lived spot The Zoo in Wicker Park. Quennect Four is decked out a lot classier than the Zoo: nice big stage, lots of original art on the wall, a shining ebony grand piano by the door. Even the old pool table seems a lot less scuzzy given the new digs, even if it is the same old cast of characters crowded around it.

Brenmar Someday was playing when we got there. Brenmar Someday is a constantly evolving musical project featuring Brenmar, using a mix of electronics and nontraditional instruments, with a revolving cast of characters accompanying. The results of these collaborations have varied from pop to noise to ambient to glitch hop, but like his latest album, A Husk of Hares on Terry Plumming, Brenmar's set (with a live drummer and circuit bender) sounded a lot like jazz.


Brenmar Someday at Quennect Four

The basement of Quennect was a lot different from the upstairs. It reminded me of the basement at the Needlehouse: a lot of stone, some couches and grafitti. After Brenmar, Stiletto Attack played downstairs.

There's really no good reason for you to know the band Sexpod. They were an all-girl Wiccan metal band who realeased an album and an EP in the mid-nineties, whom I loved back when I tyhought I was a lesbian. The singer for Stiletto Attack reminded me a lot of the singer for Sexpod. The band was able to pack a lot of power, and a lot of pop in for a two piece (their bass player was out of town). An apt comparison would be the Go-Gos, only a lot less catchy. For some reason, the place was filled with dudes with nice cameras. I just got a new camera, which is as nice as anything I've ever had), but I was suffering a serious inferiority complex around them). The aesthetic of Stiletto Attack, two hot chicks rocking out in heels, played well to the photagraphers who were still fawning and snapping away after Sarah and I got bored.


Stilletto Attack at Quennect Four

I had an alright time, but Sarah left disappointed. Less because of the bands than for our failure to locate a place that all of our friends were at. It was a busy Saturday night with lofts going off on Kinzie and Artesian, and shows at Spot 6, Subterranean, Reversible Eye and Chicago Hot Glass, but nothing particularly compelling above the rest.


Quennect Four's basement

SUNDAY found me depressed, so Autumn thought that it would be best that I listened to the blues. We hit up The 5105 Club at 5105 W North Ave. From the outside it looked like a dank, subterranea old people bar but the inside was poppin. It was bright and mirrored with fake stone wallpaper, like some sort of outdated hotel rec room and an old dude by the name of Tail Dragger was sauntering around the bar on a wireless mic, growling the blues in people's faces.

I don't know how old Tail Dragger is but he says he's been playing the blues in Chicago for sixty five years (this website says that Tail Dragger was born in 1940, which would make that claim impossible, but something tells me that the gentleman is given to exaggeration). On number of occasions Tail Dragger has offered to take Autumn and her friends down to Alabame and feed em neckbones til they're healthy. Tail Dragger looks like every crazy preacher in every dustbowl horror flick you've ever seen: rail thin with wild eyes in a cowboy suit. One moment he looks like he's about to nod off, the next moment he looks like he's ready to bite somebody.

Tail Dragger offers up a lot of information about himself, much of it unintelligible, when you're the last table standing at the end of a gig. He got his name from Howlin Wolf, whom he used to play with, because apparently he wasn't one for punctuality. He did a four year wrap in 1993 after he shot fellow musician Boston Blackie in a money dispute and has put out a few albums and a DVD.

You can preview a few of his albums here, and you can see him on youtube below, but you should really check him out at the 5105 Club. Especially, given the fact, that by the time I left Sunday night, I didn't have the blues no more.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

[Every Monday night, Two Slaps Radio plays the best and most unconventional funk and soul in Chicago, with all of its roots and derivatives including acid jazz, doo-wop, brass band, girl groups and electro. Two Slaps radio can be heard live from 2-4am on WLUW 88.7fm and www.wluw.org]


Fuckhead Set:

TV on the radio - Ambulance
Medeski, Scofield, Martin, and Wood - Little Walter Rides Again
1. Funky Thing - Ellis, Larry & The Black Hammer -
2. Hot Funky And Sweaty - Soul Lifters -
Quantic Feat. Spanky Wilson - Don't Joke witha hungry man

Helene Smith - Pain in my heart
Nina Simone - TroubleInMind
Ray Charles - Stranger in Town

Speedometer - Soul Safari
Delfoniccs - you always hurt me
Gnarls Barkley - Boogie Monster
Bobby Womack - Across 11oth Street
Hubert Laws - Let HEr Go

Man Man - Feathers
Diane Ray - Please Don't Talk to the Lifeguard
The Meters - Handclapping Song

Lab Rat Set:

The Coctails - Theme from Mr. Pillow/Potch on the Tuchus/Hip Hop

Screamin Jay Hawkins - Constipation Blues
Youngblood Brass Band - Brooklyn
Erykah Badu - Kiss Me on My Neck
Funkadelic - Friday Night, August 14th

Charles Wright - Follow Your Spirit
Isaac Hayes - Elle's Love Theme
Triumphs - We Don't Love Enough

Dudley Perkins - Warriors of Light
The Olympics - Baby Do the Philly Dog
Patti Young - Head and Shoulders (Above the Rest)
The Mighty Hannibal - The Truth Shall Set You Free

Miho Hatori - Amazona

Friday, November 10, 2006

weird things come in weird packages [WZRD]

Cornish in a Turtleneck - Melting Flower
Taylor (Brand Abrasive Sound Structure) - Trigonometry in D###
Monotract - Skinny Punk Wrath

Jan Jelinek - Straight Life
The Coughs - Elephant
Brain Transplant - Track 5
Vertonen - Connie's Lament

HeWhoCorrupts - Oklahoma
Die Kreuzen - Amon
Defiance, Ohio - Oh, Susquehanna
Badgerlore - Stories for Owls

Bobby Conn - The Golden Age
Tilly and the Wall - Bad Education
Phil Ranelin - For the Children (Slicker Remix)

Goomba aka Dave the Lightbulbman - YankeeDoodle Domer
Carpet of Sexy - Dick Out the Jams (Hteeth remix)
Rottenmilk vs Bubblgum Shitface - Bong Pullingest Beats (RandSevilla remix)
Waterbabies - Stud

The Fabulous Counts - Jan Jan
Mickey & theSoul Generation - Iron Leg
Frank Williams - You Got to Be Man
Jake Wade & the Soul Searchers - Searchin For Soul

Descendents - Suburban Home
Coven - Lonely Lover

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Two Slaps Radio

The Monograms - My Baby Dearest Darling
Jackson 5 - ABC (Saleem Remi Krunk-A-Delic Party Mix)
Betty Everett - You're No Good
Barbie Gaye - My Boy Lollipop
The Pearlettes - Duchess of Earl
Rick James - Mary Jane (DJ Green Lantern Evil Genius Remix)

Spanky Wilson & the Quantic Soul Orchestra - You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover
Maceo Parker - Every Saturday Night
Junior Senior - Shake Your Coconuts

The Pharoahs - The Pharoahs Love Y'all
The Majestics - Funky Chick
Cee-Lo Green - I'll Be Around

Paul Nero - This is Soul
The King Odum Four - All of Me
Dodie Stevens - Pink Shoe Laces
The Chords - Sh-Boom

Prince - Le Grind
Amnesty - Free Your Mind
Charles Wright - Express Yourself
Eric Burdon & War - Tobacco Road

Sun Ra & the Blues Project - Robin's Theme
The Flairs - Love Me Girl
The Exiters - Tell Him
Babs Tino - Keep Away From Other Girls

[Every Monday night, Two Slaps Radio plays the best and most unconventional funk and soul in Chicago, with all of its roots and derivatives including acid jazz, doo-wop, brass band, girl groups and electro. Two Slaps radio can be heard live from 2-4am on WLUW 88.7fm and www.wluw.org]

Monday, November 06, 2006

Reunited...And It Feels A'iight

What an amazing year! I have seen so many reunions of bands that I never expected to see live. Los Crudos. Os Mutantes. Roky Erikson and his band...

and now the Bollweevils (yay!), Naked Raygun (yay!) and the Blue Meanies (meh), all as a part of this year's Riot Fest.

Last year, Riot Fest had a lot of exciting names but ended up underwhelming, with only bastardized versions of legendary bands showing up including a Dead Kennedy's without Jello Biafra, a Germs with actor Shane West doing a Darby Crash impression, and that truly awful mess that calls itself the Misfits these days. The organizers of this year's fest took some of last year's lessons to heart after an overpaid DK was pelted with cans and booed off the stage. This year had a kind of respectability pyramid, which focused more on Chicago legends as headliners, with a strong lineup of old school-but-still-kicking punk bands warming them up (The Business, UK Subs, Youth Brigade), and some more well loved Chicago bands bolstering them (the Effigies, Deals Gone Bad). The fest opened with a diverse group of young angry men, including bilingual skatepunk act Iattack, skinhead fave Fear City, third-gen Pogues retread Flatfoot 56, and psychobilly's The Massacres and The Gravetones, all playing in front of a cavernous Congress Theatre.

That's one of the problems with Riot Fest. If punk rock is about the youth, it really gets shit on with most of the young bands playing to modest early crowds waiting for the big names. Even a sizeable crowd looks disappointing in such a huge arena. Otherwise there isn'ttoo much to snark about this year's festival (last year's fest had a lot of the community up in arms). Sure there were corporate sponsors and too much ska (The Toasters, Mustard Plug, DGB, and the Meanies?) and it's a little shady how Secret Agent Bill and Minority One always get good slots because they put the whole thing together but overall, in a scene that is overly given to cynics, the show was damn respectable.


The last time I was this far from a stage, I wasn't at a concert!

I snuck in because paying over 20 bucks isn't very punk rock and I wanted to keep in line with the ethics of the fest and the first thing I noticed was the diversity in ages of the crowd. Naked Raygun hadn't played in ten years and drew kids in their teens who never got a chance to see and old men with beerguts bragging about how they used to see them all the time.

When I saw Crudos, I was excited, and to be honest, they let me down. They hadn't played in years, and weren't as tight as the bands that preceded them. The only thing that salvaged their set was the crowd response because, to a lot of people at the show, it was as if the Beatles had reunited, and the pit was bedlam. It was the same with all the other reunions I saw this year, and it was the same with Riot Fest, only this time I wasn't disappointed because I knew what to expect.

The Raygun set was weird. Their drummer was keeping pace and playing all the songs slower than he should have. Pezzatti didn't seem to excited and they kept trotting out their kids every time the crowd yelled for "Free shit". This would've been alright if they just did it once, or did it quickly but at one point there were there were over ten little Raygun's standing around waving and throwing things like the world's worst episode of Chic-a-G-Go. I never thought I'd say it but I left early, before Raygun had even finished. It was just too weird.

The Bollweevils spoke more to my youth than Raygun, when I devoted my time to tracking down Achtung! Chicago comps and heading to the Fireside but their sound didn't translate to the Congress, like there was too much of a disconnect. Oddly enough, the best sounding Chicago reunion was the Blue Meanies who were fast and energetic and clear as ever and had my toes tappin against their will and better judgment.


[obviously, this crowd disagrees with me]

Friday, November 03, 2006

Ain't No Time To Groom if You Wanna Live Well [WZRD]

I just lost my whole setlist for today's show

there was The Kinks, Wolf Eyes, the Contortions, Sam Most, Link Wray, Killing Joke, Fela Kuti, Duck Baker, Cabaret Voltaire, Herbie Hancock & Chick Corea, PJ Soles and Devo

but the highlight of the show was

Irakere - Misa Negra (Black Mass)

a knockout eighteen minute jazz/funk jam that blended African and Latin rhythms with some incredible piano

Halloweekend!

Date: 10/27/06
Location: Mr. City
Cost: $5
Things I missed to be there: Tom Morello and a bunch of political hiphop acts and antiwar war veterans at UIC, Telefon Tel Aviv at the new Rawk! space, karaoke kegger at the SAB loft, musical haunted house on Division


The Friday before Halloween.

Last year, I was going to take my bike out for my first Critical Mass and then hit up Mister City for a show with the Coughs and Lozenge. My girlfriend and I were fighting, my bike got stolen and I drank to much at the show (which was itself pretty awesome). I went to two more parties that night, and ended my night writing an overly dramatic suicide note.

This year I was able to improve a bit. I kept my bike and had my first Mass and made it to Mister City unscathed.

It was a a benefit and release party for Chicago's new free paper,The Skeleton News, which intends to run biweekly soon. It's a decent paper, with contributions by Liam Warfield (who used to do the War Against the Idiots zine as Liam Idiot), Al Burian (Burn Collector), Grant reynolds and the Hairy Nipples Comics Collective. I was surprised to see a sports section and a crossword puzzle, even if a lot of the clues were snarky gibberish.


[an exquisite corpse by the Hairy Nipples Comics Crew]

The first act was Josephine Foster. Her most recent album, A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, is a collection of songs based on 19th century German compositions by the likes of Goethe andShubert. It's at times sexy and haunting, the type of album that's best listened to alone with the volume turned up way high. The music wasn't as powerful live as it was on cd. Everything was more -and usually this isn't a bad thing- organic. Her voice was sounded more raw an the music took on a softer edge,like very un-freaky freak folk.

Next up, from the back of the basement, was Bird Names. Good stuff, mostly (if not all) instrumental but I was too engrossed in champagne and conversation to pay attention.

Lovely Little Girls played third. The last time I saw them, the band included a choir of girls that acted out one of Gregory Jacobsen's grim faerie tales with spaghetti and meat sauce dripping down their faces as they sang in English and Polish. Only one of them was present today and no one could find her until Gregory led the band and the audience in a chant of "Where is our little Po-lish girl?" while the band played a kind of doom jazz. I couldn't tell that it was something going wrong and not part of the show until she ran upto the stage, looking a bit irritated. The show was riddled with technical problems that I couldn't actually tell until someone apologized for them (of course that might have been the booze). The band played a fairly danceable set, the show happened at eye level, so any theatrics that didn't happen in the middle of the crowd were lost. I highly recommend seeing the band. The cast rotates around Gregory, but it's a slow rotation, so although the sets never seem to be the same, the sound is very familiar.



[The Lovely Little Girls at Mister City]

Last up was the Coughs, who may or may not be breaking up at the end of their current tour. By this time I was two bottles of champagne deep, and I only remember brief bits and pieces of this set. I was one of the only people dancing, and I think I pulled a number of folks down onto the ground as I collided into them. Sorry.

I made an ass of myself but I didn't want myself dead. Even if I did skin the hell out of my leg, get in a screaming fight with my girlfriend, and go totally aggro weaving my bike through assholes in Wicker to get home, it was a much better year than the last.


Lovely Little Girls somewhere else

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Halloween Funk [WLUW]

fats waller - beale street blues
Residents - Excerpt from Third reich n roll
Residents - boots
Frank Zappa - My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama

The Contortions - I Can't Stand Myself
james brown - hell
Quantic featuring Spanky Wilson - Don't Joke With a Hungry Man
The Coasters - Charlie Brown

The Coasters - Yakety Yak
Screamin Lord Sutch - Jack the ripper
Screamin Jay - Little Demon
Bobby Pickett - Monster Mash

Fats Domino - I'm gonna be a wheel someday
Anton Lavey - Satan Takes a Holiday
the love exchange - swallow the sun
smiley lewis - I hear you knocking
THe clovers - Devil or angel

Dinah Washington - I don't hurt any more
Owusu & Hannibal - Monster
Funkadelic - Miss Lucifer's Love


Gnarls Barkley - The Boogie Monster
Axiom Funk - Hideous Mutant Freekz
The Mighty Hannibal - Big Chief Hug Um and Liss Um

Fishbone - Ugly
Quincy Jones - Hikky Burr
The Coasters - Young Blood

Ernie K-Doe - Mother-In-Law
Nina Simone - I Put a Spell on You
Lee Dorsey - Workin In a Coal Mine

JD & the Evil's Dynamite Band - Haaa-Sheesh and Just Some More Haaa-Sheesh
JJ Barnes - Our Love is in the Pocket
Lee Fields & the Explorers - I'm the Man

Rose Batiste - Hit and Run

[Every Monday night, Two Slaps Radio plays the best and most unconventional funk and soul in Chicago, with all of its roots and derivatives including acid jazz, doo-wop, brass band, girl groups and electro. Two Slaps radio can be heard live from 2-4am on WLUW 88.7fm and www.wluw.org]

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Are they really named after that building on Halsted?



[I'm having a total writing slump, I apologize for the wonky wording of this. It was written on two different days about two different shows and probably shouldn't have been combined]

"Alright, fifteen more minutes of this and then we go away."

The song that is playing, and that has been playing, is a looped polka constructed from one (or perhaps many) unrecognizable songs from children's television, with creepy, warped laughter layered over it.

Hteeth is on stage. I can't tell if Hteeth is one or two guys, because there is one guy fiddling with electronics and another crouched behind an amplifier. The guy who isn't hiding jumps off the stage and into the crowd, most of whom stand with awkward stares, some of whom nod their heads, and tells me:

"In Abu-Ghraib, they make men wear hoods over their faces."

"Uh huh." I'm waiting for the joke, expecting it to be horrible (like some tacky, offensive thing intended to shock me).

"They make them wear hoods so they can't see, and stick them in these storage containers, like 4 by 6 feet, or smaller, and play Barney songs over and over for upwards of ten hours at a time, just to fuck with them."

I'm pleasantly surprised. They're giving us a taste of torture.

When he walks away I go to the bar. A friend of mine is over there with someone who is freaking out. They're both high. The song has been playing for ten minutes now. It's working.

The Select Media Fest was put together by the people who run the Lumpen zine and the the Terry Plumming record/cd-r label, and they're a confrontational bunch. Last year's festival was centered mostly around Bridgeport, which they dubbed the Community of the Future. Although they played the fest as a celebration of Bridgeport, the neighborhood where a lot of them lived and worked, they aren't (and weren't) really that naive. Bridgeport was (and is) a very insular, mostly white, mostly blue collar neighborhood on Chicago's South Side and while some Lumpens, like founder Ed Marzewski, had lived there a long time, most were just moving in, many of them from Wicker Park. For anyone unfamiliar with Wicker Park, here's a brief synopsis: artists move into working class neighborhood, yuppies follow, artists get priced out and have to find new digs in another working class neighborhood. Although it wasn't their intention, the flight of Lumpen cholos was seen by many residents as a sign that what happened in Wicker Park would happen in Bridgeport and that "Community of the Future" was seen as a comment that the neighborhood's past didn't matter to these new people, as if this place was unenlightened and they were going to make it special.

"Turn off the fucking lights. Turn off the fucking lights and turn this way. Turn off if you want us to play the way we're suppose to play and be seen."

There was another very confrontational part of the fest at Reversible Eye, and it wasn't the rail against the houselights by one of the members of Columbia, MO's Warhammer 48k. It was "The Freak is The rock show", a musical sitcom by Drew Zigler. It was performancre art squared, as if Paper Rad raped The PRDF and they were trying to scare people into having fun. There were googly eyes and glitter explosions, teleconferences with monsters, and the live birth of multiple spraypainted Daylo babies, all being filmed in front of a hipster crowd for the Youtube generation. It was massive, bleeding off the stage in every direction. The door was blocked with no way out, and if you didn't like it, you still had to deal.

Overall, though, this year's festival was a lot more low-key than last years (perhaps because of the massive undertaking of this year's Version Festival, put on by the same people). It was also a lot less neighborhood-centric with shows in West Town, Bridgeport, Ukranian Village, Wicker Park and whatever neighborhood South Union Arts is located in. But where Version is a festival of art, Select is a festival of media, and most media festivals aren't confrontational at all. There are movies and maybe bands and people sit or stand and watch. Select created an answer to this by having video shot live and bands playing in nontraditional ways in nontraditional parts of regular concert venues.

Tonight's free show at the Empty Bottle ended the festival and served as a release party the new Terry Plumming double-comp Bacon is the Inside Outside World. This show was full of scumbag noise groups, from the garage dreck of David Diarreah to the fuck-the-place up theatre of America's Meth Problem. It also featured the danceable experimentation of Waterbabies, weirdo hip hop by Brenmar Someday, and the always above par Insect Deli. Hteeth tossed out some serviceable but not-new noise and Assdroids played but I missed them.

Peep the album, it's one lp, one cd-r and a lot of art/propaganda/propagandart by familiar Terry Plumming artists, including Al Burian, John Polacheck, Elisa, Party Steve, Carpet of Sexy and all of tonight's bands.


Here's a video of Warhammer 48k, where they rip shit. At the Reversible Eye show, they sounded more like sludgy grunge music, like a darker version of Alice in Chains. Maybe someone really should have extinguished that un-turnoffable light.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

Arvo's Set:

TV On The Radio - Mr. Grieves
Kaada - Burden
The Flamingos - I only have eyes for you

The Persuaders - Thin Line Between Love and Hate
Solomon Burke - Just Out of Reach (of my two open arms)
Chantels - Maybe
Patti Labelle and the Blue Belles - Somewhere over the rainbow

Diane Ray - Please Don't Talk To The LifeGuard
Bernadette Castro - GEt Rid of Him
Roy Montrell - (Everytime I hear that mellow saxophone)
Nappy Brown - Don't be angry
Joe Turner - Shake Rattle and Roll

Screaming Lord Sutch - Jack THe Ripper
Anton LaVey - Satan Takes a Holiday
Warren Zevon - Excitable Boy
White Zombie - I'm Your Boogie Man

Lena Horne - Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen
The Incredibles - There's Nothing Else to Say
FOETUS - Wash

Lab Rat set:

The Dometown Gang - Rock In
Speedometer - Soul Safari
The Sweets - Satisfy My Baby

Dudley Perkins - Funky Dudley !!
Gene Harris & the Three Sounds - The Look of Slim
The Roots - Boom!

Ray Charles - The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane
Beastie Boys - Egg Man
The 5,6,7,8s - Green Onions (Booker T & the M.G.s cover)

Ike & Tina Turner - Louie Louie
The Megatons - Shimmy Shimmy Walk, Part 1
The Detroit Land Apples - I Need Help

Handsome Boy Modeling School - Magnetizing
Hank Ballard - From the Love Side
The Fury's - I'm Satisfied

[Every Monday night, Two Slaps Radio plays the best and most unconventional funk and soul in Chicago, with all of its roots and derivatives including acid jazz, doo-wop, brass band, girl groups and electro. Two Slaps radio can be heard live from 2-4am on WLUW 88.7fm and www.wluw.org]

Friday, October 20, 2006

Chicago Horror Party [WZRD]

James Polk & the Brothers - Just Plain Funk
The "Great" Deltas - Just Plain Funk
Larry Ellis & the Black Hammer - Funky Thing
Lady Sovereign - It's All Your Fault
Swell Maps - H.S. Art

Cut Chemist feat. Hymnal -
The Mabuses - Life in a Life Boat
Black Neon - Ode to Immer Wieder
The Mojo Men - Sit Down, I Think I Love You
Amon Duul - Dr. Jeckyll !

What thefuck happened during this set???
Henry Rollins - [some spoken word piece. had to cut. said cocksucker too many times]
Pop Art - Ancient Art [had to cut. worst song I've ever heard]
The Elastic Spastic Band - Side Womb [had to cut. too much of everything]
Babes In Toyland - Swamp Pussy/he's my thing
Benny Goodman - After You've Gone
Daniel Johnston - I Killed the Monster

Nurse With Wound - Nil by Mouth
Alien Sex Fiend - bun-Ho!/Everybody'sDream/Radiant City
Jawbox - Bullet Park
Dissent - Superman
Downfall- LongWay To Go
DeadSilence - Hope
Cringer - Pay to Play
Bazooka Joe - Phoenix
Libido Boyz - Mr. Greenthumb
Hey Ear (phoenetic pronunciation of Hebrew) - Factory Carnivore
ID Under - Picasso's Three Musicians

Kieren Hebden and Steve Reid - Drop theRhythms, HoldDown the Machines

Giant Metal Insects - White Boy Weezin'
Negazione -Fall Apart/Get Away/It's Hard

John Polachek - Two Will Be With Me
Hoggle - Escaping Oxygen
Insect Deli - Xmasforever febvmar
Roesingape - Sitwell's Ashtray Rent Pain
Mothguts - Jamaican HorrorShow!


[Chec it out, David Firth, the cat behind the flash cartoon Salad Fingers, did a stop-motion animation Nurse With Wound video]

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Deals Gone Bad, Done Dirt Cheap

Show: Deals Gone Bad
Location: Cobra Lounge
Price: Nada
Things I missed to see it: Cartune Xpress at Green Lantern, In One Ear at the Heartland
Reason I went: I was coming from the southside and it was the southernmost thing I knew of

One of the problems with writing is that it's far easier to pan things than it is to make an interesting case as to why one thing or another is worth your time or money. Tonight I'm drunk and there's nothing I'd like to do more than slag a band I used to appreciate, but that's not why I started this blog. Still, I can't do the positive without the negative so I'm gonna start with two ways I could have written a pussy column, followed by three things that made it worthwhile.

The glass is half empty:
1. They won't say it now, but when the Cobra Lounge was still working out their licenses, they describerd themselves as an "Upscale Rock Bar" which is nothing more than an oxymoron. I don't care how many punk-damaged DJs they have playing Mission of Burma and Youth Brigade tributes every night, there's a velvet curtain outside the door and that's not very punk rock.

2. A few years back, my friend Ben's band shared a practice space with Deals Gone Bad. It was an unassuming factory spot in East Rogers Park, and many a night was spent there consuming whiskey and late-night tacos. It was a center of debauchery, to be sure, but it was also a stepping stone for the band. They shared a space with Deals Gone Bad, a real band. Deals Gone Bad had appeared on all of the Jump Up! compilations and by the time we actually saw them, we had their set pretty well mnemorized. Then all of a sudden, things had changed. Deals Gone Bad weren't at the head of a reggae skapunk revval, they were just a bunch of old white men who couldn't adapt, and when I saw them tonight, they didn't sound like a band with strong roots in British and American soul music, they sounded like a Blues Brothers cover band.


The glass still has beer in it:

1. One of the dudes in the band looks like Brian Posehn.

2. Skinheads. Chicago used to be crawling with them. Northside factions, Southside factions, racist skins, anti-racist skins, trad skins, throwback skins, Chicago Mafia Skins. Cafes used to be full of young girls with chelsea cuts that I could fall in love with. Now I only see them at shows.

And I don't see them at most shows. I see them at reunion shows. I see them when the Subhumans come to town. I see them at old Chicago shows. I see them at Southside shows. Not like Pilsen or Bridgeport but reeeeal Southside shows where Blue Island bands like Fear City are playing. A lot of the throwback boys have a thing for soul music, and there's not a lot of game in town for soul that isn't totally mod so these guys flock to Deals Gone Bad who at least put an effort into throwing soul in with the ska. Maybe there are other reasons. I don't know, because I've never been a skinhead, but it's still nice to see the boys around.

3. Burning Angel Girls. Back before there was a huge market for punk rock pornography, I had to download homemade photos like this (which I still have leftover from a set of topless skinheads I got off a high school dial-up connection):


identity protected because she probably didn't receive money to have this circulated online her whole life

Now I can go to a place like Burning Angel and watch girls like these...



...take it up the ass in mid-res downloadable video to the full contentment of my heart. And there are hundreds of them. Thousands even. Acording to Myspace and Friendster and Suicidegirls and Supercult and whatever the fuck webjag phenomena is gonna come next, the whole country is full of them...but where are they? Where are all of these beautiful women when they aren't getting tattoos or doing porn or roller derby?

I rarely see them at shows, or the supermarket, or on public transit. There were some at art school but not enough to account for all of them...

They're here, at the Upscale Rock Bars, where they can be sweet-talked by rawk-by-night day traders over PBRs and Cosmos, and the show tonight was full of them. It's enough to make me want to get a real job.


Verdict: The show was alright. The crowd was fun. The beers were bought for me by friends. The band wasn't particularly great, but they were never groundbreaking to begin with. As usual though, I'm probably wrong, because the crowd loved their asses off on that show.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Two Slaps Radio

Lab Rat Set:

Owusu & Hannibal - Lonnie's Secret
Masonic Wonders - I Call Him
Spanky Wilson & the Quantic Soul Orchestra - Don't Joke With a Hungry Man

Medeski, Martin, Scofield & Wood - Little Walter Rides Again
Charly Antolini's Power Dozen - Nofrete's Headache
Dudley Perkins - Wassup World

Lee 'Scratch' Perry - Perry's Ballad
Ronnie Whitehead - Out of Breath
Beck - Dark Star

The Coup - We Are the Ones
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - Genuine
Holger Hiller - Macome (Yoruba BPM)

The Miracles - Mickey's Monkey
Ernie K-Doe - Mother-In-Law
TV on the Radio - I Was a Lover

Fuckhead Set:

Kaada - Care
Ray Charles - Mary Ann
Don Covay and the Goodtimers - Mercy Mercy
Lena Horne - It's a Rainy Day

Booker T and the MG's - something from the best of
Booker T and the MG's - Green Onions
Booker t and the mg's - From the Best of CD

Screaming Lord Sutch - Jack the Ripper
Insatiable - Munsters Cues
D. Roeser - Sombody's Watching me
White Zombie - I'm your boogie man

Screamin' Jay Hawkins - Heart Attack and Vine
PIG - Never For Fun
FOETUS - SLog

[Every Monday night, Two Slaps Radio plays the best and most unconventional funk and soul in Chicago, with all of its roots and derivatives including acid jazz, doo-wop, brass band, girl groups and electro. Two Slaps radio can be heard live from 2-4am on WLUW 88.7fm and www.wluw.org]

Friday, October 13, 2006

headcold at the old [WZRD]

Warhammer 48k- ???
Scissor Girls - M. Poison
Lady Sovereign - Ch Ching (Spank Rock Remix)
A. I. Z. - Good Morning, Good Death


Lady Sovereign - Drunk on Radiation
Senor Coconut - Behind the Mask
Heiner Goebbels and Alfred Harth - Blitze Uber Moskau
Crippled Insectual - Crippled Prom Night 1982
The Dub Funk Association - Sufferer Dub

The Weird Weeds - Salt Shaker
Freundshaft - ???
Beans - You're Dead, Let'sDisco
The Box - Limpopo
Relaxcitement - George Washington

Toyah - Ieya
Banisteriopsis - MaybeSomething More

Gert Wilden & Orchestra- Music from sexy German films (1968 - 1972)

Dosh - The Everybody Cheer Up Song
The Ex - Scrub that Scum
The Bastard Trio - The Burrowing Oak Demon
Naked Raygun - Rat Patrol
Just-Ice - ColdGettin Dumb

The Boredoms - Soul Discharge Medley

Friday, October 06, 2006

IT'S ALL-VINYL OCTOBER AT WZRD!

Screeching Weasel - I'm Not In Love
Shonen Knife - Cycling Is Fun
Diamanda Galas - WildWomen with Knives

Lydia Lunch - Stinkfist
MDC - Millions of Dead Cops
The Mummies - Skinny Minnie
Chumbawumba - pop star kidnap/sometimes plunder

Daevid Allen with New York Gong - Much Too Old !
Sun City Girls - Cad Walleder
S.P.U.D. - Jesus Extreme
Distorted Pony - Hod
The Buzzcocks - Hollow Inside

Stephen Brown/Peter Principle/Nicolas Klau - Venus in Furs
Frank Zappa - Jewish Princess
The Stooges - 1969

Dissidenten - Nalini Kanti
John Lurie - SixtiesAvant-Garde
Ray Charles - What'd I Say

Laibach - Macbeth
Onairlibrary! - Faultered Ego !
Edith Piaf - T'es L'Homme Qu'il MeFaut
Sugarhill Gang - Rapper'sDelight

NUSRAT FATEH ALI KHAN - KEHNA GHALAT TO CHUUPANA SAHI SAHI

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Rectangle Punk

Tonight was a night of solid, no-frills punk and hardcore at The Mutiny. Nothing went wrong, except for the fact that all the half-pitchers had disappeared by the time the first band had set up.

It's always good to see Southkore bands play in Logan Square, where the only regular locations to play are the Mutiny and La Casa Maldita. You get to see a lot of the Northside faces who rarely get a chance to venture to shows South of the Albion House, and a lot of Southside faces that you rarely see North of 18th Street. If only the joint was all ages, it'd be like another Fireside. Sigh.

I liked Belligerent Outburst, except for any time anyone other than the singer sang, which was probably bad on purpose. "Die From the Colonel" was probably the best song I've heard about franchise fast food since MDC's "Corporate Deathburger" (which itself ranks just above the Descendent's "Der Wienershnitzel", which loses points for being a West Coast thing, but gains points for its placement in Pump Up the Volume).

"I wrote this song fifteen years ago!"
"So what."
"I was eleven."
"I was ten."
"I was eight."

Making punks feel old, or at least guilty for their nostalgia, is always fun.

Condenada and No Slogan played consistently great sets. I left before Eske.


Belligerent Outburst at The Mutiny


[currently listening to "Cheerleaders Vs. Drill Team" by Totally Michael]

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Eyes Back

I haven't written about shows in a while, which is a shame because I've been to about fifty since the last time I've written, and the majority were under five dollars, all ages and phenomenal. There have even been some amazing festivals. Some of the ones that I can remember are Radioinactive, Minotaur, Vyle and the Walkie Talkies at Schubas; Diplo and Os Mutantes at Pitchfork Fest; Roky Erikson, the Boredoms, and Lady Sovereign at Intonation; Bastard Sons of the Apocalypse, Tropietzo, Outraged and a Los Crudos reunion at the Black Hole arcade for Southkore Fest; No Slogan and Sunday Morning Einstein at the Albion House; my favorite Klezmer band Yid Vicious at Summer Dance; Amadou and Marian at Milennium Park, Nora Keyes and Madame P at Reversible Eye; Doug Travis and Pal at the Darkroom; Lovely Little Girls at the Empty Bottle, Crucial Conflict at a blockparty; The Coup and Youngblood Brass Band at another block party; Paperrad and Waterbabies at Red-i; He Not In all over the place; same thing for Right-Eye Rita, Rotten Milk, Insect Deli and Carpet of Sexy; Bear Attack and Abrade might have been the bands I saw at a squat that didn't last very long afterwards; TK Raptor, Velcro Lewis and Mister Fuckhead at the Tastee Freeze; Soft Serve, the Machinist, and Satan 2000 at the Peter Jones Gallery; Charlie Newman with ZootSuitBeatnick and Malcolm Palmer at Subterranean; a few shows at the dearly departed Beach House, and George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic at Africa Fest in Washington Square Park.

Some notables: 2 Per Cent Majesty who played with Black Bear Combo at the Beauty Shop; the former being an amazing violin and guitar postfolk duo and the latter being one of my favorite, ever evolving Chicago brass punk ensembles. Shanghai Triad, who played at the Toc Toc Cafe in Montreal, is a (sometimes) duo that plays Chinese pop music from the 1920s. William Sides Atari Party is getting better and better. I saw him open for Mad Happy at Hotti Biscotti, which was an electro rap group from Florida comprised of a couple of Burning Man dropouts who sang positive lyrics over electro beats. Woah Nelly was the bar band when I got to the Gladstone Hotel to do a show in Toronto, and they were one of the best country acts I've ever seen. I fell hard for the singer when she took out an accordion and even harder when she sang a knockout version of "We'll Meet Again" (y'know, that that song from Dr. Strangelove. And then there were two amazing synth groups at the Mauled By Tigers show I saw at Ronny's bar. Screamin Cyn-Cyn & the Pons and Totally Michael were two of the best acts I've seen all year. Also Ratty Scurvics Singularity one man band at the Cabaret of the Nameless in an appropriately un-titled warehouse on the South Side, where his organ music provided a backdrop for Eric Bang!'s circus disgusting and amazing acts.

It's a shame that when I was going to three or four shows a week I couldn't drag myself to the keyboard to write about them, and now that my last month has been consumed by my search for employment, I can only write about shows I've been a part of.



This was part of Mister Fuckhead's monthly series at Bar Vertigo. He Not In have one too. It's a shame that Bar Vertigo is so lame otherwise. Anyway, Ruby and I did DJ sets between bands as Radio Dysentary.

The first act was Ami Gloria, who's been doing experimental music in Chicago for years. Recently her sets have gotten more traditional. Her work today consisted of her on keyboard and guitar, doing lo-fi ambient music. It sounded like a garage version of Orbital, which felt good, since I've been craving the song "Halcyon (On and On) lately, but getting disappointed every time I hear it.

Then came Zombie Mike (known to many as Mike the Midget). I've never seen Mike do anything other than play the drums in punk bands like the Dirtbikes. As Zombie Mike he covers himself with green paint and plays quirky country songs on his guitar. Mosquito Bandito took country in a different direction as a one-man rockabilly band, singing, playing guitar, playing drums, and occasionally playing the drums with his guitar. His voice was a little off-key, and too fresh for the twang he was making, but I'm sure that with a some more miles behind him, he'll grow into his caterwaul. Both acts were great live but I'm skeptical as to how they would sound recorded. Actually, you can check out Mosquito on his website but you'll have to wait a little longer for Zombie Mike.

Friday, September 29, 2006

Poopship Believer! [WZRD]

The Jungle Brothers - Because I got it like that
The Pharcyde - Ya Mama
Felix Sama - Pabajo
Dolly Parton - 9 to 5
Leonard Leigh - Crazy Rhythm; Fascinating Rhythm

CeliaCruz - Venezuela
Danzig - It's a Long Way Back from Hell
David Rostano - Culture Vulture
DJ Laz - Mami El Negro
Dead or Alive - You Spin Me Round Like a Record
The Beatles - A Day in the Life

Click Click - Sweet Stuff
a; Grumh - Ha People
Consolidated - Stop the War Against the Black Community/White American Male (the Truth Hurts)

Tone Loc - Funky Cold Medina
Boogie Down Productions - South Bronx
Beenie Man - Girls
Mott the Hoople - Violence
Frank Zappa - Dickie'san Asshole

Don Rhingo - La Cintura
Johnny Cash - Get Rhythm
Exene Cervenka - Slave Labor
Robyn Hitchcock - Flesh Cartoons

Beans - Light of the Damned

Beatles - The Oh No I'm Stuck Playing the Beatles Again let's load it up with Effects Medley
The Black Neon - Shoot Me Into Space
Dirty5Thirty - Vertigo (Planetary Allignment)

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

Lab Rat set:

5 Spiritual Tones - Bad Situation [from Good God! A Gospel Funk Hymnal]
Clarence Gatemouth Brown - Got My Mojo Workin
Big Boys - Funk Off

Mickey and the Soul Generation - Football
DJ Shadow - This Time (I'm Gonna Try It My Way)
Banda Black Rio - Gafiera Universal
The Mighty Hannibal - The Truth Shall Make You Free

Frankie Seay and the Soul Brothers - Soul Food
The Knight Brothers - Temptation Bout to Get Me
L. Hollis & the Mackadoos - Monkey Time Shine

The London Funk Allstars - Represent
Marvin Gaye - Wholy Holy
Black Merda - Windsong

Curtis Mayfield - If There's a Hell Below
Gil Scott Heron - The Bottle
Showstoppers - Ain't Nuthin But a House Party

Fuckhead Set:

little richard - heebie jeebies
fats domino - when my dream boat comes home
chuck berry - too much monkey business
ray charles - a stranger in town

bootsy collins - I'd rather be with you
MFSB - FAmily Affair
hank ballard - from the love side
parliament - star child (mothership connection) promo radio version

Donny Hathaway - Je Vous Aime (I Love You)
The Flamingos - I only have eyes for you
THe Four Tops - I can't help myself
CArla Thomas - Gee Whiz
Aretha Franklin - Don't play that song (you lied)

Commodores - M
Irma Thomas - It's Raining
Ivory Joe Turner - Empty Arms
Honey LTD - Silk and honey

The Spiders - I didn't want to do it

[Every Monday night, Two Slaps Radio plays the best and most unconventional funk and soul in Chicago, with all of its roots and derivatives including acid jazz, doo-wop, brass band, girl groups and electro. Two Slaps radio can be heard live from 2-4am on WLUW 88.7fm and www.wluw.org]

Friday, September 15, 2006

A Pair of Brown Thighs [WZRD]

The Effigies - Blue Funk
Descendents - Silly Girl

Einsturzende Neubauten - Yu Gung (Futter Mein Ego)
Sun City Girls - Damacar
The Dicks - Off-Duty Sailor

Kraut - Strongest Man/Pyramids
Black Flag - Bastard in Love
The Fuzztones - Ward 81 !
TheCircle Jerks - Love Kills

Front 242 - Commando Mix
Coil - Tainted Love
Motorslug - Death Rape 2000

Tom Paxton - Thank You, Republic Airlines
The Splendour of Fear - TheWorld is as Soft as Lace

Scratch Acid - El Espectro
Oh Boy! - Some Things (yYou Don't Understand)
Hard Corps - Je Suis Passee
The Micronotz - Oh Baby

Flipside Vinyl Fanzine No. 2 - entireside A

Gil Scott Heron- Johannesburg
The Pogues - A Pair of Brown Eyes

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

[with guest DJ Arvo Fuckhead]

Huey (Piano) Smith and the Clowns - Don't You Just Know It?
The Meters - A Message From the Meters
Johnny Lewis Quartet - Blue Funk

The Headhunters - Rima
Bumpus - All the People
Mickey and the Soul Generation - Up the Stairs and Around the Bend

Cannonball Adderley Quartet - Hummin
Prince - Life'O'the Party
Mighty Hannibal -

Rusty Bryant - Wildfire
Marvin Gaye - Right On

Funkadelic - Live Jam 1971
Quantic - Blow Your Horn feat. Ohmega Watts
Ann Peebles - When the Candle Burns Low

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - You're Gonna Get it
Booker T. and the MG's - Melting Pot
Lyn Collins - Do your thing

Jackie Lee - Oh my darling
Bob RElf - Blowing my mind to pieces
Martha Starr - No Part Love For Me
Little Richard - OOh my Soul

Ben E King - Spanish Harlem
Ray Charles - Drown In My Own Tears
Elvis Costello - Waiting For the End of the World
Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint - Tears tears and more tears

Contortions - I can't stand myself

[Every Monday night, Two Slaps Radio plays the best and most unconventional funk and soul in Chicago, with all of its roots and derivatives including acid jazz, doo-wop, brass band, girl groups and electro. Two Slaps radio can be heard live from 2-4am on WLUW 88.7fm and www.wluw.org]

Friday, September 01, 2006

One Nation Under La Boom! [WZRD]

Funkadelic - One Nation Under a Groove
Method Man/Redman - Tear It Off
Common - Dooinit

Carla Sciaky - And I A Fairytale Lady
7000 Dying Rats - Unyielding Glare 3
Leonard Nimoy - I'd Love Making Love To You

Flossie and the Unicorns - Oh Won't You Be Our Houseguest
Tipsy - Hard Petting
Zsa Zsa Laboum - Tu Veux Ou Tu Veux Pas?

Art Zoyd - Simulacres
The Muffins - Excerpts from Chromometers
New York Dolls - Jet Boy
The Ninth Decade Coalition - Tracks from Fear of Drowning !

Slayer - Eyes of the Insane
Joe "Fingers" Carr - ChinaBoy (from Flappers, Speakeasies & Bathtub Gin)
Alexandro Jodorowski - The Desert Circle
JB Pickers - Super Soul Theme
Porth Autority - Super Strut

Sammy Davis Jr. - Baretta's Theme
Bobby Forrester - Sanford & Sons
Ernie Wilkins -Evil Ways
Henry Mancini - The Street of S. Francisco
Quincy Jones - Call Me Mr. Tibbs

Flipper - Exist or Else
Tilly & the Wall - Rainbows in the Dark
PhilMoore Browne - No Te and E