Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Another Saturday Night

Dear Chicago hippie ravers,
leave your goddamn hula hoops at home before I find a way to kill you with them.

I'm angry this week. The rest of this blog is bitching.

Something weird happened the other day. I wasn't able to get into a show. This isn't because I have any clout or anything, it's just I don't go to many shows other people want to see, let alone shows at venues I can't sneak into somehow (this building was airtight), or that care about capacity violation issues. I thought getting into a Gays in the Military/Billy Carter Band/Functional Blackouts/ Mudqueens show all the way over at 5600 W. Belmont would be a piece of cake. Somehow, I underestimated the power of titties.

The Mudqueens are a group of women who hold charitable mudwrestling events to benefit various women's issues (empowerment, self defense, shelters for victims of abuse), all with a live trashpunk soundtrack. So with clean shoes and an ill temper I went to a genderfuck glamarchist party. The boys (bois?) were all hairless and naked and the whole first floor was dancing. This is where I learned something about myself: I can't dance to Modonna. It wasn't for lack of trying either. The theme was Madonna. It wasn't danceclub Madonna, Madonna with Mirwais, Madonna with William Orbit or anything, this was Madonna singles from the 80s and 90s and I tried for a good half hour to dance to them, only to find that I could not appreciate her music on a sincere or ironic level. No matter what I tried, I couldn't find a groove, so I left and hit up the EE loft.

We got there just as EE was playing their last song. We danced to the best of our ability (which was very good as my roommate and I can jive to EE much better than we can jive to Madonna). Then they stopped. Then the hula hoops came out. Dozens of them. It was, I was told, a hooping party. Even so, I was lacking in hh skills and I wasn't alone. There were not enough hoops to go around and people were getting hurt. Apparently hula hoopers do not care about what is around them and have no qualms about walking right into you with a giant spinning disc. These same assholes also seem to need hula hoops that have a diameter of at least five feet. Now I have no problem with hula hoopers. Some of my best friends are hula hoopers. I don't know why I seem to lose hip control whenever I am ringed, but I do and I'll never be one myself. Still, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that anyone who thinks they're too good for a regular size hula hoop in a crowded room is an arrogant cocksucker who should be shot in the face. My roommate, herself a hooper, did not seem to mind, I said it was time to go.

The last stop before burrito heaven was a black light party at Transamoeba, which carried a hefty ten dollar suggested donation even at 3 in the morning. Suggested that is. Except for the size, which was not-spectacular but well-utilized, it had all the makings of a rave: ample water, trance music, backrubs, skeezy white guys, a chill nook, a dance floor that was half prop-exhibition, et cetera. But something was off. These people were the biggest assholes of the night. It was like the entire party consisted of only-childs who refused to share their toys.

Tania, lacking a hula hoop, asked the guy holding the only pair of glowsticks in the room if she could twirl for a minute or to. The guy sent her to the girl who lent them to him, who proceeded to give us the crossest stare I've ever seen at a place where people were rolling. Tania did her tricks for a minute before she has the tubes of toxic gel snatched from her hands. We exchanged glances, stole some beer, and moved on to the next toy. Some men and women were showing off for the circle they forced around them by twirling weighted squares of fabric. Tania begged. More cross stares, and a few warnings not to "fuck up our fabric." Tania got to do this for a whole minute-and-a-half before one of the pieces of fabric touched the ground and she was scolded.

"Do you even know what the fuck you're doing?"

Apparently, there was some skill involved. I could notice a slight difference in what they were doing and what she was doing but not enough to brag about. It was some wack bush-league rhythmic gymnastic bullshit anyway. Tania and I exchanged glances, stole some wine, and moved onto the last toy: a huge bouncy ball covered in rubber nubs like a sea urchin. Tania and I began a game of catch that required us to dance whenever we weren't holding the ball and incorporate every toss and catch into a dance. A few other people joined in. The first was an overrly-aggressive breakdancer. He was harshening flows and invading personal space, but who were we to remove him? It wasn't even our ball. Next to join was a little guy who showed obvious concern about what the breakdancer was doing. He pretended to play happily alongside us until , out of nowhere, he looked around snatched the ball and, faking passes to us the whole time, backed off into lord knows where. We'd had it. These were the least friendly ravers we'd ever encountered. It was time to go.

I've never had so much fun and gotten so pissed off consistently over the course of an evening.

p.s. I missed Eleanor Balson's shows Saturday and today and that blows. I missed her (as Soft Serve at Heaven) on Saturday because of the aforementioned gobbledygook and I missed her today (opening for Bobby Conn and the Detholz as the drummer for Lovely Little Girls) because it just plain sold out. That sucks. Eleanor is a great person who I only kinda know (so I guess I can only call her kinda-great for sure). She's leaving town indefinitely for a new life on the left coast and I wish her the best.

p.p.s. Leslie from E.E. is exempt from whatever I said about hula hoopers because she doesn't abuse her privelage. Plus, when she does that thing where she plays an upside-down saxophone and hoops at the same time, it's damn sexy.

That is all.

only one sub-par song [WLUW]

lead in: twelfth gate - mortal coil

chicago underground quartet - tunnel chrome
death comet crew feat. ramellzee - extreme st. (protein version) (from Anity NY: Early 80's Underground & Contemporary)
amadou & mariam - m'bife blues

nausea - extinction
martin denny - the girlfriend of the whirling dervish (from Mondo Exotica)
john p. strohm - nobody wins (from Don't Let the Bastards Get You Down: A Tribute to Kris Kristofferson) #

the replacements - here comes a regular
crush kill destroy - metric midnight #
dj zinc - 138 trek (from Vital 2 Step)

the gossip - coal to diamonds #
the germs - we must bleed
wire - strange

otto von schirach - smelly mustard
aids wolf - we multiply #
low - anon (spore) (Neotropic remix)

tekulvi - tetrahedron
fantastic plastic machine - beautiful days
catfish haven - you can have me [<--the only shitty song of the night] #

the dead milkmen - surfin cow
tarantula - esqueletos [<--song of the night!!!] #
the gourds - hooky junk #

[popular indie pop set for all the moms out there set]
the clash - london calling
portishead - western eyes
the smiths - girlfriend in a coma

pink floyd - interstellar overrdrive
novasonic down hyperspace - no continents

Saturday, January 28, 2006

pendable, posable dolls of meh

date: 1/27/06
wheres: Reversible Eye, the Ice Factory
whos: Mucca Pazza and contortionists, Pkdores
cost: 5 beans
what I missed: Daedalus, Elliot Lipp, Slicker Six8 the Shocker, and the dude from Telefon Tel aviv at Sonotheque
why I went: I thought I wouldn't miss the animal acts, when do I get to see animal acts?

Chicago is starting to get weird again, in that anything-is-possible way. It's cyclical, I think. It feels like it did in 2001, when Buddy Gallery opened up and the Azone moved into the Congress Theatre Building, when Fred Burkhart, Bopcamp, and the Peoples Republic of Delicious Food showed me just how much you could get away with in this city. It feels like it did in 1999, when Environmental Encroachment, the Nervous Center, and WZRD changed my way of thinking about the city I live in. It feels like 1996, when the Fireside Bowl was a home away from home and every time I got off the train in a new neighborhood I would find adventure. The last few years have shown an extremely dedicated party scene, but it looks like more people are interested in putting on decent shows these days, in various parts of the city, and with more challenging juxtapositions of performers/

So I finally saw Mucca Pazza, my third favorite marching band in the city, which is not a slight in any way. While their music isn't as doesn't get my feet moving as quickly as Environmental Encroachment or Black Bear Combo, there's something to be said for sheer scale. Now Reversible Eye Studios, the part that's open to shows, is just one not-so-big room, and it would probably seem crowded with twenty five people inside. Mucca Pazza consists of over twenty musicians and two cheerleaders, all wearing costumes that fit somewhere between a high school marching band's uniforms and those of Civil War infantrymen (North and South--and for the record, I'm pretty sure the Confederacy would have won if they had cheerleaders; have you seen the girls at the schools down there?) I'm pretty sure I've only seen that many (active) people on stage once, and that was a Parliamentfunkadelic type thang, and when I saw P-Funk they were at an actual venue with an actual stage. Reversible Eye has more of a raised platform, about 3 feet by 5 feet. Obviously, the band spilled over, and the room was pretty packed. I kept waiting for the cops to show and hoping they didn't. Maybe that's why they got everything over with so quickly.

It was impossible to dance without slamming into people, so most people didn't try (as it wasn't exactly a slam dance type of thing). Mucca Pazza's music was standard brass band funk, but there were a few stand-out numbers. One song was a whistly, Ennio Morricone funeral march that could have, and might have, come straight from "The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly". Another was all surf. It was pretty breathtaking to see twenty-some people playing surf music, but even moreso to see them get quiet. I would have liked for it to have gone on longer, for there to be one of those songs where one-by-one, everyone in the band gets to solo (P-Funk did it) but it never happened.

Next up were the Bendable Posable Dolls of Doom, who are part of the Aloft Aerial Dance Troupe. They were billed as contortionists but their act was more of a burlesque gymnastics routine. I don't know if it was their name or their reputation but they drew a pretty thick crowd from the Nocturna set. After a couple dozen pro-girl/grrl/womyn burlesque shows, their somersaults and suspensions weren't that impressive, despite the dayglo wigs and pleather bikinis. This might have been my fault though, since I missed the first set where founder Shayna Swanson did her aerial stuff. Worst of all, I missed the "Amazing Acro-Cats", featuring trained cats doing tricks.

Everyone seemed pretty surprised when they found out the show was over. We stood around, smoking and pining aimlessly before heading to the Ice Factory. We missed most of the bands, including Dancing Knuckles, whom one of my friends described as "Irish, without too much of that Boston sound." The last band up was Pkdores. Two years ago, when they had a saxophone player, they were one of my favorite bands in the city. They were really sloppy, with a high pitched sax that couldn't always keep up and could never solo, leading the way. They sounded a lot like the X-Ray Spex (earning them the title, the Mex-Ray Spex behind their backs), but their sound stood out a lot from the rest of the Pilsen/Little Village scene. They've tightened up a little since dropping their sax player. Their guitarist is far more prominent, and he's good, but they just don't seem that special in comparison. Oh well, these things happen. That show ended early too, but I was already drunk. I guess it's time to go to bed.


A clip of Mucca Pazza at Lollapalooza 2006]

Friday, January 27, 2006

poof [WZRD]

the streetwalkers - downtown flyers
israel vibrations - we da rasta
the hangman's beautiful daughters - something about today
band of outsiders - what goes on
c-rayz walz - the essence

daedalus - greatly exaggerated, our demise
the orb - komplikation #
pedestrians- in the end #
vertonen - deplete to ruination, the wide shift

the defoliants - rectal inferno !
shockout - rootsman/he-man: killer
amon duul - nada moonshine
stan getz and joao gilberto - corcovado

tarantula a.d. - prelude to the fall #
genders - clothesline mimes #
ween - doctor rock
coldcut - everything is under control (return of the underdog)

the bad plus - let our garden grow
bunny brains (another) glass of milk
neurosis - belief !
streetlight manifesto - everything went numb!

noah creshevsky - vol-au-vent
beats r us vs jay-q - sextramental (from Mother Tongues) !
glitter pals - lovepump's birthday song #
magas - lovecompressor

vaz - sink the swan #
hr - youthman suffer (dub)
men's recovery project - stubble #
jackie o motherfucker - bone saw

Monday, January 23, 2006

chiks all around; at least it started out alright. i don't blame the songs [WLUW]

nouvelle vague - guns of brixton (clash cover) !
Tabakin - spank (from The Chicago Drop) #!
martin denny -swamp fire !
emperor x - right to the rails

thunder! thunder! thunder! - the sounds of leisure (from Homemade Hits Vol. 2) !
supervillains - eternia's greatest
gza & ras kass - liquid swords (from Wu Tang Meets Indie Culture)

tortoise & bonnie 'prince' billy - daniel (elton john cover) #3
elkland - i never
daft punk - human after all

autechre - ipacial section
aids wolf - panty mind #
radiant darling - familiar

bakelite 78 - it's a sin to tell a lie #!
andre afram asmar - scientism
ariel pink's haunted graffiti - life in l.a. !

boduf songs - grains #
22-20's - devil in me
i need sleep - my girl #
zZz - ecstasy !

screeching weasel - the science of myth
stnnng - ready the replicas #
drekka - exactioning
big jus - everything must coincide/supa nigga #

billie holiday - speak low (bent remix) (from Verve Remixed Vol. 3) !
benzos - all the king's men
bobby conn & the glass gypsies -we come in peace

Why is there a naked guy drinking tea at the table?

1/19/06
Show: Loto Ball, Grace Kulpa, Lord of the Yum Yum, and Black Bear Combo
Cost: $5
Things I missed to be there: Iunno.

Reversible Eye is quickly becoming my favorite place to see shows in Chicago. Then again, I haven't been going to shows as much as I should be. Last week I missed out on shows at Betty's Blue Star, Underground Lounge, Beauty Shop, and South Union Arts. Our omnipresent friend Party Steve moved to Portland months ago. He came back to visit a week or two ago and he was telling me about party spots I'd never even heard of before. Magical Forest? What the fuck is that? South Union Arts has been putting on all kinds of shows lately and I still haven't made it out to one. The Orphanage is holding occasional shows as well as a weekly open mic/jam for the burning man rave hippie set. For nearly a year, The Studio (formerly the Heartland Studio Theatre) has taken over the Fireside Bowl's gig of holding nightly all-ages punk shows and I still haven't made it out. For even longer than that, any poet worth their shit in this city has made it out to the Lyricist Loft. Not me. Sigh.

Why do I love ReversibleEye though?

1. It's a gallery that actually functions as a gallery instead of just a place to see shows.
2. It's a gallery that currently has puppets and dolls.
3. They're regularly holding interesting shows there, mixing music and performance art.
4. It's less than ten blocks from my house.
5. BYOB

So, um, yay. I don't have a point there. I totally lost my train of thought. Good for me. Blog.

When I first got there, Loto Ball Show was playing. Their mp3s they have online are all industrial-tinged waltzes and circus songs, but live they sounded like the soundtrack to a children's adventure film, as if Gogol Bordello had taken over Giorgio Moroder's soundtrack for "The Neverending Story." I could picture an adventure for each song. Flying through the air, running blindly through the woods as the light of day escapes. I don't know if that's what they were going for, but it was pretty phat.

Next up was, I beleve, was Grace Kulp. They were kind of a droney folk band so we all sat on the floor. I couldn't tell if I liked them or not. The final verdict was that I liked them but wasn't in the mood for them. They were very-goth friendly, right down to the singer's forced Peter Steele/Peter Murphy vocals.

Third was Lord of the Yum Yum (and his roadie, Maximum Happy). Lord of the Yum Yum was awesome. He's always awesome. Move along.

Ifihadahifi was supposed to play, but they got scared of the snowy roads so they hid in Milwaulkee and Black Bear Combo closed out the show. One by one, everybody in the room started dancing. "It's your bar mitzvah, Eric. Let's dance!" my roommate yelled. It wasn't Klezmer, exactly, but very old world Eastern European and very funky. I'm glad to live in a city where we have such a glut of bad ass marching bands. Next time someone starts badmouthing the Windy City you tell them that. And look at the fun, blank stares they give you. Good times.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

against all odds [WLUW]

frank zappa - cucamonga
the shadows of knight - bad little woman
sebadoh - brand new love
tortoise & bonnie prince billy - thunder road#

king god - morning sky#
billy nayer show - mama hen
grip weeds - waiting for a sign
j.o.y. - sunplus (d.f.a. remix)

sound directions - the funky side of life #
mike boo - curdled #
dosh - rock it til the next episode

ham 1 - wrong way marshall #
single minded pros - feels so good (w/ earatik statik & pace won)
del psychos - sick and tired of people

brian wilson - good vibrations
dj signify - peekadoo part 3
dirty dozen brass band - feet can't fail me now

stoat - boys and girls !
belly - dusted
einsturzende neubauten - kalte sterna
karmelia's game - crazy girl

puffy amiyumi - december
fitness & runway - smash your mirror
las malas amistades - el country

handsome boy modeling school - if it wasn't for you (w. de la soul & starchild excalibur)
moonpedro and the new farm street orchestra - birthday #2
albert ayler - our prayer

the smiths - william it was really nothing

mats gustaffson/sonic youth - hidros 3 (track 3)

Sunday, January 15, 2006

I Don't Wanna Get Buried in No Jew Ass Cemetary

So I just got my third tattoo. It's a boy with a jetpack. The art was done by this guy Tom at No Hope No Fear. The design is his, influenced by Dick and Jane books, based on a drawing by my girlfriend, also influenced by Dick and Jane books. It was my first tattoo done at an actual shop, as opposed to somebody's house. Lets take a look down memory lane.

2002 - Mikhail. A version of my hebrew name that I used to tag all over the city. I was named after my great-grandfather, who brought the family to America. Some guy's house in Arlington Heights.
Music playing: A NoFX greatest hits cd

2004 - The 32 tiers of the sephiroth (tree of life) down my spine. The 32 stages of meditation between manhood and godhood. I'm still on stage one. Some guy's house in West Rogers Park.
There was no music. I watched Insomniac,Chapelle's Show, and Adult Swim

2006 - A shop in Wicker Park. Because of a broken iPod we were at the mercy of the very-limited cd selection in the shop. We listened to a cd by 16 Horsepower, which was good (especially so for a Christian band) and an album by Coldplay (which was not as bad as I'd suspected it would be, although some songs were)

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

fake ass punk gangs

So apparently, there are exponentialy more official punk crews than there were when I left high school five years ago. At the turn of the century there were only two big crews (although I'm sure that a number of northwest side fringe groups will argue that distinction): the 77s and the CMS kids. CMS stands for Chicago Mafia Skins. Ben Stupid told me years ago that he was there when the idea for CMS was born. It was in a church basement in Evanston, where the Mushuganas or someone was playing, and in between bands some skinhead kid was asking, "Wouldn't it be cool if we had a gang? We could call it, like, the Chicago Mafia Skinheads or something."

Soon after, sharpied CMS tags started appearing on lamposts, windows and bathroom walls on Belmont. I don't know if this is really how it happened or not, but it seems about right. The CMS kids weren't Nazi skinheads (anyone remember being able to use the term Bonehead?), but a fair amount of them were racist. They weren't Trads either, though they uniformly dressed the part. Pretty much, they were thugs. They got drunk and fucked people up in groups.

The 77s were pretty much the same thing, only back in the day they dressed like English punk rockers did back in 77. Crass and Pistols. Stretch pants, spikes, blah blah blah.

In 2000, I only remember seeing pockets of 77 kids now and again, spunging on the street. The CMS kids (and Chicago skinhead numbers in general were dwindling)

Well, apparently, they're back, and they aren't primarily 16-year olds anymore, and they're calling themselves gangs. Somehow, whenever my friend Karlye has a party, the 77s take it over. Last week she had a couch thrown off her balcony, the time before she got punched in the face, and the time before that a whole bunch of little things got fucked up or stolen. Somehow, she has yet to figure out who keeps inviting them. Somehow, in 7 years of regularly throwing parties with over a hundred people in attendance in various parts of the city, I've never had a problem with them.

I think I figured it out: I have a lot of black and hispanic friends. This could be a specious argument (i.e. I've never seen a tiger by a BP station, therefore tigers must be afraid of Venezuelan crude oil) but I just don't see these fuckers when there are a fair amount of blacks or hispanics around. This brings up the first point, on why these guys can't be real gangs.

1) Gangs can't be afraid of people based on their skin color. Sure, a gang can be racist, but they can't be pussies.

Howsabout another?

2) Real gangbangers have either much better or much worse weapons than switchblades, especially polished, ivory-handled, engraved switchblades. Use more lead pipes and mack-10s.

The third point, came out of a session with one of my tuttees. We were arguing about the punk scene in the better Chicagoland area, and the 77 kids.

"They're like a real, punk rock gang," he tells me.
"No they aren't," I (masterfully) countered.
"Yes they are, they really fucked this one guy up I know badly."
"Okay, lets talk about real gangs. Shit that's organized. I don't know if there are still Vice Lords around but lets say that I'm a Vice Lord and you're a Vice Lord."
"Okay."
"I'm not gonna go and fuck you up...because I'm drunk or BORED, because that would cause ripples throughout the organization."
"Oh, yeah. I guess you're right."

So he agreed with me, or wanted me to shut up. Either way I won. So if these punk crews aren't gangs, then what are they?

FRAT BOYS

That's right, run of the mill oafs. Trade white hats and Aeropostale for back patches and liberty spikes and whaddya got? A frat boy who couldn't make it through high school.

I'm gonna make my point in a way that's fun for me, but a bit of a reach for you. Are you ready?

There's this sketch comedy show that hasn't been on in years. Upright Citizens Brigade. It's awesome. It should be on all day. That and the State. Well, in its first season, there's an episode based around the Greek Fraternity System. Throughout the night, dudes trae high fives and yell, "Chumbawumba, man!" "You know it, Chumbawumba."

Okay, so the show was made in 1998; usually they avoid dated references but this one was apropos. If you don't remember, Tumbawumba were a group of anarchists who reached unexpected heights of one hit wonderdom, when they're song about drinking with the boys and "pissing the night away" became an omnipresent hit. The song was on every station. It was kinda rocky, kinda dancey, hell when one of the guys was talking it could've even passed for hip hop. It was the song that would have people yelling at parties, and it completely ruined Chumbawumba's carreer (which is fine since they kinda lost their integrity by signing to a major after bashing it for so long, and kind of a shame because no one's going to care to listen to the cool albums they did with The Ex or Negativland)

Anyway, I'm at Karlye's house, and I'm pretty sure that everybody there that I don't know (and some of the people I do) are all douchebags or teenagers. I step in off the back porch where a bunch of kids were having an outdoor singalong, into the kitchen where there's a flank of 77 kids by the window.

One of them slaps the other ones hand and goes, "GG Allin."
The other one responds in kind, "Fuckin GG-fuckin-Allin, man!"
And they do this for, I swear, five fucking minutes, and each time, GG Allin's name is funnier than the last. Weird. I saw this once before, again with 77s, different kids but again in Logan Square, and the word was "bukakke."

So there you have it. Problem solved. These wannabe punk rock gangbangers are all just frat boys. Now, how is it we take care of frat boys again? Outside of not going to their keggers, of course.

chicago music at bars

starting in January, Brandon Wetherbee, Kelsey Snell and I have been playing bars in support of Machine Media, a magazine that does not yet exist in the dead-tree format God intended for it. Currently, we have residencies at the Liar's Club, Delilah's, and the Underground Lounge with more in the works. At Machine events, we play nothing but music performed by Chicagoans and former Chicagoans.

The first event took place on Thursday, January 5th (it will always take place on the first Thursday of the month). We were moving and switching off too fast for me to make a setlist but I will list the songs that got responses from the audience.

-Playing a track off of a Mary Tyler Morphine demo ("Damaged", I believe), two people came up.
The first, defiantly announced, "Ha! This is Tilt and they're not from Chicago."
The second beligerently thanked us.
-A song from Articles of Faith's album Core led a pretty girl to ask who I was playing. She was disappointed that AoF is not a current band.
-I got a loud "Yyyyeah!" for ending the night with Revolting Cock's "Linger Fickin Good"
-A dude in a Black Sabbath shirt chastised us and left for playing a Howlin Wolf song (he was a friend of ours, too)

feel free to post requests here for any music you'd like to see and come out to the next one.
(Not that anybody reads this, but, you know, if you end up here and all)

Monday, January 09, 2006

rife with inaccuracy and confusion [WLUW]

johnny cash - 25 minutes to go
black future - eu sou o rio
mancino - babel by the mouthful#

i need sleep - natural disasters#
mong hang - mesopotamia
cyran shames - greenburg, glickstein, charles, david smith & jones

ghislain poirier - synthetic rhythms#
mf doom - one beer
eyedea & abilities - glass

books on tape - surly ambassador
morcheeba - coming down gently
gabby la la - butter and eggs

hightower - the force and the fury #
vindictives - 1900-ilu-vyou
minutemen - i felt like a gringo/jesus and tequila

manu chao - clandestino
atmosphere - musical chairs
tweaker - it's still happening (feat. hamilton leithauser)

seu jorge - chatteron#
captain beefheart - ela guru
las malas amistades - necesidad (electro mix)/la parca#
gotan project - el capilalismo foraneo

storm inc. - rape me
bigg jus - energy harvester (swallow the sun)#
the icarus line - caviar

the highwaymen - the highwaymen
healthy white baby - it's over#
moldy peaches - greyhound bus

william shatner - hey mr. tambourine
butter 08 - shut up

Sunday, January 08, 2006

maniac on the dancefloor

Fantastic. Only one week into the new year and I've already seen two great hardcore shows. Perhaps I should see some more non-hardcore shows but perhaps said shows should be cheaper and held in the same shitholes the punks are willing to play.

Unfortunately, I'm growing irritable in my old age. It seems as though I can't see four or five bands in a row anymore without getting tired of the sound of guitars. Soon I'll be complaining about that trash the kids are listening to these days...it sounds just like noise.

At the Big Horse on Tuesday, Sweden's Imperial Leather was set to rock the house after seven bands. I missed them and the other touring band, the Cooters. I did see however, two of my favorites: Condenada and Tras de Nada, as well as Disrobe, Riotous, and some young, sweatpantsed metal band from Wisconsin. It was all just a warmup for tonight.

We arrived in the Beauty Shop with forties in hand, just as Global Genocide was starting. Global Genocide consists of four fifteen year old girls playing loud, fast slightly melodic punk rock. It was adorable and there was absolutely no standing room (The Beauty Shop is, in actuality, a two-bedroom apartment. The bands play in what would otherwise be considered a dining room). We gave up and drank in the kitchen. I perused merch.

The first thing I noticed was a zine called Griot. I read it a month ago after finding it on a free rack at Quimby's. I was instantly compelled because the word griot represents an incredibly funky brand of traditional African music that is performed as a way of telling a story, but here it was written in a shaky, heavy metal font (what could it be?). Inside was a punk rock love story full of well written cliches and some interesting turns. The writer seems to need to identify punk rock as an entity a lot in the story. Without knocking it, I'd describe it as something I would have written ten years ago if I had the life experiences and writing skill I have today, if that makes any sense. I bought a copy from the author who was shocked I'd seen it. He was from Ohio, and had come along for the ride with Piedmontster from North Carolina. He said I could take one for free, but I insisted on paying because I was drunk, and had already read one for free.

The place was full of familiar faces. There were four other current and former djs from WZRD there, Beth, Dave Cavasos (now performing as David Diarrhea), James with the tits and Rotten Milk. Cassie, a girl I went to grade school with, stood heads above the crowd. She'd just gotten back from New Orleans, she said, and didn't expect to see anyone she knew at the show. It's always fun to see kids I haven't seen in over a decade, but it's even more fun to see them all grown up at a punk show.

Condenada played, but I've said enough on this blog about how much I like them so let's move on.

The next band, Piedmontster, was loud and fast and silly. They played synth-driven dance music, punk and a tiiiiiny bit of ska and overpowered the entire apartment with a smoke machine. My girlfriend, my roommate and I danced, jumped and pushed around, exhaling plumes of gas every time we yelled. Two of the kids from Intifada, who at 17 look years younger, found room to crowd surf. Every now and then I'd retreat to a bedroom and watch the show framed by the doorway. A face, or a body would appear on the left, from the kitchen, standing still and bobbing their head. Then all of a sudden they'd be pushed all the way past the other end of the door frame. It was great.

The last band I had the tolerance to see was Maniac Mansion. I think it had some of the people from KK Rampage in it. Maybe all of them, I can never tell. Like KK Rampage, they played energetic noisepunk and violently thrashed around in the audience but they did it better. The singer yelled as someone crawled up to his shoulders and brought him to his knees. Fists threw up into the air. The light ficture swung, and was batted. People wiped sweat on each other. When it was all over, someone from the kitchen yelled,

"Congratulations, you all smell like punk rock. You should...market that. Somehow."
Guy next to him: They already do. It's called CK One.
Guy with dreads: (a second later) I have a deal inked with Calvin Klein!
Guy next to him (again): I already made that joke.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

things you should know before attending your first mexican hardcore show

When the singer says, "Fuck the Minutemen," he's not badmouthing Darby Crash so calm down

Monday, January 02, 2006

look mom, i'm djing with the sun out

roxy music - out of the blue
sham 69 - money
gris gris - mademoiselle of the morning #

aesop rock w/ doseone - odessa
talib kweli - get by
ghislain poirier - close the news #

las malas amistades - el country #
vivian goldman - lauderette (from anti ny)
as mercanarias - loucos sentimentos

edith frost - emergency
coctails - penguin/powerhouse
tom waits - hang on st. christopher

one self - sd2
pharcyde - ya mama
mc jack e chocolate - pavroty

bonnie prince billy - i see a darkness #
the vipers - tears (only dry)
vashti bunyan - here before #

sir alice - l'amour made in taiwan#
klaus nomi - lightning strikes
princess - miss adventures

death from above 1979 - blood on our hands (justice remix)#
chicago afrobeat project - talking bush#
gogogo airheart - so good#

romanteek - dumb (from DMBQ Benefit)
luxury - one in a million (from Yellow Pills)
schizowave - my baby

really strange and weird things - sein sah thin
they might be giants - the statue got me high
matisyahu - king without a crown