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]
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
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]
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
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
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.
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
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
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]
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]
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
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
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
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