Catharsis

Date: 1/24/07
Bands: Fuck 911, Bomb Banks, Gypsy Feelings, Harshe Nu Tru, Dramatic Paws, Jennifer Lorraine, Common Visions, random peoples
Location: Nihilist
Cost: Donation for touring bands
Things I missed to be there: Bookslut Reading with Neal Pollack at Hopleaf; Freeform Shuffle with Oskie Grey, Shamanavi, Emulsion, and Fuzzirobot at Spot 6; In-One-Ear at the Heartland Cafe
Reasons I Went: Jon Ziemba's last show, free ride there and back

I haven't gone to any shows in the last couple weeks because I've been on a group trip in Israel. On the trip, there were a number of Israelis who took the same sort of joy in teaching us Israeli cuss words that I take in getting a toddler to repeat one after me. The language of the hebrew man (Hebrew only slightly less than Yiddish) is full of words that sound so much like what they describe, they're practically onomatopoeia. For example, the word shpich, which is Hebrew for cum, and most closely resembles the slang term skeet.

English is a much trickier language, and full of words that often sound like they'd be perfect for the situation, but upon closer reflection have absolutely no relevance. I wanted to title this blog "catharsis", but I wasn't completely sure that I knew what the word meant, so here's a definition from dictionary.com:

1. the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, esp. through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music.

After twenty-some years of living in Chicago, Jon Ziemba is leaving fo Portland. Last night's show, where he performed as Bomb Banks was his last before leaving. The show began with Nihilist's Ehsan playing accordion and Right Eye Rita playing empty wine bottles as percussion. Jon emerged from a bedroom, with his face painted black and white like an inverse racoon, screaming and smashing an old black electric guitar with a hammer. When the guitar was thoroughly demolished, he walked up to the stage, plugged in another guitar, a sleek white one and joined in with Rita and Ehsan, yowling about everyone wasting their lives. When the song was over, he walked into the middle of the room, sang a Pulp cover, and left.

I was talking to Rich Syska about an old friend who'd moved to Portland, actually one of a number of old friends and noise/party weirdos who have left Illinois for Oregon. Her take was that the town is so much more stoned than Chicago that, while people are really open to new, weird, and heady things, there are a lot fewer individuals ready to get up off their couches to throw together a band or an event just for the hell of it. I never really think of Chicago that way but it makes sense. It's a big city but there's never anything to do, or never enough, or maybe just never the right thing. This was in full effect last night, where I was treated to not just the seven bands on the bill but an Iranian dance party and impromptu performances by David Diarrhea and Right-Eye Rita.

After Bomb Banks was Gypsy Feelings, a hiphop act that consisted of a guy who looked like an effete pirate and a girl with two hoodies sewn together. The guy, Ossian, jumped into the crowd and rapped over lofi keyboard beats while the girl, Rebecca, sat back and rapped over casio and guitar. Harsh Nue Tru had Hunter Husar playing house music in a corner while Jenifer Lorraine danced. Fuck 911 was Rotten Milk and Rand Sevilla making noise and breaking bottles in Nihilist's kitchen, which inspired a number of people to climb up onto the tiled sink and perform in between bands. The best of these was a tall man in a bright one-piece a friend of his had scammed him that had something to do with parachuting or Olympic training. He lifted his head up and yelled, and held a single note which lead to more people yelling and harmonizing until the entire room was standing there with their mouth open or looking around incredulous, unable to stop laughing.

Another highlight was Dramatic Paws, whose set reminded me of Fugazi, the Descendents, the Dead Milkmen and a lot of semirelated things that he didn't actually sound like. Dramatic Paws was a guy who sat on the floor and pounded through some loudfast ballads on an acoustic guitar. It reminded me of high school in the late 90s when emo was only a bad word to punks and didn't mean anything to anyone else. His songs were really good, even as they were derided, loudly by members of the audience who got mad at being shusshed. He ended with a cover of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" in a full Tiny Tim falsetto.

The headliner was Common Visions from Asheville. If you could create a world of music that fit on a line segment where on one end of the line segment, you would have Southern Culture on the Skids and on the other end, Current 93,, and inbetween nothing but variations inbetween. Common Visions would fit perfectly on such a timeline, about three-fourths of the way towards Current 93. Their songs alternated with every other song sounding like old 1980s no-wave or twangy cowpunk, but with each one containing elements of the other.


[Fuck 911 reminded me of America's Meth Problem, which has included both members of Fuck 911. Unfortunately, neither band is as fun as Rand's (now defunct?) two-piece, Carpet of Sexy. Here's one of their videos.]