new adventures in SCI-ence!

Date: 1/29 and 1/30 2007
locations: Elastic and the Mutiny
bands: Me + Smokeless Heat and John Herndon, Jeff Parker, and Josh Abrams; Me + DJ Demchuk, Minotaur, and Lovewhips
things i missed to be there: Pit Er Pat, 1980000, Lazer Crystal, Aleks And The Drummer at Schubas; Golden Birthday, Coyote, Death Factory, Big Gold Hoops and Kosher Dill Spears, Nate 1980 Thousand, DJ New Jack at Sonotheque
reasons I went: the me part in those shows

John Barth once theorized that the ultimate failing of literature was how much effort one had to put into appreciating it. Unlike a painting, which can be processed and understood by a room full of people simultaneously, a book or a poem or even a blog cannot be enjoyed all at once. You need to go through it one word at a time. Unlike music, you cannot appreciate literature just by being in its vicinity. It will never find you in the silence.

It also takes a lot more to be moved by literature than by music. I saw two acts this week that were fun. They weren't impressive or very original, they just followed a familiar structure well. I can't think of a literary equivalent, someone who I like more for the style than the substance. I know of a few authors who tell reallyt amazing stories poorly, but I can rarely sit it out through the ending.

I played my first show of the year at Elastic on the 29th of January. I'd never been to Elastic before. It was not as stylish as it's Humboldt Park predecessor, 3030, but it was easier to get to. I bombed. No one was there to see me and I didn't change their mindabout what I was doing, a mix of storytelling and comedy, but that's alright. I made a sawbuck, had a good time, and got to see jazz, which is something I next to never get to do. After I picked myself off the stage, a trio called Smokeless Heat went on. Drums, saxophone, and upright bass. It sounded like jazz...exactly. If I was watching a movie where someone walked into a jazz club, I would expect to hear music like I heard from Smokeless Heat. The next night I DJed (successfully) at The Mutiny. High Priest,from Antipop Consortium, was on the bill but had to cancel because of weather or laziness or something, so the only band was lovewhip.

Lovewhip was by-the-numbers electropop, with machine gun beats, plink plunk synth, and a ridiculously hot frontwoman. They had a soundguy mixing and remixing theirset live on his laptop and everything sounded better than anything I'd ever heard come out of The Mutiny PA, but after a two pitchers of gin and tonic, I was the only person dancing and it felt a little forced. This isn't to say that I didn't enjoy their set. In the right setting with the right crowd they could have shredded a club or house party, because they did what they did well and with intensity, but what they did never rose to the level of, say, the Videohippos, whom I'll come down on in my next blog.

One of my favorite parts of the night was getting to play disco and funk in Chicago's best punk rock bar, so I got to play boney M and Giorgio Moroder as I segued into The Eternals and The Buzzcocks. One of the bands I played, somewhere inbetween, was Glass Candy, which is probably why I made the connection, but the band reminded me most of an unimaginative Glass Candy (who, to complete the cycle of me being bitchy and using run-on sentences, were pretty weak when I saw them open for Les George Leningrad a few years back at the Texas Ballroom).

Something awesome happened at the end of the night at Elastic. I was starting to nod off and enter my own world when Herndon/Parker/Abrams started and did something few bands have been able to do for me...they got me to stop thinking about them. I wasn't thinking about what I would scribble here. I just listened, unaware that I was listening. I close my eyes and started to drift from where I was, but I was no longer nodding off,my brain just took off behind me and whenever I opened my eyes I was surprised to see that there were still other people sittinmg around me watching people play music in front of us, and not just tones resonating in my head. Fucking awesome. And I thought and that's what jazz is supposed to be.