Location: Cal's
Bands: Sharkula, The Strange Attractor, Daily Void, and Red Denizen
Cost: 5 bones
Things I missed to be there: Lord of the Yum Yum at Lincoln Restaurant; Joe Raglani, Silvum, Glass Bath, and Eavil at Nihilist; Waterbabies and Loto Ball Show at Reversible Eye; I-Attack and Macabre at the Double Door; Alex White and the Dials at Hideout; Ellen Alien at Smartbar; Bitch & the Exciting Conclusion at Old Town School of Folk Music; San Agustin and the Riggs/Sternhagen/McCormack Trio at Enemy; Bjork night at Berin
Things I went to also but aren't worth writing about: Brilliante Records showcase/art show at The Country Club, lam-ass white kid warehouse dance party at 1648 Kinzie
Reason for going: Cheap, never seen Sharkula play an actual show.
It's always great when weirdos join forces. The weirdos in question tonight are Ken the Soul Rebel and Sharkula (also known as Thigamahjiggee, Cumberjack, Mr Diffy, and Dirty Gilligan). Ken is an old skinhead/rockabilly cat who hosts a couple of radio shows on WLUW and WNUR. Fans of Chic-A Go-Go may recognize him as someone who has appeared on almost every episode, picking up quarters, pogoing, and doing steel-toed Russian kicks on the dance floor. None of that is really weird, just general background info. The weird part comes out when he starts talking, or even more when he starts writing. He's just incredibly verbose, perhaps the only person alive who can't make a show flyer in under 100 words. He nails his subjects, in his own spazzy way, and I'm going to let him explain the bands, starting with Sharkula.
SHARKULA (The most surreal and punkish DIY rapper around Chicago joins forces with us. The only rapper to dare rap onstage before Disrobe, The Coughs, and Pelican that lived to tell!!! As seen on Chic-A-Go-Go and on
the streets selling his tapes and CDs!!! A brother who does his own thing avoiding bandwagons and police wagons!!! Also known as Thigamijig and Denzel Washington. Buy a CD from him so he can get CTA fare.)
Sharkula has been around since before I can even remember being aware of what was around me. I started to see him around Belmont a decade ago, selling tapes by the CTA. I would later learn that it was one of many spots he would frequent daily, until he had a good third of the city under his jurisdiction. It took me maybe six years to buy a cassette, which was almost surely the last new cassette I ever bought. The tape was hilarious, just him walking down Milwaukee Avenue rapping into a tape recorder. At one point, he stops to try and holler at this girl. It's one of the hardest and most rewarding tapes I have to listen all the way through.
A couple years ago, Miles Tillman an up-and-coming glitch IDM producer picked up one of Thig's tapes and decided to remix it. He ended up going through Thig's back catalog (a collection of home recordings only rivaled in this city by Wesley Willis and Mark Soltroff) and put out a best of. It got a fair amount of press and all of a sudden, this dude who'd been trying to push tapes on the street for fifteen years was a bit of a celebrity. I remember an event at the Jerkstore where he was dancin' and acting a fool and had this huge posse of hot chicks and white kids standing all around rooting for him. That year he put out one of the best-titled cds in the history of hiphpop: Dr. Martin Luther King Junior Whopper with Cheese. Still, he only plays a scant few shows a year so I was excited to hear him play with The Strange Attractor backing him up.
THE STRANGE ATTRACTOR (We're last but we will make sure that we will contribute to the magickal symbolism of 23 in our high energy mix of punk/soul/glam/jazz/metal/Latin/surf/Middle Eastern/etc. sounds with revolutionary theory and humor. We are also the live backing for this cat...)
On Tape, Thig mixes a lot of stream of conscious rhymes with pop culture references. When I say stream-of-conscious, I don't mean the well edited free association that often gets branded with the term. I mean that he's been freestyling into a tape recorder for an hour straight and some weird shit comes out. Tonight though, I think he was a bit too trashed for his own good. He pumped his fist and shook like a seasoned rock star but the lyrics were garbled and confused, so that often, all you could make out was a growled "SHARKULA!" The band was good, but it wasn't dancy, it was the kind of shit you hear when people who know how to play their instruments have someone come up and freestyle, where they play it safe so that it works but doesn't really do anything.
RED DENIZEN (The Plastic M.O.T.O. Band / 2/3 of The Plastic Bullets and Lawrence from M.O.T.O. go second)
Red Denizen was fun, in my opinion better than the sum of their parts (or at least the bands that they derive from). I could say the same thing about the Daily Void. They were both fun, singalong punk bands that weren't in any way soft. Comparisons could be drawn to The Misfits and Iggy. All either one needed was a little more dynamism from their singers, but let's let Ken say it, because he does it with more enthusiasm.
THE DAILY VOID (Most of The Functional Blackouts and The Worst formed a SUPERGROUP of misanthropes and sociopaths. See them now before hey become the new California Rasins. Chris told me they sound similar to G.G. Allin and the Scumfucs. An inspired case of Devolution after taking a holiday in Butthole Surfers territory from their last FOB album.)
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