Location: The Beat Kitchen
Bands: Screamin Cyn-Cyn and the Pons, The Mathematicians, and The Dials
Cost: 8 bucks (and worth it!)
Things I missed to be there: Kelsey Snell, Kate Sandler, Al Burian, and Liz Mason at Loyola Zine Panel; Indian Jewelry and Clipd Beaks at Mister City
Reason for going: See below
So what's the point of all this? I spend a few nights a week going to the cheapest, most interesting shows I can find. I write about them because I figure that the sheer effort of writing about music over and over will lead me to some sort of breakthrough, where I'll finally figure out how to write about sound, about feeling, about the time and the place that allowed the art/trash/thrash to happen, et al ad nauseum. I want to find that place in my head where everything isn't so literal, and I'm still working on it (today for example, I'm all about referencing bands to other bands, which doesn't seem right at all). It's not a sustainable life though. Unless I become a musician and build a following, I'm destined to become one of those weird old guys who goes to shows alone.
So why music anyway? Why concerts? There are tons of reasons... I can dance without having to deal with all the pressures and the plastic ugliness of dance clubs. I can see friends, and be affected viscerally by live art. I can stay out of my house for a few more hours, nearly any day of the week. I think it's a little bit of all those things, that when they come together I come close to experiencing MAXIMUM JOY.
I can dismiss a lot of shows for their lack of joy, but I wouldn't have missed this one for the world. It promised more sheer fun than any show in the city, since Dan Deacon's gig at The Shape Shoppe was shut down by the cops two weeks ago. Two of my favorite live bands from the last two years had found each other for a mini-tour stopping through Chicago. I got to see The Mathematicians play with Typewriter at Texas Ballroom in 2005, and Screamin' Cyn Cyn & the Pons play with Totally Michael at Ronny's last summer, and I've missed each band once or twice since. It was weird that the only band on the bill I hadn't seen was The Dials, and they were the local act.
Because of all the trouble I've been having missing shows lately I aimed to get there on time; still I was late but only by a few minutes and so was the band.
"Aw shit, hold on a second." Shane O'neill, singer and keytar player for Screamin Cyn-Cyn and the Pons, pulls out a stand and an old Casio, "The poor man's keytar, ladies and gentlemen." This happened about a minute after he berated the rest of the band for having to tune inbetween songs, and a seconds after his keytar started acting out.
Aside from a couple technical malfunctions, Screamin Cyn-Cyn and the Pons have come together a lot since the last time I saw them, but their show was a little bit more restrained. When Screamin' Cyn Cyn played at Ronny's it was fantastic. There was no stage to seperate the band from the audienCe, and Shane, glistening with eye glitter and sweat stomped and juked his way through the crowd, pummeling his keytar, and launching into routines the likes of which this world hasn't seen since Flashdance.
Much of the band's lyrics, on songs like "Set The Table", "Slumber Party". and "Pedro's" (their girls night out song) make them sound simultaneously like children playing dress up in their parents clothes, and overgrown teenagers having tantrums over the phone. It's a girl-punk group with only one female, and overtones of 90s acts like Pansy Division and Atom & His Package, and 50s acts like Dion & the Balmonts and The Shangri-Las. The band just released their second album, Screamin Heart Rate which, like their stage show, was a lot tighter than the one before it. If they aren't coming to anyplace near you anytime soon, I'd suggest the roadtrip to Milwaulkee to see them on their own turf. I love them that much.
The Mathematicians, on the other hand, put on the best show I've ever seen at The Beat Kitchen, and blew their last show out of the water. The Mathematicians remain the same goofy nerds as last time (Dewi Decimal, Al Gorythm, and Pythagoras) but the real difference was made by their VJ, who completely transformed the stage with projections and a really odd light kit that gave the back of the Beat Kitchen the feel of being inside the hull of some kind of terrestrial spaceship. The band started off with a rap worthy of MC Chris or the Evolution Control Comittee, before launching into a mix of electropunk songs about math and robots.
Inbetween songs, the band was taunted by aliens, mutants, and cyborgs on their projection window. At various points in any song, the electronics might take over the role of any one Mathematician, who would take the chance to jump into the crowd and start bumping and grinding like a spazmodic breakdancer or an electronic humping machine. They had a fair amount of devotees in the crowd, and a number of cynics who found themselves dancing against against their will as the band continued their assault. Seriously--one of the best shows I've seen in a long time.
Unnecessary references: Ladytron, Orbital, The Screamers
The last band up was The Dials. I like what I've heard of their music, and usually give them a spin during The Machine Media's Chicago Music Nights, but I've never seen them live before, mostly because they play more gigs like this, real gigs at real venues with unnegotiable admission prices, than the houses and spaces I tend to prefer. My friends and I were worried that the band would be more of a let down after the epic Mathmaticians set, but it was more of a comedown, like fooling around after sex just to ease out of all that extra energy and adrenaline.
The Dials were pure bubblegum, somewhere between Joan Jett and The Knack (putting them in line with the Lunachicks, perhaps). They were three beautiful girls (and a drummer) playing bouncy rock and roll with a heavy synthesizer emphasis. I listened and bobbed until I was done, and ready to leave, and I did, joyful.
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