Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

Arvo's Set:

Donny Hathaway - Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything)
Bobby Womack & Peace - Across 110th Street
Ohio Players - Skin Tight
James Brown - the Boss

Hank Ballard - From The Love Side
Natural Bridge Bunch - Pig Snoots Part 1
Jumpin' Gene Simmons - Haunted House
fats Domino - I'm gonna be a wheel someday
Ray Charles - Feudin' and Fightin'

Sly and The Family Stone - You Caught Me Smilin'
Delfonics - Walk right up to the sun
Otis Redding - (Sittin' on) The Dock of The Bay
Otis redding - I love You more than words can say

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Your Thing is a Drag
Irma Thomas - Break-A-Way
The Marvelettes - All The Love I've Got

Booker T. & The MG's - Outrage
MAr-keys - Bo-Time
The Bar-Kays - A Hard Day's Night
The Astors - What Can it Be

Eric's jams:

The Five Stairsteps - A Playgirl's Love
Mark Ronson feat. Amy Winehouse - Valerie
Billy Ball and The Upsetters - Cissy Walk

20th Century Steel Band - Theme from Shaft
Shirley Bassey - Goldfinger
Low Brass - Crazy Train

Quincy Jones - Summer in the City
Black Merda - Ashamed
Bootsy Collins - Stretchin' Out (In a Rubber Band)
Justice - D.A.N.C.E.

Justice - NewJack
Undisputed Truth - Smiling Faces Sometimes
The Soul Blenders - The Funky Nightclub

Abstract Giants (featuring Shonie Wells) - Interlude


[Justice doing their song that you know]

Tom Snyder is dead

He was lame by the time I got to him but he did some dope shit when I was an infant:



DRUGS





THE PLASMATICS







THE CLASH







PUBLIC IMAGE, LTD.





IGGY POP



WEIRD AL YANKOVIC

Is It In Yet?

There were only two things that kept this from being the party of the century: The organization and the order.

The lineup was good, but everyone played at the wrong time so there was no build up, no sense that the party was getting better and better, aiming towards some boiling point where everybody would be in the same room at the same time, and probably naked. The ten o'clock kids didn't wait for the midnight heads, and the midnight heads didn't wait for the afterhours set, so everyone came in to a kind of stillborn party. Viewers like You opened with a clunky industrial set, which was followed by some confusion as to who would go next, during which point someone put on some reggae. After the reggae, Menowah came on. His music was alright, but lacked flair, and probably wasn't his best (hopefully wasn't his best, at least, because I'm a jealous, cynical DJ and I got a total I-can-do-that vibe from his set, and I'm pretty sure I've got some friends who've copped to hooking up with him after gigs and next-to-no-one who's hooked up with me).

Next up was Alltruisms, a North Side rapper who came out of the old Organic Mind Unit crew, a short guy who has that kind of Cage/Eminem/El-P schizophrenic whiteboy thing going for him, but with some good goofball/political wordplay on the side (his new album is called High Like Giraffe Balls). He's good, but the sound was shit, and I think it was just him spittin too close to a shitty mic. Still he got a crowd going, and Deep Element should've had em in the bag, but it never seemed to work out, he jumped the gun on a lot of good tracks, and played Justice before the people were ready to be all "Sexyback" about it.

This is all really 20/20 hindsight, but I was supposed to play that night and my set got cut short because somebody called the cops (from within, a fuckin narc!) and the man with the PA didn't think it was worth it to have me jamming for the few people that were left at three-whatever in the morning when they showed up. Because of that, I had time to overthink what should've happened.

Sir Vixx and Nightfoxxx should have switched places. Sir Vixx's energetic breakcore is the perfect thing for people who are already dancing or retarded-drunk, but it's not the best at getting people in on the floor. If Nightfoxxx had gone in with guns blazing, a million homemade mash ups and Bonde Do Role and a couple of oddball cuts, the party would have become born again and Sir Vixx would have taken them over the edge, as it was, a lot of music that should have (and could have) been complimentary ended up working against each other.

When Modemtotem, or Les Beaux, or the Boris Kar-Loft or whatever it's calling itself these days is hype, it's a plus that it's a big musty warehouse. When it isn't, and you're trying to get more than a noise show off, it becomes a liability. The glamour girls go back to the club and the stalwarts go outside. People get rowdy, the cops show up, and I lose my slot.

C'est la vie. Parties in Chicago are no clandestine thing.

old myspace bands i like list

[this list = self indulgent]

2 Per Cent Majesty, Acid Mothers Temple, Adicts, Aesop Rock, Afrika Baambatta, Aleks and the Drummer, Alice Cooper, Amy Winehous, Anal Cunt, Ani Difranco, ANIMALS, Anton Lavey, Apartment, Apocalyptica, Aphex Twin, Articles of Faith, As Mercenarias, Astrud Gilberto, Asylum Street Spankers, Atmosphere, Aus Rotten, Autechre, Bad Brains, Big Black, Big Boys, Bill Laswell, Bjork, Black Bear Combo, Black Merda, Black Sabbath, Blondie, BLUE OYSTER CULT, Bobby Conn, Bonde Do Role, Bone Thugs n Harmony, Bonzo Dog Doodah Band, Bootsy Collins, Boredoms, Bowie, Brujeria, Busdriver, Cake, CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN, Captain Beefheart, Cars, Celia Cruz, Charlie Parker, Children of the Anachronistic Dynasty, Clash, Clouddead, Cookies and Dirt, C.R. Avery, CURTIS MAYFIELD, Daedalus, Damned, Danny Elfman, Dead Kennedys, Dead Milkmen, Defacto, Del Noah, Del Shannon, Dengue Fever, Desmond Dekker, DEVIANTS, DOORS, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, Eek-a-Mouse, Einsturzende Neubauten, Elvis Costello, Ennio Morricone, Essential Logic, Ex, Fania All-Stars, Faust, Fela/Femi Kuti, Fishbone, Flux of Pink Indians, FRANK ZAPPA, Frank/Nancy Sinatra, Fred Frith, Frogs, FUNKADELIC, Gabby La La, GG Allin, Geraldine Fibbers/Carla Bbozulich, Germs, Geto Boys, Ghost, Gravediggaz, Hank Williams, Hawkwind, Heiroglyphics, Heiruspecs, Ian Dury, J Davis Trio, JFA, John Cage, Johnny Cash, John Zorn, Juice Bros, Juventud Crasa, Kinks, Klaus Nomi, Kronos Quartet, KRS one, KUKL, L'Amico di Martucci/Oharuzu, La Mantra de Fhiqria, Laibach, Lard, Last Poets, Leonard Cohen, Les Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains, xLimp Wristx, LOS CRUDOS, Mandrill, Manu Chao, Mars Volta, Marvin Gaye, Mary Tyler Morphine, Max Romeo, Mexakinz, MINISTRY, Minutemen, Mohammed Rafi, Mohawks, Mojo Nixon, Moldy Peaches, Morlocks, Mos Def & the Black Jack Johnson Project, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Negativland, Nina Simone, NiN, Nouvelle Vague, Novasonic Down Hyperspace, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, NWA, Ocean 11, Oingo Boingo, Opium Jukebox, Op Ivy, Os Mutantes, Jan Paderewski, Panicsville, Patti Smith, Pato Banton, Patsy Cline, Pendulum, piL, Pharohs, Plaid, Pogues, Praxis, Prodigy, Profkiev, Puffy Amiyumi, R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders, Radiant Darling, Radioinactive, Ray Charles, Rasputina, Ratty Scurvis, RBX, Reaccion, Residents, Riistetyt, RJD2, Rockets from the Tombs, ROKY ERIKSON, Roxy Music, Sage Francis, Saturday Looks Good to Me, Saul Williams, Schizowave, Screamers, Screamin' Cyn-Cyn and the Pons, Serge gainsborg, Sham 69, Skatalites, Snot, Social Distortion, Spires that in the Sunset Rise, Stag Party, Stringendo, Subhumans, Sublime, Tabla Beat Science, Tar Babies/Mecht Mensht, Tex & the Horseheads, THEMSELVES, They Might Be Giants, Timezone, Tin Hat Trio, Tito & the Tarantula, TOM WAITS, TOOL, Toots & the Maytalls, Tossers, Tropietzo, Tub Ring, Typewriter, Typical Cats, Ukrainians, (old) Vandals, Vanilla Fudge, Violent Femmes, Walkie Talkies, WAR, Wagner, WEEN, Wesley Willis, Who, Why?, WU TANG CLAN, X RAY SPEX, Yid Vicious, Youngblood Brass Band, Yussef Islam, Ziggens, Zohar, Zolar X, Z Rock Hawaii

another cassette party on the [WZRD]

HOMEMADE MUSIC VOLUME 1 [Side A]

Empty Wien - The Flute
Instead Of - 1983-1984 Hennuyeres - Bruxelles, extrait 1
Polar Praxis - Mes Souvenirs du vieux Berlin
Architects Office - xopo6 (actually the letters were cyrrilic, if I spelled even that word correctly)
Voidkampf - IG Metall
Bourbanese Qualk - Compromises
Bene Gesserit - Je Veux ma maman!!
A Naked Kiss - The Secret Life of Planets
Zone Verte - Deux minutes, papillon...
Pungent Odor - Homosexual (excerpt)
Stahlnetz - Walk Man Walk
Spirocheta Pergoli - Excerpt from a rehearsal tape
The Penultimate Infinity - Menhir Montant
Diseno Corbusier - Arde en sus ojos la luz
Instead Of - 1983-1984 Hennuyeres - Bruxelles, extrait 2

IF, BWANA - FREUDIAN SLIP [Side A]

Music from Upper Volta (excerpt)
Threshold
Co Ess #10
Pursuit of Happiness
Song of the Damned
Mourninng Glory
Mrs. Laura
Beers for Baby
Hip, No ?

MORE THAN YOU CAN CHEW [Side B]
The Nines - My Soul for You
Binge - Canopy
UKLA - Old
The Showcase Showdown - Charlie X

EARWIG SPECTRE - MAY CAUSE DISCOLORATION OF THE URINE OR FECES [Side A]

Let the Insects Rule the World
Pol Pot's Penis
Waltz of the Anal Scabs
Alligator Obstetrician
Rainbow over Sodom
A Pubic Hair

THE INSTITUTE FOR SONIC PONDERANCE - LIVE ON WZRD 1994

The FreeFom Hassle

Date:7/25/07
Location: Quennect Four
Show: MachineFest 2007/ The Freeform Shuffle
Bands: Condenada, Clique Talk, Black Bear Combo and SEARSTOWER
DJs: Kate and Rachel, 0+1=Everything
Cost: $5 or canned food donation
Drinks: BYO or $1 PBR
Things I Missed to Be There: Mayor Daley and Gays in the Military at Empty Bottle
Reason for going: I booked a shit-ton of my favorite acts for the show, so it's my party I can cry if I want to namean?



I hate almost everything about putting on shows at places other than my house. I have to care about when everybody loads in, I have to protect other people's stuff, and I have to keep three groups of people happy: the owners, the performers, and to a lesser extent, the audience. Still, when it works, it's fuckin sweet.

Pats on the back and comraderie. Beers in every direction. Soaked clothes and a bunch of stupid half-remembered conversations.

I don't know if the freeform Shuffle is going to keep working with Quennect Four, but our last show was great.

Condenada opened up the show as the sacrificial band, but by the time they finished up, they had a pretty good crowd. A few crusty traveler kids were stomping around and doing Karate Kid hardcore dance steps. I didn't get a huge punk crowd out on Wednesday, maybe because Condenada was the only group on the bill that fit that description, and they have a few shows coming up this weekernd, or maybe there was something else going on that I'd booked against. Either way, there was a good amount of folks there, punks or not. A few people put up their noses, but it looked like a lot of folks were having the same revelation:

That they still liked punk rock.

It's easy to forget that once you stop going to basement shows because you've gotten bored of seeing the same thing, or you've turned 21 or moved out of whatever small town you were living in, and all the stuff that's calling itself punk that people are actually hearing about is boring, either fashion-driven, stuck in the past, or both. I think it was good for these cats to see Condenada, a girl-band that wasn't selling sex, or even their sex, or even the politics of their sex. There were a lot of politics, but a lot of beer too. In a gallery space where stencils of Noam Chomsky, and right-on fisted Zapatistas overlook the stage, and the iconography gets too thick to take seriously it's good to be reminded as much as possible that political people can still get down.

Next up was SEARSTOWER, a project featuring Brenmar Someday and a cat by the name of David experimenting with electronics and eventually happening upon a kind of unconventional rhythm. It wasn't the most moving stuff I've ever heard, and was tilting more towards the Brenmar that does free jazz and avant garde hiphop than the one that does weirdo pop and dance music. While David, worked a table full of electronics I didn't recognize (or that, perhaps, the beer wiped from my memory), Brenmar was playing a turntable, and scratching the shit out of some poor anonymous records. That's about all I can really write about SEARSTOWER, because if I see 'em again, they'll probably sound completely different.

The band that really made the night work, was a band that always tends to make nights work. Instead of sending someone upstairs to collect the people who'd disappeared towards the smoking room, Black Bear Combo brought their instruments upstairs, played a song-and-a-half to pique our insterests, and announced they were going back to where the beer was. I've seen em pull this act before, but it always works, as everyone followed single-file downstairs like the band was some sort of a hipster Pied Piper. Soon the shirts started coming off and asses started shaking. Everyone fell into the band's gypsy brass like they were under some sort of an old world spell. It's poor writing etiquette to use that analogy after already name-checking the Pied Piper of Hamlin, but I'm obviously not that great of a writer.

The show was a bit of a clusterfuck, with all the action condensed into one floor. In between sets, Kate and Rachel (from WLUW's mega-awesome Old Style Show) split their time with 0+1=Everything, the first spinning a lot of old rock and soul and the second playing some downtempo electro and hiphop.

The night closed with Clique Talk, who did the same kind of new wavey dance rock they did when they were HeNotIn.



[0+1=Everything]

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

LAB RAT SET:

The Jazzistics - Marcus, Martin, & Malcolm
Abstract Giants - Phatty's Revenge #
Chromeo - Opening Up #

The Harvey Averne Dozen - Never Learned to Dance
The Isley Brothers - This Old Heart of Mine (Is Week For You)
Amy Winehouse - Wake Up Alone
Mario Allison Y Su Combo - Un Regalo Para Ti

Sly & the Family Stone - Loose Booty
The Bad Plus - 1980 World Champion
Mark Ronson (feat. the Daptone Horns) - God Put a Smile on Your Face !

Mark Ronson (feat. Tiggers) - Toxic (Britney Spears cover)
Clarence Carter - Slip Away
Irakere - Bacalao Con Pan

Ray Charles - Mess Around
The Beastie Boys - The Electric Worm

The Daisy Chain - ZZotto
Ananda Shankar - Dancing Drums

Charlie Palomares y su Yuboney - Vives Boogaloo

ARVO SET:

The Big Three Trio - Wrinkles
Eddie Floyd - Good Love, Bad Love
Ohio Players - Skin Tight
Ike & Tina Turner - I Idolize You
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - You Really Got a Hold on me
Natural Bridge Bunch - Pig Snoots Part 1

James Brown - The Boss
Spanky Wilson & The Quantic Soul Orchestra - Waiting for your touch
Sharon Jones & the DAp - Kings - How Do I let a good man down?
Astors - Candy

Booker T and The MG's - Outrage
Eddie Ray - Wait A Minute
Eddie Bo - Just Like a Monkey
Cold Grits - Funky Soul
The Impressions - It's All Right


[Mark Ronson and Alex Greenwald doing "Just"]

Whoozits and Whatsits Galore

Date: 7/20/07
Location: Double Door
Bands: Arks, Aleks & the Drummer, J+J+J, Sally, and the Machine Media DJs
Cost: $5
Drinks: Reasonable-ish, but more than I can afford right now
Things I missed to be there: Mass Shivers and Lazer Crystal at the Hideout; the (supposedly) last show ever at Nihilist with Carrezza, U.S. Girls, The Opera Company, and Dewayne Slightweighht; other things listed within the post
Reason for going: I am a "Machine Media DJ"



So my friends are putting on a festival in conjunction with their paper. Two shows tonight. Two weeks altogether. Two people and whoever offers to help. Luckily for tonight, there's only two other games in town, but both hit a little close to home. The first event is a reading at Quimby's Bookstore. It's modestly attended, actually fairly well for a reading, but it has two things going against it. Because it's just the first of two things, it has to start on time, which means that more than a few literary degenerates show up once everyone has packed up and gone outside to smoke. The other is the Printer's Ball. The Printer's Ball is a nomadic annual literary event, now in it's third year. A few years ago, it might not have been conceivable to have a big, official book-themed dance event on 35th street, away from all the usual art community haunts, but after last years' Ball packed the Double Door to capacity on a weeknight, they needed something bigger and farther away. Apparently, before the event got busted (more on that craziness soon), the event drew around 1000 people.

The other event was another homespun festival, Mauled by Tigers Fest 2, happening just down the street at Subterrranean, and featuring The Arrivals, The Chinese Telephones, Vena Cava, Canadian Rifle, The Potential Johns, and Lefty Loosie. This show had a pretty big turn out but I think we ended up even, despite the overlapping crowds of punks, rockers, and tattooed dance party motherfuckers.



The first act up was a surprise to everyone. Instead of the solo singer-songwriter electronica act that everyone was expecting, Charlie Deets came out with his band Sally, an unpredictable indie rock act that did their best Godspeed You! Black Emperor impression with a set that consisted of one long, weird, twenty-something minutes-long song featuring Charlie Deets' almost feminine voicve and all the odd changes in time signature and weird riffage you'd expect from a song of that length.

Aleks & the Drummer played next, straight out of an interview in one of the big-name papers. At this point in time, they're being posited in a lot of places as Chicago's next big hope. In and of itself, that's not saying much. Usually, it could be considered as much a curse as it is a blessing, but there's something kind of noteworth about Aleks & the Drummer, in that they aren't a traditional rock band or hip hop group. They're a bilingual (and trilingual, if you're willing to count gibberish on the same level as Polish and English), organ-and-drum duo that has songs that might fit in a discotheque and songs that might fit better as a mourning hymn.



Their show was different at a real venue, as opposed to to a party space. Everyone was really hesitant to dance, as if they were unsure of how, so they stood behind an invisible line ten feet away from the stage. Aleks & the Drummer wore their defenses down, so that by the time J+J+J took the stage, people were tapping their toes like Snoopy in the Charlie Brown Christmas special (seriously).



J+J+J are a suburban dance band, a guy and girl who're about to get married, on electronics and synthesizers, singing songs about ski ball and high school makeout parties that would be apropriate to listen to during either. Their most recent album title is a pretty apt description of the nerd dance party they provide in the middle of the rest of the world: they hump while we go nuts.

I think I would've liked Arks more on paper than I did closing out the show. I know I like the tracks on their myspace page more. Online, some of their songs sound like an odd mix of System of a Down and The Cure, but live they seemed like an indie-ish metal band. They do get scene points for having Paul Hornschemeier of The Holy Consumption comics collective on bass, but luckily, I don't think they're the type of band who give any sort of a shit about scene points. Unfortunately, as much of a shit as they gave about rocking out on Friday, rock'n'roll, even with elements of thrash and new wave, seemed a little boring closing out the night.


I'm relatively show I ended another post with this video of Aleks and the Drummer before]

CD-R Party [WZRD]

no tracklistings for me today!

lead-n: Ghost Orchid

Ethiopiques
LCD Soundsystem
Justice
The Eternals
Tittsworth
Tuxedomoon
Akira S Et As Garotas Que Erraram
Fellini
Glaxo Babies
Indian Jewelry
Clouddead
Afrika Bambattaa

then the radio play "Harold Ramis in the Center of the Universe" by Bret Gand is Dead

William Sides Atari Party
The Screamers

Brilliant Pebbles
Djerma Dundun Drummers

then a cassette of The Best of the Church of the Subgenius' Hour of Slack


[Holy shit! It's a video performance of The Screamers!]

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

Fuckhead set:

Donny Hathaway - Voices Inside (Everything is Everything)
Willie Hightower - Walk A Mile In My Shoes
The Delfonics - I Told You So

Irma Thomas - Break-A-way
the Velvelettes - I know His Name (Only His Name)
Lena Horne - My Blue Heaven
The Royalettes - Come To Me (My DarlinG)
Nai Bonet - Jelly Belly
The Cookies - Wounded
The Ronettes - I Wonder
Diane Ray - Please Don't Talk To the Lifeguard

Eddie Floyd - Good Love, Bad Love
Jean Plum - Look at the Boy
The Treasures - Hold Me Tight

Sly & The Family Stone - You Caught Me Smilin'
Booker T. & The MG's - Outrage
The Coasters - Charlie Brown
The Miracles - Mickey's Monkey
Jumpin' Gene Simmons - Haunted House

The Mar-keys - Last Night

Lab Rat set:

War - Cisco Kid
Jackson Conti - Upa Neguinho
Mark Ronson feat. Amy Winehouse - Valerie

Mark Ronson - Apply Some Pressure
Blue Notes - Even If You Got Love
Gene Harris & the Three Sounds - The Look of Slim

Isaac Hayes - Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic
Skying High - Getting Off On Your Loving
The Mad Lads - My Inspiration

Ken Boothe - Is It Because I'm Black
Miriam Makeba - African Convention


[Sly & the Family Stone]

Fun on the Bun + Me Creeping Out

Date: 7/15/07
Location: Private Residence Birthday Party
Bands: EyesEarsNose, John Bellows, Head Kick, and more
Cost: FREE
Drinks: BYO
Things I missed to be there: Pitchfork Fest with De La Soul the Klaxons and more
Things I didn't have to miss but didn't go to because I'm lame: Dan Deacon, Pony Tail, Death Jet, Cars Will Burn, Mincemeat Or Tenspeed, Yellow Crystal Star, The Ear Is The Brain, Deerhunter, Sewn Leather, SPUPS and DJ Cooper Crain at the Boris Kar-Loft; Mahjongg and Yo!Majesty at the Empty Bottle
Reason for going: Willfully avoiding Pitchfork, needed to get out of the house

Phelan sways back and forth like some sort of hillbilly belly dancer in bare feet and a blue one piece. There's even a bit of hippie to her, more than a bit as she lies on her back for a song saluting the sun, like some sort of downed cockroach seeking redemption through yoga.

It's good to have crushes, and right now Phelan is mine, more than any other underground rockstar in the city today. She sings with the band EyesEarsNose, where she occasionally plays drums, synth, a slide whistle, and a bracelet shaker made of goats' toes as well. EyesEarsNose is one of those bands where everybody trades off instruments every other song, because maybe one person knows how to play the synth (some kind of off-brand Moog from the looks of it), but everyone else in the bsnd can make it sound good for a song or two, perhaps by virtue of not knowing exactly what they're doing. The band plays music the way Southern kids do, the types that grew up on classic rock and country and graduated from traveller punk to melodic sounds, all jug-band fun and folk-beautiful. The band 2% Majesty comes to mind, and maybe The Moldy Peaches.

They've been playing a lot of noise shows lately, but this was a venue where they could really shine, an outdoor barbecue in a backyard that was really just a gated lot in the space between two other buildings. There was a real familial vibe, which was kind of awkward for me, since I only knew three people, tops, and none of them real well. Phelan's Dad was there, and people reacted to him the way people react to Dads, trying to find that space where they weren't so respectful that he would feel out of place, but not so disrespectful that he got offended. I kept to myself, feeding corn on the cob to my pet rat, introducing myself to a couple of people I'd met before. John Bellows played Flaming Lips-style childrens music in a half falsetto that burrowed into my skin and really affected me. David Diarreah and Phelan played a few jams as a Beat Happening cover band.

We Don't Need No Floor Just Let that Motherfucker Crumble

Date: 7/14/07
Location: Reversible Eye
Bands: Dan Deacon, Brilliant Pebbles and Neuer Musiker Kollektiv
Cost: $3
Drinks: $3 warm whatever is available, BYO
Things I missed to be there: Skeet Skeet Skeet with Menowah, Flashbulb and More at the Fulton St. Collective; Pitchfork Festival with Girl Talk, Mastodon, and Yoko Ono
Reason for going: Pitchfork is wack; Skeet is expensive; this cup of porridge was just right
Thing I was able to go to afterwards that reinforced my faith in people magick and the Chicago arts community by netting me a musical toy, showing me a totally awesome video by Bill Brown, and being the first time in a long time that I got to hang out with my girlfriend after 4AM and we weren't lying in bed: The 48 Hour Free Store at Ausgang Studios

Two viewpoints on Neuer Musiker Kollektiv:

(1) "So wait, they've got Dan Deacon here, and also someone whose act is making fun of Dan Deacon?"

(2) "Oh my God, this is the shit! If he only built up his shtick, like if he wore big puffy Outkast jackets or talked in a fake British accent, he would be my favorite thing in the world.

It doesn't need to be said again, but life is redundant like that: The space definitely affects the performance. The space always affects the performance. A couple weeks ago, when Mike Perkins was playing for just a few handfuls of people at Intercourse, his jokes went over really well. In a room packed with frothing hipsters, at the only jam I've ever seen people turned away from at Reversible Eye, he kind of got swallowed up.

I think a similar thing happened with Dan Deacon. Dan Deacon didn't get eaten up, of course. I don't think that's possible. Like always he provided a big sweaty dance party that resulted in crowdsurfing, a collapsed floor, his own electrocution, and a million and two flickr images. That was bound to happen though. Dude is the hype star of the year and at one of the hippest bigtime music festivals of the summer, the fire marshall pulled the plug on his set. That kind of stuff is liquid sex, and add that to some speedy synth numbers and the sets bound to be live, but he wasn't as dynamic, and a few of the people I came with, some people who had never seen him play before, and could give two shits about what happened earlier, didn't get it. Now people who have seen him before, in rooms of just a few dozen people where the actual seeing of him was possible, they'll love him forever because they know what his set is like They saw him shaking his shit and rapping about sex in vocoder chipmunk tones, when nobody knew that he was going to be awesome, when he walked onstage, chubby and balding, with birth control glasses and a scraggly beer, and expecting some sort of math noise nerdishness, got treated to a dance party.

Without the element of surprise, it's kind of like he's outgrown his britches, and if he lets the hype die down, to where there isn't a guaranteed rager every time he plays, he's gonna have to try that much harder to not just be left behind like all the other funny hipster party iconoclasts before him (see The Moldy Peaches, just so it can be the second time I mention them this week, and Andrew WK).

The highlight of the show was Brilliant Pebbles, who rocked everyone's asses after handing out individual business cards to everyone early on. They were as theatrical and glittery as always, but in a smaller space than the last time I'd seen them (at the Empty Bottle), with an audience that was far more ready to dance. I noticed my friends, the ones I mentioned before who I don't want to make sound like killjoys when I say that they are not super inclined to dance, totally going apeshit with the bootyto-shoulder shakes, as if the dance had been pulled out of them. It's partly that the band is coming together, and as Aleks & the Drummer rise to the next level, it'll probably be Aleks' Lovely Little Girls co-star Monikah, and her Brilliant Pebbles that take their place, but props must also be given to the space, for making everything so diggy diggy down.

Props be to the space. The space giveth and the space taketh away. Word is bond.

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

T- Rex - Mambo Sun
Mucca Pazza - Alarm!
Eddie Hazel - California Dreamin'

Ernest Wilson - Undying Love
Natural Bridge Branch - Pig Snoots Part 1
Charles Wright - You Gotta Know Whatcha Doin'
Donny Hathaway - Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything)
Willie Hightower - It's A Miracle
Amy Winehouse - You Know I'm No Good

Abner Jay - Don't Mess With Me Baby
Howlin' Wolf - Baby How Long
Lead Belly - Where Did You Sleep Last Night

Ohio Players - Skin Tight
The Unemployed - Funky Thing pt 1
Rufus Thomas - Somebody Stole My Dog
Veltones - Fool In Love

Delta 5 - Now That You've Gone
The Beastie Boys - The Melee
Otis Jackson Jr. Trio - Free Son

James Bounty - Prove Yourself a Lady
Billy Stewart - Summertime
The Delfonics - Think It Over

Maria Allison y su Combo - Un Regalo Para Ti
RJD2 - Have Mercy
Jay Mitchell - Tighter and Tighter

Ananda Shankar - Back Home
Sir Mack Rice - Mini-Skirt Minnie
The Detroit Land Apples - I Need Help

J Walter Negro and the Loose Jointz - Shoot the Pump

"You're angry because someone said something/ That Made You Feel Small"

Date: 7/9/07
Location: The Darkroom
Show: WLUW's Weird Kids Night with The Hump Day Dance Party, Jake Austen, Daniel Knox, DJ Unicorn and more
Cost: $7
Drinks: Pricey
Reason for going: Thought I could get in free / wanted to see the band that cancelled



"So R. Kelly was giving me pointers on this song, and he's telling me, 'You gotta walk as you sing. You've got to pretend like you're Bing Crosby and shit and walk as you sing' so whenever I'm watching his videos and I see him walking and singing, I know exactly who he's thinking about."

Jake Austen is an endless resource of oddball anecdotes. Right now he's talking about something R. Kelly told him when they were both choir students together at Kenwood back in the day.

Overall, it's a weird night, but I guess that's the point.

DJ Unicorn and Dustin Drase (from WLUW's Hump Day Dance Party) are playing back and forth tag team sets of novelty songs. which will soon give way to Jake Austen playing jams from the last four decades as they've been covered on record by Alvin & the Chipmunks, and a cupcake eating contest that is almost guaranteed to end in controversy. The Cool Kids were supposed to end the night, but their dance card is full this week, what with Pitchfork and a million afterparties, so they just send out a DJ.

The highlight of the night, not counting the post-sugar rush dance party, is a scruffy Daniel Knox playing songs from Mister Roger's Neighborhood. Maybe it was just this recent metafilter post, but I could feel my eyes welling up just the tiniest bit as Daniel Knox played songs with lyrics like the one that titles this post.

string + cheese, incident free

Date: 7/8/07
Location: The Abbey Pub
Bands: Jana Hunter and Rasputina
Cost: $15
Drinks: Too hot/fat/poor to drink today
Things I missed to be there: Child Pornography, Yvonne DQ, Bret Gand is Dead, and Happy Feet at the Boris Kar-Loft
Reason for going: Scammed my way onto the list




"So Adolph Hitler walks into a doctor's office and says 'Every time I give one of my impassioned adressed to the Fatherland, I find that I cannot get an erection afterwards,' to which the doctor replies, 'Adolph, if you were able to get an erection, you would probably not be able to deliver your speeches with as much power or feeling,' and it's right around the point where the joke falls apart."

I'm not sure if Melora Craeger's between-song non-sequitirs are part of the shtick, a defense mechanism against normal stage banter, or just something she found that works for her. They certainly fit with the persona she's developed for herself, which is some kind of Victorian mental patient.

It was weird being at a regular concert. The type of place where people yell out "Freebird!" and song requests whenever there's a half-second of pause for them to fill. It was weird to see how the internet can ruin a surprise, too, once a band has gotten big enough for people to seek them out on it. The crowd cheered when Melora announced that she was going to play "one of the classical compositions the band was so fond of as they learned to play their cellos," not out of some cello-dork fondness for Berlioz,Tchaikovsky or Paginini, but because the band was about to launch into the Heart song "Barracuda", and they knew it, because they'd seen it on youtube.

I drifted out of love with Rasputina after 1999's How We Quit the Forest, choosing to cling to their debut Thanks for the Ether and occasionally dust off their EP, and otherwise moved on. Die-hards swear by the Forest album, though, and I'm willing to give it another chance. The band has released six or seven albums since I left off, and in a set spanning all of them, didn't send out a single clunker.

Of course, this is totally my bag right now, scumbag Brecht, and Victoriana by way of Vaudeville. I've been dipping my beak a bit heavily lately in the guilty pleasure cabaret rawk of the Dresden Dolls, World/Inferno Friendship Society, and the Tiger Lillies. It's almost a shame that Rasputina peaked so early alongside Marilyn Manson ten years ago. They would have fit in perfectly with Josephine Foster and the section of the freak-folk movement that fancies her collection of 19th century German folk ballads. By that same token, they would have been a force to be reckoned with if they'd come up alongside the Dresdens, with their lyrics emblazoned across the backpacks and myspace pages of every alternateen from here to Timbuktu. Unfortunately, neither group is going to take them seriously as long as the only people carrying the torch are overage American Lolita Goths and black t-shirted kids in cutter bracelets.

So the band takes a cue from George Bush, who they call out on a couple of political tracks on their newest album, and play to their base, even if that base wants nothing to do with the complex songs of a flairless singer like opener Jana Hunter. It's not all their fault. Jana Hunter was boring as shit. Of course, you got the impression that Jana couldn't pull it together because the crowd couldn't give a shit, but you also kinda felt that her music would have sounded much more interesting on cd than it would have in person.

One good thing about the Abbey, with it's obnoxious doormen, shitty location, and totally wack prices, is that they have a competent sound guy. Nearly any other venue in town and the band would have sounded like horseshit, and it's not just because the majority of the city's soundguys have never miked a cello before, but because the band's songs are so concurrently soft and aggressive, and played in a way that's so distinctive it can only sound like Rasputina, and very few other bands have taken on that sound because, for all the reasons you've read above... who would want to?

Flawed Logic, and Little Else [WZRD]

Essential Logic - Wake Up / Eagle Bird
Jan Steele/John Cale/Occasional Detroit - The Wonderful Widow of Occasional 18
Wreckless Eric - Walkin On the Surface of the Moon
Tuxedomoon - Lightbulb Machine

Fashion Music - Citinite
Chrome - Nova Feedback
The Damned - 1 of 2

Camembert Electronique - Radio Gnome
The Jam - Slow Down
Richard Hell the Voidoids - Blank Generatiom

999 - Me and My Desire
Daevid Allen & Euterpe - Have You Seen My Friend
Wasa Wasa - Cry
Electronical Dreams - Dino

Adam Balbo - Let's Feel Terrible Together


[The Damned doing "New Rose" from the same Damned album as "1 & 2"]

the artist currently known as Prince: Conspicuously absent

Date: 7/5/07
Location: Big Chicks
Show: Formerly Known As featuring DJ Reaganomix
Cost: FREE!
Drinks: $3.50 mixed bourbon, $2.50 PBR, variable on whether you're the bartender's type
Things I missed to be there: DJ Demchuk, Alexander Basset, and Protman at Betty's Blue Star; metal bands at Cherry Red; Mykel Boyd at Enemy
Reason for Going: Dance parties continue to trump non-dance party things, especially when invited to them by sexy women, even if (a) I am undoubtedly not going to fuck them, and (b) it is at a bar



A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how lame I have become (or perhaps how lame I often forget I've always been) when it comes to going out on my lonesome. I'm happy to report that, on the contrary, when travel with a posse, I'm the same extroverted spazz-dance douche I've always been.

FKA (short for Formerly Known As) completes a trio of awesome queer/gay dance parties, consisting of itself, the bi-monthly Chances, and the weekly Outdanced. The first Thursday of every month, you can find FKA at Edgewater's Big Chicks. Out of the three, FKA isa the only one actually taking place at a gay bar. I don't know if this means that the experience is gayer, I just kbnow that the hipster cred is a bit lower (which is fine because cred should never come into play in a dance party anywhere). While Outdanced hasrecently teamed up with Odd Obsession movies for their visuals, FKA is fine playing lady-centric empowering trash, alternative rom-coms like But I'm a Cheerleader and that road trip movie where Cameron Diaz slums it up with Selma Blair and Christina Applegate. By that same token, FKA is the type of place that wouldn't have any qualms about tossing on a remix of Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone", which was actually part of the night's most fevered set, when paired with a Le Tigre track and a mashup that joined Snoop Dogg's "Drop It Like It's Hot" with The Cure.

Reaganomix was a bit trainwreck-y, but the cuts were good. When I got there I was treated to a sped up version of Unk's "Walk It Out" and the remake of that two girls for every boy jam. I was still a wallflower until my friends got there, but it took just the tiniest push to break me out of it.

A definite improvement.

independence gay

Date: 7/4/07
Location: peopleprojects
Bands: Butt Stomach, Videohippos, Black Ladies, DD/MM/YYYY, dude from Parts & Labor and more
Cost: $5
Drinks: BYO
Things I missed to be there: Vertigo and the Massacres at someone's house; Lazer Crystal and Permanent Midnight at the Co-Prosperity Sphere; Cookies & Dirt at the Darkroom
Reason for going: Dan Deacon. I missed him last time, and I'll miss his official set at Pitchfork this weekend

"I never thought a math rock revival would happen this quickly, if these guys weren't all nineteen I could've sworn they opened for Sweep the Leg Johnny at the Fireside five years ago!"

This is one of those situations where it's good to be as myopic as I am. I never went to see Sweep the Leg Johnny (I mean ick, right) and I don't really know how to define math rock, but I also don't like to talk shit about bands as much as my old roomate does.

The band in question is dd/mm/yyyy, and while they did have a bit of that unsettling, almost-happy, early 2000s sound, they also had a distinct sense of early TV on the Radio OK Calculator.

The show started with Chicago's Black Ladies, a bassist/drummer combo who play their instruments the way a hitman might play a machine gun in songs like "Shannon Tweed", "Eleanor Roosevelt", and "Tonya Harding" and ended with a dance party that most of the crowd was to overheated to contribute to, courtesy of Old Style and Videohippos.

Throughout the afternoon, guys and gals in short shorts and clunky necklaces blew shit up all throughout the alley. The highlights came when one duder empties his moped's gas tank over a box full of fireworks and shot at it with a roman candle til shit got pretty and when another damaged a telephone wire with a bottlerocket with streamers.

It was another too-hot day, even in the alley, and the show started two or three hours past punk time usually alots for. There were still some stalwarts dancing between the gawkers and the stage, but most of us couldn't. With my vision obstructed, I cut out, down to the South Side, and the beautiful sight of Pilsen on fire.

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

lab rat set:

Otis Day & the Knights - Twist and Shout
Marion Black - Come and Gettit
The Dandeliers - She's Mine

Jimmy Norman - Gangster of Love
Eric Burdon & War - I Have a Dream
James Brown - People Get Up And Drive That Funky Soul

Frederick Knight - Here After I'm Hereafter
Billy Butler & the Enchanters - Right Track
Latino Funk - Chicano Jazz - Tracks 1 & 2

Seguida - Om Marreo
Nilo Espinosa y Orquesta - Baby Boogaloo
Rufus Thomas - Jump Back

Juan Pablo Torres Y Algo Nuevo - Son A Propulsion

fuckhead set:

Susan Christie - Paint A Lady !!
Velvelettes - Think of the Times
Irma Thomas - Some Things you Never Get Used To
Sharon Jones Dap-Kings - All Over Again

Donny Hathaway - Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything)
Delfonics - Walk Right Up To The Sun
Willie Hightower - I Love You (Yes I do)
Larry Williams - Peaches and Cream

James Brown - I Can't Stand Myself (When You Touch Me)
Quantic feat. Spanky Wilson - Don't Joke With a Hungry Man
Sly & The Family Stone - Small Talk

Grant Green - The Final Comedown
Ike & Tina Turner - Somthings Got a Hold on Me

Otis Redding, Carla Thomas - Tramp

Lena Horne - One of those Things
Ray Charles - Feudin' and Fightin'
Art Neville - Hook Line and Sinker


[Eric Burdon & War doing "Spirit" and "Love is All Around" in Copenhagen]

...Bator

Date: 6/30/07
Location: Lucky Gator Loft
Bands: No Slogan, Sass Dragons, The Real Christs, Das Kapital and more
Cost: $6 strongly enforced "donation"
Drinks: Free High Life and Modelo with admission
Things I missed to be there: ABACABB with Mr. Bobby, Rayaline, Skyler and more at the Black Hole Arcade; Juiceboxxx, Squidbotz, and Big Digits at The Note; The Sixth Sun at Wise Fools Pub; Marky Ramone DJ Set at Debonair Social Club



"I probably shouldn't be able to complain. I've been in some bands that sounded just as bad in that same bad way. The only difference is, I was in those bsands in 1994."
"Well that doesn't count. You can't make fun of someone for wearing bellbottoms in 1974."
"Yeah, but you can still look back and laugh at the pictures."

The Real Christs were not my cup of tea at all. With as much praise as I've given to various bands for having some refreshing sort of nineties sound, these cats were sick with it, and it was making me sick (at least the band, in conjunction with the High Life and Olde English I'd been drinking). They sounded way too much like Chicago punk ten years back. Lynnards Innards. Oblivion. The Mushugunas. Apocalypse Hoboken. Deceivingly bouncy uptempo that never really got fast.

I'm willing to believe that the band wasn't as bad as I thought they were, and that the problem was that we'd spent too much time idle. I'm usually willing to accept punk time as a facet of life, but that's when punk time means the bands are all going to start two hours later than they were supposed to, not when it means I've been sitting around for an hour or two, drinking and shootin' the shit, waiting for something to happen, just to sit through thirty minutes of bullshittery where handpicked punk scenester judges announce the winners of a chili contest that affects maybe four people in the room who participated. I'm willing to believe that that was the problem, but I still think the Real Christs pretty much blew.

The next group, Bloomington's The Accidents, were a marked improvement. Comparisons could be drawn to Shellac and At The Drive In, bands with semisoft-voiced vocalists who were good at screaming, and guitarists who experimented with the sound of their guitar, instead of just playing it. You only got a little of this from their act on stage, but you can see it more if you run through the songs on their page. Good shit, plus one of the dudes in the band had his nuts hanging out of the bikini briefs he stripped down to during the first set. Balls!

Das Kapital played hardfast, singalong rock'n'roll with wo-oah choruses. They had that right balance of melodicism and power chords where they were easily distinguishable from their influences. They were good, but not good enough to get me to stay. The loft was hot and things were getting stale. If t wasn't for the stoners in the parking lot, I would havebeen gone. As it was, they kept me there until No Slogan's set, so I went back up.

No Slogan was kinda pissed by now, which meant that Benny was in rare form. Benny is No Slogan's singer, and if he weren't in bands, he would probably have to work at Ed Debevic's or something, just to be as rude and as polarizing as he is, and not be considered a jerk.

Hey, I'd like to thank you for putting us on this show here in Wicher Park. This is very muvh the nicest place we've ever played in....This song is called "Killed by Gentrification", I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about...this song's in Spanish, it goes out to all you crackers.

It was one of the better No Slogan sets I'd seen in a whil. Joe Skeletor was ripping drum solos left and right, and with each song they'd drawn back more and more of the crowd who had taken to wandering about the building, hanging out of windows, or smoking outside. The Sass Dragons followed, and were supposed to be good, "special guest" good even, but I couldn't stay any longer. I just couldn't. I blame the beer.


[Das Kapital playing the Lucky Gator Loft back in April]