Omophagy

TwoSlaps Radio [WLUW]

2008-10-13T22:18:00.000-07:00

Arvo's sick so I'm playing some of my newest, bestest soul, funk and reggae tracks

La Charanga '76 - No Nos Pararan

Blue Magic - Born On Halloween
Dap Kings - Hard Eight
Pato Banton - Don't Sniff Coke
Bongos Ikuwe & the Groovies - You've Got to Help Yourself

H.B. Barnum - Heartbreaker
Garnet Mimms - Looking for You

Jackie Lee - Superdance
Roy Hamilton - Crackin Up Over You
Fearns Bass Foundry - Don't Change It

Tom Tumbleweed - Tumbling Down
Martha Turner - Dirty Old Man
The Sharonettes - Papa OOm Mow Mow

Viola Willis - Sweetback
The Bobby Patrick Big Six - Monkey Time
The Chips - You Make Me So Good

Macy Skipper - Goofin Off
Alex Harvey - Agent 00 Soul
The Meddyevils - Place Called Love

New Birth - Honey Bee
Primevil - Stop Look Listen!
Eugene McDaniels - Freedom Death Dance

Carrie Riley & the Fascinations - Super Cool
The Hitch-Hikers feat. The Mighty Pope - Mr. Fortune
Shirley Bassey - Light My Fire
Kool & the Gang - Jungle Jazz
John Congos - He's Gonna Step On You Again

Eddie Johns - More Spell on You
Electric Light Orchestra - Evil Woman
Breakwater - Release the Beast

David Axelrod - Holy Tuesday
Speedometer ft the Speedettes - Wait Up (This Time I'm Going)
Jimmy Smith - Root Down

First Choice - Smarty Pants
Bergendy - Tramp-Reszlet

[Pato Banton suggests that, instead of cocaine, you might want to give marijuana the old college try]

extra letters for extra funnn!

2008-06-27T02:17:00.000-07:00

Date: 6/24/08
Location: sonotheque
Show: Minor Figure$ feat. BFF, Juiceboxxx, nd Gutter Butter
Cost: FREE!
Drinks: $2 PBR
Things I missed to be there: Outdanced! with Bearries and DJKT at Funky Buddha; Modern Love with Abducted at liar's club
Reason for Going: Best price:location:fun ratio of the evening

You know those conversations you only have with a lover? (apologies for the loaded and tacky term - I try not to use it) ... by which I mean those half-dreamt, half spoken ramblings that spill out into conversation before you go to sleep. I used to have pages of them journaled, but now the book is as lost as the memories. There are only a few that I could recall without my memory being jogged. The first was about developing a tapeworm that splits its time between the stomach and the uterus eating half of your food and any eggs that happened to get fertilized, and the skinny, childless utopia it would open up for us.

Another was Hamsters in Test Mode, an anthropomorphic electroclash band of cyborg robots that play songs like "Ichiban, Itchy Foot" and "All Systems Go!" Chicago's BFF might be the closest I ever come to seeing the band.

It might have been the animation, an acid flashback of rainbow hearts zipping across the screens, that started off BFF's set that makes me think of candy, of being forcefed candy, of being shocked by candy like sweet tarts melting into a saline enema. The project, a collaboration between animator/street artist Pooper and Hunter Husar (from Mahjongg/Waterbabies). It recalls elements of any project where women rap, chant, and cheer over synthesizers that sound almost like guitars. There are shades of Uffie, Le Tigre, The Go! Team, Puffy Amiyumi, Miss Kittin, and the Soft Pink Truth. If Pooper was louder with her voice and bigger with her movements, she could have overpowered the goon-y tall dudes standing between me (short) and her (shorter).

That could never happen to Milwaukee's Juiceboxxx. Dude starts a party with the precision the United Center starts a Bulls Game. One second you're standing there, skeptical, wondering if you just might be over Juiceboxxx already and the next you're pumping your fists in the air and bopping your feets as you watch his simian ass climb the rafters and shout-rap. He's probably the nost confrontational rapper I've ever seen, not just getting out there to juke up in his fans' personal space, but to roll around the floor and get up in the faces of the bored dudes peacefully sitting at a table ignoring him. When you couldn't see him, you still couldn't ignore his presence. Like that guy behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz was yelling something that your brain couldn't pick up but the rest of you could read loud and clear.

It ain't music to think to, ab=nd it wouldn't be worth a damn if it was.

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

2008-06-23T22:14:00.000-07:00

Lab Rat:

Fela Ransome Kuti & the Afrika 70 - Gentleman
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra - Big Man
Femi Kuti - Traitors of Africa

[click here to listen to the show from this point on]

Honny & the Bees - Psychedelic Woman
Billy Ball and the Upsetters - Tighten Up Tighter
National Soul Review - Engine No. 9
The TSU Tornados - Cutting Corners
The Grass Roots - Midnight Confession

Apostles of Music - Look Where He Brought Us From
Sonny Cox - The Wailer
Bubbha Thomas and the Lightmen Plus One - The Phantom

Arvo:

The Temptations - Just My Imagination
The Four Tops - Sugar Pie Honey Bunch
Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine
The Marvelettes - Please Mr. Postman

Smokey Robinson - Cruisin'
James & Bobby Purify - I'm Your Puppet
The Contours - Just A Little Misunderstanding
Michael Jackson - You Can't Win (The Wiz)

Ben E. King - Spanish Harlem
Timi Yuro - I Love How You Love Me
Shirelles - Will You Love Me Tomorrow
The Dells - Run For Cover
Edwinn Starr - 25 Miles
The Lovelites - I'm Not Like The Others

Labi Siffre - I Got The
Sly & The Family Stone - Sing A Simple Song
Nat Turner Rebellion - Plastic People

The California Raisins - Signed Sealed Delivered

After Party Hardy

2008-06-19T02:37:00.000-07:00

Date: 6/19/08
Location: Members Only
DJs: Crystal Castles plus ?????
Cost: $5
Things I missed to be there: An actual Crystal Castles set with Radioclit at the Double Door; a fashion show at Cobra Lounge; and a punk show at Lowercase Collective
Reason for going: Actually, I missed all of that other shit because I had my own gig. Thios was the AFTER PARTY!

Members Only houses some of the best party starters in the city right now, stalwarts of the rave, loft, house party, and bourgie club scenes, so how awesome would it be if they teamed up with Avant Trill, the tiny collective that provides the city with a perfect mix of avant garde, glam, and juke with their weekly party Outdanced, for an afterparty for the free show of a dance pop ?

As awesome as you can get for a Wednesday night in the summer at a spot with no climate control and a cover charge, I guess. It's not that it wasn't a good time, or even that I was disappointed, it just wasn't the best thing ever (unless you are, like Crystal Castles, a chiptune band. I'm sure that any chiptune, glitch, or breakcore artist in America would damn near sell their souls for a chance to have a room full of sweaty kids waiting for them to show up on a Wednesday night tour gig ). One moment, however, stands out in particular.

The DJ before Crystal Castles is playing a pretty heavy electro set, and has built up a fairly decent dancefloor, when he throws on Flo Rida's "Low". I was shocked to see that "Low" killed the dance floor. I've never seen this happen before. A guy who's building energy with some obscure gems should cause a riot when he throws on a dumb hip hop jam that everyone can sing along to. I'm not sure if this crowd was just so savvy, that they weren't going to stay on the floor for one of the biggest hits of last year, or if they were just so goddamned white that they didn't know what to do.

I guess it serves the guy right for not playing R. Kelly. It's his party this week, and the quicker we all get used to it, the happier we'll all be.

It's okay, we're all sweating together

2008-06-04T22:55:00.000-07:00

Date: 6/5/08
Location: Flower Shoppe
Bands: Happy Haus, Jose Bove and David Diarrhea
Cost: ???
Drnks: BYO
Things I missed to be there: Analog Punks with DJ Madrid at Rodan; Hitodama at Town Hall Pub; Marat 14K and Menowah at People Lounge; We Are Your Friends with Skyler and Hey Champ! at Jbar; Slide with Zebo, Itch13, SR-71, Intel and more at Darkroom
Reason for going: Happened upon it by chance

Leavitt between 21st Place (not 21st Street) and Cullerton is completely deserted. There are no condos, and the houses, makeshift duplexes and three-flats and six flats are beautiful. The lights are all off inside the houses. The signs on all the storefronts are hand-painted. It's idyllic. It is the way that Woody Allen, in the 70s, portrayed Brooklyn in the 50s. The flashing blue lights of lightning menacing above clashes with the flashing blue lights of surveilance cameras menacing much closer overhead, but it ain't no thang. The clouds have not let loose their fury, and the cops are a block away, their sirens tucked under the hustle and bustle of the CTA, and the sounds coming from a drunk drivers stereo.

The alley is full of cats. The porch party is listening to Hank Williams-era country when I turn the corner.

If I could have filmed the last half hour, with its own soundtrack, I would rotoscope it, not in the purist sense of the world, but digitally paint it, the way Richard Linklater animated Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly and it would be my Fantasia. The improvised jam at the end of the night at the Flower Shoppe was beautiful. Maybe I can call up the city, and they'll release some of those security tapes for me.

The jam played out the way I remember fucking, the last time I fucked on acid, bookended by awkward, building in and out of a comfortable rhythm and then completely losing myself, mind and body, nerves and senses completely detaching from one another, only to snap out of it, to realize what was happening, with a heightened sense of appreciation for it, and then to take it wholeheartedly, ust a little bit past its natural conclusion. I don't know if that sounds beautiful or gross, or like stupid drug rambling that only makes sense to me because I was there.

I's been a while since I've been jealous of a band. I've seen the negative side of touring, the negative side of traveling with friends and lovers, but when everyone was playing together I wished it was me that had traveled into town into this beautiful scene of people, and to have it punctuated by lightning as if the skies themselves were telling me not to take it for granted.

When I got there, the last band was already playing. Haus Meeting, from Duluth, MN. Their angle was maximum joy. A mix of dumpster ballad folk and a pajama jam dance party in the kitchen, the kind that happens over kool aid and vodka when you're out on your own, but not too far removed from your parents' house. Another band of kids that sounded like they could halfway play their instruments, and halfway couldn't, candy-coated in garish thrift store clothes that made them stand out but did't look like they were trying too hard. It worked for them. They worked well together, and they were too good for an under-promoted wednesday night show.

The song that took me over the edge had the singer free styling stream-of-consciousness semi-gibberish about Sammy Sosa playing for Chicago back when he gave a shit about professional sports, our clothes being our costumes and our faces being our masks, and everybody wearing underpants.

Usually when I can slip into a place without being asked for a cover, I'm happy about it. I hate having to tell the door person that I just can't afford it, especially when it's a lie and especially when it's the truth. If it says anything about the band, I'll have to add that this was the first time in a while that I actually sought after merch after the end of the show because I really wanted to give the band some money to help them get to the next town.

There aren't enough nights like these.

rest in peace, bo diddley [WLUW]

2008-06-02T23:49:00.001-07:00

Joe Tex - Ain't Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)
Joe Tex - One Monkey Don't Stop No Show
Joe Tex - I Gotcha

The Young Rascals - Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart
Dusty Springfield - What The World Needs Now
Timi Yuro - I Love How You Love Me
The Five Stairsteps & Cubie - Don't Change You Love

War - Slippin' Into Darkness
The Sound Stylistics - The Player's Theme
The Moon People - Hippy, Skippy, Moon Street

Brother Soul - Cookies
Baby Huey - Running
Charles Simmons & The Royal Imperials - Sissy
Lucille Brown & Billy Clarke - Both Eyes Open

Barbara Lynn - You'll Lose a Good Thing
Sam Cooke - Let's Go Steady Again
Mandrill - Here Today Gone Tomorrow

Bo Diddley - Hey Bo Diddley (live)
Gene Harris & the Three Sounds - The Land of Slim
Watts Prophets - Part-E, S
The Quantic Soul Orchestra - That Goose on My Grave

The Last Poets - Panther
Hampton Hawes - Web
Petey Wheatstraw - Zombie March

Aretha Franklin - Son of a Preacher Man
Derrick Harriot - My Last Letter/Valerie
Eddie Floyd - Knock on Wood

Montana - Warp Factor II
The New Birth - Honey Nee
Kashmere Stage Band - Kashmere

microblogging sunday!

2008-06-01T22:06:00.000-07:00

Date: 6/1/08
Show: Pod Blotz, Magic is Kuntmaster, and more
Location: The Little Flower Shoppe
Cost: $4 donation
Drinks: BYOB
Things I missed to be there: The Burkhart Underground 10 Year Anniversary with Mark Bose and Environmental Encroachment; Sunday Funday at Smartbar with Acid Circus; Parsley Flakes at the Guesthouse;Gil Mantera's Party Dream at the Do-Division Street Fest
Reason for going: I had just held a writing workshop at my house that had died the same slow, pleasant-but-awkward death of all social functions with a purpose whose purpose had ended. The night was over, but fuck all if there's a show going on two blocks away and I don't at least check it out.

The dude with the iPod faded out the reggae music and the lights went out. A guy sat in a chair with a mgangled guitar and a series of peddles. I'm not sure what he'd done to the guitar, but it sounded the way a violin would if it was filled with a hundred angry ghosts, each one jabbing at my eardrums with ice picks in an attempt to climb inside and possess me.

[Magic is Kuntmaster doing her thing]

Microblogging Saturday!

2008-05-31T22:46:00.000-07:00

Date: 5/31/08
Show: Dickhearse, Party Shark and more
Location: The Food Fortress
Cost: Donation
Drinks: BYO
Things I missed to be there: SR-71 at Tumans; Grown and Sexy Dance Party with DJ Logan Bay at Hideout; Mr Bobby and Luis Segura at Junior's; Alex Zelenka, Droidbehavior, and Bulimiatron at the Kompute Loft; Jai Alai Savant and the Eternals at Empty Bottle; Punch in the Face, No Slogan, and I-Attack at the Beat Kitchen
Reason for Going: Birthday BBQ a couple blocks away, plus I've never been there before

After Party Shark played the pop-tent in the living room, Dickhearse, a Discourse on Dickhorse. The set started off with one guy on the floor, contact-miked and writhing around inside of an elaborate frame of junk metal. It looked as if an air conditioner had wished to become human, only to have it come true and wind up stuck. After letting heads in the kitchen kick him around for a few minutes, he squoze through the climbed up to the drums for an awesome set consisting of percussion, electronics, and dental hygiene-related performance. I ended up tied to a couple of neighbors with some minty dental floss, completely sated, which was good, because I think the neighbors called the cops around that point and I'm not sure that Black Ladies got a chance to play.

micro-music-blogging Friday!

2008-05-31T11:12:00.000-07:00

Date: 5/30/08
Show: Fantasy Fridays with The Last Starfighter (film), Beastmaster (film) and TomTomTomBoy
Location: Dos Butt
Cost: RSVP
Drinks: for sale at the bar or BYO
Things I missed to be there: MUTATORS, DAILY VOID, MODERN CREATURES, and TINY MUSIC at peopleprojects; Indecent Exposure with DJ Demchuk, Dancefloor Destroyers, BukakeBattle Kru and more at Liar's Club; Busdriver, Aleks + the Drummer, and Gutter Butter at Logan Square Auditorium; LOVELY LITTLE GIRLS, DEMONOLOGISTS and collage art by Christopher Ilth at Reversible Eye; PHOBIA, MAGRUDERGRIND, SKARP, AFGRUND, HEWHOCORRUPTS, and MORALDECAY at Metal Shaker; Mexican Cheerleader and Vacation Bible School at Lucky Gator Loft; DJ MAJOR TAYLOR at Tumans
Reason for going: wanted to do something different
Note: I left early to catch the show at Reversible Eye but that had ended even earlier. Christopher Ilth's collages were phenomenal though

As soon as I saw a post from Bike-In Cinema saying that they were starting up these Fantasy Fridays, I rsvp'd. Either last summer or the summer before that, they were hosting these impeccably curated movie screening that would feature usually one piece of high art and one piece of low art based around a similar theme. I somehow always missed them (it seemed like half of them ended up rained out anyway). If I heard correctly, the bike drive-in is coming back, but until then, we have this, a monthly fantasy double feature, plus booze and vegan ice cream, plus some sort of fantastical band (plus DJs?). If this keeps going, and if people start taking cues from the lone Beastmaster, in his stuffed animal tiger skin and undies, it looks like it will end up as some sort of hipster Rocky Horror Picture show (which, since maybe you can't tell my tone of voice from the words on the screen), I mean to say is a good thing.

[Siskel and Ebert hate my childhood]

half here check out

2008-04-12T01:10:00.000-07:00

Date: 4/11/08
Location: Various Locales
Bands: A story told in fliers!
Cost: somewhere between free and five dollars
Things I missed to be there: I happened to miss most of the shows that I attended, leaving no room for Autechre at the Abbey, Larry Tee at Debonair, Skyler at the Sanatorium, Carla Bozulich's Evngelista at South Union Arts, Hitodama and Black Ladies at the UIC Student Pavilion, and Ticklefight Vol. 2 at the Butterfly Social Club

My girlfriend accused me of pushing a cliche yesterday, and we got into a big fight about aesthetics. We're good again, but I kinda feel like that if what I'm saying is cliche, and what I'm saying is right (undoubtedly), then maybe cliches have gotten a bad rap all these years. It is with that in mind that I open this blog up with the timeworn/time-tested phrase When it rains it pours.

Of course I use it here first literally, in that April's showers have come in at full force and hardly relented these last few days, and then figuratively, using it to connote that there were a lot of parties going on tonight and, unlike most party-filled Fridays, there were a lot of loft parties featuring loud, avant-garde-ish rock music.

Of course, that's no way to start the evening, so as soon as I could get out of work, I tore down to beautiful East Pilsen, where Sarah and I were shooting pictures as a part of 2nd Fridays, the monthly gallery crawl that takes place throught Podmajersky's artist residences and a few blocks in every direction off of 18th and Halsted. We got some good shots, but the night ended early, early enough that we had time for tacos, before I continued Northward on party adventures.

The first thing I thought I'd check out would be, against my better judgment, the oil wrestling show at the Cobra Lounge. When I got there, local, theatrical metal band Maggot Twat was playing underneath a video screen displaying their lyrics. Something like "I am so fucking insane/I could fuck a hurricane". It was very nineties, in the post hair metal, pre-nu-metal-style, like Clutch meets the Impotent Sea Snakes, with crunchy guitars and a certain lack of subtlety in their lyrics that's kind of charming after a day spent listening to Elliot Smith and emo at an overpriced clothing store. The music was alright, but the font was horrible. I couldn't tell if there were any girls, naked, half naked or otherwise dancing or flogging or wrestling in front of them. I know that the beautiful Miss Maya Sinstress often performs alongside them, but the promise of oiled up titties and cheesy girlfights brought out even more meatheads than the usual Cobra crowd, which is never really at a loss for them, and I couldn't see anything below the lyrics on the screen. Having seen more than my fair share of mudwrestling shows under similar circumstances, when they were all the rage a couple years back, I kept on my merry way, feeing pretty secure I wasn't missing anything.

I figured that the best way to travel was to take Milwaukee Avenue up north from Ashland, as there were three parties in a row between the 1400 and 2400 blocks. The first one was at the WOR Loft, a place I have yet to see a show in. Just as I was slowing the car to take advantage of some rockstar parking, I saw a few friends trailing out of the building, looking more than a little bit huffy. Apparently, after all the bands played their sets, the place had the audacity to kick everyone out. Go figure.

I yelled out to my friends, and they told me to go to the address that was the next on my list anyway, so I told them to stub their cigarettes and jump into the car, and on we went to the Halfway House.

The Halfway House used to be exactly what its name implies, but now it serves as a live/work/party space and home to one or more members of the band Young Turks and one or more people involved with the electronic music label Blue Screen of Death. It was a pretty good vibe. The bartender was pretty quick pouring beers, and the people who weren't in the mood to listen to experimental music stayed on the other end of the room and talked to each other while they waited for the DJ to come back on between bands. I halfassed my attempt to get in for free and got suckered into paying the full five they were asking at the door, but shit was good enough that I didn't mind.

Then, like all good things involving alcohol and people who may or may not have been able to drink it legally, some dumbshits had to go fuck it up. Story was, some kids were throwing something (I think I heard squirtguns?) at each other on the street, and they were drunk, and they were hitting all sorts of shit other than themselves, and they kinda skimmed a car or a lamp or something as some cops were driving by. The police, eager to prevent drunken property damage and/or put the kibosh on some hipster kids' fun, stopped and, instead of talking to the cops like adults, or running through an alley like a savvy teenager, they just ran right back up into the party, followed by the boys in blue. Dumbasses.

According to my friend Brian, whose band Clique Talk was unable to play, the penalty for that type of egregious party foul, should be a banishment from cool shit city wide, with a bail set at a minimum of 50 gigs roadie-ing for an unsigned band.

The cops slowly went through the party, frowns on their faces, sticks up their asses, dumping out bottles of beer and sniffing cups filled with soda. Eventually, one of the residents realized that people were having trouble getting the hint, and kicked everyone out.

No worries. I had to go North anyway, and there were three good-looking jams due North of Halfway.

I'm not sure if the next party had something to do with the show at peopleprojects or one of the other spaces in the Congress Theatre building, because I never got to go in. As we approached it, we saw a party procession streaming east, and a phalanx of cop cars that dwarfed the one that had just busted up our fun, so we kept going north to Lawndale just near Fullerton. Another party parade. I don't know what type of party it was at Lawndale, except that, looking at the crowd, the majority consisting of hood rats and drag queens, I was really sore about missing out on whatever it was.

We didn't really think we'd have any luck at the Private I. One of the many Dans that live there had told me over an hour prior that there was just one last band left, but when arrived, there was at least one more band left, and a few dozen people scattered about watching them. The Private I is a really great space, if only because the people who live there are doing everything they can to soundproof it, to keep the neighbors ameliorated and the cops at bay.

My friends who'd joined on since leaving the WOR Loft weren't going to get the dance party they were fiending for, but the music was good, the beer was cheap, and there were more than a few fun, intelligent, fuckable people/good conversationalists to talk to, so there was no real reason to leave, even if we did have a tip about something else going.

The only band I saw was Tirra Lirra, who sounded the way Bauhaus would sound if Peter Murphy had gone through a free jazz period. It was as cacophonous as it was complicated, maudlin and melodramatic. It was the first time I'd seen them, and the last thing I'd hear before going home.

It was a good nght in Chicago, as it always in when one new party springs up for every one that gets busted. All that's left now is for the skies to open up and the temperature to get up a bit. Then we can really do it right.

[a few seconds of Maya Sinistress and Maggot Twat at Cobra]

this song is about blood... and the holy name seis

2008-03-30T20:47:00.000-07:00

Date: 3/29/08
Location: Lowercase Collective
Bands: La Armada, Parsley Flakes , Radical Cheerleaders, Slut Barf
Cost: Donation
Drinks: Not Allowed
Things I missed to be there: Jilt, Viewers Like You, GiGi Deluxe and Happy the Human Pin Cushion at Morseland; Totally Michael and the Sass Dragons at peopleprojects; Kid Loco, Jordan Z, and Livewire at the Sanatorium; Rat Patrol, Abrade, and Rat Bastards at Rancho Huevos; dance parties at one of the dance parties at one of the Diana's Shoes lofts and some place called Pussy
Reason for Going: Some sort of flawed reasoning that led me to believe that the hardest show to get to and from was the best one to go to

As of press time, the war in Iraq has been going on for five years and a few weeks. The official count of dead American soldiers is just over 4000, and that number increases sharply if you count every case of suicide, friendly fire, and deaths under mysterious circumstances. Conservative estimates say that over 100,000 Iraqis have died, including insurgent fighters, members of the old Iraqi Republican Army, and civilian men, women, and children (and while organizations such as the Red Cross have verified this number, our government's official toll is significantly lower and that's the figure that gets quoted on television, when it's mentioned at all).

It's been a few years since my last antiwar protest. I don't really see the point anymore. The three-word chants. The half assed street theater. The roaring sound of megaphones clashing against one another, over a steady soundtrack of bucket drums and police whistles. Nobody gives a shit. The powerful protests I witnessed at the onset of the war, where concerned Americans came out in the tens of thousands, were hardly reported on in the news, even when they got violent, and as the war surged on, people lost interest. With each passing march, the number of marches dwndles and the blurbs and the soundbites get shorter and shorter. It's a new century, with a new media consciousness, and it's apparent to all but the oldest and youngest members of the activist community that marches don't work, and no amount of hyping from, say, the Billionaires for Bush, with their cardboard coffins and plutocrat shtick will change things. It's hard to get a response. Malachi Ritcher immolated himself off the side of a busy downtown freeway, and it took months for people to hear about his death protest, not through traditional media, but through blogs and emails.

If you're a person, just a normal person with no real financial or political power, you need to do something truly outrageous just to get your song heard, and that's what the Holy Name 6 did. A couple weeks back, six activists calling themselves the Catholic Schoolgirls for Peace, arrived at Chicago's Holy Name Cathedral in their Sunday best. It was, after all, Easter. Midway through the ceremonies, they produced fake blood and dumped it all over themselves chanting anti war facts and slogans until they were arrested. The Catholic Church is against the war in Iraq, and has been since the beginning, but Cardinal George still meets with the president for photo ops, and, although he doesn't like politics to come up in his services at Holy Name, hasn't argued with the Catholic League in their endorsement of George Bush in the last couple elections, for fear that more innocent lives will be lost to abortion or homosexuality than are already being lost overseas, if a Democrat won the office.

So they covered themselves in stage blood, some of it spilling onto the pews and the carpet and even the guests, and were arrested, taken out and charged with felonies for the damage they were said to have caused. It wasn't at all a sophisticated protest, and they very well might not have considered how their actions might negatively affect the antiwar movement in the court of public opinion, but they do have some serious balls to do it.

Chicago is a shitty city to piss off Catholics in, and 2008 is a shitty year to piss off anyone. Quick google searches of the names of any of the Six will bring up myspace pages, facebook pages, and for one poor girl, her email address listed on her college's website. Before they were even bailed out of jail, their inboxes were full death threats and creepy personal information. Sympathetic cats at the Lowercase Collective decided to throw a benefit show for the Six in their basement laundry room.

When I got there, Parsley Flakes were playing their superbly awesome blend of synth punk and butts were bouncing around all over the little room, more and more with each song, culminating in a frenzied encore performance of the Genesis song "That's All." It was awesome. The last show I went to there had Milwaukee synthpunks We'rewolves end a set with CCR's "Down on the Corner", and if it ends up being a trend at the house, then I hope they open their basement up to a lot more shows as the weather catches up to the season.

The surprise of the night though, was La Armada. Despite the bands' Los Crudos patches, Condenada stickers, and dreadlocked rhythm section, they weren't playing hardcore, or even punk... they were playing METAL. Speed metal and thrash with guitar and drum solos, all in Spanish. I wish I was more well versed in metal, and could trust myself in comparing them to Creator or Archenemy or Opeth or Crom, but I haven't been lstening to a lot of guitar music lately, so the only comparison I could make is to say that La Armada is like a Dominican (and at least one Puerto Rican, if the heckling was to be believed) version of the cartoon band Dethklok.

All in all I, traveled for about two hours to get to and from a show where I ate a handful of vegan cookies, checked my beer at the door, and saw just two sets and I still feel like I won the night. Take that, dance party motherfckers.

[Parsley Flakes doin it up]

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

2008-03-03T23:18:00.000-08:00

Dandelion Wine - Hot Dog
Mike & Ike - Sax On The Tracks
Zebra - Simple Song
Curtis Mayfield - Get Down

Parliament - P. Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)
Eddie Hazel - I Want You (She's So Heavy)
Bootsy Collins - Stretchin' Out (In A Rubber Band)

Grant Green - Final Comedown
Armenta & Majik - I Wanna Be With You
Ocho - Hot Pants Road

Jane Birkin - Love For Sale
Erma Franklin - Light My Fire
Brenda Lee Jones/London Fog And The Continentals - Easy Mover
Nina Simone - Save Me

Ike and Tina Turner - Come Together
King Curtis - Ridin Thumb
Marvin Gaye - Hitch Hike

Detroit Emeralds - You're Getting A Little Too Smart
The Meters - Hand-Clapping Song
The Majestic Arrows - Gonna Build You a Time Machine

The Invitations - Ski-Ing in the Snow
Jean Dushon - Second Class Lover
Kim Weston - Helpless

Prince - Cinnamon Girl
Ray Barretto - New York Soul
Gnarls Barkley - Run
The Mohawks - Sweet Soul Music

The Contours - First I Look At the Purse

FUNKY FUNKY FOOD SET!
Just Brothers - Sliced Tomatoes
Wendy Rene - Bar-B-Q
Brother Soul - Cookies
Natural Bridge Brunch - Pig Snoots Pt. 1

DJ Shadow and Keb Darge - Butter that Popcorn

lights out

2008-03-03T10:43:00.001-08:00

Date: LEAP YEAR 2008
Location/Show 1: the independent international interstitial festival at i^3 hyperspace with lord of the yum yum, geoffrey pugen, negativland, heather marie vernon and more
Location/Show 2:unconventional action at the lowercase collective with we'rewolves, kt the band, purpetual dusk at curtsy caverns, porches and more
Cost: donation
Things I missed to be there: Parsley Flakes and Baby Teeth at the Empty Bottle; Bakelight 78 at the Bravarian Glau Haus; Miss Gab, Beatkids, and Har Mar Superstar at Debonair Social Club; Critical Mass Art Show Closing Party at The Heart of Gold; Back and Forth Nu Disco Party with Nick Chacona and DJ SR-71 at Lava; Livewire, Mr. Automatic, and The Sleevz at Reggie's

I was at two shows tonight where the lights went out.

In the first, they were turned off for The Simplification of an Island Imploding, a sound sculpture by Fashion Flesh that had no visual components. The piece was not without its merit. It isn't every Friday night that you can escape everything, the rush of cars and trains, flashing lights and pop music (or at least your particular subculture's approximation of it), and get to experience something with your fellow revelers, and I'm sure that no one appreciated that more than the drunken art institute students who took complimentary pillows to the floor, laid down, and soaked it in. Personally though, I was bored. It was a pretty standard background noise sound collage; nothing really engrossed me, no tension was built up or relieved, it pretty much kept its pacing and volume constant until it ended and then the lights went on. I appreciated the curators suggestion that we move around and explore the space but I wasn't in the mood, and from almost anywhere in the room, I think the piece would have benefitted from full surround sound, instead of just two speakers in the front of the room.

The second time the lights went out, I was sitting on a radiator on the second floor of the Lowercase Collective House. I'm not sure if it was Porches or Purpetual Dusk at Curtsy Caverns who did it, but it was a folk-punk act consisting of a guy with a guitar. I'm not sure if it was (a) out of modesty, or (b) in deference to the music he was about to play, or even (c) a calculated mimicry of either option, but it got my attention before he started out his pained and impassioned singing and in spite of his pained and impassioned voice. Keeping me there wasn't an easy task. Acoustic guitars almost always drive me from a room, and he was the third such act of the night.

On the surface, the two shows couldn't have been much more different. The I Cubed fest was an epic multimedia festival with weirdo talent from all over the country, held at an immaculate loft in a part of downtown where it's nearly impossible to park without a valet, and the first thing you see when you enter the space is an elevator that's been tricked out to look like Spring as envisioned in an Easter basket. The Lowercase Collective, on the other hand, is a house on the edge of Logan Square and Hermosa, where gentrification comes less in the form of punk hipsters and more in the form of forward thinking families settling, and you can't really find your way inside without hitting a bad patch of ice and busting your shit.

Both shows went for a three-tiered approach to their nights. The titular three I's of the I cubed fest stand for Independent, International, and Interstitial and the Lowercase Collective's show, labeled an unconventional action, consisted of a vegan dinner, a presentation on plans for organizing against one of the upcoming conventions (I missed that part and have no recollection on whether it was the Democratic or Republican Convention) and ending in a concert (two concerts really, with electric bands in the basement and acoustic acts upstairs).

A little more about the acts...

In a usual Lord of the Yum Yum set, Paul Velat uses a mix of beatboxing, throat singing, sampling and looping to perform a mix of iconic classical and pop music standards (think The 1812 Overture, Flight of the Bumblebee, Welcome to the Jungle, and Summer in the City) and mash them together in his own image, in a way that is often as impressive as it is hilarious, and unusually danceable. It's hard to believe that it doesn't get old, but he is consistently the high point of whatever show he's playing.

The last time I saw him was one of the best. He was playing a show with the underrated psychedelic punk outfit Loto Ball Show, opening for the purposefully (I think) cringeworthy, Dr. Demento'd out bad-is-funny-and-funny-is-good-so-ergo-bad-must-be-good act Little Fyodor at the Mutiny. I don't really know how to explain how his act, which is pretty weird to begin with, blew everyone away by being weirder than usual, but that night he really outdid himself.

Tonight he did it again, and maybe for the first time reached the potential of what all of those previous shows hinted at, when he premiered his opera Sock. The show is about a dude who wakes up to find one of his socks missing, and travels to the underworld to find it, encountering a cavalcade of odd characters, including singing trolls and naked mole rats on his journey to find the keeper of lost things. The opera used a mix of of puppets, masks and crowd participation to get the job done, and proves once again, that any children's show can be adapted for a discerning arts crowd with the addition of beer and words like "fuck" and "shit".

KT THE BAND

Upstairs at Lowercase, KT the Band started off the folk sets. Her lilting voice was reminiscet of a guitar playing Joanna Newsom, a midwestern Joanna Newsom who, instead of writing songs about unicorns and magic and shit, sings about beautiful girls who work in sandwich shops in Sheboygan. It would have had us all nodding in our seats even if she wasn't beautiful, but the mix of her and her music were so charming and delicate and delicately powerful and lovely that you could almost hear the hearts breaking all over the room. Somebody needs to get this girl into a real recording studio, because the tracks on her myspace page don't do themselves justice at all.

DANIEL KIBBLESMITH

At this point, it's hard to even think about a situation where something would offend me. On any given episode of any number of shows on Comedy Central and Adult Swim, the "hocking" same topics, have been rifled through so many times, I don't even notice half of the ironic racism and brutality breezing by. I don't know if it's a good thing or not. Shows like Wondershowzen and the Sarah Silverman show seem like they try (or tried in the case of Wondershowzen) waaaayyyy too hard to get the laughs that shows like South Park, The Chapelle Show, Shin Chan, and Robot Chicken seemed to do effortlessly, but the ratio of hits to misses is still in their favor (which is more than I can say for cheap, bullshit shows like Drawn Together).

In the twenty seconds or so that make up the meat of Daniel Kibblesmith's video Fix It With Eyes he uses Aushwitz, Abu Ghraib, a dead animal and a dead baby in a series of things that could be made better with big googly eyes. The video was done cheap, and it looked like it was done that way on purpose. Daniel seemed to be wearing his influences right out in the open in an Aqua Teen Hunger Force shirt and a well-placed Tim-and-Eric-y "Great job!"

It reminded me a lot of old Wondershowzen, which kind of got to me, until I did a quick search through his videos to see that he can do something different if he wants to and has worked comedy from a number of different angles and any number of syles. Fix it With Eayes might not be Kibblesmith's best work, but it's a slick video and still good for a laugh after a few viewings.

WE'REWOLVES

It probably sucks to be the We'rewolves while Canada's We Are Wolves are running around making it big and stealing your thunder, but these kids didn't seem to mind. They were a great dancepunk act with dance songs about dancing and punk songs about punks and ended with a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival that just drove kids crazy, even after the singer, realized along with the rest of us that he had no idea what the lyrics were after the first chorus. Also, they all look like they're twelve and may very need rides to the train or the suburbs if they want to see their comrades in style Screamin Cyn Cyn and the Pons.

stellab rat gets his groove back

2008-02-26T23:48:00.000-08:00

The Little Flower Shoppe doesn't look any different than it ever did. It looks like a run down old greenhouse that would be caked with dirt even if it hadn't been being used as a place to throw dance parties and punk shows. I was there for a party a few weeks back. Houseband MEAH! was playing with an ass-boring metal band and a DJ was playing comfort food hip hop and hipster electro tracks.

MEAH! is a really good band. You couldn't tell that from the front of the room, which was as much a dance floor as it was a mosh pit, with wiggling motherfuckers tossing their hands up to propel a crowdsurfer into the air. From that vantage point, MEAH! sounded like a garage band that had more ambition than they could afford, but outside, in the backyard, where all the guys were sent to pee, the walls and siding served to muffle the fuzz and the feedback, and what came through was beautiful. The complexities that were hinted at inside all untangled themselves and became clear. There was that hint of prog that comes through in the punk of You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, but less pretensious. The band reminded me of a jokey At the Drive In, lead by Heckle and Jeckle instead of Omar A Rodriguez Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala.

Maybe it wasn't all the band. It was a beautiful, calm Saturday night in Pilsen. Everything was covered with unsullied white snow, and the beer was free.

That was what was different about the night. There was free beer, some of it courtesy of Pabst and the rest furnished by the house, and there was free hummus and falafel from Sultan's Market, and a raffle with prizes that weren't retarded. These kids who've been sitting in the space for years, who'd thrown parties with Skyler Mendoza, shows with Bloodyminded, and at least one hacker convergence had gotten their asses officially sponsored.

It's been about six months since I'd written in this blog. Part of it was working a full time job leaving me too tired to write about the shows I've been to, and part that I was just rehashing the same shit.

Maybe six months is enough to watch the face of the underground change, not entirely but enough. Reliable hotspots like Reversible Eye and Walnut/Wolcott aren't doing shows anymore and places like the Blog Cabin and Huevos Ranchos are both under new management, but there are all sorts of new spots- The WOR Loft, The Halfway House, Fuck Mountain, The Private I, and the new Burkhart Underground, just to name a few. Parsley Flakes make dance music out of punk rock with a couple of antique synthesizers, while Civilized Man use thrift store Casios to provide a new wave backdrop for their falsetto operas, and, in other synthesizer news, the winds have shifted and Clique Talk has replaced Mayor Daley as the Chicago band most likely to succeed.

Something else that is new is........

After a good ten year run, I threw a shitty party.

Everything went wrong at the show tonight. A band dropped out at the last minute, and that was all it took to transform it from a pretty tight lineup to something sparse. On the bright side, this meant that I wouldn't have to pay a band that never thought to promote the show. On the less bright side, nobody got paid and, in fact, I owe money because next to nobody showed up.

I'm sure this is what impotence is like. I feel angry, sad, shocked, like I'm less me than I thought I was. I never thought my party dick wouldn't go hard, but tonight it didn't work, and I don't know what happened.

It's best not to think about it, about the massive promotions jag the artists and I went on, about the mad RSVP's the event got on various websites, about the awesome flyer I made, and for the super amazing bands and performers that were listed on it, and that's the show's saving grace. It wasn't everything it could have been, and moments were awkward, but the bands all kicked ass, none of them more than Yellow Cakes.

Yellow Cakes are a super poppy ghettotech duo consisting of two girls who are so hot, so stylish, and so new as a band, that I was absolutely shocked to see how tight their set was. Their songs were a mix between JJ Fad and Spank Rock, or maybe 2 Live Crew and Moldy Peaches, with a very Kid Sister-ish flow. There were songs about living room makeout parties and songs about dancing to make your tits shake and your pussy wet. It was fun ass party rap that I can't wait to see again, not to mention bump in one of my sets.

I know I've forgotten so much I intended to write to get just this far, but there's one other group I saw recently that's nothing like anything I've ever seen. The Image Front is a band consisting of three moonlighting DJs and a metal fucking guitar shredder. Their set at SmashandCrunch's Liars Club party last week started with the closest thing they were going to give to a ballad. A song that seemed to fit right in the space between Cheap Trick and Giorgio Moroder (which I'm guessing equals a ELO). After that, they became something that could only be described as aggro juke. With frontman Joe Vor-Tech growling, wtithing, and chanting things like "ho's don't know" over and over, the rest of the band was free to add flourishes of sirens, whistles and cowbelles like a live mashup of Rammstein and DJ Assault.

They were grating after a little while but not bad. Hell, most bands grate on me if they play for more than a few songs, but grating or not, at the very least, they were unique, which for better or worse is something good..

an unusually star-studded episode of TWO SLAPS RADIO with the vague theme of running away [WLUW]

2007-12-03T22:14:00.000-08:00

Fela Kuti - Sorrow, Tears & Blood
Dick Hyman - Flute Loop
Gil-Scott Heron and Brian Jackson - Liberation (Red, Black, & Green)

Boots Collins - I'd Rather Be With You
Adina Howard - Freak Like Me
Bootsy Collins - Bootzilla

Stevie Wonder - Too High
Professionals - Theme from Godfather
Herbie Hancock - Bring Down the Birds
Quincy Jones - They Call Me Mister Tibbs

Ike and Tina Turner - I'll Never Need More than This
Bobby Bland - I Pity the Fool
Royal Esquires - Ain't Gonna Run

Brother Jack McDuff - Gonna Hang Me Up a Sign
James Brown - Hell
Sly and the Family Stone - Runnin Away
Little Sister - Stanga

Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings - When the Other Foot Drops, Uncle
Amy Winehouse - Valerie
Nicole Willis & the Soul Investigators - No One's Gonna Love You

Curtis Mayfield - Beautiful Brother of Mine
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas - Nowhere to Run
Marva Whitney - Things Got to Get Better

The Pharcyde - Runnin

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-11-12T22:03:00.000-08:00

Rasputin's Stash - Mr. Cool
Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators - Feeling Free
The Beginning of the End - Funky Nassau

Fontella Bass - Leave in the Hands
Betty Wright - Clean Up Woman
Booker T & the MGs - Melting Pot

Candi Staton - Best Thing You Ever Had
Chet Ivey & His Fabulous Avengers - Don't Ever Change
Charles Pryor & Power of Love - What They Doing
Dennis Coffey & the Detroit Guitar Band - Scorpio
Curtis Mayfield - Future Shock

O.V. Wright - Afflicted
Otis Redding - Cigarettes & Coffee

Reggie Sadler - Raggedy Bag
Sharon Jones - Hook & Sling Meets the Funky Superfly
Scotty & the Ris-Tips - The Greasey Spoon

Arvo:

Erma Franklin - Piece of My Heart
The Sol Reys - High Ride Part 1
Vontastics - Never Let Your Love Grow Cold
Billy Butler - I'll Bet You
Mamie Galore - Special Agent 34-24-38
JAmo Thomas - I Spy (For The FBI)
Tom & Jerrio - Come On and Love Me
The GAturs - Booger Man

WAR - ME and Baby Brother
Louis Chachere - The Hen Pt 1
The Unemployed - They Won't Let Me
Sam & Dave - I Thank You
Charles Wright & The Watt's 103rd St Rhythm Band - What Can You Bring Me?

Bud Shank - I Am The Walrus
Bobby Bryant - Happiness Is A Warm Gun
Bill Cosby - Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band

Thelma Houston - Jumping Jack Flash
Soulful Strings - Paint It Black
Curtis Knight feat. Jimi Hendrix - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

Curtis Knight & The Squires feat. Jimi Hendrix - Get That Feeling

Special Thanks to Funky 16 Corners for their assistance in the beatles stuff and some other tracks in Arvo's set this evening.

[Nicole Willis & the Soul Investigators doing "If This Ain't Love (I Don't Knjow What Is)"]

Omophagy is back from Vacation

2007-11-11T09:24:00.000-08:00

Date: 7/9/07
Location: The Co-Prosperity Sphere
Show: Select Media Festival with Brilliant Pebbles, Evolutionrevolution, OCDJ, and more
Cost: $10 Suggested
Things I missed to be there: Million $ Mano, Major Taylor, Vyle, the Cool Kids and pretty much everyone else who's ever opened for Flosstradamus at the URB 150 party at Lava; No Vinyl Allowed featuring Joe Vor-Tech, Mr. Automatic, and OneFiftyOne at the Velvet Elvis; David Diarreah and Cave at Heaven; On Parade:A Screenprinted Rock Poster Extraveganza at Clothes Optional; Star Muertos with Mr. Bobby, Rayaline, and Batgerms at the new Pilsen House
Reason for Going: It was a spaceship... a motherfucking spaceship!

Ever since setting up shop in the Co-Prosperity Sphere, a big empty space in Bridgeport that once served as a neighborhood grocery store, the cats behind the Version and Select Media Festivals have shown themselves capable of putting up some truly impressive installation art. Earlier this year, they unveiled We're Rollin, They're Hatin, an exhibition of art inspired by the game Dungeons & Dragons for Version. There's really no way to describe how cool the exhibit was because there really isn't a way to seperate the the art, which included murals, shirts, and large scale statues, from the severely uncool source material it was steeped in. For this year's Select Festival, they've created CPS1: A Space Colony replete with control stations, robots, all variety of blacklit space debris, and a video journey to a party planet called Earth.

It was like some squatters had taken up residence in the outdated corners of the Museum of Science and Industry and thrown a party there. Unfortunately, as wonderul as the exhibits were, the party seemed lacking. It wasn't the acts. I mean, sure, Evolutionrevolution did everything to drive people away, but not too many people ledt. At the same time Brilliant Pebbles and OCDJ did everything they could to get people's asses moving, but the asses mostly just milled about, making them easy targets for the sticker bandit labeling everyone with insults, puns, and punny insults ("space douche", "space lame", "myspace", "personal space").

It might have been that the soundsystem was shit (which is rare for these kids), or that there were parties all over the place that didn't require Northside kids to move south of Grand Avenue, but it might have just been that the opening night of the Select Media Fest was (gasp) more of an art show than a party.

If that's the case it would've been fine by me. I snorted ketamine and drank rocketfuel in the ship's hull, fought with aliens, and simulated sex in the makeout room. It was a party for me, but, again, even if it wasn't, even if it was just a really cool art show, I probably would have been alright. The last month was full of parties. Parties that had no atmosphere but good music and a lot of heads (Hilary Rawk and Skyler's jam "Fierce" above Open End), parties that had great atmosphere but shitty music and sound (The Cobrasnake's "They Live" jam, with it's dayglo drag queen dancers and bloody suspension acts for goth thrill seekers at Das Butt), parties that had good music and good atmosphere but no heads (just about any party I played at), and parties where everything was wrong but were full of heads (Alexander Bassett's "The Deep", and just about every party Mr. Bobby threw at that stupid lumberyard).

I got a job this month, at a clothing store that may never actually open. All of my co-workers are DJs, possibly because the only people left in this city that aren't are my Mom and my sister. Either way, I'm sick of lackluster parties, I'm sick of dance music, and I'm really fucking sick of Chromeo.

Sure there were shows, but they didn't move me. LatinoFest should have been the best thing ever, but it came only a week after Apocalypticrust Fest and I had a better time chugging beer in the alley and talking shit than I did listeing to La Armada Roja. Same thing with the Blog Cabin's Halloween party, where the noise band Suddenly Susan reenacted their set getting shut down a week earlier at Sonotheque. Velcro Lewis played a set at the Cobra Lounge showcasing everything that was good about him and his 100 Proof Band, and everything that made them an obnoxious, novelty bar rock act.

I threw a couple shows. One went well and one didn't. My new monthly, All City Night, at Reggie's Live with DJ Demchuk co-hosting, was too heavy with DJs. Million $ Mano had everyone grinding up on each other at the end of the night, but everybody only consisted of a few handfuls of people. The Image Front, consisting of Joe Vor-Tech and Mr. Automatic were good but not so dancey, with a mix of left-field mashups that was often hilarious, and Skyler's disco would have been the perfect opener to a better show, but as it was, it was mostly relegated to background music. The highlight of the show, that made sure everyone left happy, and feeling like the show was as different and fun as we'd intended it to be, was the BR Trio, a jazz trio that played ragtime covers of The Dead Kennedys and the Misfits, and old-timey music so bawdy it would have made R. Crumb's band blush.

The other show was Windy City Soul at the Darkroom, a celebration of Two Slaps Radio's first anniversary. We were billing the show as a "sophisticated soul party" and despite the technical problems that made the first hour hellish for me, Arvo, and the sound guy. The show was everything it was supposed to be by the time real people showed up. Harlet Star played a set of Def Poetry Style hip hop, with a heavy jazz-soul fusion base and a little chick who could blow Aretha Franklin's ass out with her singing voice. It reminded me of one of those children's sports movies, Rookie of the Year or The Mighty Ducks or some shit where there was always some kid who was incredibly, superhumanly powerful but had no control (I'm embarassed to say it, but my geek-geek double geek ass is specifically thinking of the black kid with the "knucklepuck" in D2: The Mighty Ducks)... her voice was so strong that sometimes it got away from her, but overall it was a good thing. The Revelettes came out between bands to do a throwback go-go dance set, replete with big hair, short skirts, tall boots, and costume changes that brought out more short skirts and tall boots. I'd never taken into account how slick the atmosphere of the Darkroom was because I'd mostly just been there for hipster shit, but it was really smooth. The last band up was JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound, a soul band with an iconoclastic lead singer who channeled James Brown into call-and-response songs about how the Chicago Transit Authority s fucking us over.

Out of the whole month, there were only two things that relly impressed me. The first was Puppet Night over at the Heart of Gold loft in Lincoln Park. I almost didn't go because it was starting on the early side and I was pretty depressed but I figured that if puppets couldn't cheer me up, then nothing could. They did. A cat named Dax sang a beautiful song, an ode to a pirates freedom, loneliness and regret as he assembled a cardboard sailboat from pieces of junk in his suitcase and pushed it across the room. Le Cat Show, a show about the idle rich, their disgruntled workers, and the words pussy, kitty and cat being used interchangeably both literally and as innuendo, premiered 6 months ago in an earlier draft that that may very well have been the most annoying thing I've ever seen (just ahead of Evolutionrevolution at Co-Prosperity and just behind My So-Called Lice at the Fireside Bowl years ago). Since then, they have molded it into something that resembled an Edgar Allen Poe piece as interpreted by the cast of The State. The show ended with a muppet-like handpuppet talking about the process of breeding cows in captivity, that ended with the bird muppet ejaculating turrets of silly string all over his human counterpart. You'll have to take my word that this was less stupid and much funnier than it sounds, or has any right to be.

The other great show was Hallectroween at Subterranean. It was a twist of that time-honored tradition of bands playing as other bands for Halloween, but instead of Local H playing Cheap Trick, or Bibe of the Devil playing Local H, it had a bunch of poppy/punky electro acts playing German electro legends in all of their fascistic glory, including Beau Wanzer and Rolan Vega as Front 242, Detroit artist Goudron as Gary Numan, and Schiller Park's J+J+J who blew everyone away as Kraftwerk, tossing out dozens of red shirts silkscreened with skinny ties, blasting us strobes and flashing LCDs and playing amped up, sped up, house influenced covers of "The Model", "Radioactivity", and "Trans Europe Express".

This show was the perfect marriage of style and substance, sound and atmosphere and I was surprised to see it happen at Subterranean on a Sunday night. Still, I'm glad it did, it made my whole goddamned month.

[Brilliant Pebbles playing the Co-Prosperity Sphere earlier this year]

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-11-05T23:49:00.001-08:00

The Delfonics - Walk Right up to the sun
Sly & The Family Stone - (You Caught Me) Smilin'
The O'Jays - BackStabbers
Rahsaan Roland Kirk - Ain't No Sunshine
Altyrone Deno Brown - Sweet Pea

Sharon Jones - I Got The Feeling (James Brown)
John Williams & The Tick Tocks - A Little Tighter
Artistics - This Heart of Mine
Lon Rogers & The Soul Brothers - Too Good To Be True
Bob & Fred - I'll Be On My Way
Mitchell Mitchell - Gene King - Never Walk Out On You

Lee Fields - Take it or leave it
The Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band - Spreadin Honey

The Chi-Lites - Are You My Woman? (Tell Me So)
Mary Wells - The One Who Really Loves You
Rufus Thomas - The Memphis Train

OV Wright - Motherless Child
Ray Charles - You'll Never Walk Alone
Huey 'Piano' Smith & the Clowns-

Irma Thomas - Time Is On My Side
Ruth Copeland & Funkadelic - Gimme Shelter
Booker T & The MG's - Outrage

Otis Redding - Satisfaction
Chuck Berry - Too Much Monkey Business
Bosco's Billionaires - Freddy's Ribs
Willie Hightower - If I Had A Hammer

War - The World is a Ghetto
La Charanga '76 - Ain't No Stopping Us Now

Two Slaps Monster Mash [WLUW]

2007-10-29T21:59:00.000-07:00

Gnarls Barkley - Boogie Monster
Chicago Afrobeat Project - Superstar Pt. 7

Bobby 'Boris' Picket - Monster Mash
L. Hollis & the Mackadoos - Bui Bui

Funkadelic - Maggot Brain

Jumpin' Gene Simmmons - Haunted House
Screamin' Jay Hawkins - I put a spell on you
The Poppy Family - Where Evil Grows
Fabienne Delsol - I'm Gonna Haunt You
Gloria Jones - Tainted Love
Lavern Baker - Voodoo Voodoo
Charles Sheffield - It's Your Voodoo Workin'

Johnny Otis Show - Castin' My Spell
The Beattle-ettes - Seventeen
Louis Farrakahn - Zombie Jamboree
The Bootles - I'll let you hold my hand
The FAbulous Brothers - Run For Cover (Dells)

Shirley Bassey - Light My Fire
Dave and Ansil Collins - Double Barrell

Soul Unlimited - Raving Vampire, Pt. 1
Kermit Ruffins - Drop Me Off In New Orleans
Marie Queen Lions - Fever

JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound - Baltimore is the New Brooklyn
The Rebirth Brass Band - I Feel Like Funkin It Up

The Fresh Prince and Dj Jazzy Jeff - Nightmare on My Street
The Fat Boys - Are YOu Ready For Freddy?

Dawn Silva And The Brides of Funkenstein - Whole Lotta Game
Ruth Copeland & Funkadelic - Gimme Shelter
The What Four - I'm Gonna Destroy That Boy

TwoSlaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-10-22T22:49:00.000-07:00

Sugar Pie DeSanto - I Want To Know
Irma Thomas - Don't Look Down
Barbara Stephens - Wait A Minute
Ruby Andrews - Everybody Saw You
Helen Shipiro - Stop & You'll Be Aware
Little Eva - You've Been Talkin' bout me Baby
Earnestine Eady - The Change
Major Lance - Cryin' In The Rain
Roosevelt Grier - In My Tenement
Rita & The Tiaras - Gone With The Wind Is My Love
Marie Knight - That's No Way To Treat a Girl
Jackson 5 - I Want You Back (Z Trip Remix)

The Explosions - Hip Drop
The Artistics - Leave It Up to You
24 Carat Black - 24 Carat Black

Curtis Mayfield - Live
Frank Penn - Gimme Some Skin

Betty Davis - F.U.N.K.
Yvonne Fair - Funky Music Sho 'nuff Turns Me On
Little Sister - Stanga
Isis - April Fool

Ten Wheel Drive w/ Genya Ravan - Ain't Gonna Happen
Sweet Linda Divine - I'll Say It Again
Ruth Copeland & Funkadelic - Gimme Shelter

Clarence Carter - Snatching It Back
Eddie Floyd - Good Love, Bad Love

The Temptations - Since I Lost My Baby
Sweet Breeze - Good Thing

Thomas Bailey & the Flintstones Band - The Flintstones Shuffle
War - Slippin Into Darkness
The Philadelphia All Stars - Let's Clean Up the Ghetto
Funkadelic - TV promo for Funkentelechy

Intonation's back... in pog form!

2007-10-09T00:53:00.000-07:00

Location: Museum of Contemporary Art
Date: 10/9/07
Bands: Califone, The 1900s, The Eternals, Flosstradamus with the Cool Kids
Cost: FREE!
Drinks: $4 312
Things I missed to be there: The John Cage Musicircus at the Cultural Center; The Watson Twins at the Empty Bottle; Lovers in Arms and Phillip Morris at the Beat Kitchen
Reason for going: I really wanted to see Flosstradamus and the Eternals after missing them repeatedly. One out of two ain't bad

We're standing on that island off the Magnificent Mile where all the horse carriages rest. Dan's skateboard screeches and grinds to a stop when we come across a familiar face. A very blunted familiar face.

"Where y'all comin from?"
"They just had a show at the museum."
"Who played?"
"Flosstradamus and the Cool Kids."
"Rock shit?"
"Naw dude, hip hop."
"They hip hop or they rap?"
"A little of both. Club shit."
"What they name is? Cool Kids?"
"Yeah."
"They black?"
"Yeah."
"You sure they black?"
"Yeah."
"I don't know man. Not with a name like the Cool Kids."

I was actually disappointed with the Cool Kids, and how much more rap they were then hip hop. Coming up after a frenzied Flosstradamus set, the Cool Kids came off as low energy. The music was just slow, and the vocals weren't mixed well. It was a hot day, hot enough that we had athletes dying on the street, and I chose to excuse myself and try to see some of the air conditioned Rock/Art exhibit, rather than wait for them to pick up the tempo. They did, of course, with more remix-heavy material that had a stagediving Hollywood Holt getting passed through a sweaty crowd and pumped fists from any hand that wasn't being used to prop him up.

The event was thrown in conjunction with the MCA's fortieth anniversary celebration(s), and their Rock/Art show, an exhibit so bright, loud, and flashy it would give Andy Warhol a seizure...or an orgasm. The party was thrown by the cats who started the Intonation Festival, and opened up the floodgates for all those stupid outdoor indie festivals that piss me off all summer. The way I heard it, they cancelled this year's fest (which was rumored to be featuring Yoko Ono and M.I.A., who ended up performing at Pitchfork and Lollapalooza, respectively) because of money, but the way they play it on their myspace, they didn't want to do it because everyone else was.

This made more sense anyway. Chicago bands playing for Chicagoans for free. The only thing that would have made it better was a later starting time. If I tried harder, I could have gotten there in time for the Eternals, who veer wildly from dance to noise, in a way very reminiscent of Indian Jewelry, but as it was I got there just in time for their last jam. I assume though, that this show wasn't for me. It seemed like every motherfucker I knew was out and about but it wasn't for them either, in the same way that the festival wasn't for me. It was a treat for people who don't get out much, who haven't been missing Flosstradamus parties or Schubas upstairs residencies because they had other shit to go to, but because they had kids or grown folks jobs that wouldn't allow it. I had a good time though. It was a novelty to get sweaty dancey like that with the sun bearing down, and something most people can't pull off (which may account for the hits-heavy Flosstradamus set in all of its ecumenical Kanye, Jay-Z, Daft Punk goodness).

The MCA has thrown a lot of good events over the years, but this was the closest I've felt to how I did back in 2001, when they threw the last of their 24-hour summer solstice parties.

A quick bit

2007-09-30T02:53:00.000-07:00

The Golden Age opened today, a new Pilsen boutique that acts kind of like a mini-Quimby's. The store is full of weird and beautiful pieces of home-made art, from intricate silkscreens and lithographs, to zines, records, posters and DVDs. I hope that they're aiming for less class and more filled-to-the-hilt, but as it is, it's a little bit sparse.

A band by the name of Outpost played some folk music in the basement and it was really beautiful, heavy on the violin, to the extent that you actually could use the word heavy in conjunction with the very soft, floating ethereal sounds the instrument was making.

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-09-24T23:43:00.000-07:00

ARVO:

Altyrone Deno Brown - Sweet Pea
Betty Wright - Good Lovin'
Johnny Davis/The Arrows - Boogedy Boogedy
Helene Smith - You Got To Do Your Share
Joe King - Speak On Up
Ronnie Whitehead - Cold Feet
Chip Willis & Double Exposure - I'm Gonna Gitcha
Majestic Arrows - One More Time Around
Marion Black - Come Come On and Gettit
Manhattens - Why Should I Cry
Mitch Mitchell/Gene King - Never Walk Out On You
Mae Young - Let's Give Our Love a Try
OFS Unlimited - Mister Kidneys
Grand Prix's - You Drive Me Crazy

Priscilla Paris - My Window
THe Paris Sisters - Dream Lover
Diane Renay - Navy Blue
Diane Ray - Snow Man
Little Peggy March - I Will Follow Him
Kari Lynn - Cleo Cleopatra
Sandi Shaw - Puppet On a String

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - Let Them Knock
Ananda Shankar - Jumpin Jack Flash
Curtis Mayfield - (Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below We're All Gonna Go

Bobby Byrd - Soul Man (live)
Bobby Byrd - I'm Lonely
Bobby Byrd - I'm Comin

James Brown - Just Won't Do Right
James Brown and his Famous Flames - Baby You're Right
Bobby Byrd - Keep On Doin What You're Doin
Bobby Byrd - I Know You Got Soul

Diana Ross - Keep On Down the Road
Gnarls Barkley - Gone Daddy Gone
Ebo Taylor - Heaven
Fania All Stars - There You Go

DJ Shadow & Keb Darge - Butter That Popcorn

Gene Chandler - Lovequake

Brazilian Ukrainian Sweatlodge

2007-09-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

Date: 9/21/07
Location: Empty Bottle
Bands: Juiceboxxx, Bonde Do Role
Cost: $12
Drinks: $2 Point
Things I missed to be there: MOTO and the Cola Freaks at the Lucky Gator Loft; Rollin Hunt, Pillars and Tongues, and John Bellows at Mister City; ESG, Yo Majesty, and Bahamadia at The Abbey Pub; Orphan Works with the Anatomy Collective at MoJoes Hothouse; Mucca Pazza with Obelisk and MC Cat Genius at the Hideout; Smash & Crunch featuring Passions, JoJo, Lance Milk, and Mr. Automatic at Liar's Club
Reason for Going: I like Bonde Do Role so much that not only did I pay the exorbitant (for me) cover charge, but I backed out of a low paying gig to do so.

While you could time your watch to houseparty DJs playing Justice's "D.A.N.C.E" at midnight like this year's "Sexyback", more and more you could hear Bonde Do Role tracks snuck in, as the new omnipresence. At this point, you could hear them anywhere, on college radio and cable TV bumpers, with the pitch cranked up to a million for maximum jukin' or going their own pace on my Mom's iPod. They are one of the dumbest bands of the year and one of the best. With Lazers is incredibly fun, and as baile funk goes, kinda lowest common denominator. It's incredibly, idiotically profane party music, but because Portuguese barely registers to me as anything more than rock'n'roll gibberish, the jokes don't wear thin, and I don't have to worry about Bonde Do Role turning into the next Fannypack (remember that band that did that song "Cameltoe"?).

I wouldn't have expected the Empty Bottle to get such a kick out of three kids and a laptop, but by the end of their set they had a whole sold-out crowd dancing, or at least jumping up and down. Their set was everything good about their album cranked up. There were even more iconic samples, ranging from the intro to Europe's "The Final Countdown" for a remix of "Gasolina" to the bass and "uh huhs" from Grease's "Summer Lovin" for "Jabuticaba" from one of their singles, to a shit ton of Slayer, and I'm not sure but it sounded like all those 80s metal guitars had been re-recorded and done louder. Then there was Marina Vello humping everyone on stage, moaning, screaming, rapping like a mongoloid, spitting blood, stripping, and grinding in the crowd like the Brazilian love child of Karen O and Peaches.

The whole time, it looked like the band was having fun. "We tried to make it nice for you," Marina announced, referring to the balloons and streamers they'd decorated the stage with and proceeded to rip apart. Pedro D'Eyrot and Rodrigo Gorky attemped (and failed) to come up with synchronized dance moves on the spot and looked on with glee as they miked themselves popping balloons with cigarettes.

The Empty Bottle can get so pretensious that changing the space just that little bit with the dollar store party decorations makes it approachable enough for people to stop fronting and get stupid in indie land.

Juiceboxxx ends up transforming the space with his entire set which, for the most part involves him climbing on every climbable thing in the room and then rapping on top of it. I had my doubts about whether his act could translate to a real venue but he kicked the Bottle's ass and was the perfect hype act for Bonde Do Role. He had people dancing on one side of the room, and then tensing up whenever he came over. They liked him and they were afraid of him, because they didn't know what he was going to do, he was shirtless and sweaty and looked like he could give two shits about someone's personal space. It was as if, because, as a skinny, whiteboy from Wisconsin, he was never going to be intimidating (and possibly doomed to be adorable), he would do the next best thing to scaring people by making them uncomfortable. It was an interesting thing to see, and if I'd thought it up on my own, I never would've thought it would have gotten people to dance.

Autumnal Gibbledy Gurge [WZRD]

2007-09-21T14:46:00.000-07:00

Screamin Cyn Cyn & the Pons - Pedro's
Danny DJ & Morenna DJ - Villa De Penha
M.I.A. - Kala

Rachel's - Arterial/ Even-Odd
Tragic Mulatto - She's a Ho

[The following sets are an experiment to see if my last.fm page can be a better wzrd dj than I am]

Bonde Do Role - Rap Do Cb
The Ronettes - Baby I Love You
Dead Kennedys - Halloween
Shellac - Bonche's Dick
Japan - Don't Rain On my Parade
The Crystals - He Hit Me and it Felt Like a Kiss

The Magnetic Fields - I Don't Really Love You Anymore
Lydia Lunch - Four Cornered Room
The Meteors - Mutrant Rock

[Result: if buffering didn't take so long, it might have, but there was no accounting for profanity. that Lydia Lunch song should not have been played. strangely enough, it's the second time I've played it, the first being the result of me not screening the thing on youtube]

Dizee Rascal - Round We Go
Liars - They Don't Want Your Corn, They ant Your Kids
Justice - Waters of Nazareth (Menowah remix)

Strategy - Can't Roll Back
Chromatics - Nite 12
Nappy Roots - Roun the Globe
Alien Skull Paint - Unidentified
Murs - Walk Like a Man
Magic is Kuntmaster - Pestilence

[Steve Albini does not see the need in tasering hecklers when he can simply outsmart them, but he probably laughed watching the videotape]

Who Thinks This Guy Here is a Bottom?

2007-09-20T01:03:00.000-07:00

Date: 9/18/07
Location: Funky Buddha Lounge
Show: Outdanced featuring Dark Wave Disco, Michael T Motherfucker, Theo, Pier Novikov, Peppermint Gummybear and more
Cost: Free with RSVP to going.com
Drinks: $1 well vodka and whiskey
Things I missed to be there: Simian Mobile Disco and Telefon Tel Aviv at the Empty Bottle

Too many people are doing the same thing. It's getting annoying and, sadly, I'm one of them. Last night's show was swarmed with event photographers, trolling through the bar for people having a good time or looking to pose, without really stopping to get down themselves.

That was my big problem with Outdanced, a show I've been looking forward to for some time now. Not enough people were having a good time, and the DJs weren't helping. When I got there, Margaret Cho had just come through and done her thing and Theo and Michael T Motherfucker were spinning, and it was just a flairless set of all that postpunk, new wave, and NY dance shit me, my Mom, and everybody else plays. I had hoped we would be seeing Theo (formerly of the Lunachicks) with her new band, Theo and the Skyskrapers, who do their own version of that synthy NY shit I just mentioned, but she was just spinning. One room over, Dark Wave Disco was playing some hard hitting dance shit but no one was getting down because it was the room people were going into because it was less crowded than the main room. It probably would have stayed that way if Peppermint Gummybear didn't change the mood with a hot body crowd, pulling all the photographers up to the front of the room, and whipping the rest of the crowd into a spring break-at-Senor Frog's-in-Cabo type of frenzy.

The results were a couple of titties, a couple of butts, one wang, a bunch of screaming motherfuckers who wanted to get laid, and untold number of pictures that look exactly like this...

Which is kind of interesting, I guess, but also pointless. I kept my guy sheathed because the party was covered and there wasn't much I could add but a bunch of self-serving pictures of other photographers.

Professional quality digital cameras are pretty cheap these days. For just a couple hundred bucks more than something that fits in your pocket and takes mediocre pictures, you can get a Rebel, an N60 or a D40 and the people who really like to see pictures of themselves are starting to realize. In a Newcity article about the main stealer of hipster souls in town, Liz Armstrong (who writes about Outdanced in this week's Reader) describes it thusly: "Anyone with a really nice camera can do that shit. There is nothing else but an image, and in the end I guess it feels a little cheap."

When the Hot Body contest was over people were actually starting to dance in the main room. I shook my shit for a little while and got bored, wondering if Simian Mobile Disco were ever going to show up, looked at my friends falling asleep on the couches in the VIP room, shrugged and left, drunker than I should have been and ready to sleep.

[Theo & the Skyscrapers doing their thing]

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-09-17T02:03:00.000-07:00

Arvo set:

Ike and Tina Turner - It;s gonna work out fine
Syl Johnson - Back for a taste of your love
Eddie Ray - Wait a Minute
Al Green - Let's Stay Together
Wilson Pickett - 634-5789

Carla Thomas/Rufus Thomas - The Birds and the bees
Eddie Floyd - Raise Your Hand
The Astors - In the Twilight Zone
Jeanne & The Darlings - Hang Me Now
Barbara Stephens - Wait A Minute
Sam & Dave - I Take What I Want

Mar-Keys - Foxy
Booker T and The MGs - Green Onions
The Bar-Kays - Give Everybody Some
Otis Redding - Security
Sir Mack Rice - Mini-Skirt Minnie
Memphis Nomads - Don't Pass Your Judgement

Quantic Soul Orchestra w/ Spanky Wilson - Don't Joke With a Hungry Man

Lab Rat set:

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - 100 Days 100 Nights
Jay Mitchell - Mustang Sally
Amy Winehouse feat. Ghostface Killah - You Know You're No Good

Billy Paul - Am I Black Enough For You
Baby Huey - One Dragon, Two Dragon
Lyn Collins - Do Your Thing

Angelique & Third World - Love Cycle
BT Express - Express
Master Chivero - Black September
The Rhine Oaks - Tampin

Clarence Carter - Snatching It Back

[Nina Simone doin her thing]

The Renegades of Spunk

2007-09-16T01:24:00.000-07:00

Date: 9/16/07
Show: Do+Division Street Fest/Renegade Craft Fair with Camper Van Beethoven and more
Cost: Street festivals are technically free but theytry to enforce their $5 donation
Reason for going: I really like Camper Van Beethoven

"We've been together like three years."
"Long time."
"Maybe we should get married."
"I think I saw some handmade wedding invitations over at the Etsy tent."
"Oh, cool. Do you think they could cross stitch some with pictures of birds or maybe giant squid?"
"Probly. Where are you gonna have the ceremony?"
"We were thinking about the Hideout, or if they're booked, that loft above Diana's shoes. Half off admission if you RSVP to Going."
"Of course... you could have Flosstradamus do the reception."
"With special guests Million Dollar Mano and the Cool Kids."
"Yell some vows at this bitch!"
"Throw a ring on this bitch!"
"You could have a 21 moped salute."
"Naw, too gaudy. I was thinking maybe just a pair of Just Married mopeds. We were gonna register at Warbux anyway."
"Fuck that, I'm registering at Tiffany's."
"Fuck that, you're registering at Gramaphone."
"We'll talk."
"No. We won't."

This is how it starts. The hippest goddamn street fair I've ever seen. On one side, it's all silkscreened shirts and handmade buttons. On the other side it's all funnel cakes and Polaroid pictures in front of a surfer backdrop. Hipsters and yuppies pass freely between the two worlds like before and after pictures of one another. When we're done cracking up about our ultimate West Town wedding, we feel a little embarassed and a little empty, because we're not above it at all. We crumple up our plastic cups, each one stained with a different flavor of Carlo Rossi, and seperate.

We need to kill time before Camper Van Beethoven. I don't know where K____ and B______ go. They're skinny fuckers, and functional alcoholics. They could be anywhere. Sarah and I our chubby fuckers with poor impulse control, so we go to Small Bar for hummus, beer, and fried cheese curds.

When we get back to the fest, we're already late. Camper Van is playing a waltz. This is the kind of stuff I really like from them. The songs that sounded almost Eastern European in their perfect mix of joyous and mournful. This was the only one I was going to here before they launched into a rockish nostalgia set. I've always liked Camper Van Beethoven, from the goofy pop and country of "Joe Stalin's Cadillac" and "Lassie Went to the Moon" to songs like "Eye of Fatima" which may or may not be as deep and as beautiful as I thought they were when I first heard them, but the last time I saw the band, at the Old Town School's annual Folk and Roots fest a few years back, they were amazing. Their music was experimental and otherworldly, sometimes inhuman and sometimes excessively so. They played just a few recognizable songs and a handful of instruments I'd never seen before. This was at least a year before their reunion album and they didn't play it like it was a reunion, they played it like a band who wanted to blow the hell out of anyone who took the time to see them.

I don't know if the organizers of the Do+Division Street Fest tell their headliners to play the hits or if it's unspoken. Maybe it's just what the band wanted to do. I have my doubts because I don't want it to be what the band watnted, and this is the same festival that the Violent Femmes sucked ass at the last time I saw them. Whoever decided to play the show as a testament to 80s college radio, it made a lot of people happy. Left and right I saw cats singing along and getting all intense. I was bored, but I had come in with different expectations, so I left the band with the people who were going to enjoy them.

I was ready to wash the icky feelings off of me anyway. I saw a vision of a future that I really don't want for me today, and I was an active participant.

Off the Hook, Now Get Out of the House

2007-09-15T02:06:00.000-07:00

Date: 9/14/07
Location: People Project
Show: OffGrid Radio Benefit with Environmental Encroachment, Rand Sevilla, Livewire, Protman, and DJ Demchuk vs. Eric lab Rat
Cost: $5 suggested
Drinks: $1 beer, $1 vegan jello
Things I missed to be there: Rooftop Party with DJs Hilary Rawk, Joel Brown, Menowah, and Emily Tragic; CHIRP benefit with 3 AM Fever, Ultratumbados, and The Slim Pickins at the Mutiny

The night started on a surreal note. DJ Demchuk and I frantically trying to fix my equipment, which all decided to go to shit at the same time. We look up and realize that the only people in the room are the members of Environmental Encroachment, all dressed as bunnies, and the goons, a large group of leather jacketed hardcore guys from the Southside. We shrug it off and get slug through a mediocre set as people filter in. The people who run the gallery have already dismissed us.

I now know a few common sense things I never would have thought to ask before, mainly, once someone accepts your request to use their place to host a party, offering no conditions of their own, ask again. I figure that when someone says I can have a party at their place, I have permission to use their place until the cops come or it peters out on it's own, at the very least until the same time as the bars close.

This was not the case.

Two days before the party, we were told that we would have to clear the place out at nine. I should've argued but I didn't. I figured that if the party was still going strong, they would let it keep going for another hour and, if not, we could probably bribe them. Unfortunately these guys had some integrity, they were steadfast, and between midnight and one, over 100 people got turned away at the door.

Of course, only some of those people missed out on a worthwhile party. The night started out strong with Environmental Encroachment pulling out all the stops, pushing the bass to eleven, drumming on a ventilation ducts, even sneaking a Radiohead song into their drum-and-brass madness; the night ended even stronger, with Rand Sevilla getting people naked on the dance floor for a big, sweaty jukefest, but the middle of the night kind of dragged with not too many people dancing. That was probably my fault for not thinking enough about the lineup order. Livewire set a good mood, taking people out of the marching band music with a freeform set of disco and electro but Protman was a bit too clunky to keep what Livewire started going, so the Livewire people retreated to talk and drink in the back of the room while the Protman people got back on. It wasn't until Rand got going that the whole room erupted, and once he did, he only got to do it for a half hour.

At least I've learned my lessons, and I can say without a doubt, that when the party was going well, it was the best thing in the city.

Lets Get Drumtarded in Here

2007-09-13T00:07:00.000-07:00

Date: 9/12/07
Location: The Heartland Cafe
Show: The In One Ear Open Mic with The Spoony Bards and The Lie of a Pipe Dream,
Cost: $3
Things I missed to be there: Marat 14k at People Lounge; Flosstradamus and Dude'N'Em at Subterranean; Dark Wave Disco vs. I Love House at the Note; Bomb Banks, Russian Tzarlag, Kites and Oakeater at Mister City; Stressape, Red Rocket, and Mass Shivers at Ronny's
Reason for going: My pet rat Bukowski lives in Rogers Park, and when Bukowski wants to go for a walk, Bukowski goes to where the poetry and drunk girls are***

This is a guitar, an American institution. From the twenties through the eighties it was an emblem for rebellion (until hip hop hit the suburbs and became the thing that scared our parents). It is a totem for sex, for the animal within the artist and the artist withn the animal. For over a hundred years it has turned goons and schlubs into sensitive souls and sexual gods. The nude woman poses next to it because it has a power over her, and she is not strong enough to wield it herself. It goes without saying that the ones who are, are forces to be reckoned with.

This is a keytar, emblematic of the the excess, the overzealous futurism, and the entirely frivolous, disposable plastic nature of the 1980s. It was never dangerous. The woman holding it is just as sexy as the woman next to the guitar, but she's too ashamed to show her face. For some reason, you're almost guaranteed to see a keytar player if you go to see a funk band but nearly nowhere else.

This is a drumtar. It's so dorky, that the hot girl wielding it is really just a drawing of a guy, and not a particularly sexy guy at that. I don't think I've ever seen a drumtar, until today. More on that in a bit.

It's been a while since I was an open mic regular, or even an open mic irregular. I feel kinda like I graduated. I became comfortable on stage, I made a solid group of friends, and I figured out how to make more. I didn't need to hear any more bad poetry. That's the only reason I ever went: poetry, spoken word, monologues... the occasional piece of puppetry or performance art. As bad as most of that turned out to be, the rest was insufferable. So many years. So much comedy. So much music. So many hateful men trying to be edgy, so many terrible faximile Leonard Cohens, Ani DiFrancos, Mos Defs and Nina Simones.

Thing is, I miss some of it. It's been ages since I've heard good folk music, which I can really get off on live but doesn't really do much for me on album. My old friend Blake Thomas's albums sounded wonderful, but if I wasn't taking the time to listen to Nick Drake and Arlo Guthrie, what kind of a chance did he ever have?

It was nice to see The Lie of a Pipe Dream. I didn't know it, but I really was in the mood to hear someone plucking a banjo today. They were three men gathered around one microphone, harmonizing with a guitar and banjo. They sang sci-fi folk songs and their name was a Eugene O'Neill quote (I had to google to find out that "The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober" came from O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh). Their songs were pretty and they were nice, but the real treat was The Spoony Bards.

I'd seen The Spoony Bards play the Heartland before. I guess in the couple of months since the last time I came out to the Heartland and actually paid attention, they've become something of a house band. I always figured that they were a high school band. Their membership was always fluctuating by two or three people, they played videogame covers, they were newly dedicated to an open mic, and they looked like they could have been extras in Superbad.

I figured that when I saw them today, I was looking at a more cemented version of the band, because, well, they were perfect. Like I said, they could have played the self assured nerds of Superbad but they could have been the triumphant nerds of Dazed and Confused, too. The music was straight out of the seventies, in a weird way. It was the type of shit that wasn't even cool back then. It was ballads, the stuff that Kris Kristofferson was doing when he wasn't being all the way country, the stuff Steely Dan did that no one ever talks about, the stuff Neil Diamond was born to do. It didn't matter if they were only fifteen, they did it with a swagger and they did it with a DRUMTAR! They also did it well.

Unfortunately, after looking online, it looks like most of my assumptions were wrong. The Spoony Bards is a fairly huge band with rotating members, all of whom are college-aged or older, and they don't do this kind of music, this kind of slightly soul-ly rock'n'roll that doesn't rock, at least not as their bread and butter. What the Spoony Bards is, is an anime and videogame music tribute band. They play AnimeCons and GameCons all over the country playing "The Theme from The Legend of Zelda" or "a song by Yoko Kanno, that was originally done for Cowboy Bebop."

They are even COOLER and DORKIER than I could have ever imagined. They warrant unnecessary CAPS LOCKs! The only downside is that I'm not going to hear a lot more of this type of music. C'est la vie. Chances are good that I probably wouldn't like it outside of an open mic anyway.

***Oops: Apparently there was a clown burlesque show. The people who told me about it usually tell me about boring burlesque shows but this one had Lil Princess, Heather Vernon, Maiden Sacrifice and Happy the Human Pin Cushion weirding out at the Smartbar. I can miss all sorts of dance parties but I try to fill up on this kind of weirdness when it avails itself. Oh well, if I had gone, my rat would've been neglected and I probably wouldn't have gotten laid.

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-09-11T02:08:00.000-07:00

Arvo Set:

Fela Kuti - Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense
Ohmega Watts - Slippin Away
Afrika Bambaataa and the soulsonic force - Renegades of Funk
Grace Jones - NightClubbing/Pull Up to the bumper
Marvin Tate - Town of 500

Lab Rat set:

Big Mama Thornton - Hound Dog
Little Richard - Rip It Up
Donny Hathaway - I believe to my Soul

Funkadelic - One Nation Under a Groove
Snoop Dogg feat. George Clinton - Doggystyle
Axiom Funk - If 6 Was 9

Derby Sisters - Go Back To Your Pontiac
The Dolls - And that Reminds Me
The Shangri-Las - Remember Walkin In the Sand

Jiraphand Ong-Ard - Thai Boxing
The Isley Bros feat. R. Kelly - Contagious
Eddie Ray - Wait a Minute
Myrna Hague - Touch Me Baby

OFS Unlimites - Mystic
Mitchell Mitchell - Never Walk Out On You

[Axiom Funk doing "If 6 Was 9" off their album Funkronomicon]

Poke the Bear! Poke the bear!

2007-09-08T01:52:00.000-07:00

Date: 8/5/07
Location: The Mutiny
Bands: Disrobe, S.S.Ex, and Demonslaught
Cost: FREE!

So in three weeks, I'm going to be 25, and I'm starting to take stock. By most people's accounts, 25 isn't that old, but it's around the time a lot of people stop going to shows, at least at the level that my friends and I have been doing it, but I can see it in them and I can feel it in me. I just don't have the energy I used to. This really is a young man's game, and if you're not part of it, you're some just some sort of spectator; you're Dan the Fan, Max Hippie, Thax Douglas, or that guy Jerry who's always at naked people parties, who probably doesn't mind being referred to as Old Naked Guy because he's got a really big dick. Either way, you're either somebody's mascot, or somebody's sad sack, maybe some permutation of the two, and if I can't find away to participate, that's going to be me, if I'm lucky. If I'm not lucky, I'll just be some old, normal guy, who's happy to have a job and a girlfriend which wil eventually lead to a carreer and a wife, and I'll forget about fun things and fade away. That's how I feel about a lot of the people in my family. I get it, but I don't like it.

Most writers don't even know anything else that Dylan Thomas wrote, but everyone kinda knows him because he wrote the words, "I will not go gently into that good night," which is itself one very notable quotable...well that's me, and if I can't fight nature and be the man I think I should be, I could leasr approximate it for a few fols or a little while. I almost choked on my drink a couple months ago when an old acquaintance of mine said, "Lab Rat, I wish I could be more like you, just quit my job and focus on making art but I've just gotta work.

I was shocked. I mean, I make art, or, at least, I make things but I never thought of it as what I was doing, because I make art (or things) even when I am working and as far as I could tell, I was just serially underemployed. Now that I've got a job, I feel kinda like a sellout, but I'm working and I have a place to go when I wake up, and I'll just have to work around that.

I was opening at 7:30 in the morning, which is a time I've been used to falling asleep recently, so I had to play it out carefully. There was no way I was gonna fall asleep, though and it is around that time of year where second-year juniors and third-year sophomores announce that Wednesday is the new Friday, so I might as well go to a show. If I was sleeping at my folks' house, I would go to the open mic at the Heartland Cafe but that's too far from work; if I was sleeping at Sarah's house, I would've gone to the show to see Sir Vixx, Sounds Happy, Xrin Arms, Insect Deli, Saskrotch, Pommel, Ersatz Modem and Common Denominator play breakcore and noise, but Sarah found roaches in her cupboard so she'll probably never sleep there again. In the odd event that I was sleeping at my house with my parents' car, I would've gone to Danny's because it's soul night and a pretty girl invited me, but I was sleeping at my house, and the Mutiny was the closest place I could go to.

The Muriny was the Mutiny, and anything I could say about the show, I could say about a million others. For some reason, I missed S.S.Ex just like the half dozen other times I've been to shows they've played at, and you could tell that Demonslaught had played without even going in from the number of punks milling around outside with light-up plastic swords holstered to their belts, and just like the last year's worth of Disrobe shows I've seen, I couldn't believe how good they've gotten, how much better than the last show they played, and how guitarrier the band seemed to be.

There was even a game to it. As Disrobe's singer Josh barreled into the crowd for the umpteenth time, like Matt Foley on a speedball binge, knocking motherfuckers over, spilling half-pitchers of Pabst, and instigating numerous circle pits, the goal became clear: knock this motherfucker over.

And people tried, none more adamantly than my friend Ryan, an eager little bikepunk who's maybe a biscuit over 21, if that. Every few secinds he would take a flying leap at Josh who would flick him off like a bug or else keep singing on the floor, or in a pile of equipment or from within a leglock. Eventually people got sick of Ryan, and the game morphed into how many times can I sneak a punch or a kick into this kid before he gets up off the ground. A lot of people had fun with it, roo much fun if you ask me, especially for Ryan, who, undeterred, started performing fake blowjobs, one by ome, ro every member of the band like some attention starved Andy Dick/GG Allin hybrid. Eventually, my friend Catherine stood on his chest and ordered him to the back of the bar "because nobody wants you here" and he complied. When I talked to him there, his face was ten kinds of bruised, and through a proud shit-eating grin announced that he'd just dislocated his knee, and even though there was a time when Catherine was pulling a drunk me out of the room for my own good, I knew that I would never be that young again.

TwoSlaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-09-03T23:49:00.001-07:00

ARVO:

The Clovers - Lovey Dovey
Chris Kenner - I like It Like That
The Spiders - I didn't want to do it
Chantels - Maybe
Track 1 from Dangerous Doo Wop 3
Wilbert Harrison - Kansas City

Ravens - Count Every star
The Flamingos - I Only Have Eyes For YOu
Cadillacs - GLoria

Little Anthony & Imperials - Shimmy Shimmy Ko-Ko Pop
Silouettes - Get A Job
Boss-Tones - Mope-Itty Mope
Hollywood flames - Buzz-buzz-buzz
Norman Fox & Rob Roys/Sid Bass & His Orchestra - Pizza Pie
Edsels - Rama Lama Ding Ding

Ouiwey (the Son Of Bootsy Collins) - Girl I
Goerge Clinton - Do Fries Go With That Shake (Know What I'm Sayin' Remix) featuring Vanessa Williams and Shistee
Bar-Kays - RAID

LAB RAT:

Betty Davis - DEdicated To The Press
Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators - Feeling Free
Abraham and the Casanovas - Hook and Boogit (part one)
Laura Leee - Mama's Got a Good Thing

Bull & the Matadors - Funky Judge
Bobby Byrd - I Know You Got Soul
Co-Real Artists - What Was Her Name?

Geraldo Pino - Heavy Heavy Heavy
Al Escobar - Tighten Up
Papa Mali & the Instagators - Fire Water

Egyptians - Party Stomp!
Rare Grooves - Soulful Street
The Stovall Sisters - Hang On In there

Lord Rhaburn - Disco Connection
The Staple Sisters - Soul to Soul

[The Band with The Staple Sisters doing "The Weight"]

Up the Taqx

2007-09-01T12:49:00.000-07:00

Date: 8/31/07
Band I saw: Expendable Youth
Bands I missed: Tzeboble, Secret Trial Five, The Kominas, Vote Hezbollah, Sagg Taqwacore Syndicate, Al-Thawra, La Armada, Sangre De Abajo
How could such a thing happen?: Motherfucker wanna eat, motherfucker gotta work
Location: La Casa Maldita
Cost: $5 suggested
Drinks: BYO
Things I missed to be there: Miss Pussycat Puppet Show at Reversible Eye; Fake Rich
Party at Das Butt with Koku-Ban, H1N1, Local Hero, and Grifty; Varietease Burlesque Show at Kitty Moon
Reason for going, as briefly as I did: As far as I know, nothing like this has ever happened in Chicago

The Taqwacores is a book by Michael Muhammad Knight, detailing the lives of the residents of a flophouse that doubles as a DIY mosque for punk rock Muslims in Buffalo, New York. The narrator is of the story is the new kid, Yusuf Ali, an American Pakastani who doesn't know where he fits in, but finds love, solace, and adventure in punk rock, and a hero and personal savior in Jehangir Tabari. Kind of ironically, Jehangir is a martyr straight out of the Jesus mold, a man too perfect to live. In punk rock pop culture he is Heroin Bob, or that girl from Suburbia In literature, he is Randle P. McMurphy, pushing the psyche ward inmates to free themselves.

Jehangir lived and died by taqwacore. The word is a portmanteau of the words hardcore and taqwa an Islamic term for a kind of simultaneous love and fear of Allah*. The book ends with Jehangir gathering all the taqwacore bands in America, all the ones he could find, for one show, a punk rock spectacle that ends in his death. On the pretensious tip, it is an end of innocense for the various people in the book, an end of the utopian views of taqwa, punk rock, and Islam.

Before the book was published, originally as a zine in 2002, there was no such thing as taqwacore, but since then it has become a real movement, not just for arab and Muslim punks, but for disaffected white kids who're looking to further piss off their folks and disassociate themselves from a fairly racist USA that's currently at odds with much of the Muslim world. It's cynical, but it's true. In the book, Taqwacore was as much an umbrella as punk rock, there were skinhead taqwa, straightedge taqwa, and ska taqwa (skaqwa?). Middle East Punk night wasn't that much different. Tzebeoble is a one-man riot folk band whose music sounds more like Tom Frampton, Kinky Friedman, and The Moldy Peaches than This Bike is a Pipe Bomb or Yusef Islam. From the one song on their myspace page, San Antonio's Vote Hezbollah (who take their name from a band in the The Taqwacores), I could say that they sound like the gritty/glitzy postglam of D Generation, in a way that almost borders on new wave the way the Brits did it, and a little bit like old Social Distortion, but that might just be the one song (which has pretty shitty lyrics). The Kominas are a punk group that seem to take their influences from all avenues of punk, with a little bit of regae and hip hop thrown in. Their song "9000 miles" could've been done by the Transplants, but it probably would have been done by someone a lot better. The Sagg Taqwacore Syndicate and Chicago's Al-Thawra are the most interesting to me though, because they both do more experimental music, from a punk background and aesthetic.

Al-Thawra's sound a lot like early industrial, from a time when groups like Laibach, Muslimgauze, Nurse with Wound, and Throbbing Gristle were all sharing bills. It's very low, and very crunchy. Sagg Taqwacore Syndicate come from a slightly dancier place, and sound a lot like the electrometallic dub that seems to come out of kinda weird bands who've had hits do when they want to try new things, but want to go further than their fans would allow. Think of the Deftones side-project Team Sleep, or the At the Drive-In/Mars Volta side project Defacto. Unfortunately, even though they were on the bill, they had to drop out of the show before yesterday.

Yesterday marked the first time that a lot of these bands got together to play a Taqwa show in Chicago. The scale wasn't as big as it was in the end of the book, but it didn't end up with any scene fatalities, so I'm pretty sure everybody was happy. Unfortunately, even moreso than TSS dropping out, was that I had to.

I only got to see one of the bands, before I left for work, and that was Expendable Youth. If you drew a straight line on a graph from Rancid to Aus Rotten, Expendable Youth would be a dot in the middle in a Witch Hunt t-shirt. They're political, but kinda indiscriminately political, like, "It doesn't matter that you're all a bunch of anarchists and punks at a political punk show in a basement, we're gonna still say things like 'this one is about political prisoners, because Mumia isn't the only one.'"

When I hear that kinda preachy bullshit, it puts me in that cynical place where I place them in a world where music only exists on a straight line between Rancid and Aus Rotten. Otherwise, they were good, melodic hardcore, you know like they exist in a world where Aus-Rotten is a goal to strive for, and Rancid is the poppiest, sell-outiest anti-punk band you can think of. I've seen them before and I'm sure I will again, but I was kinda disappointed that they're all I got outta my time at Casa Maldita last night.

["Lord of Dawn" by Sagg Taqwacore Syndicate]

WZRD is a haven for slackerdom

2007-08-31T16:48:00.000-07:00

I did my set inbetween jobs today and I was fucking exhausted. The only worthwhile track was "Mouvement 1" by Lex Talionis.

There was also an old episode of the Church of the Subgenius' "Hour of Slack", an old Maximum Rock'n'Roll tape with Los Crudos doing "Asesinos", a new M.I.A. track, and a "megamix" by Diplo.

TwoSlaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-08-27T23:08:00.000-07:00

ARVO:

James Chance - Sax Machine
Betty Davis - Anti Love Song
Dawn Silva/Brides of Funkenstein - Whole Lotta Game
Die Warzau - Gone Chemical

Marvin Tate - Town of 500
William Bell - Everybody loves a winner
Timi Yuro - Hurt
the Notations - A New Day
Rufus Thomas - The Dog
Broadneck - Psychedelic Excursion
Hank Ballard - Finger Poppin' Time

Mitchell Mitchell - Gene King - Never Walk Out On You
Eddie FLoyd - Good Love, Bad Love
Gil Scott Heron - ???
Delfonics - Tell Me This Is a Dream
Curtis Mayfield - Give Me Your Love (Love Song)

LAB RAT:

The Coasters - Down in Mexico
Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators - If This Ain't Love (Don't Know What Is)
The Mighty Hannibal - Get in the Groove

Ann Peebles - I Can't Stand the Rain
Gospel Chandeliers - Honesty is the Best Policy
Isaac Hayes - Do Your Thing

Nina Simone - Funkier than a Mosquito's Tweeter
Nilo Espinosa y Orquestra - Baby Boogaloo
Los Van Van - Y No Le Conviene
Lon Rogers & the Soul Blenders - My Girl is a Soul Girl

Harlem Underground Band feat. Willis Jackson - Ain't No Sunshine
Stevie Wonder - Superstition
Quincy Jones feat. Bill Cosby - Hikky Burr

Mark Ronson feat. Amy Winehouse - Valerie

[The Brides of Funkenstein in Houston in 79]

one or two minutes in heaven

2007-08-25T05:20:00.000-07:00

Date: 8/24/07
Location: Unnamed Warehouse
DJs: Vyle, Mr. Bobby, Trancid, Livewire and more
Cost: Cocks 10, Cunts 5
Things I missed to be there: Mahjongg and Chew on This at Subterranean; Carnivale at the Cat Mafia HQ
Reason for going: Coz raves beat all (and I couldn't find the Cat Mafia HQ)

Sarah and I snuck in like champions, only to sneak out just as quickly.

"Wow, this is like a Hispanic high school dance."

I think she hit the nail with that remark. The crowd was mostly teenagers, and by half past midnight, the cops already knew the party was happening, the doorpeople were freaking out, and very few people were dancing. Guys with guys. Girls with girls.

When we got there, Mr. Bobby was spinning some new wave. I don't remember what the song was, but it sounded like shit. Not a bad song, but the amps were all stacked on one side of the room turned up so that the sound could travel across the warehouse, and there was no real part of the room where it sounded good. Couple that with the facts that it was hot as snatch and that we already knew we were getting laid and there was no reason to stay.

The one bright spot is seeing how many young cats from the young Hispanic community are into punk/goth shit and rave/dance shit at the same time. I think I'm going to really enjoy the scene that these kids create over the next few years.

Ladies Love Tiny Tim; God Bless Cool James [WZRD]

2007-08-24T14:46:00.000-07:00

Metal Urbain - Hysterie Connective
Can - Spoon
Young MC - Know How
CSS - Lets Make Love and Listen to Death From Above (XXXChange remix)

Firewater - Is that All there Is?
Asmus Tietchens - Tango Fellatino
TTC - Travaillier Orgasmic
The 45 King - The 900 Number
Bonde Do Role - Gasolina
Tiny Tim - Livin in the Sunlight, Lovin in the Moonlight
Juiceboxxx - Thunderjam 4

Nina Hagen - TV Snooze
Muslimgauze - Hunting Out
Grossenhosen - Happi Voodoo Remix

Einsturzende Neubauten - Silence Is Sexy
Big Black - Texas
Revolting Cocks - Stainless Steel Providers

The Pharcyde - Ya Mama
Why? - 500 Fingernails
Of Montreal - Tulip Baroo
The Omens - Searchin for Love

Front 242 - Never Stop
Dandi Wind - Apotemnophilia

Cabaret Voltaire - Your Agent Man/Gut Level
Konstructivists - The Crimson Path
Tuxedomoon - Tritone (Musica Diabla)
Leonard Cohen - Master's Song

Fugazi - Waiting Room
Publish Post
Bad Brains - Sacred Love
Lard - The Power of Lard

[Bonde Do Role is coming to town and I'm going to have to miss them]

more stuff where I compare stuff to other stuff and stuff

2007-08-24T03:11:00.000-07:00

Date: 8/23/07
Location: Push
Bands: Rubbed Raw, Juiceboxxx, Horse Spirit Penetrates
DJs: OCDJ, Rand Sevilla
Video: Jimmy Joe Roche
Cost: Advertised as $5, but $8 requested at the door
Drinks: $1 Old Style or BYO
Things I missed to be there: Cophandz and Menowah at Liar's Club; Lord of the Yum Yum at Darkroom; 20Khz at Quennect Four
Reason for going: Half of the city was flooded and powerless. Where else would I want to be but a dance party?

A good reference point to start with would be Wonder Showzen. It's not a great starting point, of course, because it's not so big that it doesn't need reference points of its own. In fact, if you don't live in a dorm, or at least a place with a bong readily available, you probably don't know what Wonder Showzen is. Wonder Showzen is a fake kid's show that airs sporadically on Mtv2. Think of the gross-out cartoons that air on Comedy Central, or some of the post-Aqua Teen Hunger Force shows on Adult Swim. Wonder Showzen is like that, but grosser, smarter, more offensive, far more surreal, and oddly, fairly anti-corporate in a way that doesn't feel like lip service. Wonder Showzen is a cartoon-and-puppet show that aims to fuck with its audience, like Andy Kaufman animating some old Zap Comix, but angry.

It takes a lot to get under people's skin these days, at least the people who're watching Mtv2 at 1 in the morning. Show me grotesque cartoon characters eating shit out of their own ass or puppets performing sex change operations or using real children to tell pedophile jokes, and I'm fine. After a certain point, the racial stuff gets to me, and for some reason, a cartoon about homeless Vietnam Vets really got under my skin but I guess those are some of my hang ups.

It's not just the content of the show that makes it hard to watch, but sometimes it's that they literally make the show difficult to sit through. One episode played forward for fifteen minutes and then backwards for another fifteen. Cartoons and sketches are often separated by a quick blast, a barrage of jarring sounds and images, a woman screaming, Satan, napalm victims, the sound of a chainsaw, time-lapsed photography of molding fruit. These little vignettes, if you expanded them to five, ten, fifteen minutes long, that's what the films of Baltimore's Jimmy Joe Roche are like.

The first film had it all: a nude, masked chick with a knife performing a castration in the woods, a raw meat helmut, "Magic: The Gathering" cards shaped into a Swastika, mysterious cowboys, and more.

The video at the top of this page, was also done by him. If you haven't clicked on it yet, it's an ad for the tour that this show was a part of. If you haven't been paying attention, youtube concert adverts are the new animated .gifs, just like Daisy Dukes and lofts with electrical tape body outlines are to 2007, what 1930s swimwear and basements full of stencil graffiti were to 2006. All of the above was present at the show last night, which was pretty spectacular for a new-ish space, in a hard to get to part of town, on a night where the sky was out for destruction. The people who were there though, were there for business.

On any other night, Horse Spirit Penetrates might have been met with indifference. They were a good band, but they sounded like a two-piece Fantomas on a night when the rest of the bands were doing hiphop and the DJs were doing juke. Still, there was bumping, grinding, and a general spazzing out for them on the dance floor.

Rubbed Raw were next, a horny duo of DJ Dog Dick and Big Daddy Nugg, who played their own slooooooooooooooooooooooooooowed down blends of g-funk, b-club, and crunk. A lot of growling, a lot of sweating. If Big Daddy Nugg didn't get laid yesterday, it wasn't because he didn't put himself out there.

I can't even imagine Juiceboxxx getting laid, but that's part of his charm. He's underage. He's cute. He's from Wisconsin. He's rapping.

Juiceboxxx has an awesome presence, if he plays it right, he could be an arena rapper, like a one-man Naughty By Nature. The only thing is, he needs to go the Dan Deacon route and the hell away from legitimate venues to get there. If he keeps playing parties and spaces, where he can command the crowd and do whatever he needs to. Last night he was tearing around the room in a swivel chair, jumping up and down in a trash can full of empty beer bottles and climbing on motherfuckers backs to rap. When the long mic chord started shorting out and he had to switch to a short one, he was able to get the whole crowd to choke up around him. The second he gets on a stage and separates himself from the audience, he becomes MC Chris, a novelty act, at least until he starts writing hits.

Of course that's just my theory, based on what I've seen and what my friends have told me, and it's about to be put to the test. For the next month, Juiceboxxx is going on tour with Brazil's Bonde Do Role, whose debut full length, "With Lazers" is the sleeper party hit of the year. Anyone going to those shows is going to expect to party, and when they hit the Empty Bottle on the 29th of September, I'll be there, and I'll be more than happy to be proven wrong.

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-08-21T04:44:00.000-07:00

Mucca Pazza - Chick Habit (Serge Gainsbourg)
Charlie Palomares y su Yuboney - Vives Boogaloo
Charlotte Gainsbourg - Night-Time Intermission

Bebel Gilberto - Bring Back the Love (Ondular Mix)
Nublu Orchestra - Sciubba Diving
OMar Souleyman - Arabic Dabke
Los 5-U-4 - Baila Van Y Baila
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Rapid Fire Toll Booth

TV On The Radio - Wash The Day
Milford Reynolds - Lowe's Market
El-P - Flyentology
Chromeo - Tenderoni
Sarolta Zalatnay - Fekete Arnyek (with Locomotive GT)
Mark Ronson w/ Amy Winehouse - valerie

Gore Gore Girls - Where Evil Grows

The Coup - Laugh, Love, F*ck
James Brown - People Get Up And Drive Your Funky Soul

Houston Outlaws - Soul Power
Trevor Dandy - Is There Any Love?
Gil-Scott Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Marvin Tate - If You See Jesus
Marvin Gaye - Right On

Artistics - Leave It Up to You !
Daisy Chain - Got to Get You In My Arms
DJ Shadow - This Time (I'm Gonna Try It My Way)

The Coasters - Great Big Idol With a Golden Head
Shangri-Las - I'm Blue

5,6,7,8's - I'm Blue

Do it Do it Go away

2007-08-20T22:39:00.000-07:00

Date: 8/20/07
Location(s): 1. Empty Bottle; 2. Subterranean; 3. The Note
Bands: 1. Jai Alai Savant; 2. Chances Dances with DJs Nina Ramone, JackAttack, Dick Simmons and sCNa; 3. Girl in a Coma
Cost(s): 1. FREE! 2. FREE! 3. ?????
Things I missed to be there(s): Myopics Experimental Music Mondays with Bill Salas, Brian Labycz, and Frank Rosaly
Reason(s) for going: 1. Wanted to see if I should believe the hype; 2. and 3. wasn't ready to not be at a show while I was in the hood

1. Jai-Alai Savant is what Tool would sound like if Tool were a reggae band fronted by a well-dressed black dude who actually liked playing in front of an audience.

I wasn't sure whether or not to leave but I wanted some Fresh air, and didn't realize the show was sold out and a line had formed of people waiting for space to open up.

2. Chances Dances is where I would be every last Monday of the month if I was brave enough to go dancing by myself.

While I was there they played CSS' "Lets Make Love and Listen to Death From Above" and Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground". Drinks are too pricey but it serves me right for not being sneakier. $2 dollar Schlitz cans for the wicked and desperate.

3. Girl in a Coma is what The Smiths would sound like if they were a Latina three piece from San Antonio that occasionally played surf rock in Spanish

Ick Urgh Omigod [WZRD]

2007-08-17T14:41:00.000-07:00

Negativland - Track 11
Bugz in the Dark - Silence is Treason
Rasputina - The Olde Headboard
M.I.A. - Bird Flu
Portion Control - Monsters Bulk
Cabaret Voltaire - Gut Level

Diplo - Must Be a Devil
Tackhead - Is There a Way Out?
My ife With the Thrill Kill Kult - Radio Silicon
The Residents - Anvil Forest
Solex - Solex's Snag

Laibach - Sympathy for the Devil
The Rolling Stones - Turd on the Run
Fugazi - Break

Michael Jackson - Billie Jean
Kannibal Komix - Love
Janko Nilovic - Chorus for Leslie

DBA - Business As Usual

Mc Pe de Pano e o Bonde do Bogdov - Retorno de Jedi
Tres Tenores - Os Carrascos
Kabo Kaki - Taty Quebra Barraco

Kasper Hauser's This American Life - Going Postal
Beastie Boys - Intergalactic (The Strawberry Bath and Jelly Soles Instrumental Version)
Defacto - Descarga De Facto

[Diplo]

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-08-14T00:06:00.000-07:00

Arvo was holed up at a Slayer/Marilyn Manson show in the burbs and he couldn't make it back in time so it was all Labbers this week.

Sam Cooke - Twistin the Night Away
Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators - Feeling Free #!!!
Mark Ronson feat. Lily Allen - Oh My God

The Counts - Why Not Start All Over Again
The Pharohs - Awakening
The Isley Brothers - Fight the Power

Mandrill - Fencewalk/Hagalo
Dudley Perkins & Georgia Anne Muldrow - Newniss
Sly & the Family Stone - M'Lady

Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band - The Joker (on a trip thru the jungle)
Michael Jackson - Ben
Mauricio Smith - Doug's Room

James Brown - Even my Introductions are Funkier than Your Ass/I'll Go Crazy
War - Slippin Pt. 2
The Delfonics - Ready Or Not Here I Come

Marvin Gaye - Hitchiker
Billy Stewart - Summertime
Eddie Ray - Wait a Minute

Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings - Genuine
Mary Wells - The One Who Really Loves You
Brand New - Party Time

Bootsy Collins - Play With Bootsy
Justice - D.A.N.C.E.
R. Kelly feat. T-Pain - I'm a Flirt

I Used to Know a Guy Named Rezepka Who Did too Much and Died Too Young [WZRD]

2007-08-10T14:37:00.000-07:00

RZA feat. MF Doom - Biochemical Equation
Bonde Do Role - Rap Do CB
James Blood Ulmer - TV Blues
Iggy & the Stooges - Search and Destroy
Paul Nero - This is Soul
Deise Tigrona - Injecao
Gaiola Das Popozudas - Vai Danada
Two Live Crew - Shake a Little Somethin
Diplo - There Must Be A Devil
Les Breastfeeders - I Can't Live Without You

The Mae Shi - Learn to Dance
Brother "D" with Collective Effort - How We Gonna Make A Black Nation Rise
Kid Sister - Let Me Bang
Polyphonic - Prostitute Karaoke
Skarekrau Radio - Future Insectoid

Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins - You Are What You Love
Horace Andy - Every Tongue Shall Tell
The Chamber Brothers - All Strung Out Over You
As Mercanarias - Panico

Mika Miko - Zombie
Artichoke - Seventeen
Water Babies - Taj Mahal

Elyse - Ironworks/Spirit of the Letter
Joanna Newsome - Sprout and the Bean
The Latest - ????

White Mice - Microjackass
Chris Brown - Alternating Currents

[mika miko]

rat heaven

2007-08-09T11:00:00.000-07:00

Date: 8/3/07
Location: Hotti Biscotti
Bands: The Hatemoms, Eavil, William Sides Atari Party, Megan on her guitar
Cost: Roving donation bucket
Things I missed to be there: Gay Beast, Social Junk, NIMBY, and Stressape at Blog Cabin; Social Junk and Unknown/Unseen at Enemy
Reason for going: I had a feeling that the Blog Cabin bands would be better, but I would be around more friends and loved ones at Biscotti
If I wasn't working the next day: I would have skipped this and just bounced back and forth between the show all of these bands were playing at The Viceroy, the MEAH/Michael Michael Motorcycle show at the Flower Shop, and the OCDJ show at Les Beaux on Saturday

Now that I've thought of it, I don't think I will ever not think of it. Sir Vixx should program himself into that old videogame Lemmings. Imagine it, a hundred Sir Vixxes, dreadlocks flying as he holds out his hands like a traffic cop, digs holes with his hands like a dog, floats down through tunnels in parachutes, and generally does cute things. He is a very eager breakcore motherfucker, and it's cute, and funny, and cute.

Meanwhile, The Hatemoms have the world's greatest gimmick. They built a theremin where the wire loops into a box. Inside the box is a cute little rat named Mr. Steven. Wherever the rat sits in the box, no matter what she (yes, Mr. Steven is a girl) does, she affects the theremin, which one of the other band members switches on at the appropriate moment.

The human contingent of the band is two dudes who switch off on drums and keyboards. Together their music sounds like a cross between the Descendants and Quintron. Live, they sound more like the Descendants, and other bass heavy poppish punk bands. Recorded they sound more like Mr. Quintron. With Mr. Steven, however, they sound like a cross between The Descendants and Quintron THAT FEATURES MY FAVORITE TWO THINGS IN THE WORLD!!!

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-08-09T08:58:00.000-07:00

Lab rat was held back by the CTA after leaving the Empty Bottle and got really sleepy and grumpy, so Arvo Fuckhead took the reigns for tonight's show

Altyrone Deno Brown - Sweet Pea
Eddie Ray - Wait A Minute
The MAjestic Arrows - We Love Together
Mitchell Mitchell - Gene King - Never Walk Out on You
Johnny Davis/The Arrows - Boogedy Boogedy

Sonny Boy Williamson - I Been Dealin With the Devil
Howlin' Wolf - Evil
Blind Willie McTell - Dark Night Blues
Rocky Fuller - Funeral Hearse at My Door
Snooks Eaglin - Mama Don't You Tear My Clothes
Hound Dog Taylor - Sitting Here ALone
Muddy Waters - My Eyes Keep Me In Trouble
Buddy Guy - Keep It To Myself
Sunnyland Slim - Fly Right, Little Girl
JohnLee Hooker - Motor City Is Burning

Elmore James - Dust My Broom
Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup - That's Alright
Little Walter - Blue Midnight (alternate take)
Abner Jay - I'm So Depressed

Fela Kuti - Coffin For the Head of State

Dawn Silva/Brides of Funkenstein - I'd Rather Be With You
Ohio Players - Skin Tight
George Clinton - Atomic Dog

Isley Brothers - Work To Do
Sly & The Family Stone - Loose Booty (live)

Al Green - Love And Happiness
Carla Thomas/Otis Redding - Tramp

[Atomic Dog]

Jenny Lewis Loves Puppets and I love Jenny Lewis!

2007-08-07T12:49:00.000-07:00

[Jenny Lewis on Pancake Mountain in a glittery short skirt]

[Jenny Lewis duets with a puppet on Puppet Music Hall]

my pet rat Bukowski and I review the movie Foxfire:

Eric: When Jenny Lewis came out with Rabbit Fur Coat, I couldn't escape her at the indie radio station where I worked. There she was, on the cover, with the Watson Twins, all of them beautiful. I demanded to see her tits. In Foxfire, she's the only one that keeps her top on. Apparently, because she's suppsed to be the "fat" one. If she continues to be a public figure/indie darling I'm going to get totally creepy about her. Meg White creepy. I saw this one when I was fourteen, and all the best films were about teenage lesbians or white gangbangers. Angelina Jolie as James Dean, heroin, homemade tattoos, and a soundtrack by Babes in Toyland and Kristine Hersch make me feel 1995 wonderful.

Bukowski: I liked how the movie added a riot grrl aesthetic to the slobs vs. snobs motif, but didn't think that Joyce Carol Oates' novel about women finding strength through one another in the repressive era of 1950s small-town America needed to be updated to uber-hip mid-90's Seattle. I also think that Jenny Lewis is better suited as Rilo Kiley's guitarist than as a solo songwriter.

[this Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins video doesn't have any puppets but it does have a guest appearance by Sarah Silverman. It's like two years of indie rock sex fantasies rolled into one awesome package:]

Impermanence

2007-08-07T08:34:00.000-07:00

Date: 8/6/07
Location: Empty Bottle
Bands: Permanent Midnight, Skarekrau Radio
Cost: FREE!
Drinks: $1.25 PBR
Things I missed to be there: Nightfoxxx, Protman and the Start at the Note; helping an old friend nurse legal system wounds at Delilah's
Reason for going: The price + the way some of my friends swoon whenever they talk about Skarekrau Radio

"This song's about an Alfred Hitchcock Movie. It doesn't matter which one."

I was talking about bands with this guy on a bus one time and he described Permanent Midnight as "a Bloodyminded cover band featuring everyone who's ever played with Bloodyminded."

I can't think of an apt-er description. The band featured members of Panicsville, The Coughs, Carpet of Sexy and a couple dozen other bands crowded around a table full of electronics. Every now and then, one of the people standing at the table would switch places with the person holding the microphone, announce something like "This song is called 'Hotdog stuck in a teenage girl's vagina... actually it isn't stuck but it's in there pretty good'" and then slam into the audience for somewhere between six and ninety seconds of tuneless, electronic hardcore.

Skarekrau Radio was a little harder to peg. There wasn't really anything special about them, as far as the noiise/experimental/whatever scene they roll in. Ten plus people. Homemade costumes. a naked guy. They were pretty much doing the bizzarro world jam band thing that midwesterners like Cave, Fuck 911, and Warhammer 48k and big time money makers like Acid Mothers Temple and Animal Collective do a lot of. The result is kind of like psychedelic tribal dance music. You can get a similar sound out of acts like Konono No. 1 and Waterbabies, but the difference is that they have a much more electronic sound.

[Here's a video of Skarekrau Radio doing their thing; all pictures above are of Skarekrau Radio, even when I'm talking about Permanent Midnight]

Mixtape for Sarah [WZRD]

2007-08-03T14:47:00.000-07:00

The Coup - My favorite Mutiny
My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult - Kooler than Jesus
James Brown - Take Me Higher and Groove Me

Mika Miko - Capricorinations
Spires that in the Sunset Rise - Crooked Spine
Indian Jewelry - Come Closer Abridged

Bunny Brains - Posterboy Gravesite
Drummers of the Societe Absolument- Juba
Justice - D.A.N.C.E. (remix)

Liars - Grown Men
Terry - Let Me See You Smile
The Coughs - Penal Colony
19th & Morgan - Surrender

Social Junk - Voting Riders

The Hate Moms - Mother's Day

Ornamentals - No Pain
M.I.A. - XR2 Turbo
Anty NY
Screamin Cyn Cyn & the Pons - slumber party
20th century steel band- heaven
los abandoned - a la mode
Delta 5 - mind your own business
esg
dj signify - winters gone
radioinactive - refrigerator
matt & kim - frank
vyle - tomos with the 3 spokes
insect deli - no more snacks

[This be the new M.I.A. single]

more run on sentences as our hero visits the Blue Man Group

2007-08-02T08:35:00.000-07:00

Taken on their own, the individual elements that make up the Blue Man Group- trashcan percussion, gross-out performance art, body movement and interpretive dance, mime, clowning, and prop comedy- are some of the most hated elements of busking. For years, evil aldermen like Burt Nataras have defended their yuppie constituents by attempting to shut down unlicensed street performance doing just this kind of thing. Somehow, while the guys on the street are struggling to get by asking for pocket change, the Blue Man Group is able to sell out the Briar Street Theater nightly at sixty bucks a ticket.

It's easy to get cynical about something like that, because the Blue Man Group isn't some local-grown industrial dada outfit, it's a franchise that sees the city as a market, with enough tourists to support them through waxes and wanes of local support, just like Six Flags Great America and the Hard Rock Cafe. There are little bits of commentary in the show, that are more dangerous or cutting than you'd expect, but more shallow than they seem, critiques on the pretensions of high art consumers (with Sturm und Drang references!), how computer culture separates people from one another, and on the lack of depth in pop and rock music and the music industry (which is a little the-pot-calling-the-kettle-black as you get to see a Grammy-nominated performance art troupe launch into crowd pleasing covers of Ozzy Osboune's "Crazy Train" and Devo's "Whip It" on a PVC pipe organ).

So the punches are more like love taps, and you just might notice, but if you do, it'll probably be in retrospect, because, fuck the bullshit, the Blue Men put on a good show. The music is listenable, even in recordings where you can't see how it's being made, there are some more than service-able electronic jams, and even though the stage show is time-tested and years' old, it still feels fresh. There are of simple, beautiful moments, too, that are more surprising than anything else in the show. Once you've gotten used to the three Blue Men vomiting through holes in their shirts, turning off the lights as they use scrolling lcd screens as drumsticks, or playing oil drums full of blacklight-sensitive paint, you're not expecting them to cover a windowpane with shaving cream and use it as a projection screen for a film about animation as it derived from shadow puppets.

The show ends the way it always ends. Bad techno. Strobes. Rolls of toilet paper overflowing and becoming a tidal wave as people pass them up towards the stage. Baby's first rave. In the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe talks about how Ken Kesey figured out how to use strobe lights, rhythms, and bright colors to simulate the best parts of an acid trip, and that pretty much happens here. Awed love feelings, slowed time, and a bit of a freak out.

Worth is a relative term. Because I don't have anything, sixty dollars seems exorbitant, and I can really appreciate the kids on the street, giving art away for free. Hopefully, if and when I ever have money I still will, but I'd wager to say, tht if I was a grown man, who wanted to hear some music, or feel a bit high, or just get some chucks out of a theater show, I wouldn't hesitate to drop sixty bucks on the Blue Men.

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-07-31T01:25:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-30T10:35:00.001-07:00

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?

2007-07-28T16:23:00.000-07:00

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.

another cassette party on the [WZRD]

2007-07-27T15:27:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

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]

2007-07-24T00:03:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-21T00:18:00.000-07:00

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]

2007-07-20T14:56:00.000-07:00

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]

2007-07-17T01:56:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-16T10:50:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-15T10:50:00.000-07:00

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]

2007-07-10T01:13:00.000-07:00

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"

2007-07-10T00:50:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-09T23:57:00.001-07:00

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]

2007-07-06T14:48:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-06T01:13:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-05T01:51:00.000-07:00

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]

2007-07-03T00:04:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-01T02:14:00.000-07:00

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]

THE PRINCESS IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE? MAN, FUCK THAT!

2007-06-30T16:56:00.000-07:00

Date: 6/30/07
Location: Chicago Cultural Center
Bands: Super 8 Bit Brothers, Nullsleep, Bit Shifter, and visuals MF Chicago
Cost: FREE!
Drinks: Flasked?
Things I missed to be there: Happy Salmon at Permaent Records
Reason for going: I was told we would be able to hear videogame music and play videogames

"This song is about the three best things in the world: Girls, time travel, and super string theory."

Rocking out on a hotwired Gameboy, New York's Nullsleep can't help but to look like a petulant, hyperactive kid at an airport.

This is the opening salvo of a four-part series of videogame themed shows sponsored by Art of Play Chicago, which brings the Ohm Multimedia Series to the Cultural Center and aims to transform the tourism center across the street into an indoor playground with a revolving set of toys ranging from board games to videogames to model planes, trains, and automobiles. The Cultural Center may seem like an odd place for this but you can tell that the audience, a weird assemblage of nerds, ravers, programmers, circuit bending noise musicians, and tweaker high school kids in Mindless Self Indulgence t-shirts, are all happy to be inside and well-hidden away from the sun on this hot Saturday afternoon.

"If you can, I'd like to see you buy some shirts or cds, because I'm back in school and, well, books on time travel are really expensive. Also, I've got one smll t-shirt left, so if anyone wants it, you've all got half an hour to shrink down and buy it."

[Nullsleep rocks a Tokyo crowd on his world tour]

The Way a Masquerade Ball Goes Down in the Community of the Future

2007-06-30T01:10:00.000-07:00

Date: 6/30/07
Location: Intercourse
Bands: Mister Fuckhead and Friends, Dan Layne, Eavil, Spunky Toofers, Neues Musiker-Kollektiv, Sir Vixx and more
Price: $8 suggested
Drinks: BYO / $1 cans of crap
Things I missed to be there: El Zocalo Urbano 2 Year Anniversary with Maintenance Crew, Ultratumbados, Eske, Condenada, Scheme, Jam One and more; Underground Existence with Gabe Polomo and Matt Main; Pearls Mahone & the One Eyed Jacks at the Mutiny; Lord of the Yum Yum and Oh My God at Schubas
Reason I went: Wasn't sure how late the Urbano Jam was going, wanted to do both, started late

"Does anyone like videogames?"

An awkward cheer rises up from the crowd, emotionless, like a person trying to be encouraging without dropping their posture, multiplied until it's a crowd. There were some real cool motherfuckers at the show tonight, but there was some family too.

"Good, cause that's all I write songs about."

Neues Musiker-Kollektiv, better known as Mike Perkins (or that dude from Far Rad), runs back and forth into the crowd like the "Near/Far" song from Sesame Street, if it were set in Blade Runner. Dan Layne is filming everything, feeding it into his computer, and projecting it out as some soret of wonky digital kaleidoscope. As Mike resets one of the machines in the corner, he asks us if we'd rather hear a song about the videogame Paperboy, or the movie Total Recall.

Mike Perkins as Benny: I got four kids to feed
Mike Perkins as Arnold Schwarzenegger: So what happened to number five?
Mike Perkins as Benny: Aw, shit, man! You got me. I ain't even married. Now put your fuckin' hands in the air!
[electronic breakdown]
Audience Member 1: What the fuck?
Audience member 2: I have no fuckin idea.
Mike Perkins as Arnold Schwarzenegger: Get in the fucking helicopter now!

Hoggle comes up next. Goofy clothes. Grotesque rubber mask. Writhing around on the floor. In a room full of people who've seen the way Hoggle acts at parties, no one knows he's performing until he starts rapping and climbing a man he wil later introduce to us as George W.

Later, as Spunky Toofers is crawling around on his hands and knees, looping from one broken toy to the next, I hear Hoggle and George W share this heartwarming exchange.

George W: I've known this motherfucker for ever...
Hoggle: Seventeen lifetimes, we were vikings together.
George W: We've done everything but grow up together as kids.
Hoggle: In the next life, man. In the next life.

Like I said, a lot of posturing, but a lot of family too.

Eavil doing Chic A Go Go

proud again [WZRD]

2007-06-29T14:58:00.000-07:00

Camel - Wait
Television Personalities - This Angry Silence
Iggy Pop - African Man
Fingerprintz - adiation

The Dance - Slippery When Wet !!!
The Cure - Grinding Halt
The Contortions - Contort Yourself
Patti Smith - Pissing in the River

The Pop - Maria
Link Wray - Snag
Celebration - War #!
The High Numbers - Zoot Suit

Sam Most - Hot House
The Scandinavian Front - Never Too Much Talk
Devo - Clockout
Clique Talk - Softgirls Softalk
Nitzer Ebb - Murderous

MEAH! - Ass Fulla Science Suit
Pantychrist - Overture !!
James White and the Blacks - Almost Black
Los Abandoned - Conquistarte Bien

Berntholer - Toys
Subject - Tattoo for England
Bene Gesserit - I am Turning Myself
Tiny Tim - Tiptoe through the Tulips

Tiny Tim and Eleanor Barooshian - I Got You Babe
Strange - Plant Life
Talking Heads - Life During Wartime

Talking Heads - Memories Can't Wait
The Buzzcocks - Why She's a Girl From the Chainstore

Clock DVA - The Act

[Here's Tiny Tim being all awesome with a cute girl from the band The Cake]

onward and upward

2007-06-28T01:16:00.000-07:00

Date: 6/27/08
Location: (1)The Mutiny (2) The Freeform Shuffle at Spot 6
Bands: (1) Meah! and Michael Michael Motorcycle
DJs: (2) Sir Vixx, Crusty, Arvo Fuckhead
Things I missed to be there: Opposites Attack, I am the Liquor, Rotten Milk, Total Abuse, Dirty Sheets, and Carrezza at the Co-Prosperity Sphere; the other bands at the Mutiny like The Sass Dragons and the God Damn Doo Wop Band; the other DJs at the Freeform Shuffle like DJ Demchuk and LA Jesus
Reasons I went: Too hot to write or work out at home, had to go somewhere, Bridgeport still too far

Global warming is actually a misnomer. While one of the very real consequences of the use of Greenhouse Gases is the deterioration of the ozone, our planet's natural shield of defense against the bad parts of the sun's rays, it does not necessarily mean the world is going to get warmer. Some gases, the kind that form smoke and smog and other grey things can work as a buffer between us and the ultraviolets, while others may reflect them, and still others may magnify them. The one thing we do know about the Greenhouse Effect is that without a natural defense against the sun, everything goes batshit. Light, tides, temperature, menstruation, circadian rhythm.... everything goes crazy. Eventually the pendulum will swing, and before it settles we'll see chilled summers and superheated winters. It'll be New Zealand all the time and I can't wait.

The weather almost kept me in today, after a day of work and an overlong meeting, but I was saved by my own obstinance and a lonely friend with a car.

The sun was nowhere to be seen and it was still too goddamn close for it to be worth it. Wednesday Night was an acceptable loss so all reasonable people stayed inside.

The cops slow down to yell at us for loitering, but think better of it. The car has A/C. Arvo has drunk himself back in time, yelling belligerent nonsense at strangers on the street like a 14-year old with a chip on his shoulder against yuppies.

Inside Spot 6, a naked Sir Vixx hangs from the water pipe and humps his set partner to the sounds of their own spastic techno. His dreads thrash around like a tortured octopus in a Japanese fetish movie. With his hairy muscles heaving, he looks kind of like a gorilla, a gorilla wearing an octopus sombrero, or perhaps one of the nightmares from Jacob's Ladder has taken up breakcore.

A gothic furry in cat ears and pentacle tries to catch an umbrella being waved above his head from the couch. I see my friend across the street in his wheelchair, and everyone thinks it's perfectly dickish of me to not cross the street my own self until he starts trying to bargain for sex. He is not one to be pitied, at least not for any of the reasons anyone would want to.I move his leg for him, as one of the foot plates has been bent out of place, and he asks me if I have any blow. We ditch each other for home and the next adventure. The computer for me. Neo for him.

Margaret runs up with a sweaty, drunken hug, "I'm playing the cymbal!"

At the Mutiny, MEAH! plays a dual set with Michael Michael Motorcycle. A blue bin in the center holds various pots, pans, cymbals, drumsticks, and coffee cans for interested parties to band upon, although most of the people remaining have put them down to jump up and down with what is left of their half pitchers.

I can't imagine the Mutiny having an awesome air conditioning system, but for the few minutes we got to see the last set of the night, we were as comfortable as Australians in July, getting ready for winter.

Come Again

2007-06-27T12:07:00.000-07:00

Date: 6/26/07
Location: Club Azucar
Bands: Demonslaught, Condenada, and 2 Minute Tantrum
Things I missed to be there: Scrabblor with Gutter Butter at Red-i; Thanx for the Memories with Thax Douglas, Daniel Knox, and the Syllable Section at Ronny's; Outdanced! with DJs Rand Sevilla, Pier Novikov, and Peaches at the Funky Buddha Lounge
Reason for going: Wanted to see blood get spit + it was a friend's birthday + job interview in the morning and too many motherfuckers at the Funky Buddha

A Chicago institution that may be going the way of the dinosaur is the liquor store with a bar in the back/bar with a liquor store in the back. Personal favorites in West Town and Ukie Village are long gone now, and I can't help but think that Crown Liquors/Club Azucar is next. There's just something so scummy about these places and their clientel, as if as a whole they're scummier than the sum of their parts, that Daley and his lapdog aldermen can't stand them.

As scummy liquour store bars go, Club Azucar isn't that bad. Sure, some of their regulars look equal parts living dead and cautionary tale, but if you walled off the fluorescent entrance to the store, you'd have a better looking place than any of the bars on my block. Nice TVs and jukebox, good selection, nice design, a fairly ample dancefloor and now.... punk and grindcore shows!

I hate to say it, but this may very well end up being the place's undoing. Maybe not, though, or at least not for a while. The place is doing steady business and the neighborhood is gentrifying but not a whole helluva lot. The two biggest signs I saw last night were the sign for the new comic book store and Elastic Arts, in its little space above the Chinese Restaurant.

Bludwulf was supposed to play tonight's show, but rumor has it that one of them got arrested on the road. I'd seen them before, awesome horrorcore cstumes, uninspired horrorcore music. The big draw for me was Demonslaught, which one of my friends described as "Gwar from the Southside."

The show started with Demonslaught's singer Jack rampaging through the crowd with a rubber chainsaw in a bloody jumpsuit like a viking zombie. At basement shows, I hear the band spits blood all over and plays with fire, but here they just handed out a bunch of toys.

"I now dub you Ninja...Pirate...Princess," Jack announced as he placed a talisman necklace, a Jolly Roger hat, and a light-up scepter on birthday-boy John, "and for you, we play The Beatles birthday song."

The crowd raised plastic daggers in toast as the band launched into some blistrering grind.

Condenada did their Condenada thing, with the fast parts jackhammered and the slow parts dirge-y (search this site for about a million descriptions of how they're awesome.)

2 Minute Tantrum played next. Three women from Minnesota and a guy who left Chicago for the Twin Cityies years ago. They played fun, 80s style bouncey hardcore, with a little bit more overt of a Ramones/Naked Raygun influence than most hardcore bands are willing to share these days. Happy anger.

They played til the singer's eye-makeup ran own her cheeks with sweat. The bar sold out of PBR bottles, so people toasted cans. I grabbed some 25 cent granola bars from the store out front, and left.

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-06-26T00:05:00.000-07:00

lab rat set:

The Zombies - Summertime
Frank Penn - Gimme Some Skin #
Eddie Steele - Groove Me Mama
Craig Ferguson - Gonna Build a Nation

Yesterdays New Quintet - I remember John Coltrane
Chip Willis - Im Gonna Gitcha
Nobody presents Blank Blue - All the Shallow Deep
Smith - Baby Its You

Shangri-Las - Whats a Girl Supposed to Do
Mavis Staples - 99 and 1/2
The Harvey Averne Dozen - Never Learned to Dance #

Los Tainos - Amor Mio #
The Coasters - Down in Mexico
The Delfonics - Ready or Not Here I Come (Can't Hide From Love)
Screamin Jay Hawkins - Frenzy

Chow Nasty feat. Pep Love - Floor is Bouncin' #
The Beastie Boys - Electric Worm #
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

Billy Stewart - Summertime

fuckhead set:

MAD Lads - Sidewalk Surf
Aretha Franklin - Rocksteady

Bloodstone - Natural High
Curtis Mayfield - Superfly

Bobby Womack - Across 110th street
The Four tops - are you man enough?
Johnny Harris - Stepping Stone

Isaac Hayes - Pursuit of the Pimpmobile

Herbie Hancock - Wiggle Waggle
Bootsy Collins - I'd Rather Be With You

<[holy shit, Billy Stewart's version of Summertime rocks my ass]

Monday Monkey Lives For the Weekend, Sir

2007-06-24T21:46:00.000-07:00

Date: Saturday and Sunday 7/23-24/07
Location: (1) The Boris Kar-Loft; (2) Berlin
Bands: (1) Waterbabies, Brenmar Someday, and Run 184; (2) JD Samson & Johanna Fateman, Greg Haus, Heather Doble
Cost: (1) $5 (2) $10
Things I missed to be there: The only worthwhile jam was a Skeleton News benefit at the Junk Shop featuring Tight Phantomz, Brett Gand is Dead, Eric Ziegenhagen, and a puppet show; I also missed the Belmont and Sheffield Music Festival and the Switchyard Fest with Bob Mould and the Wrens, the Pride Parade and the Dyke March
Reason I went: I was looking for something for something to do after work one day and before work the next

The last time I went to the Boris Kar-Loft, it didn't have a name yet, let alone the best name ever. It was just some dance-party at some awesome, run-down old loft that was too dark to tell if the dark spots on the wall were black mold or someone painting with fire. Now, they're having like one or two shows a week.

When I got there, some guy whose name, I believe was Run 184, was flooring the crowd with a synth-and-drums cover of Smashmouth's "Walking On the Sun". His one-man-band dance set had people coming and going, but ironic-minded 90s kids were glued to this like a trainwreck.

In the interim before his dual set with Waterbabies, Brenmar played some mash ups while a bunch of televisions showed one of the boring-er scenes from Tim Burton's Batman. He was building up for Waterbabies, Hunter Husar-s Mahjongg side project (along with a half dozen other semi prominent local noiseos, that is), whose sound is kind of an electronic tribal jam. It was so good, it knocked out the power (three times). The first time, the power got cut, and switched on again, the band came back with a fury, blowing away anything that they'd been doing prior, but the secnd time, the mood kind of changed; all the people who'd bee playing electronic instruments started banging on drums, which kept people going until the lights came back, but the third time, it was pretty much over. Some people grumbled about the ferocity with wich door charge was checked, and some people left sated, onto home or the next jam.

I was a little awkward though. I had been the whole night, especially before my friend gave me a few swigs of Old Granddad, but I wasn't able to put my finger on it until a friend took me to berlin the next day, to hear the non-Kathleen Hanna members of Le Tigre spin.

My friend used to do a show there with her partner (life-partner, that is, in a much realer way than they were clubnight partners). She paid my way, because I think she wanted a friend there, to be near her while everyone asked her where her ex was. She wasn't there to dance though, just like I wasn't there to shmooze/reconnect with old promoter friends, so when they all showed up and gathered around her, well dressed, beautiful and, inordinately, tall, I had nothing to do but dance or get out.

I did a quick look around for a dance partner.There were people I recognized, the usual suspects of writers and photographers, but no friends, and I didn't have the balls to dance, just like I didn't the night before.

It's not really something new, but more something that's always been there. Without a posse, I feel ridiculous, like someone who doesn't fit in, like an object of invisible ridicule. I don't know how true it is, if it's a sign that I'm getting older, or just something I need to recognize and overcome.

I'm having a very low-confidence time right now, and I don't like it.

Godspill [WZRD]

2007-06-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

Tom Waits - God's Away on Businress
The Shadows - Jungle Fever
Bhopal Stiffs - Bottle It Up
Kid Dynamite - Sweet Shop Syndicate

Puffy AmiYumi - Sunday Girls
Red Elvises - Mamasita
Quintal de Glorofila - Viver
Shyheim - Here Come the Hits

DJ Spooky - It's A Mad, Mad, Mad World
Pantychrist - I Love Army
Bugs in the Dark - Apple Pie / I Change #
Morcheeba - Over and Over

Half Pipe - I trade My Food Stamps for Kool Aid Points #
Air Conditioning - Where to Litter #
Klaus Nomi - Lightning Strikes
Powerhouse Sound - Coxsonne #

Quantazelle - On
Welcome - First
Flying Luttenbachers - Eaten by Sharks

Flying Luttenbachers - Throwing Bricks
Air - 25years Old/ Me, We/Honey Cow !!!
Madlib - Distant Land/Mystic Bounce
Missy Elliott - Bring the Pain (feat. Method Man)

The Gravetones - In Cold Blood
Yellow Crystal Star - 333/Au Le

Kamala & the Karnivores - Love Like Murder/Back to Bodie/Bone Bouquet/Black Thumb

What's A Girl Supposed To Do

2007-06-21T14:28:00.000-07:00

Date: 6/20/07
Bands: The Deccas with the Hushdrops
Location: Liar's Club
Cost: $5
Drinks: $1 PBR
Things I missed to be there: 16 Bitch Pileup and Magic is Kuntmaster at Enemy; Flosstradamus as Subterranean; Women's Worth, Binges, and Fake Lake at the Boris Kar-Loft
Reason for Going: A girl group! A damn hell ass girl group!

The time is right for r&b and soul music to shed some of the trappings of hip hop and come back into its own right. I'm really happy with the way artists like Gnarls Barkley and Amy Winehouse, and even- ashamedly- Christina Aguilera have been adapting the old shit, from Sly and the Family Stone to the Shangri-La's, to the new era, one of stolen, digital music, energy crises, and orange alert terror warnings. The only thing is that all those big name artists had their start doing something else. Amy Winehouse got people to care about her overseas with some slightly boozey, kinda racy adult contemporary shit, trip hop and Norah Jones-style jazz; Cee-Lo Green was already doing some neo-soul crooner work when he started Gnarls Barkley, but even he got his start doin Dirty South hiphop with Goodie Mob; it probably doesn't need to be said, but Xtina built her name using one of the best voices on the radio to make some of the worst music of the last decade.

The question, for me, is whether you can build this kinda thing from the ground up, especially when it comes to girl groups. Even though a lot of the recordings seem pretty lo-fi today, the production was often considered more important than the talent, and pretty very high-end. Most of the girl groups that we think of when we think of girl groups (the white ones that is, not the Motown ones who, up until the Supremes stayed pretty steeped in a doo-wop sound) were put together by the legendary producer/psychopath Phil Spector. Bob B. Sox and the blue Jeans, Darlene Love, The Crystals and the Ronettes all had the benefit of Spector's Wall of Sound and they set the tone for a scene that would include a lot of imitators.

Twenty years later though, after he would work with Tina Turner and the Beatles, Phil Spector would meet the Ramones, and produce their 1980 album End of the Century. This was the Ramones' fifth album, and their throwback 1950s sound had long since been established, but I think something happened in that meeting of the Ramones and Phil Spector, that would make it impossible for a band to just style themselves after the old girl groups and actually sound like them.

I was excited when I heard that my old friend Emilie, a girl I went to ska shows with in high school, who has since become enmeshed in Chicago's mod scene, had formed a girl group, and would be playing a show at the Liar's Club. I like the Liar's Club a whole shit ton. The drinks are in the affordable range, the owner is nice, the bartender is nice, they've got a good mix of b-movie, horror and porn on the tv screens and a good amount of punk rock most days of the week but I can tell you this, the Liar's Club is a terrible place to see a show, especially a band's first show. The sound was atrocious, fuzzed and metallic, and the joint was too thin for most people to really catch a glimpse of the band.

The Deccas had their look down. They weren't totally matching but their outfits, the singers' outfits at least fit thematically with one another, a variation on big hair and tiny, shimmery cocktail dresses. Their sound wasn't crisp though. Some of it could be attributed toi the room, or the sounguy, or whoever was fucking up, but I think part of it could be attributed to Phil Spector meeting the Ramones. They sounded punk, at least a little, the way Japan's 5,6,7,8's sound punk even when they're rocking a Tina Turner song. I'm not completely sure, on account of the fuzz, but I'm pretty sure I had heard The Decca's play Turner's "I'm Blue (the Gong Gong Song), which the 5,6,7,8's perform in Kill Bill.

Not that it wouldn't be awesome in different surroundings. The 5,6,7,8's are ten different kinds of awesome and the Deccas could be too with a little more time. I just wish the band had a little more money thrown at them to get it all together, or that we had our own little Phil Spector here in town, because one thing's for sure: Ain't no Chuck Uchida's or Steve Albini's around that can make these girl's sound like Diana Ross.

[Of course there aren't any videos of the Deccas up on youtube yet, and my good camera's in the shop, so I thought I'd end with the 5,6,7,8's doing that Tina Turner jam for Tarantino]

Square Heresy [WZRD]

2007-06-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

Israel Vibration - Universal Father
Cornish In a Turtleneck - I'm Like You
Mutantes - Jogo de Calcada/Haleluia
Zbigniew Karkowski and Eric Lyon - [11:43]
Charles Bukowski - The Secret of My Endurance

Resplendent - What's To Change
The Apes of God - Art Deco
John Trudell - Fables and Other Realities
Dan Deacon - Breakfast Cake/Penis Sleeve

The Wilburn Brothers - Trouble;s Back in Town
Jimmy Martin - Tenessee
Bill Anderson - Sleeve
Patsy Cline - Sweet Dreams
Percy Mayfield - Baby You're Still a Square

The Shangri-Las - Remember (Walkin in the Sand)
Lord Buckley - The Hip Gahn
Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross - Twisted
Slim Gaillard & His Middle Europeans Yip Roc Heresy

[Apparently, this Lord Buckley fellow was indeed the shit, and occasionally, so was television. CORRECTION: Lord Buckley makes me kind of uncomfortable and television is and was often racist]

asses to asses, lust to lust

2007-06-14T13:04:00.000-07:00

Date: 6/14/07
Location: Spot 6
Show: The Freeform Shuffle
Bands: The Gravetones, Grace Kulp, and Magic is Kuntmaster
DJs: Brianne, Arvo Fuckhead, and DJ Demchuk
Cost: $5
Drinks: Best to pregame it down the street at Twisted Spoke's Whiskey Wednesdays
Things I missed to be there: David Diarreah, Rotten Milk at The Compound; Bike-In Movie at Heaven Gallery; Caution Wednesdays with Accidental People, Daryl Pure, Martin Stoy, Theo-G, Osiris, K'nex, Vinnie Accardo, Jackie Neon, and Malafaktor at Spybar

Back when I had a big pink mohawk, I used to go to goth nights around town, thinking maybe I'd have a chance with some of those exquisite living dead girls, the kind who would always make my heart skip a beat with their harlequin faces and tits all over the place in vinyl and leather. No luck. The punks and the death rockers hadn't been on the same team since back when Medusa's closed down, and i was still scraping my knees on jungle gyms. Eventually I got tired of it. The few friends I made, I would see elsewhere, and all that was left was expensive drinks and bad industrial music.

I could never afford to look the part, but I've always felt an affinity to the scene. All that melodrama; all that theater and poetry. Absinthe and lace. Lewis Carroll and Edward Gorey. And death. Lots of death.

Beautiful inevitable death.

Tonight was the Freeform Shuffle's first Death Nite. It was a unique event, in that the night was inherently goth, and so were the bands, but they came from all over the goth spectrum, completely skipping over, if sometimes grazing, the industrial genre.

First up was Magic is Kuntmaster, a beautiful woman who filled the room with strobe lights and fog while blasting out music along the lines of Panicsville and Insect Deli, with grinding synths, tape loops, and creepy vocoder experiments. She was an indicator of what was to come throughout the night, and what already was, namely theater and melodrama.

Magic is Kuntmaster used her props to suffocate us with noise, light, and smoke, to the point where if we didn't have someone to touch, we were completely alone, and that's how I experienced most of her set, misty and half blind, trying to focus my eyes on a thrashing silhouette who for all the flashes, may have been beating up some celestial body. We were listening to the epileptic death knell of the moon, or something like it.

Upstairs, people milled about in the finally-tolerable night air, smoking cigarettes and personally fuming. Magic is Kuntmaster arrived late, and the Dead Superheroes Orchestra cancelled, but instead of rearranging the set, the show just waited (in the way that death waits for us all? sure, that's an alright metaphor I guess.).

A lot of people were angry, but not me. The show started late enough for me not to miss anything. The DJ was playing Nick Cave's "The Curse of Millhaven", followed by Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead" and Miss Kitten's "Frank Sinatra".

While Magic is Kuntmaster loaded up her Mini-Pink Floyd setup, Grace Kulp unloaded an awe-inspiring set. They unpacked a few curved blac slats of wood. They brought their own stage.

"Has the second band even started yet?"

"Almost. They're putting up a fish net in front of them."

I don't know if I ever heard as impressed a groan as I heard from the milling-about members of the headlining Gravetones. I don't know if Grace Kulp expected to get paid, or how much money the show may have raked in, but I can't remember a time when I'd seen a middle band put so much effort into dressing their set.

It gave people a chance to get intrigued (if annoyed), and time to smoke their cigarettes, before returning.

Some people knew what to expect, and some didn't. I've written about Grace Kulp's dark wave folk music before, played on an electric acoustic with Peter Murphy's voice, but it's still pretty impressive.

The last band was The Gravetones, one of the bigger names on the local psychobilly scene. Starting with their guitarist's soundcheck of Naked Raygun's "Rat Patrol", the band were consummate crowd-pleasers. Flanked by a backing band of regular dudes ripping out one-at-a-time the Gravetones singer had an Elvis look to him, were Elvis to simultaneously return as a bloated zombie and the voodoo priest who'd conjured him. Their set drew more encores than they were ready for, with foot stomps, hand clap, circle pits, and singalongs. They were a bit bitter about performing last, well past the midnight hor, but no one else could have followed them and held the crowd.

It was a good night. It was a good night to die.

[Here's a clean version of Grace Kulp's song "Hatchetwound", the uncensored version can be found on the director's website at www.brianlange.com, the video at the top of the page is Magic is Kuntmaster's "Hold my Scissors"]

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-06-12T01:48:00.001-07:00

Slim Harpo - Baby Scratch My Back
Abner Jay - Cocaine Blues

Natural Bridge Bunch - Pig Snoots Part 1
The Four Larks - Groovin at the Go go
The Olympics - The same old thing

Tommy Neal - Goin' to a happening
Shirley J. Scott - Goose Pimples
Ed Crook - That's Alright

Otis Redding - The Dock of the Bay
Carla Thomas ; Otis Redding - Tramp
Carla Thomas - I'll Bring it home to you
Rufus Thomas - I think I made a boo boo

Booker T and the MG's - Hip Hug her
Albert King - Cold Feet
Bobby Wilson - Let me down Slow
Rufus Thomas - Willy Nilly
Mar-Keys - Bo-Time
Bar Kays - Knucklehead

Floyd Newman - Frog Stomp
The Charmels - Please Uncle Sam (Send Back My Man)
Mable John - Wait You Dog
Sir Mack Rice - Mini-Skirt Minnie
William Bell - Eloise Hang on in there
Sam & Dave - You Got me Hummin'

Howlin Wolf - Sittin at the Bottom
Huey Piano Smith - Little Liza Jane
Howie & the Crystals - Golly Gee

Jack McDuff - Hunk 'O Funk
Marvin Holmes and the Uptights - Day of Rest
K. Frimpong and his Cubano Fiestas - Hwehwe Mu Na Yi Wo Mpena

The Meters - Just Kissed My Baby
Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girl

party people pop pills in petunia emporiums

2007-06-11T13:19:00.000-07:00

Date: 6/9/07
Location: The Flower Shoppe
Price: $5, $10 once the place got packed
Drinks: Foamy kegs with admission, mixed drinks for a buck
DJs: Livewire, Skyler, Mr. Bobby, DJ Demchuk, Rayaline, and Fabian
Things I missed to be there: The Chicago Rocks Hip Hop Showcase with Flosstradamus, Qwazaar, Crucial Conflict, Psalm One, All Natural, Verbal Kent and more at The Metro; World Naked Bike Ride and its assorted afterparties; Pilsen to Pilsen festival at Busker and Polvo; Ohtis, Maps & Atlases, and So Many Dynamos at PeopleProjects; Itch13 and Intel at Ohm
Reason for going: One of the DJs wanted me to take some pictures of him, plus I failed to get my bike operational after six hours of trying

The Flower Shoppe, home to Busker and Dai5ychain, throws some interesting events, everything from noise shows to lectures to hacker workshops to dance parties. I came tonight expecting more of a blowout than I've been able to make it to in a while, and while the place gotcrowded, it never quite blew up while I was there. I think the failure to become the jam of the century came from the misperception that people like elctro more than they do. At any point in the night, the right cheeseball hiphop track, mouths frothing and sex on the floor. I mean new cheeseball, old cheeseball, R. Kelly, Sean Kingston, Wreckx N Effect, Chamillionaire, Junior M.A.F.I.A. or the Humpty Dance. People were dancing but they wanted to yell shit with the songs. I did too.

This was the youngest dance party I'd been to in a while, more late teens than early twenty-somethings, and it was cool to see the new school work their shit. Not to be all back-in-my-day about it but these kids all grew up with cell phones, digital cameras, cell phones and myspace accounts and are just that much more involved in preserving the moment for the future/the internet. Cameras were flashing everywhere, often overwhelming the projected video, and everyone was famous.

sometimes the right guys in the right place for the right price don't mean shit

2007-06-09T11:57:00.000-07:00

Date: 6/8/07
Location: The Viceroy
DJs: Protman, Alexander Bassett, Pinches Cowboys and more
Drinks: BYOB
Price: FREE!
Things I missed to be there: Chicago Rocks Hip Hop Showcase (Day 1 Sucks); Mister Fuckhead Brass Ensemble, Complicated Horse Emergency, Mucca Pazza, Aloft Loft, and Why Are We Building Such A Big Ship? (Ended before I got out of work); Claremont keg jam with Nightfox, Cophands, and Menowax (busted before I could get out of work)
Reason I went: Easiest party to meet my sig-oth at; most promising as well

A lot of DJing today. Like most Fridays, I started out the day at WZRD, trying to bleed the weirdness out of my systen before working a corporate gig. You can see my setlist immediately below this post. Then I set off to make money. I was spinning at an upscale sushi lounge. They like downtempo, dub, electro, chilloit hip hop and a little bit of 80s and radio R&B. This is the only place I'm spinning for my company that expects me to play my own shit. I'm still figuring out the compromise, and building up my collection. A lot of stuff from Verve Remixed and Motown Remixed. A lot of couple-years' old shit that grazed the mainstream: Ladytron, DFA, M.I.A., Miss Kittin, Lily Allen, Nouvelle Vague, Propellerheads; A lot of hip hop producer shit: RJD2, Ghislain Poirier, Blockhead.

The more I do it, the better I feel about it. Skillbuilding and whatnot.

I was really annoyed this time, though, as four idiot people kept me from getting my party on. In one of my favorite songs right now, R. Kelly chastises motherfuckers of a moderate income for bringing their girls around him when the girl's are very likely "looking for a platinum type of guy." The problem with working a platinum joint is that you've got to deal with platinum motherfuckers with platinum egos who think the world resolves around them. I didn't leave the joint until one in the morning, which isn't at all unreasonable, except for the fact that there was one couple still sitting around at one, forty minutes after the bartender walked around the room extinguishing candles and twenty minutes after he turned on the houselights. They weren't drinking, or eating. They had settled their bill. They just didn't want to leave. Atually, I'm pretty sure thast she did and he didn't. I think she wanted to go out dancing where he just wanted to go home and fuck, so he tried to stall her at the restaurant. Don't be that guy. I will put a mystic cockblocking hex on you like I put a hex on him, and your lifetime sexual batting average will resemble that of the Chicago Cubs after they were hexed some eighty years ago. If you were going to stay someplace, buy things. Tip the bartender (and, er, um, the DJ) and get the fuck out when it's obvious that he or she is no longert interested in keeping the place open for you.

So I finally got free. I'd missed the circus show but dance parties abounded.

When I got to the Viceroy, there were more people outside than there were in, but the music was good. Protman was spinning off cds and a laptop. He was like a much better version of me, playing staples of my weirdier dance sets like The Contortions, Soft ink Truth, and Mr. Oizo, but actually providing a backbeat to match them all into one flow. Protman is often paired up with Mother Hubbard, aka Dangergirl as the Life During Wartime DJs. Somehow, I've never seen them play together even though they're supposed to throw some of the best dance parties on the bar scene. I've seen them each play solo, and considering their solo sets, I'm surprised. Mother Hubbard's sets always had some good gems in them, but overall they were kinda boring. Protman, on the other hand, did a lot of really interesting shit, but his sets were never really so accessible as to get everybody moving. One of my roomates explained that they work really well off each other for that exact reason, and become something more than the sum of their parts. Watching the scene as it grew and grew, and I guess well into the night there were still more people outside than in, I felt kinda jealous and kinda hopeful, that I won't just be able to get it, but I'll actually be able to bring it to the table soon enough.

[I love Flat Eric!! Watch him dance in the Mr. Oizo video for "Flat Beat"]

Fur Flung Fryday [WZRD]

2007-06-08T14:21:00.001-07:00

Nora Keyes - Excreted from Our Mother's Womb
Bunny Brains - Model Bitch (Fashion Vers.)
Miss Kittin - Meet Sue Be She
RJD2 - Since We Last Spoke

Madame P - Qall
zerodB - A Pomba Girou
Ghislain Poirier - Civil Disobedience

Magas - Chicagocide
Bonde Do Role - Gasolina
Fleck/Velat - Bonk Assist

Amy Wnehouse - You Know I'm No Good
Opposites Attack! Up Down
Naomi - ????
The Juan Maclean - By the Time I Get to Venus

The White Mice - Limburger Baby
Juba Dance - Willow Blues
Donald Byrd - Lansanna;s Priestess (DJ Spinna Remix)

Felix Werder - Banker
Horace Silver - Won't You Open Up Your Senses (4 Hero mix)
Gene Harris - Los Alamitos Latinfunklovesong (Bugz in the Attic mix)

Iggy Pop - The Passenger
Ladytron - Seventeen
Lily Allen - What Went Wrong

Black Bear Combo - Wooden Ship

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-06-05T00:03:00.000-07:00

J Walter Negro and the Loose Jointz - Shoot the Pump
The Coup - We Are the Ones
The Mad Lads - My Inspiration
The Coasters - Charlie Brown

Voodoo Glow Skulls - Charlie Brown (The Coasters cover)
Titus Turner - Do you Dig it?
Cyril Ferguson - Gonna Build a Nation
Solomon Linda's Original Evening Birds - Mbube
Sam & Dave - Hold On

Desmond Dekker - The Israelites
Rufus Thomas - The World is Round
Joe tex - The Love You Save (May Be Your Own)

Ray Charles - The Man With the Weird Beard
Peggy Lee - Fever
Screamin Jay Hawkins - Frenzy

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - I Put a Spell on You (Screamin Jay Hawkins Cover)
Cobras - Restless

Little Milton - Grits Ain't Groceries
Barbara & the Browns - Big Party
Roscoe Robinson - Let Me Be Myself

Ruth Copeland - Your Love Been So Good to Me
Funkadelic - You Can't Miss What You Can't Measure
Ice Cube (feat. George Clinton) - Bop Gun

Mable John - You're Taking Up Another Man's Place
Little Richard - Bama Lama, Lama Loo
The Coasters - Down in Mexico

grass not ass

2007-06-03T14:27:00.000-07:00

Date: 6/2/07
Location: Eckhart Park
Show: The Bel Eckhart Sound Experiment with Prefuse 73 and others
Drinks: Illegal
Cost: Free
Things I missed to be there: Sleeping late, eating well, exercise.
Reason for going: Those things are boring as shit

It was a nice lazy Saturday afternoon at Eckhart Park, if a weird one. Prefuse 73, which today included a half dozen knob twiddler, tweakers, and button pushers. It wasn't the environment I think of when I think of hip hop, what with a bunch of hipsters sitting like hippies cross-legged in the grass. They looked like they were appreciating the music but they weren't really feelin it. Same as when rock bands play in the sunlight, it's just this whole different, unnaturally danceless vibe.

The event didn't wholly make sense at all. I think it's because at various points in time, a number of bands were going to be involved that ended up falling through. One of the cooler parts of the show turned out to be the art installations provided by The Chicago Underground Library and The Ice Capades video series, which I hadn't really noticed, until the heavy metal cover band The Battle of Good Versus Evil took the stage, and I got restless.

In a small garden, The Chicago Underground Library planted word trees, which were little non-sequitirs taken from their colection of zines and chapbooks. A few feet away, The Ice Capades had built cardboard mutoscopes where you could watch various videos from their collection. When you looked through the viewfinder of one mutoscope, you were treated to a series of experimental works from their collection; when you looked through another, you could see animated shorts by the likes of Lilli Carré and others.

More than anything else these displays, especially the mutoscopes, helped the Sound Experiment live up to its name, and seem anything more than just a tiny neighborhood street fest.

chicken food for the urban soul

2007-06-02T09:27:00.000-07:00

Date: 5/29/07
Location: Feed
Show: Outdoor Crayfish Boil with Al Schorch IV and many others
Drinks: FREE Smirnoff, Jim Beam, ice, lemonade, and iced tea, to mix at your convenience
Things I missed to be there: Outdanced at Funky Buddha; $6 dollar Tuesdays at Kerasotes AMC
Reason for going: FREEE FOOOOD

It's hard to imagine Humboldt Park turning into the next Wicker Park. If you go down the main financial strip of Division, past the 50-foot Puerto Rican flags, the votive stores, the sad and hopeful murals tipping their hats toward Catholicism, revolution, and community, it looks as though nothing short of an astronomical event, a comet hitting the Earth, a second great Chicago fire, could change it's face. If you look to the secondary financial district, the (White) financial district down on California, you can see why real estate devils are calling Humboldt's border "East Wicker Park" the way they used to call Wicker Park's border "South Bucktown" when they wanted to sell the neighborhood to young families in the 90s. There are lounge bars, vegan diners and cafes, and at least one concert venue. Because of the condition of the neighborhood they moved into, they aren't replacing the bodegas and storefront churches, but they are taking up all the spaces around them, and soon property taxes will do the rest.

That isn't to fault these establishments, as they really are of the community. The California Clipper is full of bilingual poetry groups, house bands, and bingo games; The Flying Saucer really wants to save the world; and when the noise cabaret gets to be too much, you can often find the Reversible Eye's neighbors grilling out back.

Then there is The Continental. Pass by the Continental afterhours and you can see what Milwaukee and Damen looked like before it looked like Division and Rush. Hip motherfuckers, yuppies, and drunken jerks making their last stand against going home or, worse yet, going home alone. I try not to fault things for being something I don't like. If the city was willing to hand out more 4AM permits, the 4AM bars wouldn't have such a high concentration of dickheads, but because they are, the city won't grant more, and because the city is so unwilling to grant late night licenses, these bars will stay in business forever, assholes or not. I can't fault The Continental for its patrons as I scan the line around the corner, and I can't fault The Continental for replacing the Hiawatha Lounge, which was a wonderful bar with a wonderful bartender and Bakelite 78 as its awesome house band, I can fault The Continental for it's musical selection and philosophy. A couple friends were spinning one night when they were warned not to play any "Black music". A while later, they succumbed to the urge to grant a request for what was inarguably the song of last summer, Chamillionaire's "Ridin' Dirty". They were immediately shut down and banned immediately from spinning there again. Fuck The Continental for that.

I have much warmer feeling for The Continental's next-door neighbor Feed, a dim-lit country kitchen that specializes in kitchen. Feed may be the first family restaurant in Humboldt Park that specializes in American food (I can only describe the Flying Saucer's mostly-vegetarian fair as an alternative family restaurant; of course there are many great family restaurants in the neighborhood that specialize in Puerto Rican cuisine, which is of course American food, but, well, you know, different). I have a friend who left her barista duties downtown to work at Feed, and apparently they treat her better than anyone else she's ever worked for. On Monday, when the restaurant was closed, the staff was taken to Six Flags.

Today, Feed opens their outdoor patio with ribs and crayfish. Not the best crawdads I've ever eaten, but the only time I've ever gotten to eat them here in Chicago that wasn't at my house. To make it a real celebration, they got a bunch of acoustic bands to play in the back, mostly duos, mostly folk and country, with a little bit of old-timey rock'n'roll. Sweat streams down Al Schorch's beet-red face as he strums away at his banjo. The speed, with which he is playing could be described as furious but there is nothing furious about the way he plays the silly songs he likes to sing when he picks up his banjo. His suspenders droop half off over him. The sun begins to set, and he is more of the place than anything I've seen before it that day, as if it couldn't be a crayfish boil at a country kitchen that sits one block away from yuppieville, one block away from heavy gang territory, and one block away from the diminishing industrial district down Grand.

The restaurant's owners have brought in a number of thirty-something lesbians, families and professional artistic types (-slash artistic professional types). The staff has brought out the new school of the neighborhood. Al has brought out his friends in the Rat Patrol, costumed in various shades of crust, steampunk, and glamarchist. Every racial hue is represented in the twenty- or thirty- square foot yard behind Feed, but it's overwhelmingly White. This is Humgboldt as Humboldt is going to be, for a while at least, a genuine, well-meaning, form of gentrification.

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-05-29T00:05:00.000-07:00

Cyril Neville - Gossip
The Mighty Hannibal - Somebody in the World For You
The Magnificents - Up On the Mountain

Con Funk Shun - Electric Lady
Johnny Zamot - Soul Makossa
24 Carat Black - Poverty's Paradise

2nd Amendment Band - Backtalk
20th Century Steel Band - Heaven and Hell is on Earth
Abraham & the Metronomes - Party
Afrique - House of the Rising Funk
Little Sister - Stanga

Babe Ruth - The Mexican
Jack McDuff - Theme from an Electric Surfboard
Co-Real Artists - What Was Her Name?

Baby Huey - Hard Times

Otis Redding - I've Been Loving you too long (to stop now)
Isaac Hayes - Need to belong to someone
Sly & The FAmily Stone - Don't Call me Nigger, Whitey

Lena Horne - Summertime
Irma Thomas - Wish Someone Would Care
Hightower, Willie - Walk a Mile In My Shoes
Abner Jay - I'm So Depressed
The Incredibles - There's nothing else to say
The Parliaments - Dont be sore at me
The Bob & Earl Band - My Little Girl

The Detroit Land Apples - I need help
Carla Thomas - Gee Whiz
Booker T and the MG's - Chinese Checkers
The Mar-Keys - Whot's Happenin'?

Early College Mix CDs

2007-05-28T22:21:00.002-07:00

Up through my first year of college, I was still making mixtapes with cassettes, and all the attention and fussiness that that entails. The technology had been available for mix cds by then, but not so much at my house. By the time I came home for that first summer after college, Napster had been replaced by Audiogalaxy and my parents had updated both their computer and their internet connection, and were sitting at just-about eye level with the digital age. I made a bunch of mix cds that summer, mostly intended for the car.

I found a few of them today. Scribble whose companion is Scrabble, and Quick Assorted, whose companion is the cleverly named Quick Assorted 2. It was a year before I had started working as a DJ and my tastes got weirder. I was beginning to eschew the Fat Wreck and Epitaph style pop-punk I'd favored in high school, for more old school and hardcore, but I was a sucker for novelty songs. Scribble stands as a testament to my obsession with the band Sublime, not just by featuring two of the band's own songs, but a collaboration between singer Brad Nowell and No Doubt, also the drummer Bud Gaugh's short-lived side project Eyes Adrift, with Curt and Krist of the Meat Puppets and Nirvana, respectively. Quick Assorted was made with the intention of being listened to at my friend Charles' house while we got high, with the exception of the Murphy's Law blitz at the end, which only I could stand, and tells me that the cd was made right after I saw one of my friend's bands open up for them at the House of Blues.

Quick Assorted
1. Camper Van Beethoven - Eye of Fatima Pt. 1
2. Perez Prado - Mambo #5
3. Edwyn Collins - A Girl Like You
4. They Might Be Giants - Oder
5. Ian Dury & the Blockheads - Sex, Drugs, and Rock'n'Roll
6. My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - Sex on Wheelz
7. Melanie Safka - Brand New Key
8. Camper Van Beethoven - Eye of Fatima pt. 2
9. Del Shannon - Runaround Sue
10. Blondie - Call Me
11. Bad Religion - Americn Jesus
12. Frank Zappa - Catholic Girls
13. Frank Zappa - Jewish Princess
14. Frank Zappa - Titties and Beer
15. Murphy's Law - Panty Raid
16. Blondie - One Way or Another
17. The White Stripes - Fell in Love with a Girl
18. The Dead Milkmen - Punk Rock Girl
19. Murphy's Law - Secret Agent S.K.I.N.
20. Murphy's Law - Quest for Herb
21. Murphy's Law - Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head KLicked In Tonight
22. Oysterhead - House of the Rising Sun (live Animals cover)

Scribble
1. They Might Be Giants - Dr. Worm
2. Marilyn Manson - Cake and Sodomy (Tony Wiggins remix)
3. NOFX - Fucking My Mom
4. Johnny Cash - Cocaine Blues (live)
5. The Moldy Peaches - Steak for Chicken
6. Asylum Street Spankers - Winning the War on Drugs
7. Juice Bros - Thirteen Years Old
8. They Might Be Giants - Older
9. Sublime - Rivers of Babylon (Boney M cover)
10. Sublime - Falling Idols (Falling Idols cover)
11. Madness - One Step Beyond
12. No Doubt feat. Bradley Nowell - Total Hate '95
13. Eyes Adrift -
14. The Ventures - Walk Don't Run
15. The Dead Milkmen - I Dream of Jesus
16. GG Allin - Bite It, You Scum
17. Guttermouth - Asshole
18. The Rolling Stones - Paint It Black
19. Offspring - Smash It Up (The Damned cover)
20. Del Shannon - Runarond Sue
21. Sid Vicious - My Way (Frank Sinatra/Paul Anka cover)
22. Stretch Armstrong - Get the Party Started (P!nk cover)
23. Hi-Standard - Theme from The Pink Panther
24. Talking Heads - Psycho Killer
25. The Dead Milkmen - Punk Rock Girl
26. Buck Satan & the 666 Shooters - Friend of the Devil (live Grateful Dead cover)

"So, um, what do we think of veterans anyway?" "They got us a day off!"

2007-05-28T22:21:00.001-07:00

Date: 5/28/07
Location: Rancho Huevos
Bands: Tierra de Nadie, Barren, Disrobe
Cost: $5 suggested
Drinks: BYO
Things I missed to be there: Free the SF8 benefit with Mic Terror, Hollywood Holt, The Cool Kids, and Million $ Mano at The Funky Buddha Lounge
The Reason for going: Whenever something comes up, punk shows are the first thing to get neglected, so, I guess the answer would be guilt plus curiosity plus up the punx!!!!!

Memorial Day weekend was a bit rough on your boy, 2007. I played about four shows by the time Monday came around, and was a bit worse for the wear. I had a nice showing of friends show up, and drank more booze than I had in a while, all of it either much, much better than I'm used to drinking, or much, much worse. Still, I felt bad about missing as many shows as the weekend was willing to offer up. On Sunday, Brilliant Pebbles played the Fireside Bowl, 2% Majesty came back to town for a Ladyfest benefit at South Union, and Environmental Encroachment and Black Bear Combo joined a couple other bands at the weekly Orphanage jam, and then EE moved down to a friend's barbecue and kept shit going there. There was shit going on the rest of the weekend to, but Memorial Day Sunday is a thing to behold. The first warm three-day, four-night weekend of the year.

So today I'm continuing everything with what must be the fourth barbecue I've included into all the craziness and by the time I get to the punk show, I feel like I'm gonna puke, and all I've got to fight my sobering headache is Diet Pepsi. Much as I wanted to see Tierra de Nadie and Disrobe, I couldn't make it past the first band. The flyer referred to them as Barren but I heard them referred to as Burger Baron and Anal Leakage and I couldn't tell if they were serious or not. It might just be because I got ahold of a bunch of old mixtapes I made in high school but I thought the band sounded like a cross between poppy fast melodies of Screeching Weasel and the screamy-without-being-growly-ness of Bikini Kill. Not bad at all.

Then I ran into an alley and let loose lord only knows how many pounds of hamburger and vegetables masquerading as hamburger.

lyrics that made me happy

2007-05-27T12:48:00.000-07:00

When I was seventeen
Sex held no more mystery
I saw it as a commodity

to be bought and sold
like rock'n'roll

-"Rock'N'Roll" by The Mekons

[more mekons. different song. here.]

The Goodbye Sandbox Show

2007-05-26T00:18:00.000-07:00

Date: 5/24/07
Show: The Urban Sandbox 4 Year Anniversary Spectacular
Performers: Death From Below, Lamon Manuel, avery r young, Seemore Perspective, Kevin Coval, Mina Corwin, Robbie Q, Butter, Add-2, Billy Tuggle and much much more.
Location: The Ice Factory
Cost: $4 suggested
Drinks: $1 PBR
Things I missed to be there: Extreme Noise Terror and Phobia at the Note; DMBQ at the Empty Bottle; Vertonen at Enemy; Newcity Pool Party at Motel Bar; Spring Fever with the DJs from Think Pink and the Women on Women Music Show at T's Bar; Disrobe, No Slogan, Rager and Canadian Rifle at La Casa Maldita; Major Taylor, Jordan Z, Bald Eagle, The Kampfire Killaz gang, Trancid and Geertz at Debonair Social Club
Reason for going: I was invited...wouldn't have missed it for the world

The pool of awesomeness in this city just got a little smaller. For the poetry scene, the open mic scene, and the all-ages scene, it was a much bigger hit. For the last four years, Dan Sully and friends have been throwing the Urban Sandbox at the Ice Factory. Remember when I printed that letter the Ice Factory sent out, that explained why they were going to stop throwing punk shows? There were a number of factors involved, but one of the big ones was that the neighborhood was comin up, and the new neighbors, acting the part of the disgruntled yuppies they were bound to be labelled as, raised a fit about the punks and poets they'd see congregating outside of the Ice Factory's big green door, and now the whole place is going away.

Nobody knows what the future of the show is. When I talked to Sully about it, he said that he would need to find a location that provided everything that the Ice Factory had. Really, the show wasn't that different from many others. Every month there was a featured poet and a featured artist; at the end, there was the innovation of a featured photographer. A revolving group of DJs was always on hand to play inbetween each performer, and a charming group of skilled motherfuckers got to act as host. It wasn't until I thought about it that I realized how integral the Ice Factory was to the run of the show, an all-ages space that wasn't a bar or a cafe, that wasn't looking to make any money off the thing, that existed for more than a year.

There are only a couple open mics in the city that I could stand on a regular basis. I met some of my oldest and dearest friends over at the In One Ear at the Heartland Cafe. The Heartland has been the show's home for almost ten years but they aren't really that dedicated to it, and while every poet worth their salt in this city goes through the Heartland once or twice a year, few of them are regulars. Every Tuesday, Charlie Newman runs an open mic out of a cafe cleverly referred to as The Cafe. The place is full of skilled regulars, some of the best in the city, but they aren't young and hungry anymore, they're all over thirty and set for themselves. No one's looking to get famous, which is wonderful because when you go there, you can tell that no one is trying to sell you anything, or do anything other than share their words. Still, while it's technically an all-ages show, and an all-ages venue, it isn't the right scene for the cats who are still in high school.

[W]oot! [Z]oot! [T]oot! [R]oot!

2007-05-25T14:58:00.000-07:00

Bonde do Role - With Lasers

Funkadelic - (GLORRYHALLASTOOPID) Pin the Tale on the Funky
Edith Piaf - Milord
Billie Holiday - Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer

Japan - Obscure Alternatives !
Beck - I'm So Confused (feat. Petra Hayden and That Dog)
Bikini Kill - Rebel Girl

King Kong - Funny Farm
Awesome Snakes - Shut Up
Disciplinatha - Nazioni
Jr. Walker the All Stars - Shotgun (Los Amigos Invisibles Mix)
Martha & the Vandellas - (Love) is like a Heat Wave (David Elizondo Mix)
The Temptations - Papa Was a Rollin Stone (David Elizondo Mix)

The Ex - Euroconfusion

R. Kelly - I'm a Flirt (feat. T-Pain and TI)
Cookies & Dirt - Untitled
Los Abandones - Stalk U

The Kind of Show that Pisses Off Bar Owners

2007-05-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Freeform Shuffle didn't go right, even though it didn't feel wrong. All the bands failed to promote, the door girl didn't collect any money and the DJ sets were...weird. It felt like something feels right before it ends, when most of the people who love it have left it alone to die, so they wouldn't have to see it happen themselvers, but it might just look that way in retrospect.

The night was supposed to end in an all-star noise jam, which the show's two hosts would be remiss not to participate in, so instead of bookending the show with DJ sets, Demchuk and Fuckhead lumped into the beginning. Downstairs, Mark Bose played his brand of Nick Cave-y goth folk and C. Tomorrow and Cool D. played some hip hop for their cameraman. Upstairs, two sets of DJs did two sets of tributes. First, the members of Eavil did a VJ/DJ set of Siouxsie Sue and her bands the Banshees and the Creatures; then DJ Lolliboo did a full set of 'Weird' Al Yankovich songs. This may have been too much for any bar; if you needed to get away from 'Weird' Al, your best two options were to go downstairs for the noise jam, or go down the street for Whiskey Wednesdays at Twisted Spoke.

As noise jams go, this one was pretty good. Sounds Happy, Mister Fuckhead, The Machinist, Death Factory, Sir Vixx, Billy Sides and Allison Lake twiddled knobs, smashed things and made a racket. I tried to see if I could create noise photography by attaching a mini strobe light to my camera and aiming it at random. The owners were displeased. Apparently they were ready for the noise to end , which became a problem as both of the night's hosts were deaf in the middle of it, and they had no one to tell to knock it off.

It felt like the end, but the writing isn't on the wall. Afterwards we took some rum to the beach, stripped to our skivvies and had our first genuine summer experience. It was an echo of the night a year ago when a lot of us first met each other in the middle of the night, on the beach, after a show. I've been wondering for a while, whether it is better to be making inroads in your art, not necessarily respected but known, and making progress, if all that dedication means you have to lose a lot of friends cuz you don't have the time that friendships require, for people outside of your field. I don't know the answer but, whatever happens, it will be hard to think of Wednesday night as anything other than good thing.

TwoSlaps Radio

2007-05-22T00:03:00.000-07:00

[I was off to a good start but the show took a real turn towards the sloppy! --ELR]

The Coasters - Down in Mexico
Medeski, Martin, and Wood - I Wanna Ride You
Ween - Freedom of '76

Smith - Baby It's You
The Luther Ingram Orchestra - Exus
Amy Winehouse feat. Ghostface Killah - I'm No Good

Brother Ali - The Puzzle
Akello Uchenna - Been So Good
Little Louis barber - Specify
J Walter Negro and the Loose Jointz - Shoot the Pump !!!!!!!

The Parliaments - Don't Be Sore At Me
Lanu - It's Time
Elvin Spencer - Lift this Hurt

Pieces of Peace - Pass It On Pt. 1
Slavic Soul Party - Never Gonna Let You Go

Fela Ransome Kuti & the Africa 70 - Confusion

Gil Scott Heron - The Needle's Eye
Black Moth Super Rainbow - Wall of Gum
The Velvelettes - Stop Beating Around the Bush
The Indigos - He's Coming Home

Altyrone Dno Brown - Sweet Pea
Johnny Davis with The Arrows - The Love I See Now

You Got Me Addicted

2007-05-20T03:14:00.000-07:00

Date: 5/18/07
Location: The Manor
Show: OffGrid Radio Benefit with The Catchelorettes, DJ Demchuk, VJ Daze, Mr Bobby, and Skyler
Cost: 5 bucks sugested
Drinks: 1 dollar vegan jello shots, 1 dollar Budweiser
Things I missed to be there: Window Show with Squirrely Gee, blutt, Cyro, LB The Viking and more all up and down Belmont; Ladytron dj set at Darkroom; loft jam with Gut Reaction, Red Denizen; Quennect Four jam with Kyle Harter, Kyle Lavalley, Marat vs. Marat, and Charlie Deets; The Electric Set at Reversible Eye; J-Rocc and some other Stones Throw cats at Sonotheque
Reason I went: I kinda put it together

Rogers Park is a great place to throw a party. Up til now this was mostly just a working theory. After 18 years and one odd summer of living there, and then six years away, I never even tried until Friday. Rogers Park now is like Logan Square was five years ago, when I was throwing obscene ragers in a garden apartment on Atrill. Despite the fact that the neighborhood is coming up, and that no small amount of professional families are able to call it home, parts of it are still pretty hairy, and anything that doesn't end in bloodshed doesn't warrant the cops leaving their car to give you a warning. The drawback is that every now and then, events do end in bloodshed, as the owners of the former Cocobean Cafe found out a few years ago when they let a local kid rent the place out for a birthday party.

That was actually just two doors down from The Manor on the strip of Glenwood that has come to be known as The Rogers Park Art District (or something like that). Glenwood has seen a lot of action over the years. For years it has been home to the No Exit Cafe and the Heartland Cafe, centers for underground theatre, open mics, activist events, outdoor vegan dining, and cheap Huber Bock; the Red Line Tap, which is a neighborhood rocknroll bar; a blues bar I forget the name of, and the Lifeline Theatre. When I was growing up, I was mystified by the Eagles Aerie Shamanic Counseling Center and Turtle Island Books. While I was away at college, the space that is now The Manor was Phantom Limb studios and right next door, they were throwing punk shows and zine readings at The Independent Video Alliance. Now they've got the experimental arts venture Mess Hall down the street and soon, Evil Squirrel comics will be opening up next to that soon.

The tall and short of it is, I love Rogers Park and I love throwing parties. I can't live in Rogers Park because my parents still occupy space there, and I haven't been able to throw a party in almost exactly one year, because my new place is too small, so when my friend Alicia started lamenting how she wishes she could use her space more often, the gears started turning in my head. The Manor is a perfect space for a party. As it is, it's a big sparse loft that gets used primarily as a theatre space. Still, as ten o'clock rolled around and the band started up, I started to get that tinge of fear, that I was old, and this was a young man's game, that I had lost it, that no one was gonna show up and I needed to stop trying. This happens every time. Little by little, people started to filter in.

The Catchelorettes are a fairly-new girl group that plays quirky pop punk under a few layers of fuzz and scuzz. They came out in homemade prom dressed, with faces contorted in a kind of aganozized, maniacal apathy, if such a thing is possible, as they ripped into a cover of Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl". If you remember that mp3 that floated around during the good ol' days of Napster, of Mr. Bungle ripping through a sludge cover of Britney Spears' "Hit Me Baby One More Time"... it was like that. There were maybe twenty people there at the time, probably half of whom came for the dance party, and this is what won them over. By the end of the Catchelorette's set, th crowd was still small, but respectable. Thirty, maybe forty people.

The DJs, being DJs, showed up late, and did a mad dash to hook up their equipment before the people got bored. Then the jello shots showed up, and the place turned into a party. Something about that first blast from the PA, that first cup of straight foam from the keg, and the first slurp of a jello shot sent a wave out to the party people all over the city, that it was time to arrive. I hate fashionably late people. Ironically, I'm not the least bit punctual, so I guess I'm a hypocrite, which is alright because I booked some kickass DJs, right?

Danny Daze, DJ Demchuk, and Mr Bobby have all played together a lot, and while they're each good on their own, they really shine doing a tag team set. They play off each other really well. Demchuk will toss out something like "Hip Hop" by Dead Prez or some random ass mashup shit and Daze will follow it up with some whitelabel electro that nobody knows, followed by Nitzer Ebb or some darkwave shit from Mr. Bobby that whips the gothier kids into the same frenzy as the party people.

After that it was by the numbers. Booty juke. Keg runs. The cops circling the block and not doing anything. A broken toilet seat. There wasn't even a fight. The band needed the PA back at 2, so we improvised a rig with a bass amp and the party petered out naturally. It was good times, and a part of my life that I had sorely missed, and now that I've recaptured it, it's got to go off again.

suicide as a cure for headaches

2007-05-18T19:00:00.000-07:00

Through the machinations and reformatting of certain blogger fundamentals, I lost my setlist to today's show.

For the most part I played new releases,
including Marshall Jefferson Jefferson, Soft Serve, and Bonde do Role.

In fact, the only older cuts I played were done by Ike Yard and they kicked my ass.

The Only Two Songs I Wanna Hear At All Right Now

2007-05-15T11:35:00.000-07:00

As performed by bots from The Sims and douchebags from Syracuse

R. Kelly feat. T.I. and T-Pain - I'm A Flirt

Europe - The Final Countdown

You're welcome.

TwoSlaps Radio [WLUW]

2007-05-15T00:05:00.002-07:00

Lab Rat:

Lifesavas - Shine Language #!
Brother Jack McDuff - Shadow of Your Smile
Carla Thomas - Something Good *Is Gonna Happen To You)

The Shangri-Las - Leader of the Pack
The Charmels - Please Uncle Sam (Send Back My Man)
Booker T. and the MG's - Groovin

Chuck Berry - Almost Grown
Isaac Hayes - Do Your Thing
Professor Longhair - Junco Partner

The Miracles - Mickey's Monkey
Jackie Wilson - Reet Petite (The Finest Girl You Ever Wanna Meet)
The Coasters - Down in Mexico !!

Sam and Dave - I Take What I Want
The Midniters - Devil With a Blue Dress/Good Golly Miss Molly
Broadneck - California Cool Ride

Lena Horne - Just One of Those Things
Ray Barretto - AbiDjan
The Bar-Kays - A Hard Day's Night
Cortijo - Sorongo

Rufus Thomas - Can Your Monkey Do the Dog?
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

ARVO:

Irma Thomas - Time is on my side
Irma Thomas - Breakaway

The Daisy Chain - All Because of Him
The Honeys - He's A Doll
Diane Ray - Please Don't Talk to the LifeGuard
You Cheated - Sunday & ____?

The Coasters - Charlie Brown
The Traces - Je T'aime Moi non Plus
Payom Moogda - Tamai Dern Sae (Why Do You Walk Like a Drunkard?)
Chai Muansing - Pee Kow Pee Ork (Ghosts Come and Go)
Paiboon - Yom Pha Barn Norn Pahwaa (Satan's Nightmare)
Don - Sunshine Day

Los Straitjackets - La Hiedra Venenosa (Poison Ivy)
Abner Jay - I'm so Depressed

loopship destroyer

2007-05-14T19:34:00.000-07:00

Date: 5/11/07
Show: Looptopia with Bobby Conn, The Machinist, Paul Johnson, Redmoon Theatre and many more
Cost: FREE!
Drinks: For sale with cute names in a few locations, but mostly snuck in from home
Things I missed to be there: Lupe Fiasco down the street at Manifest; Belligerent Outburst, Eske, Sangre de Abajo, Sin Orden, and Tras de Nada at 4737 S. Western
Reason for going: It sounded like the old MCA Solstice Parties, which were the best things ever

Looptopia proved one thing, that the city may or may not have caught onto in the aftermath: give the people something to do and provide no more than a minor, non-interfering police presence and the city of Chicago can pull off a party. From what I saw of Looptopia, the most successful event was the MF Chicago dance party on the loading dock of the former Carson Pirie Scott. It was the type of event that looked like crap from a spectator's vantage point, but was a great time once you got into it (like any show at The Metro seen from outside the vantage point of a mosh pit). The acoustics were terrible and the projections were kind of haphazardly thrown onto the walls, but once you pushed yourself into the gind, it didn't feel like downtown, it felt like a party. People crowd surfed, personal spsce was breached, drinks were spilled left and right and soon enough all you could see were random flashes of light and flesh.

Laws were broken here and there. Hell, my friends and I probably broke some with my coffee cup full of Sparks, and my girlfriend's bottle of Diet Coke and Jack, but no fights broke out. Nobody got hurt or overdosed. The walls didn't get tagged to high hell, and the chillout room, surreal in the open air of the parking lot, remained plush and intact. Then it ended.

I figured that the city was worried about shit getting out of hand with an all night dance party, or maybe they were just worried that if it didn't get out of hand, it would set precedent for other parties, until we had the same kind of night life New York gets to brag about. Whatever the case, it didn't happen. Most of the big live acts were over at midnight, leaving people confused, full of adrenaline, promised an all night art party with no idea where to go. Rumors bounced back and forth: this hotel, that rooftop, Macy's. Crowds of weirdos mixed with the dapper promgoers exiting the Palmer hotel.

Eventually, as is usually thecase, things got out of hand. I got word of some friends over at Milennium Park. Someone instigated a chant of "Chi-Ca-GO! Chi-Ca-GO!" and as that started to die, someone replaced it with "Fuck New York" and people started to get busy, trying to rockthe Cloudgate sculpture (affectionately referred to as The Bean) until the cops showed up and things became frenzied.

A few blocks away, we were noticing an increased police presence as well, a Segway contingent, that we taunted by singing the guitarline from Europe's "The Final Countdown" (a reference to the Segway-riding Job on the cancelled TV show Arrested Development). Daley Plaza, which had previously been packed for mediocre concerts by Bobby Conn and The Ponys, was filled with theater nerds making their own fun playing games like "Big Booty" and bike punks who weren't sure where to go, once Redmoon was done breaking down their contraptions.

We got bored and we left. Other people got arrested, or tried to force the fun. If everything had started later, and done a better job spreading out, nobody would have notived how sparce the events were after midnight and it would have been a great Friday night.As it was, it was just another Chicago event, both over-and-under hyped, both over-and-under done, full of good intentions and a couple of genuinely sublime moments.