pendable, posable dolls of meh

date: 1/27/06
wheres: Reversible Eye, the Ice Factory
whos: Mucca Pazza and contortionists, Pkdores
cost: 5 beans
what I missed: Daedalus, Elliot Lipp, Slicker Six8 the Shocker, and the dude from Telefon Tel aviv at Sonotheque
why I went: I thought I wouldn't miss the animal acts, when do I get to see animal acts?

Chicago is starting to get weird again, in that anything-is-possible way. It's cyclical, I think. It feels like it did in 2001, when Buddy Gallery opened up and the Azone moved into the Congress Theatre Building, when Fred Burkhart, Bopcamp, and the Peoples Republic of Delicious Food showed me just how much you could get away with in this city. It feels like it did in 1999, when Environmental Encroachment, the Nervous Center, and WZRD changed my way of thinking about the city I live in. It feels like 1996, when the Fireside Bowl was a home away from home and every time I got off the train in a new neighborhood I would find adventure. The last few years have shown an extremely dedicated party scene, but it looks like more people are interested in putting on decent shows these days, in various parts of the city, and with more challenging juxtapositions of performers/

So I finally saw Mucca Pazza, my third favorite marching band in the city, which is not a slight in any way. While their music isn't as doesn't get my feet moving as quickly as Environmental Encroachment or Black Bear Combo, there's something to be said for sheer scale. Now Reversible Eye Studios, the part that's open to shows, is just one not-so-big room, and it would probably seem crowded with twenty five people inside. Mucca Pazza consists of over twenty musicians and two cheerleaders, all wearing costumes that fit somewhere between a high school marching band's uniforms and those of Civil War infantrymen (North and South--and for the record, I'm pretty sure the Confederacy would have won if they had cheerleaders; have you seen the girls at the schools down there?) I'm pretty sure I've only seen that many (active) people on stage once, and that was a Parliamentfunkadelic type thang, and when I saw P-Funk they were at an actual venue with an actual stage. Reversible Eye has more of a raised platform, about 3 feet by 5 feet. Obviously, the band spilled over, and the room was pretty packed. I kept waiting for the cops to show and hoping they didn't. Maybe that's why they got everything over with so quickly.

It was impossible to dance without slamming into people, so most people didn't try (as it wasn't exactly a slam dance type of thing). Mucca Pazza's music was standard brass band funk, but there were a few stand-out numbers. One song was a whistly, Ennio Morricone funeral march that could have, and might have, come straight from "The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly". Another was all surf. It was pretty breathtaking to see twenty-some people playing surf music, but even moreso to see them get quiet. I would have liked for it to have gone on longer, for there to be one of those songs where one-by-one, everyone in the band gets to solo (P-Funk did it) but it never happened.

Next up were the Bendable Posable Dolls of Doom, who are part of the Aloft Aerial Dance Troupe. They were billed as contortionists but their act was more of a burlesque gymnastics routine. I don't know if it was their name or their reputation but they drew a pretty thick crowd from the Nocturna set. After a couple dozen pro-girl/grrl/womyn burlesque shows, their somersaults and suspensions weren't that impressive, despite the dayglo wigs and pleather bikinis. This might have been my fault though, since I missed the first set where founder Shayna Swanson did her aerial stuff. Worst of all, I missed the "Amazing Acro-Cats", featuring trained cats doing tricks.

Everyone seemed pretty surprised when they found out the show was over. We stood around, smoking and pining aimlessly before heading to the Ice Factory. We missed most of the bands, including Dancing Knuckles, whom one of my friends described as "Irish, without too much of that Boston sound." The last band up was Pkdores. Two years ago, when they had a saxophone player, they were one of my favorite bands in the city. They were really sloppy, with a high pitched sax that couldn't always keep up and could never solo, leading the way. They sounded a lot like the X-Ray Spex (earning them the title, the Mex-Ray Spex behind their backs), but their sound stood out a lot from the rest of the Pilsen/Little Village scene. They've tightened up a little since dropping their sax player. Their guitarist is far more prominent, and he's good, but they just don't seem that special in comparison. Oh well, these things happen. That show ended early too, but I was already drunk. I guess it's time to go to bed.


A clip of Mucca Pazza at Lollapalooza 2006]