the entire history of a band you've never heard of

Date: 3/19/07
Location: Wise Fools Pub
Band: The Sixth Sun
Cost: $5
Things I missed to be there: Chances Dances at Subterranean; Brenmar Someday and Rotten Milk at Myopic Books; LMNOP and Charlie Deets at Empty Bottle; Steve Albini talking about the music industry at the Claudia Cassidy Theatre
Reason for going: Blood:Water



It's hard to write about bands that you're friends with, because whether you like them or not, you feel like you need to quantify what you say. There's probably no band I'm closer to than The Sixth Sun. I went to high school with four of the six band members, and stayed in contact with all of them since. The first time I dropped acid was with their guitarist, the first time I ate shrooms was with their electronics manipulator, and the first time I smoked pot was with their VJ. I've stayed with their drummer twice in New Orleans and had sex in his parents bed.

I've seen the band form and change over the years, into something coherent, which is kinda weird, because they're coherent and not at all bad, but still not my cup of tea in any way.

Most bands just get together and start to play shows, but The Sixth Sun have been on a slooow, slow burn. The band started out maybe five years ago. Brian and Charles were both jamming with this annoying kid Scott, who was kind of a stuck up guitar ace. Brian was trying to do something that sounded like Nine Inch Nails and Charles was trying to do something that sounded like Tool. Scott was trying to do something that sounded like Scott and eventually became too much for either one of them. I'm not sure if they ditched him before or after they hooked up, but once he was gone, they were ready to start putting their own songs together. Originally they were an electroindustrial group with heavy acidhead influences: Indian music, house music, Alex Grey paintings, Aldous Huxley, Bill Hicks, and Hunter S. Thompson.

They were calling themselves the Avatars, and creating a real dubby, electro sound, but they really wanted a girl on vocals to anchor down the songs. They went through a string of them before finding Tiffany, a bubbly little thing with a big voice, a nice look, and her own songs.

If they ever make it, it'll be because of her. Together, they'd been a good jam band, but no one really had a dynamic enough personality to command a stage. Her songs are basically relationship pop, but she brings a pretty solid set of references with her, nothing too out there but good shit nonetheless: Bjork, nine inch nails, PJ Harvey, and Portishead.

With their dark side (essence?) and her light side, they end up sounding like a Bonnaroo-ready Evanescence, with shades of Stabbing Westward and Morcheeba replacing Amy Lee's Tori Amos fixation.

So when I saw them on Monday, I made allowances for them that I wouldn't have for bands I'd known less about. They sounded demo tape ready, but not album ready, they were kinda boring but it was only their third time playing in front of a real audience. My favorite moment of the night came between songs, when Tiffany started to sing a song from the Little Mermaid (the one with the ,whoozits and whatsits galore). There was an amazing sense of honesty to that, Tiffany was a happy person, and she wasn't going to play up the scorned sexpot image when she didn't need it. It was pretty obvious that given the right break, the band could make it, but it was little moments like that when the band showed that, maybe with some more time in front of an audience, they might turn into something I can enjoy as well.



Next up on the agenda: Tuesday seems very promising with Noise shows at Red-i, the Mutiny, Nihilist, and Elastic

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

Nina Simone - Speak Low (Bent Remix)
Gladys Knight & the Pips - I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Essence - Fever

Charles Crawford - Fat and Funky
Curtis Mayfield - Junkie Chase
Chocolate Milk - Pretty Pimpin Willie

Soul Children - I'll Be The Other Woman
Mandrill - I'll Never Smile
The Clovers - Love Potion #9

The Cookies - Chains
The Penguins - Hey Senorita
The Pharohs - Teenagers Love Song

Fabulous Originals - It Ain't Fair But It's Fun
James Brown - Just Won't Do Right
The Five Stairsteps - Danger! She's a Stranger
Otis Redding - Scratch My Back

Dr. King Cobra - Anedo Special
Bobby Treetop - Wait Til I Get to Know You
Chosen Few Band - What It Takes To Live

Eddie Bo - The Thang
Julie Driscoll - Indian Rope Man
The Fugees - The Score

Idris Muhammed - Loran's Dance

Ken Boothe - Is it Because I'm Black?
Albert King - Born Under a Bad Sign
Johnny Nash - Love Ain't Nothin (But A Monkey On Your Back)
Gene Chandler - Lovequake

Antibalas - I.C.E.


[Here's video of Antibalas playing last week at SXSW]

Ratticus St. Patticus

Date: 3/18/07
Location: The Whale
Show: Lamprey St. Patti's Alternative Artists Parade with Environmental Encroachment and friends
Cost: Free
Things I missed to be there: Adhamh Roland at the Lowercase Collective; Jam at the Orphanage
Reason for going: Better than all other options, known or unknown



The first time I went to The Whale was the Summer before I started started college. I was seventeen years old, in the midst of a three year relationship that I thought would last forever. I was full of self-esteem and open to anything. When someone called me up and told me to go to the Lamprey Pig Roast, it was probably the furthest South I'd ever been to for a party that wasn't at someone's parents house (at the not-very-South location of Halsted and Canalport). I don't remember much of the details of that evening except that it was one of those magical, inspiring nights that the summer was full of. I'd missed out on the swine but the fire pit was in full effect, as was the beer and Devil in the Woodpile. I got my dance on and my laugh on and my drink on and wouldn't see the place until four or five years later when it participated in the Version fest that dubbed Bridgeport the community of the future with The Whale listed on their maps as The house of the Future.

I ditched the Typewriter/ Mathematicians show at Texas when the prick at the door wouldn't let my friends in and biked over to the Lamprey Compound. There was still a fire pit going, but the majority of the yard was taken over by a maze of tubing. Model Rocket Scientist were playing and they blew us away (but the album the dude gave us was kinda meh). That whole night, I had the same feeling I did that first time. I was thrilled that they were still operating out of that dope spot, even if I was a bit saddened by the fact that I'd been missing a half decade or so of cool shit.

Outside of the annual pigroast, one of the things I'd been missing out on was the St. Patrick's day parade. I'm not sure when the parade usually falls. St. Patrick's happened on a Saturday and the Lamprey parade happened a day later. It was your standard weirdo parade with overlapping crew diagrams of kids from The Rat patrol, Lumpen, T.H.O.N.G., Terry Plumming, WZRD and the extended Environmental Encroachment family rolling down 18th Street with freakbikes, costumes, drums and horns.

Back at the Lampreys everyone did their own thing. Johnny Payphone was passing around a hat and tasering people for charity. Drunken vegetarians fought over hunks of steak as soon as they came off the grill. rotten Milk passed out on a couch. People paired off and snuck off to parts unknown. Impromptu jam sessions were happening all over until everyone came together in a big mess around the fire.

I don't really think of Environmental Encroachment as a band, so much as a thing that happens at parties and spectacles. As such, I'm glad when it does. I saw them for the first time, that summer that I first went to The Whale, and had one of those magical experiences. Since then, I've probably seen them play more than any other group in this city, and I don't think I've ever been disappointed.


[I'm still kicking myself for missing St. Ratrick's Day 2006]

punk show, shmunk show, I'm not Irish and I wanna do everything!

Date: St. Patrick's Day
Location: Unnamed apartment on 25th/Homan
Bands: Intifada, Sin Orden, Eske, Tras De Nada, Disrobe, Usless Wooden Toys, and Loaded First
Things I missed to be there: Hentai Lacerator, Sister Sister, Expendable Youth, Pygmy Death, and Abrade at the Expendable Youth House; The Binges and The Black Ladies at Permanent Records; Zeropoint, Labycz/Sprikut Duo, and OUR080R05 at Enemy; The Beer Nuts at Double Door
Things I didn't have to miss but did anyway: Busker and Dai5ychain's hackerfest at the Little Flower Shop
Things I ditched the punk show for after the first few bands: An Argo Tea party and a Bluegrass St. Patty's day party in Logan, two dance parties in the Congress Theatre building that got busted by the cops
Cost: 6 bucks plus the price of a forty
Reason for going: I woke up on the Southside, ordered Chinese food, had sex and left from there



This was a good show at a place that was smaller than The Beauty Shop was. In fact, there were only two small rooms you could see or hear the show from, as well as a kitchen that was only good for smoking pot and a bedroom where they were selling keg beer. There isn't really anything I can say about this show that I couldn't say about any other punk show, so I'll just post some pictures once I upload them.

Disrobe:











Intifada



Loaded First

Attack of the Killer Beers

Date: 3/16/07
Location: Cobra Lounge
Bands: Squared Off, The Wanderers, and Murphy's Law
Things I missed to be there: Radio Arte Benefit with Pkdores, Cubicky, Crather, and Condenada; Question, Black September, Demonslaught, and Securicor at La Casa Maldita; Aleks & the Drummer, A Tundra, and the Pussy Pirates at the Empty Bottle
Cost: Free
Reason I went: My girlfriend was already backstage, I had to make sure I got there before she was seduced by skinheads



"I'd like you to meet our new drummer, that's right we got a new drummer. I swear by the time I'm 70, each and every one of youse will have a chanca ta play in Murphy's Law." - Jimmy, Murphy's Law

It's not very often I make it out to a big time punk show, at a place where the doorman gets paid with a band that brings out all the old heads. It maybe happens once or twice a year (the last three were Naked Raygun, the Subhumans, and MDC). It's nice, though, after months and months of DIY shows, where the bands talk politics between every song, to just go to a bar and see some old meathead hardcore that reminds you of high school.

I have this tremendous luck, where whenever I go see Murphy's Law, I've got a friend who gets me backstage. The last time was five years ago at The House of Blues, with Secret Agent Bill and The Tossers, and Jimmy's chihuahua running around all over the place. This time I got there late, just as Squared Off was finishing their set and long after my friends the Wanderers had left the stage. My girlfriend intercepted me at the door and whisked me up to the green room. It wasn't furnished by Disney money but it was still pretty dope, just a sparsely decorated apartment on the third floor with a fridge full of beer and a radio that only got the classic rock station. We listened to Thin Lizzy and drank Bud Dry with the Wanderers and their friends, who are a fun mix of Chicago zinesters, fat dudes from Indiana, and these immaculate rockabillians.



As I've said before, the Cobra Lounge is kind of weird. We were told we had to vacate before Murphy's Law set up so we all went downstairs, and the DJ was playing Murphy's Law! They were playing "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight" (which was actually the song that Murphy's closed with). It was weird enough that they were playing a song by the band that was about to play, but even weirder when they cut the song early and played another track from Back With a Bong. It took a few moments, until Jimmy made an impromptu "Chicago" remark, that we realized that this was actually the band playing, piped in from the other room.



The band is still making new music but they've been touring forever and came out ready to give the fans what they want, which was basically, the shit they knew. They played "Care Bear", "Secret Agent S.K.I.N.", "Panty Raid", and "Cavity Creeps". They didn't have Fishbone to provide horns for "The Ska Song" like they did in the old days but they did have their new drummer wailing on a Jaeger bottle solo. On "The Beer Song" they brought out Herb from the Beer Nuts. The song still had a kick to it but, maybe because I spend so much time in the aforementioned overly political part of the scene, it was a bit shocking to hear the line "What are you, a bunch a fuckin queers?" I wonder if the Descendents would still play "I'm Not A Loser" if they were to tour again. I can't remember if they did when I saw them ten years ago (which is so long ago it doesn't even count)



The definition of Murphy's law (the theory) is anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. With this is mind, it's amazing how well the show went. There was only one fight, which didn't end in hospitalization; they never ran out of beer and Jaggermeister to give to greedy punks in the crowd; and for a 20-plus years old punk band, they were tight. Real tight, which is why we couldn't tell the difference between them playing live and a track from the cd.

You should go to Murphy's Law's website. It has animated .gifs!

Overheard Goes Unheard [WZRD]

Nobody & Mystic Chords of Memory

Einsturzende Neubauten - Sensucht
Peter Murphy - The Light Pours Out of Me
The Pogues - London Girl

The Fall - Spolt Victorian Child
The Virgin Prunes - Down the Memory Lane
Black Flag - Slip it In/Gimme Gimme Gimme

Laibach - Panorama
Psyclones - Gift of Noise!!!
Cacophony - Angst in the Shadow of Conception
Ominous Clam - Roomful of Stares

Tack Head - Now What
Occupants - You Danced Into My Life
Greaseballs - Last Wave

Book of Lies - Sleepily Coiled !
Zen Bovine - Going Down
Tribe - Circles and Squares
Sex Kittens - It's Been Like Hell
Amorfati - Destruction of a Desiring Machine: For Blanche and Tennessee Williams

Occupants - Blue Onions of Justice
Heavy Mental - One Dollar Bill
Greaseballs - Igwanna
Ominous Clam - Gonzo Boogie
FTPLR - Anarchy A
The Replacements - Here Comes A Regular

Metnong - Enough/ Rainbows Over the Vast Orbital Somewhere !
Tribe - Drift
Sex Kittens - Still Night
Preston Klik - Sapflo


[I love Einsterzende Neubauten! and I love Meret Becker! Win/Win! Exclamation Mark!]

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

Lab Rat set:

Antibalas - Hilo
Marie Boubarere - I'm Going Home
Dorothy Ashby - Myself When I Was Young

Parliament - Chocolate Snow / A Day in the Life
Dayton Sidewinders - Funky in Here
All the People - Cramp Your Style

Lupe Fiasco feat. Jill Scott - Daydreamin'
Salt - Hung Up
American Gypsy - Inside Out

Rasputin's Stash - Mr. Cool
Black Ivory - Surrender
Spittin Image - JBs Latin

Bill Cosby - Funky North Philadelphia
Jack Hammer - Wigglin' Fool
Martha and the Vandellas - Heatwave

Bootsy Collins - Cool Jerk

Arvo set:

The Four Tops - Ask the lonely
Quantic ft. Spanky Wilson - Don't Joke With a Hungry Man
The Temptations - I've Got Sunshine
Al Green - Take me to the River

Otis Redding - Satisfaction
Irma Thomas - Time is on my side
O'Jays - Backstabbers

Bobby Womack - Baby! You oughta Think it Over
Bobby Womack - I like to see my baby (w. Hank Ballard)
Hank Ballard and the midnighters - The Float

Curtis Mayfield and the Staple Singers - Funky Love
The Staple Singers - Respect Yourself

Ann Peebles - Mon Belle Amour
Carla Thomas - I've Got No Time To Lose
Solomon Burke - Hard Ain't It Hard
Paris Sisters - I Love How You Love Me

The Delfonics - Ready or Not Here I Come (Can't Hide From Love)
Sharon Jones - My Man is a mean man
Percy Sledge - If Lovin' You is Wrong (I dont wanna be right)

The Stylistics - You make me feel brand new
Sly and The Family Stone - You Caught Me Smilin'
The Intruders - Be Thankful For What You Got


[Every Monday night, from 2:00 - 4:00 AM (cst), Eric lab Rat and Arvo Fuckhead play the the best of funk and soul, its roots and derivatives. Two Slaps Radio airs on 88.7fm in Chicago and streams worldwide from wluw.org]

Go Go Buffalo!

Location: Can TV Studios
Show: Chic-A Go-Go's 500th Episode Taping with Casper
Cost: Free
Things I missed to be there: Sleep


Derik the Cameraman: For some of you, I may need to set this up. If you have been to any... African-American social events in the last thirty years, you've heard something by Casper. He's our Frank Sinatra.

There are only a few benefits to playing music in Chicago: occasionally you might get a blowjob, you get free half-pitchers at the Mutiny, and then there's Chic-A Go-Go. Chic-A Go-Go is a cable access dance party that's kind oflikeaSid & Marty CrofftSoul Train. The show is hosted by the tattood Miss Mia and the skinhead rat puppet Ratso. The tapings are open to the public, and attract a good mix of children,hipsters, weirdos, and college students dancing to music by the likes of The Shadows of Knight, Ol Dirty Bastard, Prince, Ciara, the Ramones, and Howlin Wolf. The show features at least one "live" band an episode. I've got the "live" in quotation marks because the bands never plug in so most of the time, the band is just miming and lip synching.

However fun that is (and it isone of the most fun things you can do in this city), it's one of the reasons I haven't written about it in Omophagy. Sure, I've had the opportunity to dance with Shonen Knife to one of their songs, but I wouldn't describe it as seeing them. Every once in a while though, there's an act with low enough technical requirements that they can do a real live set. Black Bear Combo was able to do their gypsy dance alongside the skating girls of the Windy City Rollers, K.A.R.A.O.K.E. was able to bring people up in front of a green screen to sing revolutionary spoofs of classicrock songs, and for part two of their five-part, 500th Episode Spectacular, Chic-A Go-Go brought out one of Chicago's first rappers, Casper.



Casper, who got the name because of his tendency to only wear white, has been DJing and rapping in the city since the 1970s, but his most lasting contribution to music has been the "Cha Cha Slide". The Cha Cha Slide is an update of the old electric slide, it's one of those catchy/annoying/earworm songs that tells you how to dance to it so that everyone is doing the same thing at the same time: turn left, turn right, hop, step, crisscross, Charlie Brown, et cetera. Needless to say, it's a big hit at weddings and Bar Mitzvahs and will probably remain so for years to come. While the song hit big in 2000, it was actually created four years earlier, for a Bally's aerobics instructor who wanted to a song that he could use as a work out (for reference, this is a few years before the Dance Dance Revolution workout and a few years after Sweating to the Oldies, about the time that Tae Bo was the big thing).

Derail one: There's an episode of Futurama where, looking to make a name for himself, the robot Bender horns in on a circle of dancing rollerbladers, trying to get them to "Do the Bender".

"This circle is about free expression, man, not your fascist moves!"

I kind of feel that way, when I'm in the middle of a crowd and one of those songs comes on, but it might just be acase of sour grapes because have really slow reflexes.

Derail two: In 1999, I was on a flight to Israel, watching the movie "She's All That" with my Dad and Sister. At one point in the climactic scene at the prom, the DJ yells, "Now everybody do that dance I taught you!" and everyone breaks into an enormous choreogrphed, synchronized dance. We lost our shit. Now everybody do that dance I taught you became a running joke of ours for years.

So here we are in 2007, a TV station full of children and people who don't look like they dance very often and a black dude in a bomber jacket and white tracksuit, telling them, "Lets hop three times!" and slowly this group of students, weirdos, hipsters, and kids comes together into something nearly reaching cohesion.



It was like something out of a movie, and it'll air next month.


[Here's Leslie & the Lys on Chic-A Go-Go]

Mixtape Masturbation [WZRD]

Lead in: Sunn O))) & Boris - Akuma No Kuma

Cookies & Dirt - Above the Bar
Lupe Fiasco - Daydream

Rothkamm - Independent Bernoulli Trial

James Chance & the Blacks - Contort Yourself
TK Webb - Which Witch
Quincy Jones - Summer in the City
Cypress Hill feat. The Fugees - Boom Biddy Bye Bye
Zapp - More Bounce to the Ounce
Glaxo Babies - This is your Life
Delta 5 - Mind Your Own business

hologram riddle candy

Location: Spot 6
Show: The Freeform Shuffle with Cookies & Dirt and DJS Mickey Massacre, Ken the Soul Rebel, and Eric lab Rat
Cost: Free
Things I missed to be there: The usual Wednesday night jive
Reason for going: I booked the whole damn thing (and performed)



So like it says before, I booked this show so I can already tell you I liked everything. Ken the Soul Rebel surprised me, not just with his encyclopedic knowledge of glam, roots rockabilly, mod soul and punk, but his ability to make it all fit together live (many people have one of those qualities but not the other). Conversely, Mickey Massacre laid me out with a creeper case full of obsessively filed disks that put a hurt on me. The real stars of the show, however, were the hip hop act Cookies & Dirt.

Cookies & Dirt are the closest thing I've seen to a rap act that might break big (respectable big, yknow, like Rhymesayers, Anticon, or Mush level) since I saw Typical Cats back in the late 90s. That's partly my fault, of course, for failing to catch Kanye, Lupe, Rhymefest, and Psalm One before they hit. At home, I've got stacks of cds of Chicago hip hop groups THAT were good live but couldn't pull it together for an album. Most of these are disciples of the spoken word/open mic scene, and most of them suffer from the same problem: too much emphasis on the lyrics, and not enough on the beats, on making asses shake, or on asses in general. That's why great groups like Il.De.Script and Organic Mind Unit are barely a memory, and Twista is walkin around in diamond-studded boxer briefs.

I'm not gonna say that Cookies & Dirt isn't afflicted as well, but they're working on it. The music they're working on isn't super dancy but it does veer into experimental. I think that if the band wants to focus on Idris Goodwin's lyrics, they need to move even further in that direction, into Busdriver territory. Idris doesn't need the music to lead you to him, he's got a commanding, Chuck D kind of voice that will get to you no matter how obtuse the beats are. The band had a pretty good crowd come in to see them, too. The people who make predictions keep talking about how Chicago is about to break, and it's gonna be because of the unpretensious, weirdo hiphop that's been breaking lately. Flosstradamus is almost a foregone conclusion but nobody knows who else might be part of the movement. Heiruspecs could do it but they'll need to do something surprising. Vyle has a good chance, as do Serengeti and Brenmar. I'm not going to say that they've missed their chance but I'm pretty sure I can tell you that even though they deserve it, it won't be Verbal Kent, the J. Davis, Trio or Small Change. The world could use another live band hip hop group and, barring the possibility that I missed some hotness from the Chicago Drop cds, Cookies & Dirt are probly Chicago's greatest hope.

Chicago bands that sing in languages other than English

Condenada
Intifada
Malas
No Slogan
Sin Orden
Tras de Nada

Schizowave

Aleks & the Drummer

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - How do I let a good man down?
Irma thomas - I want a true, true love
Ann Peebles - When the Candle Burns low

Ray Charles - In the Evening (when the sun goes down)
Eldridge Holmes - Gone Gone gone (jet set)
Delfonics - Smiling faces
Ms Tyree Sugar Jones - If You feel It (instrumental)

Carla Thomas - Comfort Me
Patti Young - head and shoulders (above the rest)
Jackie Lee - Oh My Darling
Rose Batiste - Hit And Run

The Flamingos - I Only have Eyes for you
Piet Van Meren - Cool Echo
Altyrone deno Brown - If You Love Me
Helene Smith - You Got to Do your Share
Jd & the evil's Dynamite band - Haaa-Sheesh


The Temptations - Papa was a rollin' stone
The Eternals - Astra 3B

Jimmy Castor - Southern Fried Frijoles
The Shangrilas - Sophisticated Boom Boom
Ricardo Ray - Sookie Sookie

DJ Logic - Simmer Slow
Syl Johnson - Thank You Baby
The Towers - The Sneak !
The Fatback Band - (are you ready) Do the Bus Stop
Betty Davis - Nasty Gal

Rahsaan Roland Kirk - Ain't No Sunshine
Little Jr. Jesse & his Teardrops & the Tears - Funky Stuff
The New Jersey Queens and Friends - Party and Don't Worry About It
Chicago Gangsters - Gangster Boogie

York Wilburn & the Psychedellic Six - Psychedelic Hot Pants
Spot & the Blotters - Soul Circle
The Big Boys - Funk Off


[I don't know if we're the only funk show in the nation that plays The Big Boys but we shouldn't be. Not only were thy progenitors of the Austin underground that led to SXSW, but of the punk-funk hybrid that would come to be known, posthumously, as Mutant Disco.]

[Remember, that every Monday night, from 2:00 - 4:00 AM (cst), Eric lab Rat and Arvo Fuckhead play the the best of funk and soul, its roots and derivatives. Two Slaps Radio airs on 88.7fm in Chicago and streams worldwide from wluw.org]

I got to pet a cute dog and Mariam gave me one of her beers...

Date: 3/5/07
Location: La Casa Maldita
Bands: the tangled lines, disrobe, eske, tras de nada
Cost: $5
Things I missed to be there: The Pogues at the Congress Theatre, Clinic at the Apple Store
Reasons for going: Figured (incorrectly) that I could go to this show and sneak into the Congress, but the Congress security is getting craftier.



I don't know if I've used this analogy before, but there's this story my parents used to tell, about going to see shows at Second City, back when Chris Farley was still in the cast. That was where he came up with his Matt Foley character (the van down by the river guy). If you haven't seen the sketch in a while, it involves a lot of pratfalls, and the way my Pops told it, there's nothing scarier than sitting in the front row when that 300-pound motherfucker is barreling towards you at 90 miles an hour and you don't know if he's going to be able to stop himself. That's what watching Disrobe is like, except Josh isn't Chris Farley-big and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he was going to hit them.

Disrobe hasn't played around in a while, especially not with their guitarist Rick, who's had some health problems this past year, but he was back today and the whole band was hyped. According to Josh, they've been practicing for the past three days in a row with the two-guitarist set up (Rick and the guy who stepped in when he fell ill), and it was good.

The whole show was guitar-ier than usual, to the point that the hardcore was sounding more like metal. Maybe the house brings it out. La Casa Maldita is one of the few joints in town where punk bands and metal bands regularly play together which is no surprise as La Casa is the home to Shaman Records, which specializes in crust, grindcore, hardcore and metal.

It wasn't that Disrobe, Eske, or Tras De Nada sounded louder or faster or harder than any of the other times I've seen them, there was just a lot more shredding than I remember. All three bands have been around for a while and it's interesting to drop out of the scene for a few months and come back and be able to hear how much better they've gotten from just playing together for so long.

The last band of the night was The Tangled Lines from Drezden. They were adorable, and they were adorable without being soft. They played pretty straight thrash, but their singer Luise was this tiny little girl in a hoodie with a powerpuff girl on it and she just took to the stage like Miss Thing, like some kid on a sitcom singing into a comb in the mirror, except she was scrweaming her ass off, and doing it without looking angry. It looked as if she could have walked into a warzone and the entire war would split like the Red Sea to let her pass. Meanwhile the rest of the band wore matching blue shirts with yellow tire skids stampped on. Like I said, adorable. The world (the world of hardcore at least) needs more of that. Just like it needs more guitar.

cirrhosis osmosis - a few hours at Crew and a few minutes at the Green Mill

Date: 3/3/07
Location: Crew, The Green Mill
Bands: House DJ, Sabertooth
Cost: 10 suggested donation

Everyone's Too Hip For Vegas! [WZRD]

Lead in: Mumia Abu Jamal talking about Iran

Glaxo Babies - Kristine Keeler !!!
The Mummys - Shocked
Black Bear Combo - Medley
The Residents - Satisfaction
Daniel Johnston - Happy Time

The Gothic Archies - The World is a Very Scary Place #
Bauhaus - Dark Entries
Snakes Say Hiss! - Talk #
Kleenex - U

Funkadelic - Lunchmeataphobia (Think! It ain't Illegal Yet)
Elvis Hitler - Shotgun Shell *
Naked Raygun - Slim
Ceramic Hello - Climactic Nouveau !

Saturday Looks Good to Me - Last Year
Do May Say Think - Bound To Be That Way
Captain Howdy - Dino's Head !!!
Malajube - Pate Filo
Zimbo Chimps - Inca Vacation

Duchesne - Jumper Le Train De Roberval - Saguenay #!
You Suck - The You Suck Anthem
Glass Candy - Nite Nurses
Einsterzende Neubauten - Pygmaoen

Whitey - AWalk in the Dark/Reprise #
New Order - Beach Buggy
The Psychic Paramount - Echoh Air/ The Eye Glass / Sex Operation #
BPA - Dead Boy/Leroy Neimann

Deerhoof - +81 #
Cointelpro - Jerilyn/Dowry Death/Tickler Transplant

Brenmar Someday -A Husk of Hares #

Pseudocode - Moon Effect/Memories/No Desire/Slow Defeat/Real Action

Whitehouse - 5.5.7

Weird Al Yankovic - Polka Your Eyes Out


[The Gothic Archies - Scream and Run Away]

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

Lab Rat set

Baby Huey - A Change Is Going To Come
Quincy Jones - Smackwater Jack
Eldridge Holmes - No Substitute

Magic Sam - Every Night and Every Day
20th Century Steel Band - Heaven and Hell
Antibalas - Filibuster X

Zapp - Do It Roger
Snuky Tate - He's the Groove
Tupac & Dr. Dre - California Love

Myrna Hague - Touch Me, Baby
The Pharohs - Ibo
Bobby Humphrey - Jasper County Man

Fuckhead Set

James Brown - Cold Blooded
Ohio Players - Climax
Mos Def - Body Rock

Mar-keys - Last Night
Willlie West- Hello Mama
Booker T. and The Mg's - Green Onions
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Genuine

Chris Kenner - I like it like that part 1
The Coasters - Yakety Yak
Little Richard - Heebie Jeebies
Fats Domino - Somthing's Wrong
Chuck Willis - What Am I Livin' For?
Jackie Wilson - Reet Petite (The Finest Girl You'll Ever Want to Meet)
Screamin' Jay Hawkins - Lil Demon

Lavern Baker - Tweedlee Dee





[Every Monday night, from 2:00 - 4:00 AM (cst), Eric lab Rat and Arvo Fuckhead play the the best of funk and soul, its roots and derivatives. Two Slaps Radio airs on 88.7fm in Chicago and streams worldwide from wluw.org]

b is for blog post

Date: 2/26/07
Location: Elastic
Bands: Scalpels, Rotten Milk & Sounds Happy, & Heather Marie Vernon
Cost: $5 suggestion
Things I missed to be there: Mr. Bobby at the Note; Area #4 release party at Hull House
Reasons for going: Needed to get out of the house. Friends were playing. Finally got a charger for my camera

I got there late on purpose. I can never tell when a show is gonna start on time or not and I wasn't in the mood to sit around.That was a shame because I missed most of Heather Marie's set. She was doing something interesting, with violins and paper dolls and a chorus from a Nirvana song. It all came together to look like some sort of gothic fairy tale.



Scalpels blew my ears out with some blistering proggy shit.



Rotten Milk thrashed around twiddling nobs while Sounds Happy sat on the floor, calmly pushing buttons, creating a sound that alternated between compelling and annoying, and eventually sounded like industrial music.

the truth behind jewish mysticism [WZRD]

Tuxedomoon - This Beast
The Anti Group - The Delivery
Piedmonster - Bloodsucking Developers

Protman - ???
Boyd Rice and Friends - As For the Fools
The Clipse - Mister Me Too
DNJEPR - The Nile Song
Whitey - Intro/In The Limelight
Bonobo - On Your Marks
David Diarreah - Song in the key of JessiE

Officerfishdumplings - My Theme Song
Lady Sovereign - Hoodie
Matt & Kim - Someday

Mum - Smell Memory


[Tuxedomoon doing "Ghost Sonata". I love Tuxedomoon!]

A Damn Shame

The Northside just lost a good venue. The folks over at The Ice Factory have decided to stop throwing punk shows at their place. The decision was announced as a blog and a bulletin on their myspace page. It eloquently states the dilemma they face of wanting to continue to throw proper DIY shows under the watchful eyes of new neighbors and the police. The Ice Factory was never my favorite place to see shows but it was always a good place to have ready, as this not-quite-underground, not-quite-official multipurpose arts venue. I became acquainted with the place a little over three years ago at an underwear party (remember that summer when everybody was having underwear parties?) and then through The Urban Sandbox and The Ice Capades. They called their punk shows The Ice Factory Hardcore Youth Outreach and their absence, following The Studio and The No Exit's decisions to stop doing punk shows, leaves a big gap on the Northside. Here's their letter, announcing the decision:

My guess is many of you sensed it was coming, but it was voted this month that The Ice Factory will no longer be hosting punk or hardcore shows. This is a source of great sadness for us, but we it is decision we feel we had to make.

It was a hard decision and there were many factors. The biggest reasons are increased complaints from our neighbors, a dramatic increase in police attention, further scrutiny from our landlord and a general shift in the goals of the space. It was conceivable to attempt to work these shows in with dramatically stricter constraints in an effort to appease those in neighborhood whom have been offended. However, it was agreed that to do so would be compromise the shows so much (like no drinking and noise limitations) would compromise the integrity of scene and the music.

It may be noted that to eliminate a style of music and culture from our repertoire contradicts our creed of openness and community. That is probably a fair assessment. The space has changed dramatically since we began having punk and hardcore shows in 2004: it has almost completely different residents, a different process for accepting and hosting events and generally speaking, different artistic and domestic goals. We have also gotten older and more serious about our jobs, and have turned our attention more towards recording and intimate shows like film and jazz. Unfortunately, punk and hardcore shows were deemed to compromise and put at risk the principle endeavors of those working and living at the space.

As stated before, this was a hard and painful decision. Those involved in the space have always had a profound respect for the punk and hardcore scene, especially its artistic and moral integrity and its ability to support and sustain itself without mainstream media. In many ways, these shows demonstrated the best of what the space is capable of: people opening their home to an all ages and accepting community for the sake of packing the room for some loud, rowdy music. And it was all achieved independent of the structures and institutions that stifle creativity and humanity. Everyone can remember some truly amazing moments and it is genuinely unfortunate we are not able to continue.

We hope most of you understand why we felt we had to make this decision. And those of you who don't, well, we understand why you don't. As vibrant and diverse as the scene is, we have no doubt punk and hardcore will always have a great home in Chicago. And while in an ideal world, we would be able to continue as before, we would like to think that for a short while, we played a little part in keeping Chicago punk and hardcore as strong as it is.

Finally, we really want to thank everyone has booked here, including Mariam, Darius, Mike Thrashburg and Dave Swan and everyone who has played here. And most of all, we want to thank everyone who came out to support the space, especially when we needed it most, particularly our fund-raiser in February '06.

My one problem is that this stinks of taking the easy way out. I don't know if The Ice Factory does what some spaces do and send a representative to community meetings but it does a lot of good. Of course, if they have tried everything and found that it's still impossible to continue running their space as they'd like it, then more power to them, but caving to pressure continues to relegate punk rock as "low art" or something other than art altogether.

There's an obvious stigma against punks, who are perceived in the media as goons, just like there is an obvious stigma against hip hoppers, who are still frequently painted as thugs, and in both cases it leads to the scrutiny of those who support the scene by opening their homes and spaces to it. Unfortunately, the bands playing The Ice Factory, for the most part, weren't just privelaged white kids being noisy and acting reckless. A lot of the shows consisted of Hispanic bands from Pilsen and Little Village who have few outlets to play all-ages shows up North, young bands who are closed out of most venues wherever they go, and underground bands from as far away as Japan and Sweden that wouldn't be tp make as much money or draw as much of a crowd at a 21 plus joint like The Beat Kitchen.

But still, three years is an incredible run for a punk venue, and these things never last, so there's not much room for hard feelings. Hopefully, pressed with the task of filling that void I mentioned, some new people will realize that they're willing to sacrifice their floors or their yards for the scene they enjoyed. It happens every year and sometimes it sticks. I just wish had a bigger place of my own to offer up in the mean.

Happy Valentine's Day Springfield!

date: 2/21/07
location: Spot 6
show: The Freeform Shuffle with Shirrelle C Limes & the Lemons
cost: FREE!
things I missed to be there: Free drinks at The Note; Alvin Lau at the In-One-Ear; DJ Logan bay, VJ Just Joel, Rotten Milk and STRESS APE, Turtle Fur, and Mister Freedom at Sonotheque; Julian Pena, Kid Enigma, Rayaline and Mr Bobby at Tini Martini; MWC at Red Line Tap
reason for going: straight shot from my house down the Belmont bus

In today's episode, the warm weather fills our hero with false feelings of energy and lucidity, so he forgoes another full night's sleep for the friendly confines of Spot 6 and the Freeform Shuffle. We open with an establishing shot of the bar. Red walls, dark goth paintings with wild expressive brushstrokes. Cue confused, rambling, sleep-deprived voiceover:

Remember that game Monster Mash? It's surprisingly hard to explain so I'll provide a link. You have a box with a window with a picture of a monster. The monster's head, torso, and legs are all mismatched like some sort of Hasbro-brand exquisite corpse. It works like a slot machine, you pull a lever and the body parts all rotate independently, eventually coming to a stop and making a new monster. That's what Shirrelle C Lime's music sounds like, except instead of monster parts, it was as if Shirrelle was a mashup machine loaded with elements of songs from the soundtrack to the movie Tank Girl, creating some sort of dark wave riot folk.

Because I have a weird need to compare artists first to old Chicago bands, lemme get that out of the way now. My first reaction was that she sounded like the goth pop band Sister Soleil, but nobody even remembers them, so I guess it doesn't count. The second (real) comparison is a bit harder to make, not because it isn't apt, but because it's loaded. She sounds like Ani DiFranco. Saying anything sounds like Ani DiFranco is loaded because so many people think they know what Ani DiFranco sounds like based on a couple songs, or just one album or no albums at all but what she loos like and stands for. When I compare her to Ani DiFranco, I don't mean that she's all women's empowerment, Righteous Babe, worksong neofolk, but that she sounds specifically like Ani DiFranco ten years ago, when she recorded "Living in Clip". At that point Ani DiFranco was just starting to experiment, but not so much that she was all jazzy yet. Shirrelle C. sounded a lot like that, experimental and raw.
The last few years of computer technology have blurred the line between singer-songwriter and one-man-band. Shirrelle's website describes her as Columbia, MO's first one-woman quartet. Her band, The Limes, consists of a laptop, a light box and some electronics, and if you close your eyes, it sounds like a real band (as opposed to, you know, someone comically forcing a harmony out of each extremity). At no point in time did she remind me of the hundreds of women I've seen take the stage at dozens of open mic as songwriters (she had a fuckin compact light show!), but it's similarly hard to judge her as a whole band because of that raw quality I mentioned. At times, her voice broke through the machines she had it running through, and it sounded almost like she would become overpowered it. It was in those moments that she seemed like a (good) singer songwriter.

David Johansen, Eat Your Heart Out

Date: 2/20/07
Band: Lord Mike's Dirty Calysonians
Location: The Note
Cost: 8 bones
Things I missed to be there: Hotlips Messiah and Saskrotch at the Mutiny; free drinks from my friend's sugardaddy in Boystown
Reason for going: Calypso and mardi Gras go hand in hand

I don't know if I would have come to this conclusion if there wasn't so much of a crowd crossover, but Lord Mike and his Dirty Calypsonians kind of do the same thing as Deals Gone Bad. They adapt old, black, Caribbean sounds for contemporary white audiences. Not that either band is putting on a minstrel show, you can tell that Lord Mike has listened to his fair share of calypso and plays the music with love, just like you can with Deals Gone Bad, but it's a little more exciting with Lord Mike because, unlike ska, there's no built-in audience for calypso, so the band has had to build their scene from the ground up.

There's no shortage of spectacle to draw you to the Dirty Calypsonians. Last night, the band employed guitar, bass, four percussionists, three saxophones, and two dancers dolled u like tattooed Carmen Mirandas. At various points in the evening, the scene onstage also included a guy in a banana suit and one of the guys from The Tossers cavorting with the dancers like he was P. Diddy and doing the mashed potato when they weren't around. Then there was Lord Mike. while his band wore matching red shirts, he commanded the stage like a big cracker Papa Moai in white shirt, pants and shoes, and black Ray-Bans.

"Don't look behind the curtain," he warned, as the band cut short a song he didn't intend to play, "It's all fucking gimmick."

The music wasn't deep calypso but it wasn't a Carnival Cruise Ship ad either. The band wasn't lacking in skill but they weren't able to instill much soul into the music, either, so they settled on being silly (that is, of course, assuming that being silly is settling and not its own thing of merit). when they weren't doing calypso classics or bawdy, double-entendre-laden songs about big sausages and pussycats, they did a set of songs people might remember from movies, including Buster Poindexter's "Hot Hot Hot", "Day-O", and -prefacing it with the warning this shit is straight retarded- "That song from Captain Ron". I was halfway expecting (and more than a little bit hoping) to hear the bureaucrat song the character Hermes sang on an episode of Futurama but it never happened.

Highlights included Zatarain's givaways in honor of the holiday, more than one conga line, the blonde dancer's titties which fought to escape from her shirt and seemed to succeed every time I turned my head to order a PBR (dang), the other dancer's belly, and the most spirited banana-themed song breakdown since Gwen Stefani spelled it out in "Hollaback Girl".


[can you believe that this douche used to sing for the New York Dolls? Life is weird]

Your Local Gay Dance Party...Not Just for Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transexuals or Queers anymore!

Date: 2/20/07
Location: Subterranean
Show: Chances Dance Party with DJs Nina Ramone, Dick Simmons, Lil' V and Ken
Cost: FREE!
Things I missed to be there: The 1900s at Schubas; ft (the shadow government) at Empty Bottle; drinking Shlitz and drawing on my roommate's passed-out boyfriend
Reason for going: It's Monday Gras and I deserve to dance!!!

I finally made it out to Chances Dances. Actually, I went to Chances back when it was at The Big Horse once but it was pretty early and pretty tame. I don't have many opportunities to go to the once a month, Monday evening LGBTQ dance party because my radio show usually places me in Roger's Park about that time, but talking to my friends Rachel and Kyle strengthened my resolve to check it out again.

It was worth it.

I don't know why but I always thought that Subterranean was cursed. Not fun aw shucks something else fucked up The Mutiny cursed, but cursed in a way where I would see bands that I really liked and just not be into it at all. I was really excited to hear that Subterranean was becoming an all-ages venue in 07 but I figured that there'd be little point in it if they couldn't break the curse. Well somewhere along the line they must have because the show was incredible.

The night got off to a rocky start. At ten, there were no more than a dozen people, by ten thirty a few dozen but by eleven they were numbering in the hundreds and the dance floor was, well, everything in the room but the beer line. The DJs switched up a lot, more than I'm used to seeing, which gave the evening a kind of a freeform feel. In an given fifteen minutes I heard hip hop, afrobeat, The B-52s, indie, electro, Rupaul, and disco (in both mutant and solid gold variety). The DJs weren't much for beat matching, if that's your thing, but they had impeccable taste.

The theme of the show was ice, which had the hosts and djs dressed up as figure skaters and penguins (with at least one person playing a glacier). There was also a game of freeze dance and some incredible, Adult Swim style surreal video art portraying polar bears, Al gore and the musician Seal suffering through global warming in the South Pole.

In moving the show from the Big Horse, Chances shed some of the little, dirty, sleaziness that comes with throwing a dance party in the back room of a Mexican restaurant, which is a shame, but they also managed to become a bona fide event, one big enough to completely fill Subterranean on a Monday night. I'm going to probably alter the way I get to the radio show once a month, cuz I likes dancing. I would also mention that Chances now also runs an offshoot night at Danny's, but I can't recommend it because it happens the same night I spin Chicago music at Delilah's, and that shit is better than getting a blowjob from Jesus.

Two Slaps Radio [Fat Tuesday!]

Lab Rat Set:

The Dixie Cups - You Should Have Seen The Way He Looked At Me/Little Bell/Iko Iko

Dirty Dozen Brass Band - Feet Don't Fail Me Now
Chris Kenner - Land of 1000 Dances
Preservation Hall Jazz Band - Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans

The Meters - Sophisticated Sissy
Ernie K-Doe - A Certain Girl
Clarence 'Frogman' Henry - On Bended Knee
Lee Dorsey - Workin in a Coalmine

The Showman - It Will Stand
Eddie Bo - Hook & Sling
Little Richard - I Don't Know What You Got but It's Me

Fuckhead Set:

Fats Domino - When My Dream Boat comes Home
Snooks Eaglin - Sophisticated Blues, Come Back Baby, Rock Island Line
Quintron - You Don't Own Me (Lesley Gore Cover)

Irma Thomas - Some things you never get used to
Allen Touissant - Yes We Can Can
The Meters - Look ka py py
Benny Spellman - Lipstick Traces on a cigarette
Lee Dorsey - Everything I do Gonh be funky
Randy Newman - Louisiana 1927

The Chords - sh-boom
Dee Clark - Hey Little Girl
The Spiders - I didn't want to do it
Carla Thomas - (Gee Whiz) Look at his eyes
Chuck Willis - Feel so bad

Thurston Harris & The sharps - Little bitty pretty one
the crows - gee
jackie Wilson - Reet Petite (The Finest Girl You'll Ever Meet)

Jerry Butler and the Impressions - For your precious love
The moonglows - Sincerely
The Flamingos - I only have eyes for you
The spaniels - goodnight sweetheart


[this is what we're missing RIGHT NOW]

[Every Monday night, from 2:00 - 4:00 AM (cst), Eric lab Rat and Arvo Fuckhead play the the best of funk and soul, its roots and derivatives. Two Slaps Radio airs on 88.7fm in Chicago and streams worldwide from wluw.org]

joygasm

Date: 2/17/07
Location: Ronny's Bar
Bands: The Catburglars, Herc, Totally Michael
Things I missed to be there: Pommel, Winters in Osaka, and Metaphysical Playroom at Morpho; Bobby Conn and Bird names at Empty Bottle; Ulele at Martyr's; Arbiter, Chicago Thrash Ensemble and Tower of Rome at People Projects; Roth Mobot at Hotti Biscotti; COMA 9 with Lilli Carre and more at The Occidental Museum; Uffie at Sonotheque
Things I probably still could've gone to but missed because I'm lame: Afterparty with Livewire, Rayalin3, Trancid, and Mr. Bobby
Things that I intended to do but forgot about because I have the memory of a squirrel: Living room fort-building ar Mister Sarah's
Reasons for going: I loved Totally Michael the last time I saw him, I'd never seen Herc, and I'd already missed The Catburglars the night before

It's good to see that Ronny's is throwing shows regularly now. It looks like they've hooked up with the MP Shows cats, who are a bitch to work with but know how to utilize a venue. As a venue, Ronny's is pretty good one. From the front, the place is pretty unassuming, just another old man bar on California Avenue. They've got PBR cans for two dollar and a jukebox full of classic rock and mariachi jams. They also have a big spare room, a lot or a beer garden or something, with an old tiki bar that's been converted into a sound booth. The last time I was there, Totally Michael was playing as a part of the Mauled by Tigers Fest, which was put on by (no shit) Mauled By Tigers, which joins Everyone is Famous and the Chicago Suicide Club for a triumpherate of hipster Chicago websites that are just slightly too New Yorky for me to feel completely comfortable with. The crowd at both sides was pretty NY, too (a lot of expensive fauxghetto-fauxdesigner ugliness, mixed in with Matt and Kim backpatches). The show that day featured Totally Michael, and was one of the happiest things I've ever seen.

Totally Michael is a scrawny white guy from Bloomington, Indiana who swears excessively and plays music on his laptop and guitar. He sings songs about the epic choice a girl has to make between becoming a cheerleader or joining the drill team, and an alternative to punching walls to relieve stress that involves popping balloons with your butt. He is undoubtedly the cutest thing I've ever seen, and the music can back it up. I wish we had him ten years ago so we wouldn't have had to pay attention to Atom & His Package, which is the closest comparison I could make. If I had seen him at 18, he would be my favorite artist in the world. I would cross state lines to see him and I don't know if that's what happened but he had a huge following for a guy who's only played the city a handful of times. At the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if they are all just new fans. I saw him once, and have been proselytizing about him for months. By that same token, I feel like I'm being excessive and maybe redundant, and also, possibly, redundant when I'm praising someone, so I think I'll move on and talk about the other bands now.

As many times as I've seen Lord of the Yum Yum, I've never seen his band Herc. Herc has made a name for themselves by playing fierce rock on unconventional instruments (like an accordion and a child's drum set) in ski masks and matching suits, and for their unparalleled silliness. The set opened with a synchronized dance full of jazz hands and air humps, set to the song "Whatever Lola Wants", then the set started and continued until Mike fell ill. While Herc left the stage to deal with their cramps and stage, Metal Porpoise emerged. Metal Porpoise is a two-person black metal band, known primarily for their matching outfits and their hatred of Herc.

"Fuck this silly shit. Our songs are about hate!"

I'm paraphrasing but that was the extent of their set, played on electric bass and a child's toy drum set. For a novelty band, I must say that I've seen worse. They trashed and left the stage just in time for Herc to return and finish up the set.

The first band was The Catburglars. They sounded like a bunch of kids my age who, like me, listened to Guttermouth ten years ago, gave up the band for better music and then realized, fuck all that serious shit. They played irreverent rock and roll. Rawk even. Rawk and rails songs about wanting to be John Goodman and being old at 24. They were decent, but as far as silliness goes, the young band was waaaay outclassed.

Red Capes Make The Bull Man Mad

Date: 2/16/07
Location: Unnamed apartment in Humboldt Park
Bands: Minotaur, Walkie Talkies
Things I missed to be there: Catburglars and Intifada at Humility Gallery; Eavil at Jackhammer, benefit for the Skeleton News at the Boris Kar-Loft with Root Shoot Leaf; benefit for South Union Arts with Shemilaya at Ronnys, The Warriors themed birthday party in Logan; j+j+j and yip-yip at the Beat Kitchen; The Eternals at Empty Bottle; Hillary Rawk!s art show at the Ice Factory
Reason for going: It was centrally located for meeting up with my girlfriend, and I had a Sparks-induced time traveling moment where all of a sudden it's three in the morning and it felt like no time at all had past. We probably would have been there til five if we didn't see the opportunity to glom onto a free ride up north

This weekend has had a shocking amount of quality shit to do, and it was pretty well spread out across the city to boot. I almost felt guilty going to see two people I'd seen so many times before, but it was a good scene. The crowd ranged in age from early twenties to midfifties, the spread included spicy falafel and various cheeses, there was never any shortage of booze and the music was tits. It's not often that someone who hasn't hit it big will have a chance (or a reason) to stand up his critics but that's just what Minotaur did on Friday.

Before the show he announced that he wouldn't be using electronics. He'd just plug in a twelve string and play. He would also be printing out lyrics sheets. This was so that we could finally understand what it was he was playing and singing, and it was necessary. Minotaur doesn't just do music, but he does sound, and his setup is pretty unorthodox. I don't know if it's particularly complex or not, but almost every time I've seen him play it comes out all garbled. The guitar and the banjo get lost in the beats and the samples which end up clashing with each other. Sometimes this is because of soundguys who don't get it and sometimes it's because he's working with a sound system that isn't worth a shit but it makes up about 3/4 of the times I've seen him.

With the (relatively) unplugged set, I learned a lot. First off, his lyrics aren't just sing-song string-of-consciousness gibberish. There are tricks and allusions and turns of phrase. Then I found out he could actually play guitar, like really well, enough to warrant a twelve string. When Rita came out to join him on the casio and played The Walkie Talkies' song "Nicotine Girl", I could see past the cabaret vocals and hear it as a blues song. I'd never realized that before. That was the thing though. Right Eye Rita and Minotaur, individually, are two of my favorite acts in the city, but together, The Walkie Talkies is more than the sum of its parts. Each song gives one of them a chance to experiment while the other has a chance to craft it into something, and keep the other one grounded. Unlike either of their solo projects, Walkie Talkies songs will get stuck in my head and I'll listen to them over and over. Supposedly, they broke up last year but I've seen them a few times since then and they're working on a video, but until they realize that the Walkie Talkies is the way to go, i'll settle for a long future of solo sets.

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

The Bad Plus - Iron Man
Omar Rodriguez Lopez & Damo Suzuki- Part 5 #
Busdriver - Casting Agents & Cowgirls #!

Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra - Sister

Lee Fields - Problems
Curtis Mayfield - Move on Up
Mucca Pazza - Alarm #
Natural Bridge Bunch - Pig Snoots, Pt. 1!
The Freedom Sounds featuring Wayne Henderson - Soul Sound System
Clarence Carter - Snatching It Back
Artie Cheistopher - Stoned Soul

Brother Jack McDuff - The Shadow of Your Soul
TV on the Radio - Dreams
Diverse feat. Vast Aire - Big Game
Sound Directions - Play Car

Oriental Funk - Come Togethor
Little Milton - Satisfied

Calypso King & The Soul Investigators - Gator Funk
Quantic feat. Spanky Wilson - Don't Joke With a Hungry Man
Beans - Win Or Lose You Lose

Lee Dorsey - Eveything I Do Gonh Be Funky
Oliver Wittchow - Kristallo

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

Lab Rat Set:
Rose Stone, the Venice Four & the Abbot Kinney Lighthouse Choir - Trouble of the World
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band - Blackbird Special
Courtney Pine - Children of the Ghetto

Eric Burdon & War - Tobacco Road

Zapp & Roger - Computer Love
The Mohawks - Ride Your Pony
Mel Brown - Swamp Fever

Dirty Dozen Brass Band - St. James Infirmary
The Blind Boys of Alabama - Run On For a Long Time
Masonic Wonders - I Call Him

The Soul Stirrers - Come, Let Us Go Back to God
Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm- The New Breed
Packers - Go Head On

Fuckhead Set:

Perez Prado - Guaglione
Cab Calloway - Duck Trot
Red Ingle - Cigareetes, Whuskey, and Wild, Wild Women
Louis Armstrong - Sobbin' Heart Blues
Jim Jackson's Kansas City Blues, Part 1 - Jim Jackson

Les Paul and Mary Ford - I Just Want Your Stingaree
Fats Waller - Your feet's too big
Fats Waller - A Little Bit Independent
Fats Waller - Sugar (Instrumental)
Fats Waller - Last Night a Miracle Happened
Fats Waller & His Rhythm - Black Maria

Gene Kardos and Joel shaw - Mean Music
Track one from Rock N' Roll 1927 - 1938 Vol 1 Disc 2
Josephine Baker - Where Did you get those eyes?
Dinah Washington - I want a rich man

Blind Willie McTell - ???
Snook Eaglin - ???
Bukka White - ???
Howlin' Wolf - ???

So Cold. Hard to Dance. Easier to Complain.

Date: 2/2/07
Location: The Shape Shoppe
Bands: Aleks & the Drummer, OCDJ, Videohippos, Bird Names, Fake Lake and Santa Dads
Price: $5 sugg. donation. Cab ride home.
Things I missed to be there: Power Junkie at Delrock's, Southkore bands at Albion House
Reason for going: I was closer to The Shape Shoppe than I was to Albion House when I started drinking, plus I'd never been there

Aleks & the Drummer has been getting a lot of hype, more like a slow burn than a blitz. It maks sense, the band is doing something that nobody else is doing it right now, but unlike other bands you can say that about, Schizowave for example, they're doing it in a way that almost everyone can getdown with. Sure, Aleks Tomaszewska sometimes sings in Polish but the music has so much more of a familiar rockish base that it's not too much of a stretch.

The last article I read about them was by the Chicago Reader's new music guy Miles Raymer. I'll go on the record as liking him. His tastes vary a lot more than previous columnists. In the Sharp Darts column, he took a lot of space to describe how indescribable the duo is, and how they force you to make a number of semi-valid comparisons. I could see that. I could say that Aleks & the Drummer sounds like the now-defunct band Apartment, with less ambitious melodies and better vocals (less theatrical poetry), or that they sound like Aenima-era Tool with a K-Records-era Olympia grrl on vocals, but watching them the other night, I came up with the perfect description of their music. It's a weird reference, and if I knew what the word convoluted meant, I might call it that, but nevertheless it's perfectly apt.

Do you remember about ten years ago, when Rob Zombie had his own record label and put out nothing buy horror-themed surf records by The Bomboras and The Ghastly Ones? If you stripped those albums down to nothing but the organ lines, that's what Aleks and the Drummer sounds like.





Before them was OCDJ and his band, Videohippos. OCDJ has a show on WFMU where he plays hiphop like Blockhead, Ghislain Poirier and Bone Thugs N Harmony and other nonhiphop shit that I've never heard of. Live he's incredible, but in that dj way where I don't know how to describe it [yay for blog eloquence!]. Videohippos played indie dance that was a little bit shoegazer and a little bit Nintendo, mixed with nonsense videos. They were a great band to see live but unlike Aleks & the Drummer, I don't need to hear any of their songs again. By that same token, Aleks & the Drummer was incredible, but towards the end of their set they just seemed repetitive and I started to lose interest and wonder how I was gonna get home.


[the music OCDJ above]

new adventures in SCI-ence!

Date: 1/29 and 1/30 2007
locations: Elastic and the Mutiny
bands: Me + Smokeless Heat and John Herndon, Jeff Parker, and Josh Abrams; Me + DJ Demchuk, Minotaur, and Lovewhips
things i missed to be there: Pit Er Pat, 1980000, Lazer Crystal, Aleks And The Drummer at Schubas; Golden Birthday, Coyote, Death Factory, Big Gold Hoops and Kosher Dill Spears, Nate 1980 Thousand, DJ New Jack at Sonotheque
reasons I went: the me part in those shows

John Barth once theorized that the ultimate failing of literature was how much effort one had to put into appreciating it. Unlike a painting, which can be processed and understood by a room full of people simultaneously, a book or a poem or even a blog cannot be enjoyed all at once. You need to go through it one word at a time. Unlike music, you cannot appreciate literature just by being in its vicinity. It will never find you in the silence.

It also takes a lot more to be moved by literature than by music. I saw two acts this week that were fun. They weren't impressive or very original, they just followed a familiar structure well. I can't think of a literary equivalent, someone who I like more for the style than the substance. I know of a few authors who tell reallyt amazing stories poorly, but I can rarely sit it out through the ending.

I played my first show of the year at Elastic on the 29th of January. I'd never been to Elastic before. It was not as stylish as it's Humboldt Park predecessor, 3030, but it was easier to get to. I bombed. No one was there to see me and I didn't change their mindabout what I was doing, a mix of storytelling and comedy, but that's alright. I made a sawbuck, had a good time, and got to see jazz, which is something I next to never get to do. After I picked myself off the stage, a trio called Smokeless Heat went on. Drums, saxophone, and upright bass. It sounded like jazz...exactly. If I was watching a movie where someone walked into a jazz club, I would expect to hear music like I heard from Smokeless Heat. The next night I DJed (successfully) at The Mutiny. High Priest,from Antipop Consortium, was on the bill but had to cancel because of weather or laziness or something, so the only band was lovewhip.

Lovewhip was by-the-numbers electropop, with machine gun beats, plink plunk synth, and a ridiculously hot frontwoman. They had a soundguy mixing and remixing theirset live on his laptop and everything sounded better than anything I'd ever heard come out of The Mutiny PA, but after a two pitchers of gin and tonic, I was the only person dancing and it felt a little forced. This isn't to say that I didn't enjoy their set. In the right setting with the right crowd they could have shredded a club or house party, because they did what they did well and with intensity, but what they did never rose to the level of, say, the Videohippos, whom I'll come down on in my next blog.

One of my favorite parts of the night was getting to play disco and funk in Chicago's best punk rock bar, so I got to play boney M and Giorgio Moroder as I segued into The Eternals and The Buzzcocks. One of the bands I played, somewhere inbetween, was Glass Candy, which is probably why I made the connection, but the band reminded me most of an unimaginative Glass Candy (who, to complete the cycle of me being bitchy and using run-on sentences, were pretty weak when I saw them open for Les George Leningrad a few years back at the Texas Ballroom).

Something awesome happened at the end of the night at Elastic. I was starting to nod off and enter my own world when Herndon/Parker/Abrams started and did something few bands have been able to do for me...they got me to stop thinking about them. I wasn't thinking about what I would scribble here. I just listened, unaware that I was listening. I close my eyes and started to drift from where I was, but I was no longer nodding off,my brain just took off behind me and whenever I opened my eyes I was surprised to see that there were still other people sittinmg around me watching people play music in front of us, and not just tones resonating in my head. Fucking awesome. And I thought and that's what jazz is supposed to be.

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

Eric lab Rat set:

Pharcyde - Passin Me By
Quincy Jones - Summer in the City !
20th Century Steel Band - Heaven and Hell is on Earth !!!!

Rare Earth - I Just Want to Celebrate (Mocean Worker Remix)
Boney M - Belfast
Fehlfarben - Ein Jahr (Es Geht Voran)

Etta James - Lets Burn Down the Cornfield !!!
Zapp - More Bounce to the Ounce
Art Jerry Miller - Moon Shot

Equals - Police on My Back
Glaxo Babies - Maximum Sexual Joy
Electrostats - 21st Century Kenya

Chuck Jackson - Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird)


Arvo Fuckhead set:
Little Richard & His Band - The Girl Can't Help It
The Coasters - Shopping for Clothes
The Clovers - Devil or Angel
The Flamingos - I only have eyes for you
Lavern Baker - I Cried a Tear
Carla Thomas - Gee Whiz (Look at his eyes)

Chuck Willis - I feel so bad
The Coasters - Young blood
The Bobettes - Mr Lee
The Mar-Keys - Last Night
Little Walter - You're So Fine

Don Tiki - Hot Like Lava
Honey LTD. - The Warrior
Clair Lane - Frankie & Johnny
Susan Rafey - Bring back the love you gave me
The Liver Birds - It's Got to be you

Talking HEads - Electric Guitar
Talking Heads - Pulled Up
ENO - Baby's on Fire

*Free Form Set*
ENO - The Fat Lady of Limbourg *red sticker*
David Bowie - DJ *red*

CASH - While I've still got my mind *core*
Lord Of The Yum YUM - FLight of the bumblebee *local*

Mucca Pazza - Dirge *heavy rotation*
Bird Names - Porcupine is a Spiny Pig *local*
Harry Nilsson - Me and My Arrow *choice*
PIGFACE - Hips, TITS, Lips, POWER! *local*

Nullsleep - The Model (Kraftwerk cover) *heavy rotation*
Lightning Bolt - Rotator *choice song*
ZZZZ! - 2nd Hand SMoke *local*

Deerhoof - Choco Fight *heavy rotation*
James Chance - Designed to Kill *80's song*
SWANS - Money is Flesh *choice song*

Wire - I am the fly *core song*
Ministry - Impossible *local*
Man MAn - Spider Cider *choice*

Clinic - Gideon *heavy rotation*
AFX - PWSteal.Ldpnch.D *choice*
Hank Williams - There's a hole in my bucket *Yellow sticker*

Josephine Foster - An Die Musik *local*
DEVO - Mongoloid *80's*
The Lonesome Organist - Rat Advance on the windsor deluxe *local*

Gob Iron - Little Girl and Dreadful snake *heavy rotation*
Bakelite 78 - Arlene Goodnight
Tom WAits - Goodnight Irene

Top Somethings of 2006

[Screamin Cyn-Cyn & the Pons were probably the best band I saw all year. If I could stand Wisconsin, I could see the band play street fairs like this]

Some of the magazines that let me write for them asked me to submit end of the year best-of lists. I love lists!

Here's my Top 5 records of 2006, courtesy of Chicago Innerview...

Looking back over 2006, I couldn't remember anything but Gnarls Barkley and Justin Timberlake. To figure out what my favorite albums were, I have just browsed through over 2000 albums on the web and I can tell you this...2006 wasn't a good year for records. It wasn't that there wasn't good or challenging music being made, either. Outkast put out a great album, but it didn't have that usual Outkast feel of being the freshest, weirdest, best thing in the world. Bands like CSS and Art Brut proved onceagain that there is always room in this world for stupid punk you can dance to. Noise weirdos Wolf Eyes, Acid Mothers Temple, and Warhammer 48k all put out records that were as listenable as they were dense, and while mainstream hip hop started dabbling in electro, the underground embraced it full bore with new records by K-the-I???, Radioinactive, Lady Sovereign, and Spank Rock. But none of those albums made a very lasting impression, so in a double-blind test I checked my Last.fm page against this year'snew releases to see what I've been listening to.

Without a doubt, my favorite album was Pick a Bigger Weapon by The Coup, wherein Boots Riley andPam the Funkstress make Marxism sound as sexy, dangerous and necessary as hip hop was before it became big business. On A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, Josephine Foster departs from freak-folk for an album of 19th century German compositions that's both haunting and beautiful. Carla Bozulich continues to grow with her Evangelista, which is full of morose country hymns and weird art thrash that is as hard and delicate as her voice. Kronos Quartet ended the year with a moody collaboration with Mogwai and Pop Will Eat Itself's Clint Mansell for the soundtrack to Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain. The most mileage I've gotten from vinyl this year came from the split 7" between Chicago's Carpet of Sexy and It's a Trap, where both bands serve up noise you can get crunk to.

It was a year where artists thought smaller. In the shadow of big festivals, the summer was full of pot lucks and backyard traveler jams, and in the wake of 2005, where dozens of spaces were shut down or priced out of existence, people found out how accomodating this city could be by setting up their own festivals in old man bars and ice cream shops. It was a good year to see a band, but a shitty year to buy an album.

--and these two came from Newcity's end of the year issue...

Top Five Festival Shows at Places Where You Don't Usually See Shows
1. Southkore Fest with Los Crudos, Juventud Crasa, Bastard Sons of the Apocalypse, No Slogan, Tropietzo and Condenada at The Black Hole (video arcade)
2. The Noise District 6/6/6 with the Bang Bang Circus, Black Bear Combo, Genderfuck Burlesque, blood wrestling and Satanic Marriage at the Beach House (house)
3. Mauled by Tigers Fest with Screamin Cyn-Cyn & the Pons and Totally Michael at Ronny's (bar)
4. Trans-Sexual Express with Waterbabies, He Not In, TK Raptor and Velcro Lewis at the Tastee Freez (ice cream shop)
5. Pitchfork Fest with Diplo, Aesop Rock, Spank Rock, Os Mutantes, Flosstradamus and Tarantula at Union Park (park)

Top 5 Reasons I've Heard for Coming Back to Chicago
1. "That fresh air was starting to make me soft."
2. "New York City really doesn't care as much about the live music scene as they say they do."
3. "I'm just here for the trial, then I'm gone again."
4. "So I was out there milking a goat when I started thinking, 'What the fuck happened to me?'"
5. "After a few months in Iraq, you can really appreciate a Chicago-style hotdog."

Song of the year:
"Daydream" by Lupe Fiasco with Jill Scott

Top Films:
Pan's Labyrinth
Idiocracy

Top Bands I Should have Heard Prior, but Didn't:
Kleenex/Liliput
Meret Becker
Tuxedomoon
Current 93
Rosa Yemen/Lizzy Mercier Descloux
Nora Keyes
Munich Machine

Rest In Peace:
Bar Vertigo, Beach House, Beauty Shop, Big Horse, Machine HQ, Rawk! Loft (?), Big Horse, Trevia, Waiting Room, Western Front

(Rest in Peace Malachi)


[Los Crudos playing "En Mi Opinion", "Crudo Soy", "Asesinos" and "That's Right, We're That Spic Band" at their reunion show at The Black Hole]

Catharsis

Date: 1/24/07
Bands: Fuck 911, Bomb Banks, Gypsy Feelings, Harshe Nu Tru, Dramatic Paws, Jennifer Lorraine, Common Visions, random peoples
Location: Nihilist
Cost: Donation for touring bands
Things I missed to be there: Bookslut Reading with Neal Pollack at Hopleaf; Freeform Shuffle with Oskie Grey, Shamanavi, Emulsion, and Fuzzirobot at Spot 6; In-One-Ear at the Heartland Cafe
Reasons I Went: Jon Ziemba's last show, free ride there and back

I haven't gone to any shows in the last couple weeks because I've been on a group trip in Israel. On the trip, there were a number of Israelis who took the same sort of joy in teaching us Israeli cuss words that I take in getting a toddler to repeat one after me. The language of the hebrew man (Hebrew only slightly less than Yiddish) is full of words that sound so much like what they describe, they're practically onomatopoeia. For example, the word shpich, which is Hebrew for cum, and most closely resembles the slang term skeet.

English is a much trickier language, and full of words that often sound like they'd be perfect for the situation, but upon closer reflection have absolutely no relevance. I wanted to title this blog "catharsis", but I wasn't completely sure that I knew what the word meant, so here's a definition from dictionary.com:

1. the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, esp. through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music.

After twenty-some years of living in Chicago, Jon Ziemba is leaving fo Portland. Last night's show, where he performed as Bomb Banks was his last before leaving. The show began with Nihilist's Ehsan playing accordion and Right Eye Rita playing empty wine bottles as percussion. Jon emerged from a bedroom, with his face painted black and white like an inverse racoon, screaming and smashing an old black electric guitar with a hammer. When the guitar was thoroughly demolished, he walked up to the stage, plugged in another guitar, a sleek white one and joined in with Rita and Ehsan, yowling about everyone wasting their lives. When the song was over, he walked into the middle of the room, sang a Pulp cover, and left.

I was talking to Rich Syska about an old friend who'd moved to Portland, actually one of a number of old friends and noise/party weirdos who have left Illinois for Oregon. Her take was that the town is so much more stoned than Chicago that, while people are really open to new, weird, and heady things, there are a lot fewer individuals ready to get up off their couches to throw together a band or an event just for the hell of it. I never really think of Chicago that way but it makes sense. It's a big city but there's never anything to do, or never enough, or maybe just never the right thing. This was in full effect last night, where I was treated to not just the seven bands on the bill but an Iranian dance party and impromptu performances by David Diarrhea and Right-Eye Rita.

After Bomb Banks was Gypsy Feelings, a hiphop act that consisted of a guy who looked like an effete pirate and a girl with two hoodies sewn together. The guy, Ossian, jumped into the crowd and rapped over lofi keyboard beats while the girl, Rebecca, sat back and rapped over casio and guitar. Harsh Nue Tru had Hunter Husar playing house music in a corner while Jenifer Lorraine danced. Fuck 911 was Rotten Milk and Rand Sevilla making noise and breaking bottles in Nihilist's kitchen, which inspired a number of people to climb up onto the tiled sink and perform in between bands. The best of these was a tall man in a bright one-piece a friend of his had scammed him that had something to do with parachuting or Olympic training. He lifted his head up and yelled, and held a single note which lead to more people yelling and harmonizing until the entire room was standing there with their mouth open or looking around incredulous, unable to stop laughing.

Another highlight was Dramatic Paws, whose set reminded me of Fugazi, the Descendents, the Dead Milkmen and a lot of semirelated things that he didn't actually sound like. Dramatic Paws was a guy who sat on the floor and pounded through some loudfast ballads on an acoustic guitar. It reminded me of high school in the late 90s when emo was only a bad word to punks and didn't mean anything to anyone else. His songs were really good, even as they were derided, loudly by members of the audience who got mad at being shusshed. He ended with a cover of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" in a full Tiny Tim falsetto.

The headliner was Common Visions from Asheville. If you could create a world of music that fit on a line segment where on one end of the line segment, you would have Southern Culture on the Skids and on the other end, Current 93,, and inbetween nothing but variations inbetween. Common Visions would fit perfectly on such a timeline, about three-fourths of the way towards Current 93. Their songs alternated with every other song sounding like old 1980s no-wave or twangy cowpunk, but with each one containing elements of the other.


[Fuck 911 reminded me of America's Meth Problem, which has included both members of Fuck 911. Unfortunately, neither band is as fun as Rand's (now defunct?) two-piece, Carpet of Sexy. Here's one of their videos.]

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

Mucca Pazza - Alarm

Boney M - Ma Baker
Clipse - Nightmares

Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco - Touch the Sky (live)
Little Richard - Ooh! My Soul
Parliament- Red Hot Mama

Jonna Gault - I'm Never Gonna Cry Again
Little Milton - We're Gonna Make It
Ernie K- Doe - Mother-In-Law

Bobby Bland - I Pity the Fool
The Coasters - Along Came Jones

Darlene Love - Strange Love/Stumble and Fall
The Ronettes - When I Saw You

Chris Kennner - I Like It Like That, Pt 1
Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra - Pleasure
Howlin Wolf - Evil

Arvo fhead:

Snakefinger - Living in Vain
The Contortions - I can't stand myself
Mark & The MAmbas - Empty Eyes

The Paris Sisters - Dream Lover
Diane Ray - Please Don't Talk To the LifeGuard
The Crystals - Then He Kissed Me
Priscilla Paris - Help Me
Robbie Winston - Help Me
Crazy Girls - Hey Hey Ha Ha

Carla Thomas - Comfort me
Irma Thomas - The Same Love that made me laugh
The Staple Singers - Uncloudy Day
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - You're Gonna Get It

Billie Holiday - I'll Be Seeing You
Nina Simone - I Loves You Porgy

Snakefinger - I love you too much to respect you

[Every Monday night, Two Slaps Radio plays the best and most unconventional funk and soul in Chicago, with all of its roots and derivatives including acid jazz, doo-wop, brass band, girl groups and electro. Two Slaps radio can be heard live from 2-4am on WLUW 88.7fm and wluw.org ]

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

[all Arvo, all Fela set]

Fela Kuti - Unknown Soldier part 1 of 2

Fela Kuti - Dog Eat Dog

Fela Kuti - Witchcraft

fela Kuti - Teacher Don't Teach Me Non Sense

Fela Kuti - Coffin For the Head of State

Two Slaps Radio [WLUW]

Gnarls Barkley - Go Go Gadget Gospel
Walter Jackson - What Would You Do
Artistic - Patty Cake
Herbie Hancock - Riot
Con Funk Shun - Rock It All Night

James Brown - White Lightning (I Mean Moonshine)
Radiants - Shy Guy
Friends of E Rodney James - Soul Heaven
Denizen Kane - Amerika Dub (feat. avery r young) !

Greyboy Allstars - Toys R Us
Five Du-Tones - My World !
Betty Everett - You're No Good
Funkadelic - You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks

Liquid Soul - What a Story
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Real Men Don't Kill Coyotes
Fugess - The Score
Smokey Robinson & the Miracles - The Tears of a Clown
Dyke & the Blazers - The Wobble
Billy Holiday - Fine and Mellow
Funka Fize - Because You're Funky
Art Jerry Miller - Mod Strut

Linda Ballantine - Glad About That
Over Night Low - The Witch Doctor
Eldridge Holmes - Where Is Love
Huey Piano Smith - Little Liza Jane
Rotary Connection - Memory Band
Spot & the Blotters - Soul Circle
Richard 'Dimples' Fields - Finger Licken Good
Dottie Wright - Eclipse of a Lover
Carleen and the Groovers - The Thing
Kim Weston - Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me a Little)
Kashmere Stage Band - Scorpio
Wilson Pickett - Land of 1000 Dances

Bobby Byrd - I'm Comin'
Prince - Irresistable Bitch
Marvin Gaye - Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)

[Every Monday night, Two Slaps Radio plays the best and most unconventional funk and soul in Chicago, with all of its roots and derivatives including acid jazz, doo-wop, brass band, girl groups and electro. Two Slaps radio can be heard live from 2-4am on WLUW 88.7fm and wluw.org ]