...Bator

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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]

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

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

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]

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

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]

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

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]

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

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]

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

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

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]

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]

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

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

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]

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

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!"

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

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

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!

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

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

[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

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

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

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]

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

I'm not the world's biggest drinker. At least not when the drinks cost money.

loopship destroyer

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.

Pooptopia ! [WZRD]

The Defoliants - Jack Ripper/ Rooked
Koenji Hyakkei - Grembo Zavia #!!!!

Captured! By Robots - Ethiopia
Pig - Sick City
Monotract - Muddy Thunder #

The Pogues - Boat Train
The Coughs - Ditch that Zero
Extreme Noise Terror - Deceived

Joanna Newsome - Emily/The Book of Right-Om

Merle Haggard - Okie from Muskogee
Olvis - Acid Trip Festival

Unique Chic - Burn My Shadow
Brian Klein - Cooking with Brian Klein (live on WZRD 1/2/04)

Borghesia - She is Not Alone
Cooper Formica Reaper - Suzi's Creamcheese (live)

For those brave enough to stick through the weirdness

Date: 5/9/07
Location: Spot 6
Bands: Earwig Spectre and Environmental Encroachment
DJs: Quantazelle, Mr. Bobby, Livewire, DJ Demchuk, Mister Fuckhead
Drinks: $3 Blue Moon
Things I missed to be there: To Live and Shave in LA with Lovely Little Girls at Nihilist; Bike-In Cinema at Heaven Gallery; Cesario Magnifique's disco jam
Reason for going: My bike broke down over there



I had this dream one time, about an avant garde party happening in the basement of an abandoned church around goose island. Highlights included a man eating an apple and masturbating at about 1/1000th of the speed he would normally do either, and a man tying ropes around various objects, fixtures and people to make webs of fractals that became whole new levels of space with usable rooms for those willing to climb up to them. No one was specifically hyped as a part of the show. You were there and you had the option of watching, participating, or participating by act of watching. EE's performance in the Spot 6 basement reminded me of this dream, because there seemed to be that same blurred distance between fan and member.

It's been a while since I've seen EE ascend the steps of the Nervous Center onto Lincoln Avenue, or descent the steps at Buddy to lead a parade down Milwaukee, so it wasn't surprising to see them climb out of the Spot 6 basement and single file onto Clar Street, but it did tae me back. I lingered upstairs for a while and when I came downstairs, everyone was lying on the floor, playing their instruments, or writhing, or juggling blacklight globes on their back, until they picked themselves up again. The barjers bared and the dancers danced. The band was in full form.

Unfortunately, Demchuk and Fuckhea stll haven't figured out a solution for getting people to stick around for the DJs when the bands are laying, leaving Android Kult's Livewire and Mr. Bobby in the dust. The only time (while I was there) that the upstairs was really being well-utilized was when EE came up and for a brief moment, had their music reach a synergy with what Quantazelle was playing, and it was truly dope.

Before EE got on, Earwig Spectre played a fun set of wonk cabaret, full of singalong songs about insects. It looked like the kind of thing a high school kid would have cooked up in his basement, but being an adult man, standing at a keyboard crowded with fake nsects and plush, stuffed bugs, it somehow wored, for those brave enough to stick thrugh the weirdness.


[EE playing with the Dolphin at UIUC]

TwoSlaps [WLUW]

My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult - Do You Wanna Get Funky With ME?
Hugo Strasser - Black Night
Diane Ray - PLease Don't TAlk to the Life Guard
Bernadette Castro - Get Rid of Him
Bernadette Caroll - Party Girl

The Apollas - Mr. Creator
The Chiffons - Doctor of Hearts
The Revlons - After Last Night

Dixie Cups - You should've seen the way he loooked at me
Dixie Cups - Little Bell
The Hawketts - MArdi Gras Mambo

Little Richard - Heebie Jeebies
Lee Dorsey - Go-Go Girl
Huey Piano Smith and The Clowns - Don't you just know it
Chris Kenner - I like it like that

The Meters - Handclapping Song
Linda Lydell - What A Man
Donny Hathaway - Voices Inside (Everything is Everything)
Lee Moses - Time and PLace

Gene Chandler - Duke of Earl
Wilbert Harrison - Kansas City
Lena Horne - Love Me or Leave Me

The Meters - Hey Pocky A-Way
Dayton Sidewinders - Slipping into Darkness
Amnesty - Free Your Mind

Tan Geers - Let My Heart and My Soul Be Free
Barbara Lewis - Baby, I'm Yours
Lee Morgan - Afreaka

Saul Williams - Black Stacey
El-P feat. Trent Reznor - Flyentology

All the People - Cramp Your Style
The Clovers - Love Potion No. 9
The Eternals - Babalu's Wedding Day


[check out the super dope video for the new El-P/Trent Reznor jam]

short stizzy [WZRD]

The Ventures - Somewhere over the Rainbow
Pump Kin - Equestrian D
Art Phag - Golf/Molly N Bobby

USA is the Monster - ???
Screamin Cyn-Cyn & the Pons - Pedro's
Blue Mercedes - I Want to be Your Property


[The Ventures]