in a wagner mood

rachel's - water from the same source
jaylib - nowadayz
pearly sweets - a weekend at home

the pirahnas - bitches wheel
evil beaver - the nutcracker
bride of no no - the gypsy's song

lady sovereign - fiddle with the volume
plaid - marry
kraftwerk - radioactivity

kids of widney high - life without the cow
sun kil moon - carry me ohio

montgolfier brothers - koffee pot blues
emma bush with johnny noble and his hawaiian music - lei e (from Hot Women: Women Singers from the Torrid Regions of the World)
the gay - opulent canine

girls are short - the natural
matt smith - lay down in the leaves (from Amos House Collection Vol. 3)
count basie - something (beatles cover)

reifenstahl - (track 8 from die wunderwaffe)
king tubby - rude boy dub
quintron & miss pussycat - fly like a rat

naked raygun - rat patrol
apocalypse hoboken - joyful is the day
the manhandlers - medicate me
articles of faith - buried alive

astrud gilberto - tu meu delirio
gogogo airheart - dub ii
mathematicians - binary girl

yoko ono with yo la tengo - hedwig's lament/exquisite corpse (from Wig in a Box)
the animals - boom boom
the undertones - let's talk about girls

bjork - ruby baby
neko case - lonely old lies

nina hagen - tv-glotzer (white punks on dope) (tubes cover)
u.s. maple - my lil shocker
the flying luttenbachers - thrumm'd hte (for m)

blondie - bang a gong/funtime (marc bolan / iggy pop covers)
m.o.t.o. - deliver deliver deliver

dengue fever - tap water
90 day men - too late or too dead
neung phak - cheer <--OH SHIT!!!!

edith frost - good to know
pelican -nightendday

le tigre - mediocrity
murder by death - the crown don't make you a prince
crack we are rock - the skull

wagner - lohgerin, disc 3

T R L

quintron w miss pussycat - shoplifter
sole - every single one of us
the rapture - alabama sunshine

pixeltan - get up/say what
fur cups for teeth - christmas presence
blondie - accidents never happen

blockhead - quiet storm
brian wilson - wind chimes
schizowave - my baby

cex - [from Know Doubt] *
lee scratch perry & the upsetters - croaking lizard
prefuse 73 reads the books - pagina cinco *

new order - senses
octopus project - all of thechamps
kokeshi doll - song for hasuike

dresden dolls - bank of boston beauty queen (live wmbr)
mf doom w/ pns - kon queso
negatones - the godfather

the youngs - breakdown
the byrds - thoughts and words
black dice - smiling off (luomo remix)

call and response - rollerskate *
the cramps - call of the wighat
washington social club - backed to the future *

heiruspecs - 5ves
smith jubilee singers - just a little talk with jesus
electric eel shock - killer killer

chicago afrobeat project - bmw
lady sovereign w/ frost p. zuz rock & shystie - a little bit of shhh

beck - girl
the ex and tom cora - the big black
franklin delano - matter of time

the aerovons - world of you (demo) <--the album's weak but this track's great

[technical dificulties]

hawkwind - master of the universe

john cage and boris berman - the perilous night no. 3
mathematicians - subtract my life
edith frost - emergency

ween - the rift
this song is a mess but so am i - bedridden and dancing
morcheeba - wonders never cease

boom boom sattelites - dive for you
messer chups - not made in japan <---fucking smooth
8 bit weapon - arcade
the go! team - huddle formation

yodship - suite two

there ain't nothin wrong with a little bump and grindcore (unfortunately we have neither)

sex and love
devo - girl u want
felix da housecat - rocketride
fatlip - cook

christ-y set
king missile - jesus was way cool
crush kill destroy - why people believe weird things
loretta lynn - god makes no mistakes

morcheeba - ten men
the stranglers - toiler on the sea
asobi saksu - walk on the moon
blockhead - crashing down

reggae
transglobal underground - cikan - le message
the eternals - track 6
matsiyahu - fire and heights

motherfuckers what can play their instruments
roxy music - beauty queen
minutemen - hell (second take)
mong hang - mesopotamia

ampersands!
dangermouse & jemini - bush boys
tracy & the plastics - OOO!
j+j+j - high school? you mean inverted caste system

lo fi motherfuckers
moldy peaches - nothing came out
why? - act five (i needed my fix)
the kinks - drivin

i don't need to justify shit
puffy amiyumi - can-nana fever
david bowie - be my wife
bikini kill - resist psychic death

opposite ends of 1980s New York
klaus nomi - you don't own me
grandmaster flash - it's nasty

dj shadow - blood on the motorway
clint mansell & the kronos quartet - summer: crimin'
atmosphere - musical chairs

mustard plug - insomnia
sham 69 - i'm a man, i'm a boy
les sequelles - monstre-a-go-go

volcano - fire fire
m83 - i'm happy, she said

cast king - wino <--bad fuckin ass
victor daniel - carnaval <---also bad ass
mary lou lord - speeding motorcycle

quinine - police station blues
bohren & der club of gore - skeletal remains
joanna newsome - bridges & balloons

maraca - descarga total
murs - bad man!
pale3 & goldfrapp - bodo

pixel panda - comienda tierra
caetano veloso - paisagem util
mick harvey - louise

micah blue smaldone - new orleans bump
the spades - we sell soul
no neck blues band - boreal gluts

turned on, tuned in dropout

millions of dead cops - corporate deathburger
tin hat trio - the last cowboy
turbonegro - high crime
ibrahim ferrer - naufragio

two gallants - you losin' out
ukrainians - polityka
gogol bordello - underdog world strike

irma thomas - loving arms
mr. oizo - late
desoto reds - tupper in the fridge

icy demons - track 5
daedalus - taking wing
toots and the maytals - funky kingston
descendents - bikeage

ministry - never believe
roky erikson - stand for the fire demon
sham 69 - you're a better man than i

kabul workshop - trigana
gang of four - to hell with poverty
omar a rodriguez-lopez - of blood blue blisters

bela fleck - spanish point
mattithius - vietnam
carla bozulich - lonesome roads

femi kuti w/ mos def - do your best
atmosphere -guns and cigarettes
ry cooder & manuel galban - caballo viejo

adam fitz - last summer
stiff little fingers - state of emergency
howlin wolf - moanin' at midnight

dillinger escape plan - phone home
boom bip - in the tree top
druha trava - spain
the thermals - a stare like yours

the aeffect - always artificial
j+j+j - jobs that require headphones
taj mahal toumani diabate - tunkaranke

dove rock - designer gasmasks
the velvet underground - heroin
seu jorge - chatterton

metal urbain - anarchy en france
fishbone- party at ground zero
operation ivy - junkies runnin dry

count five - psychotic reaction
arab on radar - mind is a muffler

dr. timothy leary - turn on, tune in, drop out
instruments de musique du monde - cithare sur caisse

fiery furnaces - seven silver curses
juana molina - no es tan cierto

lady sovereign - random
pit er pat - man
messer chups - anton lavey 66.6
ween - transitions

flatt & scruggs - get in line brother
jethro tull - from Rock & Roll circus

la bouche

foe the ladies, rom the ladies
frank zappa, john lennon, and the plastic ono band - don't worry kyoko
morcheeba - over and over
dengue fever - lake delores

up the punx? no, these fuckers ain't hardcore no more
the misfits - i turned into a martian
the screamers - i'm a mensch
the bomb - bring the shotgun

motherfuckin geetar
quasar wut-wut - the tramps of taro sound
gordon terry - it ain't right
gogol bordello - 60 revolutions

mf doom breaks up the drudgery of white boy hiphop
snow - drunken styles
blockhead - cents
mf doom - hoe cakes

alienating my audience? only the fuckers
wooden wand & the vanishing voice - not on
elvish presley - water troll
j+j+j - highschool? you mean inverted caste system (feat. magas)

cant's stop the weirdness cold turkey
??? - the munsters theme
the fugs - i saw the best minds of my generation rock
ween - monique the freak

rocque
tom waits - dead and lovely
kinski - fell asleep on your lawn
nellie mckay - if i needed someone

chicago punk black sandwich
articles of faith - wait
blackalicious - lotus flower
the tyrades - dance like a maniac

cool pop shit
the merry go round - missing you
bugskull - recorder
the coctails - road hog

more of the same
the fall - trust in me
the oranges - falling and laughing
harry - you have gone wrong (from The Sexual Life of Savages)

a half hour to jam
mum - awake on a train
yes - heart of the sunrise

shit i burnt this afternoon
elliot smith - a fond farewell
spires that in the sunset rise - ???
sage francis with art official intelligence - can i kick it

just that new shit
ladytron - destroy everything you touch
fiery furnaces - seven silver curses
tralala - all fired up

spaz, post-spaz, euro-spaz
olivera katarina i orkestar - "romalen": usti, usti, babo, o davulja maren (from Balkan Blues)
ruins - celledomi guazto
the gunshy - call me home
arab on radar - god is dad

motherfuck highway

The themed shows are really working for me at WLUW. This week's theme was electronic and weird shit. It worked pretty well but I probably tested people's patience with the 25 minute long track i started out with. meh

volcano the bear - side two
ladytron - high rise

herbert - bonnie & clyde (from I Heart Serge)
alias w/ markus acher - unseen sights
quintron - latin #
pere ubu - small was fast


(set for my dead spider)
dengue fever - one thousand tears of a tarantula
four tet - glue of the world
pendulum - tarantula

bjork - scatterheart
j+j+j - insomnia is a sleeping disorder
Mr. len, jean grae & the melon bayside high drama club - taco day

ween - boys club
that dog - we must bleed (from a small circle of friends)
flea - media blitz (from a small circle of friends)
wesley willis - rocknroll mcdonalds

mr. bungle - chemical marriage
public enemy - power to the people
syd barrett - wouldn't you miss me (dark globe)

the ex - rara rap
daedalus w/ busdriver - quiet now
the elastik band - spazz

wagon christ/jello biafra -thick stew/machine gun in the clown's hand
frank zappa - i'm the slime

winepress - all for you
public image ltd. - albatross
deerhoof - spirit ditties of no time

operation ivy - hangin out
papa m - sabotage
iggy pop - the passenger

negativland - i still haven't found what i'm lookin for

broken social scene - our faces split the coast in half

nick drake - hazey jane i
adult - in my nerves
captain beefheart and his magic band - abba zabba

diverse - certified
guided by voices - titus and strident wet nurse
the ramones - i wanna sniff some glue
the warlocks - inside outside

gza - auto bio
the typewriter - new mexico
why? - [/earworm]

vic chesnutt - look at me

slip slop

i really needed this. a short 2-hour set and it kicked ass. i meant to play mostly hiphop and love songs but i fell short on the love songs. it felt better than usual sending this set into the stratosphere, Jody Foster Contact-style

doseone - the candle (w/ slug)
dengue fever - tapwater
chicks on speed - sellout

blackalicious - world of vibrations
johnny cash - oh what a dream
heiruspecs - dollar
old no. 8 - somewhere down the line

gogol bordello - mala vida
dizee rascal - girls (w/ marga man)
tub ring - fall back

talking heads - don't worry about the government
busdriver - low flying winged books
black flag - damaged II
pilotdrift - caught <-FUCKING INCREDIBLE!!!
sage francis - crumble

madlib - mystic bounce
the bad plus - rhinoceros is my profession
the bad seeds - doris

ween - freedom of 76
zion i - doin my thing
screeching weasel - johnny are you queer?

sugar & spice - come of over (from 60's Girl Groups comp)
the cows - death in the tall weeds

why? - act five
naked city - heretic 1
Lichens <--left to go to the bathroom, came back and immediately had to fade it cuz it sucked. bad job, mister rob lowe!
the ex and tom cora - dere geliyor dere <--awesome song, great recovery

sole - every single one of us
the jam - the dreams of children
the white noise - firebird

atmosphere - little man
the monks - love came tumblin down

the residents - swastikas on parade

Orwellian Truthspeak

Show: Intifada, 30/30, Condenada, Cinder, Hit Me Back, Sin Orden
Where: Bridgeport basement
Cost: $6
Things I missed to be there: Lumpen party at Heaven
Reason I went: Be-all-and-end-all cure for depression

I've been depressed lately, one of those black cloud-on-my-ass, bad roommate-girlfriend-school trouble kind of things. In an attempt to self-medicate, I've upped my poison intake. It's fun to see what new, surreal color I can cough up in the morning but it's otherwise not helping, but I had a plan, and Saturday gave me an opportunity to see it to fruition. Maintain my strict regiment of cheap whiskey and expensive cigarettes, and drag my ass to a hardcore show. It was guaranteed to work.

In my opinion, the best punk comes from outside the country. It's not meant to be some elitist, namedroppy music geek thing; it's just that I love punk rock and I can't stand most punk lyrics. With the exception of a handful of clever bands and a few essential punk anthems, the lyrics are pointless. More often than not they're too preachy, too whiny, or screamed just short of unrecognizable.

That's why I like the Pilsen scene. I can't understand shit. The words could've all been crafted by Leonard Cohen but I don't have to know, and I don't have to be disappointed when they're not.

Tonight's show was in a shoddy house in Bridgeport. It was a typical hardcore crowd, all backpatches and balaclavas. There were a few studded-jacket 77 Kids, a few hawks and a few skins, but not many. Unlike the Northside, there aren't a lot of scenemakers or people looking to hit big. It just is what it is; it's a working class crow and a laid-back scene.

When I got there, 30/30 was just starting. Thrash en espanol. They're a fairly new band, built up of dudes who've been on the scene for a while. The last time I saw them, Junior from Reaccion was filling in on drums. He was a fine punk drummer but wasn't fast enough for what the band was doing. The new guy played like he had extra hands. Swave, their singer is a fucking mountain of a man. He could've taken the basement down on his own if he started swinging. The place seemed too small to support a pit, which meant the pit was fucking incredible.

Everybody was playing that game where they refrained from moving as long as they could, waiting for a catalyst, which came in the form of a short guy in a hoodie who bulldozed headfirst through the crowd room. The room exploded.

The beerspitbloodarmtopus.

The rest of the set was pretty hard, but it didn't hold many surprises (except for the Cubs hat on the bass player - what the fuck was up with that?). I understood maybe two words, barrio and policia, which I used to make my own song, "Policeman in the barrio."

Holeeee SHIT!

That's Mariam. If you go to a lot of shows, you've probably heard her, high pitched and completely at random. She used to be in Human Order and now plays in Condenada and my heart goes aflutter whenever she walks by.

Condenada is one of the best bands in the city. It's definitely the best girl-band. It's four women who play really fast thrash with vocals in English and Spanish. I almost like them as much for what they aren't as for what they are. They're not the Manhandlers, they don't coordinate their otfits, they don't cute it up, they just fucking rock.

As good as 30/30's frummer was, Trish blew him out of the water. Someone busted a pipe on the last song, and the half of the room that could see it froze, waiting to see if steam or refuse would start shooting out through the cracks. It didn't, and they finished the song.

I'd never heard Cinder before, but they should've headlined. They're a skatepunk band from Spain and their set had a fair amount of pogo and thrash thrown in. I bought the 7" split they did with Hit Me Back, the band they were touring with from California (I think). I couldn't tell if it was that I'd just seen three thrash bands in a row or that I subconsciously discriminate against everyone from California, or if they really just weren't as good as the bands that preceded them, but I didn't dig it.

Fat on punk and poison, I left to try and test my luck and ease my pain with a party far too far away. I'm a little down about the bands I missed, Intifada and Sin Orden, the youngest and oldest bands at the show. Intifada opened the show and they're some yound angry dudes, which is, of course what it's all about. Sin Orden have been around for years, but just re-formed this year after a long hiatus and blew me away. They're older and a bit more willing to experiment with things time signatures, slower songs, and hiphop.

The party was too far away. I fell off a deck, and pissed some people off but I managed to kill off a night's worth of memories and buy a new record, so I guess it was worth it.

Double-pluss good.

help!

I'm trying to drink as much soda I can and write a paper at the same time. The show is suffering. I feel like I'm creating bad karma. I apologize, 2 - 6 am listeners. You will be avenged.

tom waits - dead and lovely
brzowski - live at the lesson
clap your hands say yeah - the skin of my yellow country teeth

the bomb - the western world (this is a shitty song)
l'amico di martucci - invierno y verano
guitar wolf - rock de kerose

pivot foots - coffin nail symphon # 1
fellini - teu ingles
kukl - a mutual thrill

delia gonzalez & gavin russom - black spring

jane's addiction - so what
Dr. Dog - easy beat
new duncan imperials - mystery date

atmosphere - say hey there
kraftwerk - die mensch-maschine
the walkie talkies - son of sam

claire lynch - children of abraham
the monks - monk time
snooks eaglin - one scotch, one bourbon, one beer

broken spindles - burn my body
NEU! - Super 78
Klaus Nomi - Wasting My Time

At the Drive-In - Napoleon Solo
Mutantes - Oh! Muhner Infiel
The Stranglers - Outside Tokyo

The Mohawks - Beat Me Til I'm Blue
Captain Beefheart - Moonlight on Vermont
Tortoise - Stretch (You're All Right)

Deerhoof - Rrrrright
Veronica Lipgloss and the Evil Eyes - Benny's Nightmare
the Joggers - Era Prison

Brazilian Girls - Lazy Lover EP trk 2
Dead Kennedys - California Uber Alles
Japancakes - Westworld

Matt Pond PA - Halloween
Phantom Cowboys - Voodoo Bunnies

Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead

Konono no. 1 - Mama Liza

Snapcase - Make Us Blind
Echo & the Bunnymen - Stormy Weather
The Ex - Keep on Hoppin

The Nerve Speech - God is Alive
The Creatures - Slipping Away
Why? - Act Five (I will keep playing this song until the station moves it out of my sight)

Tom Waits - Shake It
OOIOO - emeraldragonfly (fuck up ejection)/I'm a Song
Roxy Music - The Bogus Man

cock crazed and face glazed

Show: Gays in the Military, Panicsville, Bloodyminded, Vertonen, Sixes, and 16 bitch Pil Up
Venue: the Empty Bottle
Placess I'd otherwise be: Delilah's with old roommates, Carol's with Brandon
Reason I went: hadn't seen a show in a few days
Price: beer

"This goes out to our quickly diminishing Northside fans" - Bloodyminded

When puks don't die young like they're supposed to, they have three options:

1. become noise enthusiasts
2. become country enthusiasts
3. grow old and sell out

Tonight at the noise show, I saw a lot of faces I don't see sweating it out in basements anymore. One of the fun things about noise, that also applies to performance art, orgies and really good raves, is that you'll see them portrayed in movies and tv shows and it's always taken to such an absurd degee that you go "Oh cmon!". Over and over again, when I see someone slapping themselves with raw meat or a mountain of coke at some casual party, I'll turn my nose up, thinking they're just laying it on way too damn thick. Then I'll go out and see it. I don't know if it's art imitating life or life imitating art or trash imitating trash or what, but the Empty Bottle was a fun place to be tonight.


The first band was Gays in the Military, who erred on the side of trying too hard, but put on an immensely fun show. They looked like a fagged-out version of every film I've ever seen about Vietnam. There were army helmets, cutoff shorts, tie-dyed bandanas and camouflage butterfly wings. They had a handful of dancers including two women in plaid skirts and roller skates, one in a rubber, sexy police officver costume, and one wrapped in nothing but fringe, who flopped around like a caught fish (after the set, she changed into a tasteful cocktail dress).

So you had your screaming, you had your sonic guitars, your synth freakout, your tits and your Velcro Lewis guest vocals, it's the Empty Bottle so nobody's venturing a few feet forward to join the dancers; the show still needs something, so out comes the Porn Fairy, a bikini clad vixen in a plastic Peter Pan mask with a sack full of smut. I guess I wasn't naughty or nice enough for the good shit, 'cause while other people are gettin 'Young Live Girls', 'The Women of Starbucks' and some straight up DVDA shit, I get "Scorched" a straight-to-video heist flick starring Alicia Silverstone and John Cleese. Maybe she'll show her tits. It is Rosh Hashana, after all.

By the end of the set, one of the rollergirls was flashing one of the biggest pairs of tits I'd ever seen while the hot-cop beat them with a plastic nightstick, the Porn Fairy was riding the girl in the netting like a mule and the dancer with the bad wig had unleashed a dozen light-up bouncy-balls in full seizure-inducing splendor. The band was doing some cool shit too but by this point, it was just background. See them.

When Panicsville pulled out a table with a couple of children's toys, an old fashioned alarm clock, and literally dozens of pedals with hundreds of cords snaking around them, I just about came. I cannot believe hat in twelve years of Panicsville and nine years of going to shows I've never seen them. From what I've heard, this was one of their tamer sets.

The set (a full set consisting of maybe three songs) had was real percussive. At one point, Andy Ortmann was shaking a miked saucepan full of gravel and it sounded like an earthquake, an avalanche, just the fucking end of the world. Good stuff. Go see them.

The third band was Bloodyminded. I saw them play at Enemy a month or two ago but they weren't my thing. Everything they did seemed boring and cliched. The singer talked longer than the duration of the songs which themselves were only distinguishable by length. It seemed like typical wall of noise shit. I was surprised it took more than one person, but the crowd went completely apeshit over it, so I probably just don't get it.

"Give ush zee money Lebowshki!" This came courtesy of their biggest fan/drunken heckler. I don't like to get hung up on how bands look, but these guys really did look like Nihilists/German industrial band from "the Big Lebowski," all black and black-leather. The singer, lean and bald with a couple earrings and maybe a hint of eyeliner looked like every picture of every neo-Nazi I'd ever been shown as a child. Not that he was, that's just what I got from it. There nothing even wrong with looking like a Nazi. He just seemed so movie-perfectly so. See this band, and tell me what I'm missing.

"That was Bloodyminded, and next up is Yo La Tengo." Thank you drunken heckler. You rock.

Next up were the Sixes, Vertonen, and 16 Bitch Pile-Up. Unfortunately, I had to leave a hair before midnight to make it to the radio show and missed them all. Hopefully, I'jll get to see them next time. Good night, and l'shana tova.

in a metaindustrial mood

This was one of my better shows in a while. I was in a really noisy mood that gave way to a need for industrial I haven't had in a while. I did a few rounds of punk from around the world which I like a lot (especially if I can get a multitude of languages in too)

ROUND ONE
the nips - all the time in the world (Ireland)
the ex - lied der steinklopfer (Holland)
naked raygun - system (Chicago)

mohammed rafi - jaan pehechaan ho
aesop rock - holy smokes
golem - mito

pantyraid - i wanna be your tiger
adam green - he's the brat
kompressor - represent

radio berlin - eyes like lenses
bunny brains - drugs no way
dadbot - free cake

general elektriks - facing that void
m.i.a. - pull up the people
cidinho & doca - cidade

nitzer ebb - join in the chant
andrew bird - banking on a myth
veronica lipgloss and the evil eyes - strip mall glass

roxy music - do the strand
paint line plane - open yr midnight
bgoom bip - soft & open

ROUND TWO
bad brains - fearless vampire killers (DC hardcore)
articles of faith - in this life (Chicago Hardcore)
television - friction (CBGB-era guitar hero NY punk)
the groovie ghoulies - the lost generation (Chicago pop-punk)
x-ray spex - germfree adolescents (First-Wave UK Punk)

tin hat trio - willow weep for me
mwc - certain fate
petra haden - i can see for miles

the clash - brand new cadillac
jello biafra w/ the melvins - enchanted thoughtfist
pedestrian - toss & turn
nouvelle vague - friday night, saturday morning

chai muasing - ghosts come and go
muddy waters - got my mojo workin
johnny cash - cocaine blues

the gossip - sleepers
devil in a woodpile - long way from home
ukrainians - cherez richku cherechay

rjd2 - exotic talk
defacto - fingertrap
why? - act five

dangermouse & jemini - track 1 (26" EP)
bullfrog feat. kid koala - reverse psychology
puffy amiyumi - tomodachi

robyn hitchcock & the Egyptians - vibrating
cex - get in yr squads
negativland - i still haven't found what i'm looking for

morissey - i have forgiven jesus
wolsheim - a million miles
roxy music - in every dream home a heartache

pest - cous cous
m83 - i'm happy she said

acid mothers temple - la le lo

the greatest show on urf

Show: the John Cage Musicircus
Location: the Museum of Contemporary Art
Cost: free
Things I missed to see it: The Rats at the South Side Punk Haus, Black Bear Combo and Quasaar Wut-Wut at the Darkroom (which happened much later but I was still fucking exhausted)

Dan Flavin's work explores color and space. Living space. In his current exhibit, he arranges colored fluorescents in different ways to completely transform rooms of the MCA. One room is entirely red, with a small prism behind the tube lights. Another is the same green you get from gas station bathrooms. It puts your head in a weird place. In the green room, there's a guy, an older gothindustrial cat licking a small plane of glass and rearranging the saliva with his tongue. On the floor, a grad student is making tick-marks in his sketch pad each time the guy flicks his tongue across the plane. This is the kinda shit that makes steam come outta Republican's ears. There was a little boy, a two-foot, blonde apple-cheeked thing standing at the top of the stairs. He was licking the air, mimicking the old man's movements. There's no way his parents are gonna be able to get him to stop for weeks. The sheer fact that a single American tax-dollar might be going towards something like this gives the GOP nightmares.

Today is the greatest fucking day of the year. Over a hundred musicians and performance artists converging on the MCA for the John Cage Musicircus. A free day of all things art, following a tradition started nearly forty years ago by composer John Cage. All of the Chicago stalwarts were there. At the start of the event, Environmental Encroachment was doing their funk-clown-marching band act on a ledge above the stairs. If you haven't seen them, you should. For the past six years they have been bar-none my favorite band to see live in the city. The original concept was that their concerts would be full stories, incorporating rhythm, music, tribal dance and theater into shows with a moral. "Tofishy vs. Squidbot" was about the perils genetically engineering food and was just about the greatest thing I've ever seen.

Inside, Terry Plumming zine and Princess were providing the noise. The Columbia College Vocal Ensemble were performing alongside some fierce djembe players; cheerleaders enticed you into a side room to chant along with men in alien jumpsuits; a woman dressed as Salvador Dali stuck handlebar moustaches to your face and drew your portrait on a post-it; a theorist wrote page after page on donated concepts, homemade instruments abounded: something that looked like a harp but wasn't, a man played a metal goblet with a bow, mic-ed through a host of effects; at least two theremin players courted spaceships and made me smile ear-to-ear; the big bad wolf gave Rorshack tests on a seesaw, and Insect Deli, in Ace bandages and underwear drew all the flashbulbs in the room her way. I couldn't even find some of the acts I was looking for, like Radiant Darling or a jazz group doing a full set of Zappa freakout.

When I ran into Rotten Milk in the mens room, he told me that this was the first time in years the MCA acted like it actually cared about the Chicago community. The last time was probably back when they did the all night jam on the solstice. Every facet of art in Chicago was covered and it spanned generations. Back in the day the place was packed. My friends' parents would dance to Brazilian music on the terrace out back, and come back the next morning for tai chi. Motherfuckers would get high in corners and stairwells and crash out watching the Video Ape and the TV Cowboy play short films in the theater. Redmoon turned the entire facade of the building into a two-story shadow puppet show. It was one of those magical evenings where nothing could go wrong.

Then it all got fucked up. Originally, they had only asked for a donation of two canned goods. Then, a few years ago, they changed it without realy warning people. They set up tables to collect the bags of cans people brought in for admission, and charged them anyway. I remember at one point, everyone I'd ever met was gathered in the park across the street trading forties and blunts. Gen Schock was drawing hand stamps on everyone with a Sharpie and the place filled up fast. There was a lull around 3 and I left to get some food. This is the conversation I heard on the redline.

Gangbanger: Hey, where's that party, where's that party at?
CTA Person: Excuse me?
Gangbanger: That party, that party at... the motherfuckin Art Institute and shit

So things got fucked up. A lot of the walls got tagged on and a fight broke out. I forget which photographer showed up that night (an older European guy who took aerial shots of raves and stock exchanges and made kaleidescopic mural prints of them) took a picture of blood dripping down one of his photos after this cat threw a bottle. That was the last one, it was the same year that Redmoon had top stop doing their Logan Square Halloween spectacle for similar reasons. It would be nice to think that the MCA may be able to pick up that torch again. And hopefully they could keep their shit together next time.

Millions of Dead Clubs

Bands: Raining Bricks, Chronic Seizure, IATTACK, Millions of Dead Cops
Venue: the Bottom Lounge
Things I missed to be there: Black Bear Combo at a gallery, the Herc variety hour with Lord of the Yum Yum and Rotten Milk
Reason I went: I needed to go to a good punk show after missing them for weeks
Price: $8

My father and I were talking about all the geezer punk acts doing reunion tours.

"If I was a young punk, and I saw one of these assholes touring again I'd pull them off the stage and fucking piss on em." I know, my Dad's a charming fellow. "When the first wave hit, they were pissin' on the Who for being bloated and old, and out of touch and they were only fucking thirty, and now these asholes are doing reunions?"

I'm not sure if I agree. A lot of these bands are just doing what they love to do, supporting the local youth scene wherever they go and generally organizing the community. ome of these guys are diehards, they didn't think they'd live this long so they didn't think to stop. They're keepers of the faith. But then, some are just in it to make a quick buck off some half-hit they had, butching about Raegan.

Either way, this is a good weekend for dinosaur punk. On Saturday, the Effigies are playing at the Note; on Monday, the Exploited are playing the Double Door, and tonight MDC played the Bottom Lounge. I don't like seeing shows at any of those places but for some reason I hate the Bottom Lounge the most. I can't say why, if it's the vibe or the drink prices or the crowd or what, but I pretty much refuse to pay for shows there. The CTA is grabbing the land and shutting down the Bottom Lounge. They plan to reopen in a location in the West Loop early next year, which could be awesome in that the Bottom Lounge would be the Southernmost big concert venue in the city, or it would just bring the same kind of suck further South.

Tonight, though...Millions of Dead Cops. Perhaps the greatest name in punk rock since Flux of Pink Indians. I missed the first band, Raining Bricks, but got there just in time for Chronic Seizure, a pretty by-the-book hardcore act featuring members of the Repos and the Rat Bastards. They didn't do anything for me but they did a pretty hot Angry Samoans cover towards the end of their set.

The third band was IATTACK, a skate punk band from the Pilsen/Little Village scene. Unlike a lot of their peers, they're pretty fairly apolitical. The only thing I can say bad about them is that they have a truly Hispanic sense of time. No, you can't be offended by that. I've seen a number of their sets cut short because one or more members of the band were missing by showtime. Their set was generously fifteen minutes long and fierce. They played five or six songs, ended with their theme song, and spent about the same time they spent on stage tearing down their set.

Millions of Dead Cops came out of Austin in 1981, and had all their original members on board for their 25th anniversary tour. After the first few songs I started to think that maybe my father was right. Unlike other old punks I've seen recently, like the Subhumans, the Damned, and Riistetyt, they haven't spent the last two decades mastering their instruments. It just wasn't that good. There was a medley of songs about dead cops, which was pretty entertaining, but it wasn't until they played a straight-up rockabilly song that I really gave a shit. Their punk songs sounded as raw as they ever did, and not half as good as they do on record, but the motherfuckers can play a country song. They played a set full of their own, erm... hits, like "John Wayne was a Nazi" and everyone went nuts. The Bottom Lounge turned on a light that illuminated the pit, and it really got the kids off and they went wild.

In the end, I got really drunk and really into it and then the Bottom Lounge kicked us out because they suck and it was an early show and they needed to let in all the Lucero fans.

the only man in chicago who hates babydolls as much as billy roberts

The Mutiny was the first bar I legally drank at. One Last Walk was playing their first show in a while there on my 21st birthday and John promised a half pitcher of whiskey. That night, Mike the Midget did a full standup act during what must have been the longest string change in history.

I love the Mutiny. Nothing ever goes right there. Last time I was there, the Wanderers were playing with Second Story Collapse. Andy , the Wanderers' singer, got really pissed because his drummer didn't show up. They tried to play with SSC's drummer but it ended up with Andy doin song after song of GG Allin covers the band didn't really know, with his nutsack pulled through his jeans.

Tonight was Fast Fast 45 and There Must Be Others, two bands apparently on the verge of merging. Fast Fast 45 was a two-piece that played straight-up rock. They didn't prepare for the show, their first in a while, but it came out decent. Bryan, who's among the better guitarists I've seen in the city, was doing a par job keeping the beat, while Briton was pulling some Lou Reed affectations with some touches of late-seventies CBGB Television-style yowling. They did a short set and Bryan stormed out, pissed off.

Fun.

There Must Be Others, now a one-piece, took the stage. This band was great, especially for their third show and third line-up. The band had gone from a trendy moog-driven synthnoise outfit to a thing of weirdness. Brian Other looks starved and crazy when he comes out on stage, with wild, thinning hair and bugged out eyes. He started with what he said was a Lionel Ritchie cover: "I'm Sorry For Unleashing the Horror that is my Daughter onto the unsuspecting Populace."

The song was played by a babydoll in a blender, on different settings and ended abruptly as the doll caught fire and filled the room with noxious gas and smoke. For the rest of the set, he played guitar and sang through a host of effects. The show had a real King Missile quality to it, at least until my girlfriend started getting nauseous from the fumes and we had to leave.

Dear RiotFest 2005,

Dear Riot Fest 2005,
You know that Minutemen song where Mike Watt goes like, "Punk rock saved my life"? Fuck yeah, Man. It's the same way right fuckin here with me. When I was younger I was aimless, adrift in a sea of gangster rap and radio metal. Then along came punk. It had always been there but it took thirteen long years for it to find its way to me. Without it, I'd surely be dead now.

Sure, I wasn't nothin better with it than I was before, just a vandal scumbag takin money from my parents an' tryin to cum on things but I had FOCUS. I truly believe in the transformative powers of punk rock. I am glad that your festival is bringing back bands like the Dead Kennedys and the Germs that even I never got to see. Punk is a young man's game and most of the kids have never been exposed to bands like this in a live setting because either their singers went and overdosed a couple decades ago or they're embroiled in contract disputes with the rest of their bandmates or because they're irrelevent dinosaurs who haven't written a song since Reagan left office.

None of that shit'll matter, though, once that guy from ER comes out onstage to the opening chords of "Lexicon Devil". Media blitz!

But I got to thinking. The Clash is probably my favourite band of all time. You can tell because I have that killer back patch on my army jacket. With Joe Strummer passed away, it looks like I may never get to see them live. That's just about more than I can bear, not just because of my loss but for all the little punks out there who don't know what they're missing. Well you know as well as I do that the only thing that seperates punk from all the other shit out there is the fierce DIY spirit that bands a bunch of nothingshits into a true force. I will take the bull by the horns, and offer hear and now to front the Clash MYSELF at your concert in November.

Don't worry, I know all the songs on "Combat Rock" and a good third of "Sandanista" and I'm free to practice every Wednesday night, so you give Mick and Paul a call and I'm ready. Oi! Motherfucker. 77 Style, yeah!

Sincerely,
Eric Strom

P.S. If the Clash have prior obligations I would also be willing to front GG Allin and the Murder Junkies, Jabbers, or AIDS Brigade.

unevening

The Screamers - 122 Hours
The Mohawks - Funk Broadway
Bleach - Raikou (Karekini Hanaa Sakani)

Non-Prophets - Damage
the Standelles - Why Pick On Me?
Phantomsmasher - scrolling sideways
Printer - American Dream

Printer - Goodnight

Jello Biafra and the Melvins - Halo of Flies
Rachel's - Forgiveness
Moist Boyz - the Spike

Urban Renewal Project - Wylin Out (k-kruz remix)
Marianne Faithful - Broken English
Atom & His Package - I'm Downright Amazed at What I Can Destroy With a Hammer

Pest - Delucid
Klaus Nomi - Total Eclipse
Patsy Cline - I don't Wanna

Royksopp - So Easy
Asylum Street Spankers - Breathin

Blondie - One Way or Another (live)
the New Process - More Mess on My Thing Pt. 2 (from Raw Funk)
Madvillain - Meat Grinder
XBXRX - Hope Until We Can't

Black Merda - Over and Over
Dresden Dolls - Bank of Boston Beauty Queen (live
the Juan Maclean - Dance Hall Generator Dub

Lee Scratch Perry - Dread Lion
Butter 08 - 9mm
Massive Attack - You've Never Had A Dream
Why? - Act Five

Billy Bragg - Accident Waiting to Happen
Bingo Gazingo & My Robot Friend - You're Out of the Computer (fromSongs in the Key of Z)
Rasputina - Secret Message

Tom Waits - Starving in the Belly of a Whale
Illogic - Live to Die
Lali Puna - Nin Com Poop

Nouvelle Vague - Guns of Brixton (Clash cover)
TV on the Radio - Walking the Cow (Daniel Johnston cover)
Kimya Dawson - Movin On

Handsome Boy Modeling School - Class System
Hisashi Yoshino & M.A.G.O. - Furimukuna
Saturday Looks Good to Me - Girl of Mine

Sigur Ros - Hopipolla

Butthole Surfers - 22 going on 23
Flying Luttbachers - Into the Vastness of Stupidity
Dillenger Escape Plan w Mike Patton - Come To Daddy (Aphex Twin cover)

Dee Lite - Groove is In the Heart
Devendra Banhart - Heard Somebody Say
the Cramps - I Was a Teenage Werewolf

DJ Shadow - Building Steam With a Grain of Salt
the Flaming Lips - One Million Billionth of a Millisecond on a Sunday Morning

Trouble Funk - A

bad moon rising 3

Third: Deus Ex Machina 3 (again)
How much: $5
Why: Puppets.

3D has rarely been good to me. Or you, or anybody. With the exception of Captain EO. That shit rocked. Otherwise it's pretty dismal. A couple of years ago some friends and I went to a 3D porno. I was expecting we'd be holding up umbrellas afraid that old Peter North was about to blow a few quarts at our faces. The whole affair was pretty tame. Not to mention the projectors were a little too far apart and we never achieved the real 3D effect. Don't get me wrong though; we were high, we heckled, laughed our asses off and had a hell of a time. It was just...disappointing.

The RubberMonkey guys are the only practitioners of 3D shadow puppetry. They achieve this by spacing out both a red and blue light to create the shadows. In past shows, like "Looong", they focused on a mix of shaddow puppetry, music and traditional European storytelling with a rod-puppet narrator. In their old collaborations with the Mammals theatre troupe, Boris Karloff's head appeared massive and impressive like the Wizard of Oz or a million Gods in a million issues of Heavy Metal magazine in 3-dimensions. The puppetry worked as more of a bridge between live action segments. It'd been a couple years since I'd seen them so I was excited when someone told me at the opening that I should come back the next night for a puppet show.

The show was all shadow puppets. Some were made of thick hinged cardboard and others were rod marionettes. The music was performed live by members of the Guild of Acquired Technology, who play instruments made from rewired electronics, mostly old children's toys from thrift stores. It was the first collaboration between the circuit bending and puppetry arms of RubberMonkey and, to be honest, it was less than the sum of its parts. The show had a pretty straightforward linear narrative, but I was too dumbshit to get it. There was a dragon, eating houses (as dragons are wont to do), and it either fell in love with some lady or ruined her life. And there were skeletons. The 3D worked half of the time and was a little jarring when it didn't and the music never seemed to come togethor. It all ended up in a heartless mesh of noise (and I don't mean that in a good way). The circuit benders instruments are pretty awesome creations but the majority of them are pretty limited and sometimes fall flat when it comes to performance time. Especially when you can't watch them at work. I'm not sure if the performance was improvised or not, but it didn't work (at least not for me). They're trying it again next week, with a more established show, The Palm Wine Drinkard. Also Lord of the YumYum, so ignore what I have to say and head out over there.

bad moon rising 2

Second: Funkadesi at Angelfest II
When: 7:30
Things I missed to be there: Noise benefit at Enemy II, Pal and Doug Travis at Hollywood Mirror.
Reason I went: Seemed like the natural progression of my weekend

God bless Catholic Schools, not only are they the world's foremost producers of crazy girls who're great in bed but they have enough money to have big neighborhood festivals with beer and live bands. We didn't have that shit at public school. At Stone all we had was a fuckin cafetorium. I say give em more money, at least if they'll put up bands like Funkadesi. ESPECIALLY if they put up bands like Funkadesi who sing about Jah.

Funkadesi is one of my favorite local bands. Back in high school their EP was one of the cassettes that never left my mother's car (the others were Social Distortion's Self Titles, Black Sabbath's first, a Red Hot Chili Peppers/George Clinton mix, and the Tar Babies' "No Contest"). I would usually make people listen to "Piya Tu/Black Magic Woman" two or three times before I'd let em flip to side B. They're just a kick ass band. Their name is derived from the words 'funk' (no shit) and 'desi, a term that means something akin to 'countryman' in Sanskrit and something closer to 'Indian Party People' in local slang. Though I don't really know any Desi's who'd actually be seen at a Funkadesi show (they're more into hip-hop), the band is always a good time. Their music is a mix of funk, reggae, and traditional African, Cuban and Indian music. Today they were playing as a ten piece with old members joining in and a beautiful new singer who was playing her first gig with the band.

The band takes well to festivals, and don't play out enough otherwise. Their Summerdance appearance is the highlight of a lot of my friends' summer every year. It's not the enviroinment I usually find myself in at the beginning of a Saturday night, but it was pretty great. There were dozens of children running around, doing their oblivious childhood fun thing; there were a couple dozen cats chomping fat, black cigars and noddin their heads, and a couple hundred parents getting drunker and drunker til they were wooed on the dance floor. Old Catholics + beer + music = awesome. They were trying their hardest to match the movements of bassist Rahul Sharma as he danced and orchestrated the band. Overall, the band was a bit unwieldy with their new singer (who I am ten kinds of in love with) and extended lineup but they played fierce and fast and didn't fall into any of that cornball shit that defines a lot of what gets served up as world music these days. They'll be playing the Lotus festival next week. Go see them.

bad moon rising 1

Yo, everytime I post on this blog, I get inundated with spam. Fake comments make baby Lab Rats cry. C'est levie. Another saturday night.

First: Some kickass Uptown Hair Salon on Broadway and Wilsonn (5pm)
What: MC battle on the street

Me and Pinky are driving around and we see this crowd of like fifty people crowded around this line of stores on Broadway. We jump out to see what's going on, and it's seriously the worst battle I've ever heard. There was a DJ who was pretty good, and these two guys (a big one from Uptown and a little one from Rogers Park) are battling. Every time the redline passes overhead, they stop. All of them. The rappers, the DJ. We all just wait. This cat from Uptown Bikes tells us that this is the final match and this is the best the little guy can come up with:

"You look like/ a girl named Erica!/You look like a car-toon CHARACTAH"

Yeah motherfucker, that was awesome. Thank you.

cd review: Dadbot

True Story

Me: Hi, Do you have anything that sounds like Atom & his Package fronting an all-cracker version of TV on the Radio?

Record Store Guy: Sure [hands me Dadbot cd]

Me: How is it?

RSG: It has some great moments, but between the passe laptronica pop, the wack lyrics, and the cardboard sleeve, you'll forget you have this in two months' time.

Me: Oh. Um. Are all the tracks clean?

RSG: Cleaner than your Mom.

Me: Cool.

RSG: I'm gonna go smoke some heroin.