Ami Saraiya at Hungry Brain...again!

Ami And The Outcome is playing Hungry Brain this Monday 22 August! I've been listening to Ami for perhaps 3 years or more. Her music plays all the time in my head, like furniture in the interior castle. I just have two CDs and an EP from her but I know her trail is far longer than I have documented. I've missed some of her shows recently and I feel bad for that. She played Whistler and I believe Schubas. I had to miss them. But her and the band gig heavily and I trusted on another performance that I could go to. And now here it is on my radar. It's always great when some of these shows are on weekdays. Monday is off-off Broadway as you are going to get. I believe the last time I saw Ami was at Hungry Brain. It was a Tuesday and she played after some stand-up comics did their thing. It was fascinating to see these people get up on stage and just talk, and make funny or just weird observations to their friends. They had the place to themselves and in the end Ami sang, not with her accordion but with a guitar. I just hope I can coordinate this show with what's going on in Empty Bottle.

Kaspar-Zig

Salem Bitch Trials

I left a lot unsaid about seeing SBT. There is something so punk about them, like something forgotten from an other-world raw period. Slightly familiar but not conventional-sounding. Their existence seems in part to be fueled by strongly held beliefs that come out fierce in their Riot Grrl delivery. They have that energy that comes from a young but wizened bunch. Not juvenile. Dare I say they remind me of Daisy Chainsaw. So they got this confrontational style. The lead singer often throws herself into the crowd, shoving people lightly but sternly. It's not really bad, its actually quite fun to have this 90 pound chic acting like 150 breaking that fourth wall. One song that I recall hearing and it's on their 5 song EP Sexual Assault Causes Impotence is ....interesting. I mean who isn't against sexual assault, right? Yet even after that consensus, it still happens. I think that is the source of their righteous anger. After one gig at Reggies, the girls were actually assaulted by some asshole at their merch table. He was bounced out but....ok, that's not rape but here is this huge jerk that has no problem wanting to beat on girls a third his size. Let's say I don't trust further this bastard's boundaries or lack there of. So righteous anger seems part of the engine of the being of Salem Bitch Trials. In their aggression you can tell they still have fun and can handle the chaos they produce. You have to when you have songs like "Eat My Pussy". Look at me, I said "their" anger. It is not just theirs. It should be everyones. As they performed this, the lead singer drifts into what seems to be a lecture in the middle of the song ignoring the beat of the music. This is something she would do again in another song and it seems to work for me, because it's that raw punk passion combined with a sense of purpose that spills over. Not her dress. It held together well. She didn't want to spill out of that. That is significant because it shows that she is not oblivious in the moment of performance. I like the EP I got and look forward to seeing them again.

We Are Hex/Killer Moon

Notice the Joy Division shirt on the drummer!
They played new music that Friday night. We Are Hex are playing what they will eventually record I think in California, tour there up and down and then eventually back in Chicago I don't know when.
I feel a tribal affinity with local bands, midwestern bands. We always seem to feel we don't get enough respect from the coasts. Like too much attention goes to them. And so too many want to go live there to chase the weirdness. We forsake the mouth for the source. We are that source. Our various scenes are a wonder to behold like an oasis you forgot was there.

So, my dear friends Killer Moon were invited to open for this show at Treasure Town this past Friday 12 August. They were invited by Rabble Rabble the headliner. The two other bands were Cool Memories and We Are Hex. When I found out I was glowing like Robert Deniro in Goodfellas. One of my own was about to get made. Killer Moon was going to share a stage with We Are Hex! And it was at a squat. The same building as Mortville. Treasure Town is on the second floor. Mortville is on the third. The third floor has the availability of the roof you can where you can just chill and smoke and have this view of the working class urban backside of Chicago. Add to that the novelty of using this former work space for art and music, making this lonely old building cool again. The problem is that it's the third floor, one has to consider the logistics of hauling heavy equipment up and then down again. Treasure Town is mercifully on the second. To see friends of mine (Killer Moon) open for bands that I am a fan of is pinch me fabulous. It's outward validation of something that you internally support. And we are still using this old building in a shady south-side neighborhood. It's really odd to have Empty Bottle-type of hipsters that far south. It takes quite a lot of gravity to get them to go south. The only thing open is this gas station across the viaduct. The Pink Line is right there but closed....I think. For Killer Moon it was a second chance at a good performance in front of a good crowd. The previous Whistler gig was a disaster. I watched helplessly from the merch table....we now had shirts. I could not understand. I've seen them drink far more and with greater potency without them losing it. Strictly listening to the id would have me go see The Prids at Darkroom for free that same night. The id is a dick! But KM I'm close to, enough to feel a need to be there for them. At the last minute Killer Moon was hooked up by Rabble Rabble to play this gig with them and We Are Hex. KM needed this and I wanted them to succeed, to show their mettle in front of bands that I'm a fan of. Amaris and Jilly in the same picture means a capture of many converging moments. My friends got to play in front of big bands!

Slowdance at Empty Bottle

This is Quay-Quin Settel. That can be on a shirt, just her name can be the name of a band, or perhaps is how I say it in my head. Anyway so she is the lead singer of Slowdance. This was when they played Empty Bottle, last Monday 1st August. They were the headliners. And this was their first real tour. They are from Brooklyn. I sometimes can't believe my luck. I wasn't even rushing to see this, I was just killing me some stray Monday night time, and that included my initial half-assed research on them.
I'm still writing my impressions of the show down with more pictures later. When you know that this is their first time touring, you look at them differently. They are more you than that professional band they are becoming. Touring means real commitment, and the first tour is that one plunge into that commitment. I wanted the momentum of this experience to encourage them to come back again.
The modest audience that was there were indeed impressed. I didn't ask around, but that was the vibe of the room. I didn't spend too much precious seconds figuring out the crowd, I was just that zoned out on watching Slowdance....alright just Quay, but that is allowed. I mean she was singing.
They are just about to release their EP, but meanwhile there are two songs that are free to download. Once you hear them you will want to see them the next time they tour.

Bliss.city.east

This was a band I would see live a lot around two, three years ago. And with some really good company. They shared a stage with Renee Louise Carafice, and fellow urban faeries Magnetars, Panda Riot, Rosen Association, but there was never a CD available until just recently. The first time I saw them I think was at Mutiny, the CD I listen to now enshrines the crazy visual of a pregnant Kim in this ultra-sound shirt of a baby giving the middle finger. That was crazy and commands attention at least long enough to listen and be impressed, and then finally to induce one into becoming this rabid fan. WIth some bands you are lucky if the process of discovery is unique, as is Kim's pregnancy. It's a special significance to see bliss.city.east perform with this automatic time stamp. Now they are parents and now this CD. How many times are you going to witness that? Your parents are rock stars kid. I want you to know.

Love Rockets has this medium pace, alert and active with beats and Kim's voice floating over and in no rush. Like Panda Riot they have this way of infusing the moment with euphoric wonder. It's source urban with familiar instruments, I mean guitar, bass, drums. I say urban because it's important to note the landscape the mind can take. There's other-worldly and spacey, and then there's urban wonder. And so whatever pace you are good with. You are reduced to a fucking tourist and b.c.e are the tour guides. I can drive to it, I can dance to it. Each song repeats the feeling without retreading any other song. I was re-sold with each one from love rockets, first to the last.

Slow Dance

On a whim I checked out on-line what was going on at Empty Bottle and found out about Slow Dance on a Free Monday. They were the headliner. I downloaded their free songs and went to their show. I was too broke to buy anything or even get past the door so I'm glad the night was free. It turns out their EP is due out soon, so that means that they will be back....one hopes. So there will be another chance to get the shirt that I saw as well as the EP. This was I believe their first time performing in Chicago.

I go to the Bottle a lot, and even if I don't see familiar faces, I see familiar types. You don't dress up that much for Empty Bottle. It's way too casual. I did not see anyone I knew, but in retrospect I wonder if the same process as I got them there. Or was it the other bands. Slowdance headlined but that can often mean a much thinner crowd by the time it's your turn on stage. Unless they really came to see you. So the crowd was indeed modest and at first spread out. Eventually some would concentrate in front. Their website says to go see them outside of their element which probably makes this the first tour out of their native Brooklyn. A lot excellent music comes out of there. I've never been to Brooklyn, and so the more I hear that place in the context of the music that comes out of there, the more mythological it seems to me. It's quite the shoegaze mecca. There is indeed a feel of that with Slowdance. It's moodiness is gray but not dark. Not real foggy like shoegaze. There's an alertness that almost is giddy. In researching them I heard comparisons to Debbie Harry from Blondie, and Nena w/99 luftbaloons. And that's about right, and it saves me from over-using my shoegaze crayon. I had no idea the lead singer Quay was this lovely. I noticed her before walking around but I did not know she was in the band. Her form-fitting outfit was simple, like she couldn't be bothered to change after waking. Ms Q is much too hot. She just is and so what if I noticed. If you look up the band you will discover that Ms Quay-Quin Settel is referred to with another name on Facebook, Momo. Ms QQS is the most well traveled member of the entire band. I think she's from California originally and has lived in France during grammar school.

We Are Hex at Abbey Pub

Ever since seeing We Are Hex earlier this year at Empty Bottle I've been devouring Hail The Goer. But one can say it's devouring me. And I'm still riding the effects of seeing them live that first time and now I got to see them again. Jilly is a crazy energetic performer on stage, and way cool of stage. The energy is spent after the show and so she's cool. The music is such that it's kind of required for you to go ape-shit. And Jilly does. She bounces around the stage, at Empty Bottle she went into the crowd. This time at the Abby there were not enough people. It's really not on them, the band. People are lazy with the music they listen to. So in a way, I'm elitist by default. So this second time I saw them coming and now I have all these songs that I now want to hear and see live. Scary Lady Sarah DJ'd that night and so it was nice to see her and William there. She always knows of bands ahead of time....always. A lot of music I listen to is filtered through her. SLS knows my taste well before I even enter the room. The show begins to a modest crowd. I believe this time they played from Gloom Bloom the CD before. Wait....I do believe Jilly said they are playing new music. I just love how Jilly moves, it fits right into the chaotic mess her band creates. She bounces, throws herself around and sticks her tongue out the side. All this just comes out instinctively. It's like Jilly learned to dance by feeling the music and reacting to it from the gut. It amazes me how often they gig.

You can't half-ass it, and they've been performing a lot. We Are Hex are workhorses. So whenever you see them live, know that the performance you saw is something they pulled out of themselves the day before and will do again the next day. The first time there was no sense of anticipation to urge me to go see them. I was just saving myself from a boring Monday night. So my expectations were modest at best. Rabble Rabble was the headliner and they always pack the place. I stayed for them. But my curiosity compelled me to see WAH. I believe they played a lot from Hail. It's impressive how separate the songs are from each other. By the time I reach "Cutter/Giver" I'm not thinking about how similar it sounds to like two three other songs. My attention is firmly and entirely on each song as they play and that's because that is how compelling each song is on it's own. Don't let the dirt in here" has this part that Jilly starts in mid-song from a languish to a shriek chasing you and the rest of the Ghost Adventures crew out of that abandoned hospital. "There's gotta be something more!!" is the battle cry that repeats until exhausted....it's probably the only time I think I know what Jilly says. They don't tread on the same paths. Garage rock becomes just one side this band has. They got that pre-harnessed primal energy of garage rock. But they got multiple speeds, they can slow down in mid-song. You catch your breath, and enjoy the wonder. The way you do when you see a string of abandoned homes and wonder at how they got that way. It's not airy/fairy stuff. The scary fascinates. And then you don't know what to call them. Garage rock becomes the most eye catching thing to call it, but not the only thing.