Lightfoils/My Gold Mask

So this weekend I intend to see Lightfoils and My Gold Mask at Hideout. The thing that these bands have in common is Chicago goths like them. Yeah, I'm talking to you Lightfoils. Especially you. Both these bands can make goths move in the same Nocturna. Lightfoils can even get the once-a-month treatment at Late Bar on Belmont. Awh, you know which night. Now both bands will get to actually share a stage this Weekend at Hideout. Lightfoils I have more recently seen. Chicago goths that go see stuff outside the box keep their...scene adaptable and relevant, and attractive, and not necessarily pandering to youth. Plus, if you let them know you want them, they will be too good, and you won't be true to yourself.  Anyway both groups have fans in common, and they are local Chicago acts. And they are not exactly young bands, or at least their members have been playing music for a long time. My Gold Mask were once Bang Bang. Lightfoils is full of music vets. How do these bands keep alive goth culture ( if I don't think they put themselves into that box)? You just have to look outside the box to keep it alive and adaptable. Eventually you will notice that you have taken the box with you. It means looking for what is compatible with your dark romantic esthetic without necessarily committing to the big G.  Many bands will have the goth influence because it was so heavily identified with 80's and 90's. So its very easy to take from that influence. Sometimes you draw water from that pond long enough for the wildlife there to like you. And the local chicago gothic wildlife like MGM and Lightfoils. I know this because......just fucking because. I hope to see them this weekend at Hideout.

Is/Is

This was unexpected for me, this gig. I didn't see it coming two days before. I didn't know which specific recording they were promoting and so I got everything. And that indeed changes how it imprints. Sarah Rose sings and plays lead guitar. Sarah Nienaber plays bass, Mara Appel drums,They are from Minnesota and on tour. I don't know which CD the tour was supporting and so I got all three including the vinyl EP Vowel Movements.....that's one letter away from grossing me out, and the full LP III. So this is something that I can absorb now, the one iconic performance, and now the music in random order instead of the order that it came. That changes how one reads the music. Imagine discovering The Beatles in backwards order, how would that shape your impression of them? It's different when you think this can be that one show you see. I think they've been here before to Reggies. You know what? There's no think about it. I did miss it. I downloaded their two free songs to hold as reference, in case they came back and indeed they did. This time it was at Crown Tap on Milwaukee Ave. The problem with that one time is that you have to decide what to get from the merch table if at all. The merch basically competes with the local pizza joints. I wished Veggie Bite was still open, 'cause that would have really competed against the shirt. Eating can also be over-rated. I still wish I got that Prids t-shirt instead of pizza this one time. That one slice made me...throw up.  Where we at again?......Oh, Is/Is.  And so maybe your good with the two downloaded songs. If they are local you can always see them again, and that can influence...how much you don't save. But they are not and so I took my chances with the whole lot, and it's paying off. So Long on the EP This Happening I keep coming back to. Eating Hourglasses I like as well. I don't have lyrics to look at. That's another layer of atmosphere. They are almost like Interpol with a female vocalist, only fuzzier. Sarah Rose's voice is also more distant sounding, detached, and even more assertive, and deep, and a little husky. Interpol at least for a start and departs from there. Allow me to explain that further. Interpol can be spacey, fuzzy and meandering and yet we don't just call them shoegaze.....I don't know. We just don't.  The same as these guys, girls....Is/Is. They have elements of it but I don't believe are in...the full definition of it. There is a directness, a solidity to this group that....is not gazy enough. That's good 'cause I've been using that crayon a lot. There is much to sift through and explore in this Minnesota band, and I'm finding myself liking it.
Zig

Bone And Bell at Schubas

I think no matter where I am, in terms of my state of being I will have a soft spot for what music Bone And Bell does. In the euphoria of success I will still feel the quiet bittersweetness of Flying, Falling, Crawling. I suppose it keeps the hubris away. There are a lot of songs I like B And B for, but this first song leaves me awe struck like a deer in the headlights reflecting on the path his life has took. Oh look! The light gets more shiny! Right...So Heather Smith and whatever stringed instrument she chooses to play, uke, bass. The song is a shot of moonshine catharsis. Heather is a multi-instrumentalist, and is just at ease on the keyboard. If you hear the EP LOOM you assume this direction the band is taking you. A road traveled with Neko Case, Sharon Von Etten, Angel Olsen....the sweetness, and the sadness....awwhh. And then out of no where Heather goes to the bars and does like twenty pull ups....metaphorically. From fearing the shadow to intimidating it. Well perhaps that last one I can walk back. But what first attracted me to her music is her ability to articulate the vulnerable. It's not saying you don't see changes capable. But she goes from solidly sweet to badass dark from one EP to the next. I'm glad to see both sides in the same performer. Many of these songs have yet to be recorded but can be seen live and on Youtube. So I said the continuum changes from the LOOM end to the current Organ Fantasies. The changes can best be seen in the live shows where the songs Words Left Unspoken, Four Horses, Tiny Little Hands show you how to walk when fully armed.  It's that slow motion cool walk.....oh you get it. It's like suddenly she lights a cigarette with a match she sparked off her bandmates face. Those have that kind of coolness. Organ Fantasies feel like a slight lean back to what first attracted me to B And B, only with hardened wisdom. In Serpentside she sees the grand betrayal coming. Oh and this new EP is on vinyl, with the lyrics and everything....yeah download code too. There's space between all the instruments so that it's not all a wall of sound. You can hear how the individual gears work with each other, with the clarity of Heather's voice. If you want to catch exactly what she hears it's no hard effort. The live performances are indeed the efforts of all the musicians because Bone And Bell are a full band now. The guitarist is badass cool. It's not just Heather's voice that produces the effect but the guitar answering and asserting her verses. Yeah, Heather makes it to all the pictures....so?  We have here someone like Christa from Man Is Man that can forge many a heart heavy word into battle ready iron. We are in the middle of heavy times, just when such troubadours are most sorely needed and for me Heather Smith of Bone And Bell is one. Did I over sell it?  Sorry, just being a rabid fan.

Salem Bitch Trials

The last time I saw the feminist-punk Salem Bitch Trials the memory of them being assaulted by some asshole at their own merch table at Reggies was still fresh. Their anger has it's rightful origins. It's not for nothing. I find myself in quiet solidarity with them. Their shirts were so cheap. I think they printed their logo on old Gap t-shirts. Just walk around with a Salem Bitch Trials shirt. It's fabulous. This time at Mutiny on Western Ave I found them more relaxed and seemingly in a happier, less guarded mood, and most of them had cat-themed make-up on ears and all. I think one of them graduated college. It was a judgement call to see them. This gig happened to coincide with that of another band Rachel's Surrender. It was raining hard and Mutiny was closer off the highway. I can list off a bunch of other excuses. I wanted to see RS. Ruben is a friend of mine. It's his band. This urgency brings you to the crossroad. Then you decide. When I arrived it was with the usual urgency fueled with a presumed tardiness. It was 11pm  and I thought I was missing something. I get to Mutiny and there was still a band ahead of SBT. Instantly I started to think I can make both shows if I run fast enough....or more likely I can miss both in the attempt. So I stay. By now I'm familiar with how SBT perform. Unpredictable, aggressive and belligerent but not malicious. Yeah they push off and shove their audience but its to drive the point forward into your space. Like they want this outrage, and energy to be your own. You're not just going to stay on stage with songs like "Eat My Pussy!", "Deep Within, It Swallows", oh and "Sexual Assault Causes Impotence". It may sound like I'm taking out the piss by listing the funny names to their songs but I am not. It's important to see what is behind the shock of the names. It's not hard to see. There is reason behind the anger, but lets also revel in the humor, the fun.  You know when they sing "Castrate and Kill" they are loving it. "Check, Check, CHECK!!!" That's how one of the lead singers checks the mic. I start looking for napkins to stuff into my ears. She stretches and takes off her shoes. This is now their space. This is the work they do, the preparation. If you just see the youtube videos and not see them get ready you may not see the order of it, and dismiss them off-hand. You know they're not crazy when they prep. This is only my second time seeing them. The kind of punk they do, it's interesting to see how they recreate the moment, the break. SBT rarely stay on stage during a performance, a lot of spontaneous moments contained. Their space is in the crowd. I suppose one can hear their music and see much that has been done before. What? Was I under a rock during the riot girl 90's? Yeah....I do recall listening to a lot of Los Panchos, Los Tecolines and that led into spanish rock.  But what does it say that fem/punk rock can still be...and be pissed off. Well, yeah. If they can lock up Pussy Riot. The engine that keeps fem/punk alive and relative in part is outrage. I like that I can find bands like Salem Bitch Trials now, today instead of wishing I was there to see Bikini Kill, or The Gits...or I can still wish for that too. SBT will play Crown Tap on Milwaukee Ave with Lezurrecction, and Fucking Dyke Bitches Thursday 7 June....and I'm saying that with a straight face.https://www.facebook.com/sbtchicago

bliss.city.east

Where do I start with this band really. Officially, bliss.city.east is back. I do recall one time saying the band was no more.....hell I recall them saying the band was no more. But it never really felt that way. Perry/Kim are in other projects. We're always going on Facebook. Perry posts and people answer. There is a whole presence there. Perry's a dad. Kim's a mom. Imagine that whole other side in addition to being musicians. And perhaps this lends a maturity to their music.
  I see bliss.city.east as part of the local shoegaze constellation....to be short. When I say local, I do not mean small and inconsequential to a larger thing. Chicago is just where they live now. Perry has lived in the East Coast and I think London. Perry/Kim have deep old roots and familiarity with what we call shoegaze/dream pop... enough to take the piss out of it on occasion, enough to feel the weight of it's baggage. Meaning this. When the bands that we first reference, the old pantheons that reunite and sell out Metro, Riv, Aragon, they get the glory. The smaller bands get the baggage, the smaller clubs  and crowds in the north-side, bewildered expressions on the south-side. The term "shoegaze" gets resistance from all fronts. And the recoil can have you move away from it like the house on Amitiville. I see the term as a piece of old furniture that somehow finds its way back to your ass. You thought you threw that old couch out last night before garbage day....and days later you realize you've spent hours on it while on X-Box...or something. Some how it finds its way back. So is it This Old House or comfort furniture. When it's furniture it's not the whole of identity, only part.
  References to shoegaze go back to the 90's....ok beyond, but lets look at the 90's when Perry was in Skylight in Boston. Perry has old roots but we give exclusive credit for that elsewhere. Alright, I am biased. They are friends of mine, from when I saw them at Mutiny when Kim was pregnant with Ada. The last time I saw them I think was at Late Bar. The band complete with the the inclusion of the long trusted Eric D' Asto on guitar and Melanie Yodane on drums. Yes, they got a real drummer! Perry is used to his drum machine. Was that Melanie I saw at the Killer Moon show at the Bottle? I hope I'm not wrong about this, Perry and Kim were finally happy with their inclusion. Eric has a long history with Perry. The mention of Melanie and Eric are brief here but they are far more important than I can say here. I don't even know how long. Oh, anyway...... Kim's vocals are nice and breathy. Yeah, so that term shoegaze I throw around a lot.  Dream pop on occasion, but mostly, you know. And I apply it to b.c.e, thats because I see an inherent maturity in both the term and the band. And that means a long half-life in the archive. I call b.c.e shoegaze but they are not bound to producing nothing but. I've said it before, they are in other projects as if on the cross roads to other sound possibilities....like with SPC ECO and Morpheme, Curve with Dean Garcia,...oh and now A*Star!  Perry actually has a very close working relationship Dean Garcia. There is a reason for all this. All these other projects have music that are dance floor worthy yet not pandering to a low common denominator. They don't do culo house music. Did I just sound like a snob? Shoegaze I think the term at worst implies soft, toothless, sleepy fuzz hype...to detractors, but I've learned to dance on it. For me there is flexibility in the term. It's outer fringes invites enthusiasts that like all kinds of punk/goth/industrial music, as well as those Empty Bottle indy folk that don't have a Bauhaus shirt in the closet. By the way, that is a nice Joy Division shirt you got on. No...it won't look out of place where we are going. So let us leave that old couch alone. You do like it, and it likes you. The resistance is understandable. Sometimes it's a fucking octopus that clings to you, and where is that damned spear. No one wants to be packaged into a corner. And that is where the resistance comes from.

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez didn't one day decide to write AVery Old Man With Enormous Wings out of his ass and just call it Magical Realism. I think the term helped to sell the novel. And so b.c.e. didn't one day decide to do .....their take on shoegaze. They did not seek that name out. Sometimes they run with it. Sometimes they feel it's weight.  Hmm, this one last point, some will not like to hear this reason but here it is. I don't feel shoegaze is for the young, or else they would be promoting this to the 18 and over/all ages market. Perhaps its different somewhere else. Perhaps there are other reasons that can explain how the sub-genre finds itself lighting up with older musicians.....as in older than 27. I don't say "older" in a bad way. I don't feel old when I go to shoegaze events like at Late Bar with Philly and Scary Lady Sarah, or when Empty Bottle fills up for School Of Seven Bells and WarPaint. The music naturally appeals to age. The road that Perry has traveled as a musician and father has to find itself expression in the tangible end result of the music he puts out. The music that he produces ages with him. We as audience do as well. If I ever felt like I was aging away from it, then selling it like I do would be difficult if not impossible.

Lightfoils

As I write this I still feel the sting of missing some shows. They are almost harder to forget for not seeing them. Yeah, I've seen Eliza Rickman a good number of times. There is something about that one elusive time. I think that was this one chance to buy the CD or something like that, the one chance to catch that asteroid on time. The night before that I missed Angel Olsen. That one hurt, 'cause you don't know when she'll be back. So this last Wednesday night 2 May 2012 I boo-hooed my ass all the way to Subt's on time to see Lightfoils. And I finally got the CD to take home, and explore. Now I can kind of go on about this song and that. I missed more of their shows than I've seen. There's always something thwarting the effort. That makes you hungrier for the next time you see them. The show that eludes always feels like the best one, and on that pain comes another pulse for having a friend on the band. You feel twice as bad, like when I went to go see the Panda Riot/Magic Key/Kodacrome show at Hideout instead of Ligtfoils for free at Double Door.  Anyway so there I finally am to see them and whether it is apparent or not what plays before me is a band with some milage to them. They all are well traveled as individuals and now as a band they got here with SXSW in their rear-view. I believe this is my first time since their tour. Most of the times that I've seem them it was in the context of a shoegaze related event. Not this time, and not next time since they will play Hideout next month with My Gold Mask. So they can be Lightfoils without needing the shoegaze tent even as its part of their sound. I think it's great to be something without....depending on it.  I say that about a lot of the music I listen to yes, divorcing music from the scene.  Which ever one it is at the moment. I spend like half a paragraph writing this divorce clause....in case the subculture .....fads out or something. It's my primitive way of finding the difference. In case the ship sinks, here's your life raft, right? In the end we all want to stand out from our contemporaries as timeless. At the same time it's always the subcultures or enthusiasts of those subcultures that support a band with that full sincere faith from the humble beginnings until the bitter theatrical divorce. We like something, we support it. I don't know if it's just me but shoegaze is a great goth ambassador. At the very least I consider the two linked. In Chicago its goths that put shoegaze related nights up, promote the bands because it's part of what we like. So if I have not gave that away already, this is how I came to know Lightfoils, but it is not what shackles the band down.
  Ah, yes the Remix LP as it is called. It has 4 original songs with 8 remixes from Unicycle Loves You, New Canyons, Bloody Knives, oh yeah Panda Riot among others. The remixes I want to take my time on but their appearance is significant for me because it shows support among the various bands. Into Deep Sea had me with the bass, and I'm not just saying that because I know Cory the bass player. Bass is just...the muscle behind the sweetness. That is probably a sentiment that can echo across all the music that I listen to. Bass keeps me from turning diabetic. Deep Sea is the first to imprint During that live show it was apparent how much fun Cory was having playing. I listen to Sympathy Lies and I fondly get hints of New Order. Yeah so it's that dance-worthy type of shoegaze. All the songs are actually. How It Is..I gotta tell it the long way. I used to play Sonic The Hedgehog. I always liked the background music of that game. Very colorful was that music. That song brings me back to that. Perhaps that is too subjective a description. How It Is can take you to a familiar if ill defined place. It's easier to write about the music in greater detail with the actual CD in hand. Lightfoils were at Subt's as a support band. My focus was not on the headliner. The audience was indeed attentive to all the bands that played. Lightfoils had a good solid crowd for them. I noticed all my friends that know Lightfoils also went to see the headliners but I was oblivious, but not willfully so. I was just glad I got to see who I went there for.
Zig