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.