Videotape

This is one I've been meaning to do for so long. Videotape is one I've been hearing good things about for what feels like a year. No deliberate research and never really catching a show until most recently with Blackstone Rangers and Panda Riot at Township. Sophie Leigh sings. Her voice is dreamy capable of both intimacy, distance and sneering aggression. I should say it begins with her voice. In Walking In Circles you start off small with twangy guitar, that you follow without noticing you being lead into a room with a massive chandelier . But your focus begins and is sustained briefly one candle at a time.  Candles blow out if you move fast right? You keep to a slow but urgent pace. And the song builds behind you until its ready to crash around you. Pulling Teeth is more persuasive than the name suggests. It sells like shoegaze girl scout cookies. It has the forward drive with the guitars while staying pillowy soft. That word is no where near The Creeps. Here resides the sneers, the jagged aggressive swagger. Who are you calling soft? So it feels like I'm late for this train. I forgot how many songs I caught, maybe three, so most of my impression is of hearing their CD This Is Disconnect later, and I'm so glad I bought it. I do recall almost not buying it. Now I'm feeling the shows I missed. I could have seen them at fucking Cole's!!! Here we have a self-identified shoegaze band that does all kinds of things non shoegazy. With Videotape that word is a crossroad. In Chicago shoegaze brings to mind an actively playing loosely woven scene, bands that play around often. And as they define the local scene, Videotape also finds its many ways outside that box. Before you can finish uttering the word, they are out the door sounding in ways resonant and unexpected. Shoegaze is the road that lead me to them, and once past the threshold you get to see how far away they can take you from there. I find myself forgetting that Videotape self-identifies as shoegaze. This both reinforces why I like the sub genre as a whole while not burning me out. I don't feel like I over-indulged in something, like when you eat too much Baker Square pie. One piece too many. They got more shows coming up, including Saturday 13 April at Multi Kulti on 1000 N Milwaukee....I think. And late July with Walking Bicycles at Empty Bottle and Coles Friday 26 April and I want to go to them all.
Zig