Videotape

So lets try and collect our thoughts about Videotape. Whats different now? You don't anticipate the same things once you become familiar. You've collected a bunch of pictures from various places. Familiar songs can still surprise you when you here them in different venues. There was one track of theirs that I cannot identify that reminded me of  Placebo....I think The Creeps! It has a similar forward drive, that same theater. And when you think Placebo, you don't think shoegaze, like ever. And yes this is a near purely subjective opinion but this fragment of the haze and fog is how it is remembered at Empty Bottle,Free Monday. They don't remind me of other .....hmm ..shoegaze bands. These passing thoughts make perfect sense at the moment and perhaps reveal more of my baggage as I observe. This post was originally for their appearance at Empty Bottle ....with Walking Bicycles and Pamphleteers and that feels so long ago, and now on top of that their gig at Quenchers, and that's still so damn long ago.  I gotta get this post out, finish the process of documenting what I saw. Hmmmmmm, their music plays in my head regularly. I don't tire of Pulling Teeth. It kind of snaps you out of it, and wakes you in a wonder filled hopeful state. A few songs from Panda Riot do just that put you in a happy...ish mood. This impression I get, indeed presents itself before the lyrics reach me. The songs are memorable before you begin to understand them. Between Me + You immediately brings me in the back couch of Cafe Mustache on Milwaukee Ave. It was an acoustic performance then and it brought this unexpected level of intimacy that filled the room. They did a whole set but that's the song I remember. Sofi sat down in front of the mic. I guess I'm just happy to be able to have seen three gigs. Those are just the ones I caught. They play a lot locally. The good thing about being called shoegaze is the exposure you get within the loosely woven network. Whatever gets you to them does not matter. Quickly you see how wide their appeal can be. Walking In Circles sounds perfect for that Cafe Mustache gig. I don't recall but I'm sure they played it. Its so well put together. It begins so intimately, takes you to a peak and as you slowly descend encounter traffic that makes the ride so much better. Look at me I just went on about selling This Is Disconnect all over again. Her voice deepens in fragments in Digest. I reserve that one for a car drive, an introspective moment while driving. The easy sells can speak for themselves but only when you listen. Once you are sold on that. I think it is worth the effort to explore the previous self-titled EP. Monsters is dreamy and a perfect campfire acoustic song. In this 2011 release they are indeed more dreamy, not forward and aggressive. The Ship Is Sinking but you are chill, like something Suzanne Vega can talk and stroll through. Fourth Of July does have a horse driven forward drive fit for a Clint Eastwood western. There is this urgent pace, and I'm totally taken to a certain scene in the Sam Shepard play True West. At first you will not see the differences coming. It opens a whole other side to Videotape and one that is worth buying. 1994 is feel-good sweet, minimal and quirky. Its one that one can find singing along.This is a band that I'm happy to have found. I'm glad they are local. Even if they don't play from the EP anymore, its very worth knowing this in their background. You treasure the band for a completely different set of reasons. Anyway, this post needs to be out.
Zig

We Are Hex.....never mind what I said before.

So this was at Burlington, a medium-small venue. I had once believed We Are Hex was no more and posted about that back in 2011. In a span of like two months I saw them three times that summer, and then they broke up. These are events that defined that year. The last was with my dear friends Killer Moon at a DIY venue. And then that was that. WAH were riding this power wave of momentum and I was happy to discover them when I did. It felt like I caught them in front of the wave and not behind it. Alright, I was kinda behind it if you count back to their origin of 2007. They have music still unrecorded that once you're a fan you are also salivating for those recordings. It's interesting how they came back to being where they are now, 2013 racing  to gain on the 2011 wave of momentum. And touring, this time to release the EP Lewd Nudie Animals. If there was one new song I could identify that I wanted to hear it was that one. They were also touring with new material.  There's a whole story behind how they came back. Read the interviews on Warmfest.org.  Jilly tells ya'. You read that before or after a show.   Hmm, meanwhile I still listen to their music all the time. Hail The Goer, Gloom Bloom, they are like vineyards that you know will be with you a while. I will never tire of visiting these spaces in my head. Nothing feels formulaic. Th

ere's still so much they have not recorded.  In part that's why you go see them as many times as possible. Your first time, you're barely broken into the cult following. So loaded was that Friday 6 September, my forth time and now a converted believer. I bring in my sister and her husband Greg.
  You don't see a performance so much as a possession. I mean Jilly Weiss goes mental on stage. There is toughness to Jilly for if a possession, it is one she participates in and not a victim of. Jilly appears in full control of the demons that fear her. Jilly is a live wire on the stage with movements that are instinctual and appear unpredictable. After every show Jilly is always so nice and approachable. If its your first time, there's no order to her moves. Its all chaos and instinct. Its a little like seeing Ian Curtis dance for the first time. In the beginning of the Burlington show she wears a hoodie with a boxer's authority.  She howls as if tough neighborhoods don't scare her. They sound urban, streetwise and unpolished.  If you have a muscle car, this is what you want to play from it. If you are let's say jogging. It will pull out of you that second wind. Its the kind of energy this band has, explosive and sustained and focused. Its like they let the bass loose and it forces everyone to catch up and pump the blood faster. You feel an agility along with the impatience. Whenever I can hear the bass sort of run things, I listen. Also, from the beginning there was a darkness to them, a built in supernatural radar.  There is something about urban decay that they do not show fear for. Its in their landscape, part of what they can describe, but fear does not seem to be a real thing from them. We are not speaking of a juvenile type of defiance. There's an automatic maturity to their specific awareness of the dark. Oh shit I said it too loud. Here are the goths as a part of their fan base, and their ok with it going psychedelic, as in.....Birthplace of the Mystics.    In this interview with Warmfest.org Jilly goes on to say their sound is growing darker.  That kind of talk only encourages those that already wash their clothes in Woolite Dark, in cold water.  . The recorded music and the pictures both suspend something thin and incomplete until you see them live.   The music they produce demand a kind of energy that I'm immediately reminded of old 70's, muscle cars. The 70's, I was barely aware of them, woven into the memory of early childhood. So I'm reminded of the earliest fleeting memories of rock and roll. Their sound land locked, too feral to be of urban origin. I wonder how they are appreciated in their native Indianapolis, Indiana. Even as I was barely made aware of them in 2011, part of it was being in this cult following of theirs. From the first show I got it, I was hooked and cannot imagine my music collection without it.
Zig.