Toupee

   Her eyes are intense, I mean you feel like you shouldn't lock eyes on her like to do so feels so exposed as to a wolf that can take that as a fucking green light. You get the feeling of being intensely observed by the performer. Like there is no fourth wall. She tossed her wet towel to some guy in the crowd, almost half expecting him to be repulsed by it. I mean the towel was soaking. She goes, "This towel is still wet." Jocelyn from Walking Bicycles saw it and was amused. She laughed. I believe this was her first time actually seeing them. It was this live impression that drove me to get the vinyl way back when I saw them the first time. Walking Bicycles had them play on their vinyl release at Empty Bottle. I only took pictures of them the first time and bought and downloaded their whole album Dinner Parties.
  You can feel that barely restrained raw punk tension with Lullabies. Yeah, a live performance from Toupee is a sight to catch. A barely harnessed beast in a space too small for the observer and the observed. At this point the memories blur into this magical realist/German expressionist fog barely separating the Township files from Empty Bottle files. Stop Start/Dial Up is where the raw punk beast is kinda let loose to run around. I wonder how differently the impression would feel if heard before seen. I saw this with my jaw dropped to the fucking floor. I'm quite certain they played this. Its impacting live. Hmm, I can always say this is what compelled me to buy the vinyl. Listening to the recorded work sometimes starts you off on another note. Your impression differs. Dial Up, is a raw, fast punk explosion with a second sustaining wind. She grates her voice, you see a range with it. Almost on a whim the singer seems willing to engage or answer voices in the crowd. Talking with them. Her crazy Christopher Walken gaze seems weaponized to burn through you. It was cool to see Jocelyn react to those Toupee' moments. Intense, abrasive, and fast, when they slow down they nearly blossom into something else. Slowski shows they can simmer that tension to a slow psyche burn.  I mean they just turn on the cool with this track. They have a Free Monday at Empty Bottle 26 January.
Zig

Dream House!

  So this past Thursday night was a first for me. I went to see a Siouxsie and The Banshees tribute band on their first gig at Live Wire Lounge.  I've never said this because it sounds mean. I don't like tribute bands or cover bands. The idea of them grates the nerves, .......normally. Something forced me to reexamine that.  I could not help but want to see this thing with Rani from Girl Detective. They named it Dream House. In seeing Rani do Spellbound,  I was seeing her as Girl Detective do Entrance., as well as Siouxsie. In the end we were all there to kind of bring some of the elements of seeing these legendary songs in the small dark clubs by kinda doing just that. Having some one doing them live with that passion.  Also as I said, not seeing Girl Detective..... Missing them shows loads the significance of seeing Dream House. Makes you mindful of what you actually witness.
  Discovering Siouxsie in high school is what I felt introduced me to young adulthood. This was not something trendy or stuck in a decade. She was timeless and opened the flood gates. I was ok with it being so remote, far from my own existence. I was ok with its creation being so far from me. I do recall a few times the process of getting tickets to a show of hers. My awareness of her is through vinyl, CD, cassette....and video and when old enough the goth clubs. Very rarely do I see her live. Anyway thats a fucking tangent.. But Siouxsie is big and sacred to me indeed......but... In the here and now Rani who I saw at SMW is doing this, how fucking steady are you an a petty principle.
  Live Wire Lounge is a cool small punk venue that's just intimate enough. Its way north on Milwaukee Ave. In the here and now I find myself more mindful of local music and artists. And this is Rani from Girl Detective. I got a post I've been holding back forever. Then one day I actually meet her and that does it. Here I am at the shows. Here I am writing about them. Documenting their existence beyond that one performance.
  Right up until I knew I  caught a significant part of this first Dream House gig can I relax and retroactively enjoy the drive over. The whole damn time from shower to highway I felt I was late. Once  I got there, parked....I was good and felt free to observe this venue. Ami was there already. Andrew would arrive later from a show at Hideout. A lot of the patrons sat by the bar. The place is small enough for you to hear the band from anywhere. The crowd was good and mostly scattered by the bar so as to make a live band more background to them. I greeted Ms Ami and I went to the front. Rani as Siouxsie was great. Dream House played a lot of old punk leaning, ragged. What could I say then? I would see this again. It was a good time desperately needed like a gasp of air.
Zig

Solemn Meant Walks...at long last.

  Fucking finally!   Solemn Meant Walks! A Saturday at Debonair Social Club, this is officially the first time seeing them perform. Yet well before this gig, the ice was being broken and we've been friends.  Being late as bad as that is, was not a total loss because each time I ended up hanging around with the band and getting to know them. This one time when I bought their CD there sat on another table, my friends from Killer Moon.  That helps me tremendously, because I often go to these shows alone, and I wonder if that makes me look like this lone wolf weirdo.  Then they played with Spiritual Bat and I saw them, well not on stage....yeah, I was late.  By then I was actively listening to their music.  Anyway now I'm getting to know the recorded music, the self-titled CD. My original plan was to go see Circuit de Yeux and then SMW. The high from seeing one show to another, but I just could not spend the money on both and chose Solemn Meant Walks!
  The live experience keeps the music in the present mind, and it brings out the layers not considered when listening at home to the recorded work.  I did not know Highway was about Resurrection Mary until Ami said so in this last concert. Before then I just liked the song for how it sounded to me. Resurrection Mary is our local incarnation of a ghostly vanishing hitchhiking archetype. Ami's voice is deep, haunting and just right for going on about her. There's a maturity to her voice so she ain't tryin' to sound like anything. Seeing them live prompted me to look the video up. Its great! There are so many ways to like this video. I've driven around some of the places the video for Highway was filmed, Willow Springs. I live close. The places feel familiar, yet still effortlessly mysterious.  Each band member seemed to have their own moment with Mary in the places she has been sited. And then Ami stopped for her and drove Mary around. Ami is a rare female exception for Ms Mary. She normally does not compel women to stop.
   And I came across research that suggests Resurrection Mary was a Back of the Yards girl when she was alive. OK that last bit has nothing to do with the band. I fucking love when music is so damn local, using and invoking the local legends.  The whole vicious cycle begins again.  I can better describe the songs I like. Fleeting is now a focus.  Meaning.....wow! The song picks up fast and is transparent enough for you to see and admire clearly the engine that drives the track forward with Ami's voice swirling forward. Its the type of song that you commit to liking it before you even fully understand lyrics. And so its like that with Fleeting. I catch phrases that stand out, and I don't do linear.   Certain phrases stand out in the middle of the song and ....
  I went jogging on some cold wet Monday and I played SMW on my ipod. I let the music find its own way into my mind, rather than forcing it. When I first read about them, in part because we have many friends in common, I liked their music right away. I must have come across them on bandcamp or something similar. I took one listen for maybe two minutes. I don't even recall which track and concluded that it was awesome, but I would not indulge in hearing it again until I bought the CD. And that is just me, sometimes I cannot indulge until I own. And even then what was found in the first spontaneous listen may not be there when you listen again. So I don't force it, and let the music find its place. And you know what? That works. And I find myself in awe again over my everyday surroundings and routines. And I need that too.
Zig

axons

 Axons played this Tuesday at Empty Bottle with Moritat. The two other bands I do regret missing and I intend to see still. But I was happy to arrive on time to see Axons. Something Kon from Moritat found amusing and perhaps...impressive was that I was on time at all. He has caught me arriving late to shows. I was so on time I didn't even walk all that fast from where I parked. And I layered on top of that these excellent conversations I have with Kon even as Adele sets up. ...Oh that is her off-stage name.  Axons is her stage name. That sounds like I'm trying to make it too exotic. Axons is the name of the band, and Adele is the sole member of it. Minimal and effortlessly dance-floor friendly. Each song reveals whole different sides, unexpected angles.
    Bastards and Gadolinium sound so very different from each other, they represent whole different ways she can go. The only thing that keeps getting telegraphed is a wide range and depth. She is easy to like.  Bastards comes at you like Rutger Hauer in Lady Hawke, taking mother fuckers out. It has this blusey primal pair of balls. This can be a battle cry of righteous anger. And let me stick this in, Ms Adele can easily hotwire Wonder Woman's invisible plane but she chose to be a Civil Rights lawyer when not playing Empty Bottle as Axons. Let me cut the analysis to just this on this one song, from me its from the point of view of someone with a short fuse for assholes. Hence the previous mention of Rutger Hauer..... Inter Vivos betrays such a wide range that it just can't be contained in just five songs,...... and Gadolinium.  There have been more gigs I missed from her since the one time at Township. And so I've been listening in complete awe the music I have of her. Adele was also at Hideout for Lycanthea....no, she was in the audience.....in casual conversation with Rebecca from Panda Riot. . And so that Tuesday she played from her new recorded work Unmanageable . I guess the songs that sounded unfamiliar to me live are what is in it. Eight songs, some that began their imprint live.
  On the way home from seeing Solemn Meant Walks is when I chose to first hear the CD Unmanageable. So this post is more about seeing it live. I'm taking my time with this new work. I just find myself wanting to find reasons to drive and to listen as I go from point A to B. Its one of those things that modernity lets you get away with.  And so I choose here to go on about the songs that already have been playing a lot in my head. Gadolinium, that one she played this last time at the Bottle. The recording of it sounds so minimal  and intimate like your dancing alone in your room to Cocteau Twins. Intimate as well as grand and brilliant. And so what a beautiful thing to hear it live. It blossoms as more dance floor friendly. The audience at Empty Bottle was very attentive. That crowd was hers. And let me say this, yeah lean in....the one other time I saw her at Township there were these assholes that said some sexist misogynistic shit that she can hear. The vibe at Empty Bottle just would not support that. This crowd was hers, you know. The girl has some stage Jedi presence.

Zig

Moritat

  I'm trying to have written posts about the bands I intend to see. Moritat will play Empty Bottle Tuesday 2 December. Aside from saying when I've seen them, its always hard for me to describe them, well...... at least when you are trying you are also thinking about them.  I've seen them a lot....that presumes that I know how to describe them.....Hmmm, like Panda Riot. And as many times as they orbit locally, they only shared a stage once. Anyway, Moritat....They are from Chicago. They are Venus on keyboard, Corey on drums, and Kon on bass. And they all sing. None of the usual tags work....none. Shoegaze....the only way I can stick that here is to say that it does not belong in a description of this band. I don't even pick that crayon up. Goth....hmmm, it has its dark moments yeah but that's another crayon I don't really use here. Dark, yeah, goth no. I don't really think punk when thinking of them. There is a neatness to them,  a sophistication....no, not punk. I've heard Avant rock applied to them....it kind of works. There is a tension, a muscle car drive, and that clean sophistication, and still sharp and cool. What makes all this more clear because they have a bass guitar, but often no lead....and that means more space for the other instruments to find expression. 
  Wheelin' from Clill Blanzin' comes mind. They can be spacey and introspective even as they can make you move and turn from that. Thats Kon's bass that does that. Noise has me leaning trip hop again. Has steps of tension, build-up and crashes, and that has you listening well into their jam session segments. When they play live their songs seem to go into this jam session is as good as I can describe it. Those are really cool moments to witness because I already know they are coming and the rest of the audience is caught off guard with this bend in the coolness. I Forgot To Kiss Her has this steady march in the middle before one last verse. Money comes out of nowhere sounding like PJ Harvey.  An accordion would be helpful in describing them but they don't use one either. Its not any of these yet if you are attracted to any of these .....leanings, I think I can sell you on Moritat. My very first take on seeing them play Yellow House way in 2009 was to call them trip hop.....hmmm. That term is already a hot mess that includes jazz, house and electronic music. I suppose what got me there was Venus and how she plays her keyboard. Oh, and Corey in the drums. Yeah.... and Kon plays bass. So its rock that almost without intention evades description. Its easier to say about hanging with Kon at Empty Bottle to see some bands on a Free Monday. His spanish is great, he can have entire conversations. He has a separate project, Rows Of Arrows.  I look forward to that since I already like his voice. Its fascinating to listen to what a musician thinks of other bands, it helps me in finding my own expression. I feel real at ease around these guys. I often run into them for other shows. Its them that introduced me to Julie Meckler. Kon. ....  There was something about Moritat that struck me as understated and still cool. Like something that is cool enough to not really need your recognition of it. They got new work coming out. I'm happy about that, and I'll be listening.
Zig.

Ami Saraiya

The two most recent times that I've seen her, I believe both have been at Schubas. Once was with Tele Novella.  Natalie from Agent Ribbons comes back to Chicago with her new band and Ami opened for them. I believe that was a weekday, Monday or Tuesday. It was a great fit for me because I see them as evoking different parts of the same world. Its one thing when your mind naturally closes the distance with what seems similar. Its a good surprise to catch, when you actually see them share a stage. This other time I went from Ami's show to one at Hideout to see Lycanthea. A Saturday I believe. That was a great night to be able to see those two shows that could have conflicted. Its just been eating away to start and then to finish this post. I don't like going on without having this written down. I already wrote about Lycanthea. At least for me its significant to document...hmmm, period. I think I've seen Ami at Hungry Brain the now or soon to be closed venue on Belmont. With each live show I find a new element to like about the music I do have of her. This almost random surge in productive writing, I've harnessed to explore the memory of seeing Ami. And its a compulsion by now. I can't let these two shows go like that. Two! And I know there were those I missed and that kills, but I made it to these and they make you review the recorded work especially if she talks about them. On stage she would play and explain a little something about Familiar or Archaeologist. They are on two different CDs for those that still use them. Archaeologist is the latest. Up, Down &Charmed....no, I did not hear it but its always one that circulates often in the soundtrack in my head and it being in the latest I think I can stick it in here. It starts with a nice and slow drunken swing, you wake to this foggy steam punk period, or at least nostalgic over...something.  It has sweetness with Nick Cave pre-rock coolness. Romantic but not sappy or too sweet, but enough to see things through a nostalgic black and white filter.  Colder Meaner Is tense as all hell. You are barely held until finally let go by the violin. That leaves you wide open and ready for Tangleweed to finish you. Its like her music evokes for me a period just before rock but well into jazz. Memphis Train for some reason reminds me of The Color Purple. Her primary instrument is the accordion but its not the only instrument I've seen her use. Her music brings to mind Pezzettino, Eliza Rickman, Jill Tracy, Nicki Jaine. I fear that I can only describe her music in the crudest of ways. But thats the company I can put her in. They all evoke that same period atmosphere....well at least for me. And I'm glad this is what comes from Chicago. It also stands out well among local peers.  The night I saw Lycanthea I saw Ami before but I don't recall taking many pictures at all as just being there to see it feels different from documenting, taking pictures. I relaxed.

I recall only one other band member on stage with her. Just before she begins to sing she says a few things about the song. That always gets me to listen again and her music stays in the now of my mental background because I saw her live on stage.There is something about an accordion that makes you see an altered take on modernity.....my mind brings to me vague takes of older musical styles. That's more me, imposing a costume on the music. Its not something deliberately coming out of her the way a goth band wear their identity.  I have to recall that I've seen her in some tiny, cool venues like the Brain.  I really treasure that memory now because now its about preserving where you saw it, the venue. So I post pictures from those moments. Hmmm, well these pictures I couldn't tell now. I just was happy to find these to post.
Zig

SEXY FIGHTS

  This is a band I should have caught like ages ago. They are local. For some reason I was too lazy to look them up and now I'm playing catch up. Its amazing how I can have them play in front of me and all I'm thinking is about how many times I missed them. Their music is soulful and the two pillars of that are the voice and the music. You feel separately their impact even as your hit with one song that is deep, soulful and modern. If you still feel like shit 'cause you missed Golden Filter that Wednesday at Empty Bottle...... too busy getting drunk over the Blackhawks winning. I feel ya'. I think you will like Sexy Fights. An easy sell. They bring a daytime energy to a midnight dance floor with Black Earth. You are at once assaulted by this freshly woken morning person happiness. I have to say seeing them this one time was fabulous like a revelation. I was overwhelmed by it......relax. Its intense that I saw it and was struck by it later. Then later it also hits me all them times I could have seen them., hmm anyway. They did not fuck around with the 6 track self-titled EP. Every track is absolutely brilliant on its own. They don't telegraph each other. They are smooth, electronic  and effortlessly dance-floor worthy. Sounding almost nostalgic for an earlier period of modernity. The idealized way a child remembers a certain time, trying to capture the best feeling of it in music. Yeah, that can also be me rambling on about this here band, but this is worth a listen. Trees....by the time you reach that one, you are overwhelmed with it. Its like having Golden Filter/ Glass Candy.....and they are from Chicago. Jordan Rose's voice just commands attention at all times. Its bold and deep and beautiful.....it just has this natural authority. I believe this one time was at hmm Burlington or Township. All I really can recall is that it was just one time. And having them from Chicago does raise the hope that I may see them again.  My impressions of this band will be evolving. ZIG.

Lightfoils...second to last show.

  This show was at The Owl. The very last show with the current singer Jane was at The Burlington and I missed it. I added here pics from where I saw them somewhere else. Kon from Moritat told me once that I can write a whole fucking blog on the stuff I went to but missed and that is the bloody truth, and Lightfoils at Burlington is the latest entry. I mean I heard she cried. It was really special and I was late for it.....no, not because of the bloody tears. Fucking hell. The last gig with Jane. And it just reinforced the belief in how delicate it is to hold a band together.  But I made it to all of The Owl show and so....there are far worse things to bitch about, but it is a quirk the bands know me for. I nearly did not have the means to go at all, when I did it was last minute. I believe this show was already after their tour, east coast I believe. I don't know how that went but I'm glad they take the risk to put their music out there. I think I did ask Cory the bass player how that went. I don't recall what exactly he told me, but I feel at ease asking him. The same goes with the rest of the band and it takes a long time for me to feel like I'm not imposing on them like a fly in the soup. I believe he is still enthusiastic about the band's future. I got the feeling there will be something grand from them around the corner. I remember Cory showing me a track of him singing. I did not know that he sang. And you know what? That's often how I get sold on a band. These are friends that I wish success for them, oh yeah. I already have pictures of them. Jane is no longer the voice of the band but they are not done.  The point being, the band will continue and I'm happy about that.  So to feel at ease around them is a big deal for me. I believe I have stated that before, well....its a constant. Anyway, touring, hell just existing as a band is holding a fucking rose scented candle in the wind and daring it to blow it out, well......maybe not daring the wind.....sorry. Reading about George Galloway and sounding off like him...or at least just to me.  Not that you want it to go out but the light of it, the scent...to continue the metaphor. Each delicate light is singular for me and it exists in a sometimes indifferent world, and so I do support it, because it is my identity....alright, on and on like that as I always do. The point is to look up and support these bands, Lightfoils in this case.

Circuit des Yeux

  I'm writing this ahead of her Empty Bottle sponsored performance at Bohemian Nat'l Cemetery on Saturday 6 December. I'm glad to see her touring so actively. She can take the stage alone or with a full band behind her. I mean there is something powerful and unsettling when hearing how fucking deep her voice is in My Name Is Rune. And there she is a dark and psychedelic Midwestern chanteuse.  At times she seems to speak from the animal urges. The thing is people have to listen, have the patience, the common fucking decency to not talk during her shows, or any shows for that matter.  Performers are human and I get embarrassed to no end when being around people that are yammering about. Ms Haley's Acarina, on Overdue a dark casual walk down a rural ghost town is creepy like Siouxsie's Rawhead And Bloodybones. Someday has the seething strength of Samson waiting to drop the building down on his enemies.  It just has this intense volcano like build up.  While on Portrait   3311 just seems ok with festering with whatever rages Someday. Its pace relaxes in misery, in no apparent rush, and then.....Twenty &and Dry then  I feel like I just saw a whole documentary on The fucking Dustbowl and The Steppenwolf Theatre's production of Buried Child. And then you get that cathartic power rush with I'm On Fire! You put that one on after you took care of business. Ms Haley don't do cheery shit. Oh.....Why do I hear shit that is so fucking dark and heavy?....Its fucking rhetorical!....Here's why anyway. Its the light within the tunnel. It may sound like depressing music, but it gets it out of you, or leads you out if it like blues music.

This is my goth equivalent of jazz with seeming improvisation of the same dark elements abnormally unharnessed in the hands of Haley Fohr. Or perhaps I just should have said you can't easily dance to it in a goth club. Its road worthy for when you are going there.  Having said that, her live sets are moving and powerful. This one show at The Owl actually sounded like Dead Can Dance and goths trip over each other to dance to that.  I do recall she's moved to Chicago from Indiana, yay!!! The south side on top of that....No, not Pilsen. Anyway, she is local and is touring all over and will come home in early December. Lets give her some local attention before she feels the appreciation of other places she can want to move to.
Zig

Be Forest

 
  Be Forest is from Italy, a town named Pesaro. Due to the amount of bands coming from there, I read about there being a Pesaro-scene. Be Forest is what got me to even look that far. All the way from Italy, this band drops a grenade of coolness.  These are details about specific places make me want to go there. It would be something to see them during a normal home gig, no pressure, well after the glare of an international tour. That is when to see them. If I had stupid Elvis money. That is what I'd do. Go see Esben and The Witch in their hometown of Brighton on a casual night for something they can only do local. Or go see Be Forest play to a local crowd.  Yeah, that's what I'd do with stupid Elvis money....I'd go to them.....see these mother fuckers..... I got lost, and now I'm back, really.
  I hear the bass running and I see a parkour runner just as fast and graceful down urban landscapes. For me the bass is the support structure, its what permits you to do shit. Sometimes its so way out in front, I gotta use my muscle-car metaphor. The gut instinct to mimic like your playing the guitar hits often with Costanza's bass playing. The night-time beats have a daylight urgency. Lost Boys is so forward driving, and over this beast is a chill angelic voice. And that opening line just stops you cold. It's sage advice riding a previously untamed beast.  For fuck's sake she's playing the bass herself.  I don't know if this is what made me dance, gaze in a stupor. Its kind of irrelevant which track hit live. My magical realism, German expressionist film recording mind will recall it a certain way. What is great and is indicative about all of it....how they grab, and keeps you with the time lapse tools. Ghost Dance is a thinker's house-music. And now I'm stuck trying to find another set of words of praise for Airwaves. Nothing is telegraphed. You don't feel taxed from three in a row....at least I don't. It will not be like you heard a long variation of the same song. Goths are always finding that balance of something that can stop you and make you think and something to dance to during a shogaze themed night.  Remember  Asobi Seksu? Think of them as Laura Palmer and she had a cousin named Maddy. This to me is Be Forest. .....No? Well they are bringing the show back...Twin Peaks! No one remembers Twin Peaks? My angle with all that is not to say "they sound alike" and that's it.  But to not hold back something awesome and brilliant that you may like. I wanna go and jog to this.  There is also this element of deep thought and contemplation, a kind of slowing down even as whatever rages behind you. So you are not just slowing down in the fog. And this is what I like I'm still basking and stretching the moment of seeing Costanza Delle Rose singing and playing bass. The pictures are few in part because I took in the time to just jam out to whatever song they played. I do recall openly dancing to their music. I could not tell you which specific tracks I danced to. I was just happy I had enough to figure it out later.      Earthbeat is their second CD, and is what I came home with. Their Debut in 2011 being Cold. Researching for this post has led me to listen to that as well. I don't know if the timing of bringing them so late in the fall, November is deliberate. Their music goes great with autumn. It just feels right for me....anyway. What they had available at the merch table was Earthbeat. This Empty Bottle show is part of their first ever US tour.  Perhaps I got this wrong I think its their first time in the States. They had such really cool shirts that I could not afford to get. So, certainly I'd want this comet from afar to come back. I caught like the last three songs. I basked in whatever time I had in there, without complaint. I was efficient in dividing the moments. I took, and was mindful of the time just jamming, dancing, and documenting,. The documenting is what keeps the moments from being so damn fleeting.
Zig