Videotape

I saw Videotape at a Free Monday 6 January at Empty Bottle. It wasn't just any Monday. This was the first day of the deep, deep freeze of the Polar Vortex just sitting on Chicago. The weekend before Lightfoils played Coles during the snow storm Saturday the 4th. I missed that so that made Monday more of a mission for me. Timely, uneventful drive....wait, the worry was parking into a space with a massive uneven layer of snow, yeah. It was in front of the church. A brief, careful walk through Dr Zhivago cold white surface. Now there I am adding one more gig of theirs to memory.  Now I can remember the extreme cold kind of fondly as background. They have a significant showcoming up at Schubas 27 January with Frankie Rose. Well that just broke the thought! I came by this band through the local shoegaze channels. You become barely aware of this the more you listen to them. Their hold for me is transcendent of that. To call them shoegaze is for me an accurate yet brief beginning in describing them. I always start from there. They take that world with them, stretch it, and keep its boundaries fluid and permeable.
  The Creeps from This is Disconnect nicely reminds me of Placebo. That entire LP is worlds different from the EP. Their range is incredible. Even now I discover new things to like about the music. Songs that did not engage in the beginning have now begun to imprint their singular mark.  Glass Ceiling's otherworldly charm is so worth the wait. I don't recall if this was played this last time. While looking them up again, I stumble upon....and so enters my compulsion to go on about it.  Fourth of July is rural down to the urgent horse driven pace and landscape. So it works wonders acoustic. Its on the Ep that does not prepare you for how amazing the LP is. Ship is Sinking chugs along in a pace that does not rush and compels you to follow. Soon your gate has this extra coolness, just below a strut. And some body write a cool movie to write around 1994! Floating delicately that feeling of underdog optimism. I believe I got Pulling Teeth covered in another post. The live gig is a brief flash that gets the thoughts going to continue shaping when listening in the car. Even if you were not sold with the live moment, the recorded work can still win over.
Zig