Natalie Grace Alford

Friday 28 March. 2014 Natalie Grace Alford. I've missed so many of her recent shows ...this one at Cole's was a mission. I'm glad she's still performing her work. The songs that I know can change from one show to the next. So we make it on time. Her shows are always so different from each other. Sometimes she has a full band, or goes it alone such as that Friday. Her voice is so deep and powerful and does very well with keyboard and looping pedal. Its always fascinating to see her assemble a song when its just her like that. You get to know a track better. With a full band you would just start. But this way its like....having Warpaint start out each song one instrument at a time, one voice at a time. It builds in front of you. Its hard to describe what she played this time beyond .....electronic. She has a single that she gave out. That perhaps means more music to be released. If pressed I'd say her music starts with a neo soul vibe to me, and that is brief and takes off from there in directions unexpected. Natalie has an infectious, passionate delivery. You are just sold on whatever she plays. Thats another thing that I notice that Natalie has that passion from the moment she begins to construct the song before you. Its in her body language before even singing. Just talking on stage.

I don't know if its intentional, accidental. It could be all in my head and in a struggle to describe this brilliant Chicago singer/songwriter, someone that deserves local appreciation.
Zig

Walking Bicycles

  I'm glad I saw them in this new context of authors reading segments from their recently published books. Most notable was Irvine Welsh, the writer of the novel Trainspotting, read from his latest novel that was just adapted to the screen, Filth. They later showed a trailer to the movie. This was really grand for me to see the band share a stage with this. Trainspotting movie references come easy to me especially around the Bicycles. And now the room was full of fans and readers of the novel. The place I think was at its fullest when Welsh read from Filth. It would have been nice to see some of that audience stay for the Bicycles. Unfortunately most of that crowd did not stay. It would have been nice if they did. The worlds that create in music, or literature in this case for me were way close, right there in the same fucking Bottle. So very few of us caught the entire experience. The Bottle seemed to hold three different crowds at once, the book reader crowd that came to see Irvine Welsh. The band before Walking Bicycles had a sizable crowd. Most of the readers sapping away. Hmmmm, and then it was the more-than-a-handful that stayed for Bicycles. Fuck it. More for me. I got the bloody extra massive large shirt with the logo. And one for the niece that despises me. I guess this is to show that I have faith in the longevity of this band's music.  Anyway, everyone came with a focus to see what they wanted to see and then vanish. I kind of understand. I arrived early because I thought Walking Bicycles were on first. It did occur to me that I can leave soon after. Having said that. I wish some of them readers stayed but you know what? I was here to see who I wanted and everything before was background. Right......I can genuinely call them friends. I feel at ease chilling with them outside as Joselyn smokes a last cigarette before going on like its Buenos Aires. Her voice is like Lori Petty only deeper. And so when on stage it has a natural authority.  My dreamlike recollections  of them.....I suppose...... will have that favorable bias. Wait.....wait. Not like a bloody hagiography. Don't fuck this up like this. What I mean is that their narrative is no less valid that those of more well known bands. Why not them? Theirs is an interesting underdog narrative. The kind of stuff that corridos are made of. By now I am more familiar with their new work, even beyond the two released songs, So and Badada. I knew I had the playlist some where but I cannot find it and I think I threw enough text together to put the pictures up anyway. This night was to be practice for their upcoming gigs. Empty Bottle we are fortunate to have to see all these gigs. I feel a real sense of ease there. At the same time its one of them places that is known all over. To have this place for a live practice after Irvine Welsh read his work is the coolest. What ever we all felt over the dwindling crowd, that is how my magical realist/expressionist mind will remember it cool. Whirling Dervish is a track surviving from their previous work. They always play it. I guess now it seems more at ease among the newer tracks. Its like realizing a resemblance to a relative. In part because of the drummer, their sound is like a boxer that can hit with speed, power and precision. The punk in them makes them sound powerful, messy and defiant. There's also an agility to them. Its like a parkour guy gracefully ascending up a flight of stairs. I always get an image like that when I hear a jangly bass like New Model Army. Anyway, lets just put the pictures.
Zig

Panda Riot

I've been knowing of them since I think 2007. Its 2014 and they finally have shirts. Really brilliant ones, a nice dark heather-ish gray with the logo of the new LP Northern Automatic Music that is out. Panda Riot will be playing Burlington Friday 2 May with Moritat. Its about time they run into each other, they circulate around often enough. Moritat's sound has been described as avant rock. Its fascinating to me actually that these bands should meet and play the same space, in the context of what baggage or subtext they bring with them. They both play a lot, and steadily produce new music. They sound compatible enough that they should have fans in common. For me, they represent the active live music culture in Chicago. Panda Riot you can identify as shoe gaze /dream pop. They are a moving target from there but there is a culture around to claim them....to put it crudely. For fuck sake we got The Shoegaze Collective on FB....which I'm a member of. Basically if the Pandas play or something relating to their music there is at least a group on Face Book that would pay attention to that. Hell, their music has been released in Japan, in their Tower Records. They have opened for Warpaint! Their latest is getting some serious attention from magazines and online publications, blogs....and I haven't shut up about them. And yet it often seems to me like they have to introduce themselves to every crowd. That can also just be that warped memory always wanting to stay on that underdog narrative. I always try to write about individual shows, and then I read some cool interview on them. And then next show a diminished crowd....and there's that underdog narrative wanting to recall it a certain way. Always half wanting them to blow up like Warpaint and tour around the world. I've had a good long time to hear the LP and songs continue to grow on me. Some of them tracks feel actually old to me, and thats because they played a lot of these songs before the recordings were made available. They were playing many when the only recorded work available was the first LP She Dares All Things and EP Far And Near. So it can feel like a rut and everyone loves them anyway. And I can look at you like you just walked into the lecture late, when instead you just dosed off.
  I think more of their own style is revealing itself to the audience slowly while behind that wall. Things evolve beyond the ways we have previously describe them. What you will hear tomorrow as the final recorded product is decided today. Rebecca Scott's angelic voice is always clearly heard above all the fuzz, drums and rhythm. Tracks that have to feel old to them, I'm like a stoner barely getting it. And then it hits me how old these songs actually are and how singular they make my personal narrative. I start to remember individual shows that range from long ago to just a few weeks ago. Strange that outside my own mind and perhaps where I choose to listen to music, Serious Radical Girls gets little circulation. I don't listen to much radio outside Public Radio. Perhaps that betrays my limits. I know that they are part of a grander scene, for me they stopped following that scene and began as the creators of just their music long ago. Meaning.....lets not blame them for sounding a certain way after we love them for that same fucking reason.  And lets find new reasons to like their music. I like seeing them as being part of this grander subculture, the other lens tries to see them alone without the baggage. Let the other traits find expression. There are changes that are apparent only to the musicians. I believe they really feel renewed since including Jose on stand up drums, and Cory on bass. So with this newfound capacity to play what they already have, comes new possibilities in writing the music. This next LP will be the first with Cory and Jose from the beginning. And I cannot wait.
Zig

Circuit de Yeux

In an effort to write more proactively before the band arrives. Here is a post about Circuit des Yeux. ....so what if I don't have anything better to do. I've needed the excuse to write. I've had more time to listen to her latest LP Overdue, for which she is currently touring and will be in Chicago Monday 28 April, at Hideout. Her music grows on you and kinda needs that time. Its worth the wait. Haley is worth the wait. The tracks are long. The hooks are not obvious but the rip current underneath already has you with those familiar and dark soundscapes.
  Lithonia, hmmm, I cannot help but be pulled into a period with it, like Rasputina. Its as happy as it gets. Her music has that Clint Eastwood darkness. A ragged if not frontier cold black and white sky with the brooding, escalating intensity of slowly aiming a gun at exactly the right person at exactly the right time. Damn it. I just saw her roll her eyes and it just. .....ouch.....fuck it. At first it does not strike as the kind of dark music fit for a goth club to have its patrons dance in, .....you kids. ....And I can't believe I just said that but Circuit de Yeux .....she just moved to Chicago. I just love it when they do that, and I think its the south side too. This is something we can claim and see it flourish before us because she's our kind of brooding intensity. We were sold on The Cure/Joy Division because of how raw, intense and sincere and all that, yah.....or , was it because you could dance to the fucking bastards?......Hmmmm. Her shows are always compelling. Haley captures attention alone or with a full band. I'm starting to get familiar with her songs, even so, I sense that she can change them. All the recorded work I have gives me that sense that she leaves within doors open for improvised moments. Her range is between dark psychedelic folk to....dark psych dead can dance......really. I was not expecting to be dancing to this and yet there I was. Haley's gig at The Owl was crazy. It was like Dead Can Dance!  And at every turn, you can be cornered by that dark intimacy, that room in that haunted house and you don't even have Zak from Ghost Adventures to tell you what it is that is creepy, scary. The last time I saw CDY it was as a last-minute replacement for Weyes Blood at Empty Bottle. She was by herself.
  Once you're sold on her soundscapes as your own she creates out the same places in life we get stuck in, bored with, frustrated with. Her voice is deep, cool, powerful like it can go it alone. In her live shows all she needs is a guitar, like Jerry's uncle. In Overdue there is that one guitar that she hypnotizes, so her deep voice catches you like in My Name Is Rune. I go on about music that is full of this feeling of wonder, discovery and hope. I don't see that in the soundscapes of Overdue. Haley's work are gone from that. There is no warm morning sun but a harsh cold early light. In Acarina Haley slows down that white hot simmer to a nightmarish horses trot down cobble stones that announce your midnight arrival to a haunted town. This is not a track that I would be likely to discover until I own it. I hear it now and its so country noir -ish creepy. As I ponder on Ms Haley's music I notice I like her recorded music. I like her live performances. These are two different things that we can appreciate together because of the accident of when we are born. So Ms Haley Fohr is a compelling, intense performer and recording artist. Lets go see her, and have her be glad she moved to Chicago.
Zig

Rachael's Surrender

Clean, sharp and bouncy is the flexible synth pop of Rachael's Surrender. RS from ten years ago sounds more disheveled dark pop rock.  They played before AVP. This is Re uben's band. I don't recall at this point which tracks I heard. With newly reopened ears I go back and listen to what I collected of them. I am happy to see them on a stage again, this time it's Township. By now as I write this I missed their show at Debonair. Indeed that bothers me and so that urges on me writing this down. I don't just like layin' pictures and nothing to say about them. I am compelled to write. So I gotta recall and put this whole bloody narrative together. I want it to read like they do in fucking NPR. .....that hurts...when you roll your eyes. Damn near kills the ambitious nerve. Yet here it is a humble recollection of a live RS gig. And did I tell you I went to Whitby with Ruben! The pictures are so because I did not use flash. I research my collection of this band. A Kiss And A Tale is ten years old! Its on their CD RS.  Its quite the leap away from Asteroid Love Song. So there's a distance between the two. That's the experimental nature of the band. Perhaps in hindsight its of no surprise. Reuben I see in many of the shows I go see. That means lots of bands with many different genre affiliations, styles and sounds. Alright, and maybe that don't mean shit or maybe its a tell. We've traveled great distances to completely submerge ourselves into our shared subculture with costumes and everything. Maybe that don't mean a bloody thing. I can't help but read those files. It informs the why and the how. It marks time. What were you doing in 2004? Does it feel like its ten years yet? What do you still listen from back then? How big was your cell phone? Noting the passage of time is not to say what they released back then sounds dated. I can't help but see these foot notes when I see them perform before me. Asteroid Love Song is effortlessly dance floor friendly. Think of Ayria only sweeter, still bassy. Yes, heavily electronic. You know, my awareness of that wanes when I see them live. And that's the main point really. I saw them live. They are actively performing their work. I can mention them in the present tense. The voice of Liz is angelic, and her lyrics are clearly heard, and worth a deeper listen away from the dance floor. Prohibition Suite puts me right in the period with just the fewest words, and invites a deeper read. Certain songs from their whole catalog I think have taken hold locally.....or at least become notable signature tracks of theirs. Kiss for me is one of them....The River! And from Asteroid,  Peppermint,  Low, Shadowloss,.....I think to be sold on any one is to eventually be sold to all. Anyway, what prompts this post is seeing them perform these tracks actively on the small stages in Chicago.
Zig