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