Staring Problem

  Staring Problem played Hideout Tuesday 30 December with Astrobrite, Scott Cortez band with Sophie from Videotape. I've seen a lot. I've seen the changing variations of Lauren's hair. I remember the one show Lauren had on this cool ass Violator Depeche Mode T-shirt. The memories of seeing them woven together with other significant moments. Like the one time saw SP and hung around an old friend that introduced me to Whitby. At times Staring Problem can remind me of New Model Army with the jangly bass. Or maybe that's how I identify that street-wise sounding element in their music. They sound so casual and easy around the depressing grey. Its not saying they are depressing. They just seem to evoke the same landscape as say Sisters of Mercy. Its what they do on that landscape once conjured in the mind. They got the sound to compel one to move. I would liken them further to a chill Sisters Of Mercy but their songs are too damn short while Sisters...I can use a few less repetitious verses, or trim two fucking minutes from somewhere.
  So, in Staring Problem I found elements of those two bands......yeah day two of my shoegaze detox. No, not really.....but no fog, I can see more clearly......One day at a time, anyway. And those are not local bands, but they are iconic bands.....Sisters and NMA. We know them in this modernity for the mediums we hold them in. We heard them on CDs we bought at record stores or if we were lucky at the merch tables of live shows. Staring Problem is local. We can see them in the small venues as well as hold their Vinyl and wear the shirt. And now that I've said that....they do have new shirts to want.
  I've been wanting to see them. I know the drummer had this trip abroad she had to do. I felt profoundly changed when I went to Guanajuato to study spanish. I came back changed by the dreams I had from studying magical realism/Mexican history. So I recall slowing down and thinking I'm seeing her on the cusp of this trip to one of the origins of magical realism. There is something so punk about SP that calling them specifically goth is kind of misleading. No shoegaze smog means a cleaner sound, and I'm not taking the piss out of shoegaze. No fuzzy guitars means I can hear the jangly bass that is the forward driving engine. OK, so obvious, heavy goth dark sound, but do not ignore the dirty punk leanings. Ignore the goths.....fine, their like cats. They'll go find a corner of the house that is their own.  And yet that is not always the crowd you see in an actual show when I'm in it.  The punk is what resists a uniform. Rejects a fashion.
  I've often observed the audience for SP. Its not all that goth heavy like say a Spiritual Bat show where people go out of their way to dress up for a death rock night. I barely had enough to get me into The Hideout. But I get in and catch what I can of them and then Astrobrite! The drummer is back from her travels in South America. Having done study abroad I know how life-changing that can be, what it does to your sense of identity. Me having spent a summer in the city of Guanajuato, Mexico, when singing rock in your own native spanish meant something. I felt profoundly changed, full of stories to tell as a writer.....yeah. It was after Guanajuato that I tried to wear that name....writer, because I had stories to tell, and briefly I felt the one to tell them. The last time I saw Staring Problem I believe it was just before she went to Chile I believe, and now I see them here at Hideout after coming back. I did not ask for not wanting to intrude. So I found myself drifting into recalling my day to day living in GTO. Its night life, its preserved oldness. I believe I did take pictures of the band but not this time 30 December. I was happy to just see them, and stayed to see Scott and Sophie.
Zig

Glass Lux

  On one of the coldest nights of early January I saw Glass Lux at The Whistler. It was Wednesday night 7 January. I don't know what got into me. I made it there on time, and extremely cold weather normally makes me lazy. This time I did the ritual preparations early, not rushing. I took into account the cold. I wanted to drive....not really fast.  I had downloaded some of their music before but I have not experienced a concert of theirs. I didn't want to listen until after seeing them. I know, a weird hang up of mine.
  Now I'm out the door and on my way to Whistler. You don't really drive fast with PJ Harvey as much as hmmm....walk hard...when driving.  Is This Desire, drive with it, workout to it.  Its still a mercilessly cold Wednesday night.  You want it remembered fondly and so off I go early. What I've heard from Glass Lux I like to no end and yet I kept the burn of that anticipation to one candle. Avoided hearing it until. Its something about not jinxing the moment that is slowly shaping the way you want it to, which at the very least means seeing the fucking band. Make too much fuss about it and its like scaring the deer you just wanted to see closer......no, certainly not shoot it! Not even a metaphorical deer....sorry. Anyway, this band. To start they sound to me like Italo disco. And seeing them close. I think I got to sit in a table right by the stage. This was hitting me like Golden Filter. It was smooth, fast and aggressive. I do believe they played Puppet . There is a new song they played that I regret not taking down as a video. I let it slide in part because I did not want to see it through a tiny screen documenting. I took the road of feeling it, being in the moment, sitting to music that inspires dance.
  The Whistler is small and this was loud enough to drown out casual conversation if there was any. There is no guitar, so its heavy and fast with a synth, and I do believe I saw an old Caifanes shirt on the drummer. I gotta ask him about that later. I gradually got a seat in the table closest to the stage. Its only after seeing them live and to better document it, that I look them up on Youtube. I fucking binged on a few Glass Lux videos, a Lookbook track, True To Form. And more glass binging with Glass Candy. Miss Broadway is the song.
  Back to our Glass Lux. When done right the combination of synth, powerful female voice and live drums absolutely kicks ass! So they have a song named Disco Light. And at least at first impression they sounded like a refined disco with heavy synth and live killer drums. I so needed to see this. And the fucking exclamation point is that they are local, from Chicago. I can lament how late my radar is in catching this band later. I'm happy to have caught them now. This imprint of theirs will keep evolving. I'm barely capable of putting it all down.
Zig

Girl Detective...I know its way, way late!

Went to see Girl Detective at Reggies Monday 27 August.  Where the bloody hell was I when this Chicago duo started out. Apparently they have quite the number of gigs behind them. I'm supposed to be on top of this! I missed their Late Bar performance. But I got the CD to listen to. They are Rani Young who sings and Jason Oppman who on stage plays guitar but also all the other instruments on the recordings. They started the band in May of 2010. Once I started to look them up is when all the reasons to keep researching just piled on each other. Before you hear anything you take note of all the influences they reference. Siouxsie, Cocteau Twins, The Cure, DM, New Order/Joy Division.....It takes some holy will power to ignore this. All these references gotta mean something, and so enters Girl Detective into my radar. Now that we have our common references down, how about some others less known sisters that deserve to share a pantheon with Girl Detective.
     Remember Great Expectations with Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow? This band Mono had a song in the soundtrack called Life in Mono....they always used it in the trailer. We really need to build more pantheons and that means reaching all the way back to the late 90s. In actually listening to the songs I'm reminded of the local Rosen Association, and whatever happened to Sunday Munich?  At the very least they inform as to what comes out of Chicago even if it does not last. The idea of local pantheons I think can provide longevity. ....This was a train of thought started long ago and never finished until now. The whole paragraph as a relic of thought, holds up. I was going to say pretty much the same thing believing it was spontaneous the second time. I wrote this down and even uploaded the pictures from this one show. And it bothered me that I missed all other shows and so this sat unfinished.

And then I met her formally at the SMW show at Debonair. It was a good time hanging with them after when the place resumes its dance floor music.  It was cool, I felt at ease. I should have taken pictures of them dancing, but I did not want to be intrusive but included.  So meeting her makes me look up Rani's music, and to finish a chain of thoughts. And so I do have a CD, Dress and Smoking      The title track has voice distant, because you cannot find a source. Its kind of everywhere, a casual clear ethereal presence.    Entrance  has Rani's  dreamy voice hover over the more solidly laid keyboard in . You feel like there is a consequence to a moment just around the corner.  And that's the piano keys gassing out for a moment the drums until they pick up again. You feel that tension and Rani just outlasts the tension. Hovers over it until it evaporates. Life's a Movie is where they snuck in that male voice.  I like it. They got the tension building keyboard that washes and changes. The CD I bought I believe had five tracks but my ipod only shows three. Hmmmm, no. I'm not gonna turn over this place just to look for one fucking actual CD. These are the songs I like, and this post has been sitting for far too long. I don't know if I will ever see Girl Detective, in the meantime, I do know that Rani will sing for Dream House which I like and will continue to see.
Zig