Panda Riot/Lightfoils at Resistor

  Rani's Resistor is of special significance here.  Its already an awesome place. And this is Rani from Dream House and Girl Detective and soon to be another band!  The space is this special fucking place that is a music venue part of the time. Rani also teaches art there. I've been seeing shows there and DJ events. The name Resistor is well deserved here.
  Seeing Panda Riot and Lightfoils there were but some in the convergence of singular elements, that by themselves would be awesome enough. And now all colliding together. This makes this night some thing to craft into a narrative that I hope you shall read through. I write this ahead of both their shows.  Lightfoils Hmm, is that too honest, too vulnerable....anyway, I gotta put it together before I post the pictures.  Where I eventually parked I was closer to the bookstore/record store Bucket O' Blood. My stroll down Belmont was slow, memories of Ruby Fray and Vail in the same night the Wednesday before, catching up. In the drive I was listening to Ruby Fray's Photograph finally on CD. It was also the chill out song on the way back. This fevered dream has me remember the music for the drive as part of the experience.
  I remember this like a field trip for Pee Wee's Playhouse, where in this fevered dream I meet all these cool people at this fucking cool place where I see the fucking Pandas and Lightfoils. Julie Taymor directs while Ken Russell is on vacation.
   This delirium is still ascending when walking into the Lightfoils set. In this moment Resistor's size and capacity changes. Seems huge, as I see the singer through a crowd around her. Resistor is not that fucking big, but my memory has this massive space between me at the front door and the singer on stage with an audience in between. A place is gonna play tricks on ya' when the whole fucking experience is Pee Wee's Playhouse on location and Julie wants to run the memory like its Titus. I was happy to see there was a crowd. This is good for Resistor, the place where such convergences can occur. I was happy for the band. They are friends and it feels great to see an audience for them. So, ok...bigger on the inside, got it. Lightfoils on stage now, hmm....I don't know which song I walked into but, not knowing has its perks. The fluid memory keeps all songs a possibility. I can say that I walked into How It Is , or Diastolic but that would be bullshit. But I did walk into a song of theirs, and they all sound like home because it is music I always choose to hear.  Hierarchy I play it all the time, and it is what they played from. I can list down the tracks I like, all the way back to....shut up. I can lay different variations of the same fucking ......praise. They are great and both albums are great. The best to drive. Its dream pop that is forward driving powerful as well as sweet. They are not boring to hear. So as I'm walking in,  find a space among the crowd. There was no point finding a space in the front, just stand back and.... Right next to me turns out are my friends Jocelyn and Julius from Walking Bicycles. The fucking Bicycles are here seeing Lightfoils! Hmm, at least that is how I remember it. That's how they fuck with you on location at Pee Wee's...... with cameo appearances.
  So after the Lightfoils set J and J were about to head out to another concert, but I got to see them, talk to them before they left. However brief, their appearance was welcomed and unexpected. I don't recall what we talked about, but I was happy to see them. Before the Pandas were Brief Candles from Wisconsin I think. I liked their set. I wondered to and from the merch table restraining myself from buying one more Panda shirt, another Lighfoils shirt.  In February 2018 The Pandas release the vinyl of there latest....anyway that stray full thought still anounces. Its a fragile thing to hold a DIY space together and so to see the bands play there its this wider community they are holding together.  So finally the Pandas play their set. Its all from their newest.
  The way they set up merch tables, even for shit you already got, they are still tempting. The shirts...I don't have....later, fucking later. I finally can drive back home along and listen to the physical CD for Infinity Maps. They are friends and I shall see them again. I got the music that I can ponder on.  Gold Lines they seem to have on Youtube. And that is great. This was the very show I was at. I so was fucking wondering if the vinyl release will come with lyrics to read. I don't know. It just helps in getting into a song. But all of them are fucking brilliant. Rebecca Scott's voice is clear over well spaced instruments. It was a good sounding concert to record.
  And its great to see they made a proper video of Arrows. I think Ghost Adventures did a show there. Anyway, that is totally unrelated. And I was driving home to Ghosting. They retain that wake up, good morning sunshine brightness and wonder that I felt from She Dares All Things.  That wonder reshapes and strides ahead more powerfully and confident with this new album that I like seeing live all the fucking time. Seeing this band live right now is best because.....its local Chicago shoegaze, dream pop that is active and circulating. People can see them and talk to them still at the merch  table. We kinda still are in that fucking phase. I can't believe I know these mother fuckers, and they let me walk around them. Something this awesome I am grateful to have them close. What makes them shoegaze? You ask? ......Really? You know, don't fuck this up. And you can look that up on your fucking phone and see if it matches what you see live with these mother fuckers. It was just great to see them at Resistor. A tunnel of memories will be the weight of seeing these few pictures.
  This is Rani's place and I have to note the many elements that made the night the historic one for me. The bands, the surprise cameo of my friends from Walking Bicycles....and then the fucking after party at the Pandas. I was like, really? This was a gifted night, for me to see. These collected moments, they kinda deserve to be remembered about, at least for me and I prop up the memory nice and pretty. Wow.....I've never been so directly honest.
Zig
  

Dorsia/Arelie/Fauvely

  Originally this post was going to be strictly about seeing one band. I will perhaps write more of one but I could not separate the experience from the others that played that same night. And also the place where it was held. That is important as well. It was at Resistor, a cool safe space. I saw Dorsia finally. She is Alice Kraynak. She's in Idylls,  also plays violin with Fauvely.   She released a tape recently, Casual Hex. And casual is a feeling I get from hearing the four song release. Its weird to say this but this is the kind of music that rides the border between distant and intimate. Wait, wait. That's not the weird part. I can accurately guess which of my friends would hear this, and which would dislike it off hand. As much as I like it. I know who will not.  Don't worry about Alice, she is chill in all four songs.  Other people might feel the pressure with just them on stage. Not Ms Alice. I first became aware of Dorsia when she was scheduled to play Emporium. I did not get there on time but I bought her cassette anyway. I liked the demos Alice previously released.  As many times as I miss shit, I hate missing shit. So I try harder the next time. This other time turned out to be at Rani's Resistor, with Fauvely and Arelie, Scott Cortez side project made from lyrics from a discarded diary of a 12 year old girl.....or something like that. These words are the most interior written down. Some may have been graded by a teacher. I think they were written as poems and Scott Cortez puts them to song.  No,....it was not to take the piss out. That just sounds mean.  It was a Friday, 17 November and this night was about all three, Arelie, Dorsia, and Fauvely. So often, these intimate, important shows fly below the radar of larger events. I know Revolting Cocks were playing Metro that same night. For here at Resistor there were just about 10 maybe, and everyone in there would know who they are. Well....I didn't fucking know the last two people who strolled in.  Revolting Cocks....We all know them since high school.  So I can't really separate this first time seeing Dorsia from them other bands, and I cannot ignore the shadow of who I did not see. I don't think I would actually go to see the Cocks. I'm ok. I got my vinyl from Wax Trax way back in high school. I'm ok with having the CD downloaded into my Mac. I don't need to see them from way in the back of the room. I was at the show that I intended to be and was happier for it, Resistor....Rani's place. I was happier seeing Dorsia with Arelie and Fauvely. When I first started listening to Fauvely, my next thought was to want to see them at Resistor.  Its the perfect intimate place and it can still hold bigger shows. I saw Panda Riot there with Lightfoils and Brief Candles.
  So on this Friday there is this rare convergence of bands that includes Dorsia, who I was late for at Emporium. So I must include all this even before I continue with Ms Alice. Where I saw her and with who is just as important. How am I not going to include Arelie, the new and interesting project from Scott Cortez. When I walked in, he was playing. This show was going to start early, at 8pm, but they waited for the crowd to swell to just over a handful.  There were seats arranged. This was cool, it just felt right observing this intimate show seated than standing. I think all who attended really observed these open-vein, heartfelt tracks song by Scott Cortez. I mean he was chill. The lyrics were time capsules written I think in the 90's by a 12 year old girl. That kind of sincerity we lose as adults as we become more protective of our interior castle. And how many male singers do music from 12 year old girls, or sing music from their perspective. This had us so fascinated. You just enter an unguarded space of sincerity. These words were constructed, put down by a 12 year old girl in the 90's. They were not written for her to say on some shady Nickelodeon or Disney show by some fucking old perv. We were hearing in song, a more accurate primary document. So we leaned and listened and remembered ourselves.
  So the music of Dorsia was originally conceived from recordings made on an iPhone.  The name may sound familiar to fans of the movie American Psycho. Its the name of a restaurant where it is really hard to get a reservation.  Now that we have that in mind, enter the first track. As sweet and introspective as Fauvely sounds, so I was really struck by how chill and vicious Dorsia can sound. I'm right now only referring to Marcelle. I'm not shitting on this track. The chill is in her delivery, the vicious is in the lyrics. Its not meek and sweet. She's wearing a...wife beater, clearly in charge like Stanley Kowalski....and she just chugged the last beer and crushed the can. That's Marcelle! On stage it was just Alice and her guitar. Continuing with the casual, chill vibe that also carries with it this vague 60's .....thing, like something written for scenes for the show Mad Men. If Fauvely is introspective and self critical, Dorsia can be at times dominant to giddy all while sounding so relaxed. Window Girl, reminds me of The Girls At Dawn this shoegaze band I saw at Empty Bottle. They got that 60's vibe fused to their shoegazing, only their songs barely reach two minutes. Their voices are also a little more girly. Alice voice is solitary deeper. Hey, you gotta give me credit for going through most of this post barely mentioning shoegaze.  Your asking me to hold my breath. I was in a room with Scott Cortez, and Sophie from Videotape. They kind of bring the embassy with them. Sometimes it don't take much to be called shoegaze. You can share the same indy label, weed dealer.  It can go a little beyond what you sound like, and I'm cool with that. Its a very useful description, because its a shorthand that invites you to explore where they come from, and how they eventually appeared in front of you on that stage.  So lets now go back specifically to Dorsia.
  With Fauvely Alice plays violin....and would play violin later on. I saw all the bands! Being on time....what a concept. As Dorsia, Alice everyday is a one woman act. Her name always reminds me of that Book Of Love track about her having some interesting things to say. The song and the band come up and they are a classic and so it derails the fucking train of thought. Dorsia worked so very well in this intimate setting in Resistor. I noticed more instruments in the recordings and still all four songs translated well with just Alice and her guitar. I believe there is more work coming from Dorsia that will be recorded and that is something I look forward to.
 
  Fauvely also has new songs. She played last. That's when Alice played her violin. It adds a layer without taking from its intimacy. Candles in a cave. Fauvely played new songs that took us back to her home town of Savannah. These are new and they are going to be recorded....I assume. I think she did play both Watch Me Overcomplicate  This , and Break. For me they are two segments of the same conversation. Its not in how they sound. They kind of support the same thought. Somehow I link them together. For something so small, she carries with her a world of atmosphere. A candle strolling past wonders. Oh, and I'm glad I did not forget this. Scott Cortez and Sophie played some Astrobrite. This was a great fucking night.
  I'm sorry if its scary, me laying this all down like this all intense and Baroque. I say Baroque because every detail is as important and heavy as the whole, and there are a lot of details.  I saw the show I meant to see.
Zig

Maria Taylor

  I've been having these CDs from her Lynn Teeter Flower and 11:11 for fucking years. And I bought them because during this live music festival on Belmont Ave had Maria Taylor play. This storm that started brewing since just before she played, finally snuffed out her set early with one gust of wind, water and some lightning. The downpour started almost immediately after. A small crowd of people gathered near one of the private entrances to some building to avoid the sudden downpour with random threats of lighting strikes. Clearly these are here to see Maria Taylor but now, the rain started. Some of us huddled by this entrance where its dry, just sat and waited for this rain gust. And we just sit the rain out. For us the set was cut short. But it was done. We just did not want to get wet, the rain was fierce. The clouds that gathered just before were darkened gray and intimidating. There was no way the rain was not coming, and it did. And now here we are, hiding away from it near the entrance of some condo building. And then in comes Maria Taylor with the other two performers she had on stage. She is gonna continue the set right here, spontaneously! And everyone there just howled and lost their shit, and gathered around her. This was my first and most powerful memory and I believe I bought the CD's later, because of this. It was possible I bought them from Borders on La Grange....sorry, the mind does drift. And I did not follow up after that as impacting and heavy an impression as it was to see Maria Taylor coming over to her audience like that.
  Oh, yeah. The first song that hooked me before or after that one iconic moment was Xanax. Yeah, I know how fucking late this is. Some things its good for them to hit you late, it gives the music that longevity, timelessness even, as it also begins to shape its place in its time period. They begin to represent their time. The later half of the 2000's. I got the pictures and I wanted an excuse to put them up. I got the music, I may as well recall here how I came to like this artist. This live youtube video of Xanax I liked. She is a sweet folk rockera that still played Clean Getaway with a bunch of girls as her out of sync chorus. Yeah, that was hilarious! Maria Taylor had to yell..."not yet!" as they were trying to chime in. She was not mean about it, though. It was a funny detail to an already impacting moment. I'll pull out Lynn Teeter Flower and 11:11 from time to time, to listen to what they captured. So how do I sell this without falling into this same old story....a cool story, but let's say its a retired horse living on a fixed income, not a dead horse I'm trying to whip back to life. How do I sell this in a toxic hyper masculine world. So I have to create new moments, and remember them as I hear Speak Easy.  Its sweet and feels spawned from the same cabaret garage pop period as Agent Ribbons only more acoustic. Eventually I listen to If Only on Youtube, and catch up to her new music.
Zig

Man Is Man

  Once I was driving at night listening to NPR, a Friday I think and they played something from Man Is Man, this show that specialized in playing local music. It was not Sound Opinions, no. But some fucking show and I really was glad I caught it, 'cause I'm a fan.  This is a random post about this band that I miss. Man Is Man emerged out of the ashes of Puerto Muerto. I went to her first show as Man Is Man at Whistler. For me they both cast a light on a mysterious American Grimm style, frontier noir world, they are in the soundtrack. Puerto Muerto was often called gothic country. Man Is Man is a continuation of that world from Christa Meyer. Well, at least for me. I've been sifting through old pictures and came upon some from these two cult bands. They got me thinking. Here and there I'll binge on Man Is Man and Puerto Muerto on Youtube. Vantablack are the shadows in the beautiful and dangerous frontier sounding world of Christa's Man Is Man. What I identify as dark country sounding in terms of the music I like. In one of my favorite videos, Blue Six she plays next to a window where you can hear a thunderstorm. It just so organically works for it. Darkness saturated down to the sweetest element. I listen to the songs when its just her and an auto harp. I never managed to by the vinyl or CD to this. So these videos I'm glad to see up. The Man Is Man videos are posted by her, Christa.  The Bird is old timey bleak and powerful like a raging ocean observed from something chasing a white whale. Anyway, this is one Chicago band I miss seeing and hearing about.
Zig

Chelsea Wolfe

  My first time actually seeing Chelsea Wolfe I did so without knowing much of her work beyond what she was touring for at the time (Pain Is Beauty, or was it Apokalypsis).  And I believed I was surrounded by those that knew her work far better. It was like holding the latest book from Sandra Cisneros without knowing she wrote her most famous House On Mango Street. This was at Thalia Hall and the experience was a wonder filled intoxicant, unforgettable and perhaps never to be felt again. I felt like I was finally hearing the soundtrack for Spencer's The Faerie Queene, John Milton's Paradise Lost or Dante's Inferno. I was hearing the music for  the epic poems I have read....hmm halfway, or read about...like Milton. I'll get around to finishing them, and then start on Milton eventually. Meanwhile, the imagination soars with Chelsea Wolfe. 
    These pictures are when I first saw them at Thalia Hall. I guess that what I say with all this ranting is that in a moment her music seemed fit to tell grand old tales, mythology. . And it was taking off that first time at Thalia Hall, and that is what compelled me to go to Metro to see her this October 2017. I forgot the day, but it was a Tuesday. The Metro show I went late, after Youthcode. I think I got CW in the middle of her set.  The crowd was tightly nit the closest around her, so going to the front of the stage would be impossible, and being so remote from the performer.... that is not how I enjoy shit but oh well.  I go to the balcony where eventually my view is better. I see some friends, Sarah who was the DJ. I actually did not get to speak to her but I did say hi to William. I wanted to thank him for exposing me to Algiers, this awesome band that played Empty Bottle. Then I saw Jennifer, another goth friend who runs the magazine Kilter. I walked to where I parked with a friend from the industrial scene who parked in the same area. I think he nearly fell asleep to CW. He went for Youthcode.
  I got to thoroughly enjoy the show that was before me without the shadow or influence of other works before Pain Is Beauty. Seeing Chelsea Wolfe live was just the beginning, the real exploration would occur in the personal space of my room and driving to and from places. Its by way of this solitary exploration with the actual CDs that I get to indulge in hearing The Waves Have Come and We Hit A Wall from Pain Is Beauty. I do believe this is how she prefers her music to be explored. I marveled at how far back her work goes, (2006).  I needed to take my time and explore her library one book at a time, now that the entire bookcase fell on top of me. Youtube is great for this kind of solitary exploration.
  So this time I bought and took home Pain Is Beauty and her latest Hiss Spun . I was so close to getting a shirt as well, I don't think I had enough. I drove home happily listening to the CD's I bought. You can't listen to a fucking shirt. Metro I rarely go to unless it's Nocturna. I like the intimacy of smaller venues. If its big enough for Metro, I can usually let it go. This one I could not. And I still feel like I'm new in finding this artist. I review the experience with wonder.
    I've read and have seen reviews of her work on YouTube, and I can't review anything like they do, having already processed her other work, and being able to compare and contrast.  Two Spirit haunts like the first time I heard Circuit Des Yeux. It starts very minimally, just her breathy voice, and a guitar. Listening to it arouses curiosity towards her earliest work. And it amazes me that I got this far saying haunt only twice. Chelsea kinda owns that word and all the synonyms connected to it. Everything that you can identify as scary Chelsea has had on a fucking leash already potty trained. I know there is a whole parade of mother fuckers that have been there, done that. Right now, don't wake them up. Seriously, Eva O still scares the shit out of me. Don't bother Diamanda Galas either. Ain't nobody interested in your fucking pissing match.
  Vex  and 16 Psyche sounded sexy as hell, I instantly pictured myself dancing slowly doing all the 90's pre-VNV dance moves I learned in those years. Yeah, VNV Nation...was the first to make us all dance faster than we wanted. Gone gradually were the elegant hand movements.....that's a tangent. That's a train I had to stop before it took off. Vex I found it induces movement. Its probably the closest I will get to hearing and enjoying doom metal, or any type of metal. Even I can tell there are notes of metal in Chelsea Wolfe's music and I like how she makes them work.  I sometimes wait for the conclusions to a post to reveal themselves. That just takes too long. I like Hiss Spun and I like Pain Is Beauty, and will grow my collection from there.
Zig

HIDE!!

  Abrasive, aggressive, dark industrial that is empowering and also mysterious to behold live. Part of the spice, is that it is not sweet. The fog is nice, yet there is little the fog machine could do more than to accent the already mysterious HIDE. Beautiful, dark to behold is Heather. Dominant from the outset every time. A sustained tension even when slow. Now as I think about these pictures that I post, I recall now the many times I saw her but with no pictures like with Smart Bar and The Owl. This is a very active band, and this gets me wondering about other bands that travel to perform in Chicago, how are they regarded in their hometowns. It would be a total dream for me to see Esben And The Witch, Be Forest in their native surroundings, to see what kind of following they got locally.  There is always an audience for HIDE. If I don't get to a show on time. I am stuck in the back where all I can see is fog, strobe lights and shadows.
  I got the Black Flame EP on Vinyl and so as I hear it, I eventually run into the chilling story of this poor Iranian girl....her execution. And it can kinda fuck with you, as well it should. There is a picture on the bottom right corner of the other side of the lyric sheet. There is a whole text next to her picture. I believe she was executed for defending herself from being raped. And so it just fucks with you. No time given to process the haunting weight of the picture of this girl on the vinyl and then in comes Heather's dark howl for the mechanized Painkiller. The fog machine barely veils Heather as she writhes and twists away. Its coming back the heavily German Expressionist memories of those other shows half veiled in soft fog and strobe lights. Its in this interior space where she retreats to writhe about almost angrily. She brings the spooky, mysterious edge back to industrial by making it primitive again. Just the music alone sounds like.....sounds and noise collected and harvested and harnessed, and still raw and unpredictable with Heather's voice. The Bleeding Heart had some of us dancing. It just takes you back to that primal industrial, rhythmic almost as a by product of the machine, and harnessed by the weirdos that heard and saw patterns. HIDE is a Chicago band. When Ritual Howls played Empty Bottle, Heather was the DJ and days later I would see her on the stage. This is a very active local act. I have specific memories with The Owl. I saw friends there. The stage was small and the crowd around her was tight. I stayed back. The shirt and EP on Vinyl are tangible treasures that I don't recall which shows they came from. I know I saw her at Smart Bar.  Anyway, I'm glad that I am part of this following. Glad to be perpetuating the music.
Zig
 

Ruby Fray

  So forever I get to link these two separate shows into one event. I saw a good last part of Ruby Fray's set at Schubas before also seeing I think the full Vail set at Empty Bottle. These moments are linked but they will have separate posts, and here is Ruby Fray's. I probably caught like the last three songs of Ruby Fray, this time at Schubas.  I got to talk with her, she was way cool. Before this show I did not know her previous Chicago connection. She is from Illinois and she is moving back here and so I was way thrilled. I'm always hearing of people moving out of Chicago. Cross Record moved to Austin. And that made me sad. And now here is Emily moving to Chicago, and that cool. There is a thriving scene here and, and now its hers. I look forward to seeing her in all the small venues Chicago has. When last I saw her it was at Empty Bottle with Circuit Des Yeux. Emily Beanblossom had her full band then, a long time ago it feels. We came back home with Pith, released 2012. Pith was awesome! It was mysterious dark, minimal, period exploration. It was a different experience to take in. Emily's recorded voice just carries well old dark sounding tales. The live show was a different side of that impression. Ruby Fray was intense, steady psychedelic. There was something elusive that I liked about this band that I would continue to like for years.  Pith at times sounded to me like they came from a different period, between the modern and the frontier, when there was color in paintings but not yet in photographs. Mint Ice Cream puts me in a time when frozen shit like ice cream was barely a thing. I can almost see costumes, when pictures barely can move. Damn it! And now I can see Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour in Somewhere In Time. Perhaps I should not have lingered around turn-of-the-century images. Still, Emily's voice haunts like a fucking ghost from The Others. Evoking a certain time period I do not think is her intention. Its just what pops up in my path, a runaway Model T coming straight for me. The

costumes, the sets, perhaps I am not the guy to talk to. A fucking Model T Ford just came at me.
     Northern Washington leaves Katie Jane Garside asking for directions its so fucking sweet and dark. The live set was very different from the recordings and I was left fascinated by both. Fucking hell that show is a long time ago. This time at Shubas, 1st November Wednesday, Emily is Ruby Fray's lone representative. I went to Schubas first. Their shows always go on early, and this one was fucking free so hellz yeah.  The songs I heard live years ago, was from the CD Grackle. The one track I recorded from Empty Bottle and uploaded to YouTube is Photograph. This is what got me into RF and eventually Pith. Grackle is different. Her voice has such tension. Well, its present in both CD's. Its what gets you to listen. What's she tense about, now the mystery has you. Right....maybe not you. But she got me. I bought Grackle from Emily at Schubas, a few years after the Empty Bottle show. I don't recall Grackle being available so I got Pith and was still massively impressed. Pith casts a clear light on Emily's beautiful lilting voice. Let me get back to Photograph first, that track strikes me as dramatic, mysterious and dangerous like a winding, sentient churning road that can kick you off a steep cliff at slightest. What a strange and wonderful soundtrack to have while driving home. This was far and away different from Pith. The fog feels contemporaneous, and I am driving on I-55 something a Model T could not even catch up to while simultaneously listening to music. Model T's could not do that either.  Tension spills into Barbara. I so wish I had lyrics to read. I can catch Emily say "I don't care if you've been married 16 years...."  The drums seem to march you to something, a conclusive moment and Emily don't give a fuck how long you've been married. Its a delicate situation, the cop you call better have some special training, Emily's got a fucking gun. You get like forty seconds of build up and it starts with the drums that reminded me so slightly of Bela Lugosi. There's a video for Barbara that is really cool. It has Emily and her friends. Carry Me Down took me by surprise, it picks up almost two minutes in. Its actually the first song to break Ruby Fray from this vague costumed other-world that I put her in. Hey, Winona Ryder did her time in all kinds of costumed dramas and now she's in Stranger Things. I felt reunited with what I heard a few years ago.  It was a Friday drive going to and from a Panda Riot show at Resistor when I played Grackle, and what a sweet drive that was. Finally, this post is done. Zig

Kanga!

  Metro was having the Cold Waves Festival and GMan Tavern is right next door. This is where I was told by the very person that first turned me on to Kanga that she was doing a set for the after-party there. Gman was no cover that night. It's right next door to Metro. I figured that I had close to no chance of seeing this since Mt fucking Cold Waves is going to avalanche all over Gman, perhaps before the last act finishes there.
  I got ready, but my expectations were kept low. If I miss this, it will not be for lack of effort. My friend DJ Vegan In Black borrowed me her CD of Kanga months ago, and I was floored by it. When you feel late to a party, you feel a distance that builds within, like not officially part of the cult but  following and observing. That could just be me always feeling kind of like the outsider. But I got into this! So I found Kanga to be very aggressive, resonant, like this is going to be in the classic industrial canon. She has lyrics that stick to your mind. Going Red, Honey, Vital Signs, I'm hearing these songs but I don't really believe I will be as close as I eventually got on that Gman stage. I think in an interview she has referred to her music as industrial pop....industrial adjacent. 
  The tracks are effortlessly imprinting on me. They all have lyrics you can chant with Kanga when she plays live. And the crowd right in front, all of us saying "I'm On Fire...I Don't Belong Here Anymore!!!!" And you feel a surge, an empowering rush to be in front.  It was awesome like Lucy vamping cousin Ernie. Going Red for example kind of mesmerizes with repeated chanting, some that you can sing along with her and some that you just observe her say and say again like an industrial shaman loading potent magic into words and them back into her. I was really surprised how close I got to the stage.
  When I strolled in it was well before her set. I assumed a line outside Gman but there were just relaxing in between Metro and Gman. There was a massive fucking bus parked on the side, 'cause yeah, Cold Wave. So no line....I just strolled in. No one to show my ID to...alright. It was my first time there so this German Expressionist Ken Russell sense of wonder is gonna paint the memory a certain way. You paint the interior of your bubble of wonder. You make it real enough but heavier on the weird. And on top of that, it was my first time actually seeing Kanga. The bar seems to reach the north corner of Metro's block. Its a medium small bar. Or at least it was intimate enough. I know of friends of mine that have played here. Even from the back of it you can see well to the stage. 
  I walked in to the familiar sound of industrial being played by the DJ. I see Marci and say hi. She's way in the back. Then I go to the dance floor nearest to the stage. Now its just a matter of dancing in this fucking spot until Kanga comes out. I end up right under the fucking mic, close enough to see the braces on her teeth and the red paint on her neck. She is an intense performer that ignites it in her fans. For this Chicago gig, it was a backing track and her in a mic. That was all that was needed. I cannot imagine the burden of...just you on stage...eyes on you to bring this industrial energy. The gun powder she has stockpiled is called "angry white girl screaming on stage". Potent shit....just like honey does not expire, . Man...that shit lights her up. She would bend back like Neo only with her hands limp behind her like she is about to float up. She would get on all fours or on her back. She was a goddamn live wire. At some point she played a new song and at the end she even played an encore. She even went into the audience to be almost enveloped within us. In between tracks some girl from the audience emerged to the front and handed Kanga a shot of what appeared to be tequila. Kanga asked if it was roofied and still took the shot, like a champ . She was a great sport about it. Hmm, just to be clear, I am not ridiculing her for wondering if a drink just handed to her is drugged. Its entirely understandable to have this question and even jest to express it aloud.
  And it was Marci who told me about Kanga's post-Cold Waves show. So now, my memory has every song locked because they are memorable,  catchy and impacting like you want industrial to feel. Kanga's immediate sister hood includes HIDE and Bestial Mouths. I'm being lazy here, this is to me who they sound like. Its the industrial that brings back Neo to my head effortlessly with details that include some not-forgotten iconic regulars dancing. Kanga is from L.A. according to an interview I saw on Youtube. It's from this interview where I get that phrase angry white girl. The videos of her I have seen go back to 2016. I noticed a good number of people around me take out their phones to take videos and pictures. I do hope they did. It would be nice to see this as one more Kanga video on Youtube.

I walked back to the car feeling fortunate and sated for seeing something from Cold Waves. A lot of my goth friends went to this, and seeing Kanga made that festival less remote from me, like I came back seeing something from this. When going to Metro, or in this case Gman Tavern, I usually park closer to Music Box, since I don't want to waste time trying to look for parking on Clark. So it was a blissful walk back, still cautious in knowing how vulnerable one is when walking to your car alone....the bubble with the Ken Russell style interior. And indeed a walk from Metro to Music Box at times can be eerily quiet like you are walking through a closed movie sound stage. I am aware of how fragile this bubble is. I get in the car and on instinct I turn the radio on NPR. I hear about the Las Vegas shooting at a concert....at a concert. The bubble is burst. This is all I listen to on the way home, the Kanga concert a now well insulated happy memory. This past cannot change, but it might as well be another world away. This is the world of Leonard Cohen's  Everybody Knows . This is the world the bubble escape is for. This shooting at a Las Vegas concert still a developing event, arrivals at the hospitals barely begin to mount. This is what I hear on the radio on the way home. Damn....just Damn, humbled and quiet is the drive home.

Zig