Yeah, Oh my! This one I was anticipating ever since
Fee Lion told me about it when she headlined her own Hideout show a few weeks back. A countdown clock appeared right behind her, counting down until 1st of June Friday, a very competitive night. Depeche Mode was playing United Center. Taylor Swift was doing Soldier Field....if you are into that. Being way in the back of a Mode show was far less the drug than was being in the front of this small stage for
Zanias, Fee Lion and
Visceral Anatomy.
Zanias at Empty Bottle last year is a charged memory. And now so is this 1 June, Friday. Because I saw them the following Tuesday. In Wicker Park there is this place Danny's that was having Grun Wasser play at midnight. My friend Marci and I decided to go. There is a fucking line that stretches and we get on it. I figure every one knows Grun Wasser is playing but I was surprised to see some not. Eventually the singer for the band comes out and talks to some of us in line. Some of those were her friends some no, and were here for the DJ. It was very nice to see her come out and just casually talk to us in line and she went way to where we was. That was very cool of her. She was going to perform within minutes of her hanging out. So my friend and I eventually go inside and its cavernous, especially after you pass the bar, the cavern stretches to little rooms and tables and areas that can be off and away. I wander to all the way in the back and there sat the fucking green room for Hideout 1 June. Zanias, Fee Lion, Visceral Anatomy/Wingtips.
Well I damn near shat what I bought at Sears. I'm back to auditioning for Charlie Brown. Before that went worse I withdrew to where Marci was talking. She saved me. But there they were and it was nice to briefly see the bands from last Friday hang out together. I really did not want to disturb them. I was so fucking star struck. But that was Tuesday and it made the performance the previous Friday resonate again, and I don't think I fucked it up too much.
Visceral Anatomy I saw once before, with my friend Marci at Smart Bar during a night called Research&Development. Hanna is also in Wingtips and they are crazy awesome. Vincent sings in Wingtips. Hanna sings in Visceral Anatomy. Disquieting is her girl-in-a-box voice raging through bassy cold wave synths. Her predator eyes pierce all the way to the back of Hideout.
I look forward to seeing them again.
I really cannot say that I envy my friends who went to Depeche Mode. I am happy that they went to see them, its a real gathering of communities that go see Mode. You see how far into these communities Mode has reached into, and held together. It was absolutely therapeutic for me to hear
Music For The Masses when I did and everything else since. Indeed, it was Depeche Mode that struck and influenced me as a young adult and I would not be listening to what I do now without their influence. I went once....nay, I was taken to see them by the sweetest and dearest of friends and I get it, the power of that gravitational pull. I don't fuck with it, or put myself in front of it. In the end their music is not in danger of disappearing from the world, nor will they ever be broke, and what I do go after just may disappear and go broke. Anyway I don't wanna sound like I'm lecturing or shitting on something sacred. Its just for me....as small as the Hideout show is. Its big for me. All three bands are big for me. And so yeah, I was star struck with elbows when I saw them all together like that. It's not on them. I was the deer in the headlights.
For this one, I did not fuck around. I bought my ticket ahead of time believing that it would sell out, but it did not. And I was on time. Hideout shows are punctual. The crowd was a good size but not the sold out show I anticipated. A good number of friends were there, all of us in black, of course. Its one of those events, see and be seen and the night was warm enough. So, Hi Sarah, hi William....Rani...Alex. Her husband wore the Bestial Mouths shirt...nice!
Linea Aspera was conceived so long ago, well relatively, 2011-2012 and my awareness of them was so late that it was not possible seeing them live. I thought it was something that I became aware of later and not during its existence. So there is a distance that is created from there and I never thought this was something I would see live at all, just in some YouTube wormhole. Perhaps one day I shall see the CD at Reckless or at Sarah's backyard sale event. And then....there she is on the Empty Bottle events page. Fuck yeah!!! And I go and it was nice and intoxicating. You don't think this will ever orbit around to you again. So when Ms Birthday girl Fee Lion tells me that she is bringing Ms Z back to Hideout. That was a clock that wanted to count down. Zanias has a whole trail of projects behind her. And I came home with what was available on this tour,
To The Core, and
Linea Aspera. When I first heard this, I fucking loved it. She was this cool, mysterious sativa stoned Vulcan, with project after project behind her. She's not gonna stand still.
Now I'm a fan. I really wanted one of the shirts, and I still got the one from the Empty Bottle show. I'm glad Ms Alison took time off here before continuing on.
Fee Lion I am the most familiar with, having seen her 3 times before. I really like her cover of
Chromatics In The City. All her music I don't get enough, they are resonant and almost like anthems. She has these three new songs that I think are gonna be dark dance floor classics, just like the first 6. I can only hear them live for the moment. Weeks before I saw her at Cole's. Those pictures came out better. If you like Boy Harsher, Kanga....we got Fee Lion. So that is her company for me. She urgent, bass heavy beats that are resonant like something real, I think her songs can hit like Covenant. Watch for her. Well, they all have work ahead of them.
Zig
The bass...was it....It commands a pace that is in the range of death rock and punk. Leans...messy bass. Not clean, agile bass like New Model Army. Messier than that and so a bit labored, no less urgent, and sometimes brooding heavy. Did that sound like a complaint. No...its a feature for me, not a bug. They describe themselves as dark dance-able post punk. They remind me a lot of this band I saw only once and I got the vinyl for it, Rhythm Of Cruelty. I saw them at Burlington that one time. Cruz De Navajas at least wears the death rock, post punk identity on their sleeves and the singer even wore this white wedding dress as if just married to it. They are balls deep in the culture, and they pull it out of the crowd that saw them. I can think of no other kind of community that would be as into it as the crowd that showed up. As I research them, I grow more fond of them. I even found a video of their Chicago gig! Songs are starting to sink in individually. 
They sound to me like old school post punk with lyrics dealing with femicide, forced disappearances of people. Both of those things happen in Mexico. Happens a lot. Part of what I see in the punk identity, the music.... you must have a fucking problem. Hmm, that sounded wrong. I mean, something has to bother you, fuck with you. Reporters or rural teachers, people with a capacity and availability to speak truth to power are being disappeared. Women, especially poor women are being murdered, cases go unsolved. And that says something. It is great that these are subjects in their lyrics. I like their version of The Mirror Breaks, originally from The Mob. Did not know that, and I heard it first from Cruz. .........So they get interviewed and they talk about what they write in their lyrics, and that gets you to listen closely again. When they say deep shit....and in spanish....its profound and scholarly. Perhaps that can be due to my worsening practice of the language. Everything sounds magnanimous, especially when it hits a certain way. So now I'm into SPK, Suna, Imperialismo, I can go on. Its post punk from post punk fans. I'm gonna put them next to them bands with a dominant driving bass guitar, Walking Bicycles, Staring Problem.
