Stella Luce

I just remember it was a Wednesday in October when I saw this band at The Empty Bottle, I did not know Stella Luce existed the day before. I'm glad I did not miss them. It feels as if other performers like Rasputina, Emily Autumn have prepped me for appreciating Stella Luce. There were others that I was going to mention but I can't recall them right now. This is not the same as saying Stella Luce sounds like these other bands. SL I like for how they are different as well as how they are alike. They describe themselves as electro-acoustic, which sounds just about right. I was struggling with how to describe them. It was unfortunate how thin the crowd was for this band, and no one that I would describe as remotely goth. They were quite the thing to witness. Considering the following that Rasputina and EA have now, Stella Luce does certainly deserve the same kind of attention. They all got this same sharp wit like they went to the same Catholic school or something. Well, at the same time smart is what I look for in an artist. In the song "Be Still My Bleeding Heart" Alana Rolfe the lead singer has this rapid fire wit that sometimes sprints across before slowing down and letting the instruments catch up. And there are other songs that deserve attention. "Death March" sounds to me like an Eastern European Waltz. It would be interesting to see how this song makes people move on a gothic night dance floor. It just needs to be expressed and appreciated collectively like that. Nothing here strikes me as sounding formulaic. Each song has it's own gravitational pull. Electro-acoustic is exactly right. I hope to see them again, with a wider audience that I believe goth culture can be. It's a matter of putting the two in the same space.

Zig

Ami Saraiya

This girls music has been in my head ever since seeing her perform at the Empty Bottle. Ms Ami plays the accordion, and guitar. I looked up the Bottle website and decided after hearing a Pretenders cover....at least I think that is who she covered. I liked her voice and how she played the accordion, so off I go to see her. I think the main act that night was a band from France named Cocoon (I think). The way I sometimes research a band, I want to capture as much of the experience live. So, I'll go to the bands' myspace page or something, see a video for maybe a minute or so. I like accordion players. Each band or artist that I like that plays that instrument is a separate reason why I like the accordion sound. Pezzettino plays it differently from Ami Saraiya. A signature of hers is this sad bluesy swagger, a thread that is in a lot of her songs, like "Vegas Moon", "Up, Down, & Charmed", "Archaeologist". This feeling emits from how the songs sound, before the meaning of the words settle. At once you feel nostalgic for the black and white of your own childhood. Well...a nostalgia of some sort. And then the words settle into your mind, words that have been made welcome before the meaning was met. Without the lyrics to read it's just certain phrases that rise out and sink back. So I can't say, "This is what the song says". Her music is not entirely sad sounding. Her swagger is more dominant with songs like "Memphis Train", and "Intaha Ho Gayee". That last one was a Bollywood song. I so love it when an artist so weaves together cultures so vastly apart...but not really. We are all closer than we think. It was a real joy and a privilege to witness this local....I have to repeat this to myself, local artist.

Zig

Phantogram

I saw these guys again, at Bottom Lounge . I got their entire performance. The last time I saw them, at Subterranean I only got on time for their last song, "When I'm Small". The imprint was not set then. I could have been frugal and not get the ep, but I said fuck it and got it anyway. The imprint started after that first show, when I would play the cd in the car. These guys have that Portishead coolness that is effortless, and natural, yet they are an original creation. It's not the same as saying they sound like them. On "Small", the hip-hop beats feel like they are in their natural state, not in a zoo, at ease with the psychedelic. For a band that uses all kinds of electronic stuff, they sound very....organic. I don't get why the crowd was kind of not as into them. They seem to be more of a college, Q 101 crowd, not really into the street wise, Portishead coolness of these two old high school buddies. Their names are Joshua M Carter and Sarah D Barthel from Saratoga Springs, New York. They are best described as street beat/psych/pop. That describes perfectly "When I'm Small". Really these guys were absolutely awesome and they are just beginning. They barely got an ep out with five songs. They combine live sampling with loops, Joshua's swirling guitar, Sarah's keyboard, voice. During the month of October they will be touring England, and I'm happy that they are.

bliss.city.east

I wanted to write separately about bliss.city.east. I said the band moved to Atlanta, but their myspace page says Boston. They also describe their sound best, shoegaze/indie/disco house. I'm over here trying to write a whole paragraph trying to say exactly that.

The Spiritual Bat

So last week. A friend of mine told me that she was having over in her place this band from Italy called Spiritual Bat. They were to perform at Nightlight Cafe Friday 18 September and Darkroom on the 20th. It's fun when you go only on the word of a friend (thank you Michelle) that you will like a certain band and that you can come and meet them. Just like that. When you get included you just go 'cause I'm a fucking moth. I can't tell the flame from the moon light. Off I go to risk the difference, and sure enough there they are on Michelle's couch, this lovely Italian couple Rosetta and Dario who were 24 hours away from making a fan out of me. They were being interviewed, and I listened, because I wanted clues as to what I would eventually listen to live the next night. Rosetta's hair was loosely dreadlocked. It worked very well for her. It felt as if I was the only one in the room that has not done his homework on them. And to a degree it was deliberate. I wanted the live Spiritual Bat experience to overwhelm me. It was very curious to see everyone around me taking pictures with the band and having their CD's signed and all that. If I wait until after I hear them, this moment behind the scenes will have passed and so I had to take it blind. Happy I am now to have done so. When a band or anyone for that matter travels far and wide and includes you in their journey it makes one feel special. This I feel regardless of what I think of the music they play. I'm still very grateful for being included in the journey, and Spiritual Bat came all the way from Italy to do gigs in the States. They are far from home, and so I deeply appreciate their trip to see us here. Before I show the concert pictures, I want to show the ones before the performance.

Labor Day Monday

This was a Scary Lady Sarah event held at The Abbey Pub. It was to be bliss.city.east's last performance in Chicago before moving to Atlanta, and also the second time I see Renee-Louise Carafice. For me a convergence of moments that will never repeat. This fed the urgency to go see them. My first time seeing bliss.city, the lead singer was barely visibly pregnant, I remember this shirt with an ultra-sound picture of a baby in the womb giving the middle finger. The coolest pregnant shirt. Alright, now the music. It's fairly aggressive shoe gaze, and they don't hide from wanting to make you dance. I did when I was not taking pictures. I 've been using this shoegaze crayon a lot, still it's just a crayon, and I do eventually use the others, like black. I suppose shoegaze is a way that I hold on to the goth and....back to bliss.city.east They can sound more giddy than School of Seven Bells, and casual like Panda Riot. They have their faster, harder songs. Perry B.C.E's guitarist goes off, keeps your short attention span from wandering. There were a lot of guitars on that stage but they haze of them don't go off on tangents. Juno would not call this "noise". Bliss.City.East, I will miss them, and I hope the band prospers in their new home of Atlanta.....is that right?

So I've wanted to see Ms Renee' -Louise again ever since Beat Kitchen, about a year ago. I was quite impressed with her then but she had no CD's with her so I don't remember what I liked about her, only that I really did. She's from New Zealand and now she lives here, in Chicago. Her music.....It's just how her myspace page describes her. She's folk, glam, experimental, she owns all these notes. The folk part for me makes everything feel closer, the experimental less remote. Her other-worldly voice captures attention like an elder telling you a story in a camp fire straight out of magical realism. OK, so she's not remotely related to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. But there is this other-worldly thing to her that still feels familiar enough to this world. Like a Vulcan raised by Manchester punks, urban/folk, not mediaeval folk. She seems to know this urban world you live in better than you, in ways you're glad you don't. I listen to the cd "Tells You To Fight", and putting a side for a moment what she says in her songs. I like how she says it. The voice makes whatever meaning I get out of the songs compelling enough. It's the wonder of the how, before the meaning settles, before words settle into meaning, they are instruments that leave you with wonder, I was sold..... and then she named a song after Emily Dickenson.

Literate and street wise. That song, "To Run", I've been listening to it a lot. There is a video on it, and some explanation about the song, yeah, Wuthering Heights fucked with me too. That was a significant novel for me.... Reading about the origins about the song makes me appreciate the artist more, she's described here as "dark-folk pop songstress...Carafice sings with an alarming openness about desperation, love, loss, homelessness and longing, all the while maintaining a sense of glorious hope at the end of the road". I had to quote it direct. I could not say it any better.

Anyway, I ran to The Abbey and made it on time, it was Renee Louise first. She was probably on her second song, and she had a full band this time, her vulcan-punk hair under this aviator hat, only for a moment. The intangible reasons I liked this artist to begin with came back. It's like you're enjoying the memory of the first performance, as well as the one before you, and now I have the CD to take home.

The Ettes at Sub T's

I go see The Ettes 28 August, a Friday. I was really anticipating it. White Mystery played before them. It was something to go on time to. I still missed the opening act Tiger Spirit. They got them out of the way far too early. Their CD was just two dollars so I took my chances. White Mystery I've known about for a while but this was my first time seeing them. I liked them, enough to wish their CD wasn't sold out. The Ettes I've only known about since June I think. They have been to Chicago at least 3 times before. Where the fuck have I been? I liked this band so much I wished I was there those previous 3. The brief research I did made me want to go see them. The individual members all come from the east coast, but they all met in L.A. Indeed the band formed there around 2004, and now I think they moved again, to Tennessee where it's a far cheaper cost of living. They have traveled and called many places home, I imagine. The lead singer Coco, .......I love that name, she looks latina to me. Anyway, that Friday she was all in black and mod. This was one of those performances when it is a struggle between wanting to dance and wanting to take pictures and video. And perhaps that betrays the mood of the crowd. A lot of people danced. The crowd was way into them. It really is something when they are beautiful and fem and still have this naturally dominant authority come out of the music, like a muscle car that they fixed themselves. And they are all drivers. Their second CD will come out on 29th September. I love the EP and the previous full length, I'm glad they will be back with Juliet Lewis on Friday 2 Oct. This time I'll get the shirt.