Slowdance at Empty Bottle....again!

I think it was this guilt for missing the Occupy Chicago marches in downtown that propelled me to not miss Slowdance open for Anika....hmm. Anika, that's another blog post. Friends of mine went to the marches that I could have met with and all but, I could not go. So I cannot speak to being there but the marches are noteworthy to me and seeing Slowdance will remind me that they occurred on the day of their Chicago appearance. Grand it could have been to go to both and witness both. I think this was the last leg of the Brooklyn band's second mini-tour. I caught both shows, yay!! I can't recall whether I downloaded their music before they came to Chicago or after. The song "Cake" I downloaded after their first Chicago appearance. The song is all in French. So every impression the song will make will be not from what it says but strictly from how it says. Momo's voice very casually rides the impatient bouncy guitars. There's really something iconically familiar about the song. It's gonna remind you of something you heard in a vague before. Like it would make weird sense if this song and band were old because then it would confirm that you did hear this song before.....you just don't know when. So for lack of better words "Cake" has this iconic impression on me. It plays in my head a lot. Its one of them songs that my mind indulges in doing so. It's so fascinating to see them on these early tours because these are the experiences that they will learn from when touring becomes part of their routine, and the tours become longer. The tours are not yet the new normal. It is quite a singular moment to catch them at this time away from their home. I guess it is a speculation what lessons they will take from these early tours. All I can do is applaud them for doing them, and be happy that this was how I encountered them, before reading about them on Venus Zine.

The Pack A. D. 6 October 2011

Their last show at Empty Bottle was last year and I think it was a Free Monday, it was in support of the CD We Kill Computers. Their bluesy working class sounding aggression just felt like the right kind of engagement, reaction to these rough times. I looked them up yes, but I did not intend to see them the morning of. I find that fascinating. Not knowing what will be the soundtrack to your life, and then from around the corner there it is. The soundtrack is what contains without explicitly saying it, the memories of those moments. The music reflects back to you what happened, when. The Pack A.D. have their blues down. I'm not a blues person and it's even apparent to me. I like their use of it in all their songs. It never tires because of how fluid it's in their hands. It does not sound conventional to me. And that's a danger with a band that has strong identifiable roots that you can see spanning across all they produce, repetition. In their hands the blues are an outsider's tool they use to reinterpret rock, and dare I say blues as well. And they do it all over again with the new CD Unpersons. Still bluesy but never repetitive. I can listen to it forwards and backwards. Indeed some of the songs remind me of PJ Harvey and Queen Adreena's DJin. This is not me name dropping bands. And I'm not saying that PJ is a Delta Blues woman. She don't have to be. She does well enough being PJ. Where was I? Oh yeah blues....It's still an identifiable streak in her early work, right? Wait, where was I before that? Oh, The Pack, right. It would not occur to me to put those three artists together before, even as I love them all.

Eliza Rickman!!...Again!

She has this really sweet and playful song that only gets played when she feels at ease with the audience. It kind of requires audience participation, it's called "Foot Soldiers". Eliza said, "this song is about Napoleon". Which drew giggles from her crowd. The song is on youtube...not the version she played Saturday 8 October. Audience members are given these little novelty noise makers that normally irritate but in the context of this song are brilliant. You randomly play them while the song goes on, and it totally works and you have a great time participating.

So I caught a part of her show at Whistler. I saw Eliza Rickman play her accordion as well as toy piano. Yes, I said accordion, and also I caught all of her performance at High Concept Labs just across the street from Hideout. The second time was with other musicians, a cello, violin, etc. And she played mostly from this grand piano. I don't recall that many songs from her currently available CD Gild The Lily, except for Black Rose, and I think Cold Shoulder. I like Whistler for its intimacy but often you can still hear the background noise of people talking as the musician is playing and that can be just rude especially when the artist is someone like Eliza who shows up with a toy piano and accordion. Songs like those mentioned work their catharsis when the room is filled with stillness and contemplation. Psychedelic bands like Dark Fog, Killer Moon can drown all that and impose their presence. High Concept Labs felt different. The space was bigger, had old wooden floors, couches, regular seats, nice washrooms, and an atmosphere that focused attention on the performer, very hush. It was not the place to have a casual conversation with a band in your background, your rudeness would really stick out. The place seemed well suited for a classical music performance. You don't talk over a cello, violin. Just the right space for Eliza, and there were a lot of people there to listen to her. Whistler has its merits but it can be too loud for a tiny place. As I ponder this further, it's been loud for many musicians. Aleks from Magic Key made a passing comment about this as well right to the audience but the murmur continued. It embarrassed me slightly to be in that crowd. Last year Eliza moved to L.A. I recall. This last Saturday she mentioned moving from there....she did not like living there and is happy to be away. The forth coming CD was recorded in Chicago and I can't wait for it. She has gigged Chicago a lot now that I think about it, more times than I have noted here. All the songs that she plays with violin, viola (I think) and cello will be in this new CD. I'm quite sure Eliza was happier at the HCL turnout. There was no way to predict with that slight indifference at Whistler. I hope Ms Eliza stays happy and productive. She gives a voice to silent kindred spirits.

Staring Problem

So most of these are from the show at Ultra Lounge that I did catch. I have one from last Friday but that is after the Pancho show was done.


Officially, I'll have to say I missed the performance, but I did manage to chat them up a bit later. It's nice to have that, and also they released a new EP that one can download for free from their website. I hear it and it reflects well with the previous downloadable CD. Every song reflects well on the band. Every song relates to the whole. I hear Seed and I want to hear Tegnology. You hear one song and you are instantly curious about what else they got. I'm glad I did not discover this in some goth themed compilation CD of bands, 'cause that would be just one song. You don't get the kind of fatigue you feel from listening to three songs at once. It's dark chocolate casual. Not deliberately but casually dark, post-punk.......the kind that print in mostly black shirts, but not seemingly interested in shaping an image. In the same company as other local acts like Walking Bicycles, at a glance they can sound like early Siouxsie....wait, wait!!! Don't roll them eyes like that. "Don't they all" you say. But if that is what gets you to listen and since they are an active band. Go see them. I'm wrong? You liked them anyway. If the name of the queen of goths......something waiting stuck in the period of....I'm always wondering what was ignored when we discovered some artist that first identifies a scene. I guess I feel that urgency for all bands I listen to and encounter. I can see Staring Problem do dark themed festivals like...Projekt, as well as a headlining gig at Empty Bottle. Really broadly speaking there are bands that just wear black because it's easier to wash clothes that way. And you can tell the singer washes that old Depeche Mode shirt in Woolite Dark.

Aleks/Eva...no...Magic Key

So I saw Ms Aleks under the new band name Magic Key at Whistler this Thursday 29, September. Whistler is such a small venue, it's easy to fill the bastard to capacity. It looked that way as I was looking for parking. There was a line in front. Normally that is discouraging enough to have me go home, but I did not put on my dwindling supply of rose oil perfume for nothing. The intimacy of the place is worth the wait. I make it inside and on time, yay! Magic Key....Aleks continues to play all new songs I think including one that she wrote yesterday. I say Aleks because the rest of the band was not on stage with her. That can be a drummer.... formally known as The Drummer and perhaps one or two other musicians. For the moment we still only have the CD May A Lightning Bolt Caress You. It's just 5 tracks and so you know there is more. Rarely does she do anything from that CD. They still point in the direction of what she is doing now, you still see a distance. They can barely speak about what is to come. The new songs are as dark and urgent and more elaborate with multiple layers of sound that still carry you in a rushing current. Well, that's with a full band. On stage that last Thursday of September Ms Aleks went solo. After this performance I put her in the same company as Fielded and Telepathe. Huh? So what if I've seen them all at Empty Bottle? Fielded, in it's most ambient never bores, too tense. Aleks in this solo show has this and so the comparison. As many times as I've seen her, it's always been with a full band. The idea of a solo show at Whistler is not the same thing as Empty Bottle. I think Aleks felt a little outside that comfort zone as she seemed shy to me at first. I always go on about how cool it is that Whistler is small, but sometimes that means you can hear people talk when you don't want to, and that can bother the artist sometimes.

To this day my father listens to the classical music station, and so since my childhood I acquired this high you get from listening to classical piano. There is a rawness, a sincerity that contemporary rock and pop lacked during periods of my childhood and classical piano often was this border-less refuge. There's a point. Yes, it relates to Aleks.....before I forget. Classical piano had this singular authority in how it articulated emotion. Just with the music you felt with the weight of a narrative. The composer knowing how to weave different scenarios for conflict, and breathless climax. There is some of that in Magic Key. And where some bands seek to put you in a state of innocent wonder like some sweet shoegaze does. Magic Key seems to warn about the margins of that wonder-land, colorful but dangerous.

architecture

Ok, so these pictures are actually from when they played as Panda Riot in the summer of '09 I think. I did not take so many when they came back as architecture. I've seen this band perform in one way or another so many times I'm familiar with the clothes they wear. The shirt that Rebecca wears I see it on her all the time. It's not a bad thing. You see a band a few times, your going to notice some things. And I like having this familiarity with the music that I like.

Late....I know. Way after The Reader reviewed it. But I've been meaning to write about them since learning of them earlier in the year. They are Rebecca Scott and Melissa Harris. Yes class that Rebecca....from Panda Riot and Melissa briefly was in the band herself. So they are local and both musicians have a long term relationship with the Chicago music scene. I've been a fan of Panda Riot for a number of years. I've seen them gig a lot. They have a full CD and EP available, and have a good two CD's worth of material in the works. And so briefly was Melissa Harris as part of Panda Riot. As architecture they carry on this urban faerie take of dream pop with the CD when we were young. The CD has 6 songs, all brilliant. Brian Cook of PR mixed and mastered. The lyrics are clear, easy to follow, much like in Scott's other band, and so one can feel included in the mystery evoked. The other-worldly yellow brick road is paved most effectively with the girls' voices. They register just above haunting. If you are already a fan of Broadcast, Cranes..Arrghh!!!! Look them up....architecture can be for you. They sound perfect for dancing at Shimmer at Latebar, Scary Lady Sarah's monthly shoe-gaze night.

We Are Hex 2007-2011

I needed an excuse to upload these, and the break up of the band is as good...or bad as it gets.

I got a facebook message saying that We Are Hex broke up and that made a lot of people sad including myself. One might roll the eyes and say "Zig there are real problems and then then there are pretend problems..... there's a recession and the unemployment rate is at over 9%. " And China may be wearing the next shoe to drop. Perhaps, but I just became aware of them this May. Somehow there is comfort to draw from the music you encounter during these dark times. Their existence more delicate still. They are of the same world and so are subject to it's whim. All three times that I saw WAH were within a span of four months, in quick succession. The sadness comes because when you like something you feel like you have liked it for ever. I've had the time now to further both CDs to find their place in the mind. The music I hear always carries with it the time-stamp of what was happening around it. The best have that long shelf-life, and I trust WAH to have it. Music is not created in a vacuum. It responds and reflects the world around it. So We Are Hex broke up and that is a sad, sad thing. That's a lot of gigs between them gigs. The last two times they did mostly new songs that were not recorded yet and apparently will remain so. I got pictures and video for all three times. And youtube has a lot of documented performances. They sounded abrasive and weird, but with a New Model Army-working-class appearance. Eerie and familiar. I love how Jilly danced. At first her movements seemed so chaotic at first, still are but now I know her movements. The energy of the music allows for no rest between sprints from gig to gig. This is not saying I know why they broke up. I do not. But they played a lot. They played everywhere, but with still a lot of nation to cover. The furthest west they went I think was SXSW.