Walking Bicycles

   I had no idea about Radar Eyes before this. Walking Bicycles were the middle act before they did their last show. Hmmm, last show. They got me curious with that and so I stayed for them, and I'm glad I did. Angela from Touched By Ghoul/Coins/Sybris was in the crowd and sang with them for one song. I notice Julius puts together lots of these great shows. I am sometimes embarrassed to see how little I am aware of and so talking to them in between shows is always insightful. And I feel quite at ease around them.  I was going to see them when Pamphleteers played Burlington but I was called away to Indianapolis for that weekend, so I had to feel the sting of that. Anyway so, Julius organized this last show at Hideout, with Radar Eyes and that is why I stayed.  The first of the year for Bicycles, I believe. Their gigs still feel rare even as I accumulate posters of them. The Hideout is great because its small and known. On their wall I believe there is a fucking picture of Seka! No fucking around, I made it on time for this thing, but with no intention to stay for Radar Eyes but I stayed. They have refined and concentrated their engine. The bass rolls fast with the drums. Its the engine, the total engine before Jocelyn even begins.
  I hear their new LP To Whom That Wills The Way all the time. And now I got these live sets to recall including this one at Hideout.  Its not a routine. This is rare. So indeed I document this months ago warping memory. I took a few less pictures. So most of what I post here are from other shows. It still feels very recent when all I had was their back catalogue and the two tracks So and Badada. And now the rest are absolute jams! The music fits me. I don't know how else to put it. Their hmm signatures intensify. The engine that once simmered burns hot now. A look at lyrics invites a look at the the vinyl itself. Their urgent, fast pace naturally seems dark, and still casual as the background of gloomy spooky urban, darkness. What I just said there I can easily apply to all their back catalogue. Its worth a look back to have a deeper appreciation of the latest.  After Vitamin Z don't you want to hear Welcome To The Future? I usually hear both versions since they are barely over two minutes long. And where does Whirlin' Dervish come from? After all this time I've had to ponder them. The tracks do not telegraph one another. By the time I hear Boethius, track 9, I don't feel like I had also just heard War Paint, or The Messenger.   And I remember seeing Future live, and what it took to get me to see them. Tracks leave you with individual signatures. Still mysterious even as they strike directly.  Its rare and wonderful that I have them to ponder along with the fleeting performances.
Zig

Staring Problem

  Just read the names of these great tracks, Don't Tell A Soul, Parasite, Species Forgotten,  Not Humane, Semiconscious, Cease To Be. They paint a bleak picture. But its one you want to see and explore. Like watching Ghost Adventures.....less for the actual ghosts and more for the urban exploration. They could not have named the new release better, Long Winter. These names arouse your curiosity and listening to the tracks does not in the least disappoint.  I have always loved the bass on Staring Problem songs. Even if you don't notice, its what holds it all together, it gives the lead guitar the space to sound its best.  I always notice myself looking for and mentioning what sounds....urgent, what has a drive like its reaching for something about to be lost.  Urgency is infectious. Once its inside, you naturally relate to the music. It becomes your urgency. And the music speaks for you.  And these latest from Staring Problem has that feeling with abundance. The bass bounces with an aged confidence and natural urgency.....I already went through a fucking thesaurus so shut up. I went shopping around. I missed their last show at The Mousetrap I believe and so I am posting pictures from shows I have seen.
   
  When you are driving home to this, check your speed. If you are jogging, exercising you are going to burn a little more of that extra ass you don't want. Damn it I say that a lot. I gotta find new ways to express my enthusiasm of the same bands. Anyway,  Not Humane , Semiconscious immediately took me back to when my English friends first introduced me to New Model Army. And they always have this bouncy drive, like they are chasing something....and they always have this point of view that is the tip of their spear. Those guys are like that passionate leftist relatively young professor that happens to be a musician. When NMA believe in justice, ....vengeance, so do you. Hell you even spell it like they do. But this is of course about Staring Problem. Anyway the two songs named have this faster pulse to them that I like, and yet they sound perfect for Scary Lady Sarah's Death Rock night.  And its not a bad thing to put these two bands in the same stream of thought and text. Remember we goths dance to this.
 
So we seek out the spaces or create them so that we can, and further exploration can be done besides just listening. I'm really curious about the lyrics thanks to the names of the songs, I prefer to read as I listen.....or else I just make my own up by mistake. I did that once. For a long time this Caifanes song I understood the lyrics to go a certain way. It turns out when I bothered reading them, they were completely different than what I thought I heard. So I trust what I read more than hear in this regard. They sound....old... like an older subcultural punk band. If I did not already know, I would just assume they were from an era when cassette tapes were the norm and not the fucking novelty. So when I mean old....I'm saying there is a natural maturity to this. And I noticed too that the songs are lasting longer, like for three minutes, Yaay!!!.
Zig

We Are Hex/Goldmines at Indy

  I have not really traveled much since Whitby where over a few visits I grew comfortable going there. And that was a long time ago. Then, I grew comfortable going to the familiar venues in Chicago. Reaching that comfort level one show at a time. Getting to know a venue, a city takes time.  Getting to know a town through its small venues is how I like to break ice. I went to see We Are Hex in their native town of Indianapolis, in a local place, State Street Pub I believe. It also functions as the home of Glory Hole records. I arrived early enough to catch a lot of Goldmines. I liked them right off. So I bought from them a shirt, cassette with download code for Drag. I don't know which ones at the show were from Drag, but I am all up into now. This was my first time seeing them.  They are from Cleveland, OH. They were once in a band called Hot Cha Cha. I recall Jilly wearing shirts with that name on it.  I did not know this was also a band. None of this I knew walking in. I'm barely taking in the venue and they go and had to be awesome all over it. Its probably a good thing when the first impression of the place is the band. And now that I can name them, well after the show and in the comfort of my own thoughts, I would lean more garage than punk with manic bouts of psychedelic. American, I mean. it would shock to hear them sound like English chavs. They got a cardio system built on running on sand by the beach. Perhaps one may retort...."where are there beaches in Indy". Well metaphorical beaches you can just trip right over. Some tracks, .....Dowager,  indeed effortlessly evoke this image for me of the beach, or at least summer time. . How Far is kicking my ass all over the room. The sweetness found in this does not overpower beyond the wonder. Free Ride, Not the Lion, each song will introduce the visual of their show all over again.
    Gold Coast induces the cinematic feeling of a protagonist in the movie that everyone can relate to in the middle of that climactic moment. It has the urgency of knowing you can lose it all if you don't sprint for it. Or it can be just me projecting.  Goldmines is absolutely great and I was not expecting it to walking in State Street. And this is what introduced me to the Indy music scene, State Street Pub and I am happy that this was so. I don't know if they ever performed in Chicago. I hope they do. I will look for them.
  When WAH played Burlington in Chicago, I missed it, but I made it to buy their latest release Bleach Brigade and a shirt. Now, here I am at State Street Pub and I've been blown away by the previous act. I don't usually recall which tracks they actually played. I'm barely figuring out I first heard Slowburner at this DIY venue on the south side with Killer Moon. It was loud and powerful even as it broods with a promise to explode. The whole track is the explosion. Jilly's voice, her presence is powerful like a howling wolf. Dante would not have walked into that dark wood if it was Jilly he encountered and not that she-wolf that he wrote about. He would have missed out on a good gig. You know what....he would have put a whole different spin on that whole fucking Inferno.
  Their shirts are always impacting and awesome. When you like the music a lot, its believing in their product, and by some weird extension a way of believing in oneself. Seeing this band....familiar....Gigs wildly different from each other but always explosive, powerful. We Are Hex are pliable and adaptive, on the edges of the urban, wild and weird.  For me its no problem to see how different their recorded work can be from their live shows. You are experiencing almost two different bands in one. And Bleach Brigade grows on me still.

  In no need to impress crudely with frilly goth costumes, Jilly in a black hoodie,  bounces around aggressively like a live wire on the ground after a tornado hits. She sweats out the black and heavy hoodie and eventually removes it. You can see her tatted arms. My first time seeing this on a Free Monday at Empty Bottle, her movements seemed chaotic, spazzy and fully in the moment. It was like turning and burning in a fucking muscle car. I know, I know. I always pulling out that metaphor for them. Many moons later I see the order in her movements and it still commands attention. She walks and charges around the crowd. Touching some of us like a preacher, hand on forehead.  Only she ain't exorcising nothing from you.  Sharing the demon with you instead. I already compared her to a live wire, what's going to happen when it touches you. This is after reading about that very same preacher comparison somewhere. Here she is right in front of me, her  hand on my forehead for a stretch of two seconds, and then meandering on to the next fourth wall to shatter. Jilly climbed the bar, is on the floor, she breaks the fourth wall, and some windows.   So this show......Its imprint like its the fucking shroud. Only this shroud has eyes that seems to stare back from every possible angle. This is music that I still listen to since the first time seeing them. It becomes the thing, the yardstick that spontaneously measures on the spot and  everything afterwards. And it was not felt remotely. It blows the mind to have seen them in such relatively small venues, and to have met them and they remember you.  So I wanna walk around with their shirt on, sweat into it while working out or just to another show. I am only too happy to bring it home and represent while trying to do that one last pull-up.
Zig