CrashPop!

 Windy City CrashPop Festival...This is the second year they have this.  They will have this again at Chop Shop on North Ave on Saturday 29th September.  It will start early...at 5pm. Just how many more nights are we gonna over work Cory for this? So that brings in Lightfoils and Panda Riot. I think he organized this whole event. I think there is new work coming from Lightfoils. I believe by this fall the Panda's tour will be behind them, and they will be home in Chicago.  I am happy to know they are staying.  Astrobrite has always been and only now am I exploring, and as I trip over, more music still.  2007 is when I became aware of the Pandas, them and Star.  They was good.....Scott Cortez played guitar, only I was too busy thinking how pretty Ms Shannon is. Star was an early contemporary of the Pandas, often playing the same gigs, but certainly it began to look good for Star. I noticed them opening for good touring bands. They were local and they were around during a very impressible time for me.  Scott Cortez was behind it but I was too busy staring at Shannon.  So now, I'm going over Astrobrite, and its a YouTube fucking rabbit sink hole... but, a bigger picture emerges from the fractions you collect.  You come out of this sink hole having survived a few cave ins but now I see Scott Cortez and now I'm kinda star struck...Leopold star struck. New Canyons is another very active Chicago band that I've taken for granted. Until one night at Smart Bar, pow! Now I get it.  Its thoughtful and slow vibe thinly veils a rolling avalanche of bass, synth and driving guitars.  Whimsical is another I am looking forward to seeing live. The lead singer I see all the time at Shimmer, the monthly Shoegaze night held at Slippery Slope. This is the first time seeing her on stage. Chicago is a real hub, and I'm stupid lucky to be waking on the park bench where all this shit happens and begins to happen. Even as we lump all these bands in a single shoegaze event. Lets say you go down every collapsing YouTube rabbit hole, each feeds into another...you come out of it, eventually. Your vision in the fog becomes sharper.  It just blows me away that I can be so close to this music.  Its a hyper local thing. It affects how I see them and write about them. New Canyons have been around for ever and only lately are they hitting me. Where the fuck have I been.

  There will be more bands for this event. I just mentioned who I am most familiar with. So this thing is happening again 29th September, a Saturday, at Chop Shop. It starts early at 5pm.  I'm just glad the bathrooms are ok.  Its real fortunate for us to have a once monthly shoegaze night  at Slippery Slope, and to even see some of the musicians that play the music is really fucking cool.

I post the pictures of the bands I saw. By some set of miracles they all call Chicago home.  There are a lot of great fucking bands from Chicago that do not stay. Fielded, Angel Olsen, Cross Record,...ok I'm drawing a blank after that, but you all get the fucking point. I just wanted to stick them names up there some how. Its an uphill thing for a band to exist here. This is the culture that most defines a place, and yet exists so precariously.  I'm glad Panda Riot toured the West. It fascinates that they can be the touring band. When they play here its from their newest Infinity Maps. I wonder if they play from the other albums on their tour....anyway that's just me imagining seeing them that one time in that rare tour. For others out there its gonna be that one iconic performance that makes them a fan. And they gotta soak up all they can from one single performance, or maybe three over the span of years. Anyway....rambling on. I am totally looking forward to seeing this, Saturday 29th Sept.
Zig