Zola Jesus, Fee Lion, Wingtips

  This was the fucking show.....the....fucking....show.  Before this show I knew of Zola Jesus. I knew of her status. Her name just had this natural echo to it. You can carve tunnels into mountains with it. For a long time it was like walking around this tremendous mountain all the time. Zola Fucking Jesus.....this was my first time seeing her live, and it was with Fee Lion and Wingtips.  I know my pictures from that show were shit. I was kinda far. The better ones from Fee Lion are actually from a show of hers in Cole's earlier this year.
   The inclusion of the last two bands made this show closer, more accessible. They are local, and they play a lot. They have headlined their own shows and have opened for some cool mother fuckers. I'll see Fee Lion a bunch of fucking times more. I think this is just a beginning for her. Her songs are few but they are....big...iconic. The kind that will compel you to remember the musician. And for right now. She is ours. Small enough to still be ours.  Vision, On Me, these are some power fucking disco sophistication trips. There are these other two or three that she plays in the middle of her sets that are new tracks, at least they are not on the CD she has out. I always anticipate these, and I cannot wait until they are on CD, well....assuming they are still gonna make those. I hope so at least. There was this sweetness I found with Last Minute. Got me to buy the EP Gray Area, on Feeltrip Records. Vincent's voice is clear. The synths are thick and bassy....not hollow.  All of us 40 and over can relax and dance slow like we used to before VNV quickened our pace for ever after. Its possible one can find everything too.....familiar. Done before. Well...I caught you liking it. You were moving to it when you thought it was a Cure track you were unfamiliar with. I could have told you it was Martin Dupont....and you would have loved it. I am not that cruel and it's too much trouble explaining who Martin Dupont is, right?   So, let's not hate for bullshit reasons. Wingtips is cool, right? I fucking think so. I was in the back room with David, having a nice conversation when Wingtips played. The crowd seemed good for them.
  The audience then grew for Fee Lion and then Zola Jesus. So I was way in the back it seemed. I crept closer whenever I could. I did not let my distance from the stage bother me. I have seen Fee Lion before and shall see again in these small venues.  Her enthusiasm is real and catches as always. I was further back than usual, but was happy to see Fee Lion have this crowd too. She ripped her latex outfit. It tore under her armpit. The show went on.
   Zola Jesus...... felt remote. Before this show, I knew about her, yeah, but not in any great detail. So, I'm getting into her way late. So hearing her now feels like I'm catching up.  So her music will hit me with a certain accumulative sub cultural impact. Hmm, let me clear that up or it's gonna sound like one of them stoner rants. Each song of hers will be felt more because it will have the weight of the established artist. Its 2018 and I'm watching a video of her from 2015, and they mention three albums before. I gotta be careful. There is a time to binge, dive freely into that Youtube worm hole of videos. There is a lot of music to catch up. The impact of the show will resonate. Her voice hits so damn clearly, and it has some real fucking authority and impact. Witness has its moments where its hard to listen, so it has to be a real task to perform it, and it's minimal....fucking wow!! Its so plainly spoken, so the words have the most impact, and no where to escape from them. I hear it later at home and it takes a lot out of me. It was written for a real person close to her life, that tried to commit suicide twice.  As I research for this post I get to know who, she mentions it in one of her live sets in Youtube.  Witness.....one of them powerful songs. Okovi is the new album she tours with. Ash To Bone, Exhumed, Doma are the names of the rounds she fought during her darkest struggles with depression. Soak I have read is about being the victim to a serial killer.  Wow....! So all that is in the words. Her music is over-under-through and around mountains. Its perfect for Nocturna without seeming to intend it. Your body finds its desire to move before you are aware. Her music makes you dance and it lets you feel. Her voice is just powerful and beautiful.  Intimate and gentle like a hovering humming bird indulging its curiosity about you. She can be that small just for you. And that is why shit like Witness can hurt. Its a cathartic surge to have her words and music as a battle cry when we face our own darkest corners of the interior castle. So taken within her own performance, she did walk among and threw herself around the audience. That was fun to have her bounce herself around a won over crowd. Her voice is always so prominent.
  Its a great and necessary thing for us to go and see these artists perform these songs because it means they survived their own darkest stories, giving us the art we use as blue prints or inspiration for how we can over come the same demons.
Zig

Cruz de Navajas

  The weekend of June 2nd was fortunately busy for me. Zanias, Fee Lion, Visceral Anatomy on Friday and Cruz De Navajas from Mexico City on Saturday at Burlington.  I came home with the shirt. I mean...that is a bad ass name to have on a fucking shirt. Oh...it means "cross of knives".  They have a six track Demo on Bandcamp. They formed in 2016. I don't know if their name is a reference to a song from Mecano, this legendary Spanish rock band from the 80s. It keeps popping up on my YouTube searches. I mean...great if it was in reference to them. Alright, what was my line?.....It was pouring rain as I was parking. Closed a rain soaked umbrella as I walked past the door and into the back where I was barely in time. Made it to the front somehow. It seemed like a wall of people closed behind me. I recognized familiar faces in that first row. ...Alex, Sarah, William. This was the kind of show that inspires the audience to wear their death rock best. I was happy to see this come from Mexico.  I can honestly say that I saw more for this show than for Zanias the night before. For me....I was lucky to see both.  Its all different shades of the same world. Cruz De Navajas started in 2016.  The lead singer is Sharon.
    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.
Zig

Zanias, Fee Lion, Visceral Anatomy

 
  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

Fauvely...again!

  Missing Tom Spacy the night before in that classic fashion of mine compelled me to not fuck around with Fauvely at Empty Bottle on a Free Monday.  Fauvely ever evolving is less bedroom intimate and getting more assertive. This sad girl got balls the size of grapefruit. And so she wears them sunglasses at DZ Fest when she plays High Hopes.  I love that video. High Hopes is one of them songs I look forward to hear live. It....it's named High Hopes, and that is kind of what I see her first EP as having, this quixotic and critical view of the self.  And the words and....the voice and music that contains it I find brilliant because I think it sounds like....there was this innocent joy that came with listening to fucking Lennon as a kid. Watching the fucking wheel right there. And you get that joy from hearing deep shit like that early. And so I like....thoughtful and thought provoking shit. For me that is what this is from its earliest. ....Awh fucking hell. Oh shit did she just run....I didn't mean to scare you off with this girl. Its all cool girl like Samuel L Jackson.  What the fucking hell was I going on about....Oh, High Hopes. And now this new song still retaining that original sweetness and now also more assertive, and I fucking love that.  And what I say about one new track I believe about all her new songs.  Savannah, that one gets me too. I am in awe of what lives around Chicago. I believe this one is about her home town. And I saw that on this Free Monday with Fauvely and yes I am aware that just wrote about them not too long ago. That was then....this is a completely different moment. Now, I am starting to be more familiar with the new songs. I can see them on You Tube. Watch Me Overcomplicate This has an official video...besides the performances. I gotta note that this Free Monday was special because before going to Empty Bottle, I went to see Casual Hex at Schubas and that was a free night as well. It worked out, for me seeing two shows, and let me tell here how small the world is between these two shows. Alice from Casual Hex was also briefly in Fauvely as well as her own solo project Dorsia.  Alright....perhaps that is just interesting to me.

 That Monday night, I got to know some friends from Solemn Meant Walks, talked about Katie Jane Garside. The number of people I can talk about Saint Katie Jane just increased by one.  Oh and I just remembered that Fauvely will play Schubas again with Impulsive Hearts and Wyys tomorrow 6 June!
Zig

Loma

  It was a little painful seeing this from way in the back. Its not how I pictured it in my head when I knew this was coming. Its my fault for arriving when I did. But, I did see the whole show. And I got to talk to Emily Cross after the show. She was so sweet and kind to remember me. Cross Record's Wabi Sabi is fucking brilliant! So the new Loma debut under Sub Pop is brilliance building on top of a foundation that I can't help but see. I see the Aztec temple under the Sub Pop cathedral. Like with Star Wars, some characters come with deep sub text, a greater back story. ......I'm glad for Emily, that Sub Pop has her back. All my Cross Record memories are sweeter now. The physical CD's of the double EP a treasured relic of the archive. Because now, I'm hearing the whole Loma CD. And I don't know how I would get the back catalogue that I do have. To work backwards from Loma and to find what I got now...hmmm. OK, I did dwell on that a bit much. ....I tried to kill it earlier. Alright....I'm staying on Loma...now. Loma was selling me already with some of the videos on YouTube. Dark Oscillations, Relay Runner, Black Willow, they all strike you without telegraphing the other. And now on top of that the videos are great. Hmm, well let me see. I can't really use my shoe gaze crayon. I'm still saving that for Lightfoils.  I got the CD and shirt. Now I can hear it in the car. And wow do these songs hit me. I Don't Want Children was deep and sweet, and actually romantic. Has a fleeting hint of Bjork's Pagan Poetry. Emily's voice floating delicately with the heaviest of words exploring romantically the what ifs of having a boy, a girl while stating clearly what is not to be. The music sometimes reminds me of one of them wind up musical boxes playing some sad shit, like on a harp. Emily in breathy whispers lays out plainly and beautifully over. That song just fucking took the wind out. It reminded me of Pagan Poetry and then it gets deeper. Relay Runner is fun. It shakes away the seriousness of the previous track, while still channelling Aimee Mann. The last time they were here as Cross Record, I could barely recognize what they played. In their hands their music is more fluid and flexible. I can hear in these new songs where the gears would permit some flexibility.
 

I'm really glad I got the lyrics to read and ponder on. The music really imprints that way for me, when I can read lyrics. With Relay Runner you also get these easy to catch phrases that work on their own as headlines. Dark Oscillations I like especially. The music reminds me of Bela Lugosi from Bauhaus only with Emily's wise words.....and its not fucking 9 minutes long. It has that tension of something slow with an impatient urgency behind. Perhaps I can go on about how deep and smart the music and all that. I can say that I'm sold on Loma, and Emily Cross! I was glad to see you back girl! I was not going to take pictures from as far back as I was so along with the painting I have found some pictures from Cross Record at Double Door.
  After seeing each of the videos, the songs rotate regularly in the mind. Not in a bad way. My mind gives the songs welcomed time and space. In a way you buy the merch to obsess less about it. I seem to obsess less intensely with something I did ultimately see. I may write still the same but without the obsessive streak. This Loma show has traces of both the unseen worlds where my mental German Expressionist set designers, directors of photography love to color, and the have seen world where they work with a real memory. The Julie Taymor in my head is gonna take over from here. For not having been right in the front, a part of me feels like I missed something, but I got a weigh it with what did occur and who I met. And Emily....she remembers me from when Cross Record was still in Chicago. I got to talk to her a bit. I had my moment when she recognized me as I orbit briefly past.
  The drive could not feel any fucking slower. Cicero has that construction at Midway, and the ever present traffic slow down by Ford City. I made it on time for Loma.....I was way in the fucking back. I did slowly creep closer up. I did not want to shove my way up like an asshole. At some point I noticed Venus from Moritat/Wyys in the audience. We would hang around at the bar later, with two of her friends. Schubas the bar and Schubas the music venue seem to be different places fused together. A neighborhood bar in front of a music venue. I sat with Venus and her friends. Its been a while since I've seen her. Next to us were the most frat boy stereotypical bros yelling "shot! shot! shot!" These mother fuckers, do they even know they play music up in here?
  Friday, 11 May was a busy night. And I planned on going to see my friends from Lightfoils at Sleepy Village. Loma was playing Schubas, both on Belmont. To see both seemed like something cool and doable. Emily did a painting in the middle of their set. I think I have seen this on some YouTube video as well. I took a picture of the painting she made in the middle of her performance. I captured less on camera that night. But I can go on about the music I took home. I was hearing it as I drove to see my friends at Lightfoils. I had no illusion of catching any of their set. I know they got another gig in June. But I was playing Loma in the car while driving on Belmont, to see my friends. I park right near the place by accident. Go in to say hi. Oh hi, y'all. I just saw Loma....right thar' at Schubas. Some of my friends from Panda Riot are into Loma. Rebecca had Black Willow down! By mistake I thought at the moment it was another song Joy...my mistake. So I ended the night chillin' and going on with my friends from both the Pandas and Lighfoils. I binged on whatever I could of Loma while driving to Sleepy Village, and then home, and...well now.
Zig  

Pixel Grip

 
  I saw them at Co Prosperity Sphere, and I will see them again ...at least that is the plan. I only recall seeing them once before at Emporium with Born Days, and Jovan, Spaces of Disappearance. Spaces was also performing at Co Prosperity, but I did not make it on time for Elaine's set. I was bummed for that but at least I made it for Pixel Grip.  I saw Adele there as well. Co Prosperity is located in the  Bridgeport area of Chicago. Southside. That is such a novelty for me. The area around reminds me of how my old neighborhood of Back Of The Yards used to look to me as a kid. Perhaps even that childhood picture was too rosey to actually exist. Yet the postcard still does, and the area around Co Prosperity resembles it. A fascinating little walk from where I parked. For right now, I can't explain how I still made it late for Spaces, but that is just me always going on about what I did not see. Well allow me to go on about what I did see. That will make me feel better. A good number of bands from Chicago have this seeming disco inspired sound and they all manifest it differently from each other. This is no complaint. I fucking love it. Sexy Fights, Glass Lux, Fee Lion....There's another one, and I can't recall the name.  The thing is to write about them and capture in writing the differences that are there. Don't want to write the same thing about the different bands....Anyway...Pixel Grip.
 
  I cannot recall exactly when this was, before the memory gets too fuzzy, that's why I write it down. As I walk in and pay the cover, I notice Rita setting up. I wondered in that moment if she was actually taking down her gear. Perhaps they were done is what crossed my mind. I did not ask. I walked to the merch table to say hi to Elaine. Hey girl! Even as I miss her shows sometimes. I'm glad to see her performing with these other bands, just because I don't see it, it still happened. It becomes what is cool about Chicago. Elaine's band Spaces makes Chicago cool.  Her synth pop songs have many interesting beat textures that are dance inducing and still unique. She's in this fucking scene too. It don't really matter that I missed it. The tree still fell and it made a noise when it hit the bloody power lines. Hmm, yeah so Spaces is cool.  Oh, hi Adele! She is here as well. Now the show can start.
  I take pictures but the urge to dance to this bass heavy awesome disco sound is ever present. Try staying still for Soft Peaks, Diamond.  You can't. I saw your head nodding. Eventually, I just forgot all moves and just bounced in place. They all wear florescent green on black. Reminds me of TRON.
  So everyone performs differently. Fee Lion I've seen has her control, and that's cool. Pixel Grip's Rita throws herself into it, into the space where the audience is, bounces around, rolls around, its fucking fabulous.  Hmmm, so here I am going on about how they perform. I'm slow walking the memory, refreshing images with YouTube videos. Searching for the right words, a different way of saying synth pop. These are the local heroes of that sound....any sound. They are holding down a culture of music that reflects back to us. We can see clearly who they are descended from, who they sound like to us. Yeah, its all subjective opinion. And so we reveal about ourselves as we describe what we hear and see.  Its more on the sweeter end than Fee Lion, not as dark. Still bassy with lyrics on some songs that you can say with her. Burning embers and natural kindling that are unique to Pixel Grip flash away as I try to describe. 
Her enthusiasm is contagious. She gets the crowd into it. There's this YouTube video that was taken during SXSW, and its an awesome recording of her enjoying the moment with the crowd shouting "thank you!!....thank you!....."  Its nice to have that moment recorded. And its what I have available to see before they record it ......officially I think?  Anyway.....I was dancing my ass off in between taking pictures. And this band is from Chicago!? Fucking wow!!
Zig

Fee Lion

   Her slightest movements display a commanding stage presence that you can see through the fog's layer of mysterious. I was already into all her songs on the six track EP. Don't even ask which one of the six. They are dark, sleek, disco. Darker than say Golden Filter. Hmm. I think I may have said that before about someone else, well then, this one fits that description as well. Dark, sophisticated disco. I hesitate to add the word retro. There is only a slight nod if that. Only because it reminds me of Golden Filter and Chromatics and no further back than that. I'm not taken way back to 70's disco, or even Italo disco. Its glamorous and yet not cheesy, just way fucking cool. 
   These live shows brand onto memory.  Seeing Fee Lion so briefly in that venue on the 25th floor of Virgin Hotel, made us more determined to see her whole show at The Hideout. Shows there tend to start early, so we were on time to this motherfucker. It made a big difference not having to think about how soon to leave to the next show. We can just be fully in the present moment at the Fee Lion Hideout show.  It is such a small space to behold the compressed power of Fee Lion.  I like how she covers In The City from Chromatics. The song just suits her very well. I was right in front of the audience, and all people besides me seemed lost in their minds dancing and watching her. It was not just the music that set off the crowd, it was also the little movements she did. A performer on stage sometimes loses her shit and jumps the crowd, roll around the floor, however the fucking moment hits, not Fee Lion. Part of the fascination is in seeing her in full control as everyone around her loses their shit upon hearing a new song of hers. And this would be after the audience is already sold. All six EP tracks I've played up and down, in heavy rotation since seeing her with Ela Minus. She plays them and in between these two...I think two new songs she played.
  So...let me gather myself. If she can cover Chromatics, that says something, right. Fee Lion is kinda for you.  Each song seems to have that feel of being the only song worth hearing. Each track with it's own identity, its own balls to be the only one you like. And as one song imprints and you think that one will be your favorite, in comes the next and the next. Vision is brilliant! RE is brilliant! Ad/just is brilliant! You hear them in the car long enough over and over again. They get built up. And each one heard is its own separate concert once you hear it and see it live. You recognize each song in less than a second.. She plays them, dances in this way that just shows she is in command while everyone in the audience loses their shit. Fee Lion has this stage presence. You know how some of the best stand up comics don't laugh at their own jokes while everyone awash in laughter, and agrees and is in the palm of that comics hand. That to me was Fee Lion live. Well...I only glanced here and there, and I did observe in glances people dancing, carried in the moment sort of. She was really nice afterwards at the merch table, I bought the shirt. All of us that went together came back in a state of bliss. I'm so happy to have her live in Chicago.
Zig