ryat

So last Thursday 15 April I saw Ryat from Philadelphia, I believe. They represent their city well. In that same way I like how local bands add to Chicago's cultural landscape, and represent the city. Ryat is a curious window into Philly. A fascinating window period. Seeing them was kind of unplanned. A lot of things had to converge to finally get me to go. It was a deliberate but difficult choice of them over a local band next door. I could have been frugal but at the greater cost of missing this absolutely amazing original band. I'm still trying to figure them out for myself. I can say I like it....a lot. Let me begin to at least put them in the right company, who they remind me of. Like, Telepathe, My Gold Mask, Future Ghosts, Phantogram, and now Ryat, these are all bands that have found their singular way of making the electronic sound organic. The way that works with Ryat live is that a lot of the beats are done right there by her, and that makes for some very individual and energetic shows.

A funny thing happened on the way to Empty Bottle. Reggies kidnapped Ryat from the north side and hid them in the Music Joint. The south side is in dire need of this kind of culture. The 'Bottle has these kind of bands all the time, it's just that much more avant-garde to have them on the south side, where the cave men are. The band still had to compete with the minor distractions of screens showing kung fu movies, sports, conversation, and hyper-enthusiastic loud fans, remember cave men. The long picnic tables are so you can eat and watch the band...if you want. On the south side you just can't expect a place to go cold turkey on The Sox, especially that close to Cellular Field. The brutes would just heckle the band no matter who it is.

The title song "street noise orKestra" starts off with these dance inducing beats that makes you wish to see this live. I'm glad I was there. Ryat had the drum right near the keyboard, metaphorically near the hip. The part of the mind that feels is what wrote the drums. When you see them live before having the CD it's a different imprint. It's that experience that you end up wanting to recreate and "street noise orKestra" does just that. It captured for me that live moment, empowering like a fucking indian ghost dance. You hear her say "you're not gonna hold me down" and feel empowered further. It's nice to have her voice so clear so you can follow and identify. At first it's one or two things that hook you and the song ends with a bunch of things hooking you. All these people in one party, guitar, keyboard, drums combined in this human organic way. I mean Ryat was drumming away like Budgie from Creatures in some of her songs and that was very dance inducing in that same tribal way. I will probably have more to say about them as I listen to the CD more, an excuse to put up more pics of them.

Zig

Killer Moon

I can go on and on about these guys. I feel privileged and fortunate to have them as friends. They are here because they are also musicians of note. We all met at work when the social walls between our various functions, and shifts finally were starting to erode. When I started there the rivalries between the three shifts and numerous departments at La Salle/Bank of America were fierce. Second Shift was lazy, First Shift were divas, Third Shift did all the heavy lifting. People were trained in Third. People in Balancing seldom associated with us in the front lines receiving the bags of checks. Yes, some departments at the bank ran 24/7. I was in 3rd shift where I met Jesse and Amaris, two thirds of Killer Moon.

We were all misfits that just found ourselves in a job Talking Heads would ask "How did you get there?" We all had our own singular relationship with music. I was the old goth...still am. They were...are ambitious and talented musicians in need to perform what was inside. I started to hang with Jesse after work. We smoked and listened to music, or he would play what he wrote and I was fascinated as to how effortlessly gifted he was. His music was not current nor common. His music sounded older than he was. What he had to express I believed had massive subcultural potential. On top of that I liked what I heard. We would hang out until the morning sun made us too sleepy. When you work the grave-yard shift the morning sun tells your internal clock "lights out" with some authority. In fighting this authority I found some really good friends before they became this awesome and to me and iconic original band.

Before this band, I did not like a lot of instrumental psychedelic, heavy anything. I needed a voice to hook me. But a voice you can hear from each instrument in Killer Moon's arsenal. You know how a really good score to a movie can both keep you engaged in the action of the film as well as having it's own gravitational pull? Each song is like a story with characters and things, consequential things happen to or are done by these characters. There's conflict to encounter and resolve. It's heavy psychedelic music that keeps you engaged and hanging on every note like a movie capturing attention. In the absence of actors, a great story for them to play out and all the great visuals that come with an epic film, you have Alex on drums, Jesse on lead guitar and Amaris on bass telling you a different story with each song. You can almost write a different scene or story with each song of Killer Moon. Some tracks seem harnessed from the energy of "God Of War". It's only recently that

Jesse's lead guitar gets you familiar with this theme, a series of riffs you become familiar with and fond of and just as that happens he takes off and enter Amaris on bass. With minimal movement she holds together what Jesse establishes while flexing the muscle that is the bass guitar. Stoic she seems in the face of the storm she is part of creating. Alex the travel weathered drummer has this massive cardio. He keeps up with Jesse with intensity, power and speed. Even when he slows down he retains this urgency. Killer Moon is not the product of one singular instrument. There are moments when the lead guitar ebbs into the shadows you see the engine under the hood, the drums and the bass. Killer Moon is also the product of the cultures the members represent. Alex and Jesse are both Mexican-American. Amaris is Puerto Rican. In a way they are misfits of those cultures because they went head first and screaming into producing rock music instead of more... expected channels. Amaris can't even stand reggeton music. Killer Moon therefore can appeal to fans of rock-en-espanol. They are Rock and they are Latino.

Zig

Moritat

I even forgot when I did this....I think Sunday. I go to Quenchers on Western and Fullerton. This band named Moritat was playing. Quenchers has seen a lot of good bands. The kind that you end up seeing in larger more well known venues. I don't know Quenchers that well, but it seems that anyone can play there, fertile ground for a fan base. Moritat have this female singer and so I go, with modest expectations. Her name is Venus and she plays the keys. I can start this whole thing from the beginning from the moment I got ready and all that bullshit, or perhaps it's best that I forgot that part and only remember being truly impressed with this band Moritat. They had demo CDs out for free. Seeing them perform and listening to them on CD are actually different experiences. They have performed at least one other time, but I could not go. I do want to see them again. The demo CD has just three songs, and I don't know which ones they played that night. I just know that I'm glad I went and I'm glad there was some thing to take home and listen.

The first song Yellow House just sneaks up on you. It's casual jazzy piano and Ms Venus eventually win you over in the stretch. It's not fast...... It's not so pretty and operatic like Kristeen Young, or dark and serious like Aleks and The Drummer. There is a serenity to this band, specifically from that first song that is not in Aleks or KY. Yellow House is a cool chill out song. I'm at a loss to describe the voice of Venus, other than to say I like it. I wish I had lyrics to read. It would help in describing the voice. All I have to describe the voice is the fucking voice. When I use words like serene, calm, casual I'm not saying boring. Kenny G is absolutely boring. Moritat is not. There is a drive to this song, you know, a tension. The keyboard reminds me of the theme song of The Peanuts. It has that subtle catchiness. I am a fan of Moritat.

Zig

Puerto Muerto's last show

It was one of Empty Bottle's Free Mondays when Puerto Muerto performed their last concert. It feels so different when you know that is so. You ask as you watch, which of these new songs will only see this one live performance. Which old songs have seen their last? Which will you not ever see, but only hear in your car, or ipod. Live performances matter, more so when they are the last one. So I soaked up Christa Meyer belting out "San Pedro" with her mezzo soprano voice. This only time to see "Song of the Moon", and "Tamar". This dying breath was to promote the Drumming For Pistols CD. It was a Free Monday at the Empty Bottle. It's like before there was ever recorded music, this live show was awesome, but all too fleeting. So I took pictures and video with that urgency to preserve the moment. When I put the camera down it was for the same reason. Some things you wanna see just with your own eyes. And Christa was just bouncing all over the stage with that first song. She has this really peculiar way of dancing, and some songs just bring it out. I don't think it's a deliberate thing, it's just what comes out of her naturally from the gut. The gut does not think of display, it just does, and she dances that way and I love it.

I only have a fraction of their collection, but enough to believe that there is iconic stuff in every thing they produce. There is something I like in everything I got from them. The music ages with you, because it comes in already sounding old and wise and you just catch up. Their stuff is hard to describe for me. There is country there, but not in the way you think. There is rock there....but not in the way you think. It's like old frontier sounding country, truck driving country....Johnny Cash country. They once did their own soundtrack for the movie "Texas Chainsaw Massacre". I would argue that the rest of their music is for a Faulkner novel. Dark, intense, tragic, but balanced with that Nick Cave coolness. Their style of darkness is timeless because they are not immediate and obvious. I guess thats really why I put Puerto Muerto in the same company as Faulkner. They cast a similar shadow for me. And so "Tamar" from Drumming For Pistols sounds crazy dark and sexy like dancing to Joy Division. There is something about a band that can make you like a song about a dad molesting his child (at least that is what I believe I heard them say), even as you wince at the tragedy of the subject. Bad writing can sound gratuitous and cheap, a juvenile display of depth. Bad writing decays fast. There is no such thing here, only good consistent songwriting, with a mature approach to their dark subject matter. In the live shows I've been to, they were not dressed like rock stars. That elusive subcultural appeal comes to them without effort or overt display. It's under the plain midwestern surface. There was nothing in their clothes that projected "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", not even a plain black Bauhaus shirt. But once you know it's there you always see it. For those that do have that Bauhaus shirt, I think I can sell you this band. The pictures I put up will be of when they did this festival in the summer of 2009 in Logan Square I believe, and of that one free Monday.

Ami Saraiya

I still marvel over this.....Ami Saraiya lives in Chicago. She played Gallery Cabaret at 2020 N Oakley on 20th February. It was my first time there. The place is in a middle of a regular Chicago residential neighborhood. It looks like it was once a seedy pre-gentrification local bar. I think there were some local thugs still walking around as I drove past looking for the place. Once inside I looked for clues that can betray it's past. Perhaps I'm just assuming a past it does not have. All this curious speculation drifted into the background because Ms Ami was already performing. Whatever period music you are familiar with Ms Ami seems to remind one of that. Takes me back to "The Great Gatsby". Ami just has this swing to her that's old world, decadent, and still familiar. She's just so damn steam punk! For me she evokes the iconic sounds of pre-1950's America, old and innocent. "Up Down, and Charmed" was a favorite of mine from her Archeologist CD that she played that night. It's nice to see it live after I know I like it. There is this cool sadness to it, a drunken swing. Everything is in black and white. It completely evokes a theme in a movie. Each instrument has it's own little pull to you like separate characters in a story line. There's the voice, violin, guitar, drums. You feel caught in this narrative between them. I know I'm not really following the words in the song. That will impact later. When the song is slow you're hanging on every thing the characters say. Ami's voice being the protagonist. The pacing of the song, the title says it all. The peaks and valleys are effective and dramatic feeling. "Up, Down&Charmed" was already a favorite. Seeing it live is it's own wonder. How I describe this song I guess I can apply to more of her songs. Calling Ami's music "rock" sounds so misleading. It's not that style of decadence. On the Radiant Darling CD, listen to "The Otherside" and "Tears". They evoke periods and styles that precede rock and roll. She played songs from Radiant Darling. Becoming familiar with the songs only makes you want to see Ami live. Her music is just too fun to just have it on CD, on an ipod. If I hear her songs and immediately my mind is using costumes to dress everyone up, then I have to see her. I almost forgot the dueling accordions. They played this Bollywood song. She will play again this weekend. Chicago is fortunate to have her locally, because this is someone to see over and over again.

Zig

Explode Into Colors

I don't know much about this band. It's two drummers and a bass player. Drums and bass, there is a reason they name a whole subculture of music with just those two instruments. They 'cool. Explode Into Colors is not a Drum and Bass band. They just know their weapons. They use less instruments, less clutter. The potency of "less is more" is apparent here. There is no lead guitar to distract you from deep dancy bass guitar. When I looked them up on youtube, the song that hooked me was "Sharpen The Knife". It was bassy, it was aggressive and a little messy. I loved it. I just imagined hardcore fans behind the camera bouncing around, dancing. The song just makes you want to jump around like it's House of Pain. They were performing at Subterranean in Chicago and so I went to see them. The place was packed, not sold out, but full enough to restrict some movement. I arrived in between bands, so I went to the front as people go get their drinks, take a piss. The Subt crowd this time seemed to be a little too well dressed for who they were seeing. Explode Into Colors seems like a Empty Bottle band. I've seen bands play all the local small venues, crowds just look different from one venue to another. I know they were all there for 'Colors but they were so stoic, mostly just standing there, not bouncing around as I imagined. I'm not going so far as to say the audience was not into them. They were appreciative yes or else they would have melted away, gone home early. I bought no CD, there was none to buy, only vinyl, and I got no record player. I write this as a reminder to get it later. Zig

Pezzettino in Chicago Tuesday 2 Feb

I hauled ass to the Elbo Room on Lincoln Ave. I never miss Pezz when she's in Chicago, well almost never. I feel very fortunate for being so familiar with her music. I go because if I don't I fear that it will disappear, well what I mean is that I go with that urgency. What I get a lot from this is how well she articulates the process of breaking off toxic relationships, like in "Parasite", from her latest, soon to be second CD Lion. Asserting oneself in the presence of the toxic. Her songs make you look into yourself, into your vulnerable self...and make it a source of strength. In performance that means you see the pained expressions flash across her face, expressions that are intact in the amber of her recorded work. In one of these pictures she looks so sad and depressed. That is how intense her live sets are. She is articulate and direct like dialogue in a play. The characters in her songs always speak and act out of righteous anger. Pezzettino is a counter-puncher like in "Walk From Here".

And so she says "I'm moving on..Don't think I'm hanging on!" and it's not focused on the loss, but forward and happily away, and that's so empowering....This is a great time to see her live because the weight of what she says shows in her face when performed. And this weight is not a burden for the audience to see. I believe what she expresses is resonant. And so she makes the accordion this really cool instrument. Who has not been wronged? The pendulum swings from pained to serious. She did this longer piano piece (that will be performed at some point in Milwaukee with a huge orchestra I think) with three distinct segments. It's so cathartic to see the emotions in her face as the piano rushes forward or simmers back. You can't help but identify with what she says. You are just cornered by just the use of piano and voice. Ah yes the name of the song "Pedestrian Drama" I believe. It's long but you don't really feel it 'cause your going through this dramatic roller coaster trip. It's gonna sound absolutely grand and operatic with orchestra. For the moment you get it in it's intimate minimal form of piano and voice. Then there are the songs that have her bounce around the stage. She has this happy playful side to her. "Timing" is a new song flirtatious and loaded with caffeine. The long bellows of her accordion sound faster with the beat she imposes with her stomping around. "You Never Know" also is lighthearted. It's her cardio song. The accordion also brings out the serious side, just like her piano work. 2010 finds her in the middle of this massive creative surge. Well honestly I haven't known her to have writers block. She is always writing music and for more and more instruments. Her live solo performances include xylophone in addition to piano and accordion.