Rows Of Arrows

I've strayed so far away from the male voice. I don't go after it. Its hard to write about it. I figure it's best to see what breaks through the filter that has built up over the years. When it hits me, its out of nowhere. And so its happened these last few times I've seen Moritat. I got into Rows Of Arrows, the solo project of Moritat bassist/vox Konstantin. I have seen them a lot and they have introduced me to many other awesome musicians, including  Julie Meckler, The Eternals. They've shared the stage with other bands that I like such as Pezzettino. The main voice of Moritat once seemed to be Venus, but really they all sing. There are a number of tracks  I like that don't have Venus take the lead including a new one Seattle Afternoon. It was with that one song I was suddenly also into and curious about Rows Of Arrows and still solidly into Moritat. Theirs is a new breath of coolness with no trace of douchy arrogance, or misogyny. You can totally feel what is meant by "avant-rock" when describing them. And now they have lead me to Rows Of Arrows. And I'm going into this with a genuine curiosity of the voice......hmmm. Chronologically we were friends before and now I can like the band separately ....if that makes sense. Hmmm, here's this. They don't come off as direct, and obvious as if not quite needing an audience....I'm back to Moritat by the way.  They emit a coolness that does not need your appreciation to exist and for that reason seem irresistible and you get that euphoric feeling of being that first audience...We are still in that stage where audience members can still be recognized individually, and that is an awesome inclusive feeling.  To discover them live is to be hooked. For me it has something to do with how they seem to go into a jam session within some of their songs. I notice they mostly use the bass guitar and Venus mostly hitting the deeper sounding keys. They subtly and for me intelligently use the deeper sounds that provoke movement before thought.  But instead of provoking the cheap and obvious, they go somewhere else. That feeling about them I've had since their first show. They keep evolving and I still like them for the same reasons. They just feel different every time. I've missed a few shows of theirs and that does sting especially when you know that each gig the music evolves further until a recording is put down. They got another one in November at the MultiKulti. The last chance to see them for the year.

Girl In A Coma

   It was a good walk through 18th from where we were parked to go to the Pilsen show. It really means something to have the show there and I think that was the extra spark that started the effort to finally go see them. To have it in Pilsen is to say your spanish-speaking Latin American fans mean something to you, that we share the same roots. And nothing says Mexican like Pilsen. 

 And now they are in a position of great influence. You could feel the mutual affection during that show. Nina really throws herself into it. Her eyes are wide with a crazed intensity. Only the sweat from her forehead makes her blink. 

 Nina has her stage presence down. This is what makes you want to buy and wear the shirt, all loud and proud. I only had enough for one CD, but still. I said her stage presence, the way she handles the guitar, the theater of it, movements you want to imitate like air guitar. I got nieces and if there is someone that I wish to inspire them to pick up a guitar, Nina is one. If only I could pry their attention from all that Disney inspired bullshit! There were so many chances I had to see them. I'm thinking of one such night when I had the intent but something came up. It was possible it has something to do with being late. Ever since then, their name always comes up. Finally last Friday 4 October. Let it be known that I fully intended to see The Dyes but I was late for them. They are local, I will see them again. At least I was well on time for GIAC . And its as if Pilsen came to them, and Little Village and perhaps Back Of The Yards. Seriously, there were a lot of Mexicans. Double Door is one of Chicago's bigger venues and the place was well packed. This was a crowd that knew what they had before them. It focused a rosy spotlight on Nina. It seemed to energize her performance and make it as real as the sweat that makes her blink her forward gaze. The audience would sometimes sing a long to something familiar. Oh, and you can't forget the Selena cover. It was obvious the long term nature of this relationship between the crowd and band. This was nurtured over years and that is what I walked into and finally on the tail end of it. So I 'll take my time with exits. No need to say further what perhaps has already been, however singular my experience feels.
Zig

 I've known of Girl In A Coma for some time but this is only my second time seeing them. I know of them, but I don't know much about them.

 So I feel like I got some catching up to do. The first time was this free show in Pilsen earlier in the summer. They are from San Antonio, Texas, but I guess you all know that already. They have been on Joan Jett's label since around...2007...you all know that too. I am late for this I will admit.

  I'm barely going through the one CD I bought, exits & all the rest , from 2011. I'm going to take my time on it. I know its one of four albums. There's no bloody point on rushing an opinion now.

Its all been said. I just want to note my specific experience with the music. There was a mass of fans in Pilsen. Its something to observe, the fans. Their enthusiasm is genuine.

Verma

I remember Verma from some of their earlier gigs with my friends Killer Moon. I recall specific performances in Hideout and Whistler around two years ago. I never forgot that I liked what I heard from them. This time its a Free Monday at Empty Bottle. The songs are long but intense and their enthusiasm infectious. I mean, I was into it, and eventually bought the vinyl single of Ragnaraak. I don't recall which specific songs I heard. I just barely retain memory of the experience. I go back and listen to them on bandcamp.
  . Salted Earth runs fast if long, and your attention is always engaged. Gradually you are seeing the function of each individual instrument to the whole, and then Whitney's voice kicks in late into it. You wander further. There are those pockets where you can ponder the sonic structure as they play on like a fevered and improvised Miranda Sex Garden jam session.Thats the element that stretches the tracks but also gives them a depth. These spaces give you that extra time to think. It peaks in several separate moments. At three minutes your glad to have three more. When you hear it live, they sound electric. This is well more than head bobbing psyche. Some of it swivels the hips. A lesser mind might think its just filler. ....alright impatient mind....not lesser...just impatient. Better? I guess I can admit this is not an easy sell. You have to be predisposed as I am.  Their live shows make a fan out of you, and your in a zone for 9 minutes and you didn't even feel 6. Some of these moments that I'm going on about I heard live many times. This is indeed something I could have written about way before, but I had no tangible vessel to hold the memory.  Now I've downloaded and binged on like three different releases. I can go on about Saqqara, Drift. Right now, I suspect I would say roughly the same thing about each. Some moments feel more lucid and structured than others. With psyche bands you just have to expect the most scenic route from a to b. In doing so the audience can wander off but Verma retains captured attention, and they certainly take you places in these long foggy journeys.  Unending Night is one of the shorter pieces and so the dramatic stair climb is concentrated, Whitney's haunting vocals kick in sooner, and still distant and other-worldly. There is clear space between instruments. As you for the moment focus on the bass and see its function to the rest kicks in the lead guitar in just the right moment. It does not compete but answer a call, complete a structure, continue a story, and that's before Whitney even sings. Its not a wall of fuzz. White Heat has a cool breeze fly past your hair with the lead guitar. They have more shows to come and now I will document as many as I can.

Videotape

So lets try and collect our thoughts about Videotape. Whats different now? You don't anticipate the same things once you become familiar. You've collected a bunch of pictures from various places. Familiar songs can still surprise you when you here them in different venues. There was one track of theirs that I cannot identify that reminded me of  Placebo....I think The Creeps! It has a similar forward drive, that same theater. And when you think Placebo, you don't think shoegaze, like ever. And yes this is a near purely subjective opinion but this fragment of the haze and fog is how it is remembered at Empty Bottle,Free Monday. They don't remind me of other .....hmm ..shoegaze bands. These passing thoughts make perfect sense at the moment and perhaps reveal more of my baggage as I observe. This post was originally for their appearance at Empty Bottle ....with Walking Bicycles and Pamphleteers and that feels so long ago, and now on top of that their gig at Quenchers, and that's still so damn long ago.  I gotta get this post out, finish the process of documenting what I saw. Hmmmmmm, their music plays in my head regularly. I don't tire of Pulling Teeth. It kind of snaps you out of it, and wakes you in a wonder filled hopeful state. A few songs from Panda Riot do just that put you in a happy...ish mood. This impression I get, indeed presents itself before the lyrics reach me. The songs are memorable before you begin to understand them. Between Me + You immediately brings me in the back couch of Cafe Mustache on Milwaukee Ave. It was an acoustic performance then and it brought this unexpected level of intimacy that filled the room. They did a whole set but that's the song I remember. Sofi sat down in front of the mic. I guess I'm just happy to be able to have seen three gigs. Those are just the ones I caught. They play a lot locally. The good thing about being called shoegaze is the exposure you get within the loosely woven network. Whatever gets you to them does not matter. Quickly you see how wide their appeal can be. Walking In Circles sounds perfect for that Cafe Mustache gig. I don't recall but I'm sure they played it. Its so well put together. It begins so intimately, takes you to a peak and as you slowly descend encounter traffic that makes the ride so much better. Look at me I just went on about selling This Is Disconnect all over again. Her voice deepens in fragments in Digest. I reserve that one for a car drive, an introspective moment while driving. The easy sells can speak for themselves but only when you listen. Once you are sold on that. I think it is worth the effort to explore the previous self-titled EP. Monsters is dreamy and a perfect campfire acoustic song. In this 2011 release they are indeed more dreamy, not forward and aggressive. The Ship Is Sinking but you are chill, like something Suzanne Vega can talk and stroll through. Fourth Of July does have a horse driven forward drive fit for a Clint Eastwood western. There is this urgent pace, and I'm totally taken to a certain scene in the Sam Shepard play True West. At first you will not see the differences coming. It opens a whole other side to Videotape and one that is worth buying. 1994 is feel-good sweet, minimal and quirky. Its one that one can find singing along.This is a band that I'm happy to have found. I'm glad they are local. Even if they don't play from the EP anymore, its very worth knowing this in their background. You treasure the band for a completely different set of reasons. Anyway, this post needs to be out.
Zig

We Are Hex.....never mind what I said before.

So this was at Burlington, a medium-small venue. I had once believed We Are Hex was no more and posted about that back in 2011. In a span of like two months I saw them three times that summer, and then they broke up. These are events that defined that year. The last was with my dear friends Killer Moon at a DIY venue. And then that was that. WAH were riding this power wave of momentum and I was happy to discover them when I did. It felt like I caught them in front of the wave and not behind it. Alright, I was kinda behind it if you count back to their origin of 2007. They have music still unrecorded that once you're a fan you are also salivating for those recordings. It's interesting how they came back to being where they are now, 2013 racing  to gain on the 2011 wave of momentum. And touring, this time to release the EP Lewd Nudie Animals. If there was one new song I could identify that I wanted to hear it was that one. They were also touring with new material.  There's a whole story behind how they came back. Read the interviews on Warmfest.org.  Jilly tells ya'. You read that before or after a show.   Hmm, meanwhile I still listen to their music all the time. Hail The Goer, Gloom Bloom, they are like vineyards that you know will be with you a while. I will never tire of visiting these spaces in my head. Nothing feels formulaic. Th

ere's still so much they have not recorded.  In part that's why you go see them as many times as possible. Your first time, you're barely broken into the cult following. So loaded was that Friday 6 September, my forth time and now a converted believer. I bring in my sister and her husband Greg.
  You don't see a performance so much as a possession. I mean Jilly Weiss goes mental on stage. There is toughness to Jilly for if a possession, it is one she participates in and not a victim of. Jilly appears in full control of the demons that fear her. Jilly is a live wire on the stage with movements that are instinctual and appear unpredictable. After every show Jilly is always so nice and approachable. If its your first time, there's no order to her moves. Its all chaos and instinct. Its a little like seeing Ian Curtis dance for the first time. In the beginning of the Burlington show she wears a hoodie with a boxer's authority.  She howls as if tough neighborhoods don't scare her. They sound urban, streetwise and unpolished.  If you have a muscle car, this is what you want to play from it. If you are let's say jogging. It will pull out of you that second wind. Its the kind of energy this band has, explosive and sustained and focused. Its like they let the bass loose and it forces everyone to catch up and pump the blood faster. You feel an agility along with the impatience. Whenever I can hear the bass sort of run things, I listen. Also, from the beginning there was a darkness to them, a built in supernatural radar.  There is something about urban decay that they do not show fear for. Its in their landscape, part of what they can describe, but fear does not seem to be a real thing from them. We are not speaking of a juvenile type of defiance. There's an automatic maturity to their specific awareness of the dark. Oh shit I said it too loud. Here are the goths as a part of their fan base, and their ok with it going psychedelic, as in.....Birthplace of the Mystics.    In this interview with Warmfest.org Jilly goes on to say their sound is growing darker.  That kind of talk only encourages those that already wash their clothes in Woolite Dark, in cold water.  . The recorded music and the pictures both suspend something thin and incomplete until you see them live.   The music they produce demand a kind of energy that I'm immediately reminded of old 70's, muscle cars. The 70's, I was barely aware of them, woven into the memory of early childhood. So I'm reminded of the earliest fleeting memories of rock and roll. Their sound land locked, too feral to be of urban origin. I wonder how they are appreciated in their native Indianapolis, Indiana. Even as I was barely made aware of them in 2011, part of it was being in this cult following of theirs. From the first show I got it, I was hooked and cannot imagine my music collection without it.
Zig.

Christa Mercey

One song sold me on seeing Christa Mercey, Throwin' it away, the first song from the Floorboards EP . Something about it.  That rural open-air crispness felt in the first few seconds broke the attention of whatever else I was doing. Brought me before this campfire to hear the other-worldly voice of Christa. I saw this performance of it on youtube and I was sold immediately, and made it a mission to see her at Township.  I arrived already wanting to see Throw in' it away. It's the kind of rural folk that immediately puts you that far away from urban ambient light. I've been playing that one a lot. It puts me in that place where I need a campfire. Then after I bought the EP other songs effortlessly sold me before the lyrics even landed. Oh Storm, Sand And Oil, it was the sound of the voice....the sound of....everything before words start to make sense, the wonder of sound takes you. Thats when you are a fan. . This is the rural folk world I'm taken when I hear Christa Mercy, where there is great distance between the points of light, and farmland in between.  City lights are way the hell beyond you. Christa's folk comes from that great rural Other-world. There are other artists that take me to the same place  that includes Puerto Muerto, Man Is Man, Lost Cartographers, Oh Susanna,....Be Good Tanyas. I'm glad I was pro active in catching this show.
Zig

Walking Bicycles

29 July Free Monday at Empty Bottle, Walking Bicycles with Videotape as Headliner and Pamphleteers opening to me was like a meteor the earth sees from far. And once the weight of significance is placed I can fuck it up in all kinds of ways. This is gonna happen once, don't fuck it up. Anything can keep me from going. And that is a fleeting but recurring thought that plays slightly differently every time, even influencing my dreams.  I actually make it on time for all the bands and each one put me in a different stupor. It was a Monday night with a Friday night feel.  Hell I even forgot there was a Lollapalooza next on the horizon, and I didn't really care. The thought of smelling all that millennial sweat is just nauseating. At Empty Bottle it was a convergence of many friends in one night. TJ was there, oh and Dan The Fan bouncing about. Notable for me was the people from other bands in attendance. Oh, look thems over there. That's My Gold Mask! They sold out Schuba's this one night. And them....they are in Panda Riot. Oh and Rows Of Arrows! I can just go on! This first post is about Walking Bicycles.  It's a grand significance when you know their history, and as a friend it weighs even more. I go to support friends of mine, end of.  Wait, wait!!!! Not really. Let me go on about this for a while. It does blow my mind that I can call them friends. Having said......They were releasing their EP So.
 

Defiant, especially when you put it as a question. "So?!" As a kid that word had the forbidden power of every Mexican swear word in one syllable. I was careful never to say it to my dad. However, I would still get the belt, extension cord treatment for thinking it. What is it about the word.... hmmmm.  I guess it means defiance after knowing. Older, wiser, but not weaker. This maturity comes with its lean muscle that makes Walking Bicycles sound insubordinate, ambitious if wisdom gives special license.  If there is anger, it's old anger, so it can't help but sound articulate and deep. The drummer brings the maddening impatience. No surprise there, he used to be in Aleks And The Drummer. Awh, fucking hell, don't make me go back and explain them. Anyway, he urges everything onward. You forget that he has total control of that urgency. He can project it even when slow, and there is a slower brooding, simmering track somewhere. All the new material has this natural urgency to it no matter what pace they assume. I sited the drummer but its in every instrument, a live-wire desperation. Its in the bass too. Here and there you just notice it more when they allow it the first critical imprint. Like the coolest thing on stage. There is generous parking between the instruments so you can hear them clearly, including Jocelyn's voice.  There is no washing over each other. They fill natural gaps and provide a texture upwards including the voice. They make each other sound brilliant.  Indeed it often sounded like the bass and the lead guitar were answering each other back and forth. You will not want to stay on the right hand lane when you're on the highway listening to this. Jocelyn always with a slight rasp to her voice that reminds me of Lori Petty. Having said that, I hope Jocelyn does not despise said actress. I liked her on Point Break.....and on this one episode of Star Trek Voyager.
  As I listened all the new material, bouncing away to it with Dan The Fan next to me I could not but help to think of their last CD GO?. For me those songs represent the road not traveled. That path was paved and they were ready travel on it. When they debut it 1 December 2008 I believe on a Free Monday at Empty Bottle I took home the poster that actually said they were gonna tour on it. The road was right there! And then something happened to deny them that road. Julius went to prison for three years, I think. Now he is out and the band is back lean, angry and far removed from that path, too far to even want to tread on it. Whirling Dervish was the only track they played from their old catalog.  I am not saying this as a lament. I would rather hear what they are naturally inclined to perform. I am trying to put their new material in the context of Jocelyn's and Julius longer narrative. Something bad happened and they survived it and now their music sounds incredible. I find that inspiring and it makes me believe in my own small underdog narrative.
Zig