Staring Problem

  Staring Problem played Hideout Tuesday 30 December with Astrobrite, Scott Cortez band with Sophie from Videotape. I've seen a lot. I've seen the changing variations of Lauren's hair. I remember the one show Lauren had on this cool ass Violator Depeche Mode T-shirt. The memories of seeing them woven together with other significant moments. Like the one time saw SP and hung around an old friend that introduced me to Whitby. At times Staring Problem can remind me of New Model Army with the jangly bass. Or maybe that's how I identify that street-wise sounding element in their music. They sound so casual and easy around the depressing grey. Its not saying they are depressing. They just seem to evoke the same landscape as say Sisters of Mercy. Its what they do on that landscape once conjured in the mind. They got the sound to compel one to move. I would liken them further to a chill Sisters Of Mercy but their songs are too damn short while Sisters...I can use a few less repetitious verses, or trim two fucking minutes from somewhere.
  So, in Staring Problem I found elements of those two bands......yeah day two of my shoegaze detox. No, not really.....but no fog, I can see more clearly......One day at a time, anyway. And those are not local bands, but they are iconic bands.....Sisters and NMA. We know them in this modernity for the mediums we hold them in. We heard them on CDs we bought at record stores or if we were lucky at the merch tables of live shows. Staring Problem is local. We can see them in the small venues as well as hold their Vinyl and wear the shirt. And now that I've said that....they do have new shirts to want.
  I've been wanting to see them. I know the drummer had this trip abroad she had to do. I felt profoundly changed when I went to Guanajuato to study spanish. I came back changed by the dreams I had from studying magical realism/Mexican history. So I recall slowing down and thinking I'm seeing her on the cusp of this trip to one of the origins of magical realism. There is something so punk about SP that calling them specifically goth is kind of misleading. No shoegaze smog means a cleaner sound, and I'm not taking the piss out of shoegaze. No fuzzy guitars means I can hear the jangly bass that is the forward driving engine. OK, so obvious, heavy goth dark sound, but do not ignore the dirty punk leanings. Ignore the goths.....fine, their like cats. They'll go find a corner of the house that is their own.  And yet that is not always the crowd you see in an actual show when I'm in it.  The punk is what resists a uniform. Rejects a fashion.
  I've often observed the audience for SP. Its not all that goth heavy like say a Spiritual Bat show where people go out of their way to dress up for a death rock night. I barely had enough to get me into The Hideout. But I get in and catch what I can of them and then Astrobrite! The drummer is back from her travels in South America. Having done study abroad I know how life-changing that can be, what it does to your sense of identity. Me having spent a summer in the city of Guanajuato, Mexico, when singing rock in your own native spanish meant something. I felt profoundly changed, full of stories to tell as a writer.....yeah. It was after Guanajuato that I tried to wear that name....writer, because I had stories to tell, and briefly I felt the one to tell them. The last time I saw Staring Problem I believe it was just before she went to Chile I believe, and now I see them here at Hideout after coming back. I did not ask for not wanting to intrude. So I found myself drifting into recalling my day to day living in GTO. Its night life, its preserved oldness. I believe I did take pictures of the band but not this time 30 December. I was happy to just see them, and stayed to see Scott and Sophie.
Zig

Glass Lux

  On one of the coldest nights of early January I saw Glass Lux at The Whistler. It was Wednesday night 7 January. I don't know what got into me. I made it there on time, and extremely cold weather normally makes me lazy. This time I did the ritual preparations early, not rushing. I took into account the cold. I wanted to drive....not really fast.  I had downloaded some of their music before but I have not experienced a concert of theirs. I didn't want to listen until after seeing them. I know, a weird hang up of mine.
  Now I'm out the door and on my way to Whistler. You don't really drive fast with PJ Harvey as much as hmmm....walk hard...when driving.  Is This Desire, drive with it, workout to it.  Its still a mercilessly cold Wednesday night.  You want it remembered fondly and so off I go early. What I've heard from Glass Lux I like to no end and yet I kept the burn of that anticipation to one candle. Avoided hearing it until. Its something about not jinxing the moment that is slowly shaping the way you want it to, which at the very least means seeing the fucking band. Make too much fuss about it and its like scaring the deer you just wanted to see closer......no, certainly not shoot it! Not even a metaphorical deer....sorry. Anyway, this band. To start they sound to me like Italo disco. And seeing them close. I think I got to sit in a table right by the stage. This was hitting me like Golden Filter. It was smooth, fast and aggressive. I do believe they played Puppet . There is a new song they played that I regret not taking down as a video. I let it slide in part because I did not want to see it through a tiny screen documenting. I took the road of feeling it, being in the moment, sitting to music that inspires dance.
  The Whistler is small and this was loud enough to drown out casual conversation if there was any. There is no guitar, so its heavy and fast with a synth, and I do believe I saw an old Caifanes shirt on the drummer. I gotta ask him about that later. I gradually got a seat in the table closest to the stage. Its only after seeing them live and to better document it, that I look them up on Youtube. I fucking binged on a few Glass Lux videos, a Lookbook track, True To Form. And more glass binging with Glass Candy. Miss Broadway is the song.
  Back to our Glass Lux. When done right the combination of synth, powerful female voice and live drums absolutely kicks ass! So they have a song named Disco Light. And at least at first impression they sounded like a refined disco with heavy synth and live killer drums. I so needed to see this. And the fucking exclamation point is that they are local, from Chicago. I can lament how late my radar is in catching this band later. I'm happy to have caught them now. This imprint of theirs will keep evolving. I'm barely capable of putting it all down.
Zig

Girl Detective...I know its way, way late!

Went to see Girl Detective at Reggies Monday 27 August.  Where the bloody hell was I when this Chicago duo started out. Apparently they have quite the number of gigs behind them. I'm supposed to be on top of this! I missed their Late Bar performance. But I got the CD to listen to. They are Rani Young who sings and Jason Oppman who on stage plays guitar but also all the other instruments on the recordings. They started the band in May of 2010. Once I started to look them up is when all the reasons to keep researching just piled on each other. Before you hear anything you take note of all the influences they reference. Siouxsie, Cocteau Twins, The Cure, DM, New Order/Joy Division.....It takes some holy will power to ignore this. All these references gotta mean something, and so enters Girl Detective into my radar. Now that we have our common references down, how about some others less known sisters that deserve to share a pantheon with Girl Detective.
     Remember Great Expectations with Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow? This band Mono had a song in the soundtrack called Life in Mono....they always used it in the trailer. We really need to build more pantheons and that means reaching all the way back to the late 90s. In actually listening to the songs I'm reminded of the local Rosen Association, and whatever happened to Sunday Munich?  At the very least they inform as to what comes out of Chicago even if it does not last. The idea of local pantheons I think can provide longevity. ....This was a train of thought started long ago and never finished until now. The whole paragraph as a relic of thought, holds up. I was going to say pretty much the same thing believing it was spontaneous the second time. I wrote this down and even uploaded the pictures from this one show. And it bothered me that I missed all other shows and so this sat unfinished.

And then I met her formally at the SMW show at Debonair. It was a good time hanging with them after when the place resumes its dance floor music.  It was cool, I felt at ease. I should have taken pictures of them dancing, but I did not want to be intrusive but included.  So meeting her makes me look up Rani's music, and to finish a chain of thoughts. And so I do have a CD, Dress and Smoking      The title track has voice distant, because you cannot find a source. Its kind of everywhere, a casual clear ethereal presence.    Entrance  has Rani's  dreamy voice hover over the more solidly laid keyboard in . You feel like there is a consequence to a moment just around the corner.  And that's the piano keys gassing out for a moment the drums until they pick up again. You feel that tension and Rani just outlasts the tension. Hovers over it until it evaporates. Life's a Movie is where they snuck in that male voice.  I like it. They got the tension building keyboard that washes and changes. The CD I bought I believe had five tracks but my ipod only shows three. Hmmmm, no. I'm not gonna turn over this place just to look for one fucking actual CD. These are the songs I like, and this post has been sitting for far too long. I don't know if I will ever see Girl Detective, in the meantime, I do know that Rani will sing for Dream House which I like and will continue to see.
Zig

Toupee

   Her eyes are intense, I mean you feel like you shouldn't lock eyes on her like to do so feels so exposed as to a wolf that can take that as a fucking green light. You get the feeling of being intensely observed by the performer. Like there is no fourth wall. She tossed her wet towel to some guy in the crowd, almost half expecting him to be repulsed by it. I mean the towel was soaking. She goes, "This towel is still wet." Jocelyn from Walking Bicycles saw it and was amused. She laughed. I believe this was her first time actually seeing them. It was this live impression that drove me to get the vinyl way back when I saw them the first time. Walking Bicycles had them play on their vinyl release at Empty Bottle. I only took pictures of them the first time and bought and downloaded their whole album Dinner Parties.
  You can feel that barely restrained raw punk tension with Lullabies. Yeah, a live performance from Toupee is a sight to catch. A barely harnessed beast in a space too small for the observer and the observed. At this point the memories blur into this magical realist/German expressionist fog barely separating the Township files from Empty Bottle files. Stop Start/Dial Up is where the raw punk beast is kinda let loose to run around. I wonder how differently the impression would feel if heard before seen. I saw this with my jaw dropped to the fucking floor. I'm quite certain they played this. Its impacting live. Hmm, I can always say this is what compelled me to buy the vinyl. Listening to the recorded work sometimes starts you off on another note. Your impression differs. Dial Up, is a raw, fast punk explosion with a second sustaining wind. She grates her voice, you see a range with it. Almost on a whim the singer seems willing to engage or answer voices in the crowd. Talking with them. Her crazy Christopher Walken gaze seems weaponized to burn through you. It was cool to see Jocelyn react to those Toupee' moments. Intense, abrasive, and fast, when they slow down they nearly blossom into something else. Slowski shows they can simmer that tension to a slow psyche burn.  I mean they just turn on the cool with this track. They have a Free Monday at Empty Bottle 26 January.
Zig

Dream House!

  So this past Thursday night was a first for me. I went to see a Siouxsie and The Banshees tribute band on their first gig at Live Wire Lounge.  I've never said this because it sounds mean. I don't like tribute bands or cover bands. The idea of them grates the nerves, .......normally. Something forced me to reexamine that.  I could not help but want to see this thing with Rani from Girl Detective. They named it Dream House. In seeing Rani do Spellbound,  I was seeing her as Girl Detective do Entrance., as well as Siouxsie. In the end we were all there to kind of bring some of the elements of seeing these legendary songs in the small dark clubs by kinda doing just that. Having some one doing them live with that passion.  Also as I said, not seeing Girl Detective..... Missing them shows loads the significance of seeing Dream House. Makes you mindful of what you actually witness.
  Discovering Siouxsie in high school is what I felt introduced me to young adulthood. This was not something trendy or stuck in a decade. She was timeless and opened the flood gates. I was ok with it being so remote, far from my own existence. I was ok with its creation being so far from me. I do recall a few times the process of getting tickets to a show of hers. My awareness of her is through vinyl, CD, cassette....and video and when old enough the goth clubs. Very rarely do I see her live. Anyway thats a fucking tangent.. But Siouxsie is big and sacred to me indeed......but... In the here and now Rani who I saw at SMW is doing this, how fucking steady are you an a petty principle.
  Live Wire Lounge is a cool small punk venue that's just intimate enough. Its way north on Milwaukee Ave. In the here and now I find myself more mindful of local music and artists. And this is Rani from Girl Detective. I got a post I've been holding back forever. Then one day I actually meet her and that does it. Here I am at the shows. Here I am writing about them. Documenting their existence beyond that one performance.
  Right up until I knew I  caught a significant part of this first Dream House gig can I relax and retroactively enjoy the drive over. The whole damn time from shower to highway I felt I was late. Once  I got there, parked....I was good and felt free to observe this venue. Ami was there already. Andrew would arrive later from a show at Hideout. A lot of the patrons sat by the bar. The place is small enough for you to hear the band from anywhere. The crowd was good and mostly scattered by the bar so as to make a live band more background to them. I greeted Ms Ami and I went to the front. Rani as Siouxsie was great. Dream House played a lot of old punk leaning, ragged. What could I say then? I would see this again. It was a good time desperately needed like a gasp of air.
Zig

Solemn Meant Walks...at long last.

  Fucking finally!   Solemn Meant Walks! A Saturday at Debonair Social Club, this is officially the first time seeing them perform. Yet well before this gig, the ice was being broken and we've been friends.  Being late as bad as that is, was not a total loss because each time I ended up hanging around with the band and getting to know them. This one time when I bought their CD there sat on another table, my friends from Killer Moon.  That helps me tremendously, because I often go to these shows alone, and I wonder if that makes me look like this lone wolf weirdo.  Then they played with Spiritual Bat and I saw them, well not on stage....yeah, I was late.  By then I was actively listening to their music.  Anyway now I'm getting to know the recorded music, the self-titled CD. My original plan was to go see Circuit de Yeux and then SMW. The high from seeing one show to another, but I just could not spend the money on both and chose Solemn Meant Walks!
  The live experience keeps the music in the present mind, and it brings out the layers not considered when listening at home to the recorded work.  I did not know Highway was about Resurrection Mary until Ami said so in this last concert. Before then I just liked the song for how it sounded to me. Resurrection Mary is our local incarnation of a ghostly vanishing hitchhiking archetype. Ami's voice is deep, haunting and just right for going on about her. There's a maturity to her voice so she ain't tryin' to sound like anything. Seeing them live prompted me to look the video up. Its great! There are so many ways to like this video. I've driven around some of the places the video for Highway was filmed, Willow Springs. I live close. The places feel familiar, yet still effortlessly mysterious.  Each band member seemed to have their own moment with Mary in the places she has been sited. And then Ami stopped for her and drove Mary around. Ami is a rare female exception for Ms Mary. She normally does not compel women to stop.
   And I came across research that suggests Resurrection Mary was a Back of the Yards girl when she was alive. OK that last bit has nothing to do with the band. I fucking love when music is so damn local, using and invoking the local legends.  The whole vicious cycle begins again.  I can better describe the songs I like. Fleeting is now a focus.  Meaning.....wow! The song picks up fast and is transparent enough for you to see and admire clearly the engine that drives the track forward with Ami's voice swirling forward. Its the type of song that you commit to liking it before you even fully understand lyrics. And so its like that with Fleeting. I catch phrases that stand out, and I don't do linear.   Certain phrases stand out in the middle of the song and ....
  I went jogging on some cold wet Monday and I played SMW on my ipod. I let the music find its own way into my mind, rather than forcing it. When I first read about them, in part because we have many friends in common, I liked their music right away. I must have come across them on bandcamp or something similar. I took one listen for maybe two minutes. I don't even recall which track and concluded that it was awesome, but I would not indulge in hearing it again until I bought the CD. And that is just me, sometimes I cannot indulge until I own. And even then what was found in the first spontaneous listen may not be there when you listen again. So I don't force it, and let the music find its place. And you know what? That works. And I find myself in awe again over my everyday surroundings and routines. And I need that too.
Zig

axons

 Axons played this Tuesday at Empty Bottle with Moritat. The two other bands I do regret missing and I intend to see still. But I was happy to arrive on time to see Axons. Something Kon from Moritat found amusing and perhaps...impressive was that I was on time at all. He has caught me arriving late to shows. I was so on time I didn't even walk all that fast from where I parked. And I layered on top of that these excellent conversations I have with Kon even as Adele sets up. ...Oh that is her off-stage name.  Axons is her stage name. That sounds like I'm trying to make it too exotic. Axons is the name of the band, and Adele is the sole member of it. Minimal and effortlessly dance-floor friendly. Each song reveals whole different sides, unexpected angles.
    Bastards and Gadolinium sound so very different from each other, they represent whole different ways she can go. The only thing that keeps getting telegraphed is a wide range and depth. She is easy to like.  Bastards comes at you like Rutger Hauer in Lady Hawke, taking mother fuckers out. It has this blusey primal pair of balls. This can be a battle cry of righteous anger. And let me stick this in, Ms Adele can easily hotwire Wonder Woman's invisible plane but she chose to be a Civil Rights lawyer when not playing Empty Bottle as Axons. Let me cut the analysis to just this on this one song, from me its from the point of view of someone with a short fuse for assholes. Hence the previous mention of Rutger Hauer..... Inter Vivos betrays such a wide range that it just can't be contained in just five songs,...... and Gadolinium.  There have been more gigs I missed from her since the one time at Township. And so I've been listening in complete awe the music I have of her. Adele was also at Hideout for Lycanthea....no, she was in the audience.....in casual conversation with Rebecca from Panda Riot. . And so that Tuesday she played from her new recorded work Unmanageable . I guess the songs that sounded unfamiliar to me live are what is in it. Eight songs, some that began their imprint live.
  On the way home from seeing Solemn Meant Walks is when I chose to first hear the CD Unmanageable. So this post is more about seeing it live. I'm taking my time with this new work. I just find myself wanting to find reasons to drive and to listen as I go from point A to B. Its one of those things that modernity lets you get away with.  And so I choose here to go on about the songs that already have been playing a lot in my head. Gadolinium, that one she played this last time at the Bottle. The recording of it sounds so minimal  and intimate like your dancing alone in your room to Cocteau Twins. Intimate as well as grand and brilliant. And so what a beautiful thing to hear it live. It blossoms as more dance floor friendly. The audience at Empty Bottle was very attentive. That crowd was hers. And let me say this, yeah lean in....the one other time I saw her at Township there were these assholes that said some sexist misogynistic shit that she can hear. The vibe at Empty Bottle just would not support that. This crowd was hers, you know. The girl has some stage Jedi presence.

Zig