Walking Bicycles

   I had no idea about Radar Eyes before this. Walking Bicycles were the middle act before they did their last show. Hmmm, last show. They got me curious with that and so I stayed for them, and I'm glad I did. Angela from Touched By Ghoul/Coins/Sybris was in the crowd and sang with them for one song. I notice Julius puts together lots of these great shows. I am sometimes embarrassed to see how little I am aware of and so talking to them in between shows is always insightful. And I feel quite at ease around them.  I was going to see them when Pamphleteers played Burlington but I was called away to Indianapolis for that weekend, so I had to feel the sting of that. Anyway so, Julius organized this last show at Hideout, with Radar Eyes and that is why I stayed.  The first of the year for Bicycles, I believe. Their gigs still feel rare even as I accumulate posters of them. The Hideout is great because its small and known. On their wall I believe there is a fucking picture of Seka! No fucking around, I made it on time for this thing, but with no intention to stay for Radar Eyes but I stayed. They have refined and concentrated their engine. The bass rolls fast with the drums. Its the engine, the total engine before Jocelyn even begins.
  I hear their new LP To Whom That Wills The Way all the time. And now I got these live sets to recall including this one at Hideout.  Its not a routine. This is rare. So indeed I document this months ago warping memory. I took a few less pictures. So most of what I post here are from other shows. It still feels very recent when all I had was their back catalogue and the two tracks So and Badada. And now the rest are absolute jams! The music fits me. I don't know how else to put it. Their hmm signatures intensify. The engine that once simmered burns hot now. A look at lyrics invites a look at the the vinyl itself. Their urgent, fast pace naturally seems dark, and still casual as the background of gloomy spooky urban, darkness. What I just said there I can easily apply to all their back catalogue. Its worth a look back to have a deeper appreciation of the latest.  After Vitamin Z don't you want to hear Welcome To The Future? I usually hear both versions since they are barely over two minutes long. And where does Whirlin' Dervish come from? After all this time I've had to ponder them. The tracks do not telegraph one another. By the time I hear Boethius, track 9, I don't feel like I had also just heard War Paint, or The Messenger.   And I remember seeing Future live, and what it took to get me to see them. Tracks leave you with individual signatures. Still mysterious even as they strike directly.  Its rare and wonderful that I have them to ponder along with the fleeting performances.
Zig

Staring Problem

  Just read the names of these great tracks, Don't Tell A Soul, Parasite, Species Forgotten,  Not Humane, Semiconscious, Cease To Be. They paint a bleak picture. But its one you want to see and explore. Like watching Ghost Adventures.....less for the actual ghosts and more for the urban exploration. They could not have named the new release better, Long Winter. These names arouse your curiosity and listening to the tracks does not in the least disappoint.  I have always loved the bass on Staring Problem songs. Even if you don't notice, its what holds it all together, it gives the lead guitar the space to sound its best.  I always notice myself looking for and mentioning what sounds....urgent, what has a drive like its reaching for something about to be lost.  Urgency is infectious. Once its inside, you naturally relate to the music. It becomes your urgency. And the music speaks for you.  And these latest from Staring Problem has that feeling with abundance. The bass bounces with an aged confidence and natural urgency.....I already went through a fucking thesaurus so shut up. I went shopping around. I missed their last show at The Mousetrap I believe and so I am posting pictures from shows I have seen.
   
  When you are driving home to this, check your speed. If you are jogging, exercising you are going to burn a little more of that extra ass you don't want. Damn it I say that a lot. I gotta find new ways to express my enthusiasm of the same bands. Anyway,  Not Humane , Semiconscious immediately took me back to when my English friends first introduced me to New Model Army. And they always have this bouncy drive, like they are chasing something....and they always have this point of view that is the tip of their spear. Those guys are like that passionate leftist relatively young professor that happens to be a musician. When NMA believe in justice, ....vengeance, so do you. Hell you even spell it like they do. But this is of course about Staring Problem. Anyway the two songs named have this faster pulse to them that I like, and yet they sound perfect for Scary Lady Sarah's Death Rock night.  And its not a bad thing to put these two bands in the same stream of thought and text. Remember we goths dance to this.
 
So we seek out the spaces or create them so that we can, and further exploration can be done besides just listening. I'm really curious about the lyrics thanks to the names of the songs, I prefer to read as I listen.....or else I just make my own up by mistake. I did that once. For a long time this Caifanes song I understood the lyrics to go a certain way. It turns out when I bothered reading them, they were completely different than what I thought I heard. So I trust what I read more than hear in this regard. They sound....old... like an older subcultural punk band. If I did not already know, I would just assume they were from an era when cassette tapes were the norm and not the fucking novelty. So when I mean old....I'm saying there is a natural maturity to this. And I noticed too that the songs are lasting longer, like for three minutes, Yaay!!!.
Zig

We Are Hex/Goldmines at Indy

  I have not really traveled much since Whitby where over a few visits I grew comfortable going there. And that was a long time ago. Then, I grew comfortable going to the familiar venues in Chicago. Reaching that comfort level one show at a time. Getting to know a venue, a city takes time.  Getting to know a town through its small venues is how I like to break ice. I went to see We Are Hex in their native town of Indianapolis, in a local place, State Street Pub I believe. It also functions as the home of Glory Hole records. I arrived early enough to catch a lot of Goldmines. I liked them right off. So I bought from them a shirt, cassette with download code for Drag. I don't know which ones at the show were from Drag, but I am all up into now. This was my first time seeing them.  They are from Cleveland, OH. They were once in a band called Hot Cha Cha. I recall Jilly wearing shirts with that name on it.  I did not know this was also a band. None of this I knew walking in. I'm barely taking in the venue and they go and had to be awesome all over it. Its probably a good thing when the first impression of the place is the band. And now that I can name them, well after the show and in the comfort of my own thoughts, I would lean more garage than punk with manic bouts of psychedelic. American, I mean. it would shock to hear them sound like English chavs. They got a cardio system built on running on sand by the beach. Perhaps one may retort...."where are there beaches in Indy". Well metaphorical beaches you can just trip right over. Some tracks, .....Dowager,  indeed effortlessly evoke this image for me of the beach, or at least summer time. . How Far is kicking my ass all over the room. The sweetness found in this does not overpower beyond the wonder. Free Ride, Not the Lion, each song will introduce the visual of their show all over again.
    Gold Coast induces the cinematic feeling of a protagonist in the movie that everyone can relate to in the middle of that climactic moment. It has the urgency of knowing you can lose it all if you don't sprint for it. Or it can be just me projecting.  Goldmines is absolutely great and I was not expecting it to walking in State Street. And this is what introduced me to the Indy music scene, State Street Pub and I am happy that this was so. I don't know if they ever performed in Chicago. I hope they do. I will look for them.
  When WAH played Burlington in Chicago, I missed it, but I made it to buy their latest release Bleach Brigade and a shirt. Now, here I am at State Street Pub and I've been blown away by the previous act. I don't usually recall which tracks they actually played. I'm barely figuring out I first heard Slowburner at this DIY venue on the south side with Killer Moon. It was loud and powerful even as it broods with a promise to explode. The whole track is the explosion. Jilly's voice, her presence is powerful like a howling wolf. Dante would not have walked into that dark wood if it was Jilly he encountered and not that she-wolf that he wrote about. He would have missed out on a good gig. You know what....he would have put a whole different spin on that whole fucking Inferno.
  Their shirts are always impacting and awesome. When you like the music a lot, its believing in their product, and by some weird extension a way of believing in oneself. Seeing this band....familiar....Gigs wildly different from each other but always explosive, powerful. We Are Hex are pliable and adaptive, on the edges of the urban, wild and weird.  For me its no problem to see how different their recorded work can be from their live shows. You are experiencing almost two different bands in one. And Bleach Brigade grows on me still.

  In no need to impress crudely with frilly goth costumes, Jilly in a black hoodie,  bounces around aggressively like a live wire on the ground after a tornado hits. She sweats out the black and heavy hoodie and eventually removes it. You can see her tatted arms. My first time seeing this on a Free Monday at Empty Bottle, her movements seemed chaotic, spazzy and fully in the moment. It was like turning and burning in a fucking muscle car. I know, I know. I always pulling out that metaphor for them. Many moons later I see the order in her movements and it still commands attention. She walks and charges around the crowd. Touching some of us like a preacher, hand on forehead.  Only she ain't exorcising nothing from you.  Sharing the demon with you instead. I already compared her to a live wire, what's going to happen when it touches you. This is after reading about that very same preacher comparison somewhere. Here she is right in front of me, her  hand on my forehead for a stretch of two seconds, and then meandering on to the next fourth wall to shatter. Jilly climbed the bar, is on the floor, she breaks the fourth wall, and some windows.   So this show......Its imprint like its the fucking shroud. Only this shroud has eyes that seems to stare back from every possible angle. This is music that I still listen to since the first time seeing them. It becomes the thing, the yardstick that spontaneously measures on the spot and  everything afterwards. And it was not felt remotely. It blows the mind to have seen them in such relatively small venues, and to have met them and they remember you.  So I wanna walk around with their shirt on, sweat into it while working out or just to another show. I am only too happy to bring it home and represent while trying to do that one last pull-up.
Zig

Touched By Ghoul

  I even forgot when I saw this. I think it was a Free Monday at Empty Bottle. And so Mondays can be really cool. Angela from Sybris, and Coins, now also with Touched By Ghoul and so of course I'm curious. Coins and Sybris are such different animals Angela creates that I have acquired this appreciation for. You just get into most of what the artist performs and records. I must admit I do not have the third and last Sybris. All I can do is bounce her around between her other bands. I'm kind of lazy and I like the idea. I warmed slowly to this band fronted by Angela! It broods and explodes, and then comes back. I remember this was fucking loud. A new element of urgency just popped on my radar. They  played The Burlington with We Are Hex!.....And I missed the whole show. Still....these impressions I have to write down. Right away I'm taken by Too Many Whores. Its authority sets me up, adjusted for It's My Body, Western Child. As I listen and see new work from this artist in a way I also revisit all of it. Cave Life on top of Adios, and on until I reach Burnout Babies. I don't recall which ones I actually heard. Adios is a bouncy two minute runaway train. Urgent and nearly derailing, downhill.  Thats the thing, how they redefine the flow of urgency with each track. As Adios finishes you are left to anticipate new work.   Touched By Ghoul is awesome for being heavier, not as sweet. Messier like a work still in progress, but fully operational like the fucking Deathstar. It goes to places unexpected and keeps me following. Damn, this was unusually brief. So I posted pictures of other times I saw Angela performing for her other acts, Coins and Sybris.
Zig

Kristeen Young

  Seriously, what is going on with Elbo Room. I was thinking, hmmm, its Kristeen. She will pack them in. I was thinking it can sell out. Elbo Room is such a weird venue. Each time I've been there, very few turn up. Its like a rip in time/space, a warp bubble that can only hold so many peoples awareness. I knew I was entering this warp bubble as I got closer to the venue, it just feels isolated. It's a very under used venue, a hidden spot in the open on Lincoln Ave which is normally so fucking busy. Chloe Day I saw once on a Wednesday 26th December. A handful of people saw her. Pezzettino, the same. Only about five or six. And now the same for Kristeen Young, hmm about ten. I was thinking wow! Seriously?! Before her set even starts I rip down a poster for her to sign later. This turned out to be one of those intimate shows you don't see coming. It just feels wrong for Kristeen Young to have that few a crowd. I anticipated more for this. All of us there recognized the rare moment for what it was and took out their camera/phones. I....just had a camera. I think everyone in there bought merch from KY.                    

  She has the open passion of an Argentine tango musician. Plays with that same frenzied pace. She is a rock opera star. Intense as her pictures can barely contain. Her hands land so heavy and fast on the keyboard, like she's blaming them. She does not slow down for you to catch your breath. Tori Amos might slow down for you, like in Choir Girl Hotel , but not Ms Kristeen.  You need to keep up, learn your steps or you just fucked up the audition. Crashed and locked into memory are theatrical and vivid rock expressions. They do not bore. They incite.  I recall her going on back and forth with her drummer, as if waiting for him. These brief fun, genuine exchanges are part of the slowly warping German Expressionist memory of seeing Kristeen Young live a second time, still iconic. And now I have new music to explore.  By now I've had some time to do that.  When I saw her at Empty Bottle I bought the one CD Music For Strippers, Hookers, And The Odd On-Looker. Every song in there steals the stage from next. Each song hits like its the only fucking one, only its all of them. The headliner was Aleks And The Drummer.  After this Elbo Room show I bought what I could. V The Volcanic, and The Knife Shift, but I wanted one of everything. I wanted a shirt.  If I had 100, I would have blown 100.
     For a long time that CD was all that I had and I dared not look beyond it.  Yet it was exactly what I like to hear, a full blown crash of piano rock, intense and smart like a piano driven Miranda Sex Garden.  Slowing down does not mean less intense. It means a longer burn with that branding iron.

  I just could not obsess over one more girl and her keyboard. But Strippers is just too awesome, and I have more than a few CDs of Tori Amos any fucking way.  A lot of what I listen to starts as exactly that and from there they evolve away from each other until they appear as different animals. And with Kristeen there is much to obsess about, or at least read about. There is a lot to inspire an underdog narrative. Once you are a fan, you kind of take her side. I did not look beyond Strippers, for a while. But I did hear it a lot. I just knew and trusted there was something beyond, before, and after. Strippers was just to hold as a reference. More music to obsessively follow. In terms of seeing a live show it was just one time, iconic. The chance comes to see her again, and I jump at it. The urgency at times allowed me to think Elbo Room would sell out. It did not, to my surprise. So, happily now I listen and explore The Knife Shift and V The Volcanic.  Just the names of the songs invite a listen. Jealous of Loved Children, Pictures of Sasha Grey. Everything is Mine Because I'm Poor, Fantastic Failure, these are all great names. And lets not pretend we don't know who Sasha Grey is. Y'all know. Zig.

Spaces Of Disappearance

   Spaces Of Disappearance here have this song about Dick Cheney. Its on Passionate Electronics. Dick Cheney in the Light. Its the best.  Then.....  Valmont...Angst. They all hit you like that. I've been hearing them on my ipod. I saw them play it at Hideout. Was dancing to it. This intimate Hideout show with Axons opening. The Hideout stage is already so fucking small, easy work for a memory gone German Expressionist. I went for a jog with it. When you can stick more into the ipod, is the best, and I suppose that is when I noticed what a crazy hidden treasure we got. I needed the download code to stick to my ipod. Dick Cheney himself I think gave them a shout out over the internet.....and creeped everyone out.  Elaine said this on stage in between songs.
  I feel like such a moron for not recognizing Spaces Of Disappearance for being so awesome.  That aside. The rest on Passionate start leaving their mark....leave me with this look of disbelief. They live in Chicago! I fecking know them! I see her at these other shows. I've missed a whole bunch of her shows.
  Valmont de Merteuil kicks ass. Frontwoman broods and lights the noir trip hop spark Angst continues and harnesses. If you can recall how it felt dancing to Bel Canto, then Sister Soleil, and then Portishead for that second time at Neo. Something that instantly feels like its that classic subcultural dance floor after glow. And now I'm recalling that I've seen them twice and pow! It is hitting me. At their Hideout show I was dancing, .....not like a moron at a Wedding calling attention, but.....I was dancing. I listen to Passionate first to last, straight and wondered when was the last time I binged on Bel Canto like that. I don't.  I skip around because I don't like everything. Each one on Passionate is like the single that attempts to best define the band if you will...only its all of them.  Meaning they are all great songs that demonstrate how great songwriters Spaces are. Each track reveals a new depth. Its like they have in their blood, reflexes, muscle fibers, a deep and fundamental understanding of what induces dancing, movement, like without pandering. The really real first time seeing them was at Multikulti, with Sexy Fights. Missing Spaces would have left me an incomplete show.
  I saw three bands that night, Spaces is one of the three that's local. I see Elaine in so many shows that I attended. The whole time she was being awesome and it took me some time to know it. Then I have to figure out how to say it. I can't just say awesome every three, four fucking words.  I got songs that are sinking in, hitting me from Passionate. Damn it! I figured this shit out so fecking late it's embarrassing. As a fan, it was great to already have met Elaine.....and Adele. All three bands that I saw were impacting. That is such a rare occurrence. I'm trying to write separate entries about them. Axons was first, then Spaces and then The Old Adage.  I was into Spaces,  yes......now, I am way the fuck into them.
Zig

Cygne

  There is this little bottle of perfume oil that a friend of mine gave me years ago when she still lived in Chicago. I held off using it. It was just so awesome, beautiful a scent that I had to really pick the moments for when I would indulge in using it. It so closely resembled rose oil. I don't like smelling bad, and so I shower....even if it makes me late. I wore this perfume oil for when I saw Cygne....Laura Meyer , the traveling blues/folk troubadour at Uncommon Ground on Clark. Rise Up!  I'm waiting for the right time to hear it. I like the name Cygne, gives her this luchadora mask, and reveals a more aggressive side through it. I waited for the right drive to hear Rise Up!

What she casually says in between songs has the gravity of Morgan Freeman dropping some casual knowledge in mid conversation. So imagine the power of her lyrics, when she says "I believe in ghosts".  She ain't trying to scare you with that, she's telling you what she learned from that belief.  I'm quite timid and the perfume pulls me out of this shell, or it makes it easier to carry the bloody shell around.....it helps. Sorry for bringing all that up in between about perfumes and all that, seeing the artists becomes such a thing that brings out these personal rituals of mine. It was Sunday 5 April. I don't recall the day as being really cold. I think it was a first gasp of not so cold weather. Parking around the venue I knew would be an extra special problem.   The Cubs were playing that day. Still I found a spot on Southport across from Music Box. So I make it.  So why the fuck do I go on about the process of preparation all the time? Hmmm, I think it is important to note effort. What got you there, in what state of mind were you in when walking into Uncommon Ground. I'd like to think the few five people give or take that saw Cygne did so deliberately, purposefully. As Cygne she has a new LP
   She packs such power in two minutes. Genius is modest, but comes packing. Righteous and aggressive is Too Good For A Bad Man. I mean really its like pissing off common sense. Her voice is clear, so you have nowhere to go before State Of America. Laura just channels her inner Melora Creager in that track. Break feels for me a welcome sweet left turn. I find it nice and endearing, I can identify it as something that will have lasting wonder for me. And its 3 minutes. Other tracks will hit. And you start to see how well it all works under the name Cygne.
  And Laura knew every individual that saw her, including me which feels like quite the honor. I thought that was fabulous. So she was relaxed. In between songs she gave extra insight into those that I've been listening to since the first time I saw her. There is a story behind Ghost that involves a haunted pizza joint....I think. Ah yes....Motel Room Blues #3! There was I think more than one track from Been Here Before. Walls....I think I heard that too. All those tracks are great with a band and they are intimate and impacting when it's just her and her guitar.
  
I noticed Laura does not use a guitar pick. I'm thinking now I should have written down the casual yet grand statements she says in between songs, about those very tracks, and about the nature of why we write songs to begin with. I mean seriously she channels Morgan Freeman sounding wisdom and coolness that she has packed on in miles traveling around the world and back.  Rise Up! is just kicking my ass right now. And while I do that, she releases Passenger 5th May. So there is no catching up to her. And I write slow.
  
Yet still her performances that I see I am compelled to document. I bought that and another LP Close To Home. Out of that one already two songs have grown on me Dungeon of Love and Blue Moon. Her back catalog actually stretches back, and there is a lot of music yet undiscovered for me. But it all started from Been Here Before and I recognized a lot from there. This live imprint will urge me to listen to new and undiscovered alike in one shot. She is blusey, cool, mysterious, introspective and still direct. I always feel wiser for listening to her songs. Its easy to identify with her statements. I feel fortunate to have seen her more than twice, and she casually reveals more of the moments that happened to make her write certain songs. Passenger now gives me more reason to want Cygne back to Chicago.