KANGA at Reggies

  So unfortunately, I missed Amelia Arsenic. It would have been very nice to have seen her and Kanga. So, I hope she will come back.  Ms Kanga I recall seeing last year at Cold Waves. She played G Man Tavern right next door to Metro and it was no cover. Hell, no one at the door checked my ID. It was a Sunday night.  I went with a slight headache that I took care of with Motrin and...I took care of it. The very night of the massacre in Vegas is when I saw this.  That sounded wrong, allow me to explain.  You always remember where you were when something of that tremendous terrible weight occurs. I was coming back from seeing Kanga with a long gone headache as my only trouble and I turn on NPR, they were reporting it. And it was as if they were doing so as it was happening or shortly there after. I drove home in a shock. This could have happened easily where I went, and the thought of that  was unsettling. The weight of guilt, feeling unworthy of the good fortune kept me from just switching to music during the drive home. It felt like seeing the wrong side of the hand of an angry God at work...helpless. And so its difficult at least for me to disconnect these separate moments. Kanga at Cold Waves and Vegas. I just can't. It feels cruel to seem oblivious. There is a time and place to write and dwell on this, and here  I feel it is safe to do so. Let me tell where it is not cool. If I was doing a straight review of her show then for a magazine....hell no! I would strictly concentrate on the show. But this here is my space and this is where I can't ignore shit.  And I feel bad for bringing this up, here where the express purpose is to go on and on about the fucking bands I see. Yet this is where my mind brings me. Hmmm, and now I lock it up, here, never to mention it again...I had to put it somewhere and now I gotta move on.
  A signature move of Ms Kanga during her live shows is bending backwards like a possessed Linda Blair. I fucking love seeing that. What's cool is how the intensity manifests on her. With her it's bending backwards and hearing her say "I'm On Fire!!...I don't belong her anymore!!" and sweating, and rolling around. With other performers its how controlled they are as you are taken by the music, dancing and all that. Not Kanga, she gets herself all disheveled and its part of what makes her shows great. Her songs are resonant both in words and music. Songs that come with that easily and genuinely combustible kindling. Its that dance floor friendly industrial and her lyrics you can hear clearly without having to read them.  Her songs are distinct from each other.  I can't say that about HIDE. Her songs are difficult to distinguish. To enjoy a HIDE concert, is almost to like it as a whole without knowing which end is up. I still like HIDE, even after saying all that. I would go see her show tomorrow. But right now we are going on about Ms Kanga, here.

  So she is performing from her self-titled CD. Her picture on it, she looks relaxed with otherworldly eyes.....ahhhhhh. I have to say, she is an otherworldly beauty.  No seriously, if them eyes were any wider I would get visits from Men In Black over seeing seeing her shows. No, I'm not referring to the bloody movie. Her songs easily distinguishable from each other, their separate reasons for you to like them. Vital Signs is different from Going Red and so on( and they are both great songs). I hope I see more work coming from her in the future.
Zig

Zigtebra/Midnight Opera

 
  This is who I saw with Zigtebra.  Midnight Opera are a glam rock four piece from Dallas, TX. That is the premise from which I will start....you feel good from hearing them. As I research more seriously the always present low-fi, minimal Zigtebra. They are a sibling duo from Chicago, in Pilsen. Emily Rose and Joe they are siblings that barely met when they were in their twenties. She plays keyboard and he plays guitar. Their story is interesting. They write love songs, heartbreak songs....they don't sound that way to me, and that is fascinating. I should have seen them more times than this. Their name I see all the time. Emily Rose is a big fan of Cafe Jumping Bean, a real cafe in Pilsen, on 18th street. They are from the art/music scene there. They like the DIY venues there, playing in houses where age is not a barrier, the feeling of community from paying at the door to these DIY scenes.  There is this cable access show called Chic-A-Go-Go and they played for this show. It seems to be a show for kids and they introduce really cool bands to these kids in this show. Children are sincere when it comes to what they like or not. They will warm to you or be viciously indifferent. To see Zigtebra play to these kids without seeming to want to pander to them really broke the ice with me. They are on a self-booked tour of the country and when they come back to Chicago I will see them as a fan.
  I once got a download from them. I've seen them live one other time for sure. And as I research for real now, they are what I would call glam, in part because they dress the part.   So it took me this long to finally get to know Zigtebra. They are a shot of sweetness, genuine wonder, and happiness, this bouncy house of euphoria. Just saw the video for Paradise and I got a sugar high just from watching it. If it was any longer I would have been hit with mad diabetes with all them donuts they eat. This is not saying that I dislike the band. They are feeling warmer to me the longer I listen to them. 

  They seem to be just that right soundtrack to these little moments you may want to recall with more storytelling detail. Wonder is given its glam confidence to stride. Midnight Opera are from Dallas, Texas. They for me perfectly combine and balance what is cool with what is sweet with open-veins sincerity.  There is a little bit of Anna Calvi in the guitar. Hell, we got Anna Calvi melange being taken by all. The singers are Teddy Waggy and Nicole Marxen-Myers.You gotta see how they synchronize dance to Stars Grow Cold, Older Hands Prevail.  Its endearing to see them sync their movements like when Casket Girls did it. They are playful with this coolness, without being sloppy. They got this way of disarming with their playfulness, sweetness and still be as cool as fucking sunglasses. In terms of what they sound like....they sound like or remind me of Anna Calvi, ....oh already said that in the previous paragraph....the difference is this playfulness...shit, I said that too, well in case y'all were not listening. I've had the CD The Mesmerist since seeing them and the lyrics add a tango like passion to their cool/sweetness. Stars Grow Cold fucking hits you. The other songs will be just as intense. The shirt I bought from them is beautiful. No..no....not just another black shirt. You gotta see the artwork on this thing. Alright, I want this posted before September.
Zig

Fauvely/Casual Hex

  Fauvely while still owning her hmmm sad, thoughtful side, she can fucking snap your neck with some righteous anger.  She once told some motherfuckers in the back to shut the fuck up....well Sophie didn't say it like that, but she did call them out for being loud in her own fucking show. This was at the now defunct Quenchers, on Fullerton and Western. The place was known for all the different kind of beers....if you are into that....and it was a great music venue. Fauvely shows were intimate for quieter, smaller spaces. But, now, she's played the fucking Bottle a few times. I get happy when I see her getting written up.  I've seen her on Chicago Tribune.  And...I think I've read shit during her Videotape days, well the band as a whole. Her Chicago history stretches back. Her upcoming work will take us to Savannah, where she is from. Yeah, I assume Georgia. I say sad girl as a sort of net that includes Cross Record, Angel Olsen.... "blues" has long been taken.  And you can't call everything shoegaze just because they were once in a shoegaze band.  And there is a something beyond sadness and vulnerability expressed with Fauvely. Yeah...the others too. Can we just stick to....thanks.  Fauvely is....thoughtful and self-critical. The world as described in her music seems to begin in the mind. It begins with what's wrong with her and not with the world in reaction to her.  They make these vulnerable moments into triumphs, journeys that we can admit to take because they were brave enough to say the words of their own journeys that blow up as universal. 
  I've been missing show after mother fucking show, bursting in like the Kool-aide guy, all late about it.  All showered and rosy, and feeling stupid, I want to leave before anyone notices. But they fucking notice.  The last gig I missed was at The Owl.  This one at Hideout was a must, and I made it.  She played "Watch Me Over Complicate This" and the crowd was balls deep into it. The way it was played on stage, it was clear to me this was an audience of fans that knew what was before them.  And its my favorite performance of this song.  It was all guitars and no drummer and it worked so well, it renewed my enthusiasm for it.  I was happy to have the audience share in this.  Often times you don't know if a crowd was won over.  I've been in shows in which they don't betray any collective feeling. But this one night at Hideout, we all got it. Fauvely is awesome, and they let her know it. I think that was the first time I've been to such a show for Fauvely. 
  It was later when Alice her friend and former member of Fauvely took the stage with her new band, the neo psychedelic Casual Hex.  Before joining Casual Hex she had her own solo project Dorsia, and that was fucking cool too. I love how subtle and effortless they just put me in that set of Mad Men.  I felt the pull of that period even with Dorsia. And now I feel genuinely warm to her new band.  This was my second time seeing them.  Its plain to see their psychedelic roots, they are still a modern youthful band. I am really getting into their three song Demo.  Casual Hex for me is a natural extension for what Alice was already inclined to do. Dorsia already sounded very psych to me even as she was also minimal. She was great in Fauvely too, playing violin.  I'm glad I saw them early shows, because it allows you to enjoy a more total picture of the music.  I get to enjoy better all the bands knowing this back history.  When Sophie brought in Alice I did not see Dorsia or Casual Hex coming out of this. I am happy to see a more complete picture. When you see Star Wars....any of the fucking movies, you see them in the context of that wider story.  Oh look! Here we have a picture of Ms Alice during her Fauvely days!! Anyway...I feel happy and fortunate that I get to witness all this and so that always compels me to document it, or else I see it disappear.
Zig

Fee Lion at Smart Bar

  Smart Bar has this weird night called Research and Development, usually on Thursdays. I've gone mostly for the bands they have play and not so much for the DJ music. I have to give credit for the bands they get to play there. New Canyons, HIDE, I can't seem to recall beyond that right now but I feel like I've been here for more than that. The stage is small enough to concentrate the potency of FEE LION. I have to honestly say, I dislike the DJ music for this night. It is a matter of suffering through it. I try hard to examine why I always dislike the music for this specific night, Research and Development. Ricardo was right there and even he could dance to it only so much. I'm trying like hell to like this DJ music......no, still can't. It was no cover, so that was way fucking cool. I got there around 11. The stage is already set up but no sign as to when she will play. No urgency for it. I hear the music the DJ plays. I'm fucking ready for Fee Lion. I think it was 12:45 when she started. I'm sounding like a little bitch about it....sorry, I was just bewildered by the music played. Its actually normal for the band to play late at Smart Bar for this specific night.
  A clear and powerful voice floats elegantly over thick, movement-inducing vibrating bass and beats. The bass out of her live set will vibrate organs, so pack them ears. It may remind you of shit you liked before, but there is this deeper sophistication she brings. Fee Lion comes wearing her signature black latex. Her songs are creations that do not telegraph their siblings. When they make you dance its because they resonated with you against your most cynical self. Its dance music that is dark enough to get played in Nocturna. I know Sarah has a favorite song, don't remember which it is. In short, Fee Lion gets played in goth clubs, and draws fans from that side. For fucks sake the latex is black, right?! I've seen her as a vendor in Sarah's back yard sale/ social event.
  Sometimes I am very familiar with who she will perform with like with Zanias, Visceral Anatomy. And I got there on time for all three. Sometimes, who Fee Lion will play with is a complete mystery like with Virgin Hotel. We barely stayed a few songs and then off we went to see HIDE. But while we were there I was observant of the crowd. And I was guessing they were there for the headliner. But my point is that she is drawing fans from all over, and outside the dark goth umbrella. Oh...yeah, we are at Smart Bar.....waiting for...When I walked in it was hard to guess who was there to see Fee Lion. Yeah, I saw a few possible industrial heads. But when she started her fans seemed to come out of the wood work. There was of course the friends she had around the crowd.
  I was in the front, right there, and every time I'm brought back simultaneously to her shows at Cole's, Hideout, Beat Kitchen, Virgin Hotel....Hideout again! I know she has played way more times before. I recall reading her name but not looking her up. I may be wrong but I think she's played Frontwoman Fest....I've been to all of them and I missed that! That would fucking burn more, but seeing her a bunch kind of makes up for it.
Zig

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