Sunday, June 27, 2010

Chicagofalcon

Chicago land sure gets a lot of good funk... somebody'd better start working on that magic bike tube.

The Budos Band @ Chicago Folk & Roots Festival, July 10

Caribou w/ the Budos Band @ Millennium Park (which I am supremely jealous of, btw; someone should be nice and give it to me), July 12

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Living a lie

Actually, St. Louis has plenty of good shows. Why, this weekend there happen to be three gigs in two days that I'd love to get myself to. Friday night is looking particularly interesting, with Lojic @ The Pageant and We Landed on the Moon! @ The Firebird. The former doesn't play much here these days, but I've been going to see them since I was a young buck, and they've got a new album out that coincides with the kick off of their Midwest tour (aw yeah, they still know where they're from). WLotM! is a much more recent find, but they sure know how to rock the house, and are generally upstanding and awesome individuals. Tough choices. Sadly I just took my time machine to the shop, or this whole situation would be much easier. Both of these bands are definitely worth checking out, and it kills me that their St. Louis tour dates conflict. My current hope is that their set times don't conflict as well, cause I will surely attempt an unprecedented double-header concert night. You only live twice, right? I'll rest when I'm dead. It's not living a lie if you're not living at all.



Chicagogorillas

Reppin' the Midwest with some of the best from Chi. Man, Chicago is a beast when it comes to hogging on some good shows*. I'd liken it to 98 pound lightweight and a silverback competing for the same bunch of bananas. There's just no contest. I'm maybe gonna have to move there or something. New news out this week on stuff going on in the Animate Objects family. Actually, though I've been listening to them for a while now (that's some good underground / conscious / eclectic stuff there for you, if you didn't know) I didn't know there was an AO family. Just took a listen to some of S Squair Blaq, The Square Black Frames, Sonar Soul and Danya and the Fail, and that is some underrated hotness right there. Generally I use last.fm as a gauge on where an artist falls on the popularity-obscurity scale; these are so far towards the end that I'd have to label them "bands that don't even exist yet". So good, though. And the greater family as a whole is pretty busy in the next few weeks with shows and listening parties and all sorts of friendly goodness.

Couldn't do this right without putting some links in, aye? Start here to put some sounds in your ear. Then when it's seeped in real good and deep, jump over to look at the tour dates (both of those I'm listing below are FREE, by the by). If you don't want to get up and go, I suggest you get yourself to a doctor. You might be dead.

June 19, Chicago, IL, S Squair Blaq w/ Animate Objects, Takin It to the Streets @ Marquette Park
June 25, Chicago, IL, Animate Objects"High Notes for Low Fives" listening party @ Lokal

Friday, June 11, 2010

Prom Night



This is how FBC gets down.

Oh, and while I'm thinking about bikes, someone can go ahead and buy / build this for me, please, kay thanks.

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Five bucks, five bucks, five bucks

Whooo/ugh. That's the sound my body makes the morning after having fun at a kick ass show, but one which also kicked my ass. Partied it UP last night at the RFT Showcase, and though I had some reservations it definitely turned out to be a win. As I awaken, recover, and put the pieces of myself back together into some semblance of normality, I figure the best way to make sense of things is to do a run down of my own awards. You know, for posterity.

Best Bar: Hair of the Dog is what I would have to affectionately call a "rough in the diamonds". What concerned me most about the showcase's move from the Loop down to Wash. Ave. was the areas lack of pure venue spaces an overabundance of upscale snooty places. (More about that shortly.) HotD, on the other hand, is the kind of bar that wants you to come in and make yourself at home, no need to worry about taking off your shoes or spilling things on the rug. It's lived in. And they have shuffleboard!

Worst Bar: Lucas Park Grille - I've been out to the Showcase for a few years now, and like any good festival the beauty of it is the carefree come (and go) as you are vibe. This place was way too highfalutin. The first clue was the hostess asking people just ahead of us if they had reservations. Then the patio where the bands were meant to set up had almost no space for folks coming in to watch the bands; most of the tables in the place were set up for diners. That would be fine, if you want to be a restaurant. If you want to be a venue (even for a day), be a venue and let people come hang out. If you want to be a venue AND a restaurant, that'd be fine with me too, Cicero's and Blueberry Hill both have a system down with separate spaces to suit your tastes whether it be eating or rocking out. There are many different right ways to arrange things; this was an example of the wrong way.
Honorable mention in this category goes to Lola. The space is fairly new and nice, but I'm turned off by the fact that they also seemed to not have a sense of their own identity. I think more people were there to eat than to hear music, and I didn't really get the feeling that the music revelers like myself were welcome. Also the waitress with the frou-frou artsy trendy hairdo did not excite me. I just want to go to a bar for some tunes and drinks, not look at you attempt to be a runway model. (I didn't think of it until just now, but she kinda totally reminds me of Helen Strangé from Boomerang.)

Best Band to Get Me in a Dancing Frame of Mind: The Dive Poets came along at just the right time. Their set was the first at a venue as opposed to an outdoor stage, and being inside / in the evening it had finally cooled off enough for me to start drinking. I miss the fiddle, but they still brought it.

Best Band I've Seen Tons of Times: Jumbling Towers, how I've missed you! I used to kick it at their shows fairly often way back in the day, but it's been quite a long time. They rocked some new shit, they rocked some old shit, and I rocked my shit all over the floor right up front. People came in and packed the place during their set, which was great, but no one was dancing! That just wouldn't do. So, me being me, I scooted my behind up to the stage to help with the motivation. I only made small strides with the folks who were up there, but I did find a few possibly old school fans who knew their songs. Definitely going to have to get back into them.

Best Band I've Seen Tons of Times, But Missed: The Feed.

Best Band I've Never Seen: The Monads - Going to see them was a hard choice. They played at the same time as The Feed, and in this case I elected to go with new-and-potentially-awesome over tried-and-true-goodness. I wasn't sure to make of them while they were setting up. Upright bass, banjo, electric violin, giant bag of beach balls... Okay? They turned out to be real lively. I could see myself getting ragin', footstompin' drunk to this band in a good ol' Irish bar. ...if only I could find the perfect Irish bar in which to do it. The floor is open to suggestions.

Best Band I've Still Yet to See: Art Majors played after Jumbling Towers and I heard a little bit of them, but by that point I was tired and tapped out. It'd been a long day, and I no longer had the ability to properly cleanse my aural palate to differentiate between bands. It didn't help that no one in the crowd was into them enough to start moving, that might have convinced me to stick it out a bit longer. Gotta make a mental note to see them properly at some point.

Best Band for a Funky Good Time: Teddy Presberg kills. Literally. I saw someone drop to the ground of a funk attack, and I don't think they pulled through. DOA. Funkamedics could not resuscitate. The man is cooler than anyone has any right to be. My name is Teddy Presberg, and I'm gonna lay some riffs with this guitar in my lap for a lil' bit, izzat okay witchoo? Yes, please, Teddy. Gimme some more. And who else could pull of playing a show barefoot in such a shiny new bar? (He was at the aforementioned Lola) Bonus points for his man maiming folks with the bongo / drum solo funkassault.

Biggest Letdown Band: UG Project - From what I'd read about this group's style and genre-bending, I was really looking forward to something interesting. I ended up only catching maybe the end of one song at the end of their set, but my snap judgment from what I heard was underwhelming.

Best Friend: I didn't go very far out of my way to promote this thing ahead of time, and so did not attempt to bring a big crew down to check things out. I suppose it could have been fun having a pile of people to hang out with, but it also would have been a logistical nightmare. Almost seems better to go solo, or nearly so. I did invite Julie, who was awesome enough to come down, hang out, and pretty much follow me around to whatever band I wanted to see. I think she had a good time, so things worked out well for all parties involved.

Update: Official fotoes.

Friday, June 04, 2010

They don't want music

RFT Music Showcase! Tomorrow! So excited! So many bands coming that I would like to see. So many, in fact, that Ima make a spreadsheet (cuz I'm a nerd). The question is: Should I go see old favs, or explore potential new goodness? Oh, the pressure...

Ice cream has come to save the day

Milkshake Party #2! I don't remember if I took the time to post about last year's Milkshake Party #1, what song I would have chosen if I did, or what kind of "fancy" milkshake recipe it was that I whipped out to impress my adoring fans, but I couldn't let this one go by. Spent a little time in the lab doing research, since I figure one always has to come bigger and badder than the year before. Not as much time as I would have liked, mind you; so much of my schedule this week has been wrecked by bees (!). Gonna try to do something pull off something special just the same though. Making a run for supplies... tonight? Yes. Of course. The party's tonight. Depending on how tasty things come out I'll be back later to post a recipe or two.

New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Sweet Inspiration, Times Two

Caught wind of a couple things lately that take my general feeling of being a fairly physically capable guy and just shake it to pieces.

First, I've been reading an account of the Pedouin family's trek on a quint tandem. Five people. One bike. 7,000 miles, from Kentucky to Alaska (by way of Florida). And as far as I can tell the trip is for no reason other than just to do it. In and of itself this feat would be impressive enough, riding clear across the country and all, crashing with folks where they can and sleeping outside where they can't. But then they have two extra degrees of difficulty that are sure to wow the judges. Of this family of five, three of them are young girls, at the outset aged 6, 4 and 2. I'm sure most of the energy for this comes from the parents, but I still have to admire the tenacity for sticking it through. If that wasn't enough, neither of these parents are what I would call actual cyclists. About all they had going for them was that they knew how to ride a bicycle, but nothing approaching serious strength or endurance or distance. They gave themselves just three months time to warm up, and the mileage they do is quite paltry, frankly (I could crush them on my worst day). They seem to be getting it done, though, and good for them.


Second, I just caught this trailer for a documentary called The Ataxian. It's the story of this guy named Kyle Bryant riding in the Race Across America, a one week 3,000 mile trip from coast to coast (on quite a sweet looking recumbent trike... I never cared much for them, but his kinda makes me want one). Pretty intense, right? It takes me a YEAR to do three grand. The guy this documentary is about has a degenerative nerve disease called Friedreich's ataxia with symptoms that will make things much harder for him (and unfortunately, is quite possibly going to kill him). Talk about heart. Dude's got it out the wazoo.

Speaking of Heart, I've been on a kick lately thanks to some recent conversation. Who knew classic rock still tastes so good? Considering today's subject matter, and Kyle's story in particular, this one seems terribly appropriate.

Heart - Magic Man