wordpress stats

Tag Archive for 'chicago'

In Keeping with the Great Tradition of Verbs as Nouns

l_b925b39a5403455cb6091c437477e0c0 In Keeping with the Great Tradition of Verbs as Nouns

From the people who brought you Disappears (well, not people, but city), comes two additional and excellent new groups who eschew the “the” in their project name, go for the jugular, and do it up verb-style. I can usually get behind that.

First on deck is Follows –  a brand new project featuring Mia Clarke of Electrelane on spooky throat duties, Tony Lazzara of Milemarker, Colin DeKuiper of Russian Circles, and Eric Chaleff from bands that I am unfortunately not familiar with. “Black Black Rose” is an excellent primer for the dark territories in which Follows were reared, and reminds me a bit of a stripped down, mid tempo, and frightening Stereolab with a post-rock slant. The unencumbered sonic foreboding and minimal, gnarled, snakey guitar attack within this jam is perfect for a drive though nuclear winter. No full length or EP available just yet – only a demo preview, available for you to check out. The day of reckoning is neigh, so be prepared when Follows rolls up to your town in a horse drawn caravan with survival foods. Fans of Mogwai, Pram, and Indian Jewelry, listen up.

implodes In Keeping with the Great Tradition of Verbs as Nouns

Next, meet Implodes. Just as dark and scary as Follows, with silky swells of fuzz rather than doom-invoking space as their weapon of choice. Think Flying Saucer Attack, but replace the serenity with paranoia. More upbeat than, say, Bardo Pond, but just as terrifying, Implodes put a new spin on shoegaze, keeping the melodies within the Hollow Earth rather than letting them soar like many dream pop bands are wont to do.  So I guess it isn’t just a clever name, amirite? Bad vibes are the new good vibes, and Implodes is spearheading this, along with a very nice budding shoegaze movement coming out of Chicago. Perhaps the Windy City will be the next Thames Valley? Stay tuned to The Decibel Tolls to find out!

Follow Follows amongst the MySpaces here, and Implodes lurk around these parts.

MP3 :::
Follows – Black Black Rose
Implodes –  Meadowlands

Share/Save/Bookmark

Does the Idea of a Panda Riot Give You an Awesome Mental Image, Too?

l_da6f8e3c7ce47a26c1c15648d1fc83f5 Does the Idea of a Panda Riot Give You an Awesome Mental Image, Too?

I make no bones about the fact that I’m a moron. Exhibit M (or wherever we are in this real time demonstration), I start cleaning out my old email, and find a message from October of 2008. That’s Q4 of ‘08. This was during the second Bush administration, mind you. Stamps were 42 cents. Billy Mays was still alive and selling me on cleaning solutions I used on a weekly basis.

Yeah, so that was a while ago. Sorry dudes. Regardless, the message from Panda Riot caught my eye and I checked it out. Liked it very much. Liked it so much that the PR firm that employs me picked them up too (just a full disclosure). Anyway, the Chicago collective gives off a thick vibe blast of second wave dream pop vibes a la The Stratford 4 and The Eaves (though perhaps more informed by Velocity Girl), packed with restrained and hypnotic analog electronic flourishes and sugar siren meets punchy Spector-esque post doo-wop vocals. And their name is Panda Riot. Ya know what I mean:

pandas_rainbows Does the Idea of a Panda Riot Give You an Awesome Mental Image, Too?
But of course they’re on MySpazz, so see about ‘em. Additionally, I’m very happy to premiere this track off their forthcoming EP Far and New.

MP3 :::
Panda Riot – Streetlights and You and Me

Share/Save/Bookmark

Disappears – Another Great Verb-As-Noun Band

disappears Disappears - Another Great Verb-As-Noun Band

Disappears have the Anton Newcombe approach to the music business – give all your shit away on the Intarwebz for free, and worry about sustainability later. I dig that. Since I’ve been meaning to czech out these dudes for a while, it was rather easy. Thanks, guys.

Of course, it would be silly to say that their albums are worth every penny, unless they were majorly a bummer. But I’m happy to report the Disappears clearance special is a helluva deal – I just downloaded all three releases, and they’re really great. I would’ve certainly bought these records – I love this group. I prefer their latest release Live Over the Rainbo, and perhaps that’s a rather telling aspect of Disappears. If you sound best live, you’ve probably got a good group of bros to rock with. The group, out of Chicago, actually reminds me a lot of Louisville’s Invaders (who have a similar name as well – so double association there). Reverb-heavy fuzzy guitars, punchy rhythm, a shoegaze aesthetic, and a touch of retro chic on acid – Disappears are everything that’s great about rock and roll.

Disappears are touring with the Black Angels this fall, and as such, are playing a couple of festivals in the area, including Nashville’s Next Big Nashville (duh) and Lexington’s Boomslang. I reckon I’ll catch them at one of the two, and I reckon you should do the same. Their MySpace has all the dates.

And sweet sassy molassey, you can, as mentioned, grip all their recorded work on the band’s caps lock-heavy blog here! That rules. Disappears rule. I rule. You rule. Everything rules. Except this – that does not rule.

MP3 :::
Disappears – Hearing Things

Share/Save/Bookmark

Update Your Books, Por Favor

vfiles24870 Update Your Books, Por Favor

Mayhaps you’ve noticed that my mailing address listed on the About page has a big ol’ strikethrough across each line. Or mayhaps you’ve noticed that all the Local Action links have completely changed. Astute observers may ascertain that, indeed, Mr. and Mrs. Kenny Bloggins are movin’ on up… or out, or your preferred adverb. We’ve left the Windy City for the River City. Continue reading ‘Update Your Books, Por Favor’

Share/Save/Bookmark

My Bloody Valentine in Chicago – Full Concert Recording

mbvlive2 My Bloody Valentine in Chicago - Full Concert Recording

Alright, as promised, here’s the full set from My Bloody Valentine’s Aragon performance on Sept. 27. Continue reading ‘My Bloody Valentine in Chicago – Full Concert Recording’

Share/Save/Bookmark

A Few Tracks From My Bloody Valentine in Chicago

mbvlive1 A Few Tracks From My Bloody Valentine in Chicago

No need for any commentary here – behold three choice tracks from last weekend’s My Bloody Valentine concert / religious sermon in Chicago. The audio quality is outstanding, so I assume this recording is directly from the soundboard. I plan to have the entire set up soon (probably Monday or Tuesday), so look out for that. That reminds me… yeah, why don’t you subscribe to the Decibel Tolls RSS feed, so you’re the first to know when I unload shipments of awesome on this blog? Continue reading ‘A Few Tracks From My Bloody Valentine in Chicago’

Share/Save/Bookmark

My Bloody Valentine – 9.27.08 – The Aragon, Chicago – Videos and Setlist

mbvlive My Bloody Valentine - 9.27.08 - The Aragon, Chicago - Videos and Setlist

I’m not going to review the My Bloody Valentine show, at least in the traditional sense. Any show review more than a couple of paragraphs long while taking itself very seriously is innately stupid. At that juncture, such writing is fodder-saturated music critic masturbation, an attempt at trying to connect multiple points together and relate them to a particular concert or band when all you’re really doing is trying to show the world how smart you are. Fuck that. Unless it’s the Concert for Bangledesh, a live show is nothing more than a band who wants to rock it out in front of other people besides themselves and their recording engineer. It’s as simple as that. A long review also, statistically speaking, permits the phrase “rocked the [insert venue name]” to rear its ugly dome at some point, which I will not stand for.

So instead, I’d like to stave off the pretense and simply construct a grocery list of thoughts, then provide you with a couple of videos to czech out. First, I want to talk about my day today. How was yours? Well, great, that’s good to hear. Well, mine’s been busy. Besides uploading videos and returning missed calls, I’ve been taking time to learn American Sign Language. Continue reading ‘My Bloody Valentine – 9.27.08 – The Aragon, Chicago – Videos and Setlist’

Share/Save/Bookmark

My Bloody Valentine – 9.27.08 – The Aragon, Chicago

More on their way, probably tomorrow… in the meantime enjoy “I Only Said”.

Share/Save/Bookmark

Two Classic My Bloody Valentine Shows

 Two Classic My Bloody Valentine Shows

As promised earlier this week, here are two classic My Bloody Valentine shows conveniently ZIP archived. These were sent to me by a DT reader and fellow shoegaze ripper. For the sake of comparison, listen to these recordings, then play a track or two from the MBV v2.0 London bootlegs, found here. Virtually no difference, as a “reunion” tour should be (but usually isn’t).

Lookin’ at… lemme see… one month and four days until the Aragon Ballroom in Uptown Chicago is duly leveled. It will be horrible. The National Guard might get called in. Continue reading ‘Two Classic My Bloody Valentine Shows’

Share/Save/Bookmark

Califone – “The Orchids” in Chicago – 8.11.08

Califone played Monday, 8.11.08, at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park in Chicago as part of the Audible Architecture Concert Series and Pitchfork’s Nightclubs at Noon Series. I caught Califone back in November of ‘06 as they were pushin’ Roots and Crowns. Though the show was good, it was held in an art space with little to no heat, the band seemed sorta bummed, and it certainly didn’t hold any weight compared to what they brought Monday (and at lunchtime, no less).

Perhaps it was just the acoustics of the Frank Gehry designed amphitheater, but Califone got better since last time we met. Tim Rutuli’s vocals were at their most melodic and pop-aware, meanwhile the band was increasing their sonic depth before your very eyes, unfurling louder, thicker, trippier soundscapes that were strange even for Califone. Walls of thick ambience, collapsing structures and disjointed melodies, violins, horns, jingly percussion – Califone did not fuck around. Seeing them reminded me of why I like Animal Collective, as in, there were two very disparate forces pulling away from each other at the same time. While one segment of the music moved more into the major key pop realms, the other spun off into a noisy, marshmallowy sea of sine wave shredding psych. Jesus fuck, they were really good. The hippie contingent was out in full force, too, which is always fun to see juxtaposed with all the douchey fasttrack business folk.

califone1 Califone - The Orchids in Chicago - 8.11.08

Continue reading ‘Califone – “The Orchids” in Chicago – 8.11.08′

Share/Save/Bookmark