So Much

There is a small barrage of random events that are going on. For one, I just experienced Baconfest for the second time. From 12 vendors to 60 influential Chicago restaurants, this thing has grown like crazy. Bacon bloody mary's (bacon encrusted rim, bacon vodka, strip of bacon), chocolate bacon topped smoke-flavored ice cream with salted caramel at the bottom tip of the waffle cone, and souvee'd pork-belly over polenta with blue cheese sauce are some of the items that caused me to buckle over after about 30min (pace yourself!). Oh and this isn't just Chicago apparently, it's nationwide per google. I had a hummus/sprout sandwich for dinner.

Next a recent find via Lincoln Hall is their Chicago Rock Stars tour where they go visit various musically important sites with respect to Chicago between 1980 and ~2000. Wilco, the Smashing Pumpkins, Ministry, and Liz Phair. Amongst the Untouchables gangster tour, the haunted tour, and architecture tours this is a welcome addition.

Also at Lincoln Hall on 5May, they are going to have Del Rey (local, modern psych-rock) do the instrumentals to Fantastic Planet, a 1972 Cannes-winning animated film allegory of humanity. What I've seen so far of the original has been well done (think Monty Python for animation). You can watch it in all 8 parts starting with...


Finally, this guy popped in firefox via my friend Mike. Thanks.

Thanksgiving for Thanksgiving

Wow. This was an amazing weekend. Honestly, I think year after year my life gets better and better. You know, I always showcase people from everywhere else and hardly from Chicago. Our local scene is fantastic. All the random house parties, the neighborhood DJ's, the local celebrities, and even the local-turned-national celebrities make my nightlife a true pleasure to live in. Sonotheque is a dream now but my other favorites the Hideout, Smartbar, Logan Auditorium, Debonaire and Empty Bottle are still going strong. Lincoln Hall just opened up, we're getting a Beauty Bar, and the Empty Bottle is opening a new place in Logan Square that has a place to nap? There's a new record store in my hood, I discovered Johnnie's Beef in Elmwood Park, I just ordered two Sergio Mendes and Brasil 65 LP's. Oh, and my roommate is great.

Although I still think Moneypenny together are just ok, divided they conquer my flabbergasted feet. Highlights from the weekend are:
Darkwave Disco DJ's
LA Riots
Rose and her flygirls at Dragonlady Lounge
Mother Hubbard (Chess Hubbard)
Bald Eagle (Chris Baronner)
Willy Joy
Hey Champ DJ's
Million $ Mano (Emmanuel Nickerson) even though he just hosted, he is still tight.


Prime dancing


Woo!

Thanksgiving Chicago

I saw on my clock that it's Friday right now, but it's only just after midnight -- not before. I was worried that I was going to miss LA Riots and my Darkwave Disco dudes at Smartbar. This weekend has quite the compressed schedule into a couple of days. Just a quick calendar rundown now:

Right now I'm missing New Wave night at Neo. All my buddies are tryptophaned out.

Friday

10pm - My friend Mike Biederman is playing at Uncommon Ground.
10pm - NOMO at Schuba's
11pm - LA Riots and Darkwave Disco DJ's at Smartbar.

Saturday

8:30pm - Salt n' Pepa revival at Dragonlady Lounge featuring Rose Perez!
11pm - Life During Wartime at Hideout with Bald Eagle and Mother Hubbard
12am - Dim Mak dance party at Empty Bottle with Steve Aoki, Million $ Mano, Willy Joy, Moneypenny
12am - Nitzer Ebb at Double Door?? Wow.
2am - Neo.

Note that you can also see most of these on the right column. I don't know if anybody ever uses it (as no one ever comments) but chances are that I'll be attempting to show up to them. Be busy, folks!

In the meantime, check out the video. It's a little fetishy, so be forewarned.


Here are some jams to hold you over. I rediscovered a great site called NightMagnets by finding this post. Download everything off of it. (Read it too). Here's a smattering:

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll (James Iha mix)
Empire of the Sun - Standing on the Shore (Cassian Remix)
Datarock - The Pretender (Holy Ghost Remix Radio Edit)

All these foot-stompers should be on a Moneypenny mixtape. Not that I'm keeping my nose up because those pair are really good DJ's, but they should dabble in tunes that aren't just last month's hipster essentials. That was kind of mean; I should take that back... later.

Yo Champ

I really don't know much about the juke-booty house-y jams, but Yo Majesty is pretty tight. I get the feeling you'll be hearing it more and more about town. They already did a feature on it on perezhilton.

Yo Majesty - Booty Clap

The other folk worth talking/blarghing/sharing is Hey Champ from Chicago. They were at the Black Swan weekly wino event in Wicker Park last night, but I only realized it when I walked past and remembered that I didn't RSVP. This song is their winner, but the other one (Face Control) I don't care too much though. I can't take it for what it is only because I feel like I can make the song at home. Seeing as I don't know chord progressions or know how to play the guitar, this song is excellent! (and it's dancey).

Hey Champ - Cold Dust Girl

Post-Lolla

Apres a storm, my internet was down and I feel slightly guilty doing this at work.
Comparing my desires before going to Lollapalooza versus the shows I actually saw, there was some severe discrepancy (mostly due to laziness and a guy).

Friday
The Kills - I'm sure the comparison can be made to the White Stripes, but beyond the guy-girl hard(er) rock duo similarity, I prefer the WS. I thought these guys were ok, and I think that the lady's hotness makes up a lot of that. I think the fact that they used a drum machine soured the show for me. I could probably stand them being the opener for someone else like...
Mates of State - who were excellent. Perhaps familiarity with these guys got the best of me, but they are talented for sure. The backing strings only helped their cause of aural excitation.
Bloc Party - I don't know why this show wasn't that memorable. Was it my general lack of recollection skills? Was it the audience around me's apathetic attitude? To their credit, the didn't play Banquet (man, I used to love that song!) (Tim says they did) but they did play Helicopter which seems to always be a winner for me. Honestly, I can't get excited about a band if the folks around me aren't going nuts for them. Maybe I should just close my eyes the next time. You know what's terrible? Every time I see Kele Okekere's face
I can't help but remember that he's gay. I wish I was more accepting of the fact or with that I never knew, but I remember a time where I was listening to his music and that's all I would think about. I wish my innate homophobism would just vaporize. The guy is so cool!
Radiohead - From Innerview "...At this point, what more can be said about Radiohead that hasn't already been said? They suck?" That was an excellent show. I only wish that they didn't split up the screens so the folks in the back could see what was going on.

Saturday
Spank Rock - Dirty! I wished he MC'd more. I wish the crowd loved that ghetto shit more. Amanda Blank's hotness was just right, although I always imagined her to be black. I was jumping up and down for sure. I need to go find more of his stuff because I just have YoYoYoYoYo and Amanda on the Diplo Dub mix.
Broken Social Scene - Worth napping to.
Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - Worth dancing to. She is really entertaining. I find it very impressive how tight the band is with her. I don't know how much they practice or what hidden cues they use to do certain things, but it was flawless. After inviting a guy to come on stage after saving him from security, this random dude came up to dance and she said something to the effect of "You can't just walk into my house without being invited!" and the band didn't miss a beat.
DJ Momjeans - You know, something about celebrity DJ's just doesn't work. Maybe it's the fact that they aren't actually DJ's. After a poor transition one time and hitting the volume knob accidentally another (within 3min) I walked away.
Wilco & Rage - I don't like Wilco and I don't like RATM, but here I am saying that I saw them.

Sunday
What Made Milwaukee Famous - I stayed only halfway to see what it was all about. Not very memorable, but maybe I'll hear them some more on the myspace. I really wanted to see Octopus Project but I got there too late.
The Office - I was actually expecting to see the Weakerthans, whom Innerview had some good things to say about, but these guys showed. I think their cd is alright, but their show is lacking.
Tally Hall - Best new band I saw. They are young and have a young following (oh man i'm old). They can wail on guitar, they have sweet hair, they can sing, and they have a gimmick (different colored skinny ties). They reminded me of Weezer but without the 90's feel. I heard a riff they nicked from the Beatles, but the crowd loved every minute of it. I don't know if they have a suburban following, but I could be persuaded to get in line.
Chromeo - Yeah, while seeing them I remembered why I liked their Coachella show so much: I got there at the end when they played their two hits. I think it's safe to say that if I had to choose between seeing chromeo and playing Uno...
(nap)
Franki Chan - This guy knew what he was doing for sure. If you see the founder of iheartcomix ever in town, go see him. He's got a mix cd through Scion right now that is pretty good.
Girl Talk - I think I saw this guy at Coachella. He kills. I noticed that he's a little cheap on the effects (TP and leaf blowers, and glitter) and equipment (a laptop and a midi interface), but he can work the crowd. Someone give this guy some more money! He deserves it! He got like 40-50 people on stage going at it, crowd surfed, danced, glitterized; yup, it was a good show.
(That's it.)

Lollapalooza

This weekend will complete my holy trinity of music fests. Coachella, Pitchfork, now this guy. The whole schedule is here, but here is my route:

-Friday-
Black Lips
Willy Joy
Yeasayer
Million $ Mano / Cat Power
Bloc Party / CSS
Radiohead

-Saturday-
Devlin & Darko
MGMT / Devotchka
Spank Rock
Uffie / Lupe Fiasco
Sharon Jones
Wilco (lawn)

-Sunday-
Octopus Project / Office
Kid Sister
....
Chromeo
....
Flosstradamus
Kanye West

Even if you can't make it, look on the left at 'Coming Up' and you'll see a bunch of shows that will be in the around town.

Canasta, but not the game

Back in high school, I used to play Canasta on the computer versus other people online while listening to the Prodigy. More recently, I heard these guys on WLUW. I have tons of little slips of paper and business cards with random songs I hear on the radio, but normally I don't really act upon actually seeking them out mostly because I wouldn't know where to look and I'm not getting a whole album for a single.

However, I told a guy at work before he left to "slow down" today and I was reminded of this song. Good ole hypemachine pointed me in the right direction and here it is:

Canasta - Slow Down Chicago

This is a song that runs counter to my general electro/dance habit, but I like it (probably because it's indie pop). I see that the link points to their site if you want more information.

P.S. Do-Division is this weekend if you're into the 1900's, Ted Leo, or Mucca Pazza. I think they have lots of food too.