May New Month Here New Music to Hear

Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera. I was given it as a birthday present for a trip to Japan; its strange how after going without one for so long I cannot bear to have events undocumented anymore.

May’s New Month here was overall one of the best so far in the series. While it didn’t get going until ten I felt that for the most part all the people there were really supportive and a great part of the scene. Up first was Brian Feldcamp playing in the basement along with a keyboardist, who I had seen play with Greg Brown before, as well as Teaadora herself on drums. I had seen Brian a few times before and while his swampy blues covers are not really my thing I especially enjoyed this; Teaadora on the drums really helped to push the temp and make the songs more of an almost punk feel to them. A couple of times I felt like maybe Brian thought about trying to slow it all down but I’m glad he went with it, worked really well.

Moving back upstairs was Vince Aguilar who plays in local hardcore punk band Night Brigade who are pretty big around these parts and played at one of the Warp Tour dates last year. He was playing I guess what you might call folk punk, very impassioned but thankfully not really over the top.

After Vince, who I met and was a really nice guy, finished his set the keyboardist from earlier fucked around on Vince’s guitar and then played a broken Hammond organ that was sitting around. He then went back downstairs to play his keyboard. Teaadora started messing with the output on the mixer and began to rap and sing along. She then went back to the drums and laid down some pretty crazy breakdowns. By far one of the most entertaining and enjoyable sets of the night.

Back upstairs again for Fredericksburg, Virginia based Sacred Harp (Dan'l Bachman) who was making a stop on his tour with Telegraph: Solar Future. He played four songs that were pretty trippy. The first featured him with this pump accordion and a small microphone attached to his throat. Then he brought out a sitar and played that for awhile. I had never actually heard a live sitar before so that was interesting but I enjoyed the two guitar pieces that he played after it the most.

Next, in the kitchen was The Dirty Disaster or something like that which had a guy playing guitar (or was it a bass?), some dude playing random percussion, and a girl singing. The fun thing was that small percussive instruments were handed out, I was given a cowbell, and everyone got to be involved in their set. That way I wasn’t paying so much attention to their jammy music and was focused on hitting my bell.

From then it was back to the basement for Sacred Harp’s tour mate Telegraph: Solar Future (Bret Rushia) a New York based ambient/drone artist. He had a projector set up and played along to a twenty minute visual collage that focused on lots of trippy light effects. I always appreciate when artists do a little something extra. Similar to what Hastas have been doing lately with their videotape collages, it’s much more enjoyable to watch live ambient/noise/drone when there is something more to watch than just someone turning a knob. Some guy came down halfway through and proceeded to talk very loudly for the rest of it. Picked up a CDR, tape, and DVD of the video from Bret on my way out.

Finally, or at least the last set I watched before leaving at 2 AM, was an improvisational set with Kyle Riley, of Hastas, and Jeremy Ross, of Bo Knows. Completely amazing, one of the best of the night. Kyle had the keyboard he’s been playing lately attached to a ton of pedals and was making dreamy, layered noise while Jeremy attacked his guitar playing a jagged rhythmic pattern that eventually seemed to become dreamier as it went on. Similar to Hastas or when I saw My Bloody Valentine, the loudness of the music and the layering makes it all really mix to the point where you wonder if you’re making up the sounds or if they are actually occurring. Picked up a split from Jeremy with his project Bo Knows and The Rebel. Review to come at some point.

Kamikaze Girls

There’s a great Stuff White People Like feature on “yellow fever” or white men’s obsessive attraction to Asian women. Though the subject of my own bouts of yellow fever are the subject of another feature it is only part of what attracted me to Tatsuya Nakashima’s 2004 film Kamikaze Girls.

Browsing the decent collection of mostly foreign films at the library I stumbled upon this and was intrigued by the Asian girl on the cover but not just because of her status as a cute Asian girl, it was because she was dressed in the elegant gothic Lolita fashion (google it but specifically sweet Lolita for this film’s style). I may have some strange elevated arousal because of this but this has mainly to do with my curiosity in all things weird and bizarre and pretty much anything having to do with Japan is pretty bizarre.

This movie too was delightfully bizarre. The film follows Momoko a 17 year old girl into Lolita fashion and incredibly self aware of the complexities of human nature. Despite her fashion driven obsession with Rococo England she is the only one grounded in reality, albeit a very cute and candy colored one. This is an incredibly wacky film similar to something Takashi Miike might do (minus the sexual perversions). For instance, Momoko is walking to the train to Tokyo to go on a shopping trip. Her purpose is questioned by a local guy who then starts to talk about the merits of the Japanese version of Kohl’s to the point where it morphs into an advertisement where all the people standing around join in and prices flash on the screen. There’s also her ex-yakuza father who ran a clothing stall that sells fake Versace cloths.

This part is incredibly ridiculous; the Versace knockoffs sell so well that her father pretty much just puts Versace, which he misspells as Versach, and goes as far to put out fake Versace Universal Studio t-shirts. What made the film work so well is that this wackiness was matched by a variety of visual styles (fairytale, anime, biker movie, even a part that resembles the trippy Mardi Gras scenes in Easy Rider). It’s a testament to the director that these various stylistic changes never felt like too much and all were essential to telling the story.

Along the way she meets a “yanki” girl who is in a motorcycle gang, despite only have a scooter. The girl Ichigo acts like a greaser’s girlfriend but whose fashion resembles something like trench coat pantsuits. Most of the movie goes toward a rather traditional story of the developing bond between the two opposites but the wacky narrative and filmic devices help to ease this a little. I didn’t care as much for Ichigo because she was so over the top and wacky, like all the other characters, that it was difficult to see genuine feeling towards Momoko. Not being able to care about Ichigo made the film suffer but Momoko is such a great character that there is still some enjoyment to be had from Ichigo just by her putting Momoko in such strange situations.

Watching this I kept thinking who the hell is this movie for? Certainly it’s very cute but also quite violent and bloody. Apparently there’s a subgroup of gore Lolita, which further boggles my mind. What would a gore Lolita be interest in? I have no idea although I would certainly like to find out. If you’re a fan of weird cinema this is definitely one to check out though.

8/10

I would post the trailer but the narration makes it seem really stupid. Avoid at all costs. Also seeing Converge tomorrow, which will be the topic of my next blog post.

Jónsi was enjoyable

April 28, 2010
Chicago
The Vic Theatre
Opener: Death Vessel
7:30 PM

Set list:

1. stars in still water
2. hengilás
3. icicle sleeves
4. kolniður
5. tornado
6. saint naive
7. sinking friendships
8. go do
9. boy lilikoi
10. k12
11. new piano song
12. around us
13. animal arithmetic
14. grow till tall

This is my third time at The Vic and once again I was not disappointed; not the prettiest but good visibility and pristine sound that is never pointlessly too loud. Theatre was seconds from the Belmont CTA stop so it was incredibly easy to get to. I met up with a friend from college and took a survey of the stage setup. Several pianos, pump organs, xylophones littered the stage as well as a massive drum kit on one side and another set of more esoteric percussion, including a suitcase that, yes, was sound checked, lay at another end. On both sides of the stage there were these burnt out looking wardrobes and to the back a large, sandpaper colored screen covered the back of stage.

I had a vaguely heard of the name of the opener but had never heard anything by them. I had assumed it was a band but at 7:30 sharp a small Native American looking man came out carrying an acoustic guitar. I was expecting a husky voice to come out but Death Vessel sang beautifully with the voice of a woman. I’m sure that’s why he was selected to open for Jónsi because certainly nothing else was particularly interesting, he sang beautifully over fairly generic coffee house folk songs. He only played for thirty minutes but after awhile it felt like an eternity. For a guy that should be playing in a coffee house he didn’t say very much.

Death Vessel

After half an hour of waiting, Jónsi took the stage, alone in the spotlight with just an acoustic guitar with his percussionist in the back hitting the xylophone once and awhile. Once this new song was over, the set was a good mix of new songs and songs from Go, the rest of the band came out. There four out there with him and they went through an absurd amount of instruments though the majority of the time there was usually someone on guitar, bass, drums, and some key based instrument. Like the last time I saw Sigur Ros when they had no orchestral backing I was a bit apprehensive about the lack of live strings, however the Jónsiband faired much better; the group was still able to have a very full sound and showcased very engaging arrangements that still did justice to the album. In some ways by focusing more on the percussive, it really brought out the importance of drums on the album. Many around me seemed to be skeptical that the drummer would be able to pull of the intense percussion that the songs required but Jónsi’s drummer did not disappoint and played at insane speed throughout the show. They were often trading instruments between songs and what made part of it so great is that Jónsi and his band of effeminate Scandinavian men, except for the muscled drummer, looked like they were having a ton of fun; Jónsi was all smiles throughout the show. The album is incredibly fun and while Sigur Ros can be pretty serious I’m glad that the band was enjoying the evening too, certainly everyone in the audience was in a state of bliss for those wonderful 80 minutes.



What I enjoyed about the first Sigur Ros show, this didn’t apply to the second, was that they make the show an experience and Jónsi’s show upped the ante on the concert experience. Remember those screens and wardrobes I mentioned earlier? Well after the second song these “textbook” pictures of animals appeared but then the screen “caught on fire” and from there on various animations of animals hunting, moving filled the screen. These were projected on the wardrobes as well and the images were often so realistic that it looked like actual creatures were roaming around in there. During this part of the show there was a burnt out forest looking part that took up the right side of the screen and I couldn’t figure out if it was real, behind the screen or what. About halfway through the screen was dropped to reveal the burnt out forest part, which was attached to this warped, melted warehouse looking backdrop. Behind this was yet another screen but this time around images were projected both on the industrial metal backdrop and the screen behind it. The animations here were amazing as well, at one point it was “raining” and the water was rising on the metal screen. What I found especially mind blowing was that the “water” sloshed around while obeying the boundaries of the screen and that the projections were not visible over or through the holes/gashes in the metal. These images or whatever was projected provided a lot of the lighting and just made the show an extra special experience.



The whole performance was so flawless that it’s hard to pick favorite moments; I don’t think I’ve ever heard an audience clap that enthusiastically for any band before. One of the turning points was when they played “Go Do,” the first of the more energetic songs they played from the album. The crowd went insane. It’s hard to think of another time that I’ve been as happy as I was during that song; there’s nothing like that transcendent feeling of when seeing a band play can make all your stresses go away and fill you completely with joy. In a show filled with great moments, the best were the last three songs. The last before the encore was Around Us, which ended incredibly epically. Towards the end of the song Jónsi grabbed this thin mic that had been attached to the side of the mic stand, that he hadn’t touched during the show, and began singing into it. It’s hard to describe but it had some sort of compression on it maybe that gave his voice this faraway, gritty sound. As the Jónsi sang the final melody over and over again, his voice was manipulated and became more and more fractured till the song ended in a flurry of static.

After this the band came out for the encore with Jónsi wearing a headdress and still using the other mic. They jumped right into it with the hyperkinetic “Animal Arithmetic” which wasn’t as fast or manic as it is on the record but was still really enjoyable. Next came the closing song “Grow Till Tall.” Both times I’ve seen Sigur Ros they’ve closed with Untitled #8, one of their most epic songs. In my opinion, a band should always go out with something epic and “Grow Till Tall” fulfilled that role. Starting off with just Jónsi and his guitar the rest of the band lay in wait, obviously ready for the oncoming onslaught. As the drums began to build the onscreen scenery depicted a growing storm that continued to build with escalating levels from the band. This all coalesced into this massive storm of strobe lights and huge sheets of guitar noise that thoroughly decimated my eardrums. The noise ended and the guys returned from a brief retreated offstage and took a couple bows. For having very little audience interaction during the show this was a nice gesture that acknowledged just how special the evening was. They left the stage and Mike Czajkowski and I left with huge grins on our faces.