Chicago, IL
Drove there from B'ton with just Ube in the car with me. Quarantine in effect. I hadn't gone to breakfast with the group either. This was for the best. I didn't really feel like talking much, and I didn't want to darken the general mood further.
We entered Chicago and found the venue with little trouble. Chicago is big. The approaches weren't as fast'n'scary as I'd thought. Like many cool venues, this one was in a poor part of town. If there's one thing this trip has done it's raise the bar for what I've seen and where I feel comfortable going.
The venue was a small art gallery. It was the coolest place I've seen a show so far on this trip. We ran a few errands before things got started and I listened to a baseball game on the radio. It was hot out.
The show was awesome, rivaling Providence. There were fewer people there, maybe 25. It was a colourful group, to say the very least... and that's nothing but good. A noise band opened up... they weren't unlike Torso, except there were something like four of them. An out-of-town band went on next. They played on a smaller stage (actually, the floor), since they didn't have a lot of equipment. This band played well. I was actually pretty inspired watching them, it made me feel a bit better.
Third up was a post-punk-jazz group who completely threw down. I got a shirt. Then another touring band went on. All manners of (edit: a diverse group of eclectic individuals who you might meet in urban America) began to dance with abandon. A drag queen licked the drummer. I think the band fed off the chaos... it was a small but very wild party.
When I saw the two members of the last band, I knew I was in for something interesting. They looked... I want to say something affectionate about their trashy appearance but everything I think of looks insulting in print. Think John Waters' crew. They had kind of a drug-addled take LCELP's style. Very dirty, raunchy lyrics. They didn't even have a keyboard, just taped stuff in the background. Lyrics were read from papers on a music stand. The non-singing band member played hand-held percussive instruments out-of-time. They looked and sounded really out of it. I loved every second. The sheer horribleness of it was so endearing. Music that just crawled out of a garbage heap. Pure gold... why didn't I buy their fucking tape???
That night we crashed above the venue where the promoters lived. A swell couple to join the ranks of the many who've been so good to us during this journey.
It was a long haul to Cleveland the next day, so we had to get up early. If only we knew how much would happen in that one day...
We entered Chicago and found the venue with little trouble. Chicago is big. The approaches weren't as fast'n'scary as I'd thought. Like many cool venues, this one was in a poor part of town. If there's one thing this trip has done it's raise the bar for what I've seen and where I feel comfortable going.
The venue was a small art gallery. It was the coolest place I've seen a show so far on this trip. We ran a few errands before things got started and I listened to a baseball game on the radio. It was hot out.
The show was awesome, rivaling Providence. There were fewer people there, maybe 25. It was a colourful group, to say the very least... and that's nothing but good. A noise band opened up... they weren't unlike Torso, except there were something like four of them. An out-of-town band went on next. They played on a smaller stage (actually, the floor), since they didn't have a lot of equipment. This band played well. I was actually pretty inspired watching them, it made me feel a bit better.
Third up was a post-punk-jazz group who completely threw down. I got a shirt. Then another touring band went on. All manners of (edit: a diverse group of eclectic individuals who you might meet in urban America) began to dance with abandon. A drag queen licked the drummer. I think the band fed off the chaos... it was a small but very wild party.
When I saw the two members of the last band, I knew I was in for something interesting. They looked... I want to say something affectionate about their trashy appearance but everything I think of looks insulting in print. Think John Waters' crew. They had kind of a drug-addled take LCELP's style. Very dirty, raunchy lyrics. They didn't even have a keyboard, just taped stuff in the background. Lyrics were read from papers on a music stand. The non-singing band member played hand-held percussive instruments out-of-time. They looked and sounded really out of it. I loved every second. The sheer horribleness of it was so endearing. Music that just crawled out of a garbage heap. Pure gold... why didn't I buy their fucking tape???
That night we crashed above the venue where the promoters lived. A swell couple to join the ranks of the many who've been so good to us during this journey.
It was a long haul to Cleveland the next day, so we had to get up early. If only we knew how much would happen in that one day...
posted by the baron ash von foolishness at 7:25 PM
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