The Triumphant Women Rearrange the Smiling Sun in the East

OOIOO performed last night to a packed crowd at Chicago's Empty Bottle. I was barely hanging in there as I had only four and a half hours of sleep the night before. No smoking was allowed in the main room of the Bottle, a refreshing glimpse into the future of Chicago bars and venues. After much (bourbon related) delay, the girls took stage and, after some intial technical difficulties, performed a powerful set that did not lose momentum. OOIOO play prog rock in this very subtle, brilliant way. On one hand, their guitarists can barely play their instruments, but they have this sick rhythm section backing them up, and they use tons of stupid sounding effects on everything, and they make it work. A quick qualification: I don't mean they are bad at playing guitar, or don't have any good riffs, just that you can see them struggling to play their riffs, but they do it... barely, which is half the excitement. I left the venue in a beautiful, sleep deprived haze.

mp3s courtesy of the good folks at Thrill Jockey Records.

Part 1 of a Live Set @ the Bottle in 2004
Part 2

P.S. Left-field techno fans: Don't sleep on eYe's 12" remix of OOIOO, its a banger

Hype!

Writing about music I care about takes forever. Writing about bad music is easy because insults come easily on a keyboard. However with music that affects me associations flash by and I get lost in different threads running through my mind. I've tried writing for a couple of music zines before, but I'm terrible with deadlines and end up pissing off my patient editors. Also I hate being subjective; I'd rather stick to listing the facts, and rattling off anecdotes, but writing about music calls for some sort of opinion. But "life without music would be a mistake", and if life demands some sort of account (maybe?), so does music (perhaps?). I also play music, its the most important thing in the world for me. So, tackily, I first offer here some music I've made (yesterday actually). I promise never to do this again.


P.S. Don't listen to this on headphones or shitty speakers, I haven't mixed this at all, and it is super bass heavy for the moment.


Scalpels - Walker/Already There, Man

I ran like a rabbit from the rifles...

On my 16th birthday, from the advice of a friend, I decided to bring a few of my friends to a show at the Black Cat in Washington, DC, instead of having some kind of sweet-sixteen-frilly-party. That night, about 5 of us went to see Velocity Girl, Chisel, and Edsel. Needless to say, this was actually my first indie rock show. Little did I know how in the not so distant future, that Ted Leo became a repetitive figure in my life in college.

I didn’t pick up my first Chisel cd until I was digging through a bargain bin at Borders, and bought it for a few bones. It was '8 am all day'. I gave it a few listens, easily hooked. ‘Looking Down at the Great Wall of China…’ became my jam, despite having a bum out message about not settling down.

I did not end up going to the last two final Chisel shows, however, I did regret it at the time. Ted Leo began to branch off onto his own thing with the early incarnation of The Pharmacists with Jodi from Secret Stars, and James Canty. I remember seeing them at the Black Cat backstage and totally psyched, especially with their long white lab coats and jamming out–but that was the last time I ever saw them in those outfits.

When I finally went to college in Massachusetts, I was super psyched to go to so many shows. I was very excited to learn the first time since I moved there, that Ted was going to play his solo stuff. Man, was I stoked when I got to see him play ‘Dog In Me’… track 2 off '8 am all day'. From then on, every time Ted played a show, I was there… my friends were there. My friend Corey and I followed Ted quite a bit around Boston. I recall at one show at Tufts University where Corey was yelling (in Corey fashion) for Ted to play 'King of Time'. I don’t think he did, but at another (not in Boston), after a few yells... he finally did.

What came after this was Ted Leo and the Pharmacists (sans Jodi) in the middle of junior year. After hearing a preview of the song off ‘The Tyranny of Distance’ called ‘Under the Hedge’, I knew this would be my new favorite album. This was when ‘The Summer of Ted’ happened. My friend Kimberley was visiting a whole lot from Cleveland and this album was on repeat. Kimberley came down to DC while I was back home for college for the summer. We saw Ted Leo and the Pharmacists (Rx) at Fort Reno.

When I came back to Massachusetts the fall of senior year, I heard that Ted would be playing again at the Middle East Club the day I moved back to school. I went there that night only to be disappointed that the show was sold out. I looked over to this kid I know, who had ‘discreetly’ rubbed his hand against a stamp from another person. On top of that, he wrote little ‘x’ in sharpie on it. Apparently it worked, so I tried it. Unfortunately, I got caught for having it on the wrong hand. I was kicked out of the club.

After college, I guess my fascination for Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, and Ted Leo faded away all together. Maybe after the fact I lent ‘The Tyranny of Distance’ to the girl who lived downstairs from me senior year, or maybe that I lent ‘8 am all day’ to a friend and never got it back, so I couldn’t listen to these records like 12 times back to back. I think I just ‘moved on’. I still can’t think about college memories without that damn Ted Leo… and maybe the crappy mosh metal shows I was dragged to.

Tonight is the first time I have listened to this track in 4 years. I downloaded it off one of those free mp3 sites. Go figure.

Anyway, when I first heard ‘Under The Hedge’, I thought it was about heartbreak from a girl he had been with for so long. Then I read an interview with Ted a little later on that the song was actually about love/hate relationships for punk rock and the scene. I still think that’s pretty chill.

Speaking of punk rock, at one point, my friends Zac, Zack and Andy thought it would be the best idea ever to approach Ted and ask him a simple question: ‘Would you like to be in a Citizens Arrest (demo) cover band with us?’

Ted said 'Yes'… however, it never happened. They were going to name the band Colossus.

Ted Leo and The Pharmacists - Under the Hedge

Well I lied and I cheated...

Late December 2006, I came home from CNY to a gift of homemade chocolate chip cookies and Julie Doiron's Woke Myself Up from a dear friend. She later told me that since beginning working for a small record label she now hates music and Woke Myself Up is the only album that has made her happy all year.

I put it on hesitantly. Over the years I've become less and less adventurous, relying heavily on albums I already know and love. Long story short, I love this album and it's become a warm and weepy crutch.

This morning I spent several restless hours rolling around in a bed that I shared with another person for three years. Fading in and out of feverish sleep, I kept hallucinating that he was in the bed still. I woke to Doiron's plaintive "Untitled".

What a bummer.

Julie Doiron - Untitled

hot pants (1971)

The experience that made me want to start this blog in the first place:

I'm coming home from my Tuesday night class on Chicago's Blue Line. On the way into the train station, the first few flakes of snow are melting into my lashes, and Labradford's P is on my mp3 player, and everything seems very soft and delicate. My hands are shoved into my gloves which are in turn mashed into my pockets and my shoulders are hunched up and I am keeping myself safe.

I shuffle onto the train when it comes and sit down and I start to zone out, and all of a sudden James Brown is yelling in my ear: HOT PANTS! SHE DOES THE FUNKY DANCE! (Note: this is not the single version that you may be familiar with. It's the extended version from the remastered version of this classic record - the one with the sick horn bridge about three minutes in and the a capella break.)

This is music about dancing (and, thus, about fucking). It is not Sodom and Gomorrah. It is perfect in its utter lack of pretension, its mix of gutter-thought and (surprising) gender politics, its repetitive complexity-in-simplicity. JB, you may have ceased to make relevant music from the '80s onward, but when you were in your prime, boy, you were unstoppable.

None of my fellow sleepy, well-worn travellers seem to notice that I am being yelled at by a ghost and his rhythm section. I start giggling to myself - a song has completely changed my context, brought the the washed-out subway tile, all blue and grey and rushing by quick-matte, into a strange kind of relief. The band barrels onward for the next four minutes.

The woman beside me is the complete opposite of funk. Everything about her is squinched up, from the elastic band on her beret to her knuckles as she clutches her purse. Everything about her is taut. "Hot Pants" is loose. It is slinky and a little bit sloppy in places.

But it's all right, you know? It's all right. It's always all right. I was born with bass in my hips and sometimes, you know, you do need to use what you got to get what you want. Huh!

James Brown - Hot Pants (She Got To Use What She Got To Get What She Wants)

rewind, fast-forward

There are a good number of us. Chances are that we all made mixtapes with one song, over and over, at some point during our childhoods. We've got sensory memories tagged to songs. We know what proper segues between songs are and are impressed when one goes off smoothly and unexpectedly. We don't dismiss by genre. We listen, we talk, we make, we mouth, we love.

This is not necessarily about musical criticism as we usually know it. This is as removed as writing about music can get from the music industry and its press statements, even though some of us are involved with the generation of said paperwork. This is about the personal experience of listening to music, about pure fandom, about pleasure and discomfort and all the soft grey areas in between.

Welcome.