Maybe they're too nice . . .

This just in: Ryan Adams hates Minnesota!

Here's another sort of random event coming up on Saturday, October 13: The Macy's Day of Music at the Symphony Center, which features free performances by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as well as Tortoise, Mucca Pazza, Branford Marsalis, and a similarly eclectic lineup.

TMT Drunken News-a-Thon

Over at Tiny Mix Tapes, in honor of the fact that we're moving over to real-time news instead of a static four stories a day, the newswriters have decided to "celebrate" by getting totally wasted and then writing their news stories, which are being posted throughout the rest of the week. Some of the writers appear to be better able to handle their liquor than others.

Last night's show is up now for downloading, with new music from Liars, Dirty Projectors, M.I.A., Jose Gonzalez, etc. I've been training a new DJ for the past couple weeks, and she takes over the last 1/2 hour of my set; she'll also be taking over my entire show next week as the final test of her new DJ-ness, so I'll be off until the 8th. Enjoy!

Band Crash

Chicago band Oh My God got into a rather serious car accident this weekend, forcing the band to cancel its current tour. Thankfully all members came out ok, but they do have a variety of injuries that will make it impossible for them to play any instruments for awhile. More emerging details here.

Bonde de Role w/ Juiceboxxx @ the Empty Bottle, 9/21/07

Bonde de Role
Originally uploaded by Nicolemc99

After a long week of work, there was certainly nothing better to raise one's spirits than the combination of Bonde de Role and Juiceboxxx. Their high-energy, at times absurd and totally instrumentless performances made for an extremely fun Friday night at the Bottle.

I almost had the opportunity to see Milwaukee rapper/DJ/producer Juiceboxxx a few years ago in Madison, which is funny to me now because he must have been about 17 at that point (his myspace page claims he's 21, which is sort of hard to believe upon seeing him). But he's been plugging away during these past four years, getting enough attention to earn a spot touring the country with Bonde de Role, which isn't half bad for a youngin' from a city not particular known for its music scene. I wasn't sure what to expect from this kid, but I have to say, he knows how to get a crowd going. After watching him crawl behind the curtains lining the back of the stage, he let us listen to the Boss' "Born to Run" in its entirety before bouncing out amongst the streamers and balloons that draped the stage and breaking out some pretty catchy rap. His short set had him running from the stage, through the crowd, onto the amps, all the while leaving those at the front of the stage to untangle themselves from the web his microphone cord was weaving. At one point the members of Bonde de Role were enjoying themselves at the front of the stage, throwing more streamers at Juiceboxxx and generally enhancing the spectacle of it all. I had been feeling pretty tired before coming to the show, but Juiceboxxx's energy was infectious, and I left his set pretty pumped for the craziness Bonde de Role was sure to bring to the stage.

Needless to say, the Brazilians did not disappoint. After taking a good half hour to "set up" (i.e. bring a laptop and some water onto the stage), Rodrigo got behind the computer and MCs Pedro and Marina came on stage, bit into some fake blood capsules and got the show started, their aggressive vocals competing over the baile beats. I'll admit I've never really taken the time to get into Bonde de Role's music, but that certainly wasn't necessary to have a good time; their music was fun and their stage presence spunky, with Marina's legendary raunchy dance moves at the forefront of their antics. I suppose if you don't play any instruments, it's best to have some way of entertaining the crowd, and having Marina grind her head into Pedro's crotch is definitely one way to do that. But while in some cases that might have annoyed me, Marina was so ridiculously adorable that seeing her rip off her shirt while making some of the ugliest faces I've ever seen a woman make was almost a welcome contrast.

Several of their songs featured the trio rap/sing/screaming over well-known tracks like "Shook Me All Night Long," "The Final Countdown" and even "Summer Nights" from Grease, which were overall pretty hilarious. Meanwhile, each song also seemed to have some sort of theme, and at one point we were allowed to vote on which we'd want to hear next: the Love Song, the Heavy Metal Song, the 90s Grunge Song (Heavy Metal won, though it was hard to distinguish what made it any more "heavy" than their other songs). Being in the front row proved to be a bit dangerous, as Marina had a tendency to spit on everyone in front of her; luckily she had poured enough water on herself to wash most of the fake blood out of her mouth first. After a thwarted attempt to get audience members to come on stage and dance, Marina came down into the audience and got her groove on with some of her rabid fans. By the time the encore was over, Marina was soaking wet on the floor and Pedro had drawn real blood after Marina accidently punched him in the mouth while trying to jump him. I think that's a sign of a succesful show.

I'll probably never go out and buy a Juiceboxxx or Bonde album, but there's no doubt that they both put on a ridiculously fun show; not a bad way to spend a Friday night, that's for sure.

Check out the photoblog for my pics from the show!

Intonation Returns

Here's an interesting event at the MCA that is sponsored by "Intonation Festival LLC", whatever that means: a quality line-up of local artists throughout the day on October 7 to celebrate the exhibition Sympathy for Devil: Art and Rock and Roll since 1967, featuring Califone, Flosstradamus, the 1900s, the Poster Children and more.

Chemical Brothers 9/21 NYC

The Chemical Brothers put on a magnificently mind-blowing show at the Hammerstein Ballroom last night. They started right off with the climax of "Galvanize" and the packed crowd went ballistic. A nearly 3 story LED screen projected everything from psychedelic tunnels, freakish clowns, dancing British police silhouettes, and architectural blueprints to churches all perfectly in sync to the music. The set never missed a beat. Some highlights did include a remix of "Out of Control," a harsh, unexpected reworking of "Believe," and live, soulful instrumentation for "Das Spiegel." All the favorites, "Block Rockin' Beats," "Chemical Beats," "Golden Path," and "Star Guitar," sounded as good as ever. The only thing missing was "Salmon Dance."

The Bohemian Playboy, DJ Alex English, and I wandered off to a Metric/Crystal Castles afterparty in the Lower East Side afterwards. Backstage, I knocked a beer on a fog machine and almost mixed my drink with cleaning solution. Crystal Castles are pretty good djs.

DJ Lazer
NYC

Bloggy

So annoyingly, accordingly to Blogger the place I used my blog design from is no longer hosting that particular design, which is why it went all "1996" on me. I've got a temporary Blogger design for now until I have time to play around and find something new.

Mark

I've always known that I work in a boy's club by day (the business world) and a boy's club by night (the music industry). Here's a post on Pandagon, with a reference to another post by Gawker, that talks a bit more about the issue of women (or lack thereof) in music criticism. Interesting that neither blog is actually a music blog.

Simian

Pitchfork made it to SMD last night; their comments and pictures here.

Lloyd Dobler

So in the biggest bummer ever, I didn't make it to Simian Mobile Disco last night due to a work dinner going absurdly late . . . boo! I bet it was a great show too. So I'll have to wait to get my dance on until this Friday with Bonde de Role.

But in totally unrelated news, I've been in Chicago for three years hoping to one day run into John Cusack . . . finally saw him last night at Hugo's Frog Bar! Some of the people I was at dinner with were from Europe and didn't know who he was, and when they asked what movies he'd been in lately, I frankly couldn't think of anything except that awful-looking "Must Love Dogs" movie . . . but we'll forgive him for the pure genius that was "Grosse Pointe Blank."

M.I.A.

So overall I'm really enjoying the new M.I.A. album, and though I'm not sure this was the intended reaction, I sometimes find myself laughing out loud. Am I not the only one who finds "Jimmy" hysterical? I understand it's a cover of some old Bollywood song, but it sounds like Abba, and every time M.I.A. sings "Jimmy" followed by some sort of "Hot-cha" in the background, I lose it. Also, I enjoy the fact that "20 Dollar" sort of covers New Order and the Pixies. She is so random.

Show, Shows

I've got a sub for my show tonight, so you'll have to wait until next Monday for more radio fun. Meanwhile, I got a couple good shows coming up this week, including Simian Mobile Disco tomorrow and Bonde De Role on Friday, both at the Empty Bottle. Two dance-tastic shows in one week! So hopefully I'll get some pics and reviews up over the next few days.

We were only freshman . . .

Let's hear it for this month's 90s throwback additions to the show calendar: Blind Melon at the Double Door, Tuesday October 16!

And let's not forget about The Verve Pipe at the Double Door, Saturday December 15 and the Wallflowers at Park West on November 7!

PBJ show moved . . .

The Peter, Bjorn and John show on 9/25 has been moved from the Riv to the Vic . . . did they overshoot on expected ticket sales or something? The Clientele will be opening.

Dan Deacon @ the Hideout Block Party

After the debacle that was Dan Deacon's set at the Pitchfork Music Festival, I was both excited about getting a second chance to see him at the Hideout Block Party and nervous that seeing him at another outdoor festival would mean more of the same. To be sure I'd actually be able to see him this time, I got there extra early to make sure I'd be up close. Luckily, the 4pm time slot meant the festival was still reasonably empty, and there was only a small group of people standing around the table with two speakers that was set up on the ground in front of the south stage. After noticing no one seemed to be standing behind the table yet (and being told it was ok to do so), I got myself a nice spot standing directly behind Dan (which explains why most of my pictures are of his back!). Already, things were looking up.

As the crowd grew, Dan wandered over to finish setting up in all of his neon glory, with his trademark large red glasses taped around his balding head and a bright yellow tie-dyed shirt tucked into black cut-off shorts. After a short intro by the omnipresent Tim Tuten, Dan pointed up on stage to the guy who would be watching over the crowd making sure everyone was safe, an obvious response to the fact he had to end early at Pitchfork due to problems with the large crowd crammed in the small space. His services weren't needed, however, as the crowd proved to be able to have fun and be respectful of everyone's personal space at the same time.

Dan started us off with some stretching to "Under the Sea," then proceeded to have the crowd countdown from 45 (numbers 34 to 10 to be done silently while leering at a stranger in the crowd) before finally kicking off with "Okie Dokie" from this year's Spiderman of the Rings. The best part of actually seeing Dan Deacon this time around was watching him dance while he played his little keyboard and twisted the random knobs; his whole body sort of jiggles in a way that made me think of lemon jello.

I didn't recognize a lot of the songs Dan played, as only a couple of them were from Spiderman, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. Seeing him outdoors was clearly different than what his typical late-night show would entail, in part because he apparently has some effects that only work in the dark, but mostly because, as Dan said, "the crowd is usually belligerently drunk". I've been saying I'd like to see his legendary performance space shows, but something tells me they might border on out of control (anyone who may have gone to the AV-Aerie show later that night can confirm it for me?), and I'm getting too old for that- I'd rather just jump up and down in my own space and not have sweaty people ramming into me. Apparently, everyone else agreed; it was fun standing behind the set-up and looking out at the ridiculously happy faces of all the fans in the audience (are faces at all concerts always that jubilant, or was it just faces at Dan's? Something to think about . . .).

Dan threw in some more audience involvement activities, including having two lines of people form a "gauntlet" with their arms that audience members would have a "strut-off" through, which also gave some people in the back the opportunity to move up front when the space cleared out a bit. I guess it's easy (or maybe necessary?) to coordinate these sorts of games when the majority of your music is coming out an iPod.

Overall, Dan is fun, hilarious and original, and I'm glad I finally got to actually experience his show the way I'd been hoping to two months earlier.

Night Falls Over Kortedala

I'm not sure I'm able to get into Jens Lekman. He might be too "theatrical" for me. Sort of like Patrick Wolf. But they both still might be worth seeing live; Jens is coming to Logan Square Auditorium November 2.

More Dan Deacon News

Apparently Dan had something stolen from him at his AV-Aerie show after the Block Party. Bizarre.

Dan Deacon @ the Hideout Block Party, 9/8/07

Dan Deacon
Originally uploaded by Nicolemc99

Pics from the great Dan Deacon show (finally!) at the Hideout Block Party are up now. More of my thoughts on the show in the next day or two.

I-Blah

I'm sort of underwhelmed by the news of this new I-Pod Touch. It's just an I-Phone without the phone- what's the point? It only has 16 gigs of storage and costs the same as an I-Phone.

More here.

No duh

Some study says rock stars are more likely to die young. Big shocker.

Fundraiser

CHIRP (the Chicago Indie Radio Project) has a fundraiser next Sunday at the Finch Gallery, above the Fireside Bowl at 2648 W. Fullerton. The dance party featuring "future former" WLUW DJs starts at 7pm, and there's an open bar. Check out the flier here.