When the Sky is Full of 0’s and 1’s
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Animal Planet A Panda Video Cam

i want a panda…

This is the first year we have lived here where the Nov 2nd heat lamp turn on date has come and I haven�t really needed it. Usually, I push the button fruitlessly somewhere in mid October cursing the CTA for not having a rule that is Nov 2nd or when the temp is below 40°F. Part of this is due to the fact that I was still riding my bike to the train during the month of October, which I only did because it didn�t feel like October. It really has been unseasonably warm here. This is really brought to my attention over this wonderful 3-day weekend I took. On Friday, Kirstie and I took a trip down to the Art Institute of Chicago, stopping for some Dunkin� donuts coffee and treats. Being that it was so nice out we walked over to the park that is next to the gallery and finished our coffee and watched the filming of a �improvisational film�. Not exactly sure what that means but from what we saw transpire it sure did look interesting. The gallery wasn�t to crowded yet, it was still early, so we walked around in relative peace. While Kirstie went searching for the bathroom I was able to fully enjoy some of my favorite pieces, Rothko and Cylford Still, for an extended period. This was not without interruption while various couples, tourists, and families came through and pronounced, �what is that?�, and �I could do that!�. I agree the works are simple, but deceptively so. The smoothness and gentle wash of color in Rothko work is not easy to reproduce, and the large scale Still�s I equate to the sculpting of Mt Rushmore. Afterward, we took the �L� over to UIC area and ate at our favorite greasy spoon called �Greektown�. The food here is non-descript fast Greek food but it holds a special place in our hearts because it was where we took shelter one very cold day in december during our first trip to Chicago. We were starving and cold and it was cheap and warm. Some say love at first sight. We usually get the vege-pita and Greek fries and try to get a spinach pie, which usually sells out early in the day. Friday was our lucky day and they still had 4 left. We ate up stairs in the same booth we have always eaten in. It was a nice day spending time in sentimental places in Chicago.

So much for starting this in the hopes that it would force me to post more regularly. Think of it as 2 weeks on 2 weeks off. But, even so I picked and recorded this 7 inch last week. Oh well, it’s not like anyone is reading this anyway. On with this weeks 7 inch. It comes from those wonderful spaz-rock san fransicians Deerhoof and is titled The return of the wood m’lady . Had the price sticker not had deerhoof written on it I would have skipped right over this sleeve:

(Apologies for the poor quality, I should really get a scanner) Its hard to see but in the bottom picture there is a small bubble that states the band and title of the 7 inch. Other secrets revealed on very close inspection is a thank you list, random strings of words, info that it was recorded at kzsu, and the statement that deerhoof are interested in doing soundtrack work for films or plays. If there were to be a play set to the 3 songs on this 7 inch it would have to be a very dark and spooky horror film, with great acting and plot written by David Lynch. I said 3 songs, but only 1 song per side. Its a riddle. No! Always looking for new tricks, Deerhoof has recorded 2 songs on the second side, one in each channel. Its really tough to describe each song, so all I will say is all 3 songs are nothing like what I have heard from them before. The songs slide toward the free jazz/noise arena, showing deerhoof in a loose and atmospheric form. Luckily, I have done the work for you and split each channel of the second side into separate tracks. So here they are. Enjoy

ishi sister [side 1 stereo]

sunbug deergod [side 2 left channel mono]

knew knees [side 2 right channel mono]

As a disclaimer, I make no money off this blog. These posts are purely fun. If you are in the band that I have put up here and dont want to be here. Post a comment or email me “cinchel @ gmail dot com” . No hard feelings, I will understand. Thanks

I spent the whole week looking forward to this show. How often is it that you get to see a band that has traveled all the way from Africa for the first time. According to this page they have been making music like this in the area between the Congo and Angola for 25 years. The album is a great piece of work and does the best job one could expect for capturing this music on tape. This really is something that has to be experienced live for full effect.

The Eternals opend the show. They are a 3 peice from right here who’s music spans the distance between funk/pop, hip-hop and synth. A fun band, the lead singer was very captivating, a definite showman. Though, the 2 guys backing him up could have been a bit tighter, the set was enjoyable and got the crowd ready for Konono no. 1.

Konono no.1 played over 2.5 hrs with no more then a total of 5 minutes of down time. The main instruments are really the 3 make-shift amplified likembés (lead, middle and bass) which create a fast and unique rhythmic melody while a snare drum, beat up car hub cap symbol, 4 homemade cowbells, and 2 large hand drums form the real foot moving, hip shaking poly-rhythms. There was one male lead vocalist and one of the likembé players and a woman also sang in a call and response style. Now I know its a bit cooler in Chicago then it would be in their native land, but I was still shocked to see the lead singer wearing a full winter coat for the first 20 minutes or so, the woman wore a bright orange wool ski cap the whole time, and the manager who I could see running around in the background also wore a heavy winter coat indoors. They brought all their instruments, even the to large cone speakers, but rented guitar amps for the likembés which sounded really good. The only sound problems were some squealing microphones which I point toward a lazy sound guy, which didnt distract from the music to much but seemed to bother one of the members on stage quite a lot. Other wierdness included a woman jumping up on stage about 1 hr in and putting dollar bills on each member of the band, while they were playing. She was escorted off stage but not before dancing with the lead singer for a few seconds. A completely engrossing evening, one I am sure will not be repeated for a long time.

so�I have upgrade the ram in my ibook. After watching memory prices most of the summer bounce between 100-200 dollars and kicking my self for not getting it when it was at 100, I jumped on the price of 117 that newegg was selling it for. What is strange is that it was crucial ram, and the same chip from crucial was 197. I guess newegg got a deal, but all the while I worried that it was mislabeled and that when it arrived it wouldn�t work. It came (quickly) and I did all I could to not put it in immediately, but we had to go to the broken social scene show. Once we got back from that I started opening my ibook and removing the airport card. Now, I knew there were 4 little screws that held the cover of the ram compartment but I figured that somewhere in my tool box I had a screw driver that would fit it. WRONG! Well then I will go out tomorrow (sat) and got to the nearest hardware store and get some jewlers screwdrivers. Easier said then done, it took to ace hardware stores and a bit of serendipity but I found a small kit. Went home and thankfully the set had the perfect fit. Popped it in and booted back up, ran memtest to check for bad blocks and what not. No problems and I am now much happier with this ibook. Things like word and garage band open more quickly, and in reguards to garage band it hasn�t complained about not having enough memory to play certain tracks, which it did when I tried to do to many things at once.

In preparation for their headlining show next week (they have done 2 opening spots here, once with the dears sans a drummer and once with the kings of Leon which I took a pass on) I am obsessively listening to this album and their earlier ep. When I first heard this at the record store I didnâ��t really think much of it. On first blush a uptempo pop album with a few mellow bits. On further listening (helped by the fact that Kirstie would play this album over the summer sometimes 100 times in a row) the jangle of the guitars, the unique twang of Adamâ��s voice, and the pureness of it really dug into me. If one pays close attention to the lyrics youâ��ll hear something much deeper and introspective than the typical pop songs of for example the strokes. Without melancholy he sings songs of wanting a girl back, of taking chances to break out of his shyness, â��im so happy so happy/then again Iâ��m always so sad/ and I can’t hide the tears in my eyes /that night we never hadâ��. The sadness is further buried beneath layers of guitar, horns, fuzzy keyboards, drums and an always-present tambourine. It always surprises me which bands attract attention and which donâ��t. Clap your hands, say yeah have sold out venues all over, in a large part due to a certain websites review, while that same site kinda panned these guys. To me each band is equally great and both deserve to be heard by a lot of people. Surprisingly this show next week is not sold out yet, and while the DD is a larger space then schubas, I think they should easily fill it. Atleast in my crazy world where great bands get the crowds they deserve.

Well I am glad I am not alone, seems like somebody beat me to a much better review of them.

Sunday night shows are not the toughest to do but the bands involved need to be well worth the trip. Calla alone would have warranted going (and when I bought the tickets, were the only band listed) so The Celebration was a nice bonus. Boxstep opened the evening and Eric Graf is a newly transplanted Chicagoian from Pittsburgh. He gathered together a great little group; pedal steel/guitar, bass, drums with him on a second guitar. His first song really struck me as Dylan-esqe, a slow meandering vocal delivery of words that you could almost hold. For these first few songs it was 2 guitars, which slowly lost its appeal with me, as the songs were also becoming very samey. Once the second guitarist switched over to the pedal steel I was really mesmerized, not that the songs had gotten particularly better but the guy on pedal steel was a sight to behold. He was very gentle and plucked out some beautiful melodies at times making me forget that there was a vocalist I should be paying attention to. All in all a fairly straight-ahead country/blues band that has some potential.

The Celebration were up next, and from the write-up in the reader I was surprised Rob Lowe was not doing sound (being that the Celebration�s first record was produced by one of the members of TV on the Radio and that Lowe is very closely connected to them) Well after one song who walks in all in a rush and immediately starts dancing, none other than Mr Lowe. I can�t blame him either, she was captivating, possessed even. The record does not do them justice, live they are much more interesting. The organ riffs shake the floor while the lead singer Katrina Ford moans, and shrieks like a banshee. Definitely channeling the spirit of Sioux while morphing it through a more current filter. More punk, more gloom, and lots of danceable beats. They played the entire album but I barley recognized it, it was so fast and alive. Don�t pass them up in a small venue, they wont be playing them for long.

Where The Celebration came out all in black and played gothic punk, Calla came out dressed fairly typical but had all the lights turn down low and played a dark shoegaze rock. The songs on the album come off atmospheric and dark with touch of pop. Live he strips away any sense of restraint he had in the studio and really lets the songs do what they want with him. He played guitar as if it was possessed, or doing a waltz with it in the lead. While the songs could lead to long drawn out waves of sound, they did a good job of keeping the songs confined and interesting, not letting noise parts overtake the lyrical content of the songs. In some ways they did this too well, and I felt the set could have been a little longer. They did come out and do an encore that consisted of a cover of Eno�s �Neddle in the Camels Eye� which was pretty good. Not as many people in attendance then I thought should have been, but it was a Sunday and getting kinda late. Here�s to hoping more people catch on.

First off let me say how happy I am to finally be able to hear which is partly related to this show. Yes it was loud but, I wore earplugs to protect myself, and so my lake of hearing in one ear the rest of the weekend was not due to tinnitus but do to not cleaning out my ears well enough before going out. Thus, the earplugs lodged a piece of wax deep into my ear that took all weekend for me to finally clean out. Bad idea,
We get there a little after the doors open, but being sold out there are already a decent number of people there and all the prime balcony spots are taken, sending us to the floor by the pa speakers on the left. Feist took the stage promptly at 9pm. Her set was similar to the one she played at schubas just about a month ago. In the month space she has further improved her live set to the point that the actual CD seems like a completely different band. Live the songs are more rocking while her voice is even more angelic. Where the CD hints upon bitterness and betrayal, her live set nails it home. In front of the large crowd she really hammed it up. What is it with Canadians, they must have a program in their public schools that teach stage banter and crowd engagement. She picked out 2 mimes in the audience (it was the Friday of Halloween weekend so people started dressing up) and even informed us that Ron Sexsmith was following her around on this tour. If I had the time that Sexsmith has, and if Fiest was covering one of my songs on tour, I would see all the shows as well. Heck I want to see more of her live shows anyway, maybe she can get a residency at Schubas, or the Hideout.

Most of Broken Social Scene�s gear was on stage so change over was fast. The moment of truth, who was going to be in the band tonight. Would we get Amy from the stars (as we did during Intonation) or maybe Emily from Metric, would Feist join them since she was there, would there be horns? So many questions. At first it was similar to the band from the summer, members of Do Make Say Think on horns and guitar, the guitarist from Apostle of Hustle, but since the first few songs were just Kevin on vocals it was still a mystery. The set started of loud and dense, much of it coming from the newest album which shows Broken Social Scene at there most Sonic Youth and Pavement like. Live the guitars are not as tight as the horns and rhythm section are, but they make up for that in sheer volume and overall fun. Again they must have also taken advantage of this mystical public school class, at times telling jokes, informing us how much of an honor it was to play the Metro, and praising our local music (and bashing it a bit as well, in jest) The first songs with females vocals brought out a woman by the name of Lisa (who�s last name o sounded like Leob but she didn�t look like that pop singer from a few year back �) Yes, Feist came out as well to sing the songs that she does on the new album, at the end of one her and Kevin started dancing. There was also a female violinist for about 45% of the songs, which added a nice touch to the already dense sound. All night you could see the glimmer in Kevins eye, he looked truly happy to be playing for us and with the band he assembled. In fact all of them looked happy and seemed to be enjoying the crowd and each other. I find this really important; in this time of manufactured bands going through the movements I start to get depressed. �Is this band doing this stage act the same every night or are they truly improving for us?� Now I know and understand that setlists are usually the same each night, which will lead to some of the same inside/band jokes, but interspersed with, as I mentioned previous, they showed a bit of themselves. Music collectors, honored to bring enough of a draw to play a club they once thought only a dream. This enthusiasm was further displayed in the very long set, with encore they clocked almost 2 hours of music. I am sure they didn�t want to stop as much as we didn�t want them to, but rules being what they are clubs have to close, and Kevin probably could use the break, he mentioned feeling under the weather and started the show drinking tea.