It is the first Friday of the month, so that means I will be curating the music within the walls of the Old Oak Tap this evening. It's supposed to be a relatively nice evening, so come on out and enjoy it before the weather turns icy and you find yourself hunkered down on your couch with only the television (and possibly your partner if you have one / if they can still stand you after months of cabin fever) as company.
As usual I have a truckload of new stuff, alongside about three semis of classic faves, so you know the music will never be predictable.
BONUS: The great thing about Old oak? Not only are the tunes good, but the food is excellent*, and the beers are many. So come on down, nosh a bit if you so desire, and then stay the evening for camaraderie set to a wonderful soundtrack.
So I've got this thing where I force myself to do at least one post a day during the week. I've been doing it for years, and it helps keep the gears churning, even in dry periods. I am currently not in a creatively dry period, but I am in the middle of a time-strapped stretch.
So yes, you've seen more photos and videos and less words. Why is that? Well, GalPal and I have been searching for a new apartment, and that has been incredibly draining. We spent weeks combing Logan Square and had it narrowed down to two promising properties until last Sunday when a dark horse suddenly entered the race. A friend of ours knew of a 2-story coach house, plus basement, that we would have all to ourselves, that was suddenly available. The only downside? It wasn't in Logan Square, it was in Bucktown.
I had reservations about living in Bucktown, as did GalPal. For my part, I spent a lot of time there in 1994-1998 when it was decidedly less friendly. Danny's was a house party gone punk, the Blue Note was on Armitage, and walking at night without heavy attitude was strongly discouraged. In fact I've spent my whole Chicago life living in the edgier, hipper parts of town, and the prospect of moving to somewhere as, well, safe as Bucktown is now seemed to go against the grain, at least for me. I mean I have a reputation to uphold, right?
Then again, I've spent almost two decades in edgy areas, and maybe it's not so terrible an idea that I could walk to and from the train without having to constantly check over my shoulder or adopt a swagger and up my guard when a crew of kids suddenly appears in my path. Maybe moving to an area with strollers and families would be O.K.
Then other things popped up. We'd be within walking distance of dozens of restaurants, train distance of hundreds of restaurants, and, here's an important one, there's a neighborhood bar around the corner that is dog -- and especially beagle -- friendly. And a huge fenced in park that a certain beagle could run around in. And did I mention we'd have a house to ourselves ... for less than the apartments in Logan Square we were looking at were asking for?
So yeah, sorry the content has been of the more skimmable sort recently, but GalPal and I were busy finding our dream home for the next few years! We can't wait to move in.
This photo was taken on the way home from Chuck's last birthday party, but I'm pretty sure we were listening to Kelly Clarkson so it could've been taken last week.
Yup, you got it ... Marcus and I are in fact 13-year-old girls.
I was going to run this as a Diversion on Chicagoist, but I guess we ran it over the weekend a few months back. I somehow missed it, so I don't feel like I'm being redundant by sharing it here!
Please people, I lived through the '80s, they weren't that cool. Please let them die.
I liked the dude's Freddy Mercury-isms on Idol, but this album cover is just ew.
Also, am I wrong or does he look like a living Nagel here?*
*FULL DISCLOSURE: I collected books of Nagel's illustration in the '80s and still have a weak spot for them, so that last observation isn't so much criticism as it is, erm, observation.
Say you were going to shoot a pop star, someone like, say, Kelly Clarkson, but there was no photo pit. In fact you have to shoot from the front of house soundboard. No biggie, except for the fact you do not own a telephoto lens. You own a slightly older Canon Rebel XT, but no tripod, and are wondering what lens would get the job done. You have the clearance to rent one due to an extremely agile and fleet-footed camera gear firm in town, but you want to make sure you grab the right gear. One person recommends renting a 70-200mm 2.8 lens, and another thinks 300mm will do it, and yet another doubts anything less than 500mm will do the trick (but again, I don't have a tripod).
So Keep jumped in to help me out with DJing at The Continental Saturday night since Rudy had a prior commitment, and I feel comfortable saying we kicked total ass. We got a pretty good early crowd and the place was absolutely choked with bodies by 2 a.m. or so. We decided it was a "zero pop" night and Keep enjoyed playing bad cop to anyone requesting what he deemed not heavy enough. That's not to say we didn't play catchy stuff, we just didn't allow ourselves to be sidet5racked by requests for The Bee Gees or Michael Jackson.
Anyhoo, if you're interested in putting together a totally awesome mix tape from the evening, here's the full setlist for my segments.
Setlist: The Continental, October 24, 2009
First set:
Soulsavers "Some Misunderstanding"
Black Mountain "Don't Run Our Hearts Around"
lobsterdust "Alone Witchu (Air vs. QOTSA)"
PJ Harvey "Yuri-G"
Black Moth Super Rainbow "Born On A Day The Sun Didn't Rise"
Number Girl "Omiode In My Head"
Clues "Approach The Throne"
Monotonix "Set Me Free"
The Evil Queens "Love Song Werewolves"
Mil Mulliganos "Evolution/Revolution"
Julian Cope "Pristeen"
fun. "Benson Hedges"
Second set:
The Tarts "My Girlfriend Is A Rockstar"
The Riverboat Gamblers "Ice Water"
NIL8 "Zombie Slut"
Pinhead Gunpowder "I Am An Elephant"
Mannequin Men "Never Lived By Myself"
Local H "Keep Your Girlfriend Away From Me"
Sloan "Losing California"
7 Seconds "Satyagraha"
The Lemonheads "Hate Your Friends"
Electric Owls "Put, The Candle' Back!"
Amazing Baby "Supreme Being"
Cheeseburger "Easy Street"
Band Of Skulls "I Know What I Am"
Girls Against Boys "In Like Flynn"
The Big Pink "At War With The Sun"
Hiawata! "Suburbs"
Big Star "Feel"
Screaming Trees "Dying Days"
Third set:
Blur "Country House"
Replicants "Just What I Needed"
Queens Of The Stone Age "Regular John"
Weezer "Say It Ain't So"
Living Colour "Cult Of Personality"
Pixies "Debaser"
Ozzy Osbourne "Crazy Train"
Public Enemy "Welcome To The Terrordome"
NWA"Express Yourself"
Spacehog "In The Meantime"
Bauhaus "Ziggy Stardust"
Hum "Stars"
Almost forgot! Rudy and I DJ at The Continental tomorrow night! 11 p.m. until 5 a.m.! For a taste of what you can expect, peep the setlist from last night at The Burlington. I'm digging for unearthed nuggets along with the familiar and I'm loving the rejuvenating feeling it's giving my sets!
It's weird how women I haven't thought of in twenty years can suddenly pop back into my head with a force that makes me go blind with a flash of mental recognition. This morning I was walking to work through a pedway that passes by an artist installation sponsored by the city's cultural center. There was a girl, rail thin, with a bob and her silhouette suddenly jettisoned me back in my head to freshman design class* in college. I had the biggest crush on this girl Lori, and she was built in much the same way as this other girl, only it was 1991 so her bob was asymmetrical and one half of her head had a much larger mass of hair on it than the other. Not art school bob really, more the longish all one length hair swept mostly to one side, y'know?
Anyway, I suddenly remember that teenage ache, and the unrequited longing, and to make matters worse she developed a crush on my friend (and later roommate) Scott. I have no idea if they ever hooked up, I don't think he would've told me for fear I'd get upset and stop helping him write his papers. (I generally wouldn't write papers for friends n college, but Scott was so hopeless at stringing a sentence together I would sort of tutor / edit him ... he was a really gifted artist though.**)
I hadn't thought of Lori since, well, probably shortly after that design class ended. I had forgotten her name, what she looked like, everything. And then with one glance at a silhouette it all came back.
And the funny thing, the girl that triggered this all really didn't look a thing like Lori. I think it was just the general impression and the artist's space that came together to trigger all of this.
How about you? Has this sort off thing happened in your past?
*It's true, when I started school I was a double major, visual arts and english. **You know, which brings this to mind, that while I was an O.K. visual artist it's fairly obvious my true gift was to be found in words, and makes me wonder if his gift with a brush of sculpture detracted from his ability to write. Is it some sort of cosmic balancing act? I dunno.
Tonight is what it means to be young ... with DJ Tankboy!
So guess what? I'm DJing at The Burlington tonight! It's my favorite bar to spin at since they basically let me run wild and play anything* so my sets there are usually pretty fun. I promise to break out a bunch of new music tonight and keep the evening interesting. I promise to probably not play any 10-minute King Crimson songs even though I've been listening a lot to In the Court of the Crimson King this past week. Then again, maybe I will!
The festivities kick off at 9 p.m. and last until 2 a.m. so I hope to see your beautiful somewhere in that time block.
*Well almost anything. I once played that Pnau and Ladyhawke "Embrace" tune and Greg told me I could never play that there again. But that's the only thing that's been banned. And I didn't really like it all that much in the first place, I was just trying to impress some girl and she didn't even end up making out with me so I learned my lesson about that!
I woke up this morning with no inspiration to write, so I didn't. I thought I might come across something cool to write about in the afternoon and I did, only I didn't write it here. So that brings us to now. What should I write now? My work day has ended, I'm heading to the gym, and i can't think of anything i want to write. What I want to do is shut down my computer, put on my headphones, and start walking toward the El ... so I think that's what I'm going to do.
This just occurred to me last night, surveying the crowd at the packed Dodos show ... Stereogum and Pitchfork have become Spin and Rolling Stone! They both constantly write about the same bands. Hell, Animal Collective is to Pitchfork what The Rolling Stones are to, er, Rolling Stone!
You can't tell, but the sunburn under my shirt is making me shiver as I go through all my unread work email and slide back into the regular routine of the 9-to-5. I'm sure I'll expand on the actual vacation when I get a little more time, but right now I guess I don't mind being back in the office. I can only spend so much time doing nothing in Mexico. However I'm not going to lie and say I couldn't use with a little more time off just putzing around Chicago. It's true what they say; sometimes you do need a vacation to recover from the vacation.
I can also tell you this. I don't want to even see another margarita or Corona for at LEAST six months!*
*O.K., that's not completely true. I'm sure the next time I hit up Tecalitlan I will order one or the other. But you get the idea.
Oh, not much. We ziplined a whole bunch over the jungle canopy, then went riding all over back jungle roads in ATVs (I was sure I was gonna roll over a few times) and then went swimming and diving in a cenote.
Tankboy resides in the body of some tall blonde guy and lives in Chicago with Pickle the Kitten, and a beagle named Betty who may actually be slightly more famous than most musicians out there. He's written about music for much longer than most bands you hear on the radio have even existed. He also swears that it wasn't him who did that and has learned that "deny everything" is a basic tenet of existence.
