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I know it’s been a while; I’m very aware. Call it laziness, call it writer’s block, call it procrastination. I call it all of those. However, I’m back. Yay.
It was in my full intentions this past Thursday night to go to The Spot, see a friend of mine perform in a burlesque number, and get as many beers as possible for my open-bar-fee. Once I’d had…however many I’d had…and my friend performed, I was just killing time as a band started setting up. I wasn’t really expecting much, seeing as we were in a small upstairs bar with a small upstairs stage in the midst of a small upstairs drunk audience. However, the venue matters not in the case of genuine art, and I was reminded of such a fact as the band started playing. I, in my drunken yet excited state, listened to the first song for a while, then yanked out my planner, grabbed my notepad, and started jotting. I would soon find out that this band’s name was Blah Blah Blah and their music would be right up my alley.
Normally, especially while imbibing alcoholic beverages, I listen to unfamiliar music and nit-pick at it, finding any and every aspect about it I don’t find in my favor so that I won’t have to bother with it. Pessimistic? Yes. Not with Blah Blah Blah. Their carefree approach to their music turned on me and I couldn’t help but bob my head along with the sun-soaked guitar strings laying out a plethora of flitting sounds from the amplifier.
“It’s as if someone opened your soul and poured sunshine in it,” replied band manager JA Powell when I asked him how he would describe their sound. Read more »
Last Monday night, Rockit Bar & Grill hosted Whitestarr’s premiere party for their new VH1 celebreality TV show ‘The Rock Life.” Whitestarr is a California rock band that is most famously known for their frontman Cisco Adler and his certain assets. Adler is notorious for publicly dating and wooing many of today’s starlets and socialites. Rockit Bar & Grill closed off the upstairs of their restaurant to debut ‘The Rock Life’ when it aired on VH1. After watching the premiere episode, Whitestarr performed for the meager crowd who surprisingly still had the constitution to keep partying after the exhausting behemoth known as Lollapalooza. Whitestarr opened up their set with “Be my bitch” and followed with “Beautiful Thang,” to end their mini-performance with the song “The Rock Life.” After Whitestarr performed, Cisco Adler sat down with me for quick Q&A about the new show and his band.
1) How did VH1 approach Whitestarr to do your own celebreality TV show?
Cisco Adler: “Actually, we approached them. All we wanted to do was to do a show and get out all the pretenses of being famous and show what it is like to be a good rock band.”
Rainbow Jeremy (guitarist) “Spit on it, and improve things.”
Cisco Adler: “Everyone is always telling us that we act like such fools that we would probably make good TV and now my balls have their own reality TV show.
2) So why did Whitestarr decide to host the premiere party for your show at the Rockit bar and grill in Chicago?
Cisco Adler: “We are on tour with ZZ Top and the Pretenders so we decided this was a good as place as any to celebrate the premier of our show.” Read more »
Leaves, a Chicago quartet of drums, guitar, bass and sax, stands tall w/in a 
burgeoning scene of rock/jazz that’s coming from all corners of the city, which you’re more likely to stumble upon than hear broadcast from the rooftops. Having just released Live at the Ice Factory (Fresh Produce), Leaves are busy, but don’t expect them to go on a “look-at-us tour” – each member can be found in one of their countless side projects throughout the city, and naming every one of them would take a companion volume. Go to their myspace page instead.
I was fortunate to hear Leaves perform a live set on The Rock Show on Northwestern University radio WNUR, 89.3. It took awhile, but I eventually met the band at a Logan Square dive called Winds Cafe, and talked to them as bass player Dan Thatcher prepared to set up for a Tuesday night gig with The Ed Breazeale Group.
1. When historians listen to your most recent CD 1,000 years from now, what will they say?
Tyler Beach (guitar): [unhorsed by the thought of how far away 1000 years is] If it were still around in, wow, 1000 years, I think they’d find it strange, experimental, unpolished…
Dan Thatcher (acoustic bass): … if it’s not totally lost, maybe they’d find an organic connection that has been lost in the music that’s getting made in 3007.
Charles Rumback (drums/nord): They won’t understand how we fit in, how to categorize us. We’ll be a big mystery.
[Saxophonist Charles Gorcynski was not available for comment]Â
2. If you could play a show with any band/musician living or dead, who would you pick and why?
TB: I don’t know, I guess John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Elvin Jones, God rest his soul…
CR: Sure, those, and Pharaoh Sanders… maybe Bowie too…
DT: The band I play with – Leaves.
TB:Â Me too.
CR: Definitely. You’d always like things to be perfect and to play with a legend, but if you find a group of guys that work well together, then those are the guys that you really want to be with. Not that playing with Coltrane wouldn’t be great, but when you’ve got guys that enjoy each other and are part of something really excellent, hopefully that’s the band you want to be in the most. It is for me.
3. What is the strangest band-related dream you’ve ever had?
Some stoner in a basement somewhere once swore that Pink Floyd’s moody Dark Side of the Moon album synched up perfectly with The Wizard of Oz. You know, “Run, Rabbit, Run†plays during the tornado—and the drum beats, man! They’re right in time with her feet! Well, San Francisco duo Dark Side of the Cop gives a healthy nod to the tradition of combining musical/cinematic loves, but they actually do it intentionally… which is some amazing, dorky genius right there. Marco Panella, armed with guitar and various bits of electronica, created a synched-up soundtrack to the masterpiece Beverly Hills Cop. You’re damn right that’s fucking Eddie Murphy. Now he and his buddy Roger Thomasson have a disc on Auger Down Records and are touring a shitload in support of good music and ’80s movies alike.
I had a chance to chat with Marco and Roger after a distortion-riffic (and very chilly) set at the South Union Arts Center (read: a converted church with a neon Jesus above the stage/altar that says, “I am the Light of the Worldâ€) last week, to discover more about… you know, people who actually come up with such ideas:
So tell me about how all this got started – you know, getting high one night and watching Beverly Hills Cop, maybe?…
Marco: Haha, yeah, pretty much! It was sort of a bad idea that floated around in our heads since high school, but we never really had any occasion to do it until we were between bands. My friend and I were big Eddie Murphy fans in high school… we never thought we’d, you know, actually do it. He’s from Detroit, so you know—there’s the Detroit angle, and it was either that or Trading Places. Trading Places would be harder…
Roger: Harder to name.
Marco: Yeah.
So how did you go about doing that? Watch the movie with the sound down?
Marco: Yeah, actually… I made the whole thing on the computer, so you can watch little clips with the songs linked up to them. When we perform we kinda stretch the songs out a little bit, but yeah… it was a pain. I didn’t even see the whole thing through until I was done, and then we watched it and I was like, “Oh my god, what the hell was that?â€
Have you ever thought about doing it live? Like if you had a video hookup, playing the songs while screening the movie?
Marco: Yeah, definitely, we’ve thought about it… We’re not really good enough…
Roger: One of the problems is that the songs have changed a little bit since the album, so they wouldn’t link up the way it was intended. I’m sure people would still assume they were linking up anyways, but you know. Some of the songs were like two minutes on the album, to keep them synched up to a particular scene, but now they’re like four or five minutes, and wouldn’t work, really.
Have you come across the website with fans who swear that Rush’s 2112 synchs up with Willy Wonka? Read more »
if you haven’t heard about girl talk yet, then you haven’t been keeping up with music news. gregg gillis (girl talk is really just gregg with his laptop) has been all over the place in terms of press, and he’s still gaining momentum. he released his third album, night ripper, on illegal art records in may, and it was my guilty pleasure all throughout the summer. not that it’s anything to feel guilty about - but indie snobbery must go out the window in order to appreciate the fun and humor of this mash-up album, and happily so, because it’s a blast.
the description of girl talk’s music on his myspace (i just dissolve helplessly into inadequate descriptions when i attempt it myself) runs as follows:
“[ night ripper]Â bangs as a continuous mix packed with wildly disparate Top 40 genres and eras. Current hip hop hits, soft rock radio standards, party classics, grunge masterpieces, R&B singles, glossy club-shakers, and rock anthems are all layered and pieced meticulously together into one non-stop celebration of pop and excess. This is easily the most comprehensive and exhaustive mix-type album ever made.”
even if this sounds like hell on earth to you, anyone that can seamlessly mix these genres together has my attention. all the fun and humor doesn’t have to be cast out of music in order for it to be awesome; sometimes, you just have to shake your ass. furthermore, mixing dirty south rap with beloved indie acts (neutral milk hotel! is this blasphemy?!) is just ballsy, and as i consider myself an authority on blasphemous musical mistakes, i have to say - this works. and with over 150 samples (10-20 per song), it is impossible to get bored, even if you’re cringing.
i looked forward to his houston show date for a month, and when it finally came last saturday (september 23), i was not disappointed. the room was packed, inebriation was in full effect, and all music snobbery was thrown out the window (briefly, mind you!) for one simple reason - to dance. and note: all those “indie” kids? they knew the words to every rap song, all the early 90’s pop hits, and beyond. don’t let them fool you. even snobs have to let go sometimes.
girl talk was also gracious enough to grant me an interview, and here it is, for your enjoyment. Read more »
