Tuesday, October 31, 2006

skeletally yours.

pretty sure that i made a killing with this Halloween-themed set last night (thank you, Monday Night Drinking Club/Club Foot):

Skip James- Devil Got My Woman
Clovers- Devil or Angel
Brenda Lee- Let's Jump the Broomstick
Elvis Presley- (You're the) Devil in Disguise
Hank Williams- Howlin' at the Moon
Johnny Cash- (Ghost) Riders in the Sky
Charlie Daniels- The Devil Went Down to Georgia
Jumpin' Gene Simmons- Haunted House
Round Robin- I'm the Wolfman
Archive King- Vampires
Searchers- Love Potion No. 9
Bobby "Boris" Pickett- Monster Mash
Shangri-Las- Leader of the Pack
Screamin Jay Hawkins- I Put a Spell on You
Ghastly Ones- House on Haunted Hill
Shaggs- It's Halloween
Neanderthals- Martian Hop
Sonics- Witch
Sam the Sham & the Pharoahs- Little Red Robin Hood
Roky Erickson- Don't Shake Me Lucifer
King Khan & BBQ Show- Zombies
Jay Reatard- Blood Visions
Exploding Hearts- Your Shadow
Rocket From the Crypt- Evil Party
Angry Samoans- Not of this Earth
Dead Kennedys- I Kill Children
Vindictives- The Terrible Monster
Weirdos- We Got the Neutron Bomb
Suzi Quatro- Devil Gate Drive
Black Sabbath- Black Sabbath
Iron Maiden- The Number of the Beast
Slayer- Raining Blood
Death- Open Casket
Vee Dee- Blood Zombie
Misfits- Horror Business
Ministry- Every Day is Halloween
Sisters of Mercy- This Corrosion
Ramones- Cretin Hop
Big Boys- Mutant Rock
Only Ones- Creature of Doom
Devo- Mongoloid
Shudder to Think- A Vampires Proposal
Pixies- In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song)
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists- I'm a Ghost
Skull Kontrol- Satan is Jesus to Me
Delinquents- Alien Beach Party
Destroy All Monsters- Vampire
Lake of Dracula- Dracula Killed Frankenstein
Scratch Acid- Monsters
Crime & the City Solution- Dangling Man
Artery- The Death of Peter X
Crispy Ambulance- October 31st
Kommunity FK- Haunt
Shellac- Ghosts
Melvins- Blood Witch
DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince- A Nightmare on My Street
Whodini- Freaks Come Out at Night
Ray Parker, Jr.- Ghostbusters
Sparks- Eaten by the Monster of Love
Gary Numan- Praying to the Aliens
Siouxsie & the Banshees- Spellbound
Aural Exciters- Spooks in Space
Andrew WK- Ready to Die
My Chemical Romance- Dead
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds- Red Right Hand
Neutral Milk Hotel- Ghost
Soft Cell- Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

i live for windy city nostalgia.

at this exact moment, i am watching the men of Naked Raygun acting as guests on the legendary Chicagoland area public access television show JBTV. first of all, i am shocked and amazed that JBTV is still airing, as i used to watch it fairly religiously when i was a tiny little teenager, and was exposed to many a great local (and national) underground/punk band through it- shit, i must have been 17 years old the last time i watched an episode. secondly, i am delighting in the fact that (so far) they have chosen to play videos of Jesus Lizard and Mustard Plug. also lot's of old Raygun live footage. i suppose that this is all something of an advertisement for the upcoming Riot Fest 2006, which i have already taken the entire day off work for. i am ready and more than willing to relive my teenage years, thank you very much.

i am perpetually nostalgic for the good ole days of the chicago underground. perhaps this is why i spent about 2 hours last night searching for old Fireside Bowl videos on Youtube. or maybe it's because i have no life. your call.

My Lai, sometime in 1998 or 1999. one of my favorite bands to ever come out of Chicago.
MK Ultra, i have no idea what year. one of Chicago's greatest hardcore bands (besides Crudos).
4 Squares, a video for one of their songs. some scenes show at Fireside.
Vindictives, ok, this isn't at the Fireside (i have no idea where this is shot at), but it's the Vindictives for fucks' sake!
The Locust, 7/24/99.
Arab on Radar, sometime in '99.

a while ago i was toying with the idea of doing a Dance of Days style book about the Chicago punk scene. all of these Chicago punk band reunions that are happening all willy-nilly are causing me to toy with this idea a little more. another (more ambitious) idea is doing an all-reissues label that focus on Chicago area bands....possibly called Stupid Little Label (bonus points if you know what that's a reference to).

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

she's crafty.

spending a lot of time in bed throughout the past month has spawned quite a lot of knitting and crocheting, crafty firsts, and catfighting (getting cats away from moving yarn is not easy). below are some pictures of my most recent finished projects.





(right)
knit pink & black fuzzy scarf. made with cheap yarn that's like 2 strands twisted together (a pink velveteen strand with a fuzzy black string yarn). i used knit stitch straight through, and added some easy tassling at either end. it's really fucking long, almost 6 ft!






(left) my first blanket! i'm aware of the horrendous colors, but this yarn (Lion Brand Homespun) was on sale and picked over when i picked up the pattern, and i had to take what i could get. this is crocheted. double crochet with 2 strands at once, only stitching through the back loop. border is some weird combo of double crochet and chain stitches, but i couldn't quite keep it regular. but it's warm, the cats love it, and that's all that matters.











(right) another simple knit scarf. done with a few skeins of (again) cheap Caron Charming yarn (fancy term for "confetti"). knit stitch all the way through, easy tassling, easy scarf. took a couple hours. maybe less.






















(left)
my first hat! this was fun. i messed it up something major, which i'll discuss later. crocheted from a pattern in Stitch N Bitch
Crochet: Happy Hooker, although i made some slight changes because i couldn't get the gauge quite right. used cheap (do you see a pattern here?) Red Heart Worsted Weight black yarn. i took some liberties with the earflaps and totally fucked them up, as you can see, they are way too big and floppy. i'm hoping to add a little length to them, and maybe some buttons, so that i can strap 'em underneath my chin (see top picture for reference).

















so that's that. sorry for all of the 'emo' bathroom mirror shots, but i had no models available at the time of shooting. more music-related stuff later.

Monday, October 16, 2006

long time, no bones.

well, about a months' worth of sickness and two weeks without a computer have contributed to my ridiculously pitiful procrastination here. thankfully, i am almost recovered and my poor laptop has (finally) come back healthy from the Apple Fix-It Headquarters, Inc., and i am ready to rebound with more useless posting.

first off, Part 2 of Setlist Mania(c), from Club Foot 9/25/06:
round 1
Brian Eno- Backwater
Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band- Nowadays a Woman's Gotta Hit a Man
Animals- It's My Life
Velvet Underground- Rock & Roll
Shadows of Knight- Oh Yeah
Turtles- You Showed Me
Yardbirds- Putty
Dixie Cups- You Should Have Seen the Way He Looked At Me
Monks- Love Came Tumblin' Down
Sonics- Cinderella
Monkees- Circle Sky (live)
Brian Jonestown Massacre- When Jokers Attack
Mountain Goats- This Year
Devin Davis- Paratrooper With Amnesia
Miss Alex White & The Red Orchestra- Walk Around
Sleater Kinney- Things You Say
Team Dresch- Hate the Christian Right
Monorchid- A.P.B.
V. Reverse- Stupid Little Zine
Bhopal Stiffs- Road to Bhopal
Winepress- The Girl That Broke My Heart

round 2
Black Flag- Jealous Again
Vindictives- Get Lost
Queen- Don't Stop Me Now
Scissor Sisters- I Feel Like Dancin'
Rapture- Get Myself Into It
Talk Talk- It's My Life
Yaz- Nobody's Diary
Joy Division- Disorder
Malaria!- You You
Glaxo Babies- This is Your Life
Liaisons Dangereuses- Etre Assis Ou Danser
Black Heart Procession- To Bring You Back
William Elliott Whitmore- One Man's Shame

randomness in the form of a numerical list:
1. awesome bands i have seen live in the past month include (but are not limited to): Cheer Accident, Team Dresch (reunion show of sorts for the Estrojam Festival), Bobby Conn, Detholz!, Om, Screaming Yellow Zonkers, Mastodon.
2. awesome shows i have missed due to sickness, lack of money, or other factors: Winepress/Mushaganas reunion, Pissed Jeans, Grizzly Bear, Sweet Cobra, Zombi/Supersystem.
3. for feminist-y types who have torrid love affairs with Pop Culture, i highly recommend buying/borrowing/renting/netflixing the "Roseanne" DVD sets (seasons 1-5 are currently available). this being my favorite sitcom of all time, i have slowly been acquiring these collections, and watching the episodes as an 'adult' is a completely interesting and worthwhile experience. i'm beginning to regret not writing my undergraduate thesis on the subject of "'Roseanne' as Pivotal Mainstream Television" via feminist critique (rather than the subject of "Riot Grrrl as Pivotal Subcultural Movement"....yawnz).
4. all i want to listen to as of late is modern classical/composition: Erik Satie, Gorecki, Debussy, Bela Bartok, Penderecki, John Cage, Charles Ives, etc.
5. and also, the greatly underappreciated Ut, whose classic albums "Griller" and "In Gut's House" have finally been reissued by Mute/Blast First. this trio of ladies began on the tail-end of the New York No Wave scene, never got much recognition in the States, moved to London, and didn't get much recognition there, either. sad, because these albums are chock-full of weirdly abrasive, jagged, no-wavey artpunk. "Griller" was produced by Albini, too. check it out if you like Lilliput or Bikini Kill or anything in between.