-05/17/00-
-Quarter after four-
From now on, all the news will go top to bottom- New news will show up below. This should make it a whole lot easier to include pictures like the one on the left, which shows how clean the floor now is.
Anyway, the Interstate #4 reconstruction project continues. Hopefully it will still be out within a week or two, I think I will pull an all-nighter tonight.
If you live near Chicago, you may want to check out pg x pg. The suburbs are pretty notorious for not having regular shows with a good variety of bands, but these guys have put together a pretty impressive Friday night schedule for the summer.
-05/21/00-
-11:02-
I ventured out to the Northwest suburbs Friday to see The French New Wave, Decembers January, Last Ditch Effort, The Story So Far and The Firebird Band. The French New Wave was a decent opener, a little too much banter between songs but nothing too bad. The show started uphill with Decembers January dishing out some respectable power pop. The singer/guitarist has a pretty strong voice that gives them pretty interesting throughout their set. My favorite for the evening was Last Ditch Effort, who played the middle ground between rock and hardcore.
The Story So Far ( widely known as the "the singer from 88" band) was about as boring as the last time I saw them in January. I really don't understand why anyone would be particularly interested in this style of melodic rock. I don't mind seeing a few bands like this once and a while, but it seems like there are more and more these days. More bands seem to be settling for this diluted post-punk rather than trying to do anything new or interesting. Also, I don't know if it was a bad night for him, but the singer didn't sound too good. Especially for a guy who doesn't play an instrument, I have to wonder if there might be a good time to call it quits as he gets older.
I have mixed feelings about The Firebird Band. They seem to be getting better as they absorb more and more of Ghosts and Vodka and some time on the road hasn't hurt either. There are definitely some interesting things going on with the drum machine and Chris Broach has some clever lyrics ("San Francisco summer, and the fall of New York City"), but I'll have to reserve final judgement for a later performance. See some older pictures of them here. See the rest of the pictures from this show here.
