Recent shows
Fireside Bowl 06/28/00
The Explosion is a punk rock band. Webster defines punk rock as "a loud, fast, and deliberately offensive style of rock music." The Explosion fit the description pretty well. Solid punk stuff but nothing that got me too excited.
The Rapture started out like Arab on Radar, with lot's of sharp distortion. Then they jumped into a kickdrum-heavy dance beat with more AoR-style guitar. Sometimes I wonder if bands are just trying to sound so strange that it's hard for audiences to figure out if they like them or not.
Jets to Brazil was good. Enjoyable but not astounding, funny but not hilarious. Blake Schwarzenbach kept saying their new record was called "Tic-Tac-Totally" on Go For It! Records. Some of their new stuff uses a lot of piano and organ effects and sounds cool- a lot different than the big rock / soft and quiet style of Orange Rhyming Dictionary.
Scrap Skate Park 06/30/00
Now She's Gone did the melodic vocals over faux-metal thing. Some nice effects and decent songs, apparently they have been more or less on tour since September.
Slackjaw was sort of a melodic rock band. They played a short set and I missed part of it while I was in the washroom but they seemed alright.
Motion City Soundtrack includes former members of Animal Chin. The nice thing about ska bands that turn into rock bands is they usually don't get whiny like a lot of other post-punk bands do. They also sold me a T-shirt and a 7" for $6, which is nice as a lot of bands seem to be charging much more for merch these days. Photos in a few weeks
Haymarket Riot was super. They really play with a lot of conviction, no matter how many people they are playing for. They are cool guys too... Photos in a few weeks
Links
Freebase: UK magazine, reviews and stuff. Check out the Moby interview.
Jesus seeks loving woman: I heard the radio pundits talking about this the other day. The URL www.jesus.com is home to a personal ad. This is sort of funny, although this guy seems sort of iffy (why does such a "spiritual" guy "prefer" women of "recent" Norse-Germanic heritage, and what does "recent" mean?).
H-Tiller: San Fran music mag.
Ditto: This is a search engine that looks specifically for pictures, than displays them with links to the sites they came from. Good for finding pictures of bands.
General information
06/29/00 ~ 4:41 p.m.
I picked up my friend Allison last night and we headed down to the city to see the show at the Fireside Bowl. We left early so we could stop at Reckless Records. They have so much stuff, I have to go there sometime when I have an hour or so to browse... We were on a schedule, though, so I grabbed Manishevitz's Grammar Bell and the All Fall Down and Cerberus Shoal's And Farewell to Hightide.
We got to the Fireside about 20 minutes before the show was to start there was a huge line stretching around the corner. While waiting in line, we ran into Brendan and Liz, who I haven't seen in awhile. We talked in between sets and caught up on all sorts of things... It was fun, just like old times. I also saw one of the Last Ditch Effort guys and Erin... Probably more people I know, but I didn't see everyone as the place was mega-crowded, there was even a guy recording the show from atop the Street Fighter 3 arcade.
Happenings
Dash (-): It's a show. Tilde (~): It's not a show. If no state is mentioned, it's in Illinois, if it is a show and no time is mentioned, it is a 6:00 or 7:00 show. Know of shows or other important events? Let us know.
July:
~ Roswell UFO Encounter Festival - Roswell, NM
~ Beer Can Regatta : Main event, race between boats made entirely out of beer cans - Mindil Beach, Darwin, Australia
~ Lumberjack World Championships - Hayward, WI
03 ~ Wife Carrying World Championships: The length of the track is 2535 meters, and the surface of the track is sand, grass and asphalt with two dry obstacles and one water obstacle. "The wife to be carried can be your own, the neighbor's or you may have found her farther afield; she must, however, be over 17 years of age." - Sonkaj�rvi, Finland
04 ~ Fourth of July: Get your patriotism on
06 - Dillinger Four, Ambition Mission, Panic, The Flux - Fireside Bowl
07 - Engine Down, Uniform Pants, Naginata, TR - 111 E. Division St. #1, Bloomington (John)
- (benefit for cystic fibrosis) Haymarket Riot, Sweep the Leg Johnny, American Heritage, The Glass Family - Fireside Bowl
08 - Engine Down, The Hidden Chord, Last Ditch Effort - Fireside Bowl
10 - Party of Helicopters, Atom Bomb Pocket Knife - Fireside Bowl
Links
Dogprint: Label / magazine. Her Space Holiday, Urban Legends, etc.
Random Website Surfing: Sends you to a random (very random) website. A lot of junk but persistence yields results... Did you know there is a city called Nevada in Missouri?
Motion City Soundtrack: Post-ska pop-rock from the ashes of Animal Chin. Big guitars, quick lyrics. Not to be mistaken with City on Film.
All Music Guide: Information on every artist and every piece of music produced, ever. Close anyway. I haven't stumped it yet.
07/01/00 ~ 1:00 a.m.
The show (technically last night) was good, sort of laid back, in contrast to the Jets show on Wednesday. One of the bands on tour joked that Sunny Day Real Estate (also playing in Chicagoland) was following them on their tour, stealing their audiences.
It was weird shooting with film again, I'm so used to digital. I should have the pictures in a few weeks, and I should have my good camera back in about two weeks.
07/02/00 ~ 12:55 a.m.
The July poll is up. Go vote.