Hideout Block Party wrap up
9/8/7 Hideout in Chicago, Illinois
Guitarkestra
It began with Guitarkestra…a group of musicians gathering together with assorted howls and drumming in order to celebrate a unified strumming. It felt a bit surreal under the bright blue sky to have a bunch of guitarists and their instruments (not to mention amps) in the parking lot the Hideout had rented out for the weekend’s festivities. The last one I had witnessed (and it really is something to behold) was in the late spring at Hyde Park Arts Center. What was interesting to me is to see the way the music changed form in terms of sound while it was outside. It felt less contained and, though I enjoyed the accompaniment of Aleks and the Drummer a little better at the former Guitarkestra, I still felt it was quite a fantastic way to start out the Saturday lineup. (It was also great to see kids rocking out and guitarists riding a multiperson bike around while strumming.) If Glenn Branca ever wants to do another symphony for electric guitars, no doubt he should hold it in Chicago and get in touch with a certain Steve Krakow.
Cass McCombs
Cass McCombs came next and played with a bass player and drummer. I had only seen him once before a couple of years ago opening up for The Decembrists at the Metro but I think the lineup has changed since then. I really love Cass’s music but felt a little down that I didn’t recognize quite a few of the songs from his too short set (I would have loved to hear “Sacred Heart,” “Cuckoo” or “City of Brotherly Love” from 2005’s fantastic Prefection album for example. Still, it’s always good to hear new material that you’ll love and crave over time I’m sure. Chicago is a very lucky city indeed as Cass has recently moved here. You can listen to his songs on myspace.
O’Death
O’Death honestly doesn’t seem like they would be living in a place like NYC. The five piece country rock band wouldn’t normally be my thing except they were both intense and vulnerable at the same time and I like my vulnerability served to me in many different ways. The fiddling helped too. To be honest, I hadn’t heard of this band before their set and given the name, I had expected some sort of awful goth-metal band that made Robert Smith look like the type of guy who enjoys playing with kittens. Oh wait…he did look pretty happy to be spending some quality cat time together with the felines in that Love Cats video, didn’t he? Hmm… well, I digress…O’Death did impress me and I found myself enjoying both the sound of their music-the dymamics, compositions of the songs as well as their adept instrument playing about as much as I was intrigued by the curled up positions of the lead singer who may have pipe cleaners for bones. Listen to O’Death on myspace
Dan Deacon
I have to be honest and say I am not the biggest fan of Dan Deacon. However, I can understand that the experience people have while listening is nothing short of fun and he does get into his playing just as much as the audience, which I’m sure helps. Dan Deacon’s set wasn’t nearly as crazy as his earlier Pitchfork one (I didn’t even catch one crowd surfer!) but I could still see people enjoying themselves under the second open sky he’d played under in Chicago this summer. He began somewhat amusingly with a very long “Under the Sea” (I believe from that Little Mermaid Disney film…having a few bad flashbacks now!) but that grew rather tired when the song continued to play instead of the thirty seconds it may have taken for 90% of the crowd to get whatever hilarity had been intended. He then urged a countdown to his playing where people would recall first pets and stare at strangers. Neither the opening nor the actual set impressed me but I think perhaps the appeal of Dan Deacon stems from the fact of his channeling the common man and saying “Hey, you don’t have to look like a cool twenty something hipster to be an electronic musician that plays in all the clubs!” The fact that it doesn’t matter what he looks like is perhaps the best thing about him and his audience. It’s the music that matters anyways.
Mucca Pazza
Remember when you were a kid in middle school and you were first learning about how to play a musical instrument? Perhaps you were in a band that marched around your town, announcing your presence while trying to keep a rhythm and in step at the same time as you played? Chances are, even if you were one of these very special kids, it wasn’t nearly as cool as Mucca Pazza, the great Chicago marching band. It probably didn’t have accordions for one, not to mention cheerleaders and hypnotists to accompany all of the brass and drums. I’ve seen Mucca Pazza only three times in all of their glory and each is something of a an event to behold with all of it’s members barely fitting on any stage…definitely an experience you can imagine John Phillips Sousa smiling at.
Art Brut
Every Art Brut show is the same: they are all fantastic! They have the energy of all of the best British punk bands combined with those honest and beguiling lyrics from the Oscar Wildish Eddie Argos, whose delivery is the same as you’d imagine on stage as if he were leaving extended voice mails on your answer phone. No matter how many albums this band puts out, one can’t imagine a set without the songs that have become classics (which they played on Sat. as well) including “Modern Art” “18,000 Lira,” “Good Weekend” “My Little Brother” “Emily Kane” “Moving to LA” and more from their Bang Bang Rock & Roll release. They’ll never truly grow old. In fact, you can just imagine an elderly Eddie Argos still singing about schoolchildren on buses calling out the name of his first love while he considers moving to the US West Coast. And along with their energy, Art Brut sings the anthems with lyrics we can all relate to with a vigor that will help keep them at the top of the pops!
I should also mention Eddie had a sense of humor about watching his songs performed by the previous band in the lineup, Punk Band, a mockup of Art Brut made up of Sally Timms and Jon Langford of The Mekons who really dressed up for the occasion!
Blue Ribbon Glee Club
Billing themselves as Chicago’s first? finest? only punk rock choir, the Blue Ribbon Glee Club with its approximately 25 members, including Devin Davis, played some beautiful renditions of the classics. Definite cover highlights included the Pixies “Where is My Mind?” and Bowie’s “Life on Mars.”
The Frames
This was the second time I’d ever seen Dublin’s The Frames and my enthusiasm for their live set was definitely renewed (especially because of the violin and the harmonica!) For some reason, I have a difficult time enjoying their albums, though I did enjoy hearing their music in the context of Once. They played a long set intermixed with personal and bittersweet stories as well as more passionate and intense songs with a little more rock to them. It was easy to find yourself caught in the enchantment of Glen Hansard who rambled about such things as liking AC/DC while liking a girl who loved The Cure and buying her a grave plot so someday he can be buried near her. (Ah, so sentimental….) or making a mixed tape with Dylan, The Magnetic Fields, Will Oldham and then a little AC/DC slid in there. His banter was really amusing to me because it gave me insight into his personality. Basically, I could tell he was the kind of guy I could eternally picture coming back from a tour and seeing all of his stuff scattered across the sidewalk by his girlfriend when he got kicked out of his apartment after he forgot to pay his rent. There were some extra special moments that occurred when he had two female volunteers join him to sing the theme song from Once and when he had the Blue Ribbon Glee Club come back on stage to sing The Pixies “Where is My Mind” a second time. My personal favorite, though, was when he launched into the sentimental ending of Jeff Buckley’s “Lilac Wine.”
Andrew Bird
Didn’t it just feel right to have the Hideout Block Party end with Andrew Bird headlining? It did to me, as I had seen him only in the not so distant past play the Block Party in the middle of the afternoon with the lovely Nora O’Connor singing backup vocals. (This is perhaps the only thing that could have made this most recent set more perfect.) In case you’ve been living under a rock, Andrew Bird is not only famous in Chicago but across the world. He’s made a name for himself touring in and outside of North America and gained much critical and audience acclaim-all well deserved I might add. He’s a fantastic lyricist who I’ve seen play around 15 times in the six years I’ve lived in Chicago. I’ve heard those songs evolve since around the time Weather Systems was released. Needless to say, there’s a special place in my heart reserved for his music. This set was full of both new and old songs with highlights including “Nervous Tick Motion of the Head to the Left,” “Tables and Chairs” as well as “Dark Matter.” Over the years, he grows increasingly adept at managing the looping of his guitar, violin, whistling, and singing to create a whirlwind effect that is both soothing and challenging in the way that he visualizes the world and in terms of the overall sonic experience. It’s difficult for me to imagine what kind of person I’d be without Andrew Bird’s music because I’ve spent so many hours listening to his songs and his albums on repeat. I can say that he has a way of expressing himself when he sits down to write and when he steps behind a mic that appeals to me on both an intellectual and emotional level. It really helps make the experience complete. This time was slightly different from seeing him play last Thanksgiving at Logan Square Auditorium because of the added visuals, which would have been even more effective had the screen been raised a bit for more people to see. Across the scattered desolate images of surreal cornfields and the less traveled sparser geographical spaces the music enfolded like its own version of a map.
September 11th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
I didn’t know your husband played during the ‘Guitarkestra’. That would have been cool to see. Great review and again fantabulouso pics.