Monday, January 15, 2007
Music / Post No Bills Blitzoids found
Posted by Peter Margasak on 01.15.07 at 03:45 PM
I don’t remember when I figured out that the Blitzoids were a Chicago band, but it certainly wasn’t from seeing their name in the Reader’s music listings. The group, which existed mostly during the late 80s and a touch into the early 90s, almost never played live. During a rather fallow time in Chicago’s rock history, the Blitzoids were early experimenters who revealed a strong affinity for the European progressive rock movement called Rock in Opposition, which centered around figures like Henry Cow, Etron Fou Leloublan, and Art Bears. They didn’t let technical skills and overly ambitious compositional gambits impinge on melody and harmony—this was a kind of prog rock that wasn’t obsessed with large numbers of notes.
The group consisted of brothers Chris and Steve De Chiara and Jim Nickels, although other musicians did help out once in a while. Chris De Chiara later gained notice as the original guitarist in the Vandermark Quartet. The group released only two albums for their own Mook Records (Stealing From Helpless Children in 1987 and Look Up in 1990), both of which have recently been collected on a double CD on Ad Hoc Records, a Denver label that has released loads of post-RIO stuff affiliated with England's Recommended Records, run by drummer Chris Cutler. In fact, a couple of songs originally issued via Cutler’s Re Records Quarterly—a kind of magazine/record released sporadically during the 80s and 90s--are included as bonus tracks on the Ad Hoc release.
There’s a deliberately weird and wacky part of the sound that doesn’t do it for me, the same kind of aesthetic that mysteriously endears people to the Residents and other Ralph Records acts, as well as the geeky humor of Frank Zappa. What's satisfying about electronically altered voices? And why bother with a cover of “The Witch Doctor?” Songs veer between straight-head tunes played with dissonance and odd juxtapositions and more fragmented, patchwork experiments. It’s not something I’ll be digging out all the time, but ultimately it sounds better and heftier than I recall. When one considers that Chicago has such a bustling, multi-layered, and stylistically diverse scene these days, it’s easy to forget bands like the Blitzoids, who carried on in the face of total indifference. Any other forgotten acts waiting for their just desserts?
Comments (3)
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I knew these guys back in the day. Chris ran a record store in Lombard and taught guitar out of a shop in Villa Park. As I remember "Stealing..." came out more like 1983 or so. One of the tracks on that LP contained a backwards vocal which I reversed on my Yamaha 4-track. The actual forwards lyrics??? "These words mean nothing... nothing here worth listening to.. nothing at all.. you should not have bothered.." According to Chris at the time they played one live gig - a wedding reception. Worth another spin.
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The Blitzoids did play a bunch of live shows in 1982 and 1983 (and 1 in 1985). I was at a few of them in 82. They used to have a guy come out in a suit and a Ronald Reagan Mask (after a 25 min version of Zappa's "Billy the Mountain")and then chop his head off on stage. People would go nutz!! There were a bunch of Cassetts out in the early 80's and the album was around on cassette a few years before it was pressed. Also the CD has like 4 pictures of them taken from live shows. Go ZOIDS!!!!!
