Music Search – The List (Music)
Kelly Hogan, Scott Lucas & the Married Men
Mon., May 28, 6:30 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
Few contemporary singers move as easily between soul and country music as Kelly Hogan, and it's not just because she appreciates the close relationship between the two traditions—she also has a great talent for straddling pathos and humor. On her first album in 11 years, I Like to Keep Myself in Pain (due June 5 on Anti-), she pours herself into a collection of modern songs—the only vintage number is the closer, Charlie Rich's soulful "Pass on By," which his wife, Margaret Ann, wrote in the mid-70s—that's so diverse I can hardly think of anyone else who could persuasively tackle them all. (She only wrote one tune on the record, but her greatest skills are interpreting and curating material.) Backed by a killer band that includes organist Booker T. Jones, bassist Gabe Roth (the Dap-Kings), drummer James Gadson (Charles Wright, Dyke & the Blazers), and Chicago's own Scott Ligon on guitar and piano, Hogan dissolves the spaces between genres rather than standing astride them. On the title tune, by Robyn Hitchcock, she puts a Bakersfield spin on a melody reminiscent of Ellington's "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" and blackly funny lyrics about embracing misery. On "Golden," written for longtime friend Neko Case, she sings about sticking to doing what you love, even when it's a grind and success seems out of reach, and her lightness of phrase softens the harsh truths. My favorite tracks are the darkest ones, such as Vic Chestnutt's "Ways of the World," a song about lost innocence that brings out the Dusty Springfield in Hogan's voice, and Robbie Fulks's "Whenever You're Out of My Sight," where she imparts a sweet Bobbie Gentry vibe to lyrics about debilitating jealousy ("I love you more than I trust you"). For the first of three area shows over the next two weeks—the others are at SPACE on Fri 6/8 and at FitzGerald's on Sat 6/9—Hogan is supported by Ligon, guitarist Jim Elkington, drummer Joe Camarillo, and bassist Casey McDonough. —Peter Margasak Scott Lucas & the Married Men open.
312-742-1168
Chaperone, Torch Singers, Elusive Parallelograms, Rabbit Children, King of Prussia
Tue., May 29, 7:30 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
$10
Ringworm, Everything Went Black, Enabler, Reign Inferno
Tue., May 29, 8 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
If you can read a PR tag line like "The world is fucked and this is the soundtrack to its demise" and not be the least bit curious about the band that claims it, you're just being stubborn. And if you have no interest in hearing what a song called "Fuck Today" sounds like, if only for a second, well, you must live in a climate-controlled pod filled with everything you've ever loved. Milwaukee's Enabler—don't mistake 'em for the Enabler from Saint Paul, Minnesota—never look on the bright side, ever. The relentless hybrid of hardcore punk and metal on the upcoming All Hail the Void (out July 17 on Southern Lord) sounds like a cinder block of nuclear-charged contempt, in the same bulging, hate-filled vein as contemporaries like Trap Them and From Ashes Rise—and with hints of Slayer in its most excellent thrashy moments. Right from the opener, "F.A.T.H.," vocalist and guitarist Jeff Lohrber lets you know how bleak things will get: "I want to see this city burn all the way to the fucking ground." Nice. Throughout All Hail, Lohrber and Greg Thomas show off their guitar superpowers while drummer Andy Hurley plows through double-kick rhythms and pummeling blastbeats with a freakish, almost mechanical tightness. The album's so pissed and vicious that I couldn't even write about it without using three F-words—and believe it or not, I tried to avoid 'em. If this is what the world's demise sounds like, I say turn it up. —Kevin Warwick Ringworm headlines; Everything Went Black, Enabler, and Reign Inferno open.
$10
I Break Horses, California Wives
Tue., May 29, 9 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
Maria Linden and Fredrik Balck, aka Stockholm-based duo I Break Horses, are scholars of shoegaze structure: the deep layerings of sound on their beautiful debut full-length, 2011's Hearts (Bella Union), show an architect's attention to detail and a construction worker's doggedness. Those qualities don't detract one bit from the sensuality and drama of the music, though—Linden's vocals break through the fugue state created by the group's swirling electronic fog and make the promise of intimacy sound like a threat. Linden is the composer and Balck the lyricist, and the fact that they're constantly interpreting and responding to each other's work might build a sort of emotional distance into the songs—or it might mean their ideas are literally inseparable. It's hard to tell, because in some senses, shoegaze is all about the inability or refusal to be open and direct—and about the fascinating mind-worlds humans build to hide from real connection. —Monica Kendrick California Wives open.
$14
In the Country, Ryan Hembrey (DJ set)
Wed., May 30, 9:30 p.m.Jazz
Since debuting in the mid-aughts, Norwegian piano trio In the Country has slowly moved away from its jazz roots. On its live album from last year, Sounds and Sights (Rune Grammofon), pianist Morten Qvenild still references the patient note-spread style of Paul Bley, but his compositions are characterized more by elegant simplicity and tender melodic sensibilities than by fancy harmonies or complex movement; bassist Roger Arntzen and drummer Paal Hausken heighten that clarity with direct, uncluttered playing. Qvenild does still improvise, and in those extended passages he sometimes conjures Keith Jarrett at his most Eurocentric—on "Whiteout" he works wonders, transforming minimal shreds of melody into emotional, tightly coiled solos. For the most part, though, the trio sticks to meticulous arrangements that favor slow elaborations and deconstructions or majestic ebb and flow, not lots of solo space. For the first three minutes of "How to Get Acquainted," for example, a hovering, shimmering arpeggio gradually intensifies, only to instantly recede into meditative calm after the climax hits—a calm that evaporates as the trio ramps back up by reshaping the melody. And the group's interest in pop is clearer than ever: two new tunes revolve around breathy vocal melodies, and they even remake the schlocky Dire Straits anthem "Brothers in Arms" (not their most brilliant decision). Missteps like that notwithstanding, In the Country have been impressively sure-footed in their evolution, with a melodic generosity that's never faltered. —Peter Margasak Ryan Hembrey spins.
$10
Urizen, Winterhymn, Act of Destruction, Lords of the Trident, Gamma Gulp
Fri., June 1, 7 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
Texas band Urizen, named after a godlike figure embodying reason and law in the mythology of William Blake, can be hard to classify—their puckish humor sometimes leads you to suspect you're dealing with the real-life equivalent of a bunch of smart-ass Internet trolls. Essentially, they play electronic video-game-geek rock with a fierce metal bite. Their latest release, 2011's
Jason Moran & the Bandwagon
Fri., June 1, 8 p.m.Jazz
On 2010's terrific, multilayered Ten (Blue Note), pianist Jason Moran reasserted himself as one of jazz's most original thinkers and inventive bandleaders. But as ambitious as that record is, it pales next to the multimedia collaboration Bleed, which he presented with his wife, singer Alicia Hall Moran, across five action-packed days of the Whitney Museum's prestigious Biennial earlier this month—it featured film, pop music, opera, dramatic readings, performance art, and more. Somewhere between the two in scope is Moran's project paying homage to the music of pianist, singer, and composer Fats Waller, which he brings to Chicago tonight; it premiered in May 2011 at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse as part of the first Harlem Jazz Shrines Festival, which commissioned it. For that first show Moran was joined by a troupe of dancers and singer and bassist Meshell Ndegeocello, an outsize presence all by herself. The traveling ensemble won't include either, though the band is of comparable size: it consists of Moran's working trio the Bandwagon (with bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits), singer Chris Turner, saxophonist Tia Fuller, trumpeter Leron Thomas, trombonist Corey King, and guitarist Mike Moreno. According to a New York Times review by Ben Ratliff, Moran and company used only fragments of Waller's tunes, building new music referencing styles and sounds that have emerged in the decades since he died in 1943—including Motown, house, and hip-hop. For part of the New York performance Moran wore a giant Waller mask made by Haitian artist Didier Civil, and it will make an appearance here as well. —Peter Margasak
$22-$52
Galactic Inmate, Nones, Tijuana Hercules
Fri., June 1, 9 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
If the easiest way to access a band's music is through MySpace, chances are they either broke up in 2006 or don't give two shits in a biscuit for self-promotion. Galactic Inmate fall into the latter category, but that's always been part of their allure. The trio of guitarist-vocalist Keith Herzik (also a great gig-poster artist and the Reader's Gossip Wolf illustrator), bassist-vocalist Arman Mabry (also of Rabid Rabbit), and Brett Whitacre (also of the Legendary Shack Shakers) gets together maybe once a year, if we're lucky. And when they do, they play the same set they played the year before—and probably the year before that. Their heavy punk is crushing and gruff and teeters on the edge of unwelcoming, in the most charming way possible—if Lee Ving fronted a Butt Trumpet cover band, I'm pretty sure it would sound like this. Mabry tells me this is Whitacre's first show since undergoing surgery to correct a heart condition and install a pacemaker: "That would make some pretty good copy, right?" —Kevin Warwick Nones and Tijuana Hercules open.
$5
Besnard Lakes, Brain Idea, Judson Claiborne
Fri., June 1, 10 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
Montreal combo the Besnard Lakes has a way with kaleidoscopic, guitar-driven jams, but last year it displayed a different side of its musical personality. You Lived in the City (Jagjaguwar), a four-song EP of music written and recorded for film projects, features just the band's core duo, the husband-and-wife team of bassist Olga Goreas and guitarist Jace Lasek. Sometimes the two of them overdub a few tracks apiece, adding drums or keyboards or more guitars (the final song, "The Corner," uses the whole band), but overall the EP is heavy on ambience and light on instrumental fireworks. That doesn't mean Goreas and Lasek dispense with them altogether, though. While a simple, spell-casting organ part dominates a cover of "We're Here for a Good Time (Not a Long Time)," by veteran Canadian band Trooper, Lasek also takes a wrenching, psychedelic guitar solo, blending it carefully into the mix so that it becomes just one more rich, soothing texture. Elsewhere on the EP, atmospheric instrumentals dominated by hypnotic motifs contrast even more strongly with the Besnard Lakes' usual epics—but I imagine that the band will be at its most extroverted for this weekend's sets. —Peter Margasak See also Saturday. Brain Idea and Judson Claiborne open.
$12
Escort (DJ set), J Kriv, Kid Color, Tim Zawanda
Fri., June 1, 10 p.m.Dance
There's something refreshingly pure about Escort's unabashed desire to please its audience—an attitude that, like this disco group's marriage of airy pop-soul melodies and deep, syncopated grooves, recalls fellow New Yorkers the Salsoul Orchestra, who during the 70s were one of the most crowd-pleasing acts in a scene devoted entirely to pleasure. And the gentlemen and ladies of Escort get plenty unabashed. "Caméleon Chameleon," the opening track from their self-titled debut full-length (released in January on the group's label, also called Escort), leads off with a bit of bubbly synth that for a second you'd swear was the intro to Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love." "Cocaine Blues" interpolates Dillinger's "Cocaine in My Brain," replacing its famous paranoia with something closer to euphoria (and adding the kinda-cute line "A chick in the car and the car won't go / That's how we spell Chicago"). The group's onstage incarnation can swell to 17 members, but this is a DJ set featuring founding members Dan Balis and Eugene Cho. With any luck they'll come back soon with the rest of the gang. —Miles Raymer J Kriv, Kid Color, and Tim Zawada open.
$13, $10 before midnight
Do-Division Street Fest: Le Butcherettes, Peanut Butter Wolf, O'Death, Besnard Lakes, Craig Finn, and others
Sat., June 2, 1 p.m.Fairs & Festivals
See Saturday for a preview of Besnard Lakes's show at the Empty Bottle.
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