One of these guys listens to our band

There Is No Happy Thanksgiving Here

Happy XtofurkyX day!

by Ben Snakepit

Harvey Danger, may they rest in peace.

Earlier this year, I went to see Harvey Danger at Schuba's with my cousin Cam, Marcus, and the 90's Guy Chris Schild. Cam took this picture of me with Harvey Danger's frontman, Sean Nelson, after the show. It's a shame that I (really) got into this band less than a year before they decided to call it quits. Their influence on music has really only started to see light as they began winding down.

August 15, 2009

Thanks Cam.

last nite

wow. everyone, thank you so much for coming to the show last night. all the bands played amazingly.

weye, our wonderful buds who made vegan cupcakes to sell for us, were tight, like a tiger and it seemed that everyone was digging such jams as theirs.

wide angles, this new band, needs to be reckoned with by everyone who was not at the show and who hasn't heard them. they have a 7" coming out real soon that needs to be consumed by all pvnk rockers.

joie de vivre, our bffs from rockford, came all the way from rockford to make everyone sad in the best possible way by kicking out sparkly jams about railroads and piggy back rides.

and then we borrowed their equipment and it all broke.

jk

we raised enough money to either cover half of an amplifier or get our album mastered...since we've been sitting on the album for almost a year and a half now, we're probably gonna get it mastered. major thanks to andrew sykes for paying $20 bucks for a shirt, like he was at the slayer/megadeth/testament show at the uic pavilion on february 5th. <3 so awesome

You Get A Beluga Whale!

this just in: oprah is cancelling her show.
why? she bought her own cable channel.
the oprah winfrey network.

the acronym soon to be in the corner of
television screens around the world?
O.W.N.
                  tuché, oprah, tuché.

Blast Off On a Podcast

do you listen to podcasts? i don't really, but i do listen to internet radio occasionally.

THE SOCK MONKEY SOUND MUSIC & CULTURE PLAYGROUND

well, our friends out in rockford make a weekly podcast, and they featured us in one of their podcast episodes (episode 11). they have impeccable taste and are pretty entertaining to listen to.

THE SOCK MONKEY SOUND MUSIC & CULTURE PLAYGROUND

so turn off yr tv for a bit and "tune in" to some ad-free banter-full bro-times. come on, when's the last time you "tuned in" to anything? tv doesn't count, because it's for shitheads. you'll probably get acquainted with one of those bands you've been meaning to listen to but haven't had the balls to listen to yet :wink:

THE SOCK MONKEY SOUND MUSIC & CULTURE PLAYGROUND

Cold Chillin' Cold Chillin'

Crowd surfing at ronnys last night with bomb da music industry! Awesome times with Phil puking up blood in front of a police station and James letting us hang out at his place afterwards. Win.

Someone noticed us (score)

Direct link to teh review:
http://performermag.blogspot.com/2009/11/live-review-manque-sweet-talk-please.html?showComment=1258051833849#c8162532368612712882


And some vids of this show taken by our friend Wade:

Modern Goth

The Please and Thank You's #3 from Wade Rodgers on Vimeo.

Ligeia

The Please and Thank You's #2 from Wade Rodgers on Vimeo.

Bollywood Ending

The Please and Thank You's # 1 from Wade Rodgers on Vimeo.




November 9, 2009

Live Review: Manque // Sweet Talk // Please and Thank Yous // Slingshot Dakota // Cloud Mouth

The Please and Thank Yous

Summer Camp // Chicago, IL // Tuesday, Oct. 13

Summer Camp probably hosts the largest volume to venue size ratio in the history of venues. Save the opener, everyone who played this show played mind-blowingly loudly in the most intimate space I've ever been in. The stage was on the same level as the audience space and bands were free to set up their equipment and interact with the crowd however they liked. It was like I was incubating in the opposite of a sensory deprivation chamber. A recommended experience for sure.

Manqué opened the set intimately by drawing the crowd around her and embarking on a string of simple and intensely personal songs. Sounding a bit like Hannah Jones of the Ghost Mice doing '90s slowcore, Manqué played completely without amplification or pretense with the attitude of someone sharing songs for a group of close friends. Her lyrical melancholia ranged from the sweet-and-silly, i.e. "I think your heart's in the wrong place / maybe somewhere between your spleen and kidneys," to the straight-up heartbreaking: "Please don't break our suicide pact, because if I have to do it alone, I'm not going to be happy." The sincerity was at once disarming and endearing.

Sweet Talk

Next to take the stage was Sweet Talk, a two-piece who delivered a driving performance. The amplification absolutely overpowered the small space in which they played. The heavily fuzzed guitar vibrated at such a frequency as to make it feel
like there were little worms made of steel wool copulating in my eardrum. It was loud as loud gets and ear-bleedingly good. The band's singer-guitarist slung himself over the mic screaming, while the drummer played fast and shoeless behind.

The Please and Thank Yous infused their set with hints of old-school punk. Without letting up on the loud, they had a more nonchalant vibe in contrast to Sweet Talk's utmost urgency. Their song structure owed a good deal to '70s punk roots, which their singer/guitarist silently acknowledged by wearing a Ramones shirt.

Slingshot Dakota

Setting up the room so that they were centered and the audience had to cluster around them in a circle, Slingshot Dakota gave a full-length foreword to their performance,
fraternizing with the crowd by discussing their evening at the Chicago Diner, their awesome waiter Don and the giant peanut butter shakes. With just a drumkit and a heavily distorted keyboard (never has that much fuzz been laid over a synth), they went on to deliver some of the most awesome electropunk I've ever had the luck of hearing. Carly Comando sang over her keyboard while Tom Patterson pounded out pantsless beats (he had on bike shorts) and sang backup across from her. The two (who are also a couple – hooray rock love!) tended to look right at each other while performing song after electrifying song. The music just kept exploding out from these guys – you'd be hard-pressed to find a two-piece deliver a more energetic set.

Reverting to the stage, Cloud Mouth rounded out the night with a solid set. Their sound bordered on the art-punk and avant-garde as they navigated some unusual song structures, but they never veered into the pretentious. The distinct and varied guitar riffs and basslines, as well as the proximity of their guitarist to their bassist, made it feel almost like there was a duel going on, but I couldn't tell you who won. It was a pretty close match. I felt like I was in the presence of a sound too big for the venue, a sound meant to echo in long halls, but at the same time, Summer Camp's tightness provides an intimacy that you don't get anywhere else. There's something about watching bands play a few feet away, especially when those bands are filling the space with sound that makes just about everybody's head explode from awesomeness overload.

-Sasha Geffen

A poem to celebrate the birth of a website.

Adolescence

We are back online,
With a sweet name.
And everything like that.

Rock.

       |||||||
\m/  > <  \m/
        @

'Partied Hard' at an open bar karaoke last night.

plz come...

...to this: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=181206883024

Tonight:
+ our friends
+ Joie de vivre
+ hanging out with the above named groups of people
- vocals only coming out of the monitors
+ 'i cant imagine why that would happen'
+ sound guy eating a sandwich while Joie played with no pa juice
- bands who play for too long
- being in lake county

Vandalism win on the Metra

Marcus the blogger has stage fright.

Fail. At the oasis.

tomorrow @ the oasis

the whole gang's gonna be there, including marcus' other band tk proposal.

i lost my cat

discovery zone

Doin work from my phone.

virginity lost

hi u fux