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There’s no shortage of metal in Chicago. Some leans toward the ghoulish. Some apes an artistic bent, and some is plain ridiculous. Whatever the proper balance between metaldom’s disparate aspects, Columbus, Ohio-born and Windy City-bred Sun Splitter has settled upon it. The trio, which has been issuing recordings for the past several years, doesn’t revel in slow tempos as much as seemingly unmoving ones. The first track on the troupe’s eponymous tape stands still, as a guitar chugs out quarter notes. Read the rest of this entry »

By Dave Cantor

“I was from New York, so I was a real hustler,” Paul Collins says of his past, wrangling shows for The Nerves, a West Coast pop ensemble equally indebted to sixties rock and the nascent punk scene’s jittery energy. “And I’m still a hustler.”

Collins hasn’t dealt with major label executives or high-powered promotion folks during much of his career. He didn’t while drumming in The Nerves and only needed to do so for a brief time as frontman for The Beat. So maintaining a tenacious attitude while continuing to figure out how to book international tours for his sundry projects has become a necessity. He’s had ample practice. Read the rest of this entry »

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Jeff Mangum doesn’t want to taste your insides. He even said so on “Gardenhead (Leave Me Alone),” a track off both a 1993 cassette called “Hype City Soundtrack” and Neutral Milk Hotel’s debut long player, the 1996 “On Avery Island.” Three years separating the different versions allowed for considerable reworking and some fuller orchestration—a trait NMH would claim as a stylistic tattoo—including various brass and tiny instruments. What the time between an early nineties cassette and a semi-professional album during the decade’s second half allowed for was Mangum to trip along the music world, see that folks he’d already befriended were best as collaborators and then to redouble efforts with his chosen cohort. Read the rest of this entry »

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There’s some weird magic at work behind Mako Sica’s music. It’s still a rock band, kinda. But one in the tradition of intellectualized musicians, aching to make grand statements with the least amount of sound. As a trio, the band’s not raving up huge waves of feedback, possibly turning off listeners who prefer pop to brawny instrumental breaks. The band’s recordings lean toward the sparse side of psychedelicized rock stuffs, adding in a bit of jazzy intent and concrete enough to sidestep terms like noise. Read the rest of this entry »

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When discussing Boston’s illustrious history with hardcore, it’s difficult to leave out Dicky Barrett, best known as the gruff-sounding frontman for The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. That the man’s work with a third-wave ska band is subservient to contributions made to D.Y.S. or Gang Green isn’t too surprising—the music’s been more impactful for a longer period of time than third wave bands. Read the rest of this entry »

By Dave Cantor

Whatever punk is, the music coalesced during the seventies. Arguments can be made that work by Arthur Lee and Love, the MC5 or the Stooges during the sixties were the movement’s first recorded curios. But it took a renaissance of serial killers during the following decade to create a national climate in which ugly music could proliferate. Dean Corll’s Houston killing spree, Son of Sam and the cultish murders Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole were involved with all nabbed headlines. But the crimes John Wayne Gacy was eventually convicted of stunned a nation and invigorated a clutch of area suburbanites. The Mentally Ill was formed in Deerfield during 1979 for no other reason than to record a single channeling the killer clown’s energy into music. It worked, and creeped out a lot of people. Read the rest of this entry »

The rockabilly genre’s pretty absurd—not that indie stuff, punk or whatever else isn’t. But at rockabilly shows, it’s pretty easy to catch furrowed brows, even if attendees aren’t attired in the proper duds. And really, who wants to dress like their fat Uncle Charlie? Attire fit for bowling, Gretsch T-shirts and DAs seem better suited to Jon Favreau movies than daily life. Utter devotion to a style, and a musical genre, that hasn’t changed in sixty years, though, is remarkable. The fact that new groups crop up and are able to tour with relative renown means enough people still care about Elvis and his descendants to pack rooms. Read the rest of this entry »

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Of the two Cleveland bands set to deliver well-worn metal and hardcore to audiences at the Cobra Lounge, Ringworm’s the better-known act, having worked with Victory Records during the better part of its career. And as a connection with that label hints, Ringworm takes itself as serious as its labelmates take animal liberation. Dedication is well and good, but occasionally makes the band hard to palate. “Angelfuck,” from last year’s “Scars” is tough to take in, but near classics like “13 Knots” just go down easy while aping a bit of thrash. Smart-ass uncaring runs through Keelhaul, though. Album titles like 2009’s “Triumphant Return to Obscurity” and a single from the same year called “You Waited 5 Years for This?” point to the level of professionalism the band holds itself to. Read the rest of this entry »

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The 1990s and early 2000s, especially, were a crucial time for Victor Villarreal. After successful runs with punk pioneers Cap’n Jazz and Owls, among others, he disappeared from the scene he helped establish to focus on other, non-musical endeavors. His seven-plus-year absence ended in the summer of 2009 when the Chicago guitarist resurfaced in DeKalb, a small college town an hour and a half westward, with a handful of strings and headful of new solo material—his first ever to feature his own vocals. Villarreal played a couple of shows to support “Alive,” his debut album, before reuniting with his old bandmates a year later to tour with Cap’n Jazz. The months thereafter were quiet for him, and aside from an odd release here and there and a number of appearances supporting fellow Chicago outfit Joan of Arc on guitar, nobody really knew what Villarreal had been up to. Read the rest of this entry »

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The three Chicago bands—Moonrises, Wumme and ONO—set to take the Bottle’s stage on Monday the 16th represent dramatically different takes on music. Of course, somewhere, each of these ensembles has been referred to as psychedelic. With such unique practices setting each group apart, there’s bound to be at least one band concertgoers will love and at least one they’re likely to hate. Moonrises sports Plastic Crimewave Sound’s guitarist out front in a trio sans bass. It’s not probable a cover of “Light My Fire’s” on the way, but Moonrises skirts jazzier intentions as well, churning out tunes not dissimilar to Moon Duo. Read the rest of this entry »