list.in.to.chicago this week: 12.12.2005

In which our correspondent prefers to be more honest than diplomatic.

Pick of the week
Friday's Cupcakes show -- if reports of the last "reunion" they did are to be believed -- should be a good one at Double Door. I'm intrigued by this Psychedelic Furs with Death Cab For Cutie and Hot Hot Heat show on Saturday at the Aragon, if there are any tickets left. And Kristen Hirsch (Friday, Schubas) is just one of those people I would support simply because she's an important part of modern, neé alternative, rock history.

list.in.to.COZ
Just Vaughan's again this week, but I'm working on some quality shows in the new year for you. Because I care about you that much.

Recap
Okay, I'm probably not going to make any friends this week, because everybody I saw on Friday night at Cubby Bear had their flaws. Frank Tribes suffered from a really mushy, indistinct guitar tone that had me thinking his songs would have been better served on an acoustic. The lead singer of Drowning Wallace was either having a bad night, or isn't necessarily suited to the soaring vocal melodies he tends to write. I haven't seen enough of the band to know which.

As for Air This Side Of Caution, I was digging the overall sound, which is sort of a post-grunge shoegazer kind of thing in the vein of early Radiohead, or Muse without the huge riffs, but was confounded by their drummer. He's a really good drummer. Unfortunately, he seemed intent on making sure you knew it, often to the detriment of the song, and to such an extent that he intro'd a song late in the set with a full-on fusion-style drum solo. Now, I'll go off half-cocked with criticisms sometimes, but as a recovering overplaying drummer, this is something near and dear to my heart. Unless your band hangs its collective hat on instrumental prowess, drum solos are a very, very bad idea. This whole retro-eighties thing hasn't gone quite that far.

12.12   monday
The M's with The Living Blue, Headache City, DJ Matt Fields (Schubas)
The "Practice Space" Monday night series continues at Schubas. I've got nothing to add, other than to note that it took me something like two years of doing this every week before I realized there's no apostrophe in "Schubas." And that the apostrophe is after the 's' over at Martyrs'.

12.13   tuesday
Open Jam (Vaughan's)   COZ SINGS!
The rust has been shaken off The Grinch. Now we'll see if I can get "Father Christmas" from the Kinks up and running.

Donovan (Park West)
You remember Atlantis? Donovan, the guy with the brocade coat, used to sing to you about Atlantis. You loved it, you were so involved then. That was back in the days when you used to smoke a banana. You would scrape the stuff off the middle, you would bake it, you would smoke it, you even thought you was getting ripped from it. Some of you know what I'm talking about, the rest probably think I'm crazy. The dome, the bubbles, the blue light...

12.14   wednesday
You Ruined Christmas with Great Plains Gypsy (Elbo Room)
Too bad they're the undercard and not the headliner, because I'd love to see "You Ruined Christmas" on the Elbo Room marquee.

Rock Star Club with The Bitter Tears, Slingerland Ride, A-Set (Double Door)
I swear, ten years from now, these guys are going to still be banging out their unapologetic, balls-out rock.

12.15   thursday
Soma Star with the Pete Sutcliffe Project (Stadium West)   FRIENDS OF COZ!
Yes, I'm actually in this band, but they'll be doing an acoustic show without me this time around at a new space over at Elston and Belmont. The bar itself is not new, but they've only just started doing music. It'll be a Nitrous Foxide alumni reunion of sorts, as fellow former Foxide guitarist Matt Sharp's acoustic Beatles duo opens.

12.16   friday
Cupcakes with The Assembly, Street Wisemen (Double Door)
Since the last one was a reunion show, and this one is a holiday show, I'm not sure if the band is "back," especially since I think at least one member still lives in Los Angeles. Still, it's two Cupcakes shows in three or four months, which is a lot more than we've seen since the band broke up.

Kristen Hirsch with Ben Weaver (Schubas)
The former Throwing Muse seems to have found an independent groove in much the same way Bob Mould has, and I say that almost entirely because I recently followed a link on Mould's blog to Hirsch's blog, and both have a similar narrative style. In the grander scheme of things, this whole "striking out on your own" idea seems to work better after a major-label tour of duty rather than before, because you've got an established base that can energize the niche.

The Donnas with The Reputation (House of Blues)
The narrative I've picked up with arguably the biggest all-girl, all-actually-playing rock band since the Bangles is that while they started heavy on schtick, they've since added some heft to their songs past the initial saccharine punk-pop.

O.A.R. with The Lovehammers (Aragon Ballroom)
Q101 is once again going with the three-night format for their Twisted Christmas concert, with the first offering including the frat-rock soundtrack stylings of O.A.R. along with prodigal son Marty Casey with what is probably his last local appearance before Lovehammers hit the road with INXS.

12.17   saturday
Ashoka with Velvet Sun, The Lady Upstairs (Elbo Room)   FRIENDS OF COZ!
This is a new original project that Diver bassist Avi Kopernik is involved with. Recorded as more of a one-man solo artist kind of thing -- albeit with full instrumentation -- it's now expanded into a full band lineup. Not bad scoring a weekend headlining gig as their first major show in town.

Psychedelic Furs with Death Cab For Cutie, Hot Hot Heat (Aragon Ballroom)
With night two of Twisted Christmas, you can sort of connect the dots between Death Cab For Cutie and Hot Hot Heat as indie faves gone major, then between Hot Hot Heat and Richard Butler's venerable 80s outfit if you buy into allmusic.com's contention that XTC is an influence of the Canadian quartet. To me, they sound more like Chicago's own OK Go.

Dave Koz and Friends (Chicago Theatre)
Okay, if you go to see "A Smooth Jazz Christmas," with Koz and David Benoit, Patti Austin and Jonathan Butler, we can't be friends anymore. I'm sorry.

12.18   sunday
The Bish with Alphabet, This Is Me Smiling (Empty Bottle)   FRIENDS OF COZ!
As I said after finally seeing these guys, the two prevailing sounds that hit me were Deep Purple, on account of the keyboards, and The Cult, on account of the singer's voice.

Fall Out Boy with Coheed and Cambria, All-American Rejects (Aragon Ballroom)
Twisted Christmas concludes with another local flair, this time from suburban flavor of the month/year/who knows how much longer Fall Out Boy. No word if they'll change the name of their one-hit to "Sugarplums, We're Going Down."