list.in.to.chicago this week: 02.06.2006

So, um, does anybody know when Soulfix is playing?

Also, if you only read this via e-mail last week, you missed Burn Rome Burn clarifying why their show started so early. That's right, you can post feedback for everyone in the world to (potentially) see over at notabbott.com/litc.

Pick of the week
Now that I'm actually listening to them, I'm thinking the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club show (Wednesday at Metro) should be pretty good. Follow that up with something completely different in the Charlie Hunter Trio (Green Mill, Saturday).

list.in.to.COZ
This week kicks off a four-week stretch in which you can see every single project I'm currently involved in. Friday is another Diver show, this time at Blue Bayou. Saturday is Wingman, along with the longest solo set I've played since that one time nobody showed up at Vaughan's. Then there's Soma Star next week at Wise Fools, and a one-off gig I'm doing for a band called Otherworld in the beginning of March, right after another Diver gig.

Recap
On the plus side, Diver came as close as we ever have to getting "Take Me Out" from Franz Ferdinand right. On the minus side, pretty much everything else. I know I commented a few weeks ago on how I'm not used to being blinded by stage lighting anymore. Sometimes, that might be better.

Saturday night was the first and last time I'll see Rockit Girl, as it was the band's final show. What I liked about them is that -- particularly when the easy comparison is made to Veruca Salt -- they seemed more of a rock band that happened to be one-half to two-thirds women, rather than a "girl band." The only difference between the succession of three bass players and the guys I'm playing with now is the guys I'm playing with now would never be able to pull off those outfits.

For those of you now envisioning Randy in hot pants, I apologize.

Unless you're into that sort of thing.

It was nice to see one-time URT bassist Chris Frantisak wielding a six-string for some of the show, and now I think I've seen him play everything but drums on stage in Chicago. Openers The Strategy Game showed some promise, sounding sort of like Snow Patrol, but a little more expansive by virtue of having more bodies on stage.

2.06   monday
Pat McCurdy (Beat Kitchen)
I'm trying to remember where my friends used to see McCurdy every week some ten-odd years ago. I want to say Hoghead McDunna's, but while he played there often, I don't think that was it. And it wasn't Lounge Ax, which he also frequented quite often. How many clubs has this guy outlasted at this point, anyway?

2.07   tuesday
Open Jam (Vaughan's)   COZ SINGS!
It's getting very close to Valentine's Day, and I haven't been on a date in...well, never mind. I'll give you three guesses as to whether or not these facts play into my song selection for the next two weeks, and the first two don't count.

2.08   wednesday
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club with Elefant, The Morning After Girls (Metro)
Last week I wondered if RCA knew much of anything about rock music anymore, but apparently these perennial favorites of both the indie/hipster community and Oasis' Liam Gallagher (for whatever that's worth) are also on that label. With their last record being much more of an acoustic diversion from their normally tube-driven sound, your guess is as good as mine as to what sort of show they'll put on here.

Flogging Molly with The Briggs, The Deadpets, Called Flat Foot 56 (House of Blues)
I'm not sure what I can say about these guys that I haven't said already, not that it's ever stopped me before. Irish punk at a breakneck pace. I remember being out of breath just watching them the one time I saw them.

2.09   thursday
Your Little Ponies with Chris Ayer (Uncommon Ground)
I'm curious if tending bar at Elbo Room, with the constant influx of music, has affected the Ponies' output in any substantial way. If you're mocking rock conventions at all, having that much source material has got to help.

Flogging Molly with Scotch Greens, Rolling Blackouts (House of Blues)
See Wednesday's listing.

2.10   friday
Diver (Blue Bayou)   SEE COZ LIVE!
It's early to be teasing this, but we may be adding a couple of songs to the set. I don't want to alarm you, but we may even schedule rehearsal number five sometime in the next month or so in order to make that happen. And what are the odds we'll have two bad shows in a row?

Saturday Looks Good To Me with Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, The Passerines (Ida Noyes Hall, University of Chicago)
This jumped out at me because it's down at my alma mater, and you don't see shows down there popping up in Metromix that often. It could be that it's an up-and-coming band treating this as a club date, so they're advertising outside of just the campus, and the U of C has a pretty good history with up-and-coming bands when you consider the likes of U2 and R.E.M. played in Hyde Park back in the early 80s.

Helicopters with Buddy Nuisance, The Fame, On a Sun (Double Door)
We -- and by that I mean Soma Star in this case -- shared a bill with these guys a few months ago, but that's all I really remember about them. They may have been the very electronic duo, but I'm not certain.

2.11   saturday
Wingman with Coz Sings! (Goose Island Wrigleyville)   SEE COZ LIVE!
I'm all about the double-dipping these days. On the heels of the Diver/Wingman double bill out in Lincolnshire, it's two sets from the new-ish, female-fronted cover band, preceded by maybe a half-hour or forty-five minutes of acoustic eighties tunes from yours truly. And while last time it was Shubie's birthday, this time we'll be celebrating the occasion of Randy's entry into this world. I'm praying he doesn't get any ideas from the hot pants comment.

Charlie Hunter Trio (Green Mill)
Probably the best and brightest young jazz guitarist to emerge on the national scene in the last ten years or so, Hunter made his mark by playing both bass and lead on an eight-string guitar that ends up sounding more like an organ than a typical axe.

High on Fire with The Bronx, Big Business, Buried Inside (Double Door)
This is one of very few stoner rock bands not named Queens of the Stone Age that seem to have had some degree of success. At the very least, I see their name a lot when people talk about stoner rock as a genre.

2.12   sunday
Air Supply (Aragon Ballroom)
I said this once about another band whose name and insipid catalog thankfully escapes me right now, but if you go see this show, even ironically, I'm not talking to you anymore.