list.in.to.chicago this week: 03.13.2006

No, I didn't audition for the new season of Rock Star. Although I did drive by the Elbo Room at about 2pm, four hours after they were scheduled to get started, and there was still a line out the door.

We're fully in that period where bands are setting themselves up to be in Austin at the end of the week for South By Southwest, but going through all the listings for the annual confab would take me all day.

Pick of the week
Given how much I liked his last record, I'm sorta kicking myself for not securing tickets to Saturday's sold out Mike Doughty show at the Old Town School, so if you can find tickets, go. You can never, ever go wrong with George Clinton and P-Funk (Wednesday at House of Blues), and one of my new local favorites, Columbian Monkey Knife Fight, is playing on Thursday at Subterranean.

list.in.to.COZ
It's a double dose of Diver on Friday, first at Cullen's in the early evening, then a little later at the Celtic Knot in Evanston. Come see how we're holding up by the time we hit our sixth set of the night.

Recap
A bit of a quiet week, but I'm entitled to those every once in a while. Seeing people celebrating St. Patrick's Day on Saturday was weird, though. I thought the conventional wisdom was that nobody really cared about the downtown parade anyway? So why not celebrate the Saturday after instead of the Saturday before?

3.13   monday
Patricia Barber Quartet (Green Mill)
Yeah, I'm using my "in case of emergency, break glass" Monday night listing, but it's nice knowing the jazz singer/pianist is there in Uptown every week. One of these days, I should have the newsletter consist only of standing weekly gigs. Sunday through Wednesday would definitely be covered.

3.14   tuesday
Open Jam (Vaughan's)   COZ SINGS!
Okay, so I sorta forgot which key I was going to sing the Fixx tune in, which made that particular rendition somewhat adventurous. The other song I was talking about last week that was so critical to my musical development was "Subdivisions" from Rush. It came off okay, but there are a couple of vocal parts that are sorta pushing my luck.

Deftones (UIC Pavilion)
The California hard rock band headlines the "Taste Of Chaos" tour, along with Thrice, Story of the Year, As I Lay Dying, Dredg, Silverstein, The Receiving End of Sirens, Pelican, The Confession, Adair, Street Drum Corps, Greeley Estates, Millionaire and The Smashup. Tickets are only $28, which comes out to only $2 per band before Ticketmaster fees.

The Subways with The Shys, Mar (Empty Bottle)
The Reader doesn't give this British trio much of a chance of meeting the outsized expectations of their home country's press and, apparently, themselves, but I don't know if a Tuesday night in Ukranian Village is going to go to anyone's head anytime soon.

Test Icicles with Bang! Bang!, The Countdown (Logan Square Auditorium)
I'm somewhat amazed that bands with silly, puerile names ever amount to anything, just because it seems like no one outside of a small group of people who still watch Beavis and Butthead reruns would take them seriously. What's curious is that this band sort of announced they would be either calling it quits or going on hiatus last month. At the time, that was assumed to mean after a stretch of UK dates, but maybe they meant the entire tour. So that means this may be your last chance to see Test Icicles live and in person, which doesn't sound nearly as silly and puerile as I had hoped.

3.15   wednesday
George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic (House of Blues)
Every time Clinton brings the Mothership back to Chicago, I comment on how I've never made it through an entire show from the eighteen-or-so piece funk band. But I also haven't tried in a long, long while. I'm a wimp and I admit it, and it's not going to change this week, either.

Long Count Quartet (Stadium West)   FRIENDS OF COZ!
Three weeks into the new residency for Steve Gillis and his jazz combo over on Elston, and I'm going to try to make it out this week. Or maybe next week.

3.16   thursday
Columbian Monkey Knife Fight with Emily Shrine, Big Evil Grin (Subterranean)
One of my new favorite local bands is back in action down in Bucktown. I think I described them as a sort of "happy Interpol" a few weeks ago after seeing them for the first time, but they've got a MySpace page, so you can check it out yourself.

Nicholas Barron's Hyperactive with Pulsymetry (Elbo Room)   FRIENDS OF COZ!
Heck, forget a newsletter full of standing weekly gigs, pretty soon I could put together a week full of standing gigs that Gillis is either playing or to which he is somehow related. Stand in awe of my correct grammar!

3.17   friday
Diver (Cullen's)   SEE COZ LIVE!
We've got the pole position on St. Patrick's Day proper -- none of this celebrating six days too early -- playing at the Wrigleyville spot from 4:30 or so until 8pm, just in time for those looking to maximize their celebration time after work.

Diver with Maiden Shileleagh (Celtic Knot, Evanston)   SEE COZ LIVE AGAIN!
Then it's up to Evanston to reprise last year's St. Patrick's Day show. Anto was threatening to make us learn a couple of traditional Irish songs for this, but I haven't heard anything more on that in a couple of weeks.

Soma Star with Soulfix (Kaz Bar)   FRIENDS OF COZ!
Okay, three gigs in one night would have been too much, so Dario from Soulfix is covering for me for this gig at the bar in the House of Blues Hotel.

Muchacha with Beer Nuts, Deals Gone Bad, Gutwrench (Double Door)
Okay, last I heard, Muchacha changed their name to Matador Down and got really serious about "making it." Seeing their name on this bill makes me think something went awry, and the easiest way out -- legally and/or contractually -- would be to forsake the new name and bust back down to the old one. This, however, is pure speculation on my part, but it was my immediate reaction. Might not even be the same band.

Mark Ribot (Old Town School Of Folk Music)
I haven't really heard that much from guitarist Ribot, but everything I've heard has been good. He seems to triangulate between jazz, rock and avant garde forms that combine the two but don't rise to the level of the largely pejorative label of "fusion."

The Bish with Carbonfour, Creepy D (Martyrs')   FRIENDS OF COZ!
With my first reaction to this band being Deep Purple, I'd love to see them on a set with recent find Viceroy, who sounded like Thin Lizzy. There'd be all sorts of retro action going on.

The Cult (The Vic)   SOLD OUT!
I think that Sonic Temple is one of those big records from the early- to mid-90s that didn't quite get onto my radar at the time. I didn't really listen to these guys until much, much later. Singer Ian Astbury has been slumming with the remaining interested parties from The Doors lately, but I'm assuming he's done with that tour and on board for this one.

3.18   saturday
Mike Doughty with Rachel Ries (Old Town School Of Folk Music)   SOLD OUT!
There's something apropos about the former Soul Coughing frontman potentially playing "Busting Up A Starbucks" from his most recent -- and really good, so get it if you haven't already -- album right across the street from a fairly conspicuously large Starbucks.

Arctic Monkeys with The Spinto Band (Metro)   SOLD OUT!
The line on this recent UK export is that they had the fastest-selling debut in UK chart history, which sets them up to be the next huge band from over there to severely disappoint on this side of the pond, as they weren't quite as hot out of the gate when the record came out stateside.

Donald Fagen (Chicago Theatre)
The Steely Dan co-conspirator is out on tour by himself, but I'd expect his solo material to not stray very much from the band that made him famous.

Dream Theater (Congress Theatre)
I guess that, for the neo-progsters to be really pretentious, they would have spelled their name Dream Theatre. Or maybe just it would make them more pretentious? And what does that say about the pretension level of nearly every venue in Chicago? I think there's maybe one that spells it "theater," but I don't recall exactly which.

3.19   sunday
Leftsetter (Elbo Room)
The local hard rock band is playing two sets and screening Scarface. No, I don't understand it, either. Maybe they're just big fans, or maybe Elbo Room is trying something different on Sundays. Back in the URT days, we had talked about screening movies and sort of "playing along" to them, creating an ad hoc soundtrack, but that effort never got past the coffee-fueled, arm-waving discussion stage.