list.in.to.chicago this week: 04.10.2006

Sneaker trends, huge drumkits and the deconstruction of rock criticism. It must be Monday.

Pick of the week
Bass is the place this week, with Thursday's Stu Hamm, Billy Sheehan and Jeff Berlin show at Martyrs'. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs show (Friday at the Riv) might be worthwhile, if only because I'd expect them to make some critics' top ten lists at the end of the year, which counts for something despite some of the things I'm going to say in a minute.

list.in.to.COZ
We're breaking in a new venue for Diver this week, at The Globe Pub on Irving Park just east of Damen. It's a great bar, and they don't do a lot of live music, so a strong turnout will help convince them its a good idea to have us -- and other bands -- back in the future.

Recap
You know how I commented a while back on this whole trend of band members wearing blazers? Except for Split Habit, whose common suburban emo origins with Fall Out Boy may have precluded such footwear, the story of Friday night at Nite Cap was the massive proliferation of Converse Chuck Taylors. Of the last three bands, fully half of the twelve musicians who graced the stage were wearing them. And the bass player for The Ladies and Gentlemen also wore a blazer. Cisco Pike had exactly the problems I expected, in that it was tough picking the vocals out over the guitars, at least when the guitars got at all loud.

Saturday's opening set from Diver went pretty well, although we looked like midgets in front of Lounge Puppets' fairly massive amounts of gear, but that sort of goes with the territory. I'll try to post the full rundown of my drumkit envy, complete with picture, on notabbott.com in the next day or two.

4.10   monday
Gino Vanelli (House of Blues)
Arriving on the scene as a sort of contemporary of Steely Dan, Vanelli achieved the same respect and notoriety among other musicians, but without the same kind of commercial success. I also see some parallels between his work in the seventies and Sting's later solo career, and not just because drummer Vinnie Colaiuta played with both.

4.11   tuesday
Open Jam (Vaughan's)   COZ SINGS!
I'm toying with either a foray into modern rock one-hit wonders of the 90s -- which is pretty much the only context in which I would combine the phrases "90s" and "retro" -- or playing as many songs from Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins' new record as I can learn by tomorrow night.

KT Tunstall with David Ford (Park West)
I think it was Niki from The Paramours who asked why I didn't tag Scottish singer Tunstall last time she was in town. No reason, really, I just hadn't heard of her. Or didn't think I had heard of her, anyway, as a quick listen to her last record yielded some familiar melodies that I'm guessing I heard on WXRT at some point.

4.12   wednesday
Sia with Eagle and Talon (Martyrs')   SOLD OUT!
If you're wondering why this show sold out, when you probably have no idea who Sia is, you're probably not alone. Previously known primarily as an Australian singer who used to back up Jamiroquai and then went on to some minor UK successes, Sia Furler's most recent and most high-profile claim to fame was the music underneath the epilogue of the final episode of Six Feet Under, which gave rise to more questions about a song than that one time they played Moby on The X-Files.

David Gilmour (Rosemont Theatre)   SOLD OUT!
I'm slowly getting caught up on the podcasts of Sound Opinions, and last week I listened to the one where they completely savaged the Pink Floyd guitarist's solo effort. What was interesting was how crystal clear it made the aesthetic construct of rock criticism. Gilmore zigged when both Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis wanted him to zag. That's pretty much the root of it all right there. The album did not meet their expectations, but is that a reflection of the artist, or of the critic's expectations, and should those critics be more upfront about the latter, rather than speaking in these faux objective terms about it?

4.13   thursday
BX3 featuring Stu Hamm, Billy Sheehan and Jeff Berlin (Martyrs')
Following closely on the heels of Satriani's two-night stand at HOB comes this tour featuring his former bass player Stu Hamm, who rose to prominence largely by playing the theme from Peanuts on the bass. It's a full night of that most unlikely of musicans, the virtuoso bassist. I'm not saying bass players can't be good at their instrument -- far from it -- just that they rarely step into the spotlight. Too bad the Bottom Lounge has been torn down, though, as that would have been the perfect venue for this show.

The Stills with Raising the Fawn (Double Door)
Sometimes The Reader's hipper-than-thou aesthetic can actually come off as more funny than condescending, like when they call this band "a great guilty pleasure for hipsters who liked the Strokes but didn't want to seem so far behind the game as to admit they actually liked the Strokes."

David Gilmour (Rosemont Theatre)   SOLD OUT!
See Thursday's quasi-intellectual diatribe about the nature of music criticism. Not sure what got into me there.

4.14   friday
Yeah Yeah Yeahs with Blood on the Wall, Imaad Wasif (Riviera)
Reviews of the garage rock trio's second full-length seem to be wildly varying, which once again speaks to the zigging and zagging I was getting at a moment ago, only more pronounced because the band doesn't have much of a history from which to build those expectations.

Silver Jews with Why? (Double Door)   SOLD OUT!
Continuing this week's theme of "artists I've never heard of selling out venues," we learn that this band includes Stephen Malkmus of Pavement, although he's the not the leader of the band. I'm not sure if that's the key selling point, or if the band can move 400 tickets on its own merits.

Galactic with Rebirth Brass Band (Vic Theatre)
The New Orleans jazz/funk group has built a reputation as a strong live act, driven by the traditional Crescent City stylings of drummer Stanton Moore, who has been a sort of standard-bearer for the particular brand of drumming that came from that area in the last five or ten years.

Greyboy Allstars (House of Blues)
For a jazz/funk vibe of a slightly different sort, you've got what's being billed as a tour with "all original members" of this collective. Except I'm hard-pressed to name a single member, original or otherwise, of this band other than Karl Denson.

4.15   saturday
Diver (The Globe Pub)   SEE COZ LIVE!
I'm a little apprehensive about this one, because having your band play at your favorite bar seems roughly akin to dating someone that you work with. If it goes bad, things could get very, very uncomfortable in the future. So I need to you all to come join us. We'll even throw in a new song or two, regardless of whether or not Anto learns the words.

Train with Brandi Carlile (Chicago Theatre)   SOLD OUT!
I'm going to throw these guys under that same bus of music for people who think Dave Matthews, John Mayer and Coldplay are just too edgy. Yeah, they've got some good songs here and there, but overall, there's all the excitement of a well-manicured front lawn.

Greyboy Allstars (House of Blues)
See Friday's listing.

4.16   sunday
Stellastarr* with Editors (Metro)
For some reason, I keep wanting to think the creatively punctuated band is from the UK, but that may be due to the fact that they're touring with a UK band in Editors. Who, incidentally, sound quite a bit like Interpol, a band from New York City, which is where Stellastarr* is from. Did you follow all that?