list.in.to.chicago this week: 03.31.2008

I'm an uncle, as of about twenty minutes ago! Cool!

Pick of the week
I'm going to see Kaki King tomorrow night. Other than that, nothing jumps out, although Ulele! at Martyrs' and Yakuza at Hideout are intriguing on Friday night.

list.in.to.COZ
Nothing this week. Nada. I know, you're crushed. Diver returns April 12th at Fado.

Recap
My first experience at Reggie's Rock Club was a positive one. The venue itself reminds me of clubs in Austin, and that's a good thing. And it was reassuring to see Frank -- who used to mix at Elbo Room years ago -- behind the sound board. Unicycle Loves You had their moments, but the drummer seemed to speed up a lot and wore an annoying hat. I was pretty impressed with Ultra Sonic Edukators, who my friend described as "Oasis meets Everclear." And Office delivered. Both bands have all their i's dotted and t's crossed, to the point where they don't come across as a "local" band. They had their shit together, and that matters.

3.31   monday
Jens Lekman with The Honeydrips, Marla Hansen (Logan Square Auditorium)
I know the indie kids love him, but I think I heard Lekman at Pitchfork last year, or the year before, and wasn't terribly impressed.

Melvin Taylor with Out of It, Little Johnny (Elbo Room)
Is Elbo Room starting a Monday blues night? If that's the case, it's an interesting new development in the club's long history.

Matt Pond PA with Snd on Snd (Double Door)
Originally supposed to be with some band called Carbon/Silicon headlining, but they appear to have canceled.

4.01   tuesday
Open Jam (Vaughan's)   COZ WON'T BE THERE!
Anto's in England, and I'll be at the Empty Bottle, so come out and keep Tony company.

Kaki King with The Pussy Pirates (Empty Bottle)
I've heard good things about guitarist King, namely that she's out of the Michael Hedges mold, so I'm taking this one in unheard on a strong recommendation. Don't know if this will necessarily make up for never seeing Hedges before he died, but it's a start.

Ray Davies with Dana Fuchs (Chicago Theatre)
As the Kinks frontman gets up in years, I'm guessing it's just some days, and some of the nights. Davies has had a bit of a renaissance in the last couple of years, with this being his second solo tour in recent memory.

Ace Frehley with The Trews (House of Blues)
At some point, are we going to want these guys to put the makeup back on? And did you know that Anton Fig from the Letterman band was in Frehley's Comet back in the day?

4.02   wednesday
Butterfly Assassins with Villains of Verona, Snd on Snd (Metro)
Again, think "Muse meets The Decemberists." And we seem to be seeing a lot of Snd on Snd lately.

Emerson Hart (Schubas)
Used to be the frontguy for Tonic, and while he allegedly lives in Nashville now, he either tours pretty relentlessly or secretly wishes he lived in Chicago, because I see his name a lot lately.

4.03   thursday
The Rocket Summer, All Time Low with The Matches, Sonny, Forever The Sickest Kids (House of Blues)   SOLD OUT!
This has got to be suburban angst-rock or something, because I haven't heard of any of these bands, and the show starts at 5:45.

4.04   friday
Soma Star (Reggie's Rock Club)   FRIENDS OF COZ!
They've paid up their rent, so I can say nice things about them again. This is a live taping of some sort of program -- don't know if it's TV, Internet, or what -- for Columbia College, so the good news is that it's free. The bad news is that it's a 2pm show, with doors at 1pm.

Nada Surf with The Jealous Girlfriends (Metro)
The last time I saw this band, it was a Lollapalooza aftershow, and I was pretty fried and really there to see The Frames before them. They've had some critical success in the last several years, but are still mostly that one band that played that one song. You know the one.

Yakuza with Rabid Rabbit, Kommandant (Hideout)
I'm trying to wrap my head around a metal show -- even if it's the twisted jazz-metal of Yakuza -- at the Hideout.

Ulele! with Bumpus, Uptown Sound (Martyrs')
No, I did not accidentally pick this listing from 2002. Good to see Ulele! back out of semi-retirement, as they're a joyously fun band.

Robin Trower with Dave Uhrich (House of Blues)   SOLD OUT!
Ace Frehley doesn't sell out, and Robin Trower does? Really? It's a good week to be a fringe 70s guitarist, I guess.

4.05   saturday
Genghis Tron with Converge, The Red Chord, Baroness, He Who Corrupts (Reggie's Rock Club)
This sort of looks like a clever band name at first glance, but it's really not. Does anybody remember the movie Tron, other than Homer and Chief Wiggum? Does anybody remember when The Simpsons used to be funny?

Miss Alex White And The Red Orchestra with Deccas, Smith Westerns (Schubas)
One of those local acts that gets a fair amount of booking and a bit of buzz as well.

4.06   sunday
Vampire Weekend with Yacht (Metro)   SOLD OUT!
It seems like every single buzz band right now combines indie rock with some foreign culture. Vampire Weekend, Dengue Fever, Yeasayer -- all the same general outlines to what they're doing, although each seems to pick a different exotic locale for their multi-culti influence. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, but the consistency is just kinda weird.

Eels (Park West)   SOLD OUT!
I vaguely remember listening to these guys and liking them, and apparently about 1,000 other people have better memories of that than I do.

Genghis Tron with Converge, The Red Chord, Baroness (Reggie's Rock Club)
If I'm going to make fun of their name, I may as well plug both gigs for them.

Bang on a Can All-Stars (Pick-Staiger Auditorium)
I don't normally mention college campus shows, or classical shows, for that matter, but I actually own a CD from this collective, and Wilco's Glen Kotche is guesting on percussion.