list.in.to.chicago this week: 04.13.2009

One full week of being unemployed, and I haven't quite overcome the TiVo backlog yet. Maybe I'll get caught up on Thursday night, when all the shows that struck me as notable also struck me as being sold out.

Pick of the week
I'm all about Adrian Belew on Sunday night at the Old Town School of Folk Music, unless it's sold out, but I don't think that's likely. And if I didn't have other plans, I'd likely be at Travis on Saturday at The Vic.

list.in.to.COZ
Two chances to see me play this week, with the weekly Vaughan's Open Jam on Tuesday, and then a full evening with Gareth Woods and Sugar Beat on Friday night at Fado.

Recap
The Alejandro Escovedo show on Wednesday was just him, Susan Voelz and his lead guitar player, and it got out of the gate being almost magical, eventually settling down into just really, really good. The three musicians have been playing together for a long time, were having fun, and sounded great, and while older rock crowds sometimes don't know how to reconcile their sense of entitlement with small sold-out clubs, the audience was pretty well-behaved. The songlist struck me as being pretty similar to the one from the Fourth of July show in Grant Park, but they may have stretched some stuff here and there and added some obscure tunes. I'm not a big enough fan to know.

4.13   monday
The Bronx with Trash Talk, The Arrivals, Vicelords (Reggie's Rock Club)
It should not surprise you to learn that this hard rock band -- reminiscent of Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age if the two tracks I downloaded a couple of years ago are any indication -- does not hail from the New York borough sharing their name, but rather from Los Angeles.

4.14   tuesday
Open Jam (Vaughan's)   COZ SINGS!
There was a bit of nostalgia for theme nights last week, and this week we've got a ton of possibilities. Taxes? Baseball? I've got my own situation to deal with, so I'm thinking maybe "Bright Future In Sales" from Fountains of Wayne.

The English Beat (House of Blues)
We tend to get one or two shows a year from General Public, but this is the first I can recall seeing Dave Wakeling's former band coming through town in a long while. We had one guy at Vaughan's years ago who would play "Save It For Later," and it's right in my vocal range, so maybe I'll give that a go.

Ours with The Winter Sounds (Bottom Lounge)
So, there was a web comment a few weeks ago when this band was here telling me that Jimmy Gnecco was, in fact, Jeff Buckley's guitar tech, proving once again, never believe anything you read on the Internet. I'm also somewhat surprised that he's back just a month after his last show in town, but maybe he's going from coast to coast and back. Or that show got postponed.

4.15   wednesday
Shiny Toy Guns with All-American Rejects, Ace Enders, Vedera (Aragon Ballroom)
I've been seeing TV ads for this tour for months now, which is odd, because you don't see a lot of concert ads on television. On the other hand, this tour looks like what the mainstream music business thinks the cutting edge looks like, so mainstream tactics shouldn't be all that surprising.

Gavin DeGraw with Honeyhoney (Park West)   SOLD OUT!
My entire opinion of DeGraw is based on the fact that I actually enjoy playing "I Don't Want To Be" with Tony in the two- and three-piece versions of something almost like Diver. I'd say he's like David Gray with a bit more edge, but a plastic spork has more edge than David Gray. That's only a bad thing if you're looking for more edge, really.

8 Bold Souls (Hideout)
This stands out more for the venue than anything else. Could Hideout be adding more jazz to the repertoire? Would that be a shot across the bow of the Empty Bottle?

Andy Narell (Old Town School of Folk Music)
Pretty much the only jazz steel drum player I've ever come across in my entire life.

4.16   thursday
Jeff Beck with Davy Knowles (Park West)   SOLD OUT!
I was torn when this one went on sale. The guitar legend is, well, a legend, and has a pretty great backing band that may include drummer Vinnie Colaiuta. But the tickets were really expensive. So I hemmed and hawed and then all the tickets disappeared. For a taste, there's a live album from Ronny Scott's in London that came out last year.

Seven Day Run with Jeffrey David, Dan Darrah, Murley Shertz (House of Blues)   SOLD OUT!
I can't figure this one out. They've got that Grey's Anatomy soundtrack pedigree, but they're local, and don't seem to have gotten any major breaks like getting featured on the aforementioned Grey's Anatomy and the like. They're just a local band that sounds a lot like Counting Crows. And they've sold out House of Blues. There's got to be more to this.

Cold War Kids with Amazing Baby (Schubas)   SOLD OUT!
Everybody was going on about this band about two years ago, but the singer has one of those voices that can annoy the shit out of you after a couple of songs, so I couldn't deal with them. And while I didn't think they'd be huge, they're clearly bigger than Schubas, where they're sneaking a show in on the eve of their opening set for Death Cab For Cutie.

4.17   friday
Gareth Woods/Sugar Beat (Fado)   SEE COZ LIVE!
Gareth's drummer has a very busy social calendar this spring, which has resulted in more gigs with this band than with Diver at the moment.

Death Cab For Cutie with Cold War Kids, Ra Ra Riot (Aragon Ballroom)   SOLD OUT!
I liked what I heard from Narrow Stairs last year, but haven't actually picked up my own copy of it. I did give it to my brother and sister-in-law for Christmas, though, and may eventually rip a copy from them.

Branford Marsalis (Symphony Center)
I still say that Marsalis ruined saxophone in rock bands for me, as his work with Sting twenty years ago set the bar too high for mostly everyone else to compete with. His jazz output has been much more easygoing and accessible than that of his brother Wynton.

The Bad Plus with Wendy Lewis (Old Town School of Folk Music)
Another quality jazz show, this time from the piano trio that first broke through with a jazz version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Their latest goes at some prog rock tunes the same way, but I haven't taken a listen yet.

Gary Sinise and the Lt. Dan Band (Joe's)
The actor also plays bass, and these shows invariably donate proceeds to veterans' groups.

Jeff Beck with Davy Knowles (Park West)   SOLD OUT!
See Friday's listing.

4.18   saturday
Travis with Republic Tigers (The Vic)
Last year's Ode to J. Smith rocked a bit harder than earlier albums from the Scottish band, which, again, isn't terribly hard. I'm still trying to get Diver to learn at least the first single from that record.

Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 with Dag Juhlin (Epiphany)
This band was supposed to be a one-off, I think, but I saw a documentary on how it came together that makes me think they just had too much fun to let it go away. The eccentric English singer/songwriter is awfully entertaining live, with his wit permeating both his songs and his between-song banter.

Ulele! with Lovers In Arms (Martyrs')
It's becoming abundantly clear by this point that a whole of lot local artists who had "settled down" into semi-retirement as much as ten years ago are coming back, and that includes the ebullient world music of Ulele!, which originally came from the fertile percussive mind of Ulele Stone, also known as Winston Damon back when he was in The Drovers. At least I think it was The Drovers. We also both played on the debut record from Miga many years ago.

Loretta Lynn with Redd Volkaert (Old Town School of Folk Music)
The country legend is a pretty big "get" for the Lincoln Square venue, and part of a developing concert series that just continues to impress and impress. I get the sense this might be hurting JAM Productions a bit, as a lot of these artists seem about the size of The Vic or Park West.

4.19   sunday
Adrian Belew (Old Town School of Folk Music)
For the last couple of years, Belew's solo output has been more interesting to me than what he's been doing with King Crimson, which seems to get more and more inscrutable with every album and tour. There's that bit of a pop streak coloring the weirdness, and I've heard his touring trio is pretty potent.

Chris Cornell with Outernational (Riviera Theatre)
The new album from Chris Cornell, where he teams up with Timbaland and tries to cross over into dance and club territory, is stunningly bad. This makes me hope it flops hard enough to drive the singer back to Soundgarden, the rest of whom got together on stage for the first time since breaking up just a few weeks ago in Seattle.

The Handsome Family with Marissa Nadler, Barry McCormack (Schubas)
I'm not sure that The Handsome Family every really went into that "semi-retirement" I was talking about earlier. I feel like they're still playing a show or two a year, and have been for a while, but I could be mistaken. DeRo wrote something about them last week, but I didn't read it.