list.in.to.chicago this week: 05.18.2009

Internet connectivity has been restored! No more nomadic searching for WiFi or borrowing from my landlord. Now I can start, you know, looking for a new job.

Pick of the week
Nothing big jumping out at me other than the pure curiosity of the sold-out Chickenfoot show on Friday at Park West, if you can scrounge up tickets.

list.in.to.COZ
I get temporarily promoted to actual co-hosting duties for Vaughan's for the time being, and also have a long-awaited (by me, anyway) return to solo performance on Saturday out in Bridgeview.

Recap
The thing about Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band is that Bruce defies context. As a big rock show, there's just very little you can compare him to. And being my first Bruce show, I don't even have that point of reference. I enjoyed it. Lots of reviews focus on Max Weinberg's son Jay injecting much-needed energy when he subbed for his dad for the second two-thirds of the show. I'd rather focus on Nils Lofgren's guitar solo on "The Ghost of Tom Joad," which was one of the clear highlights for me. Lofgren was as much a secret weapon for me as the younger Weinberg -- with spells on electric, acoustic, lap and pedal steel guitars -- and his lead tone was a lot less trebly than either Bruce or Steve Van Zant, aka "that guy from The Sopranos."

And I have now established a pattern on those Sugar Beat gigs where I make a mess of one Pearl Jam song per show. Last time was "Better Man," and this time, I kept missing the big riff at the beginning of the verses of "Corduroy."

5.18   monday
The Melvins (Double Door)
I feel like the Melvins exist more as a concept to me than a band, because I've heard more about people who were influenced by them -- particularly some of those early Seattle grunge bands -- than I have of them themselves. All I know is that they played a very sludgy, loud brand of rock, and their former bass player was in Tomahawk with Mike Patton.

5.19   tuesday
Open Jam (Vaughan's)   COZ SINGS!
Tony and I will be bringing you the Open Jam for at least the next couple of weeks while Anto attends to familial duties, along with things that rhyme with that.

5.20   wednesday
School of Seven Bells with Black Moth Super Rainbow, Follows
This has got to be the fifth or sixth time I've seen former Secret Machines guitarist Ben Curtis' new band come through town in the last year, this time opening for what is probably Pittsburgh's favorite hometown indie experimental band, Black Moth Super Rainbow.

Kick the McGee, Morglbl (Martyrs')
As you might have guessed, Kick the McGee comprises members of both Kick the Cat and Umphrey's McGee, which will likely yield more notes per minute than pretty much any other show this week.

The Toadies with The Willowz, Pool of Frogs (Metro)
I seem to remember a lot people being excited to see these guys play that one song everyone kind of remembers from back in the 90s at Lollapalooza last year, but tickets still seem to be available, so maybe I just kept running into one excited person a bunch of times in a row.

5.21   thursday
Heavy Mental with DeadEnd Cowboys, All.Ball, JC Jordan (Elbo Room)   FRIENDS OF COZ!
You may recognize the bass player from Heavy Mental -- also guesting in JC Jordan's acoustic set -- from a handful of Diver gigs a year and a half ago. At least I think he's in Heavy Mental, and that this may be the band Elroy was out on the road with very recently, possibly in Europe or something. I got all this secondhand, so I'm not entirely sure.

Farewell Captain with Mayda, Elusive Parallelograms, Rabbit Children (Abbey Pub)
This is probably a good time to start going to see all those bands I've been meaning to see for the last however many years, what with the not having to get up early in the morning and all. Farewell Captain, with URT alumnus Chris Frantisak on keyboards (last time I checked) is somewhere on that list, as are most bands Chris plays in.

Beckon Q with Scatteredtrees, Kevin Andrew Prchal (Bottom Lounge)
I'm pretty sure this is the band we played with at Schubas at the beginning of the year, with the guy and girl singer and the acoustic guitars and the unrelenting happiness.

NYCO with Mike Maimone, The Saturn Project (Beat Kitchen)
I think I only saw this band once or twice a couple of years ago, at which point they struck me as having a strong Steely Dan influence.

Local H with Wicker Man, Hush Drops (Double Door)
Despite the disappointing New Year's Eve show that was more my state of mind than anything else, I still think last year's 12 Angry Months was a great album. And Wicker Man is a name yanked from the annals of Chicago music history. Haven't seen them in a long, long time, so the kids must be grown up.

5.22   friday
Chickenfoot with Davy Knowles (Park West)   SOLD OUT!
If you thought Tinted Windows was the only unlikely 2009 supergroup out there, you were wrong, as this band is made up of Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, Joe Satriani and Chad Smith. The album probably drops this week, and yes, I'll probably take a listen just because I have no earthly idea what this combination of artists might sound like.

Peaches with Drums of Death, Evil Beaver (Metro)
The book on Peaches is that she writes provocative, sometimes controversial lyrics, but I'm almost more interested in the reappearance of Chicago's own Evil Beaver, who also tend to be provocative and sometimes controversial, only more punk rock than electroclash.

Big Science with Certain People I Know, Inspector Owl (Schubas)
Coincidentally, one of the other bands that played with Local H on New Year's Eve is back in action the same week. My take on them was that the guitarist had good tone that reminded me of The Cure. I grabbed CD at that show, but haven't gotten around to ripping it into the MP3 collection.

5.23   saturday
The Prodigy with Tiga (Congress Theater)
Weren't these the guys the electronica act from the late 90s/early 00s who had that one "dancer" that looked like Vyvyan from The Young Ones? He can't possibly have aged well.

COZ SINGS! (Toyota Park)   SEE COZ LIVE!
I'll be doing a pre-game solo acoustic set on the stage just inside Gate 3 before the Chicago Red Stars women's soccer match, and can bring a couple of people if you're at all interested.

5.24   sunday
Percussion and Jazz Alive (Pritzker Pavilion)
I'm detecting something of an Evanston influence, with Victor Goines, She-e Wu, Bob Becker, Peter Soave. Northwestern University Percussion Ensemble, Northwestern University jazz band. Could be an interesting change of pace.

Lucky Boys Confusion with Steve Ewing, The Victory Gins (Double Door)
Regular readers know that I always invoke these guys whenever I talk about bands with big suburban all-ages followings, so maybe they're like Beetlejuice and magically appear if I refer to them a certain number of times.