Two-"man"-ish indie rock concert sizzles at Schubas

CHICAGO--At first, I suspect it's just my court-mandated medication that has me hearing things.

I mean, it certainly isn't the star performer making me distractable. Brendan Losch has nothing if not stage presence. He's at the microphone, guitar in hand as comfortably as a rod is in a fisherman's, his quiet humility balanced seamlessly with his curious blend of crafted showmanship.

Currently, he's singing "Tired from Sleeping," the first track off his latest album Low (which was preceded last fall by Under, and last year's Down). The lyrics, as always, stir me: 

Tired of trying
Nothing goes my way
So sick of lying
To myself...

As I watch, I can't help but think of what Shakespeare said about the man "that hath no music in himself," how that man "is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils." Losch clearly is not that man. Which reminds me: I need to call Homeland Security and convince them to take him off their wiretap list. Honest mistake of a tip on my part. Anyone with a beard like that deserves government scrutiny.

Still, there's something oddly...deja vu-ish about this performance. I listen more closely to his singing:

Tired of trying
Nothing goes my way
So sick of lying
To myself...

He and accompanying musician John Morton have been driving the crowd to a screaming frenzy for forty minutes now. And there are only two of them. I had asked Morton in a pre-show interview how two musicians, however talented and able to multitask, were going to simultaneously play two guitars, percussion, chimes, glockenspiel and assorted banjos, kazoos and hooch jugs while harmonizing Losch's lyrics exploring the meaning of individuality in the face of the pressure to conform?

"I can loop that stuff on my keyboard," Morton told me before the show. "Looping is what professional musicians do. And I'm professional. And a musician. So I'll loop. Now bugger off."

Indeed I did. And indeed he does. Loop, that is. Through their set, Losch has claimed most of the attention with his electrifying presence, leaving Morton to set up various riffs, sound effects and midi files of people cheering and clapping ("just to warm up the audience," he told me before the show, "which is what professionals do, something you wouldn't know anything about. Say, when are you leaving again?"). And the outcome is plain to see.

But something still seems off. Losch's voice is strained, and his posture is a bit more deflated than it was ten minutes ago, when the song...first started?

No, that can't be right. I listen again, trying to dope out whether this is part of the indie rocker's mandatory ethos, or whether it really is time to change my meds:

Tired of trying
Nothing goes my way
So sick of lying
Up here...

This sounds vaguely familiar. I squint at my notes, realizing that Losch is repeating the first verse of the song, which he began...forty-two minutes ago. I look more carefully at him and realize he's sweating bullets, his hands are shaking, and the friendly smile with which he had been engaging the audience is now somewhat strained, complemented with scathing glares towards the back of the bar.

Following this gaze, I see Morton towards the back, chatting up a brunette.

Oh yeah. I just noticed: Morton left the stage a half hour ago.

Losch sings again:

Tired of singing
Morton went away
So sick of carrying
This song...

Wuh oh.

Apparently, Morton has looped his entire performance for "Tired of Sleeping" and then, finding himself bored and with nothing to do, quietly slipped off stage, leaving Losch to perform the rest of the song by himself. Unfortunately for Losch, Morton's looped music is on Replay, and with no way to wind down the melodics by himself, Losch has resorted to coming up with every possible permutation of the song's lyrics he can think of while Morton talks animatedly with whatever woman he's found who's drunk enough to pretend to take him seriously. This would explain why he's been on the same song for forty-three minutes in a row. Not that the audience cares. They'd listen to him sing his favorite recipe, as long as he accompanies it with the appropriate guitar riffs.

"I mean, the thing about music is, it's got to be good," Morton is now telling the brunette, who appears to be listening politely while smacking herself in the face to make his presence less painful by comparison. "Because nobody likes music that is bad. You see? You see how that works?"

"Excuse me, John," I interrupt, gesturing subtly towards the stage. Behind him, the brunette mouths Help me, but I ignore her. I've got bigger fish to fry. "You know, Brendan, uh..."

"Yeah, yeah," Morton grunts, trying to wave me off. Clearly, he thinks he's got this woman all but seduced. "Looped music, professionals. I'm a professional, man. Just go draw your pictures in your notebook."

"I'm a reporter."

"What ever!" he snaps, diving into a pocket and chucking its contents on the floor. "Look, here's a quarter. Now leave me alone."

Not being made of stone, I scamper off to retrieve the coin, which has rolled under a nearby stool. But I can't ignore the situation much longer--Losch's singing has become quite hoarse. Not exactly the hanging-to-sanity-by-my-fingertips-on-the-edge-of-a-cliff hoarse, but definitely the if-that-guy-doesn't-bail-me-out-soon-I-may-go-postal hoarse you hear from musicians looking for a break in the set. Certainly, his lyrics are starting to betray his desperation:

Tired of performing
Want to go away
So sick of
Music...

"Also, music has to be different," Morton was telling his fan. "Not original--I mean, we rip stuff off all the time. But we do it differently. So, music: good and different. Which I am. Now come home with me."

"I think Brendan needs you up there," I say, tugging his sleeve.

"I told you," Morton snarled. "I looped it. Christ!" And with that, he's out the door, figuring that, after getting one song completed in a now-approaching-fifty-minute set, he's earned his $12.50 commission for the evening. The brunette seems to have ducked out a side door. I can only watch her exit in complete envy.

Hours later, I'll visit Losch in the hospital, where he'll be hooked up to an IV, his calm demeanor all but abandoned, his own commission for the evening handed over to a South Side bounty hunter who's promised to return Morton to him in pieces, starting from the waist down. But before he collapses off the stage and is passed around in what must be this place's first crowd-surfing-the-unconscious stunt, I take note of how Losch, bereft of all accompaniment but his own wit, rises to the occasion:

Tired...
Away...
Sick...
...kill John Morton...

I'm hoping that one makes the B-side.

The Infernals, not Journey or Night Ranger, Play the Gallery Cabaret (and they're not the band Foreigner either...)

Truthfully, I do make mistakes on occasion. Some of those mistakes are benign (“I swear, ma’am, I have no idea what you’re talking about; I think your breasts were staring at me”); others transcend the boundaries of the social compact (“I did say ‘Watch out for that truck’ dear; you just weren’t listening closely enough”). Whatever the case, while I am probably closer to perfection than anyone else on the face of the earth, I do fall somewhat short of perfection itself, and have never claimed otherwise. Which is sort of like perfection, isn’t it? It totally is. Yeah. That's right. So I am perfect after all.

With this particular mistake, I can only say that I’d had a hell of an afternoon. I’d spent the past few days with my aunt and uncle in cosmopolitan Jackson, Michigan, taking in the sights, culture and je ne sai quoi of the downtown area, which was delightful enough, only to get a reminder text from my Concert Watch calendar app: “This weekend—Journey, Foreigner, Night Ranger. Retrospective piece due. –Ed.”

Ed. is, of course, my editor, and Journey, Foreigner, et al…well, if you don’t know them, then I’m surprised you can even stand upright, much less read this. But that reminder said it all: I had a big concert to attend this weekend, and a piece to write about the show that would be so easy to compose, it would make Megan Fox look like a Puritan’s daughter. So there was no time to waste: I was on the next train to the city. Which left after an hour’s delay. And then there was another hour stuck on the tracks due to a bridge accident. And another ten minutes waiting for the pizza-faced teenager sharing a seat with me to wake up from his dope-induced coma long enough to grab his bag and get out of my way. So if I didn't have all my particulars about the upcoming act committed to memory (like what band I was seeing and where it was and what year it was, etc.), I could hardly be blamed.

Outside the station, I glanced at the address on my phone and gave it to my cabbie, who did a three-point U-turn on Jackson without so much as glancing around, rambling into his own cell phone the entire way in Kenyan, stomping on the accelerator and rushing towards my destination while I buried myself in the Chicago Tribune to see what I’d missed these many days away. Teachers, I noted in an op ed piece, are still to blame for our nation’s intellectual and economic deficit. Good. I didn’t miss much.

I got to my venue: The Gallery Cabaret, in Bucktown. Not the sort of place a bunch of eighties bands would have sought out, I thought, but then again, I’m always underestimating the lure of nostalgia. I walked in, ready to Not Stop Believing, to be Sung Away, to Know What Love Is and, if I was lucky, get Hot Blooded.

Instead, I saw guitarist Chris Dewey on stage, yodeling lyrics that are still, this many hours later, bouncing around in my head:

There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, there’s a hole
There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a fucking hole…

Next to Dewey, bassist Bryan Park was not so much playing an upright bass as he was pleasuring powerful riffs out of it, and drummer Leo Salinas’ arms were a blur of motion as he kept the pace steady on what I’d thought was a lighthearted children’s song:

The axe is too dull and the straw is too long, dear Liza
I didn’t sign on for this shit my Liza, oh Liza…

The first thing that occurred to me: Man, Journey’s really gone the grunge/folk route, haven’t they?

The next thing: Oh wait, this is The Infernals show! The Journey concert is tomorrow night.

The next thing after that: Wait…I’m supposed to cover this show.

The very next thing, and the last I can remember for a while: Shit. I need a drink.

------------------------------------------------

The Infernals got their start, like every other garage band in the northwest suburbs, in my garage. Park and Dewey were doing introspective moody pieces in their own bands prior to 2007: Park had spent time in an ensemble called Dead People’s Pants until the lead singer signed a record deal in North Carolina and took his microphone stand with him when he left. This effectively left Park on a solo career that never really got off the ground since he couldn’t play bass and hold the microphone at the same time. Dewey and Park later joined the retro-grunge-punk act The Limping Dogs, and after a triumphant debut last year, dissolved when they lost one member to marriage and another member to a glue-sniffing rehab clinic. Such are the trials of suburban musicians. It’s not for the faint of heart.

From the ashes of these ruins, molded by drummer Salinas and crystallized with a recently-discovered book of Children's Camp Songs, came the Infernals, who promise, true to their advertising, to be infernal. And oh how they deliver. Drawing on previous material and relying on a curled-lip-of-derision ethos, the trio manages to blend folk music and their own immutable truculence into a forty-minute crowd-pleasing set that draws fans of the obscene and the traditional alike. After the show, I stuck around partly to get quotes, but mostly because I couldn’t remember where I was and wanted directions to the red light district.

“The genesis of our work sprung from a rereading of Nietzsche,” Dewey was saying to one potential signing agent, gazing at him in what I took to be rapt fascination while he checked his watch and scanned the crowd desperately. “The way he completely articulated the angst of the modern human was something we felt wasn’t adequately represented in modern music.”

“Hey Dewey!” Park yelled from the other side of the bar. “Come over here and pull my finger!”

I took a note: “Band has synergy.”

“Of course, Nietzsche had it right when he said ‘God is gay,’ Dewey continued to the agent. “He was also on to something when he talked about a tree falling in the woods making no sound, and…you know, that thing about the lotus tree. So that’s where we came up with our interpretation of ‘The Cat Came Back.’”

“I think you’re talking about a different philosophy,” the man said, pulling out his own cell phone and pretending to take a call.

Dewey looked annoyed. “Hey, pal, who’s the one who just played the song? Me, all right? So don’t get airs.” He paused. “Anyway, when can we get our first million?”

I made another note: “Dewey makes the business decisions.”

Salinas, meanwhile, was signing autographs towards the front. Park approached him, finger outstretched, a pleading look on his face. Salinas sighed, complied, and looked over at me threateningly. As if to warn me, If you print that I just did that, no one will ever find your remains.

I nodded in understanding. He flipped fingers towards his eyes, and then towards me. Point taken. I scribbled in my pad: “Stay in safe house after publication.”

Before I could go, however, I had to get that one quote that encapsulates a band’s attitude, artistic motivation and overall level of sobriety. The kind of quote that totally finishes off a shitty article in an unread music rag that was dashed off on four hours’ sleep and a bad burrito. Thankfully, I had a pad full of preprepared softball questions that would surely elicit the kind of tripe I needed to cash in my piece and get a night’s sleep. And maybe a chance to cop a feel, which, I won’t lie, would have been nice. I glanced over at Park and noticed that he had by now had amassed a bevy of beauties willing and eager to pull his finger until the sun came up.

I went over to him. “Mr. Park, I wonder if you could tell me how your band managed to transform the more mainstream sound of your earlier album Infinity into the mainstream, but totally original and inspirational Escape of 1981?”

Park blinked at me. “What?”

I looked again at my notes: these were for tomorrow’s interview with Steve Perry. Crap. That meant I’d have to retool my entire piece, as I’d taken my notes based on the idea that I was watching a Monsters of Rock concert down at Tinley Park instead of these ass-clowns.

Still, Park looked pretty far gone: maybe he’d answer the question anyway. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do any more prep work than I already had. So I waited.

He blinked again, downed his drink, slammed it on the bar, and regarded me with bleary cunning. “I think music…should sound good,” he proclaimed.

Okay, one down. I transcribed his quote and wheeled over to Salinas, free at the moment, consulting my notes for the Night Ranger interview tomorrow. Eh. Close enough.

“Mr. Salinas, can you tell me more about the emotion you’re trying to convey in ‘Sister Christian’? Does the line ‘What’s your price for flight’ get into anything religious, or does it have more to do with social mobility in the then-booming American economy?”

Salinas stared at me levelly, and I realized uneasily that I was standing in the presence of pure malevolence. “I saw you write down what I told you not to,” he said in a menacing whisper that would have done Hannibal Lecter proud. “I’m telling you now so that, when you don’t wake up in the morning, you know why.”

Eep.

I did my best not to squeal and scamper away, and found Dewey towards the back, tuning his guitar and muttering to himself. “How was I supposed to know it was just a guy in a suit? Could have been an agent. Get an agent some day. Make millions. Get revenge on everybody…”

“Hello, Mr. Dewey,” I interrupted him.

He glared at me. “What do you want?”

“Oh, nothing much. Just a quick quote, if you don’t mind.” We were old friends, so I sat down next to him, figuring his look of disgust and contempt was just old-friends-kidding-around-like. “So. First, can you tell me what it’s like working with the legendary Mick Jones?”

“Who’s that?”

“Or how you managed to so successfully capitalize on your single ‘Say You Will’ without descending into eighties power ballad cliché? I mean, that was pure marketing genius.”

“Our single what?”

“Okay, okay.” I sighed, scowled unhappily, and grudgingly prepared an original question. “Mr. Dewey. Just how much do you guys rock the house?”

He smiled happily. “If we were an army, our music would be the Shot Heard Round the World, man.”

Okay. All right. Not bad. I wrote it down and prepared to leave.

“Which is, of course, how the Germans entered World War II and conquered Australia,” he continued. “Now as to Nietzsche’s role in all of this…”

And as I guzzled beer and listened to a history lesson that would have made Cliff from Cheers suffer an aneurism, I realized that these guys were going places. I don’t know what places, or whether these places are hospitable or remotely appealing, but whatever they are, I’m sure there will be plenty of wine, women, song, German philosophy and holes-in-buckets to go all around. Find their website. Come see them play the church picnic next weekend. Pull Park’s finger. Join the revolution.

And protect me from Salinas. I think he's having me followed.

My Somewhat Ecclectic and Scattered "Best Of" List of 2010

Harlan Ellison once said any book you haven't read is a new book. I like that. I take comfort in that. It reminds me we're never really finished with the arts, since they can hardly finish with us. Hell, last month I leafed through an old Balzac novel I thought I'd absorbed a decade ago, only to discover I didn't remember two-thirds of it. Right now, I'm reading Robert Harris' novel The Ghost, which is what Roman Polanski filmed as The Ghost Writer, which I saw seven months ago, and I'm still turning pages like crazy since I can't remember the details of how it comes out. By this rationale, just think of how many books I have yet to really read. It's like being a kid all over again.

So, I'm in no position to rate "Best of" anything in 2010. I don't get out to the movies that often, I don't go to many concerts, and I'm too busy trying to ball through Balzac to try much contemporary fiction. I do have my moments, though. So, in no particular order, with the proper bibliobiographical notes following, I give you:

Music I Discovered/Rediscovered in 2010

The Cold War Kids. A friend loaned me their CD. I went to their concert. Got a free concert download. And I was hooked. An original sound altogether.

The XX. Again, same friend let me download their stuff, which led me to go out and buy it anyway. Oddly compelling rhythm; lyrics are bordering on poetic. I like it.

Arcade Fire's Suburbia. Caught my attention, maybe because of all the media hype I stumbled across.

Ed Harcourt's Lustre. Half the songs interbreed pop and soulful moodiness too much for my taste, but the other half really get in my brain and bounce around pleasantly. Saw him when he opened for James; his bassist totally eyed me up at the bar.

School of Fish's self-titled debut album of 1991 or 1992. Caught between the no man's land of eighties rock and the grunge movement, it blends pathos and detachment very well for my indifferent generation.

Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde. How did I miss "Visions of Joanna" all these years? How can you not get hooked on a song that captures in seven minutes ten years of feeling?

Pretty much anything by The Velvet Underground. How did I miss "What Goes On" all these years? How can you not get hooked on a song that captures in five minutes half an hour's worth of pensive thinking?

We Became Your Family When You Died, Bullets in Madison. How did they not put this out sooner? How can you not get hooked on an album that captures in ten songs...ah screw it, I've got nothing.

The Cult's "Embers." Now this is the Cult I remember.

Stuff I Read/Discovered in 2010

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell. The Times did a big piece on him over the summer and the description of this novel caught my eye: four or five separates stories spanning the South Seas in the seventeenth century, to near-contemporary Britain, to a Korean dystopia, to a postapocalyptic Hawaii, and then back again, right to the beginning. All stories are separate, but interconnected. Utterly spellbinding.

King Lear. This time, when I read it, I accompanied it with Ian McKellan's RSC performance on DVD. I can't get him out of my head any more when I read of Lear raging against the storm.

Last Poems, A.E. Housman. For whatever reason, his verses exploring the profound in the commonplace really resonated with me last winter. I think everyone should memorize the following:

We for a certainty are not the first

Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled

Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed

Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.

Ballistics, Billy Collins. I'd picked this book up five times since it came out in 2008, but when I finally finished it, I have to admire how he managed to make poetry so accessible, and still so worthy of reflection. He makes you want to see the world all over again.

Letters from Iceland, W.H. Auden. I was led to this book by one of his poems that appears in it; now I want to go visit Iceland. More to the point, I want to go visit the Iceland in the early twentieth century that Auden got to visit--I think I heard that now the country is broke or something?

Lamb and Fool by Christopher Moore. Drop-dead hysterical, especially Fool. It's like the novel Benny Hill and Kurt Vonnegut would have fathered together. Okay, not really, but pretty close.

The Death and Life of the Great American School System, Diane Ravitch. Required reading for anyone who wants an opinion on why American schools suck. Short on solutions, but long on data and analysis. Might correct some of the commonplace assumptions kicked about in Washington and Springfield these days.

Movies I Saw in 2010 Worth Mention

The Six Wives of Henry VIII, a miniseries produced by the BBC. Keith Mitchell starts as Henry Tudor did: young and lithe, full of energy and innocence. By the end he's morbidly obese, still great yet corrupt, enthralling yet repulsive. He pulls the act off like no one else I've seen (Jonathan Rhys Meyers is supposed to be in his forties? Please).

Henry IV Parts I and II, from Shakespeare's An Age of Kings (first aired back in the 50's on television). Sean Connery as Hotspur is enough in itself; the Falstaff/Hal interplay is probably the best-achieved chemistry I've ever seen on film.

I Am Love, starring Tilda Swinton. Not that I could tell by watching this, but she had to pull off Italian dialogue with a Russian accent. Story of a woman who either dives into or is thrust into an illicit affair with her son's best friend, only so much more than that.

Winter's Bone. A young woman living in the Appalachians and trying to hold on to her house and family plays detective to find out what happened to her crystal meth-dealing father. She has to go through a backwoods drug empire that would give Vito Corleone pause.

Inception. Not quite a movie I could go right back into and see all over again. But pretty close.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire. Of course, the books are worth mention too, but the films did a superb job capturing the story, character and pacing of the Millenium Trilogy. Which begs the question as to why Hollywood feels we need an American version. Perhaps Americans are illiterate and can't be bothered with subtitles. Which brings me to...

Idiocracy. Not Mike Judge's greatest, but amusing. And I'd say a fairly accurate painting of where we're headed: once mediocrity becomes the norm, we tend to equate knowledge of civics with brilliance, or being able to tie one's own shoes with homespun wisdom and savvy. We might have a former president who's pretty good proof of this, but I'm not sure.

The King's Speech. If Colin Firth doesn't get an Oscar for his portrayal of George VI, struggling in equal measures with his duties as king and his speech impediment, I can't imagine who will get it instead. Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush are equally impressive.

True Grit and Black Swan I have not seen yet, but I suspect I'm going to really like. Haven't seen Waiting for Superman, but I'm sure I'd have a reaction to that as well. And fan of Aaron Sorkin that I am, I thought The Social Network was a bit overblown.

Okay, that's enough for this year. Bring on the next 365 days, and let's knock it off with the vampire stuff already, mkay?

New rock band Bullets in Madison on fire with new single; lead singer on fire with fire

Originally published August, 2003, in Spun Magazine; reprinted here in light of rerelease of Panic in Amber Blue

Originally published August, 2003, in Spun Magazine; reprinted here in light of rerelease of Panic in Amber Blue


The singer steps up to the microphone, wind machine ruffling his clothes and carefully-disheveled hair artfully. The band behind him strikes chords and poses with thoughtful, somber moodiness.


"Crosswords..." keyboardist and vocalist John Morton intones soulfully.


I'm on the set of the Bullets in Madison video shoot for their hit single, "Crossroads," off their new album Panic in Amber Blue. Surrounding me are all the makings of a killer video: chained, caged strippers, a neon band insignia highlighting the stage, a prowling leopard in the rafters and a rotating drum set.


Director McG, whose Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle recently took in $52,000 at the box office, is at my side, coaching the merry montage of musicians along what will undoubtedly be their chart-busting hit single. The band is sluggish and slow-moving, which, for them, translates into ecstatic. McG is polysyllabic in his directions to the band, which, for him, translates into intellectual. I want a drink, which, for me, translates into business as usual.


"Crosswords..." Morton croons again, the band soulfully striking up the tune once more while McG makes frantic get-on-with-it gestures with his spindly arms. The music plods on, then stops as Morton trails off into silence.


"I forgot the rest of the song," he admits soulfully, hanging his head in shame.


"It's okay," McG assures him gently, shooting a quick glance at his budget director who is currently preparing to hang herself with a length of power cord. "We're going to overdub your singing in postproduction anyway."


"It's weird," Morton continues, gazing at his keyboard mournfully. "I have that first word down, but when it comes to the words that come after it, all I can think of are the words 'drive-by.'"


"That's the next song," guitarist Michael Stautmeister tells him thoughtfully. "The one we play after this one." Nearby, the trumpeteer is getting stalked by the leopard.


"Oh yeah." Morton adjusts his shirt collar artfully. "That's weird."


McG, clearly wishing he could get back to more cerebral projects like looking up Lucy Liu's skirt in her next film, hooks an elbow around Morton's neck. "We're going to get through this, guy. You and me. And the rest of the band. Sky's the limit. No holds barred. We'll show the rest of the clowns you play music with you're the glue that holds this miserable act together. You just wait."


"We can still hear you," guitarist Aaron Sandberg drones somberly. As he looks after Morton and his director, he runs a hand through his full head of hair soulfully...and winds up with a fistful of his remaining hair. His bald spot glares triumphantly. Upon seeing it, he screams mournfully.


McG is not unaware that the band is aging somberly, soulfully and mournfully ten years for every minute this farce drags its nuts. But clearly he's got ideas cooking on how to get the show more dynamic. More engaging. More today.


"Cue the flame thrower guy," he tells the head grip. "And get the kerosene ready. We're torching Morton first."


-----


Bullets in Madison is an up-and-coming band whose debut album is just as new as they are to the Chicago indie rock scene. For some reason, I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of these guys are going to wind up teaching in the public school system. Some of them might even wind up where I work, sneaking into my room, swiping my lesson plans, stealing my medicinal whiskey (kept safely on the bookshelves, where students will never find it) and locking me inside the building when I'm not out the door at 3:05 like them. I have no idea why I suspect all this. But I'm rarely wrong.


That's the future, though. Years away. In the meantime, the band is putting together its first music video.


The "Crosswords" shoot has been going on for months, as Morton struggles to remember his lyrics and his partner in crime Sandberg watches the last remains of hair fall out. I've spent the majority of my time here exploring the band's origins and musical influences, only to discover that, much to my dismay, Morton and Sandberg are the most boring people on the face of the earth. Stautmeister was, for a time, a better bet at entertainment, but he stopped talking to me when he caught me going through his wallet looking for naked roadie pictures.


Sandberg, on the other hand, won't shut up about what inspires him as a musician and motivates him as a performer. Our most recent interview took place backstage, while McG layered Morton in petroleum for the big fire scene, which, according to McG, "really captures the song's anti-Iraq war message." Morton had tried to explain to him that the song actually came from a frenzied effort at free verse over the Sunday papers comics section, McG insisted that he had the better interpretation, and Morton's objections were effectively overruled. As the grip splashed Morton's mostly-hairless chest with a paintbrush dunked in Vaseline and Stautmeister, for some reason, rapidly took pictures, hooting and whistling all the while Sandberg droned on and on concerning the dangers of artistic influences.


"Many writers will stop reading any books by other authors while they are working on their own novel because they’re afraid that another style will seep into their own," he said. "Yet at the same time, they’re in a bind because they might happen to like that particular style, and wouldn’t mind if the influence rubbed off, so long as it didn’t suffocate the work."


Bored out of my mind, I tried desperately at this point to steer the conversation to oral sex. But no dice. Man. Musicians.


"The problem compounds when you’re in touch with many influences," Sandberg continued.


"Speaking of touching," I tried again, simultaneously gesturing towards the nearest cage-dancing stripper and my crotch. But he didn't take the bait. He only averted his eyes from my groin and went on with the interview. Fucking musicians...


"Again, two things can happen. There's a constant conflict between original vision and influence which the careful artist addresses."


"Hey, Professor, want to put it in language we can all understand?"


"Well, the resulting work, whether novel or album, can become an ugly pastiche of all styles, or, the result can be a beautiful and diverse, woven piece of work."


"That's the biggest load of bullshit I ever heard," I jeered.


Sandberg fixed me with a level gaze, and another clump of his hair fell to the floor. "You don't even know what pastiche means, do you?"


"No. No, I don't. Do you?"


"Well...no."


"Okay then. So, getting back to getting your knob polished..."


Here, our interview was interrupted: the pyro guy had ignited the flamethrower, turning Morton into a flaming ball of smoke and heat.


"Crosswords! Crosswords!" Morton shrieked, running around the stage, slapping at the flames with his hands. "Agh!"


Sandberg took this opportunity to make some lame excuses to go and comfort his friend. However, Morton, engulfed in fire and screaming in blinding pain, decided that company with Sandberg was infinitely worse, and came back over by me for his interview.


"And yes, while some say it is impossible not to be influenced," Morton said, leaning in close to my tape recorder, "I say it is possible to use the influence to eventually transcend the influence. That is the ultimate goal."


"Did you used to have chest hair there?" I said, gesturing towards his smoldering torso. "Because you don't any more."


With one thing and another, Morton getting carted off to the emergency burn ward, Stautmeister running off to post the entire thing on the Internet and Sandberg finally taking a hint and hitting up the cage dancers for some back room action, I finally got some peace and quiet in which I could actually listen to the album. So here's my review:


It's good. Overpriced, but good. I recommend it.


Maybe in the future we won't have to buy music any more. Maybe some day we'll be able to get it for free off the Internet. Not Napster, obviously, but something else. Something...torrential. That would be sweet. In the meantime, if you want it, you'll have to buy the album off their website, or your local Tower Records outlet.


Hmph. Musicians. Always in it for the money. And a first aid kit.

The Limping Dogs Debut at Lamplighters (But First, a Word on Their Origins)

I'm in my basement trying to coax my mutant, mentally handicapped chihuahua out from under the couch so I can go to a rock concert. Typical drama in this household: it's 6 p.m. and I'm due at Lamplighter's in Palatine for the debut of an exciting act, a once-in-a-lifetime assemblage of musical talent and sensibility. And some serious balls, too--this is a trio of trend setting rock stars (if "trend setting" is a euphemism for "aging, irate drunkards who will play for beer pretzels") that are making their mark tonight. I have observations to record, quotes to obtain, Colt 45 to chug and beer pretzels to procure.

But my dog, bless his stupid little heart, is making marks of his own. Since I'm in a hurry to leave, after having dozed off in front of the TV and after he's gotten himself comfortable, my mutt with the brain of a fruit fly has decided that now would be a pretty good time to take refuge under the couch so as to trap me at home, swilling vodka and neglecting my journalistic responsibilities.

"Come here you little rodent," I growl in my most threatening voice (which usually sends hardened study hall delinquents into hysterics) and fishing at him with a broomstick. "Get out from under there or I'll popsicle you with this thing."

Batman sneers at me and lifts his leg threateningly. From past experience, he knows full well that the most violent act I'm capable of committing against him is a wagged finger in his face. Even that is rare--Batman tends to snap at anything he thinks might be food, and I need my finger. I love my finger. For reasons I will not get into here.

"Put that leg down," I warn him. "I told you--save that for when the band is here. They're not. They're at the bar and I've got to go cover them."

Batman growls, farts, and squeaks out a bark. The subtext is clear: Fuck the band. Stay at home and let me bathe your elbow with my tongue.

It's no use. I'm trapped. I don't dare leave him in the living room--he'll systematically tear every cushion in the house apart, and then pee on the remains. For Batman knows. He knows the power he holds over me, over the band, and over contemporary rock music overall. While I'm chasing him around, working up a sweat and wondering aloud whether or not I could make a good pair of gloves out of him, Chris Dewey, Bryan Park and Kim Laibach are taking center stage, howling their greetings and flashing three-fingered devil's signs at a crowd of adoring fans. The Limping Dogs are ready to rock.

A legend has been born.

---------------------------

It all started when Batman stubbed his toe.

I'd taken him duck hunting yet again, which was proving to be somewhat troublesome. Someone once told me chihuahuas are from the desert, don't handle water well and don't know dick about duck hunting, but I figured that was hooey. Every time my dogs so much as heard a geese honk, they were off running, barking their fool little heads off. So I figured they must be naturals. Oh, true, I had second thoughts the first time I put Batman in the marsh and he sunk up to his eyeballs and I had to fish him out and clean mud out of his mouth that he'd eaten in an effort to escape. But never let it be said that my dog's slow start is any mark of my own skill as a teacher.

This time, though, I'd dropped my duck hunting gun in the water, and since it was unable to fire, I'd resorted to using it as a club on any ducks within reach. Of which there were none. Besides, Batman was being a dick, insisting on avoiding the water and preferring to be carried in my flak jacket, grunting all the while. The one duck I did manage to get close to bit me on the hand, and it was then I decided I'd better go home and see what Kim, who is, after all, a doctor, could do about it.

When I came home, I found my wife-to-be at her drum set, with Dewey on the guitar, Park on the bass and Chris Tso blowing notes out of a hooch jug. This setup had become quite common over the past year and a half, as the four of them experimented with several kinds of music and talked idly about ditching their spouses, S.O.s and pathetic day jobs in order to rock the suburban open mic scene. I'd tried to be supportive by stepping around Dewey's gyrating guitar solos while doing laundry, or agreeing to experiment with LSD with Park in the backyard. But truth be told, this time I was in no mood to be accommodating. The duck bite was starting to fester, and the world was dipping and swaying alarmingly as I stepped up to the band. At the moment, Dewey was performing an electrifying guitar solo on a Fender Stratacast, Park was belting out Primus riffs, Laibach was doing a Keith Moon solo and Tso was weeping frustratedly on a nearby chair, jug dangling from his girlish grip.

"It just...it's just not coming out right," he sobbed.

"It's okay, man," Dewey said, making a halfhearted gesture of reassurance. "You've only been playing for four years."

"We need to start thinking about a schtick," Laibach announced, twirling a drumstick with one hand and stuffing a fig bar into her mouth with the other. "Something radical. Original. Groundbreaking. Moneymaking."

"How about we use old Celtic runes and do some songs about Tolkien and Arthurian legends?" Park suggested.

"How about we paint bats and what not on our faces and stick our tongues way out?" Laibach offered. "Also, we could set Tso on fire."

"I think we should do a hard-core Satan worshipping act," Dewey said. "It's what the kids are into these days, right?"

"I can't play this thing," Tso cried, chucking his jug into a corner and retreating into the kitchen to sulk by himself.

There was a lull in the conversation at this point, which is when they noticed me. "Hi," I mumbled. "You're all still here. Good."

"Who's he?" Dewey asked Kim absently.

"What do you want?" Laibach demanded. "We're really busy."

"Where's that roast duck you promised?" Park asked.

"My dog didn't retrieve it," I lied, putting Batman down on the floor. "All he did was stare at the duck, bark at a squirrel, run on the docks and poop." Batman, taking umbrage at my criticism, ran back towards me and peed on my shoe. I swore at him and made as if to kick him.

"He's limping," Laibach observed, taking a long pull from her bag of trail mix.

"He stubbed his toe on a duck that was already dead," I said. "Which reminds me. I got bit. Do I have anything to worry about?"

"How the hell would I know?" Laibach retorted. "I don't know human medicine."

"Well...it was a duck."

"Well I'm sure it'll be all right." Laibach squinted at Batman, chewing her lower lip thoughtfully. "He's limping," she repeated.

"You're right," Dewey said, his own gaze narrowing on Batman. "He is limping."

"I'm only asking because this duck was foaming at the mouth," I interjected. "Can ducks get rabies? I mean, I don't want to sound like a wimp or anything, but..."

"A dog...a dog that's limping," Park muttered quietly, his eyes riveted on Batman's trek across the floor in order to continue dribbling on my sneaker.

"He's a dog," said Laibach.

"A limping dog," agreed Dewey, catching on. "My God, that's too stupid not to work."

"He's a Limping Dog," Laibach announced. "And so are we."

"I think my hand is infected," I sulked.

"That's brilliant, Kim," said Dewey. "I mean, aren't we all Limping Dogs deep down inside?"

Park spun his bass in his arms and cracked open another one of my beers. "To the Limping Dogs!"

"Call an ambulance," I begged.

"To the LD's!" yelled Laibach.

"To the Limping Dogs!" announced Dewey.

"I got my hand stuck in the jug!" Tso yelled from the kitchen.

And thus, the legend began. No, really. For real.

-------------------------------------------

Of course, I'm not at the concert to enjoy it. The debut performance drew a crowd the likes of which Palatine had not seen since the Michael Richardson poetry slam of 2007. The earth moved. Records for standing ovations were broken. The Dogs managed to seduce an entire demographic with retro folk songs and Dewey's unbounded contempt for the crowd, sandwiched in between sets in the form of rambling, drunken monologues. And while Kim received three marriage proposals (seriously considering only one or two, she later assured me) and Park had a urinal memorialized in his honor by the bar owner, I was surrendering to the band's six-pound, blob-like namesake.

"Look, Batman, there's a bunch of crotches for you to sniff at the bar if you come out of there," I plead with him. "I've got a deadline, okay? Just come on out."

Batman bares his tooth at me and dribbles on the nearby remote control. "All right then," I grunt, utterly defeated. "You win. Animal Planet: Late Night Confessions it is."

Batman yips triumphantly and beings doing victory laps around the sofa.

"Help!" I hear from upstairs. A whiny, defeated tone to rival even my own. "Now I got my dick stuck in the jug!"

And thus, another legend was born. But seriously, the hell with that one. Go try your luck with the last legend--the Dogs are playing a bar near you soon, and the beers are going for half price.

The mighty Batman rests up after an exhausting afternoon of doing nothing. In front of him, the Limping Dogs perfect their opening number: "My Dog Hunts Ducks but My Man is a Dick."

Bullets in Madison Emotes at the Empty Bottle

Special to the Flannel Diaries

It's about seven-thirty on a Tuesday night and I'm being dropped off at the Empty Bottle on Western Avenue on the beautiful West Side of Chicago. My girlfriend, the Woman who Holds the Bottle Opener to the Beer That Is My Heart, has an annoyed, peeved look on her face. I get that look a lot. It's a masquerade for true love. Especially for when I make her drive me around the city.

"So...have a good time," she intones, checking her watch and thinking about cookies. "Enjoy the show. Don't stay out too late."

"Decidedly."

"Tell the band I'm sorry I couldn't make it, but I had to, you know, whatever."

"Assuredly."

"And be sure to take out the garbage and walk the dogs when you get home."

"Abso....wait. What?"

Before I can protest that I surely will get back late, that I won't enjoy the show, and that I have no plans to be in any condition to do anything productive upon my return, she speeds away, still holding the keys to the car that I realize, belatedly, I'm supposed to drive home that night. Screams after her are unheeded. Frantic calls to her cell phone remain unanswered.

This sort of shit always happens to me when I'm sent to review a Bullets in Madison concert. Of course, none of it is their fault. I mean, it sort of is when you figure that if they didn't play these dives at these ridiculous hours, and if they would only spring for a press limo to take the reporters like me home...actually, it is all their fault. Bastards. I will make them rue the day they even formed a band. I have that power.

I am a music reviewer. I review music.

And occasionally, I listen to it.

**************************************************

I stalked into the Empty Bottle surly and mean. The place looked like the kind of joint BiM loves to headline: walls and a ceiling. I sidled up to the bar and growled at the guy behind the counter, "Gimmee a whiskey. Double. Leave the bottle."

He casts an eye over me, measuring me for manliness and ability to control strong drink. "I think you might want a nice Lemon Wedge," he offered. "They're tasty and nutritious, and there's nothing like--"

"Whiskey," I growled again. John Wayne doesn't have shit on me, I tell you. "The bottle."

"You're going to be on the floor in twenty minutes."

I ignored him, and eventually he went off to fetch it. It's at this point that somebody comes up to me. "Hey, man. Nice to see you again."

I cast a bleary eye in his direction. "Who the hell are you?"

"Brendan. Brendan Losch."

"Oh, great. But I already ordered my drink, so..." I made hand motions indicating that he could leave me alone.

"No, I'm the guitarist. For the band? We've spoken before. You've interviewed me like twenty times."

"Oh, Bren-DAN Losch. I thought you said BREN-dan." I made a face that I hoped looked friendly. "So. Uh, what are you doing here?"

Brendan made an effort to be patient. "We're doing a show tonight. You're reviewing it, right?"

"Right. Right." I made a mental note to do just that. "But you can't get me free drinks, right?"

Brendan stared at me. "No."

"Oh. Well...good. Got to support the economy, right?"

He eventually stalked off, looking pissed. Man, musicians and their big heads. I made another mental note to make a comment in my review about his shoes or something. However, before I could compose a pithy bon mot, I was interrupted by the bartender, who returned with my whiskey. I downed it in one gulp, just like they do in the tough-guy movies. Blech. It tasted like paint thinner.

"That's bad for you," the bartender remonstrated. "You're going to have the megrims."

I ignored him.

"Sure you don't want that Lemon Wedge?" the bartender offered.

"Go away," I muttered.

Three or four more whiskeys later, the house lights came on and the crowd started cheering. The show was apparently starting. And I was ready to review the show. After all, I am a Music Reviewer, right? It's what I came here to do, yes? So here's the body of my article, compiled straight from my painstaking notes during the performance:

Bullets in Madison rocked the joint. They really did. We Became Your Family When You Died is one hell of an album, I tell you. Full of...meaning and...vibrancy...junk like that. Man, my head is killing me...That trumpet thing they do? Woo. Powerful stuff...Don't know about all the bugs on the wall, though...This band, they've got rhythm...they've got music...who could ask for anything more? Ha. What is with the moving walls, though? Now they're moving and they've got bugs on them. Crap. Why didn't that jackass bartender just give me a Lemon Wedge? I hear those are good. Well...oh, man, I love this song! "Wiiiild thing...You make my heart..." ...wait...that's the jukebox...show must be over. What did I miss? Damnit. Oh well. I'll get some stuff about them from Wikipedia or something. Maybe I can go get some after-show interviews right now...Ugh. Floor won't stay steady.

Unfortunately, before I could corral any of them for additional comments, the band had sped off in a hired limo, champagne and caviar practically flying out the windows, Losch tossing a few oyster crackers in my direction and laughing as I scrabbled on the pavement for something to eat.

After a moment, they were gone, the last remnants of their esoteric performance ringing in my ears.

I was alone in Chicago. No review written. No car. No money. And a seventy dollar bar tab with a smug bartender waiting for me inside.

The perfect setting for a closing paragraph:

In a top single from their new album, "Sarah is a State of Mind," vocalist John Morton sings, "You slam the door shut to break it through / No one hears you." That may apply to Sarah, whoever she is. But BiM has slammed the door shut, doublebolted it, and set fire to it, which makes their breaking through it all the more impressive. Not to mention the fact that it is impossible not to hear them.

WBYFWYD is an album that pulses with a heartbeat never heard before in the Chicago indy rock scene, and a melody that grabs you by the lapels and throws you off your seat. The more BiM tours and gets this music out there, the better.

There. That should do it.

Now...where's a hotel?