notes

The KLF - The White Room - Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012
The Orb Saved My Life - Monday, Sept. 10, 2012
Fire On Babylon - Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2012
N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton - Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012
the flaming lips and heady fwends or, the freaks are slowly taking over - Thursday, Jul. 19, 2012

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Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2003 | 23:28

Rose Polenzani - Uncommon Ground - 26 August 2003

Rose Polenzani plays solo acoustic guitar folk music, with the odd hair metal and contemporary r&b cover thrown in. she works best in an intimate setting, and Uncommon Ground offers that in spades. it�s a great setting for this type of music.

the first time i saw Rose Polenzani she opened for the Indigo Girls in columbus, oh, back in 1999 or 2000. i didn't know anything about her at the time, but as my girlfriend who took me got into her music, so did i. a few years later she played at Schuba's in chicago as part of a quartet named Voices On The Verge. that was also a great show, complete with kooky banter and a White Snake cover. by then she had moved from chicago to boston, a fact much lamented in my household at the time, but since she keeps coming back i'm not too disappointed.

tonight she played at Uncommon Ground in wrigleyville, and gave another great performance. i was, due to a difficult schedule, 20 minutes late, but i suspect those were also a great twenty minutes. i wish i'd seen them. i haven't seen a bad Rose Polenzani performance, or even heard a bad Rose Polenzani song, and tonight was no exception.

Uncommon Ground is a casual coffee house in wrigleyville with two rooms, one of which hosts the occasional small performance. it�s a collection of tables with a painting-decorated brick wall behind the performer. the surreptitious comings and goings of patrons and wait staff emphasizes the informal nature of the performances without distracting from the show. Rose has played there several times, and seems comfortable with the setting. it allows her to put her energy into her performance, which strengthens the emotional force of her songs.

i cannot say i knew all the songs, since i the only Rose performances i own are on the Voices On The Verge cd (the rest left with an x-girlfriend), but i heard most of the ones i do know. i was especially thrilled to hear my two potential requests, �You Don�t Know� and her version of White Snake�s �Here I Go Again�, played back-to-back. those, along with �Shake Through To Ugly�, an inspired cover of Craig David's "7 Days" and the impassioned closer �Heaven Release Us� really made the night.

ultimately, i think my favorite thing about a Rose Polenzani show is how inspiring it is. at least for me. every time i�ve seen her play i have felt the need to write. Rose�s songs are clearly about personal experiences but cryptic enough to communicate the feelings more than the specifics. i have always connected emotionally with them, and her performances bring out the passion in songs. this gets the words going in my head and i have to put them to paper. then the challenge is to keep focused on the inspiration while transferring my thoughts to the paper. by the end of a Rose show i have released some demons and relieved some stress. i leave content with the world.

thank you, Rose, for another awesome show. i hope to see you when you return in october.

Monday, Aug. 25, 2003 | 20:00

on the air

i hope you enjoy my reviews. i try to keep them up to date. right now, i'm going to go do something else. shuffling in the changer is: lee perry - super ape, radiohead - hail to the thief, beastie boys - hello nasty!, el-p - fandam plus, the raveonettes - whip it on, latyrx - the album. you should own all of these.

Monday, Aug. 25, 2003 | 19:03

Milkplow / People Will Blink at the lyon's den

saturday night at ten i was at the lyon's den in north center. i saw Milkplow and People Will Blink. now, i'm going to tell you what i thought about them.

Milkplow started off good--kind of weird rock stuff, with a mix of styles. i liked it. then they slid into a rap-rock-style song, which was ok, and then into a string of white-boy reggae originals. maybe it was because i'd listened to Lee Perry all day, but i was left not impressed by the reggae-type songs. they weren't all straight reggae, and some mixed styles--including one that sounded like Scott Weiland was doing his thing over a reggae-rock backing track--but overall i was unimpressed. bored, even.

however, the crowd was grooving, really getting into the sound. this audience seemed to me like a bunch of college kids, the kind in college who were more like sheep than individuals. in fact, i really felt like i was at some frat party, with the obligatory crowd-pleasing band and the token mock-lesbian girls dancing together. and the heavy drinking. granted, there was no greatest crap, er, hits of the 80's, but that might have been an improvement. at least i would have known a song or two, and thus could dis it more eloquently.

i'm sorry for the negativity--usually i try to present a balanced perspective on the shows i see--but i was very unimpressed with Milkplow. i think i found Dave Gahan to be more entertaining, if only because he occasionally mangled Depeche Mode songs i knew. and had charisma i found lacking in Milkplow. still, the crowd liked them, so they probably have a future, even if they do seem to be selling themselves short.

People Will Blink was a very different situation. and the attendance showed. it opened with two women singing an aria in italian--always an auspicious start in my book. i was told that Milkplow was originally experimental and adventurous like People Will Blink, but clearly their paths have diverged.

after the aria, the band played their submission to the 'Benefit For Bowie' compilation, "My Annual Wind Ritual". their other songs were different, yet in the same vein of tortoise-y art-/post-rock. they had some fun vocal tunes, some interesting stage techniques (on one song the bassist had to switch between that and a piccolo bass, both of which he wore slung over his shoulder), and theme music from the first two levels of an as-yet-uncreated video game.

People Will Blink also had an auxilliary percussionist with them saturday night. she was pretty good, and had a variety of percussion instruments (and an accordion), but i felt she was a little too precise for the music. probably it's a question of comfort and rehearsal with the group, but i felt she should be a little looser, a little more arty. maybe on some of her conga rolls she should miss a hit now and then. it also would have helped if they'd had more mics on her, or someone to move the mic around between songs. that said, she was good, and i think a worthy addition to the sound. those are really just minor quibbles.

i have to admit that i started drinking during Milkplow because that seemed the best way to enjoy their music, so i was still tipsy during People Will Blink, enough so to shout my friend phil's request for more blast beats, as well as obnoxious requests for songs by bands from the 'Living In Oblivion' set. that trend had started during the Milkplow set, on the theory that they'd sound better playing Flock Of Seagulls' "I Ran" than their own songs, and it carried over into People Will Blink. imagine my surprise and joy, then, when the band broke out Tears For Fears' "Head Over Heels". wow, and a crowd pleaser too.

as the effects of the alcohol wore off, i got more into the music, and i must say it was a good show. i liked it. the floor had cleared out, but apparently they play the band over the pa in the bar up front, so people still heard it. i got the impression that Milkplow brought a number of people with them, people who couldn't figure out how to groove to People Will Blink. i danced a bit, though dancing is not my forte so i didn't let it last long. when the show ended i was disappointed that it hadn't been longer, but it was nearly two and frankly after two hours of Milkplow my attention span was wearing out. still, i think People Will Blink played a more interesting show, even if popular opinion was with Milkplow. the masses aren't always right.

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