PRFBBQ2013

The weekend was pretty outstanding. Jacques, Paul, and I gathered ourselves up Friday morning and loaded shit and were off. We picked up Devin downtown and he rode with me. We picked Ryan up in Munford. The only really shitty thing happened on the way up. Just a little bit into Illinois, we got pulled over for speeding. Here's the kicker. I wasn't even pulled over and got a fucking ticket! Jacques was ahead and I was following him. So the cop comes around, passes me, and pulls him over. So I stop off too with a little distance behind. Then the fucker motions to me to pull up and he gave me a ticket too. I could have just kept going. The little shit. So that was...that. We got into town at a pretty decent hour and dropped Ryan off with his old roommate Ben. Then time is eaten up just getting around Chicago. We went to get the key from the guy who was letting us use his apartment. Then downtown to load our gear into said apartment. Then we made it out to the show that was happening that night. We weren't too upset about it having already started because of logistics and all that, but then we couldn't even get in because it was sold out. The place has a small capacity, fine, but they wouldn't let anyone else in after that capacity was reached even when people left. We hung out on the sidewalk a bit as that was a social gathering in and of itself. Well, it was mostly Jacques talking to his board friends. We eventually ended up getting a pizza at this place on the adjacent block. The apartment we stayed at was pretty tiny, there was barely enough room for the three of us to sleep there, but there was enough room. Paul and I shared the futon and Jacques took the air mattress that filled up the entire floorspace. We thought parking would be a challenge, but it really wasn't (that night). Right where we were it was all permit parking, but two streets over (La Salle) just had free parking all along its length. So we were literally just around the corner two blocks.

We got up pretty decently Saturday. I got to sleep in the longest while everyone was getting ready in the shower both days. I was surprisingly well rested the entire trip. We got to Borelli's 11-something. The whole thing was pretty fucking awesome. The shows were far more diverse than I'd expected and I was surprisd at the number of bands I thought were really fucking good. Highlights from the Saturday shows: Noise & Light, Lightfoils, Spelling Bee (possibly the best act the whole weekend), Xaddax (really fucking close and kinda similar to Spelling Bee). Spelling Bee were a bit like a perfect cross between Lightning Bolt and Melt Banana. There was just a drummer and guitarist (drummer also played a sampler and guitarist also sang and played saxophone on one song). Okay, so the guitarist is also one of the tiniest people I've ever seen. First glance when they were setting up was that she was a kid, until I saw her pick up the guitar (almost as big as she was). She was literally the same height standing up as the drummer was sitting down. They were just fucking incredible. Xaddax had a similar setup. This time it was the girl playing drums (with trigger pads instead of cymbals, triggering prerecorded synth noises) and the dude was the guitarist/singer. They're signed to Skin Graft and had a similar blast of noisy rock sound. Noise & Light opened with a cover of "Yoo Doo Right" (which I was hoping might be the whole of their sub-30 minute set, but they didn't play it that long, but that's alright 'cuz their own songs were great, just the idea of a whole set of it is cool to me). I bought some merch with what little cash I had: Spelling Bee: Caterwaul and Xaddax: Counterclockwork. I also got a Xaddax shirt (which was actually for this Skin Graft festival they played not too long ago in St. Louis). I was going to get something from Lightfoils but ran out of cash so I was like "I'll get it tomorrow," but they took their merch away that night so I wasn't able. Noise & Light don't have anything available yet or I would have gotten their stuff. Sheree, who I stayed with and went to a few shows with when I did my huge follow-Sonic Youth-around-the-country stint over a decade ago, was in town for a little bit making preparations to move to Chicago for a year, so I was in touch with her and she met up with me at the venue Saturday afternoon. It was real great catching up with her. She's working on her phd in child psychology, working within the juvenile court system, so there's quite a bit of parallel with my job and we had a bit to talk about in those regards as well as awesome music. At one point, she saw someone with ice cream so she looked up the area and found there was a gelatto place nearby, so we stepped out and got some gelatto that was awesome. I had banana-cashew-Heath crunch and rose. They were both great. I'm trying to see if I can remember any other tidbits from the day. I'll probably have to throw shit in with updates later. Right now I'm gonna break this post up.

Continuation

Steve got in during the afternoon and there was a big thank-you for Jonah (the guy who's most largely responsible for setting these events up). Steve gave a big speech thanking him and said "Now I'm a man of great influence." He said he'd had old pickups from his Travis Bean that had been around the world, just sitting around when he replaced him. So he took them and made a special gift for Jonah. He hooked 'em up to a tiny toy "xylophone" (metal bars, so I'm pedantic and put the scare quotes in), which he got signed by Cocorosie (big message board in-joke that I'm actually privy to in spite of my infrequent time there). Then someone else came up and said they all had chipped in and gotten him an Electricl Guitar and they were adamant on making sure he cried. Pizza was made that night. Paul was so impatient for pizza he volunteered to help make it in the kitchen (which I commend him for, there was a HUGE fucking rotating oven that was hot as hell and even being in the room outside the kitchen it was so fucking hot). Steve was also helping out and Paul ended up working next to him and talking to him about making food and stuff and it wasn't until later that he realized the "Steve" guy he was talking to was Steve Albini. Food was really good, but kinda hard to get at (I know it was tough with the logistics of so many people and they did a good job considering). As we left we were kinda hungry and it was late, so we stopped at a Golden Nugget nearby (which Sheree gave me shit for the next day, "gross," but my chicken and waffle was pretty dern good). This was the night of rough parking. The night before we only had one car 'cuz we dropped the other off at a lot someone right by the venue let us use. Now we had two cars and it was much much busier on La Salle. We drove around a while looking for spots. I eventually found one several blocks away and Jacques was still looking. There was one I had passed up because I wasn't sure it was legit at first and then someone got on my ass so I moved on. But I stopped by it on the way back and called Jacques, who was still driving around, and told him where to find it. Then he got lost trying to get ot me so I waited there on the street a good while (even reading my book as drunk people walked past, making fun of the cops alternately inside and outside the Dominos on the corner). He finally shows up and the car ends up being JUST about the size of the space. Well, we managed with much toil and sweat to get it into the space as I stood outside helping him maneuver. One backup I got scared because he got SO close to the car behind him (within milimeters?), but it all ended up being good (even though he was slightly on the curb...he was IN). They were greatly upset about the parking ordeal that night, but I enjoyed the adventure. I'll just interject now that I'm pretty happy about how in shape my workout routine has me now. I know before even a fraction of all the standing at the shows would have done me in, plus the walking and carrying gear up and down stairs, etc. But I felt great the whole time.

Sunday we had to make the trek to gather our cars and bring 'em back and load our shit to take to the show! I took a little longer than the day before and we got there a little later, the first band had started playing, but they weren't too far into their set. They were really good (Body Futures, they even made excellent use of a DX-7, which has potential but I'm sure is hard not to make sound really shitty given the architecture). Here's the list of Sunday's highlights: Body Futures, Tijuana Hercules, Cinder Cone, Whales, and Helen Money (Electric Hawk were really enjoyable too). Merch rundown: I got Body Futures: s/t, Cinder Cone: The Last Two (which they gave away free and I was ready to give them money for it!), Helen Money: In Tune, Helen Money: Arriving Angels, Helen Money: s/t, and Electric Hawk: s/t. I also got a festival shirt and poster and shirts for Body Futures, Whales, Helen Money (yeah, she was awesome, I got ALL of her shit), and Karaoke Underground. Food was much easier to come by, so that was good. Our set was 4:15 in the afternoon. I'll probably go into details on it in its own post. Sheree came out again, which was cool. I was worried she'd think I was dragging her to some weird, insular thing, but she was really into it. I even had my moment of meeting Steve Albini. I was sitting down at this table at one point and a little later he came and sat at the same table to eat his food (I would not have gone up and sat next to him, not because I don't like him of course, but because I'm not the hassle "celebrities" type). Devin came up and was talking to him and me and introduced me to him so I got to shake his hand and say "hi." (He even introduced me with "Do you know Robert?" as if there were a chance he actually would/could, he was really nice. I mean, I am aware that he's just a regular guy, but I'm shy and awkward and have no intention of forcing a conversation). It was nice anyway. Let's see, I have more to get into with the happenings of the day as well as revisit those bands I just mentioned and gab about their sets, but for now I'm gonna leave the posting off for a later date.