Archive for May, 2007

Urbane Camping

Tuesday, May 29th, 2007

In honor of long weekends and multiple friends birthdays we were rained out of a genuine camping experience and were forced to compensate by pitching tent in the great in-doors. Photo documentation of the excursion can be found HERE.

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the dangerous underworld of screen printing

Tuesday, May 15th, 2007

This story has almost nothing to do with screen printing by the way.

The other week, while I was happily working on painting a 4ft diameter fiberglass globe destined for the United States Congress (that is serious by the way) A loud noise rang out, echoing off the other building down on Fulton Market Street. I looked out the window to see a number of people looking down the street next to our building, and just as many backpedaling out of the alley at a decent clip. I then noticed a number of people from the warehouse on the corner shouting and waving at me. They we’re shouting things like “You’re on fire!” and “Hey! Get the hell out of there.” They also persisted in pointing above and behind me as if there were something of importance that I was somehow missing. Since I was not at that point on fire, I had difficulty believing them and responded with things like “What?” and “Really?” So we begrudgingly toddled out of a possibly flaming building and exited into the alley to find two cars completely engulfed in nine feet of flame. Soon after the spectacle took effect, tires started exploding left and right, which served to bring us back to reality. The gas ignited, spewing flame out of the …uhh..gas filling hole? But anyway, I have a much more realistic understanding of how cars burn, than Holloywood ever provided.

Upon speaking with a fellow gawker he informed me that the transformer had blown, raining down fire on to the innocently parked car, which went up apparently like a car that burns quickly and turned the SUV next to it into a nice toxic bonfire. What is in a transformer that rains down as balls of fire I thought. Why do they have to go and explode all the time in the first place?

To find out the semi-technical explanation check out the rest of the story at I’m So Smart Now

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YTM Back-ish and New-ish!

Thursday, May 10th, 2007

In anticipation of Jacob Cholak’s gallant return from College 1.5 I have updated YTM with a fresh new look. Way better than that OLD CRAP! Blugh! Anyway, we may do something to justify this unmitigated update. We may not. Only time will tell, and only I will tell you in time. Until the future.

-The Young Management.

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Age of Steel: Z’EV

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007

Article for the Z’EV interview:

I guess I should be thankful for things like mid-life crises. It seemed like a stupid enough period of your life. You buy the proverbial red sports car, run off with the proverbial blond secretary, and leave the proverbial safe family. If you never got to the point of the safe family, then you have to resort to alternatives like kicking junk, or robbing blood banks. And if you were preoccupied the first half of your life with doing really interesting and creative things, it seems that the mid-life can serve as a chance to get back to your roots. Such is the case for all of the many bands I had the misfortune to grow up after, and the complete surprise and excitement when presented with an opportunity to catch em on the second (or fifth) go-round. Everybody is back together these days. And for an out of place anachronism like me, it couldn’t have come at a better time. Naked Raygun, the Effigies, X, Bauhaus, Mission of Burma, fucking Big Black played a show, the Stooges are freaking back together with a new album out, as are the New York Dolls, Goddamn Question Mark and the Mysterians just played here, even Throbbing Gristle got back together. There are parts of me that don’t know how to feel about the zombie uprising, but then again, was it fair to have even declared these bands dead in the first place.

Case in point: I got to see Z’EV the other night at the Empty Bottle. Now Z’EV was filed away in the back of my mind in the same place I keep dimitridons, and gladiatorial combat. I’d read about them in books and they sounded cool, but the thought of seeing the real thing in real life is just not a thought you’d ever have. But there he was. I shook his hand. We spoke. There’s not only audio, but visual proof that he’s still out there. Like finding one more Tasmanian tiger decades after they were supposed to be extinct, there’s Z’EV up there, and he’s doing stuff that I’ve still never seen or heard before. The tones that have been hiding inside the metal all around us are breath taking, and Z’EV has this uncanny ability to bring them out into our world. Just tones and patterns pouring out of this otherwise inert matter that you could probably find in a scrapyard. But these are fine tuned instruments. You really get an impression of the deliberateness of his performance seeing it all live. He sat crouched on his knees, and brought a different song out of each object he had on stage. I’ve never been so amazed with all the variation of the spectrum of sound as I was the other night.

When we spoke, we spent a lot of time discussing the electronic communities, and the house scenes in which Z’EV was instrumental while living in Europe, but what you lose in electronics is real sound. It is just a simulation no matter how much we progress. There is something magic in pure sound, and Z’EV is one of the most potent shaman that I am aware of. I am personally glad he’s back to doing what he does. After a 21 year absence from Chicago, and nearly as long a time spent away from music and art in general, you need only see him now as evidence that art need not age at all.

See also: Z’EV Interview

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all the reviews that’s fit to print

Tuesday, May 1st, 2007

I wrote this piece; a review of the Ponys show at the Logan Square Auditorium last month for Thirsty Media. However, it wasn’t glowing enough for them to print, so they didn’t. Here it is in it’s entirety, in case anyone feels like reading a passionately luke-warm review.

Pony Up

After so much buzz, I must admit, that I expected more from Chicago’s precious Ponys. I will understand if you desire to send me letter bombs, but Thirsty has graciously agreed to withhold my mailing address. It’s just my humble honest opinion, but because it’s mine I feel I am correct. Truth be told, I have absolutely no history with the band. I don’t know their names, I don’t know where they came from and how they got their start. I listened to a few tracks off of their MySpace page previous to attending the show at Logan Square, but that’s about as far back as we go. But history or no, they did absolutely nothing for me; musically or otherwise. At some point though, I’m going to have to break from my hyper-critical analytical binge and realize that a band that obviously cares as much about what they’re doing and touts a cadre of pleasant loyal fans can’t even begin to approximate being all bad. To say I wish ill of the Ponys would not be exaggeration; it would be patently false. Feel free to mix up and republish that quote to make me seem like a jackass. The fact that I was unmoved says nothing as to their effectiveness as a weapon in the war on boring rock music. I was caught off guard by their sound frankly. They would have been right at home in the early 90’s sharing a bill will the likes of the Dandy Warhols and other such neo-psych shoegazy jangly alt-rock revelers. And then there was me expecting snarling punk fury; a sentiment that the Black Lips came much closer to affecting (from Georgia, but to say nothing of state allegiances on the authors part. Believe me, Illinois would be victorious anyway) but despite spitting, vomiting, and all manner of caterwauling, they still came off too clean to really rub me enough of one way or the other. It amazes me that a band so clearly dedicated to sex, drugs, and debauchery, can scream all they want, can toss around their equipment, and can still come out the other end pretty and polished. Maybe that is a feat worthy of praise, but I’d still just rather they at least sound like they’re throwing up while they’re making a racket.

But back to the Ponys. Despite the familial resemblance the frontman bore to both Michael Gira, and Thurston Moore, not a scrape of that dirty New York noise found its way into his blood stream, and a potentially powerful band ends up wallowing in anemic hooky neo-psych rock for lack of it. I lost interest rather quickly, and could only think that perhaps they would fare much better on my stereo at home while I was writing something like a review of their show. I think I was right, but good on ‘em anyway for having heart.

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