Friday, May 28, 2004
Went to the Neo-Futurists' 30 Band in 60 Minutes fundraising event in a highly skeptical frame of mind: at your average concert, it takes a minimum of 30 minutes between acts to set up a band. This drives me crazy. I find it insulting to make the audience wait so long. So I was looking for proof that it could be done faster and more efficiently.
IT CAN!!! OK, so with the inevitable glitches, 30 bands took more like 90 minutes--apparently they've never finished under 60 at this annual event--but, still, damn close, and now I'm going to be even angrier at snotty bands that make me wait 20, 30, 40 minutes before they come out and play. (Hmm, is this a good thing?) Of course, these were local bands, but some of them were damn good. Red and I were blown away by Troubled Hubble--no, not just because their song came well under the 2-minute limit that had been requested of participating bands, and no, not just because they were wicked cute (though that never hurts), but because their song was a great blast of rock, some kind of punk/power-pop concoction that revved us way up. (Check it out--AMG gave their album 4 stars! I'm sure one of us will be picking that one up soon.)
The Neo-Futurists are probably the most consistently innovative and fun theater group in Chicago, if you didn't know, and the NF's Greg Allen co-hosted with the hilarious Tim Tuten (of The Hideout), who introduced bands with crazy improvved silliness. The diversity of this event was pretty wide, ranging from an all-woman drumming group (Big Smith), to rap (The Molemen), to a jazzy standard (Elizabeth Conant & Fareed Haque) to a divaesque R&B closer (the impressive Lynne Jordan covering "Me & Bobby McGee" a capella), but most of the bands fell somewhere in the vast rock spectrum. Lots of retro, all over the map, from White Stripes-ish roots rock, to rockabilly (one of my personal highlights, the Neverly Brothers). I loved Duenow (an intriguing and energetic woman drummer and guy guitarist/singer combo), and was impressed also by Archer Prewitt, whose music I've heard and enjoyed before. His more serious indie rock song suffered in the context of the carnivalesque context, but I was impressed nonetheless. El Guapo had a seriously hot guitarist. Hey, come on, rock is all about sex, so these things matter! Dolly Varden didn't seem to be at their best but intrigued me anyway. Evil Beaver could have shamed The Donnas with their hard-rawkin, the Kimi Hayes Band reminded me of Melissa Etheridge--in a good way. Preston Klik's Ritual had a memorable act--black female R&B crooner sang along to dancey techno music while a guy kept changing her wigs/masks/scarves/etc. and a statuesque dominatrix-style woman cracked a whip in the background. Fun in a Pet Shop Boys to the far extreme kind of way. Ellen Rosner did some straight ahead rock that was pretty good. RD Roth & The Issues hailed most obviously from Evanston. I couldn't hear the vocals, so I didn't know if they were serious or if they had a sense of humor. The Goldstars were quite good, and the guitarist impressed me in his leadership of the multi-group finale cover of "(What's so Funny 'bout) Peace Love and Understanding?" Cheer Accident was so unusual--a lone male vocalist with an entire brass line--that I'd have to hear more to know how I liked it. John Greenfield, if memory serves (gimme a break--it was 30 bands!), wrote a song inspired by the Neo-Futurist's awesome long-running cult show "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind" (a must-have experience for you Chicago visitors/inhabitants!). Very funny. Down the Line...I remember a mandolin and then trying to remember a band from the 80s, The Hooters. They were nothing like them.
Well, that taps me out for now. What a great way to be introduced to local talent, and what a blast the whole event was. I highly recommend it. Planning to go next year! (And not drink so much that I have to piss before the 30th band finishes!)
