It List: Thursday

Stoned Men/Kampfgrounds/Geistheistler/Lechugillas/Drink To Victory/Modern History Duet/Forbes Young Gonzalez/Billington Hart/Zanzibar Snails (Little Guys Warehouse): Since moving to Chicago about eight months ago, I've seen more shows than I can possibly count, and most of them have consisted of bands I'm either not familiar with or barely familiar with playing at DIY spaces for free. It's been pretty fantastic-- off the top of my head, I could probably name 10-20 excellent bands that I hadn't ever heard before seeing them at this or that venue in Chicago, and I can honestly say that I've been more pleasantly surprised by music more often since I've been here than I had in quite a long time back in Texas. In fact, I've seen so much that the thought of writing about some of it has been a bit daunting due to the fact that I still feel like I have a bit to learn about some of these groups before I can speak about them with any kind of intelligence or insight.

The place I've probably frequented the most over the past several months has the Mopery, a cavernous warehouse spot on Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood. Inhabited by a group of (mostly) ex-Dentonites, including Mike Forbes and Andrew Young, the place has become one of my favorite places to see a show, perhaps ever, and a lot of people in the area seem to agree with me-- at just about any given performance, no matter who is playing, a few hundred people always seem to turn up to see everything from local noisepop girl groups to out of town cold wave to Wolf Eyes side projects. This evening, in addition to an extraordinarily solid Metroplex line up at Little Guys, two Chicago bands consisting of Mopery residents and their close friends will be in the house. Many of you are obviously familiar with the arrestingly intense work of Mike Forbes and Andrew Young from their various Texas based projects, but seeing them develop as Tiger Hatchery, featuring Chicago's Ben Billington on drums, has been quite a treat. Whether blowing your fucking ear drums out with screaching sax and thundering bass or confusing the shit out of punk rock kids with quiet, abstract percussion heavy pieces, Tiger Hatchery is one of the most exciting bands in a city with a lot of exciting bands, and you can catch its various memebers playing in several different projects this evening. Lechugillas, which features former Dentonites Mike Hart and Jason Camacho (as well as Chicago's Bill Satek), is a relatively new group that has quickly developed into a live force-- I caught them at their tour kick off show here in Chicago last week, and they put on one of the loudest and nastiest performances I've seen from anyone in quite some time. With songs that always seem to teeter on the brink of falling apart all together, Lechugillas's rhythm section always keeps you guessing as the group pummels the audience with overwhelming harshness and Hart's fierce vocals. It all works so well together as a whole that it just has to be seen. So stop by this show this evening and/or their performance at Hailey's tomorrow and decide for yourself. This is starting at 7PM roughly, so get over there!

Nervous Curtains/Land Mammals/Dizastra (Rubber Gloves)

Ramblin' Jack Elliott (Granada)