Sea of Shit, Socially Retarded, Chest Pain, sick/tired, XbrainiaX @ Spider Skull Island (Kostner House), 9/30/10
It's like last winter in Dekalb all over again, but the three S's (retarded, tired, shit) have all gotten better since then. And it was my first time seeing CP and brainiaX(who were apparently very difficult to get out here; way to be coercive, Robby), both insane grindcore/pwv bands.
As usual, we arrived to find that no one would be going on for awhile, so Old Style was acquired at the corner store. Not a bad night to just sit out and drink anyway (fake edge). Familiar faces gathered steadily throughout the night (even Diego showed up, and he's too cool for this shit) with lots of booze and smoke being passed around. Sea of Shit went up first and played their first demo for the last time; they were good as always and those early songs fucking rip, maelstroms of hatred and spastic outbursts. The dual vocals provide two voices of tension and loathing; the drummer's are about as grim as gets as far as hardcore goes I know Peach is big on them, so I throw him around ignorantly in the pit a couple of times and spilled my first of many beers on the floor that night. I felt like an asshole continuously spilling beer and having cans strewn about, but I picked some up that weren't mine and disposed of them properly, keeping karma in balance. At any rate, SoS played their short but solid set and we got into more drinking, now with Gonzo & Bello of S/T and SR who'd just arrived.
Socially Retarded has been one of my absolute favorite bands since I saw them in Dekalb late last year. I remember being hooked on them as soon as they started playing and their lumberjack-looking singer proceeded to punch and slam as many people in the crowd as he could. Their lineup has changed since then, sans Omar on drums and Jimmy on guitar. Of all people, they acquired Varg Campos on bass, ya know, the fag who wore a dress when he was with Nachos(slur used with his permission). They've also added a new dimension to their wall of sound with Aleks manipulating a giant case of effects pedals and noise-making implements. I should also mention his moshing that night was some of the most beautifully ignorant and maniacal moshing I've ever seen, especially in such tight confines of the basement. He gave me whiskey, too, so they should definitely keep him in the band. SR doesn't play their older stuff anymore, but their new material is just as brilliant in its sinister grinding and abhorrent(in a good way here) vocals synthesizing in a wall of vicious noise, not replicating to you the full measure of emotional alienation and angst, but actually transcending it. Every time I see them now, they seemed to have gotten better, tighter. Their last show here, Mitch, the singer, got caught under a pile of 3 or 4 people, but never lost the mic or had his vocals phased. People this night were smashing him left and right, but he was unwavering, seething a very real hatred, but for me, equals a good time.
From this point, my memory gets a little hazy, but I have all the important plot points retained. I believe Chest Pain played next, to a very receptive crowd responding with senseless moshing and people even quasi-crowdsurfing in a basement with maybe 7' in height. It should also be noted the typical sarcasm of a Chicago crowd. The singer of CP was thanking everyone for coming out and setting up the show and whatnot being met with heckling and their sexuality being contested. Solid set.
I think at this point we went to get more beer and encountered Diego on the way; I was just approaching drunkenness at this point. We got back and ended up being to wrapped up in drinking to catch S/T's first few songs. I stumbled down there and pushed through overly-crowded basement to get up close (if there was a fire...), where I promptly opened another beer in their honor and commenced with much ignorance and hooliganism. All the times I've seen the them, the crowds were either completely out-of-hand or totally placid. This one was the former type, plenty of beer and mayhem; I think it was during this set that I smashed my left knee on the ground, after slipping in beer that I most likely spilled. Their second-to-last song was "Banishment", the perfect tune for getting stupid, even without knowing the words. If you like drinking and grindcore, sick/tired is your best bet.
XbrainiaX closed out the night. They tore through a ridiculous number of songs at the speed of coke metabolizing; the moshing was even more hectic than earlier. In the last couple of minutes, I took either a fist or elbow to the left eye which knocked out the right frame of my glasses as several others and myself were all toppled simultaneously. I tried fervently to grab the loose frame but I was denied and had to stand there holding them until the set was over and then I would begin my desperate search. Luckily they ended shortly thereafter and the frame was mere feet away, albeit scratched as fuck but still providing my right eye with improved sight as I write this. Yep, I'm an idiot. This band still killed it though. I was lucky enough to be in attendance for one of their rare Chicago appearances.
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I return with no proper ending for the review, but full of some of the best cheese I've ever been privy to as I watched RISK practice in the basement of a factory for said dairy product. Their sound seems to go for a mix of groovy rock n roll and blistering hardcore, bordering on black metal, one of vocalist Evan B's major influences. Honestly though I was more interested in the free cheese and I was not disappointed. This band might be pretty good, too.
Now I'm bordering on the state of weary consciousness into sleep and listening to Converge, making it sound that much more intense, the lapses of a waking mind allowing sound's perception to permeate further into more normally imperceptible levels of brain activity....something like that. The cheese, I think, is functioning like a drug at this point.
"I got a headful of ideas, and they are driving me insane"
Good days they have been recently. It comes with not trying to change the world so much anymore, but rather, moving with it and merely adjusting my own interactions and whims. But there is so much more value in the soundless expression in simply KNOWING something as a real thing, a loss of dichotomy between ideas and actuality. That's where so much distress lies, in that disparity. I find peace of mind in the breakdown of that strange partnership that keeps one debilitated, no longer drawing that fine line between futility and perseverance, but in encompassing all of it. Dread and despair dissipate, simplicity manifests itself...and this is definitely the most positive article I've ever written here.
