All Hands On Deck preview
Phil Collins - October 12, 2017
All Hands On Deck is only a day away! Join us at Cobra Lounge Friday and Saturday for a bunch of great bands to support an important cause. All proceeds will go to Planned Parenthood. Get your Friday tickets ($10), Saturday tickets ($20) or weekend passes ($25).
Many of the bands playing this weekend are bands we have covered in one way or another over the years at Change the Rotation. What follows is a roundup of that coverage with links to go read the full interviews and reviews.
The World/Inferno Friendship Society
The World/Inferno Friendship Society plays on Saturday at 9:15 p.m.
Danny (of Don't Panic Records and Distro) and I interviewed lead singer Jack Terricloth over Skype in July 2016, ahead of their show at Chop Shop. Here is an excerpt:
Phil: So I have to ask, I know you guys always dress up really nicely on tour and everything, which is great, and it’s fun when the fans dress up too, does that present any challenges touring, like, packing up the van with your suits and everything, is it a lot to lug around?
Jack: Would you like to see my suitcase? This is going to be a written interview, not a video, but I think you’ll enjoy this. Gentlemen, this is my suitcase. It’s ancient, I think it’s from 1930, it’s broken already, it’s held together with a bungie cord because it’s ancient, and now, dig this, it’s an actual “suit-case,” things actually hang in here. And I never load the van, so the rest of the band hates my guts.
Phil: You’ve got it figured out.
Jack: Now dig this, the suits actually hang, and if you go like this, they come out. However, yes, the rest of the band hates my guts. Oh I’m sorry, did we chase Alex out of here, that’s too bad. Yeah, we stink all the time like other punk bands, we just have more things that stink, so really, I guess we actually stink more. We occasionally have to stop for dry cleaning, but, are you guys musicians, have you ever toured?
Danny: Yeah, a little bit.
Jack: So you know, there’s never any time to stop for anything.
Danny: I have two very smelly T-shirts.
Jack: Yeah, well I have four very smelly suits. And there’s eight of us, nine of us, I can’t even keep track, so eight very smelly people in a lot more clothes than you guys wear.
Phil: Are we talking one van, two vans, eight or nine people, that could fit in one van, actually…
Jack: Sometimes we tour with two vans, but we somehow decided we wanted to make money, so now we’re all packed in one van. There was a point where we had two vans, and I was like, this is totally cool, but now it’s all of us packed shoulder to shoulder.
Read the full interview here.
Earlier this month, I wrote up a guide to getting started with World/Inferno. Here is what I had to say about the band's debut album, The True Story of the Bridgewater Astral League.
This is the point in our journey when we finally arrive at World/Inferno's first full-length album. Why not start with the first album? Although this was surely the way many fans started with World/Inferno, if you're starting now it is better processed as a deep dive into the folklore this band is capable of producing. It is a concept album about a group of people using astral projection to carry out their mischief. Listen to this one at night while sipping some dry red wine. If you haven't been won over by all the previous albums mentioned, this one probably isn't going to do it for you either. If you listened to all the albums above and find yourself wanting more, this might be the album that turns you into a full on Infernite.
Read the full guide to getting started with World/Inferno here.
Bombflower
Bombflower plays on Saturday at 8:20 p.m.
Local ska punks Bombflower had a full-length ready to go seemingly as soon as they announced themselves as a band in 2015. Here's what I wrote about their first album, Organic Mood Elevators.
Oftentimes after listening to Organic Mood Elevators, the debut full-length from Waukegan's Bombflower, I get Sublime's guitar riffs woven into the Bombflower shrapnel popping into my head. They both inhabit a hazy stoner ska range. Although only one of Organic Mood Elevators' songs is lyrically about smoking, the sentiment pervades the album. Bombflower is at their strongest in the deliberate mid-tempo jams like "Your Death." The song leans heavily on melody and the intertwining vocals of Tic James and Liza Lionheart. "Die In Your Sleep" is another melodic, mid-tempo highlight.
Read the full review here.
Their follow-up the next year, Sweeteater, found the band's sound refined by their live shows. Here is what I said about it at the time.
Bombflower returns with their second full-length album of ska punk jams with a social conscience. Liza features more prominently on vocals here than she did on the Waukegan band's first album. She did lead vocals on "Your Death" and "Die in Your Sleep" on Organic Mood Elevators. Since then, she has split vocal duties with guitarist Tic James at shows. On Sweeteater, her vocals lead most of the songs. "Justice For Some" and "Silent While They Profit" deride inequities in society. The two vocalists trade lines on both songs, creating an effective sense of urgency.
Read the full review here.
Joe Vickers
Joe Vickers plays on Saturday at 6:45 p.m.
Steve O interviewed Joe Vickers of audio/rocketry in November of 2016. Below is an excerpt of that interview.
SO: You mentioned earlier that you work the land. Do you think that gives a different outlook on everything than some of your contemporaries, or how has that interaction with the environment influenced your songwriting?
JV: Yeah, it’s a big part of my creative process. Being able to work the land, I’ve got a pretty intimate relationship with it and while I’m working out in the fields it allows me to be very reflective. I’ve got this connection with the environment, but songwriting and playing in bands allows me to be connected with people. Audio/rocketry songs are very high into geography, and I would say have a prairie voice. So I think it can be related back to being a farmer for sure.
SO: Being from the Chicago area, there’s that Chicago sound that started with bands like Naked Raygun up through today with Lawrence Arms and Alkaline Trio, and I get where you’re coming from with that mindset, being up in the prairies there, I can totally see how that influences things.
JV: I wonder if there’s any connection with the Midwest. Cause it very much has that blue-collar feel, I wonder if that sparseness of the Midwest plays into a similar connection. I consider Western Canada, the prairies at least, similar to the Midwest. I look at Matt, the bass player in our band, his favorite bands are all Midwestern punk bands; he really loves that sound. I wonder if that somehow plays into our identity too. Wouldn’t you say elements of isolation too, like being in the middle? I think being in isolation breeds creativity. You’ve got the cold winters to deal with, nothing better to do than just gather in a basement somewhere and work on your art.
SO: We joke about all the black metal bands coming out of Norway, there’s really nothing to do in the middle of winter up there than hang out in your basement and write one-man black metal records.
JV: Haha, you’re right. What’s crazy is, I played some shows in Norway three years ago and I was fascinated by their Norwegian folk music. It was a lot of minor keys and a lot of weird time signatures and I just had this ‘ah ha’ moment where I realized, ah, that’s why metal resonates in this part of the world, given their mythology and their folklore and the music. Just came to mind when you mentioned black metal.
Read the full interview here.
The Kreutzer Sonata
The Kreutzer Sonata plays on Saturday at 4:30 p.m.
The next full-length from local hardcore punks The Kreutzer Sonata is coming out on Don't Panic Records and Distro real soon. Here is what I had to say about their first full-length back in 2015.
I consider myself a proponent of the album. The album both as a tangible, physical package and as a cohesive piece of music. The larger cultural shift toward buying songs individually makes me uncomfortable. The listener is missing something if he is only ingesting one or two songs that are part of a whole. They don't say it explicitly but I think there is enough in The Kreutzer Sonata's new album, Austere, to suggest that the band feels the same way.
Read that full review here.
Fight Songs made my best EPs of 2016 list. The excerpt below comes from the original review.
The Kreutzer Sonata's new 7-inch, Fight Songs, lives up to its name. Four hardcore haymakers swing through in about five minutes. If you did not already feel like punching something when you drop the needle on this one, your knuckles will surely be unrecognizable by the end of it. The Chicago band's trademark combination of ferocious hardcore vocals and interspersed melodic lines, which was on prominent display on last year's excellent album Austere, continues to prosper here.
Read the full review here.
Below is an excerpt of my review of The Kreutzer Sonata's split with The Union Boys.
Chicago hardcore band The Kreutzer Sonata tag team with Boston's The Union Boys on this split 7-inch released a couple weeks ago. The Kreutzer Sonata's three songs here exemplify their ability to switch between punishing hardcore and catchy hooks. "White Knuckles" opens the record with a slicing guitar riff and quick screamed vocals, balanced with a melodic chorus that kicks in about halfway through the song.
Read the full review here.
Shots Fired Shots Fired
Shots Fired Shots Fired plays on Saturday at 6:00 p.m.
Local hardcore band Shots Fired Shots Fired released their debut EP earlier this year. Here is an excerpt from my review.
The debut EP from Chicago hardcore band SHOTS FIRED SHOTS FIRED grapples with the tensions of the reality that we live in today in 2017. They start right off on Trump with the opening track "El Emparador Es Naranja," deriding his lack of respect for women and his constant self-aggrandizement. Lyrics switch between Spanish and English often on this release, in this case translating the song's title: "El emparador es naranja/The emperor is orange." Title track "Calles Sangriento" discusses the everyday violence that continues to grip Chicago. On "Be More Like Sean (RIP Sean McKeough,)" vocalist Paulie Think tells the story of the Riot Fest co-founder helping him get off heroin.
Read the full review here.
Davey Dynamite
Davey Dynamite and The Salt Creek Duo plays on Friday at 10:00 p.m.
Davey is a contributor to this site as well as an amazing artist and friend. So the excerpt below is 100% objective. Also worth noting, this review was posted on Novemer 10, 2016, days after you know who was elected.
The songs on Davey Dynamite's new album are filled with a message we all need to remember right now. We are all human. We all share this space. We should treat each other with respect and dignity. This is not a political message. This is a statement about the human condition in a social world. It is not always easy to remember that the fuckheads referenced on "Man Enough" - the hateful brainless people - are the same fuckheads we need to work with and work for to make our society a place worth fighting for, as discussed on the song "Fuckheads." We have to value each other and that includes paying workers a decent wage, not 380 times less than the bigwigs. "Gods," the album's final song, reminds us that we are the ones who can make changes and mold society.
Read the full review here.
Fitness
Fitness plays on Friday at 9:15 p.m.
Don't Panic Records and Distro released the new Fitness 7-inch earlier this year. Here is what I had to say about Puppet Show.
Chicago punks Fitness use dual lead guitars and crusty vocal hooks effectively on their new 7-inch, Puppet Show. They can channel the amped up party sound of FIDLAR, the soaring guitar leads of a bygone era and a crusty vocal delivery all in the same song. Basically, most of Puppet Show sounds like it would be well-accompanied by Old Style cans spraying all over the place. You will probably get some of the guitar hooks stuck in your head before you learn the words, most likely the guitar lead at the beginning of "Sin Bad." Whatever else stands out about this release, it fittingly begins and ends with those blasting guitar licks.
Read the full review here.