4CHICAGO READER | JANUARY 20, 2006 | SECTION THREE CHICAGO READER | JANUARY 20, 2006 | SECTION THREE 5

[email protected] The Meter www.chicagoreader.com/TheMeter The Treatment A day-by-day guide to our Critic’s Choices and other previews friday 20

Astronomer

THE ASTRONOMER Multi-instrumentalist Charles Kim—the architect behind the deeply cinematic Pinetop Seven and Sinister Luck Ensemble—adds his vocals to the mix in his latest group, the Astronomer. But on the band’s eponymous self-released debut, his pedestrian singing lacks the supple, atmospheric quality of his guitar and pedal steel,

NI diluting the effect of the spectral music: Kim played nearly

TAT everything on the record, and the songs have a gentle, hovering beauty, but on the whole they sound lifeless. Hopefully he’ll get a spark from the musicians joining him here: Steve Dorocke (pedal steel), Jason Toth (drums), John TE MARIE DOS

ET Abbey (upright bass), Jeff Frehling (accordion, guitar), and Emmett Kelly YV Tim Joyce (banjo). This show is a release party. The New Messengers of Happiness open. a 10 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, 773-227-4433, $8. —Peter Margasak

BOUND STEMS These tuneful local indie rockers recently released their second EP, The Logic of Building the The Long Layover Body Plan (Flameshovel), a teaser for the forthcoming full- length Appreciation Night. Which label will release the LP is still up in the air: as Bob Mehr reported back in November, Guitarist Emmett Kelly liked Chicago so much he never finished his trip. the Bound Stems have attracted the interest of major indies like Domino and Barsuk. After hearing Body Plan, I By Bob Mehr understand why—its 26 minutes are chock-full of enthralling rag City producer and head of got in way over our heads.” she was looking for a guitar player. I high-octane arrangements, left-field hooks, and superb staff Rian Murphy is usually spar- Jeff Blue, the A and R man who started to play with her and she totally musicianship (drummer Evan Sult used to play with Seattle D ing with compliments, but men- signed Prophet 5, had been almost whipped me into shape.” cult favorites Harvey Danger, of “Flagpole Sitta” fame). tion guitarist Emmett Kelly and the single-handedly responsible for the rise “He was already in shape, man,” Though the band seems certain to put its John Hancock on floodgates open. “Oh yeah, what a star of nu metal, cultivating acts like Korn says Youssefi, laughing. “He’s just an another label’s contract before too long, the new EP is still a that kid is,” Murphy says. “His feeling for and Linkin Park. “I dunno what he was unbelievable player. I can’t imagine feather in Flameshovel’s cap—and taken with the Chin Up the music is really deep, and his playing thinking getting involved with us,” says anybody with ears not wanting to play Chin Up records, maybe even the start of a new Chicago is—I don’t want to say mature beyond Kelly. “We were into Slowdive, with him.” Kelly toured with Youssefi in “hard-pop” sound. This show doubles as a release party for his years, but I’m constantly surprised at Spiritualized, and old Verve. And he January 2005, and after he introduced the second issue of Make, which includes work by Reader how polished and classic his sounds are.” wanted to make us into Third Eye her to his roommate, writer Brian contributor Adam Langer, among others; admission includes Kelly has lived in Chicago only since Blind or something.” The band had Torrey Scott, she composed and record- a copy of the magazine. I Need Sleep and Ramona Cordova late 2004, but in that short time the only cut a few demos when Blue left ed a suite of songs for Scott’s play open. a 10 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276- 25-year-old has established a reputa- Zomba for a job at Warner Brothers. Detail From the Mountain Side with 3600 or 866-468-3401, $8. —J. Niimi tion as one of the city’s fastest-rising Prophet 5 sat out the rest of their con- Kelly on guitar. The set will be released talents. His elegant and lyrical playing tract and broke up soon after. by Drag City in early February. reflects influences as diverse as 60s Itching to get out of LA, Kelly Kelly’s work with Youssefi quickly Brit folkie Steve Ashley and postpunk enrolled at Boston’s Berklee College of led to further offers. In spring 2005 virtuoso Nels Cline, and since his Music in fall 1999. “Me and my friends Rian Murphy asked him to appear on arrival here he’s accompanied several had access to the rehearsal room, and Edith Frost’s album It’s a Game, and respected songwriters, including Azita we’d go in there and drop acid and jam his dreamy country guitar colors six of Youssefi, Edith Frost, and Beth Orton. for hours and hours,” he says. “We’d go its tracks. In August former Wilco For the past few months Kelly’s also on these musical journeys, just explor- multi-instrumentalist Leroy Bach set been playing in the Boogie Band, an ing all of these crazy sounds.” him up with a Colorado gig backing indie all-star lineup that specializes in In 2001, after saving up a few hun- Beth Orton, and he and Bach have rock, blues, and R&B covers (it has a dred dollars, Kelly both been rehearsing with her this past weekly gig at the Big Horse), and in the Boogie Band dropped out of week for a January 24 appearance on spring he’ll release his first proper WHEN Sun 1/22 and school and flew to the Letterman show. Bound Stems album as the Cairo Gang, a name he’s Sun 1/29, 10 PM Europe, where he Bach and Kelly also started the used for bands and solo projects since WHERE Big Horse kicked around for Boogie Band, a loose outfit that high school. His swift embrace by the Lounge, 1558 N. several months. includes Youssefi, performance poet ERWIN HELFER See Sunday. a 9:30 PM, Chicago music community has been Milwaukee “Just basically and vocalist Marvin Tate, bassist Matt c Rosa’s Lounge, 3420 W. Armitage, 773-342-0452, $12. something of a vindication for him— PRICE $5 being a bum and Lux of Isotope 217, and Tortoise drum- HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE This local quintet, which he’s dedicated most of his life to the INFO 773-263-5162 doing street mer Dan Bitney. Tate and Youssefi guitar, and until now he’s had little to music,” he says. He occasionally contribute originals, but features members of Rise Against, Shai Hulud, the Hope show for it aside from some off-putting returned to the U.S. in October and most of the group’s material is by the Conspiracy, the Killing Tree, etc, etc, is so posthardcore it’s industry experiences in the late 90s. spent the next two years bouncing likes of Muddy Waters, Bobby like hardcore never happened. The chugging songs on last Kelly was born in LA into a musical between LA, Brooklyn, and Port Womack, and Bobby “Blue” Bland. year’s Lost in Landscapes EP (HeWhoCorrupts Inc.) have an family, the middle child between two Townsend, Washington. For a short “The whole idea is to play dance angular grandeur and an unpunk kind of priggishness—the sisters. His father drummed with a time he was a songwriter for a music,” says Kelly. “To make something music’s crisply recorded and almost coldly perfect—but front late-60s London psych group called the Hollywood film-music company, and in for fun and kinda remember why we’re woman Emily Schambra defiantly commands the top of the Majority—much of their output is col- 2002 he used some of that money to all playing in the first place.” mix with her humanizing wail. There are only a few wobbly lected on the recent RPM reissue make an eclectic CD-R of solo sketch- The Cairo Gang is now a full band moments where I thought I was listening to At the Drive-In Rainbow Rockin’ Chair—and met his book recordings as the Cairo Gang. In again as well, with Bach, drummer fronted by Pat Benatar covering “Kashmir.” The band’s mother, an Italian-American from fall 2003 he moved into a downtown Ryan Rapsys of Euphone and working on a full-length. Ryan’s Hope, the Skyriter, and Detroit, while they were both playing LA warehouse space, where for the next Ambulette, and Born Heller bassist 2*Sweet open. a 6:30 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, 773-549- percussion for an itinerant hippie band year he worked on several projects— Jason Ajemian. In March the first 0203 or 312-559-1212, $9. A —Monica Kendrick in Amsterdam in the early 70s. two more Cairo Gang discs, a duo LP official Cairo Gang single will come out Kelly started playing guitar at ten, with psych-folk multi-instrumentalist on the New York indie Narnack JON LANGFORD The combination of Jon and though he’d grown up listening to Nick Huntington called The Surf the Records, followed in April by the full- c Langford and the Museum of Contemporary Art his parents’ classic-rock albums, in jun- Sundried (released by Attacknine last length—some of which was drawn calls up some fond memories for me—I’ll never forget the ior high he graduated to harder stuff like summer), and several albums of materi- from one of the albums Kelly finished Mekons’ 1997 MCA presentation of Pussy, King of the the Dead Kennedys and Crass. “I was al with singer-songwriter John Webster in LA. (He plans to release the other Pirates, which was one of Kathy Acker’s final performances. huge into punk,” he says. “Then I heard Johns under the name Charlemaignes. LA disc himself.) Kelly toured in This time around Langford’s staging an autobiographical Sonic Youth, and that totally rearranged In fall 2004 Kelly decided to head October with Narnack labelmates OCS, multimedia piece, The Executioner’s Last Songs, which is my head.” He started the first Cairo back to New York, and on his way and he expects to spend plenty of time partly inspired by the trio of anti-death penalty albums of Gang, a noisy shoegazer band, while in stopped to visit his older sister in on the road in 2006. the same name he’s released with the Pine Valley high school in Reseda, California. His Chicago. “And I never left,” he says. “I That’s not to say he’s still afflicted Cosmonauts. He’ll be joined by (among others) Sally Timms, next group, Prophet 5, was offered a was exposed to all this cool music every- with his old wanderlust, though. Now violinist Jean Cook, and bassist Tony Maimone, who’s best development deal after just one show— where and I immediately met a bunch that he’s found a home among sympa- known for his work in Pere Ubu but has also done some Zomba Records, a major indie that of awesome people.” Among them was thetic musicians, Kelly seems ready to Mekons time. In March Langford will release his third solo owned labels like Jive and Silvertone, Azita Youssefi, former front woman for settle down. “I feel really lucky I ended album, Gold Brick (ROIR), a biting and wistful collection of wanted to see what it could make of the Bride of No No. “I was drunk at a bar up here at all,” he says. “I won’t be leav- sweet Americana—he’s still pretty jaded, but his jarring group. “We were kids,” admits Kelly. “We and we were talking,” he says. “She said ing Chicago anytime soon.” v continued on page 6