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March 31, 2014

list.in.to.chicago this week: 03.31.2014

Batter up!

Pick of the week
Tons and tons to choose from, but you literally cannot go wrong on Saturday night, between Split Single at Schubas, St. Vincent at the Riv (if you can find tickets), Tinariwen at City Winery and Chick Corea and Béla Fleck at the Auditorium Theatre. If you dig guys playing lots of notes, you've got two choices in Dream Theater on Saturday at the Chicago Theatre and then Simon Phillips on Sunday night at Martyrs'.

list.in.to.COZ
And if that Saturday lineup weren't enough, you can also see Diver at Fado that night. Also doing regular office hours Tuesday night at Vaughan's.

Recap
Sorta dragged my feet on going to see Gary Numan on Saturday, so nothing to report.

3.31   monday
Yellow Ostrich with Pattern Is Movement (Schubas)
This is the first of what I expect will be a long line of Milwaukee bands that I'm going to hear about over social media from former XRT DJ Ken Sumka now that he lives up there.

Dum Dum Girls with Blouse, Radar Eyes (Empty Bottle)   SOLD OUT!
Something about the name always makes me expect this band to be more garage/punk, instead of the combination of girl-group harmonies, eighties reverb and modern indie jangle that it actually is.

Bastille with To Kill A King (Riviera Theatre)   SOLD OUT!
First off, best pairing of band names I've seen since Ratt and Poison toured together. The only way it would be better is if they added San Diego rock band Louis XIV, even if that's actually the wrong king. The music sounds kinda like Phoenix, only not nearly as good.

Todd Rundgren (SPACE, Evanston)   SOLD OUT!
Rock legend. Small space. No tickets. Also, billed as "an unpredictable evening with Todd Rundgren," so, honestly, no idea what to expect.

RAC with Panama Wedding, Ghost Beach (Lincoln Hall)   SOLD OUT!
Time Out Chicago calls them one of the non-douchey EDM artists worth checking out at Lollapalooza. If you're not going, this would be a chance to follow their advice. I'm still skeptical.

Booty Movement Coalition (Martyrs')
I want to support these guys, because the freestyle funk thing can be so, so much fun. But I'm old and it's always on a Monday.

4.01   tuesday
Open Jam (Vaughan's)   COZ SINGS!
Okay, so if we're going topical, we can do songs with "fool" in the title, songs about baseball, and/or songs about dragons (Game of Thrones season premiere on Sunday!).

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead with La Femme (Empty Bottle)
Two shows with the Austin band playing their breakthrough Source Tags and Codes album in its entirety, with the late show sold out.

Orwells with Twin Peaks (Lincoln Hall)
Lots of buzz on this Elmhurst band after last year's Lollapalooza.

Todd Rundgren (SPACE, Evanston)   SOLD OUT!
See Monday's listing.

4.02   wednesday
The Sounds with Blondfire, Strange Talk (Metro)
This Swedish female-fronted band was early on the indie/electropop wave that seems to be pretty much everywhere now.

Tributosaurus (Martyrs')
They love digging in on what they consider to be criminally overlooked bands in rock history, so they will likely have a whole lot of fun with Supertramp.

4.03   thursday
Typhoon with Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, Wild Ones (Metro)
So, the Wikipedia entry starts off with describing them as an eleven-piece indie rock band from Oregon. At that point, isn't naming The Decemberists as an "associated act" just superfluous?

Nicholas Payton, Vicente Archer, and Marcus Gilmore (Jazz Showcase)
So, the nice thing about this bill is that it hips me to a few more young jazz cats, including drummer Marcus Gilmore, whose grandfather is none other than Roy Haynes.

4.04   friday
Zakir Hussain & the Masters of Percussion (Symphony Center)
The legendary Indian percussionist comes through Chicago every couple of years. This tour includes former Journey drummer Steve Smith, who definitely qualifies as a "master."

London Grammar with Haerts (Metro)   SOLD OUT!
Described as a new London trip-hop trio, which means they're chronologically separated from their peers by, like, a decade and a half.

David Guetta (Aragon Ballroom)
All I know about this guy is that there was an Internet meme called "David Guetta leans on things." I guess he's a DJ or something?

Common Shiner with ACTN, KPT, Vortis (Quenchers Saloon)
Get there early if you want to see local music writer Jim DeRogatis play drums in a punk rock band, assuming it's still his gig. I'm guessing that calling attention to his participation would not be punk rock enough, along with the potential security concerns with all the local musicians he's probably pissed off over the years.

Nicholas Payton, Vicente Archer, and Marcus Gilmore (Jazz Showcase)
See Thursday's listing.

4.05   saturday
DIVER (Fado Irish Pub)   SEE COZ LIVE!
With all the other options tonight, we would be honored if you chose us for your evening's entertainment. And, honestly, a little bit surprised.

Split Single with Bear Claw (Schubas)
Sexy elbows aside, it's great to see Jason Narducy fronting a rock band again. Here he teams up with Bob Mould and Superchunk bandmate Jon Wurster and indie-rock gadfly Britt Daniel. The debut EP was a bit sludgier than I expected, but the full-length album, which comes out this week, has more of the effortless pop hooks Narducy is so good at.

St. Vincent with Noveller (Riviera Theatre)   SOLD OUT!
I'm torn on Annie Clark at the moment. I think the new record is flat-out fantastic, but it has moments where it seems too deliberately provocative, and that can be a bit unseemly in the context of the relentless marketing around the album as her major-label debut. I don't think she's necessarily being forced into being an indie-rock Lady Gaga, but she does seem to have a foot on that path. Maybe two feet. All that said, she seems to be pulling it off, which absolves many sins. And all that said, I still wouldn't go see her at the Riv.

Tinariwen (City Winery)
The Northern African Toureg musicians' most recent album is pretty stunning stuff. A great example of world music at its best.

Chick Corea and Béla Fleck (Auditorium Theatre)
The radio commercial for this show boasts something like 27 Grammys between the jazz keyboardist and the adventurous banjo player. They can both be particularly subtle and nuanced in their playing, so the two of them together should be really nice.

Dream Theater (Chicago Theatre)
Okay, I just think it's funny that the band spells its name "theater" and the venue spells it "theatre." I may have to take a picture of the marquee.

Nicholas Payton, Vicente Archer, and Marcus Gilmore (Jazz Showcase)
See Thursday's listing.

4.06   sunday
Simon Phillips' Protocol II (Martyrs')
I actually mail-ordered the original Protocol EP from the pages of Modern Drummer back in something like 1989, and the veteran studio drummer is still one of my all-time favorites, so it is from a deep knowledge of this type of audience that I have to wonder at the wisdom of scheduling this sort of virtuostic jazz-fusion gig against the season premiere of Game of Thrones.

Eleventh Dream Day with Nick Tremulis (Hideout)
It's really fascinating to watch the Chicago music scene age. Bands like Eleventh Dream Day have been at this now for over thirty years, and they've carved out their musical existence pretty much on their own terms, releasing albums and playing shows pretty much when it suits them. It probably helps that a lot of the club owners and talent buyers in this city have been around that long, too.

Liquid Soul (Abbey Pub)
You could start and end your week with funk and acid jazz.

Nicholas Payton, Vicente Archer, and Marcus Gilmore (Jazz Showcase)
See Thursday's listing.

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