Day 0: click here.
Day 1: click here.
Day 2: click here.
Uh oh! The debauchery of the previous night wasn’t conducive to proactive thinking. No alarms were set, yet we had set up an interview with Chicago staples The 1900s at Logan Hardware at 1 PM. A wake up call from the band’s publicist, Jacob, inquiring what was going on jolted us out of a hangover and into a cab. Did we make it in time? More after the jump.
No, we don’t make it in time—but luckily, if you had to wait ten minutes somewhere, Logan Hardware is about as perfect a place as you can get. The store is a combo record shop and video arcade (someone call Das Racist), where buying $10 worth of records or CDs grants you access to a closed-off back room full of vintage arcade machines on Free Play. So, in short, the band was still happy.
We bolt in the door, and find the band already engaging in Millipede, Punch Out, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. After they make an attempt to kill Shredder (he lives on, unfortunately), we circle up in the corner of the arcade and do a quick interview for a Q+A that we’ll post later this week for an On The Road band profile. If you like really well crafted, poppy indie-rock gems, you’ll have to stay tuned.
After a 30-minute binge on Smash TV (god only knows how you’re otherwise supposed to progress through that game with anything less than a backpack full of quarters), we do an obligatory browse through Logan Hardware’s impressive selection of records. However, it’s clear that hunger and sobriety are both beginning to resurface with a vengeance.
The band, Jacob, and we are on the same page—it was time for some pizza. We jump in Matt’s—one of The 1900s—Scion xB (complete with Crossfader King sticker, see below) to Piece Pizzeria, a joint restaurant and craft brewery and local hotspot. It is 3 in the afternoon and it was still packed!
The pizza is Connecticut-style (“celebrated,” notes the menu), which comes out in large, oblong ovals cut into long, thin slices. It’s no La Pizza on Delmar (what isn’t!?), but the hearty helpings of cheese on our plates and suds in our glasses are enough to get us through the afternoon and geared up for the night’s shows.
Our hosts for the weekend, Keith and Spencer, meet up with us and we head down the block to Reckless Records, a famous Chicago independent record store chain. We’re greeted with an awesome mural outside the door (see above), and escape into record browsing for the second time today. Among our favorite titles are Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song OST and FunkGASM.
After getting tired of name-checking bands (ha), we trudge north through the snow to get ready to hit some shows.
First up was Chicago based instrumental, experimental rockers Tortoise at the Empty Bottle. The band had already sold out the late show, so the venue set up a second (or first, chronologically) earlier in the evening. Tortoise is on stage by the time we arrive, and the whole room is entranced by the band’s complex mix of jazz, electronic music, and progressive styles.
The funky bassline in “High Class Slim Floatin’ In” brings us to a solid groove alongside the band’s rhythm section, and “Salt the Skies” gets Tortoise’s guitarist to lay down some more heavy, mathy riffs to compliment the technical, rampant drumming.
Sadly, we have to duck out before Tortoise’s final song to race up north to the Riviera Theater to catch Interpol’s sold out show. Traffic galore, our cabby takes a detour to serve us up right in front of the venue as the band was about to take the stage. Fritz grabs his photo pass and headbutts his way through the audience to the photo pit at the base of the stage just in time to catch the opening notes of opening song, “Success.”
Bathed in red and blue lights as moody as their music, Interpol brings the audience to a frenzy—though singer Paul Banks’ voice can drone at times, the music behind the vocals rarely ceases to lack energy. We weren’t alone with our screaming response to the opening lick of “Narc,” as over 2,500 Interpol fans in the theatre yell with approval.
We watch most of the set from the first row of the balcony—the sheer force of Interpol’s dual guitar attack was enough to bathe both floors of the venue in sonic harmony. The band ended with a four song encore, following up “Slow Hands” with a beautiful rendition of “Not Even Jail” to finally finish their set.
The audience floods out of the historic theater, and we recollect ourselves under the marquee.
We swing by a college friend Matt’s potluck party before grabbing a cab to head back south. It was our PR colleague Clayton’s (see Day 2) birthday, and his Bday party was a house show/party down in Logan Square at a DIY venue named The Palzie. We arrive at the given intersection, and follow the traces of live music down the block until we arrive a huge, three story apartment building. We make our way up the back staircase all the way to the attic, where we find a legit space—sound system, stage, and eighty or so kids rocking the fuck out to the awesome, noisy band on stage (the newly coined Vamos, to be specific—”we’ve only been a band for a week,” the drummer says). The scene is almost too much to take in, so we chose our only option and jump in the fray. Also, seemingly randomly, our St. Louis comrades Middle Class Fashion had played there earlier that night.
There are plenty of interesting characters running amok in The Palzie, which was quickly turning into an indie-rock rager. The most unique, however, is the self proclaimed “black blader,” who was moshing with rollerblades on. How he easily climbed up and down flights of stairs all night is still beyond us.
The show ends, the DJ goes on, and then the neighbors finally call in to bring the party to a close—but keep in mind, this was 3 or so in the morning, so it definitely stayed its course. We hang out with the stragglers in the kitchen on the second floor, and are generously made some mixed drinks in whatever cups were laying around (coffee mug, stein, and martini glass, just to name a few). The gathering ends when inevitable hunger kicks in, and we all split off in different directions to hunt down a midnight, errr 4 AM snack. We make it back to Keith’s place, order in a pizza, and watch some “Creed Shreds” YouTube videos (if you aren’t familiar with these, then please become acquainted with them—especially if you’re somehow a Creed fan). Sleep hits, and we didn’t see it coming. Yahseeaah!
