TG25

Touch and Go Records 25th Anniversary
Chicago
September 8-10, 2006

There were a lot of thankful people at the Touch and Go 25th Anniversary three-day music concert. I won’t call it a festival because the word festival puts images of smelly dudes in dreadlocks and smelly girls in bare feet grooving out to some alterna-rock jam band on some dirty hill somewhere. Been there, attended that, won’t do it again. No, the crowd at the T&G concert was decidedly well-shod and – especially on Saturday, where it was old-timer’s day at the ol’ soundstage – had hair in various stages of disrepair.

Royce and I arrived early – five hours early, to be exact. Far be it from me to examine the schedule too closely. We quickly scanned the scene – with Royce literally driving his Subaru directly through the closed-off street where people were setting up merch. booths – and headed to our hotel for a brief respite. A word about our beds: Cocoons, they were. I was out like a light every time my head hit the pillow, which might have had as much to do with how late we were up each night as it did with the quality of our sleeping quarters, but I like to give credit where credit is due.

Shipping News

Touch and Go is one of the five pillars of indie rock, with the other labels being Matador, Sub Pop, Dischord, and Merge. Those five labels (I’d include Cargo/Hedhunter but their track record after the Jehu/Pitchblende-era is abysmal) could be counted on by indie music fans in the ‘90s to consistently deliver the goods, and that hasn’t changed in the ‘00s. Many of the bands whose music and/or live performance made an indelible impact on me were on Touch and Go and its subsidiary label, Quarterstick. With Polvo (though it was their output on Merge that positively floored me), the Jesus Lizard, Tar, Rodan, June of ’44, Bedhead, and Slint, Touch and Go’s imprint on my sonic DNA was lasting and deep. Unfortunately, none of those bands were to perform this past weekend. Scratch Acid, Shellac, Uzeda and co. would have to do.

Shipping News was the first of the twenty-five main acts to perform. They were as tight as ever and heavier than I remembered. Maybe it was bassist Todd Cook’s long hair, which hung lifelessly from his head as he bobbed and delivered throbbing basslines. Note to singer/guitarist Jason Noble: Eat something. He looked so gaunt and so frail I was certain his guitar strap was going to cleave him at the shoulder before the set was over. Noble held sway over the vocal duties until the final song, when Jeff Mueller stepped forward to deliver in his now-trademark talk-sing manner. I love it and always have. That dude can talk over endlessly-evolving arpeggiated melodies all he wants as far as I’m concerned. A great set by an underappreciated band.

DC’s Supersystem was next. The band has members of El Guapo, one of the more maligned DC bands of yore, but I always dug ‘em – especially the record that reminded me of the Minutemen. Anyway, Supersystem sounds like it has finally found its footing on the dance floor. The pavement where the crowd stood, evidently, was not that dance floor. This is a Touch and Go show, after all, and getting funky just wasn’t in the cards for this audience. It was still sunny, for one thing, and only hippies and young lovers dance in the daylight. Rockers nod. So, we nodded and shook one of our knees as Justin Moyer (also of the excellent Edie Sedgwick) went all Napoleon Dynamite on us playing the bass and singing. By contrast the only pulse the drummer had was the one he kept with his limbs. Liven up, dude. Guitarist/singer Rafael Cohen plays some deft guitar and stayed cool vocally behind his beard. Behind shades, Pete Cafarella played keys and sang. In El Guapo, DC had a band that was unafraid to not sound like a “DC band,” and Supersystem has eagerly distanced itself not only from the DC sound but from even the varied sounds El Guapo made.

Girls vs. Boys played next and I’m sorry to say I missed their set. We wandered outside to mingle and missed the rest of the night. GVSB sounded good, and I heard from a friend that they looked exactly the same as they did a few years back. It’s good to know they’re taking care of their skin.

Supersystem

Ted Leo followed. Missed his set, too. I like his music, but I doubt Ted and I could ever be friends. Not with all the meat I eat. In Ted’s worldview, I might as well be walking around clutching an elk carcass in my jaws for as much animal protein as I consume. But that’s cool. I don’t hold it against him.

Closing the night was !!!. Didn’t see ‘em as we had left to get to another show, but I’m sure they really let the Bush administration have it.

The young night still being what it was, Royce and I found some food before making our way to the basement of a Payless Shoe Source, where Bear Claw and other bands hold practices. The space was massive, could easily hold 200+, and on this night, between the hipsters collecting outside and the sweaty music fans inside, there had to be 120 if there were ten. We missed IfIhadahifi, but I heard it was solid. We caught the final few songs from Push-Pull, who was a delight. Live, they’re a cross between the spazztastic Transformer Lootbag, ang aggro Polvo, and Haymarket Riot. It was a blast.

Push Pull

LKN

LKN is led by the female Steve Vai. The girl shreds. She soloed a lot, ripping her way up and down the frets like a woman possessed. The rhythm section and her mangled riffage reminded me of Mule, but the soloing – and her shrieking, screaming and general high level of insanity – took this set to another level. Whether that level was up or down, I’m not prepared to say at this time (the emotional wounds have yet to heal), but from what I can see the guys in the audience thought it was a great set. I couldn’t decide whether this was a feminist parody of male cock-rock (ironically, she did cut on Steve Vai during one incoherent rant) or if she was serious. Jury is still out.

The highlight of the show was Oakland’s Triclops. Freshly-signed to Chicago’s underheralded Sick Room Records, Triclops has members of Bottles & Skulls, Victims Family, Lower Forty-Eight and The Fleshies, but a sound all its own. From the first note, the singer wrapped himself in his microphone cord and proceeded to contort and flop and generally mop the floor with his back while the rest of the band writhed behind him. He used some fucked effects on his voice, too. All the Lost to the deadening cement walls of the basement was the stranglings Christian put on his guitar, though a demo heard the next night at Sick Room head honcho Ryan Duncan’s house proved what I had thought: This band fully has it going on.

Tryclops

Bear Claw

Bear Claw closed the night and were their usual tight, intricate, powerful selves. Two bass guitars and drums, but you knew that already, didn’t you? Royce digs Bear Claw as much as I do, but unfortunately, he was cashed out, asleep against a wall in the corner, the victim of fatigue. It was going on 4 AM CST, anyway, and our bodies were still operating on EST. Not exactly transcontinental jetlag, but how many airline passengers have to face down six rock bands at full bore? So, we trudged home, each took a shower, fastened our nightcaps, and were asleep in our snug beds by 4:30.

Bear Claw

Night time in line for the Porta-John

See the schedule on the Touch and Go web site.

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