Tag: Illinois

Leyla McCalla’s music opens up a portal into a universe of previously impossible musical geometries.

I’ve been noticing a dry spell on covers making it onto the show, but that was busted tonight with an inordinate (and quite varied) set of songs, starting with Robyn Hitchcock’s take on the Small Faces’ “Itchycoo Park.” He’s got an album of mostly covers, specifically from the year 1967, on the way, and this single is blazing the way. Also covered tonight: David Bowie, Dire Straits, Duke Ellington, Daniel Johnston, and the Bar-Kays.

Exploding out of upstate New York, The Bobby Lees have returned with a their third outing, titled Bellevue, and it delivers more of that biting, can’t-you-see-I’m-in-the-middle-of-an-episode post-rock blues energy. Tonight’s Mixtape closes out with Escape Mechanism’s “Being,” sampling William S. Burrough’s unmistakable reedy voice into an existential mantra.

It takes a certain mindset to take on a King Crimson song, and clearly black midi is of that mindset. Is it a bugle call for all prog rockers everywhere to take up their Moogs and sparkly jumpsuits and join the New Prog Revolution? I can support that.

The three-piece punchy pop formula should be familiar to everyone by now, but the sounds of Bad Bad Hats are an elegant proof of their own.

There are voices so distinctive that their timbre is an instrument onto itself. This is the case with Josh Caterer, who was first heard singing for a band called The Smoking Popes. He has a wildly diverse solo career now, but tonight we play his reworked version of a Popes song.

The screen door banged against the frame of the small building that was once Cisco, Utah’s non-bustling post office. It’s like a ghost town abandoned by the ghosts, mused the cinematographer. Whatever once haunted this place left out of boredom. Meanwhile, the blacksmith methodically tapped the foundation along the perimeter of the building. They had brought the infractometer over from the side-by-side they had arrived in, but sometimes the old ways worked best. The rhythm etched out a Namibian bossanova that had been popular in the ‘70s. The entrance to the silo complex had to be near.

The accordionist’s boot was tangled in a mangrove root. The deepening dusk of Meads Bay Pond brought with it a soft breeze and an ugly threat of bug swarms. Their chances of getting to the beach and capturing enough glowing sugar crabs were dwindling. The roots, more like underwater dreadlocks, heaved as the booted foot attempted to twist out, the accordion case held high as counterbalance. The technician glared at the spectacle briefly before shining a light on the clipboard. In the distance, a barbershop quartet with a Tuvan throat-singing baritone made it incongruous presence known. The keys to the long-range waterbikes had a floaty thing on them, but they were permanently attached to the metal clipboard, which would sink like a stone. The Governor’s Office back in The Valley would certainly hear about this.

There was no official name for this giant hole, this cavern that truly made you realize the proper utilization of the word “cavernous”. Those who knew of its existence referred to it as the “Sarlacc Pit”, while the geologists debated what to call this previously unseen feature in the farthest reaches of British Columbia. The ophthalmologist could not help but recount these facts as they descended into its depths; they were the chatty sort and had barely endured a few hours of self-reflection in the noisy Chinook that had brought the expedition here. The conductor whistled a short melody and listened for the glorious reverberation. The nearest person who could recognize its Peruvian punk origins was 2,524 miles away.

It was a cold night, but things were kept warm by a steady influx of Latin-tinged music and of course, Millie Small’s delightful warble.