Yum Yum Beats

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 18, 2006 4:36PM

We hear there’s a free show featuring Chicagoist favorites The Assassins and local kids The Redwalls tonight.

Now a free show featuring The Assassins would be enough to get our collective panties in a proverbial bunch but there is a nice little added bonus to this evening’s festivities. Chicago homeboy and musical chameleon Chris Holmes is coming into town to DJ this evening’s event. Since moving out West a few years ago Holmes had moved away from the space rock of Sabalon Glitz and Ashtar Command, along with the orch-pop of Yum Yum that he built his reputation on, and has broadened into territory populated by folks more interested in the hedonistic release of dance. In other words he’s become yet another DJ.

In Holmes’ case, though, this transition actually made sense since he had already been experimenting with what would become known as electroclash back before the folks at Reckless had begun to wet themselves over Peaches and her ilk. Couple this with how tight he is/was with Tommie Sunshine and Holmes’ move into party person seems organic instead of calculated.

This isn’t even the thing that really has us excited about Holmes right now, but given his history with some of the Chicago arts community we feel a little background should go a long way towards deflecting the sort of criticism that seems to attach itself – locally at least – to Holmes.

What really has us excited is the fact that a few tracks from the long-lost Get Yer Yum Yums Out album have been recently released on iTunes as an EP, indicating the possibility that the entire disc may yet see the light of day. With guest turns by such local luminaries as Rachael Yamagata lending their talents to the EP, Holmes certainly may get the chance to finally release what we (humbly) believe to be one of the great unheard masterpieces of Chicago orch-pop no one’s ever heard.

ADDED BONUS CONTENT FOR THE DAY: Also DJing the event will be indie princess and all around Renaissance Woman Jessica Hopper. Hubba meta-hubba. However you must RSVP to the event in order to gain entry and, since it’s 18 and over, you probably want to get there super early to guarantee admittance.