Decent Days and Nights
By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 26, 2007 10:30PM
You can't throw a stone amongst a bunch of hipsters in the Wicker Park / Humboldt area without a decent chance of accidentally hitting Plastic Crimewave's carefully managed — and now more tightly clipped — 'fro. Long a staple of the local psych rock scene, at least as a prodigious historian and record-keeper with a killer collection (some of which saw airtime on a recent Market Frenzy podcast), Crimewave is assembling what he calls his Vision Celestial Guitarkestra at The Empty Bottle. The idea is to get dozens of guitarists together to play a single chord — admission is free if you bring your own axe and a short lesson on how to play the single chords will be given — in an attempt to either a) summon our alien overlords or b) shatter every fucking window at The Bottle. Either way, we're curious to see how the whole thing pans out.
Empty Bottle, Tuesday, 9:30 p.m., $8 (free if you bring a guitar and play), 21+
Gomez have written exactly one good song, and it was included on a rarities collection. Ben Kweller has a winning personality that makes you want to give him a noogie and a hug, but his music is retro-'70s style pop rock a la mildly distorted bubblegum. Why enough people have interest in either of these choices to warrant a show at The Vic is beyond us.
The Vic, Thursday, 6:30 p.m., $27.50, 18+
Cameron McGill has been plunking around the local scene for years without making much of a splash. While we concede much of his songwriting straddles the divide between competence and journeyman professionalism, we still think that McGill is deserving of a second listen. Sometimes it's hard to discern if pretty singer-songwriter types really mean what they've trying to convey, but McGill's sensitive vocals convey enough conviction to thrust him out of the composition notebook land of well-rehearsed angst and into a tableaux of worldly observation.
Hideout, Thursday, 9:00 p.m., $8, 21+
Clipse released one of our (and apparently just about everyone else's) favorite hip-hop albums of last year — even if it should have been released two years ago. But we're not holding that sort of delay against 'em, since we suspect the slow simmer of anticipation made the meal that much richer. The duo hits Metro Friday night, and while live hip-hop rarely lives up to its studio records, we suspect that the crowd will helpfully fill any sonic gaps or dips in energy with a swirling mass of hips and lips.
Metro, Friday, 11:00 p.m., $25, 18+
We've seen Razorlight and were mildly entertained by their oh-so British we-fucking-rule mannerism. However, at that time, they were touring in support of a halfway-decent album. This time around the band is supporting the wholly terrible self-titled disc from last year, so we're skipping this show since every one of their smug sneers would would just make us want to smack them in the puss.
Martyr's, Saturday, 8:00 p.m., $10, 21+
Pictured: Plastic Crimewave