Moss Covers Chicago
By Sarah Cobarrubias in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 29, 2010 8:20PM
Moss Tapes, an emerging local music label heavily rooted in cassette tape culture, has organized a series of underground shows taking place on three consecutive Saturdays on three sides of the city. The first show was last Saturday in West Town at Dr. Who’s Warehouse of Ideas, a huge house-turned-venue which is also the residence of Moss Tapes founder, Joseph Blanski. We were there to help them kick off this extravaganza, and it was an insanely good time.
The show began at 8 p.m. with an entrancing performance of the one-act play "The Madness of Oscar Wilde by Sebastian Melmoth," featuring local performer Glenn Pruett. It set the tone for the rest of the night, which was filled with a lengthy line-up of intriguing musical acts. Blanski himself performed under his alias, Meester Magpie, an experimental/noise project whose sound varies from screeching car wreck to something like an eerie extraterrestrial radio transmission. Penelope Unity followed with her strangely beautiful ambient harmonies delivered by way of reverberating and delayed moans and howls that left us feeling all metaphysical.
We were also introduced to CMI, who accurately describe their sound as melodramatic pop. Their set was pleasantly depressing, catchy and served as an intermission between the noise and experimental stylings of the night. Moving into the early hours of the morning, The RRRainbow Family Band entertained us with a little trivia and some musical improvisation. The kind of group that abandons structure, they lost themselves in the moment, transmuting emotion into a flurry of bangs, whoops and howls.
The show concluded with a performance by El is a Sound of Joy, an experimental band that fuses jazz with noise. Playing by means of spontaneity, they managed to manipulate chaos into subtle patterns for an intensely impassioned experience. It served as an appropriate summation for the night’s performances - each its own unique experience of a genre that is often misunderstood and underappreciated, because it can’t be easily analyzed and quantified and doesn’t prescribe to the conventional formulas of popular music. And to really grasp the essence of experimental music, one must be witness it live and in the moment of conception.
The second installment of the Moss Tapes Party series is tomorrow night at the Inconvenience in Lincoln Park. It will feature many of the same performances (full line-up after the jump), but because they’re largely improvised, it’s sure to be an entirely different event. And if you can’t make it out tomorrow, the third installment is Saturday Feb 6 on the South Side at Camp Bell. Check out Moss Tapes for more info, cassette tapes with handmade artwork for sale or some free MP3s for download.
North Side Moss Tapes Party is Tomorrow, January 30 at the Inconvenience, 3036 N Lincoln, 7 p.m., 21+, $5
See the full lineup after the jump.
7:00: Doors open
7:30: Meester Magpie
8:00: Penelope Unity
8:30: G.G. Toll Text
9:00: Performance of “The Madness of Oscar Wilde by Sebastian Melmoth"
10:00: it’s ok
10:20: Comedy by Trenton Willey
10:30: CMI
10:50: The Eric & Steve Band
11:30: El is a Sound of Joy
12:30: The RRRainbow Family Band