Welcome to the first post from my new blog, Between Berwyn and Bryn Mawr. It is a CSTVT reference, but this is not an emo blog. I thought choosing a CSTVT song as a title would be apt because it highlights a cross-section of my interests. Summer Fences was a hodgepodge of influences, combining Midwest emo with stuff like Small Brown Bike and Hot Water Music. Two members met at a Lawrence Arms show at Fireside Bow. I can feel the roots of hardcore at times, too. It is operatic at some points and catchy in other sections. It does represent what I still find myself looking for entering my 30s. Anyway, the blog will have a Chicago bent and will mostly be me rounding up some stuff I checked out every week. Maybe some other ramblings. When I have the energy to do longer writing like I did at Medium, I will try to fit that in. The main idea is off-the-cuff first thoughts. I have been reading a lot of zines lately and have been trying to find a place to try my hand at that kind of writing. Maybe weekly, maybe it will be one post and die right now. Some of the records came out last month, but I think they are still worth your time.
Alga plays what I would call "meat and potatoes" power pop. It hits all the notes you would expect, from the vocal delivery to a prioritizing melody. A playlist from Alga also bear this out, including Big Star and others on it. I would like to see the project expand beyond the bedroom, though. There is a lot of potential, and I could see more people finding something to enjoy with Alga.
First-wave punk-sounding stuff. In that, it is not aggression for aggression's sake. Maybe there's a little garage rock in there. I dunno, it’s cool. I feel like the people who really liked Snooper last year may find something in this demo. It is always fun when punk is melodic without ever taking a turn towards something annoying. I would like to finally see them live and play a hardcore show I go to. Make some of the hard moshers suffer a little bit.
You get what you expect from a band called Soul Vice. I do love naming your band after a song from a demo. It’s New York hardcore through the prism of Trapped Under Ice and that whole family of Baltimore bands. It does have a little more crossover New York hardcore, which I imagine is because the guitarist is also in Blow Your Brains Out. It's a solid promo, but I would like to see it outrun its influences. Some of the riffs on the first song feel a little too familiar if you know what I mean.
Amino-The Entropy Within Our Hearts
My friend and podcast co-host Eli Enis sent this to me at the end of last year. I could figure out the vibe just by looking at the album art. It was probably going to be melodeath-inspired metalcore. It is a style I am particularly, with Ephyra and that whole expanded universe. It was a kind of music I hated when I was younger. Amino is a little less metalcore, but it still feels like hardcore kids wrote it. It is not nearly as intricate as Slaughter of The Soul. I also am a bit of newbie with melodeath, so I may have the wrong reference points.
I don’t necessarily have the vocabulary to talk about DJ Corey. He makes dance music known as footwork, where mostly one phrase is repeated, asking you to focus on the shifting rhythms of the beat. It is a lot of fun, sometimes very silly and sophomoric, where I’m very aware a teenager made it. “Werk This,” in particular, had me smiling like an idiot.
Show Review-Broken Vow/Mile End/Absoulte Truth/Luchador (1/3/24)
I went to my favorite venue in Chicago to see my first show of the year. It was a much preferable place to see a hardcore show than Sub-T downstairs, where Broken Vow played last January. It had been a while since I hit a hardcore show, so I was curious how it would go. There were several faces I did not recognize, along with many familiar strangers. Luchador started off. They are still pretty new, and you could feel some tension between them and the audience. People weren’t moving. It resulted in a funny scenario where the singer got on the dancefloor to show people how to do different dance moves.
Absolute Truth felt like the real start of the gig. They are true youth crew, with two members wearing Turning Point shirts. They are older, but in a way that comes off as seasoned rather than “washed.” Their set ended with a cover that I could not pick out. Mile End was next, marking a shift towards the harder moshing section at Beat Kitchen. They were standouts from the night, and it felt like a hometown show. People piled on top of each other during the intro. I feel like once they have a record, they may get bigger. Broken Vow was the last band I watched, and they kept the energy up. People went as hard as you would want without any fights breaking out. I was too tired and failed my Chicago hardcore test by skipping Payasa to get home earlier—a great start to the year.
In non-new music news, I have been slowly becoming that guy who wants to buy old hardcore and punk ephemera. The problem is so much of it is very expensive. Old zines will sometimes cost 70 dollars. It even gets more costly when I look at posts from the Instagram page Ancient Artifax. I did come across one I am debating purchasing. I typed in Chicago punk flyers and found one from 1988. It was at Casa Aztlan, a hub for artistic creativity. It is now a place for condos. The description says it was the first true southside punk gig in Chicago, and Martin of Los Crudos organized it. It also gives me some insight into Chicago hardcore from that time, which is cool to my historically-minded brain. I should purchase it, right?
