TrickyBuddha Studios

Yesterday we:

Drove into the city, listening to Earth to the Dandy Warhols all along the way. We went to Chicago to see It Might Get Loud and, despite crazy 3:30pm traffic, got there literally as the movie was starting.

The movie was great. It’s a documentary that looks at the playing and sound of three guitarists: Jack White (White Stripes), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), and The Edge (U2).

Jimmy has a crazy history with music, playing since he was 5, playing professionally doing jingles and what-not. Then moving on to playing in bands, playing a style of rock that was not really known or popular at the time. They showed a clip of him surrounded by a collection of CDs and records and he said he would pour over them to pick up new sounds and techniques.

Jack started out focused on drums but switched to guitar for an early band, The Upholsterers. He mentioned that when he tried to find his sound, when he tried to dig deeper into guitar, it led him to the blues — how it was all minor chords and anti-establishment. He also said he likes to struggle. He wants his guitar out of tune, he wants to have to battle against it.

The Edge seemed to have stumbled across playing guitar and seemed more interested in the sounds he could make with it than anything else. He was big on effects and computers, and the documentary spent time with his guitar tech — talking about the knobs and fiddles he uses. The Edge said he liked to simplify and strip down to get at his sound, too.

The three of them talked a bit in a room, together, as well as jammed a bit on one another’s songs, when they weren’t individually discussing their playing and showing how they got where they are now. It was definitely a good documentary, entertaining and educational about a chapter of music.

After we finished, we walked around for an hour or two and then had dinner at the Counter. I went for the grilled chicken this time and have to admit it was much better than the burgers I had previously. Mmm…

From there, we hit Border’s and Starbucks to waste a little time, then went to the Empty Bottle to see Autloux — with Ken and Mychelle, and Tif and Brian and Bowser. I was so excited to see the band as I had never caught them in concert before and they are one of my favorites. The last show we went to at this spot was so loud that this time we bought ear plugs, so for me this was my first show with ear plugs in. They were a little weird to wear but my ears felt completely fine afterward. As for the show, Autolux was great. They played a dozen songs — and even played one of their songs twice. A string had snapped on a guitar and the band went on to finish the song while Greg fixed his string. Then someone in the crowd shouted out that the band should play it again with Greg this time, so they did. Haha. The band was somewhat smiley through the show and seemed to be having a good time.

After the show, Candice and I bought band tee shirts from Carla, the drummer, while Eugene, the singer and a guitar player, played Galaga next to us. Haha. It was a cute scene. And it’s always neat to stand around with the musicians you love who just put on a great show.

We capped off the night with a trip to Lazo’s Tacos with Ken and Mychelle where I got a delicious Mexican sausage and scrambled egg sandwich. Mmm…

We went to see the Dead Weather tonight (and rocked out to their CD on the way there).

We parked a few blocks from the Vic in Chicago and we were waiting around for 7pm. See, you can only put two hours into the parking meters and they shut off at 9pm. It was 6:45pm and we worried that some jerk would ticket us at 8:45pm if we put the money in right away. While we were standing there, Mychelle runs into 7-Eleven and Ken tells us there’s a good music store a block down the street toward the Vic and we should go check it out instead of standing there waiting.

Dead Fertita, Candice, and Allison Mosshart

So Candice and I are walking down the street and there’s Jack White in front of us. He’s walking out of some building and runs across the street, shouting that he wants to run into the cigar store. As we’re standing there we realize the rest of the band is right there, too.

Jack Lawrence has his face pressed up against the window of the (closed) music store, and Allison Mosshart is standing on the sidewalk with Dean Fertita. Candice asks Allison if she could get a picture with her, and Allison is happy to oblige. She calls Dean over, too. Check it out.

From there, we head into the show and see Screaming Females opening. The lead singer looks like a kid, but she’s got a great screaming voice and her fingers fly all over the guitar – not just fast but in control. The music was OK. I mean, not completely my cup of tea but there were a few songs that I really got into.

The Dead Weather came out and the crowd was insane for them. They didn’t play very long (I think Ken said they played a little more than an hour? I don’t have a watch so I’m not sure) but they were really good, full of energy and volume and enthusiasm.

Jack White drummed but didn’t sing for the first few songs. Then he came out front and sang sans guitar while Allison knelt down and played the tambourine. Then he went back behind the kit and sang while playing. Later in the show, he came out and played guitar while Jack Lawrence played drums. Dean stuck to guitar and keyboards (sometimes both at the same time). Allison mostly sang but also played rhythm guitar on a couple songs.

Maybe Candice will remember the set list. I never do. But it was a good set and wasn’t like they just played straight through their album. I enjoyed it.

Side note, but I was thinking about how so many people there were taking pictures and making videos of the show. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could set a private/public toggle on your camera — and then if it was public the camera would use GPS to figure out where you were and tag your photos as, in this example, for the Dead Weather? And then you’d have your own shots but they would also get dumped into a public folder. It’d let you go on-line and enter a location (The Vic) or the band’s name for the search so you could get all the shots and video of the stage from every angle! Everything would be auto-tagged by photographer name and time stamp. You could then filter whether you want to see just your photos or a group of photographers or just pictures between 8pm and 8:15pm or whatever.

Anyway. :p

So yeah, the show was awesome. There was a mountain of a man in front of me but I had a good enough angle that he generally didn’t block my view. But I swear, when he bailed it felt like I could breathe again, like there was that much more oxygen in the room or something. Hahaha.

We closed out the night at Clarke’s. I had *Kraft* Mac n’ Cheese with a burger. Haha.