I go to shows on the weekends. After waking up at 4 a.m. five days a week, I always like to reward myself with a good show on Friday or Saturday. However, there are shows every night of the week in Chicago. But to get me out to a show on a weeknight means a lot, because I only get about an hour of sleep when I do so, but Parts and Labor beckoned me to the AV Aerie last night for some noise punk. And it was worth it.
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The band above is Pterodactyl. They’ve been touring with P&L, and they’re worth checking out.
I don’t listen to much punk these days, I used to spike my hair and mosh with the best of ‘em back in high school, but at 23, you really feel like a jerk when slamming into the high school kids up front at punk rock shows. The natural evolution of my punk rock phase has brought me into the erratic world of Noise Punk. You don’t mosh to this music, you let it wash over your senses. Your insides feel jittery when you turn this music up, and the live setting is the height of the Noise experience.
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Parts and Labor put out my sixth most favorite album of 2007, and I still listen to it regularly in 2008. I’m not sure when they’ll be touring again, but make sure to keep them on your local scene radar. Especially if you feel like that old fashioned punk rock just isn’t doing it for you the way it used to. They buzz and crackle without any fear of melody. If there were such a thing as “accessible noise,†this is it.
check out their colorful video for The Gold We’re Digging.
This was also my first visit to Chicago’s AV Aerie, one of the most unique venues I’ve ever experienced. It’s a non-for-profit organization that holds art shows, concerts, country hoe-downs, and anything else the collective can dream up to bring the community together to one place for a few hours each night. No fees are required, only donations are requested, be it tickets to a show or drinks at the bar (pay what you want, but don’t take advantage!). It’s an all-around artsy time and a funny place. A stick in the mud of Chicago’s west side industrial district, on a third floor that offers a nice view of the skyline (you can catch the Sears’ Tower in the black and white picture if you look close), AV Aerie is what arts and community is all about. Take note folks, they do it right.
(and check out that sign up there, it was in the entrance-way. I’d say that Noise Punk is one of the most “irksome†things imaginable, and yet they ask us to be respectful. ha! I made sure to keep my voice down…)
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and when i stop to look
there’s no more need for thoughts or books
just a mouth and eyes
your dead connection spread
the buzz and crackle in my head
memorize your lines
