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May 23, 2008
'90s CHICAGO ROCKER JOHN HUSS RETURNS TO TOWN TO CELEBRATE HIS NEW BOOK , JOHNNY CASH AND PHILOSOPHY, WITH A REUNION CONCERT AND A CASH TRIBUTE SHOW, MAY 23-24, 2008
John Huss Moderate Combo reunion concert with Slink Moss & the Flying Aces Friday, May 23, 9:00 p.m., Elastic Arts Center, 2830 N. Milwaukee, $10, BYOB. http://www.elasticrevolution.com/events.htm "Burning Ring of Truth: A Tribute to Johnny Cash" book release party for Johnny Cash and Philosophy Saturday, May 24, 9:00 p.m., Ronny's, 2101 N. California Ave., $10. with Al Scorch, Tijuana Hercules, Slink Moss & the Flying Aces, the Waco Brothers, the John Huss Moderate Combo, the Lawrence Peters Outfit, Frosty, and True Historians Emceed by Mia Park of Chic-a-go-go! http://www.mpshows.com/?venue_id=28 "Johnny Cash was The Man in Black, the philosopher-prince of American country music, and it's about time we had a book that takes a serious look at his life and work and the many layers of its meaning. Around him, gutted terms like decency, honesty, and truth retain some of their intended meaning, and in a country that fears self-criticism above all else, he holds a mirror up to the white bland wide rotten hide." – Jon Langford, on Johnny Cash and Philosophy * * * During the 1990s, Chicago's golden age of indie rock, the quirky quartet The John Huss Moderate Combo was a favorite of critics and fans alike. Fronted by singer / songwriter / guitarist John Huss, a History and Philosophy of Science graduate student at the University of Chicago, the band included J. Niimi (Ashtray Boy; Aden) on lead guitar, John Greenfield (Illinois First!) on bass, and Andrew Frost (Slink Moss; ex-Miracle Legion) on drums. The Combo's rollicking, "folk-and-roll" sound was a perfect counterpoint to Huss's dry, erudite humor, leading WXRT to rate their album Lipchitz as 1998's best local release. Huss left town in 1999 for a sabbatical in Russia, eventually relocating to Cleveland to teach philosophy at the University of Akron. A long-time fan of The Man in Black, Huss recently collaborated with David Werther to edit Johnny Cash and Philosophy (Open Court Publishing, 2008). http://www.opencourtbooks.com/books_n/johnny.htm In the book, 21 philosophers explore the implications of the country singer's myth and message. Their investigations uncover the distinctive relevance of Cash for moral responsibility, social justice, patriotism, romantic love, artistic creativity, class oppression, and individual identity. Huss's own essay explores the concept of justice and the country singer's commitment to social justice for prisoners and Native Americans. John Huss returns to Chicago this month to celebrate the book's release with two very different concerts. On Friday, May 23, the Moderate Combo will reconvene for the first time in nearly a decade to perform a full set of classic original material within the cozy confines of the Elastic Arts Center. Another Chicago ex-pat, country-indie legend Slink Moss, is also 'flying' into town from New York City to close out the evening with his group, the Flying Aces (http://myspace.com/slinkmossandtheflyingaces) (conveniently, both bands share the Frost-Greenfield rhythm section.) On Saturday, May 24, eight of Chicago's best rock and country acts will celebrate Cash's music and the release of Huss's book at "Burning Ring of Truth: A Tribute to Johnny Cash," at Ronny's. Each band will play at least two classic songs by The Man in Black, plus other Cash-influenced covers and original material. The Saturday line-up is as follows: 9:00 True Historians 9:30 Frosty 10:00 Lawrence Peters 10:30 John Huss Moderate Combo 11:00 Waco Bros. 11:30 Slink Moss 12:00 Tijuana Hercules 12:30 Al Scorch Mia Park, hostess of the hit local dance show Chic-A-Go-Go, will perform the Johnny-and-June duet "Jackson" with John Huss, and will emcee the show, reading selected passages from the book between bands. * * * Recent press for Johnny Cash tribute show, JHMC reunion, and Johnny Cash and Philosophy! Chicago Reader (5/22/08): http://www.chicagoreader.com/music/thelist/index.php#BURNINGRINGOFTRUTHATRIBUTETOJOHNNYCASH TimeOut Chicago (5/19/08): http://tinyurl.com/4q7397 Gapers Block (5/15/08): http://gapersblock.com/transmission/2008/05/15/johnny_cash_tribute/ ...And an article on John Huss, his book, his band, and the Chicago/Hyde Park rock scene of the '90s in the 5/21 issue of Chicago Weekly (the University of Chicago student newspaper) * * * For more info about the Moderate Combo and Johnny Cash and Philosophy: John Huss, 573-999-3257, huss.john@gmail.com For more info about the concerts: John Greenfield, 312-560-3966, greenfieldjohn@hotmail.com or J. Niimi, 773-288-2796, jniimi@gmail.com Visit the Moderate Combo on MySpace! http://myspace.com/thejohnhussmoderatecombo The JHMC's 'Lipchitz' CD is available from: CD Baby -- http://cdbaby.com/cd/huss or from Amazon.com, in CD or downloadable MP3 formats: http://www.amazon.com/Lipchitz-John-Huss-Moderate-Combo/dp/B00000G0TY/
March 05, 2008
R.I.P. Timothy Ryan Aher, 1982-2008
 A couple weeks ago, a out-of-town friend called me with the devastating news that our friend Tim Aher had apparently killed himself in his apartment in London. The news of his sudden death was a sucker punch in the kidneys. I met Tim through WHPK, and always thought he was one of the coolest, funniest, smartest, easiest-going guys I'd ever met at the U. of C. He was now attending law school at Notre Dame, and currently doing an overseas study, and everything seemed to be going well for him. There's still so much of this that's an enigma to me. Needless to say, it's been a rough few weeks for me, as I'm sure it has for the rest of Tim's friends and family. I wanted to go out to CT for his funeral and subsequent family get-together, but fortunately there's going to be a memorial gathering here in Chicago in honor of our friend Tim. If you knew Tim, you're welcome to come along and bring friends. The details are: Saturday, March 15th, 6:00-10:00 p.m. Enemy (1550 N. Milwaukee Ave., 3rd Floor) Potluck-style (bring food, snacks, beer, wine, etc.) Also: If you're up for it, put together some kind of written remembrance than can be compiled with other written odes to be sent to the Aher family. Could be long, short, informal, in-depth, but ultimately up to you. Some of these same friends have set up a memorial blog for Tim, here, which so far has a few eulogies from the service, and a link to an ongoing Photobucket gallery of Tim photos (which is where I found the "tight pants" one (above). The blog has info about sending donations in lieu of flowers to the Aher family, and how to contact the Ahers directly, if you would like to send them a card or something. If there's something you'd like to contribute to the blog, feel free to contact the hosts, and I'm sure they'll oblige you. {DEATH TO FALSE METAL.}
March 01, 2008
TOC Debut
Exciting news: I recently penned my first article for the excellent weekly mag TimeOut Chicago. My story is about a group of local mental health professionals who regularly risk life and limb traveling to war-torn Iraq to teach doctors how to perform therapy with torture survivors. (link here)
January 28, 2008
Oh-Sevin'
Not really sure why I'm posting this link to my Pazz & Jop ballot -- I honestly didn't put a whole lot of thought into my choices, and anyway, after finally digging into a slew of stuff from '07 that I hadn't yet heard at ballot time during my Focus Show this past Friday, it'd be completely different now.
January 21, 2008
November 06, 2007
Walking Off the Passion
Some new developments in R.E.M. geekderm: Stereogum recently reprised their all-(indie)-star tribute to OK Computer from a while back with a new downloadable comp, commemorating the 15th anniversary of Automatic for the People. Not nearly R.E.M.'s greatest moment, to me, but a few classic tunes ("Sidewinder", "Nightswimming", and -- up 'til I'd heard it for the 10,000th time -- "Man on the Moon"), with surprisingly good taste in the bands Stereogum chose. (Plus, they got Mike Mills to provide liner notes for each track.) I posted a note about this tribute comp on the internal mailing list for WHPK, where I sometimes host a radio show, and I was kinda happy in realizing that, what with the new, indie-friendly HPK of late, it might actually interest at least a few of the young'uns, who by and large missed the heyday of '80s college rock, and thus for whom alt-rock generally equates to treachery. (See, a few years back, the then-MDs threw a hissy fit about my wanting to check R.E.M.'s 'Bad Day' single into the station library, and got treated to a "If R.E.M. never existed, this room would be a broom closet" lecture, when I showed up with the disc in question.) On a different but related note, Matthew Perpetua of the superb FluxBlog has a new joynt, the goal of which is to write about every R.E.M. song ever recorded. (Unfortunately for him, this also seems to include all the cover tunes R.E.M.'s recorded... not an easy task. Or a fruitful one: what is there to say about their half-assed "King of the Road"? Such are the travails of the professional blogger.) He discusses his project and spins some of his faves on a WFMU show, which you can check out here. Finally, a chapter from my Murmur book is included in the 33 1/3's Greatest Hits Volume Two collection, published by Continuum a coupla weeks ago. This new compendium includes excerpts from the second twenty books in the series. (It's available via Amazon here.) J.
October 25, 2007
OK Radiohead!
 Kudos (or 'magical glory') to Radiohead for their briskly Web 2.0 distribution scheme regarding In Rainbows. To tell you the truth, if they hadn't decided to do this -- i.e., initially offer their new album only as a download, for which fans can pay literally whatever they feel it's worth, with the hard-copy version to follow this winter -- I probably would've just hit up SoulSeek instead. But I whole-heartedly support their idea (to the tune of $5.00, at least), mainly because I'm excited about it as a kind of in vivo experiment. I want it to be demonstrated conclusively, in hard figures, that: 1) Given a choice, music fans will choose to pay for the music they like -- they're not the crooks the RIAA treats them as; 2) Bands can continue to make a decent livelihood dealing directly with their audience; and 3) Record labels are now about as useless as a football bat. I guess a corollary of 3) is that if indie bands can make a decent livelihood jamming econo and doing it DIY up-&-down the entire vertical 'chain of production', and certainly huge pop acts with massive, established audiences can as well, then the contemporary music industry as we've known it is shown for what it is: a parasitic cadre of small-minded, money-grubbing lawyers and marketing hacks, utterly hostile toward art and culture, in both practice and principle. Who needs 'em.
October 24, 2007
The Spatial Imagination of (Post-)Modern Warfare
"There is a considerable overlap among the theoretical texts considered essential by military academies and architectural schools. Indeed, the reading lists of contemporary military institutions include works from around 1968 (with a special emphasis on the writings of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and Guy Debord), as well as more contemporary writings on urbanism, psychology, cybernetics, post-colonial and post-Structuralist theory."
October 18, 2007
Lightning in the Tower/It's Coming Down
An SF Weekly feature I just finished on perennial fave John Vanderslice.
September 27, 2007
Recklessnuss 2.01
(In conversation) "And, I happened to have gone to Reckless again just tonight. I figure that, of anyone I know, you might at least be mildly interested in what I brought home. (Tried to limit myself to $50 -- had to put a few things back, in the end): African Head Charge: Touch I CD [remixes from Shashamane Land, one of my fave LPs of theirs -- only $2] Creation Rebel: Historic Moments Volume One CD [Another Adrian Sherwood joint; first two albums compiled. Fucking *awesome* cover art. A variation inside depicts the same giant floating hand in the sky, this time pointing, like, 'GO!!!' $6.] Best of J-Pop 2000 CD [crazy japanese girlpop, where every band is Pretty Girls Make Graves + Britney Spears; $2] In Memoriam: Gilles Deleuze comp CD [W.T.F. 2xCD comp w/ huge booklet of liner notes in german & english, bound in double digipak case (had no idea, from the small photocopy in the rack at the store); sonic "tribute" to Deleuze, by Zoviet-France, Trans Am, Oval, Jim O'Rourke, Scanner, Alec Empire, Chris & Cosey, DJ Spooky, etc. On the Mille Plateaux label 1996. $2!] (I bought a slew of interesting comps for $2, tonight) Sturm Und Twang! A Private Collection of German Underground Pop comp CD [Incl. excellent teuton-pop bands Tocotronic and Flowerpornoes, which is why I bought it. Liner notes about "the compiler" say that "Christoph Gurk, age 32, is editor at Spex, Germany's opinion-leading magazine for underground music and cultural studies..." and goes on to cite his academic credentials. Hope this is good, for $7.] Skinned Teen/Raooul split CD [Lookout! Records; 1st release of ST I've ever come across in a store -- really primitive, spirited DIY gal punk. 10 songs just from them; probably the majority of their output. Dunno anything about Raooul. Most expensive purchase here, $8. info] Sonig Records comp CD [Label run by Mouse on Mars dudes, released in US in conj. w/ Thrill Jockey. Crazy electronica, incl. tracks by Vert and Lithops. (Sonig released Workshop's albums in Europe -- do you know Workshop? Really interesting and great band) $5.] IMPREC100: A User's Guide to the First 100 Important Records Releases CD [Bands incl. Piano Magic; Larsen; Muslimgauze; etc. $2.] Mono: New York Soundtracks comp CD [Appears to be comp assembled by this guy; incl. Loren Mazzacane Connors, Calla, Jackie-O M.F., DJ Olive, etc. Cool packaging. $2.] Modern Wild Dub: Dread Meets Disco Punkrocker Downtown comp CD [fucking most idiotically named comp ever. Really a bunch of beats-oriented NYC bands from early 90s, though many good ones: Colder (great band -- MUST check them out), LCD Soundsystem, Radio 4, Outhud, Chicks on Speed, !!!, etc. Again, a fair risk at $2.] Paper Rad 7" [new, $4; neat hand-screened vivid cover art. info] Pernice Brothers 7" [Summershine; $4 used, but an early single, and I love this band like a maniac] Stinking Lizaveta 7" [self-released? super-raw, hand-screened b&w sleeve (linocut?), on what looks like repurposed industrial scrap paper; I bet every copy of this is different. Recorded by S. Albini in his old basement studio, 1994; includes crappy xeroxed sticker. $5] Horny Genius: "Man & Beast" 7" [$1; under the Reckless pricetag was a Dr. Wax pricetag, $2.99. Vague memory of a mention in some zine around this time (1988). Clear yellow vinyl.] Table 7" [ca. 1992; $2. Before Fischerspooner, Casey Spooner was boning M. Stipe whenever he came to town, and Warren Fischer meanwhile played bass in the Albini-produced pig-fuk band Table, who released two 7". I had the other one, but not this one; this copy is a hand-written #137 of 1000.]" {end}
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