BLOOD RHYTHMS' Last Chicago Show at the Mutiny

We're going to do our part to support the longstanding scum-punk hole in the wall venue, The Mutiny and keep the owner Ed and the world's largest urinal in tact. The Mutiny has been an important institution since many of us were too young to drink.  There is still a phone booth inside, and free pool.  They serve half pitchers of beer (and mixed drinks if you want).  In terms of utilitarianism, it's also one of the last venues still willing to be LOUD.   God bless 'em.   

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SILVER ABUSE

From WFMU's Beware of the BLOG:

"While the original No-Wave groups in New York defined the term, there were many other bands around the country and across the ocean that shared a similar mindset. While artists on the West Coast such as Nervous Gender and Johanna Went and European weirdos Malaria and Blurt are relatively well known, there isn’t much documentation on the darker, demented and art-damaged side of early Chicago punk-inspired music.

Silver Abuse is sometimes credited as being Chicago’s first punk band... ....The Chicago punk scene at the time wasn't yet segregated with genre-labels...the scene was still small and everyone knew each other. I use the term No-Wave to loosely describe Silver Abuse as they took a more nihilistic “fuck it” approach than the straight-forward punk that dominated the scene at the time. They delighted in irritating crowds with a deliberately experimental and atonal sound that was shat out with intentionally offensive titles. Their songs were mostly Dada-like nonsense (Cuban-Homo Farm, Pink Port Please and Dogs Laughed At Us) which were, as keyboardist Dave Purdie puts it, "mostly inspired by stumbling across three words that rhymed and slapping a few chords around them." 

SPARE CHANGE

Spare Change was originally formed on the south-side of Chicago in 1989. The band plays their own unique style of raw hardcore punk / metal crossover. Through hard time and many lineup changes singer Bryan 'Chump Change' Robertson has managed to keep the beast alive, putting out over 20 releases in the process. 

Spare Change has had the pleasure to share the stage with the likes of D.R.I., Dead Kennedys, Grim Reaper, Riot, Black Death, Iron Reagan (Municiple Waste), The Adicts, The Casualties, Verbal Abuse, Fang, Toxic Reasons, Raw Power, The Effigies, CJ Ramone, The Mentors, Macabre, Helstar, Poison Idea, M.D.C., Necrophagia, Venom (inc.) and many others. 

GAS MASK HORSE

GMH is Josh Piotrowski, formerly of Disrobe and in the 90s, a project called "Urethra and the Ghetto Children". Every year, Josh sets up a DIY haunted house in a basement of someone's house, and one year he made soundtrack music for it. The music fuses horror / sci fi sounds with a punk / hardcore background. This project became a live entity for his one man band vision, complete with model zombies and optical theremins. 

BLOOD RHYTHMS

Blood Rhythms is the collaborative moniker of Arvo Zylo. Based on a project that began doing drones with as many precocious brass players as possible, it has evolved into an industrial noise cadre of revolving friends and guests of various ilks. Although Blood Rhythms has performed with configurations of as many as 15 players at a time, including as many as 5 drummers, the unit is now doing a series of trios, having returned from a significant hiatus since 2015's "Assembly" LP. 

Released on Zylo's own "NO PART OF IT" imprint, in collaboration with legendary noise label RRRECORDS, "Assembly" is culled entirely from dozens of layers of brass and wind in a meat locker, but as The Chicago Reader's Philip Montoro put it: "...but they sometimes sound like an electric piano or accordion, a Dremel tool on glass, a steam vent at a steel mill, or a close-miked vacuum cleaner—at their peak, they could pass for the stampeding offspring of a wildebeest and a locomotive." 

This may very well be the last Blood Rhythms show in Chicago.

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The Mutiny
2428 N. Western
9pm  FREE

773-486-7774

"Not Necessarily Bad"

Dig this photo of Tim from SPLEENCOFFIN cruisin' to the sounds of ARVO PLAYS FERRANTE & TEICHER in a 1964 CORVAIR!!!  A little bird told me that PERSONAL ARCHIVES label is doing a BUY ONE GET ONE deal, and this would be a good time to get one of the last TWO COPIES of this 2XCS plus Arvo's SEQUENCER WORKS VOLUME THREE from this label!!  

Arvo Zylo's collaboration with Architeuthis Dux was aired on WZRD  along with Christian Marclay, Labi Siffre, Asmus Tiechens, Yannick Dauby, Dead Boys, Xavier Cugat, Suzi Quatro, Tuxedomoon, and more.  Listen HERE.

In two different episodes, Machine Listener's Sentient System release was also aired, alongside Volcano The Bear, Mika Vainio & Joachim Nordwall, Mark Stewart, Machinefabriek, et al.  LISTEN HERE AND HERE

BLOOD RHYTHMS' "Heuristics" was reviewed by HEATHEN HARVEST.  Thanks folks!  Here is an excerpt:

...Zylo exhibits much all-around talent on this release, as well as wide range. Even as the music changes from track to track, it remains mostly engaging with more than a few really fine moments. As it runs through the expected soundscapes and noise constructions, the album also reaches into the realms of vocal blues (as on “Mention This”) and haunted-house theatricality (“Never Fuck in the Woods”). Aside from, possibly, “In a Vacuum (Alternate Version),” which is mostly tape rumble with some vocals mixed down deep enough to be almost inaudible, everything on this CD ought to be enjoyable to any noise fan.

The deceptively unassuming quality of the entire album is encapsulated also in its cover art. A black-and-white figure, covered in thick-lettered writing, is presented in a few different poses on the front, back and inside of the CD. As images, the art is not especially striking, but the CD’s liner notes reveal that the art extends beyond the retinal. The pictures are “inspired by a dream about a child physically growing up in an instant, and the inherent side effects of such a transformation.” The concept behind the cover art is deep and imaginative, but not oversold, just the same as the sonic work on this disc and Zylo’s plentiful output, overall.