Hot Water Music - Live In Chicago

Like a lot of bands, Hot Water Music are a band that I want to like a lot more than I actually do.

Not that it was for lack of trying. Back when I still had to do such things, I bought all their releases and enjoyed them live easily a half-dozen times, but at the end of the day, I always wished I could work up the fervor that HWM invoked in their most rabid fans. Ultimately, and I know it is aggressively to my old guy detriment, I chose to throw my lot in with Alkaline Trio, who have done little in recent years to thank me for my endorsement, save for perhaps eschewing trans-gender assignment surgery, to keep that love affair alive and unembarrassing. To that end: In a continuing nightmare, the Trio have announced their new record would be called My Shame Is True, a moniker that even Dave Vanian would have problems embracing in 2013. I feel for Danny.

Returning back to the subject at hand, beyond establishing the post-Leatherface template that a hundred bands stole part and parcel from them in the 90s, Hot Water Music are known as being no stranger to a break-up, splitting at least three times that I can remember before their most recent hiatus in the early part of the new millennium. A series of reunion shows last year started with the fanfare of sold-out Terminal 5 shows and ebbed into much smaller rooms, neither of which I took advantage of. Truth be told, I was excited to see them with the Descendents this Summer, but don't get me started on that whole thing.

The most recent shows in town were behind a new record, one that I gave a couple spins and couldn't tell you another thing about, not even the name, so when the new No Idea fostered live record Live In Chicago came my way, I exactly wasn't running to get it in heavy rotation. It was a pleasure to see Hot Water and No Idea back in bed together, but there was little beyond old guy nostalgia to attract me, save for the fact that it wasn't as utterly execrable as the recent legacy tarnishing Braid output. Both Chuck and Chris have been pursuing the bearded acoustic troubadour route in recent years, a choice that will hardly have Townes Van Zandt worrying about his legacy being diminished, albeit one that also seems infinitely wiser than, say, Mike Hale's choice to leave carpentry behind.

It definitely seemed that the personal HWM allegiances were not aligned toward the gruff shouty punk rock I am of a mind to hear from them, but after consuming a goodly amount of herbal and caffeine-based perspective realignment aids, I waded into Live In Chicago. Frankly, I would have liked to have seen the video portion of this more, as it captures the second night of the tapings in its entirety, but the double cd/triple vinyl musical portion offers up 30 songs in 90 minutes total. Recorded over two nights at The Metro in 2008, the recordings find the band in tightly workmanlike form. Black and Rebelo continue to be a monster rhythm section, and tracks like Turnstile and Aluacha still make me want to hoist a beer in the air, but even two decades in, I wish I was more excited about this.

JS-NYC crankiness and companion old age aside, The Metro crowd here is an enthusiastic one. I've not laid eyes on them, but I would venture that the crew attending these shows in 2013 is cut from a younger, less jaded cloth than JS-NYC and never saw the quartet in their unshaven, barefoot heyday and are using these shows to make up for lost time. Fair enough. Not nearly as right, but still charmingly ragged and beautiful, Hot Water Music encapsulate a solid catalog on Live In Chicago. 

R

Dan Andriano In The Emergency Room - Hurrican Season

Alkaline Trio meant a lot to me a decade or so ago. I was spending time in Chicago interpersonally and managed to get friendly-ish with the crew in the Derek years and The Figgs toured with them in the Felumlee era, but the last couple three records have not done so much for me. There's been a weird Dave Vanian meets Christian Death thing going on with Skiba that is bordering on caricature from where I'm sitting, and that combined with the relentless rehashing of Goddamnit has really taken me out of the game about keeping up in any way other than a cursory fashion. It's a shame, having once flown from Panama explicitly to see the gents at Wetlands in the good old days.

My old man bitching aside, it took a bit for me to get around to checking out The Emergency Room stuff. My loss, as Hurricane Season is actually really good. Evidently Danny recorded this himself, calling in the auxiliary for some keys and odds and ends, but evidently calling all the shots. It was a freedom that evidently drove our hero (and, by extrapolation, his wife) a little crazytown. It hasn't resulted in any Syd Barrett-esque or Daniel Johnston psychedelia, but it has got us a record that sounds like a more adult-contemporary version of Andriano, mostly acoustically driven with more Hammond padding than previous. It's nice to hear Danny play guitar again and the songs are all really solid. I'd say On Monday is my favorite, but there really isn't a dud on Hurricane Season, which is a lot more than I can say for the last couple Trio records. It's pretty dark, or perhaps more aptly melancholic, but not unpleasantly (read- whiny) so. Older fans who shudder at the thought of a re-recorded Goddamnit, but still hold the old days in fond regard would do well to check out Hurricane Season.

R

Alkaline Trio review at PopMatters

Ladies and Gents:

If you are of a mind, check out my review of the new Alkaline Trio record This Addiction over at PopMatters.

Here's a link.

Thanks to Epitaph/Heart & Skull and Sarah Zupko at PopMatters.

R

Noise By Numbers - Yeah, Whatever...

Hey, Danny Vapid is back. They sure do have a work ethic in the Midwest. I believe that Danny is still a member of Screeching Weasel, The Methadones and the Riverdales when those franchises are active, yet he still has time to team up with Neil Hennessy (the only man who can lay claim to anything close to Mikey Erg's claim to the punk rock polygamy crown) to come up with his best project since Sludgeworth. There are touchstones from all the aforementioned projects, as well as a little Alkaline Trio and Raygun for good measure (and perhaps Union compliance). Props are due to Eric for hipping me to this. Pick up Yeah, Whatever cheap here from your friends at Asian Man Records. Keep tabs on when and if they are going to make it out of the Midwest here. Hennessy jockers should be aware that he only played on the record and, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't play with them live.

R

Banner Pilot - Collapser

Finally, the long talked-about new Banner Pilot record is here. It's called Collapser and it's on Fat Wreck. It's not terribly surprising that a new label is in the game, as I'm pretty sure their demo got better distro than Resignation Day got through Go-Kart.

Lest you be concerned, Collapser sounds like a Banner Pilot record. That is not to say it doesn't sound a lot like various Blake Schwarzenbach franchises we've enjoyed over the years, or that the gents are ignorant of The Lawrence Arms and Asian Man era Alkaline Trio. Both readers here realize than none of the aforementioned bands are hated at JS-NYC HQ and that I am pretty queer for the Minneapolis punk rock, so let me make the shocking disclosure that I'm pretty into Collapser. I think it takes a little bit of time to get under way, but Farewell To The Iron Bastards and Losing Daylight are two tracks that will definitely be highlights of the new live set and all of the songs are more than worthy additions to the BP canon. When we will see them in this small town we call NYC is up in the air. I spoke to Nate at Insubordination Fest and he thought they might be out here with Dead To Me and AmSteel. Doing the math, I hope it's a proper tour and not a CMJ show. CMJ gets to be more of a nightmare every year, and since it's easily been five years since Banner Pilot played in town I think we deserve more than 25 minutes. Don't get me started on the regional record release shows wherein the East Coast show is in Chicago. Really, guys?

My bitchy douchebaggery aside, you would do well to pick up Collapser pronto. The twelve songs pass in just a little over a half hour, making repeated plays pretty much a necessity. Set those wheels in motion by popping over to Fat Wreck and grabbing a copy here. The Banner Pilot web presence can be found here, should you want to enter their little corner of cyberspace.