Nite Crawl: Screamin' Smoketent Striptrip

Chicago's Broke Artists don't bother dealing with bars & clubs too often these days; they make their own venues, a vast network of underground playgrounds, ranging from the sick & sad to the fucking amazing. Warehouse Wonderlands like Mortville in the near South (straddling the ghetto and immigrant enclaves on the cusp of gentry-invasion) with insane themed sets like Nightmareland and Playground (complete with real sandbox and working swings & see-saw), Loft apartments in long-since-gentried Wicker Park like the recently-gone-legit In Con Ven i -ence where patrons (were) cautioned to take their squares(cigarettes) on a walk so as not to reveal the secret location; there are tiny little Industrial District half-flats inexplicably located over the homes of sleeping babes, Middle-of-Nowhere haunted band houses, briefly lived venues outta friend's apartments like Red Floors (the roof on that place!), Post Pilsen, & the Mustache Gallery, even a joint aptly titled The [fuckin'] Attic, a narrow little space that reeked of catshit on the way up but could barely hold the fevered crowd when I was there a year or so ago.

At an undisclosed location in Humboldt Park in an unimpressive building hiding a spectacular loft space that is transformed into a dynamite performance hall. I'd tell ya the name but not sure if that would get me in trouble with anyone considering what's about to go down. Suffice to say if you get invited to something vaguely reminiscent, fucking go. fuck the cold, fuck inertia, fuck social anxiety, fuck work, just go. you'll thank me.
or maybe you won't. I tend to get overenthusiastic about these things. but sometimes ya gotta choose adventure over same ol' shit. It's been months but I have to get this down now, as like a dream it is fading from my head, windblown brain- sand wise...

I arrived at "The Hall" on maybe two days of no sleep, but insteada headin' home to pass the fuck out already i loaded up on a delicate balance of booze and caffeine and made it to Humboldt because Roche Moche was playin', and I try to see them every chance I get. I'm not really hip to the music scene, I'm a fuckin' geek and my music knowledge is limited to a handful of blues dudes, grunge guys, folky wierdos & punkers on repeat, cuz when I hear something I like I can't get enough - and Roche Moche fits that description perfectly. Plus they're genuinely cool folks I like hangin' out with. good deal all around.

I'm really fucking glad I went because I got to experience like the most amazing Noise MindFuck I've had in a while. I'm talking about Meester Magpie (+9). Holy Shit.

I got there an hour late which is early and sorta hung awkwardly around like I do. I watched a tall skinny blond kid that looked like a Norwegian hacker or something in some sorta colorful knitted garb setting up a tent in the middle of the room. Last time I was at an event with a tent it was for poets, which fits- shy, antisocial, oft pretentious creatures would naturally delight in hiding from the audience to read their secret code. But Music? In a Tent? crazy! wasn't sure if it was meant for the band or unruly audience members. Perhaps there was to be an orgy after? Maybe it was a medical station?

The Hall is a good place to set up camp, with its' huge, skylit ceiling. All over the walls are posted notes from grateful couch hoppers and friends. the back door opens to a stunning fire escape view and, when not crowded with smokers, is a great place to imbibe some fresh cold air straight outta a sweaty mosh. It was a free show with a very trusting donation bucket at the door and a thoughtful coat rack that filled up quick.

The first band, name of which I forget, featured "Grimes" of Roche Moche with a mask over face crawling around on the floor like some crazed wounded monster from outer space. it was your basic punk noise fun.

Then the lights went down, and smoke started to creep outta the tent, with loud strobe lights. this was not a show for the faint of heart, apparently, nor the epileptic or asthmatic. I'm not especially good at describing music, so you want to hear it, here. Heart attack music I think is the technical term. Meester Magpie is one dude, nine is another, together rounding up to awesome. This was followed up by Roche Moche and a follow-up band that were pretty decent.

In the end no one wanted to go home, all these sweaty exhausted bodies hanging around talking like joyful ghosts while hosts circulated gently urging exit. One guest in particular refused to leave and starting stripping off her clothes. She'd been wigging out all nite, dancing frantically with a gutter punk girl, groping random strangers, posing for photographs; this was the culmination of a long euphoric nite, a weird protest against being sent home. the girl, it turned out, was some sort of 17 year-old runaway on acid- at least that's my remembrance of the rumor. to me the nudity was not the problem at all, just that she'd chosen the wrong time for it- when your Gracious Hosts are trying to close up shop, that's the time to fucking put your clothes on and get the fuck out, not perform an awkward striptease. 'Course you can't expect that kinda sense of decorum from a strung out teenager. "Flo", a friend of hers, explained that she is a "performance artist" and all of life is a performance, that she's seen some shit in her time, too. & what the hell, when did we decide that 17-year-olds were children anyway? I mean, they're generally plenty dense but so are most adults, and maybe they'd be sharper if we didn't insist on infantilizing them (just as nudity wouldn't be necessarily sexual if we didn't constantly censor it). In a few months she'll be old enough to vote, gamble away the rent, and die for her country, but she won't be allowed to enter a bar and buy a beer. But for now we'll leave her dancing drunkenly against the floorboards while the Hall folks urge her, via microphone, to get dressed and go home.

Flo is a total sweetheart, a beautiful lanky queer poety musician with a tremendous beard, very huggable and lovey-dovey, so of course he's really good at getting rides. Flo didn't want to put this ride out too much so he had them drop us at a bus stop for the ashland, which we both thought ran all nite. but nothing was running, as nothing does between 2 & 4 am in this shit city. alrite, shit runs, but few in far between in some spaces. you can get stuck, easy, if you're a broke motherfucker like us, walking miles, for hours, which is alright on a nice summer nite when you got a drunk on but nothing you'd envy when it's cold with maybe snow & ice on the ground. We weren't quite sure where we were heading at this point, it took a few false starts for Flo to get his bearings and I had no fucking clue even tho I've lived here my whole goddamm life. Despite the cold it was pleasant to walk in my friends' long thin shadow, to share in the adventure despite the discomfort. Poor Flo woulda had a better time of it if I hadn't been slowin' him down & whinin in his ear the whole time, barkin at his heels like a lost puppy & pissin in the alley every five minutes, but he took it with grace as he's apt to do and in time we made it to a Red Line. It was cold as hell and probably took four hours for me to get home and finally pass the fuck out. Few sleeps have been better.