Chicago Rock and Roll Band SOULFIX

An excellent post by our friend Jason Caldeira on the state of the music scene in Chicago.  Check out the story on the Fly Casual blog here. Jason’s been playing music in Chicago since 1998. A few years back I played with him in Dan Darrah’s band.

In a nutshell: the scene is dead

I couldn’t agree with him more. I’ve had this discussion with most of my musician friends. We all remember the thriving Chicago music scene in the late 90’s. Bands had weekly residencies, and the rooms would be packed. Swimmer and Sumo at Elbo Room on Sundays. Liquid Soul at Double Door. There was a vibrancy about the city. And everyone was proud to be part of it.

Cover bands are where the scene’s at now. And I can’t bitch, cuz I’m IN a cover band. But, man, it just kinda sucks.

Albeit a bit old, we just discovered some press we got from the Illinois Entertainer’s “Around Hear” section from May 30th, 2007.  Scroll down to the 6th paragraph.  It’s regarding a Hostage Radio compilation we were on.  We fuckin’ rock!!  The hardest.

We’re back on at Reggie’s Rock Club for Thursday, March 19th.  With Mamba Negra and Lake Effect.  More deets soon.

The Reggie’s show on Saturday, 2/28 has been postponed.  More details as we have them.  Sorry, everybody.

Friday, January 16th
@ SUBTERRANEAN
A Shoeshine Boy Production
w/ On We, Bandages, and Six Letter Word
2011 W. North Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60647
9pm , $7, 21 and over
www.subt.net

One thing about gigging somewhat regularly in the city of Chicago is you’ll certainly know how to spell some tricky words, namely subterranean and martyr.

What up.  Happy holidays.

Got a new song up on the site entitled “Undone.”  Check it.

Or, download it here.

REGGIES ROCK CLUB
Saturday, February 28th
w/ Killing The Enemy
2109 South State Street
Chicago, Illinois 60616
http://www.reggieslive.com/

They have a party bus available.  If there’s a bunch of y’all who want to meet at a bar beforehand, we can have the bus pick you up and drop you at the club.  Give us some feed back if this appeals.

“Swinging” and the electronica version of “Providence” are up.  Sorry it took me so long to put the shizzle up.  Focus seems elusive these days.  Anyways – enjoy.

I’ve been fortunate enough to play solo and band cover gigs for years, and my experience has been that people are generally tolerable; however, it’s inevitable that I’ll get a request from a drunken patron for a stupid ass song.  Moreover, the drunk ass usually wants to “sing along” with me while spilling beer on me and my gear and stinking up my microphone.  That said, here is my list of 5 stupid ass songs that should “die,” because with their death comes safety and sanity for me.  This list isn’t in any particular order.  The fact is that they all equally suck.

1.  Sweet Home Alabama – No offense to Skynrd and their ability to pen great songs, but the land where “skies are blue” and the “governor is true” has had some gubernatorial issues lately.  

2.  Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison has a body of work and it neither begins nor ends with this sad excuse of a song.  Plus, it turns out that Van Morrison’s brown eyed muse has some trouble ahead of her.

3.  Margaritaville – When I hear this song I have no desire to go and “nibble on sponge cake” or “waste away in Margaritaville” (wherever the f#$k that is).  If I want anything to do with a parrot it’s gonna involve this beast of a musician.  Listen to “Beak of Putrefaction”  

4.  Free Bird – Whoa!  Skynrd makes the list twice?  Sorry Skynrd fans, but the only bird song worth playing these days  is this one.

5.  The complete collection of “Creed” – I woke up one day to a Creed song and said “Why don’t they just go away?”  A week later they broke up.  Now I’m happy but their legacy lives on in the playlists of countless toolboxes across the world.  I can’t stand them.  That’s all I can say.  The truth is that the rest of the band rocks pretty hard without lead loser Scott Stapp.  Here’s proof.

New version of the 12 in 12 site is up….all Flash-ified. Not completely what I want it to be, but functional. Finished it while Mitch and Sarah were over hanging out at my place….Sarah is our new singer for our cover project, Chicago party band “Bounce” (and she totally rocks).

For dinner they picked up burritos from Taqueria El Asadero right up here in the neighborhood at Montrose and Lincoln. Man, soooo damn good. The three of us were totally dorking out wirelessly with our Mac laptops, plus my iMac to spin tunes off of Front Row. Here are a couple of pics:

Sarah from Chicago party band Bounce

SoulFix Bassist Mitch, pondering world domination.

Now that Google has Video chat happening via Gmail, we managed to get all 3 of us in a video chat ….yeah, I know we were all in my apartment together, but it was still pretty goofy and fun.

SoulFix has got another song ready to go for the website, but I’ve still gotta work up some artwork to go along with it. The song is called “Swingin’,” and it does bring the rock. We also have a rough version of another song that I don’t believe has a name yet, as well as an “electronica” version of Providence For A Lost Soul. Coming soon.

My downstairs neighbor was crankin’ some bass-heavy tunes all night long, and fortunately has decided to stop…

A good night all around. Fun night hanging with friends, surfin’ the net and just passing time

Adios,

D-Rock