Chicago

Location:The Double Door
Note: this is actually the day before halloween.

9TH ANNUAL HALLOWEEN BASH FEATURING...
HALL & OATES (LOCAL H)
THE SMITHS (NESS)
THE CULT (THE LAST VEGAS)
JANES'S ADDICTION (WOOLWORTHY)
SMASHING PUMPKINS (BLACKBOX)

Location:909 North Leavitt
As it stands, we're going to watch Party Girl, unless you have a problem with that. Bring snacks. There will be gin and tonics for everyone.

Location:1935 W CHICAGO AVENUE
Wings! Tonight! Cleo's!

Let's get there at 7:30 (Jason's suggestion) as to be able to find some place to sit, and have a generally more pleasant, less shouty time.

People who live in Lincoln Park and Rogers Park get free rides home.

Location:Logan Square Auditorium - 2539 N Kedzie
I've always wanted to go to one of these Suicide Girls Burlesque Shows (Warning: It's porn, and not work safe, unless you work at nerve.com or 909 N. Leavitt.) I'm not sure how this can be an all ages show. It's possible that they don't actually get naked, which would be unfortunate and surprising. In any case, it might be worth the trip up from Champaign. I don't know anything about the bands.

FRI. 10/21/05 (9:00pm; $13 advance, $15 day of show)

Location:The Empty Botttle - 1035 N. Western Ave.
I can personally vouch for a high entertainment unit per dollar ratio for this show.

THU. 8/11/05 (9:30pm; $8)

Gil Mantera's Party Dream Suzukiton (related: Alabama Thunderpussy) Peelander Z (Japan) (label: Swell)

Inscrutable artparty outfit GIL MANTERA'S PARTY DREAM are perhaps one of the most beguiling ensembles around - sincerely ironic or ironically sincere, who can tell? But their interesting amalgamation of campish, vampish departures is compelling, and their live show takes things - and this is putting it mildly - to another level entirely. They'll be joined by SUZIKITON, a new offering from the ALABAMA THUNDERPUSSY camp that has "engineered a new mechanism for the propagation of heavy metal." They'll be supporting new Crucial Blast release Service Repair Handbook. Making things odder still, Japanese (okay, they're actually from Planet Peelander, but we couldn't verify that) punk rock ensemble PEELANDER-Z will open, taking the evening's conceptual thread, um, 'further out' still. We can assure you that the evening will, by turns, astound and confound in rapid successions. One might consider wearing plastic?

Location:The Trap Door Theater - 1655 West Cortland (behind Jane's restaraunt)
Yeah, my first post on this board is plugging my sketch show. I'm a horrible human being.

Anyhoo . . .

The Whizgigges: Hard Knocks, has two more shows, Fridays August 5th & 12th! 11:00 PM! 8 bones! It's a BYOB theater (beer and wine is sold there for "donations" as well).

See the show that made the Chicago Reader reviewer violently angry. We also got that little red recommended star in TimeOut Chicago for like 2 weeks.

whizgiggers.com

Location:Double Door
Heads: So Darediablo was the best band I saw at SxSW this year (granted, I couldn't get in anywhere). Sorry for the last minute scene-hipping-to but I just saw it posted on the DD marquee. Here is what I wrote about them on plans 2 months ago:

Their music is like getting hit by a Nerf hammer encased in a real hammer. It's like if someone shoots his or her name into your wall with an AK-47, and then weaves a beautiful ribbon between the bulletholes. It's hard, fast, loud music encapsulating beautiful melodic lines, and it fucking rocked. Bonus points for justifying [stick00] and [stpeter00]'s earplug purchase. Bonus bonus points for bringing all of the Park Slope relatives with them.

Location:The Bottom Lounge, 3602 N Wilton (1 block west of Clark & Belmont)
Memorial Day = Alt-country blowout.

Location:The Subterranean, 2011 W North Ave (at the six-way)
Come back from alumni reunion and recharge your batteries with some evocative pretty-boy pop-rock.

Location:The Empty Bottle, Chicago
Electronicist Caribou, formerly known as Manitoba until he got sued by some jerk. For fans of Four Tet, Dntel, Mouse On Mars, Prefuse 73, etc.

Junior Boys make shimmery electro-pop and I will vouch for their quality. They remind me of Erlend Oye's solo work.

The Russian Futurists make speculative music about Slavic culture. Probably.