HOZAC Blackout Fest Preview

<div> <a href="features/features/hozac_blackout_fest_preview/" target="_self"><img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/hozac11preview.jpg" alt="HOZAC Blackout Fest Preview" /> </a> </div> <p> <i>Blackout Fest is back!<span>  </span>It must have finally recovered from a five-year hangover...
HOZAC Blackout Fest Preview

WHERE: THE VELVET PERINEUM, 2515 N. Milwaukee Avenue (Logan Square) Chicago, IL

 

WHEN: 5/26-5/28

Thursday, 5/26

FREE Art Show/Blackout Opening Party at THE VELVET PERINEUM with works by: TIMMY VULGAR, CANDERSON, NATHAN JERDE, MAC BLACKOUT, CHRISTOPHER ILTH, ROB KARLIC, BEN LYON & bands TBA!

 

Friday, 5/27

1.  The Spits (Seattle)

Punk rock.  You know how this works, right?  Loud, fast, hard.  Blackout Fest starts off on the right foot with the hi-octane, Seattle-based group the Spits.  Check out the video to "Terrorist Attack!".  It’s like a Red-level alert for your eardrums.  Or Orange-level.  Or whichever color of the color-coded threat-level system was the most intense, I can’t remember. [editor’s note: the color-coded threat-alert system was just recently ended.  Obama!]

Video "Terrorist Attack!" by The Spits:

 

2.  The Brides (Chicago)

 

3.  K-Holes (NYC)

K-Holes self-titled debut album is everything worth loving about the contemporary NYC underground scene.  Hard, heavy, confrontational songs mix Lydia Lunch, a sub-subterranean Blondie, and an agro-sax, into a roiling, moiling, boiling stew of verminous machismo.  All the members had one foot firmly planted in other groups (Golden Triangles, Bezoar, Georgiana Starlington) when K-Holes started up, so the collaboration initially started as a wild, experimental one-off.  One album later, that "one-off" has laid down ten tracks to vinyl and the experiment is still unfolding in disturbed, dark and lovely ways…  Check out the video for "Short Zippers" below.  No guarantee that we’ll see this much leather at the Blackout Fest performance, but one can hope!

Video "Short Zippers" by K-Holes:

K-Holes "Short Zippers" from Micki Pellerano on Vimeo.

 

4.  TV Ghost (Lafayette, IN)

Check out this spooooky vid from TV Ghost. Rock n roll phantasms inhabiting the nether regions of Zombie-core. Blackout Fest comes at the beginning of their cross country tour, so catch ’em while they’re fresh & feisty (if corpses can be ‘fresh’ & ‘feisty’).

Video "Subterfuge" by TV Ghost:

 

5.  The Happy Thoughts (Lafayette, IN)

 

 

6.  Mickey (Chicago)

The local five-piece Mickey (with a lead guitarist by the name of Mick Swagger, of course) is greaser-punk done right.  The brash attitude complements, instead of substitutes for, gnarly melodies.  There’s an old school flavor here; you could set these guys up as openers for the Ramones, the Clash, and the show wouldn’t miss a beat.  "She’s So Crazy", the A-side off their latest 7", is a dazed and confused homage to feminine wiles that, coupled with the B-side "I am Your Trash" captures the band’s sweet-n-sour lust to the T.  Mickey just got back from a cross-country tour that made its way through the mayhem that is the Atlanta Mess Around – so expect a road-tested punk-rock ensemble ready to "blow your doors clean off."

Video "Electronic Dreams" by Mickey:

Mickey "Electric Dreams" from Chris Anderson on Vimeo.

 

7.  Squish (Chicago)

We’ve been jamming out to Squish’s latest self-titled tape at the QRO offices. Check it out at Bandcamp! Straight-up punk: lightning chord progressions and a maelstrom of CRASS-esque shout-core vocals. Produced by Mac Blackout (hey, I recognize that name – do you?). Plus, Squish has got a 7" coming out on HoZac – so come hear them kick off the festivities on Friday! Rumor has it they have a special top secret guest perfomer – could it be Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins?!?! Well, it could.

 

 

Saturday, 5/28

1.  Nervous Eaters (legendary 70s proto-punk band from Boston)

 

2.  Nobunny (SF)

Oh my god, is this dude gonna rock out in the bunny mask-cum-tail? My magic 8-ball is giving me a "Sources Say Yes." The west coast killers rock out some blue-screen garage antics with a healthy dose of cowbell starting at :51. I NEED MORE COWBELL!!!

  Video "Blow Dumb" by NOBUNNY:

3.  Tutu & The Pirates (Chicago’s 1st recorded punk band from ‘77)

The online encyclopedia Punk Database calls Tutu & the Pirates "Chicago’s first anti-lectual sub-urban insult rock band and perhaps even its first punk band."  QRO will have to take the internet at its word, because we weren’t hitting punk shows in the late ‘70s when this band was strutting its stuff!  But you gotta love old school punk.  Tutu & the Pirates swum in the same current as MC5, New York Dolls (QRO photos), the Stooges – all the greats.  Hats off to HOZAC for thinking outside the box, and bringing some legends of punk history to the bill.

 

3.  Timmy’s Organism (Detroit)

 

4.  Puffy Areolas (Cleveland)

 

5.  Idle Times (Seattle)

 

6.  Reading Rainbow (Philadelphia)

The guy/girl duo Reading Rainbow is Blackout Fest’s answer to Matt & Kim (QRO spotlight on), except the girl sings in this one.  Pitchfork loved their "rose-colored 1960s pop sounds and feisty punk ‘tude" from their album Prism Eyes.  QRO loves the echo chamber, Wall of Sound harmonies.  You’ll love just about all of the above and more – don’t miss this pair.  Here’s a fan video of their song "Wasting Time."

 

7.  People’s Temple (Lansing, MI)

This act, made up of two pairs of brothers, has been gaining steam lately on the strength of their recent release Sons of Stone. It boasts a throwback 13th Floor Elevator-style attack with more surprises spanning the rock n roll spectrum. High marks all around, including a gorgeous little Pitchfork write-up that called their sound "a mutant strain of hazy, psychedelic sultan rock…" QRO beat Bitchspork to the punch with an earlier write-up on the track "Keeper (of Souls)". Just sayin’…

8.  Heavy Times (Chicago)

 

9.  Radar Eyes (Chicago)

QRO caught this Chicago-based four-piece at the 2011 SXSW Sendoff Party at the Hideout, and was so impressed we tried to get them on our Way Out Weird bill.  The timing didn’t work out (this time!) but we know you’re going to dig them.  Big bass, big drums, big guitar.  Radar Eyes can play the straight-up, short-form punk ditty or stretch their sound out into hot, boozy, elastic psych.  Wild vibrations…

 

10.  Outer Minds (Chicago)

 

11.  Nones (Chicago)

 

 

Links:

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HoZac Records

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