Text & Photos: Charles Nickles
A gaggle of late century kids slump vainly over their cigarettes murmuring something or other about the rise and fall of Kent. I’m half-listening between my own habits.
A girl (the only one in sight) shoots up straight when one of the pencil freaks says something almost sentimental and vaguely complimentary, proclaiming loudly to the street, “I just remember that the story of my makeup was DRUUUUUUUGS,” before falling over the sandwich board advertising the night’s post-pleasure line up.
Field Agent
Were I inclined to spend a gin night cut up and confused in the ruins of the aold Wrigley factory with a stolen eight-ball and a thermal imaging cam, I think I would like to invite Field Agent with me. Actually, I am, but who has the time to trespass these days?
Some Ember
When Ben saw Xiu Xiu way back when, he went into great detail about how difficult it was to both capture and endure a performance whose principle instrumentation (for more than a few tracks) was a dildo in a mason jar. Or was it a vibrator? I guess vibrator makes more sense, but whatever the instrument, the anecdote helped me appreciate Jamie Stewart as dispirited enfant lunatique as I’m sure Some Ember do, what with their unboy/still girl belt and swoon and trembling synthetic apoplexy.
Wreck & Reference
Wreck & Reference are a humorless torrent of pretentiousness and scorn who have wooed and revolted me in equal measure since No Youth broke the joy mold four years ago, so I am loathe to offer comment on their performance this evening because I was feeling light and flippant before they took the stage, which puts me in the WAY fucking wrong place to listen to caustic meditations on bad blood gone worse. Still, their drummer is a motherfucker and their frontman makes a fine case for science and Proust.
Sannhet
I have vague memories of going crazy at a murder motel in AC looking for ghosts in the static of the broken TV I’d left on to block out the noise of fucking, fighting, sirens and party. I’d just seen Metallica for the second time in as many days, and was eating pork rinds, overthinking the kindness I’d been shown by a pregnant, chain-smoking, meth-dealing hooker. She had an adorable pitbull and was friends with the cops and the thugs so I could drink my Tallboys on the street without worry. She was the best friend a boy could’ve had at the time, guiding me through the town’s grim fantastic and filling my head with warm advice well into the shaky morning, and if I wish I could remember her name so I could take it with me to the grave, but I can’t, so here’s Sannhet.
