Southside Chicago Schmaltz
Siderunners/Smoke Wagon/The Tossers//Southpaw//9/27/06
I was kinda wavering about this one, for obvious reasons. And I was a little unsure of the dates, having seen different sites give conflicting postings for the Brooklyn show and Maxwell’s. I even considered going to Maxwell’s in order to catch Nomeansno—again, money—but let’s face it: I wasn’t running out to Maxwell’s for this band. For obvious reasons. I was even wavering about going to Southpaw for this band, but they’re on Victory Records, home to a crapload of crappy, post-emo, screamo, whatever bands such as June, Silverstein, Bullet For My Valentine, and The Sleeping. Thursday got their start there. I was on the label’s website trying to figure out about opening acts to help me better decide which night I should or shouldn’t go to, and I’m like, That’s what you named your band? You’re serious about that? Oh, you already got the logo tattooed onto you? Wow, sucks to be you. (To say nothing of Victory allegedly encouraging the Hawthorne Heights street team to go to record stores and move Ne-Yo albums around so that those guys won’t be on Top of the Pops and HH can reclaim the top in the name of rock. Wait, what do I mean allegedly? It said so in the Onion. I mean in the AV section for a HH show review, not the sarcastic, fake-news section. Way to fight The Man—making extra work for record store staff.) So you (or at least I) kind of want to cultivate that tender shoot of grass sprouting out of a stinky, fly-ridden pile of dung.
The Tossers is the band we have to thank for the late-90s wave of Guinness-fueled, Poguesy Irish rock. The inspiration for Flogging Molly and the Dropkick Murphys, (I mean, in addition to the Pogues and the Guinness) but FM and DKM beat The Tossers to the (jug of) punch. It says so right there on the back of the CD single I was handed after a Flogging Molly show. But, rest assured, they play their own brand of Irish music loaded with attitude and alcohol—also as the single promises. So you have to wonder why, if The Tossers—I was going to say “came up with the idea,” but that’s not the right phrase, just the first one that popped into my mind; anyway, you get what I mean—you have to wonder why, if Flogging Molly and the Dropkicks are riding the latest jig-punk wave (no offense to the Prodigals) and have huge draws, why The Tossers really don’t.
But maybe I’m not the best person to review them. Let’s face it, when I was in elementary school I lived on PB&J and now I can’t touch it. On one of their previous go-rounds, I was probably feeling too full of myself to bother to go. Or in the case of them opening for Spider Stacy’s Pogue Mahone, I was busy that night. So why not go? I could be wrong. Besides, they’re featured on the first Shite’N’Onions comp, along with other such notables like The Skels, Neck, Blood or Whiskey, (possibly the Mahones count as a notable as well) and The Devil’s Advocates. There was a reason for starting this paragraph off with the PB&J comment: given the track order of the 22 songs on the comp, to me there’s a “first half” and a “second half,” and by the time The Tossers weigh in with tracks 16 & 17, I’m like, Yeah, yeah, I’m paying attention, that’s more like it. Unfortunately for The Tossers, they’re followed by The Devil’s Advocates version of The Town That I Loved So Well. (Yes, I know, I need to figure out how to put MP3s on this thing.) I’m like, Yeah, The Tossers are good, but this is how its done. The second volume came out last year (as in 2005), featuring the likes of Icewagon Flu, Larkin Brigade, and The Gobshites, who believe that every day is St. Patrick’s Day.
***
For the longest, nobody was there. And by nobody was there, I don’t mean there wasn’t anybody I knew. I mean nobody. With doors @ 8 and the show starting at 8:30, a longshot, I know, and to be expected, but I was like, c’mon give me a break here, it’s Wednesday. The Siderunners (featuring former members of the Tossers) are sorta country, though they probably think they’re moreso since the guitarist had a Pabst-logo trucker hat on. There were some cool moments, but they—the moments and the band—were lost in a venue/on a stage like Southpaw with maybe 15 people in attendance.
Smoke Wagon are a straight-up bar band, and my guess was Hank’s Saloon. Though the guitar player tried to secure whiskey for the drummer, he had to lay off it himself because he had to get back to work—the stagehand at Southpaw, and he’s the guy opening and closing the curtain. Still, even if you’re working at the venue when your band is on the bill, there is no excuse for 3 bands running that late on a Wednesday night.
The Tossers took the stage at midnight, perhaps giving the crowd—which probably reached about 40—ample time to prepare for them, bar-wise. And as soon as the band started, I thought it was pointless to be there. Yes, Flogging Molly’s 1st two albums feature predictable song structures—spoken first verse and perhaps second, dramatic pause, big rave-ups. Yes, they’re Pogues knock-offs, yes, Within A Mile Of Home has more country-ish/ballad-y stuff and even though the album before that one, Drunken Lullabies, sounded like stuff that didn’t make their first album, had they stuck with the formula I would’ve been like, more spoken intro/pause/rave-ups, don’t you guys ever change? Live album/DVD duo Whiskey On A Sunday is no substitute for being at the show, being rightthere, waiting, waiting even though FM has taken the stage to thunderous applause, until the rave-up hits. There’s just something so indescribable and thrilling about being in that throng of people going completely and utterly crazy. That moment was completely lacking from The Tossers’ set.
I just deleted the sentence “It was ghastly” because that may be too harsh, because maybe it’s me. I mean, I didn’t really do the math because I figured I knew what I was getting, just a different band and a different city—Chicago as opposed to DKM’s Boston and FM’s LA. But didn’t Black 47 always go on about the Chicago crowd at Gaelic Park on Memorial Weekend? That littered, disheveled field that pretty much screams “Black 47 was here!” is where the back photo for their live album On Fire was taken. I guess I was more disappointed than anything. The members of The Tossers were glued to the stage and did not budge. (A Jewess may not be the best one to review an Irish band, irregardless of how many she’s seen or how many times she has, but I do know shows.) It would be hard for any band to establish connectivity on a stage like that with a draw like that, agreed, but I was like, A 7-member Irish rawk combo? Seen that. Maybe it’s a Chicago thing and they just didn’t translate.
The first girl to attempt stepdancing fell on her ass within seconds. Soon, the bulk of the crowd gave way to falling on top of each other and shoving one another, in an attempt, I guess, at moshing. This is followed by guys lifting each other at the waist and swinging each other around, legs flying out in front of them. I guess this is what happens at a show by a band like this if you have the room. Because this does not happen at the Dropkicks. It does not happen at Flogging Molly.
“Here’s something I’ve been working on, just for you!” Tony Duggins said as The Tossers launch into a cover of Fairytale of New York. No. You cannot be this band, or a band like this, and cover that song. And without a woman sharing vocals?
“Are you with the media?” a guy next to me asks.
Yes. “No.”
“Are you the band’s photographer?”
“No.”
“Who are you taking pictures for?”
Oh, I get it. Because I’m standing here with my camera and not climbing all over a total stranger for a piggyback ride around Southpaw, it must be that I “have” to be here. It must be my assignment to be here to take pix and that’s why I’m not rocking out.
“This band is so good. They’re my favorite band,” he tells me, putting his arm around my waist and pulling me close.
A few more covers follow. I check my watch and it’s late. I consider leaving before they finish. Maybe just skipping the encore. The rest of the band looks like they’re going to fall asleep as Duggins keeps going. The crowd, of course, also keeps going. Even as Duggins dedicates a song to Steve Irwin, because the guy always cracked him up. The band looks bored as Duggin keeps it up and I think that with his voice, being the singer in a band such as this one is inevitable—that, or a bartender—though it seems like he drops his accent at some points. One of the band members grabs the curtain and drags it across himself, and I think that that’s bad if your band mates are telling you that the set’s up, but no, he lights up. Though he and the rest of the band do look bored. Well, they are on tour. It’s a lot of long nights like this, a lot of long sets, a lot of drinking and partying.
The encores—and covers—continue. This is their first full-fledged headlining tour, Duggins says. And this is your draw? Well, there’s something to be said about playing a Guinness-sponsored tour because at least you get it for free. But drinking a Miller? When in Brooklyn, I guess. And he thanks Steve Irwin repeatedly.
It’s 1:15 when I get out of there. Shee-it. How can a show with 3 bands go that late?
It’s not so much that I decide to try the D and see what happens as I’m too tired to bother with the 2 or 5 and the D is right there with the entrance I use. Next stop, Grand, the sign says. The next stop is DeKalb and if the thing is going local, I will be asleep and back in Brooklyn by the time I wake up and wonder if I’m going to or coming from work. But after DeKalb it does hit Grand. And I can get the E at 7th Ave. Has this thing been here this whole time?
Shee-it.
I was kinda wavering about this one, for obvious reasons. And I was a little unsure of the dates, having seen different sites give conflicting postings for the Brooklyn show and Maxwell’s. I even considered going to Maxwell’s in order to catch Nomeansno—again, money—but let’s face it: I wasn’t running out to Maxwell’s for this band. For obvious reasons. I was even wavering about going to Southpaw for this band, but they’re on Victory Records, home to a crapload of crappy, post-emo, screamo, whatever bands such as June, Silverstein, Bullet For My Valentine, and The Sleeping. Thursday got their start there. I was on the label’s website trying to figure out about opening acts to help me better decide which night I should or shouldn’t go to, and I’m like, That’s what you named your band? You’re serious about that? Oh, you already got the logo tattooed onto you? Wow, sucks to be you. (To say nothing of Victory allegedly encouraging the Hawthorne Heights street team to go to record stores and move Ne-Yo albums around so that those guys won’t be on Top of the Pops and HH can reclaim the top in the name of rock. Wait, what do I mean allegedly? It said so in the Onion. I mean in the AV section for a HH show review, not the sarcastic, fake-news section. Way to fight The Man—making extra work for record store staff.) So you (or at least I) kind of want to cultivate that tender shoot of grass sprouting out of a stinky, fly-ridden pile of dung.
The Tossers is the band we have to thank for the late-90s wave of Guinness-fueled, Poguesy Irish rock. The inspiration for Flogging Molly and the Dropkick Murphys, (I mean, in addition to the Pogues and the Guinness) but FM and DKM beat The Tossers to the (jug of) punch. It says so right there on the back of the CD single I was handed after a Flogging Molly show. But, rest assured, they play their own brand of Irish music loaded with attitude and alcohol—also as the single promises. So you have to wonder why, if The Tossers—I was going to say “came up with the idea,” but that’s not the right phrase, just the first one that popped into my mind; anyway, you get what I mean—you have to wonder why, if Flogging Molly and the Dropkicks are riding the latest jig-punk wave (no offense to the Prodigals) and have huge draws, why The Tossers really don’t.
But maybe I’m not the best person to review them. Let’s face it, when I was in elementary school I lived on PB&J and now I can’t touch it. On one of their previous go-rounds, I was probably feeling too full of myself to bother to go. Or in the case of them opening for Spider Stacy’s Pogue Mahone, I was busy that night. So why not go? I could be wrong. Besides, they’re featured on the first Shite’N’Onions comp, along with other such notables like The Skels, Neck, Blood or Whiskey, (possibly the Mahones count as a notable as well) and The Devil’s Advocates. There was a reason for starting this paragraph off with the PB&J comment: given the track order of the 22 songs on the comp, to me there’s a “first half” and a “second half,” and by the time The Tossers weigh in with tracks 16 & 17, I’m like, Yeah, yeah, I’m paying attention, that’s more like it. Unfortunately for The Tossers, they’re followed by The Devil’s Advocates version of The Town That I Loved So Well. (Yes, I know, I need to figure out how to put MP3s on this thing.) I’m like, Yeah, The Tossers are good, but this is how its done. The second volume came out last year (as in 2005), featuring the likes of Icewagon Flu, Larkin Brigade, and The Gobshites, who believe that every day is St. Patrick’s Day.
***
For the longest, nobody was there. And by nobody was there, I don’t mean there wasn’t anybody I knew. I mean nobody. With doors @ 8 and the show starting at 8:30, a longshot, I know, and to be expected, but I was like, c’mon give me a break here, it’s Wednesday. The Siderunners (featuring former members of the Tossers) are sorta country, though they probably think they’re moreso since the guitarist had a Pabst-logo trucker hat on. There were some cool moments, but they—the moments and the band—were lost in a venue/on a stage like Southpaw with maybe 15 people in attendance.
Smoke Wagon are a straight-up bar band, and my guess was Hank’s Saloon. Though the guitar player tried to secure whiskey for the drummer, he had to lay off it himself because he had to get back to work—the stagehand at Southpaw, and he’s the guy opening and closing the curtain. Still, even if you’re working at the venue when your band is on the bill, there is no excuse for 3 bands running that late on a Wednesday night.
The Tossers took the stage at midnight, perhaps giving the crowd—which probably reached about 40—ample time to prepare for them, bar-wise. And as soon as the band started, I thought it was pointless to be there. Yes, Flogging Molly’s 1st two albums feature predictable song structures—spoken first verse and perhaps second, dramatic pause, big rave-ups. Yes, they’re Pogues knock-offs, yes, Within A Mile Of Home has more country-ish/ballad-y stuff and even though the album before that one, Drunken Lullabies, sounded like stuff that didn’t make their first album, had they stuck with the formula I would’ve been like, more spoken intro/pause/rave-ups, don’t you guys ever change? Live album/DVD duo Whiskey On A Sunday is no substitute for being at the show, being rightthere, waiting, waiting even though FM has taken the stage to thunderous applause, until the rave-up hits. There’s just something so indescribable and thrilling about being in that throng of people going completely and utterly crazy. That moment was completely lacking from The Tossers’ set.
I just deleted the sentence “It was ghastly” because that may be too harsh, because maybe it’s me. I mean, I didn’t really do the math because I figured I knew what I was getting, just a different band and a different city—Chicago as opposed to DKM’s Boston and FM’s LA. But didn’t Black 47 always go on about the Chicago crowd at Gaelic Park on Memorial Weekend? That littered, disheveled field that pretty much screams “Black 47 was here!” is where the back photo for their live album On Fire was taken. I guess I was more disappointed than anything. The members of The Tossers were glued to the stage and did not budge. (A Jewess may not be the best one to review an Irish band, irregardless of how many she’s seen or how many times she has, but I do know shows.) It would be hard for any band to establish connectivity on a stage like that with a draw like that, agreed, but I was like, A 7-member Irish rawk combo? Seen that. Maybe it’s a Chicago thing and they just didn’t translate.
The first girl to attempt stepdancing fell on her ass within seconds. Soon, the bulk of the crowd gave way to falling on top of each other and shoving one another, in an attempt, I guess, at moshing. This is followed by guys lifting each other at the waist and swinging each other around, legs flying out in front of them. I guess this is what happens at a show by a band like this if you have the room. Because this does not happen at the Dropkicks. It does not happen at Flogging Molly.
“Here’s something I’ve been working on, just for you!” Tony Duggins said as The Tossers launch into a cover of Fairytale of New York. No. You cannot be this band, or a band like this, and cover that song. And without a woman sharing vocals?
“Are you with the media?” a guy next to me asks.
Yes. “No.”
“Are you the band’s photographer?”
“No.”
“Who are you taking pictures for?”
Oh, I get it. Because I’m standing here with my camera and not climbing all over a total stranger for a piggyback ride around Southpaw, it must be that I “have” to be here. It must be my assignment to be here to take pix and that’s why I’m not rocking out.
“This band is so good. They’re my favorite band,” he tells me, putting his arm around my waist and pulling me close.
A few more covers follow. I check my watch and it’s late. I consider leaving before they finish. Maybe just skipping the encore. The rest of the band looks like they’re going to fall asleep as Duggins keeps going. The crowd, of course, also keeps going. Even as Duggins dedicates a song to Steve Irwin, because the guy always cracked him up. The band looks bored as Duggin keeps it up and I think that with his voice, being the singer in a band such as this one is inevitable—that, or a bartender—though it seems like he drops his accent at some points. One of the band members grabs the curtain and drags it across himself, and I think that that’s bad if your band mates are telling you that the set’s up, but no, he lights up. Though he and the rest of the band do look bored. Well, they are on tour. It’s a lot of long nights like this, a lot of long sets, a lot of drinking and partying.
The encores—and covers—continue. This is their first full-fledged headlining tour, Duggins says. And this is your draw? Well, there’s something to be said about playing a Guinness-sponsored tour because at least you get it for free. But drinking a Miller? When in Brooklyn, I guess. And he thanks Steve Irwin repeatedly.
It’s 1:15 when I get out of there. Shee-it. How can a show with 3 bands go that late?
It’s not so much that I decide to try the D and see what happens as I’m too tired to bother with the 2 or 5 and the D is right there with the entrance I use. Next stop, Grand, the sign says. The next stop is DeKalb and if the thing is going local, I will be asleep and back in Brooklyn by the time I wake up and wonder if I’m going to or coming from work. But after DeKalb it does hit Grand. And I can get the E at 7th Ave. Has this thing been here this whole time?
Shee-it.
posted by heather @ 11:44 PM
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