a quickie

don’t know where to begin. time for grammar? heck no! i went drawing on wednesday with not so stellar results (see below) but thursday i hit the empty bottle for a show. current indie rock darling “Girls” headlined, and were quite good, but unfortunately for them, another new band, Real Estate one-upped em. I picked up their record which i don’t think has officially come out yet. it was a gamble as I couldn’t quite make out a ton of vocals live. the music was killer but you know how a bad singer can torpedo a record/band for you. not surprisingly the vocals on the record were just as sparse. this is going to be a compliment but it won’t sound like one: this band will put you to sleep, or i guess it would be more flattering to say, they will put you in a profound state of relaxation.

I’d see Girls again in a heartbeat but I was already quite spent. I have not yet heard their entire record so I was glad that there was a bit of variety to their sound and a few genuine rave-ups to keep things moving along. I’ll grab their record as soon as a I run across it.

Last week I also got to attend my first show at the new Lincoln Hall. Twas Vic Chesnutt, and a great time was had. Too much to say about that show to dash off here. I might get back to writing something but maybe I’ll just tell you about it in person instead.

Real Estate:

Girls:

I don’t want to sound whine-y but this week’s batch of drawings is boring as hell, partly because of my slumping ability and partly because of the poses the model did which lit no flames beneath my un-motivated ass. I like drama. I crave it. this guy gave me none and his relatively featureless shape gave me little to pay attention to.

20 minutes poses:

the first one I’m ok with but wasn’t happy with where I was seated, but in the second the proportions are off because my mind was telling me to slim him down.

this one’s ok, nothing dramatic. boo.

15 minute studies. boring poses except the back one which I wish I could have spent more time on.

the best of my 2-5 minute poses:

Where does the time go?

Dang nab it, I miss people. I’m always holed up somewhere drawing, writing music, or I come up with some other excuse to be by myself. This week I managed to do both. Finally finally finally went to Map Room, had some good beers and good times. Three Halloween parties over two days and got to see a ton of people I love. I won at Trivial Pursuit (by forfeiture) but with the aid of red wine. Also been making book jacket mock-ups, finally got back to playing some guitar after playing keys, getting back into habit of running, and went figure drawing earlier tonight. No middle ground in this batch, I either hated them or was quite proud. These are the only ones I’m willing to share.

Not done yet though, going to see Vic Chesnutt at the new Lincoln Hall tomorrow night and then on Friday I’m going to either hit up the Art Institute or gallery openings with Ryan. Saturday is Nick’s birthday so we’re going out for that too. I’m working a double weekend so no rest for this fool.

With this figure drawing workshop, we start with 1 minute poses to get loosened up and then move to 2, 5, 10, 15, 20, and one final 25 minute pose. I gave up on the last pose as I had a weird/boring view and just focused on the hands (not pictured).

A little off proportionally, but I’m happy with the shading and how natural and relaxed the pose looks.

This one I had some trouble with. 20 minute pose. I started this first attempt, gave up and started a new version for the middle 10 minutes, then went back and tried to finish the first one. They can’t all be good.

I’m happy with this one mainly because of my rough start. Back poses can be difficult because there’s not a lot of geography going on. You have to get your outline just right to give it form and weight.

This one is waaayyy off but shows were I started to get on track. It’s always fun drawing a tangle of legs or arms. If I had more time I would have corrected the shoulders and arms. Not much fun drawing the top of someone’s head so I pretty much ignored and focused on the legs.

My favorite of my loose quick sketches. The hips were turned a bit more but I like this one for the shoulders/arms.

A Place To Bury Strangers, Double Door, Oct 26

Thank you strobe light! It helped make these cell phone pix surprisingly crisp without use of a flash. A Place To Bury Strangers had their fog machine set to “10” and did without normal stage lighting so there wasn’t much to “see.” They kept it to a minimum, a single laser thing set up 50 ft away that would do random patterns alternated with the flicker or a strobe light or two directly on the stage (with occasional periods of total darkness).

At one point in the set the singer/guitarist disappeared into the cloud at the back of the stage. All you could see was the glow of the pilot light on one of the amps, of which there were many. The distinct red light from a Fender amp started dancing and shaking violently. There is a very distinct racket you can get from the springs in the reverb tank if you shake an amp. I would normally chalk up this move (along with the guitar shaking/swinging/banging) to showmanship and crowd-pleasing  but it really works well with this type of band, getting very usable sounds.

Everything you read about this band mentions how loud they are, and I always take a brief yawn following that assessment. Been there done that, and as they started, things were at a reasonable level. They must have been inching it up throughout the set as by the end it was close to “jet taking off” levels. They didn’t quite attain the levels Jucifer reached at the Empty Bottle where I could feel all my internal organs vibrating. That’s a good thing. APTBS maintain very danceable rhythms throughout the noise and I would have hated to have to stop dancing for fear of losing my bowels.

I picked up their self titled CD and it’s been spinning around in one player or another quite a bit. They have a more recent LP that I hate to say is “more of the same” but it seems that way on the surface. However, they do what they do very well and I try not to be one who hates on things too much. It would be nice if they evolved a bit more if for no other reason than to have some diversity in the live set. I probably wouldn’t have minded as much had I been able to suss out a dance partner. If I were to give the show a grade it would be a very solid “B.” I had a great time but it takes some surprises, hopefully some witty stage banter, and a shear “force of nature” type persona to get and “A.”

Kurt Vile @ the Empty Bottle

Yes, your cell phone camera, while crappy, is still better than mine.

I really hate the idea of being one of those people gushing about bands on the internet. “Blah blah blah I’m such a hip taste-maker for the rest of you sorry lot.” All that aside I quite enjoyed seeing Kurt Vile at the Empty Bottle on Tuesday. He rambles and mumbles with a bit of “croon” more than singing. You can tell some bands do it for effect but here it seems sincere and it perfectly suits the tunes at hand. To sing these songs on perfect pitch would be a disservice, unless you have the pipes of Martha Wainwright (or another blessed with one of those voices that can to bring you to tears). [A brief aside: unless you have one of those million dollar voices, you probably should work on a mumbling drawl as your attempts at singing make you come across as though trying to hard. The only thing you accomplish is sounding like the guy from Creed. Eeeew.]

I’d managed to avoid hearing any of Mr Vile’s music (including his previous stint with “the War On Drugs”) until a month ago. While I might go back and dig through that catalog I would recommend starting in the present with “Constant Hitmaker” or the “Hunchback” EP. The former is acoustic based but augmented with some spacey-ness and sparse drumming, all of which is drowning in reverb. The latter includes his backing back, “The Violators” who very tastefully added to the sound instead of cluttering it up. I’m glad he’s picked up a band as it adds some variety to the set, breaking up the solo numbers. They hit all moods as they had my hips swaying on some tunes and in full dance mode on others. So again, no gushing here. Check them out live if you get a chance and make up your own mind.