Friday 15
JOHN DOE, SARAH LEE GUTHRIE & JOHNNY IRION Keeping up with X and its assorted members has yielded diminishing returns ever since More Fun in the New World came out in 1983, so I was floored by John Doe’s new solo album, Forever Hasn’t Happened Yet (Yep Roc). He doesn’t sound as if he’s trying very hard, which may be why it’s so good: it’s raw and appealingly loose, and though it’s steeped in the same Americana flavors that have dominated Doe’s and Exene Cervenka’s work since Billy Zoom left X, the new songs aren’t so self-consciously cultivated. Doe’s vocals are soulful and spontaneous, and though he’s assisted by a raft of guests–including Dave Alvin, Grant Lee Phillips, Cindy Lee Berryhill, and Smokey Hormel–the album doesn’t feel like a hodgepodge. “Hwy. 5,” a punkish duet with Neko Case, recalls “Johnny Hit and Run Pauline”-era X (it was cowritten by Cervenka), but most of the songs are archetypal blues and country that Doe inhabits like a favorite pair of jeans. He’s backed here by the Nick Luca Trio; Luca, a guitarist, has worked extensively with Giant Sand and Calexico.
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CAPTURED! BY ROBOTS Jason Vance, a veteran of Skankin’ Pickle and the Blue Meanies and the only human in this band, has been touring for eight years now as the supposed slave of the robots he created–I’m starting to suspect there’s no microchip implanted in his head after all, and that he just likes being verbally abused by uppity machines. The foulmouthed robots are works of art–the drum machines, for example, play real drums, and the newest band members are a nattily dressed trio of decapitated trumpeters whose instruments are actually clusters of air horns, like the ones you see on the cabs of tractor-trailers. This time out Vance is pushing a two-CD set that combines a “fitness” record (“Rock Hard,” “Thrashersize”) and a concept album loosely based on Cecil B. De Mille’s Ten Commandments. Riddle of Steel and Asva open. 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 3206 N. Wilton, 773-975-0505 or 800-594-8499, $10, 18+. –Monica Kendrick
FANTOMAS, THE LOCUST Mike Patton’s superhuman-sounding supergroup likes the high-concept concept album–the discography so far includes an SF comic-book album and an album of reworked movie themes–and number four, the brand-new Suspended Animation (Ipecac) is another one. It seems to have several concepts going at once, actually. The stated theme is cartoon music, but that doesn’t explain the 30 short tracks named for each day of this month (track one is “04/01/05 Friday”); the limited-edition version comes with a 30-page calendar by Yoshitomo Nara that pairs each day/song with an improbable holiday (Richter Scale Day, Plan Your Epitaph Day) and a delightfully disturbing drawing. Inside, the band more than matches the packaging, spinning out new moods and allusions with dervish speed and hummingbird dexterity: moody Asian-chamber-music pastiche one second, demented Carl Stalling program music scored for death-metal arsenal the next. A lesser outfit trying this might sound like meth-addled monkeys pushing random buttons, but Fantomas wields a grounded sorcery that makes it all more than the sum of its gajillion endlessly moving parts.
Thursday 21
