Lasers and Fast and Shit perform Pittsburgh

Miriam Fanger

Philippine born, Chicago resident, Miriam Fanger is addicted to coffee, and capturing moments that don’t exist with the reality of passing time. The subtle intensity she has, along with a tenacity for shooting, makes her work powerful and moving. Her photos seem to catch all people at a passing instant of vulnerability, and the posture and eyes of her subjects radiate with a chemistry that I rarely see in portraiture. Read more

Carlos Icaza, aka DJ Tropicaza

Anybody could roll down the list of bands that Mexico City’s Carlos Icaza is in, or credit him for his incredible work with the Vampi Soul people, but until you have met this brilliant, record collecting, drum-battering-anomaly in person, you have only read into a small semblance of what Icaza is all about. When I first met him, I had no idea who he was. He commented on a record I was playing at a bar and then a week later, my friends and I hadn’t missed a single gig he played in Chicago, including the loft party we all spun together the following Saturday. I have been addicted to this mix that he posted and it doesn’t even compare to his live sets. Who knew so many soul standards sounded twice as funky recorded in Mexico in the 60s.

Charlie Megna’s artwork at People Lounge, Chicago

Chicago artist Charlie Megna leads a simple life of skateboarding, painting, and drinking with friends. I envy him. Perhaps it’s this casual mid-west approach to urban life that provides him the tongue-in-cheek platform with which he pokes at modern life from. With content ranging from oil consumption to technological advances, state pride to abstract kitty cats, he can also draw a very pretty tree. A good number of Megna’s paintings are currently hanging at People Lounge in Wicker Park, and will be up for the remainder of the month. Read more

Everything Is Terrible website

I met one of the Chicago contributors of this New York, LA, Chicago collaboration site in front of a local bike shop this past summer. He was happily showing off his latest thrift store VHS scores to a mutual friend of ours. I slept on the “blog” he said he was collecting the tapes for for some time. Sometimes I make mistakes. Everything is Terrible is a brilliant library of all things unsettling. These are not posts of mindless YouTube anomalies. These are serious and hilarious documentations of what could be lost on most people were it not for these ironic excavators.

Tristeza’s new album, Fate Unfolds

From the surreal opening to the feverish end, Fate Unfolds captivates with a tonal palette that is both broad and gripping. Indie kings of the southwest, Tristeza, have been at it for slightly over a decade. Their latest full-length delivers without a drop of disappointment. Fate Unfolds is drenched with the seemingly long lost art of crafting an album that plays as one solid piece. I could pick several ’singles’ that I hear on this record, but to do anything but drop the needle and park it does a huge disservice to the artistry and arrangement of this record as a whole. Herein are huge washes of guitars and synths, layered with drums dubbing back and forth from programmed to acoustic with ease and a backbeat that is anything but ‘indie rock’. Read more

Monome

The Monome interfaces provide seemingly endless possibilities for combinations of aural and visual amazement. It’s a wonder to me that people are still using midi keyboards as trigger devices to elude the fact that they can’t play an actual instrument. With sleek design and eco-friendly packaging, its no wonder the first run in 2008 sold out in two minutes. Whether they decide to release one or two hundred devices, the Monome 64 is going to be available again in January 2010.