Ebony Bones at Green Dolphin

The British singer who calls herself Ebony Bones put on quite a show Saturday night (Feb. 6) at Green Dolphin Street ... after a seemingly interminable series of DJ sets and opening bands. I'm not much into the dance club scene, so that last hour of barely distinguishable electronic beats pounding into my head wore a little thin, but then Ebony Bones and her band finally take the stage around 2:15 a.m. She turned out to be worth the wait.

In an Ebony Bones press release, she describes herself as follows: "I am Cleopatra reincarnated, in search of KFC." I'm not even sure what the means, but that conveys something of the spirit of how she dresses and her goofy, bouncy stage presence. Her whole band was decked out in quasi-African or kitschy ancient Egyptian style outfits. And for the first half of the show, Ebony Bones was in a dress with the world's biggest shoulder pads... or collars... or something jutting out, anyway. Her backup singers wore face makeup that seemed like a satire of the way "savages" used to be portrayed, and they clinked spoons against whiskey bottles for percussive effect.

Ebony Bones is one of those musical dynamos who barely ever stops moving during the course of a concert, and she was a wonder to behold. Her songs sounded good, too, the sort of electronic dance music with just enough quirks and smart touches to stand out above most mainstream pop. The set included cool covers of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" and the Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog." And then, around 3 a.m., a long night of music at Green Dolphin Street came to an end at last.
www.myspace.com/ebonybones

The only opening act that won me over was the R&B duo He Say She Say. Their soulful songs sounded like they have some good potential. Now they just need to put out a record. (They mentioned during their set that they don't have any record out, due to "technical difficulties." Whatever those difficulties, He Say She Say should overcome them.)

Photos of Ebony Bones and He Say She Say.

Explode Into Colors

I was looking for something new and different to see Friday night, and I found it — an exciting all-female trio from Portland, Ore., called Explode Into Colors. This group doesn't even have a proper album out yet, just a cassette and some singles, but it's already making very lively, percussion-heavy rock. When I heard that they were an all-girl trio from the Pacific Northwest, I immediately thought of Sleater-Kinney. Explode Into Color's music is more out there, more experimental than S-K, though there's a similar sense of energy.

The Explode ladies put on a really good show Friday (Feb. 5) at Subterranean. Although the songs sound like they're anchored by bass lines, that's actually lead singer Claudia Meza's baritone guitar. And no wonder the recordings sound like they have a lot of drums — Lisa Schonberg drums while Heather Treadway is a triple threat on drums, keyboards and vocals. The three of them were lined up across the front of the Subt stage. When a band doesn't hide the drum kit in back, that's always a sign that you're going to hear some music with interesting percussion, and that turned out to be the case Friday night. Explode Into Colors does not apparently have a lot of songs yet, and the trio played a fairly short set during this show, which was their first appearance in Chicago. Hope they're back soon.
www.myspace.com/explodeintocolors

Alas, the bracing set by Explode Into Colors was a sharp contrast with the cheesy opening sets by two Chicago groups. I hate to tear down any aspiring local musical act with harsh criticism, and I'll note that both of the opening bands did draw a decent number of fans. But it's a shame Subterranean didn't find more appropriate openers to go with Explode Into Colors.

Photos of Explode Into Colors.

Chicago Underground Duo

Technically speaking, the Chicago Underground Duo isn't exactly based in Chicago anymore. These two jazz musicians, Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor, spend most of their time now living elsewhere. But they've kept Chicago in their band name, and they still record for that fine Chicago label, Thrill Jockey. And they were back on their old home turf Wednesday night (Feb. 3) for a free show at the Chicago Cultural Center.

It was a superb set, filled with really nice moments from both players. Mazurek was a master at getting different tones out of his cornet, using various mutes and aiming his horn at various angles to the microphone. When Mazurek got quiet, it was like his cornet was whispering or crying out at a great distance away. Meanwhile, Taylor's drumming was far more than mere time keeping. He squeezed expressive sounds out of those drums, playing quirky patterns and making the rhythms seem almost melodic. He also played the vibraphone (sometimes simultaneously with the drums), including some hypnotically repeating series of notes that laid the groundwork for Mazurek's solos.

The fact that these guys call themselves "underground" might lead you to think they're experimental or, well, "difficult." And yes, there is an experimental spirit to their collaborations, including the excellent new record Boca Negra. But what was striking about Wednesday's performance was just how accessible this music is to anyone listening with open ears. You'll get another chance to see the Chicago Underground Duo soon, when they play a CD-release party Feb. 20 at the Hideout.

Photos of the Chicago Underground Duo.

Nouvelle Vague at Lincoln Hall

The idea behind the band Nouvelle Vague is to play songs from the new wave and early punk era like bossa nova or Brazilian lounge music, with sexy French ladies handling the vocals. Nouvelle Vague (the brainchild of French producers Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux) has recorded some lovely, quirky covers on its three albums, although the whole concept is pretty gimmicky. The shtick wears thin after a while, but it's enjoyable for a song or two or three.

The touring version of Nouvelle Vague came to Chicago Friday night for a show at Lincoln Hall. And how can you go wrong when you've got a couple of sexy French ladies singing cool old songs that we all like? (Well, a lot of like those songs, anyway.) It was fun hearing songs like XTC's "Making Plans for Nigel," the Clash's "Guns of Brixton" and Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen in Love?" done up in this style.

The group records in the studio with a revolving cast of singers, but it had just two on tour. I don't believe they ever got introduced during the show, which seems like a weird oversight. Or maybe they were supposed to be sort of anonymous? I'm told these two were Helena Noguerra and Karina Zeviani. Whoever they were, they did a fine job singing these songs, shaking their hair and striking poses, while the band played light versions of these tunes that used to rock hard. It was quite entertaining for a while, although it was still, in the end, a bit of a gimmick.

Nouvelle Vague was nicely paired with an opening act that sings some songs in French, Clare and the Reasons. As in previous Chicago gigs, this delightful trio delivered cool, jazzy pop music with some funny stage banter and a lot of personality in between the songs. It was too bad to hear that their vehicle was broken into during this visit to Chicago. Hope they don't get scared off from visiting again soon.

Photos of Nouvelle Vauge and Clare and the Reasons.

UPDATE/CORRECTION: I'm informed that one of the two singers I referred to above as French ladies (Karina Zeviani) is actually Brazilian.

Tape and Mountains

Thursday (Jan. 28) was a night of instrumental and mostly mellow music at the Empty Bottle. All three acts on the bill played slow-moving, ambient music, the sort of stuff that makes you meditate more than it makes you dance. It was a fairly cool evening of chilling out (with frigid temperatures outside).

The headliners were Sweden's Tape — four musicians playing a laptop, guitar, drums and keyboards, with a bit of harmonica thrown in. Despite the electronic elements, the music sounded almost organic, with some bits that were almost like folk music mashed together with washes of electronic texture.

The show also featured the Brooklyn ambient duo Mountains. Playing without any pause during their set, Mountains played acoustic instruments like guitars, harmoniums and melodicas, processing them through a mound of electronic equipment until they were virtually unrecognizable, making waves of echoing, reverb-heavy chords.

Appropriately enough, the first act of the night was the Chicago duo David Daniell and Douglas McCombs, whom I've seen numerous times and written about here previously. This time, they played without any percussion, but they still created beautiful, glacial sounds with their two guitars.

Photos of Tape, Mountains and David Daniell & Douglas McCombs.

Best films of 2009

A SERIOUS MAN (Joel Coen) — In this brilliant black comedy, the Coen Brothers pose philosophical questions as they drag their poor protagonist through one humiliation after another, ending it all with a beautifully enigmatic shot.

THE WHITE RIBBON (Michael Haneke) — A haunting portrait of a small town in Germany on the eve of World War I, where mysterious cruel acts go unexplained and unpunished.

LORNA'S SILENCE (Luc and Jean-Paul Dardenne) — Yet another compelling movie from the Dardenne brothers about people living on the margins of society in Belgium, filmed and acted so realistically it looks like a documentary. A horrifying story that builds to an oddly rapturous climax.

IN THE LOOP (Armando Ianucci) — The year's funniest movie, this sharp political satire from Britain features hilarious streams of bile flowing from the mouth of Peter Capaldi.

THE HURT LOCKER (Kathryn Bigelow) — Tense, realistic and sharply focused, this is what action movies should be.

POLICE, ADJECTIVE (Corneliu Porumboiu) — This Romanian film is a sort of deconstruction of cop movies: A stakeout where not much of anything happens. The climax, if you can call it that, is a cop looking up words in a dictionary. Slow-paced but absorbing, it's a thoughtful exploration of exactly what we mean by law and order.

REVANCHE (Götz Spielmann) — This Austrian film has some of the elements of a crime caper or thriller, but it's also a moral and philosophical drama, with superb acting and filmmaking.

SÉRAPHINE (Martin Provost) — Yolande Moreau gives one of the year's best performances in this lovely film, starring as the French naïve painter Séraphine de Senlis.

ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL (Sacha Gervasi) — A great documentary about what it's like to be in a rock band year after year without making it big. Funny and surprisingly heartwarming.

ADVENTURELAND (Greg Mottola) — A cool coming-of-age story that captures all the frustrations and awkwardness of being a young person groping toward romance and adulthood. (Awesome soundtrack, too.)

11. The Baader-Meinhof Complex (Uli Edel)
12. Bright Star (Jane Campion)
13. The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh)
14. Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze)
15. Tulpan (Sergey Dvortsevoy)
16. Broken Embraces (Pedro Almodovar)
17. Eastern Plays (Kamen Kalev)
18. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Terry Gilliam)
19. The Beaches of Agnes (Agnes Varda)
20. Goodbye Solo (Ramin Bahrani)
21. The Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson)
22. Julia (Erick Zoncka)
23. 35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis)
24. Sita Sings the Blues (Nina Paley)
25. Tokyo Sonata (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Nymph (Pen-ek Rantanarung)
Face (Tsai Ming-Liang)
Avatar (James Cameron)
Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno (Ruxandra Medrea Annonier and Serge Bromberg)
The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel)
Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone)
An Education (Lone Scherfig)
Apres Lui (Gäel Morel)
Cropsey (Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (David Yates)
In Search of Beethoven (Phil Grabsky)
O'Horten (Bent Hamer)
Patti Smith: Dream of Life (Steven Sebring)
The Eclipse (Conor McPherson)
The Girl on the Train (Andre Techine)
Up (Pete Docter)

Happy Birthday, Pravda

Chicago's Pravda Records has been in business for 25 years now, which is reason enough to celebrate. Not many independent labels stay in business that long. Pravda's musicians and fans partied Friday night at the Abbey Pub to mark the occasion.

Three of the label's early groups got back together for this special show: Boom Hank, the Slugs and the Service. Boom Hank started off the night with some country-tinged rock. And The Service — the band that really started the whole Pravda label — finished off the night with tuneful alternative rock and power pop songs, including a cameo appearance by soul singer Andre Williams.

Playing on the middle of the bill, the Slugs were the highlight of the show for me. I saw the Slugs a number of times back when the band was still together, and those shows were always a fun time. The fun feeling was back on Friday night, with some highly catchy rock songs, funny stage banter from lead singer Dag Juhlin and, of course, a lively rendition of "Hooked On a Feeling," complete with those silly "ooga-chuckas."

Photos of Boom Hank, the Slugs and the Service.

Hideout helps out Haiti

You can always count on the Hideout to get behind a good cause. Within days after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, the Hideout put together a benefit show to raise money. Two of Chicago's stalwart bands, Eleventh Dream Day and the Waco Brothers, played rousing sets Monday at the club, raising almost $8,000 for Partners in Health. Sally Timms of the Mekons was one of the key organizers of the event, which also featured a bake sale and a bake sale organized by My Vegetable Blog and a poster sale by Kathleen Judge of Judgeworks. If you didn't make it to the sold-out show, you can still help out by buying one of the posters shown here. (Poster sale proceeds will go to Doctors Without Borders and Partners and Health.)

Eleventh Dream Day played first, delivering the sort of hard-charging rock we've come to expect — including three songs that have not yet been released, "Satellite," "More Than Luck" and a tune with the phrase "Fades Away" in the chorus. All sounded like they'll be great additions to the EDD catalogue — whenever the band gets around to recording them. It was also cool to hear EDD playing music from its classic album Beet.

The Waco Brothers did their thing, and they did it very well. They're easy to take for granted, since they play so often and since they make it all look so easy, but they're about as much fun to watch as any group in Chicago. Hideout owner Tim Tuten was absent (working at his day job in Washington, D.C.), but Jon Langford read a few text messages from Tim aloud to simulate a classic Tuten introduction. And then the Wacos kicked their way through several of their best-known tunes and favorite covers, including Neil Young's "Revolution Blues," the Bobby Fuller Four's "I Fought the Law," T. Rex's "20th Century Boy" and the Undertones' "Teenage Kicks." Bassist Alan Doughty accidentally knocked out the venue's trademark Christmas lights, which adorn the ceiling, when the lights got tangled up in his bass. Near the end of the show, Langford asked the crowd, "How late do you want us to play? We've got to wake up early and overthrow the government."

Review: 'Killer Joe' at Profiles

You can't say you weren't warned. As you walk into Profiles Theatre, it's hard to miss all the signs announcing that the play Killer Joe includes graphic violence, nudity, gunfire and sexual situations. The theater even suggests that sensitive audience members shouldn't sit in the front row. And if you've ever heard anything about Tracy Letts' play, you probably have some idea that this is going to be a dark and violent drama.

Despite all those warnings, this production of Killer Joe still manages to shock. It's a bracing, jolting work of theater, with some moments that may leave you feeling sick. It's not for the faint of heart. If you can take it, it's an exciting show that roots around in the depths of human depravity, with a lot of black humor to keep it all from feeling too oppressive.

For those of us who missed Killer Joe when it premiered in Chicago in 1993, this is a great opportunity to catch up on the early writing of Letts, who has since gone on to win the Pulitzer for his family epic August: Osage County (which is coming back as a Broadway in Chicago touring show in early February). Killer Joe seems like the work of a different playwright, with some of the twisted humor and violence of a Coen Brothers low-life crime caper, although there are some parallels between the dysfunctional families in Killer Joe and August.

The small stage at Profiles has the authentic look of a ramshackle home somewhere in Texas, and there's even a dog barking outside the door during much of the play. Steppenwolf ensemble member Rick Snyder directs this production of Killer Joe at Profiles, with a strong cast (Darrell W. Cox, Claire Wellin, Somer Benson, Kevin Bigley and Howie Johnson). Although the actors' Texas accents were a little unsteady, they made these characters feel vivid. Perhaps a little too vivid for some audience members. I suggest following that advice about not sitting in the front row.

Killer Joe continues through Feb. 28 at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway, Chicago. www.profilestheatre.org (And also don't forget to check out Tracy Letts' work as an actor. He's great in American Buffalo, which continues through Feb. 14 at Steppenwolf.)