Radar Eyes are another one of the great Chicago bands these days making garage rock on the HoZac record label. The group celebrated the release of its self-titled debut CD on Saturday (March 24) with a show at the Empty Bottle. Radar Eyes’ music has a strong flavor of ’60s rock and psychedelia, with some of the distortion and sneering tone that you’d expect from a garage band as well as chiming Byrds-like guitar riffs and catchy vocal melodies. (Their album oddly closes with a song that sounds more like Joy Division, though.) In concert, Radar Eyes cranked everything up a notch from the studio recordings. Singer guitarist Anthony Cozzi climbed up on the monitors by the end of the show.
myspace.com/radareyeschicago
hozacrecords.com/2011/05/radar-eyes/
soundcloud.com/radar-eyes-chicago

The headline act at the Bottle show was the Night Beats, a Seattle band playing psychedelic garage music not all that far off from what Radar Eyes does. Their specific influence seems to be ’60s Texas psychedelic rock by the likes of the 13th Floor Elevator. Night Beats (who record for another great Chicago label, Trouble in Mind) sounded raunchy and wild, bringing the night to a raucous close.
myspace.com/thenightbeatswilleatyou
troubleinmindrecs.com/bands/nightbeats.html

And not to neglect the first band of the night: Sore Subject. I showed up just as they were finishing their set with a couple of songs that sounded very Ramones-esque.
myspace.com/soresubjects

Andre Williams has not just one new album, but two — plus an EP. You wouldn’t necessarily have known that from his concert Friday night (March 23) at the Hideout, however. Backed by the Goldstars, the suave-looking and foul-mouthed Williams played a set similar to the shows he has performed over the past couple of years. Like those past shows, this one offered up a lot of good, raunchy fun. The band (including a fine horn section) cranked out solid, old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll riffs with exuberant energy and without many frills, while Williams intoned his profane stories about sex, vice, potato chips and jailbait in his trademark half-sung, half-spoken gravelly vocals.

Unless I missed something, I don’t think he played many or any songs from his fine new album on Bloodshot, Hoods and Shades, on which producer Don Was gives Williams’ songs an acoustic, bluesy, almost jazzy setting. Williams calls it his “folk album.” The musicians on these Detroit sessions include Matt Smith, Funk Brother Dennis Coffey, Jim White, Greasy Carlisi and Jim Diamond.

Williams also has a new EP called Nightclub out on another Chicago label, Pravda, which captures him playing with his regular touring band, the Goldstars. And although Williams didn’t even mention it during Friday’s show, he has yet another new album coming out May 15 from Yep Roc, Night and Day, featuring Williams backed by one of the world’s best bands, the Sadies, plus cameos by Jon Langford, Sally Timms and others. That one’s a belated release from some sessions Williams recorded in Detroit in 2008, but the lively tunes give no hint as to why they’ve been sitting on the shelf for so long.

That’s a lot of activity from this 75-year-old stalwart of Chicago’s music scene, and Friday night, he showed no signs of slowing down.

The opening act was Jon Langford’s Skull Orchard — yet another one of Langford’s many musical endeavors. Last year, Langford reissued the first Skull Orchard record and played some shows with a full-size Welsh men’s choir, including an appearance at the Hideout Block Party. Friday’s set was a smaller-scale affair, including songs from the first Skull Orchard record as well as 2010′s Old Devils, with solid accompaniment from guitarist Jim Elkington and Langford’s usual cohorts in the Waco Brothers, bassist Alan Doughty and drummer Joe Camarillo. The band even played a song from one of Langford’s other old bands, “Death of the European” by the Three Johns.

Until last week, I’d only seen and heard a few minutes of live performance by A Place to Bury Strangers, back in 2008 at SXSW. It was a brief encounter in an unlikely setting — the convention center’s day stage — but even that blast of shredding guitar music caused me to write: “Man, those guys were LOUD.” They were LOUD once again when they played March 26 at the Empty Bottle — but it’s a beautiful sort of loud, with waves of electric guitar pouring forth. And all of that majestic noise comes out of just three instruments — guitar, bass and drums. An impressive feat. A Place to Bury Strangers, which has a new EP called Onwards To The Wall, cranked its tunes through banks of pedals and amps amid fog, flashing strobes, and darkness pierced by beams of light: a perfect visual accompaniment.

The March 26 show also featured two strong opening acts: Chicago’s Apteka, who sound better and better each time I see them, and The Big Sleep started out the evening with even more shoegazy goodness.

The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep

Apteka

Apteka

Apteka

The Empty Bottle has been offering free admission to a lot of shows lately — as long as you RSVP by midnight the night before. It’s a great deal, and it seems to be opening the door for concerts by some fledgling bands. One such Chicago band is Super Minotaur, who headlined March 20 … unfortunately, to a pretty small crowd, in spite of the free admission. Super Minotaur was celebrating the release of its cassette, Dead Dino, and playing fast, ragged punk pop. The trio has a couple of cool songs, “Phantom Brat” and “Trip,” streaming on bandcamp. If Super Minotaur keeps building on the potential of those songs, it should be drawing bigger crowds in the future.