Tag: Negative Scanner

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Negative Scanner and Sweet Cobra at Bric-a-Brac

Negative Scanner — one of my favorite rock bands in Chicago these days — played a great free show on Saturday, June 10, at Bric-a-Brac Records. It was part of the fourth anniversary party at Bric-a-Bric & Collectibles, a shop where live garage rock is a regular occurrence. Singer-guitarist Rebecca Valeriano-Flores sounded ferocious at times, leading Negative Scanner through several songs from its self-titled 2015 album, along with a couple of tunes I didn’t recognize. (Signs of a new record coming sometime soon?)

After Negative Scanner, I stuck around for another Chicago band, the hard-rocking trio Sweet Cobra, which made a thunderous noise.

Negative Scanner

Sweet Cobra

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Disappears, Negative Scanner and Hide at the Empty Bottle

The Chicago band Negative Scanner made one of my favorite records last year — just narrowly missing out on my top 10. Released by the top-notch local label Trouble in Mind, Negative Scanner’s self-titled album is filled with short bursts of searing punk and garage, with singer-guitarist Rebecca Valeriano-Flores spitting out the words with alarming force. This group has played a lot of shows in Chicago, but somehow I had never seen it live until Friday, Feb. 12, when Negative Scanner opened for Disappears at the Empty Bottle. The band did not disappoint, ripping through a fast set of songs from the album and cementing its place as one of my favorite bands in Chicago right now.

Disappears is another outstanding local band — and it played a really strong set to finish the night, with those guitar riffs sounding especially propulsive. The first group of the night was Hide (or maybe that should be all-caps HIDE) — who played aggressive electronic music amid strobe lights. Not exactly my sort of music, but a cool spectacle. (See the first picture below for a demonstration of what happens when you take a quick sequence of photos while strobe lights are flashing.)

Hide

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Negative Scanner

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Disappears

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