“I looked at my face this morning / I just couldn’t comb my hair / Ate two candy bars for breakfast . . .” That’s depression, Redd Kross style. The band is a walking case of arrested development if ever there was one: the McDonald brothers (Jeffrey and Steven) and pal Robert Hecker sport Twiggy haircuts, hip huggers, and a distracting concern for the real important things in life–candy bars, for instance. The band came out of the LA hard-core scene in the early 80s; over the years they’ve ratcheted their sound over toward nostalgicky but still potent paeans to 70s kitsch and childhood memories. Now, a lot of this is camp, and jeez, it does seem sometimes that the 70s will never die. But this is high-energy, bratty fun: when the band breaks into the bubble-gummy “Bubblegum Factory” or the Grand-Funk-meets-the-Raspberries groove of “1976,” you give them some slack. Redd Kross’s recent stops in town have been as an opening act, most notably for Sonic Youth; the show Saturday is their first headlining gig in Chicago in several years. Saturday, 7 PM, Cabaret Metro, 3730 N. Clark; 549-0203.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Vicki Berndt.