Over the past year, Logan Square late-night bar the Owl has been booking some awesome, high-profile experimental “secret shows” and announcing them via some rather unconventional means. First there was June’s Silver Apples show—word was spread by a handful of plastic apples that were painted metallic silver and passed around from person to person. After that, there was an appearance from Michigan industrial-noise project Wolf Eyes. Invites to that came in the form of an engraved wolf’s tooth nestled in an envelope of black glitter. Last week the Owl uploaded a gig poster to its Facebook page that announced a show tonight as a word puzzle which showed a fortune teller and someone laying sick in bed. I’ll admit, I had no idea what the answer was until the solution was posted last night: turns out New York psychedelic-rock band Psychic Ills would be playing at the Owl tonight.
Psychic Ills formed in 2003, with their first full-length, Dins, coming out in 2006 on Brooklyn-based label the Social Registry. They specialize in dreamy, slow-motion, bluesy psych rock. Their songs have a hazy, desert vibe, not far off from psychy contemporaries Wooden Shjips or Dead Meadow. Their new record, One Track Mind (Sacred Bones), sees the band tightening it up a little. Less expansive and heady than their previous material, its emphasis is less on the psychedelic and more on the rock.
As always with shows at the Owl, tonight’s will be free and starts at 10 PM. The set will be recorded and eventually transformed into a cassette tape that you’ll be able to buy for five bucks in the bar’s tape-vending machine. Locals Energy Gown open.