Last year Gossip Wolf fell in love with local quartet, Loose Dudes at first sight. Their jacked-up T-shirts, bonkers live show, and hairball skate-punk songs about emotional poverty, malt liquor, and dirt weed made them local heroes of a sort. This Wolf was smitten when singer Nicholas Rouley confided that he enjoys getting fired up on ‘shrooms before hitting the stage. But now that love is dying young! Turns out the Dudes are loosing themselves from this mortal coil of band-dom—guitarist Maggie Iwanicki is prepping for medical school. The group has scheduled a couple final gigs and will say good-bye Mon 6/27 with a free show at the Empty Bottle. But hold back those fungus-flavored tears! Bassist (and new Reader listings guy) Luca Cimarusti tells Gossip Wolf he’s working on a new project with Dudes drummer Ryan Duggan and has also joined loud-as-fuck garage-rock combo Heavy Times. The latter band spent the past weekend recording their debut LP for HoZac at Johalla Projects with Ben Scott of Brain Idea.
Local Polish wondergirl Aleksandra Tomaszewska used to front oddball indie act Aleks & the Drummer, then a different band called Aleks Eva with Dylan Ryan of Herculaneum. Now she’s folding all her music-making together under the name Magic Key; she’s recording the project’s debut album with the help of engineer and In Tall Buildings front dude Erik Hall at his Pilsen studio. Tomaszewska tells Gossip Wolf she expects to wrap up by August, though she has no release date or label lined up.
Producer, DJ, and Humboldt Park native Bill Salas, aka Brenmar, will drop a 24-track mix for the Fader this week. The petite vegan Brooklynite tells Gossip Wolf he’s kept busy with his own tracks since quitting his drum gig with These Are Powers in the fall. In July he’ll release an EP called Gold Bricks on Sinden’s dance label, Grizzly.
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