Local multimedia artist Jon Satrom makes music, but his weird website (jonsatrom.com) has a plethora of wonky shark graphics but no sound samples. Damn! On Saturday, though, you can hear it in person: experimental-music presenter Lampo is teaming up with another arts-loving group, the Graham Foundation, to host a Satrom show at the foundation’s Madlener House (4 W. Burton Place), where he’ll perform a 3-D piece called Prepared Desktop. Describing the set in an e-mail, dude claims he’ll use his “operating system as an audio/video instrument” and “build tracks by drawing RGB data.” Attendees can expect to see and hear “errors, alert sounds, fragmented/synthesized speech, noise, and raw data.” That gobbledygook has this Wolf’s curiosity piqued! The 8 PM concert is free, but you need to RSVP at bit.ly/prep-desk.
Next month the garage-rock party bros in Mannequin Men will record their fourth long player, due this summer. The band, whose lineup includes Reader writer Miles Raymer on bass and “vocals,” are booked at the Key Club in Benton Harbor, Michigan. The group’s previous label, Flameshovel, folded in 2009, but Addenda has stepped in to release the new album—adding Mannequin Men to a roster that also includes the Eternals, Chris Connelly, and Hollows. Judging from the band’s SoundCloud demos (bit.ly/m-men), they’re mellowing and cow-punking with age.
Hot on the heels of their self-titled demo cassette, Population—a new favorite of Chicago’s discriminating adult goths—are going old-school with a vinyl seven-inch. The band just finished recording at Electrical Audio with Kris Poulin, who also produced their tape. The three-song EP will be the third release for nascent local label BLVD, which plans to issue it in May.
Gossip Wolf is sad to report that Chicago photographer Michael L. Abramson passed away Monday at 62. Abramson is perhaps best known to local music fans for his shots of south-side nightlife in the late 70s, which can be found in the 2009 Numero Group book Light: On the South Side.
Wild Flag, aka the Traveling Wilburys of the Riot Grrrl Renaissance, are rumored to be making their Chicago debut at this summer’s Pitchfork Music Festival. Other bands in the Pitchfork rumor mill: Dirty Beaches, Gang Gang Dance, and Shabazz Palaces. Also, while eating bruschetta from the dumpster behind Zanies, this Wolf heard that Gallagher is expected to anchor the Friday-night comedy lineup. That is, unless God drops the hammer first—the watermelon-smashing comedian is recovering from a heart attack. In other, less made-up festival rumors: Gossip Wolf hears Girl Talk will headline Lollapalooza. Given the size of Mr. Gillis’s stage show these days, this Wolf wonders if he’ll rent a blimp for a massive balloon drop!
Ben Weasel, known to his mother as Ben Foster and to dozens of fans as front man of Chicago pop-punk act Screeching Weasel, has apparently added a new gig to his resumé—one that calls for boxing gloves! According to folks at the band’s South by Southwest show last Friday, an hour into the set Foster punched a female showgoer who’d thrown ice at him, then tried to hit another woman attempting to intervene—and it’s all on YouTube. “After Ben was dragged off the stage by security, the fans I spoke to largely just seemed disappointed,” says LA Times reporter Todd Martens. “Since the band rarely tours, this was for some their first Screeching Weasel show.” The band’s Saturday gig in San Antonio was canceled; Foster apologized on his website Sunday. No word yet if May’s Weasel Fest—three days of shows for Screeching Weasel’s 25th anniversary at Reggie’s Rock Club—will also feature girl punching.
Are you ready for some football? How about a new local all-star band called Football? The group consists of Jim McCann of the Baseball Furies and Srini Radhakrishna of France Has the Bomb on guitars, Jered Gummere of the Ponys on drums, and Mike Lust of Tight Phantomz—who just finished work on a new Urge Overkill album at his Phantom Manor studio—on bass. They played their first four shows at SXSW and will make their local debut at Quenchers on April 23—a double birthday party for Lust and McCann. Maybe Nash Kato will show up!