Taming the Savage Beast

As if the gods conspired to make my March better, Trey Spruance’s Secret Chiefs 3 roll into town on the 10th, along with oddball outfit Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. This is a show not to be missed, not like all the others I skipped (Melvins with Trevor Dunn, Melvins with Big Business, Tom Waits around the corner from where I went to school). And as if that wasn’t enough, OOIOO, Yoshimi’s all girl prog-rock ensemble, hits the Empty Bottle on the 21st. The 22nd will see Isis come to town, and while I’m not a big fan of them I do like Jesu, the opening act, mostly because it is the extension of the now defunct Godflesh. Got all that, kids? You’ll be quizzed on your way out the door.

All this happens, more or less, after my quarter is complete and so school will not be an issue, as it so often was in the past. Once upon a time I went to DePaul and I hated the quarter system. Now I love it. My classes began earlier than everyone else’s and I got a slim break between being an undergrad and a grad student, (so slim that I barely feel the difference. Of course the truth must be that there really is none, or that I am so goddamn brilliant that I have always thought on a level above the average student. Well, at 35, I ought to have figured out what career academics want to hear, goddamnit). This is true, but I’ll be free from academic concerns for a few weeks just as three of my favorite musicians come to the ol’ chicken-in-the-car-and-the-car-won’t-go. 2007 is looking to be a better year than any I have had lately.

Damn, I just cursed it…