Friday night at the Empty Bottle in Chicago, the city is in for a treat featuring a line up of performers sure to leave a gouging impression that will take the entire long weekend to recover from. Opening the show, The Germans are the latest venture from the formidable Ross Fisher, who made himself known in his teens fronting the now legendary Brides in the mid-nineties. Even as a barely pubescent songster, he could craft a song even out of an old tube sock and a wad of barbed wire. After releasing three stellar singles with the Brides and landing on the coveted Rip Off Records roster, Fisher picked up his digs and left for San Francisco to eventually launch The Zodiac Killers with the Rip Off head himself Greg Lowery. Shortly after returning to Chicago, he started The Dirges along with A-Ron of the Baseball Furies and more recently Bold Ones, playing R&B spun through the venomous chords and the tough-hearted vocal stylings he is known for belting out. With The Germans, he continues on his path of blazing rock'n'roll, spitting out hyper barreling tunes that center around his flagship sound. They'll be quite an opening act to follow.
The two-piece West Lafayette, Indiana outfit The Mans made a pretty good dent in the collective head of slop rock'n'roll enthusiasts across this stupid nation this past year with their debut split single with Cococoma on Covert Pop records. Their primitive cave beat will get you back in a loin cloth in no time, as their basic, raw songs bring rock right back down to the Paleolithic level.
The Headliners, The Black and Whites won over the minions of power pop addicts everywhere playing the sort of lofty, self-assured, but sweet-hearted rock that made bands like the Real Kids acceptable to women everywhere and finally gave a good name to bad hair cuts. Their debut single that appeared late last year on Shattered Records had the sort of unfading and classic sound the will surely withstand the test of time. With summertime guitar hooks that hint at a coming of age tone, front man Talbot Adams shapes his songs into a sound that is simultaneously archetypical and fresh. And with a full-length LP/CD on the horizon on Douchemaster Records Records to add to their current single on the label (available here) you can bet they've only begun.
