HOLY FUCK

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a proper name for this entry, no doubt.

i was awakened out of a groggy sleep around noon today with a phonecall from my girlfriend who is out in las vegas for the weekend. she said, "you are never going to believe my night last night." i responded with, "neither are you."

i would be lying if i said that when i moved up to chicago, i wasn't hoping to stumble into some people that would show me the city. like REALLY show me the city. not all of the touristy, Gino's East-type crap...i've done all of that over the years. i wanted the random stuff, the underground stuff. the stuff that makes people move here and never look back.

i somehow managed to picture myself living through last night....before i ever even moved out of st. louis.

since i arrived, i've been lucky to run into some cool people and have some interesting occurrences in a short amount of time. last night was no exception and may have created some new rules for which to live by.

i began my day hungover from 10+ beers the night before at a few random hole in the walls with an old college friend. by the time i showered and got to work at 3:30pm, i was feeling better but still fighting off a headache. my co-worker, recently relocated from louisville, convinced me to head out after we got off around 9pm.

we walked down the street, in the pouring rain, to split a slice of chicago pizza. then we headed to subterranean for some raggae/dub/dancehall. subterranean is my new/first favorite hangout spot in chicago. it doubles as a live music venue up and bar/club down below. after grabbing a complimentary red stripe, i asked the guy at the door who was playing upstairs, and he mentioned Poison Arrows and Holy Fuck.

ummmm...Holy Fuck.

I forgot Holy Fuck was tonight. HOLY FUCK.

My co-worker had never heard of them before, and rather than drag her up there blind (and drag her back out half-deaf), i explained that they were 'noisy' and 'experimental' to say the least and probably not for every ear. i remembered that my iPod was in my purse, so i let her have a quick listen to their album, and she was sold.

so we went upstairs, grabbed a couple PBR tallboys and found a perfect spot by the wall in the front row (right next to the camera man).

what happened after that is unable to be relayed properly in words. unless i could somehow attach my eardrums/retinas to this blog. i have never quite seen so much energy in one room, both on stage and in the crowd. i couldn't take my eyes off the stage for a second, except for the occasional glance around to make sure everyone else was catching all of this. and boy, were they. the crowd was an unlikely mix of mass chaos and utter syncronization, as there wasn't a single person in the room that wasn't moving/bobbing/jumping to the music.

while i enjoyed their first self-titled LP enough, this was an act needed to be witnessed firsthand. walking out of that show, i have a complete new appreciation for butter knives, casio keyboards and creating electronic music using anything and everything but computers. including that little antique film/tape thing...whatever that thing was.

after the show, we caught last call downstairs at The Cold Sweat, and i got a text from this guy i met the week before about an afterhours set at a loft building. complete with 'password' entry, no less. we were up for anything since we were both foreign to the idea of a 2am closing time.

we followed them downtown and walked through some random alley, still in the pouring rain, until we were greeted by a large gentleman outside a door marked "Z." my new friend shook his hand, threw out the password and we wandered upstairs toward the thumping music.

the next hour and a half felt like something out of a movie. everyone in the building looked as if they just stepped out of the pages of NYLON Magazine and the night was littered with breakdancers, dj's, impromptu hip-hop performances and $2 PBR's.

after chatting with the owner of the space, i learned they do this kinda deal rather frequently. the whole building is mostly used for commercial purposes, so the noise isn't a problem. and on days when they aren't throwing parties, they use the space for recording/practicing/etc.

i left the building around 3:45am with a strange smile on my face. this was the kind of shit i moved up here for.

ya...this was home now, and, holy fuck, i couldn't be happier.