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[sinceileftyoublog]

Protomartyr & Stuck Live Show Review: 7/13, Thalia Hall, Chicago

BY JORDAN MAINZER

“Tap calls the time,” Joe Casey sang last Thursday at Thalia Hall as Protomartyr performed “Elimination Dances”, a standout track from their new album Formal Growth in the Desert (Domino). Like many of the band’s best songs, its inspirations are obscure, this particular instance taken from a game in a 50′s dance manual: Once you’re tapped out, you stop. Given the Detroit punk band’s generally bleak nature, it’s not hard to find the referenced game a fitting metaphor our everyday life, trying to survive in a capitalist hell world. But consider that Formal Growth was written in the context of the death of Casey’s mother, recorded in an actual desert at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, TX with producer Jake Aron. Casey didn’t aim to create something or find meaning out of emptiness, per se, but answer the question, “Once tap calls the time, how do the rest of us move on?” Luckily for him, and for us, there’s music.

I’ve seen Protomartyr a bunch of times. I never would have thought to describe one of their shows as life-affirming, but Thursday’s was, from the younger segment of the crowd’s persistent moshing to the unexpectedly anthemic quality of the band’s performance. The live version of Formal Desert opener "Make Way” traded the studio version’s openness for a much mightier, choppier stomp. The crowd reframed the anxiety-riddled namesake refrain of Relatives in Descent chugger “The Chuckler”--“I guess I’ll keep on chucklin’ till there’s no more breath in my lungs”--as an absurdist call to arms. The normally stoic Casey performed the entirety of The Agent Intellect’s “Why Does It Shake?” on the barrier between the stage and the crowd, about as close to spirited as he’ll ever be. Even the band’s chosen setlist seemed authored specifically to amp up the crowd. I mean, they could have played “Let’s Tip The Creator”, which chides the way tech billionaires treat art as a commodity, just as much of a charged bummer as the rest, but its subdued timbres are harder to dance to. Protomartyr’s instead taking the Gang of Four route, favoring, say, the skittering drums of “Fun in Hi Skool”. 

As this was the last show of the tour, Casey joked, “We’ll either be so tight, it will be the best show of our lives, or so tired it’ll be the shittiest.” Guitarist Greg Ahee, bassist Scott Davidson, and drummer Alex Leonard at least made sure it wasn’t the latter, of course. But it was the addition of The Breeders’ Kelley Deal as a full-time touring member of the band that elevated older songs even more than it provided faithful renditions of those whose studio versions she was on. Her voice subbed for the “I have arrived” echo on Under Color of Official Right’s “Maidenhead”, and her backing harmonies beautifully contrasted the ugliness of “Pontiac 87″. And her guitar tones on "Polacrilex Kid” seemed lifted straight from the Hawaiian twang of Last Splash’s “No Aloha”, an inspired replacement for the studio version’s pedal steel. Casey clearly remains eternally thankful. He once said in an interview with NPR, “Basically, the band comes up with amazing music and it's my job to not screw it up too much.” It’s all I could think about as I watched him sip from a Budweiser can, nodding like he was impressed while watching Leonard hammer away during the extended intro of “Jumbo’s”. If he sings on “The Author”, “Time's your enemy / Every gift you see will be taken for sure,” live, he demonstrates the unspoken flipside: Enjoy the gifts while you can.

Local post-punk band Stuck, who I saw open for Metz last winter, was the perfect primer for Protomartyr. They, too, sing about the effects of the decline of America, albeit with a nervy, wiry yelp that recalls bands like Devo and Squid. Lead singer Greg Obis was quick to point out how honored the band was to open for Protomartyr, one of his favorites. It’s easy to see the influence on their new album Freak Frequency (born yesterday). A track like “Fools Idol”, its descriptions of “violence unending” and “the boss descending,” is very Casey-esque in its brand proclamations. And like Protomartyr now, Stuck is that much more loud and urgent live, foregoing, for instance, the studio acoustic instrumentation of “Scared” for all electric jitters. However, unlike those of the perennially offline Casey, Stuck’s songs are riddled with technology-induced worries. At Thalia Hall, drummer Tim Green’s disorienting use of sample pads was an effective mirror for Obis’ admission he’s “distracted all over again” on “Loose Your Cool”. Green’s motorik drums and Obis’ and Ezra Saulnier’s sharp guitarwork reflected the pain of similar cycles of smartphone despair on “Time Out”. The almost hilariously plodding pace of “Planet Money” made a circus out of the song’s targets, the pundits who comment on the health of the economy as if it truly affects the everyday life of our most vulnerable. And then there was set closer “The Punisher”, the only song that saw Obis sing harmonically, sans paranoid screams. On the track, he deftly summarizes the absurdity of the January 6th insurrection, facetiously winking and nodding, “The future never looked so bright.” Even if the world that Protomartyr and Stuck envelop does everything in its power to suggest otherwise, upon leaving Thalia Hall on Thursday, you could, perhaps, agree.

[korainbaek]

korain “kori” baek, the twenty-nine year old who plays felix on groovy 70’s. yeah, you know rumour has it they're phlegmatic and private, but their fans all say they’re warm and zealous. the soundtrack to their life would probably be threatened by michael jackson, and when i think of them, i think of a tiger tattoo, platinum silver hair with a hint of purple, and late-night drives on an empty freeway. ( cis man, he/him ) ( frankie, she/her, 26, cst )

saludos everyone! i’m frankie & this is my love, KORAIN, aka kori. first and foremost, kori is an entirely new muse of mine, but i’m still trying to figure him out. anyways, i’m 100% back this time. sorry i had you all refollow me. work’s been wearing me out so bad but i’m still alive, still standing. now: i shall share with y’all some tidbits of my man.

born & raised in south korea for the first 4 ½ years of his life.

an older brother to a younger brother and a sister. the eldest of three.

fluent in korean, english, spanish, japanese & swedish (random as f*** because of duolingo) ; learning italian at the moment — a polyglot.

a home video actor for as long as he could remember, kori always wanted to act & made the risky decision of pursuing a career in playing pretend.

his hidden talent is rapping. as a matter of fact, r/m’s talent should NEVER go to waste so it’s what kori does behind the scenes.

currently has platinum blonde hair with purple roots.

he CAN drive - lmk if you get the inside joke, if not then please ignore it. - owns a mini cooper (which he uses to drive around his daughter) & a subaru brz. he does have a motorcycle tucked away in a storage unit, though.

has a 10 year old daughter named mars, whom he’d drop everything for.

... AND THAT’S IT. i know right. very disappointing. but come plot with me, maybe?

[serafinmosqueda]

NAME: SERAFIN JOSEPH MOSQUEDA

NICKNAMES: SJ, Raf

AGE: 34

PRONOUNS: He/Him

OCCUPATION: Carpenter/Shotcaller for the Street Level of Valencia

HEIGHT: 6′

BIRTHDAY: June 13th, 1986

ZODIAC SIGN: Gemini

ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Neutral

MBTI: ENTJ

Preface: This is the shittiest intro I’ve ever written, I did it at 5am and one eye swollen closed but i want him in the game sO.

Drop a like if you wanna plot with Serafin and I’ll come yell at you.

TW: DEATH, DRUGS, ABANDONMENT

His mom is pretty deeply ingrained in Valencia so being apart of it was kind of just a natural step.  

His dad was also apart of Valencia (his mom only became a part of it after his fathers death) but he died during a gun run out of state that went sour when SJ was 14.  

His mom is a VERY stereotypical over involved hispanic mom, and dad is similarly stereotypical in that he worked hard but SJ doesn't really have any memories of him.  

SJ works extremely hard and made his way up the Valencia ladder into the position he's in now (shotcaller of the street level sector) when he was 27. 

Until he was about 28 he was ONLY all about one night stands, particularly with girls who loved his status toward the end there.  

SJ fell into a relationship with a really fucking wild girl at that point, and she really put him through the ringer with her addiction to cocaine/speed.

She partied constantly and gaslit the FUCK out of him all the damn time (starting arguments over shit that didn't actually happen, like a tone in his voice or wtf ever). 

 She found out she was pregnant in less than a year and stopped doing drugs for the duration of the pregnancy but started up again pretty much immediately after.  

She left them when the baby was 3 months old and he's been raising his daughter (Haven) by himself (with mom's help) ever since.

About 3.5 years ago Valencia ended up in a tight spot with the police because a new member didn't properly clean a crime scene before the cops got to it and some evidence was collected that could have directly led to Valencia. 

SJ used his street connections (and blackmail LOL) to basically force a cop into removing that evidence from custody and giving it to him.  

They caught that cop on tape, fired him, and in his last statement as a cop that cop told his superiors who he took the evidence for. 

They got a warrant for SJ's home/car and found the evidence in his car. 

 SJ went to prison for 2.5 years and Haven was left to live with her grandma for that period of time. 

Since his ex left he's been hyper focused on his position with Valencia so he hasn't really dated much.  

oh im sure this sounds totally random but his side job is as a carpenter??? he makes custom furniture