-
Written by: Derek Walker
Pictureplane/Washed Out/Small Black
The Empty Bottle Chicago, IL – April 5, 2010
View Photo Gallery by Derek below

As music evolves, an influx of new, sometimes wacky genres is to be expected – my favorite of course being “booty bass” – but sometimes I don’t think people even understand a term before they label a band with it. Seriously, what is “chillwave”? Is it a more relaxed new wave, or am I supposed to take the word more literally? “Chill” meaning “cool” or “rad,” and “wave” meaning “wave”; surf’s up, bro. I don’t know whether the genre was borne out of some sort of pseudo-80s rebellion or one dude’s love of the Derrick Comedy videos. But dissecting genres is a frivolous effort, which explains why I’ve written a full paragraph about it. I never was the logical type.

Neon Indian, who many consider the leaders of the chillwave circuit, exploded last year with its hit, “Should Have Taken Acid With You,” a song which has opened the flood gates for bands of similar ilk (though “flood gates” is, for whatever reason, a decidedly negative term). In the wake of that goofily-titled yet surprisingly groovy beat came a number of bands with the same mentality, and three of them performed at Chicago’s Empty Bottle last night. It’s not that Pictureplane, Washed Out and Small Black are Neon Indian clones – all three have been doing their thing for as long, if not longer – but, realistically, how many people in attendance do you think knew of this show because they clicked through the “similar artists” tab on Last.fm? One or two, I’m assuming, with possibility for a third. The others were there to rave out while taking designer drugs and dance among themselves during intermission periods. These chillwave cats sure know how to party down.

It was a rainy night Monday, April showers overcoming the city, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d make a crack about how the show was almost, ahem, “washed out.”  But it sold out, and attendance was solid, so there goes my joke. And while I maintain an air of pretentiousness in this review – replete with thesaurus-plucked words and flowery vernacular – I must inform readers it is only because, some 12 hours later, I still have no damn idea what the hell happened during the show. There was music, there was booze, there were a few kids with cameras and there was music as provided by the Apple Corporation. There were also pretty strobe lights and people dancing all around me, except their dances were more the head-shaking, “whoa, my head is spinning, man!” kind, and less the air guitar, fall to your knees kind. Not that any reviewer on this Web site dances like that or anything. Perhaps I’ve said too much.

Denver’s Pictureplane, a.k.a. Travis Egedy, opened the show with some dance-heavy jams from his iPod, and while my attention was mostly affixed on the music, I couldn’t help but peak at his hipster mullet between tracks. His unique look (albeit far from unique at this dive bar) only maximized his output on stage. Because he was running the guy-behind-his-computer setup for his brief set, there wasn’t much to gawk at beyond his sweet dance moves and that hair-don’t. As far as openers go, however, Egedy more than did his part setting the stage for the next two acts, which served as co-headliners.

Washed Out played second –  “played” second – to a smattering of cheers and dilated pupils. Ernest Greene, the band’s sole creative entity, is another member of the Macbook generation whose get-up is one part crazy dancing, one part pushing buttons and one part singing over the sounds those buttons make when you push them. Toss that formula in any blender (may I suggest the ever-durable BlendTec?) and you have Washed Out, one of chillwave’s foremost ambassadors. The beats were sick, the dances were dope and the crowd was tight. Do people still use that word as an adjective? “Tight”? Yeah, we’ll go with that; I’m far too chilled to bother backspacing right now. Greene’s set, however condensed, was slightly more listenable and productive than that of Pictureplane, and it was the perfect lead-in to the only actual “band” on the bill, Small Black.

The irony of Brooklyn-based Small Black topping the bill is it is far and away the least popular band currently buzzing in the blogosphere. The irony of my use of the word “irony” is I still have yet to figure out how to use it properly in a sentence. Yes, Washed Out have about a million more Google search results, and around 150,000 more listeners on Last.fm (which I am mercilessly referencing in this article) – and more actual recorded material to work with – but that didn’t matter. I’m not here to debate how the bill is organized, remember; I am here to sound like a snooty music critic who hates this kind of music, but loves making fun of the people who enjoy it. Why, you ask? I… don’t know. Just being a dick, I guess.

Being an ignorant piece of shit is fun for us underpaid, underemployed music elitists, just as it is for the former members of Carissa’s Weird, I’m sure. (Bet you didn’t see THAT coming.) And that’s what reviewing music is about: having fun, giving the reader something to chew on. Why talk only about the music when people who are listening at home can do the exact same thing? Instead, I talk about the times, the culture, the scene and the experience of being there. And being at the corner of the stage with the sweat-drenched bassist for Small Black strumming away right next to me is part of that experience. The kids drunk off PBR and maybe a bottle of cough syrup are also part of that experience, as are the bands that brought them there. And seeing Small Black headline was an experience unlike any other. It was fun, it was happy, it was a thing of beauty and jubilation and, and, and…

What I’m trying to say is, I had a great time. I was, unfortunately, sober as a judge, so maybe I didn’t have as good a time as the people next to me, but that didn’t matter. It was all part of the experience. Watching Greene join the Small Black bros for 25-minute, evening-closing set, was part of the experience. Hearing cult smash “Despicable Dogs” while guys and gals wigged out and tossed their hands into the air was part of the experience. And, as a jackass music reviewer who is putting on a front to overtly reflect the theme of the show he attended, the experience is all that matters.