This is the new banner for Truthisms designed by Silas Reeves.

The blog officially relaunched this week as part of its move to the Tribune’s blog network, ChicagoNow, so you can find future posts and musings by going to:

http://www.chicagonow.com/truthisms

For inquiries, please feel free to send me an email at truthismschicagonow@gmail.com

You can also add me on Twitter @photoscriber, become a fan of Truthisms on Facebook, and add Truthisms on ChicagoNow as a friend.

May the truth find you all, you prospect punks.

Here’s my review of Saturday’s Lincoln Hall show in Chicago.

“You’re never gonna see us again,” cried Stephen Patman of Reading, England’s shoegazers Chapterhouse, after an hour-and-a-half set of emotional and aural highs. The band kicked off their last ever tour at Lincoln Hall to a nearly sold-out crowd at midnight Saturday, playing Chicago for the first time in 16 years.

It’s tough not to recall the 2008 My Bloody Valentine reunion at All Tomorrow’s Parties New York Festival (which I covered for Yahoo! Music), when the ‘gazer gods reunited for their first U.S. show in 16 years. The Jesus and Mary Chain also reunited in 2007, making Chapterhouse the most obscure end of the scene’s revival spectrum–a wave that has been prompted partly by the resurgence of nugaze bands and 2nd generation fans in the latter half of the 2000s.

German electronica musician and producer Ulrich Schnauss joined Chicago’s Airiel at the end of their set and segued into his own 45-minute whirlwind of Robin Guthrie-inspired drone meditations. Schnauss steadily pruned his synth knobs throughout the set and crackled into and out of acid-house grooves, with visual projections of cityscapes behind him and the crowd swaying throughout. Even while arriving at a thundercloud finish, he didn’t break a sweat.

You can read the full review, and see photo extras, on Gapers Block here.

It was May of 2007 the first time I saw Atlanta-based noise rockers Deerhunter. The band was opening for Chicago’s own The Ponys for their headlining slot at The Echo in Los Angeles. Cryptograms had been released that January, but I was really into The Ponys’ droning garage jams then and couldn’t wait to see them for the first time. Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox towered over the stage wearing a flora print mini-dress that night, singing with mic-in-mouth gripped by his teeth. He jolted around the stage along to Cryptograms‘ more angular tracks, putting everyone in a daze that thoroughly upstaged The Ponys’ following set.

Saturday’s free Deerhunter show was less about noise-making and more about fanservice and clever publicity, but that didn’t make it any less entrancing. Hundreds of fans showed up early to the Chicago River underpass at 560 W. Grand, a location disclosed only a few days beforehand as part of Levi’s + Urban Outfitters Secret Generator Series. Deerhunter previewed most of their new songs for the first time in advance of their third full-length album, Halycon Digest (out tomorrow).

Here’s the link for the full review, plus photo extras!

We’ll be considering submissions from now until November 3. Please send them to fiction@chicagoreader.com. We prefer text pasted into e-mail rather than attachments. It’s hard to find room these days for pieces over 10,000 words, but to a degree we’re flexible on length. We pay for those we publish.

You can find more info on submitting here, and check out their decade-old archive as well.

Also, some news from the illustrious zinester Kristen Felicetti–deadline for submissions is coming up next weekend for the second issue of the raddest New York zine ever, The Bushwick Review (I lived in Bushwick, I’m biased). That means it’s only a matter of time before some of us get to chain smoke while reading and viewing each others’ work in the dusty corners of our apartments.

Chicagoans may still be able to find a copy of the zine’s first issue at Quimby’s Bookstore, otherwise you can purchase a copy online by clicking here. NYC distros: St. Mark’s Bookshop, Bluestockings, Desert Island Comics, Academy Records, and Spoonbill & Sugartown.

The show is FREE, and people will be admitted until it reaches capacity, so get there early to soak in all the new Halycon Digest material live. UO has some more detailed info on the event here. If you don’t make the show or get blocked out by the hundreds of fans camping out (hey, it’s possible), worry not–the guys will be coming back to play Metro in late October.

Here’s what they have slated for Fall:
FRI 10/1 ATLANTA, GA Variety Playhouse
SAT 10/9 CHAPEL HILL, NC Cat’s Cradle
SUN 10/10 RICHMOND, VA Canal Club
TUE 10/12 WASHINGTON DC 9:30 Club
FRI 10/15 NEW YORK, NY Webster Hall
SAT 10/16 BOSTON, MA Royale Nightclub
SUN 10/17 MONTREAL, QC La Tulipe
TUE 10/19 TORONTO, ON Opera House
WED 10/20 DETROIT, MI Magic Stick
THU 10/21 CLEVELAND, OH Beachland
FRI 10/22 CHICAGO, IL Metro
SAT 10/23 MINNEAPOLIS, MN Fine Line
TUES 10/26 VANCOUVER, WA Commodore
WED 10/27 SEATTLE, WA Showbox
THU 10/28 PORTLAND, OR Wonder Ballroom
FRI 10/29 SAN FRANCISCO, CA Great American
SAT 10/30 SAN FRANCISCO, CA Slim’s
MON 11/1 LOS ANGELES, CA Fonda
WED 11/3 PHOENIX, AZ Clubhouse
FRI 11/5 DALLAS, TX Granada
SUN 11/7 AUSTIN, TX Fun Fun Fun Fest
MON 11/8 NEW ORLEANS, LA House of Blues
TUE 11/9 BIRMINGHAM, AL Bottletree
WED 11/10 NASHVILLE, TN Exit In

“I’ve been to Chicago more times than Seattle,” Cornell announced between wails. “Feels fuckin’ great to be back again.”

“I’m gona break my rusty cage and run.”

There’s a reason for my bias–Cornell is a relentlessly talented male vocalist and the most captivating subject on the stage. He barely twitches a muscle as he hits those high registers.

See you next time.

That’s a fellow picture maker who is also photographing me in Grant Park. Look at that gorgeous Sullivan terracotta straight ahead, and the Palmer House Hilton Hotel all the way to the right of the negative.

You can follow my Photomaton Tumblr to see weekly posts of photographic output.

Here is A Place to Bury Strangers’ latest single “I Lived My Life,” one of the better tracks on their second full-length, Exploding Head. Though I’ve publicly declared my love for APTBS (read my SPIN Artist of the Day from ’07), it’s tough to follow up all the noise from a debut which got them the “loudest band in New York” title. Enjoy an abundance of double exposures and lens flares from footage filmed at the APTBS Heaven gig in London (could it be the same gay dance club I remember going to in 2005?). Directed by Ben Crook, Sian Alice Group’s guitarist.

In order to quell a recent obsession with my new favorite art-pop-rock foursome Wild Beasts, here’s a video from their early days, where frontman Hayden Thorpe was sporting an unflattering handlebar stache. Here is “Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants” off 2008′s Limbo, Panto. The art style reminds me of early 2000s Radiohead music vids. Don’t get too dizzy–the whole video is an Escher “Droste Effect.” Directed by OneInThree.

And lastly we have Yeasayer’s latest “Madder Red,” a meditative tonic on the otherwise tribal Odd Blood, directed by Andreas Nilsson (MGMT, Fever Ray, Moby, José González). Be warned: the video stars Kristen Bell (meh, Sarah Marshall) and a potato/alien/E.T. pet. You tell me.

The Big Pink has to be my personal pet performance, though I had to be legit and consider their place within the other daytime openers. Here they are in their full photogenic glory:

Initially I was furious to have missed the Strokes and Arcade Fire, opting instead for Gaga and my beloved Soundgarden. The Lolla crew more than made up for the scheduling conflicts this year, however, going green in booking talent as much as it did with its abundant recycling bins and free water fountain refills.

Here follow the Top 10 Lollapalooza Breakaway Indie Gems, my Maximum Performance blog recap for Yahoo! Music. I hope you enjoy my roundups as much as I loved seeing them perform.

And no worries, guys…there are plenty of outtakes and photos of Chris Cornell to follow this post. Look out for them when I return to Chicago at the end of the month!

In the meantime, you can check out my extensive day-by-day roundups of last summer’s festival: Holla If Ya Lolla!

Forevz yours from HEL-L.A.,

Taleen Kalenderian

It was co-recorded-and-produced by Grizzly Bear’s Michael Pitt Chris Taylor and released on Mountain Dew’s internet label Green Label Sound, where you can soak in all its old skool gamer glory.

Here’s a sweet little profile I wrote after speaking with Señor Palomo on the phone right when he wrapped up CMJ last year (I couldn’t make it, but here’s my 2008 recap).

Originally, I wanted to do some dada interviewing and buy him a disposable camera to take an alt-Chicago tour, but he couldn’t meet in person. Maybe I can find an artist who would like to do that sometime this year. Ah well, read ahead!

Alan Palomo is on the peak of the Himalayas. Old keyboards and synthesizers from the ‘80s, adorned by photographs from his childhood, surround him.

Or at least, that’s how he envisions the perfect acid trip.

“If I’m going to take acid, which probably will happen at some point, I want it to be this experience where I can gather something from it,” he said, laughingly. “I don’t want it to be like ‘Dude I’m talking colors!’ I feel that way anyway. I’m a space kid as it is.”

There’s no mistaking the psychotropic sonics soaking up the 21-year-old’s band, Neon Indian. The cassette sampling wonder kid released his debut LP, Psychic Chasms last October, then played ten consecutive shows within 5 days in New York City’s College Music Journal (CMJ) festival before embarking on a European tour through 2009.

“Its definitely the most stressful, sleepless time in my life,” he said. “It’s a good problem to have. CMJ was pretty out of control. I’ve never rode the gauntlet like that before. Playing the big Neon Indian showcase was epic. We were brooding, sound issues kept coming up, and we would forget things because we had no time for sound check. It literally took a band pow-wow, like Mighty Ducks, to pull this thing off. The guy who does sound for Juan Maclean did our sound so it ended up being awesome. We got on stage and had the most fun we’ve ever had.”

Last time Truthisms spoke to Alan Palomo, he was living wherever he could play his music, but he would like to live in New York.

“I subletted my apartment in May to start touring, and I’ve been living on the road ever since. I haven’t been able to stay in one city for more than a week or two.”

Psychic Chasms was written in Palomo’s Austin, Texas apartment in April while he was taking film classes, and after only playing the keyboard for four years. It’s difficult to imagine such complex sonic layering when he describes it as “gushy mushy teen angst stuff,” but his swooning cassetto dream symphonies resonate like the soundtrack to a bittersweet summer day, much akin to listening to a major-toned Morrissey or Smiths track.

“It’s a culmination of a really shivering adult experience that produces all the wrong combinations of feelings. The way a relationship can spark so quickly and dissipate just as fast. They’re those particular experiences that shape you, creating a certain predisposition for future connections. It’s about wanting to react against that and not have it be a product of your experiences.

Psychic Chasms lyrically is a lot about trying to find a score or the soundtrack or whatever it sounds like in my head. Sounds come in and out the way details come in and out of focus, and you want to amplify certain things. You want to take from that memory and you forget the ones you don’t. A lot of end-of-high-school, first college experiences centered around these briefs states of being enamored versus being enraged.”

His youthful angst isn’t the only thing Palomo works through. What makes Neon Indian’s music so delectable is its gooey, analog aesthetic, but many bands are forming a scene drenched with cassette tape sampling that makes it difficult to shine among lesser pioneers in the genre such as Washed Out, Ducktails, and a young sensation that preceded this year’s tape explosion, Nathan Williams of Wavves.

“I enjoy working with samples but it’s a very fine line to tread. You wonder, are people putting on all this reverb and distortion to mask a lot of the musical shortcomings? The music should always be front and center. It’s all about what kind of narrative qualities it evokes in the mood that the song creates. With Neon Indian it feels like my own thing and if I find weird little samples and tube recordings I don’t feel nearly as shy about incorporating them into the creative process as I would with something else.”

Perhaps a useful testament to Palomo’s thoughtful creative process is a Pitchfork “Best New Music” accolade and an album review of 8.6, a launching pad for many up and coming independent bands since it gained Arcade Fire notoriety in 2004.

“Our audiences at every show are getting exponentially bigger. It’s the most surreal thing because I wrote this song in April in my room working at a burrito place when I wasn’t in class. It’s strange where it’s taking me now—it’s the proving ground time. We’re just trying to convince people we’re worth listening to. Yes, you can enjoy yourself and watch these songs and have a great experience.”

And you don’t even have to drop acid.

by Taleen Kalenderian