What can I say about the local folk / viking metal scene here in the city, except that we actually have one? Well, for starters shows don’t actually happen in the city; most fans of the genre have to drive out to Mokena to see the larger Scandinavian bands b/c they are a little too popular for most of the indie-rock sized venues, and they don’t draw large enough crowds for The House of Blues or Congress Theater. Here are a couple videos of Týr and Alestorm that I took about a week ago.
I came across some documents from a collection at work that may be of interest to a few people back home. Now you know where to look next time you need an annual railroad report from the turn of the 20th century.
Leah and Steve were kind enough to visit Chicago this weekend to see Carcass with me out in the suburbs. The Pearl Room is the only venue in Illinois that brings in the cruelest European and Nordic metal bands; the result is that people are willing to drive in from the city, choke down Denny’s, and pay $5 for the right to step outside for cigarettes.
Since the weather was so nice, we also ended up taking a cab through the different neighborhoods, and even going downtown to see the green river and Millennium Park. Next time a good show comes around I’ve promised to take the train out to Detroit to see Leah’s place and meet her dogs.
I’ve posted some footage from our weekend, which I put together with the older version of iMovie to test its export functionality. I tried to keep the file under 100MB, so the HD may not be very clear.
An all-girl King Diamond cover band? I’m glad I stayed inside to loaf online tonight. If you’re not familiar with King, he has produced some of the most hilariously disturbing concept albums in the genre. Abigail II: The Revenge is one of my favorite albums of all time.
I decided to post my paltry Fangoria footage from last weekend, since I thought it may be useful to anyone who may not know what a large horror convention actually looks like. I basically stitched together a few clips of the vendor tables, the screening room, and the main stage; they had signs all over the place warning internet savvy horror fans not to use portable cameras to record any of their content. I found Fangoria 2009 to be a rather slow, dreary affair. The weather was awful, the crowds were small, and the events were sub-par compared to Flashback Weekend. The result is 3 minutes of boring, sneaky footage with a quiet soundtrack by Rachel’s. Regardless of how this comes across, I would still highly recommend checking out Fangoria and similar events around the city, as Chicago has a vibrant and beautiful horror community.
Click the “HQ” button for a high quality version. I seemed to have completely failed at exporting a full HD quality widescreen video this time around.
