-
Wed, August 29th, 2001
Good news and bad news. The bad news is that the 8track broke down and was in the shop for almost three months. A huge blow in getting out the CD. Nothing has been done in months. But the 8track is back now so it's time to plunge right back in and finish it. It will be done very quickly at this point. The good news is fantastic news! LV has been in Chicago for about a week and a half now. The original drummer of DK. He's back from SF for a bit and we're taking advantage of it. We rented him a kick ass kit last week, borrowed an ADAT and laid down a bunch of tracks. We got together last night for a listening party and walked away stunned at how good so much of the material is. Our plan is to pull out the best material and add a few more tracks to it. On every cut there are at least two tracks free for vocals or samples or additional instruments. Who knows? The DK Reunion CD may come out before the 8track project! It's been great fun to hang out with LV once again. He's given us all a new breath of enthusiasm. His playing has greatly improved and when we played with him we realized how far we've all come as musicians in the years that he was away.
-
Friday, May 18th, 2001
Last night Guru Ted, Wardo, and Lazo laid down the last drum track for the new CD. Then they sat down and listened to mixes of all the songs DK has recorded over the last year. We're very close to completion. It was the first time we had listened to the entire project in one sitting. WIth a few more tracks to finish up we feel we've got a great CD on the way.
-
Tuesday, November 14th, 2000
Guru T. E., Wardo and Sluggo are still recording as DragKing. Wardo and Guru T. are cooking up a new project, so keep your eyes open for that. Birdman continues to invent and record down in the Dogpatch Studios. Some new CDs are in the works.
-
Sunday, October 1st, 2000
Sluggo, Guru T. E., Birdman, and Jennifer performed as DragKing at the infamous Chic-a-go-go . We had a great time and so did the many dancers and freakazoids who also stpped by for the taping.
Also on the show was fellow Hyde Park resident and Blues Superstar, Eddie C. Campbell.
Eddie's been around quite a while, serving stints with such notable Blues singers as Jimmy Reed, Willie Dixon, Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, and Percy Mayfield. He made his first records under his own name with 1977's "King Of The Jungle". He has at least two CDs out, the 1995 release "That's When I Know" and 1999's "Hopes & Dreams" on the Rooster Label. When he headlined the Chicago Blues Festival, Centerstage Chicago described his guitar playing as "an excellent showcase of the Chicago West Side electric blues style. His wide-open playing and driving, powerful guitar combined with telling lyrics make him one of the greater current blues practitioners writing original material in the Chicago area."
The show was taped for broadcast later, so keep a look out if you can get cable access television in Chicagoland. You can watch Chic-a-go-go on CHANNEL 19 EVERY TUESDAY AT 8:30 PM & WEDNESDAY AT 3:30 PM. It was very cool to be a part of this Chicago tradition. Thanks to Jake and Jacqueline for inviting us.
-
Recording Continues!
Yes, Guru T-Bone, Wardo, Lazo, Jennifer and Sluggo are keeping busy recording the next DragKing collection. As usual the recording process is a long and winding road with many detours, and the finished product should be interesting to say the least. Stay tuned friends!
-
Thursday, September 7th, 2000
Sluggo performed the Dylan song "God on Our Side"(as well as the DK song "Open Door") as "Son of DragKing" at "Highway 41 Depaved:A Bob Dylan Tribute",
a benefit party being held at the infamous Hideout for the Break the Gridlock Conference.
Notably, Geoffrey M. Greenberg of Star Vehicle performed with his other group, Faces in the Dirt. It was their third or fourth performance and they rocked the house. If you get a chance to check this group out do so!
-
Friday, July 14th, 2000
Mark Wardo, Mark Lazo, Jennifer S. and Ted Gray and Sluggo are busy recording new songs in the Essannay Studios in Chicago. We may play a benefit at the Hideout on September 7th. More on that later. Other projects are developing.
We will not be appearing on the Jandek Tribute, but our friends The Goblins will be, so you should try to find it at your favorite independent record shop.
- Saturday, June 10th, 2000
LET'S DANCE: A TRIBUTE TO BOWIE, Saturday, JUNE 10, at the Empty Bottle, to
benefit TreeHouse, a a Rogers
Park-based no-kill animal shelter
Members of Chicago's indie rock community raised over $1500 and celebrated the
music of David Bowie. DragKing performed "Heroes",and "Boys Keep Swinging".
- Friday, March 31st, 2000
There was another benefit concert being organized by the Chicago Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal called:
Music For Mumia
at the Autonomous Zone
2012 West Chicago Ave, in Chicago
VJ Darrell played his dusties/oldies set
of videos and music (rare video clips of
R&b artists from the 50s through the 70s)
...And despite some big problems, DragKing also performed, along with Employee Number Five and John Greenfield's Rock Band
- Thursday, March 15th, 2000
Today was a banner day at the mailbox. I got a message from DJ Chubby Flea who is planning a big shindig in NYC for March of 2001. I also got a message from our long lost friend Jon Bates from Cardiff who put out a DragKing seven inch in 1996 on his Destroy All Music label. He is now in Japan planning new projects, including a magazine to be published in Tokyo and London.
I finished a long over due overhaul of the review section of the web page. Including a postcard from Rick Perlstein about Indie Authenticity Crisis which is pretty funny.
- Saturday, March 18th, 2000
Protest Gay-Bashing! Picket the Liar's Club!
10 pm * Saturday * March 18
In front of the Liar's Club * 1665 W. Fullerton Ave.
On January 23rd, bouncers at the Liar's Club severely beat one patron and
roughed up two others in a hate motivated bashing. With one of them calling
Chad Edwards a "fucking faggot," two bouncers held Edwards' head by the hair
while they pummeled him 15-20 times with their fists, resulting in what Grant
Hospital called "multiple facial contusions."
The bashing victims--Edwards, Kurt Schneider and a transgendered person who
has chosen to remain anonymous--between them suffered all the injuries and
property damage. Yet Chicago police chose to arrest Edwards and Schneider!
Whether gay or non-gay, CABN calls on all people who oppose hate crimes to
take a forthright stand against hate by attending the March 18th picket. Only
by applying direct pressure today on businesses who tolerate bashing, will
others think twice about tolerating hate violence in the future.
More info:
Chicago Anti-Bashing Network
773.878.4781 (Andy) * 773.878.3697 (Bob) * 630.499.8099 (Karen)
- March 9th, 2000
I have been updating our digital scrap book . Take a look at it. There are now photos from DragKing's ten year history on that web page.
We should be playing at the gallery Cabaret on April 14th with the Vodka Seven and hopefully we will be playing a show with our fellow Hyde Parkers, Salome soon. We may also be playing on Pure Hype again soon.
- February 21st, 2000
Well, our tribute to Jandek, a cover of "How Many Places..?" is finished. I hope the other folks who worked on it, especially Mark Wardo who was so into it, enjoy the mix I did last night at DogPatch. I'm listening to it now and I think it's great. But then no one else has heard it. The compilation Eric Schlittler is putting together won't be out until the summer at the earliest, but we may put some audio file sup on the web so you can check it out. If you want to hear the song, drop me a line at sluggo@dragking.org . And who knows maybe it won't make the cut after all. I heard Eric already has more than enough material for one CD.
Last Friday night Jennifer and Seonaid and I went to hear John Greenfield's Rock Band (featuring Ella Farmer from Ting!) play at John Huss' Hyde Park party. John Ross from Autoliner was there, as well as our old friend Patchy Schrader, Ben Edmonds from 'HPK, and Sam Eccleston from Salome and 'HPK. We picked up the new Rock Band CD, "Chicago Songs" on Roxstars Records and it is great.
- February 18th, 2000
We have been hard at work on a cover of "How Many Places..?" by one of my favorite musicians, Jandek. Mark Wardo has been trying out a number of experimental techniques in the studio. We have a great array of sounds recorded on the Birdman's eight track. Now we just have to mix it down and send it off. We spoke with a representative from the Goblins and they may also appear on the Jandek tribute compilation.
The current group of people who are working together as DragKing is Mark Wardo on percussion, drums, etc., Mark Lazo on guitar, Jennifer Stewart on guitar, Ted E. Gray on bass, and everything else he does(samples, found sounds etc.) and myself, Sluggo. We will hopefully be working with our friend Seonaid Valiant again soon. It is a priviledge to work with this great group of artists.
- January 15th, 2000
The Lounge Ax is no more. DragKing was fortunate to have been able to play there a number of times.The Lounge Ax was always one of our favorite places to play. And it will be missed. Their web page is still up though. They were nice enough to give this web page special mention on their big list o' bands, " DragKing (best politics page on the list!)", see: http://www.loungeax.com/list.html.
- Saturday, January 22nd, 2000
Well, DragKing was scheduled to perform, once again, on WNUR's Air Play program. The last time we visited the pristine Evanston air studios of our favorite northside radio station was March 30th, 1996. A lot has happened since then. Lavon is living in San Francisco. DJ Chubby Flea is living in New York. a.p. harris has become a.p. dicarlo and moved to Manhattan. a.p. martin is living in Vermont. Cole Iler has come and gone. So it's a great honor to be asked back, but it looks like we will have to cancel. Why you might ask? Well Guru Ted E. Gray sliced his hand open requiring nine stiches to hold it together. This means that without him we can't really play our old songs. Sorry Eric St. Clair!
But, we couldn't just leave well enough alone, so we had to agree to help out our friend Greenfield again by doing a benefit the same day. Members of Chicago's music community came together to celebrate the music of the Jackson family(that's right LaToya, Janet, Jermaine, Tito, Marlon, etc.) and to raise money for the National Kidney with a special concert, VICTORY: A TRIBUTE TO THE JACKSONS , Saturday, January 22, at the Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave., at 9 p.m. We went on second and performed
"I'll Be There" and "Never Can Say Goodbye". It was a surreal evening. Jennifer did a great job filling in on bass guitar. We were joined by Seonaid Valiant on vocals who did a great job belting out the hits. She hopefully will collaborate with us in the future before she moves back to Mexico. Thanks Seonaid!
- Friday, October 29th
DragKing rocked out like a punk rock hurricane at the beautiful Fireside Lanes at 10:15pm Friday night. Jeremy did a great job with the sound. Newly relocated from Austin, Texas, the Hamicks gave a good solid performance. The Hamicks were described in MRR as, "A weird blend of Thee Headcoats, new wave, and that stuff they call horrorcore". But their fellow Austonians stole the show. With a baritone sax, soprano sax, trumpet, keyboards, great drums, multiple effect on the vocals, a lead singer who seemed like a cross between Shannon Selberg(Cows, Heroin Sheiks) and Adam Sandler, Brown Whorenet rocked. It is rare to hear a band attempt so much, with such nonchalance and aplomb, and establish a persona for themselves so far from what anyone else is doing. The closest comparison would be the Belgian Waffle Jazz Posse, or Locust Abortion Technician era Butthole Surfers. They supposedly have a web site, but I for one can't find it.
- Saturday, October 9th 1999
Despite a distinct absence of amenities DragKing joined Mark Wardo's former band Akela at the Gallery Caberet on North Oakley. Akela invited us, so how could we say no? Maybe we need to work on that.
- Thursday, October 7th 1999
Dragking played at the Lounge Ax. We went on first, debuting "Monkey Chant" and "Space 1999", two new sample based soundscapes. We followed with a raucus verion of "AutoStumbler". Unfortunately an otherwise brilliant performance of our new set was marred by an uncooperative bass guitar and we limped along from there on out. Our Lounge Ax patron Lawrence Peters was kind enough to still give up some props though, "it sounds even better live than on the CD". And the Birdman provided some nice overhead projector visuals. It was great to see old friends like Azita, Za, Ken Wong, John Greenfield, Adrianne, Nathan and Mark Ferguson, Nathan's pal Dave from Boston and Mark's pal Christian among others.
The Japanese experimental pop band, Ex-Girl , played the hits off their record, "Kero Kero Kero"(on Compozila), and showed off some impressive costumery and a huge sign they brought from their in-store at Tower Records.
20,000,000 volts, a masked terrorist group, featuring the talents of
Micheal Zerang, Bobby Cohn and Weasel Walter gave a loud and raw performance of what appeared to be improvised swaqk. When Bobby staggered out menacingly off the stage, two Japanese audience members reponded to his glowering masked stare by snapping flash photos. Somehow that seemed appropriate.
- July, 10th 1999
DragKing played at the Lounge Ax with our friends from onShore.com: SUPLEX!, Sweeder, oRSo, & Ether Frolics on Saturday night, July 10th. This was the onShore extravaganza. onShore is of course the host of this web site and the host of DogPatch Studios. Stel's new improvizational project, SUPLEX!, debuted at this show. Suplex opened the evening's festivities with a set of noisey jams built on some nice funky bass and drum work and capped off with keyboard squelch. oRSo followed with their unique old time country blues. The Binto Family was sans drummer but accompanied by a wonderful cello player. Sweeder rocked the house. They sounded great, especially the beautiful boy/girl harmonies. Ether Frolics played a typically pro set: rocking and gorgeous. I won't comment on DK's performance. You can still download a PDF flyer for the show here.
- June 19th, 1999
DragKing played at the Empty Bottle on June 19th as part of the Prince tribute which Greenfield organized to benefit the Twin Cities/Wisconsin/Chicago AIDS Ride, a bicycle ride from Chicago to Minneapolis(get the Prince connection?) Since 1994 the various AIDS Rides have raised over $55 Million for AIDS charities in the U.S. of A. Yes, DragKing performed two Prince songs, "Kiss" and "Take Me With U". Believe it or not. In fact it went so well that we may add these to our set on a permanent basis.
- Experiment 3.1
On Sunday, June 6th, 1999, DragKing participated in one of Frontier's on going experiments with resonance, feedback, acoustic manipulation and noise. The event was held at the Empty Bottle on Western Ave. here in Chicago and may eventually be released as a CD. Guru Ted represented DragKing, although Sluggo helped out. The event was organized by Kevin Ireland and a bunch of Chi-Town noiseniks joined in the noise making including Jeb Bishop, Steve Silverstein, DJ Lunatic and others.
- Friday, May 7th, 1999 at Roby's, 1944 West Division St., Chicago
Well our record release extravaganza went off well. We packed Roby's. It was so crowded it was difficult to move around.
This was our first show in a long time, and the first show with our new line up, including Wardo on drums, Lazo on guitar, Jennifer on guitar, Guru Ted on bass and noise and Sluggo on vocals and guitar. The MC for the show was local punk rock maven, Greenfield. Greenfeild performed some great acoustic improvised introductions for the other performers and some great commentary. DJ Lunatic opened the show with some great abstract sounds: noise, samples, video effects, strange audio cut ups. Stel read some of his poetry and Mark Ferguson from Hard Boiled showed strange video clips on a screen at the back of the stage throughout the evening. Our friends the mighty Star Vehicle gave a great off the cuff perfromance, driving, aggro Bread Winner style punk. You can still download a PDF of the plugger for the show here.
- Indie Authenticity Crisis!
Thanks to the assistance of one of the Chicago music scenes unrecognized all-around good guys, and our personal saviour, Mark Ferguson of HARD BOILED, our three year old CD is now available! If you would like a copy you can order them through HARD BOILED(2008 West Roscoe, Chicago, IL 60618 usa). Email Mark at HARD BOILED or telephone him at 1-773-755-2619! For more information on Indie Authenticity Crisis! check this out!
