03 Sept 11

EXTRA! EXTRA!

Villainess Eva Trix and her young protege, Sunday, elude Scotland Yard with another daring escape Saturday night! Chief Inspector Lastrade and his detectives of Scotland Yard staked out London's most wanted last known whereabouts the Metro concert hall in Chicago where the two were spotted in mixed company with the world's most evil mastermind, Mr. Agitator and his gang V Is For Villains. According to Chief Inspector Lastrade, he also noted other wanted villains gathered inside the concert hall known as Kazy and Sheriff Scabs with The Lords and Ladies of Steampunk Chicago providing entertainment delights before and in between performances. Though Eva and her child-like cohort had evaded capture this time, Lastrade vowed to bring the vile duo to justice for their crimes against the crown.

Halloween came early as these masked ghoul and goblin musicians opened this festive villainy gathering with a high energy tune titled Hooks. Kazy rocked out the Metro all-ages audience amidst its haunting nature and dark themes heard within their industrial/metal rock songs. What made this band unique was the electronic violin used as an extra guitar (sometimes) adding to Kazy's creepiness and dark tome which seemed to subsequently impress the youngsters. Besides performing the fan favorite of the INXS' Need You Tonight, the ghoulish band also blasted hardcore metal coupled with lyrical verse in LFM and Violate (a bit of sexiness and temptation heard in this song too) as well as Trick (the most intense instrumental bridge of music to rock the stage). It's recommended to check out Kazy's new song, Goodbye, that featured intense "in your face" shredded guitar riffs and violin rhythms. This act received a rousing thumbsup from Sunday liking the masked musicians as the band closed with another fan favorite, Wolf. For more information about Kazy, visit http://www.kazymusic.com.

Come one ...come all as Sheriff the Carnival Barker invited the Metro audience to partake in the delights and music of the Sheriff Scabs performance featuring Ivan Russia (of Mr. Russia) on guitar. Immediately, this quartet of rockin' musicians filled the venue with intense hard-hitting guitar rock wrapped inside dark themes though not as creepy like Kazy. Sheriff featured more of a deep rapsy vocal tone by front man Sheriff that at times fiercely emphasized the lyrics even while in a downtempo riff and steady rhythmic beat. Besides performing current band tunes for the excited audience. Sheriff Scabas also covered a couple of tunes from its former name incarnation, Black Country Rock (in which Sheriff started with Ivan). This was when the front man was vigorously energized as well as animated generating such momentum with his stage presence thus displaying more vocal intensity too. This was some rockin', foot-stompin' music that villain cohort Sunday enjoyed while Sheriff closed the set with a blast of punk/metal sound. For more information about Sheriff Scabs, visit http://www.sheriffscabs.com.

Chief Inspector Lastade of Scotland Yard nearly caught the elusive and quite deadly villainess Eva Trix while she attended the headlining performance by the evil mastermind Mr. Agitato (also wanted for spreading his villainy propoganda against the government) and his infamous gang, V Is For Villains. Too bad ...he also missed out his chance to capture other fashionably dressed villains of all ages as they converged in front of the stage to see their heroes rock out the Metro concert hall with high intense industrial/steampunk music. However, this time to help further spread the Villain message, this musical group used Hi-Definition 3d video images to run in sync during evry song performed. While working hard at infiltrating this well-organized criminal performance, Chief Inspector Lastrade noted how the young villains seemed to enjoy the heavily synth/keyboard sound that featured a new element not used when V debut in June at Bottom Lounge. Eva Trix noticed it too. The use of live drums added more thundering intensity to this criminal-minded band's music and performance which truly energized the Villains themselves and their legion of followers. Yet there were a couple of minor technical problems which did interfere with this particular performance - villaness Veronica Jade's microphone was on too low during Everybody Hates Me that Eva could barely hear her and the stage lighting clashed horribly against the video images thus not being able to delight in the pretty pictures. Rousing villains everywhere to Evolve or Die (and more), Mr. Agitator wowed the villainy gathering with new song - The Disease which was a haunting composition with low heartfelt vocals to be the creepy infection crawling under your skin. The thundering percussion rhythms and melodic synth sound wonderfully created an air of subtle mystery ...and calming terror for all to hear. This song received major thumbsup from Eva and young Sunday who also enjoyed the dizzy falling down the rabbit hole swirl effects on the screen during the surprise return of Digital Mindy to perform Mr Agitator's theme song. Unfortunately for Chief Inspector Lastrade, he soon found himself knee deep with an army of Pink Elephants (featuring clips from Disney's Dumbo on screen) before nearly nabbing Fallon Flynn who wasn't wearing a mask to conceal his true villain identity. But alas the Villains along with Eva and her child-like cohort were able to slip away (again) undetected into Chicago's bustling Wrigleyville scene. Chief Inspector Lastrade has been quoted that he'll try again to capture this villain network when V Is For Villains returned to the scene of the crime at Kinetic Playground on Sept 23 with Trainwreck Symphony and Black Arrow (21+ show / $8 cover). For more information about V Is For Villains, visit http://www.visforvillains.com.


Until next time, support your local scene,
SouthSide