Matthew Desmond, "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City"

$17 billion: For nearly 18 months, a figure has swirled in my mind: during the height of the Chicago Contract Buying scam that exploited segregated black neighborhoods during mortgage (and mortgage insurance) redlining, one lawyer fighting the scam estimated that $1 million in wealth was extracted daily from black families on the expansive west and south sides. $1 million, daily, for more than a decade, necessitates quite an astonishing sum when one considers how the City of Chicago might enact reparations for these families and their descendants. The trouble with this figure is that it reduces the crippling reality of racism to a figure so astronomical that no one could possibly take it seriously: if the state of Illinois cannot solve its $100 billion pension crisis to ensure that workers can earn their contractually and constitutionally required retirements, black families that had their wealth extracted simply because they wanted a chance at homeownership stand little chance of redeeming their minimum $17 billion claim in reparations.

Even worse: as Beryl Satter perfectly captures in Family Properties: How the Struggle Over Race and Real Estate Transformed Chicago and Urban America, the profit motives render reparations even less likely. The dirty secret that grinds through our daily economy in plain sight is that there is a certain type of acceptable logic that acquits those white "businessmen" that secured (illegal) mortgages from lenders only to turnover the houses (but not the Titles) to blacks for inflated sums. They were basically speculating, in the 1960s, that black families would desire a chance at homeownership even though market financing tools were systematically, institutionally forbidden to those families. These criminals correctly surmised that black families would live in dreadful conditions in order to take their chance at calling a home their own (or, at the very least, they knew that families need somewhere to live, even if it's a rat infested fire trap).

If this ruse sounds similar it is, as mortgage lenders ran a more sophisticated update to this game during the subprime mortgage crisis in the early 21st century (here the punchline is even less easy to stomach, as more than 50% of minority subprime borrowers had credit scores that entitled them to market mortgage products). Similarly, behind this entirely well-publicized subprime crisis, landlords continued to slum, extracting gigantic sums of money from rental properties that produce pages-long violations reports from the City of Chicago. A mother looking for $600 rent on SSI will settle for an infested place owned by a landlord that can continuously play the banks for millions of dollars of equity, because that's exactly how the profit motive is designed to work. (If you disagree with me, ask yourself how it is that a landlord can continuously secure equity financing from a building that consistently racks up violations reports from the City: this is a scenario that replays itself across neighborhoods).

The contract buying scam worked because it preyed on scarcity (homes in institutionally segregated areas) without presenting risks to the criminals that orchestrated such deals (for, when black families missed mortgage payments, white Title holders could immediately evict them). Similarly, the subprime crisis worked because it preyed on a speculative bubble and that same basic desire for homeownership without presenting risks to the criminals that orchestrated such deals (for, the very institutions that were slicing and dicing mortgage loans into investment instruments were gambling in insurance markets that those instruments would fail).

So goes private property in the USA: scarcity and speculative ideals have blended perfectly with Americans' deeply-held racist beliefs (or, alternately, their inability to protest racist institutions for fear of losing what crumbs they too are grasping). Matthew Desmond picks at a new aspect of this relationship in his highly praised Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, adding brutal class tourism (at worst), passionate ethnography, and impeccable research methods (at best) to outline the complicated evictions market in Milwaukee, WI.

When I grew up in Milwaukee, the segregated inner city was routinely (dismissively) called The Core. The sound of locking car doors as soon as one crossed 60th & Center reverberates in my guilty conscience. Desmond explains the logic of segregation in this city in a manner that deeply resonated with my own experiences as a white west sider, as an elementary student bussed deeper into the city during the celebratory multicultural early-1990s MPS, as a son of a Heating & Air Conditioning salesman afforded weekend visits to offices with Dad on Teutonia & Locust, and later serving as a property manager off Marquette University's campus. Mostly, I lived as one whose brief adult experiences in the city (from ages 18-24) came mostly on foot or via Milwaukee County Transit (complete with Executive Walker's mindless austerity). This is my Milwaukee identity, and it is impossible to read Desmond's book without those vivid memories from school buses to the 31 Medical Center.

I will never forget the feeling of plastic grocery bags slicing into my hands as I attempted to walk from the Pick'N'Save off the 16th Street Viaduct back to The Abode East off 15th and Wells (absent an entirely untrustworthy bus on Walker's once-every-45-minute routes). The length of the 16th Street Viaduct is known mostly for its lore in Milwaukee's past battlegrounds for racial equality, and Desmond deeply describes "The Longest Bridge in the World" to capture the utterly hopeless segregation of my hometown. Given the timeframe of Desmond's survey, unbeknownst to me, I was probably carrying my groceries along that Viaduct while one of his featured renters slept below it.

In this setting, the evicted renters that Desmond captures are tenacious as they struggle with addiction, hustling, raising children, helping sick acquaintances or family members, domestic and external violence, and substandard living conditions. Desmond holds no punches as he emphasizes the almost complete lack of adequate employment and housing opportunities, and then doubles down with the circumstantial blows that knock these people out of any possible comfort when they do find a job or a decent place to live.

This aspect of Desmond's work is consistently what I fight with in my mind, for even his well-written prose and sound ethnographical methods do not hide the clear chance for readers to engage in class tourism throughout the book. While Desmond plainly provides policy arguments and methodological explanations at the end of the book, those sections are largely separated from the ethnography itself, which removes many of the most difficult aspects of each person's individual story from any potential for using it as evidence for the necessity of affordable housing reform. It will be easy for ill-minded pundits or even casual middle-class, working-class racists to use these stories to reenforce stereotypes about the poor -- and, in Milwaukee, especially stereotypes about poor black families.

However, I struggle with this because it may not have been Desmond's intent to present the material in this way; it could have been an editorial demand (outside of an academic press) to separate normative and methodological aspects from the beginning of the book. Instead of a brief prologue that dives right into the stories of these people, Desmond's dynamite methodological explanation (pages 315-336) and good-natured normative analysis (pages 293-313) should have opened the book.

If you're wondering whether this type of arrangement would stack the decks and immediately spoil the story (spoiler alert: poor people lose), you're right. The benefit of this type of alignment would be that Desmond could orchestrate his ethnographical findings with the well-proven fact that poverty is systematic, institutionally determined, and that racism is malicious and entirely intentional. This type of lens would completely predetermine the individual fates of the story, which would indeed take away from some of the bite of their heartbreaking failures and their inspiring fights against all odds.

Slumming is exceptionally profitable to landlords, and my critique about the organization of the ethnography, methodology, and policy suggestions should not be taken as a suggestion that Desmond does not acknowledge the systematic nature of poverty. In fact, by the chapter "The 'Hood is Good," Desmond outlines with actuarial accuracy the cashflow afforded to the main landlord that he features in the book. This particular landlord does not operate properties that cannot clear ~$500 in cash (monthly), ultimately resulting in a $10,000 monthly payday once all expenses are accounted for (and this doesn't even consider any mortgage credits or depreciation calculations that this landlord is almost certainly claiming). Desmond admirably maintains some level of neutrality by noting that he refused to call this landlord a "slumlord" when pressed by one of the renters, but the facts laid bare tell the story so Desmond doesn't need to: it is incredibly profitable for a landlord to ignore repairs (documented throughout the book), ignore plumbing and electrical maintenance (documented throughout the book), ignore maintenance requests, self-manage "pest control," and hire drug addicts for easily exploited labor (and fail to pay laborers after they agree to the work). On top of their own enterprises, this landlord also expands business to manage property for Suburban whites inconvenienced by daily maintenance in Milwaukee's inner city, while also operating transportation services to connect family members with loved ones imprisoned upstate.

This is one central aspect of Desmond's methodology that produces a strength of the book: explaining two common threads related to the study of poverty, Desmond wrote:

The ghetto was treated like "a city within a city." The poor were being left out of the inequality debate, as if we believed the livelihoods of the rich and the middle class were intertwined but those of the poor and everyone else were not. Where were the rich people who wielded enormous influence over the lives of low-income families and their communities--who were rich precisely because they did so? Why, I wondered, have we documented how the poor make ends meet without asking why their bills are so high or where their money is flowing? (317)

Desmond's question is not insignificant: he finds shortcomings with previous studies of poverty that focused on public housing, or urban neighborhoods. By inserting wealthy landlords into his ethnography, Desmond specifically investigates the profit motive instantiated in the people exploiting inner cities through slumming, and how poor renters are affected by this motive.

From this standpoint, Desmond's book is driven by several surveys, which the author completed as a full-time fieldworker while living in Milwaukee (326). By focusing specifically on the relationship between the poor and the wealthy in poor inner city neighborhoods, Desmond found an avenue to complete original research on the impact of evictions on renters and neighborhoods. The Milwaukee Area Renters Study (MARS), the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, and the Milwaukee Eviction Court Study were surveys developed by Desmond to specifically analyze the devastating and complicated impact of the profit motive on poor renters. Through these dynamic surveys, Desmond is able to convey the dangers of evictions to families, noting throughout the book that when families are evicted, they often end up in more dangerous housing moving deeper into more violent neighborhoods. The colloquial term "The Core" becomes a crucial weapon of racism, for it paints over miles upon miles of inner city neighborhoods without drawing distinctions; Desmond surgically slices into the terrain of racism with methods that allow him to show the complicated layers of poverty and poor neighborhoods.

One of the issues with the layout or sequencing of Desmond's book, then, is that the reader may not be inclined to read the methodology first; the reader may not ever know that the author designed groundbreaking surveys in order to complement his ethnography with specific data pertaining to the scope of renters and their neighborhoods in Milwaukee. This is problematic because Desmond presents Milwaukee in two different lights; in the prologue, "there is nothing special about Milwaukee when it comes to eviction" (5). Yet, Desmond argues in his methodology section that Milwaukee is especially well-suited for a survey of the impact of the profit motive in poor neighborhoods within the USA:

Wisconsin's largest city is not every city, but it is considerably less unique than the small clutch of iconic but exceptional places that have come to represent the American urban experience. Every city creates its own ecosystem, but in some cities this is much more pronounced. Milwaukee is a fairly typical midsize metropolitan area with a fairly typical socioeconomic profile and housing market and fairly typical renter protections. It is far better suited to represent the experiences of city dwellers living in Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Baltimore, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Gary, Raleigh, Utica, and other cities left out of the national conversation because they are not America's biggest successes (San Francisco, New York City) or biggest failures (Detroit, Newark). (333).

Like his policy proposals, Desmond follows this methodology with a call to other researchers to continue this project and actually see what these principles of research reveal in other cities. On the one hand, Desmond's work reminds me of the brutal grittiness and bleakness exemplified by other recent urban ethnography, like Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Poor (Sudhir Venkatesh), although Desmond's work arguably offers a stronger and more urgent normative push toward institutional reform. On the other hand, Desmond's template is an unorthodox kin to pioneering economic surveys of the built environment, like Charles Beard's Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, inosfar as Desmond welcomes others to replicate his results while also developing an account of systematic exploitation of the profit motive (or, the impact of the profit motive on actual economic life). It remains to be seen if Desmond's methodological development begins a new genre of study, much like Beard did for the study of situated economics and USA founding policy positions.

From the methodological vantage point, Desmond's contribution is innovative, which is precisely my concern with the production of this work for widespread audiences. In shorter arenas, such as New York Times, Desmond adroitly uses his fieldwork to make succinct and forceful policy points. Throughout Evicted, however,  it takes quite a while to ramp up to the normative and methodological impact of the work. In the meantime, readers will need to persevere through teenage sex, misbehaving children, addiction casualties, domestic violence, homelessness, female-headed households, and generally crisis-filled lives to reach the major contributions. Desmond's neutrality ensures that there is not always a structural explanation for an individual event, which leads me to conclude that in many cases, people will use this book to bolster their preexisting opinions about poverty. I gather that my experience as someone who believes the poor are systematically screwed shaded my view of this book just as much someone who believes that the poor deserve their fate will view ethnography. However, one can hope that the press onslaught accompanying Evicted will change some minds and convert some Americans to consider ways to alleviate the affordable housing crisis.

Here in Chicago, there are at least 50,000 people waiting for Housing Choice Vouchers or other Chicago Housing Authority programs. In terms of privately developed affordability options, there is a waitlist at nearly every building or unit that one can find. And this picture only captures those that are actively looking for those lists and seeking those services. Otherwise, half of Chicago households are rent burdened, meaning that more than one-third of household income is allocated to rent (and rent alone). In the meantime, the CHA and City of Chicago are behind on completing contractually mandated affordable housing units, and as this crisis ensues, the Council and Mayor are taking other subsidized housing units off the market entirely. The City allows developers of new private housing to "buy out" affordable unit requirements, which ensures that new private units can enter the market with rents that obliterate median neighborhood ranges. This may be happening most visibly in Logan Square and Uptown, but one can be certain these developers will not stop until Chicago's median rents look more like those of San Francisco.

Ultimately, Desmond gives readers, scholars, and housing or social service professionals a template to tackle this crisis. The loud press associated with Evicted potentially raises the stakes for the affordable housing fight. And, as Desmond systematically shows, it will be a fight, for there is money to be made in slumming, evictions, and generally forcing poor people to live in crisis. Hopefully readers will follow the ethnography by reading Desmond's methodology, policy proposals, and even the notes. A volume of Desmond's sociological and social sciences articles associated with his surveys would also be extremely welcome. Here one hopes that Evicted continues to soar in the press, for it will be welcome to further apply Desmond's revolutionary approach to provide safe, secure, and affordable housing.

The Audacity of Audacity

You know, for a progressive, self-identifying Democratic Socialist, Senator Bernie Sanders is rather conservative. Not as conservative as his Democratic Party nemesis, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but conservative nonetheless:

• Sanders, and supporting economists, are operating on the tenets of economic growth.
• Sanders is operating a jobs-driven rehabilitation plan for the nation's infrastructure. 
• Sanders is operating health care reform within the modes of professional health care (and, presumably, insurance, even if it is a single-payer system). 
• Sanders is designing education reform based around college, rather than alternative forms of education (such as technical school. apprentices, trade organizations, high schools. etc.).
• Sanders is even attacking wealth inequality through jobs-driven platforms that will inevitably rely on a financial system driven by private banks (even if they're "broken-up").

In a liberal society, none of these policy proposals are categorically bad. By contrast, one could even argue that Sanders is aiming to expand the web of institutions that comprise the USA's security net. Even if one desires more progressive solutions than those Sanders is offering, there is a sense (even in resignation) that Sanders's USA would be easier to build upon than other candidates' respective visions....

...Which hardly makes Sanders some audacious, unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky candidate. In fact, the very fact that Sanders is regarded as -- somehow -- some kind of unrealistic, fairy-tale-spewing communist who won't accomplish anything in office is as much an indictment of the USA's situation as Sanders's very candidacy. 

While thinking about criticisms of Sanders -- that he's basically expanding the premise of a protest vote into an untenable institution, that he's not conservative enough to be a Democrat, that he's going to tarnish the legacy of a President that once deported more people in a single term than any other American President [ever!], that he's a poor bum who never was good at a real job in life so he could only become a politician, that he's not qualified for the USA's highest office despite four decades of public service, that he's going to repeal a massive health care reform act that he helped to craft, that he's not going to accomplish anything with a GOP Congress because he's not as conservative as any other candidate, that he's a single-issue candidate that does not have a well-rounded platform to address the identity politics of the 21st century, and so on -- it occurred to me that Americans are largely mistaken about the role of this particular protest candidate in this particular election. 

1. If Secretary Clinton is as liberal as she claims to be, she won't get anything accomplished with a GOP Congress, either. 
2. [After the obstructionist Congress that faced President Obama, one must question the potential outcomes of the policies of a practical "Liberal" President that can compromise or "work with" a truly dysfunctional right wing.]
3. The idea that a worthwhile Presidential candidate should be judged based on the fact that they will "get things done" is largely equivalent to the problematic idea that the populous should be concerned with "electability" (rather than, say, asking an absurd question like, "What are the best possible policies for the USA? Does any candidate offer those policies? If YES -- who should I vote for? -- If NO -- who should I vote for?").
4. The idea of a populace concerned about "winning an election" and voting for "the Candidate that can win" is a populace that deserves Candidate Donald Trump (and this is the same populace on a smaller scale that was concerned about "voting for the winning candidate" in Chicago, for example, and ended up gladly and handily electing a Mayor that was basically sitting on a [at least] a trio of scandals). Citizens should care less about "winning" than any other electoral issue. 
5. Do you want the Democratic Party to be the Party of Chuy Garcia or the Party of Rahm Emanuel? This is literally your choice this election, again. This is your groundhog's day. 
6. Senator Sanders is slowly expanding the types of questions that can be asked [once again] in large political debates. Free college? Hell yes! Free health care? Sign me up. Maybe this type of society will be one that eventually stops subsidizing sports arenas or mortgage interest tax credits for the wealthy. 

Audacious Questions: How do you want to redistribute wealth? Why should we work at all? How can we build an economy that contracts and declines and becomes sustainable, instead of an economy that grows? How can we get the government out of job creation? How can we get our bosses out of job creation? Why do we need health care at all? Why do we need tax credits? When will the wealthy be forced to refund all of the economic benefits they have received over, say, the last 150 years? Can we, the citizens, recall en masse politicians that refuse to perform their Constitutional duties and replace them? Why do we care about the Constitution at all?

What is the most impossible question you could ask of every politician? What is the most impossible task you want public policy to grant? Ask those questions, and then consider why those questions are important, and where our own assumptions [and therefore values and policy outcomes] lie in comparison.

And so on. These are audacious questions of audacity, questions that probe monopolies, questions that probe the lure of professionalism, questions that probe the requirements of the government, the assumptions of the economy, and the relationship we have with ourselves, others, and the earth [compounded]. A President Sanders will be conservative insofar as a President Sanders will be working entirely outside of this type of framework -- afterall, he's a socialist that's not even promising to abolish all private property and eventually dissolve that state! A President Clinton won't get us to this point, either. The question you must then ask: how much do I value our current economic, workplace, health, environmental, etc., assumptions? What will I do to change them?

Oppose the Bucks Arena

Dear Common Council,

As a Milwaukee native, I implore you to oppose the Bucks Arena financing plan when you vote on the matter. The arena itself is a prime example of irresponsible public spending, and the corresponding development plan does not address the City's economic and residential segregation. 

First and foremost, given the revenue that the Bucks owners will earn from the forthcoming NBA television deal, and the surge in franchise sale values that will impact the Bucks, the City does not stand to proportionally benefit from the arena. (And, there is not a demonstrable need to assist the owners. Why are they unable to finance their own arena and development?) 

Not only is it questionable whether the arena and development will create jobs that benefit Milwaukee's citizens, but it is also questionable whether the arena and development itself serves a vital role in the city's economy. Access to the arena will be preserved for a small percentage of the regional population, without corresponding gains provided to lower and middle class residents of Milwaukee. It is not clear that the proposed development will also be accessible to citizens from all walks of life.

Since it is unclear how the State's partial repeal of the prevailing wage law will impact the publicly financed arena, what measures will you enact to ensure that local residents and firms gain valuable, well-paying contracts? Will Milwaukee firms be able to win these contracts?

What percentage of residential units in the corresponding development will be mixed income, or subsidized for low income families? 

How will the necessary debt collection practices associated with County's portion of the arena legislation affect families and residents within the City? 

How will you amend the proposal to ensure that the City benefits from this project? Will you be able to use future measures to impact the corresponding development to ensure equitable outcomes for the City's residents?

Without clear answers to these questions that define the City's benefits from this project -- let alone countless other questions about the corresponding development and economic impact for the City -- there is no reason for the City to subsidize the Bucks ownership group and their multi-billion-dollar entertainment industry.

I understand that the State Assembly's vote places you in a difficult position, but you still have your chance to defend the economic interests of the City and the vast majority of its residents by rejecting this deal.

Respectfully Submitted,

Circuit des Yeux

Haley Fohr’s voice is the first, clearest, most obvious reference point for Circuit des Yeux. Fohr’s delivery is deep, measured, powerful, and fierce. Her potential is fully experimental: my first live experience with Fohr placed her alongside fellow Chicago vocalist Panoptic Prism (Carol Genetti) at Elastic. Here, Fohr and Genetti used multiple approaches, including primal hollers into a wide open piano, which provided the ultimate acoustic amplification and reverberation for their abstract cries.

I provide this example because it serves as a perfect counterpoint for Fohr’s work under her Circuit des Yeux moniker. On Wednesday, July 15, Fohr led a quartet of supporting musicians at Schuba’s, and atop their polished, powerful playing, Fohr exemplified commanding presence with her powerful voice. Her hollers were unrestrained and sustained, presenting a droning quality that matched the strings, woodwinds, and reeds that stood stage left. While singing, Fohr’s deep, bellowing timbre is singular beyond description, stopping her listener with a wide range and stunning emotional clarity. Fohr effectively uses experimental and traditional deliveries to color her live performance and match the power of her live band.

The quartet of players paired a range of acoustic instruments stage left, with electric bass and synth duties working stage right. By pairing viola (violin?), bass clarinet, and flute with Fohr’s acoustic 12-string guitar, this live version of Circuit des Yeux performed a hybrid sound that matched the abstract intensity of the latest LP (In Plain Speech) without as much of an “electronic” feel. By manipulating acoustic instrumentation, the band’s drones bled through borders of rock, folk, and experimental tropes, which resulted in a blissful range of reference points. It is as easy to describe Circuit des Yeux as building on the tradition of Mayor Daley or Spires That In The Sunset Rise, or harnessing the classic ideals of what something like Led Zeppelin should have been (during the most progressive, extended midset instrumental performance, the powerful electronic low-end and ornate acoustic flourishes suddenly gave me the feeling that this is the “ideal” that a song like “Kashmir” pushed for: progressive (in the best sense) rock that melded diverse instrumentation into a perfect whole).

Some of the best surprises of the sets featured an extended introduction that paired reed and strings, and I also found myself marveling at the energy created by Fohr’s guitar work and the electric bass: whether Fohr was processing her 12-string, or was simply locked in with the bass, both players produced a sound that was heavy and intense. Ultimately, the band effectively built on themes established on In Plain Speech, but used their performance to spin that album’s synthetic and folk passages into a well-rounded interpretation. Circuit des Yeux played on the audience’s sense of familiarity with the power of classic or progressive rock, and built their extended, droning, experimental deliveries on that friendly, welcoming feeling.

Autobiography #5: Algiers & ONO @ Schuba's

"We will live again:" so goes the incantations that close "Oxblood," one of ONO's most powerful songs from their most recent album, Diegesis. The line transcended its name, or its invocation, to take embodied truth last night, as two fiercely experimental and powerful Gospel / noise acts shared the stage at Schuba's. The deck was stacked against both acts, as more than three hours of nonstop downpour (and funnel clouds!) tormented Chicago, expanding rush hour to 7 pm and flooding out the city. Chicago's beloved Blackhawks were also attempting to win their first Stanley Cup at home in three generations, the significance of which was instantly noticeable in Schuba's external bar (outside the concert area). Against the imminent threat of euphoric sports fan riots -- a palpable display of white privileged professional rage and an open act addiction to a strong entertainment opiate -- Algiers and ONO promised to tend to wounds suffered by those in the name of justice and emancipation. Throughout the show, as each performer's intense and thorough delivery raged onward, I wondered about my own choice of opiate, and why I felt music would get us any closer to achieving emancipation than ice hockey.

The answer is redemptive in every form. One may be surprised by the easy link between noise and Gospel music, for one form seems so brutal, unforgiving, and impenetrable, while the other may be equal parts praiseworthy and graceful; seeking glory. What Algiers and ONO proved together is that Gospel need not be openly about salvation or even praising God, but rather seeking the word or the truth, or redemption. The idea of redemption readily links noise and Gospel traditions, for redemption is necessarily collective, a collective search for a new start or a new chance. As noise obliterates the senses and therefore cleanses them, Gospel heightens the senses, to perceive injustice, chains, and obstacles to our collective truths. There should be little question why music acts can use noise and Gospel together to produce powerful, affective walls of sound, but where Algiers and ONO succeed is absolutely resonating with the demands that we achieve something greater -- or, at least recognize where our own shortcomings intersect with our desire for something new, or better.

ONO opened the night with a set that I expected to be "the most ONO set." Since the ensemble will announce their program before hand, it was clear that the group would offer something special with one of the most stripped down line ups I'd seen:

ONO Opens For ALGIERS

ONO: For This Performance:
PMichael/Rebecca/DaWei/Ben/travis

Schuba’s Tavern
3159 N Southport CHGO
773.525.2508

LINEUP
=8PM =ONO
\u0010=9:15PM =ALGIERS

ONO PERFORMING
=Introduction / I Been Changed (Traditional)
=Invocation / The Nigger Queen (ONO1980)
=Fatima Police (ONO1980)
=Oxblood (ONO1984)

The traditional delivery instantly flooded the room with vocals that matched the percussive power of the march/dirge, and Franklin James Fisher, singer for Algiers, also offered his own voice alongside that of travis's. From there, Rebecca's keys carried the tunes alongside PMichael's bass, while DaWei's guitar manipulations and Ben's drums added textures to that funky low-end. In this format, ONO was soulful, even playful, with travis jumping from hollered greetings-as-directives ("Greetings from Chicago South Side") and certain testament ("We will live again"). The redemptive spirit of that line answered the bewildering calls that open "Oxblood," and the vocal power of that song took new meaning in a new arrangement produced by the band. PMichael noted that the song was modeled after a popular Drake offering in this form, which amplified the band's underlying soul tensions instead of the noisy, monolithic version that appears on Diegesis.

ONO once again proved that their beauty and effectiveness is in the moment, and in their undying love for reinvention and exploration. Their soulful song variations added a catchiness, or hook, that gave their work a new dimension. There is always a promise of something new with ONO, which I suspect is one of the reasons that so many of us love and follow the group in their continual resurgence.

On their self-titled debut album, Algiers use programming, noisy guitar, rhythm & blues structures, and Fisher's voice to deliver their openly political message in textured, intense bursts. In a recent interview with me, they explained their live formation and planning, and with the addition of a live drummer, Lee Tesche, Ryan Mahan, and Fisher each were able to double down on the noise. It turns out "the man behind the curtain" not only was Mahan's and Fisher's use of programmed samples, but also what sounded like entirely new patches of manipulation, loops, and synthetic noises. Mahan himself worked on a stack of synthetic noise makers, as well as bass, while Tesche used a range of reverbed-manipulated effects and percussive instruments to attack his guitars (bows added metallic squeals, drumsticks invoked harmonics,  and that's before Tesche's own winding playing style took to the instrument!). Fisher added guitar, samples, and other percussion and electronics, alongside his vocal deliveries.

From show-opening "Black Eunich" onward, it was clear that the group were ready to work themselves to exhaustion on each and every song. Each member danced and shouted and hammered away at their work, collapsing between songs as ambient shrapnel bridged different numbers. One of the most interesting stage elements was the use of slowed-down samples from the album to hold down transitions between songs, where one previous backing album would be slammed through cough syrup sheen and blasted into blissful atmospherics. As a result, there was an unending tension throughout the set, a power that met with successive cycles of release throughout each song's crescendos and breaks.

While the addition of noise, and the effective use of each possible element on stage, amplified the effectiveness of the attack on "Irony.Utility.Pretext," some of the band's most straightforward rock offerings on the album took on entirely new life live. "Old Girl" was one particular highlight in this regard, as the band heightened every element to its threshold, and Fisher dove into the audience to embrace its members.

From one generation of Gospel & industrial noise to another: travis & PMichael watching Algiers.

As cheers leaked into the room from the adjacent bar, as the Blackhawks won the Cup, Algiers reminded us that the fight for emancipation will place grand crowds against just ideals.  It was impossible not to think about the irony as the crowd overpowered the band at the exact moment Algiers quieted their set for "Games": as Fisher howled about the people that come around to set your house on fire, as we bury our heads in our bottles Bibles, cries of joy continued unabated. Two worlds truly collided, in one of Chicago's most conservative and segregated wards (in this case, segregated for whiteness and power), but they were also ultimately separated by that thin door. The roar of one may have overpowered the cries of the other for a moment, but Algiers answered with a blistering set-closing that overdrove the cheers and ensured that the words of justice reigned.

This single moment provides an unending cycle of feelings that I am having trouble articulating: the banality of evil. The opiate of entertainment. The honest culpability of many well-intentioned people with injustice. The roar of billionaire entertainment industries that drowns outsiders. Mob mentality. The acceptability of white violence. The acceptable white mob. The necessity of drowning oneself from the stress of capital-professional demands. The absolute power of honest, good intentions that obstruct justice. The complete oblivion of that power wielded by that crowd. It's impossible to make sense of these competing narratives, or feelings, in one reflection (let alone from someone who's happy the Blackhawks won!), but it must be pointed out that this was a fitting and striking moment in Algiers' set.

And their power overrode those emotions, ultimately upholding the collective power of redemption. One of my favorite aspects of Algiers is that they constantly remind us that we have work to do: there is good work to be done. Through the power of their voice, through the unimaginable confluence of industrial noise and pure Gospel, they indeed express a sense of emancipation that is impossible to explain in thousands of words, but immediately apparent in each five minute song.

Autobiography #4: Give Me a Break!

I want to write this while my sinuses can still feel it, for my earplugs were even so terrified that they bore through my systems and numbed my senses. Last night was absolutely the loudest night I've heard at Elastic Arts, and probably the loudest, most aggressive jazz show I've ever seen. That Burning Tree and Dead Neanderthals were bookended by Ben Billington/Mark Shippy/Daniel Wyche and Toupee is effective commentary on the flexibility and form of Chicago's outsider/experimental/punk triad. My sinuses disagree, and I'm blessed to experience this internal contradiction of both knowing that I need to go to more shows, while facing the physical reminders of my eardrum limits. 

First, I was overjoyed to watch one of my friends play with one of my favorite guitarists ever, if only so that I can carry a torch of jealousy forever. Daniel Wyche and Mark Shippy both played extreme modulated/synthesized guitar to the relentless and unforgiving scatters of Ben Billington. The effect was unclassifiable, which turned out to be one of the best kinds of confrontational sets. Last night, unfortunately, I only was able to say to Daniel "that set was bananas" as the curator looked for Dead Neanderthals before their set; that was the extent of my comprehension last night. However, as the extended technique / physical limitations of those European reed&drum duos sank in, it occurred to me that Wyche, Shippy, and Billington might have approximated the same effect with their instruments. Billington sat behind his kit stabbing anything he could get his hands on, as Shippy was arrested for pummeling a poor Fender tweed amp with as loud a processed signal as he could find. The range on Shippy's effects swept harmonized wackiness alongside physical, percussive reverb slams, while Wyche complemented his mate with lightning trips around his fretboard. Wyche himself was riding his Moog synthesizers and a set of standalone pedals, too, at one point losing all the bones in his body to manipulate a theramin (?) through his guitar cord. I don't know what crimes this trio committed in a previous life, but surely their souls are bound through eternity by some righteous takes on rhythm, shredding, and atonality. Tweet me @spectivewax in about a week to see if I have more to say about this set, because it was a range of improvisation that was difficult to confront and process, which I suspect is exactly how the trio wanted it. 

I will say this: one of my favorite aspects of improvised sets are these moments of accidental / incidental / momentary grooves. One of the ways to comprehend or process this set is to think about the moments where Billington slowed his attack and changed his pace, or Shippy shifted from shredding to slagging, or Wyche indulged in the wetness of his signal. There was not a single gimmicky moment, as each player showcased their chops through a complete absence of conventional playing. Thank you, eardrum assault #1. 

Eardrum assaults #2 and #3 came from Burning Tree and Dead Neanderthals, in that order. Both duos played with reeds and drumsets, and I believe both reeds were saxophones of one sort or another (I don't know if they have different saxophones in Europe, but if someone had told me that someday you'll be able to grow an amazing beard and use absurd, endurance-stretching breathing techniques if you keep playing saxophone, I would have endured all those early lessons of "When the Saints Go Marching In" with glee and anticipation). 

Both duos might be described  as aggressive, free, progressive, endurance-testing jazz, of the sort that American audiences who dig Many Arms, New Atlantis Records, etc., would appreciate. However, for their relatively similar elements, both duos played off completely different areas of their instrumentation. Burning Tree was much more abstract than Dead Neanderthals, as it seemed their reedist was using his lungs to their greatest extreme, producing an amazing, unending squeal for, oh, 15 minutes? Against this airy, high frequency attack, the drummer scattered across different beats, in a very playful manner. It was impossible to tell if he was losing the beat or merely changing it, which is an excellent trick to play on an audience that is fixated on the hard-blowing reed. This is not a knock or a criticism, but simply a recognition that closely-appreciating improvised music is difficult because it toys with the listener's expectations and sense of boundaries; instead of clinging to the pleasant security of a beat, the drummer skirted the outer edges as effectively as the reed. 

Dead Neanderthals attacked the audience from a different angle, as their set appeared to be more "compositional" than "improvised" (I could be completely wrong about this). Anyhow, after the abstract reedplay, Dead Neanderthals created a series of droning cyclicals through their reed, this time appearing in a much larger saxiphone (baritone?). To accompany these notes, the drummer sticked to one pattern or box of beats, which isn't to say that the beats were predictable as much as they were more recognizable or "secure." The listener could cling to these grooves as the saxophone switched registers, closing the set by dropping to the bass-end, in what I presume is the European equivalent of switching on the hydraulics ("and if I hit the switch / I can make the asssssss drop"). This closing sequence proved an effective crescendo, as though the duo saved energy to throw-it-down with complete abandon to close their set. As the absolutely PACKED audience -- that room was packed to the rafters! -- cheered with delight, the saxophone was raised overhead as a tribute to free jazz international superstardom. We all sacrificed our ears to this loud ass explosion, but the tumultuous sets were worth it. 

Dead Neanderthals and Burning Tree ultimately prove that the range and potential of free jazz is endless, so long as one explores technique and also takes endurance to the total fucking brink of exhaustion. For their near collapse from breathing so hard, I salute both Burning Tree and Dead Neanderthals. Thanks for an unforgettable night. 

Just in case you thought it was finished, Toupee jumped onstage to close the night, exhibiting an astonishing range of control over their chaotic lyrics and wide-ranging vocal deliveries. Punk rock proved to have more limits than free jazz last night, but this is not a negative thing: Toupee brandish those expectations by building muted, lulled passages that extend trustworthiness to the audience, just as they simultaneously blitz the audience with a full metamorphosis of voices and masks. Singer Whitney began the night on bass, but as their set digressed into darker and heavier material, she handed off her bass to engage with the crowd on her microphone. Churning about through sheets, bananas, masks, and carrots, Whitney shrieked, hollered, and restrained her voice into any form necessary, as varying trios of guitar/guitar/drums and guitar/bass/drums built from controlled, muted beginning to wide-open noise. I cannot convey enough how dynamic this band played: at times, their fine-tuned, modulation guitar muting provided a clear background for the vocals to succeed, while others the band opened their approach to compete with and intensify the vocal deliveries. Punk can be many things, but Toupee's strength lies in their ability to play on the slightest bit of familiarity while they seduce the listener into their world. Their delivery shows that they control every moment, which ironically allows them to produce blistering attacks that can be confrontational and fragile. 

Hearing a raucous punk set next to two jazz sets that traced extreme limits and loudness of acoustic instrumentation, as well as an all-out blast of noise, ultimately upheld a constellation of freedom between various musical forms. There is no need for any bullshit theories about the connections between punk and jazz, or the explorations of total freedom in punk versus total freedom in jazz. Obviously there are differences in technique and delivery that separate each of these "genres." The triumph between these forms is in the execution and their adjacent delivery: that one can actively suspend orthodoxy in favor of exploration, love, and challenging listening. 

Photo by Daniel Wyche (I hope it's okay I used your packed audience photo). If transparency matters to you, I have written for Moniker Records, but Toupee are still amazing and everything I said is true, because why would I lie to you?

Autobiography #3: Chicago

Throughout winter and spring 2015, it feels as though Chicago has been bringing their absolute best in performance, recording, and art. Momentum gained in 2014 by the City's throngs of independent labels compounded this year, to the point where one can seemingly turn the corner and run into a fantastic show by Chicago artists. The spring series of ELASTRO at Elastic exemplifies this, but even citing one single space or series feels like a shortcoming. There is simply, obviously, a lot that is noteworthy right now, which is a great for Chicago's labels and artists.

Recently, a weeknight show at Elastic demonstrated precisely the range of energy and acumen exhibited by Chicago experimenters in 2015. Along with touring artist Snails & Oysters, Gardener, Cinchel (with Neil Jendon), and Muyassar Kurdi ranged from self-styled "power ambient" drives to slow, unfolding waves, and ritual vocal experimentation. While Circuit Des Yeux and Toupee rightfully gain expanded press with recent videos, this show is a great reminder that there is more talent lurking within Chicago's spaces awaiting release. So they churn.

Servant Girl from Eryka Dellenbach on Vimeo.

From her stunning album White Noise, Muyassar Kurdi's most recent video release, "Servant Girl," finds the artist visualizing one of the album's most haunting and difficult tracks. For those seeking reference, one might note that Kurdi's delivery invokes Rune Grammofon's tradition of "abstract" vocalization (from Maja Ratkje to Sidsel Endresen & Stian Westerhus to (/and even) Jenny Hval), or Panoptic Prism on the local scene. While Kurdi's album was song oriented, her recent performance at Elastic was grounded in amplified auto-harp (from my view) and vocal exercises that materialized as tests in range, power, and endurance. The set was challenging in that it forced the listener to be consistently aware and on-alert, which allowed Kurdi to open channels of communication without words. "Servant Girl" bridges the gap between some of the album's more "structural" songs and her recent performance, but this time by playing on the perception of silence, or quiet stabs.

Kurdi's album is provocative, but where it draws power is through the immediacy of her voice. Even when one expects that her exercises are the of most inward, and self-searching motives, she undoubtedly confronts a listener who now must accomplish the same.

Muyassar Kurdi Summer Tour
July 23: Indianapolis
July 24: Pittsburgh
July 25: Philadelphia
July 26 (noon): Philadelphia
July 26: New York
July 27: Providence
July 28: Boston
July 29: Portland, ME
July 30: Burlington, VT
July 31: Toronto
August 1: Columbus, OH

In Elastic Arts' new space on 3429 W. Diversey, there is more space between the speakers, and a larger room in general, that allows certain forms of ambient music to simply roll through space. Gardener and Cinchel both took full advantage of this arrangement, the former using synthesizer and the latter pairing his guitar with synth stylings from the aforementioned Jendon.

Gardener released a limited tour tape called Slab, and both sides also appear to be drawn from live sets (Bandcamp confirms this). Here, Gardener places to tape what listeners at Elastic experience during this show, which is subtle and unending waves of sound that appear to roll in sequence, gently coming to the fore and retreating. Even when there is a constant hum or base of sound, Gardener plays with textures and frequencies in a way that heightens the stillness of the performance, calling attention to the slightest changes or passageways. This translates perfectly to the live stage, where the power of PA makes Gardener's technique a much more direct confrontation with the listener. Gardener plays June 15 at Beat Kitchen.

Cinchel's Worry is a tape that also is a fine complement to his collaboration with Jendon, which the artist aptly names "power ambient." By combining delay/echo-flooded amplification and laptop processing to form his guitar sound, Cinchel effectively used stabs of chords and notes to churn rippling sequences throughout the space. Churning throughout the set, the volume developed its own layers or overtones that enhanced the warmth of the delay. This effect also appears throughout Worry, where Cinchel intensely layers sound, which advances some of his softer or more droning approaches, or playfulness with specific frequencies and more prominent "glitching," on other recent tapes. Live, Jendon colored the proceedings with the slightest synthetic charges that added a "beat" or soft punctures to Cinchel's heavy guitar. Worry aligns with this brand of ambient composition to produce a monolithic vision that may be the artist's heaviest work yet. Cinchel plays at Transistor on July 24, and WNUR on July 31.


From Denver, Snails & Oysters presented a stark detour from Cinchel and Gardener, which was a welcome and challenging listen. Using looped electric guitar, tape, and acoustic guitar, Snails & Oysters created layers that were more percussive than atmospheric, and much more distorted than delayed. With this naked feeling, compared to the all-encompassing sound of the other sets, Snails & Oysters placed the focus more on lead-playing and technique. At any given point, the listener could work with loops, lead playing, or distorted imprints from the tape and sustain to engage with a wide set of textures.

This combination of challenging work, heavy, enticing drones, and ranging, abstract vocals is simply one snapshot of a night in Chicago 2015. As exciting as it is to see the recent progression and press related to other Chicago groups, it's even more exciting to see the base camp working harder than ever to maximize their artistic and sonic deliveries.