I have always hated Oak Brook with a passion and think of it as a secret Dantean circle of hell. I think it’s partially a class thing. The place seems to be filled with upper middle class people with all the pretensions of extremely wealthy people. A general rule is that if my sister enjoys going somewhere I will probably hate it.
One time I heard a woman in an Oak Brook book store announce out loud to her friend, “I am looking for a man who will see me as a goddess. “ That does not look that bad on paper, but she said it as if she wanted a foot stool or slave (but not in an s and m way.)
I do like the fact it’s an outside mall and you can walk around when it’s warm. Unfortunately, there is just not too much to see there unless you want to buy an eighty dollar pair of gloves. But it does have a few endangered species that I like including a Barnes and Noble bookstore.
But there is one art venue there that I enjoy seeing. It’s called Martin Lawrence Gallery, and there are some magnificent art there including stuff by masters such as Picasso, Chagall, Miro, Rembrandt, Dali, and Rob Lefield (I was just kidding about the last one, I loathe Lefield’s work.) But the works that intrigued me the most were works from an artist I never heard of, François Fressinier. He’s a French guy born just five years after me in 1968, and he draws the most elegant, beautiful colorful women imaginable. There was a piece that I keep coming back to called Danses des Insien Reeves. I scrawled the name on a piece of paper so I might have messed up the title. Here’s a link to some of his works in the gallery website. There’s also a pleasant video of his work at the bottom of the page.
Last week I went to see Iggy Pop at the Chicago Theatre. Iggy is one of the best live performers I have ever seen, and in the show he was much more restrained than when he was with the stooges at Lollapalooza. This time he was accompanied by a sharp young band made up of some Queen of the Stone Age and Arctic Monkeys members.
The set was mostly comprised of songs from his two classic Berlin CDs (Lust for Life and The Idiot which were both released in 1977)) which are supposedly Josh Homme’s favorite ever LPs (Kurt Cobain thought that the Stooges’ Fun House was the best ever recording.) There were also many songs from his fine new LP (his first to make the top 20), Post Pop Depression which has the feel of a final rebound LP like Lennon’s Double Fantasy. The record is more contemplative than most of Iggy’s oeuvre.
His excellent new band includes Josh Homme on guitar, Dean Ferita and Troy Van Leeuwen on bass (both from the Queens of the Stone Age), Matt Helders on drums from Arctic Monkeys and Matt Sweeney. Together that made a beautiful racket.
He did a really strange, updated version of “Some Weird Sin” which I didn’t even recognize (I even asked another concert goer if that was a new song. Other highlights included “Paraguay,” “Nightclubbing,” “The Passenger,” ‘American Valhalla,” “Repo Man,” “Break into Your Heart,” plus “China Girl” and “Tonight,” two songs that were covered by Bowie (Iggy co-wrote them.) And of course the classic “Lust for Life” gave the whole audience an adrenalin rush and reminded them of the joys of pure rock’n roll.
Here are some clips of “Lust for Life’ from the same tour and “Break Into Your Heart,” one of the best tracks off his new LP (it sounds a bit sinister).
Iggy did not play my all-time favorite solo track “Five Foot One,” but the clip is here. It also strangely absent from some of the Iggy greatest hit collections. It’s Iggy at his ugliest and most potent.
I’m surprised that more was not written about Noveller, a fine experimental female guitarist who opened for Iggy last week. Her work was totally different than Iggy’s but nearly as exciting.
Her work was wonderfully atmospheric and somewhat abstract plus slightly techno. Her sound is totally unique but at times her playing was slightly reminiscent of both sonic youth and Saint Vincent, and she has collaborated with both Lee Ranaldo and toured with Vincent.
She reminds me of no one else out there. Here’s a link to one of her videos, “No Dreams.”
