4 CHICAGO READER | JANUARY 6, 2006 | SECTION THREE

CHICAGO READER | JANUARY 6, 2006 | SECTION THREE 5

friday6KRISTIN SHOUT & SMOKING KITTEN KristinShout’s a longtime Chicago fixture—she used to book bandsat Czar Bar and was part of the team that won the 1991National Poetry Slam—but she earned her musical chopsbusking around Europe, picking up the life experiences thatgive her jazzy country-hybrid songs their cinematic reso-nance. Her swooping, husky, mutable voice inhabits a creepyworld of tornadoes, drugs, criminals, and ambivalent love,and Shout sings like she’s been there a long time, familiarwith all its dark alleys and hiding places. This show is arelease party for the self-released Thorny Devil, her first full-length album with her band, Smoking Kitten. Thomas Paceand the Great Crusades open. a 9 PM, Martyrs’, 3855 N.Lincoln, 773-404-9494 or 800-594-8499, $8. —MonicaKendrick

cMED, OUTERLIMITZ Veteran SoCal rapperMED (formerly Medaphoar) rounded up some

impressive company on his debut album, Push Comes toShove (Stones Throw), and the guests wind up outshiningthe host. Most of the tracks were produced by Madlib, whobrings his trademark mix of clipped, bumping beats, souland jazz samples, and digitized slicing and dicing; J Dilla,Just Blaze, and Oh No contribute some fine grooves of theirown as well. MED’s a decent enough MC, but his narrowvocal range and jagged flow are a poor fit for the richlydetailed tracks he’s working with, and it doesn’t help thathis subject matter is so ho-hum: his raps are mainly loveletters to herb and hip-hop, though his rhymes are often soillogical and convoluted it’s tough to figure out what thehell he’s saying about them. He’d do better with more mini-mal production, but the mismatch here isn’t enough to sinkthe tracks—they’d be strong no matter what.

Suicide Prevention (Galapagos4), the debut album byChicago’s OUTERLIMITZ, strikes a better balance betweenwords and beats, style and substance. Silence’s productionis dense and sinister: paranoid bass tones, eerie orchestralsamples, dark synth bursts, and stuttering beats that trudgegrimly and implacably onward. MCs Qwa (aka Qwazaar ofTypical Cats) and Hellsent match the somber tone of thetracks with carefully harnessed anger, swapping lines withferocious precision.

MED headlines, One.Be.Lo. goes fourth, Outerlimitz arethird, Reach & JP are second, and Verbal Kent opens. a 10PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $14 in advance, $15 at the door. —Peter Margasak

POMES I don’t know if this local band took some inspira-tion from Jack Kerouac’s Pomes All Sizes, but that’s what itsname makes me think of—which sets the bar pretty high inmy mind for its full-length debut, At the Adelphi (Black DeadRoses). I suspect ol’ Jack would be bored shitless by thealbum’s stretches of jam-band cruising and college-rockmeandering, but the songs improve a great deal wheneverJessie Wehrle pitches in with a full-throated hippie-soulchant, and Paolo Urizar’s ringing guitar leads are a fine foilfor her—better than Michael Cummins’s bored-soundingdeclamations. Kerouac wrote his fair share of filler too, buthe always seemed to want to rise above mediocrity. 7 x 7 andthe Brink Band open. a 9:30 PM, Subterranean, 2011 W.North, 773-278-6600 or 800-594-8499, $7. —Monica Kendrick

RAISE THE RED LANTERN Chicago’s Raise theRed Lantern released their debut full-length, Breathe Fire(Seventh Rule), this past fall. It’s an inventive fusion of up-tempo stoner rock, posthardcore, the avant-rock ofNeurosis, and classic Brit metal. Tracks like “Daggers andMen’s Smiles” and “Brethren We Built This” surprise withelectronic manipulations: they appear without warning yetstill sound strangely fitting, carrying things naturalisticallybeyond the limits of what a live loud rock band can normal-ly do. Wolf & Cub, the Pines, and Raining Bricks open. a9 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, 773-281-4444, $7,18+. —J. Niimi

MELVIN RHYNE TRIO WITH PETER BERNSTEIN Peter Bernstein backed into the jazzmainstream: like many guitarists of his generation (he’s38), he first discovered Jimi Hendrix, then B.B. King, andfinally Wes Montgomery, the exemplar of the deceptively

Pomes

TheTreatmentA day-by-day guide to our Critic’s Choices and other previews

age of the bar, and no one is chargingoverhead expenses, so everything isgoing right to Gary.”

Seven shows have been confirmed:Jay Farrar headlines January 20 atFitzGerald’s, on a bill that alsoincludes Robbie Fulks and theProhibition Orchestra, and the NewDuncan Imperials play the Abbey Pubthe same day. The Hideout hosts apair of shows January 22, the first fea-turing Sally Timms and JonLangford’s kiddie band the Wee HairyBeasties and the second headlined byCalifone. On January 25 Jeff Tweedyplays the Abbey with Devil in aWoodpile, and the next night Martyrs’hosts Kelly Hogan and a few otheracts. The week wraps up at Schubason January 27 with the Bottle Rocketsand Tijuana Hercules.

In addition, Freakwater will anchoran afternoon benefit at the Hideout onFebruary 4, and organizers expectbands to keep volunteering throughoutthe winter as word gets around. Evenpeople unable to perform are pitchingin. “Steve Albini got in touch, but hisschedule is really crazy,” says Warshaw.“So he’s going to contribute some itemsfor us to auction off.”

Schepers, who’s all but bedriddenand needs a wheelchair to get around,doesn’t expect to attend the concerts.His doctors decline to speculate aboutwhen he’ll be released. “They’re stillwatching some of the areas of infectionthat may be eating at the bone,” saysSchepers. “There is still a questionabout a couple of toes and if they’regoing to survive. Every day they don’tcut them off I feel more like I’m goingto be keeping them.”

He’s receiving a cocktail of antibi-otics through an IV and undergoingregular hyperbaric oxygen treatmentsto speed healing; a device called awound vacuum is draining infectiousmaterial from the injury. Even after hegets out of the hospital, he’ll be unableto walk and need help caring for hisfoot, so he’ll be spending a month—

perhaps several—in an assisted livingcenter. “I’m trying to be philosophicalabout it,” Schepers says. “My job rightnow is to fill up on antibiotics to killall the bacteria in my body. Hopefully,I’ll get back—on both my feet—assoon as possible.”

Kevin Tihista Leaves the WoodshedKevin Tihista isn’t much for self-pro-motion—he prefers to hole up at homeand write songs. But these days he’smaintaining an uncharacteristicallyhigh profile: he took a ten-day solo tourof the UK in November and played theDouble Door on December 22, and

after he head-lines the firstnight of theTomorrow NeverKnows festival atSchubas onThursday he hasplans for a hand-ful of LA showsin February and

a three-week full-band UK tour inApril.

Tihista spent much of the past yearwriting and demoing his fourth full-length, a follow-up to the acclaimedWake Up Captain. It’s due in the fall,and he’s currently recruiting musiciansand hashing out the album’s aestheticwith longtime producer Ellis Clark.Tihista’s also finalizing the track selec-tion and artwork for a sequel to 2005’sHome Demons Volume 1, an odds-and-sods collection culled from his hun-dreds of unreleased songs. Like the firstdisc, Home Demons Volume 2 willreceive a UK release on Broken Horseand come out domestically onChampaign’s Parasol label—the state-side release is tentatively scheduled formid-2006. And Tihista’s cover of theKinks’ “Situation Vacant,” which isn’ton either comp, will appear on a tributeCD to the group accompanying theMarch issue of Mojo. v

The Meter

By Bob Mehr

themeter@chicagoreader.comwww.chicagoreader.com/TheMeter

Gary Schepers

NO

LAN

WEL

LS

Soundman VersusFlesh-Eating BacteriaHis next challenge: a six-figure medical bill

L ocal labels, musicians, and clubsare rallying to the aid of Gary“Elvis” Schepers, who’s been at

Swedish Covenant Hospital sinceDecember 11, fighting an infection inhis left foot that at one point threat-ened to cost him his leg. Schepers, thepart-time tuba player for Devil in aWoodpile, has made a living as asoundman since 1987. He’s workedsteady gigs at Lounge Ax, the CubbyBear, and the Empty Bottle, amongother venues, and toured with localand regional favorites like UncleTupelo, Material Issue, and EleventhDream Day. But like so many people inthe music business, he has no healthinsurance—and his medical bills,which have already topped six figures,will likely double before he’s able towork again.

Led by singer Kelly Hogan andBloodshot Records owners NanWarshaw and Rob Miller, Schepers’sfriends and colleagues are planning aseries of benefit concerts to help himdefray his expenses. “It seemed obviousto try and do something,” saysWarshaw. “So we got the word out tobands around town. And I knew Garyhad lots of friends, but I had no ideaquite how many.”

It took just days for organizers toconfirm a week of shows, starting witha FitzGerald’s date on January 20. “Theease with which it all came togetherspeaks to what and how much the com-munity thinks about Gary,” says Miller.“It’s just happened so fast and soorganically without anyone pushing. Ithink people recognize that it’s not justthe musicians but guys like Gary thatreally make a scene like ours possible.”

Born in Oklahoma in 1958 andraised in Sycamore, Illinois, Schepersstudied music (and played tuba in themarching band) at the University ofIowa and later Northern IllinoisUniversity. He moved to Chicago in theearly 80s and began his career as asoundman working for Stan Doty,owner of Pravda Sound, which rentedPAs to clubs like Dreamerz andMedusa’s. He was at the board forBloodshot’s first showcases at LoungeAx and the Bottle a decade ago, andmost recently he’s been freelancing atthe Abbey Pub, Schubas, andFitzGerald’s. He’s also the chief engineer at Humboldt Park’s Stroberecording studio and a member of theProhibition Orchestra, which playsdance tunes published between 1923and 1934.

Early last month Schepers devel-oped pain and swelling in his foot, andin the wee hours of Sunday, December11, after working a show at the Abbey,he was worried enough to check him-self into the emergency room. “Oncethey got my shoe off and looked at it,they said, ‘Well, you’ll be staying here awhile,’” he says.

Schepers was diagnosed with a par-ticularly nasty Group A streptococ-cus—one of the bugs that began mak-ing headlines in the 90s as “flesh-eat-ing bacteria.” During the course of histreatment doctors also informed himthat he had type 2 diabetes. “The factthat I have diabetes, which I did notknow, probably contributed to theinfection growing faster,” he says. “Butanyone can get it. It’s a variation of thesame bacteria that gives you strepthroat. It lives on the ground.”

Doctors surgically removed deadand gangrenous tissue from Schepers’sfoot on December 12. While he recov-ered, his friends spread the word abouthis predicament and began planningthe benefits. Ordinarily it’d be difficult,if not impossible, to book a week ofshows on a month’s notice, but so farfive venues have reshuffled their sched-ules to make room. “That was reallyimpressive, the way all the clubs cameto the table,” says Warshaw. “All theclubs are donating 100 percent of thedoor, some are even giving a percent-

Kevin Tihista,Andrew Morgan,TenkiWHEN Thu 1/12, 9 PMWHERE Schubas, 3159N. SouthportPRICE $10INFO 773-525-2508

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