Mon 11/25: Hunters at Empty Bottle
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Brooklyn duo Hunters will be at the Empty Bottle tonight. Before their last stop in town over the summer, Kevin Warwick said, “The 2011 debut EP by Brooklyn band Hunters, Hands on Fire, was a mini hype magnet on account of its rough-and-tumble, scuffed-and-bruised sound—it’s raw, sludgy, and kinda evil, and on its cover, founding members Isabel Almeida and Derek Watson writhe on the ground during a set at some no-stage space that probably no longer exists. The group’s . . . self-titled full-length . . . stays close to the grunge of their debut, but they’ve dulled their edge a bit in an apparent quest to mimic a more friendly 90s aesthetic—the guitar lick in the verses of ‘Street Trash,’ for example, is pure Cobain. Almeida and Watson click with each other as singers when they cut loose and don’t try to sound too pretty, letting some vitriol leak in.”
Juicy J has gone from founding member of grimy underground rap collective Three 6 Mafia to one of the biggest names in mainstream hip-hop. Tonight his journey takes him to UIC Pavilion. Leor Galil says, “As rap writer Jeff Weiss details in a recent a Spin profile on Houston, when Three 6 Mafia won an Oscar in 2006 for the song ‘It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,’ it brought the group to Hollywood, exposing them to the harmful effects of reality TV and ill-conceived high-gloss crossover collaborations (sorry, Tiesto). Houston returned to Memphis to recharge, and at 38 he’s rapping with the intensity and an enthusiasm of a hungry teenager. On his recent third album, Stay Trippy (Taylor Gang/Kemosabe/Columbia), Houston outshines guests many years his junior: he’s more fun than Wale (who drops some half-assed bars on ‘Bounce It’), more lucid than Lil Wayne (who almost sleepwalks through the club banger ‘Bandz a Make Her Dance’), and more competent than Big Sean (who regrettably appears on ‘Show Out’). The Young Chop-produced ‘No Heart No Love’ proves Houston to be an agile crossover artist who can handle a Top 40 rap sound without shedding his past—with his Tennessee twang and sturdy, springy flow, he delivers uncut observations of street life as easily as he rattles off rhymes about purple drank and getting head on a Mike Will Made It song with Miley Cyrus.” I’d like to add that I’ve seen Juicy live before, during this spring’s Stay Trippy Tour, and it was a near-religious experience.
