Smashed Plastic
Undisclosed venue
Chicago
Feb. 3, 2024
Smashed Plastic’s logo says it all: the Chicago-born vinyl pressing plant’s insignia features one of the ubiquitous red, six-point stars from the Chicago city flag, trimmed in the banner’s iconic, if aspirational, “river” blue. It is aggressively Chicagoan, and its five-year anniversary bash, held in a secret location near Chicago’s Ukrainian Village on Saturday night, showcased several hometown heroes on and off stage. The night’s festivities provided a snapshot of a particular scene in the city, and gave this couple of relatively recent transplants a better introduction to the well of established local talent and independent brands that help forge community. Chicago makes it known that Chicago loves things made in Chicago, and this evening’s events were about as home grown as it gets.
From quiet residential streets and a night-dormant city park, the “secret party” was identifiable only by a small easy-up tent and a few scraggly-haired smokers. If you knew, you knew.
Breaching the entrance, visitors were enveloped in a gush of warm air pouring out from an airplane hangar-sized warehouse. Immediately inside, the gathering crowd queued up for the Pipeworks Brewing Company’s contribution to the festivities, “Hand Poured”— a kolsch custom brewed for the event.
Proceeds from the suggested-donation brew went to Girls Rock Chicago, a nonprofit devoted to its eponymous pursuit. Others perused Dark Matter Coffee’s offerings, including a special batch of roasted beans entitled “Keepin’ it All Chicago,” sporting the same art as the beer. That art was designed by local artist Ethan D’Ercole, featuring Chicago icons like the El train and a tastefully naive geometric take on the built environment of industrial iron and concrete. A merch table offered selections from the Smashed Plastic catalogue, including several albums from the celebration’s featured bands.
While most crowded the merch area and the stage, others relaxed at picnic tables at the far end of the space and rehydrated on Dark Matter-provided water, left in a DIY keg setup. Thirsty patrons cooperated to pump water and change the kegs.
To kick off the festivities, locals Bloodhype (Maureen Neer and Chris Lee) — not to be confused with their German counterparts — brought synthy, bouncy technopop to the crowd, creating a relaxed and celebratory environment that manifested a gathering of friends from a crowd of strangers.
Dianogah was up next, a power trio consisting of two bassists (Jay Ryan, Jason Harvey) and a drummer (Kip McCabe) occasionally accompanied by a couple of select guests on keyboard and vocals. Their sound was as Chicago as a mid-afternoon micro brew on a breezy sunbathed September patio, before the cold has teeth. While the band self-identifies as “mortgage-core,” Dianogah’s punchy, dual-bass attack might be more easily imagined as a feral variant of mathy Midwest emo. The group’s steely bass punch and syncopated rhythms yawned and stretched into a breezy, beautiful set with hiccupping time signatures and pregnant pauses. Pauses so effective, in fact, that when the power cut near the end of the band’s set, it took the audience a moment to realize the lights going out weren’t a dramatic effect. The band finished the song acoustically, and then the room regrouped as breakers were thrown in the background.
Above the stage was a painted quote by Anthony Bourdain and two projected moons, as well as a projected and lightly bouncing Smashed Plastic logo; while we milled in the half-lit warehouse, Tiny Tim’s “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” played from the other half of the warehouse, lending a momentary uncanniness to the event. After enough time for an impromptu bathroom break and lap around the warehouse, looking at innumerable unidentifiable boxes and a field of commercial espresso machines, Dianogah took the stage again, claiming “we only know our set from the beginning, so here we go.” While they didn’t do more than another song or two, they shouted out both their children in the crowd — a teen wearing bright pink headphones raised their fist joyfully — and elicited some lighthearted jeers at a Smashed Plastic employee the band jocularly blamed for the delayed release of their forthcoming album.
The final band for the evening were fellow hometown heroes FACS. Featuring Brian Case on guitar and vocals, Noah Leger on drums, and founding member Jonathan van Herik on bass, the trio conjured sonic clouds made of concrete, equally dreamy and heavy, elemental and intellectual. To ensnare the band in a particular genre would be irresponsible. FACS were more of a survey of fuzzed-out underground music. Embarking from the noisy sound of ’90s post-hardcore pioneers Unwound, FACS made layovers at the sneering cynicism of Mark E. Smith, the chorus-drenched hooks of the Police, and the art house appeal of This Heat. Case’s vocals excused themselves from the duty of narrative, often repeating a phrase like a Trancendental Meditation mantra. Driving basslines and syncopated percussion undergirded the effect-laden flights and scalene stabs of the guitar.
Fellow concertgoer and FACS enthusiast Ryan Bonacker noted that “FACS can come across as impenetrable. There was nary a chorus or even a riff to nod your head to, but in no way do they lack rhythm or texture.” FACS were a mysterious and intoxicating brew and the crowd drank it down, densely packed and swaying in a trance.
As FACS wrapped up, shredding one last time under the lightly dancing Smashed Plastic logo projected on the wall, the crowd lost themselves in the layered music, some already making a beeline to preorder the eventual live album the night would produce — thus ensuring Smashed Plastic’s endurance as a stalwart of the “made in, for, of, and by Chicago” scene.
