Watch : Bitchpork III #2 - Work/Death + Bad Drugs

Welcome to the second installment of our Bitchpork III video series.

Early in day one of the festival, a found-sound gospel sermon oozed out into Mortville. A grungy kid some of you probably know sat knees down, face into the floor, slamming his fists into the ground as the words entered his head....as if to let go of something troublesome to him. Not pictured, only background sound adding to the intensity. Work/Death is a solo noise project based out of Providence, Rhode Island. Bad Drugs are from Chicago, and you should go see them.

Bitchpork 2011 #1 : FAT WORM OF ERROR.

"We'd like to thank the CHICAGO POLICE for letting us have this party..."

The first video in our 'Biiitchpork' series. Fat Worm of Error are a band from Northampton, Massachusetts. They formed in 2002. Bitchpork was a music festival held on Chicago's south side. It included over 40 touring and local bands like Warhammer 48K, Work/Death, Running, Andy Cigarettes, Lechuguillas, Radar Eyes, and ONO.

Fat Worm of Error

Some thoughts on the AIDS benefit, our D.I.Y culture, and a word about Bitchpork video coming soon...

image courtesy of TJ Superfan

This past Saturday, we held a show at Treasure Town. It consisted of six of some of our favorite bands. Call Me Lightning, Paper Mice, Lechuguillas, Unmanned Ship, Magic Milk, and Snacks. Snacks played their last show for a while, as their drummer Evan has moved. It was originally going to be filmed for the Echotone film project that we are constantly looking to get amazing footage for. Nathan Christ ended up having to go off to New York City to start filming the NYC chapter of that. I will find a way to somehow fit these bands in that goddamn movie! So, we ran with what we had going, which was a hell of a show.

Shortly after setting it up, Dave Reminick of Paper Mice called us up and asked if we would mind having his yearly AIDS fundraiser be a part of this. He said he had some good things in line. We immediately said yes, because hell, we love a good cause, and you all were so gracious in helping us with a fundraiser to help out the site. We also really like giving back to the community in any way we can. Big or small. Dave rangled up a bunch of prints by the ever-amazing Ryan Duggan, who also contributed a skateboard deck. Grimes chipped in a painting. Handlebar and Lula Cafe contributed gift certificates.

I had no idea how it was going to do, all I know is that we pushed it, and we pushed it hard. Believe it or not, the DIY culture here is really strong, and Chicago itself, loves social causes. However, in a dirty warehouse in the ghetto, you never know what you're going to get. 20 people could have showed up and scoffed at the idea of buying raffle tickets. You just never know. Our D.I.Y culture is strong, but sometmes the people just don't come. It's a long train bike and train ride out there, and those trains stop running at about the same time the shows start. Nobody wants to ride their bike home from a shitty neighborhood alone at 3 a.m.

...and you know what? Chicago rose up. We raised over $1,000 for funding of housing, employment, and prevention services for over 1400 Chicagoans living with HIV/AIDS. Over twenty people hauled countless amounts of gear, to the ghetto of Chicago, to do something good, on their own time. You took the time to come. Spent your money (even if it was to get cool shit in return). It could have gone the opposite way just as easy.

That makes us feel pretty damn good about what we're doing here. So, thank you, Chicago. A ton of really talented people chipped in, and it was more than worth everyone's time. We had FUN, too. A hell of a lot of it. Every band played for free, and left happy. This was before we knew what we even raised.

When Nathan Christ filmed an interview with the Mortville household for Echotone, they told us how much time they spend on their installations. How much effort goes into it. I knew somewhat the amount of time and effort, and money, these things took. To hear it come out of their own mouths was truly something special. These houses, be it Mortville, Ball Hall, or the venues of the past that are no longer with us....the people are putting their time, money, and effort to create something special. Whether you care or not, they're doing it. Often multiple nights per week. Often to twenty people. Often spending money out of their own pockets. This is aside from their "normal" day-to-day life. To most of us, the house-show scene is about more than just having a place to go to get fucked up on the cheap. It's about community, music, and about sharing musical experiences in an environment that's completely controlled by us. Free of the monetary and regulatory practices of normal venues, we are free to listen. Free to create. Free to, well...do it ourselves.

Are there shitty aspects to this culture? Of course, but there's even worse aspects and even more demoralizing aspects in the "normal" musical community. It's the way it is. This is something very dear to us, and we're extremely happy to be a part of it.

On that note, an entirely amazing, completely ear-obliterating music festival happened the other month.

It was called BITCHPORK, and it was the third installment.

We filmed pieces of every single band that weekend except for two. You all showed massive interest in the subject, and we don't want to keep you waiting on video for 6 months. Please realize that we do not receive any money for what we do here. Hell, we just now registered gonzochicago.com, and it will surely just forward to this shitty blogspot blog for half of it's first year in existence. We can justify spending hundreds of hours of time doing this, because we love to do it. We can't justify going deeper into debt than we already are.

Feel free to reach out : hotmetaldobermans@gmail.com

BITCHPORK III : Some words, photos, and a teaser trailer...

48 bands. 20 touring acts. Three days. Bitchpork III happened. Some insanely dedicated and talented folks made it happen, and for that I hope anyone who attended is very grateful for. We're still in a cryogenic sleep chamber trying to heal.

We decided to skip that other festival entirely, and that decision was reinforced every day with some of the best things we'll see all year. Three days of sweat-lodge, mopery-style heat, and pretty much every single imaginable music genre covered.

I still have no idea how my body even functioned on a normal level after that first full day. It just went into auto-pilot and said "well, if this is what you're fucking doing to me, I guess i'll get used to it." We filmed at least a song from all but two bands. Warhammer 48K made everyone go nuts. Ono made people cry. Bad Drugs surely gave everyone some nice bruises. Mahjonng...Running....Mayor Daley...Bobby Conn...Lechuguillas...Fat Worm of Error...Radar Eyes.....these are just a handful of the bands who turned in great performances. Really, if you didn't like something, all you had to do was wait 20 minutes and chances are an entirely new genre would be pounding away.

Some of the best performances came early in the day when just a handful of people were there. Toilet, Ami Dang. Work/Death, Andy Cigarettes, Cloud Becomes Your Hand and more had a little room to move around in each 100 degree corner. Such a huge array of amazing talent. It really gave the spectrum of how much cool shit everyone is doing these days.

There was usually very little time between sets, but unlike more poorly run or larger festivals, the environment we were in made for one of the most hauntingly beautiful, ear-splitting, well-ran three days of music one could ever hope for . Truly staggering in scope, and an absolute success with what they tried to do, which was give you a no-bullshit three part block of raw fucking tunes. The small scale gave the ability to see EVERYTHING, really, so that's just what we did. This is a festival for people who like music. Who like actually seeing it. An experience.

After countless hours of gentle to brutal sets from across the country, it ended with an alien, acid-nightmare-freak-out cluster fuck called called Turtle Powder. We're talking GIANT, awesome fucking alien heads, people. "alien karaoke" , from the future! Warped squeals of vocals, Hugely loud pounding rhythm, with hilariously twisted background video. The thing would've surely make art-school snobs and dub-step kids cry and lose all hope of doing anything remotely this cool.

View (literally) a HUNDRED more photos, and tag all of these wonderful people.

More soon. Stick around.
















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