As a wise advertising creative once put it, life comes at you fast. For instance: Ever since I heard about this new Red Xerox compilation, I had plannied to post it on Stereogum on its release date. That day came and went a week ago, and somehow it completely slipped past me. But I get an even more acute sense that my sense that life is coming at me fast when I consider that Chicago's young Hallogallo scene is now old enough to be documented on retrospective comps.
When I started hearing about bands like Horsegirl and Lifeguard early in the decade, they were still in high school. Now, along with contemporaries like Free Range and Friko, they're indie rock household names. Red Xerox was assembled by scene staple Eli Schmitt of TV Buddha, whose New Now project is "dedicated to documenting: zines, videos and cassettes." The comp presents a portrait of the scene when it was still fledgling. It's billed as a time capsule of "Chicago Youth Beat 2020-2025" and comes with a 24-page zine.
Twelve bands in total are represented here: all the aforementioned plus Post Office Winter, Dwaal Troupe, Current Union TM, P.Noid, Amaya Peña, Uniflora, and Lifeguard dude Kai Slater's also-quite-successful Sharp Pins. Speaking of Slater, he offered a statement disputing my impression that this comp is a retrospective:
Diesel X. The Flaming Racers. Porcupine Love. These could have been our band names. We could have been surfers in Tulsa, elephant trainers in Thailand, ants…any number of things. A lot could have gone differently. But somehow, against all odds and logic, we became a group of punk rockers in Chicago, Illinois, making what felt like an atomic love bomb, and we knew it. This was self-actualization in real time: manifestos and stratagems, calls to arms. Zines planted at every Blue Line stop and coffee shop we could find. Frances B. playing trombone and trumpet at the same time. Niko K. shrieking like a newly born pterodactyl, and a whole generation of newly born pterodactyls alongside him, stomping and kicking. Not crying for their mothers, but for youth expression, liberated bodies, dance spaces, rave-ups, and hops. If any of this sounds silly, you are a silly person. But if it sounds like a future you want to be part of, welcome. This compilation is not a reminiscence of the good old days or a document of a time long gone, it is NOW! Please join us. The future is yours and mine.
Desert Island Recordings will celebrate the release of Red Xerox with shows in Brooklyn and Chicago. The NYC event will be at Union Pool on March 28 featuring Horsegirl, TV Buddha, Autobahn, and Parking. In Chicago, it'll be an all-day festival April 5 at the Empty Bottle with performances from Free Range, TV Buddha, Kitship, Uniflora, Current Union TM, P.Noid, and Friko's Niko Kapetan.
Stream Red Xerox below.
In addition to the main Red Xerox comp, Schmitt has assembled Red Xerox Tape Expo, a compendium cassette with 19 more artists. Here's a statement about that from Instagram:
RED XEROX IS OUT TODAY!
And to celebrate I put together a new tape compendium featuring 19 songs from a few of chicago’s finest. New and old, this tape is by no means a definitive statement, only a snap shot of a moment, I hope that it inspires all those who listen to dig deeper and check out more of the wonderful amazing music chicago has to offer. Listen on YouTube or buy it on bandcamp.
profits will benefit the legal clinic.
Thank you for all that have been involved in the red xerox project. It started as a dream while driving to LA, the dream burrowed in my heart and thanks to you all it is finally alive. It is a lofty project and I doubted whether it was the right thing to do. To document a scene in stone while it was still forming. To create an active history is a scary thing because of how easy it is to distort reality. But very few scenes get to write their own story in this way. Their history is placed upon them decades later by record collectors who decide what was important and what wasn’t. So when gabe said he was down to help make this record I jumped, knowing it was the natural continuation of the work I have been doing with new now.
Listen to the tape below.
Red Xerox is out now via Desert Island Recordings. Buy it here.
