Dave N. wrote: Sun Jul 17, 2022 2:39 am I keep listening to their new album over and over again. Seems like it deserves its own poll.

I guess US Maple would be my first comparison, but there’s a lot more going on. Definitely some Beefheart influence. Lyrically peculiar, but relevant to our modern lives. This will most likely be my favorite album of 2022.

https://sexyjerry.bandcamp.com/

In June 2022, Sexual Jeremy played a weeknight show here in Chicago at a small venue called Golden Dagger—the old Tonic Room in Lincoln Park. Very cool spot. Draws a younger crowd, vax required, all the door money to the bands. Good vibes all around. A sparse but engaged crowd enjoyed the two opening local bands, Highway Stacy and Mukqs, and Sexual Jeremy, on tour from Denton, TX. Maybe 10 people paid admission? Weirdos emerge when left of center electronic music and no wave are on the menu. Indeed one did. For the record, I hope this dude's O.K.!

This guy—in his early 30s, I figure—rolls up to the venue on a Sante Fe cruiser, coming in with a head of steam. Looking stoked for the show, sweaty, evidently worried Sexual Jeremy already started. The person working the door stops him from ramming open the front door, checks his vax card, takes payment, and lets him in. I watch with polite curiosity as he hands out Cuties to anyone who will accept—including the sound tech—half of them spilling across the floor from a ripped Jewel bag. Sexual Jeremy is setting up to play now. I decline his tangerine offering. He's carrying on with someone in front me; I assume they're pals. He's chatting a mile a minute and bouncing around to other attendees. After nearly breaking a prong on his phone charger, he climbs on top of the bar to get a better angle for ramming it into an outlet. The bartender shoos him off the bar, mystified. I hear him joke about Adderall to another attendee and think to myself, "Checks out. He's ripped on meds and pumped to see a band he likes. Who cares?"

The band's about to play. He starts punishing them with trivia about their past shows, naming songs and related artists. "I'm filming the whole thing—oh yeah," he says. "Wouldn't miss this." He's buzzing around the room like a wind-up toy, getting in people's faces. Low level concern among the audience sets in. At first, I thought he knew people here, or was friends with the band, which presumes a built in security. He did not—and was not.

You know the person at the house show that wants everyone to know just how ~into it~ they are? I'd marked him for one of those. Usually, it's a harmless sideshow to the main event. Weird spaces foster weirdness. Let it be. Bystanders at house shows tend to self-police anyway, steering the energy together, keeping the gig from unraveling. That kind of buffer is limited at a venue like Golden Dagger, however, when there's a small crowd of people who don't know each other and no security.

Sexual Jeremy starts playing and this guy is raging with delight. I couldn't blame him! The music is outrageous, with the zags and jolt of a heart being defibrillated. Everybody's digging it, relieved that the main event is underway. But this guy's sideshow has just begun. By song number two, he's activated a sequence of somersaults, slam dancing, and ground wiggles, clearing an eight foot radius all to himself. He's drenched in sweat—and thirsty. The bartender sends him to a jug of water at the back of the venue for self-service. He scrams back to the front with two cups full to the brim, sits on a bench momentarily, then dumps both cups of water on his head, splashing a nearby photographer and her camera. She scowls and scoots away, turning to the rest of the audience with a look that says, "Are you guys seeing this?"

Three songs in and the band is rolling. Dead-eyed no wave played on a tiny stage, barely containing the drummer-vocalist, bassist, and two guitarists—each one with their own splayed movements and crazed faces. It's glorious. Our guy was feeling that, too. He rips off his Naked City tank top. The bartender tells him to put it back on; he does. The music is intoxicating. He slumps to the floor, fussing with his shoe. He rips it off, claps it on the ground a few times, and chucks it across the room—which I catch on camera. He's staring at the ceiling and writhing with the music.

Seated at the bench again, he's gripping a two-top with all his might. During an especially dissonant passage, he raises it up and slams it to the ground to the beat of the song, breaking half the table top. For a second, he looks like he snaps to, realizing he messed up. He brings the busted piece of table up to the bartender for safe keeping, gestures an apology with hands and lowered head, and returns to his broken table for more jackhammering. BAM, BAM, BAM. The guy closest to him intervenes, telling him to take it easy. "You can't be doing that, man." The band stops playing. "You're making people feel unsafe." He doesn't take nicely to this attention, cussing out the guy who confronted him, stepping to him with his chest out. Two more of us from the crowd step toward him and form a funnel with arms and torsos toward the door. "You gotta go, man. Time to go," one of us says. He's spitting insults at the staff—and he's really pissed at the first guy who confronted him. "I'll kick your ass," he's screaming, appended with bigoted words I won't dignify in writing. We send him out to Halsted Ave. with his skateboard and bag of Cuties, barricading the front door with our bodies. He tears off faster than anyone I've ever seen skate on flat ground.

Five minutes later, I'm still outside the venue blocking the entrance with the door person, expecting round two from our buddy. My heart's pumping. The band starts playing again and the crowd fills in the area where our guy was earlier. Screeching to a stop across from the venue, our guy parks his car. He's back. He drove! He must have parked up the street and skated to the venue. He's trying to cross Halsted—he wants a piece of the guy who confronted him, his parked car still running. More choice words from him. "Nope, you're done," one of us says. "Keep moving. Nope." We shake our heads. He gets back in his car, slams the door, and peels out, screaming incoherently out the window, heading toward Fullerton Ave. Sexual Jeremy closes their set with nine minute opus "The Quick Trip." The house lights and music turn on. It feels like mercy.

We never saw him again. I hope he gets help. Music is visceral and can make you do stuff involuntarily. But this was something else. What's strange is that I have never seen him at a show. The scene for this kind of music in Chicago is modest enough where most people know or recognize each other.

Who wants a Cutie?