Last Saturday, Moon Duo, the husband and wife team of Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada, headlined for the Permanent Records 4th Anniversary Jam, which took place at that venerable Chicago bastion of alternative musical taste, the Empty Bottle.  It was the pair’s first performance in the city of big shoulders. I knew I had come to the right show when, five minutes into the first act – a wicked set by local up-and-comers Brain Idea – I was solicited for an interview by a doe-eyed journalism student, who, unsurprisingly, was studying at Chicago’s own magnate of hip-set artistic pretension, Columbia College.  She let me know that the assignment was to cover a “local cultural event.”  And I guess when Moon Duo roll into town, that’s exactly what you should expect, a cultural event (emphasis on event).

There are some bands that, no matter how sophisticated the sound mastering, no matter how high fidelity the home-listening environment, must imperatively be experienced live.  Moon Duo is one of these bands.  Their particular brand of spacey, psychedelic, drone-rock – which a few critics have compared to the proto-kraut rock of a Velvet Underground live set – has only one appropriate volume setting, too loud.  Moreover, Moon Duo is a group bred for the road (Johnson has said one reason for starting the group was to fill in Wooden Shjips down-time with extra touring) and which, like wine, needs to be opened onto the world to breathe before it’s full flavor can be appreciated.

I got a chance to talk to Ripley before the show.  I don’t know whether it was his Billy Gibbons beard or the fact that he and Sanae were personally manning their own merch table while chatting up fans, long-necks in hand, but I got the feeling that Ripley Johnson is one extremely down-to-earth character.  There’s something very authentically American about him: wearing a white tee and blue Levi’s dungarees with leather loafers, touring the country with his old lady, singing about his love for motorcycles.  Ripley admits that while he does prefer working on music in the studio, touring gives him the much more valuable experience of simply traveling, of meeting people and keeping in touch with the reception his music is getting.  When I ask him whether he’s met anybody interesting on the road, he nonchalantly replies “just normal people.”

Later, as Moon Duo ride high on aching layers of reverb, I brush my fingertips across the amp in front of me and feel the power of the music.  The hairs on my forearm stand up as if magnetized.  And between the motorik drum kit coming from a humble sampler and the relentless bass guitar loops, my head and torso are prompted to bob and weave as I fall into a trance of old, bad-ass American rock.  I realize this is a feeling you will never get by listening to a recording.

But, for all those waiting for the next Moon Duo vinyl to drop, I have the inside word from Ripley himself that they are putting together a “holiday” single which will feature covers of both “Silver Bells” and the Stone’s “Winter,” and may have to be pressed to a twelve inch due to the length of Moon Duo’s versions.  Sadly, the record is not scheduled for release until next March.

The surprise of the night for me, however, had nothing to do with Moon Duo.  Shortly after my conversation with Ripley, I availed myself of the restrooms where I noticed that two full copies of what appeared to be the Jean Bennet Ramsey ransom note had been posted above the urinals, with the strange signature, “Victory! Umberto,” appended.  It wasn’t long before the Permanent Records MC was announcing the third act, an electro quartet named Umberto, who apparently never played outside of their home state of Kansas.

Out of character with the rest of the night’s garage-rock line-up, Umberto turned out to be a sinister sounding dark-wave disco outfit, with three out of the four members tooling on keyboards – the fourth providing real percussion on a tom and snare.  When they began to play, the floor literally shook from the oscillation of their pile-driving bass synths and the crowd swooned noticeably.  The origin of the ransom note in the men’s room was quickly explained as the group had brought a large notepad with a picture of the young Jean Bennet inserted in a heart onto the stage with them.  And I must say something about using the gruesome event of Ramsey’s kidnapping and murder as a motif played against the ethereal creepiness of these middle of the country wastelander’s mortifying “dance” numbers.

All told, it was a pretty excellent show, even by Empty Bottle standards – which, FYI out-of-towners, is usually very high.  Maybe my best endorsement is that while I arrived at the event in a terrible mood, not entirely sure I was even going to stay, I left with a warm glow of contentment (and maybe a little booze), believing that all was well in the indie-verse.