I have not been keeping up to speed on things this month, mainly because my other writing work has kept me too busy to do much else. I also spent a lot of time trying to open the package that contained my car charger for my cell phone. When I drove to Milwaukee this past Friday, I spent a good 10 minutes in the car try to open the malleable plastic package--I even stabbed at the damn thing with my keys, only to see it quasi-cave in before my eyes. The only way it opened was after repeated stabbings ... a small air pocket erupted which was only larger to fit my thumb. I am still trying to understand the uneasiness of this matter.

I am consistently amazed at the wall of sound put forth by Secret Machines. Although unable to harness the same intensity on disc versus live performance, the Texas-bred band has affinity for all things sonic. Some of the music press dubbed the band "space rock" or chalked them to Floyd with bigger keyboards. While both may be true, what stands out about the Machines is their ability to personally disconnect themselves from audiences and connect with them through heat of light and sound. Monday night's Chicago show at the Park West proved they were on again on point with musical mastery, but this time, instead of acting like dispondent wearwolves on stage they thanked audiences for coming to see their space jam--they also preceded not to play my favorite track, "Nowhere Again" and opted for the longer more inflated "Now Here is No Where" which features some the same spacey hook but less talk about "the woman in the mirror in a firey state/she motions to me, I'm turning away/she's lifting her dress up ... all the way up..." I am a lover of language and sound. The Machines enchant me because while their atmospheric music in decidedly harder than I like, the layers of keyboard and string--with only three band members--is boggling. Live, thier lyrics maybe indistinguishable but the intensity is inevitable. It jumps up and bites in the most irreverant way. And for every smoldering sonic key that's hit, a gem of lyric lurks beneath. In SM lingo: "Maybe the rain will stop following me/with millions of colors reflected in daylight/right on the kickdrum/turning the sound up full."

Yes, they certainly do.