Plus Tapes

Finally! It was a typical October evening in Chicago – breezy and relaxed, perfect zip-up hoodie and jeans weather – and I was finally going to see the one band that has somehow eluded me for years now.  How something so conspicuous can be so unattainable in this age of infinite connection is beyond me.  Even the name is perfectly straightforward: Chicago Thrash Ensemble.  There is no irony, no pretension.  It’s just a group of guys playing thrash metal in the heart of the Windy City.  Simple.  Immediate.  Almost confrontational even.  Then why the elusiveness of this brave and brash five?  Why do I find their name scribbled across record store sandwich boards, then when inside am unable to find even a seven-inch?  How do they end up on year-end lists when Google-ing their name brings up nary a release?  Do any of these innumerable basements they apparently play even exist?  But no longer will these questions haunt me!  Not after tonight…

But wait!  No, this can’t be!  As I pull up to the address listed on my handbill – a typical deteriorating West Chicago brick building – I can already hear the music blaring from the second floor.  I can’t be late.  I can’t miss them again!  Flying up the stairs two by two: the riffs get louder, a pummeling double bass drum wreaks havoc on the building’s old copper pipes, and a growl of voice splits the crowd noise like a rusty butcher’s knife taking on a week-old cow carcass.  I finally find my way into the low-rent loft – furnished warmly with hand-me-downs and sidewalk-sale purchases – and the crowd is a heaving mass of sweaty and mostly-shirtless 21st-century punk kids, packed too thick in one corner of the room for me to see the band.  Then one final exhausting riff and it was over.  No more rage, no more propulsion, no more thrash, just a bunch of sweaty kids.  Swell.

Just before I walked away from yet another missed opportunity to finally experience this Holy Grail of metal, a figure separates the crowd with a snare drum and hi-hat.  Half obvious Chicagoan, half Viking, he chucks his gear vehemently in the opposite corner of the room.  He turns to me – all 5’8’’ of this commanding force of a man – and we stare at each other eye-to-eye for what seems like an eternity.  Finally, he unlocks his hefty gaze, reaches into his pocket and dislodges a tape, tossing it into my trembling hands.  I look down surprised by the weight of the object – “Demon Cassette” is scrawled across the grey surface of the tape.  Wait… are these red stains blood?  And is it… is this thing warm?  Suddenly the music starts again.  Is that a little girl rapping?  And where did the Chicago Thrash Ensemble go?  Dammit.  At least now, I have proof.

http://www.myspace.com/chicagothrash