We got up early on Saturday morning and pointed our trusted, silver-hybrid steed in the direction of that jewel of the midwest, Chicago. Besides having a ton of in-laws in the City (ie, ALL of Oak and Forest Parks), both Dhruva and I have a bunch of old friends, and there’s a healthy world of Sub Swarans as well… thus, we KNEW this one was going to be a blast.

Having gotten into Chicago on the early side, we had a great, crisp fall afternoon to kill. We grabbed lunch with Chander, one of Dhruva’s crew from Michigan, and I headed out to see the fam while Dhruva & Chander held it down downtown. Walking down Michigan Ave never ceases to inspire me; the river, the architecture, the multiple layers of the city, the HUGE whomp of freezing lake air the sent me cowering into H&M to buy a hat. One of these days I’ll learn how to pack for tour.

A few hours later, we converged for soundcheck on the north side at the Abbey Pub. This show was fully sold-out, and we wanted to make sure that we had ample time to get our kit sounding as chest-rattlingly-awesome as possible.

In short: IT WORKED. We again ran the gamut of the Sub Swara sound, throwing in some Tortoise for local measure, some Clara Nunez for a bit of a Samba Enredo break before our remix of Mochipet’s “Complex Players,” and finishing it off with some–i kid you not– RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE. Dhruva and I’d been listening to a steady diet of early-90s altrock: Jane’s Addiction, Faith No More, RATM, etc… and really, there’s no reason why we can’t fit something like that into a set. To us, at times I think what we do translates as the dance-music extension of the vibe around that era in music; we can do ANYTHING provided we do it right. Thanks for doin it with us, Chicago, and doing in the floor:

yes: that’s the dancefloor from the bottom, during EOTO’s set. When we came downstairs after playing, Jason and Travis were goin nuts at how much the floor was moving during the Sub Swara set– now we know why!

now if only i had some video of myself and Travis giving each other the headbutt to end all headbutts….