French metal band Jack of Heart plays the Empty Bottle Saturday night.
Support the support acts! Opening bands are more than a commercial break—it’s your preview of the next big attraction, and we know you don’t want a bad case of FOMO. Get to know our pick of the week, and get to the show early to see them live.
By Selena Fragassi
Shock rock once had its day. There was Ozzy and that ill-fated bat and his contemporary Alice Cooper who made a whole career with one foot in the crypt. A decade or so ago Marilyn Manson and Rammstein continued the farce, tempting the subversive with claims of anti-Christing and explicit special effects. But in modern times of visual domination, these types of tepid decoys just don’t do the trick anymore — not even a fine-cut meat dress and collaboration with R. Kelly could make us pay any more attention to Lady Gaga’s sinking battleship.
So when a band comes along singing about “baby b——,” declaring Voodoo priestess Marie Laveau their queen and touting a frontman who wears granny panties and looks like he Dumpster dived for Rocky Horror and Baby Jane costumes, it would be fair to think it would be matched with a heavy eye roll. But in our unaffected state, it would also be a shame to write off a band like Jack of Heart.
While the French group might, by all appearances, look like a pandering mob of goons, their music is not. Theirs is a cavernous mix of death valley psych rock with warbling gypsy swells and scraping by on an aggressive underbelly of primordial punk rock. The all-seeing eye present on a series of three under-the-radar album covers moves with the spirit gaze of Syd Barrett, Brian Jones and Jay Reatard, but also peers into the souls of descendants like Black Lips and Ty Segall. It’s all good company for the wayward voyeurs who are finding more opportunities to bring their ‘intimate’ shows Stateside, delivering raw power plays and evolutionary songscapes that will cause real shock waves.
JACK OF HEART
With White Mystery
When: 9 p.m. Jan. 11
Where: Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western
Tickets: $8 (in advance)
Info: (773) 276.3600; ticketweb.com
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