Chicago "no wave" band (which added a new album on Drag City, Talker, to Sang Phat Editor and its 1996 debut, Long Hair in Three Stages, both on Skin Graft) continues the devolution of Chicago music, with disorienting music that lurches, sputters and disintegrates before coming back together again. They had very mixed receptions opening for indie rock favorites Pavement for a month during Summer '99. Many compare the band to Captain Beefheart, a la Trout Mask Replica, though singer Al Johnson insists that the comparison is greatly overstated. The frequent comparisons to Sonic Youth seem to confuse the band less. Chicago Reader critic Peter Margasak says, "Rittmann and Shippy seem to be working against each other, their palsied chords and gnarled lines piling up in an unkempt jumble, but slowly it becomes clear that the music is organized to sound disorganized -- and live the guitarists emphasize the point, re-creating the chaos meticulously. Samson pounds out the irregular rhythms with absurd precision, making the music move like Ray Bolger on fire, and Johnson wheezes, whoops, whinnies, whines, and wails like a Skid Row loony."
The Reader's Monica Kendrick adds, "Talker still only hints at why they're the greatest live band to come out of Chicago in years... I've never been able to get to sleep easily after one of their gigs -- and that's about the highest compliment I could pay a rock band." Members include drummer Pat Samson, guitarists Mark Shippy and Todd Rittman, and wheezing, choking singer Al Johnson. All were playing in two different bands at Northern Illinois University -- Johnson and Shippy were in Shorty (a band that released two records in the US and Germany), while Rittman and Samson were in the Mercury Players.
Johnson invited Rittman to join the new group, and after Jim Kimball (Laughing Hyenas, etc.) played with them for a few weeks, Kimball was replaced by Samson.
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