8:30pm - doors
9pm - show
$7 
All Ages

ONO (Chicago, IL) 
http://ono1980.com/
Technically ONO began in 1980 - it’s the year the band officially assigns - but anyone can see the band’s miasmic origins roiling and writhing much before. P Michael Grego and travis had met before 1980, sharing a love for written and spoken word, the transcendent, and the genuine. Through continual poking and prodding, P Michael convinced travis to join him in ONO, the name coming from shortening “onomatopoeia,” and underscoring a desire to create “noise not music.” P Michael would handle the audio. travis the words. Since January 5, 1980, they have fiercely defended a singular construct: “The ONO STATEMENT OF PURPOSE: Experimental Performance, NOISE, and Industrial Poetry Performance Band; Exploring Gospel's Darkest Conflicts, Tragedies and Premises.”

In a deeper consideration of ONO’s genesis, the band is rooted in events hundreds of years earlier. ONO tackles military history, religious history, racial history, geopolitical history, artistic history, and that’s only for starters. travis mentions real, often harrowing events, attaching years and dates, as if history were ever present.

Mourning A BLKstar (Cleveland, OH) 
https://clevelandtapes.com/
RA Washington was left bewildered after the murder of his close friend. He felt reflective and drifted into in a creative crisis. Disillusioned by the idea of making a living as an artist, he was unsure if his future as a poet and beat maker was sustainable. He knew that he needed a new spark --new voices around him-- and he soon found it as he invited long time friends, LaToya Kent, and James Long to record over new beats, crafted in honor of his lost friend. It was not long before the group began to realize that they had something special. After bringing Jazz singer, Kyle Kidd into the mix, they began to record their first record, “Blk Musak,” which explores a conversation between iconic symbols and concepts that have historically sustained marginalized people-- the heart of black music.

Mourning [A] BLKstar wants to communicate their vision and love for the community while collectively creating greater opportunities to create and share.

JoAnn McNeil (St. Louis)
https://joannmcneil.bandcamp.com/

Heavy Pauses (St. Louis) 
Link to tunes >> https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a9c5cab8f5130e5d8fa01fb/t/5ab055628a922d6ee3af9268/1521505670385/HP1.mp3/original/HP1.mp3