"Return" is the operative word here: on one hand, it marks the first time since 1998 that King Kong has played Chicago; on the other hand, Buckler and his wife recently relocated from Louisville to Chicago.

"I had done it [King Kong] for such a long time, I just didn't feel like it anymore," Buckler says, explaining the band's hiatus. "Plus, King Kong was losing money, and I couldn't think of any new ideas." But for someone whose career started when he was 18 (as Slint's original bass player), the vacation had to end. "I just started to miss it."

Buckler's return led to "The Big Bang," which reveals a renewal of creative energy. It uses space travel as a motif, making extensive use of synthesizers and deep, lush bass lines with a thickness that borders on dub style, and a lessened emphasis on the vocals. "That was intentional," he says, "like the words are a time-warp in space. With minimal vocals, a phrase can suggest a seed—then you can let that expand in your mind to the music." The result is the purest dance record King Kong has released to date.

"The Big Bang" marks King Kong's fifth original full-length (minus "Breeding Ground," 2001's collection of demos and outtakes), and throughout them all the band has followed a concept of sorts, begging the question: what comes first, the song or the idea? "Usually it's the music. I start fooling around with the songs and come up with a few hooks, and eventually a few come together. The motifs end up developing from one line or one song, and going from there."

Agitainment weekly:
In order to understand the punk rock band Vortis, you have to start at the top. "Vorticism," explains lead singer Mike Weinstein, "was a part of the British avant-garde movement before World War I." In short, the movement believed in a reconstituting of energy—positive and negative—that forms a new vitality, a vortex, of art and life. So how does that relate to the band Vortis? Consider some of the band's song titles from "Take the System Down," its debut full-length on Thick Records: "Unabomber," "White Skin Black Heart," "We Hate Our Condition." To go along with the songs, Weinstein's lyrics are open to incendiary interpretation. From the chorus of "Democracy," for example: "Down with Democracy, down with the bitch/democracy's a tool for the filthy rich." Before starting a show at this year's Rock Yards festival, Weinstein proclaimed "We're Vortis, and we're the only pro-Osama Bin Laden band in America."

Before you unleash the pens and vitriol, there's an explanation. "These songs aren't in the spirit of malice," says Weinstein, "but with a sense of joy, an elation in throwing off social bindings that won't allow you to even say certain things. It's agitainment."

Vortis must be seen to be believed. Weinstein, a 59-year-old professor of political science at Purdue, leads the quartet with a swaggering, quasi-rap vocal style. Keeping the guitars distorted like buzzsaws on cinderblocks are a pair of younger members, G. Haad and Johnny Los. The drummer is none other than Jim DeRogatis, music critic for the Sun-Times. When the band plays, Weinstein smiles and tries to make eye contact with audience members, not so much to aggravate as to connect. The music sounds remarkably fresh as well, with Haad's and Los' experience playing in thrash bands channeling into a wider, more powerful hardcore punk sound.

Despite the flame-fanning, only once has Vortis encountered any violent reaction. "At the Note," Weinstein recalls. "We were burning a flag—well, I wasn't, but somebody gave me a burning flag and I was marching around with it—and a guy in the pool-hall area saw it and punched me in the chest." Weinstein harbors no resentment. "He kept saying, 'you don't understand.' I'm sure he had his reasons, like he had someone die in the Gulf War or in the armed services. I didn't hold it against him."

But a pro-Osama Bin Laden band? "Of course I'm not for Osama Bin Laden. He would look at me and kill me twice: first for being American, and second for being a Jew. But this goes back to the guy who punched me. I'm an anarchist and an individualist—if somebody tries to hurt me or my family, I'll fight, but I understand they have their personal reasons. That's important, and I respect that."

Catch Vortis August 2 at the Hideout, when the band plays a CD release party for "Take the System Down."

[Mike Weinstein moonlights as Newcity's art critic, and has been a friend and distant philosophical mentor for nearly eight years.]

Also by Dave Chamberlain

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