Chicago In Minneapolis: The Dials Open Up For Ouija Radio Saturday Night

Ouija Radio


The Dials

Download: The Dials - "Flex Time"
Download: The Dials - "3 Is Better Than 4" (2007 Demo)
Download: Ouija Radio - "Sunrise In California"
Download: Ouija Radio - "Old Victrola"
Download: MC/VL - "Cold Check It" (via The Big Ticket and The Current)

As you may or may not know, I reside in a podunk, one-horse town called Chicago. There are many promising bands here, but I can only convince you of that fact so much. It seems like an unfortunate fact that few up-and-coming bands get up to Minneapolis to rawk the fraternal twin cities. (Or if they have, then I'm way, WAY, out of the loop). The only true way to know that these Chi-town bands are the real deal is to see them live in concert.

So those of you who are headed to the Ouija Radio show Saturday at the T-Rock (and you must, as Ouija Radio are ten kinds of raw awesome) should arrive to see the openers. If you do this, not only will you be able to watch MPLS greats International Espionage and MC/VL, but you'll also catch The Dials.

The Dials are a Chicago quartet that combine the energy and quirkiness of 80s New Wave bands--the early catalog of The B-52s would be a good reference point--with harmonic sweetness of the essential 60s girl-groups. Ultimately, The Dials' music sounds like what would happen if Sleater-Kinney made an entire album of songs like "You're No Rock And Roll Fun" and rotated through membership at a pace which would have made Spinal Tap blush. The band put out their first EP,Sick Time, in late 2003, a recording which garnered the attention of Latest Flame Records, for whom The Dials began recording their first full-length Flex Time in the winter of 2004 with Douglas Meirs, the band's first true replacement for original drummer Ali Kalaba and former bandmate of Dials singer/bassist Rebecca Crawford.

Sadly, The Dials would suffer an unfathomable loss as Meirs, along with Crawford's husband, John Glick, died in a tragic car accident in the summer of 2005. The band underwent an understandable period of mourning, but then soldiered to play scheduled shows with drummer Chad Romanski filling in. In fall of 2005, the band released Flex Time as intended.

Flash forward to just about a month ago, when The Dials announced that they were gearing up for recording their second full-length, which is entitled Amoeba Amore. The band has been consistently posting demos on their MySpace page, one of which you can listen to at the top of the post. Whether or not you love single cell organisms is one thing, but if you go to the show tomorrow night, then definitely check out The Dials. You should love them with every building block of life in your body.

Listen to MP3s from The Dials, Ouija Radio and MC/VL at the top of the post.

Buy tickets here
Ouija Radio MySpace Page
The Dials MySpace Page
MC/VL MySpace Page

(Jonathan Graef)