Chrome Priest was the opening band for The Insouciant Glances at the Niagara the night of the legendary snow storm that blew over a big tree that crushed Tommy’s white Econoline and doomed a half dozen bands to cancel their mini tours to Seattle and Portland that winter. Chrome Priest were a monster six piece noise ensemble out of Gary, Indiana who barely made it over the border for the show probably because they looked like a noise band from the rust belt. Parker thought that they sounded like a ‘screaming satellite crashing to earth’ while Jordyn’s assessment was characteristically less verbose. “Those dudes got it,” he said to me, leaning in close to my ear so that I could hear him over the long deep distorted hum of the band’s final chord. What Jordyn meant by ‘it’ was magic. Magic was the fuel. Magic was the thing that we sought and captured. It is what separated us from the dumb beasts that roamed the eternal rinse cycle of commercial radio’s drive time commute. Alice, who was the embodiment of magic and could never be captured, didn’t have time for critical appraisals. She was smoking a cigarette absentmindedly and staring with curious adoration at a girl who sat nearby wearing a studded leather choker and Siouxie Sioux eyes. | image via @kevinkilljoy