The final day of PYGMALION took the best parts of days one and two and built a juggernaut. An electric set of panelists, an adaptive tech team and a stellar cast of artists closed out the three-day fanfare with a bang.
Starting with industry experts and ending with both new and established artists was quite the palatable sandwich, not just for the day but for the entirety of PYGMALION. Here we are on our last legs, taking you, our precious readers, along for our final honest review of PYGMALION’s 20th anniversary.
Krannert Center – “Price of Performance: Corporate Control of Music”
“The Price of Performance: Corporate Control of Music” was an eye-opening union of well-accomplished professionals from several aspects of the music industry.
Lisa Gottheil spoke first, revealing the overarching purpose of the panel. To her, this was not just a conversation about changing times or how to protect local music environments. It was also in memory of her brother, Josh Gottheil, who passed away but carried on his protectiveness over live music. He was a mouthpiece for maintaining an ecosystem of music untouched by corporate entities. It was in this memory that the subject panel was initially brought up to PYGMALION’s creators.
The panel was co-supported by the Josh Gottheil Memorial Fund, a nonprofit for oncology research/education, and the National Independent Venue Association – led by panelist Andre Perry, who acts as NIVA Board President. Similar to Lisa Gottheil, NIVA aims to form a shield against corporate advances in independent entertainment spaces.
Another of the star-studded speakers included Bob Mould, whose five-decade career as a musician has yielded critical successes under both solo projects and Hüsker Dü. The latter of which was praised by Rolling Stone magazine, stating the band “changed the emotional vocabulary of punk rock.”
As Mould returned to the mic time and time again, he encouraged people to not only vote for those likely to maintain the separation of the music community and musical conglomerates intact, but he also broke the news for how to truly support your local music community: Buying tickets and merchandise.
These sales are often untouchable by labels and go directly into the artist’s pocket.
Gottheil also has an active career, co-founding Grandstand Media, where she helps campaign for artists sitting anywhere between Tame Impala and MF DOOM. She also illuminated the modern problem of record labels taking over spaces previously sacred to artists and local showrunners.
As it stands, record labels control the profits regarding digital sales and streaming. Following the pandemic in 2020 – which many venues are still recovering from – many independent venues and sanctions face the risk of having to sell out or close shop. However, with community support and pooling resources, these places stand a fighting chance against a corporatized fate.
Toward the end of the panel, the audience could ask the panelists questions directly. One of the more poignant questions asked entailed what the future of artistry could look like.
An example was pulled from New Zealand funding its artists’ livelihood so that they could focus on producing works. Stateside, a bill has passed in Tennessee with the goal of giving money back to artists and venues by creating a “live music fund.” The fund still requires investment, but the proper moves have been made in places similar to Illinois’s house show and independent entertainment ecosystem to glean tips from.
The future looks optimistic for independent artists and venues, but not without a collective push and coordinated fight to be heard and represented.
Canopy Club
Mousepad the Band
The Canopy Club came together with the Hip-Hop Collective to create something truly spectacular for the closing day of PYGMALION.
The first to take the stage was Champaign-Urbana artist Josh Harris – aka Mousepad – (lead vocals/keys) joined by Aaron Scott — aka spacexboy — (drums), Corbin Phillips (guitar) and Ramon Judah (bass).
While Mousepad as a solo artist is nothing to scoff at, Mousepad the Band is a unique and formidable bridge in a music community favoring more traditional fusions of indie rock, punk, and hip-hop. The group labels itself “midwest pop grunge” and does not shy away from blurring genre boundaries altogether.
Despite being a local act, the venue was packed to the gills with excited fans who were not afraid to be heard the second the band hit the stage.
The first song of the night “Fine For Now,” tested the waters for the audience’s level of participation. Attendees went from hopping around and grooving through the song’s peaks and valleys to synchronizing waving flashlights during its slow, emotional outro.
There was not a single moment where the crowd’s opinion felt unclear. After just one song, Harris’s “how are we feeling tonight” garnered a response of ear-splitting cheers.
From there, the band showed off its range from the sleepy yet emotive “Falling Slowly” to the frenzied and aggressive “Did You Run Away.” Harris, an avid lover of rap icons like Rico Nasty, threw in a cover of the unusually mournful “Easy.” The band also teased an unreleased song made “specifically for” their PYGMALION debut.
Autotune can get grating after prolonged exposure, but Harris has managed to make his signature sound quite palatable. There were also smartly inserted intermissions via unfiltered rap and interactions with the crowd.
Between having the audience laugh along to his jokes and shouting out his mom in the audience, Harris also thanked the Canopy for speedily fixing tech issues (which were not noticeable from the audience’s perspective).
Harris’s six years as a producer and membership within Half House translated well to becoming a performing artist. He remained undaunted by the still-growing crowd and managed to work the room in a way that felt natural and conversational.
ASAVV
ASAVV is squarely in the midst of living the type of rags-to-riches story she dishes out in her newest single, “First Lady.” After spending time in the foster system and going to juvie, ASAVV came back to the music scene in full force.
ASAVV revealed to her Instagram that she put together her entire set on her own. From booking the show to buying outfits to holding dance rehearsals at her house, ASAVV displayed a dedication to a hands-on approach not just with image, but with her artistry.
Even while being freshly signed to the Trench House record label, she refuses to take her foot off the gas.
The rapstress came out guns blazing with two dancers in tow. Sporting her signature combination of pink and matching bows, ASAVV immediately made it clear what type of show we were in for.
The entire set entailed the three dancers not simply bouncing around on the stage, but dancing and interacting with the crowd. Perhaps ASAVV’s past affiliation with the Chicago girl group CRUSH taught her the ropes of stage performance, or maybe she was just born with it. Either way, she and her dancers whirled around the stage and hit enough splits to make anyone winded.
Cheering fans were met with an up-close-and-personal visage of ASAVV as she played through her hits, passing the mic to her dancers for “Bow Wow,” a song that currently sits at the top of her Spotify’s most listened and currently has the most potential to break into the mainstream.
ASAVV’s entire set was riddled with a level of charisma and dedication that is hard to find and cannot be bought. She put a great deal of behind-the-scenes effort into her performance, and it paid dividends.
DJ Silkee (Intermission)
In the extended break between ASAVV and Queen Key’s set, DJ Silkee kept the crowd thoroughly entertained. The audience could hardly address the elephant in the room (Queen Key’s lack of attendance) before breaking into hit after hit, such as Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” Cardi B’s “Bongos” and Soulja Boy’s “Crank That.”
As a DJ, Silkee had her finger squarely on the pulse of the room. Where there could have easily been a dropoff in the amount of energy ASAVV brought to the stage, DJ Silkee kept it circulating between classics and current culture-defining songs.
ASAVV and her dancers came back to the stage to hype the crowd up during the intermission, smartly filling in the gaps where a performance should have gone.
Queen Key
Queen Key arrived with 15 minutes left in her 45-minute runtime.
Sandwiched between artists who put so much into their set presentation and stage presence, playing her hit songs could hardly make up for the lost time and lack of commitment to her audience.
Where other artists engaged with the crowd and danced to and from, Queen Key let her music and reputation speak for her. Fans went from audible confusion about her whereabouts to bopping along to her music, but in substance, the performance aspect was not up to the bar that had been set before or after her.
CupcakKe
As many people are – even begrudgingly – aware, CupcakKe (aka Eden Elizabeth Harris) bursted onto the scene in 2015 when her song “Deepthroat” went viral. Even after hitting the airwaves with “C** Cake,” the album that brought her into the limelight, she released six more albums garnering critical acclaim, from 2016’s “Audacious” to 2024’s “Dauntless Manifesto.”
Few artists are able to pull a song from absolutely any part of their catalog and have fans scream it back to them (moans included), and yet, here CupcakKe was, standing in front of a packed crowd, able to hold out her mic at any given moment to conduct singalongs.
The completely goofy, speaker-knocking anthem of “Squidward Nose” stirred the crowd, causing the building to thump as the crowd screamed and jumped along to every lyric. Even an acapella version of her original hit, “Deepthroat,” was shown the same level of love. While the rhythms to her songs are infectious, it was clear that they were not mandatory. People were there for her as much as they were for her music.
The night quickly evolved as she handed the mic out to audience members to give samples of their moans, which blasted over the Canopy’s sound system. Several individuals from the front row obliged with little hesitance, practically engaging in grappling matches for the microphone.
From there, CupcakKe called out ASAVV and her dancers from the opposite end of the venue on the second floor, taking note of their dancing from the stage. After commanding them to join her, CupcakKe invited select audience members onto the stage for a twerk contest.
Starting with “Duck Duck Goose” from 2018’s “Ephorize” album, the crowd screamed the lyrics while hollering for their favorites. After several rounds of systemized voting using audience uproar, a final ‘two’ was decided between ASAVV (and dancers) and another audience member. Ultimately, it seemed that ASAVV took it all the way home.
Throughout the entire ordeal, from getting participants on and off the stage to dealing with the traveling mic, the Canopy’s sound and stage crew adapted easily to CupcakKe’s antics. It would have been easy to get lost, but the team stayed on top of every new development.
As the set came to a close, CupcakKe sang “Happy Birthday” to an audience member and then launched into a lyric-swapped version of “Old Town Road,” using much more graphic imagery. Overall, the show felt as if it was as much about the audience’s experience as hers. She intermittently gave the audience the choice – or illusion thereof – of songs and played along with the popular votes.
Sharing a home with two of the three other rappers (ASAVV and Queen Key), CupcakKe served as the perfect capstone for Chicago’s PYGMALION run. Despite an unconventional and less-than-sanitized approach to music, even by hip-hop’s standards, she has prevailed and created a colorful cult following around herself that does everything between moaning on command and making “CupcakKe remixes” of virtually every pop song.
She is as much a pop culture icon as she is a skilled and ever-surprising lyricist.
Conclusion
PYGMALION’s second decade of life had a few lows but many highs. A relatively balanced roster between scrappy local artists, night-defining touring acts and respected industry professionals easily overshadowed the shortcomings and brief tech issues.
The venues offered something different each day, and it was often difficult to choose which performances to attend. PYGMALION prides itself on being a multifaceted program, and it largely excels in these areas. Having hosted shows in anywhere between four and eight venues per day, they gave festival-goers easy access to whatever type of show suited them.
The free events in Krannert and Gallery Art Bar helped to gather interest from several ends of the spectrum, and the paid events seemed to be worth the dollars.
This concludes our series on the festival, and we cannot wait to see what is around the bend for the ever-evolving PYGMALION event.
