I’ve posted my photos from day two of the festival here. Review coming later…
Pitchfork Fest, Day One
My photos are up from day one of the 2009 Pitchfork Music Festival.
The night was a cool start to the one summer festival I’ve been eagerly anticipating — cool in more than one way. Temps were unseasonably low for Chicago in July, though that was fine with me. And the music was cool all night, too. It turned out to be a great idea to let fans vote on the set lists for this “Write the Night” section of the festival. Predictably, fans picked mostly older songs by the four bands playing Friday: Tortoise, Yo La Tengo, the Jesus Lizard and Built to Spill. (Well, all of the Jesus Lizard’s songs are “older,” since the band hasn’t played in a decade.) I wouldn’t want these bands to play this sort of sets all the time, but it was nice to hear some songs you don’t always hear in concert.
I’m terrible remembering song titles in general, and the fact that Tortoise doesn’t sing makes it doubly difficult for me to name which tunes they played, but the show included several key tracks from their early album Millions Now Living Will Never Die. An outdoor festival is not really the best venue to see this subtle band, but the Tortoise performance functioned well as an introductory set to the weekend’s festivities.
Yo La Tengo played a set loaded with many of its best songs, including “Autumn Sweater,” “Sugar Cube” and “Tom Courtenay.” When Ira Kaplan moved from organ to guitar, the music became more fierce, as he really dug into those strings for some sharp, almost atonal solos. At one point, Kaplan announced, “We’re going to deviate from your requests a little bit,” and then Yo La Tengo played a track from its forthcoming album. The song was called “Seeing Double and Triple,” and Kaplan dedicated it to Ron Santo. It featured a bouncy organ riff as well as key-banging organ solo. This was one of the better Yo La Tengo sets I’ve seen in the last few years, with more emphasis on the rock than on the mellow lounge-y stuff. (But hey, I wish they’d played “My Little Corner of the World.” I can’t complain too much, since I didn’t vote.)
Within about two seconds after the Jesus Lizard took the stage, lead singer and general all-around crazy guy David Yow had leaped into the audience for some of his trademark crowd surfing. And he kept up those antics throughout the show, whenever he wasn’t pausing to get back up on the stage to spit on the floor. The band sounded loud and intense, and the fans loved it. Yow made a few very foul jokes I won’t repeat here… I did laugh when he introduced one song by saying, “This is a dance song. Everybdy, get at arm’s-length distance so you have plenty of room to dance.”
After that sort of performance, Built to Spill was bound to seem a little sedate. As much as I love Built to Spill’s records, the group has seemed less than lively during the two previous concerts I’ve seen. Well, this time, they were pretty darn good, even though leader Doug Martsch and his bandmates seemed like zombies compared with David Yow. (Most human beings do.) It was a strong set of most of Built to Spill’s best songs, coming from several albums — maybe not all that different from a typical Built to Spill concert, but when the three guitars were talking to one another in those epic solos, the sound was magnificent.
Magnolia Electric Co. at the Hideout
The new album by Magnolia Electric Co., Josephine, doesn’t come out until next week (July 21, to be precise), but the band was in Chicago this past weekend for a couple of shows. What’s with all the bands touring lately before their records are available? The assumption seems to be that the fans are going to hear advance copies anyway… Or maybe the bands see it as a good way to introduce their new material. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, you can usually buy copies of the new CDs and LPS at the merch table at these concerts, even if the albums aren’t officially available yet. And buying music straight from the band at the merch table seems like the surest way of putting money right into the musicians’ pockets. The prices are usually reasonable, too — $10 or less is the regular going price for CDs. I did pick up a copy of Josephine Sunday night (July 12) at the Hideout, and so far, it seems like an excellent addition to the Magnolia Electric Co. repertoire.
It’s too bad Chicago can’t quite claim that MECo (to use the common abbreviation for this band) is a local group any longer. Singer-songwriter-frontman Jason Molina used to live in Andersonville, and I once had the pleasure of interviewing him during an afternoon visit to Simon’s Tap. Lately, he’s been living in London, but thankfully he does make it back here once in a while to play gigs.
Sunday night’s show followed a gig on the previous night at Schubas, which I missed. The Hideout performance was very, very solid, with Molina and his Hoosier bandmates ripping through a fair number of new songs as well as old classics like “Riding With the Ghost.” I may have said this before on this blog, but I think that’s really one of the great songs of the last decade. From what I could tell from eyeing the guitar frets during this performance, Molina & Co. are playing it in a somewhat lower key than the studio version, which I have blundered my way through on acoustic guitar a few times. Guitarist Jason Evans Groth’s leads and solos on the rendition Sunday night were absolutely blazing, which more than made up for the fact that the band plays this song live without the female vocals that you hear on the studio version.
Josephine is a being billed as a concept album, “an honest-to-God effort on the part of Magnolia Electric Co. to pay tribute to the life and spirit” of the band’s former bassist, Evan Farrell, who died in late 2007. But it’s not a straightforward record about Farrell. Rather, it is filled with references to the woman in the title. I’m still making sense of how the lyrics in this song cycle fit together, but it’s suffused with longing and a sense of loss, topics that Molina has sung about before. In concert, the words sounded sincere, and so did the singing sound of those guitars.
An mp3 from the new Magnolia Electric Co. record, “Sad Little Eyes,” is available for download here.
www.magnoliaelectricco.com
www.myspace.com/magnoliaelectricco
The show had two opening acts. Sally Timms played another set similar to the one I wrote about recently at Schubas, backed once again by the subtle and pretty sounds of Mar Caribe. (www.myspace.com/marcaribemusic)
The first act of the evening was a cool discovery: Elephant Micah, will calls itself “an imaginary band since 2000.” Based in Bloomington, Ind., this is another one of those indie bands that basically started out as the recording project of one individual — in this case, Joe O’Connell. For this Hideout show, however, Elephant Micah seemed more like an actual folk-rock ensemble, playing some very quiet and gentle songs that had the audience silently spellbound. I later bought the Elephant Micah CD Hindu Windmill at the merch table. It’s very lo-fi — the sort of recording that includes the sound of the tape-recorder being turned off at the end of songs. The intimacy of it reminds me of the first recordings by Great Lake Swimmers. I’m excited to hear what Elephant Micah records in the future with the full band.
www.elephantmicah.com
www.myspace.com/elephantmicah
Photos of Magnolia Electric Co., Sally Timms and Elephant Micah.
Great Performers of Illinois
The Great Performers of Illinois festival, sponsored by the Illinois Arts Council, seemed like it was about to slip under the radar. I got the feeling not many people were even aware of it, but its presence in Millennium Park was hard to miss this past weekend. The headliner was Dennis DeYoung playing the songs of Styx, an event I would have paid to miss, but the festival was almost surreally diverse, with everything from mimes and Abe and Mary Lincoln impersonators to the Fiery Furnaces playing their perversely challenging rock.
On Saturday afternoon (July 11), I caught about half an hour of the set by Daniel Knox, whom I’d seen recently at the Hideout. I appreciate the wit of Knox’s piano songs, though I’m having trouble warming up to his rather blunt voice. I wonder how his songs would sound sung by either a more polished vocalist or someone who’s idiosyncratic but more interesting, like Tom Waits?
www.myspace.com/danielknox
www.danielknox.com
Speaking of idiosyncratic, the Fiery Furnaces were the next act playing at Millennium Park’s Wrigley Square — a space just off Michigan Avenue, south of Randolph, where a series of classical-style columns and the Chicago skyline makes a beautiful, panoramic backdrop for the music. In fact, one of the delightful quirks of the Fiery Furnaces show was watching guitarist Matthew Friedberger occasionally looking off to the side of the stage and peering up at the skyscrapers while he was playing. Oh, yes, he was playing guitar — at last. Recent Fiery Furnaces tours have been dominated by the sound of Matthew playing organ, and a little bit of that went a long way. It was a good change of pace to hear him back on electric guitar during this show, which was one of three that the band played in Chicago in three days (following gigs at the Hideout and FitzGerald’s).
I’m still absorbing the new Fiery Furnaces album, I’m Going Away, so it’s hard to say yet what I think of it. Now that I think about it, that remains more or less true of every single record this band has ever put out. Their music is so jam-packed, with fast changes in tempo, style and lyrical themes. It can seem maddening, but it’s often brilliant. Some of the things that may drive you mad during one listen will seem brilliant the next time. The Fiery Furnaces have turned out to be an uncompromisingly strange band that revels in throwing down the gauntlet in front of its listeners, daring people to enter the twisted musical world of Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger.
Going into Saturday’s concert, I was bracing myself for yet another peculiar musical experience. Would the Fiery Furnaces’ nonstop Jabberwocky drive me crazy or enchant me? This time around, the band was a delightful marvel. As always, Eleanor seemed to have a bad case of logorrhea, throwing out whole paragraphs of lyrics. The band was lively, sounding almost improvisatory as it shifted from one quirky rhythmic pattern to another. The songs from I’m Going Away sounded strong — these tunes seem to be a little more compact and straightforward than previous Fiery Furnaces compositions. The highlights for me were songs from the group’s previous record, Widow City, including “Duplexes of the Dead.” That album is turning out to be one of my favorites by the Fiery Furnaces, although like just about everything by this band, it’s hard to take it all in with one listen.
www.thefieryfurnaces.com
www.myspace.com/thefieryfurnaces
Photos of the Fiery Furnaces and Daniel Knox.
I was back at Millennium Park on Sunday (July 12) to catch some of the three-hour show by the Viper and His Famous Orchestra, a “neo-skiffle” band from Champaign. After an hour set by the Viper, one of the band’s members, Edward Burch, played a set of his own. Burch is best-known for collaborating with the late Jay Bennett on their record The Palace at 4am (Part 1), and when I walked up around 1:30 p.m., Burch and some of his musical friends (including Steve Frisbie) were playing the Bennett and Burch song “California.” It was a beautiful and touching tribute to Bennett, who died on Memorial Day weekend, and the rest of Burch’s set was just as good. It seemed a little strange seeing this unannounced tribute to Bennett in the middle of Millennium Park — this stage was next to the mirrored “Bean” sculpture” — as dozens of people walked by, unaware of who was performing or whose music was being played.
During the third hour of this show, the Viper and His Famous Orchestra played again, offering tributes to various Illinois towns with cute tunes about subjects such as the MTD (Champaign-Urbana’s Mass Transit District). It was quaint music, and the park crowd seemed to enjoy it. The set ended with a skiffle tribute to Michael Jackson.
http://theviper.org
Photos of the Viper and His Famous Orchestra and Edward Burch.
Mannequin Men at Metro
The show on Friday (July 10) at Metro was a record-release party for Mannequin Men, but the garage-y Chicago quartet made the night seem more like a four-band celebration of the joys of three-chord rock. Mannequin Men were on the bill with three other groups of similar sensibility. All in all, it was quite an enjoyable series of simple but raucous guitar riffs, thumping bass notes and drumbeats, topped off with sneering vocals.
The three youngsters in Chicago’s Stranger Waves got the evening off to a roaring start with a solid set. These guys are only 17 years old? They sure know how to play their instruments already, and their songwriting chops aren’t bad, either. www.myspace.com/thestrangerwaves
Up next was the only band of the night from somewhere other than Chicago, the Puerto Rican group Davila 666. Whereas Stranger Waves sounded tight, these fellows were very loose, almost like they were jamming at a party rather than performing a concert, but the music was very much in the same garage-rock spirit. A couple of the songs sounded suspiciously similar to recognizable hits of the genre — was that one tune a Spanish translation of “Teenage Kicks” or just a very close-sounding song? Well, I guess there’s only so much you can do with three chords, right? www.myspace.com/davila666
The third band, Thomas Function, did not make as much of an impression on me as the rest of the lineup Friday night, but they were reasonably enjoyable, too. (Looking at my photos of the band, I’m wondering: Gee, was the lighting that strange … or did I do something weird with the settings on my camera? Lots of interesting shadows.) www.myspace.com/thomasfunction
Then it was time for the headliners, Chicago’s own Mannequin Men. As I mentioned recently after seeing them play a late show at the Empty Bottle, they really do seem like one of the best live acts in the city these days. However, they still don’t seem to have a large enough following to headline the Metro on a Friday night. The place was not embarrassingly empty by any stretch of the imagination, but there was a lot more room to move around on the main floor than I’m used to seeing. Maybe this band needs more time to build the buzz that it deserves. During the set, lead singer Kevin Richard jokingly offered some tips for other bands, including: Don’t put yourself on a bill with other bands that are better than yours. Well, that’s not true… No reason for an inferiority complex, dude. He also commented about being drunk, which did seem to be true. Mannequin Men sounded good as they ripped through some great songs from their new CD, Lose Your Illusion, Too, and the previous record, Fresh Rot, with lots of classically snotty punk-rock attitude. The band got a small group of fans onstage to sing along on one song, then halfheartedly came out for an encore… By that point, Richard’s guitar was broken, and by the very end, he wasn’t even on the stage. It was a sloppy, disheveled ending to the concert. Not that that’s really a bad thing. Hey, this is garage rock, right? www.myspace.com/mannequinmen
Photos of the Mannequin Men, Stranger Waves, Davila 666 and Thomas Function.
Lost in the Trees at Schubas
It’s becoming a pretty common sight these days to see violins, violas and cellos onstage at an indie-rock concert. Both local and touring bands often seem almost like miniature orchestras or string quartets at Chicago venues such as Schubas, the Empty Bottle and the Hideout. One of the best and most sophisticated of the current orchestral rock outfits is Lost in the Trees, an ensemble from Chapel Hill, N.C.
Lost in the Trees’ 2008 album All Alone in an Empty House alternates between delicate, highly melodic folk rock, which is a little reminiscent of Sufjan Stevens, and some instrumental orchestral compositions that are about the closest thing to traditional classical music that you’ll hear anywhere on a rock CD today. Singer-songwriter-guitarist Ari Picker is the dominant guy in Lost in the Trees, but when the band came to Schubas last Thursday (July 9) it felt like a true ensemble. A full string section played beautiful arrangements throughout the set, supplemented by guitar, drums, mandolin, glockenspiel and horns. The strong tunes from that 2008 CD resonated in concert, affirming that this is definitely a group to watch for future releases. (And now I really want to hear the earlier Lost in the Trees releases from 2004 and 2006). Lost in the Trees finished its show by moving off the stage and onto the main floor at Schubas, playing unamplified with a bunch of fans gathered around. It was a lovely moment.
www.myspace.com/lostinthetrees
www.lostinthetrees.com/home.htm
The first band of the night was Halloween, Alaska, which seemed to have a fair amount of fans in attendance, including people who really recognized the songs. The band sounded too much like Death Cab For Cutie for my tastes, but I suppose that’ll be a strong selling point for many folks. (And like so many bands these days, this one is named after a place where they are not from. They’re actually from Minnesota, not Alaska. As a native of Alaska, I disapprove.)
www.halloweenalaska.com
www.myspace.com/halloweenalaska
The second group of the night was Box of Baby Birds, a Chicago group led by Gary Calhoun James. Box of Baby Birds plays subtle, mellow folk rock with moody textures. The group’s new EP, Arboreal, is another fine recording, worth delving into, and the songs sounded beguiling at the Schubas performance. Box of Baby Birds is also playing July 23 at the Hideout on a bill with Cameron McGill. Alas, these CD release shows are also being billed as “farewell shows” for Box of Baby Birds, as James is apparently moving to Austin, Texas.
www.myspace.com/boxofbabybirds
Concert round-up
I’ve posted photos from several concerts lately without any comment here. Back on June 24, Robert Gomez, a singer-songwriter from Denton, Texas, performed a nice show of melancholy folk rock with a bit of a psychedelic edge at Schubas. It was sparsely attended, but I enjoyed the intimate feeling of the show. Chicago’s Rock Falls played an opening set of charming songs, including some ukulele strumming. Photos of Robert Gomez and Rock Falls.
I wrote earlier about how great the Feelies were on June 29 at Millennium Park. They were just one of three bands that I saw at the park’s Pritzker Pavilion. In addition to all of the great evening concerts, the park is also hosting free performances at noon every day this summer, including some rock shows in a series called “Edible Audible.” It’s not always easy for me to get downtown at noon, but I was there on June 29 for a show by Black Moth Super Rainbow. Normally, I’m not too thrilled with bands that run all of their vocals through the tired electronic effect known as the Vocoder. Black Moth does this, but somehow, I like this brand of Vocoder music better than most other electronic music. I think it’s because it feels trippy and psychedelic, with some catchy melodies. Photos of Black Moth Super Rainbow.
Back at the Pritzker that evening, Chicago’s Icy Demons were the opening act for the Feelies. I rather like this band and the CD that it put out last year, Miami Ice. Icy Demons mix some elements from 1970 prog rock with dance rhythms. I got the feeling that the band wore out its welcome at this show, since Feelies fans were so eager for the main act, but it was still pretty enjoyable. Photos of Icy Demons.
The Chicago ensemble DRMWPN (pronounced “dream weapon”) released one of my favorite records so far this year, Bright Blue Galilee, but good luck finding it. It’s a very limited edition on vinyl of a concert recording from 2007. DRMWPN basically plays a droning chord for about 40 minutes at every show, creating a meditative atmosphere. The group came together July 1 for another beautiful performance at the Chopin Theatre. Ostensible leader Jim Dorling had some trouble getting the group’s Dream Machine to work. That’s the light with the spinning cover that sets the perfect mood at DRMWPN concerts. After a few minutes of playing with the device, he finally got it spinning, and the music began drifting into place. Photos of DRMWPN, Ultimate Vag and 500MG.
Oumou Sangaré, a singer from Mali, put on a rousing show July 2 at the Pritzker Pavilion. She came across as a vibrant personality, and her large band kept the music going at a lively pace all night. It did not take long for a large group of fans to rush to the front part of the pavilion, and after that, it was a non-stop dance party. Photos of Oumou Sangaré.
Last year, Christian Kiefer, J. Matthew Gerken, Jefferson Pitcher and assorted guest singers put out a three-CD set called Of Great and Mortal Men: 43 Songs for 43 U.S. Presidencies. It does in fact include one song for each president, and after Barack Obama won last year’s election, these musicians released a follow-up song with Will Johnson of Centro-matic on lead vocals, “44. Barack Obama (Someone to Wake).” I played that song a lot last fall after the election. (You can download it for free here.) The trio of singer-songwriters who put this whole project together played July 3 at the Hideout and July 4 at Taste of Chicago. I caught the Hideout show, which featured one of the local musicians who performs on the CD — Steve Dawson of Dolly Varden signing about Lyndon B. Johnson — and several musicians doing interpretations of the songs. The Singleman Affair did great psychedelic-folk-rock versions of the songs about John Quincy Adams and Jimmy Carter. The Bitter Tears, dressed like decadent hillbillies, sang about Zachary Taylor. The Gunshy, Sin Ropas, Jeff Harms, Tim Rutili and Tim Kinsella also performed, and of course, Jon Langford was there — singing about Ronald Reagan. Hideout co-owner Tim Tuten (back in town from Washington) emceed the whole shindig, and his rambling and improvised intro to the Reagan was a humorous highlight. The concert featured about half of the songs from the 3-CD collection, ending with the soothing sing-along chorus of the Obama song: “Everything will be all right.” Photos of 44 Songs for 44 Presidents.
Why I didn’t take photos of Sonic Youth
First of all, let me stipulate that Sonic Youth is a great band. I’ve enjoyed their music for many years. Their new record, The Eternal, is a darned good one, and they played an excellent show Saturday night at the Vic Theatre. You can see my review of that concert on the Web site of the Southtown Star newspaper.
One thing you can’t see here on my blog, however, is the sort of photo gallery I post after most concerts. I did not take any pictures of Sonic Youth. The reason is that I refused to sign a legal contract that the band’s management required photographers to sign before receiving photo credentials.
Here’s a little bit of background to help you understand this issue. I’m a freelance journalist, and I take photos at about 100 concerts a year (more than 300 if you count all the opening bands and festival acts). I am doing this photography largely as a hobby, rarely getting paid anything for it. I enjoy seeing live music and taking photos. Many of the concert venues I attend, including Schubas, the Hideout and the Empty Bottle, usually let anyone take photos for as long as they want. Sometimes I get into these shows for free on the guest list, and sometimes I pay. At other venues, including Metro, the Riviera and the Vic, you generally need to get photo credentials from the band, label or venue to take pictures with an SLR camera, and you’re often restricted to taking photos during the first three songs.
I post photos from the concerts I attend here on this blog on also on flickr. I post anywhere from a few pictures to 20 or 30 of a band, and I leave the pictures posted on my Web site indefinitely. Bands, labels, online publications, newspapers and magazines sometimes ask permission to run my photos, usually asking for higher-resolution images — and usually offering nothing but a photo credit line in return. More often than not, I agree. Once in a while, someone offers actual money for the photos.
Some concert photographers do make money, of course. Maybe I will eventually. I daresay that many of the other photographers I know or encounter at concerts in Chicago are in a similar situation. With the rise of digital cameras, a lot of people (including me) realized we could take photos at concerts and thought, “Why not?” At times, the proliferation of photographers snapping away at a concert can be annoying, and I suppose I’m just as much to blame for that as anyone. (Hey, I do try to be as unobtrusive as possible, keeping aware of the fans standing or sitting near me.) With all these photographers out there (at least a few of whom have decent-enough SLR cameras and lenses to get good shots at dark venues, all of which will run you thousands of dollars), it’s becoming hard to demand much compensation for your work. That’s the law of supply and demand.
A lot of us are glad to get free tickets, the chance to photograph a musician we admire, and a little bit of attention from people commenting on our photos. I certainly don’t feel entitled to get photo credentials for every concert. It’s been a great privilege to shoot pictures of some fabulous musicians over the last few years. I know there are times when I won’t make the cut because there’s a limit on how many photographers you can cram into the space in front of the stage. You can’t always get what you want, right?
Some musical acts now ask photographers to sign a legal agreement — often called a “release,” “waiver” or “contract” — before they get credentials to take photos at a concert. I believe this practice is more common with big-label artists than it is with independent musicians. Out of the 300 or so musical acts I’ve photographed over the past year, only three asked me to sign a legal agreement: Nine Inch Nails, Nick Cave and Sonic Youth.
Most of these agreements include a clause restricting how you can use the photographs you’ll take at the concert. This clause might say that the photos can appear in only one publication, and they might limit how long those photos can appear online. The agreement might also spell out some of the things you can’t do with the photographs — such as selling them or using them on merchandise like posters and T-shirts.
I can see why musicians want to prevent people from making money from photographs of them. That’s not something I’ve ever done, and I don’t have any interest in doing it without permission from the musicians. And even if I don’t try to profit from the images I’m posting, it’s hard to stop other people from grabbing those pictures and doing whatever they want with them. They’re not high-res images, however, and I doubt if anyone’s going to make much money selling a poster based on a photo lifted from one of my sites.
I suspect some musicians are trying to control their image by limiting the photographs that are out there online. That’s a lost cause. It’s too late to stop the proliferation of concert photos online. Even when the number of professional concert photographers is limited, other fans take pictures with their point-and-shoot cameras and cell phones. A lot of those photos invariably end up online.
And it’s not only a lost cause. Limiting the number of photos also hurts the musicians. The more photos of a band are out there, the more people are likely to discover that band. Fans enjoy seeing pictures of their favorite musicians, right? And how does the existence of all those online photos harm a musician? It’s all publicity and attention, which helps to raise a musician’s profile. Sure, not all of those photos are going to be great works of art or even flattering images, but there aren’t too many photographers going out of their way make musicians look bad.
Some musicians may be using these agreements for the simple reason that they don’t want to be distracted by photographers during their shows. Or they don’t want their fans to be annoyed by a bunch of photographers. I can understand this, but it’s something that’s usually dealt with by setting rules at the venue (such as that three-song limit) or just limiting the number of people getting photo passes.
Even though I think it’s silly for musical acts to ask photographers to sign agreements limiting the use of their pictures, I’ve agreed to sign some of these papers. When Nick Cave played last year at the Riviera Theatre, I included two publications on the form — this blog as well as the Southtown Star newspaper. I posted photos here and submitted one to the newspaper. When Nine Inch Nails played at Lollapalooza last year, I signed a similar deal, allowing me to post a picture for a limited time at the Southtown Star. I took photos but I did not end up publishing any.
Last week, I was excited at the prospect of photographing Sonic Youth. I was told I would be getting a photo pass, and I was planning to take a picture to run along with my review for the Southtown Star as well as a gallery of photos for Underground Bee.
But the day before the concert, one of the publicists for Sonic Youth’s record label, Matador, told me I would have to sign a waiver before getting photo credentials.
THE LEGAL AGREEMENT SONIC YOUTH ASKED ME TO SIGN:
The first part of the “photographer release” was pretty standard stuff, similar to what Nick Cave and Nine Inch Nails had demanded. This section said:
“1. I have the limited right and permission to use certain Photos that have been approved by you solely in connection with one (1) article about you contained in [State name of publication].
“The Photos may be used only in an article, publication or other medium initially disseminated to the public within one year of the date of this agreement. I shall have no right to otherwise use or re-use the Photos in whole or in part, in any medium or for any purpose whatsoever, including, without limitation, promotion, advertising, and trade, without your written consent therefor.”
OK, this was disappointing to me, but I could deal with it. I would have preferred getting permission to run photos on my blog as well as the newspaper Web site. And I’d prefer to run them for more than a year. Why take the photos down after a year? What purpose does that serve? So at this point in reading the contract, I was grumbling but still planning to sign it.
Then I got to the second section:
“2. I hereby acknowledge that you shall own all rights in the Photos, including the copyrights therein and thereto, and accordingly, I hereby grant, transfer, convey and assign to you all right, title and interest throughout the universe in perpetuity, including, without limitation, the copyright (and all renewals and extensions thereof), in and to the Photos.”
WHAT?!? Sonic Youth is going to own the copyright on my photos? Now, this was a whole new level of musicians seeking control over the work of photographers. I’d heard that Morrissey was making similar demands of photographers recently, but this was the first time I’d ever been asked to sign such a deal.
A little bit of additional background. As a freelance photographer, any photographs I take are my intellectual property. In most cases, if I’m working for a publication, that publication acquires the first rights or some limited rights to run my photos, but it does not become the copyright owner of my work. The situation is different for most staff photographers working on the payroll for newspapers and magazines. Their photos are considered “work for hire,” and in most cases, the publication itself owns the copyright.
There’s also something called publicity rights. The basic idea is that the person in the picture has publicity rights. This is what prevents someone like me from sticking a photo I took of Sonic Youth on a billboard endorsing Snickers bars or whatever. As I see the law (and I’m no lawyer or intellectual-property-rights expert), there is bound to be some tension between the photographer’s copyright on an image and the publicity rights of the person inside that image anytime you try to make a profit from the picture. But that’s a legal question for another day.
The one thing I do know is that any artist should be very reluctant to sign over a copyright on his or her work to anyone else, whether it’s a photograph, piece of music, book or whatever. When the University of Illinois Press published my book, “Alchemy of Bones,” in 2003, I made sure that the copyright was in my name. The idea that Sonic Youth would completely own all the creativity and work I put into my photographs was totally unacceptable. Why even bother taking the pictures? Now, if the band or record label was paying me to take photos and then keeping the copyright on the images, that would be another matter.
That second section of the contract went on:
“I agree that you shall have the right to exploit all or a part of the Photos in any and all media, now known or hereafter devised, throughout the universe, in perpetuity, in all configurations as you determine, without obtaining my consent and without any payment or consideration therefor.”
So, now the band is spelling out the fact that it could use my photos on album covers, posters, press releases or whatever it wants without paying me anything. That hardly seems fair, does it?
The legal agreement continues:
“I understand that you will give me appropriate ‘photo credit’ where possible. I understand further that all aspects of said ‘photo credit’ shall be determined by you in your sole discretion and that failure to accord said ‘photo credit’ shall not be deemed a breach of any obligation, express or implied.”
Well, gee, thanks for thinking of me. I’m so glad you might give me a photo credit… or might not.
There’s more:
“I further grant to you the right to use my name, likeness and biographical data in connection with the distribution, exhibition, advertising and exploitation of the Photos.”
OK, now I don’t know why the band would want to use my likeness. Maybe if I were a famous photographer. But if I were a famous photographer, I’d probably have enough clout to take pictures without signing this crappy deal.
The contract goes on … including a section saying that “I hereby waive all rights of droit moral or ‘moral right of authors’ or any similar rights or principles of law which I may now have or later have in the Photos.”
There was no way I was going to put myself into this sort of copyright servitude, so I told Matador Records that I refused to sign the legal agreement. I asked if I could still get a press ticket to attend the show without photo credential, so that I could write a review, and I did receive that.
I exchanged a few e-mails Friday with two publicists at Matador. They told me Sonic Youth’s management had insisted on using this legal agreement, and they said they would check to see whether it could be changed. I did not hear back from them after that, and went to the concert without a camera.
It’s particularly disappointing to receive this sort of treatment from a band like Sonic Youth, which has a reputation for its independent spirit. And based on everything I can see, the members of Sonic Youth really do seem to be nice people in addition to being talented musicians. I’m hoping they don’t realize how artist-unfriendly their photography waiver is. I would not be surprised if this legal agreement is an overreaction — an attempt to protect the band from unauthorized photography sales that goes too far. It’s a sledgehammer approach.
And so, in lieu of any photos from Saturday’s concert, I present some photos I took of Sonic Youth when they played at the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival. The band let me and a bunch of other photographers take pictures that time without signing anything. Imagine that. I suppose these two-year-old photos (not my greatest work, I freely admit) are an example of the pernicious sort of old pictures floating around on the Internet, harming musicians by their very presence, which this legal agreement was designed to prevent. Here they are. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much, guys.
Sonic Youth review
My review of the concert by Sonic Youth Saturday (June 27) at the Vic Theatre is online at the Southtown Star’s Web site at http://www.southtownstar.com/concerts/1645365,063009sonicyouth.article
The Feelies Are Back
This was one musical reunion show I was really looking forward to, and it did not disappoint. The Feelies played in Chicago last night for the first since putting out their fourth record in 1991. I saw them only once back in the day, and that concert was a bit truncated because one of the band members was ill. So it almost felt like I was seeing them for the first time when they took the stage June 29 at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. (Another fabulous free show at this lovely venue!)
The Feelies do their thing without a lot of fuss or showmanship, so it somehow seemed apt that the band came onstage and then paused for a minute to work out some technical difficulties, not saying anything to the audience. And then, they suddenly burst right into the opening chords of their 1991 song “For Awhile.” What followed was an almost-perfect run through of great tunes from all four Feelies albums: Bill Million’s trademark chords strummed over and over, Glenn Mercer’s cool, understated vocals, bassist Brenda Sauter’s melodic bass lines, Mercer’s tuneful, piercing guitar solos building on top of those cycling chords. And of course, those Feelies rhythms. And some songs, the beat stayed steady as drummer-percussionists Stanley Demeski and Dave Weckerman kept things constantly shaking. And other tunes, the beat began slow then accelerated, as the band seemed to shift again and again into higher gears. A song might being like pastoral folk rock and end in a frenzy.
Towards the end of the show, a young man danced his way into the empty area between the front row and the stage, twitching with the sort of spastic moves that looked perfect for the jerky sounds of songs from the first Feelies album, Crazy Rhythms. A park security guard led this fellow away, but he came back a minute later and continued dancing. That seemed to open the flood gates, as people jumped to the front area of the pavilion and started twitching along. Feelies lead singer and guitarist Glenn Mercer seemed to revel in the moment, coming out to the edge of the stage for guitar solos inches away from the upraised hands of fans (some of whom looked way too young to remember the last time the Feelies were around).
The Feelies played two new songs, both of which sounded like they’ll be great additions to the band’s discography whenever it gets around to recording them. The group encored with two rousing covers: R.E.M.’s “Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)” and the Velvet Underground’s “What Goes On” (which the Feelies originally did on the 1988 record Only Life), plus their own song “a Cé-La.” And then something wonderful happened that you don’t see often at the Pritzker Pavilion — a second encore. People clapped and even pounded on the edge of the stage, making quite a racket. They would not let the Feelies leave without at least one more song. And so the band came back out and did another cool cover, the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It, Black.”
At one point during the show, Sauter told the crowd, “Thank you for waiting 20 years.” It was a long wait, but it sure was great to see and hear the Feelies playing last night in front of an adoring, lively crowd.
(I’ll post photos and blog soon about the other bands I saw Monday at the Pritzker Pavilion, Feelies opening act Icy Demons and the noontime act, Black Moth Super Rainbow.)
Reviews of June 19-22 concerts
I’m not quite as swamped with concerts this week as I have been lately, but here are a few good ones that happened in recent days.
Soy Un Caballo sounds like the name for a Spanish band, or maybe a New York pretending to be a Spanish band. The group’s name is Spanish for “I Am a Horse.” But this male-female duo is actually Belgian, and they sing most of their songs in French. They were delightful Friday night (June 19) at Schubas, playing a set of delicate songs on guitar, bass and vibes with pretty vocal harmonies. “It’s very courageous of you to take French lessons on a Friday night,” one of them remarked. Courageous? Hardly! The band happens to be on a Chicago label, Minty Fresh, which has a history of finding great bands from overseas. Check out Soy Un Caballo’s music at www.myspace.com/soyuncaballo.
On Saturday night (June 20), the Empty Bottle had a strong, if somewhat mismatched, triple lineup. The headliners were O’Death, who got the crowd dancing like it was a real hoedown, while the band cranked out bluegrassy music with punk attitude. Ah, but a little bit of O’Death goes a long way for me. The fans loved it, anyway. The middle act on the bill, and my main reason for being there, was Tiny Vipers, the singer-songwriter also known as Jesy Fortino. She has some really nice songs, but they’re very quiet songs, and alas, the Bottle crowd was really chatty, making it almost painful at times to watch Fortino straining to be heard about that din. At several points, a big “shush” went up, and people shut up for a few minutes. The acoustic guitar picking and plaintive singing sounded beautiful… whenever I could hear it. (You can hear some of it here: www.myspace.com/tinyvipersss) The first act of the night was Balmorhea, an ensemble from Austin, Texas, that plays songs falling somewhere between chamber music and rock. It was pretty and mellow, though maybe a little too mellow. Balmorhea is practically an instrumental band, with vocals on only a few songs, but it was the ending of the show, when the members all came together and sang a cappella, that really stood out for me.
Photos of O’Death, Tiny Vipers and Balmorhea.
Monday (June 22) was another night with great (and free!) live music at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. It’s kind of hard to believe that Chicago city officials are cool enough to allow things like a concert by the Dirty Projectors to happen in a beautiful, world-class venue like the Pritzker. I guess that’s because the city government (for all of its many faults) has a smart Cultural Affairs Department. This particular show featured those indie-rock darlings from Brooklyn, the Dirty Projectors, opening for a stalwart Chicago act, the Sea and Cake. At least in the front part of the pavilion, it was clear that most of the twentysomething fans who rushed to get seats when the gates opened were Dirty Projectors fans. I overheard some of these kids saying that they didn’t even know who the Sea and Cake were, and some of them did not stick around for the headliners.
The Dirty Projectors have intrigued me on the two previous times I’ve seen them, but at times, their music seemed like not entirely successful experimentation. They’re getting more press now, thanks in part to collaborations with Björk and David Byrne (neither of whom was present for this show, of course). And boy, the Dirty Projectors really connected this time. With an expanded lineup, the band is doing a lot more with vocal harmonies — really peculiar but very precise harmonies, with intervals, overlapping patterns and spot-on timing. It’s easy to see why Björk would want to work with them. I was wowed by the sound of those voices, which seemed almost like a programmed effect than an organic piece of singing happening right in front of me. The guitar melodies were striking, too, with lots of African style skewed into strange new territory.
The Sea and Cake finished the show with a pretty good set, though as always, I find myself wishing that this band would break loose a little bit. They’re very talented, and their songs are smart compositions with inventive chords, but it’s always tamped down. The one thing that wasn’t tamped down was drummer John McIntire, who grimaced and made all sorts of intense expressions as he hammered away.
Photos of the Dirty Projectors and the Sea and Cake.
UPDATE: I was too busy today to pay attention to Twitter or anything like that, so I overlooked the news that the Dirty Projectors had been in a car accident. Everyone is reportedly OK. http://pitchfork.com/news/35710-dirty-projectors-in-car-accident/
Faiz Ali Faiz at Pritzker Pavilion
You didn’t have to understand the language or know the tenets of Sufi Islam to feel the power of Faiz Ali Faiz’s singing Thursday evening (June 18) at the Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium Park. This was, quite simply, an amazing vocal performance. by a Pakistani singer making his Chicago debut and touring the United States for the first time. More often than not, Faiz Ali Faiz sang with such full-on force that his face contorted and turned red with exertion. As he sang, his hands were in constant motion, making gestures that seemed almost like a game of pantomime.
Accompanied by tabla percussion and the droning chords of harmoniums, Faiz Ali Faiz engaged in a sort of call and response with the three other singers in his group — he was dressed in a shiny blue sort of tunic, while all of the other members of the ensemble were in matching gold-brown outfits. Most impressive of all was the way the music’s rhythms ticked and clicked into delightful and unexpected patterns. That was when Faiz seemed to take his vocals to even higher levels, singing in percussive, cycling series of notes that sounded like musical tongue twisters. The crowd broke out into applause at these moments and fans rushed forward, tossing dollar bills onto the stage.
Faiz paid tribute to the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the most famous artist in this style of singing, which is known as Qawwali and is based on the inspirational verse of Sufi poets. Near the end of the concert, Faiz performed “Mustt Mustt,” Khan’s best-known song, which generated another big round of applause. (Massive Attack’s remix of the song was once used in a Coca-Cola commercial.) By the time Faiz finished his encore, the stage was littered with money.
Hey, Chris Mills and Sally Timms
Hey, Sally Timms: When are you going to release another solo CD? I’m asking because that set you played Sunday night (June 14) at Schubas sounded awfully good. And, well, it’s been a while.
Timms had a five-piece band playing behind her, with a delicate mix of banjo, mandolin, guitar, stand-up bass, clarinet, trumpet and drums, for a folky yet slightly jazzy sound. She played songs by her pal (and fellow Mekon) Jon Langford and others… even a cool version of the Mekons song “Corporal Chalkie.” And, as always, she had a delightfully wry and self-deprecating sense of humor.
She was the opening act for Chris Mills, which reminds me…
Hey, Chris Mills: Could you move back to Chicago? OK, I’m sure you have your reasons for being in New York, but you’re such a good singer-songwriter that I’d love to continue claiming you as one of Chicago’s best. Maybe I’ll continue claiming you anyway.
Mills was back in town for a one-off solo gig because he had a wedding to attend. (He played “In the Time of Cholera” at the wedding ceremony, apparently getting some puzzled looks from people unfamiliar with his music who saw that title in the program.) Mills is probably at his best when he has a full band playing him — one of the best things about this CDs is the lush and creative arrangements — but his songs also work really well as solo acoustic numbers. And that’s what he delivered Sunday night, singing in full-throated gusto.
PJ Harvey and John Parish
PJ Harvey has never disappointed me any of the five times I’ve seen her in concert. Each of those shows has been riveting. I’m not sure anything will ever compare with the deeply moving and cathartic experience of seeing her perform just a few days after the traumatic events of 9/11, but every other Harvey show that I’ve seen has been memorable in its own way.
She was back in Chicago on Friday night (June 12) after an absence of too long. It was too bad she did not come here to play the songs from White Chalk when that album came out in 2007, but it sure was cool to see her again now, playing in tandem with musical collaborator John Parish. Their second album as a duo, the recent A Woman A Man Walked By, is a great record — better than their first collaboration, the 1996 CD Dance Hall at Louse Point. That one was a fine record, but it had the feeling of a side project, of two artists experimenting toward a combined sound. They’ve arrived at that synthesis this time around, with Parish writing strong and distinctive music and Harvey delivering striking words and vocal melodies.
As a live act, it’s strange to even think of them as a duo. Harvey is clearly the focus of everyone’s attention. Parish gets equal billing, but he stands there somewhat shyly just playing his parts. What else could you do if you’re on the stage next to Polly Jean Harvey? She’s one of those stars who’s beautiful in an unusual way, musically talented in so many ways, with a strong personality, who can make her presence felt with the smallest of gestures. At many moments Friday night, Harvey was doing little more than standing there at the microphone, calmly and coolly … what, waiting? Pausing? Meditating on the next note she would sing? And even in such minimal moments, she seemed like a lively presence on the stage.
And then at moments, the contemplative music gave way to outbursts of ferocity — as on the new record’s lacerating title track. Harvey dropped her voice to dramatic depths or let it soar to lovely highs, as the characters from her lyrics seemed to possess her. She sashayed and gestured across the front of the stage as she poured out her passion — and then danced all around her backing musicians as the song segued into its instrumental coda, the intriguingly titled “The Crow Knows Where All the Little Children Go.” For a moment, the spotlight fell on Parish as he played an extended guitar solo, a timely reminder of the fact that this is the guy who wrote all the music we were hearing tonight. On another intense new song, “Pig WIll Not,” Harvey barked like a dog into the microphone — as if normal singing was simply inadequate to contain what she needed to express.
This was a more satisfying concert than the similar show Parish and Harvey performed in March at SXSW — partly because the songs were more familiar to me now, and partly because they played a little longer, adding a few songs and stretching out some of them. It was still a bit short as concerts go, and I would have loved to hear some of Harvey’s solo music, but it seemed appropriate that this was a night for showcasing the invigorating music she’s doing with Parish.
I did not take photos Friday night, but you can see a couple of beautiful pictures by Kirstie Shanley on flickr here and here. And the photos I took of Harvey and Parish at SXSW are on my blog here, with several extra photos on flickr here.
A week full of concerts
Phew! Eight concerts in the last seven days! And it’s been quite a run of good shows. Summing up what I’ve seen the last few days…
Art Brut was in town for five straight days of concerts at Schubas. I love it when a band does an extended stand at a smaller venue rather than doing one show in a bigger room. It takes more of a commitment from the band, but the result is that more fans get to see the group up-close in an intimate space. And the guys in Art Brut are always such fun, I gladly would have seen them more than once this week if there hadn’t been so many other good shows to see. I saw Art Brut on Tuesday (June 9), when the opening act was Team Band, a Chicago group trying very hard to be like Art Brut. Hey, what the heck — Art Brut leader Eddie Argos has previously suggested creating Art Brut franchises in various cities. Argos even joined Team Band onstage for one song, singing the lyrics he’d just learned a short time earlier.
At times, Art Brut has seemed almost as much of a comedy act as a rock band, thanks to Argos’ cheeky, self-referential lyrics. I’m enjoying their third and latest CD, with the terrific title Art Brut Vs. Satan, and Tuesday’s show was an energetic blast of very English punk rock, with a mix of catchy choruses and Argos’ humorous patter in the verses. As usual, Argos kept on referring to the band in the third person — “Ready, Art Brut?” — and he was sweatily leaping around and gesturing like mad. A highlight was the moment when he used his microphone cable as a jumping rope. It was a slight disappointment not to hear full-length versions of the classic Art Brut tracks “Formed a Band” and “Top of the Pops,” but Argos slyly dropped pieces of those choruses into other songs. And Argos served up not one but two songs about “D.C. Comics” — the actual song with that title, plus a completely reworked take on “Modern Art” that replaced most of the references to modern art with comic books instead. By the end of the week, Argos posted a Twitter comment about how much he was going to miss Schubas.
Photos of Art Brut and Team Band.
On Wednesday (June 10) I was at the Empty Bottle to see Pink Mountaintops, a side project by the leader of Black Mountain, Stephen McBean. Or is it fair to call it a side project? I mean, he’s done three records under the Pink Mountaintops name and just two under the Black Mountain moniker. Black Mountain may be the band he’s best known for, but he saves some excellent songs for Pink Mountaintops. On the previous Pink record, Axis of Evol, I had some trouble discerning exactly what the difference was between McBean’s Black and Pink projects. The difference is clearer on the latest CD, Outside Love. The songs are more concise than the typical Black Mountain jam. Some of them have a hard and fuzzy sounds reminiscent of the Jesus and Mary Chain and others are more like country rock. It all sounded very nice in concert, and we were also treated to a couple of good opening bands. Quest for Fire (including a couple of musicians who also played with Pink Mountaintops) played jammy guitar rock reminiscent of Black Mountain, while Suckers played intriguing rock with a touch of glam and psychedelia.
Photos of Pink Mountaintops, Quest for Fire and Suckers.
Thursday (June 11) was a really special night at the Empty Bottle, with a great double bill of Vic Chesnutt and Jonathan Richman. Sitting alone on the stage in his wheelchair, hunched over his acoustic guitar, Chesnutt managed to get the normally chatty crowds at the Bottle to listen intently to his quirky and heartfelt songs — he did pause one song to point out some “chatties” in the crowd, joking that the young ladies were talking about how handsome he is. Chesnutt introduced a few songs by noting that he had written them recently and might forget the chords and lyrics. And he did say “sorry” a few times as he tried to find his way through the songs, starting them over again. That’s the sort of uncertainty that can seem like a fault for many performers, but Chesnutt was so casual about it that it actually heightened the feeling that this was a performance akin to watching him in his living room. As he remarked at one point, “I know I’m going to fuck this one up but that hasn’t stopped me yet tonight.” Chesnutt said he’s recorded new music with both Jonathan Richman and Silver Mt. Zion. He closed with a song that he dubbed “the epic one” — “Worst Friend in the World.”
He was followed by Richman, who was — well, he was Jonathan Richman, a singular and strange guy. Very entertaining in his own way. If you go to see a Richman concert in the hope of hearing him do some of his early songs with the Modern Lovers, you’re probably going to be out of luck. And I have to confess I haven’t kept up with his recent records, so I wasn’t that familiar with the songs he played Thursday. But his humor and earnestness are immediately accessible, whether or not you’ve heard the songs before. Richman sang some songs in French or Spanish, and his acoustic guitar playing all night had a Spanish flair to it. He often let the music fall into an improvised groove with drummer Tommy Larkins. As Richman noted at one point during an extended riff: “This isn’t a song or anything. It’s just a beat.” Richman occasionally set down his guitar and picked up a cowbell or some jingle bells and pranced around on the stage, making some percussion. His eyes remained wide all night, as he seemed to be staring into the faces of individual audience members (including me)… And every few minutes, that stare would give way to a childish grin.
Photos of Jonathan Richman and Vic Chesnutt.
One more concert to report on: PJ Harvey and John Parish Friday at the Riviera. More on that later…
St. Vincent at Millennium Park
A great season of free concerts is under way in Chicago, including a number of noteworthy shows in the beautiful Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park. St. Vincent (a.k.a. singer-songwriter Annie Clark) performed last night (June 8) beneath architect Frank Gehry’s curving metallic folds, with an appreciative audience and the Chicago skyline spread out before her. Looking out at that tableau, the wide-eyed Clark marveled, “Look at this place. It’s ridiculous!”
St. Vincent was ridiculously great, too. I saw her play three decent shows as an opening act when she was touring to support her first album, but her second record, Actor, is quite a step up from that first effort. It could end up being one of 2009’s best CDs. The intimate show she played this spring at the Hideout was so cool, but it was nice to see her playing this time with a full complement of backing musicians. At one point, not one but two of the musicians were playing clarinet!
Although she did play some music from her first album, opening with the title track, “Marry Me,” St. Vincent focused on the new stuff last night. The songs sounded lush, almost orchestral, with St. Vincent’s lovely voice floating through the dense arrangements, delivering literate lyrics that showed a sharp sense of humor as well as some occasional dark thoughts. But the music never stayed in one pretty place for long — St. Vincent let loose with noisy, angular electric-guitar solos on many of her songs. The noise was beautiful, too.
The opening act, Chicago band Allá, was a good match for St. Vincent, playing some long psychedelic and minimalist jams. It’s nice to see Millennium Park featuring some local bands on its schedule. Just hang out this summer at the park and you’ll hear a ton of great music of all sorts. Check out the schedule at www.millenniumpark.org. One can’t-miss show is the Feelies on June 29.
Metronome, Maestro and Telekinesis
It was a busy weekend in Chicago for music and other fun cultural activities, including the Printers Row Lit Fest. (More on that later… if I get a chance to blog about it.) The weather was strangely cold and rainy, but I didn’t let that stop me.
A few highlights: A new street festival called Metronome took place Saturday and Sunday on Milwaukee Avenue between Armitage and North, with an impressively eclectic lineup of music — indie rock, punk, electronic and folk, among other things. I caught the last two acts on the main stage Saturday night, as a chill wind was blowing. New York’s Here We Go Magic got off to a bit of a slow start, but then the band really picked up steam with some extended jams — not jam-band-style jams, but the sort of extended grooves that the Feelies and American Analog Set used to specialize in. Here We Go Magic lived up to its name in these moments, and their song “Fangela” is really marvelous.
The last act on that stage Saturday night was John Vanderslice, a dependable singer-songwriter whose music is a little slippery to define, genre-wise. It falls under the big umbrella of indie rock, but that doesn’t tell you much. It’s not the acoustic or roots-based music that dominates the singer-songwriter field, though there are some touches of that. He dabbles in electronic textures, but mostly what he does is write smart and melodic songs. And then when he plays them, he knows how to have some fun, cranking out hard electric guitar chords in the right spots. A number of his songs on the new album Romanian Names stick in the mind long after you hear them.
Photos of Here We Go Magic and John Vanderslice.
On Sunday afternoon, a noteworthy reunion concert happened, but it seemed like almost no one knew about it. The only reason I heard about it was a piece that Ira Glass did on WBEZ’s 848 show Friday. The stars of this affair were Maestro Subgum and the Whole, a peculiar Chicago musical collective that performed back in the early ’90s. Talk about musical acts who are hard to categorize, Maestro Subgum really was an oddball outfit. If anything, the group’s songs resembled musical theater or cabaret more than rock music — and fittingly enough, some of its members have gone on to perform with local theaters. This reunion show, following a concert earlier in the year at the Viaduct, was a benefit for the Curious Branch Theatre. It was wonderful to hear the group’s voices belting out harmonies on catchy but quirky old songs such as “Bamboo Guru.” The band’s master of ceremonies, “Lefty Fizzle,” seemed like a sort of old-time carnival barker, twirling his cane and prancing about in some sort of robe not normally seen outside of storage closets. And Ira Glass made a couple of appearances, talking about how much Maestro Subgum’s willingness to do its thing inspired him years ago to do his thing on the radio. (I only wish Maestro Subgum would have performed my favorite one of their songs, “Prayers for the Undoing of Spells.”)
Photos of Maestro Subgum and the Whole with Ira Glass.
Finally, the weekend came to a nice musical closing with three bands at Schubas. The headliners were Telekinesis, who have a very tuneful self-titled CD out on Merge Records, well worth getting. This Seattle band is somewhat unusual because the main singer and songwriter, Michael Benjamin Lerner, is a drummer. So Telekinesis plays with the drum kit right up at the front of the stage. Lerner’s songs remind me a bit of old power pop. They sounded strong and catchy in concert.
The Schubas lineup also featured An Horse, a guitar-and-drums duo from Australia, who seemed to be almost as big of a draw for the local fans as Telekinesis, if not bigger. They seemed quite charming, with scrappy, fairly straightforward rock songs, a bit on the garage-rock side. The first band one of the night was Chicago’s A Lull. Yes, the same band I saw less than a week ago, opening for Julie Doiron at the Empty Bottle. Once again, they sounded good, even though they’d lost the use of a computer. I liked them enough to pick up their EP at the merch table.
Julie Doiron brings the rock
That headline above this blog post is one that I didn’t expect to write. New Brunswick singer-songwriter Julie Doiron has been writing and recording for quite a while now — she’s just released her eighth album, I Can Wonder What You With Your Day on Jagjaguwar — but I’ve never followed her all that closely. I’ve heard great things about her, but my impression of her was that she sings quiet, melancholy and sometimes somewhat precious indie folk rock. There is some of that sort of stuff on her new record, sing-songy, girly, campfire songs such as “The Life of Dreams” and “Glad to Be Alive.” But there are also several songs that are louder and more energetic.
That side of her music came out in full force Wednesday (June 3) at the Empty Bottle, thanks to Doiron’s engaging playing on the electric guitar, her passionate singing and the loose, Neil Young-esque vibe of her backing band. (Despite the fact that they played with a Neil Young vibe, I didn’t appreciate the guy in the crowd who kept on requesting her to do “Cortez the Killer.” Give it a rest, dude.) Doiron let things get quiet on a couple of tunes, but for the most part, it really was a rock show, and a quite good one at that. And she came off as a very nice and approachable person in her good-natured comments in between the songs.
The first band of the night was a local outfit called A Lull, who put an quite impressive set of elegant and lovely rock songs accented by trumpet and occasionally pounded into the floor with drums, drums and more drums. There were four drummers in this group (if you include the guy playing trumpet plus drums), so this is one group you can definitely throw into the “Drum Circle” school of indie rock. There was an ethereal quality to the songs reminiscent of atmospheric bands like Efterklang and Grizzly Bear. And when the songs fell into a percussive groove, it sounded pretty darn cool. So far, A Lull has released just an EP, Ice Cream Bones, but I’m eager to hear more. Check them out at www.myspace.com/alullmusic
The middle band on the bill was the Night Owl Choir. In their softer moments, they reminded me a bit of the chilled-out alt-country band Acetone. The Night Owl Choir was pretty good, showing some promise, though perhaps they could stand to add a few more colors to their musical palette.
Do-Division and Cass McCombs
The summer street-festival season is now officially on in Chicago. And that means you’ll have lots of opportunities to see some great music for next to nothing out in the open air. (Some not-so-great music, too, but there’s so much good stuff, let’s not complain too much about the stuff we don’t like.) In fact, between these street festivals and all of the cool concerts planned at Millennium Park, you can practically fill your whole music calendar this summer without spending more than a few bucks here and there.
The Do-Division Festival, which featured music programmed by the Empty Bottle, had a strong schedule both days this past weekend. I missed the fest on Saturday, but from what I hear, the Handsome Furs and Viva Voce put on rocking sets. On Sunday night (May 31), I caught the Do-Division sets by White Rabbits and Menomena. Both bands make creative use of keyboards and percussion. White Rabbits remind me a bit of Spoon, so it seems appropriate that Spoon’s main man, Britt Daniel, produced the group’s latest record, It’s Frightening. I’m just getting used to that record, and so far, my favorite track is a mostly mellow song called “Company I Keep,” and that was one of my faves at the concert, too. The Rabbits kept most of their songs rollicking along thanks to all that drumming and percussion.
I wasn’t sure how much of a following Menomena has, but judging from the size of the crowd and the way people reacted to songs, clearly showing their familiarity with the tunes, I guess they are getting popular. At least, on a cult band level. If I’m not mistaken, all of the songs they played were from their 2007 record Friend or Foe. It seems like it’s just about time for a record with some fresh material, but it was still just fine and dandy to hear the indelible songs from that album once again. All three members of the band sing at various times, and while there is some guitar, the sound is anchored more in drums, bass, keyboards and the occasional sax. Menomena has its own distinctive sound, although at moments the trio reminds me of Mercury Rev or the Flaming Lips. Those 2007 songs are holding up really, really well after two years of listening… Now, how about for some new ones?
Photos of White Rabbits and Menomena.
After Do-Division wrapped up, I headed over to the Hideout, where Cass McCombs was headlining. It turned out to be one of those great nights at the Hideout when all sorts of things happen. First of all, it was nice to see Hideout co-owner Tim Tuten back in town, even if he was just here for a weekend break from his new job working for Education Secretary Arne Duncan. There Tim was, back in his old confines, helping his wife, Katie, set up tables and chairs in the music room and holding forth on the stage in a plaid shirt. Seemed like old times.
The evening at the Hideout got off to a good start with country rock by Rachel Eve. Her voice and melodies sounded nice, especially when the band rocked a little bit behind her. Then came the trustworthy local troubadour, Judson Claiborne, with a strong set of his original songs. In between the musical acts, there was some Andy Kaufman-esque comedy. A highlight was the strange performance of a “band” called Relevant Hairstyles actually just a monologue about describing a band that did not actually play. The bit had some brilliant moments.
Cass McCombs, who had a terrific album called Dropping the Writ a couple of years ago, is getting ready to release a new CD, and he mixed old and new songs in his set. Those Writ tunes are the ones that really grabbed me, but a couple of the new ones sounded great, too. Cass brought his own lights, which cast a sort of shifting techno-glow onto the stage, a bit odd in the honky-tonk environs of the Hideout, and he went over to the venue’s old piano for a couple of songs. Overall, it was a good show in an intimate venue by an artist who seems like he’s destined for bigger things.
Photos of Cass McCombs, Rachel Eve, Judson Claiborne and Relevant Hairstyles.
Dent May plus cool openers
I went to Schubas on Thursday night (May 28) out of curiosity more than anything else. The headliner, Dent May, is a singer from Mississippi who plays the ukulele, an instrument you don’t see onstage all that often, other than maybe a short novelty number or two in the middle of a concert. The uke is all that May plays during the course of his show, and he grimaces and rears back at times like he’s wailing on an electric guitar, even though he’s just plinking those little nylon strings. It made for an interesting sight, but I have to say his pop music didn’t really connect with me like I’d hoped. It wasn’t bad, but something about his voice and his melodies wore thin on me after a few songs. And yet, a number of people in the crowd seemed to love it, calling out requests for some of his songs, so I can see this guy may be destined to attract even more fans in the future. www.myspace.com/dentmay
I was pleasantly surprised by the two opening acts, however — both of them fledgling Chicago bands that showed a lot of promise. First up was My Gold Mask, a duo with Gretta Rochelle on vocals and drums (which she played standing up) and Jack Armondo on guitar and backing vocals. They rocked with the primitive energy you often get with guitar-and-drums duos, with a great full-on vocal attack from Rochelle on several songs. The band’s debut recording is a cassette tape… Gosh, you know, I appreciate the retro technology, but I’m trying to get rid of all my old cassettes, not gather more of them, so I just bought the card to get a digital download. Check them out at www.mygoldmask.com and www.myspace.com/mygoldmask.
The middle band on the bill was Very Truly Yours, which sounded an awful lot like Camera Obscura — which is a good thing, in my book. Lead singer and vocalist Kristine Capua sings in a pretty, plaintive voice while the band plays swaying pop arrangements that sound straight of the 1960s. THe group has a nice five-song EP called Reminders. The hyperbolic (and, I hope, somewhat tongue-in-cheek) liner notes claim: “Very Truly Yours is America’s leading purveyor of what will someday be called the ‘time capsule sound.’ It’s music handcrafted in the here and now for the nostalgic daydreams we’re all still working on…” In concert, the members of Very Truly Yours seemed surprised that a modest-size crowd of people was paying attention and actually clapping after the songs. “You guys are so intense!” Capua said, giving the impression that Very Truly Yours hasn’t played in front of actual audiences very often so far. Based on how cool they sounded at this show, I hope they’re destined for many more shows and recordings to come. Check them out at www.myspace.com/verytrulymusic
What was that song? ‘Maybe’
My Chicago Public Radio story about Jay Bennett, which aired this morning on WBEZ, is online at http://www.wbez.org/Content.aspx?audioID=34487.
And in case you’re wondering what that song was at the end of the story, it’s Titanic Love Affair doing “Maybe,” from the band’s 1988 cassette tape Ice Cream Funeral. Here’s an mp3 of “Maybe.” I encourage you to buy some of Jay Bennett’s CDs to honor his musical accomplishments.
Champaign bands rock again
The 1980s were a great time to be a rock fan at the University of Illinois. I was already a big music fan when I arrived as a student there, but I had a lot to learn. (Hey, I still do!) Champaign was where I discovered how great it can be to watch local bands. It was an era of jangly guitars, when a lot of kids wanted to become the next R.E.M. (I’m talking about Murmur-era R.E.M.) Others clearly had spent a lot of time listening to records by the Mats, a.k.a. Replacements.
These memories came back for me this past weekend, when Champaign hosted the “Play or Pose” reunion. The festivities included some unplugged performances on Saturday (May 23) and a rock show Sunday (May 24) at the Highdive featuring the Outnumbered, Lonely Trailer, Cowboy X and the Poster Children. Despite the terribly sad news everyone heard on Sunday afternoon — that Jay Bennett, former guitarist for Titanic Love Affair (and, yes, Wilco) had died — the concert was great, at moments even glorious. Was it appropriate to be having fun listening to music just after the death of a beloved local musician? Well, it did feel weird, but it also felt like the right way to honor his memory. The concert had actually already been dedicated to the memory of another fallen hero of the C-U music scene, Josh Gottheil, a young music booker who died from cancer at the age of 19 in 1989.
The Outnumbered were one of Champaign’s great bands of the mid-’80s, playing tuneful garage rock with a heavy ’60s vibe. They opened for the Replacements and Hüsker Dü and were on the Homestead label at the same time as Sonic Youth and Nick Cave. And they wrote and played some great tunes, including two of my faves, “Boy on a Roof” and “Feel So Sorry Now.” I challenge you not to sing along with that one once you’ve heard it, oh, once or twice. Guitarist-singer Jon Ginoli later formed the band Pansy Division, (a story he recounts in his new book Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division, The Inside Story of the First Openly Gay Pop-Punk Band). Other members of the Outnumbered were Paul Budin, who has since become a good friend of mine, Tim McKeage, Jonno Peltz and Ken Golub. Those five (with Peltz playing drums most of the set and Golub drumming for one song) were all there Sunday night for a joyful set of their best songs. Ginoli and Budin beamed throughout the show, and Budin tossed out flowers as the set closed with “Cover Me With Flowers.”
Photos of the Outnumbered.
Lonely Trailer were one of the oddest bands in the C-U scene — really uncategorizable. There was a bit of punk in what they were doing it, but it was more like a dada version of country music mixed with jazz, rock, avant-garde… Oh, forget it. Whatever it was, it was idiosyncratic and riveting. All that wonderful weirdness came right back as the Lonely Trailer guys reunited onstage Sunday night, and a few of the group’s hard-core fans went wild, yelling out the names of their favorite songs. Drummer-singer Brian Reedy looked like he was going to topple out of his chair with laughter at a few points, he was having so much fun. (And Reedy also had a bunch of his quirky paintings on exhibit down the street at the Radio Maria restaurant.)
Photos of Lonely Trailer.
Cowboy X were up next, with a solid set of their melodic pop-rock. Definitely a more mainstream-sounding band than Lonely Trailer, but still enjoyable. I was wondering if they would do the cover that I remembered them doing back in the ’80s, and sure enough, they pulled it out: a rap-rock version of Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle.”
Photos of Cowboy X.
The final act of the night was the Poster Children. I did not follow these guys in their early days, but I’ve learned lately just how fun they are to see in concert. Unlike the other groups playing on Sunday, the Poster Children have been pretty active in recent years and they sounded tight and energetic as they rampaged through their songs. As always, bassist Rose Marshack was jumping around and shaking her hair like a maniac, despite the fact that, as her husband and Poster Children singer Rick Valentin phrased it, “she just pumped out a kid a few weeks ago.”
Photos of the Poster Children.
The concert prompted to look back at a mix CD I made several years ago with some of my favorite music from the ’80s Champaign scene: These bands, plus groups like Turning Curious, Weird Summer, the Nines, the Big Maybe, the B-Lovers and the Vertebrats. I do wish someone would put out a high-fidelity collection of the best songs by those bands and others.
More about Bennett on WBEZ
Chicago Public Radio WBEZ 91.5 FM plans to air a story I reported about Jay Bennett on the Eight Forty-Eight show 9-10 a.m. Friday (May 29). It will be available for listening online later.
Also, you can hear me chatting for a few minutes about local music and concerts every Wednesday now — usually sometime between 2:20 and 2:40 p.m. — on the Vocalo radio station. That’s the new public radio project at 89.5 FM. The signal’s not that strong in a lot of places around Chicago (yet), but you can stream it at http://vocalo.org.
Remembering Jay Bennett
I happened to be in Champaign-Urbana this weekend when a sad news story broke: the death of Jay Bennett, a remarkably talented musician I had interviewed several times over the past eight years. Bennett was best known for his role as lead guitarist, keyboardist, all-around studio whiz and occasional songwriter in Wilco, making an indelible mark on much of the band’s best records, including Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Summerteeth. He also recorded several solo records and one in collaboration with Edward Burch, the excellent The Palace at 4am (Part I).
But I first encountered Bennett back in the 1980s, when he was the lively guitarist for Titanic Love Affair, a hard-rock band on the University of Illinois campus. Here are some photos by David Ghent showing him in action, which I ran when I was an editor at the Daily Illini in 1988. Bennett’s fluid guitar playing impressed me at the time, and I was already hearing that he was talented at recording music.
In June 2001, when Wilco was finishing up Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, I interviewed him for the first time. We sat on the back porch of his house in Arlington Heights, Illinois, with birds singing in the background. Click here for an extended version of the article I wrote, including a Q&A. I had no inkling that Jeff Tweedy would ask Bennett to leave the band a few months later, but that is in fact what happened. I was stunned at the time. Bennett had contributed so much to Wilco’s music, it seemed impossible he would be fired. You can read all about what happened from multiple angles in Greg Kot’s book Learning How to Die. I later came to realize that Bennett was a genius whose obsessive work habits might just drive some people a little crazy. But I never lost faith in his musical abilities.
At that first interview, I was struck by how much Bennett seemed like a combination of rock-star dude, philosophical intellectual and VCR repairman. In April 2002, as Bennett and Burch released Palace, I interviewed him again. The Q&A is so long it’s in two parts: Part 1 is mostly about The Palace at 4am (Part I). Part 2 is mostly about Bennett leaving Wilco.
A year after that, I spent a couple of hours at Bennett’s recording studio in Chicago, focusing more on his production techniques and gear for a story in Tape Op magazine.
I’m posting a 13-minute podcast here with selections from those three interviews. What you hear is a few minutes of Jay talking in 2001 about collaborating with Tweedy in Wilco; Jay explaining what happened when he left the band; Jay in his Pieholden Suite studio, where the great young musician David Vandervelde was hanging out at the time; and then some additional thoughts from that 2002 interview. Click here to download my podcast featuring Jay Bennett in his own words. (My apologies for the spotty audio quality in some segments.)
The last time I wrote about Bennett was at the end of 2004, when he was releasing a solo album called The Beloved Enemy. He had also seemed upbeat whenever I’d interviewed him, but lately, I’d been hearing alarming reports that he seemed depressed or intoxicated at some live performances. One fan was concerned enough to post a question on the message board of Bennett’s record label, Undertow Music: “Is Jay OK? Seriously.”
“The answer to ‘Am I OK?’ is a resounding ‘Yes,'” Bennett said when I asked him about this. “I am going through a divorce. … I certainly had my issues with drinking.” He also acknowledged having used drugs, though he said he didn’t currently have a problem with substance abuse.
“Most of my adult life, I’ve been a drinker. And I’ve dabbled in everything else that most rockers have done. Was it to the point that it interfered with my life? I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ve had my share of rock ‘n’ roll excess, where it was impeding my judgment here and there … I had friends express concern about me. At various times in my life, I was self-medicating. I have an anxiety disorder. I’ve been though seven therapists in five or six years. I’ve finally found one who clicks. It works.”
When he first answered his phone that time, Bennett was in the middle of a therapy session. He said he also viewed his latest records as a kind of therapy. “This record is a way to get rid of some of that pain by expressing it,” he said. “Drugs and alcohol were a way to deal with that same pain.”
Bennett, who had moved to Urbana, made news just a few weeks ago when he filed a lawsuit seeking royalties from Wilco. He’d also posted a note on myspace saying he was in need of a hip replacement. It sounded like he was facing some serious health problems.
Strangely enough, the reason I was in Champaign this weekend was for the Play or Pose reunion event featuring local rock bands of the 1980s: the Outnumbered, Lonely Trailer, Cowboy X and the Poster Children. (I’ll blog more about that later.) At an open-mike event on Saturday, a number of people asked, “Where’s Jay?” — hoping he would attend, even if he did not perform. His former bandmates from Titanic Love Affair were there in the bar, and one of his ex-Wilco mates, Leroy Bach, performed a beautiful set of three songs. But Jay was nowhere to be found.
The next day, the word came via Twitter and Facebook messages from Undertow Music that he had died in his sleep the night before. Sunday night’s concert at the Highdive went on, and it had some of those great moments when you feel the triumphant power of music, but the evening also had a shadow hanging over it. At a few points, the musicians on stage asked audience members to lift their drinks to Bennett’s memory. Steve Tyska of Cowboy X said, “Champaign was a very important place to him, and he was very important to Champaign.”
Back when I interviewed Jay in 2002 about leaving Wilco and recording Palace, we spoke for more than two hours, and my mini-Disc recorder ran out of space just minutes before we concluded. And so, alas, I failed to get a recording of his final remarks that evening. I scribbled them down as quickly as I could. Here is what he said:
“There’s a basic human urge to be understood. I could be accused of trying too hard to be understood… When in reality, only the people closest to you understand you… I do like the idea of putting the whole transcript [of this interview] on the Internet, right down to my last words, which are: Peace, love and understanding to the world, including my ex-bandmates.”
‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’ and Plastic People
Can rock ‘n’ roll change the world — not just change what’s on the radio but who’s in charge of the government? Maybe, but as music critic Robert Palmer once noted, that’s an awful lot of weight to put on a little piece of music. Tom Stoppard’s play Rock ‘n’ Roll, now at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, shows one example of a situation where rock music was viewed as a dangerous political force: Cold War-era Czechoslovakia, where records and concerts by a group called Plastic People of the Universe were driven underground by fearful Communist officials.
This play is not exactly what you might expect from that description, however. There’s a lot of heady, intellectual dialogue, and the rock ‘n’ roll is not as dominant as you’d think, given the title. It’s well worth seeing for its lessons in recent history and an excellent performance by Mary Beth Fisher, among other things. And how cool is it to see a play featuring music by the likes of Syd Barrett — as well as a Barrett-like figure perambulating around the edges of the action, sometimes riding a bicycle.
Still, I wondered sometimes if this show was too much talk and not enough rock. I don’t want to sound anti-intellectual, but shouldn’t a play about the power of rock music to change the world actually show that happening? We hear people talking about more than we witness the actual rock being played. I wanted something more visceral — more moments like that startling shock when a Communist policeman smashes an LP into pieces.
And for a play that includes a lot of references to the Plastic People of the Universe, it’s strange that we hear only one brief passage of that band’s music. The band seems phantom-like, hovering off stage, never quite audible.
That’s the sort of presence the Plastics have had in the real world of rock music — banned in their homeland, discussed but rarely heard outside the Czech Republic. I was lucky to catch a performance by the Plastics last September at the Hideout Block Party (here are my photos from that show), and I managed to track down a digital copy of the band’s classic but hard-to-find record Egon Bondy’s Happy Hearts Club Banned. Good luck searching for it online or finding a place to buy it. It’s a cool combination of the Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa — weird, stark and compelling.
To read more about the Plastic People of the Universe, I suggest checking out this article by Richie Unterberger
(Goodman Theatre photo at top by Michael Brosilow)
The Vaselines and the 1900s at Metro
The odds are, if you’ve heard of the Vaselines, it’s because Nirvana covered a few of their songs. This Scottish band recorded just one LP and some singles in the late ’80s, broke up, then briefly reformed to open for their fans in Nirvana. They haven’t played together since the early ’90s, and they’d never played a concert in Chicago (for the Midwest, for that matter) until last night (May 16) at Metro. The occasion for their current tour is an excellent new collection of their old songs, Enter the Vaselines, issued this year by Sub Pop. As one of the band’s two singer-guitarists, Frances McKee, noted, it’s an “old-new CD.”
The group is essentially the duo of McKee and Eugene Kelly, though for this show they were backed up by three musicians on loan from other Scottish groups: guitarist Stevie Jackson and bassist Bob Kildea (both from Belle and Sebastian) and drummer Michael McGaughrin (from the 1990s). They were, as McKee joked, “the professionals in this outfit.”
Despite being away for so many years, the Vaselines sounded so fresh. Their songs have some of that Velvet Underground and post-punk feel, but there’s also a sweet pop side to what they do. That attitude also came through in their hilarious stage banter. Well, McKee was hilarious in any case, making bitterly funny remarks about her erstwhile romantic partner, Kelly, who played the part of the straight man in this routine. When Kelly introduced one song by saying, “This is a love song,” she interjected with a smile, “Not any more.” She also accused him of wearing “grumpy pants,” and when audience members called out that they loved Kelly, she tartly noted, “You obviously don’t know him.” After another song, she said, “There’s a message in that song: If you take too many drugs, you’ll end up like Eugene.” She delivered all this verbal abuse with a wry sense of humor (maybe that Scottish accent helps), and he stood there and took it with a slightly chagrined look.
If they still had any actual bitter feelings between them, it didn’t stop them from performing top-notch versions of their old songs, including of course highlights like “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam,” which Nirvana fans know so well from the MTV Unplugged album. And the Vaselines even played a couple of new songs (one of which was identified simply as “new new song” on the set list), which sounded almost as good as the oldies. Let’s hope we hear more from the Vaselines soon.
To read more about the Vaselines, see the Sub Pop site.
www.myspace.com/thevaselinesband
Photos of the Vaselines.
The opening act was one of my local favorites, the 1900s (not to be confused with the aforementioned Scottish group, the 1990s). They’ve had a couple of members leave the band over the last year, but they had a new drummer and keyboard player in place for last night’s gig, and they also played a few new songs, which sounded promising. I eagerly await their next record.
The Dears and Great Northern
There was a tornado watch Wednesday night (May 13), with torrential blasts of rain sweeping across the El platform. It was not the most pleasant night to be out and about past 10 p.m., but a hardy band of music fans trekked to the Lakeshore Theater and enjoyed a passionate concert by the Dears. The leader of this Montreal band, Murray Lightburn, sang the first song with a cordless microphone out in the audience, wandering the auditorium and pausing to put his arms around various fans, giving some of them a hug. There was a similar sense of emotion throughout the show, as Lightburn joined with the rest of the band onstage for a set full of soulful tunes. This “school-night” show finally finished around 1:35 a.m., prompting Lightburn to thank the small but appreciative crowd for being so committed. The crowd clapped even more at the end, hoping for a second encore, but it was bedtime.
I missed the first band of the night, the Eulogies, showing up in time to hear the second group on the bill, Great Northern. As on their recent CD, Remind Me Where the Light Is, Great Northern played some big-sounding indie-rock ballads. It’s pleasant enough, but after a few songs, I found myself hoping for something more interesting to happen.
First impressions of new Wilco CD
When bands put out self-titled records in the middle of their careers, what exactly does it mean? Is the band saying that this is the record that defines them more than any other? Or have they just run out of titles? The new Wilco album, coming out June 30, is called Wilco (The Album), which makes it almost seem like a joke. And with that cover photo of a camel, you have to wonder: What exactly is Wilco up to with this record?
It’s streaming now at http://wilcoworld.net/discs/thealbum/, and I just listened to it for the first time. Here are my snap impressions of the songs. My opinions are bound to change as I listen more. I’ve been a fan of Wilco since the beginning, but I was disappointed with the group’s previous record, Sky Blue Sky — not a bad record, but one that simply failed to excite me the way previous releases had. So far, Wilco (The Album) sounds like a stronger effort.
Track 1: “Wilco (the song)” — The record opens with a nice blast of the rollicking pop sound that Wilco used to have, back in the days of Summerteeth and Being There. The whole idea of doing a song called “Wilco (the song)” seems a little silly, but the track makes a good first impression.
Track 2: “Deeper Down” — This is one of those quiet Wilco songs where Jeff Tweedy sings in a gentle, sensitive tone. The song has some ornate touches, including strings and a harpsichord-like keyboards, but the arrangement feels spare, and the tempo is surprisingly quick.
Track 3: “One Wing” — Some cool guitar work by Nels Cline, a lulling chorus. The blend of Tweedy’s songwriting and the guitar flourishes here feel like a perfected version of what the band was trying to do on the last album, Sky Blue Sky.
Track 4: “Bull Black Nova” — The song starts out all staccato, with Tweedy singing about a car as a piano ticks off repeatedly. There’s something about this that sounds like the 1970s, but then the track veers into some strong guitar soloing — is that a guitar duet between Kline and Tweedy? The song builds into a stranger piece than it seemed at first, like a simple little ditty that’s become an art-rock epic.
Track 5: “You and I” — A classic-sounding Tweedy acoustic ballad. Just a touch of guitar wankery at the end, as the track fades out.
Track 6: “You Never Know” — More of that 1970s feeling, a pop song with a chorus that sounds like something Harry Nilsson might have done, with a touch of George Harrison slide guitar at one point.
Track 7: “Disappeared” — Tweedy softly singing high notes over a subtle arrangement with piano as the lead instrument. The chorus has a wistful air that reminds me of “Jesus Etc.”
Track 8: “Solitaire” Acoustic guitar and space-rock keyboard sounds blend together in a beautiful opening. Tweedy sings an instantly catchy melody with lyrics that are probably going to stick in my mind as well: “Once I thought the world was crazy…”
Track 9: “I’ll Fight” — Starts off like a solo acoustic folk song, but then the band kicks in and Tweedy chants an insistent, simple melody. Feels a bit like an anthem, but it’s tamped down, without the fist-pumping chorus it could have had.
Track 10: “Sonny Feeling” — An upbeat track, with the sort of shifting instrumentation that Wilco’s big ensemble of musicians can pull off like few other bands.
Track 11: “Everlasting Everything” — Tweedy sings, “Everything alive must die…” Touches of George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass”? This has the feel of a big album-closing ballad. The record ends with just a little bit of psychedelic guitar with that backwards-sounding sound.
Overall, a good first impression. But I doubt if Wilco (The Album) will become the Wilco album that defines the band for me.
Rodriguez at Schubas
Detroit singer-songwriter Rodriguez (full name: Sixto Diaz Rodriguez) is one of countless musicians who recorded great songs years and years ago — and then disappeared with a trace. He released just two albums: Cold Fact in 1970 and Coming From Reality in 1972, with psychedelic folk rock reminiscent of Love’s Forever Changes. Those records barely sold any copies in the U.S. and Rodriguez spent the coming years as day laborer in Detroit. Then, somehow, his records caught on in Australia. And then he became a star in South Africa. He’s still largely unknown in his home country, but that’s starting to change, now that the Light in the Attic label has reissued his albums on CD, and Friday (May 8), he came to Chicago to play in front of an enthusiastic and largely young audience at Schubas.
By now, having played to big audiences in South Africa, Rodriguez must be getting used to hearing cheers for his songs. But on Friday he still seemed like someone who’s feeling giddy at finally getting the recognition he sought four decades ago.”I’ve seen lonelier days and lonelier nights,” he said. And when the audience sang along with many of those old Rodriguez songs, the smiling singer almost seemed astonished. “Thanks for knowing the words, too,” he said. “That blows me away. Those are my lines.”
The three musicians playing with Rodriguez appeared to be learning some of the songs as they went along — Rodriguez had to show them the chords for a few songs, and the guitarist was using a cheat sheet with chords — but it sounded beautifully organic and remarkably close to the old recordings. Rodriguez’s voice is still in excellent form, and he has a distinctive way of plucking the chords on his electric-classical guitar. Highlights included his great signature song “Sugar Man,” which you can hear at myspace.com/rodriguezsugarman. The only thing lacking to keep it from being perfect were the strings and reeds heard on the original studio record. Rodriguez closed with a cover of “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” incorporating bits of “Long Tally Sally” and Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues.”
This was one of those special concerts where you get a real sense of the performer’s personality and history.
The opening act was Vampire Hands, a much younger band playing percussion-heavy rock with some psychedelic audio effects. Sort of a weird match with Rodriguez, but in a way it seemed appropriate — two different generations of musicians coming together in front of an audience that seemed to appreciate both.
Photos of Rodriguez and Vampire Hands.
Listen to the Aug. 28, 2008, story about Rodriguez on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”
Bowerbirds and La Strada at Schubas
Clearly, most of the crowd at Schubas Monday night (May 4) was there to hear Bowerbirds play songs from their 2007 album Hymns for a Dark Horse. But the crowd was in for a couple of nice surprises: an excellent opening band (La Strada) and a whole batch of new songs by Bowerbirds. As it happens, I have an advance copy of the new Bowerbirds album, Upper Air, which comes out July 7 on the Dead Oceans label, and I’ve been listening to it quite a bit. It’s a really nice record, a more-than-worthy follow-up to that debut record, which garnered some attention two years ago.
The new and old songs all sounded lovely, with Phil Moore plucking and strumming a classical guitar most of the night, giving the songs that particular sound you can only get with nylon strings. Moore’s gentle voice lofted the melodies all night, with a solid assist on harmony vocals from Beth Tacular, whose accordion notes fleshed out the arrangements. The touring drummer and bassist also added some subtle layers to the sound. I got the feeling that the crowd liked the new songs, though it was obvious that people responded a bit more to some of the songs they recognized, such as “Bur Oak.”
www.bowerbirds.org www.myspace.com/bowerbirds
I wonder how many of the people at Schubas knew anything about the opening band, La Strada, or had heard any of their songs before? I suspect that the group, which has just an EP out at this point, was new to most of the audience, but the applause was enthusiastic. A few people even called out for an encore when the set was over. This band played orchestral pop with smart string arrangements featuring cello and violin, plus accordion on about half the songs. La Strada reminded me a bit of the Decemberists, without feeling quite as pretentious as that band can sometimes get. It was pretty and catchy music, played with a lot of spirit. I’m a convert. I bought La Strada’s self-titled EP at the merch table, and it’s sounding good.
www.myspace.com/lastradanyc www.ernestjenning.com/band_lastrada.htm
The Books at the MCA
Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art was an ideal location for the concerts Sunday night (May 3) by the Books. This was not so much a concert as it was a multimedia presentation — a live musical performance in synch with short films. And for a show like that to work, you need a nice auditorium with a real movie screen. Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong sat down in front of the screen and played calming, almost minimalist music, mostly on guitar and cello, while movies and words and creatively reconstructed audio clips unreeled behind them.
Playing a lot of new and recent compositions, the Books were most impressive in how they brought all of these elements together into one seamless whole. The sampled voices and audio mix in perfect time with the live music. This is sound and voice editing in the tradition of records such as Brian Eno and David Byrne’s My Life in the Bush With Ghosts, though the Books do it in a way that sounds less aggressive than many of those earlier efforts. Without all of those audio samples, some of the music that Zammuto and de Jong play would be a little too bland to attract much attention, but it functioned well as one part of the concert’s overall auditory and visual spectacle, which occasionally achieved real genius. The film imagery was often edited with stuttering motions to fit the tempos, often to humorous effect.
My favorite part of the whole show (and, judging from all the laughter, it was a favorite for others) was the song “Cold Freezing Night,” which featured recordings of some young kids making violent threats to one another. At other points, the Books introduced songs with the following descriptions: “This is a piece about the circulatory system.” “This next song is about geese.” “About male geese.”
Another highlight was a cover of Nick Drake’s “Cello Song.” As the concert progressed, it became clear that the sequence of letters showing on the screen in between songs was a coded set list. The Books played two encores, but left that last song — identified only as “n” — unplayed during the 7 p.m. show.
Elvis Perkins and Other Lives
Thursday night (April 30), Schubas had a nice double bill, with Elvis Perkins in Dearland as the headliner plus an opening set by the Oklahoma band Other Lives. It was a sold-out show, which led me to wonder why the room was so empty just before the 9 p.m. starting time. Then I heard a cheer coming from the other room and remembered, “Oh, yeah, there’s a Bulls playoff game.” The room did eventually fill up, with a fair amount of people coming in to watch Other Lives even as the Bulls went into triple overtime.
This was my second time seeing Other Lives as an opening act at Schubas. I’d also seen them open last year for the Little Ones. By now, I’ve heard their cool debut record, a self-titled album that came out earlier this year. They remind me a bit of Midlake, with songs that blend a folk-rock sensibility with the intricate and delicate arrangements of art-rock. “End of the Year” is one of the standout tracks on the album, and its shifting tempos and moods sounded dramatic, almost epic, in concert. Adding a classy touch to the set list, Other Lives played a cover of Leonard Cohen’s song “Partisan.”
By the time Elvis Perkins and his backup band (who are collectively billed as Elvis Perkins in Dearland) took the stage, the Bulls had won their game and the room was full. Perkins is essentially a solo performer, but he clearly likes being part of a band and letting the other musicians have some moments in the spotlight. During the course of this show, the band blew on trombones and saxophones, fiddled on violins, switched off on instruments and banged on a bass drum in marching-band style. Perkins is an excellent singer with some strong songs, and he crooned to nice effect Thursday night, doing folksy ballads as well as old-fashioned rockers. The crowd responded most when he finished the encore with “While You Were Sleeping,” the first track on his first album, Ash Wednesday. And then, it actually was time for sleep.
Haino and Conrad at Empty Bottle
Last night (April 28) was an evening of extremes at the Empty Bottle. The headliners were two avant-garde legends making a rare appearance in Chicago: Keiji Haino and Tony Conrad. They played for about 90 minutes, taking just one pause. Was that two “songs”? Not exactly. More like one long improvisation with a slight break in the middle. Conrad played violin most of the night, seemingly strangling the instrument at some moments, or at least molesting it in various ways that aren’t taught at Juilliard. Conrad also bowed a plastic disc with a hole in it, and played for a bit on a pedal steel guitar.
Over on the other side of the stage, Haino was bending over into his microphone, screaming and flailing around his long mane of gray hair. Haino also made noises with various unidentified electronic devices, blew into a curvy plastic tube and wailed away on his electric guitar.
How did it all mesh together? At some moments, the ferocity of what Hainu and Conrad were both doing was almost overwhelming. At other times, the performance began to sag a bit, but then the duo would always rally back.
The first act of the night was Bloodyminded, who offered up even more ear-splitting screams over electronic squiggles that were nearly completely atonal, as far as I could tell. Then came avant-garde music of a completely different character, as David Daniell and Doug McCombs played their slow and sublime glacier of guitar chords. The beautiful hum got its pulse from Frank Rosaly’s subtle, jazzy percussion.
On the radio
I was on Chicago Public Radio WBEZ’s “Eight Forty-Eight” show this morning with a story I reported on the original 1902 stage version of The Wizard of Oz. You can stream it or download it here.
AND I will be back on the radio between 2 and 3 p.m. Wednesday (April 29) — on WBEZ’s sister station, Vocalo, WBEW 89.5 FM or http://vocalo.org/stream. I’ll be taking part in a discussion with other bloggers about Chicago’s local music.
The whole show, “I Love Local Music Event: The state of Local Music,” goes from 1-4 p.m. In the first hour, Keith Jackson, Gary musician and cousin of the Jackson 5, discusses “What happened to live music in Gary, Ind., and what does local music really mean to the community?” From 2-3 p.m., I’ll be part of a panel including bloggers from the Chicago Record Project, the Chicago Independent Music Review and FakeshoreDrive. From 3-4 p.m., the topic is “Where to hear and get heard on line?” with Crown Point’s Asteria, Chris Baum on the local artist’s promo site Fanfound, Rob Lambert of WaxFM.com and social media blogger Keidra Cheney. Vocalo will be Twittering about the show at http://twitter.com/Vocalo and taking calls and comments at (888) 635-1112 and at http://vocalo.org.
M. Ward at the Vic
On his records, M. Ward can seem pretty mellow, softly strumming and crooning old-timey folk-rock. Performing in concert Sunday night (April 26) at Chicago’s Vic Theatre in support of his new album “Hold Time,” M. Ward brought out the more rocking side of his music, proving once again that he is one of today’s most talented guitarists.
A few years ago, Ward seemed somewhat shy as a live performer. He still comes across as a modest guy who’s hesitant to make the big gestures typical of a rock star, but he was smiling an awful lot Sunday night as he sang and crouched over his guitar.
Like other great guitarists — Jack White comes to mind — Ward makes his fluid solos look effortless. It seems like he could stick his hands anywhere on that instrument and it would sound good. And yet, Ward knows he doesn’t have to overdo it. Rather than playing guitar constantly throughout the show, he often let his backup band play the chords while he sang the verses. Whenever he put his hands back onto the frets, the audience knew it was in for something special, whether it was an electric-guitar lick or acoustic finger-picking.
Ward attracted a young crowd at the Vic, but his music is quite old-fashioned, as indicated by the songs he chose to cover: Buddy Holly’s “Rave On” and the Don Gibson country classic “Oh, Lonesome Me,” both of which appear on “Hold Time.” And Ward’s original songs evoked the past, too. Changing up the arrangement to his 2003 song “Helicopter,” Ward sat down at the grand piano and gave the tune a rollicking feel that sounded like something Bob Dylan and the Band would have played in the mid-’60s.
For his final song before the encores, Ward dipped into the early-rock songbook yet again, playing Chuck Berry’s iconic “Roll Over Beethoven.” Ward even did a little bit of Berry’s trademark duck walk.
During the encores, when Ward went over to the piano again for his great 2005 song “Big Boat” (a bouncy Kinks-style ditty about taking a ferry across the river Styx), he found himself unable to stay sitting down. While Ward doesn’t have quite the same moves as Jerry Lee Lewis, he banged away at the keys and kicked over the piano bench. Mellow? Who said he was mellow?
Random weekend scenes
FRIDAY, APRIL 24: Alas, I missed Neko Case at the Chicago Theatre. Well, since I’ve already seen her around 10 times, I suppose it’s not that great of a tragedy to miss her this time. But that new album of hers, Middle Cyclone, has really grown on me. I still think it’s not the equal of her terrific previous CD, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, but it will certainly end up as one of 2009’s best records.
So, instead of luxuriating in Neko’s siren vocals, I went Friday night to see ANVIL: THE STORY OF ANVIL at the Music Box. I really knew nothing about Anvil, a heavy-metal band that briefly seemed to be on the verge of stardom in the 1980s. But knowing about Anvil or being a headbanger is beside the point with this documentary, which is one of the best films ever made about what it’s like to be in a struggling band year after year. As other people have pointed out, Anvil is a bit like a real-life This Is Spinal Tap, but even though you laugh at some of the misadventures of these Canadian rockers, you also feel for them. It’s a surprisingly touching film.
The band Anvil was at Friday night’s screening, answering some audience questions afterward. Guitarist-singer Steve “Lips” Kudlow acknowledged that some people come to see the movie for the laughs (as someone in the crowd said). “Let’s face it,” he said. “There’s no way around it. It’s somewhat of a Trojan horse.” Kudlow said the band gave the director, Sacha Gervasi, unfettered access to their lives because he was already a friend and a fan. That complete access shows in this marvelous and honest rock ‘n’ roll movie.
I stopped by THE HIDEOUT after the movie and caught the first jazz set of the night. The Immediate Sound series, which is normally on Wednesdays, was celebrating its third anniversary with shows on Friday and Saturday. It was a little odd seeing a completely different crowd at the Hideout from the folks I usually see hanging out there. The performance was being recorded, so a “no talking” rule was in effect, and the audience did watch and listen intently as Ken Vandermark and Ab Baars dueted with a variety of wind instruments. At times, they made almost ear-splitting and atonal noise of feverish intensity, but I enjoyed their improvisations most when the tones were more mellow and meditative.
SATURDAY, APRIL 25: This was the final day of an exhibit of EDVARD MUNCH’S paintings and prints at the Art Institute of Chicago. I took a stroll through the galleries before the art disappeared. Munch’s Scream has been practically ruined by kitschy merchandising of the image, but his art remains haunting. The pictures that linger in my mind are those men and women connected or nearly connected by strands of hair. The hair is saying things the people cannot bring themselves to say.
For the first time ever, THROBBING GRISTLE played in Chicago Saturday night. This was yet another show originally scheduled at the Epiphany church then moved to Logan Square Auditorium. Unfortunately, just as the line of ticket holders slowly made its way up the stairs into the venue, a cold downpour drenched the Throbbing Gristle faithful. I had a ticket for the early show, but not the late concert, and in retrospect I should have seen both. The late show featured the band playing various songs. The early show was a live performance of Throbbing Gristle’s soundtrack to the experimental Derek Jarman film In the Shadow of the Sun. The four musicians sat at computers while the movie played (computers that they obviously did not have in the early stages of their career), making loud, pulsating waves of sound — a good match for the abstracted images melting into one another on the screen.
Yann Tiersen at Logan Square
A couple of things surprised me about the concert Tuesday (April 21) by Yann Tiersen at Logan Square Auditorium. First of all, this show sold out, or came very close to selling out. Pardon me if I’ve been on the wrong planet lately, but where did all these Yann Tiersen fans come from? The guy is best known as the composer of the soundtrack to Amelie, and a certain percentage of the crowd may have been the cult followers of that movie.
Second surprise: I was expecting something like an orchestral rock concert, with the sort of music Tiersen composed for Amelie. Instead, this was a full-on rock show with some moments of wailing feedback along with quieter violin bowing and symphonic touches. A clue to this French rocker’s direction was the T-shirt he wore during the show: My Bloody Valentine. (At first, it had seemed strange that Brooklyn rockers Asobi Seksu were booked as Tiersen’s opening act, but after hearing what kind of music he plays live, that made a lot more sense.) Tiersen put on a good show, and the music showed a lot of power at times, though it probably would have connected more with me if I’d been familiar with the tunes. I can definitively say Tiersen’s a talented composer and performer after seeing this show.
The Handsome Family and Marissa Nadler
The Handsome Family just keep on putting out one good record after another (and sometimes they’re great). I’m just getting familiar with the latest CD, Honey Moon, but it’s safe to say that Brett and Rennie Sparks are still going strong. Married 20 years? Congratulations are in order — and given just how demented and dark Rennie’s lyrics have been over the years, it’s interesting to hear them focus a little bit more than usual on happy love songs this time.
They put on an excellent show of new songs mixed with some of my all-time favorites from throughout their career Sunday (April 19) at Schubas. After spending much of their career playing as a duo with a drum machine, the Handsome Family has been touring lately with an actual drummer and a second guitarist, which adds considerable subtleness to the songs. Brett and Rennie haven’t really changed what they do all that much — it’s still gothic alt-country — but over their last few albums, they’ve recorded more songs with the sophisticated air of jazz standards. They played two great examples of that style Sunday night: “After We Shot the Grizzly” and “I Know You Are There.” And it was cool to hear them doing “Giant of Illinois” again after hearing Andrew Bird do his cover version.
And as always, Brett and Rennie engaged in some weird and very funny stage banter. The running theme of the night was Rennie’s experiments in time travel to acquire kittens from the past.
www.handsomefamily.com
www.myspace.com/thehandsomefamily
Photos of the Handsome Family.
The first act of the night was Barry McCormack, an Irish singer-songwriter who was almost as much of a raconteur as he was a musical act. Some nice songs, with good stories to introduce them. http://www.myspace.com/barrymccormack
The second act, Marissa Nadler, was almost worth the admission herself. I saw her play a couple of years ago on the concrete floor at Ronny’s. Schubas is a way more appropriate venue for this folk singer with a beautiful voice and her ethereal songs. For most of her set, she was joined by the guitarist from the band Tulsa, who added subtle echoes of her own guitar playing that fleshed out the songs. Nadler joked that she also has a band called Death Machine. One audience member remarked that he’d want to hear that. Nadler’s music is fragile, with her voice drenched in reverb. She commanded the audience’s attention as the room fell quiet.
Robyn Hitchcock at Logan Square
It was a bit of a disappointment when I heard that the concert on Saturday (April 18) by Robyn Hitchcock had been moved from Epiphany to Logan Square Auditorium. Am I ever going to get to see a show at Epiphany? We’ll see. The owner of the Empty Bottle, which booked the concert, explained in an e-mail that the venue is working on some “issues” with the city about holding concerts at Epiphany, which also happens to be a church. I hope they work out whatever those issues are for future shows.
Well, as cool as it would have been to see Hitchcock playing inside a church, the show he played at Logan Square was still pretty cool. This is the second time I’ve seen Hitchcock playing with his latest backup band, the Venus 3, which includes R.E.M.’s Peter Buck on guitar, Scott McCaughey of the Minus Five and Young Fresh Fellows on bass, and Bill Rieflin on drums. It’s a great band that fleshes out the quirky pop of Hitchcock’s songs much like the Egyptians used to, and this lineup is particularly strong whenever the songs sprawl out a little bit into drony guitar solos. (It’s interesting to see Buck, whose regular gig is with a more famous band, taking the back seat here to Hitchcock, whose music he clearly admires.)
The set included several songs off the new album Goodnight Oslo, but I was most excited to hear some Hitchcock oldies, including “Brenda’s Iron Sledge,” “I Often Dream of Trains” and “Only the Stones Remain.” Hitchcock has had so many songs over the years (and so many good ones) that it’s impossible for him to play every song in one show that a hardcore fan would want, but he did a good job of drawing tunes from throughout his catalogue Saturday night. And as always, Hitchcock was witty and surreal in his stage banter. Highlights included his offbeat explanation of reincarnation.
Chicago’s Dag Juhlin played a solid opening set of solo acoustic music, peppered with his own humorous banter.
Record Store Day
To celebrate Record Store Day (Aug. 18) I went by my one of my favorite places in Chicago, Laurie’s Planet of Sound late yesterday morning, and by the time I got there, many of the exclusive records being released by bands ranging from the Flaming Lips to Sonic Youth and Beck had already sold out. I managed to snag a copy of the 7-inch single with a Sonic Youth song on one side and a Jay Reatard track on the flip side.
It was really fun and nostalgic to be inside a record store with so many people. Is this just a once-a-year phenomenon? So many record stores have kicked the bucket in recent years, but a few cool ones are surviving, and Laurie’s seemed very much alive yesterday.
Chicago singer-songwriter Azita played a free in-store show a little after noon, playing a Yamaha piano that was crammed into a back corner of the store. The performance felt somewhat impromptu and a little unvarnished — and was all the better for that sense of spontaneity.
Photos of Azita and Record Store Day at Laurie’s Planet of Sound.
Catching up on concerts
Due to hacking problems and, well, real life, I fell behind last week on reporting about some concerts I saw in Chicago. Here’s my review in the Southtown Star newspaper of the April 10 concert by Andrew Bird at the Civic Opera House. Yes, as a few people have pointed out, the tone of my review is quite different from what Jim DeRogatis wrote in the Sun-Times about the previous night’s show. I like Bird. DeRo does not.
The night before, I attended an invite-only show by St. Vincent at the Hideout, where she previewed some of the songs on her new CD. What a talented musician and singer she is — doing looping layers of orchestration (sort of like Andrew Bird) on some tunes, playing solo piano on others. She ended the set by sitting on the lip of the stage with an acoustic guitar, singing without the aid of a microphone. And it sounded perfectly lovely.
And on both of these nights, I happened to see A Hawk and a Hacksaw. The group played the late show at the Hideout on April 9, and then they played a similar set in much grander surroundings the following night, opening for Andrew Bird at the opera. Both sets were lively, with lots of Balkan and Eastern European melodies dancing with lightning speed across the accordion keys and violin frets. Alas, the band failed in its efforts to get people to dance on both night, but it certainly wasn’t the fault of the music.
Photos of a Hawk and a Hacksaw.
On the agenda for this weekend: Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 Saturday at Logan Square Auditorium, and the Handsome Family Sunday at Schubas, plus assorted fun at Record Store Day.
Hacking problem fixed…
… I think. Looks like the regular index page for this blog is up and running again.
I’ve been hacked!
In case you noticed anything weird happening at this page, it appears that a Turkish hacker was messing around with it. I hoped it’s fixed now.
Blind Pilot at Schubas
Blind Pilot was one of the bands I wanted to see at SXSW but missed. I heard several people giving very positive reviews of their sets in Austin, and got the sense Blind Pilot might be getting some buzz. I decided Friday afternoon to buy a ticket to that evening’s show by Blind Pilot at Schubas. Maybe half an hour later, Schubas sent out a Twitter update saying that only five tickets were left for the concert. Of course, it was sold out by the 10 p.m. showtime.
It was a young crowd — a lot of people who looked about 20 — and the crowd clearly knew the songs by Blind Pilot by heart, singing along to many of the lyrics. I wondered if I had missed something. Where did the band get all these fans all of a sudden? However that happened, the band has a pleasant folk-rock sound, with nice male-female vocal harmonies and a mix of trumpet, banjo, dulcimer and stand-up bass. It’s more soothing than rustic, and there’s good songcraft at work. It looks like Blind Pilot is heading toward even bigger popularity.
Photos of Blind Pilot and opening acts Deanna Devore and Death Ships.
The Love Language at the Hideout
The Love Language, a band from North Carolina, was one of the acts I hoped to catch last month at SXSW after hearing the group’s dandy pop track “Lalita.” I missed these guys when I was in Austin, but got another shot at seeing them last night, when they played at Chicago’s Hideout. It was a good set, and although the room could have accommodated more fans, the ones who were there were pretty enthusiastic. At times, the Love Language reminds me a bit of the Walkmen, but there’s more of a ’60s pop vibe to their songs, although with some Southern touches, naturally due to the band’s North Carolina origins. (Maybe a touch of alt-country, but nothing remotely like stereotypical Southern rock, though.) Singer-guitarist Stuart McLamb is clearly the band’s focal point, though the two female keyboard players helped a lot to liven up the show with their occasional dancing stints on tambourine.
www.myspace.com/thelovelanguage
The opening act was Mazes, a new Chicago band featuring a couple of the fine musicians already making excellent music in another group, the 1900s — Edward Anderson and Caroline Donovan — along with Charles D’Autremont. Mazes play ’60s-style rock, not that far afield from what the 1900s are doing, but less orchestral-sounding.
Cardboard Sangria Showcase
I love seeing live music in out-of-the-way places… holes in the wall, warehouses, bars without stages. Of course, as someone who takes concert pictures, I find it frustrating to attempt photography in the dim lighting at some of these places, but I’m always up for a good challenge.
The place to be on Wednesday night was the Burlington, a little bar on Fullerton in the Logan Square neighborhood. I’ve seen it mentioned lately, but this was my first visit. Several of the artists on the Chicago record label Cardboard Sangria were having a free showcase — five artists, each playing about half an hour. A performance by the excellent psychedelic folk-rocker the Singleman Affair was enough reason to draw me in.
Here’s the kind of concert venue this is. You walk from the sidewalk in through the front door and the first thing you notice is that the band is right there, playing next to you. No stage. Virtually no lights, alas. A dark bar in a narrow room, with antlers on the wall at various points, serving its own brew of beer with antlers on the tap.
I came in as the first band, Mean Sea Level, was playing, and enjoyed what I heard. Next came Rock Falls, a.k.a. Annie Reese, who managed to hush the crowd with her quiet songs, including a few played on ukulele. Her voice sounded lovely as she sang plaintive melodies over simple but sometimes quirky strumming.
The third band of the night was Darling, who played scrappy rock songs with some real 1960s “la la” kind of harmonies. The Singleman Affair (which, for this show, was Daniel Schneider on acoustic guitar and vocals plus Toby Summerfield on stand up bass) then played a few old and a few new songs, giving a tantalizing preview of the forthcoming album, the Silhouettes at Dawn. Schneider threw himself into the performance, shaking his hair wildly as he played finger-picked patterns on the guitar with the kind of intensity you’d expect in an electric-guitar solo. The last act of the evening, Poor Lister, was a solo project by Singleman Affair guitarist Gary Pyskacek.
And, yes, it did turn out to be a challenging evening for photography. You can see a lot of grain, blur and shallow focus in my photos. Most of the night, I was shooting at ISO 3200, f stop 1.4 and shutter speed 1/30th or 1/25th of a second. Those of you who know what that means will realize just how dark the Burlington was. But it also seemed like a hip and friendly place.
Plants and Animals
Parc Avenue by Plants and Animals is sticking with me as one of 2008’s better CDs. This Montreal band simply has a bunch of catchy songs, and they play them with a sense of musical freedom, jamming however long they feel like jamming, but also veering off at times in unexpected directions. The songs make sense on some intuitive level, the pieces fitting together in unusual ways.
The Montreal trio was back in Chicago Friday night (March 27) for a sold-out show at Schubas, as they prepared to head to the Juno Awards in Canada. It was a strong set, featuring most if not all of the tracks on Parc Avenue and a couple of new songs as well. The drums and two guitars (or in some cases, one guitar and one bass) clicked together in a way that felt really natural and organic, and Warren Spicer sang with lots of emotion. Near the end of the show, when the audience was enthusiastically applauding guitarist-bassist Nicolas Basque as he strummed an autoharp on the song “Bye Bye Bye,” he couldn’t help the mischievous smile that crept onto his face. www.plantsandanimals.ca
I also quite enjoyed the opening set by Chicago’s Netherfriends, who played indie pop with a few psychedelic touches, trotting out the obligatory Melodica and even playing some percussion on actual pots and pans. It was a vigorous performance, well received by the crowd. www.myspace.com/netherfriends
Million Tongues
Steve Krakow, a.k.a. Plastic Crimewave Sound, may be the leading impresario of underground rock music in Chicago — a musician in a few bands, the writer and artist behind the comic strip “The Secret History of Chicago Music,” the creator/editor of the hand-drawn magazine Galactic Zoo Dossier, and curator of the occasional festivals and concerts bearing the banner Million Tongues. The Million Tongue series returned last Wednesday (March 25) for a showcase of experimental music and garage rock at the Empty Bottle.
I should have shown up earlier, because I really liked what I heard from the band Cave as I walked in near the end of their set. The next band, a French act called Gunslingers, did some sort of noisy biker rock, which I enjoyed whenever it started to cook like a Velvet Underground jam. I didn’t really get what the legendary noise-rock artist Michael Yonkers was all about. His heavily processed guitar solos seemed mostly like random sound to me, but when Plastic Crimewave Sound joined him onstage, the music they played together sounded more like rock songs and it started to click with me a little bit.
Over on the side stage in between the main acts, we heard short sets from Ray Donato (seemed like a lot of noise to me) and Bicycle Tricycle, who played some nicely distorted songs that sounded something like “Nuggets”-era psychedelic folk rock played at the wrong volume.
Mannequin Men, who were recently mentioned on the Entertainment Weekly Web site as a band to watch, charged through some of their great punk/garage rock at the end of the night, but I was still recovering from SXSW and feeling sleepy. Did not make it through all of their set, though what I heard this time was enough to confirm my opinion that these guys are one of the better young bands in Chicago right now.
SXSW recap & index
My diary and photo galleries from the 2009 South By Southwest Music Conference are now complete. Here’s a list of what’s in the various diary entries. (I marked my favorite acts of the festival with asterisks.)
SXSW Diary Part 1: March 17 — Angie Mattson, Bang Bang Eche, Eddy Highway, Loxsly
SXSW Diary Part 2: Jarvis Cocker Lecture
SXSW Diary Part 3: March 18 — Hyperpotamus, Natalia Lafourcade, *The Marching Band, The Whispertown2000, The Phenomenal Handclap Band, Beast, *Sprengjuhöllin, Johnny Goudie and the Little Champions, *Loch Lomond, Grant Hart, *Mark David Ashworth, Mumford & Sons, Los Fancy Free
SXSW Diary Part 4: Quincy Jones speech
SXSW Diary Part 5: March 19 — Jump Back Jake, Abalone Dots, Justin Townes Earle, Esser, *Graham Coxon, Jay Jay Pistolet, All Tiny Creatures, *Bam Bam, The Wailing Wall, Thao with the Get Down Stay Down, The Vivian Girls, Artefacts For Space Travel, Flower Travellin’ Band, Abe Vigoda, The Wrens
SXSW Diary Part 6: March 19 — Talking with one of the Wrens, *The Lost Brothers, Cut Off Your Hands, Wildbirds and Peacedrums, *The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Woods, Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band, The Tallest Man on Earth, Echo and the Bunnymen, Nacho Vegas, *Mythical Beast, The Howlies, Fanfarlo, School of Seven Bells, The Golden Dogs, Devo, *Magic Lantern
SXSW Diary Part 7: March 20 — Edie Sedgwick, Head of Skulls, *Hey Marseilles, The Heavenly States, Girls, Delta Spirit, *Fanfarlo, Lemonade, Peelander-Z, *Camera Obscura, Electric Touch, Parachutes, White Lies, Razorlight, *PJ Harvey and John Parish, The Telepathic Butterflies, White Swan Black Swan, The Evaporators, The Black Box Revelation, Division Minuscula
For SXSW pictures, see the index in my photo galleries.
SXSW Part 7: March 21
Twitter, 12:05 p.m.: Edie Sedgwick, mustachioed guy in a dress at sxsw: “Could I get more scrambled eggs in the monitor?”
Edie Sedgwick, a transvestite singer who has adopted the stage name of an actress who was in Andy Warhol films, was on my list of acts to see at SXSW. Sedgwick (a.k.a. Justin Moyer of Washington, D.C., a founding member of Dischord bands El Guapo and Antelope), has a really cool track called “Edie Sedgwick II” — carrying on that odd tradition of bands with song titles similar to the band name.
The sxsw Web site has an interesting story about how Moyer developed his latest musical persona after suffering from epileptic seizures. He played a short set around noon at the Radio Room, with some hilarious stage banter (see my tweet above), playing up the incongruities of being a man with a mustache in a blond wig and slinky dress. He grabbed an audience member’s cell phone or camera, lifted up his dress and … well, it looked like he was going to stick the cell phone into the top of his nylon stockings, but I’m not sure if he actually went that far. The music was pretty good, but alas, he did not play that song I was waiting to hear.
I also caught a song by Head of Skulls, which was playing a set out on the Radio Room patio, overlapping with the show by Edie Sedgwick. I didn’t even realize this was a Chicago band until I recognized the bassist as Allison, a bartender at the Empty Bottle. (She’s identified on the Head of Skulls myspace page simply as “The Witch.”) The music was hard rock of the pulverizing punk/metal variety.
12:16 p.m.: I came to the Seattle sxsw [party] for the free food & discovered a cool band, Hey Marseilles. Sounds like Decemberists.
Another group I hadn’t heard of. They weren’t even an official SXSW band this year. But Hey Marseilles made a big impression on me, with some tuneful songs featuring the full complement of assorted instruments that are becoming typical these days in large indie-rock ensembles: tuba, accordion, horns, extra bass drums. They reminded me a lot of the Decemberists, although Hey Marseilles’ singer, Matt Bishop, is lot less mannered in his vocal style than Colin Meloy.
12:48 p.m.: Heavenly States are rocking the convention center cafe. OK, now here is a band I saw and enjoyed, but I can barely remember at this point. Nothing against the Heavenly States — I do think they were quite good — but it’s all becoming a blur. Here’s their song “Lost in the Light.”
1:39 p.m.: Watching a band at sxsw called Girls… which is 4 guys. Singer’s got a classic whine/sneer kinda voice.
SXSW had a band this year called Girls, and another band called The Girls. That’s not to mention Girl in a Coma, Girls in Trouble, Po’ Girl or Garotas Suecas, a Brazilian band whose name means “Swedish Girls.” Plus, there were seven groups with names beginning with the word “Golden,” seven “Hot” bands, five “Magic” acts and four “Crystal” bands. Bears remain popular, too — the festival included Bear Hands, Bearsuit and Angry Vs. the Bear.
Girls and The Girls both had good songs posted on www.sxsw.com, but the one that keeps running through my head is “Lust for Life” by the San Francisco band Girls. (That’s not to be confused with the Iggy Pop song of the same title. Are you still with me here?!?) Girls played this afternoon at the Hot Freaks party at Club Deville, and singer-guitarist Christopher Owens spent the whole show hiding his face behind his long blond hair, leaning down into the microphone and singing catchy songs in the vein of those melodic quasi-punk power-pop tunes once performed by the likes of Wreckless Eric and the Only Ones. Owens does has the classic rock whine and emotional pining of an outsider.
2:19 p.m.: Watching Delta Spirit at the Q magazine party playing a song they wrote this morning.
Delta Spirit put out one of my favorite records last year — well, actually, the record first came out in 2007, but then Rounder Records gave it a wider release in 2008. Now, it’s coming out in the U.K., too. It was nice to hear the band do a new song, and the old ones sounded as strong as ever. They were the only American band playing at the party for Q, a British music magazine.
See Part 1 of my SXSW photos from March 21.
3:16 p.m.: Seeing Fanfarlo 2nd time in 2 days. A band worth seeing many times. Did I mention that the Fanfarlo gig the previous night was almost impossible to photograph because of the dim lighting in that church? Well, this show at the Q party at the Parish was actually lit with a whole variety of colors, and the sound was excellent, and the band got to play a reasonable amount of time. At last, I feel like I’ve seen a real Fanfarlo gig.
I headed up to the Mohawk for the Hot Freaks party — mostly to see Camera Obscura. But first, I saw the last part of a set by Lemonade, which seemed like pretty solid electronic rock. And then came an outdoor set by the goofballs in Peelander-Z, who call themselves “the Japanese Action Comic Punk Band.” I’m sure this would have been fun to photograph if I could have gotten anywhere near the stage. Listening to Peelander-Z without seeing the guys in their outlandish costumes wasn’t quite as fun. And gosh, what a bizarre lineup, putting this band on the same stage just before the lilting, pretty music of Camera Obscura.
Twitter, 4:44 p.m.: Peelander-Z was on the same stage before Camera Obscura at this sxsw party, w/ painfully loud techno music in between. Bring on the twee Scots, already!
It was a real pleasure to see Camera Obscura, whose 2006 record Let’s Get Out of This Country has stuck with me as an album I return to often. Singer Tracyanne Campbell sounded beautiful as the band played some of my favorite songs from that record as well as tracks from the forthcoming CD My Maudlin Career.
5:43 p.m.: I am in position to photograph PJ Harvey. Now I’ve just got to make it through the next 4 bands.
OK, so I was being paranoid, but I really did not want to miss an opportunity to see PJ Harvey and to photograph her for the first time. She was scheduled to play with John Parish at 10 p.m. at Stubbs — in the midst of a mostly awful lineup. Before Harvey and Parish played, the scheduled bands were Electric Touch, Parachutes, White Lies and Razorlight. And after they played, the same stage would feature the Indigo Girls and Third Eye Blind. I guess this is the sort of thing that happens when an idiosyncratic artist like Harvey is still on a big label, Island, featuring a lot of considerably more mainstream acts. I was worried some of these bands would draw a big crowd and I would get shut out of the photo pit, so I showed up bright and early and stood through four bands I would have rather missed.
Electric Touch was a bunch of pretty boys making ridiculous poses as they played their completely generic pop music. They looked like actors who’d studied how to become rock musicians by watching bad 1980s MTV clips but without learning anything about the music itself. I could barely stand to watch this set.
Twitter, 6:11 p.m.: First band of the night at sxsw: Electric Touch. These guys are from Austin?!? They seem way more Hollywood, in a bad way. (The lead singer had a British accent, but SXSW identified them as an Austin band. I don’t care to waste any of my time finding out anything more about this group.) 7:01 p.m.: 2nd band of night at sxsw: Parachute. Bland fodder for TV. Marginally less stomach-turning than last band.
The third band, White Lies, was one that actually showed some promise. But they seemed like a corporate record label’s idea of what a “cutting edge” band should sound like. Maybe Interpol fans will like it. White Lies almost broke through all the posing and slick surfaces with the last two songs of their set, almost showing a little spontaneity.
8:34 p.m.: Eighty minutes of Razorlight is all that stands between me and PJ Harvey now… So to speak.
I did not have a very positive impression of Razorlight before this show, based on the little I’d heard. Actually, after the soul-sucking simulacrum of music I’d witnessed earlier in the evening, Razorlight did not seem so bad — just bland. And they didn’t play 80 minutes, more like an hour. By the time they finished, I was in line for the PJ Harvey and John Parish photo pit.
10:31 p.m.: Polly Jean Harvey is as unreal as ever. Great to see her again after such a long absence.
I’ve seen PJ Harvey three times before this, and she never fails to wow me as a live performer or as an artist who always stays on her own eccentric path. She has not played many concerts in the U.S. in the last several years, so this one was a must-see, one of only three American shows she has scheduled so far to promote the new album she recorded with Parish, A Woman A Man Walked By. This was not a typical PJ Harvey solo concert, if there is such a thing, since she did not play any songs from her solo records. Rather, she and Parish stuck with tracks from their new album as well as a couple from the album they recorded together in 1996, Dance Hall at Louse Point.
These records are billed as collaborations where Harvey and Parish are equal partners, but the focus is clearly on Harvey. Parish seems to like it that way, playing guitar alongside her without drawing much attention to himself. How could he compete anyway? Harvey looked as resplendent as ever, wearing a white dress with a bit of a straitjacket look to it.
Some of the songs were moody, almost eerie, and Harvey radiated a strange sense of calm as she intoned the words. Other songs had the loud, stomping quality of Harvey’s early, more punk records. In the 1996 song “Taut,” she pleaded “Jesus save me!” And the new song “Leaving California,” her voice soared way up the scale to beautiful melodic peaks. The set crashed to a climactic end with the new song, “Pig Will Not.” Over loud guitar chords, Harvey wailed, “I will not! I will not! I will not!”
It was another terrific performance by Harvey, although I would preferred to see it somewhere other than Stubbs, where half of the audience seemed to be chatting away as they waited for the Indigo Girls or whatever. And it was teasingly short, just about an hour. Still, it was a great plus to get the chance to shoot some pictures of Polly Jean up-close.
Photos of PJ Harvey and John Parish.
…And, after creating that photo gallery, I posted six additional pictures of PJ Harvey on my flickr stream.
Everything else was bound to seem anticlimactic for me after that. It was simply time to head back out into the streets of Austin, searching for more bands. Maybe I should have gone to see the Monotonix for their SXSW-closing show, which surely would have been thrilling, but I felt like using my final hours to find some new music.
11:06 p.m.: Winnipeg’s Telepathic Butterflies are raving it up with some psychedelic garage rock.
This was part of the showcase at B.D. Riley’s by Rainbow Quartz records, which has some of the best ’60s-style psychedelic and garage-rock bands going these days. The Telepathic Butterflies played a solid set of songs with ringing guitar lines that sounded like the Byrds.
12:06 a.m.: Relaxing in a hotel lobby while NZ folk duo White Swan Black Swan plays. sxsw is almost over. One … more … show…
Now, this was a weird act. A man and woman from Auckland doing semi-humorous folk songs. Sounds like the Flight of the Conchords? Well, it wasn’t that funny. Seemed almost like an act you’d see in a hotel lounge somewhere. Wait a minute, I did see them in a hotel lounge (the Victorian Room at the Driskill). White Swan Black Swan was not great, but I found them fairly charming at times, and I really appreciate the fact that you can see a group like this at SXSW. There’s no way in hell they’d ever get booked at Lollapalooza.
Even though I said “one … more … show” on my tweet, I ended up squeezing pieces of three concerts into my final hour of SXSW.
1:10 a.m.: I’m watching a masked man sing about a butter knife – Vancouver’s Evaporators. … Hmmm, well, that was sort of interesting, but a little too much shtick for me just now.
1:45 a.m.: Hopping around in my last hour of sxsw: Belgium’s Black Box Revelation, Mexico’s Division Minuscula. The Black Box Revelation was a guitar-and-drums duo that reminded me of the Black Keys, though maybe a bit more punk than that band.
I headed across the street to see the last few songs by Division Minuscula, who played some impressive guitar licks. At 2 a.m., the set ends, and for some reason, the house stereo at the Habana Bar Backyard begins blaring Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.”
See Part 2 of my SXSW photos from March 21.
2:05 a.m.: The end.