Category: music

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Calexico at Lincoln Hall

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It’s a joy to behold what the musicians in Calexico are capable of — not just the band’s  core members (singer Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino) but the whole ensemble of players they’ve brought together to realize their vision. The distinctively Southwestern group played two sold-out shows this past weekend at Lincoln Hall; I was there on Sunday night, May 31.

With a few multi-instrumentalists in the lineup, Calexico feels almost like a miniature orchestra, and the music ran the gamut from exquisite folk ballads to spiky guitar riffs. But more than anything else, Calexico’s songs, both old and new, had jumpy, lively, layered rhythms that made you want to move. The tunes from Calexico’s outstanding new album, Edge of the Sun,  sounded just as good as the old ones from records including the classic 2003 album Feast of Wire. And as Calexico often does, it played a wonderful cover of Love’s “Alone Again Or.”

Thanks to my friend Paul Suwan for putting together this set list of what Calexico played on Sunday:

Falling from the Sky / Quattro (World Drifts In) / Cumbia de Donde / Splitter / Woodshed Waltz / Miles from the Sea / Coyoacán / Inspiración / Bullets and Rocks / Tapping on the Line / Woven Birds / unknown instrumental / When the Angels Played / Deep Down / Alone Again Or / Crystal Frontier / FIRST ENCORE: Beneath the City of Dreams / Guero Canelo / SECOND ENCORE: Follow the River

Gaby Moreno, a Guatemalan singer-songwriter, played a beguiling opening set, singing solo as she plucked her acoustic guitar. Later in the night, Moreno — who sings on the new Calexico album — came back onto the stage to add backup vocals during Calexico’s encore.

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Black Mountain at Do Division

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We haven’t heard much lately from Black Mountain. The great rock band from Vancouver, British Columbia, released three albums between 2005 and 2010, but it hasn’t had an album in five years. Later this month, the Jagjaguwar label is releasing a deluxe version of Black Mountain’s self-titled debut (adding four songs from the Druganaut EP and four previously unreleased tracks, making for a double LP).

This 10th anniversary release was as good a reason as any for Black Mountain to hit the road again, stopping in Chicago this past weekend. I saw the band’s show on Friday, May 29, at the Do Division Street Fest — a set full of Black Mountain’s best and most epic songs, including key tracks from that terrific first album; Black Mountain also played a sold-out concert on Saturday at the Empty Bottle. The loopy tune “No Hits” sounded as whacked-out as ever, its title providing an ironic theme for the band, but the most riveting moments were when guitarist Stephen McBean and his bandmates locked into a riff and played it with thunderous power. McBean swapped vocals with Amber Webber, who stood there nonchalantly, dispensing with any pretense at rock-star showmanship — until she opened her mouth and sang with an eerie grace.

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2015 Blackout Fest

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Blackout Fest, an annual showcase of garage, punk and power pop music curated by Chicago’s HoZac Records, returned to the Empty Bottle May 15 and 16. It wasn’t quite as raucous as these shows have been in some past years, but both nights had solid lineups of bands both old and new.

The headliners fell into the “old” category — both were groups with cult status from the 1970s. On Friday night, it was the Real Kids, a Boston punk and power pop band led by singer-guitarist John Felice, who was also an original member of the Modern Lovers (alongside Jonathan Richman) and a Ramones roadie. Somewhat surprisingly, the Real Kids started their Blackout set with their best-known song, the super-catchy “All Kindsa Girls.” But the band had plenty of other great tunes to play during its set, including some from last year’s album Shake … Outta Control and a cover of the Beatles’ “You Can’t Do That.”

The headliners on Saturday were the Avengers, a San Francisco punk band that made its recording debut with an EP in 1978. The group didn’t last for long after that, but founding members Penelope Houston and Greg Ingraham reunited in 2004. They were in top form during their charged, energetic Blackout show.

The early acts on Friday night were Chicago’s MAMA and Milwaukee’s Platinum Boys — both playing power-pop songs with classic-rock-style guitar riffs — and Cozy, a group from Minneapolis with a giddy glam songs and a playful attitude to match.

On Saturday, the night started with another string of bands playing lively guitar rock: Gross Pointe, Thing and Nervosas, followed by Sweet Knives, a Memphis group featuring members of the Lost Sounds, a band that featured Jay Reatard, playing new versions of that group’s old songs. The riffs barely let up all weekend.

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Cozy

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The Real Kids

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Gross Pointe

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Thing

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Sweet Knives

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The Avengers

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HoZac Party at Virgin Hotel

On Thursday, May 14 — the night before Blackout Fest began at the Empty Bottle — HoZac Records held a kickoff party at Virgin Hotel. A mosh pit briefly formed on the 25th floor of this downtown hotel as Flesh Panthers and Sueves rocked.

Flesh Panthers

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Twerps at the Empty Bottle

Australian rock bands have been making a lot of cool records lately — maybe it’s just something I happen to be noticing rather than a trend, but in any case, I’m excited to hear all this great music from Down Under. The latest discovery for me is Twerps, a Melbourne group that played Sunday, April 12, at the Empty Bottle. The Chills and the Feelies seem to be two influences, but the alternating male and female vocals also reminded me of groups like the Essex Green. The tuneful and lively songs were so good that I felt compelled to buy Range Anxiety, Twerps’ latest album (and the band’s first for the Merge label) at the merch table. And the record is proving to be quite enjoyable. I might have bought some recordings by the opening band Coffin Ships, too — but they didn’t have anything for sale! (Here’s Sei Jin Lee’s video of Twerps playing earlier the same day at Permanent Records.)

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Coffin Ships

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Maya Beiser (and Foxygen)

Most of the concerts at Northwestern University’s Pick-Staiger Concert Hall are performances of classical music, and the concert on Thursday, April 9, was by a cellist — but it felt at times more like a rock concert. Maya Beiser plays the cello with plenty of sonic effects, the sort of touches you expect a guitarist in a rock band to use, as well as some of the looping methods used by artists like multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird.

I’ll venture a guess that some of the audience members at Pick-Staiger were more accustomed to seeing straightforward acoustic performances by string players on that stage, but Beiser’s virtuosity seemed to win over the crowd. It wasn’t just the special effects that made her cello sound like a modern instrument — she also devoted the first half of her concert to playing her interpretations of rock songs, accompanied by bassist Gyan Riley and Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche. These weren’t straight-ahead covers, though the songs, ranging from Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” to Nirvana’s “Lithium,” were always recognizable. Evanston composer Evan Ziporyn wrote the arrangements for Beiser, sometimes deconstructing the classic tunes into their fragmentary parts and then reassembling them. Beiser sang a bit, including Laurie Anderson-like chanting of a few words from “Black Dog,” but it was her cello that really gave voice to the songs, functioning like lead singer as well as guitar soloist.

The first half of the concert also included a solo cello composition by Kotche, “Three Parts Wisdom,” which matched Beiser’s apt description of it: “Bach on steroids.” Beiser performed alone in the second half of the concert, playing two mesmerizing pieces based on sacred music, Mohammed Fairouz’s “Kol Nidrei” and Michael Gordon’s “All Vows,” followed by an epic infused with elements of Indian raga, Michael Harrison’s “Just Ancient Loops.” And then Riley and Kotche returned for the encore, Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.” The room thundered with Kotche’s pounding John Bonham-style beats.

Afterward, I headed to Metro, where Foxygen was playing — part of what the band is calling its farewell tour. Like most Foxygen shows, it was unhinged and odd. As it gets ready to call it quits, the band has moved toward a more epic show, with three female singer-dancers lined up on side of the stage, giving the concert a hint of what the Flaming Lips are famous for doing. But the show also included some awkward pauses and stage banter. There were flashes of cool psychedelic songs amid the cartwheeling spectacle. The band seemed out of control — sometimes in a good way, sometimes not so good. But it was certainly entertaining.

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A new home for Elastic Arts

The Elastic Arts Foundation, which has hosted many experimental and intriguing concerts and arts events over the years, has a new home. After moving out of its old space at at 2830 N. Milwaukee Ave. in November, the group is now at 3429 W. Diversey. I stopped in on Friday, March 20, and saw the set by drummer Michael Zerang and keyboardist Jim Baker, who made some really radical noise. Baker messed around with electronic equipment for most of the performance, then moved over to Elastic’s grand piano, making sonic squiggles in both formats. Zerang rarely did anything resembling traditional rhythm-rooted drumming, instead using his drum kit to make squeaks and squeals. I also caught a few minutes of the set by Perfect Villain — four musicians standing behind a table with electronic gear. It’s a cool new space for Elastic Arts, which will undoubtedly be the scene of more cutting-edge concerts.

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Robyn Hitchcock at Space

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Robyn Hitchcock took the stage at Space in Evanston on Sunday night, Feb. 22, as the Academy Awards show was playing on millions of TV screens elsewhere. He never mentioned the Oscars, but perhaps he was thinking about the movies when he chose his opening song: “Don’t Talk to Me About Gene Hackman.” That song set the tone for the evening, with its oddball, Hitchcockian sense of humor.

The English singer-songwriter played without a band, playing acoustic guitar and singing a nicely offbeat assortment of songs from his vast catalog — including tunes from my favorite period of Hitchcock music, the late 1980s, as well as a couple from his 2014 acoustic record, The Man Upstairs.

As he often is, Hitchcock was talkative in between songs, delivering the sort of absurdist humor his fans have come to expect. Here’s a sample. As he introduced the song “You and Oblivion,” Hitchcock gave the fellow working at the sound board some elaborate instructions for the sort of effects he wanted on his guitar and his voice:

“So, if you give this a little ghostly shimmer as if my voice was coming from a sentient but phantasmal pumpkin just on the edge of a wine-red lake, the bottom of which was actually not completely resting on the ground but it’s too dark to see exactly what it is, you just see the eyes and the mouth cut out from this flaming sphere, it could be a soul burning in torment or just a pumpkin lit up, guarding the geese from a farmer who always has bad ideas about what to do with poultry, mainly from his grandmother. There’s no point in blaming the dead. They can’t hear you. Blame someone who’s alive. That way, they can suffer … OK, and then put the guitar in a little bit of delay so I sound this time … as if Casimir Pulaski was remixing a track…”

That was just one of several references Hitchcock made to Casimir Pulaski, the Polish hero from the American Revolutionary War who is honored with a holiday in Chicago, which seemed to fascinate or amuse Hitchcock.

At another point, Hitchcock asked the sound man to “put a bit of Art Garfunkel on my voice. Not enough to make Paul jealous.” That reference to the singer Paul Simon reminded Hitchcock that he’d seen a highway sign in Illinois alluding to Paul Simon, so he asked the audience if it was referring to the singer. A bunch of people in the crowd shouted out that it was actually a reference to the senator from Illinois named Paul Simon. “A good senator!” a few people shouted. “Who wore a bow tie!” Sounding a bit perplexed, Hitchcock said, “A good senator named Paul Simon? Does he have a bow tie?” In response to that question, it sounded as if the whole audience said “YES!” in unison. Hitchcock looked stunned. “How did you do that?” he said. Later, after another outburst of audience members speaking nearly in sync, Hitchcock remarked, “You’re very good at that. It’s an almost telepathic shoal-like mentality.” (I transcribed that from an audience member’s video, which shows pretty much the whole concert, I think.)

This sort of banter is an essential element of Robyn Hitchcock’s charm, but of course, the music is the main attraction. And Sunday’s concert was a showcase for his singular style of songwriting and his appealing vocals. Hitchcock doesn’t get a lot of attention for his guitar playing, but he ably demonstrated how to make a solo acoustic performance interesting, with alluring melodic patterns of notes that hinted at the layers you might hear in full band arrangements.

Hitchcock’s entrancing opening act, the Australian singer-songwriter Emma Swift, came onto the stage to sing harmony vocals on the final three songs of the main set as well as the three covers Hitchcock played for his encore. For the last song, the Velvet Underground’s “Pale Blue Eyes,” Hitchcock and Swift were joined by Yvonne, whom Hitchcock introduced as his driver and merch saleswoman. It was a cool ending to a cool night.

SET LIST

Don’t Talk to Me About Gene Hackman / The Cheese Alarm / Madonna of the Wasps / Bass / Chinese Bones / You and Oblivion / Trouble in Your Blood / San Francisco Patrol / I’m Only You / Adventure Rocket Ship / Queen Elvis / Nietzsche’s Way / Ole! Tarantula / ENCORE: Motion Pictures (for Carrie) (Neil Young cover) / Let It Be Me (Everly Brothers cover) / Pale Blue Eyes (Velvet Underground cover)

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Mid-February Concert Recap

Quick recaps of a few concerts (and other literary musical event) I’ve seen recently:

OLIVIA CHANEY and MARK DVORAK: The English singer Olivia Chaney was enchanting as she made her Chicago debut as a solo artist on Feb. 12 at the Old Town School of Folk Music’s Szold Hall. She alternated between piano, guitar and harmonium, with accompaniment on many songs from violinist Jordan Hunt, but the focus stayed on her dulcet voice through the show. She has the sort of voice that would lend itself well to melodramatic pop ballads, but she takes a more understated approach, passionately singing songs that are mostly rooted in the traditions of English folk music. I’m looking forward to hear debut record, The Longest River, coming in March from Nonesuch.
oliviachaney.net

Chaney’s opening act was the longtime Chicago folk musician Mark Dvorak, who did a marvelous job of telling stories to set up his songs and get the audience involved in the performance. This was what folk music is all about.
markdvorak.com

SLEATER-KINNEY and LIZZO: I was just as surprised as anyone when Sleater-Kinney sneakily revealed that it had reunited and recorded a new album. I loved the last Sleater-Kinney record, The Woods, when it came out in 2005. And the four concerts I saw by this trio around that time were terrific. Back together after a decade-long hiatus, the band sounds as strong as ever. Its new album, No Cities to Love, is an early contender for the best album of 2015, and Sleater-Kinney’s Feb. 17 show at the Riviera set the bar high for concerts of the year. Corin Tucker wailed with astounding force, her voice — one of the great rock ’n’ roll voices — hitting powerful peaks. But what was truly marvelous was watching and listening as Tucker traded off vocal parts with Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss, echoing the way Tucker and Brownstein’s guitar riffs ping-ponged across the stage while Weiss pounded the drums with driving intensity. To see the set list and a nicely vivid description of the show, read Greg Kot’s review for the Tribune, which also has some cool photos by Chris Sweda.  I wasn’t familiar with the opening act, hip-hop artist Lizzo, but she showed off some soulful vocals and seemed just as excited as anyone to be seeing Sleater-Kinney.
sleater-kinney.com
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THE WESTERN ELSTONS: I’ve written about my love for the Flat Five. The Western Elstons, another great band, include three members of the Flat Five: Scott Ligon, Casey McDonough and Alex Hall, as well as a rotating lineup of other musicians. It’s easy enough to see the Western Elstons — they regularly play free shows at Simon’s Tavern in Andersonville, usually on the third Wednesday of the month. Even though Chicago was in a deep freeze on the night of Feb. 18, I stopped into Simon’s and was delighted by the fun and virtuosic performance these boys gave in front of a small but enthusiastic crowd. A highlight for me was the cover of the Kinks’ “Picture Book.”

GREIL MARCUS with JON LANGFORD and SALLY TIMMS: The legendary rock critic Greil Marcus spoke on Feb. 19 at the Old Town School of Music about his new book, The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ten Songs, with musical accompaniment by Jon Langford and Sally Timms, two members of a band he has championed over the decades, the Mekons. As Marcus explained, he insisted on avoiding obvious songs in his history of rock, focusing instead on appreciations of lesser-known classics such as “Shake Some Action” by the Flamin’ Groovies. Showing his enthusiasm for the craft of writing and recording great music — and his keen interest in the stories behind great music — Marcus offered astute observations about Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want),” the Teddy Bears’ “To Know Him Is to Love Him” and Joy Division’s “Transmission” — and then Langford and Timms illustrated by playing their own versions.

SWANS and XYLOURIS WHITE: I never saw Swans when the band was together during its original era, from 1982 to 1997, but I’ve been entranced by the dark music Swans has released since leader Michael Gira reformed the group in 2010. Playing on Saturday, Feb. 21, at Thalia Hall, Swans paused only a handful of times during two hours of droning, throbbing, thrumming, pounding, chanting and arm waving. It was epic.
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The opening act, Xylouris White, is a duo consisting of George Xylouris on Cretan lute and Jim White on drums. White, who has played with the Dirty Three, Nina Nastasia and Cat Power among many others, was as impressive as always, adding an edge of chaos to his circling rhythms. And he’s found a good match in Xylouris, who got his lute strings vibrating with blinding speed. Xylouris also sang a few songs. It was music that might get lumped into that amorphous category “world music,” yet it felt like a perfect fit for Swans. Both artists leaned into their songs with fierce determination.
xylouriswhite.com

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DRMWPN and Chicago Psych Fest at the Hideout

The Chicago group DRMWPN (pronounced “Dream Weapon”) hasn’t played for several years, which made its performance last night (Jan. 31) at the Hideout noteworthy. I wrote about DRMWPN in a 2007 article for Signal to Noise magazine about Chicago’s drone music scene. The band, if that’s what it is, does just one thing: perform a single piece of music that rises and descends like a wave. DRMWPN played the final set of the final night of Chicago Psych Fest VI, with a who’s who of great Chicago musicians assembled on the stage to find that perfect chord, and it was beautiful.

The evening started with the dreamy, reverberating keyboards and vocals of Matchess. Then came three sets heavy on the jamming, by the bands Underground Symposium, Dark Fog and Unmanned Ships. Most of these musical acts performed with trippy projections of shifting colorful shapes. But when DRMWPN played, all of the light came from the spinning appliance known as the Dream Machine. The Hideout hummed as a snowstorm began outside.

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Unmanned Ship
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The Vaselines at the Empty Bottle

The Vaselines, who played Wednesday, Jan. 21, at the Empty Bottle, are one of the best rock-band reunions of recent years. Barely noticed outside of Scotland when they were together the first time — for a few years in the 1980s — they gained more fans when Nirvana covered three of their songs. The original duo, Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee, came back together several years ago. And by now, the reunited Vaselines have released two albums of new material, sounding very much like the Vaselines of old, except with higher production values and better-tuned guitars.

Last week at the Bottle, they played a fun set of old and new songs, plus McKee’s cheeky stage banter. She said she’s been enjoying talking with Vaselines fans at the mercy table each night during this tour. “You’re the fucking weirdest audience so far,” she told the Chicago crowd. “Well done.”

When it came time for the Vaselines to sing their most famous song, “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam,” McKee forgot a verse in the middle of the tune. Afterward, Kelly — who’d been the butt of most of McKee’s jokes all night long — said, “Jesus Christ almighty! What happened there? We beg your forgiveness!” That was the only stumble during a lively set of catchy songs. All is forgiven, guys.

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Opening act Amanda X
Opening act Amanda 
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Favorite Concerts of 2014

1. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, June 20 at the Milwaukee Theatre, Milwaukee

2. Jack White, July 23 at the Chicago Theatre

3. Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, April 11 at the Vic

4. The Replacements, Sept. 13 at Midway Stadium, St. Paul

5. Cate Le Bon, Jan. 23 at Schubas

6. Richard Thompson and His Electric Trio, June 16 at Millennium Park (also June 14 at Space in Evanston)

7. Carsick Cars, March 28 at the Burlington

8. St. Vincent, July 19 at the Pitchfork Music Festival, Union Park

9. Courtney Barnett, July 30 at Schubas

10. Peter Brötzmann, Hamid Drake & William Parker Trio, June 6 at Constellation

Runners-up:

Ex Hex, Oct. 25 at the Empty Bottle

Jambinai, March 12 at the SXSW International Day Stage

Neneh Cherry with RocketNumberNine, July 18 at the Pitchfork Music Festival, Union Park

Protomartyr, Sept. 27 at Gonerfest at the Hi-Tone in Memphis

Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Oct. 31 at Thalia Hall

Elvis Costello, June 11 at the Copernicus Center

Andrew Bird, Aug. 16 at the Chicago Theatre

Wussy, June 13 at the Red Line Tap

Bob Mould, June 23 at Millennium Park

Deaf Wish, Sept. 26 at Gonerfest at the Hi-Tone in Memphis

Patti Smith, Sept. 14 at Riot Fest in Humboldt Park

Slowdive and Low, Oct. 30 at the Vic

Gerald Dowd’s “Day of the Dowd,” Nov. 8 at FitzGerald’s, Berwyn

Robbie Fulks, Steve Dawson and Diane Christiansen, Dec. 8 at the Hideout. (The night the power went out.)

Wilco, Dec. 12 at the Riviera

Reigning Sound, Sept. 1 at the Empty Bottle

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Favorite Records of 2014

Over the past year, these are the 2014 albums I’ve enjoyed the most. (And here’s a Spotify playlist with some of my favorite songs.)

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1. Wussy: Attica!

Among the many terrific things about this terrific album are the words, memorable little nuggets of real life, lyrics that pull off that trick of feeling poetic without seeming to try too hard at achieving the effect. The first song, “Teenage Wasteland,” seems to be an ode to the joy of listening to rock music — in particular, that classic-rock radio standard by the Who, “Baba O’Riley.” And it deserves a spot on the list of best opening lyrics for an album:

Do you remember the moment you finally did something about it?
When the kick of the drum lined up with the beat of your heart
Stuck in the corn with only a transistor radio
Making paths with the sound waves and echoes in old Baba O oh oh…

Of course, Wussy is considerably less famous than the Who, but this little band-that-could from Cincinnati has made yet another record filled with rock songs that stand up alongside the classic stuff. Wussy is one of those groups with two lead singers, and the way Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker switch off on lead vocals is a big part of Wussy’s chemistry.

Thanks in part to the championing of legendary critic Robert Christgau, who has called Wussy “the best band in America,” the group has been getting a bit more of the attention it deserves, including a recent appearance on the CBS This Morning. I chuckled at the way CBS described Wussy: “Despite a record deal, a dedicated following and critical praise, members of the band Wussy haven’t been able to leave their day jobs.” As if that’s anything unusual! (See many of the other musicians on this list.)
wussy.org
wussy.bandcamp.com/album/attica

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2. Laura Cantrell: No Way There From Here

It has been a strong year for female singers — five of them occupy spots on my top 10 list, or 5 1/2 if you count Wussy — but Laura Cantrell’s wonderful collection of old-fashioned country and folk-rock songs went largely unnoticed. Cantrell is a low-key performer, singing her lovely melodies without any grand flourishes. That’s part of what makes her songs such perfect gems.
lauracantrell.com
redeyeusa.com

03ultimatepainting3. Ultimate Painting: self-titled

The key reference points on this album are the Feelies and, of course, the seminal band that influenced the Feelies and countless other bands, the Velvet Underground. That formula is well-worn but far from worn out, as this delightful record demonstrates. Released by the dependable Chicago label Trouble in Mind, it’s the debut of a London group comprising James Hoare of the band Veronica Falls and Jack Cooper of Mazes (the British group, not to be confused with the Chicago group of the same name). The bones of Ultimate Painting’s songs are bare in these recordings, which almost sound like unadorned demos — the best sort of demos, the kind that reveal all the strengths and structure of a song. These tunes don’t need anything more.
ultimatepainting.tumblr.com
troubleinmindrecs.com

sharonjones4. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings: Give the People What They Want

Jones has made several great albums of authentically retro soul music since the Daptone label rescued her from a career of obscurity, and this is one of her best. The presence of backup vocals by the Dapettes and the varied, colorful arrangements give the music an added urgency. Jones finished making this record just before she was diagnosed with breast cancer; she successfully battled the disease and hit the road this year for a tour (including a triumphant show April 11 at the Vic), sounding as strong and vibrant as she ever has.
sharonjonesandthedapkings.com
daptonerecords.com

05adams5. John Luther Adams/Seattle Symphony Orchestra: Become Ocean

First off, let’s stipulate that this recording can’t capture the full effect of hearing and seeing Become Ocean performed live — something I haven’t been lucky enough to experience. Adams, a composer who lives near Fairbanks, Alaska, writes music that evokes the natural world. And he designed Become Ocean to be performed by an orchestra spatially divided into three ensembles. Each of these groups plays slowly changing chords at its own pace. But even experienced through the two channels of a stereo recording (I haven’t heard the DVD 5.1 surround mix), it’s a beautiful and remarkable piece of music. Adams took the title from a poem that John Cage wrote about the music of Lou Harrison: “Listening to it, we become ocean.” That’s an apt description of Adams’ amorphous and oddly compelling music.
johnlutheradams.com
cantaloupemusic.com

LL-digital.v16. Lydia Loveless: Somewhere Else

This young singer-songwriter from Columbus, Ohio, belts out her smart, catchy alt-country songs with impressive strength, packing them with yearning and spunk. And her band kicks ass. Among the many excellent tracks on this album, “Verlaine Shot Rimbaud” — a twangy Americana tune about 19th-century French poets — was my favorite song of 2014.
lydialoveless.com
bloodshotrecords.com

07protomartyr7. Protomartyr: Under Color of Official Right

Joe Casey, the frontman of this Detroit group, typically performs in a professorial jacket, intoning his lyrics like a half-inebriated poet. The brooding strength of that voice comes through on record, too. Using the basic tools of a standard rock band — guitar, bass and drums — Protomartyr makes intense post-punk with unusual, distinctive sonic touches, especially those otherworldly guitar lines.
protomartyr.bandcamp.com/releases

08twinpeaks8. Twin Peaks: Wild Onion

This youthful band from Chicago writes garage-rock tunes with a touch of 1970s glam, cheerfully bashing out catchy riffs and singing with what sounds like a bit of a punk sneer. This debut album isn’t quite as lo-fi as Twin Peaks’ earlier EP, but it still has the highly compressed tones of music actually recorded in someone’s garage. Thank goodness.
music.twinpeaksdudes.com

09stvincent9. St. Vincent: self-titled

Annie Clark, who performs under the name St. Vincent, is an amazing talent: a highly inventive songwriter; a musician who makes daring and unusual production choices; a live performer with the flair of an actress and a dancer; and a guitarist capable of blazing solos. Other than the visual spectacle of her live shows, all of that comes through in brilliant color on her self-titled album.
ilovestvincent.com

jag246.1118310. Angel Olsen: Burn Your Fire For No Witness

On her latest record, the former Chicagoan gets more comfortable playing with her band, making music that defies genre labels. But her stunning voice is still at the center of the music — a preternatural force that conveys deep emotion even in the moments when it seems calm and placid on the surface.
angelolsen.com
jagjaguwar.com

Runners-up

With more listens, many of these records might have ended up in my top 10. And I heard another 100 or so albums that I liked — if only I’d had enough to give them more than a spin or two. These are in roughly descending order:

Chad VanGaalen: Shrink Dust
Andrew Bird: Things Are Really Great Here, Sort Of…
Tweedy: Sukierae
Gord Downie & the Sadies: The Conquering Sun
Bob Mould: Beauty & Ruin
Reigning Sound: Shattered
Cousins: The Halls of Wickwire
Bry Webb: Free Will
Swans: To Be Kind
Ty Segall: Manipulator
Nude Beach: 77
Woods: With Light and With Love
Neneh Cherry: Blank Project
Sturgill Simpson: Metamodern Sounds in Country Music
Luluc: Passerby
Thee Oh Sees: Drop
Ausmuteants: Order of Operation
Sharon Van Etten: Are We There
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra: Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything
Jennifer Castle: Pink City
The Skygreen Leopards: Family Crimes
Richard Thompson: Acoustic Classics
Marianne Faithfull: Give My Love to London
Matt Kivel: Days of Being Wild
Meatbodies: Meatbodies
Mozes & the Firstborn: Mozes & the Firstborn
Outrageous Cherry: Digital Age
Ex Hex: Rips
Spoon: They Want My Soul
Beck: Morning Phase
Lykke Li: I Never Learn
Kasai Allstars: Beware the Fetish
OOIOO: Gamel
Pink Mountaintops: Get Back
The Soft Walls: No Time
The People’s Temple: Musical Garden
Carsick Cars: 3
White Fence: For The Recently Found Innocent
Lucinda Williams: Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone
My Brightest Diamond: This Is My Hand
Steve Dawson’s Funeral Bonsai Wedding
Jack White: Lazaretto
New Pornographers: Brill Bruisers
Damon Albarn: Everyday Robots
Jon Langford: Here Be Monsters
Greg Ashley: Another Generation of Slaves
John Wesley Coleman: Love That You Own
The Haden Triplets: The Haden Triplets
Paperhead: Africa Avenue
Tony Allen: Film of Life
Musee Mecanique: From Shores of Sleep
Hookworms: The Hum
Krakatau: Water Near a Bridge

Records I discovered in 2014

Honorable mention goes to a few records from previous years that I discovered in 2014. If these qualified as 2014 releases, they’d have a strong shot at my top 10:

Dog Trumpet: Medicated Spirits
Courtney Barnett: The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas
Jambinai: Difference
Tim Kinsella Sings the Songs of Marvin Tate by Leroy Bach Featuring Angel Olsen

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Farewell, Centro-matic

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After 17 years, 11 albums and numerous concerts, the venerable Denton, Texas, band Centro-matic is calling it quits. I’m sad to see them go. At least, we’ll still have the records, including classics like 2003’s Love You Just the Same. And we’ll surely be hearing more from the band’s singer-songwriter-guitarist, Will Johnson, as well as the other musicians who have been playing in Centro for all these years: drummer Matt Pence, keyboardist-bassist Scott Danbom and bassist-guitarist Mark Hedman. But for the foreseeable future, we won’t get another chance to see this band live.

Centro-matic’s farewell tour included a stop at Schubas on Monday, Dec. 15. Johnson told the audience that Chicago has always been one of the cities where Centro-matic felt the most welcome on its tours, ever since the band starting hitting the road in 1998. For one last time, Centro-matic delivered charged versions of its greatest “hits.” Near the end of the show — I believe it was during “Fidgeting Wildly,” a song from the first Centro-matic album, 1997’s Redo the Stacks — the band dug hard into the final chords. As Johnson kicked up a leg and Pence pounded hard on the drums, it seemed like the whole stage was shaking. A glorious moment it was. So long, Centro-matic.

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Opening band Telegraph Canyon
Opening band Telegraph Canyon
Opening band Telegraph Canyon
Opening band Telegraph Canyon
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Angel Olsen at Thalia Hall

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After introducing the musicians in her band, Angel Olsen omitted her own name, remarking, “I’m still learning about who I am.” Maybe that’s true (as it is for most of us), but Olsen sounded completely confident in her musical identity as she performed Saturday night, Nov. 29, at Thalia Hall. As always, her voice was a wonder to behold, commanding everyone’s attention even when it was just a whisper. There’s nothing fussy or affected about the way she sings — it seems like that remarkable sound just naturally comes out of her. Her vocal style is cool, but it isn’t cold; there’s plenty of emotion pushing to break through even when her singing seems to be placid on the surface.

Her singing also has a timeless quality, with echoes of traditional English folk music and old-timey Americana as well as contemporary indie rock. As a result, Olsen’s performance on Saturday — featuring many songs from her great album from earlier this year, Burn Your Fire For No Witness — transcended genre. She played a couple of songs solo, bringing back memories of similarly intimate performances she gave a few years ago at Saki and the Burlington, back when she was still residing in Chicago.

But for most of the night, Olsen’s songs were shaped into subtle rock songs by her band: guitarist Stewart Bronaugh, bassist Emily Elhaj and drummer Josh Jaeger. For the first time, the band played a delightfully jangly cover of Jackie Deshannon’s classic 1963 song “When You Walk in the Room,” which was a hit for the Searchers in 1964. Commenting on how much she’s come to love playing with this group, Olsen said, “Basically, we’re all in a relationship now.”

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The show also featured strong opening sets by the atmospheric indie-rockers Lionlimb (a band featured two members of Olsen’s group, Bronaugh and Jaeger) and the hard-riffing roots-rockers State Champion.

State Champion
State Champion
State Champion
State Champion
Lionlimb
Lionlimb
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Lydia Loveless at Lincoln Hall

Bloodshot Records artist Lydia Loveless joked around in between her songs on Friday, Nov. 28, at Lincoln Hall, but she set aside her goofy playfulness when she was in the full throes of performing her music, including many songs from her outstanding 2014 album Somewhere Else. Sometimes, she took her hands off her guitar and held them to her head, gesturing like someone in pain or shouting in anger. And then at the end of the night — after a deep set of riveting, twangy country-rock with her band and a few “off-script” solo songs — she ended up sitting on the stage with her legs sprawled out as the band kept on rocking. In the final moments, she covered up her face, and then, as the song ended, slipped off the stage without a word. She’d just said good-night with the exclamation point of her music.

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Bassist Benjamin Lamb
Bassist Benjamin Lamb
Guitarist Todd May
Guitarist Todd May

Before Loveless took the stage, her sister Jessica played a lively set of shaggy but upbeat rock with her own band, the Girls. Lydia joined in for one song and one sibling hug.

The Girls
The Girls
Lydia Loveless with the Girls
Lydia Loveless with the Girls
Opening act Baby Money
Opening act Baby Money
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Thee Oh Sees at the Empty Bottle

Late last year, it was reported that Thee Oh Sees — a fantastic and very prolific rock band — was taking a “hiatus.” It didn’t turn out to be much of a hiatus, or anything that most musicians would even call a break. Thee Oh Sees leader John Dwyer moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles and promptly released yet another great record, Drop. And he came to Chicago for shows this week at the Empty Bottle on Tuesday and Wednesday. I was at Tuesday’s concert.

But this wasn’t the same Thee Oh Sees. Other than Dwyer, the entire lineup of the group has changed. It’s now just a trio of guitar, bass and drums. Dwyer was as intense as ever, ripping through one piercing guitar riff and solo after another as he sang his catchy melodies in a floating falsetto, adding a trippy, Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd vibe to his rampaging garage rock tunes. The new rhythm section was tight and hard-hitting. I did miss some elements of the old Thee Oh Sees lineup, especially Brigid Dawson’s keyboard and vocals — she used to blend her voice with Dwyer’s on practically every word of every song, a compelling and sometimes spooky part of the group’s performances. That’s gone now, but Dwyer and his new bandmates are one hell of a live act.

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Opening act Running
Opening act Running
Opening act Jack Name
Opening act Jack Name
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My Brightest Diamond at Lincoln Hall

L99A1721My Brightest Diamond, the musician also known as Shara Worden, is a crossover artist in the best sense of the term. She easily dances between the realms of rock, classical music, cabaret and art songs. She knows how to use her lovely voice as an operatic instrument, but when she plays her electric guitar and rocks, she doesn’t sound like an opera house diva trying to be a pop star. This past summer, My Brightest Diamond played a free concert at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, but it was called off after a few songs because of a torrential rainstorm. She was back in Chicago on Thursday, Nov. 13, playing a concert at Lincoln Hall, which she called a “rain date.”

Like the Millennium Park concert, this one featured the Chicago marching band Mucca Pazza in a prominent cameo role. After the opening set of pulsing electronic squiggles by Dosh & Ghostband, a blast of brass came from the balcony, where the members of Mucca Pazza had assembled. The band marched downstairs and played on the floor in the midst of the crowd, then came onto the stage, joining with Worden and her rhythm section in a rambunctiously fun opening number.

The rest of the concert featured just the core My Brightest Diamond trio, as Worden played several songs from her recent album, This Is My Hand, as well as songs from throughout her career. One highlight was the quiet ballad that Worden wrote for her infant son, “I Have Never Loved Someone the Way I Love You,” from her 2011 album All Things Will Unwind, which she performed solo, softly crooning the lullaby as she strummed the chords on her electric guitar. For the last song of the night, she sang a faithful rendition of Peggy Lee’s hit “Fever,” a fine demonstration of her wide-ranging interests and remarkable talent. L99A1811 L99A1862 L99A1926 L99A2473 L99A2503 L99A2742 L99A2883 L99A2887 L99A2961 L99A3087 L99A3159 L99A3296 L99A3327 L99A3386 L99A3625

Dosh & Ghostband
Dosh & Ghostband
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The Flat Five: Interviews with Scott Ligon and Kelly Hogan

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The Flat Five are a supergroup of the Chicago music scene, combining five terrific talents: Kelly Hogan, Nora O’Connor, Scott Ligon, Casey McDonough and Alex Hall. The group plays a delightfully diverse range of cover songs, and it’s working on its first album, a collection of songs written by Ligon’s brother, Chris Ligon (longtime co-host of the Chris & Heather calendar shows at FitzGerald’s with his wife, cartoonist Heather McAdams). The Flat Five is halfway through a series of four Thursday-night shows at the Hideout. You have two more chances to catch them during this residency: Nov. 13 and 20. (I included these Flat Five shows on a list of this season’s recommended pop concerts in the Nov. 3 issue of Crain’s Chicago Business.)

Last week, the group performed on the floor of the Hideout in front of the stage, focusing on quieter songs, while the audience included people sitting on the stage. After a 90-minute set, the Flat Five took a break and then came back with a jar full of songs requested by the crowd, playing some of those for the next hour and a half.

Last month, I interviewed two members of the Flat Five, Scott Ligon and Kelly Hogan. Here’s an edited transcript of those conversations, interspersed with my photos from last week’s show.

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SCOTT LIGON

Q: How would you explain the concept of the Flat Five?

A: We’re a bunch of friends that have played together over the years in different incarnations. And the Flat Five is an opportunity for us to all do things that we would otherwise never do in any other band. It gives us a chance to explore music that we couldn’t really do in any other band. But more than anything, it just gives us a chance to sing together, and that’s what we love to do.

When I first moved to Chicago, I came up here because I’d struck up a relationship with Kelly. The first time we ever sang together, we just had this magical experience. It was almost like we’re separated at birth or something. I actually have a recording of our first gig, which we only had one rehearsal for. It’s a show that my brother Chris and Heather were putting on at FitzGerald’s, and Kelly was supposed to do a short set with her friend Andy Hopkins. And Andy Hopkins wasn’t going to be able to make the show. And so she was thinking she wasn’t going to be able to make the show. And she was actually telling my brother Chris this while I was at his house. I had seen Kelly sing maybe one time, and I volunteered — I said, “Hey, you know what? I’ll do a set with Kelly.”

And we just started discussing some things on the phone, and discovered we had a lot of music in common. We got together the night before the show and sang together. And I swear, there’s no difference between the way we sang that night and the way we sing together now, over 10 years later. I have a recording of that night, and it sounds like we’d been singing together for years. So we did have this sort of magical connection right away.

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I had been thinking about moving to New York. I was living in Peoria at the time. And my connection with Kelly made up my mind about not moving to New York and sticking with Chicago. I’d been here once before. So, I came up here and immediately started doing Thursday nights with Kelly at the Hideout and working the door on other nights. We were just doing duets at the Hideout.

At some point, she said, “I have this wonderful friend Nora who’s a fantastic singer. We should have her out some night.” And Nora just came out and sat in, and it was the same thing — it was like this magic that happened the very first time that the three of us all sang together. We all knew exactly what to do, you know? We all knew what part to take on any given song, and so then we started doing a trio thing. We had been offered a gig opening for the Blind Boys of Alabama, which seemed like an odd thing for us to do. So we decided to do some — sort of the opposite side of the coin. We decided to do some white gospel and country gospel music. None of us are particularly religious, but we like a lot of music. (Laughs.) So we were doing that for a while under the name the Lamentations. We were doing that for a little while and peppering the set with just little country music and some other oddities.

While this was going on, I had been getting to know this guy, Casey McDonough — who I was discovering I also had this strange connection with, almost separated-at-birth kind of thing. We found out that we had met one another maybe 20 years earlier, when we were kids. We were in our teens and we met at BeatleFest, apparently. So we had this Beatle connection. Casey started working with me in my country and western band, the Western Elstons. And we start developing a duet style together. And I thought, “Man, he would be perfect for this thing with me and Kelly and Nora.” So, he joined that band, and then all of a sudden we had all of this music to draw from. Because Kelly and I had our list of songs that we were performing. And we had a complete selection of tunes we were doing with Nora. And Casey and I had this whole other bag that we were doing. And we just decided to put it all together in one group and not be concerned about style, but to just be concerned about substance. And so was born the Flat Five.

Q: And you had Gerald Dowd on drums originally, and now Alex Hall.

A: Yes, Gerald Dowd was with us for two or three years. We played so infrequently. There were some conflicts when Gerald couldn’t do it, so we started using Alex. Casey and Alex and myself had developed a little trio called the Letter 3. I was playing piano, and we were mostly doing jazz and rhythm and blues and stuff like that. So it seemed to make sense to bring Alex into the band. Once again, we had a whole other group’s worth of material to add to the Flat Five’s set. So, the Flat Five is comprised of maybe five different bands, actually.

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Q: How do you describe the range of music that you guys play? Is there a common thread?

A: I don’t think that musically there’s necessarily a common thread. I think the common thread is just that these songs are fantasy songs for us — songs that maybe in the past we fantasized that we wish we could do someday in a band. It gives us an opportunity. Because of the range of the band — because we’re able to cover so many different styles and we have so many singers — we are able to do things we wouldn’t be able to do in any other band. Recently we’ve been doing this song, it’s a musical version of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven,” which I heard 30 years ago on an old Buddy Morrow record called “Poe for Moderns.” It’s a big band arrangement of “The Raven,” and it’s just this really odd little song that I doubt any of my friends had ever heard, but it’s something that stuck with me for decades.

Q: When I was trying to figure out one of your set lists and I was Googling the various songs, I think that was the one that I couldn’t identify. Where did this come from? And part of the problem was that if you search for “The Raven,” you get all sorts of stuff about Edgar Allan Poe.

A: It’s wonderful to be able to stump the Internet. And we don’t do these things to be — we don’t do anything because people aren’t aware of it.

Q: You’re not being deliberately obscure?

A: No, I’m not. I don’t mean to speak for the others. To me, that’s just being cute, you know? That song really meant something to me.

Q: It’s jazzy, with a Manhattan Transfer or Swingle Singers sort of harmony.

A: The music itself is very challenging, and that’s part of what’s really fun. Because none of us are classically trained or anything like that. So, it gives us an opportunity to really stretch. It’s one thing to appreciate a piece of work that’s done in five-part harmony. It’s another thing to figure out how it’s done. And then figure out how to do it.

Q: So you guys are figuring this out by ear by hearing the records?

A: Exactly. That’s how we do everything. And none of us is a trained arranger. It’s just all for the love of the songs that we choose to perform.

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Q: I think it’s interesting how you could step into a Flat Five gig and you guys would be doing vocal harmonies on a Hoagy Carmichael song. And at that moment, I’ll think this is a concert that jazz fans or fans of the Great American Songbook would love. And then a minute later, you’re wailing on a guitar solo and it’s suddenly more of a rock concert. And five minutes after that, now you’re doing country music. I appreciate all of that. But I wonder: Are there people here who like only one of these kinds of music — and what do they think about the rest of the show?

A: You know, that’s the thing. I’m sure you’re aware of the fact that I’m currently a member of NRBQ. That band — and some other rock ’n’ roll bands in the past were unafraid to do any kind of music. The Beatles did whatever kind of music they wanted to. And nobody said, “Oh, they’re doing all these different kinds—” It was just under the umbrella of the Beatles. Now, I’m not comparing us to the Beatles or anything like that. But NRBQ works in the same tradition. Music is music, and if it moves you, it moves you, and that’s what it’s all about. It’s about being connected to the spirit of this music. Classifying, I think, is troublesome. Because I get just as much joy out of listening to an old Hoagy Carmichael record as I do listening to the Ramones. Most of my friends, most of my musical friends, they’re the same way, you know? But people think you have to do something in order to be successful, you know? If you have to present something in a certain way in order to be successful, I don’t really want to be part of it. I just want to play music because I love it. And that’s what we do. We’re unconcerned about categories.

Q: The article in the Chicago Reader several years ago portrayed you as this great musician who wasn’t putting out a lot of recordings. And I’ve often though the same thing about Nora and Kelly — at least Kelly had a record come out on Anti- last year, but it took 10 years where she was doing all kinds of stuff: touring with Neko, playing shows at the Hideout. And the Western Elstons are playing at Simon’s. So you guys are all very busy, but if I look you guys up on allmusic.com and look at your discographies, you look like you’re not doing much. For you, is the focus just doing music in a live setting? Or have the opportunities to make records just not come along as often as they do for some people?

A: I think it’s a combination of things. First of all, I’m not going to work a regular job. I’ve been making a living playing music for 20 years now, and it’s not easy. It’s not easy to keep yourself booked all the time. It’s also not easy to make a living playing music and to continue to do things that you really love to do. Now, it’s taken me some time to get to the point where I’m comfortable with all of the different projects that I’m involved in. Currently, I’m not doing anything that I don’t really enjoy. Which is a great thing. But it takes up a lot of your time. And also, I think you could also say that maybe we’re a little lazy.

Q: But you’re keeping busy playing live shows, which isn’t a sign of laziness.

A: I don’t want to speak for Kelly and the others concerning this particular topic. But you know, I’ve had some kind of strange goals in life. All I ever wanted to do was play music and enjoy it. That’s all I ever cared about. And then you come into this thing where — well, the music business, they sort of define success for you. Well, I’m not going to let anybody define my own success for me. I’m going to do things. I’ve always been very stubborn about the way I want to live my life and the way I want to spend my time. I had sort of been chasing this (NRBQ) thing around for a long time. I saw them for the first time when I was 18, and it just changed my life. I just knew that I was somehow supposed to be connected — I was connected to this group. I was busy trying to make a living in bands, but I always had this NRBQ thing hanging around in my consciousness. Twenty years of thinking about it and feeling as though I was supposed to be involved in it — 20 years later, I ended up being in the band.

Q: That’s kind of remarkable, isn’t it?

A: It is a crazy story. I mean, it really is. It literally is a dream come true. I used to have dreams, actual dreams, that I was — “Oh my God, I’m up onstage playing in this band.” Or: “Oh my God. (NRBQ leader) Terry Adams just walked into the room while I’m playing.” Just things like that. I was pretty geeked out about that band. And it did come true. And the strange thing is, it’s not like I was really actively pursuing it, but I just always had some strange feeling about it. So, like I said, who’s to define success? In my mind, I kind of got what I wanted.

In high school, I remember counselors saying — I think they all thought I wanted to be famous. They didn’t get it. All I ever cared about was just playing good music. Because I started from a really young age, and it just got in me. I just knew from the time that I was in sixth or seventh grade that this is what I’m going to be doing. And I’m very fortunate to be able to do it and to be able to pay my bills.

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Q: And now Casey has joined NRBQ, too.

A: He’s in every band that I’m in. (Laughs.)

Q: Obviously that takes up a portion of your time. But you have a pretty good balance of doing that and other things like the Flat Five and the Western Elstons?

A: It takes some doing to give each one of those things their space. But yeah, it’s all that I do. You’re constantly juggling all of these different things. And Kelly’s doing the same thing: Working with Neko and doing all of the different projects that she’s involved in. But we’ve always had this soft spot in our hearts for the Flat Five. For a time, we were doing it once year and then maybe twice a year.

Q: Was that mostly because of scheduling issues?

A: Pretty much. People were so busy. I think at the time, the Neko thing was really taking off, and Kelly is very devoted to Neko. And at the same time, the thing with NRBQ was taking off for me. So we needed that space to be able to cultivate these things.

Q: So, as you do this residency at the Hideout, you’re preparing to do an album of all covers of your brother’s songs?

A: Yeah, that’s what we’re proposing. Sort of a tribute to my brother’s music.

Q: Why don’t you describe what your brother is all about, musically?

A: I can’t describe what my brother is all about. I really can’t. To me, that music is completely singular. There’s just nothing like Chris Ligon. There’s nothing like what it is that he does.

Q: How old are you, and how old is he?

A: Well, he’s 12 years older than me. I’m 44. I grew up with his music in the house. It was great, because he always involved me in his music, from the time that he started making these weird recordings in the basement. The very first song that I ever remember him working on that he asked me to be a part of was a song called, “Your Cheeks Are Redder As Hell.” (Laughs.) And I think I might have played vacuum cleaner on that song. And he had some other really bizarre songs early on. One called, “I Guess They Call Me Butter Fingers.”

He’s a fabuloulsy original creative songwriter. He has the ability to make — he can create a song that is based on a form that is familiar. He also has the ability, I think, to create new music, which is really hard to do.

Q: You mean, new in a way that it’s different from anything else?

A: Where it’s literally not based on anything you’ve ever heard before. And that’s almost impossible. And it takes a really special person to be able to do that.

Q: If you go ahead with these plans for an album, when is that likely to happen?

A: Well, we have started. The great thing is, we’re doing this on our own time and our own money.

Q: No label involved at this point?

A: No, not at this point. So, we’re our own boss. And we’ll just do it as time allows. But it’s really exciting, because one of the things that was happening over the last couple of years was this feeling of: God, like, are we crazy? Why are we only doing this once a year? You know? It just became this thing where we’re going to be sorry if we don’t do something about this band, if we don’t document some of what we’re capable of. And you know, we really love each other. It’s a really fun thing to do. We’re hoping to be able to try to do it more often. We’ve begun doing it sort of more quarterly. Maybe four times a year instead of twice.

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 KELLY HOGAN

Q: What’s your summary of what the Flat Five is all about?

A: I was trying to explain it to my mom, because I was playing her some of our stuff we’ve been recording. I don’t know. We’re unapologetically groovy. We like it so much. It’s almost like it doesn’t matter if anybody shows up. We’re junkies, man. We just love that harmony, and, like, the harder the arrangement, the more we like it. It’s joy. All our inner-band emails, the word “joy” comes up all the time. And “groovy.” This morning, we were writing each other. I was like, “Yall, let’s just go ahead and be weird. ’Cause you know we’re already weird. Let’s be as weird as we want to be.”

Q: Is there a common thread in all of the songs that you guys do?

A: Joy? Curiosity and joy. Just trying it on. Trying on all the clothes. All the crayons. We just start throwing songs at each other. Like: “This is one I’ve always wanted to do.” And we’ll always try everybody’s baby, at least once. Some songs jibe and some don’t. Everybody brings their faves to the table.

Q: With some of these songs, are you creating three-, four- or even five-part harmonies that weren’t in the original recordings?

A: Oh, yeah, most definitely. We do that, like when we covered the Dan Wilson song, “All Kinds.” Because everybody — especially Alex, Casey and Scott — they can do everything. They play everything. Alex, our drummer, sings like a dream. So we just want to show him off. He has a nice bass voice. That’s the joy — that vibration. The harmony thing is really what’s our glue. So, why make Alex miss out? We’ll find a part for Alex. We’ve got to give him a piece of the frosting on it, too. We can’t be hoggin’ all the sugar.

Q: Scott traced the whole thing back to the first time he sang with you, as a duo. The way he remembers it, the minute he started singing with you, he could tell it was going to be a great thing having these two voices blend together — that it was very natural. Is that how you remember it?

A: It was amazing. Yeah. I know where I was sitting in my living room when we sort of looked at each other across the coffee table and were like, “Uh-huh. All right. Yeah.” Scott and I talked for, like, 10 minutes on the phone, just about what we were going to do. I got off the phone and turned to my roommate at the time and said, “Oh my God.” I looked at the set list Scott and I had made. I said, “Every band that we’re covering ends in Brothers or Sisters.” The Everly Brothers, the Davis Sisters, the Wilburn Brothers. For someone you’ve never sung with before, this is going to have to click or it’s going to be a disaster. Everything we were about to sing was super-close intuitive, blood-relation harmony. I wasn’t thinking about it when we were talking but then I was like, “Oh boy. It’s going to crash and burn.”

But then Scott came over, and as soon as we started singing together — and then, I think I mentioned Georgie Fame, and we bonded over Georgie Fame and Lou Rawls. It’s just that thing where I could start singing the first line of a song and Scott would just join in. And that’s what happens in Flat Five practices all the time. We have a hard time sometimes getting to the actual song we’re supposed to be practicing, because all of a sudden we’re doing the Guess Who. Somebody just starts humming a song, and all these guys, they just know how to do it. It’s this intuitive thing. We’re eating and sleeping and breathing music. It’s very organic.

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Q: Do you feel like you have a harmony relationship with each of the different people you sing with? When you sing with Neko, there’s one thing happening, but with you sing with Scott, there’s a different thing?

A: Oh, yeah. Definitely, definitely. There’s different ways of singing. As a harmony singer, there’s this way that you — have you ever laid tile? Where you score the putty? It’s almost like you fit into it. Like it’s a different way of scoring and texturizing your voice against somewhere else’s. And that can vary from song to song. There are different colors. What’s fun with Nora and Scott and all these guys, is we can have the whole box of crayons. We can do all different types, from country harmonizing — rough, the bluegrass types of chords and intervals — and then get to the Free Design, and it’s all (sings in bright tones), “Ba Ba Ba.” Then it’s all groovy again. We can’t say no.

Q: You went for a period where you were playing one show per year. Now it’s a little more than that. Has it just come together scheduling-wise, that you’re able to do more?

A: Yeah. Well, we’ve made more of an effort. Once Scott and Casey got with NRBQ, it was even more difficult to do even the once a year. So we’ve really made a concerted effort, because we really like it. When you play once a year and you practice, you don’t want to do the same songs all the time. But everybody’s so busy. So we’ve made a concerted effort to expand our repertoire, which already has like 85 songs in it. Then, we’ve bandied the idea of doing the Chris Ligon catalogue. Scott and I have mentioned to each other for years, and then we were like: “We need to do this. We need to do this.” So we made our plan and everybody’s made their sacrifices, schedule-wise. I mean, I have to drive in from Wisconsin, so I do a lot of couch surfing and stuff. But it’s so worth it.

Q: So for people who don’t know Chris Ligon’s music: Who is he and what’s his music all about?

A: (Laughs.) Oh my God. It’s sophisticated, weird and twisted, dark and light at the same time, you know? With that sort of wry sense of humor. I don’t know. He’s loose and tight. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening in there. I just can’t get enough of it. Freestyle. A feral kind of thing. But very sophisticated musicality. And like, Dr. Demento’s going to have the biggest boner. That kind of thing.

Q: What do you have planned for the last two shows of the residency at the Hideout?

A: The last week (of the Hideout residency) on the 20th, Chris and Heather are going to be our co-stars. Chris Ligon is going to do his own set, Heather is going to show films. Nov. 13 is called Flat Five and Friends. Max Crawford is going to come join us and there may or may not be an entire Beach Boys album done in order.

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Day of the Dowd

L99A0029Gerald Dowd has drummed for with a lot of different Chicago musicians over the years, rarely taking the spotlight himself. Saturday was his day, and what a remarkable feat it was. FitzGerald’s hosted daylong festival called “Day of the Dowd,” featuring 17 bands playing over the course of 13 1/2 hours. Dowd played drums for the first 16 of these bands, barely taking any breaks longer than a few minutes. And then for the finale, Dowd stepped up to the microphone with an acoustic guitar, singing and playing tuneful alt-country songs from his first album as a solo artist, Home Now.

I showed up halfway through the day, arriving in time to catch a rare performance by the great Chicago power-pop band Frisbie — which was so good that it made me hope Frisbie starts playing more shows and recording music again. The rest of an evening was a who’s who of Chicago’s alt-country and related genres. Here’s the full list of bands that played starting at 11 a.m.: Justin Roberts and the Not Ready For Naptime Players, Dave Sills, Brian Ohern’s Model Citizens Big Band, Electric Dirt, Samba Bamba, the Regulators, Nora O’Connor, the Hoyle Brothers, EXO, Dave Ramont, Frisbie, Jive Council, Kelly Hogan, Lush Budgett, Chris Mills, Robbie Fulks and Gerald Dowd and his Moral Minority.

All of these musicians gave their time to play at this event, celebrating the release of Dowd’s new album and all that he’s done for them over the years. The event also raised money for the Greater Chicago Food Depository. Some singers and musicians kept turning up on the stage, performing with various groups over the course of the marathon.

Dowd started his own set with his 14-year-old son standing next to him and playing guitar. Various other musicians joined Dowd over the course of that final hour, but then it was just him standing alone on the stage for the encore, playing a beautiful acoustic ballad from Home Now. I sensed something especially heartfelt in the applause. It was astounding to think what this man had just put himself through. He was still standing as the show ended around 12:40 a.m., remarking that he was looking forward to a day without any drumming on Sunday.

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Dave Ramont and Gerald Dowd
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Frisbie
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Frisbie

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Frisbie
Frisbie
Frisbie
Frisbie

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Kelly Hogan
Kelly Hogan
Kelly Hogan
Kelly Hogan
Scott Ligon (playing with Kelly Hogan)
Scott Ligon (playing with Kelly Hogan)
Lush Budgett
Lush Budgett
Chris Mills
Chris Mills
Chris Mills
Chris Mills
Chris Mills
Chris Mills
Kelly Hogan gives Dowd a back rub.
Kelly Hogan gives Dowd a back rub.
Robbie Fulks
Robbie Fulks
Grant Tye, Kelly Hogan and Robbie Fulks
Grant Tye, Kelly Hogan and Robbie Fulks
Gerald Dowd with his son.
Gerald Dowd with his son.

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Grant Tye, Dave Sills and Gerald Dowd

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Musee Mecanique at the Empty Bottle

My photos of Musee Mecanique from the band’s performance on Oct. 29 at the Empty Bottle. The Portland, Ore., band released a great record of dreamy folk rock called Hold this Ghost in 2008, and now it has another fine album, From Shores of Sleep. The trio’s tapestry of sounds was lovely in concert, including the closing cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Only Living Boy in New York.”

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White Fence, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard and Ultimate Painting

My photos of White Fence, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard and Ultimate Painting from their performances on Oct. 18 at Subterranean. Cate LeBon performed as a touring member of White Fence.

Check out their recent records: White Fence’s For the Recently Found Innocent, Ultimate Painting’s self-titled debut and I’m in Your Mind Fuzz.

White Fence

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King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard

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Ultimate Painting

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More Photos From Gonerfest

Check out the Wondering Sound website for my photos and review of Gonerfest Sept. 25-28 in Memphis, Tenn. Here are some of my additional pictures from the festival, which was quite a blast.

The Paul Collins Beat
The Paul Collins Beat
Golden Pelicans
Golden Pelicans
Ausmuteants
Ausmuteants
Grifters
Grifters
Red Sneakers
Red Sneakers
Red Sneakers
Red Sneakers
Wild Emotions
Wild Emotions
Wild Emotions
Wild Emotions
Angie
Angie
Warm Soda
Warm Soda
Deaf Wish
Deaf Wish
Deaf Wish
Deaf Wish
Deaf Wish
Deaf Wish
The Len Bright Combo
The Len Bright Combo
The Len Bright Combo (Wreckless Eric)
The Len Bright Combo (Wreckless Eric)
Cool Runnings
Cool Runnings
Scott & Charlene's Wedding
Scott & Charlene’s Wedding
Scott & Charlene's Wedding
Scott & Charlene’s Wedding
Son of VOM
Son of VOM
Stevens
Stevens
Gooch Palms
Gooch Palms
Gooch Palms
Gooch Palms
Gooch Palms
Gooch Palms
Terry & Louie (of the Exploding Hearts)
Terry & Louie (of the Exploding Hearts)
Life Stinks
Life Stinks
Life Stinks
Life Stinks
Nathan Roche
Nathan Roche
Connections
Connections
Connections
Connections
Connections
Connections
Connections
Connections
Weather Warlock
Weather Warlock
Nots
Nots
Nots
Nots
Spray Paint
Spray Paint
Spray Paint
Spray Paint
Protomartyr
Protomartyr
Protomartyr
Protomartyr
Protomartyr
Protomartyr
Protomartyr audience
Protomartyr audience
Protomartyr audience
Protomartyr audience
Gizmos
Gizmos
Gizmos
Gizmos
Gizmos
Gizmos
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Ty Segall at Thalia Hall

Ty Segall played a rousing rock show Tuesday, Sept. 23, at Thalia Hall, culminating with an encore that paid tribute to David Bowie. It happened to be David Bowie Day in Chicago, with the opening of the “David Bowie Is” exhibit at the MCA, and Segall played a medley of Bowie songs, kicking off with “Ziggy Stardust.” As I predicted in my Newcity preview of the show, there was moshing. Segall’s latest album, Manipulator, is one of his best, and in concert the new songs sounded terrific, if a bit more blunt than they are in the studio version.

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“David Bowie Is” at the MCA

“David Bowie Is,” an exhibit featuring 400 artifacts from the star’s private archive, opens today at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago — the only U.S. stop for this traveling exhibit, which was organized by and displayed at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. I took in the exhibit at a media preview on Sept. 19, and wrote “Five reasons to brave crowds for the David Bowie blockbuster” for the Crain’s Chicago Business website. (Spoiler alert: You really should see it.) The exhibit runs through Jan. 4. For details, visit mcachicago.org.

Here are some of the photos I took of the exhibit. (Photography is not normally allowed during the show, but it was during the press preview.) I considered adding captions to explain what some of this stuff is, but it might be more fun to make you guess…

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The Replacements at Midway Stadium, St. Paul

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I drove 400 miles, heading up Interstate highways from Chicago to St. Paul, Minn. Other people came from as far away as San Francisco; Vancouver, British Columbia; and Manchester, England. This was a pilgrimage. And these were Replacements fans.

The legendary, beloved 1980s rock band reunited for three shows last year, including a gig that I reviewed and photographed at Riot Fest in Chicago. A few more concerts followed this year, along with an appearance on The Tonight Show. … And now — finally! — the reunited “Mats” were playing on their home turf, the Twin Cities.

I arrived in St. Paul on Friday, Sept. 12, with a couple of friends from Chicago. Replacements tunes were blasting on the stereo in a backyard in St. Paul, where we met up with some other fans for a barbecue and party. I heard talk about people going to visit the old Stinson family house, where the Replacements once sat on a roof, posing for the cover of their album Let It Be.

At the end of the night, I stopped at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, where a documentary, Color Me Obsessed, had screened earlier. I got there in time to see a few local bands paying tribute to the Replacements and raising money for former Replacements guitarist Slim Dunlap, who suffered a stroke. A clearly inebriated guy in the audience enthusiastically pounded his hands on the stage to the beat.

On Saturday, the shuttle van from the motel to Midway Stadium stopped at a liquor store. And then everyone who was crammed into the van sang “Kiss Me on the Bus.” By the time we arrived in the parking lot of the minor league ballpark, it was filled with tailgate parties. Someone was flying a flannel shirt on a pole, like it was a flag for the Replacements nation. And plenty of people were wearing flannel shirts.

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When the stadium opened, my friends and I happened to be standing right near some entry gates barely anyone else had noticed. We dashed through and staked out a spot about a dozen feet back from the stage. We held our spot during the enjoyable opening sets by Lucero and the Hold Steady. After the Hold Steady were done, the crowd suddenly got much tighter as people pushed forward — including a few young guys who made it clear that they were eager to mosh. “This is a punk show!” they announced to the mostly older Replacements fans.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman stepped out onto the stage and declared that it was Replacements Day in the city. A few minutes later, the Replacements made their entrance, wearing checkered suits and roaring through some of the earliest and roughest punk songs. The crowd around us erupting into spasms of waving arms, pogoing, pushing and the shouting of lyrics.

I did not take photos with my camera at the concert, but I did grab a few shots on my cellphone:

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(Better photos are posted in the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s gallery and on the Current’s website. And check out fan LOV2ROK2PJ’s YouTube videos of the whole concert.)

After a few songs, Replacements singer-songwriter-guitarist Paul Westerberg mumbled, “Sorry it took us so long” — seemingly offering an apology to the Twin Cities for taking so long to play a reunion show there. Or maybe more general regrets for disappearing for so many years? Bassist Tommy Stinson shot back: “No, you’re not.”

The concert was pretty similar to the other ones that the Replacements have played since reuniting, including last year’s Riot Fest show in Chicago. The band — Westerberg and Stinson, joined by two new members, drummer Josh Freese and guitarist Dave Minehan — was a bit tighter than they were last year. But not too slick, thankfully. A big part of the Replacements’ charm is the way they somehow add just enough sloppiness, just enough rough edges. It wouldn’t be so great if every note were perfect. Westerberg didn’t bother singing every word, sometimes letting the audience fill in the ones that were missing. Westerberg and Stinson smiled a lot, making it obvious that they were having fun. During “Kiss Me on the Bus,” Westerberg stepped over to Stinson and, after looking at him for a moment, grabbed him and kissed him on the mouth.

The first encore began with Westerberg playing an acoustic guitar by himself and singing “Skyway.” When the rest of the band returned, they tossed on personalized jerseys from the St. Paul Saints, the baseball team that plays in Midway Stadium. Westerberg joked about how silly it was. Then came two of the Replacements’ greatest songs, “Left of the Dial” and “Alex Chilton.”

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The loud applause coaxed the band back for a second encore, with the song “Unsatisfied.” It looked like the band was ready to play one more song — probably “I.O.U.,” which was written on the set list sitting on the stage — but Westerberg was ready to call it a night. He went over to Stinson again and pulled him into a bear hug before leaving the stage. Stinson threw his bass across the stage, and a roadie grabbed it as the band departed.

This was the last event that will be held at Midway Stadium, which is scheduled for demolition. A few fans grabbed chunks of grass from the ground and took them out of the ballpark as souvenirs. This was the biggest concert the Replacements have ever played in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Who knows if they’ll ever play there again? Whatever. At least, on this one glorious night, it felt like the Replacements were the world’s greatest rock band.

SET LIST:

Favorite Thing
Takin’ a Ride
I’m in Trouble
Don’t Ask Why
I’ll Be You
Valentine
Waitress in the Sky
Tommy Got His Tonsils Out (with Jimi Hendrix’s Third Stone From the Sun)
Take Me Down to the Hospital
I Want You Back (Jackson 5 cover)
Going to New York (Jimmy Reed cover, with Tony Glover)
Color Me Impressed
Nowhere Is My Home
If Only You Were Lonely
Achin’ to Be
Kiss Me on the Bus
Androgynous
I Will Dare
Love You Till Friday / Maybelline (Chuck Berry cover)
Merry Go Round
I Won’t
Borstal Breakout (Sham 69 cover)
Swingin’ Party
Love You in the Fall
Can’t Hardly Wait
I Don’t Know / Buck Hill
Bastards of Young

ENCORE:
Skyway
Left of the Dial
Alex Chilton

SECOND ENCORE:
Unsatisfied

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Hideout Block Party/AV Fest

As I’ve said before, the Hideout Block Party is one of the Chicago outdoor concert season’s most enjoyable events. For the past few years, it has merged with the Onion/A.V. Club’s festival, and this past weekend’s lineup seemed to reflect the tastes of that publication as much as the usual fare you’d expect from the Hideout.

Day 1

Friday’s shows were dampened a bit by the rain that fell early in the evening, with some occasional sprinkles throughout the night. Weather delays shortened the sets — I especially wish that the Handsome Family had been given more time, but their gothic alt-country songs were actually a perfect fit with the gloomy weather. Jon Langford presented the first gig ever by yet another Jon Langford band, the cleverly named Bad Luck Jonathan, playing songs that seemed to hark back to early rock ‘n’ roll. Walkmen lead singer Hamilton Leithauser played a solo show — or rather, a show backed by a new band, all of which sounded very much like the Walkmen. And Death Cab for Cutie closed out the night, playing for the last time (ever?) with departing lead guitarist Chris Walla.

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Jon Langford and Phil Wandscher of Bad Luck Jonathan
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Hideout co-owner Tim Tuten
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Brett and Rennie Sparks of the Handsome Family, with Alderman Robert Fioretti, who read a proclamation declaring Friday as Handsome Family Day in the city of Chicago.
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Brett Sparks of the Handsome Family
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Rennie Sparks of the Handsome Family
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Brett Sparks of the Handsome Family
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Hamilton Leithauser
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Hamilton Leithauser
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Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie
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Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie
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Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie
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Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie
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Nick Harmer of Death Cab for Cutie, with drummer Jason McGerr in the background

Day 2

The weather was perfect on Saturday for the festival’s second day, which kicked off with a Hideout Block Party tradition: the droning of massed guitars known as the Plastic Crimewave Vision Celestial Guitarkestra, featuring anyone who brought a guitar, all of them joining in the din from the parking lot in front of the stage. Other highlights on Saturday afternoon included  the old-timey acoustic blues and gospel music of Valerie June, the electronic pop songs of Sylvan Esso, and the jamming of the Funky Meters (including a bit of Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35”). The appeal of Mac DeMarco escapes me, but his fans seemed to be enjoying his performance. The Dismemberment Plan is another band I don’t really get. But Saturday’s headliner, the War on Drugs, gave a strong performance, filled with electrifying guitar solos by frontman Adam Granduciel. The War on Drugs was a stripped-down trio the first time I saw the band, at Schubas in 2008; last night, Granduciel had five musicians backing him up and fleshing out the sound, but the group is still basically his voice and his guitar.

Plastic Crimewave Vision Celestial Guitarkestra
Plastic Crimewave Vision Celestial Guitarkestra
Plastic Crimewave Vision Celestial Guitarkestra
Plastic Crimewave Vision Celestial Guitarkestra
Plastic Crimewave Vision Celestial Guitarkestra
Plastic Crimewave Vision Celestial Guitarkestra
Empires
Empires
Empires
Empires
Valerie June
Valerie June
Sylvan Esso
Sylvan Esso
Sylvan Esso
Sylvan Esso
Sylvan Esso
Sylvan Esso
Sylvan Esso
Sylvan Esso
Mac DeMarco
Mac DeMarco
Mac DeMarco
Mac DeMarco
Funky Meters
Funky Meters
Funky Meters
Funky Meters
The Hideout Block Party/AV Fest during the Funky Meters' set
The Hideout Block Party/AV Fest during the Funky Meters’ set
The Dismemberment Plan
The Dismemberment Plan
The Dismemberment Plan
The Dismemberment Plan
The Dismemberment Plan
The Dismemberment Plan
The War on Drugs
The War on Drugs
The War on Drugs
The War on Drugs
The War on Drugs
The War on Drugs
The War on Drugs
The War on Drugs

 

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Reigning Sound at the Empty Bottle

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Greg Cartwright writes songs that could easily pass for classic nuggets from the era of ’60s garage bands. As the leader of Reigning Sound, he knows how to write, sing and play a tune that stomps with fierce energy, but he also has a soft touch when the moment calls for it. Reigning Sound’s records, including the outstanding new album Shattered, also include nods to soul music and string-laden pop ballads.

Cartwright (who has also played with the Oblivians, Parting Gifts and other bands) brought Reigning Sound to the Empty Bottle on Monday, Sept. 1, and the set felt like a nonstop hit parade. Fans packed the floor in front of the stage, dancing, swaying and singing along with one song after another. The Reigning Sound lineup on the new album includes Cartwright and longtime keyboardist Dave Amels, plus three newcomers, who are Amels’ bandmates in Brooklyn soul group The Jay Vons: Mike Catanese, Benny Trokan and Mikey Post. They’re a tight unit, perfect for Cartwright’s concise, subtle rockers.

There’s something matter-of-fact about the way Cartwright performs his songs in concert. There’s plenty of passion in his voice, but he doesn’t bother jumping around and making any rock-star gestures. He just delivers the songs. And what songs they are.

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Opening act Space Raft
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Opening act Sweet Talk
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Opening act Sweet Talk
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Sleep at Thalia Hall

In the early 1990s, the California band Sleep helped to create a hard-rocking genre that came to be known as stoner rock: something that resembled heavy metal, but with a tendency toward slower, sludgier and less screamy rock. Sleep disbanded in the late 1990s, but the trio reunited a few years ago. And last week, the group played two sold-out shows at Thalia Hall. The lineup included original members Al Cisneros (bass and vocals) and Matt Pike (guitars), plus Neurosis drummer Jason Roeder. I was there on Thursday, Aug. 28, and Sleep pounded away at its repetitive riffs with just as much force and intensity as you’d expect. (From what I hear, Friday’s show was even louder.)

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Opening act Corrections House
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Opening act Corrections House
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The Clean and Boogarins at Lincoln Hall

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The Clean’s concert on Monday, Aug. 18, at Lincoln Hall was one of those shows that leave you scratching your head and asking: What just happened?  The legendary New Zealand band doesn’t come around all that often — the last time was a show at the Bottom Lounge in 2010 — so any appearance they make in Chicago is an event.

The trio sounded a little ragged, but I enjoyed the raggedness of the jams. As the Clean took the stage, drummer Hamish Kilgour crouched down next to his drum kit, as if hiding, tapping his drumsticks at the edges of the set. As that first song, the instrumental “Fish,” progressed, he eventually took his seat behind the drums. Bassist Robert Scott nonchalantly stood, holding down the rhythm. And guitarist David Kilgour stood with his back to the crowd, leaning toward his amp. It was a good while before he showed his face to the audience for more than a few seconds. At one point early in the set, Hamish hopped up from behind his drum kit, stepped off the stage and stood in the crowd for a minute, then got back up and leaned down to put his sunglasses on the microphone in front of his bass drum.

A few of the songs ended abruptly, like tossed-off numbers at a rehearsal — which made them feel more real to me. But then, after playing just 45 minutes or so, the band bid everyone good-night and left the stage. A long, loud round of applause followed, as the Clean fans made it clear they wanted to hear more. For one thing, the band hadn’t played its most famous song, “Tally Ho.” One guy was shouting, “Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!” — apparently, as his way of saying the band should play more. Hamish Kilgour and Scott returned to the stage and seemed to be getting ready to play, then went back behind the curtain. More applause. Hamish Kilgour and Scott return again. They disappear again. They come back, again without David Kilgour. Hamish said someone from the audience would have to come onstage to make an encore happen.

A guy I know from Laurie’s Planet of Sound, Paul Nixon, climbed onto the stage and took the microphone, offering a polite and gracious message to David Kilgour: The audience wants you to come back onstage and play more. Still, no sign of Kilgour. Now, a few other audience members (including my friend Sam O’Rama) got onstage to sing “Tally Ho” while two-thirds of the Clean played two-thirds of the song. Midway through the tune, another guy from the crowd climbed up and started playing the song’s three chords on Kilgour’s guitar (and playing it pretty well). And that’s how the show ended, with this odd audience singalong and the Clean missing one of its key members.

From what I recalled, the Clean’s last Chicago show, in 2010, was longer. But looking back at what I wrote about it, I see a harbinger of last night’s events:

Guitarist David Kilgour left the stage rather abruptly at the end of the main set and then again at the end of the first encore, almost seeming to surprising his band mates, drummer Hamish Kilgour and bassist Robert Scott. It seemed that the band was calling it a night at that point and the Bottom Lounge turned on the house music. But the audience wasn’t ready to leave, giving the Clean a loud and sustained round of applause, and finally the guys came back and played one of their best-known tunes, “Tally Ho!”

At last night’s show, Hamish Kilgour’s wry stage banter included the question, “What is a rock concert?” (Or words to that effect.) What indeed? This was certainly a rock concert, but unlike any I’ve seen.

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Boogarins

The opening band Monday at Lincoln Hall was the wonderful psychedelic Brazilian outfit called Boogarins. Given the fact that they’re from Brazil and sing in Portuguese, they are bound to remind you of the late ’60s Tropicalia movement, but singer-guitarist Benke Ferraz told the Chicago Tribune’s Greg Kot that music of Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett was an even bigger influence on Boogarins. All of that was audible as Boogarins dug into its colorful rock symphonies on Monday night.

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Michael Zerang & Blue Lights in Logan Square

The Chicago Jazz Festival‘s organizers have been presenting free concerts in various spots around the city, calling the series “Neighborhood Nights.” This past Saturday, Aug. 9, the series featured the superb drummer Michael Zerang, playing in front of Logan Square’s Illinois Centennial Monument with a band called Blue Lights. This was a stellar lineup of leading jazz musicians from Chicago — reedists Mars Williams and Dave Rempis, cornetist Josh Berman and bassist Kent Kessler — and it sounded lovely in that park. The group played some original compositions, but it closed with a recognizable melody from the past, “Misirlou.”

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A night of international garage rock at the Hideout

It was cool to see bands from other parts of the world playing loud rock music last Friday night, Aug. 8, at the Hideout, as well as a couple of the Chicago bands that are regulars in the local scene. The evening started with Sultan Bathery, a group from Vicenza, Italy, who cranked out riffs like a punk version of a 1950s roadhouse band. Then came Chicago’s Uh Bones with more of a 1960s vibe. As the guys in Uh Bones started to turn off their amps, some enthusiastic fans shouted, “Play that cover! ‘Gloria’!” And so the band did an encore, playing the classic 1960s song by Van Morrison and Them, “Gloria,” which was a staple of garage-rock gigs back in that era. The song can still get a crowd going. I videotaped about a minute of it on Friday:

Next up was Make-Overs, a guitar-and-drums duo from South Africa, whose music was the most modern-sounding of anything all night, but still very rough and jagged, keeping with the spirit of things. Another guitar-and-drums duo, Chicago’s ubiquitous White Mystery, closed out the night with a typically raucous performance, their red curls flying.

Sultan Bathery

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Uh Bones

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Make-Overs

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White Mystery

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A shrine to the dead

While I was at the Hideout, I snapped this shot of a memorial shrine in the front bar, with pictures of longtime Hideout patron Daniel Blue, left, and Studs Terkel.

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The Baseball Project at the Abbey Pub

The Baseball Project played last Thursday, Aug. 7, at the Abbey Pub. This is an indie-rock supergroup of sorts, comprising Scott McCaughey of the Young Fresh Fellows and the Minus 5, Peter Buck and Mike Mills of R.E.M., Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate and Linda Pitmon, who also plays in Wynn’s band, the Miracle 3. All of their songs are about baseball. Many of them are quite catchy, with an 1980s jangle-rock style. Buck did not appear in the show at the Abbey Pub, but it was a fun show, ending with Mills singing the R.E.M. classic “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville,” some of which I captured on video:

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Oneida at the Empty Bottle

July 30 was one of those nights when I wanted to be at concerts simultaneously. As soon as Courtney Barnett finished her bang-up show at Schubas, I hopped into my car and headed for the Empty Bottle — arriving sometime after Oneida had started playing. I caught the final hour or so of the performance, though, and what a joy it was to see these New York musicians playing in Chicago again, making their first appearance here in several years.

Since the Krautrock-influenced group finished its epic “Thank Your Parents” trilogy of albums, it has released two records: Absolute II in 2011 and A List of Burning Mountains in 2012 — instrumental recordings with long passages of quiet punctuated by jarring blasts of noise and percussion. Joined by James McNew of Yo La Tengo on bass, Oneida played some of that sort of stuff during its show last week, but it also delivered some of the Oneida pieces that more closely resemble actual songs — ending with one of its most lively, riveting numbers, the 2006 song “Up With People.” Audience members pogoed to the insistent beat.

At the merch table, Oneida was selling some limited-edition cassettes of recent music, called The Brah Tapes, but they’d run out by the time I tried to buy one.

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Courtney Barnett at Schubas

Courtney Barnett sang her delightful lyrics in her deadpan style on Wednesday night at Schubas, which was very charming — but what really wowed me was her guitar playing. Early on in the set, she stepped away from the microphone stand and started flailing around with her guitar, her hair hanging down over her face, digging harder into her riffs, while bassist Bones Sloan and drummer Dave Mudie pounded away. As terrific as this Australian’s songs sound on her 2013 record The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas, they were even more intense and alluring in live performance. This was a Lollapalooza pre-show, and Barnett seemed to be marveling at how much her fan base has grown. Expect her to play a bigger venue the next time she’s in town. And if you’re at Lolla today, make sure to catch her set at 2:15 p.m. (Check out this video of a performance she gave earlier this at the WBEZ studios.)

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Opening act Varsity
Opening act Varsity

 

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Camera Obscura and Laura Cantrell at Thalia Hall

When Laura Cantrell opened on Friday (July 25) for Camera Obscura at Thalia Hall, it was her first Chicago performance in nine years. Cantrell’s latest record, No Way There From Here, is one of 2014’s finest, and her plaintive voice was stirringly beautiful on Friday night — despite the annoying buzz of chatter from the back of the room.

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The Scottish band Camera Obscura also sounded achingly lovely as it played its lilting, melancholy pop tunes during the evening’s main set. Lead singer Tracyanne Campbell said she had a cold, and there were a few moments when she seemed to be wincing as she sang, but her sore throat didn’t seem to affect her vocals very much. Like Cantrell, Campbell has a vocal style that isn’t all that fancy or complicated. And neither of these singers is especially demonstrative. They don’t build up the drama in their songs by pushing or stretching their voices. But there’s something so appealing about the straightforward simplicity of the way they sing.

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Robbie Fulks and Michael Shannon at the Hideout

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Robbie Fulks’ Monday-night shows at the Hideout are never the same, covering a huge variety of music and guest-starring all sorts of folks. This week, the theme was a tribute to the late Lou Reed, with a beginning-to-end performance of Reed’s 1982 album Blue Mask. And the special guest — the guy who sang Reed’s songs — was Michael Shannon, the Oscar-nominated actor and cast member of the Boardwalk Empire series on HBO.

Shannon has acted in many Chicago stage plays over the years, and he’s no stranger to live music, either, playing guitar and singing in the band Corporal. And he did an outstanding job “as” Lou Reed — not exactly impersonating the legendary singer but putting across his words and minimal melodies in a style that wasn’t too far removed from Reed’s trademark manner.

Fulks stayed in the background, playing guitar and incongruously wearing overalls. (Explaining his decision to recruit Shannon for lead vocals, Fulks said, “Who’s going to take a guy in overalls singing Lou Reed songs seriously?”) Fulks assembled a crack band to play Blue Mask, including Alex Hall on drums, Jason Narducy on bass, Grant Tye on guitar and Scott Stevenson on keyboards.

The Hideout doesn’t usually sell tickets in advance for Fulks’ Monday-night shows, but it did this time, and it sold out ahead of time. Shannon remarked that he hadn’t heard Blue Mask until Fulks asked him to perform him. As he was listening to the record, his wife — fellow actress Kate Arrington — pointed out that the final song on the album, “Heavenly Arms,” is sung to someone named Sylvia. That just happens to be the name of Shannon and Arrington’s young daughter. She was in the Hideout audience on Monday night with her mom, and Shannon dedicated “Heavenly Arms” to her, filling the song with what was clearly some deep fatherly love.

Addendum: Shannon will perform in “The Hal Russell Story,” a concert at 6: 30 p.m. July 31 at Millennium Park, performing the texts that the late Russell spoke on the  1992 album of the same name. See the park’s website for more details on the show. Thanks to the Chicago Reader’s Peter Margasak for the tip.

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2014 Pitchfork Music Festival Recap

Cloud Nothings audience
Cloud Nothings audience

This year’s Pitchfork Music Festival — which took place July 18-20 in the usual spot, Union Park — had its share of thrilling musical moments, as well as a lot of stuff that didn’t connect with me at all. And the weather was just about perfect.

When I participated in Newcity’s roundtable discussion previewing the festival, I confessed my bias, calling myself a rockist. I do like tons of music that goes way beyond the standard rock-band format, but it takes a lot for me to get excited about electronic music, hip-hop or anything resembling mainstream pop and R&B music. And for my own personal tastes, Pitchfork had too many sets starring guys standing behind laptops and acts lacking any actual live musicians.

Over the course of the weekend, I took photos of nearly every artist that played — I missed five of the 43 acts — and those pictures in various posts here on my blog. Here’s where you can find everything:

DAY 1 PHOTOS: Neneh Cherry / Sharon Van Etten / Giorgio Moroder / Beck / More photos from Day 1 (Hundred Waters, Factory Floor, RocketNumberNine, The Haxan Cloak, Sun Kil Moon, Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks)

DAY 2 PHOTOS: Twin Peaks / Kelela / St. Vincent / More photos from Day 2 (Ka, Circulatory System, Wild Beasts, Cloud Nothings, Mas Ysa, Pusha T, The Range, Tune-Yards, Danny Brown, The Field)

DAY 3 PHOTOS: Speedy Ortiz / Diiv / Perfect Pussy / Deafheaven / Dum Dum Girls / Real Estate / Slowdive / Grimes / Kendrick Lamar / More photos from Day 3 (Mutual Benefit, Isaiah Rashad, Earl Sweatshirt, Schoolboy Q, Jon Hopkins, Hudson Mohawke)

I also filed several reviews of performances from the weekend for Newcity, which I’ve compiled below. In addition to the sets that I reviewed, other highlights for me included St. Vincent’s amazing, blazing set on Saturday and Neneh Cherry’s sultry, haunting performance on Friday — only her second U.S. concert ever, and the first one she’s done since 1992! Moments like those made the weekend more than worthwhile.

Out of the artists I was less familiar with, I was impressed by Ka’s passionate hip-hop and the strange sounds of Factory Floor. And that set by Diiv was sounding great, but I left after a couple of songs so I could photograph and witness the punk spectacle known as Perfect Pussy. (Dang schedule conflicts!)

Sharon Van Etten

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As she sang her songs of yearning, Sharon Van Etten paused to mention the fact that she’d played once before at Pitchfork. That was four years ago, and she was barely known at the time, playing an acoustic set all by herself early in the day. She sounded a little tentative and fragile back then. This time, as she introduced one of her old songs, “Save Yourself,” she reminisced: “I tried to play this song solo and it was hard to do. And now I can’t imagine doing it without these guys.” Indeed, her dynamic band seemed essential to her sound this time, turning what might have been pensive folk songs into sprawling, multicolored rock—and she sounded all the more confident in this musical setting. Van Etten sounded fierce in “Serpents,” driven by the song’s hypnotic bass and drum lines. She closed with “Every Time the Sun Comes Up,” the song that also ends her new record “Are We There,” and the passion of the tune’s mantra-like chorus felt palpable on this sunny summer afternoon. See more photos of Sharon Van Etten.

Beck

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Beck seemed to take a message from the words flashing on the Pitchfork Fest’s video screens as the previous act, Giorgio Moroder, finished his set: “HOT STUFF.” Beck and his backing musicians practically bounded onto the stage, immediately allaying any fears that this was going to be a morose and mellow set. Even though Beck’s latest album “Morning Phase” is filled with the sad bastard variety of Beck music, he apparently decided not to start off his show by moaning about isolation. Instead, he delivered something more like a greatest-hits set, starting off with “Devil’s Haircut” and gleefully tossing in “Loser” halfway through the show. By the time he finally got around to playing some of those new downbeat numbers, he’d earned the right to moan a little bit—and he sounded almost majestic doing it. And then it was back to more of the hot stuff. See more photos of Beck.

Twin Peaks

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Cadien Lake James, singer-guitarist with the young Chicago garage rock band Twin Peaks, wasn’t joking last week when he tweeted: “Does anyone have a wheelchair I can adopt for pitchfork? Holla atcha boy.” Playing the first set of Pitchfork’s second day under glaring sunlight on the Green Stage, James rolled out onto the stage in a wheelchair, with one of his legs in a cast. But his apparent injury didn’t hamper Twin Peaks from rocking with its usual rambunctious energy. James’ bandmates hopped around, layering riffs on top of riffs as they played a couple of songs from their debut EP, “Sunken,” and a bunch from their forthcoming LP, “Wild Onion.” The fans gathered in front of the barricade, shook their arms in the air, ready to mosh despite the early hour. See more photos of Twin Peaks.

Sun Kil Moon

Sun Kil Moon
Sun Kil Moon

The delicate, meditative songs Mark Kozelek records with his band Sun Kil Moon are the sort of music that can get lost in the air at an outdoor festival. Up close to the Green Stage, it felt like an intimate show, with Kozelek’s silky nylon-string guitar notes accenting his unusually personal lyrical musings about things like watching Steve McQueen movies with his dad. The rest of the band tinkered around the edges of Kozelek’s quiet plucking, creating an effect something like a chamber quartet playing jazzy folk-rock. As exquisite as that sounded, the crowd was chatty just a short distance farther away from the stage. It was the sort of festival set that seemed either beautiful or boring, depending on where you happened to be in the park. See more photos of Sun Kil Moon.

Circulatory System

Circulatory System
Circulatory System

The Blue Stage’s first set of the day, a shambling psychedelic show by Circulatory System, seemed like a warm-up for the headlining performance by Neutral Milk Hotel that would come later. Both bands are connected with the Elephant 6 scene, though Circulatory System is considerably more obscure. Will Cullen Hart, who has also played with the Elephant 6 band Olivia Tremor Control, stood behind a pair of drums, occasionally pounding with mallets or banging a tambourine as he sang in the sort of high, wispy voice that’s a regular feature in this sort of Day-Glo music. The other musicians played instruments including cello, violin, clarinet and xylophone, giving it all the feel of a junk-shop orchestra, but the clattering of all the percussion had a tendency to drown out the nuances. Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum sings on Circulatory System’s latest record, but anyone who thought he might make a guest appearance during this early-afternoon set was suffering under a delusion of wishful thinking.

Neutral Milk Hotel

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Before Neutral Milk Hotel took the stage for the final concert of Saturday night at Pitchfork, an announcement came over the speakers: at the request of the artist, no taking of photographs and video would be allowed. And the video screens that normally show the performers on Pitchfork’s stages went dark. Jeff Mangum, the famously reclusive and mysterious leader of this band, was visible on the stage, but even at close quarters, he seemed to be in disguise, hiding his face with a hat and a bushy beard. Mangum managed to maintain his enigmatic aura even as he was standing in front of twenty-thousand people. In the first minutes of the show, hundreds of people rushed forward for spots closer to the stage, shouting the words of songs from “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” an album whose devoted admirers multiplied many times over in the fifteen years Mangum and Neutral Milk Hotel went silent. People even moshed, not something you see every day at a folk-rock concert. Mangum has a strong, braying voice, which almost seems to command others to sing along. Unfortunately, the mix accented the harsh tones of his vocals and made his acoustic guitar sound like it was cranked up way past eleven. Coming and going from the stage, Mangum’s bandmates added all the horns, accordions and drums that made Neutral Milk Hotel’s records sound like surreal Salvation Army recitals. And when audience members lifted their voices in chorus with Mangum’s, Union Park became a giant hipster revival tent.

Speedy Ortiz

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Speedy Ortiz kicked off Sunday’s Blue Stage schedule with a burst of scrappy garage rock chords. As Sadie Dupuis sang the verses in an almost understated manner, the songs occasionally loped into off-kilter rhythms, bringing to mind the early music of Liz Phair. The three guys in this band kept the music charging forward, but the focus was all on Dupuis, whose voice rose to pleading peaks in the refrains of her songs. Whenever the time came for an instrumental break, she seemed to revel in stepping back from the mic and whipping her hand across her guitar strings. See more photos of Speedy Ortiz.

Perfect Pussy

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Perfect Pussy’s songs were barely discernible amid the nonstop noise and crashing as the band quickly blasted through its set on the Blue Stage, but that hardly seemed to matter. This punk band is all about bashing your head in, sonically speaking, and it accomplished that. Lead singer Meredith Graves, wearing a striped dress, rarely stopped moving as she screeched and twirled, occasionally lifting her skirt for peeks at her undergarments, while her bandmates attacked their instruments as if they wanted to break them. Not surprisingly, a few people in the audience were inspired to crowd-surf. See more photos of Perfect Pussy.

Real Estate

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Real Estate’s breezy music, full of shimmering surfaces with chiming guitars and soft, breathy vocals, isn’t the sort of stuff that gets audience fists pumping in the air, but the New Jersey band’s pleasant set late Sunday afternoon offered a welcome interlude of relaxation. The light, airy songs drifted out across the park, and every once in a while, Real Estate picked up the tempo, sounding a bit like a venerable band from the same state, The Feelies. But mostly, the group put us in a mellow mood. See more photos of Real Estate.

Slowdive

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For fans of the hazy 1990s British rock that came to be known as shoegaze, Slowdive was one of Pitchfork’s true must-see acts this year. Back together after a nineteen-year hiatus, the group sculpted pretty melodies out of its guitar notes during its set early Sunday evening, with Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell switching off on lead vocals, both sounding like they were lost in dreams. But then, as the chords churned around and around, the songs began to roar with an often fierce intensity—contrasting with the musicians’ calm, relaxed demeanor onstage. It’s hard to say whether any of them actually gazed at their shoes as they made that beautiful, blurry and buzzing noise, but it was beguiling. See more photos of Slowdive.

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More photos from Pitchfork Day 3

Mutual Benefit
Mutual Benefit
Isaiah Rashad
Isaiah Rashad
Hudson Mohawke
Hudson Mohawke
Jon Hopkins
Jon Hopkins
Schoolboy Q
Schoolboy Q
Earl Sweatshirt
Earl Sweatshirt
Earl Sweatshirt
Earl Sweatshirt

 

Read my recap of the 2014 Pitchfork Music Festival.

DAY 1 PHOTOS: Neneh Cherry / Sharon Van Etten / Giorgio Moroder / Beck / More photos from Day 1 (Hundred Waters, Factory Floor, RocketNumberNine, The Haxan Cloak, Sun Kil Moon, Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks)

DAY 2 PHOTOS: Twin Peaks / Kelela / St. Vincent / More photos from Day 2 (Ka, Circulatory System, Wild Beasts, Cloud Nothings, Mas Ysa, Pusha T, The Range, Tune-Yards, Danny Brown, The Field)

DAY 3 PHOTOS: Speedy Ortiz / Diiv / Perfect Pussy / Deafheaven / Dum Dum Girls / Real Estate / Slowdive / Grimes / Kendrick Lamar / More photos from Day 3 (Mutual Benefit, Isaiah Rashad, Earl Sweatshirt, Schoolboy Q, Jon Hopkins, Hudson Mohawke)

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More Photos from Pitchfork Day 2

Ka
Ka
Ka
Ka

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Ka
Ka
Circulatory System
Circulatory System
Circulatory System
Circulatory System
Circulatory System
Circulatory System
Wild Beasts
Wild Beasts
Wild Beasts
Wild Beasts
Cloud Nothings
Cloud Nothings
Cloud Nothings
Cloud Nothings
Cloud Nothings
Cloud Nothings
Cloud Nothings audience
Cloud Nothings audience
Cloud Nothings
Cloud Nothings
Cloud Nothings audience
Cloud Nothings audience
Mas Ysa
Mas Ysa
Pusha T
Pusha T
Pusha T
Pusha T
The Range
The Range
Tune-Yards
Tune-Yards
Tune-Yards
Tune-Yards
Tune-Yards
Tune-Yards
Tune-Yards
Tune-Yards
Danny Brown's audience
Danny Brown’s audience
Danny Brown
Danny Brown
Danny Brown
Danny Brown
Danny Brown
Danny Brown
Danny Brown
Danny Brown
The Field
The Field

Read my recap of the 2014 Pitchfork Music Festival.

DAY 1 PHOTOS: Neneh Cherry / Sharon Van Etten / Giorgio Moroder / Beck / More photos from Day 1 (Hundred Waters, Factory Floor, RocketNumberNine, The Haxan Cloak, Sun Kil Moon, Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks)

DAY 2 PHOTOS: Twin Peaks / Kelela / St. Vincent / More photos from Day 2 (Ka, Circulatory System, Wild Beasts, Cloud Nothings, Mas Ysa, Pusha T, The Range, Tune-Yards, Danny Brown, The Field)

DAY 3 PHOTOS: Speedy Ortiz / Diiv / Perfect Pussy / Deafheaven / Dum Dum Girls / Real Estate / Slowdive / Grimes / Kendrick Lamar / More photos from Day 3 (Mutual Benefit, Isaiah Rashad, Earl Sweatshirt, Schoolboy Q, Jon Hopkins, Hudson Mohawke)

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More photos from Pitchfork Day 1

Hundred Waters
Hundred Waters
Hundred Waters
Hundred Waters
Factory Floor
Factory Floor
Factory Floor
Factory Floor
RocketNumberNine (backing Neneh Cherry)
RocketNumberNine (backing Neneh Cherry)
The Haxan Cloak
The Haxan Cloak
Sun Kil Moon
Sun Kil Moon
Sun Kil Moon
Sun Kil Moon
Sun Kil Moon
Sun Kil Moon
Sun Kil Moon
Sun Kil Moon
Avey Tare's Slahser Flicks
Avey Tare’s Slahser Flicks
Avey Tare's Slahser Flicks
Avey Tare’s Slahser Flicks

Read my recap of the 2014 Pitchfork Music Festival.

DAY 1 PHOTOS: Neneh Cherry / Sharon Van Etten / Giorgio Moroder / Beck / More photos from Day 1 (Hundred Waters, Factory Floor, RocketNumberNine, The Haxan Cloak, Sun Kil Moon, Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks)

DAY 2 PHOTOS: Twin Peaks / Kelela / St. Vincent / More photos from Day 2 (Ka, Circulatory System, Wild Beasts, Cloud Nothings, Mas Ysa, Pusha T, The Range, Tune-Yards, Danny Brown, The Field)

DAY 3 PHOTOS: Speedy Ortiz / Diiv / Perfect Pussy / Deafheaven / Dum Dum Girls / Real Estate / Slowdive / Grimes / Kendrick Lamar / More photos from Day 3 (Mutual Benefit, Isaiah Rashad, Earl Sweatshirt, Schoolboy Q, Jon Hopkins, Hudson Mohawke)

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Real Estate at Pitchfork

My photos of Real Estate’s performance on Sunday, July 20, in Union Park during the third day of the Pitchfork Music Festival. (My review of the set is on Newcity’s website.)

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Read my recap of the 2014 Pitchfork Music Festival.

DAY 1 PHOTOS: Neneh Cherry / Sharon Van Etten / Giorgio Moroder / Beck / More photos from Day 1 (Hundred Waters, Factory Floor, RocketNumberNine, The Haxan Cloak, Sun Kil Moon, Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks)

DAY 2 PHOTOS: Twin Peaks / Kelela / St. Vincent / More photos from Day 2 (Ka, Circulatory System, Wild Beasts, Cloud Nothings, Mas Ysa, Pusha T, The Range, Tune-Yards, Danny Brown, The Field)

DAY 3 PHOTOS: Speedy Ortiz / Diiv / Perfect Pussy / Deafheaven / Dum Dum Girls / Real Estate / Slowdive / Grimes / Kendrick Lamar / More photos from Day 3 (Mutual Benefit, Isaiah Rashad, Earl Sweatshirt, Schoolboy Q, Jon Hopkins, Hudson Mohawke)