Underground Bee

Click here to see my photos of Matt and Kim, Tokyo Police Club, the Satin Peaches, Tapes ‘n Tapes, Aqueduct, Rhymefest, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and the Hold Steady.

Click here to see my photos of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Patti Smith and Interpol.

I was dreading Lollapalooza in some ways – worrying about the heat, fretting about what sort of access I would have to the photo pits, thinking about all of that walking. As it turned out (for Friday at least), I had quite a fun time and no problems to speak of. So far, so good with this year’s festival. It is indeed a long walk from one end of the park to the other – leave a good 15 minutes in your schedule if you need to make that trek, which will undoubtedly mean missing some music – but somehow, it seemed to go faster than it did last year. It is strange to see the swarms of people walking in both directions around Buckingham Fountain, all heading to see one band or another.

I felt similar to the way I did at the recent Pitchfork festival – a little too peripatetic for my own good. Rushing all over to catch as many bands as I could, both to get photos and because I wanted to hear all that music. It was nice when I could settle down and just listen to an entire set by a band, as I did with the Black Keys. Was there a breakout band on Day 1, someone that excited the crowd more than anyone else? That’s always such a tough thing to judge. Most of the performers had an enthusiastic bunch of people up front, but then as you walked farther back, you found yourself surrounded by people who were lazily enjoying the Grant Park setting, treating the whole thing like a picnic and (seemingly) not paying that much attention to the music. Or enjoying it in a way that was a little more passive.

Based on what I could see, POLYPHONIC SPREE generated a fair amount of excitement with its big spectacle of a show. It was not as outlandish as last year’s extravaganza of a show by the Flaming Lips, but there was a similar spirit of putting on a performance that was both big in size and freewheeling in spirit (freewheeling mostly in the form of frontman Tim DeLaughner). I’m of two minds about Polyphonic Spree: I find their concerts incredibly fun, but I’ve never found their records nearly as compelling. Maybe I need to see it as well as hear it to get the whole feeling. The last time I saw the Spree, they were still wearing those white robes. They’ve switched to dark uniforms, which makes them look less like a cult and more like a USO troupe or something.

The first band I saw on Friday was THE FRATELLIS, who played a fairly spirited set. Maybe not as spirited as they would have been later in the day. One of them remarked, “We’ll wake up by the end of the set.” Funny, they sounded awake to me.

I headed to south end of the same field for the next show, which was Austin’s GHOSTLAND OBSERVATORY. Never heard a note before. Well, maybe I did, but I couldn’t recall hearing anything by them until now. I suppose this would be categorized as electronic, though the duo did play some guitar and actual drums. Dance music, in any case, and it seemed pretty creative and lively to me. The drummer/electronics dude was dressed like Count Chocula. The other guy had a ponytail and very tight clothes and he jumped around a lot.

TED LEO AND THE PHARMACISTS played next (well, they were the band that I saw next, forgoing a show at the other end of the park by Son Volt). You can count on Leo to put on a strong show, and he did once again. He also sings with such force and passion.

I caught a couple of songs by VIVA VOCE, an excellent wife-on-guitar/husband-on-drums duo from Portland, Ore., whom I saw opening several months ago for the Shins. The songs I saw were catchy as well as energetic. Then I headed north for the aforementioned POLYPHONIC SPREE.

I stopped by one of the smaller stages, the BMI stage, for POWERSPACE, a young suburban Chicago pop-punk band, who were pretty impressive. These kids have their sound down pat, and they also know how to look like they’re having a ton of fun onstage.

I had just seen SPARKLEHORSE the previous night at the Empty Bottle, so I was planning to skip their Lollapalooza set. However, it was just too tempting to get some photos of Sparklehorse in actual light, so I headed over to the stage for a couple of songs. It was a decent performance, like the one the night before, though Sparklehorse main man Mark Linkous seemed a little distracted at both shows. He’s a very good songwriter, and most of those songs come off pretty well in concert, but he is not the most exciting performer. I tried zipping over to the nearby PlayStation stage to get some photos of ELECTRIC SIX, but I showed up just as the band was finishing its third song, the point at which the security guys say vamoose to those of in the photo pit. I wasn’t too thrilled with the Electric Six music I was hearing, so I rezipped back over to Sparklehorse and enjoyed the rest of that concert. Where I was standing (halfway up that paved area at the Petrillo bandshell), the crowd seemed a little apathetic.

At the far north end of the park, M.I.A. was next on the lineup. I’ve never really seen her, other than about one song at SXSW two years ago and I suppose that doesn’t count. The knock on her has been that the live show didn’t live up to the record. I don’t know. It sounded quite good yesterday, I thought. I like the uniquely Indian beats and patterns of her hip-hop. And heck, she was fun to photograph. As I left after the third song, I did notice that she was having some sort of technical difficulties. Or was that just a lull in the show? M.I.A. made some remark about an aborted beat, saying it would sound better in a club. Hmmm.

SILVERSUN PICKUPS was playing on one of the smaller stages, and I caught a few songs, complete with gymnastic guitar solos, but then I headed over to see BLONDE REDHEAD. This is a band I like but don’t (yet) love. Enough of my friends rave about them that I feel like I may end up loving them eventually, after I listen more to their music. They did sound great last night. On the surface, their new album 23 strikes me as indie pop with an electronic sheen, but in concert, they emphasize the shoegazer intensity of the music.

THE BLACK KEYS were one of my favorite performers all day. I can’t say they did anything I haven’t heard them before, but they’re such monsters of the guitar and drums. I love the loopy, curling sound of those bluesy riffs. I didn’t have anywhere else to zoom for a while, so I was able to sit down and actually listen for a change. Ahhhh.

The next time slot offered a difficult choice, between LCD Soundsystem and FEMI KUTI & THE POSITIVE FORCE. I went with Kuti. I love his father’s music, and I recently saw his brother, Seun, play at Millennium Park. This seemed like an opportunity I couldn’t miss, while I figured I can always see LCD Soundsystem again. Kuti got the crowd dancing with his band’s infectious grooves, not to mention the dancing girls onstage. It occurred to me that it was too bad Kuti couldn’t play to the same folks watching that other dance band on the other side of Buckingham Fountain (LCD, that is).

Speaking of which, I rushed south past the fountain (passing a very, very squashed rat on the pavement, which was just lying there like a pancake as thousands of people walked by)… hoping to catch a little bit of LCD Soundsystem. I heard their music as I went passed, but by this time I had to hurry to get a spot in line to photograph DAFT PUNK. I was photographer no. 46 out of the 50 allowed in the pit. Phew! But then… well, I can’t say I’ve ever been a Daft Punk fan. When LCD Soundsystem (an electronic dance band I actually like, which does music more to my speed) dropped their name in a song (“Daft Punk is Playing at My House”), I thought I really should take a remedial course in what this band is all about. Well, I’m still not getting it. I guess I’m just allergic to certain (but not all) forms of techno. A black curtain on the big stage fell away to reveal the two Daft Punk dudes in their standard robot helmets, way up at the top of a pyramid (the part were the eye would be in that dollar-bill picture)… doing whatever it was they were doing. For all I could tell, they were just playing one of their CDs. The crowd (or at least the crowd in front) was having fun, moving and clapping to the music. But… eh. Such simplistic beats and melodies just don’t do much for me. The light show and stage were cool, but they were also pretty cold. Maybe it was cold in an ironic way – “Hey, look at us, we’re robots!” – but it was boring either way.

See my photos of the Fratellis, Ghostland Observatory, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Viva Voce, Polyphonic Spree, Powerspace and Sparklehorse.

See my photos of M.I.A., Silversun Pickups, Blonde Redhead, the Black Keys, Femi Kuti and Daft Punk.

Day 1 of Lollapalooza’s over. My review’s coming soon. First, here are the photos. I’ve set up two galleries…

See my photos of the Fratellis, Ghostland Observatory, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Viva Voce, Polyphonic Spree, Powerspace and Sparklehorse.

See my photos of M.I.A., Silversun Pickups, Blonde Redhead, the Black Keys, Femi Kuti and Daft Punk.

For several years now, Two Cow Garage has seemed like the little band that could. Just some guys from Columbus, Ohio, who tour like hell and play loud, garage-y alt-country rock with a lot of passion. They have some loyal fans, but they’ve yet to really break through to a big audience.

They arrived at Chicago’s Subterranean last night (Aug. 1) with the groan-inducing news that their drummer, Dustin Harigle, had quit earlier in the day, just as Two Cow was embarking on a tour for its new record, III. Faced with the prospect of playing without a drummer, the rest of the band considering calling off the shows, but decided to go through with it anyway. And so, we unexpectedly saw what amounted to an unplugged Two Cow concert.

The evening was charged with emotion, as guitarist Micah Schnabel and bassist Shane Sweeney openly voiced their frustration and bitterness about Harigle’s decision, as well as their determination to carry on as Two Cow no matter what. They made it clear that they love doing what they’re doing, and that they’re in it for the long haul. Backed by a keyboardist, their songs actually sounded quite good in this stripped-down setting. It wasn’t the rock show that the audience had been expecting or that the guys probably wanted to play, but it was a cathartic way to announce that Two Cow survives.

See my photos of Two Cow Garage.

…There were a couple of opening bands. I’ll just say, the less said, the better.

I’ve been a big fan of Bat For Lashes (aka Natasha Khan) since I heard her debut album, Fur and Gold, last year as an import from the UK. In fact, I put it on my top 10 list for 2006. The record’s finally coming out this week in the U.S., and Khan and her band came to Chicago for the first time, playing Friday night (July 27) at Schubas. It was an excellent show, similar to the Bat For Lashes concert I saw in March at SXSW. It’s wonderful to watch Khan and her three musicians (all female, all wearing headbands and similar accoutrements) switching instruments and creating these spooky songs with violin, autoharp, a harpischord sound on the Yamaha, bells and drums. No drum kit, though. Despite the lack of standard rock percussion, the songs never drag. Khan has a great voice, and she’s beautiful, too. Her encore was a new song called “Moon + Moon” (or something like that – that’s how it was punctuated on the set list). For someone whose songs are so moody and dramatic, Khan was suprisingly lighthearted and giggly in between songs. The only flaw in the show was that it only lasted about an hour – but since she has just one album out so far, I guess that’s to be expected.

See my photos of Bat For Lashes.

Chicago’s Garbadine played a nice opening set of chilled-out, low-key songs that reminded me of the quieter moments of Magnolia Electric Co. and Palliard. I enjoyed it, though Garbadine could stand a little more variety in its music. My photos of Garbadine will be coming later…

What is Grinderman? It’s really just Nick Cave playing with a smaller unit from his usual big group, the Bad Seeds. I loved the apocalyptically huge sound of Cave’s most recent Bad Seeds double album, Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus, which came complete with a gospel choir. But there’s also something to be said for pounding out rock songs with a just a few musicians. That what Cave does on Grinderman, a strong record that ranks with his best work. There are a few mellower moments on the album (mellow in a way that’s still pretty intense), but the overriding sound is driving rock, with Cave playing more electric guitar than he has in the past and singing with unbridled emotion. He finds an original way of expressing the classic rock-song premise of frustrated lust with one of 2007’s best songs, “No Pussy Blues.”

Chicago was lucky enough to get one of just four Grinderman concerts scheduled in the U.S. (one is opening for the White Stripes at Madison Square Garden in New York, and the other two are in San Francisco). It was exciting to see Cave in a club like Metro.

Cave always performs like he means it, and the show last night (July 25) was no exception. Sporting a modified-Fu Manchu-style mustache, Cave kicked his legs at the crowd, gestured with his arms like a mad preacher and wielded his guitar like a prop — grabbing it at key moments for loud bursts of notes. The rather hirsute Warren Ellis made lots of noise, too, with a peculiar miniature electric guitar, a violin and shakers, while bassist Martyn Casey and drummer Jim Sclavunos kept the rhythms tense all night. At some points, Cave added little purrs, moans and other vocal tics to his singing, making the songs seem almost like spontaneous creations rather than well-rehearsed compositions.

After playing the entire Grinderman album (though not in order), Cave and his cohorts left the stage, then came back for two encores of Bad Seeds tunes, with Cave sitting down at the piano for the first time all night. The first encore was “Red Right Hand,” “The Weeping Song,” “Deanna” and “The Lyre of Orpheus.” The second encore was “The Ship Song” and “Jack the Ripper.” Some of the audience requests for other Bad Seeds songs caused Cave to protest that he did not have enough musicians present to pull off the bigger-sounding numbers. And in fact, the Bad Seeds that he did play seemed fairly stripped down, with an impromptu looseness. That didn’t detract at all from how great they were, though. This was surely one of the year’s best concerts in Chicago. (I’ve said that a few times recently, but I think the shows by Grinderman, the Wrens, the Arcade Fire and the Decemberists are near the top of my list right now.) Cave departed with a promise. “See you next year with the Bad Seeds,” he said. I can’t wait.

See my photos of Grinderman. My photos will also be featured on Spin magazine’s web site.
The opening band was Digital Primitives, which is a ridiculous name for a fairly good jazz trio. It was an odd choice for an opening act, but I like the group’s mix of jazz, Eastern music and spoken-word rants.

Somehow, even though I saw just about every other band on the Secretly Canadian/Jagjaguwar labels when I was at SXSW this year, I missed one of the groups from the family that I really wanted to see, the Besnard Lakes, who have a superb album out this year with the peculiar title The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse. (Or is the album just called Are the Dark Horse? That sort of thing is always confusing…) I also missed this Montreal band on an earlier stop in Chicago, but I made up for that last night (July 23) by catching the Besnard Lakes at Schubas.

The band’s male/female vocals and lilting melodies remind me of Low – but Low in its livelier moments. There’s a similar tripped-out quality to the songs, but they also know how to rock out, specializing in repetitive guitar grooves. It was a very good show, making the songs sound even better than they do on the record. I was unaware of an earlier Besnard Lakes album titled Volume 1, from which they played a song or two. I picked up a copy at the merch table and I’m listening to it right now for the first time. The songs seem a little hazier and less distinct than those on the new CD, but I’m still liking it. The Besnard Lakes also have the distinction of being, I believe, the first band I’ve ever seen that used a fog machine at Schubas. It set the mood perfectly. See my photos of the Besnard Lakes.

I also wanted to be at Schubas Monday night to see one of the opening bands, Handsome Furs, who are also from Montreal. I think I’d only heard one song by the group, a guitar/electronics duo featuring Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade and Alexei Perry. I’d been hearing some buzz about these guys as a new band to watch out for. I enjoyed their set quite a bit. Although Perry’s role is basically standing at a wee keyboard and another electronics device or two while Boeckner plays guitar and sings, she was pretty lively in her largely stationary role, creating a decent rhythm section. Boeckner played some sharp, spiky guitar parts. I liked it enough to buy their album Plague Park at the merch table. See my photos of Handsome Furs.

The first act of the night was Scottish singer-songwriter Chris Connelly. I have to say that his vibrato-heavy singing style and his heavy acoustic-guitar strumming were not really to my taste, though I think some of his songs might interest me more in their studio incarnations, if they’re produced with some creativity. I have to give him credit for doing a solo a cappella song, which takes guts. See my photos of Chris Connelly.

Eleventh Dream Day shows up at least once or twice a year for a show somewhere in Chicago. They had a great record last year, Zeroes and Ones. This time around (July 20 at the Empty Bottle), there was no new record to promote, but the band was still in fine form. And it was the biggest lineup of Eleventh Dream Day ever. I’ve been more than satisfied with the group’s shows as a trio, though having a keyboard player or a second guitarist does give Rick Rizzo a little more freedom with his soloing. For this show, regular keyboardist Mark Greenberg was there, as well as former EDD guitarist Chris Brokaw. Brokaw’s presence was especially welcome on some of the early songs.

Here’s Rizzo’s set list. I see it includes little reminders of the song lyrics…

Someone (Rizzo, I think) remarked that Doug McCombs had seen the ZZ Top concert the night before, calling it the best musical performance he’d seen in his life, and McCombs picked up a few ZZ Top moves for his switch to guitar during the encore, with Greenberg taking over on bass.

See my photos of Eleventh Dream Day.

The first opening band was Faceless Werewolves from Austin, Texas. They were pretty enjoyable. I detected a little bit of bluesy roots music within their garage/indie-guitar-rock sound. See my photos of Faceless Werewolves. The second band was The Means, who were all right. I have to admit I was biding my time at that point, waiting for Eleventh Dream Day to play. See my photos of The Means.

I arrived at this free concert July 18 a little too close to the starting time, and saw multitudes of people already sitting in the Pritzker Pavilion seats and out on the lawn. What a crowd. You had the Grant Park Orchestra regulars (including subscribers who got first dibs on the seats), plus a ton of indie-rock kids, teenagers and twentysomethings, and a whole range of other people. I could feel the excitement in the air. This seemed like a reallly cool event. Despite all of the critical buzz and a fan base big enough to fill theaters like the Riv, the Decemberists are not exactly superstars of the sort that you’d expect to pack a major downtown park. Or to play with a full orchestra. How great is it that all of these elements came together for an evening of fabulous music in a beautiful Chicago park? Anyway, I thought I was going to be stuck watching the concert from a position far back, without any chance of getting photos, but I lucked out when I got into the line for standby seats, and ended up snagging a seat in the second row close to the center of the stage. (It helps sometimes when you’re by yourself.) And so I was able to see and hear the music up close, grab a lot of photos and then get even better pictures at the end when the crowd surged into the space in front of the seats.

I’m a Decemberists fan but not a fanatic, but I have to say this concert was one of the best I’ve seen this year, an all-around triumph. The marriage of rock music with classical strings doesn’t always work, but the Decemberists’ ornate songs lended themselves really well to the format, and in those moments when the violins, violas, cellos and woodwinds surged up behind the rock band, it was utterly magnificent. Wow. The performance included the major songs from The Crane Wife plus older song such as “The Infanta,” “I Was Meant for the Stage, “Los Angeles, I’m Yours” and the entirety of the suite from the 2004 Ep The Tain. Colin Meloy was pretty lively for a guy singing in front of an orchestra, including one run into the audience. For its final encore songs (sans orchestra) the band engaged in a little bit of performance art as it acted out and played “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” from Picaresque, much to the delight of the Decemberists fans who gathered in front of the stage to raise their hands and sway back and forth.

SEE MY PHOTOS OF THE DECEMBERISTS WITH THE GRANT PARK ORCHESTRA.

On Sunday, Pitchfork started the day with yet another band that might seem more apt at midnight, DEERHUNTER. (Emcee Tim Tuten called them Deerhoof, but as he noted later, he was just joking; he did know which band was which.) They took the stage to a wall of droning noise. Eventually, some psychedelic emerged out of the racket, quite compelling stuff. (Some of the noise was deliberate, but this was also one of several shows on the Connector Stage on Sunday that were nearly drowned by seemingly implacable feedback problems.) The lead singer of Deerhunter, Bradford Cox, is one strange-looking front man. I feel a little bad pointing that out, since a disease is the cause of his extremely thin physique (according to allmusic, “the exceedingly skinny 6’4″ lead singer has Marfan syndrome, a genetic disorder of the connective tissue that gives him abnormally long and spindly limbs”), but Cox emphasized his own strangeness by wearing a gauzy dress. He also dangled little puppets of some sort from one of his hands during the first song. SEE MY PHOTOS OF DEERHUNTER.

I’ve been a fan of THE PONYS for a few years now, thinking that these Chicago guys deserve wider fame and success. I have to admit I haven’t listened that much to their most recent record. It didn’t grab me like the first two, not that it’s bad or anything. The new songs and old tunes sounded strong in their Pitchfork set. Or at least they would have if the sound had been properly functional. It was frustrating to see the Ponys playing their instruments even as the notes they were playing mysteriously went in and out. SEE MY PHOTOS OF THE PONYS.

MENOMENA’s recent album Friend and Foe is an interesting and hard-to-categorize blend of piano, guitar, sax, strong drumming and even stronger singing. I don’t really know what genre this band belongs in, if any; it’s indie-rock with one foot in piano-based songwriting but a sound that’s far removed from typical piano music. Whatever it is, it sounded great onstage at Pitchfork, one of the festival’s best performances. SEE MY PHOTOS OF MENOMENA.

JUNIOR BOYS is an act I was unfamiliar with. The electronic pop music sounded fairly pleasant, but it didn’t leave much of an impression on me. SEE MY PHOTOS OF JUNIOR BOYS. I missed the second half of the Junior Boys set while catching some of NOMO over on the Balance Stage. Nomo plays Afrobeat music in the tradition of Fela Kuti, and they opened with an enchanting mix of bells and horns. SEE MY PHOTOS OF NOMO.

THE SEA AND CAKE were victims of more feedback problems. Their delicate jazz-pop tunes really needed the sort of audio clarity that the Pitchfork sound system was woefully inadequate to provide. Still, after a few songs, the sound snafus grew less noticeable, and Sam Prekop’s smart songs and Archer Prewitt’s sharply played guitar lines came through. SEE MY PHOTOS OF THE SEA AND CAKE.

JAMIE LIDELL wore a crown of tinsel (or something resembling tinsel) and belted out his songs in a soulful voice, creating a sonic mix that straddled the line between pop and experimental electronica. SEE MY PHOTOS OF JAMIE LIDELL.

STEPHEN MALKMUS noted that this was only his third solo concert ever, and I happen to have seen one of the other two, when he opened last year for the New Pornographers and My Morning Jacket at Northwestern University’s Patten Gym. He sounded more confident and sure this time. Although his solo and Pavement songs seem designed to be played by bands, they come across really well as quirky solo songs. Malkmus experienced more of the feedback problems that had plagued other bands at Pitchfork, remarking at one point: “It’s a weird mix, but it’s kind of cool. It sounds like ‘Sister Ray.’” SEE MY PHOTOS OF STEPHEN MALKMUS.

Is it OK if I’m not a big OF MONTREAL fan? I can see they’re a beloved band these days in the indie-rock world. And I don’t dislike them, but I just can’t get that excited about their music. The electronic production smoothes out the parts that I might interesting in another setting, I think. Anyway, they are definitely an interesting visual spectacle, and were fairly fun to watch. (We photographers were allowed to shoot only the first three songs, the standard rule throughout the festival, so I didn’t get any shots of Kevin Barnes later in the concert, when he was wearing considerably less clothing. Sorry.) SEE MY PHOTOS OF OF MONTREAL.

THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS sounded as excellent as they always do. They’re more excellent when Neko Case is singing with them, and unfortunately, she was a no-show for this gig (as was Dan Bejar), but you know, keyboardist Kathryn Calder sounded pretty darn good on vocals. Besides, despite being a sort of supergroup, this is mostly Carl Newman’s show. The audience at the front was singing along to every word of the old songs. One of the songs from the forthcoming album Challengers briefly morphed into Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” The concert was a nonstop hit parade, with one great hook after another. SEE MY PHOTOS OF NEW PORNOGRAPHERS.

DE LA SOUL closed out the festival on the Aluminum Stage. Now, I listened to the De La Soul album 3 Feet High and Rising years – decades – ago, but I can’t say I’ve stayed up on these guys. They put on an entertaining show, though. I cut out of it for a little bit to catch KLAXONS on the Balance Stage, who had the crowd dancing and singing along to catchy “oooh”-filled choruses. A lot of fun. Back to De La Soul, I catch one of the rappers asking the audience how many “hip-hop heads” were present. He defined the people he was looking for. “We’re talking about people who don’t need radio or TV to tell them what good shit is.” That’s as good a definition as I heard all weekend of the crowd at Pitchfork. SEE MY PHOTOS OF DE LA SOUL.

FOR AN OVERVIEW OF ALL MY PITCHFORK PHOTOS, GO TO THE PHOTO GALLERY INDEX.

Pitchfork’s second day started bright and early with THE TWILIGHT SAD, a fine band out of Glasgow that I saw recently at Subterranean. I’ve had a chance since then to listen a little bad to their debut, Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters, and it’s an enjoyable listen. Maybe I’m a sucker for a Scottish accent, but things sound better with a burr. Their show at Pitchfork was fairly fun, though it did feel like their music would be more appropriate for a dark room late at night than a sunlit stage at 1 P.M. (A common problem at these fests but, hey, at least it’s easier to photograph these bands in actual light… Speaking of which, my photos from the first half of Saturday afternoon mysteriously disappeared when I thought I’d transferred them onto my computer. Oh, well…)

CALIFONE followed, with the sort of low-key yet involving set that’s typical for this Chicago band. I know some people love their records, but I’ve always found them better in concert. More of the groovy vibes that are hidden between the grooves of the records come through. (I also caught just a few minutes of KEN VANDERMARK’S POWERHOUSE SOUND on the side stage… not enough to offer a critical judgment other than noting that Vandermark was blowing his sax with gale force for the little bit that I saw.)

VOXTROT put on quite an entertaining set, replete with lots of rock-star posing and leaping. They didn’t dress like glam rockers, but I picked up something glam in their sound.

GRIZZLY BEAR is growing on me. I’ve seen them open for Feist and TV on the Radio; at Pitchfork, the band offered more of its subtle and mostly quiet music. It’s quiet, but it occasionally soars into more anthemic territory. The set was slightly marred by some sound problems, forcing a delay between songs – just one of many technical difficulties at Pitchfork. For the most part, the good music cut through the feedback and sonic murk this weekend, but it was disappointing that so many sets ran into sound problems.

I ran over to the side stage and caught a few songs by BEACH HOUSE, whom I saw recently at Subterranean. Pretty and chill music. Do I hear a little Nico?

BATTLES is winning a lot of praise for its virtuosic, intricate and highly percussive rock. They seem almost like an instrumental band, because the songs that do have vocals feature heavily processed singing. Personally, I find those cartoon-character vocals a little annoying. It would be OK on one or two songs, but after that, it becomes a gimmick. Battles was fairly impressive as a live act (despite a long lull due to more technical difficulties), but I’d like to see them either go with real vocals or none at all. I liked the weird setup for the drummer, with one cymbal high above his head. I’m not sure what the point was, other than creating a strange look, but it was interesting. SEE MY PHOTOS OF BATTLES.

IRON & WINE is another band I haven’t totally fallen for, despite the adoration they (or he?) receive elsewhere. I do like Iron & Wine’s studio music in small doses, and when Sam Beam recruits a good band to play behind him (as he did with Calexico), the results can be an improvement over the super soft studio tracks. For this show, he had a group of Chicago musicians backing him, including ex-Wilco member LeRoy Bach on keyboards, giving the music more of a roots-rock feel. At moments, it almost rocked. SEE MY PHOTOS OF IRON & WINE.

MASTODON is not exactly my kind of music. I can’t profess to listening to much metal, even the newer and more critically respected variations of metal. But these guys rocked like hell and were fun to photograph. For headbangers and their ilk, I’m sure the Mastodon set was a highlight of Pitchfork. A cloud of dust got kicked up from the ballfield near the stage, creating an appropriately hellacious visual effect in the middle of the show. SEE MY PHOTOS OF MASTODON.

OXFORD COLLAPSE is an excellent band from New York on the Sub Pop label, putting across indie-pop songs with a vocal intensity that reminds me of groups such as Wolf Parade and Modest Mouse. They do it all with just three musicians, and they were an enthusiastic and fun bunch onstage. SEE MY PHOTOS OF OXFROD COLLAPSE.

CLIPSE got a lot of plaudits last year for the hip-hop duo’s record Hell Hath No Fury. To a neophyte such as myself, the raps were not too appealing and the words were only intermittently intelligible in the mix. Late in the set, one of the Clipse dudes proclaimed that they’d made the album of the year (or was that “motherfucking album of the year”? I can’t recall exactly where he interjected that ubiquitous four-syllable swear word as a modifier), not matter what anyone else thinks. SEE MY PHOTOS OF CLIPSE.

(Around this time was when Dan Deacon prompted some havoc over at the small Balance Stage, with lots of crowd surfing and crowding. When the fence separating the audience from Ogden Avenue looked like it might topple, the fest’s crew shut down the performance early. I missed all of that, but heard about it all weekend.)

CAT POWER’s show Saturday night show with her new backup band, Dirty Delta Blues was one of the highlights of the festival for me. As the group’s name suggests, it was a bluesy set, with organ and guitar licks giving Cat Power’s music a sound akin to 1960s British-invasion blues rock. Although Cat Power (aka Chan Marshall) apologized a few times, apparently unhappy with the sound or her vocals, her voice was in fine form. In addition to her own tunes, she played covers such as “Satisfaction” and “The Dark Side of the Street.” Sticking to lead vocals without playing guitar or piano, she kept the show on track, unlike some of her erratic concerts of the past. SEE MY PHOTOS OF CAT POWER.

None other than YOKO ONO was the headliner Saturday night. She’s revered by many but also frequently mocked for her music. I think she was just too different from the Beatles for pop music fans to understand. By including her in the festival, the Pitchfork folks made the case that she was a big influence on many of today’s cutting-edge rockers. She preceded her appearance with a overly long video emphasizing a message of peace. She opened with a simple little song she said she’d just written, before launching into the wild sort of screaming that she’s known for. A good portion of the audience headed for the exits. That’s not too surprising, I guess; she’s never had real mainstream appeal, and even the sort of people who turn out for an event like Pitchfork don’t necessarily like this kind of music. Myself, I liked some moments of it quite a bit. At other times, it was grating. It’s hard to define why some caterwauling is good and some isn’t, but that is the case, as far as I’m concerned. Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth joined Ono for a sort of duet – a duet, that is, between his abrasive guitar soloing and her abrasive banshee yells. SEE MY PHOTOS OF YOKO ONO.

It was perfect weather last night (July 13) for the first day of the Pitchfork Music Festival. This was the extra day, presented with help from the All Tomorrow’s Parties folks in the UK, with three artists playing albums in their entirety. I like that concept – it runs so counter to the iPod shuffle mentality of today. As you might guess, I’m one of those people who still spends a lot of time listening to albums in their entirety. (Not that I don’t like a good shuffle.)

Slint got things started with a performance of Spiderland. I missed this band entirely when they were around the first time, and now they’ve viewed as influential in retrospect. It’s a good record, and the performance was decent – lots of precise and, yes, spidery guitar lines. The band is pretty staid, though, just standing there (or sitting there) as they play, and the crowd was just standing in place, too. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Not every band has to jump around. But it does subtract a little from the potential for an exciting concert. The songs did build to louder peaks, and at some moments, all that mannered playing did build into something majestic. See my photos of Slint.

Next, GZA (aka Genius) performed Liquid Swords. The concept of playing an old album from beginning to end is especially novel when it comes to hip-hop artists. GZA noted that he made a trip from Europe just to do this concert and was missing a Wu Tang show in Amsterdam as a result. He and his co-rappers frequently exhorted the crowd to clap louder – “You’d better represent!” – and there were plentiful “Wu Tang!” chants and casual uses of the M.F. word… It was a pretty energentic and lively set. As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m not a huge hip-hop fan, so this set was less meaningful to me than the other two shows on Friday, but it was an enjoyable showcase for a noteworthy hip-hop record. See my photos of GZA.

The highlight for me, of course, was seeing Sonic Youth do Daydream Nation. What can I say? It’s a great double album that has become a classic, and I’ve liked it for a long time. I’ve seen Sonic Youth several times over the years, so I imagine I’ve heard some of the key tracks from Daydream Nation performed live a few times, but nothing like this. Sonic Youth did what they do best, making great noise but also great songs, all in that singular musical vocabulary they’ve developed. For a bunch of middle-aged rockers, they still show a high level of intensity and energy onstage. As they came back for an encore, Thurston Moore said, “Welcome back to the 21st century,” and Sonic Youth proceeded to play three tracks off the 2006 record Rather Ripped (“Incinerate,” “Reena” and “Jams Run Free”), which is one of the best records they’ve done in recent years. The record shows Sonic Youth sounding tighter than ever, and that came across in concert, with Kim Gordon setting down the bass and pogoing with abandon on the last two songs. See my photos of Sonic Youth.

The Fugue State festival, June 29 and 30 at the Empty Bottle, was two days of bands playing what is often called “drone music.” It was also billed as a festival of “expansive music.” Whatever you call it, these are musical acts that stretch out notes way past the duration you normally hear. Some of it is loud guitar feedback, some of it more like acoustic freak folk or Eastern music or minimalism. Given the seemingly narrow confines of the genre (if it really is a “genre”), it’s actually a fairly diverse field of music. Not for all tastes, of course.

These two days offered a stimulating sample of what’s going on with drone music, especially in the Chicago scene. Highlights included the looping guitars of The Number None, Estesombelo’s masterfully constructed glaciers of notes and the slightly more song-oriented work of The Zoo Wheel. All of the acts featured some sort of visual accompaniment, including a lot of abstract shapes morphing in video projections. Lisa Slodki’s montages – which she created live by mixing together images from four VCRs (how analog!) – were particularly strong during the sets by Haptic and The Fortieth Day.

My favorite bands of the festival were the headliners each night. On Friday, DRMWPN (aka Dreamweapon) played another performance of what is basically the band’s one song, a mesmerizing and spiritual drone with wordless vocals by Jim Dorling floating above it all and a spinning column of light. On Saturday, David Daniell assembled eleven musicians, including acoustic guitarists and classical strings, to perform a piece from sheet music that featured recurring, overlapping and repeating patterns of notes. It sounded more like Steve Reich than true drone, but that’s fine with me.

See my photos from Fugue State.

Seun Kuti is one of the legendary Fela Kuti’s sons, and he’s now making his North American debut with a tour backed by Egypt 80, including some of his father’s musicians. Apparently, the band almost didn’t make it into the U.S. because of visa problems, but Senator Barack Obama’s office intervened and got them in. (Or so said the emcee last night… winning a round of applause for Obama.) Kuti played a free concert last night (June 28) at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, which is an excellent place to enjoy music.

The free world-music shows are great and hassle-free… I love how you can just walk in and sit down wherever you want. Last year’s concert by Seu Jorge and Amadou & Mariam was a memorable one, marred only slightly by the humorously hapless efforts of the security guards to prevent people from dancing or taking photographs. They seem to have realized the futility of even trying, because last night they pretty much let people do whatever they wanted, except block the aisles or take flash photos. Heck, one of the security guards standing near me more or less stopped doing anything other than smiling and dancing by the end of the show. This was just the sort of groovy Afrobeat you’d expect from a son of Fela. Seun Kuti has a tatoo across his back that reads: “FELA LIVES.” The son proved himself to be quite a showman, dancing across the stage as he sang and played sax. Near the end, he exhorted fans to get onstage and dance, and they did – by the hundreds. The opening DJ set by Rich Medina was also quite good, filled with lots of terrific African records.

See my photos of Seun Kuti & Egypt 80.

In addition to the Wrens, the Belmont Arts and Music Festival featured a very impressive lineup of bands. It seems like every summer in Chicago has one or two of these street fests with concert schedules that stand out above the others, and this year, BAM was one of the best. I didn’t make it there on Saturday, when Bob Mould, Jason Isbell, Heartless Bastards and Drams were playing.

On Sunday, I showed up around 5:30, in time to see BRIGHTON MA, a fine new Chicago band that Matt Kerstein formed after leaving the Scotland Yard Gospel Choir. Kerstein has a strong voice and some winning songs, ranging from Dylanesque folk rock to Bowieseque anthems. Read my story about Brighton MA for Pioneer Press. See my photos of Brighton MA.

Next up was SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN, a band with some very tuneful pop songs including “Oregon Girl.” I saw them do an acoustic set at SXSW, and they sounded even better plugged in this time. See my photos of Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin.

SAY HI TO YOUR MOM was another band that I saw on the day stage at SXSW this year. Funny thing is, one of the main things I remembered about Say Hi was that they had a teriffic drummer. Well, for their current tour, that drummer is gone, replaced by a drum machine. Their music was still fairly entertaining, a mix of techno pop and strummed electric guitar chords with a mix of male and female vox. There were songs about vampires and spaceships. I liked it, but I think I would have liked it better with the drummer. See my photos of Say Hi to Your Mom.

To read about the final act of the night, see my separate post about the Wrens.

I’ve fallen behind on blogging about some of the concerts I’ve seen lately. Let’s see… I had hoped to see THE WALKMEN June 16 at the Randolph Street Festival, but due to my own poor planning and a slow Red Line train, I showed up just as the Walkmen were finishing. I did catch the last set of the night by THE SMOKING POPES, which was pretty good. It didn’t change my life or anything, but I enjoyed it. They played a few of the songs from their new album, which is recorded but lacks a release date (or label, I think) at the moment. I’m sure it’ll surface soon.

After the festival, I headed over to the Beat Kitchen to catch a late show by VELCRO LEWIS AND HIS 100-PROOF BAND. It was quite good, from what I recall in my foggy memory… The guy looks kind of like Warren Zevon or something. Doesn’t really sound like him, but he definitely had some gritty, bluesy classic-rock thing going on. See my photos of Velcro Lewis.

On Tuesday (June 19), I saw FEIST at the Vic Theatre, with opening act GRIZZLY BEAR. Both sets were on the mellow side, but very much enchanting to these ears. I do sort of wish Grizzly Bear would rock a little bit more on occasion, but the band’s songs are subtle and beautiful. The crowd listened in a respectful hush.

I’d been looking forward to the show by Feist for a while, since her new album The Reminder is one of my recent favorites. She kept things in a hushed mood, with her backup band providing some really nice and restrained arrangements – it was so spare that you wondered if she really needed four musicians to make so little noise, but they were great at setting the right atmosphere. Feist’s voice was in fine form, and she also showed some spark with her guitar playing. And she was in a fun mood, bantering quite a bit with the crowd (maybe a tad too much). She tried singing all of her banter, but quickly abandoned that idea. She also solicited people in the crowd to hand up college homework, and read aloud from someone’s barely decipherable scientific paper. She was kooky but not, you know Cat Power kooky. Overall, a very nice evening of music.

I didn’t have a photo pass for this show, so I didn’t bring my camera, but my friend Kirstie got some great shots. Check them out on flickr.

On Friday (June 22), I got to Metro just in time for the headlining set by THE IKE REILLY ASSASSINATION. Reilly’s a great songwriter I’ve somehow managed to miss seeing live, even though I’ve interviewed the guy three times. His lyrics are gritty, seemingly real-life stories with a lot of wisdom, and he also has a good knack for writing catchy sing-along choruses. He’s one of those indie-rock artists who seem like they’d have a lot more fans if more people heard their music. It was nice to see him fill up Metro with enthusiastic fans who were familiar with his songs. Maybe the exposure he’s received on WXRT has helped, or maybe more people are finally catching on to Reilly. What’s he sound like? I hear some similarities to the Hold Steady, Steve Earle and, of course, Dylan and Springsteen, maybe a little Beck, a little Tom Petty. His songs are made to be played live, and Reilly and his band rocked out with enthusiasm, really working up a sweat. (Sorry, no photos from this show, either.)

It was a typically great, rampaging rock show by the Wrens last night (June 24) at the Belmont Art and Music Festival. Lots of songs from Meadowlands, of course. I sure hope they do a new album soon, but there’s something strangely appealing about seeing them still touring years later on the strength of the same record, which has grown in my estimation to become one of my favorites of recent years.

And the Wrens are surely up there on the list of the best live rock bands going right now. I love the way the songs sound almost deconstructed in concert – starting off with little looping guitar notes – and then build up into huge anthems, the crowd going nuts and singing along. I didn’t keep track of the set list, or the order of songs that were played. They started with just Charles Bissell and Greg Whelan onstage, with the other guys joining them mid-song. Right away, Kevin Whelan was pulling people out of the audience to help out – a couple of people to play a keyboard part. Later, they did the standard bit with a crowd of audience members banging drum sticks onstage. As usual, Kevin acted like a lunatic, tossing around his bass with abandon (which is practically encased in duct tape, with a postcard of the Virgin Mary under the spot where your fingers pluck the strings). He exhorted the crowd to clap along with an almost angry insistence on his face. When this guy wants you to clap, don’t say no. Bissell did a little bit of leaping, too, and the two of them were pretty much drenched in sweat by the end of the set.

They started maybe 10 minutes before the posted starting time of 9 p.m., played a fairly short set, then came back for an encore of course. It’s pretty unusual for a band to play two encores at a street fest, but the crowd wouldn’t stop clapping even when the spotlights went off and the canned music came on, so the Wrens came back for another song. And then it looked like there might be a third encore, until they started taking the drum kit apart.

See my photos of the Wrens

I’ll have more photos and blog entries later about other bands at the BAM fest, plus some other recent concerts and such stuff that I need to catch up on…

I had every intention of seeing the keyboard-and-drums indie-rock duo Matt & Kim Thursday night (June 14) at Subterranean. I was on the guest list. I had my camera at the ready… But a mosh pit intervened. That is to say, I felt so roughed up by the pushing, shoving fans in the Subterranean audience during the two opening bands that I just had to get out of that place and take a walk in the fresh night air. And so, I bailed out on this concert before Matt & Kim even took the stage.

And what about those opening bands? Well, first there was Dynamite Arrows, which played pretty straight-up punk rock. Seemed pretty good. The lead singer jumped out into the audience within seconds of starting the first song, and thus the moshing began. Things were not too bad from my vantage point during the Dynamite Arrows set, because all of the singer’s forays into the audience took a few feet to my right, keeping me out of the line of fire, so to speak. Still, there was a lot of body movement going on, and I just started to think, “Man, I’m too old for this…” A little bit of moshing goes a long way with me.

Some DJ’s were playing music between the sets, and a makeshift screen hanging above the Subt stage showed projections from a computer … most of which were annoyingly repetitious displays of the words “Dynamite Arrows” on top of a picture of Rambo. Stupidest concert visual effects ever?!?

And then came Hyper Viper, a more dance-oriented rock band (featuring at least one member of Dynamite Arrows). I think I liked some of the music, but I’m really in no place to judge because I was so distracted by the fact that I was caught up in a melee of people pushing one another. I spent most of the show with my body pinned against a stage monitor. After a while, I gave up on taking photos – after my camera got bumped into the side of my face as I was trying to take a shot. After that, I was mostly concerned about protecting my camera and lenses from getting damaged, and protecting myself from breaking some ribs or spraining some muscles. At one point, a guy (a photographer, for crying out loud!) decided to surf the crowd, and his move to ascend onto the crowd included kicking me in the face. That was about when I decided to leave. Did I mention people were also tossing full cans of beer at the stage?

See photos of Dynamite Arrows and Hyper Viper.

Richard Thompson’s one of those musicians who really shouldn’t be missed. See him at any opportunity you have. I’ve managed to see him only a puny four times before the show Wednesday (June 13) at Park West. The previous times were an acoustic set at the Guinness Fleadh at Arlington Park, an acoustic show at the Old Town School of Folk Music’s Folk and Roots Festival (when the lineup for the day also included the Mekons and Patti Smith!), another acoustic show in Cologne/Köln, Germany (where I just happened to be on vacation at the time, and where I ended up marveling at the insistent and enthusiastic applause by the German crowd at the end of the show – those people just would not leave, even for a few minutes after the house lights came on), and a full-band concert a few years ago at Chicago’s House of Blues.

As much as I like Thompson’s studio recordings, few of them fully capture the amazing qualities of his live performances. This guy is one of those rare musicians that excels on several levels: excellent guitar playing, of course, which ranks him right near the top of any list of best guitar players; sophisticated songwriting; decent singing (I like his voice a lot, though I could see why it doesn’t bowl over everyone); and a teriffic sense of humor and an engaging personality.

All of these traits were on full display at Wednesday’s show. The only down side was that the Park West, which normally has quite good acoustics, sounded pretty murky and bass-heavy for Thompson’s performance. The murkiness went in and out; maybe 50 percent of the show sounded OK. The other half sounded like crap, even when the instrumentation was as simple as one voice, one guitar and a bass. How can you screw that up? Anyway, it was still possible to make out most of the nuances of Thompson’s fluid guitar solos through the murk, but it would have been so much more enjoyable with the pristine sound that it deserved.

The songs from Thompson’s new record sounded good, but I was really there to hear classics like “Wall of Death,” “Al Bowlly’s In Heaven” and “1952 Vincent Black Lightning.” He obliged with those songs, plus several other deep cuts. His rapid plucking on “Vincent” is just as much of a marvel as it ever was, and his electric soloing on “Hard on Me” was scorching. Great backup band, too.

Most of the crowd was from the Boomer demographic, making this one of the rare shows when I actually feel like one of the younger people in attendance. Looking out at the people standing on the dance floor at the front of the Park West, Thompson cracked, “I love to see middle-aged people standing up to hear acoustic music.”

I hadn’t made any arrangements beforehand to get press tickets or a photo pass, and unfortunately, the Park West security enforced a no-photos policy, so I had to take my camera back to my car before the concert. Hence, no photos here on the Underground Bee from the Richard Thompson concert. Oh, well.

Here’s the set list:

Needle & Thread
Bad Monkey
Take Care the Road You Choose
Dad’s Gonna Kill Me
I Still Dream
Wrong Heartbeat
Al Bowlly’s In Heaven
1952 Vincent Black Lightning
The Sun Never Shines on the Poor
I’ll Never Give It Up
One Door Opens
Hard On Me
Mingulay Boat Song
Man In Need
Hard Luck Stories
Too Late to Go Fishing
Wall of Death
Read About Love
ENCORE 1:
Sunset Song
Mr Stupid
ENCORE 2:
Gypsy Love Songs
Tear Stained Letter

Edward Burch has been an unsung hero of Chicago’s alt-country scene for some years. Best known as one half of the duo that Jay Bennett formed just after leaving Wilco, Burch also used to have a regular gig on Monday nights at the Hideout with another then-member of Wilco, LeRoy Bach. Burch has played with a lot of other musicians over the years, and you’ll also see his byline from time to time on record reviews in publications such as Magnet. It’s clear from his choice of cover songs that he has a deep knowledge of underground rock music, power pop and folk. There’s something modest and unassuming about the guy.

Burch, who has been living in Champaign, is moving to Austin, Texas, because his wife, Rachel, just got a new job there. And so the Hideout hosted a special night of music on Monday (June 11) to bid Burch farewell. It was a sprawling, epic affair, lasting practically four hours, with many fine moments along the way. Bach came in from California to play several songs with Burch. Bennett joined him, too, as did Steve Dawson and Diane Christiansen of Dolly Varden, Steve Frisbie, Andy Leach, John Peacock and a slew of string players.

The section of the concert featuring a string quartet was really special, featuring lovely chamber-music arrangements of songs by Elvis Costello (“Just Like Candy”), John Cale (“Paris 1919”), Big Star (“Stroke It Noel”) and others. Of course, we heard several of the Bennett & Burch Palace at 4 A.M. songs that Burch sang, such as “Talk to Me,” “Venus Stopped the Train” and “Little White Cottage.” My favorite covers of the night included Badfinger’s “Lonely You,” Chris Bell’s “Look Up” and the Beach Boys’ “Surf’s Up.”

All in all, it was a lovely way to send off Edward to his new home in Austin, and it was hard not to feel a little sad and wisftul to see him go.

See my photos of Edward Burch and friends.

Brakes – the British band that has started calling itself BrakesBrakesBrakes in the U.S. for legal reasons – released one of the best records of 2005, Give Blood, a fun set of punk, folk and country in short dashes. Some of the songs are so short that they’re like haiku with guitars and screams. No song outstays its welcome. I saw Brakes at SXSW in 2006, but they hadn’t made it to Chicago until Sunday (June 10), when they finally came to town for a concert at the Empty Bottle.

The first band of the night was Electric Soft Parade, which overlaps with Brakes by a couple of members. I don’t know this band at all, but I enjoyed their performance quite a bit. It’s in a similar vein to Brakes, with less country twang and a little more Robyn Hitchcock Britishness. The middle band was Pela, a group of New York rockers who put on a pretty good show. I don’t know that their music did anything groundbreaking (they played a Pixies cover, which will give you an idea of where they’re coming from), but when they really let loose in the louder moments of their songs, it was fairly intense.

Brakes were simply great, playing lots of songs from the first album (well, it is pretty short) as well as the new one, The Beatific Visions. I love the whiny tone of the vocals, the constant presence of acoustic guitar, the off-kilter style of the songs. At their core, they’re just great songs, with a fair amount of English humor. For the two shortest songs of all, the political rant “Cheney” and “Comma Comma Stop,” Brakes obliged audience requests and played the songs twice in a row.

See photos of Brakes and Electric Soft Parade. See photos of Pela.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say right off the bat that Dave Drazin is a friend of mine. But I can honestly say he’s a terrific piano player, and plenty of others will tell you the same thing. Dave’s best known for playing piano at showings of silent movies, but he’s also an excellent player of old-time blues, jazz and ragtime, and all of those skills were on display during his superb set Saturday afternoon on one of the side stages at the Chicago Blues Festival.

See photos of Dave Drazin.

Lakeshore Theatre is a good place to see a quiet concert, a sit-down venue where people actually pay attention to the music and refrain from yapping. It was the perfect place to see Keren Ann on Friday (June 8). Is it a cliche to call her a chanteuse? Well, she does sing sometimes in French, so it seems appropriate to me. I’m not that familiar with her music – I’ve failed to keep up on all of her releases – but I thought she came across really well in concert, playing with just a guitarist and trumpeter as her backup band. Most of the music was in a low-key hush, but Keren Ann and her musical companions occasionally rocked a little. For her encore, she did two cool covers, the country classic “Tennessee Waltz” and Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi.”

Opening act Jason Hart played meandering, pretentious songs that straddled the line between smooth jazz and prog rock.

Photo notes: It was a fairly dim show, and it was hard to get a good clear shot of Keren Ann without disrupting the mellow mood in the theater, so I’m not terribly excited with the photos I got. Nothing is as sharp as I’d liked it to be.

See my photos of Keren Ann.

The Pipettes put on a fun show at SXSW (fun to hear, and fun to photograph). It was cool to see them again last night (June 7) when they made their Chicago debut at the Empty Bottle. Somehow, I thought they would have filled a bigger venue, though I guess their album still isn’t out in the U.S., so expect them to play a larger place when they come back – maybe this fall? The Pipettes’ formula is pretty simple: This is old-fashioned girl group music with slightly more ribald lyrics than the old stuff, and a few contemporary touches. A big part of the Pipettes’ appeal as a live act is that they’re three cute Brit chicks with saucy attitude and slinky outfits. (It’s too bad they were playing at the Bottle, which is a cool venue in many ways, but not for its dim stage lighting. Though I prefer not to use flash for my concert photos, I was forced to use the flash most of the night this time.)

Monster Bobby (a member of the Pipettes’ backup band, who is described as their “progenitor”) opened the show with his awkward and stilted songs – they were awkward and stilted in an amusing way, and some of them were actually pretty good songs, but the shtick wore thing fairly fast. Next up was Smoosh, a very young band featuring a couple of sisters (three of them on a few songs, when the youngest sis of all came up to play bass) playing primitive keyboard rock. Not bad at all, though I think I’ll wait until they’re a little older to hear what they can play then.

See my photos of the Pipettes.

I’m belatedly familiarizing myself with the music of Eleni Mandell, and after listening to a couple of her records, the show Sunday (June 3) at Schubas was a nice introduction to her work. She alternated between quiet, almost cabaret alt-country songs (more gothic than twangy) and old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll numbers (a slight touch of rockabilly). Mandell played one of those pint-sized guitars (standard six strings, but a smaller body), and she remarked after one of her livelier songs that the audience probably didn’t expect she would rock so much after seeing how small her guitar was.

See my photos of Eleni Mandell.

The opening act, Judson Claiborne, played a solo acoustic set of sad songs – he noted a couple of times that all of his songs are depressing. He sang in a froggy baritone and wore an old-fashioned hat, which matched the music. The audience was pretty quiet and respectful, considering that he was a little-known opener. I’d like to hear more of Claiborne’s music.

See my photos of Judson Claiborne.

The Clinetele were headlining Saturday (June 2) at Subterranean, with another band I don’t know too well (Beach House), plus the Singleman Affair – who are quickly becoming one of my favorite Chicago groups. The Singleman Affair’s 2006 album was great, and the songs are even better in concert, now that it has become more of a true band than a cloistered solo-recording project. I can’t wait for the next Singleman Affair record, though it looks like I will have to wait until sometime next year.

As I said, I don’t know much about Beach House, though a fair number of other people at the show clearly did. A duo – female singer on vocals and keyboards, guy on guitar, both of them sitting down. Sort of techno (in a Broadcast sort of way) but not really. It struck me as pretty good, worth checking out on record.

The Clientele’s new album God Save the Clientele is a nice slice of Left Banke-style pretty ’60s orchestral pop and very English singing. It came off quite well in concert, with more of an emphasis on the guitar (including one great extended guitar solo that included a couple of quotes from “Eight Miles High”). The only problem was that the sound wasn’t so great – at least as far as the band was concerned. Monitor problems. Actually, from the audience it sounded pretty good except for the barely audible violin and backup vocals. The audio difficulties did not ruin the otherwise good concert.

Photographic notes: Could they turn on the lights in this place once in a while? Sheesh. It was extremely dark. I spent much of the night waiting for the musicians to move into those little spots that were actually illuminated by the two functioning spotlights.

See my photos of the Singleman Affair.
See my photos of Beach House.
See my photos of the Clinetele.

I recently wrote an article for the Chicago Reader about Folksongs of Illinois, a new series of CDs issued by the Illinois Humanities Council, collecting a truly diverse range of folk music recorded or written in Illinois over the past century. The series is particularly nice because it includes music by a wide range of ethnic groups. A few current performers do some songs on the CDs – no surprise, including the ubiquitous Jon Langford – and a few of them played an early free show June 1 at Martyrs’.

The brains behind the whole project is Bucky Halker, an overlooked singer-songwriter in his own right (not to mention that he’s a published author on the history of labor music). Halker, John Rice, Janet Bean, Jon Langford, Paul Tyler and some of Tyler’s fiddle students at the Old Town School of Folk Music paraded across the stage and played some great old tunes. I especially liked Halker’s version of a song that Woody Guthrie wrote during his years in Illinois, a mining-disaster ballad, “The Dying Miner,” Bean singing the true story of a gangster’s hanging, “The Hanging of Charlie Berger” and Langford singing “Mississippi Flood.” (The studio version of that song features Kelly Hogan as well, but she wasn’t available for the live show.)

Volume 1 and Volume 2 of Folksongs of Illinois are out now, and the third is scheduled to come out this fall.

See my photos from the concert.

I’m afraid to say I don’t have a whole lot of intelligent music critism to offer on this concert, having heard nothing by either band before I went. I wasn’t even planning on going before a nice publicist for the Northern Chorus called up in the afternoon and offered me a spot on the guest list. Generally speaking, I liked what I heard. Northern Chorus is an orchestral pop band from Canada, with a cellist and violinist sitting front and center, a nice change of pace from the back seat that string sections usually get. It all sounded pretty nice. And then Scotland’s Twlight Sad played. The songs sort of blended together for me, but they had good attitude and spunk. The lead singer did lots of melodramatic posing with the microphone stand, not that there’s anything wrong with that. A local band, Arwin, opened the evening’s lineup with some earnestly played and reasonably melodic songs.

See my photos of the Twlight Sad.

See my photos of Northern Chorus.

Toumani Diabete is amaster musician from Mali who plays the kora, a sort of harp with two sets of 21 strings. He says he is the 71st generation of his family to play the kora! I’d seen him perform in Chicago once before, as part of Roswell Rudd’s group, but seeing him lead his own group March 22 at the HotHouse was an exceptional pleasure. The music was both intricate (I could hear similiarities to American blues as well as the minimalist patterns of Steve Reich and Philip Glass) and lively. The group got a good number of people dancing by the end of the show. It was especially cool to see the musicians taking part in playful musical exercises, with one musician playing a melody and challening one of the others to repeat it, note for note. Diabete will return to Chicago for a concert in Millennium Park this July.

See my photos of Toumani Diabate’s Symmetric Orchestra/