concerts – Page 7 – Underground Bee

April 20, 2012

Willis Earl Beal at the Hideout

The emergence of Willis Earl Beal is one of the most fascinating Chicago music stories of the past year. A year ago, he was “super unknown,” as the headline of a terrific Chicago Reader story by Leor Galil put it. Beal was essentially an outsider artist, making lo-fi tapes of his music, never performing in public, without any myspace page or anything like that, who was posting strange flyers about himself, which led to his discovery by Found magazine and the Reader. Now, somehow, Beal landed a deal with a prestigious record label, XL, which has just released an album of his home recordings, Acousmastic Sorcery.

Beal played last night at the Hideout. Although he recently opened for SBTRKT at the House of Blues, this was apparently his first headlining gig in Chicago. As he took the stage in a leather jacket and shades, he remarked, “Since you all came to see me, we’re going to do this my way.” Doing it his way included opening the show with a reading of the Charles Bukowski poem “The Harder You Try.” Then came an a cappella song, followed by several songs featuring Beal singing to tracks he’d records — on a reel-to-reel tape machine, of all things.

He played one song on guitar, briefly struggling with an out-of-tune acoustic and then playing an electric guitar he was unfamiliar with. His guitar playing was rudimentary, off-kilter and almost arhythmic, but his singing was soulful and impassioned. For another song, he sat down at the piano, playing simple notes as he sang. Both of these songs made you wonder what Beal would sound like with professional musicians backing him. Would it enhance his music, or detract from its quirky appeal? As things stand now, Beal is an unusual songwriter and performer who doesn’t easily fit into any category. There are touches of Tom Waits and Screaming Jay Hawkins in what he does. He showed that he’s capable of great blues and soul vocals, but his reel-to-reel accompaniment pushed the songs into stranger, more surreal territory.

Beal went back to a cappella for the final song of the night, “Same Old Tears” — a powerful performance that featured the audience clapping the beat. I videotaped that song and Beal’s comments afterward:

After the song ended, Beal made it clear he’s not that happy with his debut record. “It’s not a reflection of what you just saw on the stage,” he said. “It’s some shit I did when, I just like, I didn’t know what I was doing. It’s like walking in on somebody on the toilet. So, like, buy it, you know, to fill my pockets, but it’s not what you just saw. Also, I’m not a fucking musician. I am a motivational speaker, with harmonious inclinations.” Beal’s being too harsh about his record. He may not have known what he was doing, but that could explain part of what makes Beal so magical.

The opening act last night provided a nice bonus: Quarter Mile Thunder, a new band led by Ben Clarke, played haunting, quiet folk rock with a moody, atmospheric mix of acoustic guitar, piano and synth. “We’ve got a record done if anybody wants to put it out,” Clarke said, prompting some laughs. “It’s true.” Indeed, you can stream the album, Twist, at http://soundcloud.com/quartermilethunder/sets/twist/s-Xmjx9.

April 15, 2012

Cowboy Junkies at Space

The Canadian band Cowboy Junkies has never quite matched the attention it got for the 1988 album The Trinity Session, but the group never went away, either, building up a big discography over the years. The latest additions are four albums conceived as a series and released within 18 months — the “Nomad” records, each with a different theme or style, and all collected now in a boxed set, along with a fifth disc of outtakes. That’s a lot of new music for the band to perform — and for listeners to absorb.

When Cowboy Junkies played Saturday night (April 14) at SPACE in Evanston, singer Margo Timmins sounded somewhat apologetic as she explained that the band would devote the entire first set to music from the “Nomad” albums. But she promised the crowd would hear its old favorites during the second set. That turned out to be a winning strategy, giving enough focus to the new music while satisfying everyone’s desire to hear songs such as “Misguided Angel,” “Sweet Jane” and “Murder, Tonight, in the Trailer Park.” The new songs included “Wrong Piano” and “Square Room,” two selections from Demons, a “Nomad” album of songs written by the late, great Vic Chesnutt. The old songs included some audience requests that the band hand’t played in a while, including a little gem from 1992, “A Horse in the Country.”

Margo Timmins’ voice still sounded much as it did when everyone heard it for the first time in that quiet masterpiece The Trinity Session. She often draped one of her arms on the microphone stand in front of her, giving the impression of someone who was just casually hanging out on the stage rather than a performer who was the center of attention. That stance fit perfectly with the conversational tone of her singing: breathy but not whispered, confessional but not melodramatic, beautiful but completely natural.

Her brother Michael Timmins played guitar, including those insistently strummed chords that the Junkies took from inspirations like the Velvet Underground, but didn’t say a word, seeming very much like a modest sideman, despite the fact that he writes almost all of the music and words. Another sibling, drummer Peter Timmins, and bassist Alan Anton anchored the hypnotic grooves, while frequent Junkies collaborator Jeff Bird filled out the sound with percussion, harmonica and mandolin. He played the mandolin more like an electric guitar at many points, playing fiery solos. But for the most part, the band’s sound was smoldering.

http://latentrecordings.com/cowboyjunkies

April 12, 2012

Disappears at WBEZ

The Chicago band Disappears is sounding better than ever on its third album, Pre Language, with more concise and direct rock songs — not that there was anything wrong with band’s longer krautrock jams and drones on previous records. The presence of Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley as a full-fledged member of the Disappears seems to have given the group a new sense of focus, and a few of the songs have the driving force of Sonic Youth at its most song-oriented.

Disappears slammed out several of the great riffs from its new record Thursday evening (April 12) during a mini-concert at the studios of Chicago Public Radio WBEZ. The show was open only to the station’s High Fidelity members… but everyone else will get a chance to see Disappears Friday night at Lincoln Hall.
myspace.com/disappearsmusic

April 8, 2012

Outer Minds at the Empty Bottle

The album-release party for Outer Minds on Saturday at the Empty Bottle was more like a party for a whole scene of bands who are apparently pals with Outer Minds. With their electric 12-string guitar riffs, Farfisa organ, stomping beats and flower-children mix of male and female vocals, Outer Minds played melodic psychedelic rock that sounded like it was from another era. Then again, I long ago got used to the idea of previous musical eras co-existing in the present. I overheard someone in the crowd saying he felt like he’d traveled in a time machine — presumably to the 1960s, since that’s what it sounded like. Outer Minds’ self-titled debut LP is available from Southpaw Records.

The opening acts were a blockbuster billing of cool Chicago bands: Summer Girlfriends played fun Girl Group music of the sort you’d expect from their name. Radar Eyes were even fiercer than they were a couple of weeks ago at their own record-release party. And Mannequin Men played one hard-edged brand-new song amid a strong set of their best and catchiest tunes. Taken altogether, it was a great sampler of some of the exciting music happening in Chicago today.

April 4, 2012

Spires That in the Sunset Rise

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago has been hosting a cool series of monthly free musical performances in its cafe called Face the Strange, which was a perfect setting last week (March 27) for the ambitious, experimental music of Chicago duo Spires That in the Sunset Rise. The group began 11 years ago as an all-female quintet from Decatur, Illinois, but they’re now just two, athleen Baird and Taralie Peterson.

For their “Face the Strange” show, Spires played an eight-part suite inspired by some writings of Italo Calvino, with cello, flute, looping pedals and processed vocals that resembled those of Laurie Anderson. It was an impressive work overall, with the complexity and gravitas of contemporary classical music, although like many such compositions, it was hard to absorb it all in one listen and arrive at a full feeling for it. Let’s hope it surfaces on future Spire recordings.

Spires finished off their concert with a couple of shorter songs that are more typical of what the group does on its recordings — heavily atmospheric songs that combine rustic acoustic instruments with echo and effects. Spires That in the Sunset Rise has a fine new album, Ancient Patience Wills It Again, coming out April 17, and the whole thing is streaming now at the band’s website, stitsr.com.

One more concert is coming up in the current “Face the Strange” series: Plastic Crimewave Vision Celestial Guitarkestra plays at 6 p.m. April 24.

March 26, 2012

A Place to Bury Strangers

Until last week, I’d only seen and heard a few minutes of live performance by A Place to Bury Strangers, back in 2008 at SXSW. It was a brief encounter in an unlikely setting — the convention center’s day stage — but even that blast of shredding guitar music caused me to write: “Man, those guys were LOUD.” They were LOUD once again when they played March 26 at the Empty Bottle — but it’s a beautiful sort of loud, with waves of electric guitar pouring forth. And all of that majestic noise comes out of just three instruments — guitar, bass and drums. An impressive feat. A Place to Bury Strangers, which has a new EP called Onwards To The Wall, cranked its tunes through banks of pedals and amps amid fog, flashing strobes, and darkness pierced by beams of light: a perfect visual accompaniment.

The March 26 show also featured two strong opening acts: Chicago’s Apteka, who sound better and better each time I see them, and The Big Sleep started out the evening with even more shoegazy goodness.

March 26, 2012

Super Minotaur at the Empty Bottle

The Empty Bottle has been offering free admission to a lot of shows lately — as long as you RSVP by midnight the night before. It’s a great deal, and it seems to be opening the door for concerts by some fledgling bands. One such Chicago band is Super Minotaur, who headlined March 20 … unfortunately, to a pretty small crowd, in spite of the free admission. Super Minotaur was celebrating the release of its cassette, Dead Dino, and playing fast, ragged punk pop. The trio has a couple of cool songs, “Phantom Brat” and “Trip,” streaming on bandcamp. If Super Minotaur keeps building on the potential of those songs, it should be drawing bigger crowds in the future.

March 26, 2012

Mac Blackout Band at the Empty Bottle

The typical Chicago rocker isn’t in just one band — he (or she) is in two or three. At least, that’s how it seems if you try to keep track of all the overlapping lineups, especially in the garage rock scene. So it’s no big surprise that Mac Blackout, the lead singer of Mickey (who put out one of my favorite records of last year, Rock ‘n Roll Dreamer), has a separate band called, simply enough, Mac Blackout Band. If you like Mickey’s scrappy, glammy rock as much as I do, Mac Blackout Band is essential listening, and the band delivered with a loud, fun performance at a March 15 show at the Empty Bottle. Check out some songs from Mac Blackout’s album America Stole My Baby at bandcamp and myspace.

January 30, 2012January 30, 2012

Ida at Saki

Four and a half years have passed since the last time indie folk-rock band Ida played in Chicago. And the group hasn’t had a new record since Lovers Prayers, one of my favorite albums of 2008. But the trio was finally back in town Sunday (Jan. 29). One member, Elizabeth Mitchell, was playing a concert of children’s music early Sunday at the Old Town School of Folk Music, which led to an opportunity for Ida to play a free show in the evening at the Saki record store.

The members of Ida remarked that they’d barely had any time to prepare for the show, but they certainly didn’t skimp on playing a generous selection of songs for the 40 or so fans at Saki, performing for 90 minutes. It was a delightfully intimate show, showcasing the hushed harmonies of Mitchell, Daniel Littleon and Jean Cook. They played some of Ida’s best songs, along with covers of songs by Richard and Linda Thompson, the Band, Bill Monroe, the Minutemen, Michael Hurley and the Secret Stars. A former member of that last band, Geoff Farina, opened the show and joined Ida for a couple of songs. Jon Langford also sat in with Ida for one song. But the main attraction was seeing Mitchell, Littleon and Cook sitting together and quietly meshing their singing, guitar, harmonium and violin into lovers’ prayers.

This show was the latest in a series of performances at Saki recorded by Epitonic, so look for a recording of it to show up in the Epitonic Saki Sessions.

January 29, 2012

Thee Silver Mt. Zion at Lincoln Hall

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra makes stirring, majestic rock music with a strong orchestral sound that rivals anything else today. Few bands deliver live performances as powerful as Silver Mt. Zion’s, and the ensemble proved its excellence once again with its show Saturday (Jan. 28) at Lincoln Hall. It wasn’t just the beautiful sound of those violins melding with the guitar, drums and upright bass to create epic peaks of sound — it was also the way all five of the musicians joined their voices together in otherworldly hymns.

The band (which includes members of the older and recently revived group Godspeed You! Black Emperor) played three new songs that carry on Silver Mt. Zion’s tradition of making long, dramatic pieces of music: “Take Away These Early Grave Blues,” “The State Itself Did Not Agree” and “What We Loved Is Not Enough.” That last song, along with another new one called “Psalms 99,” were for sale at the merch table in a limited-edition set of two 7-inchs — the songs are so long that each is split up into Parts 1 and 2 on these singles. Now there’s something you don’t see too often. Silver Mt. Zion played eight songs Saturday night. Few, if any, clocked in at less than 10 minutes, but every minute felt absolutely necessary.

January 28, 2012January 29, 2012

Glen Campbell’s Goodbye Tour

Glen Campbell is running out of time. We’re all running out of time, but with Glen Campbell, you really know it. In the coming years, memories will drain out of him or jumble together in his mind. If the dreadful illness he’s suffering from runs its usual, unstoppable course, Campbell may lose most of his power to communicate. No cure is known for Alzheimer’s disease, and it’s almost inevitable that Campbell will suffer the same horrible symptoms that millions of others have experienced.

Campbell bravely let the world know he had Alzheimer’s disease. And he announced he would make one final album (2011’s Ghost on the Canvas) and tour one last time. His “Goodbye” tour included two shows this week at the Rialto Square Theatre in Joliet.

At the concert on Thursday evening (Jan. 25), Campbell never directly said anything about his illness or his imminent retirement from making music. It didn’t need to be said. You could sense the deference, love and admiration that Campbell’s backup musicians (including three of his children) and the audience of longtime fans felt for him. And Campbell kept saying how glad he was to be there and thanking everyone for showing up. That’s boilerplate stage banter you might hear from any musician, but it took on a whole different depth of emotion this time. Campbell seemed to be thanking all of the fans who had ever come to his concerts and bought his records, thanking them one last time while he still could. It was a sad occasion, but it was also a beautiful celebration of this man’s terrific career as a singer-guitarist who transcended genre boundaries and recorded some of the great songs of the ’60s and ’70s.

Campbell showed some of the effects of his illness and age, but he seemed remarkably sure of himself. It helped that he had such a good band playing behind him, and it must have been comforting for him to know that his children were there at his side. But he was still essentially standing alone out at the front of the stage, a 75-year-old man who’s losing his memory facing an auditorium full of people. It appeared that he was reading lyrics off three screens arrayed along the front of the stage — his need for the prompter was more obvious when he performed a few of his new songs than when he did the old standards. Whenever one of the new songs started, he would declare, “I like this song!”

Campbell seemed uncertain where to stand. He kept moving the microphone stand away from center stage, as if he were being drawn to the side for some reason. But when he sang one of the old songs, you could almost see the memory of those words and melodies clicking into place and bringing a smile to his face. His voice was a little weathered, but still strong and confident. At a few points — including the last note of “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” — his voice ascended into a falsetto and hit a high, lovely “ooh.”

During “Galveston,” composer Jimmy Webb’s lyrics took on a new poignancy, as Campbell sang about being afraid of death: “Galveston, oh Galveston, I am so afraid of dying/Before I dry the tears she’s crying/Before I watch your sea birds flying in the sun/At Galveston, at Galveston.” As the song ended and the applause welled up, Campbell started playing the opening riff of “Galveston” all over again on his guitar — until his daughter, Ashley, interjected: “We just played that, Dad.”

Campbell spent much of the show with his blue Strat strapped over his neck, holding onto it for the moments when he would play a guitar solo. (He complained a couple of times about how heavy that guitar felt on his shoulders.) When those moments came, Campbell looked down at the neck of his guitar — and you had to wonder: Can a man suffering from Alzheimer’s disease remember all those notes? Campbell hesitated a few times, but once his fingers started moving, they really moved, and the notes rang out loud and clear. All of the night’s guitar solos belonged to Campbell, and they offered plenty of proof of his skills.

At one point during the concert, Campbell apologized for playing something not quite right — whatever it was, it was a barely noticeable mistake. Campbell told the crowd, “Always remember this, friends: If you do it perfect, they’ll want it that way every time.” Wise words worth remembering from a great musician.

Glen Campbell finished the show with a lovely, wistful song from his new record, “A Better Place,” which he co-wrote with producer Julian Raymond. Campbell sang: “One thing I know/The world’s been good to me/A better place awaits, you’ll see.”

SET LIST: Gentle on My Mind / Galveston / By the Time I Get to Phoenix / Try a Little Kindness / Where’s the Playground Susie / Didn’t We / I Can’t Stop Loving You / True Grit / Lovesick Blues / Dueling Banjos / Hey Little One (sung by Ashley and Shannon Campbell) / Any Trouble / It’s Your Amazing Grace / Country Boy / The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress / Ghost on the Canvas / Wichita Lineman / Rhinestone Cowboy / Southern Nights / A Better Place

January 28, 2012

Cheyenne Marie Mize at Schubas

The Louisville singer-songwriter Cheyenne Marie Mize has performed with Will Oldham, and now she’s establishing a solo career of her own. Her introspective 2010 debut, Before Lately, had an intriguing mix of styles, and her adventurousness continues on the new EP, We Don’t Need. When Mize performed Wednesday (Jan. 25) at Schubas, she started off her set with the song that opens the EP, “Wishing Well,” which features little more than her singing and chanting to a drum beat. Throughout the rest of her set, she switched between guitar, keyboards and violin, while two other musicians (a drummer and a multi-instrumentalist) provide subtle backing but kept the songs sounding spare and direct.

January 15, 2012March 5, 2018

Secret Colours, Apteka and E+

The psychedelic Chicago band Secret Colours celebrated the release of its new EP with a show Jan. 7 at the Empty Bottle, with opening sets by a couple of cool Chicago bands: E+ is a new outfit featuring members of Disappears, Heavy Times and Verma. And the middle band in the lineup, fApteka, had the strongest set of the night, with an intense, swirling sound.

January 15, 2012

The Flat Five at the Hideout

I’m catching up on some recent concert photos — or not so recent, as the case may be. Here are some pictures from the Flat Five shows Dec. 18 at the Hideout. They were as wonderful as always.

December 27, 2011

Favorite concert photos of 2011

These are my favorites out of the photos I took at concerts in 2011.

screamingfemales01 — SCREAMING FEMALES Jan. 14 at Lincoln Hall

handsomefurs01 — HANDSOME FURS Jan. 15 at Lincoln Hall

littledragon — LITTLE DRAGON Jan. 16 at Lincoln Hall

KINGS GO FORTH Jan. 21 at the Double Door

buddyguy — BUDDY GUY Jan. 23 at Buddy Guy's Legends

THE DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS Feb. 26 at the Vic

WHITE HILLS March 23 at the Empty Bottle

GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR March 26 at Metro

silver-abuse — SILVER ABUSE April 16 at Permanent Records

ELEVENTH DREAM DAY April 22 at Lincoln Hall

THE SPITS May 27 at the HoZac Blackout Festival

NONES May 28 at the HoZac Blackout Festival

sword-heaven-02 — SWORD HEAVEN June 11 in the Neon Marshmallow Fest at the Empty Bottle

EMA July 15 at the Pitchfork Music Festival

TUNE-YARDS July 15 at the Pitchfork Music Festival

GUIDED BY VOICES July 15 at the Pitchfork Music Festival

NEKO CASE July 15 at the Pitchfork Music Festival

ZOLA JESUS July 16 at the Pitchfork Music Festival

OFF! July 16 at the Pitchfork Music Festival

KURT VILE July 17 at the Pitchfork Music Festival

ODD FUTURE July 17 at the Pitchfork Music Festival

ODD FUTURE audience July 17 at the Pitchfork Music Festival

ARIEL PINK'S HAUNTED GRAFFITI July 17 at the Pitchfork Music Festival

HEALTH July 17 at the Pitchfork Music Festival

FOOTBALL July 24 at the Illinois Centennial Monument

THEE OH SEES July 24 at the Illinois Centennial Monument

ANATOMY OF HABIT Aug. 7 at the Empty Bottle

MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND Aug. 8 at the Pritzker Pavilion

MAGIC KEY Aug. 21 at the Illinois Centennial Monument

TERRY ADAMS with NRBQ Aug. 27 at FitzGerald’s

SCOTT LIGON with NRBQ Aug. 27 at FitzGerald’s

SOUL TRAIN CONCERT Sept. 5 at the Pritzker Pavilion

THE EMOTIONS Sept. 5 at the Pritzker Pavilion

BILL CALLAHAN Sept. 16 at Brilliant Corners of Popular Amusements

CHARLES BRADLEY Sept. 17 at Brilliant Corners of Popular Amusements

WHITE MYSTERY Sept. 24 at the Hideout Block Party

BOOKER T. JONES Sept. 24 at the Hideout Block Party

1313 — MAVIS STAPLES Sept. 24 at the Hideout Block Party

ROCKET FROM THE TOMBS Dec. 7 at the Empty Bottle

December 26, 2011

Best concerts of 2011

These are my favorite musical performances that I saw in 2011, with quotes from my original blog posts.

1. ALABAMA SHAKES (Dec. 15 at Hideout). “Wow, did Alabama Shakes live up to the hype. This was the most joyous, energetic and lively musical performance I’ve seen in 2011, and a Hideout crowded with enthusiastic fans was the perfect place to see and hear Alabama Shakes. … The crowd was shouting for more at the end — even if it meant playing some of the same songs over again.” (Original blog post and more photos.)

2. CHARLES BRADLEY (Brilliant Corners of Popular Amusements festival Sept. 17). “Some of his soul shouts gave me chills. … His feelings clearly came out of real experience as he belted the chorus, ‘Why is it so hard to make it in America?’ As the curtain closed on the stage, Bradley jumped down and hugged everyone he could.” (Original blog post and more photos.)

3. THEE OH SEES (Nov. 23 at Empty Bottle). “Somehow, Thee Oh Sees manage to make everything sound like it’s turned up and sped up a notch beyond expectations. … The fantastic, charged music of Thee Oh Sees … sent the crowd into a writhing frenzy.” (Original blog post and more photos.)

4. WILD FLAG (Oct. 9 at Empty Bottle). This was the second time I’d seen Wild Flag perform in 2011, following a July 23 set during Wicker Park Fest. That was a great set, but the four members of Wild Flag were really on fire on the second night of their fall return to Chicago, lifting their songs to another level as they jammed out with joyous abandon.

5. GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR (March 26-27 at Metro). “The eight musicians … said barely a word to the audience over the course of the last two nights, concentrating intently on their dark, brooding and apocalyptic music. … The visual accompaniment added to the sense that these ‘songs’ (if that’s even the right word) tell stories, despite the lack of lyrics. And no singing was necessary to convey emotion, either. It was music capable of raising goosebumps.” (Original blog post and more photos.)

6. ELVIS COSTELLO & THE IMPOSTERS (May 15 at Chicago Theatre). “It was truly a ‘show,’ not just a typical concert. Reviving a gimmick he featured in a 1980s tour, Costello gave audience members a chance to come up on stage and spin the big wheel, which had about 40 songs or ‘jackpot’ slots on it … Costello put on a top hat and grabbed a cane … (and) guided Sunday’s audience through a diverse set of songs…” (Original blog post.)

7. MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND WITH THE CHICAGO YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (Aug. 8 at Millennium Park). “How beautiful it was to hear the concert begin with the opening notes of ‘Dragonfly’ from My Brightest Diamond’s 2006 debut album, Bring Me the Workhorse — those swooping, sweeping violins. The concert was filled with terrific moments like that…” (Original blog post and more photos.)

8. SKULL DEFEKTS (March 31 at Hideout). “With his gray beard, (Daniel) Higgs resembled an Old Testament character or a crew member of an old whaling vessel as he commanded the stage Thursday with his unrestrained vocals. The rest of Skull Defekts — two drummers and two guitarists — never let up with their jagged punk-garage riffs.” (Original blog post and more photos.)

9. WILCO (Dec. 13 at Riviera). “This is one exceptional group of musicians, seemingly capable of playing anything. … It felt like the band could play until morning…” (Original blog post.)

10. RICHARD THOMPSON (Sept. 12 at Evanston Space). “As always, Thompson made his guitar sing, often sounding like an entire band — or two or three guitars, anyway. … The dark, quiet songs were especially haunting…” (Original blog post.)

Honorable mentions:
Bill Callahan (Brilliant Corners of Popular Amusements Sept. 16)
The Flaming Lips (July 7 at Aragon)
Le Butcherettes (Nov. 4 at Subterranean)
Neil Young and Bert Hansch (May 6 at the Chicago Theatre)
M. Ward (Dec. 4 at Schubas)
NRBQ (Aug. 27 at FitzGerald’s)
Drive-By Truckers (Feb. 26 at Vic)
Gillian Welch (July 22 at the Vic)
Tune-Yards (Pitchfork Music Festival July 15 at Union Park)
Mavis Staples (Hideout Block Party Sept. 24 at Hideout)
Screaming Females (Tomorrow Never Knows festival Jan. 14 at Lincoln Hall)
Soul Train 40th anniversary concert with the Chi-Lites, the Emotions, the Impressions, Jerry “The Iceman” Butler (Sept. 5 at Millennium Park)

December 17, 2011

Alabama Shakes at the Hideout

The only music they’ve released so far is a four-song EP, but Alabama Shakes are already getting a lot of attention. They wowed a lot of people at CMJ in New York earlier this year. I heard about them through the Twitter/Facebook equivalent of word of mouth — comments from people bowled over by Alabama Shakes concerts. Paste magazine named them the best new band of 2012. Arriving this week for their first gigs ever in Chicago, the band sold out the Hideout on Thursday night (Dec. 15). And wow, did Alabama Shakes live up to the hype. This was the most joyous, energetic and lively musical performance I’ve seen in 2011, and a Hideout crowded with enthusiastic fans was the perfect place to see and hear Alabama Shakes. (They’re playing again tonight (Dec. 17) at SPACE in Evanston — see it if you can!)

The bespectacled young woman at the front of this band, Brittany Howard, has a powerful, soulful voice. But she’s also a talented guitarist, and it was just as thrilling to hear her playing riffs and solos as it was to hear her belting out the words. What a passionate, uninhibited performance it was. The band seamlessly blended Southern rock and soul — like country cousins of the Dap-Tone bands, or a more R&B-leaning version of the Drive-By Truckers. Alabama Shakes played a solid hour of songs, sounding vibrant throughout, and the crowd was shouting for more at the end — even if it meant playing some of the same songs over again.

This jaw-dropping show was preceded by a nice opening set by the Lawrence Peters Outfit, led by Hideout bartender and drummer-about-town Lawrence Peters, featuring some tasty, old-fashioned country music. Quite different from Alabama Shakes, but a good complement. Alabama Shakes attracted a fair number of people who had never been to the Hideout before, and they seemed a bit confused by Hideout owner Tim Tuten’s typically long and strange band intros, but Tuten seemed to win them over with his final rousing words, encouraging everyone to start shaking for Alabama Shakes.

December 9, 2011

Rocket From the Tombs at the Empty Bottle

This is one of the most unlikely reunions in the long history of rock ‘n’ roll reunions. Rocket From the Tombs was a short-lived protopunk band in Cleveland in 1975 that broke up before releasing a record. Barely anyone heard Rocket From the Tombs, and barely anyone had heard of them. But the former members of Rocket formed a couple of other famous bands, Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys. And some of the early songs they played with those bands had actually begun as Rocket From the Tombs tunes.

All of this was an interesting but obscure footnote in rock history until Smog Veil Records released the band’s long-forgotten rehearsal tapes and some live recordings in 2003. Rocket From the Tombs reunited, with legendary Television guitarist Richard Lloyd taking over for the late Peter Laughner. In 2004, the new lineup of the band finally recorded studio versions of those songs from three decades earlier. And most of us figured that was the end of that.

But Rocket From the Tombs reconvened this year, releasing an unexpected album of new songs, Bar Fly, and heading out on tour once again, including a stop Wednesday night (Dec. 7) at the Empty Bottle in Chicago. The current roster comprises David Thomas, Cheetah Chrome, Craig Bell, Steve Mehlman and Richard Lloyd. The show got started with strong opening sets of power pop by Warm Ones and reverb-drenched psychedelic noise rock by Plastic Crimewave Sound.

Pere Ubu’s mad genius weirdo, Thomas, sings most of RFTT’s songs, too, and he dominated the center of the stage, standing mostly still in a long trench coat. “Punk rock,” he grumbled at the start of the show, as he took out his reading glasses and began peering at lyrics sheets. Thomas can get cantankerous, and he showed a bit of that crankiness Wednesday, cutting off one song when he was unhappy with the shaky start it got from the band, insisting that the band forget playing it altogether. Despite that moment, there were only a few times when RFTT sounded rusty. More often, the band cranked out great guitar riffs, sounding like Pere Ubu’s punk-rock cousins. The new songs were good, but it was the old classics that the crowd really wanted to hear, and RFTT delivered, with strong renditions of “Amphetamine,” “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” and “Sonic Reducer.”

December 9, 2011

Karkwa at Schubas

The sparse attendance Tuesday night (Dec. 6) at Schubas confirmed my suspicion that few Americans know anything about the French-Canadian rock band Karkwa — despite the fact that the group won Canada’s prestigious Polaris Music Prize in 2010 for its fourth album, Les Chemins de verre. (Previous winners: Final Fantasy, Patrick Watson, Caribou and Fucked Up.)

About 40 people showed up to hear the band at Schubas, and singer-guitarist Louis-Jean Cormier sounded almost apologetic as he explained that he was about to — gasp! — sing lyrics in French. The fans in attendance clearly didn’t mind, of course. Karkwa’s art rock sounded even better in live performance than it does on record, with sophisticated but not overly fussy layers of guitar, keyboard and percussion that sounded a bit like early Radiohead at times. When the band returned to the stage for an encore, at the insistence of the crowd, Cormier seemed surprised to hear a few people calling out requests for songs. Yes, there are at least a few Americans who’ve caught onto Karkwa.
myspace.com/Karkwa
karkwa.com

December 5, 2011December 5, 2011

M. Ward at Schubas

One of the first times I saw M. Ward perform in concert was at Schubas. It was Feb. 25, 2005, and the opening acts included a band almost no one had heard of called Dr. Dog. Both performers have since gained considerable fame and acclaim, and gone on to play much bigger venues. So it was a real treat to see M. Ward back at Schubas on Sunday night (Dec. 4). Chicago got lucky with this gig. Ward played a charity gig in the Quad Cities, and played this one additional show, calling it his “Rock Island Line” tour.

One thing that made it special was the opening set, which featured longtime Ward sideman Mike Coykendall along with their mutual friend, singer-songwriter Carlos Forster. Forster has a new record out, Family Trees, which was recorded by Coykendall and produced by Ward, with Ward signing a duet with Forster on the song “Campfire Songs.” Coykendall and Forster are both nice singers in their own right, and they were joined by Ward for a few songs, giving the whole thing the feeling of a basement jam session by old friends.

That vibe carried on during the main set. As in many past gigs, Ward wore a hat, almost seeming to hide his eyes as he performed. As always, Ward’s guitar playing was excellent, showing his virtuosity without showing it off, and he casually reached over to plink a few notes on the piano at times. Along with Coykendall, the band included drummer Scott McPherson and Nashville pedal steel player/multi-instrumentalist Chris Scruggs. The superb but too short set (barely more than an hour) ranged from hushed acoustic folk to rollicking, old-style rock ‘n’ roll. Ward didn’t say anything about the first song he played, but it was a Howlin’ Wolf cover — maybe a tribute to Wolf’s guitarist, Hubert Sumlin, who had died earlier in the day?

SET LIST: Howlin’ for My Darlin’ (Howlin’ Wolf cover) / Poison Cup / Post-War / Chinese Translation / Paul’s Song / Vincent O’Brien / Cosmopolitan Pap / Fisher of Men / Bean Vine Blues #2 (John Fahey cover) / Whole Lotta Losin’ (Monsters of Folk song) / Rock Island Line (folk song cover) / Roll Over Beethoven (Chuck Berry cover) / ENCORE: Magic Trick / Campfire Songs (Carlos Forster vocals) / We All Gotta Go (Mike Coykendall vocals) / Never Had Nobody Like You / ENCORE 2: 100 Million Years (Ward solo acoustic)

December 5, 2011

Mannequin Men and Vee Dee

The two Chicago bands playing at the Hideout Saturday night have been around for a few years, but they’ve both just released self-titled records. Does putting out a self-titled record imply that this is the one that defines your sound? Maybe, maybe not. But for both of these bands, Mannequin Men and Vee Dee, these 2011 albums are good starting points for anyone who wants to get familiar with what they’re doing. And both bands rocked pretty hard on Saturday night. Vee Dee’s label, BLVD, describes its music as “scuzz rock.” There’s a good amount of riffing ’70s hard rock, verging on heavy metal, in this trio’s sound, mixed up with garage, punk, glam and, yeah, scuzz.

The Mannequin Men have been playing catchy garage rock (or post-punk or what have you) with deliciously sneering vocals over the course of three albums now, and the new self-titled one is their best set of melodies and riffs so far. There’s even a touch of wistfulness amid the bratty snarling — just a touch. Singer-guitarist Kevin Richard sings lead on most of the songs, but the band’s secret weapon is drummer Seth Bohn, who handled the main vocals on a few of the best tunes Saturday night. The guys sounded loose but never sloppy (it’s a fine line), nailing the riffs when they needed to be nailed.

November 10, 2011

Wooden Shjips at the Empty Bottle

Wooden Shjips headlined Saturday night (Nov. 5) at the Empty Bottle, and their set was all about getting into one mesmerizing groove after another — a sort of quasi-psychedelic, quasi-Krautrock with hard-edge riffs over a pounding pulse of bass. The band’s latest album, West, is its first for Thrill Jockey records. Saturday’s show also featured a tight and hard-rocking set by Birds of Avalon, who sounded almost proggy. And the first band of the night, another great HoZac label garage band called the People’s Temple, were pretty hard-rocking, too — once they got started. Their disorganized pauses between songs created a sense of impending musical disaster, but the songs were strong once things started clicking.

October 16, 2011October 16, 2011

Dum Dum Girls + Crocodiles

It’s pretty obvious by now that Girl Groups are back — and I don’t just mean rock bands with female singers and musicians. I mean bands that evoke the famous Girl Groups of the 1960s. Today’s Girl Groups tend to channel the sweetness of that sound through the loudness of garage rock, however. Dum Dum Girls are one of the finer practitioners of this sort of music, and the band put on a fine performance Friday night (Oct. 14) at Chicago’s Empty Bottle, with catchy vocals and crunchy guitar chords. The concert came with an excellent bonus: a thrilling and energetic opening set of shoegazy rock songs by Crocodiles. The main Dum Dum Girl, Dee Dee (aka Kristin Gundred), joined Crocodiles onstage for one stage, ending it by kissing Crocodiles singer Brandon Welchez (who happens to be her husband). The first performer of the night, Colleen Green, was a lo-fi amateur in comparison with what followed; pretty voice, but she needs an actual band.

September 22, 2011

The Raincoats at the Double Door

It’s hard to believe that the legendary punk (or post-punk?) band the Raincoats, which formed in the late ’70s, had never played in Chicago until Monday night (Sept. 19), when they headlined at the Double Door. Then again, this is one of those bands whose legend has grown over time, thanks largely to a famous fan, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, who sang the praises of the Raincoats and helped the band to revive its career.

Their reason for touring now and finally coming to Chicago was the re-release for their second album, 1981’s Odyshape, which is a prime example of what makes the Raincoats’ music so striking and unusual. That sound came through in their live show, too — which included songs from Odyshape as well as the Raincoats’ 1979 self-titled debut. The music does seem to form odd shapes, as the violin, guitar, bass and drum lines twitch around one another. The group always sounded a bit primitive and imperfect — thankfully, they didn’t fall into the hands of a producer who tried to smooth out all of the rough edges on those early albums. The current lineup of the band includes founding members Gina Birch and Ana da Silva, along with violinist Anne Wood and drummer Vice Cooler. In concert Monday, their music still sounded primal and peculiar.

September 21, 2011

The Necks at the Hungry Brain

Chicago’s Hungry Brain hosts improvisational music every Sunday — jazz and other hard-to-define sounds — with help from the Umbrella Music organization. It’s a quirky little venue that feels like a Beatnik’s living room grafted onto an old-fashioned bar. This past Sunday (Sept. 18) the Hungry Brain hosted a rare local appearance by the esteemed Australian band the Necks. This group sticks with a formula — album-length pieces of music that build from a quiet motif to layers of shimmering sound and then subside back to silence — but it’s a formula with infinite possibilities, after all. The two sets they played Sunday proved that. The Necks did it all with piano, upright bass and drums, a fairly standard jazz combo arrangement that yielded far from standard results. At times, the oscillating patterns of the three instruments sounded electronic or orchestral, despite the apparent lack of special effects.
thenecks.com

September 20, 2011

Charles Bradley at Brilliant Corners

Another one of the year’s standout records is No Time for Dreaming by Charles Bradley, a terrific soul singer in the style of James Brown who’s belatedly getting attention after decades of obscurity. Read his bio here: http://thecharlesbradley.com/#bio. Bradley’s been through a lot over the years, including the experience of grieving over his brother’s murder. He pours those experiences into his songs, and when he played Saturday (Sept. 18) at the Brilliant Corners festival, the songs were bursting with emotion. There were sexy songs, too, and Bradley danced with come-hither moves. And what a voice this guy has. Some of his soul shouts gave me chills.

He asked the crowd to listen to the words of the final song of the set, “Why Is It So Hard,” saying, “Listen to the lyrics and you’ll know the story of my life,” he said. “It’s taken you to bring me forward to do some good.” His feelings clearly came out of real experience as he belted the chorus, “Why is it so hard to make it in America?” As the curtain closed on the stage, Bradley jumped down and hugged everyone he could.

September 20, 2011

Bill Callahan at Brilliant Corners

Cryptic singer-songwriter Bill Callahan’s record Apocalypse is one of the year’s best, and his new songs sounded brilliant Friday night (Sept. 16) at the Brilliant Corners of Popular Amuseuments festival in Chicago. So did his older songs. Callahan’s two backing musicians fleshed out Callahan’s spare guitar playing without overwhelming it. Matt Kinsey’s electric guitar lines sounded like extensions of what Callahan was playing, integral and necessary parts of the melodies, as opposed to decorative layers. Neal Morgan’s drumming did more than keep the rhythm, adding colors to the sound, and intensifying the aggression in certain key moments. “We’re having a slightly better time with each song,” Callahan remarked midconcert, in his low-key manner. That indeed seemed to be the case.

Callahan’s lyrics are sometimes puzzling, inviting listeners to impose their own meanings. During one of the quirkiest songs on the new record, the anti-anthemic anthem “America!,” Callahan slipped into a bit of “Amazing Grace.” Callahan’s singing was understated, but he conveyed a great deal of melody in a few notes.

September 20, 2011

Brilliant Corners of Popular Amusements

A new festival made its debut in Chicago this past weekend: Brilliant Corners of Popular Amusements, which combined rock and world music with circus acts and a carnival in Eckhart Park. I was there Friday and Saturday. The festival is an interesting concept, and the music lineup was strong, but attendance was spotty. The chilly weather may have been partly to blame, as well as the admission prices: per night to see music, per circus act. Those aren’t exorbitantly high prices compared to many concerts, but they’re steeper than what people expect to pay for a street festival. And what about getting some interaction between the circus acts and the musicians?

I’ll post separate reviews and photo galleries for the two acts that were the main attractions for me: Bill Callahan on Friday night and Charles Bradley on Saturday. I also dug the Krautrock grooves of Chicago band CAVE, and Sidi Toure’s hypnotic African guitar music on Friday. On Saturday, A Hawk and a Hacksaw were another highlight, with their Balkan and Greek dance rhythms. The final band of the night Saturday was School of Seven Bells, who sounded all shiny and pretty but not terribly exciting, in my opinion. I missed Sunday’s part of the festival, though from the comments I saw on Twitter, it sounds like headliners Shellac drew a good crowd and Dan Deacon was his usual entertaining self.

September 13, 2011

Richard Thompson at Evanston Space

For a long time now, Richard Thompson has been one of the best singer-songwriter-guitarists around, and if you’ve ever seen him live, you’ll know that he’s also an affable raconteur with a charming personality and a quick wit. It was a great pleasure to see Thompson again on Monday night (Sept. 12) at Evanston Space, an intimate venue. And I was fortunate to get a chance to speak with Thompson earlier by phone, for an interview that appeared in Pioneer Press.

As always, Thompson made his guitar sing, often sounding like an entire band — or two or three guitars, anyway. When Thompson plays solo acoustic shows, such as this one, he shows just how much music one player can make with that instrument. It almost seems like magic when Thompson continues playing chords, bass lines or counter-melodies as he solos on top. He had only one guitar with him on the stage all night. It was all he needed.

Thompson played songs from throughout his career, going back to his early days in Fairport Convention for a tribute to Sandy Denny with “Who Knows Where the Time Goes.” (“It was a band of no great consequence,” he said. “We just invented folk rock. Well, bits of it.”) He also played songs from his years recording with his then-wife Linda, including “Down Where the Drunkards Roll” and “I Want to See the Bright Lights.” And Thompson played what I believe are two new songs, one that included the lines “Northern girls will gut you” and “In the dream I’m running,” and another with the line, “Good things happen to bad people.”

The dark, quiet songs were especially haunting: “The Ghost of You Walks” and the sinister “Hope You Like the New Me.” And Thompson’s classic song “Pharaoh” seemed more topical than ever. Introducing it, he said, “This is my song of financial paranoia. Join me. Wallow in it for a while.”

He played a few of the songs requested by audience members, including “Why Must I Plead?” and “Tear Stained Letter,” although he noted that he needed some help on that one, since he was lacking a band. Glancing around the stage and shrugging, he remarked, “I told the band, ‘9 o’clock. Heathrow…’” One side of the room sang the vocal harmonies and the other side struggled to duplicate the song’s sax section. After hearing the audience’s first attempt at singing, Thompson instructed us further: “Harmony. That’s when notes join in a pleasing manner.”

Although Thompson has no shortage of his own songs, he played a few covers, including Chuck Berry’s “Little Queenie.” Afterward, Thompson said being in Chicago inspired him to play it. “I didn’t want to play that song, but I could feel the pull, Chess Studio pulling me.” Later, just as I was thinking about shouting out a request for Frank Loesser’s song “Hamlet (Dog Eat Dog in Denmark),” which I’d heard Thompson play in concert before, he did it. And near the end of the set, he obliged when another audience member called out for his version of Britney Spears’ “Oops! I Did It Again” — a cover that started out as part of Thompson’s 1000 Years of Popular Music project. Yes, it’s a bit of a joke, but it’s also further proof that Thompson can play just about anything.

SET LIST:
Bathsheba Smiles
The Ghost of You Walks
Valerie
Northern Girls (new song?)
Johnny’s Far Away
Pharaoh
1952 Vincent Black Lightning
Little Queenie (Chuck Berry cover)
Who Knows Where the Time Goes?
I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight
Hope You Like the New Me
Good Things Happen to Bad People (new song?)
Why Must I Plead
Hamlet (Dog Eat Dog in Darkness) (Frank Loesser song)
Down Where the Drunkards Roll
Tear Stained Letter
Oops! I Did It Again (Britney Spears cover)
ENCORE 1:
Cooksferry Queen
Persuasion
ENCORE 2:
One Door Opens
Dimming of the Day

August 29, 2011

NRBQ at FitzGerald’s

NRBQ played a stupendously fun gig Saturday night (Aug. 27) at FitzGerald’s in Berwyn, but some folks are bound to wonder: Was this really, truly NRBQ? The legendary band was together for a good, long stretch of time, from 1967 until 2004. And now it’s back, but only one of the old-time NRBQ members, Terry Adams, is in the lineup. When Adams formed this newer band in 2007, at first he called it the Terry Adams Rock & Roll Quartet. Now, he’s decided just to call it NRBQ.

It’s essentially a new generation of NRBQ — a key member of the classic band making great music with three talented younger musicians, who are just about a perfect match with the old NRBQ vibe. And they’re not just playing the old NRBQ songs — they have an excellent new album, Keep This Love Goin’. (Order it at www.nrbq.com — and I received a copy straight from NRBQ headquarters in a brown envelope covered with about a dozen postage stamps.)

The lineup includes Scott Ligon, one of Chicago’s most stellar musicians, known for his work with Kelly Hogan and the Flat Five, among many other bands. (He was the subject of a wonderful 2007 cover story by Anne Ford in the Chicago Reader, “The Opposite of Selling Out: How a month of ‘Margaritaville’ and a bald man with a hair dryer convinced Scott Ligon to get serious about music.”) Ligon sings and plays guitar with NRBQ, handling lead vocals on many of the old songs as well as the new ones — including some that he either wrote or co-wrote. NRBQ is a terrific vehicle for Ligon’s talents and his obvious appreciation of a wide range of musical genres.

The new NRBQ also includes Austin, Texas, drummer Conrad Choucroun and Philadelphia bassist-singer Pete Donnelly, who’s also a member of the Figgs, and he’s contributing new songs as well.

Enthusiastic fans danced all night in front of the stage as Terry Adams made goofy faces and bounced around his keyboards. At one point, he even reached over to the accordion mounted on the FitzGerald’s wall next to the stage and pretended to play that. (Sorry, I missed getting a photo of that, alas.) There was no denying Adams’ youthful spirit.

Thankfully, NRBQ did not neglect its new record during the concert, playing plenty of those new songs, which range from rollicking old-fashioned boogie-woogie to Pet Sounds-esque chamber pop. During two long encores, NRBQ dug deeper into its catalog, playing oldies such as “Me and the Boys” “Wacky Tobacky,” “Captain Lou” and “Get Rhythm.” The audience would’ve gladly stayed for a third encore.

The Sanctified Grumblers opened the show with their distinctive washboard-rhythm old-timey blues. It was cool to see bassist Tom Ray supplementing the duo’s spare sound.

August 28, 2011

The War On Drugs at Schubas

It’s been almost three years since the Philadelphia band called The War On Drugs released a great record called Wagonwheel Blues and performed at Schubas. Since then, one musician from the band, Kurt Vile, has attracted some acclaim of his own (and he has more or less left The War On Drugs). Now, there’s finally a second album by The War On Drugs, Slave Ambient. And the band was back at Schubas Friday night (Aug. 26).

It was a four-piece band this time, compared to the stripped-down three-man lineup that played here in 2008. The sounder was fuller, sometimes positively dense. Led by singer-songwriter-guitarist Adam Granduciel, The War On Drugs essentially plays a sort of folk rock, but on the new album, it has a trippy, slightly psychedelic air wafting through it, as the dreamy songs run into one another. Live, that sound was cranked up, and Granduciel let himself get lost in reverb-drenched guitar solos. The new record’s nice, but the band hasn’t topped its excellent 2008 song “Arms Like Boulders,” which was a highlight of the set.

The first band of the night was Tammar from Bloomington, Indiana, who were also bathed in reverb, with barely decipherable vocals echoing inside the rhythms. The middle act on the lineup was Caveman, a Brooklyn band getting some attention lately. From what I heard, the band’s usual drummer was missing, but with two musicians banging the drums, there was certainly no lack of rhythm.

August 15, 2011

Finding music at Found Sound: Chicago

One of the summer’s most intriguing musical events in Chicago took place Saturday (Aug. 13). The venue? Various porches, backyards, storefronts and balconies scattered around the West Town and Ukrainian Village neighborhoods. This was Found Sound: Chicago, billed as “a series of intimate music & audio art performances.” I wasn’t able to see it all, but I did catch the first three performances of the day.

At 1 p.m., the musician-artist Steve Krakow, aka Plastic Crimewave, was sitting out on his front porch on Winchester with a banjo, an amp, various effects pedals and an extension cord running up to a window a couple of stories higher. Some people, maybe 20 or so, wandered up and sat down near the sidewalk or stood nearby as Krakow created a droning wash of sound, sometimes tapping the body of his banjo, sometimes plucking or bowing it. A few passersby who didn’t appear to know what Found Sound was all about paused to listen and watch.

Half an hour later, many of the people attending this performance walked a few blocks to a backyard, where the Lawrence Peters Outfit played some nicely old-fashioned country songs, including originals that Peters wrote for his band’s brand-new debut album, What You Been Missin’. The sunny day turned dark and cloudy as Peters played, and as a rainstorm loomed and the wind started to toss around the overhead power lines, Peters played an appropriate tune, the lovely and understated closing track from his CD, “The Wind.”

By the time when the third act of the day, Mark Booth, began his performance inside the Corbett vs. Dempsey art gallery, it was pouring rain outside. Some hail even tinkled against the windows. Booth used a laptop to create a sound collage that began with the antique sounds of a gramophone and melted into a variety of creaks, buzzes and hums.

What did I miss the rest of the day? Performances by Heartichoke, Andy Slater, the meme, Matthew Hale Clark, Piss Piss Piss Moan Moan and Shearing Pinx, and Judson Claiborne. Kudos to Penny Duff and Michale Slaboch for creating Found Sound. Wouldn’t it be cool if this sort of thing happened on a regular basis in places around the city?

Here’s a video from the Found Sound: Chicago website with some of the days highlights:

Found Sound: Chicago | August 13th, 2011 from Found Sound: Chicago on Vimeo.

August 10, 2011

My Brightest Diamond at Millennium Park

My Brightest Diamond, aka Shara Worden, deftly bridges the realms of indie rock and classical music. She once aspired to be an opera singer, and her formal training shows in her spectacular vocals. She also studied composition, and that shows in the sophistication of what she writes and plays. She’s one rock performer who really deserves to have an orchestra playing behind her, at least on special occasions, so it was wonderful that she got the chance on Monday, Aug. 8, to play at Millennium Park’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion with fully symphonic accompaniment by the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras.

How beautiful it was to hear the concert begin with the opening notes of “Dragonfly” from My Brightest Diamond’s 2006 debut album, Bring Me the Workhorse — those swooping, sweeping violins. The concert was filled with terrific moments like that as Worden and the young musicians played songs from My Brightest Diamond’s first two records and the new one, All Things Unwind, which comes out Oct. 18 on Asthmatic Kitty. CYSO faculty member Brian Baxter took Worden’s arrangements for six instruments and expanded them into full orchestral scores.

And this was not the sort of staid or restrained performance one might expect in the classical context. Worden, wearing a striking silver-and-black-checked dress, danced with glee and made grandiose gestures as she sang, playing guitar, ukulele, thumb piano and autoharp at various times.

Worden introduced some of her songs with stories, and she even told a children’s story of sorts as she explained how one of her new songs was inspired by the 1871 book At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald.

She said another new song was inspired by seeing Laurie Anderson in concert. The day after the concert, Worden met Anderson, who told her, “Maybe it takes more than a lifetime to learn how to love.” Worden took that line and wrote the song around it.

The weather was lousy for this outdoor concert, with rain pouring down at a few points, but it was dry enough under the pavilion near the stage. During one song, Worden injected some ad-lib lyrics: “Sh-sh-sh-Chicago, we don’t care if it’s raining.”

While watching all of this, I had to wonder whether any of the high school musicians in the orchestra were taking any special inspiration from the experience of working with Worden. She’s a great role model for anyone (but especially girls) who want to find their own musical path.

The concert was part of Millennium Park’s “Dusk Variations” series, which focuses on “music mixing pop and alternative genres with classical music.” Still to come: Rasputina on Aug. 15 and Chicago Counterpoint: A Steve Reich Celebration on Aug. 22.
mybrightestdiamond.com
cyso.org

August 9, 2011

Iceage, Metz and Anatomy of Habit

Thanks in part to a rave review on Pitchfork, the Danish band Iceage is getting some buzz. These very young noise-punk-rockers from Copenhagen played Sunday night (Aug. 7) at the Empty Bottle. Do they live up to the hype? Well, it was a pretty lively show, especially the second half of the set, when some fans started stage-diving and moshing — or was that just shoving? It’s hard to tell the difference sometimes. At the end, singer Elias Rønnenfelt leaned into the crowd and looked like he might start pushing around some people himself. How were the songs? Just OK — the energy was good, but what the vocal melodies often got lost. myspace.com/egaeci

In fact, both of the opening acts on Sunday were more impressive than Iceage. The Toronto group Metz pummeled everyone in the room with tight, loud riffs that never wasted a note, driven forward by some inventive drumming, many of the songs stopping on a dime. myspace.com/metztheband

The second band of the night was Chicago’s Anatomy of Habit, who deliver epic songs with so much drama that it feels almost like performance art or some sort of ritual. Singer Mark Solotroff dominated the stage, intoning the words in a goth baritone, but the two-song climaxed with the hammering, clanking sounds of the two drummers. (Actual chains were involved.) anatomyofhabit.bandcamp.com

August 6, 2011August 6, 2011

The Last Straw returns

One of the bands that introduced me to alt-country — or whatever you want to call old-fashioned acoustic American string music — is a group that barely anyone has heard of: The Last Straw. Who, you ask? Well, it was sometime around 1988 or 1989 when I recall hearing Paul Budin of the Champaign rock band the Outnumbered saying something about how he was starting a new band that was going to play country music. (Full disclosure: Paul is a good friend of mine.) I graduated from college around this time, and I despised most of the country music I’d heard, which was mostly 1980s mainstream Nashville stuff. But I’d recently been struck by the greatness of At Folsom Prison when I heard it on the stereo in a campus bar called Eddie’s, as if hearing Johnny Cash for the first time. It would be a few years before I discovered Uncle Tupelo, who were just starting around this time. So I recall my reaction to what Paul said about starting a country band: Huh?

The Last Straw (who also featured another member of the Outnumbered, the very talented guitarist Tim McKeage) played a good number of gigs in Champaign, Chicago and elsewhere in the early ’90s, and I saw them several times at the Clearwater Saloon and the Heartland Cafe. They quickly made me a fan of the older sort of country music played by the likes of Hank Williams and the bluegrass of Bill Monroe. With their combination of guitar, fiddle and banjo, they helped me to see all the charms of this music. They released a couple of cassette tapes … and then they faded away. I think they were a few years ahead of their time. If they’d still been around when O Brother Where Art Thou spurred a revival of old-timey music, maybe the Last Straw would’ve gained more recognition.

Last Saturday (July 30), the Last Straw reunited for their first show in a long time — a one-time show organized by Budin at the Highdive in Champaign. And what a fine concert it was — some two hours of rollicking and tuneful original songs as well as the group’s favorite covers, all drawn from a rather big repertoire for a band whose recordings you can barely find anywhere. (The Last Straw was selling a new two-CD collection at the merch table, combining those early ’90s cassettes with a bunch of outtakes and live recordings, but it isn’t commercially available. Parasol Records has one 45 by the Last Straw in stock.)

For this show, the lineup included Budin, McKeage, Karen Lee Larson. Louis Yockey, Alton Patches and Thad Bales. The set included several songs written by drummer/guitarist/singer Matt Quirk, who was unable to attend, but the Last Straw recruited Brian Reedy, known for his inventive work with Lonely Trailer, to sit in on drums.

This gig was part of a weekend celebrating an old Champaign folk and jazz venue, Nature’s Table. The opening set was a sort of variety show, featuring a couple of songs each from Eric Fields, Jeff Barnet, Jeff Michel, Rick Schattnik, Emil Boulos and … Jack Logan?!? Yes, the great singer-songwriter Jack Logan, who hasn’t toured in ages, made the trip from his home in Georgia to see this gig and perform a couple of songs, backed by Budin and Reedy. Logan told me later: “I had a blast with Paul and his cohorts… I will drive any distance to experience Brian Reedy playing drums on ‘Shrunken Head.'” Now, if we could just get Logan to do a proper tour. (He told me he’s recording new songs, but it didn’t sound like he plans to tour anytime soon.) Come back, Jack Logan!

July 27, 2011

Ted Leo at Millennium Park

Millennium Park’s Monday-night rock concert series, “Downtown Sound,” wrapped up on July 25 with a show by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists — but it’s hardly the end of this summer’s music at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. The “Made in Chicago” jazz series begins Thursday, while the “Lunchbreak Music Series” and Grant Park Music Festival continue. And Monday nights will shift to the “Dusk Variations” theme next week — experimental classical music mixed with electronica, folk, rock and the avant-garde — including a must-see performance Aug. 8 by My Brightest Diamond. Check out the schedules here.

Like some of the other concerts at Pritzker, Monday’s featured a somewhat odd pairing of headline band and opening act. Ted Leo is a real rocker, while opener Rachel Ries is more of a troubadour type. Pritzker’s concert bookings can make for some unusual contrasts, but it’s rather cool to see this sort of diversity on the same stage in the same night. Ries (until recently, a Chicago resident) played a nice set of folk rock songs with a jazzy tinge. And then Leo and his Pharmacists treated the crowd to a complete performance of his first album from a decade ago, The Tyranny of Distance, preceded by several songs from his other records. Leo was playing with an injured knee, and he apologized for not being to jump around quite as much as usual, but it didn’t stop him from singing and playing those guitar chords with sweaty vigor.

July 25, 2011

Thee Oh Sees at Logan Square

As I said last month, the Illinois Centennial Monument in Logan Square is a pretty cool place to see a concert. The Empty Bottle’s series of free concerts at this lovely little picnic spot continued Sunday (July 24) with the great psychedelic garage rock band, Thee Oh Sees. Like last year’s show at Lincoln Hall, this one featured one catchy riff after another as well as some longer jams — and this time, the band had two drummers. The band played right in front of Logan Square’s tall monument with the eagle on top, and fans climbed into every available space around Thee Oh Sees, dancing and singing along.
myspace.com/ohsees

The well-chosen opening act was Chicago band Football, which includes members of various other local bands such as the Ponys, Baseball Furies, Hot Machines, Tight Phantomz, France Has the Bomb and A/V Murder. The guys were all wearing white Indian-style outfits (apparently purchased on Devon Avenue, if I heard right), and they sang indecipherable but head-bopping songs for 20 or 30 minutes, stomping and leaping with glee.
Football’s facebook page

July 24, 2011July 24, 2011

Wild Flag at Wicker Park Fest

A band with two members of the late, great Sleater-Kinney (Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss)? Plus Mary Timony of Helium and Rebecca Cole of Minders? Where do I sign up? This was definitely a band I wanted to hear, and it’s understandable why their forthcoming debut is one of the year’s most anticipated albums — among us indie-rock fans, anyway. Wild Flag delivered on the promise Saturday night (July 23) with a headlining set of top-notch rock ‘n’ roll at Wicker Park Fest, playing what must be all of their songs with the same sort of energy and excitement I came to expect from Sleater-Kinney. And then they closed out the night with an encore consisting of two covers: the Rolling Stones’ “Beast of Burden” and Patti Smith’s “Ask the Angels.” That one broke down midsong, as Timony and Cole veered off into two different keys. The band stopped. Brownstein said, “Rock ‘n’ roll isn’t perfect. I don’t give a shit.” And then, after Brownstein acted out a scene of encouragement, channeling the coach on “Friday Night Lights,” the band played the song over again — sounding even more raw, but this time, in tune.

July 19, 2011March 5, 2018

Pitchfork: More photos

One last gallery of photos from the 2011 Pitchfork Music Festival.

Street musician Jeff Austin, outside the park

More Pitchfork Music Festival 2011 coverage: Day One Photos / Day One Review / Day Two Photos / Day Two Review / Day Three Photos / Day Three Review / Photos for WBEZ

July 18, 2011July 31, 2011

Pitchfork Day Three: Review

The big story of the 2011 Pitchfork Music Festival was Sunday’s performance by the hip-hop group Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (also known as Odd Future or OFWGKTA). Pitchfork’s decision to book this outfit sparked controversy, since Odd Future’s lyrics are pretty much a nonstop barrage of misogyny and violence. But hey, it’s got a good beat, right? During its midafternoon show, Odd Future delivered exactly what its fans were hoping for and its critics were lamenting. Band members jumped off the stage into the arms (or onto the heads) of their fans in the mosh pit … who were lifting their middle fingers into the air and crowd-surfing with reckless abandon. One person after another got pulled out of the crowd by the security staff (and kudos to those guys for dealing so well with a difficult and potentially dangerous situation). The audience sang and rapped along with a good many swear words and chants about killing police and causing various other sorts of mayhem. Most of the crowd seemed to be having a great time (although there must’ve been some people unhappy about getting crushed), and it’s doubtful many of them will go out today and do any of the bad stuff Odd Future was singing about. It all made for an exciting spectacle, but if you paused for two seconds to think about the foul lyrics, it was also unsettling.

Odd Future grabbed the most attention on Sunday, but the musical highlights for me were the Fresh & Onlys, Yuck, Kurt Vile and the Violators, Superchunk, Deerhunter, HEALTH and TV on the Radio. As for the other bands, I either didn’t hear enough to weigh in with much of an opinion (see: Darkstar, How to Dress Well, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti) or it just wasn’t my cup of tea (see: Baths, Toro Y Moi, Cut Copy).

For that matter, I must confess that I was able to catch only a couple of songs by HEALTH before I had to hurry over to the line for the TV on the Radio photo pit, so I can’t really review that set, but what I did see was damn impressive, full of energy and creativity.

I’ve seen some folks remarking that Yuck’s performance fell flat for them, but I loved hearing the loopy guitar riffs and catchy vocal melodies from Yuck’s self-titled debut album (one of the year’s best) lifting up into the hot summer air. The band is still a little bit lacking as far as looking engaged onstage, but they’ve loosened up a bit since they played at Lincoln Hall this spring.

Superchunk was in no need of loosening up — when they played last year at the Taste of Randolph, singer-guitarist Mac McCaughan bounced around and jumped all night. He was at it again at Pitchfork, and if anything, bassist Laura Ballance was even more jumpy as the band cheerfully pounded out one great power-pop tune after another.

Kurt Vile can sound like a folk-rocker, with some touches of Bob Dylan in the way he writes and sings, but when he’s backed by his band, the Violators, the music has more of a droning, almost garage-rock edge to it, and that blend sounded wonderful Sunday afternoon, as the wind whipped around Vile’s long mane of brown hair.

Deerhunter also delivered a solid performance (some of which I missed, alas). The band seems to be getting even better than it was when it made its debut at Pitchfork a few years ago, and the songs from last year’s Halcyon Digest album rang out strong and clear.

Before the headline shows each night of the festival, photographers were required to line up near the press entrance on the northwest corner of the park. On Saturday, around the corner from where we were standing, I heard a drummer on the sidewalk, just out of view, playing some jumping, jazzy rhythms. On Sunday night, he was playing outside the park again, but this time I got a chance to see him and drop a dollar in his basket. His name’s Jeff Austin, and his talent and inventiveness as a drummer were immediately clear. “You should be playing in there,” I told him, pointing to the park. “I’m working on it,” he said.

TV on the Radio fit the profile for a Pitchfork Fest headliner: a band with lots of critical cred as well as a big fan base. The group’s most recent album, Nine Types of Light, is somewhat lackluster, but the band still sounded vibrant in concert Sunday night, especially when it stuck with the bolder and more uptempo songs from earlier records. “Wolf Like Me” got the crowd moving and singing along, as you’d expect, and then the Pitchfork fans responded enthusiastically when TV on the Radio offered an unexpected cover of Fugazi’s “Waiting Room.” As one of today’s bands paid tribute to an older generation, it felt like a fitting end to another Pitchfork Music Festival.

More Pitchfork Music Festival 2011 coverage: Day One Photos / Day One Review / Day Two Photos / Day Two Review / Day Three Photos / More Photos / Photos for WBEZ

July 18, 2011July 31, 2011

Pitchfork Day Three Photos

My photos from Day Three of the 2011 Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago’s Union Park (Sunday, July 17).

More Pitchfork Music Festival 2011 coverage: Day One Photos / Day One Review / Day Two Photos / Day Two Review / Day Three Review / More Photos / Photos for WBEZ

July 17, 2011July 31, 2011

Pitchfork Day Two: Review

The 2011 Pitchfork Music Festival ran the musical gamut — from the softest and prettiest music to the loudest and most aggressive. And sometimes, the contrasting musical styles could be heard simultaneously, thanks to the sound bleed of noise from one stage wafting through the hot summer air to the other end of the park.

As the day began, the hip-hop of Crissy Murderbot and MC Zulu intruded on the lovely harmonies of one-woman choir Julianna Barwick. Thankfully, if you were close enough to the “Green” stage, Barwick’s sublime voice overpowered everything else, as she used looping to build so many layers of vocals — it was hard to tell at time if it was four parts of harmony or 25. It was a beautiful benediction of sorts to begin the day with.

Other highlights Saturday included the early-afternoon set by Woods, who have released three strong albums in as many years. The latest record, Sun and Shade, features a few longer jams and even some Krautrock-style beats — and the band offered up all of that during its Pitchfork performance. Singer-guitarist Jeremy Earl sounded vulnerable with his appealingly warbly falsetto, while G. Lucas Crane, as usual, sang into a headset and manipulated sounds from tapes to add psychedelic touches to the mix. (It’s hard to tell exactly what he is doing or contributing to the band just from watching him, but he seems to be a key player in making it all work.) Woods’ folkier songs sounded nice, but the bigger jams were the best, with the guitar/tape/whatever solos shimmering out across the park.

No Age’s pummeling punk rock (also using some tape effects) got the audience at the “Red” stage revved up — lots of people seemed to be throwing their water instead of drinking it.

Also on the noisy end of the Pitchfork spectrum, the band Off! (a sort of punk-rock supergroup with members from the Circle Jerks, Burning Brides, Red Kross and Rocket From the Crypt) played punk of a more old-school variety — you could actually hear some melodies hidden inside the growls — generating a similarly raucous response, including some crowd surfing. As singer Keith Morris remarked before the set, “We are going to bring a different flavor to the party.”

The band Destroyer inspires either love or hate reactions, and that was true of its set Saturday at Pitchfork. I like Destroyer frontman Dan Bejar’s contributions to the New Pornographers well enough, but his nasal, affected vocals put me off. Bejar’s fans insist there’s some real genius in his songwriting, but I’m just not hearing it. And Destroyer’s latest incarnation, with lots of soft-rock trumpet and sax, was particularly annoying.

The reunited Dismemberment Plan was buoyant, practically giddy, during its set. The guys certainly looked like they were having a good time playing their old songs. When they stuck with the more straightforward post-punk rock, with clean guitar lines, it sounded pretty good, too. The band’s forays into hip-hop and dance music were less successful.

I was peripatetic at Pitchfork on Saturday, running from one stage to the next and trying to get photos of everyone. I wish I’d seen more of the set by Zola Jesus, who completely dominated her stage. When I saw her two years ago at the Wire Fest at the Empty Bottle, she was an intense performer, but much more contained. (Here’s a photo of her from that show.) This time, she was striding the stage in a outlandishly frilly dress and singing with force.

DJ Shadow began his set by climbing into a giant golf ball and then staying inside it for a good 20 minutes or so, with nothing apparently happening on the stage… just a scintillating musical mash emanating from inside the ball. At least, we think it was emanating from inside the ball. The problem was that he was scheduled to play at an hour when the sun was still up, so the video projections onto the sphere were almost completely invisible. After a while, the ball spun around, revealing an opening on the other side, where DJ Shadow was sitting with his equipment. He asked if anyone had been able to see any of the projections, seeming disappointed that the environment wasn’t working for the show he’d planned. He continued to play an inventive mix, but the lack of visuals was a big minus.

Fleet Foxes turned out to be an excellent act to finish the night. They’re a pretty mellow band for that headlining spot, but their smartly composed folk rock and art-rock suites had a lively, spry feel, and the audience clearly included a lot of people intimately familiar with these songs. Cigarette lighters were lofted. Up-raised hands swayed. Some people even danced. On their second album, Helplessness Blues, Fleet Foxes has gone almost baroque with complexity on some of its songs, and the band’s interplay on mostly acoustic instruments was as dead-on as the vocal harmonizing. A little too mainstream for Pitchfork? Maybe, but the music was some of the best heard all day.

More Pitchfork Music Festival 2011 coverage: Day One Photos / Day One Review / Day Two Photos / Day Three Photos / Day Three Review / More Photos / Photos for WBEZ

July 17, 2011July 31, 2011

Pitchfork Day Two Photos

My photos from Day Two (Saturday, July 16) of the 2011 Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago’s Union Park.

More Pitchfork Music Festival 2011 coverage: Day One Photos / Day One Review / Day Two Review / Day Three Photos / Day Three Review / More Photos / Photos for WBEZ

July 16, 2011July 31, 2011

Pitchfork Day One Review

This year’s Pitchfork Music Festival includes some reruns from previous year’s editions — such as Friday’s headliner, Animal Collective — as well as the usual smattering of new acts that have received the Pitchfork website’s stamp of approval. It’s a reasonably diverse lineup and considerably more interesting than what’s coming up later this summer at the other big summer fest in Chicago, Lollapalooza.

In some previous years, the fest’s first day featured a theme, such as bands performing albums in their entirety or playing songs requested online by fans. This time, it was just a Friday full of music, with the show starting mid-afternoon. EMA (aka Erika M. Anderson, former member of the Gowns) got things off to a good start with her band’s set, which built from quiet verses to louder moments — not loud choruses or solos, so much as instrumental passages when the volume of the guitars and violin and drums went up, with Anderson showing a wakening sense of urgency, lifting up her guitar or kicking. For her last song, “California,” she put down her guitar and chanted to the crowd, almost like Velvet Underground-style spoken word, to dark, doomy string accompaniment. It was an odd mismatch with the rest of EMA’s music.

Tune-Yards (aka Merrill Garbus) was one of the day’s highlights, agilely reconstructing the complex, quirky layers of her studio recordings with assistance from three backup musicians, some looping pedals, a ukulele and her strong, brassy voice. Her latest album, W H O K I L L, has been praised by some critics as one of the year’s best records. As a live act, Garbus seemed like she was having a lot of fun. Making that complicated music wasn’t work for her — just a cool game. Her face often took on the intense look of someone screaming in anger, but then she would flash a disarming smile. And when the clattering percussion cut out in some passages, allowing her voice to come through almost a cappella, you could feel its strength.

In one of the scheduling conflicts that can drive music fans crazy, Tune-Yards was playing at the same time as Battles was across the park; I caught some of each set. Battles seems to have survived the departure of its multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Tyondai Braxton just fine. The emphasis was still on tricky time signatures, a sort of indie-rock version of math rock.

Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, who recently released a mostly acoustic and mostly mellow album, Demolished Thoughts, played a, yes, acoustic and mellow set of his solo music. “You guys want to hear songs about rape, incest and carnage?” he asked sarcastically just before playing alongside a harp and a violinist. “We’ll do the best we can.” If anything, Moore’s set was a little too lulling for the festival scene, but it’s a fascinating musical exercise to hear the sort of droning chords and alternate tunings he plays with Sonic Youth with all of the noise stripped away. Some of the songs feature just a small smattering of vocals, more like haiku than typical rock lyrics.

The reunited “classic” lineup of Guided By Voices — that is, to say, the version of the band that played on classic records such as Bee Thousand — played a set of greatest hits mostly from that era. Neko Case joined the band on harmony vocals on the first song of the set, “Echos Myron.” Robert Pollard already seemed to be fairly sloshed as the band began playing — although I heard another GBV fan remark that he seemed less drunk than usual. Either way, he was right on target with his singing of all those fantastic lyrics, even if he wasn’t at his sharpest with the kicks and jumps and microphone twirls. This lineup of GBV is apparently going back into retirement soon, but Pollard continues to be prolific with solo albums and other projects. And it will be a surprise if GBV doesn’t surface again in some form. Friday’s made a good case for keeping the band going until the end of the universe.

With her usual casual and unassuming air, Neko Case beautifully sang a strong set of songs, mostly drawn from her last couple of albums, plus a couple of new ones. Judging from that evidence, it doesn’t sound as if she’s going to make any dramatic change in her style of music on her next record — which is perfectly fine, considering how staggeringly great her last couple of albums have been, proving that she’s not just a fabulous singer but also a true poet of musical and lyrical form. Case’s band and harmony vocalist Kelly Hogan know exactly how to provide the perfect accompaniment for her. It was not only a joy to hear Case’s and Hogan’s voices blending, but also the way Jon Rauhouse’s pedal steel guitar sounds like a plaintive human cry, a third voice entering into the harmony.

And then came the headliner, Animal Collective. This band has played some interesting music over the years, and its 2008 performance at Pitchfork wasn’t bad. As I noted back then: “Nice trance vibe, though I wish it had taken off into higher realms.” This year, Animal Collective’s attempts at creating a trippy ambience just fell flat. The psychedelic visuals on the big video screens failed to distract from the fact that the songs had taken on an almost grating edge.

More Pitchfork Music Festival 2011 coverage: Day One Photos / Day Two Photos / Day Two Review / Day Three Photos / Day Three Review / More Photos / Photos for WBEZ

July 16, 2011July 31, 2011

Pitchfork Day One Photos

My photos from the first day of the 2011 Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago’s Union Park (Friday, July 15).

Neko Case band (Jon Rauhouse and Paul RIgby)

More Pitchfork Music Festival 2011 coverage: Day One Review / Day Two Photos / Day Two Review / Day Three Photos / Day Three Review / More Photos / Photos for WBEZ

July 8, 2011July 8, 2011

The Flaming Lips revisit ‘The Soft Bulletin’

When an artist makes an album as good as the Flaming Lips’ 1999 masterpiece, The Soft Bulletin, you long to see an equally fabulous concert of that music — or dare one hope for a concert that somehow even surpasses the recordings you’ve come to love so much? Unfortunately, when the Flaming Lips played at Chicago’s Metro on July 17, 1999, the concert did not live up to the album. Sure, it was a night with an interesting and creative concept — a headphone concert, with the music on stage being transmitted by radio signal to headphones worn by each audience member. But the headphones didn’t end up providing an aural experience all that much different from the usual sound of a concert filling a room, and the band was struggling to figure out how to play its latest and lushest music in concert. At that point, the Lips had been reduced to just three band members, at a time when the arrangements were becoming more elaborate and layered. The band tried to pull it off live by using a lot of recorded background tracks, and it came off at times like a karaoke version of The Soft Bulletin.

In the years after that, the Flaming Lips transformed their live shows into confetti-filled circuses — an unlikely turn of events for a band that spent many years as a scruffy small-label band barely noticed by anyone. The Flaming Lips somehow became the band that knew how to put on a ridiculously fun party of a concert. In fact, after a while, the Lips started to feel like they were in a rut. Sure, it’s a blast to see people dancing around in alien and Santa costumes while Wayne Coyne cruises on top of the audience inside a plastic bubble, but how many times do you need to see that? And while the Lips fell into this routine, they largely ignored many of the great compositions they’d recorded on The Soft Bulletin.

And so, it was exciting to hear that the Flaming Lips had decided to play the entirety of The Soft Bulletin from beginning to end — including a show Thursday night (July 7) at the Aragon in Chicago. Now that the Lips are supplemented on tour with three extra musicians, they don’t have the same problems they did back in 1999 duplicating this music onstage. And finally! To hear the Lips play some of the wonderful songs they’ve been leaving out of their concert repertoire for too long — what a joy.

The show still fell short of the perfect Soft Bulletin concert I had summoned in my imagination. One flaw was that Wayne Coyne just talks too much. If he were more succinct and didn’t ramble so much between songs, it would improve the pacing. Still, it has to be said that his introductions to songs such as “The Spiderbite Song” and “Waitin’ For a Superman” — explanations of the personal stories and thoughts that went into the songs — gave them more emotional depth. Introducing “Superman,” Coyne summed up the theme of the whole album: “Knowing the wold can be full of pain, and what are we going to do about it? We sing songs.”

In some ways, this looked and felt like a typical Flaming Lips concert extravaganza, launching with Coyne in his bubble, along with confetti, balloons and smoke filling the air as the audience clapped and danced. The party vibe was infectious, but it didn’t always fit the dark-tinged and quieter musical passages. It was a relief when Coyne encouraged the remaining balloons to be popped before he sang “The Spiderbite Song,” sobering up the atmosphere a little bit. And as always, the Aragon provided muddy, echoing acoustics, not ideal to hear all of the nuances.

Those flaws aside, it was magnificent to hear songs such as “The Spark That Bled” — expertly arranged art-rock suites with haunting lyrics — played in their full glory. “Waitin’ for a Superman” was quiet and stirring, just Coyne singing as Steven Drozd played piano. At this moment, when I didn’t expect it, I found myself tearing up.

In an odd way, the bridge of “The Gash” — or is it a chorus? — feels like the climax of the whole album. It’s one of those rare pieces of songwriting that shows restraint, offering a catchy, soaring musical moment and then failing to repeat it. (This is one of the key questions of songwriting: How often do you repeat something, how many times to do play it over and over, hoping it’ll catch the listener’s ear?) Drozd sang lead vocals on most of this dense song, but Coyne returned to the mic for those cathartic few lines: “Will the fight for our sanity/Be the fight of our lives?/Now that we’ve lost all the reasons/That we thought that we had.”

That was followed by an equally moving performance of “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate,” which Coyne said was the song he was most reluctant to play. It still apparently stirs some raw emotions for him, and you could feel it in this performance. (In his introductory remarks to the audience before the concert, Coyne had said of the album: “It’s still kind of fresh. It’s kind of nerve-racking and all that stuff.”) The closing instrumental track, “Sleeping on the Roof,” ended with Coyne leaning into a footlight and making an atonal electronic buzz.

Appropriately enough, the first encore was a couple of songs from another big album, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon: “Brain Damage” and “Eclipse.” There’s definitely some Floyd in what the Lips were doing on The Soft Bulletin, and the band played a strong version of these Floyd songs. The second and final encore was “Do You Realize?” The confetti cannons were firing full-blast once again. I saw a woman crying.

July 4, 2011July 4, 2011

Centro-Matic at Schubas

At a few of the recent concerts I’ve seen, good performances have been followed by rather tepid applause. Audiences seemed bored or too lazy or maybe too tired because of the late hour to clap loudly enough to demand an encore. This was not the case Sunday night (July 3) when Centro-Matic played at Schubas. The crowd was loud, sounding very glad indeed to hear this band from Denton, Texas, playing in Chicago for the first time in a couple of years. There was no doubt that these fans wanted to hear an encore, and they got it. (Actually, they got two encores.)

Centro-Matic recently released a album, Candidate Waltz, and the set featured a few of the new songs, including the standout track, “Only in My Double Mind,” which has all of the qualities of a trademark Centro anthem: ringing chords, a thumping beat and Will Johnson’s distinctive, slightly creaky vocals — all that, with a soaring chorus and lots of “ahhs.”

Of course, Centro-Matic also played some of its staple songs, including several tracks from the 2003 album that remains one of its best, Love You Just the Same. And the band dug out two songs from its very first album, 1996’s lo-fi Redo the Stacks, “Rock and Roll Eyes” and “Am I the Manager Or Am I Not?” And Centro-Matic can also be counted on to play a quirky cover, and this time, it was Lionel Ritchie’s “All Night Long.” Through it all, Johnson kicked up his legs as he played guitar while his longtime bandmates — Matt Pence, Scott Danbom and Mark Hedman — gave the music both driving force and subtle shades. It was yet another triumphant show for one of indie rock’s most dependable bands, with a pretty nice opening set by Sarah Jaffe.

www.centro-matic.com
myspace.com/centromatic

July 4, 2011

Bill Fox at Uncommon Ground

Four years ago, The Believer published a remarkable article by Joe Hagan in its annual music issue about a singer-songwriter I’d never heard of: Bill Fox. And the magazine came with a CD featuring a beautiful song by Fox, “My Baby Crying.” Fox gave up playing music after releasing two albums of folk rock, Shelter From the Smoke (1997) and Transit Byzantium (1998). Before that, he’d played scrappy garage power pop in the 1980s in the Mice, who had one of their songs, “Bye Bye Kitty Cat,” covered by Superchunk. Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices was a Mice fan, as it’s easy to see why.

But by the time Hagan wrote his loving ode to Fox’s music in 2007, Fox didn’t even own a guitar. Fox, who has struggled in the past with manic depression, was working as a telemarketer. He declined to be interviewed. One of Fox’s friends relayed his reaction to the reporter: “Man, I don’t want to be on the internet.” Out of respect for Fox’s wishes, The Believer did not put its article about Fox online. However, it is on Hagan’s website here. According to Hagan, Fox’s brother, Tommy, described him as “a crabby loner and contrarian who barely makes ends meet and refuses to talk about his music with anyone, especially a reporter.”

It was a fascinating, poignant story, and as I soon discovered, Fox’s music was great, too — with touches of Bob Dylan and other classic folk musicians, along with the acoustic sides of Big Star and Guided By Voices, but more than anything, just heartfelt, well crafted melodic songs. (You can hear some of his songs on this myspace page.) Since The Believer article was published, Fox has begun playing a few shows now and then. Unbeknownst to me (or practically anyone) he came to Chicago in 2009 for a performance at Quenchers. And this past Saturday (July 2), he was back, playing in front of an appreciative audience filling a small room, Uncommon Ground on Devon Avenue.

Given what I’d read about Fox, I was both eager and a little apprehensive about seeing him in concert. I hoped for a triumphant return by a singer rediscovering his love for music and his fans. I feared … I’m not sure what, but something going awry. There did not turn out to be much drama — just a guy with an acoustic guitar, playing some excellent songs. I believe a few of them were either new songs or old ones he never released, but he also played some of his most memorable tunes, including “Get Your Workingman’s Things,” “Let in the Sun,” “Over and Away She Goes” and “Lonesome Pine.” After playing for a little under an hour, Fox left the stage. The crowd clearly wanted an encore, but that was all Fox was going to play on this night. I hope to see him again.

Kudos to Chicago singer-songwriter Dan Phillips, who performs under the name Zapruder Point, and who helped to bring Fox to Chicago as part of this show. Zapruder Point was originally scheduled as the headliner, but switched places in the lineup, opening for Fox with a nice set of his own songs. (His music can be heard on Bandcamp.)

June 28, 2011June 28, 2011

Low and Glen Hansard at Millennium Park

The free concert Monday evening (June 27) at Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion was one of those shows that had you wondering: Who’s everyone here to see, the headline or the opening act? I was there for the headliner, Low, who have a terrific new album out, C’mon, and put on a great show back in April at Lincoln Hall. The fact that Glen Hansard was opening seemed like a nice bonus. But clearly Hansard, the lead singer of the Frames and one-half of the Swell Season duo that gained fame and fans in the film Once, drew a large contingent of concertgoers Monday. His modest acoustic songs were pleasant enough, and Hansard threw himself into some of the songs with an almost startling intensity — including a cover of Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks.” A predominantly female bunch of Hansard fans oohed and ahh’ed at all of this, and then a lot of them packed up and left before Low took the stage. Their loss.

Low played a set that was pretty similar to the recent one at Lincoln Hall, playing most of the new record and a sample of a few older songs, climaxing with “When I Go Deaf” as the encore. It was beautiful to behold the vocal harmonies of guitarist Alan Sparhawk and drummer Mimi Parker soaring out into the summer air at Millennium Park as the songs unfolded with stately grace — evoking both of the words in the title of one song, “Majesty/Magic.”

June 28, 2011

Bloodiest at the Logan Square Monument

The latest cool spot for concerts in Chicago is Logan Square — the square itself, a park (which isn’t actually all that square) in the middle of Kedzie Avenue, Milwaukee Avenue and Logan Boulevard, where that eagle-topped column rises high above the traffic. (That’s the Illinois Centennial Monument.) The Empty Bottle put on a concert here last year with Lightning Bolt and Dan Deacon, which I missed. Sunday afternoon, the Bottle kicked off a new monthly series of free concerts featuring bands playing at the base of the monument. Due to my packed schedule (I had a play to see downtown), I wasn’t able to see the headliner, Califone, but I did catch the opening act, Chicago’s sprawlingly big hard-rock band Bloodiest.

A seven-piece band, Bloodiest pounded out a noise worthy of its name, but it’s inventive variation of heavy metal, as we should expect from any project involving singer Bruce Lamont, who’s also in Yakuza. (Greg Kot interviewed Lamont in the Trib last week for a piece about Bloodiest.)

The park turned out to be a pretty great place to enjoy the weather and catch some music, and I’m looking forward to seeing some of the future shows. (July 24: Thee Oh Sees with Football. Aug. 21: High Places. Sept. 18: Mucca Pazza.)