eighth blackbird with special guests

The worlds of classical music and indie rock have been intersecting in some interesting and exciting ways lately. I get the sense that certain musicians and composers feel completely free to cross over the old genre boundaries — if they even recognize that such boundaries exist. Several of these category-defying artists came together this past week for two concerts at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.


eighth blackbird. Photo by Nathan Keay © MCA Chicago.

Top billing went to Chicago’s eighth blackbird, a chamber ensemble that champions contemporary classical music (or “new music,” if you will). But the group’s guest performers — Shara Worden, Bryce Dessner and Nico Muhly — were a big draw, perhaps explaining why the concerts sold out.

Dessner and Muhly both wrote pieces that eighth blackbird played during the concert, but they also sat in with the ensemble during other pieces, performing like integral members of the team. (Afterward, on his blog, Muhly wrote: “it’s always a pleasure to interfere in their patterns.”)

Worden, who performs her singular style of rock under the name My Brightest Diamond, is also a classically trained singer and composer — and that pedigree came in handy as she took on the role of the soprano for two movements of David Lang’s “Death Speaks,” which has just been released on CD. It was delicate and mournful music, with sublime singing by Worden giving it a strong emotional undertow.

The concert also featured playful moments, including the opener: Tristan Perich’s aptly titled, “qsqsqsqsqqqqqqqqq,” which used three toy pianos and electronics to create an undulating, mind-bending pattern of notes. Eighth blackbird member Lisa Kaplan wrote three piano pieces for four hands and played them alongside Muhly, their arms crossing but never tangling.

Dessner, best known as a member of The National, wrote a set of four “Murder Ballades” for eighth blackbird, and this was the U.S. premiere of that suite. Dessner drew on old folk songs for his material, and it did sound distinctly American, with woodwinds and strings taking over for the human voices that might have announced tragic crimes via the folk-music medium in the 19th century.

Muhly wrote his composition, “Doublespeak,” for eighth blackbird in 2012 as a contribution to a festival honoring Philip Glass. It echoed the cycling arpeggios and looping melodies that are Glass’ trademark, without sounding like a slavish imitation.

Appropriately, the concert also included an early Glass composition, “Two Pages” from 1968. Introducing it, eighth blackbird flutist Tim Munro said, “Philip Glass is sort of the grandfather of this entire concert.” He noted that performing “Two Pages” requirers such intense concentration that it feels like “running an ultra-maration,” and that the musicians are really “freaking out” during the piece even if they seems expressionless. That rigorous Glass composition also proved to be something of an ordeal for the audience — harsher and less yielding than Glass’ later music — but it was an impressive feat in its own way.

Throughout the evening I attended (Wednesday, May 1), eighth blackbird and its guest stars played compositions that were equally intriguing and accessible, performing it all at a high level.

Freakwater on the Front Porch

Janet Bean played every Tuesday night in April at the Hideout, except for April 23, when one of her bands, Eleventh Dream Day, had to cancel its gig at the last minute. She played with a different group or configuration of musics each week, culminating this week with Freakwater — the alt-country duo she plays in along with Catherine Irwin. The ever-present guitarist Jim Elkington joined them, adding some nice fills and solos to their acoustic strumming.

The weather was so nice on Tuesday that the Hideout moved the concert out onto its front porch. Not many other Chicago venues could do that, but the Hideout sits in the middle of an old industrial area and it can get away with doing something like this. The outdoor setting added to the friendly, casual vibe. Freakwater hasn’t had a new album since 2005, but Bean and Irwin are working on new songs, and they played a couple of them. They also noted that their 1999 song “Dog Gone Wrong” somehow became popular in Turkey for a while.

And they revealed that Freakwater is working on a collaborative project with Jon Langford and Sally Timms of the Mekons. The combined groups might be called the Freakons, Bean said. Sitting in the crowd, Langford called out another suggestion. “Meekwater!”

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Frank Rosaly at the Hideout

The always-inventive Chicago drummer Frank Rosaly has played with many groups of many musical styles, but the sextet Cicada Music is an especially personal project for him. Rosaly is the leader of this ensemble, which has just released its debut album on the Delmark label. The group played April 14 at the Hideout. While Rosaly’s intricate percussion was as remarkable as ever, it was clear from the first note that this was more than just a vehicle for his drumming. These compositions are designed for a full band to explore — and the interplay among the six musicians on the Hideout stage was impressive to behold.

Frank Rosaly
Frank Rosaly
Keefe Jackson and Jason Roebke
Keefe Jackson and Jason Roebke
Jason Stein
Jason Stein
Jason Adasiewicz
Jason Adasiewicz
Frank Rosaly
Frank Rosaly
James Falzone
James Falzone

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Record Store Day at Laurie’s

Saturday, April 20, was Record Store Day — not just a chance to buy some special-edition records released for the occasion, but also a great excuse to hang out at a record shop and see some free live musical performances. Yesterday, I shopped in at the Numero Group’s pop-up store at Logan Square’s Comfort Station, and also made a brief stop at Saki. But I spent most of the day at Laurie’s Planet of Sound in Lincoln Square, where the atmosphere was unflaggingly festive.

I didn’t catch all of the live music at Lauries, but the afternoon included three wonderful sets: Edward Burch and the Grand Ennui covering the entirety of Michael Nesmith’s 1972 album And the Hits Just Keep on Comin’; the newly signed Bloodshot Records artist Luke Winslow-King playing acoustic blues with able assistance from washboard/horseshoe player and singer Esther Rose; and Chicago’s esteemed Dolly Varden, playing songs from their great new album For A While plus a few older tunes.

The line outside Laurie's Planet of Sound around 9 a.m.
The line outside Laurie's Planet of Sound around 9 a.m.
The crowd inside Laurie's Planet of Sound in the afternoon.
The crowd inside Laurie's Planet of Sound in the afternoon.
Edward Burch and the Grand Ennui
Edward Burch and the Grand Ennui
Edward Burch
Edward Burch
Luke Winslow-King with Esther Rose
Luke Winslow-King with Esther Rose
Esther Rose
Esther Rose
Luke Winslow-King
Luke Winslow-King
Luke Winslow-King
Luke Winslow-King
Luke Winslow-King with Esther Rose
Luke Winslow-King with Esther Rose
Esther Rose
Esther Rose
Dolly Varden
Dolly Varden
Dolly Varden
Dolly Varden
Dolly Varden
Dolly Varden
Dolly Varden
Dolly Varden
Dolly Varden
Dolly Varden
Dolly Varden
Dolly Varden
Dolly Varden
Dolly Varden

Acid Mothers Temple at the Empty Bottle

Japan’s masters of heavy psychedelic jams, Acid Mothers Temple, returned to Chicago last night (April 12) for a show — where else but the Empty Bottle, the same venue they’ve played several times in recent years? As always, the guys in the band were sitting behind a couple of merch tables, completely covered with dozens of different CDs. Acid Mothers Temple (in all of its various configurations and different names) is incredibly prolific.

Touring this time as a quintet under the old Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. name, the group played just four songs, but each song stretched to somewhere around the 30-minute mark. Right from the first minute, the band dug into its cycling, circling guitar riffs with fierce intensity. The synth notes swooped up and down, and the noisy suites occasionally arrived at something that sort of resembled as a chorus, as a few of the band members joined together into a chant. Fans applauded when they recognized the bright riff from “Pink Lady Lemonade.” At the end, it all came to a crashing climax, with founding member Kawabata Makoto hoisting his guitar to the ceiling and letting it fall into the audience. It was another thrilling performance by a band that possesses great powers.

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Denver band Tjutjuna — two drummers, a guitarist and a bassist who doubled on Theremin — opened the show with instrumental psychedelic rock jams, a perfect match with Acid Mothers Temple.

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The Men at Lincoln Hall

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After getting their concert last night at Lincoln Hall off to a strong start, The Men came to a screeching halt because of technical difficulties. One of the Brooklyn group’s members, Mark Perro, was playing a vintage keyboard — an instrument the band has apparently been using a lot lately — when it suddenly conked out on him. Or maybe it was the amp. In any case, the thing stopped making any sounds recognizable as music. Perro left the stage for a bit, while the rest of the band played a couple of songs. Then he returned, abandoning his malfunctioning keyboard and picking up an acoustic guitar.

The Men scrambled their planned set list, playing songs that they could do without the keyboard. They ended up playing several brand-new songs — songs even newer than The Men’s latest record, New Moon, which just came out last month. In spite of everything, The Men put on a thrilling performance of rock music reminiscent of the Replacements, with touches of roots rock and older classic rock. (The Faces, another appropriate reference point, were playing on Lincoln Hall’s speakers before The Men took the stage.) At one point, when I was standing in front of center stage, I heard what sounded like perfect stereo: two simultaneous and fantastic guitar solos, one on either end of the stage. This was clearly a band that knows how to play and has a good time doing it.

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10 Years Ago Today: South San Gabriel

The only reason I thought about this anniversary is that I happened to pull out my CD of South San Gabriel’s album Welcome, Convalescence last week. And I just happen to have a copy that was sent out to the press before the album’s official release date. So there’s a sticker on the jewel case that says: “National Release APRIL 11, 2003.” Ten years ago today.

ssg

I doubt if anyone else is making note of this anniversary. It’s probably the most obscure record I included in my top 12 list of the best albums from the last decade. But it’s the most magnificent recording that Denton, Texas, singer-songwriter Will Johnson has made in his prolific career fronting Centro-matic, making solo records, collaborating with many other artists and occasionally making music with a side-project sort of group called South San Gabriel.

While Centro-matic plays a style of rock somewhere between power pop, roots rock and lo-fi post-punk, South San Gabriel’s Welcome, Convalescence layers orchestral touches and menacing abstract noise on top of Johnson’s collection of melancholy songs. Death and violence are always lurking nearby in this set of lyrics. The record opens with the line, “Make no mistake, we’ll be the ones to happily set you on fire,” and goes on to mention gunshots, dagger, slings, hammers, poisonous arrows, axes and arson. (“At your feet was a mouthpiece and nozzle/Fit for the gas spreading all through the house.”)

There’s a way out of the darkness. In the final track, nearly buried by a dense, beautiful cacophony, Johnson (or the character in his lyrics, anyway) travels “quietly out from the passage/if only to see the Splinter Angelic.” I’m still not sure exactly what the Splinter Angelic is, but it’s a fitting description of the evocative music South San Gabriel made on this record, released a decade ago today.

The CD of Welcome, Convalescence is out of stock at the Undertow record label’s online store, but MP3s can be purchased here.

Implodes, Acteurs, Population

Implodes

Admission was free Monday night at the Empty Bottle — as it often is on Mondays — for a triple bill of intriguing local bands. With DJ Scary Lady Sarah playing music in between the bands, the live music got started with the first-ever concert by Acteurs, a duo comprising Jeremy Lemos of White/Light and Brian Case of Disappears. Song shapes occasionally emerged out of the amorphous synth squiggles and reverb-drenched vocals, but Acteurs was more about the atmosphere than anything else. It may turn out to be just a side project for these two busy musicians, but they make for an interesting combination of talents. (Their six-song EP is out on the British label Public Information, and you can listen to it on bandcamp.)

Acteurs

The second band of the night, Population, played goth post-punk with vocals strongly reminiscent of Joy Division and guitar lines that evoked the Cure. The band’s latest songs are streaming on bandcamp.

Population

Population

Population

The headliner was Implodes (like Disappears, a Chicago band with a present-tense verb for a name). The group’s second album, Recurring Dream, recently came out on Chicago’s Kranky label, and the gauzy shoegaze guitar music sounded great in concert.

Implodes

Implodes

Implodes

Implodes

Implodes

Implodes

Michael Nesmith at the Old Town School of Folk Music

Former Monkee Michael Nesmith doesn’t tour often. But he recently played with the other surviving Monkees, and now, he’s playing his solo music in concert for the first time in two decades. The tour brought him to Chicago for a show on Saturday at the Old Town School of Folk Music — a rare opportunity to hear Nesmith performing the “cosmic” country-rock tunes that he recorded in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Those songs sounded beguiling in concert, with a skilled band (including guitarist Chris Scruggs) providing the accompaniment to Nesmith’s low-key vocals and 12-string guitar strumming. His later solo music hasn’t aged as well; Nesmith and his band missed an opportunity to strip away some of the ’80s sheen from those songs.

After noting that he thinks of his songs like movies in his head, Nesmith proceeded to recite reciting narrative introductions before nearly every song, “setting the scene” for his lyrics with vignettes that usually involved a romantic couple. A handful of excessively exuberant fans couldn’t resist shouting at Nesmith at a few points, shattering the sense of intimacy. Nesmith handled the interruptions with aplomb, mostly ignoring them and carrying on with his unorthodox mix of storytelling and songcraft.

SET LIST: Papa Gene’s Blues / Propinquity (I’ve Just Begun to Care) / Tomorrow and Me / Different Drum / Joanne / Silver Moon / Some of Shelly’s Blues / Rio / Casablanca Moonlight / Grand Ennui / Cruisin’ / Rays / three songs from The Prison: Opening Theme (Life, the Unsuspecting Captive) / Marie’s Theme / Closing Theme (Lampost) / Laugh Kills Lonesome / ENCORE: Thanx for the Ride

Nick Cave at the Chicago Theatre

The real Stagger Lee, an African-American pimp named “Stag” Lee Shelton, killed a man in St. Louis on Christmas day, 1895, during an argument over a Stetson hat. The slaying became legendary thanks to a folk song called “Stack-a-Lee,” “Stacker Lee,” “Stagolee” or “Stagger Lee,” depending on who was spelling it out at any given time. Early versions of the song end with “poor, poor” Stagger Lee hanged and then hauled off to the cemetery via a “rubber-tired hearse” and “a lot of rubber-tired hacks.”

That’s not how the song ends when Nick Cave sings it. The 1996 version by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds — actually, a loose interpretation of the old folk story, with new music written by Cave and six of his bandmates at the time — turns Stagger Lee into even more of a bad ass. Or to quote Cave’s twisted rendition of the words, “that bad motherfucker.”

By the time Cave & the Bad Seeds performed Monday night (April 1) at the Chicago Theatre, they had transformed Stagger Lee into an even more powerful, frightening demon of a man. In Cave’s live version of the song, the devil comes for Stagger Lee, and Stagger kills him, too. Cave was swaggering and writhing on the lip of the stage, lowering himself toward the outreached hands of the fans in front. The vulgar threats in the song’s lyrics (“suck my dick, because if you don’t, you’re sure to be dead”) became a leering come-on to the audience. Seeing someone in the crowd holding up a smartphone, Cave ad-libbed a new lyric: “In come the Devil with an iPhone in his hand.”

Nick Cave concerts are rarely, if ever, anything less than stellar. Monday’s show reaffirmed Cave’s breathtaking power as a live performer — and all the strengths of the versatile Bad Seeds ensemble. The new record by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Push the Sky Away, is a brooding, moody set of songs. Much of it is quiet, but a tension rattles underneath the songs, as if they might burst into noise and apocalypse at any time. That expected catharsis never comes, but that doesn’t diminish the listening experience. If anything, it heightens the foreboding sense that something sinister is at play.

One of the new songs, “Higgs Boson Blues,” returns to the Satanic sort of blues Cave evokes in “Stagger Lee.” This time, Cave sings about the old legend about bluesman Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil, but the lyrics take a strange and unexpected journey into the world of pop celebrities including Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus. The song shows Cave at his most uninhibited as a songwriter. Like much of the album, “Higgs Boson Blues” feels like a phantasmagoria. (Dictionary definition: “a rapidly changing series of things seen or imagined, as the figures or events of a dream.”)

Cave and his band began the concert with four of the new songs, including a version of “Jubilee Street” that climaxed with a more rocking jam than the studio version, and a sprawling, dynamic “Higgs Boson Blues.” Then came a series of the Bad Seeds’ golden oldies, a smattering of piano ballads, and a staggering “Stagger Lee” to end the main set. (The Chicago Tribune’s Greg Kot has the full set list at the end of his review.) The encore was a pounding “Tupelo” followed by one more song from the new record, the title track, an album closer that channels all of those disturbances and hallucinations into a shimmering meditation. And then the phantasmagoria shimmied out of view.

Chelsea Light Moving at the Empty Bottle

Chelsea Light Moving

Chelsea Light Moving

On Friday night at the Empty Bottle, Thurston Moore introduced his new group, Chelsea Light Moving, as if both he and his bandmates were completely unknown newcomers to the music scene. Just some new band called Chelsea Light Moving. From Chicago. Or so he said. Of course, the New York-based Chelsea Light Moving is actually a new vehicle for Moore, who’s already famous as a member — apparently, a former member — of Sonic Youth.

The surprising news in 2011 that Sonic Youth was breaking up, or at least taking an extended hiatus, left us fans wondering what the group’s individual members would do on their own. Drummer Steve Shelley spent some time playing with Chicago’s Disappears. Lee Ranaldo released a quite tuneful and enjoyable solo record last year, emphasizing the pop side of Sonic Youth. Kim Gordon made an appearance at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago last week (which I missed), reportedly getting rather avant-garde with noisy jams based on Nina Simone songs. On Friday, it was Moore’s turn, and he played songs from his new album with Chelsea Light Moving — which is named for an actual moving company that composers Philip Glass and Steve Reich once operated, back when they need to move furniture to pay the bills.

Moore’s solo records have shown that he’s just as responsible for Sonic Youth’s melodic side as anyone else in the band was, but with Chelsea Light Moving, he’s gravitating more toward the noisier, scrappier end of the spectrum. Moore’s new songs are sometimes bring back memories of what it was like to hear Sonic Youth for the first time, when the chord progressions — or whatever those weird sequences of notes might be properly called — seemed to operate on a logical system distinctly different from most rock music. It was fascinating to watch Moore returning to those roots, even as he tries to reinvent himself. On Friday night, Chelsea Light Moving’s other members (Samara Lubelski, John Moloney and Keith Wood) felt like a backup band for Moore rather than a group where he’s an equal partner in a musical mind-meld. So, yeah, it wasn’t Sonic Youth. But then again, what is?

Chelsea Light Moving

Chelsea Light Moving

Chelsea Light Moving

Chelsea Light Moving

Chelsea Light Moving

Chelsea Light Moving

The show also featured an opening set by Jeremy Lemos, who plays in the Chicago drone band White/Light. This was billed as a solo set, but he was joined onstage by the other half of White/Light, Matt Clark, as well as Mark Solotroff (of the bands Bloodyminded and Anatomy of Habit), for a set of abstract hums and bleeps.

Jeremy Lemos
Jeremy Lemos

The second band of the evening was Cave, the Chicago krautrockers, who dug into their repetitive riffs with intensity.

Cave
Cave
Cave
Cave
Cave
Cave

Jacco Gardner at the Empty Bottle

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As I wrote last week in Time Out Chicago, one of the Chicago record label Trouble in Mind’s latest finds is a psychedelic singer-songwriter from the Netherlands named Jacco Gardner. His debut album, Cabinet of Curiosities, is a delightful throwback to Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd and the chamber pop of the Left Banke; a more contemporary reference point is the music of newer psychedelic groups such as Caribou.

Gardner and his band played last night (March 19) at the Empty Bottle, visiting Chicago for the first time (and remarking on how cold our city is). The studio versions of Gardner’s songs are tuneful, pretty and generally on the mellow side, occasionally veering into strange and spooky sounds. The live versions Gardner played with his touring band didn’t radically change those arrangements, but the Zombies-esque drumming, acoustic guitar chords and melodic bass lines had a bit more zip — making the songs all the better. Gardner’s definitely a talent to watch.

I arrived at the Empty Bottle just in time to hear the last few minutes of the opening set by MMOSS, another Trouble in Mind band — who were jamming out on a different, spacier variety of psychedelic music.

Below: Pictures of Jacco Gardner and his band.

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R.I.P. Jason Molina

Rest in peace, Jason Molina. The news that this great songwriter has passed away is devastatingly sad for those of us who knew and loved the music he made with Magnolia Electric Co., as well as the many recordings he made under other guises, including Songs: Ohia and his own name.

The Chunklet website broke the news today about Molina’s death, and tributes soon followed from the Chicago Reader, NPR, Drowned in Sound and Molina’s longtime label, Secretly Canadian. Free mp3s of Molina’s songs are posted here.

I had the privilege of interviewing Molina, for an article that appeared in Pioneer Press. It was Sept. 8, 2006, and he asked me to meet him that Friday afternoon at Simon’s Tavern in Andersonville, which was close to where he lived at the time. Magnolia Electric Co. had just released its album Fading Trails, and Molina also had a new solo record, Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go.

Until now, I’d never transcribed the entire interview. Here is the audio for anyone who would like to hear Molina discuss his approach to songwriting. (My apologies for the background noise in the bar and my own sometimes awkwardly worded questions.)

And here is Jason Molina, in his own words:

Q: Was it relatively recently, in the last couple of years, that you moved to Chicago, and kind of made this your home base?

A: No, well, I’ve lived here off and on for, I guess, it’s been about six years or something like that. Between here and southern Indiana. The band is in southern Indiana. And as long as I can afford Chicago, I stay here.

Q: Just because it’s a nice place?

A: Well, I mean, I love it. I have access to so many fantastic musicians, people to bounce ideas off of. It’s a wonderful place for live music, and also our favorite studio in the world is here, Electrical Audio.

Q: Now, is Indiana where you’re from originally?

A: No, I was born in Ohio. And I grew up in northern Ohio and in southern West Virginia.

Q: It’s kind of a standard question to ask musicians such as yourself, but I’m always curious about your childhood exposure to music, either playing it or hearing it, and what kind of things influenced you?

A: It wasn’t music at the — Nobody in my family played music. We had an old guitar. You know, I taught myself how to play on this garage-sale guitar my parents had bought, in the ’60s, probably. But they had a fantastic record collection. So my earliest exposure to music was — you know, I could probably operate a turntable before I could walk — is my memory of my early, early life. I would listen to a record all the way through — Patsy Cline, Roxy Music, David Bowie, Eno, Neil Young.

Q: Your parents were into this kind of stuff?

A: They had everything.

Q: Were there certain records that stood out to you early on as a kid, as your favorite?

A: Not really, no. If the artwork was intriguing, really that’s what I — because I sort of had free rein. I didn’t live in a — I lived in a trailer park. So we didn’t live around any other kids, really. So, before I started reading a lot, I think listening to records was my — I probably taught myself to play music by listening to a whole record. That’s how I started to write songs, and the idea of putting together a whole record’s worth of material.

Q: And this garage-sale guitar, was it just something that was lying around?

A: Yep. Yeah, it was broken. You had to tune it with pliers.

Q: You still have it?

A: I still have it.

Q: What company was it?

A: It’s actually a fairly decent guitar. Fender made it, but it’s clearly like a Harmony Silvertone kind of guitar. Maybe a Stella body. I don’t know. For a while, Fender put their name on it. But yeah, I’ve always kept that guitar, because it was important. Because I taught myself how to play music on it.

Q: So with this thing not being in great shape, I imagine your early efforts must have been a little daunting, just figuring out how to get it in tune or whatever.

A: Yeah, when you live in a small town — I didn’t even know how to buy strings. I didn’t know the difference between a bass guitar and a guitar. So I taught myself. And I was learning how to play, and playing along with songs on records or on the radio. I was playing part of the bass line and part of the guitar line. It was real trial by fire.

Q: And that was just hearing the note on the record —

A: Sure.

Q: — and finding where on the string it makes that sound.

A: Right.

Q: So you didn’t necessarily know how to make a G chord or anything?

A: No. So that idiosyncratic kind of approach to guitar music has really colored my songwriting, I think.

Q: And at what point did you meet someone else who knew how to play guitar or tell you, “You’re not supposed to do that,” or “Hey, you’ve learned a lot by yourself”?

A: I was — where I was I? I found this, not in my really — just on the edge of my town, I had found a little guitar shop. And I had never seen a guitar shop before. It just blew my mind, after I’d been playing, you know, alone and writing songs, that there’s a store you can go to and actually buy musical instruments. So I went in there and said, “I have to buy a guitar” — like a good, like a new one. And an electric guitar — sounded like it would open a lot of doors to me. So I—

Q: How old were you at this time?

A: I was probably about 12.

Q: And what towns are we talking about?

A: This — I bought this guitar in Lorain, Ohio. Real small guitar shop.

Q: That’s the town you lived in, or —

A: It’s on the edge of the town I lived in. I did live in Lorain. It’s between Cleveland and Toledo, right along the lake. And yeah, I didn’t know anything about how to play or whatever and I plugged this bass in and just started playing, and I’m just as loud as hell. I don’t have any concept of how to keep it quiet. I was playing Black Sabbath. And I was literally shaking the — the walls were shaking, and I interrupted some drum lessons in one of the lesson rooms.

So the teacher comes out and everybody’s yelling at me, like, ‘Keep it down.’ And the guy he’s giving the lesson to is someone I knew from, like, grade school, and he was a drummer, so we started a band right there. It was that easy. And when got a guitar player who was a friend of his. And that was it. That was how I started to be in bands.

Q: Now, as you came to know more musicians and play with people, did that — I imagine some of those idiosyncrasies of your early guitar playing have stuck with you, but did you pick up the more traditional “Here’s how to play chords,” or —

A: No, that only happened at the time of recording Didn’t It Rain, was the first time. So I’d probably already been playing music for ages, and I’d already put out a lot of records. But as I was settling into wanting to collaborate with a lot of different kinds of musicians, I needed to have a musical vocabulary, at least in a simple kind of way. Because Here I am, writing all of these songs with abstract tunings, absolutely no reason for it. It’s really hard to get in a room with a musician with one mind-set, and then have me teach them a song, and I don’t really have a way to communicate it.

Now, at least, I mean, I can still write the songs as crazy as I want and use whatever tunings I want, but I have a sort of — I have a language connection to the music where I can explain it in words. And so, since, time is a sacred thing now. It’s so impossible to rehearse. Everybody in Magnolia is in several other bands, and when we’re together, we’re on the road, so tomorrow, we’re going to be watching some of the Touch & Go bands and rehearsing tomorrow night and all day Sunday, and then we’re going to be on tour until Thanksgiving. So —

Q: Right. One reason I contacted the label to set up the interview now is, I looked at your website and thought, “Wow, he’s not going to be around for a while. If I’m going to get him in person, I’d better do it this week.”

A: Right.

Q: And you’re going — this is pretty wide-ranging.

A: The first part is North America, and we’re touring with Bottomless Pit. That’s two of the members of Silkworm and some other guys. Fantastic band. From Chicago. And we will be, after we’re done there, we’re going to be doing Australia and New Zealand, and be in Europe for a while, too. It’s a heavy tour.

Q: So, getting back to starting bands as a teenager, what happened between —

A: Before a teenager, though. You have to understand —

Q: Preteen.

A: Like, when I was 13, we already had a record. So, I mean, when I was really about 11 or 12, I already had a lot of songs. We learned right away from a generation before us. You know, the older guy in high school or whatever who had an eight-track, or he’d ring the tape machine in the garage to document us this band that was playing.

Q: What was the first band called?

A: Well, for probably a year, we didn’t even have a name, but we settled on the Spine Riders. … It’s got this ghosty connotation, and it’s like a skateboard reference. But it was the ’80s.

Q: And did many people hear you? Were you playing in front of friends at school?

A: Yeah, we absolutely played. We were our version of what a hardworking touring band would be. We were definitely doing — we played parties for high school kids, when I was just in junior high. I think I was probably in fifth or sixth grade when we were already playing these parties, 300 people crammed into a garage driveway. And we played in the projects. We played in heavily depressed areas. … Anywhere between Cleveland and Lorain, because Lorain’s about an hour away from Cleveland.

Q: Were the high school kids impressed by the fact that you could play, or were they like, “Who’s this rugrat that’s coming to our party?”

A: I was a songwriter, so they didn’t — I mean, I wrote the music. So, even though I was playing with older dudes, in a lot of ways, it was — it just so happened that I was younger. It didn’t become a problem until everybody moved away. I can remember those guys being able to drive, when I wouldn’t be able to drive for another five years. Going to my own show would be impossible, because I’d have to have my parents drive me to the show. (Laughs.) I didn’t even have a license. But then, eventually that band disintegrated because everybody was so much older than me. Everybody moved away and got jobs, so, you know, I still already had a working method, which was writing songs pretty much every day. So, I found myself without a band and wanting to still do this.

That’s what turned into all of the Songs: Ohia years, the Magnolia stuff, was the transition from having a steady band and then having it sort of taken out from under me. But the Mangolia, it’s not a traditional band. We don’t live in the same town. We don’t rehearse often. But we love to tour together. And I have 100 percent confidence in the way that they arrange my songs. And so, it’s a really fantastic working relationship, because these are really creative people, extremely talented. And it think it gives us a special footprint in the music world because we don’t — we’re not worried about the business side of this. How it will, you know, turn out — what is the arc of the career? We’ve been doing this for 10 years on one, single independent label. And we’re proud of that kind of working and that relationship with the independent music world.

Q: What was the origin of the name, and I was never even sure I was pronouncing it right — Songs: Ohia (O-hi-yuh)?

A: O-hee-yuh.

Q: O-hee-yuh?

A: It doesn’t matter. That’s part of the fun of it. Before I was even in the mind-set to make records, I was recording records, which were — I would get 10 songs and conceive of them as, like, a piece. I would record them on a four-track, and I would do a cassette release that I would just sell at my live shows or give to friends.

Q: How many copies?

A: Probably up to 50, was like the most that I could do before my tape machines would self-destruct. And so, it would just be a reference point of, like, where I recorded them. A lot of the times, it would be like, you know, “Songs: Tennessee,” if I happened to be in Tennessee then. Because I was living in West Virginia, there was a lot of West Virginia references. Cities that I was in or places that I had traveled to or whatever. So that’s how the name, the sort of weird kind of construction of the name. It was just “Songs:” and then insert something to remind me of what is on that tape. And so, Ohia is a Hawaiian flower. It’s a tree, a flowering tree. All those songs were done on ukulele. It was to remind it was all these songs I did on ukulele and singing — that stuck for almost a decade.

Q: There was some debate among fans about the album that was titled Magnolia Electric Co., and whether that was a Songs: Ohia album called Magnolia Electric Co. or if that was the name of the band. And now, obviously, that has become the name of the band. But was that your original intention when you did that first one?

A: The last Songs: Ohia record is Didn’t It Rain. And then the next record is the self-titled Magnolia record. That is the first Magnolia record. Because in my mind — I was living in Chicago, and I had scheduled to do this record with Steve Albini over here at the studio. There was a scheduling conflict came up, and we wouldn’t be able to do the record in the time that I had available here in Chicago and that he was available. And that was bookended between touring, so it’s not like I could cancel 20 shows in order to fit recording into a new time. The tour was already booked. So a studio offered itself to us in Philadelphia, and the whole band couldn’t come.

So suddenly I was stuck. I thought I had a record with this band that we were going do here at home in Chicago and then suddenly we couldn’t all do it. And I forced to sort of write on the fly. I just had to come up with a record, basically And we got actually sessions for that musician, Mike Brenner and Jennie Benford. Mike Brenner, that was the first time I met him but he’s played on most of the records since then, a steel guitar player. And Jennie is an old friend from over 10 years ago, and she sings on a lot of the records. But basically, that kind of working on the fly, literally cobbling together a record in a studio that I’m not familiar with, with musicians I’ve never met, and material that I was literally writing while I was in the studio — that, to me, was the most successful version of that I’d ever pulled off.

I felt like, since it was coming up on 10 years of doing it under that name, just changing the name — it really wasn’t arbitrary, but it was a marker for myself. I want to put 10 more good years in with Magnolia, and who knows? There might be a day when we walk out of that studio here on West Belmont and know that we’re going to be doing something else. (Laughs.) You know?

Q: Over the course of the records since then — I have to confess I haven’t paid that much attention to the liner notes as far as who was playing what. Has the lineup of musicians you’re playing with—

A: It’s always the core group of the Indiana guys. That’s Pete Schreiner, Jason Groth, Mark Rice and Mike Kapinis. And then with rotating guests. So it’s a core band of keys, bass, drums, guitar.

Q: And these are musicians, had you just met them, like you said, around the time of that first album, or how did you hook up with them?

A: Well, these are people that I — you know, I was a fan of their bands, their other projects. These are touring musicians. Fantastic bands on their own.

Q: I saw that show Magnolia Electric Co. did maybe about a year ago at Schubas where the Coke Dares [a band including members of Magnolia] played. They were great.

A: Right. It’s three of the guys. That’s the Magnolia rhythm section, the Coke Dares. And then Mike Kapinisis the keys-and-trumpet guy. But yeah, I was already a fan of that music and we lived in the same town at the time, and I just remember that Pete the bassist had really wanted to somehow work with me. He was in other bands that I was a fan of. Panoply Academy, Glee Club. Some other bands that Jason was in. And Mikey was also in other bands. So these guys were doing, like, triple duty in other bands. I wasn’t so concerned with: Did I get along with these guys. I was just, I felt like they could add something fantastic to my kind of songwriting. I would still be working with these guys even if I hated them, because they’re such sympathetic musicians. I think that they’re — and they also really take risks when they’re playing. I don’t feel like they’re being self-conscious playing with me.

Q: Could you describe — you said that they add some fantastic to the music. Could you describe what it is that they add, that would set apart a Magnolia Electric Co. from a Molina solo recording?

A: I guess what you’re going to look at is — everybody is really given a sort of free rein for contributing arrangement ideas, you know? I come in with just the skeleton of the song, just the basic chord progression, melody, kind of. Um, and the lyrics, and you know, it can go in any direction. Just by when the first person speaks up. You know, the bass line goes in this one direction and everybody can follow that way. Maybe the drums do something and everybody follows that way. And that’s what I think that they add — a real kind of a human life to this song. These aren’t little art projects to me. I think songs are living animals. And I think that working with these guys for so long, touring so much, it’s made me a much better musician.

Q: So you’re not the kind of songwriter who goes into the studio with a preconceived notion of: “I need a bass line that does this, I need a drum part that does this”?

A: The songs are basically finished when we’re in the studio. I do write when we’re in the studio. And those songs will, a lot of the time, make it onto the record. But like I said, I have 100 percent confidence in what each of those musicians from Magnolia will bring to the songs. I’m thinking more in a very, very, very big way. I’m thinking about the overall scope of the record, from the first song to the last song. I’m thinking about the general tone of the record, the basic speed and feel, I’m thinking of all of eight, 10, 12 songs at a time. I’m not thinking of one little song, and I don’t fixate on one little aspect of the song. I think that all of that’s really important, and all of that adds to the texture and vitality of the records. It’s not like I gloss over that. I think that stuff’s all really important. But what these musicians are doing is adding that detail.

And although I said that I have a musical vocabulary now, which is very rudimentary, the idea of the record in my head is really hard to — you can’t put it into words. When it’s finished, I can say it achieved what I wanted or it didn’t. But along the way, it’s a harrowing kind of — it’s a harrowing experience, from the writing of the songs to the touring of the songs to the final arrangements in the studio, to the final count four and do a take, of the songs.

Q: You have a couple of records out. There’s the solo one, and Fading Trails is the new Magnolia record. How would you describe that one? You said it’s hard to put in words while you’re doing it. Now that you’re done with it, can you describe what the concept or idea behind this album was?

A: Well, we wanted to finish — we had an entire session that we wanted to have finished here in Chicago with [Steve] Albini at Electrical. We had a session that we had done in Memphis at Sun Studios with a fantastic engineer, James Lott. He’s worked with all of the great Sun musicians over the years. And we also had this record that was a collaboration between me and David Lowry from Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, which was a session that we did in Richmond, Va. And then we had music from a session that was to be a full Magnolia record but due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, the original tapes for the session were lost. So I had only sort of demo quality versions of them. I had professional-quality versions of the songs that could have either been a solo record or the start of a Magnolia record.

So we had all these sessions, and they were all done in a relatively short amount of time, and the label thought it would be a really good idea to take a representative sampling from each of the sessions, make them into a complete record. Because lyrically, thematically, all of the songs are really related. And the wild sonic world that we cover from just these four-track recordings at my house to Sun Studios to Electrical Audio, Albini’s take on recording us live in the room, and then the David Lowery collaboration — I would never have dreamed that somehow this makes a cohesive record, other than lyrically being tied together. But to the fans’ ears, it’s one of the most successful records we’ve done.

So, there’s where chance really took over. I didn’t have a heavy-handed approach to how this record would work out. The label actually just made a suggestion, which they never do — I was floored by them saying, “Why don’t we do this — instead of putting out five records, all in a row, why don’t we put these all together and see if we can make a good record out of it?” For the rest of the material from all of those sessions, none of it’s throwaway material, and the label has something special planned for early next year — a secret. It’s a secret.

[The following year, Secretly Canadian released a box set of the recordings from these various sessions called Sojourner.]

Q: Now, what’s the solo record called?

A: The solo record is called “Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go.”

Q: Right. Now is that apart from all of the stuff you’re talking about?

A: It’s an entirely separate thing. That came out a couple of weeks ago.

Q: Is that more, just Jason Molina playing by himself?

A: They didn’t seem to be songs that needed to have full band arrangements. Because I was taking a lot of arrangement chances. I was playing a lot of piano and organs. I don’t ever attempt that out of the songwriting moment. If I write a song and it seems to be appropriate to be doing an arrangement where it’s just voice and one instrument, doing it on piano, when I present that to the band, I’m just going to be playing guitar and have someone else — Mikey will actually play, he’ll write a proper line for the piano.

But there’s a kind of simplicity I really appreciate and a real exploration that I hear when I listen back to those tapes of someone literally trying to make this somewhere. Given the situation where I have the instrument in front of me, and I have an idea to write a song, and I’m going to try to make two or three chords, make some kind of progression, and make a melody and make it into a song. And I’m confident as I do that, but to duplicate it in a different environment with me playing piano or playing the Rhodes or the Wurlitzer or whatever, I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in capturing that moment where the song is being written as the tape is rolling.

Q: So, you mentioned a similarity of theme in the lyrics. What you care to talk about that? I always hate to put songwriters and artists on the spot and say, “What does your song mean?” But I’m wondering what themes have interested you.

A: It’s going to be a lot of themes of dislocation. It’s going to be themes of, you know, trying to find out where a person really is at home. Someone like a touring musician, who’s gone most of the year — you know, I move and I don’t even know where our next apartment is, you know. I’ve just come home from tour and we have a new place. I think a lot of that is in there.

Also, an appreciation for what I think some people would take for granted — really small episodes in a day that involve, you know, birds and the weather, the nighttime — you know, a moment with quiet in the middle of the city. To put that in a song is something I really try to get across. Because it really does happen. You know, there’s a magic to that. The pounding, and the screaming and yelling, and the screeching tires, and the street noise, and the airplanes and the train rumble, and then you turn a corner and suddenly it’s just silence. It’s that kind of moment that I always try to put into the songs.

Q: So, how much of the year do you get to spend at home in Andersonville?

A: It’s gonna be, I’d say, it’s gonna be, something like maybe a third of the year that I’m gonna be in Chicago. The rest of the time, I’m on the road.

Q: Is there anything else I should mention in terms of things you do for fun?

A: No.

Q: Do don’t have a day job, right — you’re a full-time musician?

A: Right, right. I mean, this is anecdotal, but — so I’m doing this interview for a paper in Indiana. The interviewer says: “I really feel like I know you because you’ve been back and forth a lot and some of the band still lives here in Indiana. And you got five records done this year, so you must have a lot of free time.” And I was just blown away, that there is someone that thinks that this is a product of free time. Because this is really the product hard day-to-day work, but it comes from all of those years when I was sweating in some shitty job. Some shitty full-time job. And I was writing songs. I got up two hours, three hours early.

Q: What kind of jobs did you have?

A: Everything. At last count, I had over just 30 menial, stupid jobs. But you know, when I would have to go to work, I would get up two or three hours early, and I would write songs in the morning, even if that means being up at 4 and writing for a few hours and then go to work. And then come home and write more songs. So, now, just because I’m not working a physical 9-to-5 job, songwriting, it’s definitely a full-time thing. So, it was just funny to be interviewed by someone who thought, like, this is just the result of having a hell of a lot of —

Q: You’re kicking back and taking it easy and writing five records?

A: Right.

Q: So, when you write songs every day, does it just — do you ever get writer’s block—

A: No.

Q: Or does it come out pretty easily?

A: Here’s the thing. You want a well-oiled machine. Maybe the machine sucks. The design of the machine might suck. But I’ve had a really, really good stretch the last couple of years where, you know, I’m just not afraid to throw stuff away. When it’s a bad song, I kind of know it. While I’m writing it.

Q: Do you ever change your mind, go back and listen to a tape from a few years ago and you think—

A: Well, that’s the thing: I physically throw things away. I actually, when it’s a demo, and I feel like it’s not going anywhere, I have to get it out of my life. And I physically throw it in the trash. There’s no going back. Secretly Canadian has, like, a vault filled with outtakes and demos and all these things from before — Sometimes I feel like I’m going to give them one-sixteenth of what I have, just so I can put it away. Someday, they might want to listen to that stuff. I might want to listen to that stuff. But most of the time, I’m, once a week, throwing out stuff.

Q: You’re not going to do the thing that Guided By Voices did and put out a box set of outtakes from the outtakes, like, 10 years later?

A: Yeah, I don’t think could — I can’t do that because, like I say, physically I throw out everything. I think that that’s good. I think that that’s good. I’ve always — you know, for 10 years I thought, for 10 years I had this rule that I could only have 50 records. Couldn’t have any more than 50 records in my life.

Q: And what number are you are at right, depending on how— [At this point, I thought he was talking about the number of albums he would record in his life, but it became clear he meant the number of records that he owned.]

A: Well, right now, I have, I probably have at least 200 records, because I just buy things and I buy things so much I don’t have time to listen to them? But I’m getting it back down to 50. The 50 rule. And it’s the same thing with songs. When you’re writing a record, you keep — I keep this thing in mind.

The moment you write a song that sounds like it doesn’t fit with the rest of what you’ve been doing for the last month or so, then you set that aside and then you go back and you try to determine if those songs that you’ve done recently are really a cohesive unit. The song that sort of like threw you off and then was like a clue into maybe where the next record’s gonna go is the thing that makes you realize it’s time to book time in the studio and get these songs done with. Because it’s a very, very, very small window, and I will have no interest — because I’ve put so much work into these songs — I don’t have interest in going back to them. If they don’t materialize on tape and come out as a record, I’m not going to reinvest any part of my life to go back and get to know those songs and try to get back into my way of thinking as I had been when I wrote those songs. So, like I said, it’s a really small window.

So I’ve written records that never came out, of course. There’s full records. I had this whole collaboration with Low, we were going to do a few years ago. And I was living in Nebraska, and I wrote this entire record called The Lamb and Flag, and then at the last minute Alan [Sparhawk, of Low] had a scheduling conflict and instead of doing that I ended up going to Australia or something. And not only did I never go back and do those songs and Low and I never collaborated to do this record, but those songs have probably ended up in the Dumpster. Usually on New Year’s Day, I throw out everything. So, all these songs —

Q: Make a fresh start every year?

A: Of course, of course. I think about it then.

Q: And you said no writer’s block. It’s pretty easy for you to just sit down and do the work?

A: Right. Because I realize — it’s not precious to me if I have to throw it out.

Q: And what’s usually — it may be different every time, but is there a standard thing that starts a song going? Is it some notes on the guitar? Is it a lyrical idea? Is it whatever?

A: It’s both. Well, it’s the lyrics first. It’s the music first. It’s different every single time.

The idea is just to be available to the kinds of, you know, little sparks and little quirky things that normally I wouldn’t have come up with. Maybe it’s the juxtaposition of a little melody I had in my head with the guitar. Maybe it’s a lyrical idea. Maybe it’s, you know, very rarely, just sort of a title and then I work towards the title. That’s not really the way I write songs. And when a song is done, I walk away from it saying — you know, I’m usually shocked. Because it’s not what I went in going for. That wasn’t the original idea for the song. There’s not a completed idea.

It’s a process, you know? Yeah, it’s definitely — songwriting is a process, it’s not a — it’s not this big event that materializes on a record when you’re listening to it at home as a, you know, as a fan. To me, it’s: How can I put something together, just like, cobble together something out of just the ether? So I’m — there’s still a magic to it for me.

Q: Um, you don’t strike me as a musician who’s — um, well, I guess everyone is influenced by other musicians. And in your case, sometimes with the whole band arrangements with Magnolia, I hear some Crazy Horse in there. But you yourself don’t particularly strike me as Neil Young fanatic.

A: No. What I definitely know — I can see the — the comparison is pretty easy because there is a kind of a, there’s an absolute search for freedom in the arrangement of the songs. There isn’t a heavy-handed approach to how these — these songs don’t have to be hits, but they have to be a good song. They have be a song that we feel we should be playing. And I think that there’s, like I say, that kind of searching comes in the actual records. Because you’ll hear that, because we’re recording that live. We are real humans really standing around in the room making this music. And people like Steve [Albini] are documenting that. So, I think a lot of what Crazy Horse went through in all of these last years — since before I was born — those guys were doing an exploration onstage, using just this little thread of a song and making it into, you know, a beast.

Q: How old are you right now, anyway?

A: I think I’m thirty— uh, I think I’m 32 right now.

Q: Do you keep up — obviously when you’re out on the road and you have different opening bands, you’re exposed to that music. I’m wondering how much you keep up on — what sort of music do you listen to?

A: Just Bob Seger. ’70s music, mainly. That’s the music I like.

Q: Yeah, I think I saw you do a Seger cover once.

A: “Still the Same.”

Q: He’s got a new album coming out.

A: Finally. I mean, seriously, like, ’91 was the last one.

Q: I read this article where he said he’d recorded an album a few years ago and decided he didn’t like the way it sounded and scrapped the whole thing. But he has a new record coming out in the next month or two.

A: Well, you know, I saw some of our friends are opening for Wilco, you know? It would be killer if we could open for Seger. That would be—

Q: Now, Bob Seger is not considered very cool.

A: That’s what strange, because, to me, it’s like, very razor-sharp music, and it’s got a lot of this bad-butt boogie element that I think was really popular at the time those records were made. But the core of the songs, if you are patient enough, you can find a great song in there, and that’s a great song.

Other than that, for what I keep up with, it’s my friends’ bands, bands that I tour with, bands that I go to see live. I just don’t have time to keep up, and it’s OK. But I do educate myself. I don’t lock myself in a sort of a closet, and say, “New music sucks.” That’s so disheartening to hear. I hear someone like Dylan doing interviews now, saying he doesn’t know anybody who’s made a record that has sounded any good in 20 years.

Well, he’s never been brave enough to make a record at Electrical Audio. Do it all live, and do it the way you did it in ’65. Don’t be self-conscious about it and, you know, scream and rock and, you know, fuck it up. And you will make a great record. I mean, you just have to go into it knowing that when you walk into that studio, it doesn’t matter if anybody buys it. Do you buy it? Does the musician buy it? Do I buy this music that I’m singing? Do I buy this song? Do I believe in it? And that’s all that matters.

Hideout SXSW Send Off Party

It’s a March tradition at the Hideout: On the Saturday before the SXSW festival begins in Austin, the club hosts an all-day benefit concert featuring many of the Chicago bands that are heading down to Texas, raising some money to help them cover their travel costs. (They’re not actually getting paid for playing those gigs at SXSW — imagine that.) The lineup was strong this past Saturday (Feb. 9), and I managed to catch the first seven hours of the shindig before I finally bailed — not because the later bands were any less worthy, but just to get some rest.

The afternoon got started with a terrific set by Twin Peaks, a group of guys barely out of high school. I’d noticed them featured in Loud Loop Press’ recent list of 13 local bands to watch in 2013, and the song “Sunken” on their bandcamp page further piqued my interest. They more than lived up to my expectations, bashing out a bunch of catchy songs with some surprisingly Beach Boys-esque harmonies and Television-esque guitar leads.

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Judson Claiborne performed lead singer-songwriter Chris Salveter’s folk rock with a muscular, roots-rock vibe, offering an intriguing preview of the group’s forthcoming record, We Have Not Doors You Need Not Keys.

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The Congregation filled the stage with brassy, old-fashioned soul music, with occasional blasts of Who-style guitar and drums  as a bonus; the group closed with an unexpected cover of the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”

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Scott Lucas & the Married Men followed with perhaps the most intense performance of the day, culminating with a searing version of “There Ain’t No Grave (Gonna Hold My Body Down),” filled with some stunning guitar playing by Mr. Lucas.

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The Waco Brothers were billed to play next, but it was actually a combination of the Wacos and another group led by Jon Langford, Skull Orchard. As Langford explained, a couple of the usual Waco members were unavailable to play; I presume he was joking when he explained that Tracey Dear was indisposed because of chafing he’d become afflicted with after a nudist adventure in the jungles of Costa Rica. Langford called tonight’s band, which featured Jim Elkington, “Waco Orchard,” and they played a fun set, finishing with Langford throwing his guitar into the arms of drummer Joe Camarillo for the last chord.

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For a complete change of pace, Frontier played droning, ominous music in nearly complete darkness, other than a few bright beams of light. It should’ve been louder.

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And then the Summer Girlfriends played their sunny girl group tunes, sounding tighter than they did the last time I’d seen them, with at least one brand new song in the set.

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There was plenty more ahead — Mahogany, Outer Minds, The Hood Internet — but that was as far as I made it. Good luck to all of these bands at SXSW!

Low at Saki

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Saki record store in Logan Square was packed Thursday evening (March 7) for a free performance by Low, followed by a Q&A including the band as well as Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, who produced the new Low album, The Invisible Way. And as if all that weren’t enough incentive to bring out a crowd, there was also free beer. This was part of the monthly “Off the Record” series of free listening parties, presented by the city of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events and saki. “Listening parties” tend to involve a new record being played, and that happened, too — The Invisible Way, which comes out March 19, was playing in the store before the live performance.

The performance was billed as a “stripped-down” show by Low. But of course, Low has always played some pretty bare, stripped-down music. So some of trio’s live renditions probably weren’t all that much different from what the band will play when it returns to Chicago for a full concert March 22 at Metro. In any case, it was a beautiful set of serene yet passionate music, with intimate harmonies between guitarist Alan Sparhawk and drummer Mimi Parker. Steve Garrington, who has normally played bass with Low since joining the band in 2008, played on the record store’s piano throughout this set. The new record features a lot of piano, too. As the group explained during the Q&A, that’s because the album has more songs than usual by Parker, who writes her songs on the piano — despite, by her admission, not really knowing how to play the instrument.

WXRT’s Marty Lennartz asked questions during the Q&A, before opening it up to the audience. Tweedy emphasized how he tried to stay out of the band’s way, producing the record with a light touch. “It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever been a part of,” he said. The interview concluded with Tweedy displaying the albums that members of Low were purchasing at Saki, including (pictured below), Pat Travers’ Makin’ Magic.

Watch the trailer for The Invisible Way on YouTube.

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Mountains at the Hideout

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Wednesdays are usually a night for jazz and improvisational music at the Hideout. Last Wednesday (Feb. 28), the venue hosted three bands playing instrumental rock music of the sort often called, for lack of a better term, drone. The evening started with Bitchin Bajas, a keyboard/electronics duo comprising Cooper Crane from Cave and Dan Quinlivan from Mahjongg, who got a cool krautrock vibe going by the end of their set. Next up was White/Cream — which is Jeremy Lemos of the band White/Light teaming up with Tim Iseler, joined for this set by the always-inventive Chicago drummer Frank Rosaly. The duo responded to Rosaly’s rhythms as they fashioned subtle electronic patterns.

The headliner was Mountains, the electronics-and-guitars duo of Koen Holtkamp and Brendon Anderegg, who recently released a new album, Centralia, on Thrill Jockey. Live, their music pulsed and washed over the room in waves of chords, a soothing symphony.

(I confess to cheating a bit with some of these photos; the room was dark during the performances, so I captured a few shots of Mountains as they were setting up, before the actual concert began.)

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White/Cream with Frank Rosaly
Mountains
Mountains
Mountains
Mountains
Mountains
Mountains

IMG_7787

Mountains
Mountains

Robbie Fulks, Henry Wagons, etc.

Robbie Fulks

Last Monday (Feb. 25), I caught two concerts — first, the always-entertaining Hideout residency of Robbie Fulks, who featured Brooklyn singer-songwriter Greg Trooper as his guest this time. I wasn’t familiar with Trooper’s music going into this show, but I was quite impressed with what I heard, and Fulks contributed some masterful guitar solos to Trooper’s tunes while, of course, singing a few of his own.

And then I was off to a free concert at the Empty Bottle with Ex Cops, Henry Wagons and Panoramic & True. Wagons, an Australian singer, was the highlight of the night for me, with his confrontational and highly humorous stage banter, culminating with his effort to get a reluctant audience member standing at the bar to emit a blood-curdling scream as the climax to a song about executions.

Robbie Fulks
Robbie Fulks
Greg Trooper
Greg Trooper
Panoramic & True
Panoramic & True
Henry Wagons
Henry Wagons
Henry Wagons
Henry Wagons
Henry Wagons
Henry Wagons
Henry Wagons
Henry Wagons
Ex Cops
Ex Cops
Ex Cops
Ex Cops
Ex Cops
Ex Cops

Deleted Scenes at Township

Deleted Scenes
Deleted Scenes
Deleted Scenes

As you can see from my recent posts, I’ve been seeing a lot of concerts lately at the Logan Square club Township. The venue still feels a bit under the radar, but it has been booking some good shows recently, including local as well as touring bands. On Saturday night (Feb. 16), the Washington, D.C., band Deleted Scenes played — for some reason, as the third of four bands. I caught the last three bands (My Dad, Deleted Scenes and We Love You), and it seemed like each group had its own set of fans, and the people rotated in and out of the room during the evening. My Dad’s two-drummer math rock was ragged but energetic, and We Love You’s pop-punk was pleasant but somewhat generic. Deleted Scenes were the highlight of the evening, playing indie rock with some of the complexities of art rock. It was a strong performance in front of a small crowd in a small bar … by a band that’ll surely be playing bigger Chicago venues in the future.

Deleted Scenes
Deleted Scenes

Deleted Scenes
Deleted Scenes

Deleted Scenes
Deleted Scenes

Deleted Scenes
Deleted Scenes

Deleted Scenes
Deleted Scenes

Deleted Scenes
Deleted Scenes

My Dad
My Dad

We Love You
We Love You

Paul Collins Beat at Township

Paul Collins

Paul Collins
“Play the Blondie song!” Some guy shouted out that request in the middle of the show by the Paul Collins Beat last Thursday (Feb. 7) at Township. Other people in the crowd groaned. I think most of us wanted to hear that song — “Hanging on the Telephone,” which was originally recorded by Collins’ first band, the Nerves, before Blondie had a hit with a cover version — but this was an unfortunate way to phrase the request. In any case, when Collins and his band got around to playing “the Blondie song” a little while later, it was electrifying.

After the Nerves broke up way back when, Collins formed another band called the Beat — not to be confused with the English Beat. Later on, it became the Paul Collins Beat. In all of these guises, Collins has created some catchy power pop but he’s never gained all that much fame. But the folks who crowded into Township on Thursday clearly knew and loved his music. A fairly young crowd sang along to Collins’ songs, including a few that dated back to the first, self-titled Beat album from 1979, such as “I Don’t Fit In,” “Working Too Hard” and “Rock N Roll Girl.” The audience was on the verge of moshing at times. Now, that’s how you’re supposed to greet power pop royalty, people.

thepaulcollinsbeat.com

Paul Collins
Paul Collins
Paul Collins

The Paul Collins Beat
The Paul Collins Beat

The Paul Collins Beat
The Paul Collins Beat

Best Films of 2012

I’m a bit late with this list, but I’ve come to think of the film year as a 12-month period from Feb. 1 to Jan. 31, or something like that. And of course, there are still many films from 2012 I haven’t seen yet. And many films I’d like to watch a second or third time. But with all of those usual caveats, there is my snapshot, at this moment in time, of the 2012 films I liked the most. I’ve included films that played at the Chicago International Film Festival and the Gene Siskel Film Center’s European Union Film Festival last year — as well a few films that finally reached Chicago in early 2013.

1. Amour (Michael Haneke, France) — An unflinching depiction of old age, illness, death — and the bonds that tie us together — with astounding, heartrending performances by Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant … and a mysterious, memorable cameo by a pigeon. A harbinger of death? A symbol of nature intruding upon the world constructed by humans. “Consider the pigeon just a pigeon,” Haneke says. I don’t know. I keep thinking about that pigeon.

2. Consuming Spirits (Chris Sullivan, U.S.) — No wonder this quirky, magical animated feature feels lived in — the director, who teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, spent more than a decade making it. It looks handcrafted, like a quilt sewn together from scraps of three different films. The story’s fragmented, too, shifting backward and forward in time, but what might initially seemed cobbled together turns out to a meticulously constructed pattern. Alcoholism, insanity, neglect and downright weirdness dominate the story’s twisted relationships, all related with a wickedly dark sense of humor.

3. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey) — A crime drama, but more like an impressionistic landscape or a metaphysical meditation than a film noir. Slowly paced but highly engrossing, the film ends up going in an unexpected direction for its final act.

4. Alps (Yorgos Lanthimos, Greece) — The director of Dogtooth takes another disturbing trip to a world that seems almost like an alternate reality, telling a story with its own set of rules that defy normal logic. However strange it may be, Alps taps into the very real emotions of people struggling to cope with devastating loss.

5. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, U.S.) — A puzzle, but one that you can’t stop staring at. At the center of the enigmatic story, filmed in stunning visual clarity, there’s a protean struggle between two men. Paint thinner and lust runs through it.

6. Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, U.S.) — Seen through the eyes of a child and told in a child’s voice, this vivid swamp tale swirls together fairy-tale fantasy and grim, gritty glimpses of reality.

7. Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami, Japan) — The Iranian director’s trademark style (including long, talky scenes filmed inside automobiles) turns out to be an excellent fit for the Japanese milieu, as he deftly captures the subtle shades of his characters, obsessively following them to a stunning climax.

8. The Fairy (Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy, Belgium) — The slapstick and sight gags in this charming comedy are so outlandish that they’re startling to see outside the boundaries of cartoons and silent movies.

9. Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow, U.S.) — It isn’t a justification for torture. It isn’t a documentary. And it isn’t the entire story. What could be? But it’s a totally riveting procedural on the hunt for Osama bin Laden, as seen through the perspective of a driven CIA detective. Masterfully made and acted, it leaves much room for debate, and rightfully so.

10. Detropia (Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, U.S.) — This moving cinematic portrait of Detroit — or some of its people and places, anyway — finds a few glimmers of hope in the decaying urban landscape.

Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, U.S.)
Sister (Ursula Meier, Switzerland)
2 Days in New York (Julie Delpy, U.S.)

Oslo, August 31st (Joachim Trier, Norway)
Argo (Ben Affleck, U.S.)
Searching for Sugar Man (Malik Bendjelloul, Sweden/U.S.)

Lincoln (Steven Spielberg, U.S.)
Morgen (Marian Crisan, Romania)
Mourning (Morteza Farshbaf, Iran)

Looper (Rian Johnson, U.S.)
Beyond the Hills (Cristian Mungiu, Romania)
Hors Satan (Bruno Dumont, France)

The Queen of Versailles (Lauren Greenfield, U.S.)
Bernie (Richard Linklater, U.S.)
Dreileben Trilogy: Beats Being Dead (Christian Petzold); Don’t Follow Me Around (Dominik Graf); One Minute of Darkness (Cristoph Hochhäusler, Germany)

How to Survive a Plague (David France, U.S.)
Something in the Air (Olivier Assayas, France)
The Life of Pi (Ang Lee, U.S.)

Cross Record at Township

cross record

cross record

Cross Record — the stage name for Chicago singer and musician Emily Cross — plays an intriguing mix of folk songs with ambient and drone textures on its album Be Good, which you can stream at bandcamp. Songs that might pass for early Cat Power or Sharon Van Etten are embellished with echoes and moody washes of keyboards, or even an epic sense of drama, as on the song “Dirt Nap.” The record sometimes has the sound of a performer who’s playing by herself, with looping pedals as her only accompaniment.

Emily Cross played, with a backing band, on Thursday (Jan. 24) at Township. It was a solid performance, although the music wasn’t quite as spooky or evocative in these live arrangements. Still, Cross’ voice and guitar playing made it clear she’s a talent to watch. For the final song of the night, she switched to clarinet and giggled a bit as she covered the Chris Isaak song “Wicked Game.”

cross record
cross record
cross record
cross record

cross record
cross record
cross record

Best concerts of 2012

My favorite concerts from the past year. Just 10 very memorable and outstanding performances of a hundred concerts I attended; there were so many other great ones…

1. Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Sept. 16 at Riot Fest (Humboldt Park). Blog post.

2. Glen Campbell, Jan. 26 at Rialto Square Theater. Blog post.

3. Ida, Jan. 29 at Saki. Blog post and photos.

4. Jeff Mangum, Feb. 8 at the Pabst Theatre, Milwaukee. Blog post.

5. Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Oct. 11 at the United Center. Blog post.

6. Willis Earl Beal, April 19 at the Hideout. Blog post and photos.

7. Patrick Watson, June 1 at Lincoln Hall. Blog post and photos.

8. Le Butcherettes, June 2 at Do-Division. Blog post and photos.

9. The Cairo Gang, Dec. 9 at the Burlington. Blog post and photos.

10. Eighth Blackbird and other musicians perform John Luther Adams’ “Inuksuit,” Aug. 26 at the Pritzker Pavilion. Blog post and photos.

Best Records of 2012


1. SPIRITUALIZED: SWEET HEART SWEET LIGHT (Fat Possum) — Spiritualized maestro Jason Pierce emerged from a brush with death to make a soul-searching, musically rich masterpiece. Lush orchestrations and choirs of harmony singers shine like beams of light to fend off the existential angst creeping into Pierce’s world-weary rocker narration.
spiritualized.com



2. SHIRLEY ANN LEE: SONGS OF LIGHT (Numerophon) — These songs were recorded between 1996 and 1968, but only a few of them were released at the time — and even those were just 45 rpm singles distributed by bicycle in Toledo, Ohio. In other words, even though this is old music, it didn’t truly see the light of day until 2012, thanks to the invaluable work of the master musical archeologists at Chicago’s Numero Group. These spare, occasionally primitive and off-kilter recordings feature little more than piano or electric guitar and Lee’s remarkable voice, but that’s all they need to showcase the heartfelt songs, mostly written by Lee herself. Each song is built around a gospel message, but they transcend any particular religious denomination’s beliefs, expressing life’s universal struggle. When the Numero Group’s Rob Servier visited Lee at her Toledo home in 2008, she had no copies of her own records. Lacking a CD player, she went out into Servier’s car so she could hear the disc he’d made of her old recordings. Hearing the music for the first time in 40 years, she sang along. And now, the rest of the world can marvel at these lost recordings.
Buy from the Numero Group.



3. RADAR EYES: RADAR EYES (HoZac) — Garage rock of the ’60s and punk rock of the ’70s continue to inspire a lot of new music, including many Chicago bands recording on HoZac and other labels. Chicago’s Radar Eyes are one of the best, packing a punch with fuzz-drenched guitar riffs, stomping drumbeats, walloping bass lines, droning keyboards and catchy singing about, well, prairie puppies, among other things. On the final track, Radar Eyes suddenly sounds almost exactly like Joy Division, making for an odd shift in style but one that gradually starts to make sense after you get used to it. A strong set of tunes from start to finish.



4. THE CAIRO GANG: THE CORNER MAN (Empty Cellar) — The Cairo Gang is Emmett Kelly, a versatile guitarist, singer and songwriter who has shown up a lot on Chicago stages over the past several years, always demonstrating an impressive talent for sensitive playing that feeds off the musicians next to him. On this lovely new LP, Kelly’s songs resemble the music he’s recorded as a collaborator with Bonnie “Prince” Billy, but they’re all his own, with subtle, organic arrangements that shift from hushed falsetto ballads to dramatic bursts of rock. In one song, he aptly asks, “Tell me what’s better … being quiet in the noise?”
Buy the record from Endless Nest.
Buy the record on Bandcamp.



5. JOSHUA ABRAMS: REPRESENCING (Eremite) — Joshua Abrams is another musician who appears with Zelig-like frequency in Chicago nightclubs and concert halls, playing jazz as well as experimental music that overlaps with the rock scene. Abrams often plays bass, but on this record he plucks the guimbri, a three-stringed North African bass lute, also known as the sintir. His choice of instrument gives these improvisational jams a tactile sensation — you can almost feel those strings bending and snapping under his fingers. A variety of other musicians join in, creating exotic and evocative sounds. The textures change from song to song, but they’re consistently engaging, even hypnotic.
Buy the record from Eremite, and hear a sample track.



6. GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR: ALLELUJAH! DON’T BEND ASCEND (Constellation) — Epic visions of decay and destruction, all communicated without a single word being sung. The music by this Montreal collective (back in action after a long absence) could be categorized as instrumental rock music, but that feels like an inadequate label. GY!BE’s compositions owe as much to classical music as they do to rock, and the band erupts into apocalyptic bursts as intense as anything a full orchestra could conjure.
Constellation Records



7. DR. JOHN: LOCKED DOWN (Nonesuch) — The legendary New Orleans singer and keyboard player found an ideal collaborator for this record, working with Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys. The resulting musical stew includes pieces of Afro-beat, Ethiopiques, funk, blues, jazz and rock. It’s colorful, odd and cool.
Nonesuch’s website for Dr. John
Dr. John’s website



8. KELLY HOGAN: I LIKE TO KEEP MYSELF IN PAIN (Anti) — For the past decade, Kelly Hogan has been a singer you had to catch live. Despite having one of the best voices in the business, she shied away from the recording studio. She finally released an album this year, with a top-notch band and a whole slew tunes contributed by noteworthy songwriters. She wrote only one of these songs, but she makes them her own. Hogan’s home territory is a landscape with patches of country music, soul, folk, old standards and rock — classic American scenery.
kellyhogan.com



9. TREASURE FLEET: COCAMOTION (Recess) — This Chicago band features former members of the Arrivals, the Smoking Popes, the Lawrence Arms and Sass Dragons, and the music they make overflows with 1960s influences, including Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, the Who and the Kinks, and there’s a bit of Guided By Voices in the mix, too. The songs are inventive and scrappy, sometimes whimsical, sometimes yearning, always highly melodic. Cocamotion was just one of two records Treasure Fleet released in 2012; the other was Future Ways, which is almost as great as this one.
Buy the album from Recess Records.



10. CATE LE BON: CYRK (The Control Group) — The Welsh singer-songwriter takes Great Britain’s folk-music idioms and channels them into a rock band setting, adding psychedelic flourishes, Nico-style intoning and waltz beats. Le Bon’s dulcet voice glides serenely and seemingly effortlessly through it all.
catelebon.com
Listen to the album on Paste magazine’s website.


RUNNERS-UP (IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER)
Alabama Shakes: Boys & Girls
Amadou & Mariam: Folila
Antibalas: Antibalas
Willis Earl Beal: Acousmatic Sorcery
Andrew Bird: Break It Yourself
Bonnie “Prince” Billy: Hummingbird (EP)
Bonnie “Prince” Billy & Mariee Sioux: Bonnie & Mariee (EP)
Cat Power: Sun
Cinchel: Stereo Stasis
The dB’s: Falling Off the Sky
Dan Deacon: America
Disappears: Pre Language
Divine Fits: A Thing Called Divine Fits
Justin Townes Earle: Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now
The Explorers Club: Grand Hotel
Father John Misty: Fear Fun
Bill Fay: Life Is People
Lee Fields & the Expressions: A Faithful Man
Gap Dream: Gap Dream
Guided By Voices: Let’s Go Eat the Factory
Guided By Voices: Class Clown Spots a UFO
Guided By Voices: The Bears for Lunch
Hanne Hukkelberg: Featherbrain
The Horse Loom: The Horse Loom
Catherine Irwin: Little Heater
Kayhan Kalhor: I Will Not Stand Alone
Brendan Losch: Low
Aimee Mann: Charmer
Mexican Institute of Sound: Politico
Mind Spiders: Meltdown
Mount Eerie: Clear Moon
Georgia Anne Muldrow: Seeds
Salim Nourallah: Hit Parade
Angel Olsen: Half Way Home
Oneida: A List of the Burning Mountains
Outer Minds: Behind the Mirror
Poor Moon: Poor Moon
Redd Kross: Researching the Blues
Megan Reilly: The Well
Lee Renaldo: Between the Times and the Tides
Ty Segall: Twins
Ty Segall Band: Slaughterhouse
Spires That in the Sunset Rise: Ancient Patience Wills It Again
Swans: The Seer
The Tallest Man on Earth: There’s No Leaving Now
Thee Oh Sees: Putrifiers II
Treasure Fleet: Future Ways
Trembling Bells & Bonnie “Prince” Billy: The Marble Downs
Corin Tucker Band: Kill My Blues
Sharon Van Etten: Tramp
Waco Brothers and Paul Burch: The Great Chicago Fire
The Walkmen: Heaven
M. Ward: A Wasteland Companion
Patrick Watson: Adventures in Your Own Backyard
White Hills: Frying on This Rock
Matthew E. White: Big Inner
Bobby Womack: The Bravest Man in the Universe
Woods: Bend Beyond
The World Record: Freeway Special
Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Psychedelic Pill

Thrill Jockey’s 20th Anniversary

Tortoise
Tortoise
Tortoise

Time flies. It doesn’t seem like five years have passed since I attended the Thrill Jockey record label’s 15th anniversary celebration. (I posted photos here.) But on Thursday (Dec. 20), somehow it was already time for Thrill Jockey’s 20th anniversary. The Chicago label has maintained a defiantly independent streak over its two decades of existence, an achievement well worth celebrating. Thursday’s concert at the Empty Bottle was free, though not everyone waiting in the long line outside managed to get in.

There weren’t any speeches from the stage — just three bands, playing the sort of out-of-the-mainstream music Thrill Jockey is known for. It would’ve been impossible to represent the full range of Thrill Jockey’s musical spectrum in just a few hours, but this was a good sample. Man Forever, a group led by Oneida drummer John Colpitts aka Kid Millions, started the evening with a single piece of music featuring four percussionists playing polyrhythmic patterns as guitars and bass provided a wall of drone. Then came The Sea and Cake, a long-running Thrill Jockey band, playing its alternative-universe version of what pop music might sound like. And finally, two of the musicians from that outfit (John McEntire and Doug McCombs) stuck around for a performance by one of their other bands, the so-called post-rock (sorry!) instrumentalists Tortoise. One of the band’s members, Dan Bitney, was ill and unable to attend, so the band played as a quartet — which made for a scrappy and rocking, if somewhat abbreviated, set.

Kudos to Thrill Jockey for a terrific 20 years, and here’s to … the next 20?

Man Forever
Man Forever

Man Forever
Man Forever

Man Forever
Man Forever

The Sea and Cake
The Sea and Cake

The Sea and Cake
The Sea and Cake

The Sea and Cake
The Sea and Cake

The Sea and Cake
The Sea and Cake

Tortoise
Tortoise

Tortoise
Tortoise

Tortoise
Tortoise

Catherine Irwin at the Hideout

Catherine Irwin

Catherine Irwin

It’s been seven years since the last album by Freakwater, the alt-country duo of Catherine Irwin and Janet Bean, and a decade since Irwin released her last solo record. Thankfully, there’s some action lately on the Freakwater front. The duo is reuniting (reconvening?) for a tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of its album Feels Like the Third Time, with a show Jan. 21 at the Hideout. And Irwin recently released a great solo record called Little Heater, which brought her to the Hideout on Friday night for a delightful set of her rustic, plaintive country-folk songs.

She mostly played songs from the new record, including “Dusty Groove,” which her friend Kelly Hogan also sang on her 2012 album. And Irwin threw in another one of her songs that has been covered by a friend, “Hex,” which Neko Case sang on her 2004 live album, The Tigers Have Spoken. It was great to hear Irwin sing these songs in her own unmistakable voice.

The night started with a set from Rachel Ries, who said she is recording an album in Chicago with help from Emmett Kelly and David Vandervelde. Following Irwin’s set, Mr. Rudy Day (featuring Andy Hopkins, Mike Bulington and Geoff Greenberg) cranked up the volume considerably above the hushed sounds of the acts that preceded them.

Catherine Irwin
Catherine Irwin
Catherine Irwin
Catherine Irwin

Rachel Ries
Rachel Ries

Mr. Rudy Day
Mr. Rudy Day

The Cairo Gang at the Burlington

The Cairo Gang

This past weekend was filled with noteworthy live music, as you can see from my previous blog entries about Chris & Heather’s Country Calendar Show, Syl Johnson, Renaldo Domino and Expo 76, and Foxygen and Angel Olsen. And then on Monday came another fabulous evening of Robbie Fulks at the Hideout, this time featuring Kelly Hogan.

But perhaps the best performance of the whole weekend was a set on Sunday night by the Cairo Gang, in front of a small but appreciative audience at the Burlington. The Cairo Gang is the stage name of virtuoso multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Emmet Kelly, who shows up in Chicago clubs over and over again playing with various bands. Most famously, he’s been a sideman to Bonnie “Prince” Billy in recent years. On the wonderful album Wonder Show of the World, the Cairo Gang (aka Kelly) wrote the music while Bonnie “Prince” Billy (aka Will Oldham) wrote the lyrics. Kelly has also played with Angel Olsen, Joshua Abrams and David Vandervelde, just to name a few.

Under his Cairo Gang moniker, he recently released an exceptional record called The Corner Man, which makes it clear how much he and Oldham have influenced each other. In its quiet, acoustic moments, the album is reminiscent of the work Kelly has done with Bonnie “Prince” Billy, with delicate, subtle vocals carrying artfully constructed melodies. But as Time Out Chicago noted last week in an article about Kelly, the live version of the Cairo Gang is turning into something more like a band than a solo act. The lineup that played Sunday at the Burlington includes Ryan Weinstein (of the band Coffin Pricks) on bass, Sam Wagster (of the Father Costume) on guitar and Ben Babbitt (of This Is Cinema) on drums.

At the Burlington, the Cairo Gang was loud and intense, but no less subtle than the studio recordings. Some of Kelly’s quiet moments on record were transformed into dramatic, even epic rock. In the midst of the set, the band played two terrific back-to-back covers: the Mekons’ “Hello Cruel World” followed by Nick Cave’s “Shivers.” [Correction: Oops, that’s actually a song written by Roland S. Howard and originally recorded by The Boys Next Door before they became The Birthday Party; Cave was a member of the band but not the writer of that song. The song is also covered by The Divine Fits on their 2012 debut.] The gang ended their show after midnight with the most hushed song of the night, but that one, too, built to a thrilling climax. There were 30 or so people in the room, including several faces I recognized from other bands. An enthusiastic couple near the front didn’t even know who they were watching, demanding at the end of the set: “Say your name again!” The Cairo Gang. Remember that name.

The Cairo Gang’s The Corner Man is available from Empty Cellar Records; and the whole album can be streamed on bandcamp.

The Cairo Gang
The Cairo Gang
The Cairo Gang
The Cairo Gang
The Cairo Gang

Foxygen and Angel Olsen

Foxygen

On Sunday (Jan. 9.), Logan Square’s Saki record store once again hosted an afternoon of free live music. One of the performers was Chicago singer-songwriter Angel Olsen, whom wrote about recently when she played at the Burlington. So… not to belabor the point, but she once again wowed a crowd into silence with her beautiful voice and songs.

Angel Olsen
Angel Olsen
Angel Olsen
Angel Olsen
Angel Olsen

In a much different vein, Sunday’s in-store at Saki also featured Foxygen. The California duo-turned-band’s debut, Take the Kids Off Broadway, was released this year by the Jagjaguwar label. It’s a giddy psychedelic party, and the band lived up to its occasionally goofy studio recordings with a daft live performance that included lots of hair pulling, ironic stage banter and keening vocals that sometimes reminded me of the Oklahoma band Evangelicals. I’m looking forward to the second Foxygen record, We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic, which comes out in January.

Epitonic recorded both performances for its Epitonic Saki Sessions.

Foxygen
Foxygen
Foxygen
Foxygen
Foxygen
Foxygen
Foxygen
Foxygen

Syl Johnson and Renaldo Domino

Renaldo Domino
Syl Johnson
Syl Johnson

“The Secret History of Chicago Music” comic strip by Steve Krakow, aka Plastic Crimewave, has started presenting concerts showcasing the city’s overlooked musical acts. The latest edition was on Saturday, Dec. 8, at the Hideout.

Andre Williams was originally scheduled to appear, but when he fell ill, Syl Johnson was the last-minute substitute. So the lineup ended up featuring two great soul singers, Syl Johnson and Renaldo Domino, both of whom have had their music reissued in recent years by Chicago’s esteemed archival label the Numero Group. And both were backed on Saturday night by Expo 76, who played several songs of their own, too — well, several of the fun covers of rock oldies that they specialize in, anyway.

Expo 76 (featuring Dag Juhlin) served its role well as the house band for the night. Domino was suave and soulful. Johnson showed off his Grammy nominee medallion and played his best-known songs, letting loose on some bluesy guitar solos. The highlight was a long, impassioned take on his anthem, “Is It Because I’m Black?”

Dag Juhlin of Expo 76
Dag Juhlin of Expo 76

Syl Johnson
Syl Johnson

Syl Johnson
Syl Johnson

Syl Johnson
Syl Johnson showing his Grammy nominee medallion

Syl Johnson
Syl Johnson

Renaldo Domino
Renaldo Domino

Renaldo Domino
Renaldo Domino

Renaldo Domino
Renaldo Domino

Renaldo Domino
Renaldo Domino

Renaldo Domino
Renaldo Domino

The last (?) Country Calendar show

Heather McAdams and Chris Ligon
Heather McAdams
Heather McAdams

For the past 15 years, cartoonist Heather McAdams and her husband, musician Chris Ligon, have presented a delightful event each December at FitzGerald’s: Chris and Heather’s Country Calendar Show. McAdams sells her calendars, which feature her drawings of old-time country music stars and tons of factoids and humorous observations packed into practically every square. And each year, a dozen or so musical acts take the stage, paying tribute to one of the artists featured in the calendar by playing a couple of cover tunes. And in between all of those musical performances, a movie screen gets pulled down so that Chris and Heather can project 16mm films from their collection of classic country music.

It’s quite a festive evening, and I’ve attended a few times. Alas, the 2012 edition is apparently the last one Chris and Heather will ever do. At least, that’s what they’re saying now. I’m hoping they come back. To quote the reaction of Neko Case (who has performed at past calendar shows) when she heard the tradition was ending:

Chris and Heather’s final calendar show was filled with all of the hilarity, affection, great music and cool old films that regulars had come to expect. It was a bittersweet occasion, but they went out in style.

Heather’s L’il 2012 Country Calendar is for sale here.

Heather McAdams and Chris Ligon
Heather McAdams and Chris Ligon

Chris Ligon
Chris Ligon reads Heather's list of other guys she'd like as co-hosts.

Scott Ligon
Scott Ligon plays the music of Skeeter Davis.

Lawrence Peters Outfit
The Lawrence Peters Outfit sings Randy Travis.

Paulina Hollers
The Paulina Hollers play Bill Monroe.

Paulina Hollers
The Paulina Hollers play Bill Monroe.

Matt Miller
Matt Miller sings the songs of Conway Twitty.

Jon Langford
Jon Langford is Johnny Cash.

Devil in a Woodpile
Devil in a Woodpile do Billy Joe Shaver.

Vernon Tonges
Vernon Tonges

Robbie Fulks and Vernon Tonges
Robbie Fulks joins Vernon Tonges onstage as Tonges sings Fulks' song "Push Right Over."

Heather McAdams and Chris Ligon
Heather McAdams hypnotizes Chris Ligon into performing impersonations.

The Modern Sounds
The Modern Sounds perform George Jones.

The Modern Sounds
The Modern Sounds perform George Jones.

Robbie and Donna Fulks
Robbie and Donna Fulks perform the music of the Johnson Mountain Boys.

Possum Hollow Boys
The Possum Hollow Boys are Wanda Jackson.

Charlie King
Charlie King

Jane Baxter Miller and Kent Kessler
Jane Baxter Miller and Kent Kessler do Freddy Fender.

The Polkaholics
The Polkaholics "cook" as the Collins Kids.

The Polkaholics
The Polkaholics "cook" as the Collins Kids.

The Fat Babies
The Fat Babies play Bob Wills.

The week in concerts

Mike Cooley

Mike Cooley
Mike Cooley

Notes on the past week’s concerts:

TUESDAY, NOV. 27, THE HIDEOUT — RICK RIZZO AND JANET BEAN: The Hideout’s been hosting some shows lately in its front room, including a few recent gigs by Rizzo, the lead singer and guitarist for Eleventh Dream Day. This time, he was joined by his fellow Eleventh Dream Day member Janet Bean, who normally plays drums and sings. For this unamplified performance, she had jingle bells on her ankles; she also shook a tambourine and occasionally played a Melodica, while Rizzo played acoustic guitar. It was unusual to hear EDD’s songs unplugged. The tunes are meant to rock, but it was cool to hear Rizzo and Bean’s vocal harmonies and lyrics so clearly. They played several new songs, which will probably show up on the next Eleventh Dream Day record, whenever that comes out.

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 28, THE BURLINGTON — DAVID VANDERVELDE: This was the last of four Wednesday-night shows Vandervelde performed during his November “residency” at the Burlington; the only one that I managed to catch. He was in excellent form, playing several songs with buzzing guitar riffs and solos in the style of Neil Young and Crazy Horse. But as always, he also reveled in power-pop melodies. On this occasion, his songs reminded me more than a little bit of Badfinger. Can’t wait to hear his next record. I showed up just in time to catch the last song and a half by Mazes, who seemed to be rocking pretty hard; and alas, I missed the first set of the night, by the Singleman Affair.

THURSDAY, NOV. 29, ALLSTATE ARENA — THE WHO: I hadn’t been planning to see The Who until I got a last-minute offer for a ticket. I’m glad I went. The one time I’d seen The Who before was their “farewell” tour in 1989. And I was skeptical about the whole idea of Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend carrying on as “The Who” without either Keith Moon or John Entwistle. But as much as I’d prefer going in a time machine back to a Who concert circa 1967, they played a remarkably good show this time.

Daltrey’s vocals stayed strong. Townshend twirled his arm in that trademark windmill, making jagged shards out of his rhythm chords. And several musicians filled out the rest of the sounds as they performed the entirety of their complex 1973 rock opera Quadrophenia, followed by a short string of some greatest hits: “Who Are You,” “Behind Blue Eyes,” “Pinball Wizard,” “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” They should’ve ended the show there, but they went on, with Daltrey and Townshend alone on the stage doing an acoustic duet version of “Tea & Theatre,” from The Who’s 2006 album Endless Wire. It was actually nice to hear the two of them playing by themselves, but the song paled in comparison to everything that had come before it. Still, all in all, a memorable night of music by one of the world’s greatest rock bands — or what remains of it.

FRIDAY, NOV. 30, THE HIDEOUT — MIKE COOLEY: Patterson Hood gets the most attention in the Drive-By Truckers, but the other singer-songwriter-guitarist in the group, Mike Cooley, has been contributing great songs to the band’s albums since the beginning. He rarely plays solo gigs, so it was a privilege to see him sitting down with a couple of acoustic guitars on the Hideout’s stage. Cooley, who generally lets Hood do all the talking between songs at DBT shows, turned out to be a fairly talkative and wickedly funny guy. And what a pleasure to hear his songs in these plucked-acoustic arrangements, which often sounded quite a bit different than the full band versions. A friend who saw Cooley on Thursday night as well told me that he played a lot of different songs the previous night. As Cooley noted, he works without a set list, and he obligingly played some of the songs requested by enthusiastic fans. Highlights included “Zip City,” “Checkout Time in Vegas,” “Marry Me,””Carl Perkins’ Cadillac” and “When the Pin Hits the Shell.”

I had my camera at only one of these concerts, the Mike Cooley show. My photos:

Mike Cooley
Mike Cooley
Mike Cooley
Mike Cooley
Mike Cooley

Leonard Cohen at the Akoo Theatre

Leonard Cohen turned 78 years old this fall, but he showed no signs of allowing his age to slow him down when he performed Friday night (Nov. 23) at the Akoo Theatre (the suburban Chicago venue formerly known as the Rosemont Theatre). Cohen was on the stage for more than three hours! As the concert began, he said he and his band would give the audience everything they had — and it turned out that he wasn’t joking.

Cohen delivered a marathon greatest-hits concert backed by a versatile band of virtuosos and dulcet-voiced singers. Cohen has never been seen as a conventionally great singer, but his conversational tone is perfect for putting the emphasis on his poetic lyrics — and his weathered voice sounded just right on Friday night, especially when it descended into beautifully creaky baritone depths. As good as Cohen’s band is, he allowed the musicians to indulge in a few too many solos over the course of the evening, but it was always touching to see Cohen’s unusual gesture toward those players. Whenever it was someone’s turn to play a solo, Cohen doffed his hat, holding it in front of his chest in a sign of respect, as he stood or knelt facing the soloist.

Cohen also knelt frequently as he sang. Maybe he just felt comfortable resting his legs for a minute, but it also seemed like a sign of gratitude, or perhaps a recognition of music’s holy quality. Cohen skipped with delight as he left the stage, and then he kept coming back … and coming back. Many audience members got up to leave after his first encore, but then he came back and sang more. He skipped away again, audience members got up again, and then Cohen returned for yet another encore. By the time he finished with a cover of the Drifters’ “Save the Last Dance for Me,” he had played 30 songs. And he looked like he could’ve kept it up for another few hours.

Here’s a set list — which Greg Kot included in his Chicago Tribune review; the list matches my notes from the concert.

FIRST SET: Dance Me to the End of Love / The Future / Bird on the Wire / Everybody Knows / Who by Fire / Darkness / Ain’t No Cure for Love / Amen / Come Healing / In My Secret Life / A Thousand Kisses Deep / Anthem

SECOND SET: Tower of Song / Suzanne / Waiting for the Miracle / Anyhow / Heart With No Companion / Democracy / Alexandra Leaving (performed by Sharon Robinson) / I’m Your Man / Hallelujah / Take This Waltz

FIRST ENCORE: So Long, Marianne / Going Home / First We Take Manhattan

SECOND ENCORE: Famous Blue Raincoat / If It Be Your Will (performed by Webb Sisters) / Closing Time

THIRD ENCORE: I Tried to Leave You / Save the Last Dance for Me

Angel Olsen at The Burlington

Angel Olsen

Angel Olsen

The first time I saw Angel Olsen was back in 2007, when she was an opening act for Marissa Nadler at Ronny’s. “Cool downtrodden strumming, piercing pretty vocals,” I noted at the time. And then a few years passed before I heard anything else from this promising singer. She surfaced again in 2010, showing up as a singer in Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s band.

Earlier this year, Olsen finally put out the sort of record that could attract the sort of attention she deserves: a lovely LP called Half Way Home, on the Bathetic label. On the record, Olsen sings and plays with backup from another talented Chicago musician who’s spent time in Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s band, Emmett Kelly (who’s also the leader of the Cairo Gang). While this isn’t a solo acoustic recording, the production and arrangements are spare, and the feeling is that of an intimate, natural performance captured on tape just as it might sound in a bedroom.

Olsen played an in-store with Kelly on Sept. 4 at Reckless Records in Wicker Park, and the store was filled with listeners. And then, when she performed a Nov. 12 concert in New York, New York Times critic Ben Ratliff wrote a glowing review under the headline “A Singer Finds Her Voice, and It Can Silence All Others.” It seemed that this largely unheralded singer from Chicago might be finally getting more widespread notice. Jessica Hopper interviewed Olsen for a Nov. 16 article in the Chicago Tribune, and then Olsen made her triumphant return to Chicago for a gig Monday (Nov. 19) at The Burlington.

At least, it felt triumphant to me. Olsen’s still a fairly obscure singer in the grand scheme of things, and Monday’s show felt a bit like a private party where she was welcomed home by friends. After nice, folk-rock sets by two openers, Clouds and Mountains and I Ching Quartet, Olsen took the stage. This time, she was playing solo — calmly commanding the stage. She did show jitters at a few moments, forgetting a few of her own lyrics, but then laughed it off with self-deprecating humor. She played an electric guitar, but kept the tone clean and unadorned, sounding practically acoustic as she strummed and plucked spare but inventive chord progressions. She sang softly much of the time, but then she would step aside from the microphone as her voice rose in strength, hitting notes filled with plaintive pleading.

At a few points, in the middle of song, Olsen raised her eyebrows or said something like, “hmm,” as if commenting on her own performance as it was happening — gestures that could be seen as examples of her lacking confidence. To me, they felt — paradoxically, perhaps — more like signs that she is comfortable with her presence on the stage. As she sang, the room felt almost completely silent. I sensed some awe among the people gathered there.

Angel Olsen
Angel Olsen

Here’s a video I shot of one song, “The Waiting,” which is preceded by a giggly introduction:

Thurston Moore and Frank Rosaly

Thurston Moore

Thurston Moore

In case you missed it … Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth played two shows this past weekend in a little Logan Square club called The Burlington. Despite Moore’s fame, the gigs seemed to be a bit under the radar. They were part of the four-day Neon Marshmallow, a diverse and sometimes daring music festival event that was held in the Empty Bottle and Viaduct Theatre in prior years. I wish I could’ve attended more of the festival this year, but other things on my schedule got in the way. But I did manage to catch Moore’s performance on Sunday night — which was especially cool because it featured Moore collaborating and improvising with Frank Rosaly, one of Chicago’s most inventive drummers.

Rosaly made skittering, clattering noises with his kit — occasionally holding cymbals and other percussion pieces instead of drumsticks — creating rhythms that skipped around in unexpected patterns. Moore was using old-school equipment — just one electric guitar, a few pedals, an amp and a couple of bars or tools to assault his strings. Together, they painted an abstract sonic landscape. Near the end, Moore laconically leaned back against his amp, taking his hands off his guitar and letting the feedback ebb and flow. Across the stage, Rosaly was the manic opposite of Moore’s frozen figure, attacking his drums with a rapidity that approached the impossibly fast hammering of woodpeckers. And then Moore abruptly lunged to the middle of the stage and stomped on a guitar pedal just as Rosaly shut himself off and brought the noise to a climactic halt.

Frank Rosaly
Thurston Moore
Thurston Moore
Frank Rosaly
Thurston Moore
Thurston Moore
Thurston Moore
Frank Rosaly
Frank Rosaly

OM, Daniel Higgs and Bruce Lamont

OM

OM

OM emerged out of the heavy music genre that’s often called stoner rock, but the band has moved beyond that sound — exploring Middle Eastern melodic structures and other mystical elements. When OM started in 2003, it was the duo of Al Cisneros and Chris Hakius, who’d been the rhythm section for stoner legends Sleep. OM’s most recent lineup has bassist-singer Cisneros playing with drummer Emil Amos — and now, former Chicagoan Robert A.A. Lowe, aka Lichens, has joined the roster. The three of them played Saturday (Nov. 17) at the Empty Bottle, playing music from their recent record Advaitic Songs as well as older songs.

OM’s latest studio recordings sound trippy and almost meditative at times, but each song keeps moving forward with an insistent quality. The rhythm section doesn’t have to drive you to keep listening — there’s simply something inherent in those exotic musical motifs that makes it feel natural to keep them on repeat. As a live act on Saturday night, playing to a jam-packed, sold-out Empty Bottle, OM turned up the heaviness, hammering the bass riffs home with more force. Sitting behind a table, Lowe seemed like an essential part of OM’s musical quotient, singing, playing guitar and fiddling with various electronic gear as he painted more layers on top of OM’s sturdy foundation.

OM
OM
OM
OM
OM
OM

Saturday’s show started off with a solo set by Bruce Lamont, who’s also the singer and sax player in the arty heavy metal band Yakuza, the Robert Plant simulacrum in tribute band Led Zeppelin II — and an Empty Bottle bartender. Lamont used looping to build an evocative drone with his voice, guitar and woodwinds.

Bruce Lamont
Bruce Lamont

The second act of the night was Daniel Higgs, who used to sing with the band Lungfish and also collaborated last year on a terrific punk record by the Swedish band Skull Defekts. (See my review and photos of Higgs’ 2011 show with Skull Defekts at the Hideout.) For his gig at the Empty Bottle, the gray-bearded Higgs sat with a banjo and intoned songs of epic length with lyrics that spooled out with no end in sight. In fact, most of the set seemed to be one song, which he interrupted and then returned to. He told the audience that he was still working out some of this material, trying to decide on a melody to go with his words. It was often compelling and interesting, but it got monotonous by the end of his set. Like many other musicians playing quiet music on the Empty Bottle’s stage, Higgs seemed to be frustrated with the chatter of bar patrons intruding on his songs, but he addressed his frustration by addressing the crowd in strange, elliptical and humorous comments. “I think they should turn this place into a church,” he said at one point. And then he got the crowd to sing a note, directing us just to make it up. “This concert needs a recalibration,” he explained.

Daniel Higgs
Daniel Higgs

The dB’s at the Hideout

Chris Stamey of The dB's
Peter Holsapple of The dB's
Peter Holsapple of The dB's

Even back in the 1980s, when The dB’s were going strong with four really cool albums of power-pop music, the band was a little bit under the radar. They were one of those groups that you heard about from obsessive record collectors rather than hearing them on the radio. They were starting to get some attention around 1987, when I saw them opening for R.E.M. at the Assembly Hall in Champaign, but then they broke up shortly after that.

They remained favorites of those obsessive record collectors, however — and in 2005, the original lineup reunited for some gigs, including an appearance at the Hideout Block Party. They started working on a new album. And took seven years doing it. Released this summer, Falling Off the Sky turned out to be a winner, a collection of catchy, clever tunes featuring the voices of Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey, sounding just about the same as they sounded 30 years ago. (It probably didn’t hurt that a couple of their old-time cohorts, Mitch Easter and Scott Litt, assisted with production.)

Chicago was lucky to get two dB’s shows this week at a great venue, the Hideout — especially lucky considering how this fall “tour” included just one other concert, in St. Louis.

The dB’s seemed like they were having a great deal of fun on Thursday night, as they dug deep into their back catalog for songs including their 1979 single “Black and White” — and of course, popular tracks like “Amplifier” and “Neverland.” They turned down an audience request for “Molly Says,” with Holsapple admitting that the band was neglecting songs from the 1987 album The Sound of Music — a fine record, in my opinion. But they did insert “Big Brown Eyes” into their set after someone yelled out that song title. And at the end of the night, the dB’s rocked out on a cover of Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want).”

Gene Holder of The dB's
Gene Holder of The dB's

Chris Stamey of The dB's
Chris Stamey of The dB's

Gene Holder of The dB's
Gene Holder of The dB's

Chris Stamey of The dB's
Chris Stamey of The dB's

Peter Holsapple of The dB's
Peter Holsapple of The dB's

Will Rigby of The dB's
Will Rigby of The dB's

Will Rigby of The dB's
Will Rigby of The dB's

The Hideout gigs gave dB’s drummer Will Rigby a chance to put his daughter Hazel in the spotlight. As it happens, she lives in Chicago, playing bass and singing with the band Outside World, who opened for the dB’s — playing fuzzy shoegaze rock, reminiscent of a different slice of 1980s rock music. (According to Joshua Klein’s review in the Chicago Tribune, this was apparently the first time Hazel had ever seen her dad’s band in concert.)

Outside World
Outside World

Outside World
Outside World

Grass Widow at the Empty Bottle

Grass Widow
Grass Widow
Grass Widow

Thursday was one of those nights when it was possible to see a couple of good concerts in the same night. After King Tuff at Subterranean, I headed over to the Empty Bottle, where Grass Widow was headlining a late show. The all-female San Francisco trio harmonized in a way that sounded similar to other bands in the recent crop of “Girl Groups,” but they also went beyond the usual garage-rock three-chord template by playing some really creative melodies on the guitar and bass. The group’s latest record is called Internal Logic, and the songs are indeed built on a strong foundation of musical logic. But hey, it’s also rock, and that’s just what Grass Widow did on Thursday night.

Grass Widow
Grass Widow

Grass Widow
Grass Widow

Grass Widow
Grass Widow

Grass Widow
Grass Widow

The Empty Bottle show also featured San Francisco punk rockers Neon Piss and Iowa City’s Wet Hair, who sounded vaguely krautrockish. But my favorite of the three opening bands was another all-female bunch, Chicago’s Blizzard Babies — who played more of that girl-group garage rock, but with one unusual touch: a ukulele.

Blizzard Babies
Blizzard Babies

Blizzard Babies
Blizzard Babies

Blizzard Babies
Blizzard Babies

Blizzard Babies
Blizzard Babies

Wet Hair
Wet Hair

King Tuff and Gap Dream

King Tuff
Gap Dream
Gap Dream

I was at Subterranean on Thursday night, Nov. 8, to see an early, all-ages show by King Tuff, but when I walked into the place, I was struck by the instantly catchy sounds coming from the opening band, Gap Dream. “Who’s that?” you are probably asking. That’s what I was asking, too. It turns out they’re a rock group from Cleveland; the CMJ website describes their music as “Psychedelic surf pop from the southern shores of Lake Erie.” I’m not sure about the surf part, but it certainly was psychedelic, like a trippy version of the Byrds, with lots of chiming, ’60-style guitar lines and strong vocal melodies and harmonizing. I liked Gap Dream enough that I went to the merch table and bought their self-titled debut LP. You can hear it and/or buy it on bandcamp.

Gap Dream
Gap Dream

Gap Dream
Gap Dream

Gap Dream
Gap Dream

And then it was time for King Tuff, a rocker on the Sub Pop label with a recent self-titled record that’s jam-packed with catchy tunes. King Tuff’s tunes are unabashed homages to an earlier era of hard-rock hits. Although King Tuff seemed very much like a full-fledged band during the Subterranean gig, the band is essentially one dude, Kyle Thomas, who’s also played in the stoner-rock band Witch and the Vermont collective Feathers. Some of that stoner attitude comes through on the harder-edged King Tuff riffs, but for the most part, King Tuff is all about fun songs with memorable hooks. And that came through loud and clear during Thursday’s gig. The show ended early, which gave me time to hit another concert. More on that shortly…

King Tuff
King Tuff

King Tuff
King Tuff

King Tuff
King Tuff

King Tuff
King Tuff

King Tuff
King Tuff

Dan Deacon at Lincoln Hall

Dan Deacon concert
Dan Deacon
Dan Deacon

I got my first impression of Dan Deacon when he played 2007 Hideout Block Party, setting up a table of electronic gear and old Casio keyboards and stuff in the middle of the pavement — essentially performing into the midst of an enthusiastic crowd. It all seemed like lots of fun, but as often happens with electronic music artists, I was left wondering just what Deacon had been doing with all of those knobs and levers.

I overcame my skepticism about Deacon’s musicianship when I listened to his two most recent albums, 2009’s Bromst and this year’s America. Both of these records make it clear that Deacon’s a composer of some true sophistication, using the sort of overlapping melodic patterns that are common in Philip Glass’ minimalism but employing them to a different end — pulsing and often anthemic pop music.

As a concert act, Deacon is still a bit of a goofball and a party instigator. When he performed Wednesday (Nov. 7) at Lincoln Hall with his ensemble (two drummers plus keyboardist-guitarist Chester Endersby Gwazda, also one of the opening acts), the music was just as complex as it is on the records. It was still hard to decipher precisely how Deacon was coaxing all of those sounds out of that mound of wires in front of him, but it never felt like a bunch of precorded sounds scrolling on a laptop, which is the unfortunate fate of many electronic artists during concerts.

Deacon got the crowd to do a variety of dances and maneuvers that had the feeling of a hipster game of “Simon Says.” These games included one that involved much of the audience going out on the sidewalk in front of Lincoln Hall while Deacon and his band continued playing. During one song, many of the audience held their smartphones aloft and used Dan Deacon’s app, which picked up the song’s vibrations, triggering the phones to display light in various colors — making the fans part of the light show. The whole concert had an infectious sense of fun.

Dan Deacon
Dan Deacon

Dan Deacon
Dan Deacon

Dan Deacon
Dan Deacon

Dan Deacon Ensemble
Dan Deacon Ensemble

Dan Deacon concert
Dan Deacon concert

Dan Deacon concert
Dan Deacon concert

Dan Deacon concert
Dan Deacon concert

Dan Deacon concert
Dan Deacon concert

Dan Deacon Ensemble
Dan Deacon Ensemble

Dan Deacon Ensemble
Dan Deacon Ensemble

Dan Deacon concert
Dan Deacon concert

Dan Deacon Ensemble
Dan Deacon Ensemble

Dan Deacon Ensemble
Dan Deacon Ensemble

Dan Deacon Ensemble
Dan Deacon Ensemble

Dan Deacon Ensemble
Dan Deacon Ensemble

Gwazda’s opening set was cut short by problems with broken guitar strings. The evening also featured Height with friends (whose rap-rock tired me out after a while) and comedian Alan Resnick, who charmed with a bizarre lecture about creating a virtual version of himself.

Alan Resnick
Alan Resnick

Chester Endersby Gwazda
Chester Endersby Gwazda

Height with friends
Height with friends

Height with friends
Height with friends

The World Record at Township

The World Record

The World Record

No matter how diligently the media, publicists and bloggers try to tell us about all of the worthwhile concerts happening every night in Chicago, some good ones slip through the cracks. The only reason I knew anything about the show at Township last Sunday (Nov. 4) was that I noticed a friend tweeting about it. (That friend is Heather Copeland, who posts a lot of her concert videos on youtube.) Given how little publicity this show received, it wasn’t surprising that the room was pretty bare when the World Record played, but the 20 or so people in attendance seemed to enjoy it — and I certainly did.

The World Record are a Los Angeles power pop band, led by singer-guitarist Andy Creighton (who has also played with Apex Manor, Papercuts and Foreign Born), and their recently released sophomore album, Freeway Special, is filled with 18 hook-filled songs reminiscent of Teenage Fanclub and the Weakerthans. What’s not to like about that? (You can hear the whole record and buy mp3s or FLACs at bandcamp.)

According to a press release, the World Record have “remained one of L.A.’s best-kept secrets, rarely venturing outside of Southern California.” They hadn’t played in Chicago for several years, and unfortunately, Sunday’s gig was below the radar, but I hope they’ll be back soon.

The World Record
The World Record
The World Record
The World Record
The World Record

Metz at the Empty Bottle

Metz

Metz

The Canadian band Metz — or METZ, if you follow the group’s preferred capitalization scheme — was back in Chicago this past Saturday night (Oct. 27) for a gig at the Empty Bottle. I happened to catch these guys a year ago, when they played in the same room, opening for Iceage. This time, they were the headliners and they had an actual record out, a self-titled debut that came out recently on the Sub Pop label.

This trio plays pulverizing punk rock — or perhaps it’s post-punk? It’s hard to tell where the boundaries are between rock’s noisier genres. Metz’s driving, loud riffs are more reminiscent of ’90s punk than the looser, garage-rock-influenced punk that’s been heard a lot lately. Saturday’s performance was tight and powerful. It’s the sort of music that might live up to the title of one Metz song, “Headache,” but it actually feels good if you give into the pain.

Metz
Metz
Metz
Metz
Metz
Metz
Metz
Metz

Saturday’s show also featured an opening set by Toronto’s Absolutely Free, which began interestingly enough with a bit of a Caribou vibe, but by the end of the set, I was getting bored and sensing more of an Animal Collective sensibility. (And sorry, I didn’t get any good photos of Absolutely Free, because it so blasted dark.) The middle set of the night was another strong performance by Chicago’s Radar Eyes, who were decked out in Halloween costumes and playing with a new, apparently temporary drummer, Nithin Kalvakota, filling in for expectant mother Shelley Zawadzki.

Radar Eyes
Radar Eyes

Radar Eyes
Radar Eyes

Twerps and Freaks

Twerps

Most of the music was dreamy and drifting Thursday night (Oct. 25) at the Empty Bottle. Chicago’s Bare Mutants started off the evening with songs heavily laden with trippy Velvet Underground-esque drones.

The second band of the night, Alex Bleeker and the Freaks, jammed more, but other than a few flourishes of dirty noise, most of the songs sounded pretty, not all that far removed from the music of Bleeker’s other band, Real Estate. The band’s interesting choice for its final song was “Animal Tracks” by Mountain Man; the original is a spare piece of Appalachian folk music sung by three women, but the Freaks turned into an extended Crazy Horse type of jam.

The headliners, Twerps, came to Chicago all the way from Melbourne, Australia, bringing some catchy if somewhat low-key indie pop tunes with them. (Check out their music at twerps.bandcamp.com.) At the end, they brought Alex Bleeker and the Freaks onto the stage with them, and everyone joined together in a ragged cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Sweet Virginia” — a change of pace from the mellowness that preceded it, but a rousing way to call it a night.

Twerps
Twerps

Twerps
Twerps

Twerps
Twerps

Twerps
Twerps

Alex Bleeker and the Freaks
Alex Bleeker and the Freaks

Alex Bleeker and the Freaks
Alex Bleeker and the Freaks

Alex Bleeker and the Freaks
Alex Bleeker and the Freaks

Alex Bleeker and the Freaks
Alex Bleeker and the Freaks

Crime and the City Solution

Crime and the City Solution

Crime and the City Solution

Although it was set in a Berlin populated by humans as well as angels, Wim Wenders’ classic 1989 film Wings of Desire introduced many of its viewers (including me) to a couple of terrific bands originally from Australia: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds — and a group with similarly Gothic and powerfully brooding music, Crime and the City Solution. Both bands contributed songs to the wonderful soundtrack and appeared in memorable concert scenes filmed in Berlin nightclubs, including this one:

While Nick Cave has gone on to become an icon, Crime and the City Solution broke up after releasing four albums, ending up as more of an obscure cult favorite. The group’s getting some new recognition now, however, thanks in part to a new collection from the Mute label, A History of Crime: Berlin 1987-1991: An Introduction to Crime and the City Solution, and a reunion tour, which brought Crime’s current lineup to Chicago’s Lincoln Hall on Sunday (Oct. 21).

According to the Chicago Reader, lead singer Simon Bonney lives these days in Detroit. The lineup that he has assembled for the new Crime and the City Solution includes two musicians from the band’s Berlin era, violinist Bronwyn Adams and guitarist Alexander Hacke (also of Einsturzende Neubauten). They are joined by guitarist David Eugene Edwards (of Wovenhand and 16 Horsepower), bassist Troy Gregory (who has played with the Dirtbombs, Swans and Spiritualized), keyboardist Matthew Smith, the always-superb drummer Jim White (a member of The Dirty Three who’s played with Cat Power and Nina Nastasia) and Danielle de Picciotto on visuals.

Bonney’s baritone sounded as dramatic ever as he sang his verbose lyrics, occasionally turning for help to a stack of laminated lyric sheets sitting on the stage in front of him. (Can’t remember his own words? Hey, he wrote a lot of words.) His bandmates encircled him on the stage, playing with a smoldering intensity. The old songs sounded fresh, and the band also played a couple of sharp tunes from a new album, American Twilight, which is set to come out next spring.

Here’s one of the new songs, “My Love Takes Me There”:

My photos from Sunday’s show, which also included an opening set by Bobby Conn:

Crime and the City Solution
Crime and the City Solution
Crime and the City Solution
Crime and the City Solution
Crime and the City Solution
Crime and the City Solution
Crime and the City Solution
Crime and the City Solution
Crime and the City Solution
Crime and the City Solution
Crime and the City Solution

Bobby Conn
Bobby Conn

Neil Young and Crazy Horse

As I trekked up and up to the third level of the United Center and took my seat in section 334, gazing far down at the distant stage, I remembered why I hate seeing concerts at stadiums and other huge venues. I should’ve brought binoculars. And the opening set by Los Lobos at this Oct. 11 concert reminded me of other reasons why the concertgoing experience inside one of these vast airplane hangars is so inferior to what you get at a small club: The sound was dreadful, with so much reverberation that it sounded like another band was playing somewhere in the back of the room at same time as Los Lobos. At least, that’s how it sounded where I was sitting.

But then it was time for the main act of the night, Neil Young and Crazy Horse. There aren’t many bands I will see at a mega-size venue, but this is one of them. I’d seen Young play with Crazy Horse once before, in 1991 at the similarly sized Rosemont Horizon (since renamed the Allstate Arena). (The set list is posted here.) And I’d seen three Young play three other concerts, either solo or with other bands. They’ve all been memorable performances, and a couple of them rank among my all-time favorite shows.

So, sure, I’d love to see Young with or without Crazy Horse in a small room, standing right next to the stage. But that’s not likely to happen. In a strange way, watching him and his stalwart band from a great distance created the illusion that I was watching much younger musicians. Of course, whenever the big video screen on the side of the stage showed a close-up of Young’s face, you could see that he was an old man. It seems like he’s been an old man for a long time. And he and the Crazy Horse guys (Frank “Pancho” Sampedro, bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina) looked like shaggy old dudes. But looking away from the video screen, staring down at that faraway platform, I saw what seemed like a teenager or maybe a longhaired rocker in his 20s, loping around, crouching, stomping, his electric guitar wailing.

Young had a youthful spirit about him as he did what he does best when he’s in Crazy Horse mode: drawing out feedback-drenched guitar solos for as long as he wants. After a quirky bit of theater to introduce the show (roadies in white coats setting up the stage as “A Day in the Life” played and then “The Star-Spangled Banner”), Crazy Horse took the stage in full-out jamming mode.

Although Young and Crazy Horse released an album of reinvented folk songs called Americana earlier this year, they did not play a single song from that collection. They also skipped some of the classic songs that are usually staples of Crazy Horse shows (“Cortez the Killer,” “Cowgirl in the Sand,” “Like a Hurricane”). But they did play some music from their forthcoming record, Psychedelic Pill, including a finely sculpted 20-minute epic “Walk Like a Giant.” That song ends with several minutes of thudding noise, a dark coda of sorts. When the buzz cleared, Young switched to acoustic guitar for a solo performance of “The Needle and the Damage Done.” It wasn’t the jarring transition that it could have been; rather, the sudden change in mood and style just showed the wide range between Young’s electric jams and his folk-inspired songs.

Young and Crazy Horse were on fire for the last four songs of the main set, then they came back with a surprising choice for the encore, the classic “Tonight’s the Night” — a dark tune of peculiar power that sounded like a fresh creation as it was played on this night.

It was another exceptional performance by one of rock music’s great masters and the band that brings out his best.

Set list: Love and Only Love / Powderfinger / Born in Ontario / Walk Like a Giant / The Needle and the Damage Done / Twisted Road / new song / Ramada Inn / Cinnamon Girl / Fuckin’ Up / Mr. Soul / Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) ENCORE: Tonight’s the Night

Tift Merritt at City Winery

Tift Merritt
Tift Merritt
Tift Merritt

Tift Merritt’s lovely voice sounds sometimes like it’s about to break — there’s that slight crack, the one you hear in the vocals of old-time country singers, that little creak that makes the singer seem both brave and vulnerable. And she sounded just as beautiful as ever on Friday night (Oct. 5) at City Winery in Chicago. Merritt played quite a few songs from her fifth and latest record, Traveling Alone, which was a fine thing, since it’s another strong collection of songs rooted in traditional country, rock and folk.

Andrew Bird and Marc Ribot, who perform on the new record, weren’t present, but Merritt had her longtime bassist and collaborator Jay Brown onstage, along with pedal steel guitarist Eric Heywood and drummer Tony Leone, and they provided subtle accompaniment for her delicate singing and acoustic guitar strumming. The highlights included some of her best-known older songs, “Stray Paper,” “Bramble Rose” and “Good Hearted Man,” which sounded like a true classic as she sat down at the grand piano to sing that indelible melody.

This was the first concert I’ve seen at City Winery, and it also featured a nice opening set of mellow, husky-voiced Americana by the Pines. The room sounded great during both sets, and it seems like an all right place to see a singer-songwriter. But it’s hard to escape the feeling that the business is mostly interested in getting you to order wine and food as you sit at your assigned table. Personally, I’d rather see a show in a venue where I can move around and mingle.

Tift Merritt
Tift Merritt

Tift Merritt
Tift Merritt

Tift Merritt
Tift Merritt

Tift Merritt
Tift Merritt

The Pines
The Pines

Adventures in Modern Music

The Wire, a fine British magazine about experimental music, sponsors a truly diverse and frequently odd festival each year at the Empty Bottle in Chicago called Adventures in Modern Music. The festival ran five days; I caught one set on Wednesday, Oct. 3 (R. Stevie Moore) and most of the show on Thursday, Oct. 4.

R. Stevie Moore has reportedly recorded something like 400 homemade albums of lo-fi rock music, finally touring extensively for the first time last year at the age of 59. I can’t say I’m familiar with his oeuvre, if that’s the right word for it, but he put on an interesting enough performance that I’m curious to delve into his recordings … if I can figure out a starting point. His beard was blue. His stage banter included an odd chant about Neil Armstrong and Lance Armstrong.

R. Stevie Moore
R. Stevie Moore

R. Stevie Moore
R. Stevie Moore

R. Stevie Moore
R. Stevie Moore

R. Stevie Moore
R. Stevie Moore

R. Stevie Moore
R. Stevie Moore

Thursday’s show was a great example of the odd juxtapositions that are typical of the AIMM schedule. The evening started with an outstanding jazz set by Joshua Abrams and his band, Natural Information Society — well, jazz is about as close a genre label as seems appropriate, but it hardly seems adequate. Next up was the Manchester, England, techno artist Andy Stott, who generated some mesmerizing layered beats with his laptop.

Joshua Abrams' Natural Information Society
Joshua Abrams' Natural Information Society

Joshua Abrams' Natural Information Society
Joshua Abrams' Natural Information Society

Joshua Abrams' Natural Information Society
Joshua Abrams' Natural Information Society

Andy Stott
Andy Stott

Then came the New Hampshire black metal band Vattnet Viskar, which conjured up the natural fury of a thunderstorm with precise and powerful riffs. Finally, the English experimental duo Demdike Stare sounded downright sinister with pulsing drones.

Vattnet Viskar
Vattnet Viskar

Vattnet Viskar
Vattnet Viskar

Vattnet Viskar
Vattnet Viskar

Vattnet Viskar
Vattnet Viskar

Vattnet Viskar
Vattnet Viskar

Demdike Stare
Demdike Stare (during sound check)

Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees

Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees played a couple of shows last Friday (Sept. 28) at Logan Square Auditorium, along with Chicago’s Bare Mutants as the opening act. And a raucous, good time it was (despite the typically muddy sound for this venue) … making up for the Pitchfork Music Festival’s cruel decision earlier this summer to schedule Segall and Thee Oh Sees on different stages at the same time.

My photos and video:

Bare Mutants
Bare Mutants

Thee Oh Sees
Thee Oh Sees

Thee Oh Sees
Thee Oh Sees

Thee Oh Sees
Thee Oh Sees

Thee Oh Sees
Thee Oh Sees

Thee Oh Sees
Thee Oh Sees

Ty Segall
Ty Segall

Ty Segall
Ty Segall

Ty Segall
Ty Segall

Ty Segall
Ty Segall

Ty Segall
Ty Segall

Also, check out the video of Ty Segall’s wild appearance on WGN-TV’s morning news show on Monday (Oct. 1), which prompted one startler viewer to comment on WGN’s Facebook page: “what in the heck was wrong with that ‘band’ u had on … where the bone head just kept screaming Chicago?????”

Brilliant Corners of Popular Amusements

Brilliant Corners of Popular Amusements is one of Chicago’s odder festivals, with a truly eclectic mix of musical acts, plus a circus and stand-up comedians, too. Now in its second year, it took place over the weekend at the Riverfront Theater, a 22,000-square-foot tent on the grounds near the Chicago Tribune Freedom Center, next to the Chicago River. While I’m not the only person who went to the festival for all three days, it seemed like a completely crowd showed up each night.

On Friday night, Zola Jesus paced the stage and twirled in circles as she sang in rich, throaty tones, giving her songs a primal quality. The headliner was John Cale, former member of the Velvet Underground. It’s always a privilege to see a musical legend like Cale in concert, but it was disappointing to hear him playing with a band that sounded at times like Bon Jovi. The performance finally took on a bit more of a ragged edge when Cale switched from keyboards to guitar, but still, it would have been more gratifying to see Cale play his songs with revealing minimalism rather than obscuring bombast.

Zola Jesus
Zola Jesus
Zola Jesus
Zola Jesus
Zola Jesus
Zola Jesus
Zola Jesus
Zola Jesus
Zola Jesus
Zola Jesus
John Cale
John Cale
John Cale
John Cale
John Cale
John Cale
John Cale
John Cale
John Cale
John Cale
John Cale
John Cale

Saturday night was the one night when Brilliant Corners sold out — thanks to headliner Conor Oberst’s enduring popularity. A bunch of his loyal fans thronged to the space in front of the stage within seconds after the doors opened. But they’d have to wait, since the revered orchestral-pop composer Van Dyke Parks was on first. Backed by a small string ensemble, Parks played piano and sang and offered up many wry comments to the crowd. After explaining that he’d just played a song about the freedom of expression, Parks said, “I did a Pussy Riot on you, folks. Forgive me.” And before playing “Orange Crate Art,” he said: “I wrote this song for Brian Wilson, may he rest in peace. In due course.” Parks doesn’t have the greatest voice, but he is a clever and adept songwriter, and his intelligence and wit were clear during this performance.

Van Dyke Parks
Van Dyke Parks
Van Dyke Parks
Van Dyke Parks

Parks kept on mentioning how happy he was to be playing on the stage as Oberst. “Conor’s gonna rock your roost,” he remarked at one point. Well, not exactly — not in the literal sense of rocking, anyway. When it was Oberst’s turn to play, he was alone on the stage, sitting down as he deftly plucked and strummed on acoustic guitars and sang his verbose poems and stories in that distinctive, vulnerable voice of his. Other musicians joined him now and then, adding subtle touches of vibraphone, piano or pedal steel guitar, and by the end, there was a full band of sorts. But the show was really all Oberst’s. Although it wasn’t billed as a Bright Eyes concert, Oberst is, for all intents and purposes, Bright Eyes, so it was hard to see what the difference was.

Starting with “The Big Picture,” Oberst played many of Bright Eyes’ best and most beloved songs. At one point, asking the audience to choose between a dark song and a sweet one, he remarked, “I know Chicago is a rough-and-tumble town. You don’t take to sentimentality. That’s rough when you’re a folk singer.” Actually, as the crowd’s reaction demonstrated, these Chicagoans wanted both the dark and the sweet, and Oberst obliged.

Conor Oberst
Conor Oberst
Conor Oberst
Conor Oberst
Conor Oberst
Conor Oberst
Conor Oberst
Conor Oberst
Conor Oberst
Conor Oberst

Saturday’s festivities also featured El Circo Cheapo, which I missed. And there were free stand-up comedy performances late Friday and Saturday. I caught the comedy on Saturday, including a sporadically hilarious performance by Jon Benjamin that was memorable for being so surreal and awkward.

Jon Benjamin
Jon Benjamin

Soul music fans turned out on Sunday night for headliner Bobby Womack, though they didn’t rush immediately to the stage, as Bright Eyes fanatics had the night before. The night started with a set of intriguing electronic pop music sung in Spanish by Helado Negro. He received a respectful response, but it felt like much of the audience was biding its time until Womack hit the stage. And by the time that happened, many of the fans who had been hanging back finally came forward. And boy, did they make their presence known.

Helado Negro
Helado Negro
Helado Negro
Helado Negro
Helado Negro
Helado Negro

It was a great performance by Womack and his band, but what made it a truly exceptional experience was the enthusiasm and joy of the audience. Fans sang along and danced — and flirted with Womack and his backup singers. As Womack began to say that he was dedicating one of his songs to someone, a woman near the stage called out, practically pleading, “To me, Bobby! To me!” Womack exuded coolness, but he was clearly eating up all of that adoration.

Womack is getting renewed attention and critical acclaim this year for his album, The Bravest Man in the Universe, which updates his sound with help from the XL label’s Richard Russell and Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz. It’s an evocative record, but Womack didn’t play a single song from it on Sunday night. Its weird, moody textures probably would’ve required a different band and a different setting. Instead, Womack focused on his R&B of old. He name-checked some of his colleagues who have passed away, getting the crowd to sing a bit of Marvin Gaye, before he performed an emotional rendition of Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come.” Womack took off his shades for only about a minute all night. He was cool to the end.

Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack

Riot Fest

It didn’t seem like anyone else could fit into the space in front of the Riot Fest stage where Iggy and the Stooges were about to play on Sunday night in Humboldt Park. More and more people kept squeezing their way forward. But then, the stage lights came on, and the Stooges took their spots in the center of the stage, like they were guarding the drum kit from an onslaught. Iggy Pop bounded to the microphone stand, his hair flying, his torso as bare as always. Within seconds, the crowd somehow managed to surge forward, and the moshing commenced. It felt like everyone was swaying and bouncing in unison as the Stooges pounded out their proto-punk riffs and Iggy showed his miraculous powers to keep on rocking with rambunctious abandon well past the age when most people slow down.

Guitarist James Williamson, an old member of the Stooges who rejoined the band after guitarist Ron Asheton’s death, sounded even more confident than he had playing at the Riviera in 2010. Drummer Larry Mullins filled in for one of the other original Stooges, Scott Asheton, who has been ailing of late. Bassist Mike Watt pushed and pushed the grooves, while saxophonist Stave Mackay threw on a layer of grungy jazz. Iggy was more talkative than usual, urging audience members to bum-rush the stage, playfully taunting the video camera operators (“I’m over here!”), and asking everyone if they wanted to see… well, you can guess what he offered to show. (As far as I could see from where I was standing among the moshers, Iggy did not pull a Jim Morrison act onstage, despite his offer to do so.) Iggy seemed to be having the time of his life, feeding off the audience’s energy. I’ve seen a couple of Iggy Pop solo concerts and three Stooges shows now; they’ve all been thrilling, and this was one of the best.

I did not take photos at Riot Fest, alas, but you can see my previous pictures of Iggy Pop & the Stooges at Lollapalooza in 2007 and the Riviera in 2010. (And many Riot Fest photos are posted on other websites, including Time Out Chicago.)

Although things got a little close for comfort in the Stooges’ lawn-sized mosh pit, the overall scene at Riot Fest on Sunday was quite pleasant, with plenty of space for fans to spread out throughout Humboldt Park. Riot Fest has been going on for years, but this past weekend was the first time it became a full-fledged outdoor festival, with one night of music at the Congress Theatre, followed by two days of live rock and carnival rides in Humboldt Park. Based on my experiences in the park on Sunday — and the comments I heard from people who were there on Saturday, too — the festival was a well-run affair.

Riot Fest also boasted an impressive lineup of bands. As in past years, the main theme was punk rock, but Riot Fest defined itself broadly enough to include acts such as Built to Spill, the Jesus and Mary Chain and Elvis Costello and the Imposters. Those were the best of the groups I saw on Sunday up until the Stooges stole the show. Built to Spill’s triple-guitar epics were like sharply defined sonic sculptures. The reunited JAMC’s 1980s tunes were nicely crunchy and catchy, leaning more towards pop than shoegaze. And Costello raced at a breakneck pace through many of his early hits, climaxing with lively versions of “Pump It Up” and “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding.” At first, it seemed a bit odd that Costello was playing at Riot Fest, but he reminded everyone that he used to be a punk, too.

I was less excited by the music I heard by the Alkaline Trio, NOFX, Gogol Bordello and the Promise Ring, but that’s mostly a matter of taste. Overall, Riot Fest was a winner of a festival.

Hideout Block Party & A.V. Fest

Two of the summer’s last big music festivals in Chicago vied for attention this past weekend: the Hideout Block Party, which is always one of the season’s most neighborly musical shindigs, and Riot Fest, which expanded beyond its usual indoor confines to become a truly major event in Humboldt Park. I was at the Hideout on Friday and Saturday, including a two-hour Wilco concert, and then I spent Sunday at Riot Fest, culminating with a stunning show by Iggy & the Stooges.

The Hideout Block Party combined forces this year with the Onion’s A.V. Club (which held a separate fest last year at the same location). But it largely felt like a typical Hideout Block Party, with a heavy emphasis on the sort of alt-country and roots-rock music that is the club’s mainstay, though hardly the only genre you’ll hear within its friendly confines.

The two best bands of the night on Friday played early: Cave got the crowd moving with tight krautrock grooves, and then the War on Drugs channeled its rootsier songs into similarly cycling rhythms. The biggest names on the bill for that first night were Glen Hansard and Iron & Wine — both of whom played perfectly pleasant and respectable sets that were a tad too mellow for a headlining festival slot.

Cave
Cave

Tim Tuten
Tim Tuten

The War on Drugs
The War on Drugs

Glen Hansard
Glen Hansard

Iron & Wine
Iron & Wine

Iron & Wine
Iron & Wine

It was worth showing up early for Saturday’s Hideout lineup, which started off at noon with a sterling set of old-fashioned country music by the Lawrence Peters Outfit (led by one of the bar’s regular bartenders). The crowd was still sparse at that hour, but some dancing broke out.

Lawrence Peters Outfit
Lawrence Peters Outfit

Lawrence Peters Outfit
Lawrence Peters Outfit

Next up were the Waco Brothers with Paul Burch, all of them wearing red shirts except for Burch, who made up for it by wearing red shoes. Not surprisingly, given Waco Jon Langford’s history of outspoken support for labor unions, the band was showing its colors in support of Chicago’s striking teachers, and the Wacos played the timely song “Plenty Tough and Union Made.” The Wacos kicked out their catchy riffs with their usual sense of reckless merriment.

Waco Brothers
Waco Brothers

Waco Brothers
Waco Brothers

Waco Brothers and Paul Burch
Waco Brothers and Paul Burch

Waco Brothers and Paul Burch
Waco Brothers and Paul Burch

Kelly Hogan’s been on a roll lately, finally releasing a terrific album, I Like to Keep Myself in Pain, after years of keeping her fans waiting for a recording that would match the splendor of her live performances. And she was in top vocal form Saturday afternoon, soulfully singing much of the new album as well as the older song “No Bobby Don’t.”

Kelly Hogan
Kelly Hogan

Kelly Hogan
Kelly Hogan

Kelly Hogan
Kelly Hogan

Kelly Hogan, Jon Langford and Nora O'Connor
Kelly Hogan, Jon Langford and Nora O'Connor

The Corin Tucker Band’s set marked the welcome return of the singer-guitarist who was one-third of Sleater-Kinney. The other two members of that band have been rocking out as part of their excellent new band, Wild Flag, but hearing Tucker’s banshee wails and spiky riffs on songs from her new record, Kill My Blues, was a reaffirming reminder of Tucker’s own riot grrrl credentials.

Corin Tucker Band
Corin Tucker Band

Corin Tucker Band
Corin Tucker Band

Corin Tucker Band
Corin Tucker Band

Performing in the late afternoon, Wild Belle played mellow, reggae-influenced indie pop. More impressive was the solid, driving sounds of the next band, Wye Oak, the Baltimore guitar-and-drums duo. And even better was the act after that, Lee Fields, a soul singer with a sound and songs that evoke the classic tunes of the 1960s. Fields, who released a smartly written and beautifully arranged record this year called Faithful Man, delivered one of the weekend’s best sets with able assistance from his backup band, the Expressions, and a lot of audience members waving their arms.

Wild Belle
Wild Belle

Wild Belle
Wild Belle

Wild Belle
Wild Belle

Wye Oak
Wye Oak

Wye Oak
Wye Oak

Wye Oak
Wye Oak

The Expressions
The Expressions

Lee Fields
Lee Fields

Lee Fields
Lee Fields

Lee Fields
Lee Fields

As darkness fell, Wilco took the stage, which was set up in a city parking lot normally occupied by garbage trucks. “For so many years, they’ve looked past us with the Hideout Block Party,” Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy dryly noted. “What’s up with that? This is one of our favorite places in Chicago. This parking lot. Love the place.”

This Wilco set felt like a bit of a throwback. While the band played the requisite songs you’d expect from its most recent couple of albums, it bookended the show with songs from Being There, and there was plenty from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, too — including moody, tricky songs such as “Poor Places” and “Radio Cure.” The performance ebbed and flowed from dark moments of meditation to intricate prog guitar solos and rousing, foot-stomping rock — the full range of what this remarkable band is capable of. The eight-song encore included one of the Woody Guthrie lyrics that Wilco wrote music for on the Mermaid Avenue records, “Christ for President” — an apt choice in this election season. After dedicating the song to the Hideout impresario Tim Tuten, Tweedy sang Guthrie’s words: “The only way we can ever beat/These crooked politician men/Is to run the money changers out of the temple/Put the Carpenter in.”

Wilco
Wilco

Wilco
Wilco

Wilco
Wilco

Wilco
Wilco

Wilco
Wilco

Wilco
Wilco

Wilco
Wilco

Wilco
Wilco

Wilco
Wilco

Wilco
Wilco

Wilco
Wilco

WILCO SET LIST: Misunderstood / Company in my Back / I Might / Sunken Treasure / Either Way / Hummingbird / Impossible Germany / Born Alone / Radio Cure / Handshake Drugs / Wishful Thinking / Whole Love / Kamera / I Must Be High / Nothingsevergonnastandinmyway(again) / Heavy Metal Drummer / Poor Places / Art of Almost ENCORE: Dawned On Me / A Shot In the Arm / Passenger Side / Christ for President / Walken / I’m the Man Who Loves You / Monday / Outtasite (Outta Mind)

The after show

More on Riot Fest in my next post…

World Party at the Cubby Bear

Karl Wallinger of World Party

Eleven years ago, Karl Wallinger — the man who is the band called World Party — suffered an aneurysm, which left him unable to speak for a time. On Thursday night (Aug. 30), he was back onstage and in fine spirits at that, frequently grinning widely and making self-deprecating jokes as he performed at Chicago’s Cubby Bear.

It’s been 12 years since World Party released a proper album of new material, but Wallinger recently released Arkeology, a five-CD collection of B-sides, live recordings, outtakes and even some new songs. When Wallinger played Thursday night, the focus was squarely on the music he recorded under his World Party moniker from 1986 to 2000. Many of those studio recordings featured elaborate, intricately layered confections reminiscent of the Beatles in psychedelic mode.

But for this tour, Wallinger is doing those songs essentially unplugged, playing acoustic guitar or piano, with accompaniment from just one other musician, violinist-singer David Duffy. Wallinger’s best songs are sturdy enough (with a touch of Bob Dylan folkiness at times) that they sounded quite good, even without all of those production frills. Still, it was hard not to imagine all of those lovely studio touches in your head as you heard Wallinger strumming an acoustic version of “Put the Message in the Box.”

The audience sang the choruses of beloved songs like “Ship of Fools” without any prompting, and Wallinger seemed almost ecstatic to be performing in front of his fans again.

Karl Wallinger of World Party
Karl Wallinger of World Party
Karl Wallinger of World Party
Karl Wallinger of World Party
Karl Wallinger of World Party
Karl Wallinger of World Party
Karl Wallinger of World Party

David Duffy
David Duffy