On our radio show Anna Soltys compared her sound as a little like Mazzy Star, the Sneaker Pimps or the Sundays. After listening to her debut album, Anna Soltys and the Familiar, I’m sure I cocked my head like a perplexed puppy. Anna Soltys doesn’t fit into any typical genre. That’s more than apparent from the very first fine-as-a-blended-red-wine note. The album from start to finish is quirky and folksy with a myriad of influences.
Tears, the opening track is light and jazzy, guided by John Pirroccello on country slide guitar, with David Smith on Bass and the legendary Larry Beers on drums. Greg Hirte’s violin dresses the dreamy introspection of Soltys lilting vocals:
“Do you know of a place where the river runs slow
Smiles flow like wine and the tears have nowhere to go
Tell me my friend of this place I will go
For a while to replenish my soul”
Soltys is the champion, the audacious foil to our inner thoughts in a time of lament. She is fearless.
Halo of Blue stirred shades of Andrew Bird, the Judybats or Poi Dog Pondering. Words fail. The songs are essays in simplicity without being simple. Economical but sumptuous. Take Let’s Go Driving, establishes Soltys as a master of simplicity. Vaudevillian, cabaret. Soltys risks it all with just Beers’ drums as backing. It is, when it’s all said and done, an economical little song, but that simplicity resonates so perfectly, taking us to a moment of abandon in which nothing matters but the moment. I’m in a smoky speakeasy circa 1960, JFK on the ballot, optimism tinged with a hint of cynicism...”Let’s, go driving to the other side of town, where you may find just a little piece of mind…”
Wet Velvet brings the whole Familiar band into the mix for the only song on the album that approaches something akin to pop. The song evokes bare feet splashing in muddy puddles and innocence against all odds. A glistening wet world, and skipping like Larry Beers’ drums in rain-soaked grass.
Lone Blues with Soltys alone with her guitar recollects the loss of folk singer Karen Dalton to AIDS in 1993. Our World describes the stillness of a quiet room, a breeze spilling sunlight upon the floor. Leaning at a piano, a hand at the keys reflects a mood. With Little Bug, we burst from that room, chased by Soltys’ playful lyric and Pirruccello’s hypnotic slide guitar.
But just when you think you might understand Anna Soltys, she throws a song like Mache into consideration. A waltz, Greg Hirte’s violin conjures Eastern European tragic Roma melodies, or the Balkan master of melodic lament, Djordjie Balasevic. Here Soltys consciously or sub consciously draws upon her European and Polish heritage for subtext.
This is music for a Saturday afternoon’s reflection, a place we can all go, Soltys reminds, for a while to replenish our soul…
…Or maybe the other way around. Spark is the latest offering from expatriate singer, songwriter Todd Warner Moore. Spark is smart and subtle and sneaks up on the listener unexpectedly, with the lightness of a grown up Jason Mraz, and the irony and storytelling depth of Harry Nilsson. There is more than enough gold in this album to confirm that Moore is a major talent.
Garnering the most play is the song, Noodles, which I’ll admit hating the first time I half listened. Second time I was digging it. Third time I was hooked. A love song wrapped in a recipe. The song is fun and clever and lively. But the real magic with Noodles, and with the album overall are smart, beautifully heartfelt lyrics:
Oregano and some garlic cloves
And a spoonful of pressed olive oil
Peppers onions basil leaves
Sizzlin’ in the oil with a big bay leaf
My baby’s got the blues
Brought down by someone so rude
And I don’t need to say who
But things change with food
I’ve got the noodles
Cooking’ in the water
And the flowers on the table
That I bought her
And she’ll know that sauce
Before she walks right through the door
I was in a local coffee shop recently. There was a guy. He had a guitar and a Latte at his feet. He was playing a song, oblivious that someone over there was on a laptop. Someone else was on the phone or embroiled in a novel, writing in a journal. For some the music was background, for others a definition of the moment. For the guitarist it was a moment to be heard, a take on our shared instance in space and time. And damned if you don’t stop to listen for just a moment, over your Sunday newspaper, your Chai tea and in between checking emails. The singer has something to say, like you were meant to be there, like the fates had brought you to that place, and the singer sang something that resonated deep…
So what do you do With this flake of truth In the heart of Sunday afternoon? If you go into town You’ll lose that tune Forever So you loosen your grip From its tightening bite Then slip into A dreamless state of sleep That will last into the morning
‘Cause you’ve got it all But you don’t know it You’ve got a splendid Bird’s eye view Of your world
And you know that it’s alright Just beyond the fight or flight
That everything will be alright…
Kansas born and bred, Moore finds the heartland of America from such faraway places as Budapest and Hong Kong. The album was Mixed & Mastered by Oliver Wagner at SoundTheoryLab in Taiwan. Spark, the title track, support by Leah Hart on vocals and Larry Salzman’s understated aboriginal percussion conjures Harry Chapin and Poi Dog Pondering. Do You Really Know stands out with echoes of The Beatles’ blackbird or Norwegian wood. Gem has an Andrew Bird sensibility, a beautiful harmony of strings and moods reminiscent of Nick Drake.
Spend time with Spark and with Todd Warner Moore. The words will find you, no matter where in the world you find yourself.
Stream Spark at Todd Warner Moore’s website. Spark is also available on Bandcamp.
Jazz is supposed to be cool. Smooth. Got to feel the funk and rhythm like it’s taken hold of you. The New album, “It’s Time” from the Rose Ann Dimalanta Trio. To illustrate, I submit Exhibit A, “No Goodbyin’.” Try not to move. The beat finds your shoulders. A snap of the fingers and toes begin tapping. Smooth. Cool. Jazz.
Need more evidence? How about “10 Miles to Empty”? Exhibit B.
“I’ve gone one or two layers deeper than I ever have,” she said in a 2018 interview. “It’s kind of grown up people’s music, and people who appreciate homemade artisanal kind of Music” 2 a.m. “10 Miles to Empty.” We’ll have one last round. Massimo Buonanno cracklin’ on drums. Buh-dum-buh-buh dump a dump dump-dump-buh goes Raymond McKinley’ bass. Sexy. Jazz.
“He approaches music like he does life,” says Dimalanta of McKinley. “He’s very spiritual… not to mention he is crazy” Jazz. Crazy helps.
“Happily’s Never After” Exhibit C. Shades of Anita Baker. Hints of Fiona Apple. All Rose Ann Dimalanta. Masterful piano work, and I am moving my fingers to the music, rolling my head like Ray Charles lost in a riff. But I lose my mind in “Measure of a Man.” Dimalanta,
Measure of a Man; “…if they could see what I see, That there is more to you…I love you as you are, because,You’re the measure of a man…”
Intimate. My heart is breaking, wrapped up in strings, the piano notes like tear drops. More than Jazz. This is, this is…is, is love. Music. take a chance. It’s time. Rose Ann Dimalanta Trio. You be the jury.
To date, astronomers have discovered around 1700 exo-planets and told us of the possibility of as many as 12 different dimensions to time and space. What they don’t tell us is which of them Lord Sonny the Unifier, who is currently colonizing Brooklyn, hails from. Describing alien life forms is always a challenge, but if Donovan and Bowie had a love child that was raised by Lenny Bruce, throw in a little LCD Sound Machine and we might be getting close. Like its creator, FINAL NOTICE!, the new album from Lord Sonny leaves one grasping like a Martian Rover for descriptors.
If you have ever asked what happened to the concept album, ask no more. Lord Lenny the Unifier is on a crusade. On their website the band declares that the “concept of FINAL NOTICE!… is a rebellion against injustices, greed, lack of compassion and empathy – and it’s a rebellion for the high and limitless potential of our inner selves; a rebellion for our miraculous surroundings, that inspire and uplift us all.”
That’s so 1970! But the adage, what is old is new again, certainly applies to this album.
Lord Sonny the Unifier, is fronted by artist and vocalist/guitarist Greg Jiritano. From spectacular graphic fractal inspired paintings to memorable guitar riffs and sharp solos, one gets the impression that this otherworldly force of nature is only nominally contained. “The All New Know Nothings” is a case in point, erupting from the first stabbing electric guitar note. Backed by Tyler Wood on keyboards the song is big and brash, finished with Carmine Covelli’s thundering drums.
Jiritano began playing guitar at the age of 8. ” I cannot remember life without a guitar in my hands,” he says. This album was a long time in coming. In 2015, as Jiritano began work on the album, his recording studio was destroyed in a fire. Enter Covelli, Wood and Nievergelt. Lord Sonny the Unifier was reborn.
“Right in your I,” the album’s opening track is big, driven by Derek Nievergelt’s pulsing bass line. The video is a bit unsettling, a take on George Orwell’s Animal farm and a statement on the pain and cuelty Human Beings inflict upon one another. It is quickly apparent the listener has stumbled into a world entirely of Jiritano’s making, as if we’ve been swept into one of those great swirling and overlapping MC-Escher-esque paintings.
The album’s first single, The Starman is tight and addictive with hints of Ziggy Stardust but with a fresh Blues-Rock perspective. FINAL NOTICE! from Lord Lenny the Unifier. This one you’ll want to root around in the music, dissent the words. FINAL NOTICE! demands your full attention the way music once did, or maybe still does in whatever Rock n Roll galaxy Lord Lenny the Unifier came from.
Three things these days define Canada, at least for someone like me from, shall we say, South of the border in the States; Drivable roads, their national Beer Store and Vancouver-based singer-songwriter Norine Braun. Hardly a newcomer, Braun has been slugging it out in the musical trenches, churning out consistently great music and paying more than her share of dues for years. Her 14th studio Album, “Through Train Windows,” a bluesy roots tour de-force, is Braun’s best break out effort to date.
Start with a bit of Rickie Lee Jones’ 1a.m. guitar funk, a helping of old school Blues and Joan Armatrading’s straight forward introspective and soulful Rock. But Norine Braun is fully and solidly her own artist. “Through Train Windows” crowns Braun’s award-winning career right from the start with the dreamy “Sleeping Buffalo,” which calls to mind the introspective quality of Robbie Robertson’s debut, produced by fellow Canadian, Daniel Lanois.
“Sleeping Buffalo
Tell me where to go.
See, deep within my heart
Winds have torn apart…the pain”
In “Sleeping Buffalo,” Elliot Polsky’s masterful percussion eludes to Braun’s First Nation heritage. The melancholic whisper of a Harmonica adds a timeless quality.
Braun was inspired by a cross-Canada train ride, an epic 3500 mile trek, spanning mountains and forests and the great and pondering emptiness of Nova Scotia. But the album feels like a manifesto, we are invited along Braun’s breakout as seen through the metaphorical train window. And there are music sights to be had. Rock-a-Billy angst of “Jerkwater Town” defines the catalyst for escape, but it was “Exhale” that best defines “Through Train Windows.” Anthem-like, powered by intensely intimate lyrics, it evokes strong imagery. One feels the bump and sway of the train, building in tempo, driven by the blurred landscape of producer Adam Popowitz’s lead guitar. “Climbing Table Mountain” swings. It’s a jazzy and sexy piece, but feels like a prelude to the gentler “Crosses and Sweetgrass…”, a stripped down piano accompaniment to showcase Braun’s effortless malleability as singer/songwriter
“Take the train to where you want to be,” Braun tells us. The title track brings the album and listener full circle, an exaltation, like coming home and climbing down to a new destination filled with hope and optimism. “I can never know all of me, consciously…” but Norine Braun with ” Through Train Windows” awakens thoughts of new destinations, most especially of the heart.
The conversation came up this weekend on the radio program. Our guests were Dr. Mark George and Scott Boyer from the Music Institute of Chicago. In 2011, the Chicago Tribune named Dr. Mark George Chicagoan of the Year in classical music. Scott Boyer is a music educator and multi-instrumentalist, who toured with Russell Smith, Leon Russell ,the Jeff Beck Group, the Allman Brothers and was recently in Prague with Goran Bregovic. I felt confident in their perspectives on whether Music is the ultimate language to mankind, the Mother Tongue if you will.
I’ve posed the same question to some of the world’s best know musicians, including Jim Babjak from the Smithereens, Robert Berry, Bregovic and the Bosnian Pavarotti, Sevdah singer Božo Vrećo. Fundamental to that question is where does music come from. It is a daunting exploration, but hardly an impossible one. It carries us to the dawn of creation itself and it seems it may truly be universal in nature. That is, music, may be part of the greater Universal symmetry, as foundational as Gravity, quarks and electrons.
Where does music come from and is it the true Mother Tongue, a Universal language?
A BBC documentary series by English composer Howard Goodall paints something of a bleak picture before recorded sound of a virtually silent world punctuated by moments of music. Goodall describes the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave in southern France, which contains some of the best preserved and most notable Paleolithic Art in the world. There is little of those ancient ancestors that remains today, beyond the exquisite and masterful cave paintings. Archaeologists have discovered in the caves whistles and flutes dating to the creation of the paintings, indicating that music was an integral part of the cave painters culture more than 30,000 years ago.
Goodall refers to acoustic studies then describes ancient music as a sort of cave sonar meant to help those early Artists through the treacherous and dark cave passages. Points in which paintings occur, he offers, maintain the greatest sound resonance. Sound, he says, is amplified and carried through the caves. Goodall seems to negate humanities proclivity for story-telling traditions, and that the paintings appear to be religious sites, the animals depicted were apparently revered, and were rarely. In some cases the animal did not inhabit the region.
While music likely played a variety of roles to our Paleolithic ancestors, particularly deep inside caves, the emotional and communal aspects were likely paramount. Moreover, some cave images are rendered in such a way as to provide a sense of motion in flickering firelight. Given the seeming holiness of the creatures before them, music would have provided the emotional coup-de-gras in mankind’s first cinemas!
But what did that ancient music sound like, as we work to clear the dust of history to answer that question. It is critical that the trail is followed to its proper conclusion. Like the itinerate time traveler, We must slide back and forth through time to bring that distant most past into focus.
The 40,000 year old golden flute of Geissenklosterle in Germany, created from the radius of a swan, shows an extraordinary level of sophistication. In Ireland small stones with holes bored through them were apparently used as whistles, in which users could play an entire musical scale. Percussion and ringing stones added rhythm. It has even been theorized that a tightly strung hunting bow could double as a rudimentary string instrument.
Communal hunting, also offered opportunities for song and music. Driving animals towards a pit, or net or cliff, it is easy to envision chants or songs or rhythms meant to maintain spirits or herd animals. The Igbo and Zulu tribal war dances are examples of contemporary African traditions that illustrate ancient tribal practices. Our ancestors lead rich musical lives.
Music is hardly a strictly endeavor. Where the music in the animal kingdom is instinctive rather than conscious, our species muddles that biological imperative through culture and ritual. For humanity music was always there. It is all around us, in the rhythm of the rain, the chorus of a brook, the melody of the wind or the crescendo of thunder.
Even the structure of human music follows natural patterns. A song builds, erupting in a fury until its emotional conclusion, followed by collapse, like a storm or sex. Each of those is structured as a wave; building, cresting and crashing, and waves are fundamental to the structure of the universe…
It seems in exploring the question of whether humanity invented music or that music created us, the answer may lie in a structure of a universe that repeats its foundational structures over and over again. Wave structure is found through out. Matter and subatomic particles are wave structures rather than solid or fixed points. That pattern resonates throughout every aspect of our universe, and our lives and to perhaps the most basic of expressions, music.
If I had one word to describe both the music of Sevdah(In Serbo-Croatian, the H is hard, akin to a soft k sound), and it’s preeminent contemporary prince, Božo Vrećo(Pronounced Boe-Zsh-oe Vre-cho), that word would be confluence. A thousand histories and traditions all seem to meet in this transcendent performer. Božo Vrećo seems to embody five thousand years of Balkan history, from Celtic and Illyrian traditions, to Slavic, Turkish and Sephardic, to illustrate just a small list of traditions and histories. You’ll note I am being careful in the use of pronouns in describing Vrećo. There is a reason for that, which I shall get to in a moment. It is, however, important to begin with the music first.
Tall and lean, an indication of the marathon energy Vrećo exudes with each performance, Vrećo cuts a striking figure. Vrećo’s body is adorned in meaningfully exquisite tattoos, partly shrouded by self-designed gowns finished with shimmering new high-heeled Michael Kors boots. Hints of silver tease a bold neatly trimmed beard. The auburn eyes are at once striking and inquisitive, as though balanced between his background as a professor of Archaeology and the spiritual ebullience in exploring the musical world of Sevdah. Božo Vrećo is as comfortable in his feminine persona as well as the masculine.
“Surrounded by a society who is not prepared for a person like me,” Vrećo said, “my duality is something unusual and it is still taboo.”
But what comes across both in speaking with Božo Vrećo, and in witnessing the emotionally uplifting and impassioned performances, is a quality essential to both performer and Sevdah: Freedom. What some may find controversial, Vrećo would argue is as essential as water and sunlight to a garden. Sevdah as a cultural Art form is not altogether incomprehensible for the unfamiliar, but there is an emotional rather than intuitive step towards understanding.
I received my first introduction to Sevdah in 1994, standing before the home of the classic Bosnian Poet, Aleksa Santich in the embattled city of Mostar. The city was under siege at the time, Mostar suffering even worse in the civil war than Sarajevo, 40 miles to the Northeast. Santich, a Serb, is best known for two poems, The first is called “Stay Here”, a plea for Muslims not to emigrate from Ottoman administered Bosnia after it was annexed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The other poem tells the tragic tale of his forbidden love for a Muslim girl, Emina, the title of the poem. Santich spies the veiled Emina nightly watering her garden with an Ibrik, a Bosnian vase, in her hands. It is the passion and tragedy of their unrequited love that exemplifies Sevdah.
For me, the history of Sevdah is best illustrated by a simple story of how young men in Turkish Bosnia, living under Islamic cultural codes were forbidden from addressing single women, but for in the evenings after Friday prayers. Young men would stand on corners or below windows singing to their love interests. Knowing the ancient streets of Sarajevo’s Turkish market, Baščaršija, as well as I know my native Chicago, I can almost imagine walking those narrow stone causeways in old Sarajevo on a Friday evening, with streets filled with music.
There is much more, but love and sorrow are the foundation. Musically, and poetically there is a structure to the Art form as well. Songs are soft and melodic, the lyrics simple. Each line is usually no more than eight or ten or twelve syllables long. The melodies are roadmaps to the influences to Balkan music, most particularly Sephardic Jewish, Spanish, Middle eastern and Slavic musical influences and traditions.
After the collapse of Yugoslavia, and terrible wars throughout the 1990s, nationalists attempted to inject ethnic animosities into the Artform. While minority Croat and Serbian voices decried Sevdah as “Muslim” music, younger generations looked towards Western music. The importance of Sevdah is that it is inherently and sublimely a common link among all the diverse peoples of the Balkans. But given the political climate and scars from the wars Sevdah struggled for relevance.
Božo Vrećo all but single handedly revived Sevdah to an entirely new generation of Bosnians, Serbs and Croats. It is incredibly versatile as an Artform. Among the collaborations that illustrate the incredible Musical spectrum of Sevdah is Vrećo’s collaboration with Bosnian singer, songwriter, and producer Marko Louis, whose own work is inspired with contemporary soul, hip-hop and R&B themes. Original works by Vrećo, like Pašana, arranged by Louis, feels as fresh and new with a heartbeat-like R&B base line that at once thrusts the listener back in time, carried by the near perfection and power of Vrećo’s unwavering voice, then thrown forward into the modern with Louis’ rich, emotionally charged arrangement.
On stage, Vrećo’s flawless voice, undulating and twisting around words of pain and passion emotion, swelled in the chest of the audience. Vrećo dances, spins, the flowing gowns reminiscent of the Turkish whirling Dervishes, and an assertion of a soul uncompromised by anything but celebratory freedom. The music seems to flow through Vrećo, as if the Artist was merely a portal, a conduit to something pure and beautiful, which Vrećo’s plainly and simply defines as “love.”
For two hours, and three encores, along with many others in attendance, we were left awestruck, as though we had been a part of something exceedingly rare in the world. In commanding the stage and the audience we became a community, and our sovereign commanded the stage imploring us only to exalt in love and beauty.
What’s next for Božo Vrećo? I put that question to Vrećo.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I will always take a special place for Sevdah, and all that surrounds it. There will be a mixture, a fusion. I want to mix with the Blues, with Pop, with Soul, with Gospel, with the Classical even.”
And that’s the power of Sevdah,” I said, “that you can use all those influences…”
“Yes,” Vrećo says, squarely understanding that the core is always Sevdah, which is more than simply a song, but a world unto itself. “It is the question of the measure, because sometimes it’s bullshit and sometimes it’s genius.”
Listen to the raw interview with Božo Vrećo and me on Youtube:
And catch me live every Sunday with Playtime with Bill Turck and Kerri Kendall, the only commercial radio program dedicated fully to the Arts on AM1590 WCGO in Chicago, or streaming live at http://www.1590wcgo.com. Old episodes are also on Soundcloud at Playtime with Bill and Kerri
Bad Religion, Cypress Hill, Digable Planets, Fear, Lagwagon, Spitalfield and Suicidal Tendencies to Perform Iconic Albums from Front to Back
Now in its 14th year, Riot Fest is well known for its diverse, innovative lineups. It is a fan-friendly three-day celebration of punk, rock ‘n’ roll, hip-hop, metal, indie rock, and roots music in Chicago’s Douglas Park, September 14-16, in a carnival atmosphere with rides, games, top-flight food and drinks under the shadow of the Ferris wheel. It wouldn’t be Riot Fest without the Hellzapoppin’ Circus Side Show Review, nor would it be Riot Fest without full-album plays.
Riot Fest’s annual tradition of inviting a selection of iconic artists to perform their seminal albums front-to-back—often in celebration of an LP’s landmark anniversary—is in fine form this year. Bonafide classics abound, with punk acts ranging from Bad Religion to Fear, while the hip-hop spectrum (circa 1993) is represented by Digable Planets and Cypress Hill.
RIOT FEST 2018 FULL ALBUM PERFORMANCES:
Bad Religion – Suffer (1988, 30th Anniversary)
Cypress Hill – Black Sunday (1993, 25th Anniversary)
Digable Planets – Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space) (1993, 25th Anniversary)
Fear – The Record (1982)
Lagwagon – Let’s Talk About Feelings (1998, 20th Anniversary)
Spitalfield – Remember Right Now (2003, 15th Anniversary)
Suicidal Tendencies – Suicidal Tendencies (1983, 35th Anniversary)
The announcement of the 2018 full album plays comes hot on the heels of Riot Fest’s groundbreaking limited-time promotion in the wake of a cyber attack on its ticketing partner, Ticketfly. For a limited time, The festival is giving back to fans who may have been inconvenienced by offering Riot Fest 2018 three-day passes for only $99.98. In addition, the fans who’ve already bought tickets for this year’s Riot Fest will receive a complimentary bonus single-day pass (for the day of their choice) to this year’s festival to pass along to a friend or relative, as well as the unique opportunity to purchase $99.98 three-day pass for Riot Fest 2019, which happens to be its 15th anniversary celebration. This offer is exclusive, and will only be available to current 2018 ticket holders.
Many more announcements are expected in the coming weeks, including the 2nd wave line-up announcement, single-day lineups, daily schedules, and some other surprises.
The Imperial Sound’s blithe synthesis of 21st-century irony and bright, unselfconscious AM-radio pop is both brave and unique. And catchy as hell. The band’s debut album, The New AM, showcases songwriter Frederick Mosher’s hook-driven heritage – with influences from Todd Rundgren and Carole King to The Replacements and Elvis Costello – delivering infectious, shimmering songs that celebrate the craft and style of the best pop music.
Pravda Records will release the new album on August 31st, and the band will celebrate at the Hideout September 1st. The Imperial Sound EPK
Kenn Goodman (keyboards) and Mosher (guitars and vocals) have been partners in a variety of musical ventures, from the Chicago-based Pravda Records store and label to the legendary trash-rock trio The New Duncan Imperials, for many years. Their latest incarnation, as the founders of The Imperial Sound (sometimes shortened to ImpSo by its fans), puts them at the center of a group of seasoned musicians with years of experience and a drive for self-reinvention.
The band’s debut full-length album was recorded with Mike Hagler at Kingsize Sound Labs (Wilco, Neko Case, Mekons) and mixed by John “Strawberry” Fields (Miley Cyrus,Demi Lovato, the Dollyrots). The twelve songs on the Imperial Sound’s debut forge an immediately identifiable sound and style: songs bristling with pop hooks, taut arrangements driven by an all-star horn section, and heavenly harmonies courtesy of a who’s-who in Chicago pop. Guests on the album include Peter Himmelman, Poi Dog Pondering’s Dag Juhlin, Singing legends Kelly Hogan and Nora O’Conner (Neko Case, Mavis Staples, the Flat Five), and Kathy Ruestow (Diplomats of Solid Sound).
Some album highlights from The New AM:
“Yesterday” is a swinging pop song about the time and memory. It sounds a little like Carole King but with more drive and a brilliantly deployed horn section. “A Man Like You” is a classic Chicago soul song about non-toxic masculinity that sounds like an updated, high-powered Sam and Dave track.
“Daylight” is a dreamy pop song about survival in a dark age, and it sounds like a cross between classic AM radio and the New Pornographers.
A little history:
The roots of this band are long and strong. Kenn Goodman and Rick Mosher met in college; they started a new wave band, and also published a phony college newspaper that ridiculed frat culture. But Kenn and Rick had bigger ideas. Soon they had dropped out of college, started a new band, and relocated to Chicago, where Kenn led the way in starting Pravda Records, a label and store located in the Cabaret Metro building. Soon Pravda was one of the most recognized record stores in the city. Kenn and Rick were busy with the Pravda label as well, releasing records by a number of bands. During this time the label was perhaps best known for producing a pair of tribute albums to K-tel Records, a nostalgic compilation of 1970’s one-hit wonders performed by well-known local and national bands including The Smashing Pumpkins, Mojo Nixon and The Young Fresh Fellows.
Along with running the store and the label, Kenn and Rick were busy with their new band, The Service, which by now included Gary Schepers on bass (Gary would later join them in the Imperial Sound). The Service was a mainstay of Chicago’s new-music club scene, and the band’s four albums are full of sturdy, no-nonsense songs and inventive arrangements. Their music has aged well, as critic Peter Margasak noted in the Chicago Reader __on the occasion of Pravda’s 25th Anniversary: I still have an awful lot of underground rock records from the mid- to late 80s, before media and marketing geniuses cooked up terms like “alt-rock” and “indie rock,” and few of them have aged as well as my Service albums. They were the epitome of the midwestern rock of the time: unfussy, exuberant, and with a certain elegance in its simplicity.
They had a good run, but after several years the pressure got to them. Kenn, Rick, and drummer John Smith split off to form The New Duncan Imperials, a band as noisy and irreverent as the Service were earnest and poetic. NDI enjoyed a meteoric rise to the top of the city’s club scene, and were soon selling out shows throughout the country; making inroads into Europe as well. Their recorded output — 10 releases in all — is an avalanche of chaotic, absurdist power pop. These days the band is sometimes referred to as “legendary.” No one is arguing.
Fast forward: NDI performs when the feeling is right. Kenn runs Pravda as a successful indie label and publishing company. Rick is still writing songs. The two men share a history and a sensibility, and now they have a new project in which to pour their remarkable energy. The Imperial Sound is a band with years of shared experience, yet they sound anything but tired — the songs are fresh and the vibe is driving and melodic. This may be a band with a past, but it’s also a band with a future.
Legendary emo-rockers Jawbreaker had a triumphant reunion at 2017’s Riot Fest in Chicago; it was feted in the press from around the world, including Billboard, the New Yorker, Stereogum, Uproxx, Alternative Press, and Chicago Magazine among many others. The night was an undeniable triumph—as tens of thousands of fans can attest—solidifying their legacy as a skin-tight band with timeless songs. Jawbreaker arrive in Chicago for a show at the Aragon on Sunday, November 4th. It is their only Midwestern concert—allowing fans who couldn’t make the festival date to see their stellar live show along with legions who rocked at the incendiary performance in Douglas Park.
Jawbreaker’s sharp lyrics, lean musicality and endurance-challenging live shows brought them to the forefront of the West Coast scene in the late 80s, when a slew of EPs and singles led to their first full length, Unfun in 1989. Bivouac was released next, followed by the seminal 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, produced by Steve Albini in Chicago, in 1993. After the band signed a major label deal in 1995, fans were split over the move. That led to the release of Dear You, which influenced bands like Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional, before disbanding amid acrimony. One of Jawbreaker’s final tours was in support of Nirvana, which included a date at the Aragon.
Jawbreaker’s legacy has lived on in fans all over the world, while other bands reunited as silence came from their camp, it began to seem like the great white whale… until they agreed to perform at Riot Fest 22 years later.
Riot Fest Presents Jawbreaker w/ Special Guests Sunday, November 4th Aragon Ballroom 1106 W. Lawrence Doors: 5:30 PM All Ages
WC Turck's Helter Skelter 