Rollin Hunt’s name should be familiar to readers who love Chicago musicians with a flair for experimenting with pop. His name first appeared in the Reader in 2007 when Jessica Hopper decided to forgo attending the massive summer festivals that fill Chicago’s summers in favor of checking…
I’m back…?
Maybe? Last time I returned was fairly fleeting, and it’s been nearly a year since my last update. So let’s see what happens this time…
After my story about below-underground antifolker Willis Earl Beal hit the streets in July, I received a string of e-mails from folks eager to get in touch with Beal. The first person to do so was Jeff Harley, a lawyer who runs a site called Urban Eyez and who wanted to help Beal meet his artistic goals. Yesterday Harley wrote about what’s happened since the end of July, which includes helping form a backing band for Beal, just in time for his first official public show at Town Hall Pub on Thu 9/15. Beal, an aspiring visual artist as well as a musical one, drew the above flyer for the show. For a preview of what to expect, check out the Urban Eyez post for a couple engrossing videos of an a cappella performance by Beal. —Leor Galil
(Source: chicago-reader)
Above is a video of Willis Earl Beal performing in Millennium Park’s Wrigley Square. Beal came up with his plan to do a live public show earlier this week, but the details kept changing. At first, the bustling CTA tunnel connecting the Blue and Red line stations at Jackson was the venue of choice; then Cloud Gate, aka “the Bean.” The set was to start at 7:30 PM; then late Thursday afternoon, that became 8:30 PM.
The timing turned out to work well for the location, at least momentarily; a tribute to Chicago jazz icon Von Freeman was wrapping up at Pritzker Pavilion (health issues prevented Freeman from attending) as Willis hopped on a cement picnic table to entertain folks on their way home. Then the batteries in his boom box fell out. And then security came to inform Beal he couldn’t perform where he’d set up camp.
Security directed Beal toward Wrigley Square, and Beal wasted no time launching into his five-song set, beginning with “Blue Escape” (see the video above). He put on a hell of a show, belting out every word with passion and earnestness even as most onlookers just stared, seeming confused. That didn’t seem to bother Beal, and he pushed himself till his voice turned slightly raspy. A highlight for me was his new version of “White Noise”; using a sleek electronic instrumental instead of the original backing tracks, Beal morphed it into a minimalist R&B tune similar to Frank Ocean’s cool slow jams.
Beal went into the performance with high spirits and came out of it even happier. He won over a few new fans among the curious passersby who stuck it out, and he made $10 in donations too. “I can buy a fuckin’ bus pass,” he said. —Leor Galil
(Source: chicago-reader)
A bunch of bands talk about what Beatles song they’d cover…
Volume 4 of my Tapes ‘n’ Tapes series for the A.V. Club Chicago is all about Fliff City. Check out the full thing here.
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Rent America are responsible for the most absurd performance I saw of this era. They took awhile to set up, then they literally played a blast beat for like two seconds, and then they were all on the floor crying and rolling and crawling around. No more music was played. Also, the singer made a speech about refusing to use a microphone because it was elitist and placed him above the crowd before they played, so for the two seconds they played he was just yelling into the air. They were just lying on the floor crying for awhile, and then one of them started yelling “the worms…the worms..oh my god…the worms” and made this teary eyed speech about how because of the human race putting concrete and asphalt all over the earth when it rains the worms come out and can’t find their way back to the earth and die in the sun on the concrete. At this point, people just started laughing and the rest of the set was spent by Rent America yelling at the crowd for not taking them seriously and about how it took so much guts to show that emotion in front of a crowd.
After that, Agnes Moraine’s Autobiography played and took forever to set up. The guitarist tuned for 20 minutes, then they played half a song, and he threw his guitar across the room and fell on the floor crying. I walked out at that point.
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Story from a message board, where people were talking about mid 90’s hardcore. This story makes me laugh so hard everytime. The whole world of ubersincere D.I.Y. hardcore was so ridiculous some times. And now those dudes are in a band called Facedowninshit (via garlock)
Just listened to something about this on a D.C. radio show. So odd.
What can I say? I just love discovering these great new emo bands and writing about ‘em. Head to the Washington City Paper’s Arts Blog to find out my top 10 for the year!
So many choices, but only 10 made the cut. Numbers 11-20 were originally included in the Thought Catalog piece, but had to be cut. So, I present those below, as something of a preview for the main attraction:
20. Four Tet - There Is Love In You: Experimental dance music that pulls at the heartstrings and forces you to dance.
19. Torche - Songs For Singles: Mike Huckabee’s new favorite band crams high-octane metal jams into just a handful of seconds.
18. Disappears – Lux: Hypnotic, fuzzed-out garage rock that gets under your skull and trapped in your head.
17. Joie De Vivre - The North End: Epic, Mineral-esq emo that romanticizes romanticizing about the Midwest.
16. Imperial China – Phosphenes: Angular post-punk, boisterous electronica, and visceral dub finally sound great together.
15. Glasser – Ring: If Lady Gaga really went avant-garde, she might create the oddball orchestrations in the vein of Glasser.
14. Extra Life - Made Flesh: Hard tunes for the art-rock set, arty songs for the hard and heavy music fans, all done in an expert fashion.
13. The Dillinger Escape Plan - Option Paralysis: Mathcore’s great experimentalists go for “epic” on the pop and dissonance scales.
12. Houses - All Night: A lovely album of airy electronic-pop that’s best left on repeat.
11. Monument - Goes Canoeing: Rough and tumble new-old emo for fans of sloppy indie-rock.
Read the top ten at Thought Catalog.
