New Yorkers love to boast about their city’s brawny hip-hop industry. Nashvilleans don’t waste any time reminding you that they’re at the wheel of the country music machine. And Austin, Texas, residents chatter all year long about their annual indie-rock music convention.
But if you want to trump them all this summer, you won’t have to hop a plane. You can just step out your front door.
To Chicagoans, for whom live music, like baseball, is somewhere between a sport and a religion, it should come as no surprise that for the second year in a row the city will be home to the Lollapalooza Festival that begins here Friday.
The summer’s biggest show, a carnival-like musical extravaganza featuring a little something for everybody-including virtually every known species of rock, pop and hip-hop-couldn’t be more in sync with the city’s cosmopolitan tastes.
Music runs deep here. Chess Records and Vee-Jay Records (which once signed the Beatles) made their homes on Michigan Avenue. A young Curtis Mayfield established his studio on Lincoln Avenue before going out into the world to transform soul music.
Chicago has long been fertile ground for homegrown talent, as well as sacred soil for artists who come here to dig into the city’s rich musical lode. From rap kingpin Kanye West to country maverick Neko Case, from rock iconoclasts Wilco and Smashing Pumpkins to pop rockers Fall Out Boy, bluesman Buddy Guy, and backwards in time to architects of soul like Mayfield and Sam Cooke, blues titan Muddy Waters, and even jazz forefather Louis Armstrong, the city has produced a mountain of talent that has put its own imprint on rock, blues and jazz.
But besides history, what is it that separates a city full of music from a city known for its music? What is it that makes Chicago a special music town? The magic here rests on a balance among the fans, the musicians and the clubs that few cities can pull off. There are some 260 live music venues here-a number that rivals New York-including Metro, House of Blues, Green Mill, Legends, the Hideout, and Cal’s to name but a few-offering fans and artists a never-ending menu of cheap, accessible spots to catch a show.
And then there are the fans. Young Chicagoans crowd into the clubs every night by the thousands. Geographically insulated from the frantic, what’s-hot-this-minute hype that saturates New York, L.A. and Miami, Chicago fans display a sweetly obsessive love for music and a patience that you won’t find in many other big cities. That nurtures talent and makes the town attractive to new acts.
Club owners like Metro’s Joe Shanahan are famous for giving promising young bands a shot. Says Wicker Park-based rock manager Steve Hutton: “Young bands can develop here out of the spotlight, out of New York or L.A. There, if you get seen prematurely you’re considered damaged goods.” It gives homegrown acts like the Smashing Pumpkins and imports like Neko Case, who came here from Seattle, time to perfect their chops.
In this issue, the Magazine hails Chicago music by profiling five up-and-coming bands that will perform at festivals this summer-three of them at Lollapalooza. There’s Catfish Haven, a rock-soul group that took its name from a Missouri trailer park; Pit er Pat, a rocking trio that dares to play without guitars; Leah Tshilds, a well-known professional chef in her other life; and two retro-rock bands, the M’s and the Redwalls. All are known for their bravura live shows. And that’s where the excitement of Chicago music is. On any given night, with the right artist and the right crowd, a little magic may rain down.
Then again, sometimes it’s not magic at all-just a little spilled beer. But that’s OK too. It’s Chicago.
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Listen to the Redwalls, the M’s, Catfish Haven, Pit er Pat and Lea Tshilds, and watch bonus video of the Chicago musician Andrew Bird at chicagotribune.com/chicagobands.
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–David E. Thigpen, tribmag@tribune.com
THE M’S
It is perfectly possible to walk right past the M’s if you don’t know who you’re looking for. Such is the nature of almost-but-not-quite fame. Luckily, bassist Joey King called a few hours before a recent interview with a key identifier: “I’m the one with the lumberjack beard.”
And so he was, hunkered down with two of his three bandmates at a corner table at Resi’s Bierstube on West Irving Park Road, where walls are bedecked with so-bad-they’re-good oil paintings and sundry etchings.
Guitarist Rob Hicks, an earnest guy whose dark curls are tucked under a newsboy cap, picked the venue. He lives nearby, but proximity was only one of several factors. “We were going to do the interview at Schubas,” he explains, “but we always do our interviews there, and I felt like we’d probably be interrupted a lot, because I haven’t been there in a while and . . .” But the fans would be too much? Clamoring for autographs, climbing over the tables?
“No, no,” Hicks says, flustered. “Friends. A lot of our friends. It’s not because of fame.”
King shakes his head. “Oh, people would have been ripping our clothes off.”
King isn’t all that talkative, but he’s funny and acerbic when on a roll. He is, as promised, heavily bearded, and wrapped in a cardigan sweater. Slumped in the booth next to him sits Josh Chicoine, the band’s other guitarist, whose blond, scruffy looks would probably have made him the band’s frontman if this were the kind of band that believed in that sort of thing. They aren’t. Case in point: Chicoine, Hicks and King rotate through the lead vocal spot, calling to mind a less dysfunctional Fleetwood Mac.
Drinks are ordered and apologies made on behalf of their drummer, Steve Versaw. “He’s got a gig tonight,” King explains. Perhaps Versaw is cheating on them with another band? The truth is less sensational: It turns out Versaw’s a gifted sound engineer. His absence means there are many opportunities for his bandmates to talk about him, helpfully describing his “extremely musical” drumming, his “little potbelly,” and taking note of his impending nuptials. (The band plays Lollapalooza on Friday night; Versaw gets married Saturday.)
Most of the band seems pretty well settled, scattered about the city’s Far North Side. Chicoine’s wife is expecting their first child, a daughter, in the fall; Hicks lives with his girlfriend and their beloved Australian shepherd Zelda. And King? ” I’m single, everyone,” he intones into a tape recorder. “And I’m a good cook.” That announcement notwithstanding, King spends a lot of time during the interview text messaging with a certain female “friend.”
The $64,000 question is disposed of quickly: How’d they pick their name? “We wanted the simplest band name possible. It doesn’t represent anything,” says Hicks.
“At my wedding,” adds Chicoine, “someone took a Polaroid of Versaw and King and Hicks, and wrote ‘The M’s’ on it. Like a lot of things with this band, it just kind of happened.”
The same could be said about them finding one another. Hicks and Versaw, both natives of Kalamazoo, had been in a band (“The Ordination of Aaron”) in the 1990s. Chicoine moved to Chicago from Champaign in 1995. Versaw moved here in 1999. Chicoine and Versaw worked together at Uncle Dan’s Camping Store on Lincoln Avenue. King, who is from Russellville, Ark., and Hicks also arrived in 1999, and met while working at a restaurant.
As Hicks tells it, he and King were talking about music one day, and King offered to play Hicks some of his music. “I was thinking, he’s a really nice guy. I don’t want to hear his crappy band and have to say something like, ‘Oh, you guys have a lot of energy.’ But then when I did hear it, it sounded a lot like the music I’d been playing and recording on my own.”
As befits their serendipitous origins, there is something pleasingly low-maintenance about the M’s-they are an easy-to-like kind of band. Their music, which sounds suspiciously like old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll, occasionally pushes up against the edge of something dirtier, grittier, and then slides back into hook-heavy melodies. The feedback and tightly meshed guitars bring to mind Britpop of the 1960s and ’70s, most notably The Kinks, an inevitable comparison that has exactly no power to annoy the M’s.
“The only reason we’re not sick of comparisons is that they always compare us to some of the greatest bands ever,” says Hicks.
Well-worn parallels aside, the M’s get good, sometimes exceptional, press, which they claim they’ve more or less stopped reading. “I never knew who anyone was,” says King. “And after shows, our manager would say, ‘(Sun-Times pop music critic Jim) DeRogatis is here,’ and I would think, who is this Dee Regatis?”
No one is stalking them yet, a fact that seems to disappoint them ever so slightly. And while they’ve toured enough to be realistic about it, they’re nowhere near jaded. They’ve still got big dreams. “Maybe I’ll get the key to Russellville when our album goes canvas,” muses King.
The relatively slow creep of fame appears to have served the band well. In five years, they’ve gone from playing tiny venues to playing, well, Lollapalooza. They claim that not much has changed in their lives between their first album (a self-titled effort on Brilliante, a local label) and their second (“Future Women,” released on Polyvinyl earlier this year).
“The only thing different now is that it feels real,” says Chicoine. “This is our life, and our lives have become more intertwined. And we want to make it work.”
Of course, the old “not much has changed” contention doesn’t really hold water, because, in fact, a whole lot has changed. The M’s play sold-out shows these days, and not just in Chicago. They’re on a summer tour with Wilco, a development that leaves them all sounding a bit awestruck. And they’re working on a music video with director Jonathan Demme.
“He e-mailed us a few times after he saw us play with Wilco at Irving Plaza,” says Chicoine. “He wanted some of our albums to sell. And I remember when I saw the ‘from’ tagline, I thought, ‘How weird that there are two Jonathan Demmes in New York.'” But the fan was, in fact, the Jonathan Demme, fresh off Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” feature.
This is an exciting development, certainly. But what gets this band really worked up is a shining, distant possibility, a measure of fame that only true Chicagoans will appreciate.
“We want to sing at the 7th-inning stretch really badly,” says Hicks. “At a Cubs game. And it will rule.” They all nod as soberly as possible. “We swear.”
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WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE PLACE TO HEAR LIVE MUSIC?
Joey: The Empty Bottle and Schubas for smaller shows. Bigger shows: The Vic
Rob: I like Metro, the Vic and Schubas.
Josh: I saw a Radiohead show in Grant Park, and that was an amazing night. But Schubas is our stomping grounds.
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–Jessica Reaves, jreaves@tribune.com
THE REDWALLS
On a genteel block in Andersonville, bordered by cool coffee shops and open-air restaurants, the 35-year-old Wikstrom’s deli is a conspicuous throwback in its unpretentious, Old World charm. With its festive window display trumpeting Swedish meatballs and lingonberries for just $3.99, a poster announcing Kavli golden rye, and a photo of Wikstrom posed next to a freshly caught halibut larger than he, the place radiates a warmth that goes beyond the rustic decor and free coffee.
So it seems fitting when, on a bright afternoon, the four members of one of Chicago’s most promising young retro-style rock bands wander in, pull up to an old wooden table, spread out a small mountain of cheese and salami and begin to talk. The bandmates call themselves the Redwalls, a name they say they chose without a lot of fuss, simply “by putting two good words together,” and their no-frills, guitar-centric sound is probably best described as ’60s British invasion meets suburban Midwest garage rock.
The Redwalls give their garb a retro spin, too. Although all are in their early 20s, these guys would not have looked out of place striding around the Mod streets of Liverpool 40 years ago. Singer Justin Baren is wearing a fedora, jeans and a corduroy sports jacket. His brother, bassist Logan Baren, has on suspenders and a vintage paisley shirt. Guitarist Andrew Langer is clad in a jet-black sports jacket and tight black pants, while drummer Ben Greeno wears a casual thrift-shop ensemble. The foursome complete their look with shag haircuts that evoke the rock-dandy look first made fashionable by Rod Stewart and Keith Richards in 1960s London.
The Redwalls’ rapid success has been startling-not least of all, it seems, to the band members themselves. Three years ago, when they signed their first major record deal, they were all living with their parents, and Justin and Logan were still in high school. Last year, their album De Nova drew strong reviews, and this spring the band toured Europe and the U.S. as the opening act for the British super group Oasis. “It was mind-boggling,” recalls Justin Baren. “We played in an English soccer stadium that had more people than we’d played for in our entire careers.”
They’ll get even more local exposure when they perform at Lollapalooza next Sunday.
It was just six years ago that the band members-all self-taught musicians-came together at Deerfield High School. Deerfield’s charms are many, but it has never been considered a musical hotbed. Yet it was suburbia-the same suburbia that novelists, punk rockers and teenagers have long railed against as barren and stifling-that gave the Redwalls a quiet, calm place to learn their craft.
“There was a cookie-cutter sameness to it, like a lot suburbs,” explains Langer. “But it was a good town to grow up in.”
They found plenty of spare time to jam with each other. “The way we learned how to play music was by playing together as much as possible,” remembers Langer. “That’s really how we started to grow as a band.”
A cassette recording they made in 2001 won them a steady gig at Nevin’s Live, an Evanston music club. Soon they were performing regularly at Cal’s, a dive bar wedged in a storefront on the southern end of Chicago’s financial district, and fans began spreading positive word on the band. The Redwalls had fast-tracked themselves into a skilled live act, with great timing, nimble guitar work and a powerful percussive wallop reminiscent of the formative years of The Who and Nirvana.
In 2003 they cadged enough free studio time from a friend to record a debut album, “Universal Blues,” for the minuscule Chicago indie label Undertow Records.
The buzz on the young band was becoming loud enough to be overheard in the executive suites of several major record companies in Los Angeles, which sent representatives to Chicago to have a listen. Cal’s will probably never again see as many Blackberrys and cell-phones as it did the night that limousine after limousine of record company talent scouts piled into its narrow confines.
At a later L.A. gig, Warner Records’ legendary Seymour Stein, best known as the man who discovered Talking Heads and Madonna, was among the suitors who came to hear the band. But in the end, Andy Slater, president of Capitol Records, the label that is home to the Beatles and Coldplay, prevailed by making a personal pitch to the band.
With their record-deal money, each of the guys bought himself a new pad: the Baren brothers and Langer got apartments in the Andersonville and Wicker Park areas and Greeno a place in the suburbs.
They have tasted their budding fame’s downside, too. They are now occasionally recognized on the streets and sometimes tailed by overly ardent fans. But on this afternoon, as the band members whittle down the pile of salami at Wikstrom’s, crack a few jokes with the deli’s owner and pose for pictures near the cheese, they explain how all their travels and success have led them to savor life in Chicago more than ever, for everything from the lousy weather to the blunt style of the natives.
Says Justin: “After spending four months in L.A., it’s great to be back in a town where people will actually tell you when you suck instead of telling you what they think you want to hear. And if they like you they’ll cheer, instead of waiting to see how somebody else reacts.”
The Redwalls’ May performance at the Metro turned into something of a homecoming for the band after their long absence on the Oasis tour. A sold-out, jam-packed house greeted the band, pushing to the edge of the stage.
Looking back on that night a few weeks later, Justin Baren said the best thing about it was “that people remembered us. We’ll never forget that this is where it all started for us.”
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WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE PLACE TO HEAR LIVE MUSIC?
Ben Greeno, drummer, The Redwalls: I’d have to say Schubas is my favorite place. Sometimes small, intimate settings can be the perfect place for rock ‘n’ roll.
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–David E. Thigpen
CATFISH HAVEN
Sure, I’ve had my heart broken. Most people have,” confesses Catfish Haven singer/guitarist George Hunter, asked about his proclivity for penning soul-baring love songs.
But on this Wednesday afternoon in mid-June, Hunter and his two bandmates, Miguel Castillo (bass) and Ryan Farnham (drums), have other aches to deal with aside from those of the heart.
The night before was the final evening of a two-week tour supporting Pink Mountaintops, and the band went out in style, pounding Jameson Irish Whiskey and ripping through karaoke versions of “Takin’ Care of Business” and “Rhinestone Cowboy” at Alice’s Lounge before finally getting to bed sometime after sunrise.
Shortly after 1 p.m., we are sitting at Lazo’s Tacos, a 24-hour Mexican food joint at Armitage and Western Avenues that caters to the post-party crowd. The three band members are crammed into a small booth where, over the din of dozens of children celebrating the final day of school, they order heaping plates of chilaquiles, steak tacos and frozen margaritas. (“The green kind, please,” specifies a weary Farnham.)
With their scraggly beards, bloodshot eyes and just-rolled-out-of-bed hair, the trio is almost a physical manifestation of their music-a dingy, gut-busting brand of rock and soul that occupies the middle ground between Bob Seger and Sam Cooke. It’s little wonder that Matthew Johnson, founder of Mississippi-based Fat Possum Records, a label that specializes in rawboned blues, took a shine to the band.
The initial discussions with Fat Possum tailed off after Johnson suggested the band try recording with an electric guitar in place of Hunter’s beloved acoustic. “We’ve tried electric, but it just doesn’t sound the same,” explains Hunter. “It doesn’t have the same body or feel. An acoustic is singing at you, whereas an electric is just kinda screaming.”
Soon after, Catfish Haven inked a deal with Secretly Canadian, which released the band’s seven-track EP “Please Come Back” this past January. The album helped the trio land a coveted slot on Sunday at Lollapalooza in advance of its debut full-length CD, “Tell Me,” which hits stores Sept. 12.
The tunes, which evoke Stax soul and juke-joint cool, are built around the free-swinging rhythm section and Hunter’s gravelly, cigarette-and-black-coffee vocals, which brim with conviction on “You Can Have Me” and nearly unravel completely on the baby-don’t-go pleas of the title track.
“The first time I saw them was at South By Southwest and George’s voice just made me swoon,” says Pink Mountaintops frontman Stephen McBean “[The music] is not really in step with what’s hip, which is refreshing for me. It just sounds legitimate and honest.”
Much of that honesty is inspired by the band’s namesake, a trailer park community in southern Missouri where Hunter spent his formative years. The frontman looks back with wonder at the time he spent tramping barefoot through pumpkin patches, fishing in “haunted” catfish ponds and riding the bus next to a glue-eating schoolmate named Gus.
When, at the age of 7, his dad’s work necessitated a move to Elgin, the Missouri community took on an even greater mythology for the singer. In many ways Catfish Haven is his attempt to re-create that childlike innocence. Plus, as Hunter points out, the name is suitably filthy for the band’s music, which itself seems coated in layers of grime. “I just thought it was the dirtiest,” he says. “A la Muddy Waters.”
Hunter, 28, first met lifelong Elgin residents Castillo, 27, and Farnham, 24, in high school (Hunter and Farnham went to Elgin High, while Castillo went to nearby Larkin), where the three self-taught musicians were heavily involved in the skateboarding and punk scenes. “We were always the ones in a million different bands,” says Castillo.
The group’s slow-burning sound is a far cry from their days spent tearing through two-chord punk songs at the Fireside Bowl and attempting ankle-twisting ollies while skateboarding in the venue’s parking lot.
“We discovered that the old soul and rock music had the same feeling as the thrashy stuff we were playing,” says Castillo of the evolution. “When you listen to us now, it’s like we carried that energy over. It’s still just as raw.”
“That’s why I love R&B and soul so much,” adds Hunter. “There are so many songs where you can just feel it. It’s pure emotion.”
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WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO NOW?
George: I’ve actually been listening to a lot of old stuff like Patsy Cline, Booker T. and the MGs, and the Talking Heads.
Miguel: A far as new bands go, I’ve been listening to the Knife and Cold War Kids. I’ve also been into some old stuff like Al Green and Otis Redding.
Ryan: This week I’m listening to Gnarls Barkley, Pink Mountaintops and Marvin Gaye.
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–Andy Downing, tribmag@tribune.com
PIT ER PAT
A blue neon crucifix, adorned with a red thorny crown, hangs above the stage. The words “Jesus is the light of the world” appear in drive-thru neon script just above the cross.
It’s a Tuesday night at South Union Arts, a former Baptist church that now hosts art and rock shows. Pit er Pat, Chicago’s most promising art- and experimental-rock three-piece, is hammering through its set. The audience, heavily populated by artist types in their 20s, reclines in movie-theater seats and obediently, mechanically, nod their heads at the rock sermon coming from the former altar.
Indie rock, it seems, is alive and well in Chicago.
On the surface, Pit er Pat embodies all that is-or was, depending on whom you ask-Wicker Park. The members sport secondhand clothes and retro sunglasses and cruise around town on vintage bicycles. But these three, having worked in and around the art and music scene for nearly 10 years, have a level of street cred most Bucktown types can only dream of.
While music is their main pursuit, each band member has plenty of other things going on. Bass player Rob Doran, who grew up in McHenry, spent four years in Columbia College Chicago’s art program. He has run an on-again, off-again design and textile company called Wound Crust for the past several years. As Doran says, it’s a business he runs “out of an attic. I make hand-printed posters, pillows, textiles and album packaging.” His art adorns the band’s forthcoming album, “Pyramids.”
Lead singer Fay Davis-Jeffers grew up in Vermont and arrived in Chicago to study at the School of the Art Institute, earning her degree in 2000. When not touring and practicing with the band, Davis-Jeffers works in the local television industry, dressing sets and shopping for props.
Raised in various places around the country, drummer Butchy Fuego found himself living in Chicago after high school. He has worked at a variety of jobs, including Foley artist, providing sound effects for an online cartoon called Monster Team, to his current part-time gig at a button factory.
But it is through music that the three seem to find their creative footing. The band, which is scheduled to play at the Empty Bottle on Aug. 12, is the target of increasing adoration in a city known for embracing the Bears, Sox and other sports teams rather than its creative types.
“Chicago is a great place to be in a band,” says Doran. “There seems to be a lot of support for the music community. As far as an audience goes, people are at shows. All the time.”
Originally assembled as a backing band for singer-songwriter Josh Gleason, Pit er Pat took shape shortly after Gleason relocated to New York in 2002. Without their lead singer and faced with a looming gig, the remaining members decided to keep the date. A year later, the band had released its own six-song EP, and found themselves on Chicago’s independent label Thrill Jockey Records.
The label has proved to be a perfect fit for a band that strives for experimentation. With its impressive roster of artists-Tortoise, Eleventh Dream Day, The Sea and Cake, among many others-Thrill Jockey has become a hot spot for musical progression.
The label is “really diverse,” says Fuego. With a musical range extending from hip-hop to country, the band feels “we are just sort of somewhere in that eclectic ball.”
But defining exactly where Pit er Pat fits in that mix is a difficult task. With a list of influences that includes John Cage, Thelonious Monk, Sonic Youth and Lou Reed, the band is a difficult one to label.
First and foremost, Pit er Pat is a rhythm band. Their sound is firmly planted in rock, but without guitars it takes on jazz-like explorations. Moving between time signatures and ever-changing tempos, Fuego’s drumming leads the expedition. His beat builds a tension that Doran and Davis-Jeffers then maneuver around. Doran’s low-end bass provides a bridge between Fuego’s beats and Davis-Jeffers’ keyboard. The three exchange singing responsibilities, but Davis-Jeffers usually sits at the helm, offering somewhat soft, mystical lyrics. They follow only one absolute: no absolutes.
“I think it’s really natural the way we work together,” says Davis-Jeffers. “A lot of times we sit down and instantly play something that goes right together. I think we have a sensory understanding of how each other plays.”
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WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO NOW?
Rob Doran: The new Metallic Falcons record.
Fay Davis-Jeffers: I have been on a Yoko Ono kick lately.
Butchy Fuego: Old Jamaican music, particularly Rocksteady, a popular style from Jamaica in the late ’60s. Also music from Africa, particularly Mali. They all shop at Dusty Groove America on Ashland and Division.
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–Christopher Booker, cbooker@tribune.com
AMALEA TSHILDS
Nestled on the main drag of Logan Square, the inventive Lula Cafe caters to an eclectic mix of hipsters and neighborhood stalwarts who were there long before the area gentrified. The Square’s businesses are a mix of old and new, and it’s not uncommon to find a trendy store sitting next to an ancient hole-in-the-wall diner.
It’s an ideal locale to meet with Amalea “Lea” Tshilds, whose folkish, countrified debut album, “Painted Tiles,” pays homage to some forgotten past while whispering at the doorstep of current indie-flavored dream twang.
She also happens to co-own Lula Cafe with her husband, Jason Hammel. Like the restaurant, which features “seasonal organic produce from local sources, wild-caught fish, and naturally raised meats and poultry,” the “Painted Tiles” album developed organically-and slowly. “I finished it a couple years ago. I just hadn’t had time to put it out . . . to either find a label or anything like that,” says Tshilds. “It’s hard to get [that] type of work done.”
She dedicated her days off from Lula to recording her material. “I was recording on Tuesdays, all day Tuesday,” she says. “It was really fun, though. I really like the process a lot; it takes me way from [Lula] . . . It’s sort of an escape.”
Her 14-cut debut, released in May, is a departure from the music of the bands she worked with in the ’90s, the harmony-laden Tallulah (from which Lula’s name is derived) and the funkified Uptighty.
“I guess it goes back to my folkier days” she says. [“Painted Tiles”] came out of just four-tracking late at night. You know, listening to dreamier, sleepier music at night.”
“Painted Tiles” features a Chicago indie-rock pantheon of players, with bandmates hailing from Wilco, Califone, Tortoise, The Eternals, Eleventh Dream Day and The Coctails, to name a few. Tshilds corralled friends including Leroy Bach, Doug McCombs, Mark Greenberg, Dan Fliegel, Diane Izzo, Graeme Gibson and Jim Becker to complete the album.
At first listen, there’s beauty in the sparseness and languid pacing, but on closer inspection, as on the most upbeat tune, “Parachute,” rich details reveal themselves via the players’ various contributions. The album opens with the acoustic pickings of “Distant Town,” and other material, including the moody “Blue” and “Luna,” showcase the band’s indie, jazzy stylings with lush arrangements and instrumental interludes.
“It was a lot of collaboration,” says Tshilds, who plays guitar and piano. “It was kind of like layering. Somebody would sit in the studio and listen . . . They’d come up with their own parts.”
While collaboration flavored the music on the album, it also seeped into her approach to lyrics. “Actually, I went into the studio-it’s kind of weird-without any lyrics. I just had the vocal melody-isms. I’d make up words. The vocals went on last.”
Her husband, a writer, was enlisted to compose most of the lyrics. Themes of loss, both physical and emotional, and sketches of watery memories pervade the lyrics. As with most of Tshild’s pursuits, however, it all unfolds organically.
“I might wear chef’s clothes during the day but I can still be thinking music as I cook,” says Tshilds, whose next gig is at Hideout on Aug. 24. “And vice versa. I think it’s more interesting to be two people, or more than just one. That way they kind of speak to each other.”
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WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO NOW?
Gillian Welch, Rayna Gellert, Charles Mingus, Will Oldham
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–Althea Legaspi, tribmag@tribune.com
