Many casual rock fans get stuck on this poser: name the band who were greatly influenced by both Bob Dylan and The Beatles, and in turn had major influence on Bob Dylan and The Beatles. The answer is The Byrds. Similarly, another ’60s-born Southern California-based outfit led several lives, one that is extremely more commercially popular than the others, but those lesser-known years irrevocably changed the language of pop music.

Appearing: May 21st and 22nd at Chicago Theatre (175 N. State) in Chicago.

They are The Beach Boys.

To this day, an astounding number of Americans are unfamiliar with Pet Sounds, a recording reverently hailed by critics as one of the most important of all time. If you troll its comments section in Apple’s iTunes music store, you’d frequently read those of Beatles fans who write something akin to, “I bought this because I read that Paul McCartney wrote most of Sgt. Pepper’s in admiration of it.”

Consequently, an army of self-styled “serious” listeners ignore The Beach Boys’ early hits — as they do The Beatles’ — believing Pet Sounds and its besieged, ultimately released (in 2004) successor Smile are the band’s true legacy. Because Brian Wilson was central to those albums, those cognoscenti then err by clipping their Beach Boys’ collections when Wilson’s drug use and mental instability drove him into seclusion, and they are comically unaware of albums like Sunflower, when the rest of the band blossomed.

“I would say the reason we’re here is because the early stuff is taken so incredibly seriously,” says Bruce Johnston. “I’d say it’s the reverse. I think people get a little itchy and antsy when [on tour, Mike Love and I] try to go deep. The problem music, I think, is the deeper stuff. The whole world knows the early stuff.

“But let’s not go there,” he pauses. “Here’s how it should sound: Hearing it all is the better choice.”

And so you shall have it. For their 50th anniversary — allegedly the first American rock group to reach the milestone — Johnston, Love, Brian Wilson, and Al Jardine are touring one last time, so people can hear the full spectacle from “Surfin’” to a new album, That’s Why God Made The Radio, due June 5th.

The official launch was at the Grammys this winter, and Wilson says, “Just recently we decided to do the tour. We’re doing most of the Beach Boys’ classics. There are some that aren’t as classic,” he kids, “but they’re good tunes.”

“This configuration,” Johnston starts, “people have a great interest in the depth that [Brian] created, and you get it at his concert. He’s kind of like Burt Bacharach: he’s this all-purpose guy from the music business who did everything. Here’s this amazing talent on stage who wrote, produced, and arranged it, and did all the stuff. And he can get away with some really interesting tracks. When Mike and I go out — other than when we play with symphonies — we keep it a little lighter.”

But surely Love and Johnston don’t need Wilson along to dabble in Pet Sounds, and he admits that the pair cover more than half of the album when hitting the likes of Ravinia each summer.

“He doesn’t tour a lot,” Johnston agrees, “but he’s able to do things that we wouldn’t be able to do — like a longer version of ‘Heroes & Villains.’ And the reaction he gets . . . I’m not saying his audience doesn’t have fun, but Brian gets a more serious audience. ‘Here Today’ is really fun to do, but I have to force Mike. I don’t know why he doesn’t like doing it. ‘I don’t like the instrumental part in the middle!’ ‘That’s my favorite part!’”

In half of a century, The Beach Boys have certainly been entitled to a few squabbles, and those mostly limit themselves to lawsuits over royalties or use of the band name. Musically, fractures appeared in the agonizing sessions for Smile, when Wilson became increasingly withdrawn, Love especially didn’t like its fragmented nature or Van Dyke Parks’ cryptic lyrics, and Capitol Records wanted to know where its money went.

“I always thought Smile should have been Brian’s solo album with us visiting vocally,” Johnston says, “and I don’t think he would have gone through any of the pain making that album. The label wouldn’t be wondering, ‘Where are the hits, Brian? Where are the hits?’ The label was really funky in those days.” Though he’s not a founding member — he joined the touring band after Glen Campbell split in 1965; he wasn’t considered a full-timer until a couple of years later — Johnston occupies what seems like an arbiter’s position in the band. He was one of Pet Sounds‘ biggest champions, yet tours in full-voice behind the early hits. And those topsy-turvy years beginning 1967’s Smiley Smile?

“It’s a great career, great music, and later on band members,” he says. “Have you ever heard Dennis [Wilson]’s song, ‘Forever’? My favorite Beach Boys album in the whole world is Sunflower. It’s one of the least-successful albums in the catalog,” he snickers, “and Dennis wrote this perfect song. The Wilson brothers had great writing talent.”

Reliably, he’s partial to the new album, as well.

“It’s very relaxed to me,” Johnston hints. “What I like about it is the label wasn’t running in the door every five minutes [looking for hits]. They just come over once in awhile and heard all the voices. Brian’s got this cute little pocket suite in it. And nobody’s worried about ‘Strings aren’t cool = it’s 2012.’ Paul Martin did these great string arrangements. It’s relaxed and there’s interesting things going on. Nobody’s trying to put on whatever they were all about from the mid ’60s. Nobody’s trying to win an Olympic gold medal. Al sang a duet with me, and it was a pleasure. It’s not like an album where you’re gonna go, ‘This is gonna be pretty big!’ You’re gonna go, ‘Hey, this is pretty nice. These guys, after all these years, can and want to sing together.’”

Brian Wilson, who guards his words in a separate interview, opens up here. “It’s very mellow-sounding. A lot of harmonies. Most of it’s just harmony. I wrote a song called ‘Shelter,’ which is all about how your house is shelter from the sunlight and shelter from the dark night. It’s a great tune, it really is.”

That’s Why God Made The Radio’s title track has been issued as the first single, and its unabashedly retro feel is charismatic. The band’s rich harmonies cascade over a bass pattern that’s surprisingly high in the mix, with everything swaying in 12/8 time. Despite the arrangement’s density, it never feels cluttered and — like most Beach Boys single edits — ends too soon.

He continues, “Most of the stuff I wrote in 1998 with my collaborator Joe Thomas. [Until now], the guys had never heard it before. They love it. They think it’s great stuff. The guys haven’t changed very much in 50 years, you know? They still sound just as good or even better than 50 years ago!”

If the material was written in 1998, that means it came to life while Wilson was living in St. Charles, not far from the Thomas whose résumé includes work with McCartney and Elton John. The pair were working on Wilson’s solo album, Imagination, and guests at the house included the former Beatle, John Lennon’s son Sean, and Joe Walsh. After an alleged falling-out, Wilson moved back to California. This part, he’s not so willing to talk about.

“Not really. It was hard work, you know?”

Johnston, coincidentally, also has ties to the area, having been born in Peoria and kept a home in Beverly. His father, a big-wig at Walgreens, adopted him shortly before joining forces with Justin Dart, a former son-in-law of the Walgreens empire who revolutionized the drugstore business and became a magnate. The Johnstons moved to Bel-Air, young Bruce cottoned to surfing, and then fell in with some incredibly important artists.

“I’ve been at this since high school,” he says. “I used to back up Ritchie Valens and Eddie Cochran; I was in a band with Phil Spector and on and on and on. But I was at this surf spot called Swami’s in San Diego, and I don’t know, I must have been 18 or 19, and I heard ‘Surfin” On the radio by The Beach Boys, and I didn’t know what it was. We had gone through instrumental stuff by The Ventures and Dick Dale, and all of the sudden vocals are singing about the surfing life. It astounded me that my sport had a voice. One thing led to another, and I’m in this band.”

– Steve Forstneger

For the full story, visit the issue through our partners at ShadeTree, or grab a copy available free throughout Chicagoland.

IE: Are there any that you’re more excited to approach than others?
Brian Wilson: Not really. Well, “California Girls” I look forward to, and “Good Vibrations.” I look forward to those.

IE: Is there anything about those songs that you don’t get to touch on in your newer material?
BW: We try to put all our heart and soul into everything.

IE: You mentioned Joe Thomas was your main collaborator. What about the others?
BW: Well, they’ve all had their input, you know what I mean? If I thought Bruce would be better to sing [one part], he might have said, “You sing it, Al.”

IE: So the collaborative spirit was there.
BW: Right.

IE: Are you making improvements on the old songs?
BW: Yeah, we’re trying to make them sound just as good as they did then.

IE: Has there been any conversation of the legacy of the band and how it fits into today’s climate?
BW: We said we’re not real current; the music isn’t today’s kind of music. But it’s just as good or better than the music of today.

IE: What’s your barometer for that?
BW: Harmonically, I guess. Just the harmonies. It’s got the energy, too — there’s a lot to it.

IE: Can you notice recurrent themes in the music you’ve made through the years? Certain melodic signatures, etc.?
BW: Not just the harmonies, but the melodies are good. The lyrics are very interesting, you know?

IE: Have there been any challenges in putting this together?
BW: We’re challenged to make it sound good.

IE: Are you a perfectionist in that light?
BW: Yes I am. I’m a perfectionist in the sense that I don’t want the guys to sound crappy. And they’ll say, “We sound good.” Sure, we sound good, but we can’t sound crappy.

– Steve Forstneger

Superman had his Fortress Of Solitude; Mayer Hawthorne has his records and the stores scattered around the globe devoted to housing rare and overlooked vinyl.

Appearing: May 17th at Park West with The Stepkids, and later the same night at Beauty Bar in Chicago.

While out on the road, if the L.A.-based, Ann Arbor, Michigan native’s not on stage soaking up the intense, if unlikely, female adulation his bedroom-eyed crooning brings, he’s either satisfying his foodie tendencies at a local eatery of note or adding to his collection of LPs.

You can just picture him hunkering down in a musty shop with creaky hardwood floors – the kind that make it easy for well-fed dust bunnies to hop in between stacks of music. His thick-rimmed hipster frames slide down his nose as he hunches over crates, flipping through unorganized and improperly alphabetized titles. Losing all track of time, he focuses on the hunt, rarely coming up for air until he locates that trip-defining gem.

Hawthorne has a name for this treasured ritual: “digging.” And it’s not a team sport.

“It’s usually more of like a Zen thing for me. That’s kind of like my drug. So, I don’t usually like to talk to nobody when I’m digging for records. It’s more of like a private thing. I just get in my zone and dig,” he reveals on a Saturday afternoon, right before the East Coast portion of his world tour gets underway. “People think that they want to go record shopping with me, but they really don’t – they get bored.”

So, it seems like a spin-off of his “Mayer vs. Food” YouTube series is out of the question then. The 33-year-old will play virtual food critic and break bread with fans online, but shopping excursions are off limits. In lieu of craftily edited vignettes, we’ll have to settle for hard-nosed advice.

“I like digging in record stores that are kind of sloppy and unorganized. Because that way you just like start digging through a pile and find something you weren’t necessarily looking for. That’s usually how I find the best stuff: not having any strategy at all,” Hawthorne admits. A haphazard methodology also makes up for an overwhelming number of choices. “I always have like a list in my head of all these records that I want to get, and then as soon as I walk in the door of the record store it goes completely out the window and I can’t remember anything that I wanted.”

This affection for 12 grooved inches of aural merriment stems from Hawthorne’s two-turntables-and-a-microphone days in Detroit as DJ Haircut. (For those keeping track at home, that’s alias number two for the man born Andrew Mayer Cohen.) Hawthorne came up with his own Motown-influenced melodic riffs to erase the need for sampling copyrighted (and expensive) material. Despite never considering himself a singer, this goofing off caught the attention of Stones Throw Records label head Peanut Butter Wolf, who urged Hawthorne to create an album around the tracks. A Strange Arrangement followed, spurred on by the it’s-not-you-it’s-me single, “Just Ain’t Gonna Work Out.” (In keeping with Hawthorne’s hobby, the single was released on red, heart-shaped vinyl – surely a get for future diggers.)

Hawthorne jumped to the majors for his sophomore effort, How Do You Do (Universal Republic), keeping the soul- revivalist motif going without ever falling into pastiche. Despite the inevitable Curtis Mayfield comparisons, Hawthorne firmly places the album in this decade with a guest appearance by Snoop Dogg and infusing the coos and his A-plus bedside manner with a hip-hop sensibility.

Hawthorne’s voice sounds like it’s draped in gold lamé, even if his outfits suggest otherwise. The budding fashionista might bristle at the word “outfit,” but anyone with a self-proclaimed motto (“flashy but classy”) to go along with their duds, doesn’t just wear clothes. Hawthorne sports a look that’s hipster chic mixed with GQ swagger and very debonair. You’ll rarely find him sans bowtie or without a perfectly pressed and color-coordinated pocket square.

His fashion sense comes from an unlikely source: his grandma Shirley. “I get all my fashion inspiration from my grandma. She’s the most stylish person I know. Like any time she would walk into a room, everybody would always know right off the bat,” Hawthorne remembers. “But, she always kept it really classy. She taught by example.”

– Janine Schaults

For the full story, visit the issue through our partners at ShadeTree, or grab a copy available free throughout Chicagoland.

Even if he was preemptively playing along with what he assumes to be a skeptical urban magazine, Eric Church raises some salient points about country music. His career, after all, could be one of its songs.

He isn’t one of those momma-got-run-over-by-a-train-when-I-was-drunk things David Allan Coe and Steve Goodman once sent up, neither is he one of the polished pop/rock turds that passes for country on CMT and in Nashville’s boardrooms, nor a Kenny ‘n’ Keith-style interloper. He grew up in North Carolina, on country and rock ‘n’ roll, and did he and his bandmates ever pay their dues.

Appearing: May 15th at Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates with Brantley Gilbert and Blackberry Smoke.

“I just read in Nashville, there’s a label that’s trying to sign a bunch of guys like us who want to do what we do,” he grumbles. “And it makes me laugh! ‘You guys got to be kidding!’ Nobody would be stupid enough to follow our path. You look back at where we came from, nobody would survive it. I can’t believe we did.”

He can laugh now, what with Chief (EMI Nashville) the first country album since the ’60s to top the mainstream Billboard charts without a number-one single. But Church is somewhat annoyed that his spit and blood are being fatally ignored in someone’s marketing proposal.

“I wish people would let more artists develop,” he says. “I think we’ve lost — and this goes for all music — artist development. You throw it out there, it either works or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, we got to find something else. Then it becomes, ‘Well, we know this works over here: let’s copy that.’”

Not that Church isn’t above a little petty larceny himself. Country can just be so limiting.

“Country music to me has always been the best songs, the best songwriters,” he believes. “That’s why it appeals to me and most people in America. But the energy you get from rock ‘n’ roll and rock ‘n’ roll shows is unparalleled. It’s unmatched. I don’t think anybody in country, frankly, does it like a lot of the guys in rock do it. I don’t know why. Maybe they’re willing to go there. I think in country sometimes we get caught up in what demographic we’re appealing to, like we might offend somebody or there’s too many old people in the crowd.”

He hoots, “Rock comes in with guns slinging!”

And so, when Church and his band swing through Hoffman Estates, you might notice a shift from the typical C&W dynamic. Goodbye Stetson . . . hello Eddie?

“We went and adopted — well, we stole — an idea from Iron Maiden,” he admits, “where they used backdrops and the motion of backdrops, where they get snatched up or move side-to-side: it’s like a pulley system. And it was just so interesting, like it was video before there was video. But it’s movement and staging, and different backdrops correspond with different songs. And we’re not afraid to blow shit up. It’s like a rock ‘n’ roll show out there, and people are scared of that in country but not us: it’s what we do. It’s very in-your-face, and you never know if something’ll catch on fire.”

And yanging his yin for mayhem, Church has very specific ideas about what does not work for him.

“One of my pet peeves is video screens: I hate ‘em,” he laughs. “I think a lot of artists rely on them; I think a lot of artists hide behind them. I’ve been to so many shows when a person had a first or third row seat, the artist’s right in front of them, and they’re watching that screen almost like they’re watching television. I remember when I was a kid, even if you had a bad seat there’s things to get caught up in, whether it’s the movement on the stage, what the band members are doing, the lights, even the people in your section. There’s much more to a concert than just getting that close-up view all the time.”

He’s aware that with bigger venues come not only less knowledgeable fans, but people who come out less, period. His dedication will remain to those who got him here.

– Steve Forstneger

For the full story, visit the issue through our partners at ShadeTree, or grab a copy available free throughout Chicagoland.

IE: So there’s actually a film, Big Easy Express, of the Railroad Revival Tour you took last year by vintage train cars, with Mumford & Sons and Old Crow Medicine Show?
Alex Ebert: Yes. And it was shot really beautifully. But in some ways, it’s really hard to look at a film like that, because it’s capturing a time that, for me, was so paramount in my canon of experiences. I mean, it’s a 2D representation of a three-dimensional experience, so it’s hard to know if anyone else will be able to understand how important that train trip really was. But I hope it inspires other people to chase childlike dreams, like jumping on a train with your friends and playing music.

IE: Any on-screen revelations that surprised you?
AE: Yeah. After I heard the monologue that I was doing, I realized that I sounded like Morgan Freeman, like a Southern Morgan Freeman. So I might have a career in narration some day.

IE: In stomping hymns like “Mayla,” “I Don’t Wanna,” and “That’s What’s Up,” your new Zeros album really taps into a gospel fervor.
AE: That’s my favorite way to sing, and my favorite energy, musically. I like a lot of energies, but the energy with which gospel is sung and delivered is, to me, the ideal way in which music has its most profound, healing effect. And as we became a band over the last four years, playing a lot of the first album [Up From Below] in concert, then playing these radio acoustic sessions in between, we really wanted to do a more meditative group effort, something a little more tender.

IE: The Edward Sharpe character you first created for a book was a preacher-like figure. And a preacher is the protagonist of Here’s closer, “All Wash Out.” What is his sermon?
AE: In that song, the preacher is stumbling away from the institution of . . . whatever. He’s walking away from whatever you’ve got, whatever institutions there are, and coming away with a single truth — that love is something to believe in and everything else will wash out in the rain. And something will be left standing, and it’ll be some sort of truth that we can all recognize.

IE: Did you get any spooky déjà vu vibes on those circa-1940s rail cars during the Revival tour?
AE: In some ways. But for the most part I was pretty overwhelmed the whole time. And that’s how it is a lot of the time for me — playing these shows and just feeling overcome with . . . I dunno if “gratitude” is the right word, or “thankfulness.” Or just awe that it’s happening. So it just felt good to be on that train, that’s all I can say. It just felt really, really magical.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros’ album Here (Community) arrives May 29th. They play Riviera Theatre (4746 N. Racine) in Chicago on May 24th with He’s My Brother She’s My Sister. Q&A by Tom Lanham.

With equal influence from The Allman Brothers and Jeff Beck as Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, The Flyin’ Ryan Brothers offer a plethora of dueling guitars throughout Under The Influence. While the guys certainly have chops, the shred-heavy, jammy tendencies get redundant after awhile, but at least they interject variety between fierce licks and more laid-back grooves. (ryanetics.com)
– Andy Argyrakis

The worlds of melodic and progressive rock converge on Arion’s debut, A New Dawn Rising, though the trio’s been music making together in various incarnations for more than three decades. As a result, the project sounds tight and polished, recalling the likes of The Alan Parsons Project, Kansas, and Toto, wrapped crisply in the band’s co-production with Kevin Chalfant (707, The Storm, Two Fires) and mixing from Beau Hill (Alice Cooper, Winger). (ariontheband.com)
– Andy Argyrakis

Death Ships is an odd choice to name a band whose collection of 10 shimmering/jangly alt/pop/Americana songs on Circumstantial Chemistry are much more Midwest amber waves of grain than the dark, storm-tossed ocean variety. Being firmly produced, with assured songcraft and playing gives rise to infectious hooks throughout; and when all the guitars start cooking, the music soars like a Foo Fighters-infused-Wilco worthy of wider recognition. (facebook.com/Deathships)
– David C. Eldredge

Armed with a Midwestern roots rock ethos (think Cracker meets Wilco), Jeff Elbel + Ping turn in a batch of provocative songwriting and instrumental prowess throughout the Peanut Gallery EP. The project includes lyric-laden and instrumental versions of the same songs, but no matter what the format, these organic barnburners are sure to usher in both reflective and jubilant vibes. (marathonrecords.com/ping)
– Andy Argyrakis

The band name might come from a Caribou song, but the title of Hello Hammerheads‘ Greatest Hits LP and the presence of a revisionary, new-wave cover of “Can’t Fight This Feeling” suggest nefarious intentions. That these things all coalesce around Matt Ammerman’s Postal Service/Notwist-referencing bedroom-electro project will give his analyst plenty of starting points. Interviewing the girl who broke his heart might be a good idea, too. (mattammerman.com)
– Steve Forstneger

Spliced guitar parts, machine-gun drum blasts, chanted psychedelic metal, all spun on the backdrop of a warped White Zombie LP: oh, to be inside Kizer Von Lycan’s head. It’s difficult to decide whether the unrefined nature of the recordings enhance or betray the intent: brutal acts, by definition, lack rhyme and reason. But in music, perhaps there should be a higher standard. (reverbnation.com/KizerVonLycan)
– Kevin Keegan

Left Turn At Albuquerque’s full-length debut, In Broad Daylight, is noteworthy for the way guitarist Jeff Churchwell and keyboardist Sarah Scanlon weave their voices throughout melodic arrangements. At times, the folk-rock trio (bassist Joe Nemec is the third member) drifts into pretentious material like”Kaliedoscope,” but succeeds with clever C&W toe-tapper “Respectable” and the rapid-fire vocals of the band’s namesake track. (leftturnatalbuquerque.com)
– Terrence Flamm

There’s nothing wrong with A Feminist Manifesto, the most recent EP from Heather O’Neill. Unfortunately, there’s also nothing special about it. The Irish-born artist does a creditable job on all six tunes, but other than some unexpected brass on “Ballerina In A Bullfight” and a few nice turns of phrase on “Monique,” her efforts are neither moving nor memorable. (heather-oneill.com)
– Jeff Berkwits

When Quesne kicks off The Chicago Code with clips from the canceled police procedural, you kind of expect the 17-track outing to be an indictment of local political culture. But the first track’s about smokin’ ‘n’ drankin’. Then we get the first of four, unfortunate local sports anthems. Throw in Swizz Beatz-aping production, and by the time you crawl past the finish line, you can’t quite remember what happened — other than it was a mess. (reverbnation.com/quesne)
– Kevin Keegan

Artists will often do anything to get their music heard, but few have their pictures plastered on cans of chili. That’s just one of the many things differentiating Jessica Rae from the typical country music singer/songwriter. Another is her exquisite voice, exhibited most notably on the stirring “24 Hour Church (In Memphis).” Based on the 12 tunes on her self-titled debut, chili cans are the first of numerous places folks will soon be seeing her. (jessicaraemusic.com)
– Jeff Berkwits

Stone Black’s eight-song Villains Of Infamy would make a great soundtrack to playing Dungeons & Dragons. Lyrically, the themes (think golems, genies, and mummies) are covered in a storytelling (and at times clunky) vocal style, and since the band likes to jam power metal, a good portion of every song is instrumental. But the band’s chops carry it only so far, leading to repetitious riffage and, consequently, bloated song lengths. “Gorgons,” for example, riffs on for far too long. (stoneblackrocks.com)
– Jason Scales

Sunny Shadows, a duo comprising Pierogi and Circadian Bliss, offers eight epics brimming with ethereal vocals and lush keyboards on its debut, Coupled Lux Influx. A few tracks leave listeners drifting in space and the finale, “So So Mt. Fuji,” is dull and repetitive. The CD works best on songs like “Outlaw,” “On All Our Clouds,” and “Break In, Break Out,” where the synth beats are darker and more inventive. (sunnyshadowsmusic.com)
– Terrence Flamm

The eight-song (seven if one discounts 30-second one-off “Bill The Entertainer”) sampler Go Fun Yourself from sextet The Super Happy Fun Club is, quite simply, one of the most scintillating “unknown” debuts ever to grace this pair of ears. Obvious (but by no means negative) Green Day reference/comparison aside, the more nuanced production (excellent key flourishes, guys!) and vocal timbre also could be likened to, say, a more punked up Gin Blossoms graced with the mood of a less self-absorbed Strokes. The competency and quality of this entirely self-contained CD belies the band’s year-and-change existence. And if they can deliver the goods on stage, then Watch Out World (or WOW folks). (thesuperhappyfunclub.com)
– David C. Eldredge

A classic hard-rock ethos with a flair for the dramatic is the core of Thallium’s music. “I Will,” the opening track on the band’s six-song demo CD, uses slinky guitar grooves and the occasional cowbell highlight to accentuate powerful female vocals belting out a ballad-worthy chorus of “I will always love you.” The production of the bass on “No Idea” gives a nod to Tool, while “Threadbare” features a male vocalist. While the midtempo rock might not be polished enough for arenas, it would play just fine in a barroom. (sonicbids.com/thallium)
– Jason Scales

Damien Thorne worships at the throne of (post-Ozzy) Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. The band’s 14-track End Of The Game is vintage high-octane hard rock whose holy tenet is the more power-chord progressions there are, the better. The relentless riffage and gruff vocals to match largely stay on the appropriate linear track, as on “Fistful Of Regret,” but at times get bloated and bogged-down, especially on the verse parts of “Face Reality.” (damienthorne.com)
– Jason Scales

As its name suggests, Top Shelf Lickers is a color-outside-the-lines sort of band. These guys take a stab at numerous genres on their debut, Head First, like shifting tempos and points of view on the coed indie rocker, “Fall For You,” and mixing the 1950s with reggae on “No One Knows.” Sometimes the results are sloppy, but it’s hard to resist the DIY fun of the harmonica-driven garage rock of “Off My Mind” and the revved-up punk of “Mr. McShakes.” (reverbnation.com/thetopshelflickers)
–Terrence Flamm

No one can accuse Bil Vermette of rushing to complete an album. It’s been seven years since his last CD, but Galaxies IV, his new release, finds him exploring similarly spellbinding space-music soundscapes. Divided across two discs, the 16 lengthy songs, each with an evocative title like “Bodes Nebula” or “Hidden Cave,” radiantly recall vintage electronic bands like Tangerine Dream and Cluster. (facebook.com/bilvermette)
– Jeff Berkwits

The experience of a decade-and-a-half as a band has taught Vultures Are Lovebirds to stick with what they know. A cinematic romanticism floods Falling Out, instantly recalling Afghan Whigs minus the sporting misogyny — nodded to with their own composition called “Mr. Superlove,” which is not the Whigs’ esteemed cover of an Ass Ponys track. A lighter side rubs elbows with Gin Blossoms on “Just One More,” while opener “Never Say Never” provides an unexpected route to edgier Death Cab For Cutie. (facebook.com/vulturesarelovebirds)
– Steve Forstneger

Chuck Maurer’s What Rebel began as a cover band in a west-suburban basement and eventually felt confident to move into originals. Tracks like “Rise Up” and “Time Is Running Out” force commonplace riffs and chord changes through a cardboard amplifier, only to compete in the clasutrophobic mix with click-track vocal performances and A/B (sometimes just A/A) rhyme schemes. Clearly this is an act in its infancy — or maybe it’s several weeks premature. (reverbnation.com/WhatRebel)
– Steve Forstneger

With so many aged pop stars performing the Great American Songbook, it’s easy to dismiss Sometimes I’m Happy as yet another effort to rejuvenate hoary harmonies. Yet newcomer Amy Yassinger does something few old hands have accomplished: delivering genuinely fresh interpretations of classic tunes. “Slow Boat To China” and “Bei Mir Bist Du Schon” are standouts, but almost all of the 11 melodies are delightful. This is one artist who proves that what’s old truly can be new again. (amydoesjazz)
– Jeff Berkwits

Staring at the cover of Iron Maiden’s En Vivo! (UME) DVD — Bruce Dickinson exulting in front of what looks like Chile’s entire population — you get a vivid sense of metal’s enduring popularity, something dissected heavily in the book Metal Rules The Globe I reviewed in March.

But for how much longer will there be single bands who can draw an audience this size?

What brings this to my attention is the arrival, this month, of Rhino’s 20th-anniversary edition of Pantera’s Vulgar Display Of Power — the last great heavy album on which metal fans can reach consensus. After Vulgar — and I don’t know how anyone can blame grunge rock for this — it’s as if metal dropped a mirror that broke into a thousand pieces, all part of the same pane but very much separate and fractured. Korn’s self-titled debut helped launch nu-metal, which gained about as much acceptance among the brotherhood as Palestinian statehood at the U.N. Black metal began washing ashore and springing up in isolated pockets, but its chances for widespread acceptance were even more remote than death metal’s, and equally crippled by internal sabotage. Danzig and White Zombie’s retro horror groove metal dove headlong into industrial, connecting it with the Jim Rose Circus and Marilyn Manson, meanwhile Megadeth stumbled, Anthrax crumbled, and Testament’s Chuck Billy turned into Cookie Monster.

Vulgar represented a band who were henceforth immune to identity theft. Like with all great artists, if you stepped on their coattails, you were immediately denounced as a fraud; there was just no way to measure up to the real thing. But it was so magnetic. When Kiss tried to toughen their post-grunge image, they hired the same director who did “Mouth For War” for their “Unholy” clip. Frontmen started shaving their heads like Phil Anselmo. Diamond (not yet Dimebag) Darrell’s love for Dean Guitars revived the company despite the fact that the only person who could get away with playing one of those awful-looking (Chicago-born!) things was Darrell.

The lack of a successor, however, is distressing. We’ve pumped Mastodon’s tires thousands of times, yet even with Opeth in direct support they had trouble selling out the Riviera last month — 2,500 people. Look, I’m not saying that a ton of ticket and album sales validates any given music (anytime anyone suggests to you otherwise, ask them if they own “The Macarena” or “Who Let The Dogs Out?”), but the big shows mix segregated parts of the community, let you see the shirts of what a lot of people are into, and it’s just a different sort of entertainment. Yeah, there’s cachet acquired from seeing Baroness at Empty Bottle with 90 other people. But belting out “The Trooper” with 50,000 fevered Chileans? Yes, please.

• Not that En Vivo! doesn’t have limitations. The energy, execution, setlist: beyond reproach. But it’s also Maiden’s third live set since 2005, a span that has as many best-of packages. Iron Maiden’s legacy division has kicked into hyperdrive, and it imposes a sense of automation and rigidity onto the collection. The band play their hits so flawlessly, you imagine that their concerts are interchangeable. Granted, it’s extremely difficult to lend a production this size much room for improvisation, and playing to such an audience pretty much demands you pitch down the middle. But it wouldn’t kill a group so distinguished and unique to show a little personality, especially with so little left to prove.

• Sleep often get named as one of the best metal bands of the last decade, but I don’t think Matt Pike (now of High On Fire) has the money to buy a party house with a balcony overlooking a swimming pool where the Dallas Stars can dent the Stanley Cup. (Such is life.) Southern Lord, however, have seen fit to reissue the band’s hour-long, doom-metal album/song, Dopesmoker, this month. Included will be an unreleased live version of “Holy Mountain,” and a new batch of artwork.

• On the 15th, Nachtmystium release a limited-edition 45, featuring a Chris Connelly‘d cover of Joy Division’s “The Eternal.” Mixing on the forthcoming Silencing Machine finished at Engine Studios last month with Sanford Parker producing, though neither song on the single appears on the full-length.

• Local duo Number None bridge the gap between screeching, blackened noise and Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music on the cassette-only Strategies Against Architecture. As Land Of Decay labelmates with Locrian, there’s some brinkmanship happening here that you might not want to be part of.

Trevor Fisher is taking some time off.

– Steve Forstneger

There’s something about hearing dir-ector Steven Soderbergh making a straightforward action film that immediately sent up a few red flags. First and foremost is the fact that Soderbergh has never made a straightforward film in his life.

No matter what genre he’s dabbling in, whether it be globe-hopping social drama (Traffic, Contagion), quiet morality tales (The Underneath, Out Of Sight), or his “Hollywood” flicks (the Ocean’s films), Soderbergh always seems to inject just a little twist in the narrative. Whether it’s a subtle character flaw or something as simple as holding a second or two longer than is comfortable on a reaction shot, there’s always an item that elevates his films just a little higher.

Unfortunately, introspection doesn’t work that well when bullets are flying and skulls are getting cracked.

The twist for Haywire is the gender reversal. Instead of the usual bad-ass male gun-for-hire out to right the wrongs and clear his name, we get former MMA fighter Gina Carano as the bad-ass gun-for-hire out to right the wrongs and clear her name.

Of course, it’s not really a twist at all, since there is a fairly decent roster of women in action flicks. But unlike, say, Angelina Jolie in Salt or Zoe Saldana in Columbiana, Carano is the first one who you actually have no trouble believing could kick someone’s ass without so much as getting a run in her tights.

Soderbergh hedges his bets by surrounding his first-time star with a cast of heavyweights. Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas, and Michael Douglas all have a hand in the double (possibly triple) crossing. And while Carano isn’t going to be swiping any roles from Cate Blanchett anytime soon, she fares decently and holds her own. After all, she’s not getting paid to do Tennessee Williams, she’s getting paid to break bones.

Unfortunately, after about an hour the film hits a brick wall, and Soderbergh has no idea how to restart. Surprisingly, he’s not served well by writer Lem Dobbs, with whom he collaborated on the infinitely superior The Limey. Dobbs’ script becomes hazy and unfocused, allowing for long sections of downtime on the way to a jarringly hasty ending.

The Blu-ray features a smashing-looking film transfer, and little else. There are extended segments of Carano’s fight training, as well as brief interviews with the men of the cast (sans Douglas) and little else aside from a digital copy.

The Sun Came Out: The Making Of The Album 7 Worlds Collide
Cinema Libre

In 2001, Crowded House’s Neil Finn put together three charity concerts called 7 Worlds Collide, which included Eddie Vedder, Johnny Marr of The Smiths, Radiohead’s Phil Selway and Ed O’Brien, and Lisa Germano.

In 2008, Finn assembled another lineup to raise money for the poverty relief organization Oxfam, this time with more guests, and also to record an album as well as the live gigs.

With the exception of Vedder, everyone from the 2001 gigs were back, plus Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Glenn Kotche, John Stirratt, and Pat Sansone, as well as KT Tunstall on board.

The Sun Came Out follows the group and their families in and out of the studio as they cull together 10 songs in three weeks.

The end result is, predictably, disjointed — as you would expect from a project with as many disparate voices working on their own songs. Yet it holds up as more than the sum of its parts.

If you live for fly-on-the-wall looks inside recording studios and into the creative process, Sun would be for you. If, like most people, you only hold a passing fancy for the tweaking and tuning of studio knobs, it probably goes on a bit too long.

However, the inclusion of the 2001 concert helps a lot.

– Timothy Hiatt

Red or white, Todd Rundgren? And which would you choose to sip while listening to the soothing singer/songwriter? Have an answer ready when hitting up the Chicago outpost of City Winery. New York’s staple will open its second location come August in the West Loop and, despite offering a Mediterranean-centric menu to 175 bar patrons and 325 concert attendees, the fruit of the vine takes centerstage. Literally. Stacks of French oak barrels will line the winery’s 30,000 square feet. This isn’t a Disney World scene-setting tactic; these babies will house the joint’s onsite-produced vino.

Dust and rubble accompanied owner Michael Dorf and 27th ward alderman Walter Burnett’s glass-breaking ceremony last month to celebrate the former food-distribution warehouse’s transformation at 1200 W. Randolph into old-world wine country (think exposed brick and wood beams) jazzed up with sleek embellishments. Dorf says the venue/event space is more supper club than rock outlet, for crowds inclined to uncork a bottle while seated at tables than dance. Rundgren, Suzanne Vega, and Shawn Colvin are already on the calendar, but we predict more eclectic names to fill nights devoted to music and comedy since nabbing Colleen Miller from her 17-year-tenure as the Old Town School Of Folk Music’s talent buyer.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, RIDDIM

Bob Marley died in 1981 at 36 — based on the two hours of Kevin Macdonald’s Marley, you’d think the reggae superstar continues to pen songs from a Kingston retirement home. It’s either a testament to Marley, the songwriter, Rastafarian, and political provocateur packing a lifetime’s worth of adventures into his short time on Earth, or the filmmakers’ quest to exhaustively examine the minutiae of his career.

With a dearth of footage available (the earliest photo to surface shows the singer at 16), the documentary relies on interviews with Marley’s wife Rita (who selected songs for the two-disc soundtrack), mistress Cindy Breakspeare, and original Wailer Neville “Bunny” Livingston. It would be easy to let Marley indulge its inherent Messianic complex, but the candor offered up in these one-on-ones helps rein it in, even in the midst of contradictory recollections of Marley’s personality. We get a collage of the man — a stubborn philanderer (he fathered 11 children with seven women) with the creative drive of an Olympic athlete — instead of a complete picture.

To a certain generation, Marley’s nothing more than a commercial for an exotic Jamaican vacation and a toking mascot. The film succeeds in stripping away the years of licensing deals that slapped his face on everything from T-shirts to beach towels. Although, the marketing gods surely ringed their hands in glee over Marley’s 4/20 release date.

– Janine Schaults

NOTHING COMPARES 2 U 2

All told, April was sailing pretty smoothly until blowhards Axl Rose and Sinead O’Connor set us on a collision course for the early ’90s. First, Rose laid out a bizarre, lucid, paranoid, self-righteous, and all-contradictory-bases-covered “statement” on why it just didn’t make sense for him to share a podium for five minutes as Guns N’ Roses got inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. And then he declined to be inducted at all. He wrote that the ceremony “doesn’t appear to be somewhere I’m actually wanted or respected.” Ah, yes. The ol’ “non-vite” from the HOF. He then edifyingly added, “God knows how long I’ll have to contend with the fallout.” Aw. The drama Rose has protracted over 20 years has been squished into the last 5 months for O’Connor: suicidal comments online, a hasty marriage, equally snappy separation, giving it another go, embrace of life, release of new album, 45-date tour scheduled, and then, on April 23rd, utter abandonment of her career, and canceled concerts. She then begged her fans for employment: “Must be Dublin or Wicklow based job and require love of people. NOT showbiz job.”

STACKS ON DECK

You have to wonder if Jim Marshall burned a little every time one of his customers cracked a drummer joke. After all, the inventor of Marshall Amplifiers — a musical symbol every bit as potent as the Les Paul — started his career behind the skins and originally opened a drum shop. Like all good businessmen, he saw a need that wasn’t being met, and met it: first, guitarists wanted him to carry their gear in his store, and then they complained to him that the best amplifiers made them sound too . . . good. When Marshall passed away, aged 88 in his beloved London last month, his legacy wasn’t one of progress or perfection: from a technical standpoint, you could even argue his amps were deliberately faulty because of their gritty tone. But revolutions are always a little messy, and his name was all over rock ‘n’ roll’s.

– Steve Forstneger

It’s been a few years since “Gear” reported on the new crop of commercial vans that could haul your gear and your bandmates. Since that time, Nissan and Chrysler got in the game. Here’s our wrap-up of this year’s models:

Nissan NV SERIES

Thumbing its nose at the iconic Ford E-Series and the Chevy Express, Nissan joined the commercial van business last year in the U.S.A. with its NV cargo model, built from the skivvies of Nissan’s Titan pick-up truck.

The rear-drive NV, with its body-on-frame traditional truck design, lists at a competitive $25,000. The NV1500 comes with a robust V-6 engine, while the larger NV2500 HD comes with a V-6 or V-8, and the NV3500 HD offers a V-8 and a raised roofline.

Unlike their gas-saving Asian and European counterparts and though gas prices are well north of $4 as this writing, Nissan is attempting to get in on Ford and Chevy’ market share with a big horsepower van, that churns out a meager 18 MPG around town. If you’re dragging all the band’s gear, including P.A., the Nissan may be the chariot for you. Details at nissanusa.com.

DODGE RAM C/V

Chrysler’s Ram truck division has tweaked an idea that it brought back in 2005: a fuel-saving cargo van, now called the Ram C/V, as a generic looking Dodge Caravan on steroids with solid window panels in the place of the rear glass and a reinforced low-level load area in the rear.

Though some critics have called this van an unimaginative and warmed-over family-mover, we think it makes complete sense considering pricey petrol and Dodge’ heritage as a heavy-duty truck maker.

Powered with a 3.6-liter Pentastar V-6 engine transformed into 283 horsepower and 260 lb/ft of peak torque, the V-6 is matched with a six-speed automatic transmission and offers about 22 overall city and highway MPG.

The Ram division added a commercial-tuned ride and load-leveling suspension along with a heavy-duty radiator and transmission oil cooler as part of the package. With 144.4 cubic feet of interior storage, and a 1,800 pound cargo payload plus a towing capability of up to 3,600 pounds, this soccer-mom van with its HGH innards, lowest-in-class $22K MSRP, and gas-sipping fuel usage may make the most sense in the age of conservation. Details are at dodgeram.com.

Ford Transit Connect

Ford’s Transit Connect is the most Euro-styled of all the new vans and its design, like the Dodge Ram C/V, stresses fuel-saving ability verses a heavy-duty payload and towing abilities.

The downside of its four-cylinder engine — though more fuel-efficient than its competitors’ (23 mpg overall in city and highway hauling) — means its payload of 1,600 pounds is the lowest in its class. It features a 2.0-liter four-cylinder good for 136 horsepower and 128 lb/ft of torque. A four-speed automatic tranny sends that power to the front wheels.
Features include include 15-inch steel wheels, blind-spot mirror, rear privacy glass, and air-conditioning. Power Group option adds keyless entry and full power accessories. Like any vehicle, you can trick this Ford out with tons of options. The base price falls into a $24,000 range. And details can be found at ford.com.

News & Notes

It must be spring, because the 4 Amigos are back with their Chicago Guitar Show May 17th and 18th at the DuPage Expo Center in St. Charles. As in previous years, you can buy, sell, and trade at the show. Check their website for details: texasguitarshow.com.

That same weekend, Rebeats is hosting their Chicago Drum Show just down the street at the Kane County Fairgrounds. It’s a drum circle you can be proud of. Details can be found at rebeats.com.

– David Gedge

From bizarro Eddie and JoBo wreaking havoc at the auto show to John Tesh backing up a yellow-haired “Christoper Walken” crooning holiday tunes to a wacky “Jerry Lewis” performing with the Million Dollar Quartet, the “WGN Morning News” dances the line between news and entertainment.

The bits are the genius of producer Jeff Hoover. The Second City alumnus and former “Jonathon Brandmeier Showgram” producer/performer/writer found himself out of work when Johnny B didn’t renew with WLUP in 2001 — and watching a lot of TV.

“I remember watching ['The WGN Morning News'] and thinking, ‘These are real people having real conversation and I would like to have them as neighbors, maybe grab some beers with them,’” he recalls. “I was smitten with their chemistry and natural ability to bust each other up and break balls over bad tosses and cheesy news teases. I started calling into their ‘Voicemail Frenzy’ segment, and they started playing my messages and using some of my show suggestions.”

“We ‘discovered’ Jeff when he started calling into our voicemail segment — doing impersonations. He was just hysterical,” says co-anchor Larry Potash, who met with Hoover at a bar and found him to be surprisingly normal. “We begged — and then threatened — management to hire Jeff, and the rest is history.”

Hoover — who likens his time with Johnny B to earning a PhD in comedy — initially contributed to the show on a per-diem basis. He was hired a year-and-a-half later as a producer/performer/writer (and recently signed a new one-year contract).

Potash says Hoover injected new life into the show. “I think when he came . . . we had all just started having children. It had become more difficult to go out and shoot bits for the show, and our energy was running low. Jeff was the creative spark that really pushed the show to the next level.”

Hoover easily made the transtion from radio to TV — where things have to be clear to the audience from the start. “Radio is easier to be spontaneous,” he explains. “However, some of my favorite moments are when the unexpected happens on live television. Tracy Morgan flopping himself up on onto the anchor desk and lifting up his shirt and pushing out his stomach and yelling that he’s pregnant is still priceless to me.”

His primary co-conspirator on the show is local comedian Mike Toomey, who plays Eddie to Hoover’s JoBo. In one bit, the pair ask locals about what they’re thankful for — peppering their interviews with plenty of enthusiastic “yeahs” and auto-insurance plugs. Eventually, they run into the real Eddie and JoBo — who play right along.

“This past Halloween, we were on our way to do our annual remote at Fantasy Costumes with Ana [Belaval] and Paul [Konrad} listening to Eddie and Jobo on the radio," Hoover explains. "Mike and I always loved poking fun at their auto-insurance commercials. We saw these Abba costumes and thought this is just stupid enough to work, and I slapped on a goatee and made our appearance alongside Ana . . . Mike and I started posing like them from the commercial and doing the lines, 'Did you know you can get auto insurance over the phone?'

"It was a hit. We couldn't believe it. The real Eddie and Jobo got the joke, and enjoy their clown clones. I asked them to make a cameo in one of our skits and they couldn't have been nicer: 'Yeahhhhhhhhhh!'"

But Hoover's favorite bit was Tom Hanks' apperance on the show last year (that clip and many others are at WGNtv.com). "I had a stupid idea to have different people lined up in the hallway in different costumes that represented different chracters from some of his favorite movie roles," he explains. "As a surprise and with no rehearsal, Entertainment Reporter Dean Richards escorts Tom down the hallway and the first person he sees is me dressed as Woody from Toy Story sweeping the floor. Tom's smile became a laugh, and he riffed on each of us as he made his way to the studio.

"He made us look good by going along with the idea. He could have just said 'whatever' and kept walking to the studio while rolling his eyes."

While Hoover has a lot of freedom on the show, not every idea flies. "

He adds, "I have to keep in mind that this is still a news show. Sometimes it's easy to forget that fact: 'What do you mean we have to kill the burlesque dancing monkeys because there is a dog running loose on the Eisenhower?'"

And what about that line?

"There is a line between news and comedy," he admits. "It keeps moving like a jump rope. Sometimes we can double dutch and sometimes we get nailed in the crotchtorial [sic] region. I think we ‘get it’ better than anyone else in town. We’re not ‘The Daily Show,’ but we don’t have 78 comedy writers.”

It seems to be working. The show consistently beats its competitors in the adult demos between 7 and 9a.m. — including “The Today Show.” Hoover says most of the audience feedback has been positive. “However, there’s always a few boo birds on the branch that crap on our clown car: ‘Stop goofing around and give me the weather. We don’t want to see that idiot in a neckbrace make a sandwich with his feet.’”

He adds, “I think it’s weirder seeing our competitors try to have fun with the news. Their idea of having fun is showing first-birthday photos and crayon weather drawings.”

Potash agrees. “Media has changed so much in the last 40 years and yet, most shows are as predictable now as they were in 1972. We try to create an atmosphere of unpredictability. We cross the line now and then, but that’s more interesting than another segment where the anchors make a tuna casserole. We take the show seriously, but we don’t take ourselves seriously.”

– Cara Jepsen

This article has been updated since it was originally posted.

Heavy South Siders Delightful Downfall — featuring Mike Kehoe, Joey Hammond, Nick Barelli, Alex Vincent, and Steve Eldridge — finished drum tracking at Chicago Recording Company in Chicago for Wild And Reckless after their recent sold-out show at House Of Blues. Radio programmer Tim Lamping of The Kat FM says “Fast-paced, aggressive hard rock with vocal harmonies are what really sets them apart.” The band formed last March and have been writing and playing shows ever since . . . Also at CRC, Chris Shepard and the team at American Mobile Studio headed down to South By Southwest in Austin to mix some shows at the Rolling Stone Rock Room. Videos can be seen at americanmobilestudio.com. . . . . Engineer Mat Lejeune tracked with Christian McBride and Sting at CRC’s Studio 4 . . . Veteran mixer Steve Weeder finished some tracks with Buddy Guy.

Eight-piece band River City Extension have released the new song “Welcome To Pittsburgh” in conjunction with a tour announcement. The track can be streamed or downloaded at paradm.co/pgh-cos. Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Your Anger was produced by Brian Deck (Modest Mouse, Iron & Wine, Josh Ritter, Secret Machines, Gomez) at Engine Studios in Chicago. The album captures River City Extension’s collision of frontman Joe Michelini’s evocative, intensely personal songwriting and the band’s effusive/explosive performances, building small symphonies around a rock-band core with trumpet, cello, mandolin, and banjo.

Paragon Studios, Inc. in Chicago sent a shout-out to their friend and client Rachel Sarah Thomas (a.k.a. K. Serra) on the release of her new singles, “Somebody To Love,” “Radio Waves,” and “The Queen”. All are now available for viewing on YouTube. The tracks were filmed exclusively at Paragon and all music was produced and mixed in Paragon’s Studio A by K. Serra and recorded by chief engineer Joe Connors. K. Serra is currently on tour throughout the Midwest in support of her new music. Visit her at facebook.com/KSerraMusic.

At BobDog Studios in Oak Park: Treeshakers finished their CD 2.0 . . . The Hurtin Kind began recording their debut album, featuring power-pop and roots-rock songs by singer/rhythm guitarist Matt Rhodes and singer/lead guitarist Hugo Teruel, with owner and engineer, Bill Kavanagh providing bass guitar and Dan Kripke on drums . . . Dav Ero continued work on his upcoming project, titled Hamlet, The Vampyr, with Sandy Lee on vocals, Andon Davis on guitars, Dave Mathis on keys, Clyde “Lightning” George on steel drums, and Michael Panico on drums . . . Rozanne Gewaar continued work on a pair of new solo singer/songwriter CDs: one sung in Afrikaans and the other in English . . . The Welcome mastered their newest EP, Honey, Honey . . . Cheryl Tomblin put in some more work on her upcoming EP . . . Folk singer James Bourke recorded his newest EP with the help of guitarist Peter C Budd, drummer Eddie Grzyb, and Bill Kavanagh on bass . . . Ex-Pezband (and many other bands) guitarist Dan Wade digitized some 30-year-old band tapes.

Hey Studiophiler: To get your studio or band listed in “Studiophile,” just e-mail info on who you’re recording or who’s recording you to ed [at] illinoisentertainer.com, subject Studiophile, or fax (773) 751-5051. We reserve the right to edit submissions for space. If you’re recording in May, let us know. Deadline for June 2012 issue is May 15th. We need your news, you need us to print it.

Much has been discussed about the direction that blues will take as the genre enters the crossroads of redefining itself while the last of the Delta bluesmen pass away. The past few decades have introduced more rock into the traditional blues sound, but soul has always been a more devoted offspring. Detroit’s singer/songwriter/guitarist Quintus McCormick proves just how heavenly the pairing can be on his third release, Still Called The Blues (Delmark). Of course, there’s nothing new about blues/soul, but McCormick pumps it with such a vibrant doses of contemporary edge that he sounds like the second coming of Johnny Taylor fortified with new-school swagger.

The key to McCormick’s winning blend of riffs and melodies isn’t his expert guitar work or his gritty vocals, but his songwriting. The album’s 13 tracks boast seven that are originals, and McCormick stamps each with his soulful style while adding unexpected tones to the covers.

The opening track, the ridiculously catchy “I Gotta Go,” mixes a smooth R&B groove with some nasty blues licks for the perfect combination of both genres. This is followed by a funky cover of Bobby Rush’s “What’s Good For The Goose,” which McCormick makes his own with a slightly tighter delivery and an intro explaining “Back in the day, I used to be a player.”

The CD is full of highlights, but standouts include the title song and its hot guitar solo, the mellow, horn-spiced melody of “What Am I Gonna Do,” the surprisingly breezy and lovely “That’s My Girl,” accented with a flute, the tender blues ballad “Always,” and a soul-filled rendition of the Beatles classic, “Oh! Darling.”

Still Called The Blues covers all of the bases: there’s straight ahead blues guitar riffs, there’s good storytelling, and there’s soul-drenched vocals. Contemporary blues doesn’t get better than that.

Appearing: May 3rd at Buddy Guy’s Legends (700 S. Wabash) in Chicago.

Acoustic blues will always be the very essence of the blues continuum, so preserving and promoting the form is essential. Thanks to Music Maker Relief Foundation, a treasure trove of senior acoustic-blues musicians have new avenues for their music. Under the umbrella of preserving Southern culture and American roots music, this public charity supports and expands the professional careers of hundreds of traditional musicians. Boo Hanks is one acoustic musician whose fascinating technique graces many more ears than just the ones in the small North Carolina towns where he previously only played.

Piedmont or East Coast blues is Hanks’ specialty, and he plays with the mastery of an 83-year-old man who started playing guitar at 8. The style is named for the Piedmont Plateau region that runs from Virginia to Atlanta, and features the older “frailing” technique that uses the thumb to pick out the bass and the forefinger to pick out the melody on the treble strings. The singular sound that results resembles two guitars playing when in reality, it’s just a lone acoustic. For this reason alone, Buffalo Junction (Music Maker) — which will be released on June 19th — should be required listening for blues, folk, and musical history fans alike. But there are other reasons. There’s the genial accompaniment of Carolina Chocolate Drops’ Don Flemons supplying backup vocals as well as jug, harp, and bones on the 12-track album. The Chocolate Drops are also part of the Music Maker foundation, and Hanks has opened for the popular young acoustic blues/folk group.

Another reason that makes Buffalo Junction such an important offering is that after a life spent working in Virginia’s tobacco fields and playing at small Carolinan barn dances and other social gatherings, Hanks shares music and experiences that are slowly fading from history. All of the tunes are traditional country blues, dating back at least seven or eight decades. Yet, Flemons’ presence helps it cross generational lines.

The opening song, “Railroad Bill,” displays Hanks’ dazzling pickin’ skill immediately, with his traditional crooning adding even more texture. Most of the tracks reveal the hardscrabble existence of African-American life in the early last century as well as the requisite romantic escapades. A particular highlight is “Move To Outskirts Of Town,” where Hanks laments the hovering presence of another man: “I’ll tell you one thing baby/we’re gonna move away from here/I don’t need no ice man/gonna buy myself a Frigidaire/I don’t want no Heebie Jebbies always hanging around/it might sound funny baby as funny as funny can be/but if we ever have children? I want them all to look like me.” Flemons joins in with jug playing and at the end, and a round of collaborative laughter. The CD mines the pairing of Hanks’ expressive country crooning and Flemons innovative musicianship for a singular musical experience.

Curtis Salgado’s knockout soul vocals are unparalleled in any genre, and he showcases just how powerful they can be in his latest, appropriately named release, Soul Shot (Alligator). That he chooses a host of performers known for funky, soulful performances to cover — including George Clinton, Bobby Womack, and The O’Jays — is telling and indicative of the heavy soul focus. Socking listeners with a rousing cover of Bobby Womack’s “What You Gonna Do?” for the opener, there’s no faltering on any of the 11 tracks with the Clinton cover of “Getting’ To Know You” filled with hip-shaking, sweat-soaked funk and Salgado’s soaring vocals.

– Rosalind Cummings-Yeates

We sent Ed Spinelli out to the Paramount Theater in Aurora on April 12th to capture Willie Nelson as he embarks on his Heroes tour.

The idea of an artist staging an entire tour around a successful album is a trend that doesn’t seem to be slowing, and in the case of Creed’s upcoming outing, fans actually get a double-decker front-to-back rendering. Though it’s hard to believe, this year marks the 15th anniversary of My Own Prison, which sold over six million copies and brought the foursome from Florida obscurity to superstardom. From there, the band — comprising Scott Stapp (vocals), Mark Tremonti (guitar), Brian Marshall (bass), and Scott Phillips (drums) — avoided the sophomore slump with 1999’s Human Clay, which received a diamond certification for selling more than 11-million copies and led to sold-out stadiums all across the globe.

Appearing: April 13th and 14th at Chicago Theatre (175 N. State) in Chicago.

Both albums will be on display, alongside hits and other album cuts, when the group brings its grunge-infused rock to the Chicago Theatre for two nights (focusing on My Own Prison the first, and Human Clay the next). Of course, the intervening years since the band’s breakthrough have alternated between highlights and less favorable shades of the limelight, but ever since the 2009 reunion, it appears the train is officially back on track.

“I’m telling you right now it’s a real blessing, and that’s the simplest way for me to describe it after going in different directions for so many years and then getting back together and playing music again,” reflects Stapp. “It’s awesome and we’re excited about this year. We feel like we’re just beginning to get back into the groove.”

Chicago will have the first crack at the double-album caper, which continues through late May and is reported to be followed with brand new music. But perhaps the key to Creed making its mark on the next album lies in simply going back to how it all started, which in the case of My Own Prison, includes full-throttled favorites like the title track, “One,” “What’s This Life For,” and “Torn.”

“I think one of our reasons for coming together as a band was we wanted our music to have something to say and feel it again in the way we grew up feeling it,” he recalls. “We were just in a different space [compared to] other artists on the radio at the time, and instead of being so abstract and dark, we wanted to paint pictures, be clear, and make melodies that would unite and connect. That’s something we still try to do today.”

As it turns out, the group’s early tunes connected so quickly that the quartet stayed on tour for two solid years promoting My Own Prison, though all the while, continuously wrote new material for the follow-up. Having never let up on either the road or studio allowed Creed to strike while the iron was incomprehensibly hot, and helped push Human Clay to nearly double the sales of its predecessor and churn out a slew of singles like “Higher,” “What If,” “Are You Ready?,” “My Sacrifice,” and the inescapable “With Arms Wide Open.”

“We really got to hear those [Human Clay] songs in a different way during soundchecks with big sound systems, and we just stayed in tune with the creative process,” explains Stapp. “By the time the Prison tour was over, we went right into the studio and recorded these songs we’d been playing for 18 months [after] really seeing the fans’ reaction.”

However, as Creed’s fame swelled, so did the ranks of detractors, who often assailed the players as purveyors of a blankly derivative and accessible sound. And as listeners began looking closer at the lyrics, additional questions arose about the group’s spiritual subject matter.

“[Spirituality's] played a tremendous role in my life and in who I am as a human being,” the frontman admits. “Essentially I was born in a church nursery, and really was given no other way to think growing up. I think on the first record I was asking a lot of questions, kind of spreading my wings. I lived a life that was very sheltered, and things other people would experience in high school, I didn’t see until I was 20 or 21-years-old. So I kind of went through high school late, so to speak, and definitely on a public scale, but it really began that way because that’s just part of my DNA. I began to find some resolution and confidence in my faith and a renewed trust in my faith, but with more of a global understanding . . . On [Human Clay], I was embracing that spirituality and that faith and giving it a place of gratitude and thanks for the success that happened from My Own Prison.”

As a result, it was only a matter of time before Creed was bombarded with the polarizing question, “Are you a Christian band?” And though the band certainly enjoyed a built-in audience in that marketplace, the answer was always resounding “no,” especially from Tremonti, Marhsall, and Phillips, who weren’t writing the lyrics.

“During those days, I did what I did and I don’t think there was much thought or analyzing by the other guys,” Stapp remembers. “It really happened so fast, we didn’t have time to really have demos and live with it. There’s a lot of times you’re not focused on the details of what the lyrics are actually saying; you’re just vibing, at least for the musicians. When there was a labeling of the band, it kind of didn’t sit right with anybody. [It] was really our first threat of division and would be a major factor in the band not being together years later, initially because everyone’s dreams weren’t matching the reality. I guess. We’re very sensitive guys, and we had all this success and began to get labeled things that we weren’t. Part of the reasons we didn’t want that label was we all knew we weren’t living that life. That was part of our youth and what we were at that time, but we hadn’t really experienced life and everything that’s out there.”

Though the band as a trio (minus Marshall) still had enough steam to crank out 2001’s Weathered (which topped Billboard’s Top 200 chart for eight consecutive weeks, tying The Beatles’ Anthology in the record books), the group officially splintered shortly thereafter. Stapp kicked off a solo career and the rhythm section formed Alter Bridge, though fate would steer the band back together in 2009 for the aptly titled Full Circle, with all of the previous tension presumably ironed out.

In fact, Stapp seems especially rejuvenated after surviving a series of personal demons (to be chronicled in a tell-all autobiography this fall), and he’s a much different man than the one who was sued by four fans over what was reported to be a far-from-stellar show at the Allstate Arena in 2002, just before the break-up. Even so, the singer doesn’t seem to dwell on the past, only offering a fleeting reference to that incident while professing nothing but love for area fans and the city itself.

“When I think of Chicago, there’s not a single bitter taste in my mouth,” he insists. “That city is a city that I love and has been amazing to this band and is a part of what made this band on so many levels. We’ve had some of our most amazing nights as artists, musicians, and performers in Chicago and we’ve been real and human in Chicago.”

Since Creed fans are likely to forgive, chances are Stapp will be welcomed back once again — maybe even with arms wide open.

– Andy Argyrakis

Creed’s Basic Tenets

U2
Rattle & Hum
Some people heard and saw an ego-tripping band of Spinal Tap proportions: others heard and saw a blueprint.

Metallica Metallica
It cannot be understated what a game-changer this album was for commercial hard rock — that it arrived the same year as Nevermind evoked a serendipity not heard since the late ’60s.

Pearl Jam Ten
Eddie Vedder’s brooding baritone launched a thousand bands, but Pearl Jam’s classic-rock base and embrace of workmanly anthems surface in Creed’s work.

Soundgarden Superunknown
Again, a frontman’s self-serious gaze is an obvious touchpoint, but those chunky, drop-D chords gave Mark Tremonti a new lease on guitar.

Collective Soul
Hints, Allegations & Things Left Unsaid
What opened the grunge doors for the Christian-alternative crowd was undoubtedly “Shine,” which may have been a clever lift of Temple Of The Dog’s “Hunger Strike,” but it steered clear of the competition’s pervasive self-loathing.

Live
Throwing Copper
Live were among the first alt-rock bands to successfully parlay positive messages into what sounded — overwhelmingly — like angst.

Acts Of Their Apostles

Nickelback Silver Side Up
Nickelback’s Creed-love finally connected on their third album, and just in time for them to take the mantle from their hobbling heroes.

Daughtry Daughtry
“American Idol”’s credibility got a boost from rock fans for this find; it also replenished Creed critics’ inexhaustible supply of arrows.

Shinedown The Sound Of Madness
Though it’s an imperfect analogy, Shinedown recall the end of the hair-metal era, when suddenly bands were toting a few too many power ballads.

This version of the story has been updated since it was originally posted.

Ladies, if you ever receive a text from a potential mate that reads, “You’re not pretty, but you’ve got it going on,” there’s two possible scenarios to consider. Either the gentleman caller is utterly clueless as to how to woo a fair maiden, or he’s really digging the new Band Of Skulls album. Taking a line from the most aggressive and full-throttle track on the British trio’s sophomore effort as a pickup technique seems circumspect, but at least you can trust his taste in music. That’s gotta count for something, right?

Appearing: April 3rd at House Of Blues (329 N. Dearborn) in Chicago with We Are Augustines.

“The whole concept with that was, what’s the basic minimum compliment? What’s the faintest praise you can give?” guitarist Russell Marsden admits over the phone from London, as tour mates The Black Keys soundcheck in the background. “If it gets used in any kind of social platform, I think we’ll be very proud.”

Marsden should think about the bigger picture. The band’s second release, Sweet Sour (Vagrant), successfully straddles the line between undulating balladry (“Lay My Head Down”) and down-n-dirty garage rock that could have easily emanated from Jack White’s carport (“The Devil Takes Care Of His Own”). The album’s dueling personalities stem from a studio-induced bout of seasonal-affective disorder.

“We went in — it was pretty much last winter. We went straight off tour and we went straight into writing,” he explains. “That was our idea of not wasting any time, which was a bit strange because we basically had a fall out from the tour and we struggled with not being on tour. We forgot [how to] survive. The stranger atmosphere of the record came from that time.

“Then we had some time off, went home, [and] regrouped. We went back into the studio and went up to this place in Wales called Rockfield. That was sort of the nice time. The sun was out, it was the royal wedding, and it was a really happy time. I think that was the two sides of the record that came out — sort of an anxious winter with a real sort of fulfilling summer. I think those two sides of the record are definitely in there, and it was the two periods of working on the record that manifested themselves.”

Yes, the three Southampton natives stopped and savored Prince William’s nuptials like any good royal subject — and no one relished it more than drummer Matt Hayward.

“Matt’s a very patriotic sort of dude and yeah, I think he had his own little party,” Marsden reveals. “It was one of those things that you’ll always remember. We were in the studio and stopped to have a look at the Queen basically. Friends of mine had all-night royal parties. [It's] just an excuse to get drunk really, isn’t it?”

Eye socket-rattling guitar riffs pour out of Marsden’s fingertips effortlessly, and there’s plenty here to make the walls quake, but his vocal tradeoffs with bassist Emma Richardson provide the stoic “Navigate” and the delicate “Close To Nowhere” with emotional heft.

“I think it’s a lot more exposed when you’re doing something more heartfelt. You do a song that’s a little deeper and you’re emoting your feelings — it’s more of a terrifying prospect really,” Marsden admits. “And sometimes those messages need a little more space around them to come across. Sometimes we feel angry and want to rock out. We want adrenaline and then we’re human beings, too, and sometimes we feel bad or upset and playing some uptempo number’s not going to tick all the boxes for us. We don’t want to be typecast into one thing, so basically it’s our way of saying, rightfully, we have the permission to have more than one emotion in our music.”

Most of all, Marsden wants to keep proving the band’s not just a one-trick pony. He hates the impression Sweet Sour only churns out slightly altered versions of its snappy first single “I Know What I Am.”

“I hate, ‘Oh yeah, Band Of Skulls, that’s that band [that does] that thing.’ I hope we can keep opening doors to what we do next. Some days we feel quite frivolous. Other days, downright grumpy,” he says.

Making a followup to an acclaimed debut can wreak havoc on a band’s creativity if one trusts rock’s checkered history. The phrase “sophomore slump” gets thrown around a lot. Marsden’s not buying it.

“It’s really difficult to make a breakthrough, to get the ball rolling for any band or any artist. That really is the make-or-break moment,” he proposes. “Like the second album, in many ways, you get so much more help and resources to call upon. You might feel the pressure, but it’s not as hard as like struggling as every band does before they get their first [chance].”

The career trajectory for Band Of Skulls centers around two simple goals: “Being a good rock band and making good records,” Marsden lists. The rest goes into the bonus column.

“You don’t want to overestimate. To underestimate is always probably the right side of things to do. I don’t know, maybe it’s because we’re British or something, I don’t know what it is, but we’re always totally surprised — we really stress out and think no one’s going to show up,” Marsden says.

Not that it’s a completely irrational fear. “As a band that’s played with no one showing up in our formative years, we know that feeling of pain when no one comes. So, it’s just basically an anxiety attack about that feeling.”

All you can do is take a deep breath, count to 10, and wait for the curtain to open. It probably doesn’t hurt to have a quiver full of borderline-offensive one-liners, just in case.

– Janine Schaults

While we’d never met and probably have no friends other than perhaps Facebook’s in common, having “come of age” in lockstep with Thomas Dolby and his music/performances across the ’80s brought a first-ever phone call with him the sense that one was calling a long-lost friend. And, indeed, it was a sense only heightened by Dolby’s own self-imposed near two-decades’ silence from mainstream music. Which is not to say he wasn’t keeping himself busy during that time: embracing technology in Silicon Valley and — not surprisingly given his signature synthesizer/production oeuvre — patenting/profiting from his groundbreaking work in polyphonic ringtones. The immediate question that does arise, however, is what prompted the return to recording — and, ultimately into mainstream music — now?

Appearing: April 5th at Park West (322 W. Armitage) in Chicago.

“I’d been away too long, you know,” Dolby responds frankly, “I never really intended to take 18 years off. One thing led to another — I’d always been involved in technology and going to Silicon Valley was exciting, sort of like going to the source, really, of all technology.

“And it was really happening in the early ’90s, whereas the music business was already, you know, severely in retreat. So I just felt that I could make more of a difference there. And it got very frenetic during the dot-com boom-and-bust years. But the company that I formed ended up being successful in the mobile space. And so I’ve sort of have had an extra two phases, really, to my career: in Silicon Valley and then in mobile and . . .” Dolby pauses, collects his thought and then continues matter of factly, “I’d had enough. I wanted to get back to music, which is my first love and it seemed like a good time to do it.”

But as his chosen route of return — the recently released A Map Of The Floating City – wonderfully displays, his “first love” of music embraces the art and craft of songwriting itself, which also seems sorely missing in an environment where sampling is the most consistently successful creativity. And is something, Dolby somewhat concurs, also served as a prompt to his reignition.

“Well I think it’s not as highly valued as it once was, other than perhaps in the sort of Starbucks café society with sort of singer/songwriters,” he says with a slight chuckle. “But the mainstream music tends to be more groove oriented and there’s so many people out there doing that, that you can’t possibly feel like a pioneer in that space, I don’t think. The value that’s put on the groove and on the production, I just, uh . . . life’s too short, really, to be competing with 10,000 other guys to come up with the coolest groove.

“But what I’ve got that those 10,000 other guys don’t have is that ability to write a song with a story, with a melody, with a vocal, with a structure to it. So I’ve sort of chosen to elevate those values in what I’m doing versus the more superficial production values.”

As a songwriter, Dolby has often cited his admiration for other greats of the craft, in particular citing the chord sequences of Bowie’s earlier classics, among others. Two of the songs on his new album — “Jealous Thing Called Love” and, in particular, “Road To Reno” — sound as if Dolby had taken both vocal and chording cues from the Thin White Duke songbook of that era. Homage or coincidence?

“He was a strong influence on me, as was Prince,” Dolby quickly answers, “again, during the era when each of them used to write songs that needed a guitar tablature to follow them. And they were both very successful and very influential with songs that were, you know, classic songbook songs. Space Oddity to Purple Rain. Or, you know, ‘Ashes To Ashes’ to Sign O’ The Times. And in each case, after the peak of their commercial success they moved to a period — along with the rest of the music industry, I’d have to say — they moved more into the sort of groove space, where, you know, it’s a jam with the vocal on top.” Dolby pauses, then adds somewhat wistfully, “Ahhh, I was just sad about that really. Because they were my heroes at the time when they were writing their best songs.”

While Dolby has divided Map into three sections — “Urbanoia,” “Amerikana,” “Oceanea” — it’s clearly America (with a four-song section) and New York (the subject of two of four “Urbanoia” songs) that predominate as subject matter; and perhaps reflective of Dolby’s 20-year residency on this side of the Atlantic (as opposed to his more recent return to the North Sea side), is the three-song muse for “Oceanea.” Unsurprisingly, Dolby freely admits he’s “strongly influenced by my environment” in his songwriting — but it’s not without unforeseen consequences.

“Well I get into trouble, actually, because when I write these songs, I don’t look my references up. I just sort of have subliminally taken in that the D train goes to Brooklyn,” Dolby breaks into laughter, then continues. “You know I wrote that line without going on Wikipedia to check it out. And it occasionally gets me into trouble, like when I mentioned a ‘64 Camaro on ‘Road To Reno.’ Not only did I pronounce it wrong, but also that that particular car didn’t come in ’til ‘67. And so people were very quick to point that out to me.”

Pointing out that he did pronounce it like an Englishman causes him to break into laughter again, before offering another misstep from his 1992’s Astronauts & Heretics.

“But I got into the most trouble when I wrote ‘I Love You Goodbye,’ and on live radio in Louisiana it was pointed out to me that, ‘We don’t have ‘county’ sheriffs, we have parishes’; and ‘The Everglades are actually in Florida and not Louisiana.’” Dolby again breaks into laughter, then concludes, “So I obviously need to do my research a bit better.”

Truth be told, Dolby didn’t totally desert music in 1992. Since 2001, he’s served as musical director (and house band leader) of the highly influential TED (Technology, Entertainment, & Design) Conference — an annual gathering of some of the world’s foremost (and most eclectic) thinkers, inventors, speakers, and artists. Says Dolby, “It is great fun. I mean, I really enjoy attending and it’s nice to contribute as well. I get to bring in some pretty interesting musicians — both in my house band, as well as the entertainers we have doing some of the slots and the show. And it’s a great thing, because it really helps people sort of process the barrage of stimulating ideas that you get.”

In fact, as we speak, Dolby is getting ready for this year’s event, after which he’ll embark on a multi-city U.S. tour with a full-fledged band that he’s really looking forward to, and not just for musical reasons. “It’s called the ‘Time Capsule Tour,’” he explains, “because we’re bringing with us a trailer that looks like it was designed by HG Wells and Nikola Tesla. We tie it behind the tour bus, and it houses a personal video-messaging system, which allows you to send a message to the future. The idea is that anyone who comes down to the shows [and other stops] can have some private time in the time capsule and record a private message to the future. You can talk about whatever you want — you can talk to your grandchildren if you like. But you could also talk to space aliens that visit the planet years after our species has been wiped out. So what would you say to them, you know? ‘What went wrong?’

“And these clips will be uploaded to YouTube and rated by viewers. So the most successful clips will go into the time capsule — which is a hard drive that I’m trying to get sent into space.”

So Dolby must be looking to the Russians or Chinese to launch his dream, since the U.S. seems to have ceded the space to them for the time being?

“Well, actually in the private sector, there’s quite few people sending rockets up,” Dolby points out, “and a lot of them are at TED, so hopefully I will find an interested party next week.”

– David C. Eldredge

NTD Records’ HiFi Superstar continue to refine their power-pop hooks on their third long-player, One Hit Wonder. Maturing as songwriters and as tight as a band that performs nearly 150 shows a year, OHW mines the blueprints of early Elvis Costello (“Give Me A Try’), Cheap Trick (“Closer”), and the modern punk-pop of Green Day (“Lucky Day”), as well as cult Anglo bands of the ’70s and ’80s like T.Rex and The Wild Swans. Guitarist/vocalist Mike Paterson and drummer/vocalist Glenn Mikes’ spot-on harmonies add to their strongest collection of music to date. With Billboard and MTV chart entries for past music and seven years of staying power, there’s no one-hit wonders here. (hifisuperstar.com)
– David Gedge

Anti-Crew specializes in cross-genre hip-hop on its 16-track album, Foundation: Expansion Plan. The foursome’s live instrumentation is mixed with smooth rapid-fire raps and melodic crooning, a la Linkin Park, on “After The End.” A 311-ish reggae-and-rock fusion works on “One Time,” “Crucial,” and “Blur.” Showing more range, “Creator” plays up hip-hop bombast with loudspeaker vocal samples, and “Kurt Cobain” is a slick, beat-heavy track. (anticrewmusic.com)
– Jason Scales

Local singer/songwriter/comedian-wannabe John Kuczaj, host of the North Side’s “Acoustic Explosion,” decided it was time to try his hand at recording a full-length album under the moniker Atomic Shop. While his melodies are solid, his vocals leave a lot to be desired. A whole lot. His biggest strength might be in crafting song titles: gems like “I Wish My Girlfriend Was As Dirty As My Car,” “I Accidentally Wrote A Country Song,” and “Boy Band Beatdown” evoke more laughter than their actual lyrics. (atomicshopmusic.com)
– Carter Moss

Something traumatic involving a bicycle, brother, and freezing cold weather must’ve happened to Bedroom Sons‘ prime mover Chris Dertz, since they lie at the heart of each of the four songs in his DIY, from-the-living-room Father EP. In all, somewhat reminiscent of Creed, but fortunately less didactically strident. (facebook.com/bedroomsons)
– David C. Eldredge

Blues/poet Wes Heine’s Cousin Bones lives and breathes Chicago blues. But it also blows that description right out of Lake Michigan on its self-titled release by adding odd and eclectic influences ranging from Delta blues to rock to progressive/psychedelic to country. Heine’s scratchy, Marlboro-and-Jim Beam vocals are complemented by slide guitar, banjo, harmonica, and congas. The 16 lively tracks about getting drunk, getting drunk after giving plasma (“At The Plasma Clinic”), the lack of jobs and money, and the end of the world (again), reflect an accurate model of the current state of the American way and ultimately Cousin Bones’ world. The band often segues into spokenword set to twangy blues licks. Cousin Bones’ DIY approach to old-time blues with modern poetry elements is a fun and sometimes twisted listening experience. (myspace.com/cousinbonesband)
– Kelley Simms

Singer/songwriter/guitarist Doctaryn has the heart of a rocker but the voice and even album cover look of someone who’d fit better in the country scene (with a harmonica and piano to go alongside her acoustic guitar). Comparing her to Wynonna Judd would be kind, considering her vocal range is so limited, while a completely flat cover of Aerosmith’s “Dream On” does nothing to advance her confusing cause. (reverbnation.com/doctaryn)
– Andy Argyrakis

Drummer/songwriter/producer Paul Edelstein’s Passion & Perseverance was written and recorded from a drummer’s point of view with no set musical styles or boundaries on its 10 eclectic tracks. The CD is a conglomeration of rock, jazz, pop, prog, metal, blues, folk, and country, and all derive from Edelstein’s back catalog. No singer — and he doesn’t claim to be — but Edelstein’s songwriting skills and drumming prowess outweighs his vocal shortcomings. He proudly goes where most drummers are unable to go. (myspace.com/pauldrum)
– Kelley Simms

There’s plenty of groove throughout the psychedelic blues sounds of High Action on the Circle EP, but the three tracks contained therein are lacking in the hooks department. Though the foursome are certainly proficient instrumentally, they’d be best diving deeper into the catalogs of presumed influences like Santana or The Allman Brothers Band to get the hang of making more memorable material. (myspace.com/highaction1)
– Andy Argyrakis

Borrowing its title from a review in Time Out Chicago, Highball’s More Hooks, Less Polish easily lives up to the billing. There are plenty of rough-sawn edges to the rip-saw guitars on “Why Did I Pick You,” while the big, jumpy chorus ensures a heavy hook. The rocket-fueled pace of the album leaves no room for filler and each cut explodes right out of the chute. The devilish artwork shows Highball has the right attitude and swagger that perfectly matches its rough-n-tumble tunes. (highballchicago.com)
– Patrick Conlan

Year X, the latest release from JIP, has the feel of a band performing in a club. Occasionally, singer/guitarist Jim Gwynn’s material can be nondescript, as on “Hard To Change,” but along with bassist/vocalist Spencer Watson and drummer Brent Fatig, he impresses on energetic tracks like “Not Alone,” as well as the more intricate “Night And Day.” Grammy-nominated Tracy Bonham is a guest lead vocalist on “This Song Will Last Forever,” which she co-wrote with Gwynn. (getjip.com)
–Terrence Flamm

Singer/songwriter Dan Krikorian glides through the easy-going Americana of his third release, Windsor Blue, with help from a bevy of studio musicians. “Wait” sets the mood with a toe-tapping country & western arrangement, and Krikorian exudes a folksy charm on “Thief Like That” and the title track. “Quincy” is an elegant love song, while “New York City Day” sports a full-bodied production complete with horns and backup singers. (dankrikorian.com)
–Terrence Flamm

Losing Scarlet is like Evanescence’s and Flyleaf’s angrier older sister, who used to lock them in the closet and scream at them for hours. Frontwoman Jodi has some anger issues behind that sweet face, as she thrusts her passionate melodic vocals over the gut-punching guitar riffs. The eight tracks definitely lack some sonic variety, but if you lament hearing the same formula repeated, it’s not a bad sound to be stuck with. You’ll end up feeling you just got chewed out by a bitter ex-girlfriend — and liked it. (losingscarlet.com)
– Carter Moss

Elgin-based The Love Shots is the first band to attach itself to the term “deathwop.” Labels aside, the band is at least a unique blend of several influences, including doo-wop, early punk, new wave, and alt-rock. All of this makes its debut Crooner tantalizing ear candy, channeling Arctic Monkeys on some tracks, and the Ramones on others — but all of which are well-suited for the next iPod commercial. It’s a stronger and more diverse debut than many bands are able to scrape together, and shows promise. Long live deathwop! (theloveshots.com)
– Carter Moss

Lucrezio’s Storybook offers a striking convergence of buzzing crackle and glistening pop solitude. Songs like “Take Me Away” and “Tragedy,” which primarily feature Jennifer Lucrezio’s voice and graceful piano, will immediately resonate with Tori Amos’ fans. For our money, however, the more robust tracks have more staying power. “Every Word” is a super-charged rocker with thick, crashing guitars. “Dreamer” is a passionate, emotive ballad, as distant guitar washes over meditative piano and Lucrezio’s soaring vocals, before swelling into epic catharsis. (lucreziomusic.com)
– Patrick Conlan

Joe Moran never dreamed of a music career; he was a union mechanic who suddenly started playing guitar and writing songs for his newborn kids. Years later, his debut effort was birthed. Considering Moran played every instrument (except drums), and wrote and sang every note, Bird Herd represents a solid effort. Moran’s voice is subtle and honest, with hints of Dylan and Petty peeking through. While none of the 11 tracks are especially memorable, together they create a respectable collection of simple melodies and honest but not-too-deep lyrics. (audubonsavant.com)
– Carter Moss

With all the attention that “mall punk” received in its heyday, it’s hard to remember that there were guys spitting out snotty, wild-eyed, old-school punk. The Mushuganas‘ cleverly titled retrospective, Low In The Mid 90s (Premium Beer Can), is a rollicking, schizophrenic collection of B-sides, 7-inch splits, live cuts, and interview snippets. With 32 tracks, it’s a bit overwhelming for single-sitting consumption, but frenetic cuts like “Handsome And Beautiful” and “Her Boyfriend” will keep you coming back. (myspace.com/beercanrecords)
– Patrick Conlan

A bit all over the place — but in a good way — musically, Scientific Map’s second full-lengther swings from proggy-fusion to almost Hall & Oatesian-flavored pop/rock without missing a beat. Rust Belt Soul is held together mostly by the virtuoso guitar playing of bandleader Matt Hudson and tasty keys of Dave Holloway, and as a happy hacker, how can one not have a soft spot in the heart for a band that titles one of its songs “Vijay Singh?” (imaginarychicago.com)
– David C. Eldredge

Drawing upon classic rock, blues, jazz, funk, and psychedelic influences, Marcus Singletary delivers some broad and competent music on Smokin’. Singletary handles all vocals, guitars, keyboards, and theremin, while bassist Cliff Starbuck and ex-Doobie Brothers drummer Chet McCracken are featured, along with a versatile horn section. Together they lay down some funky grooves and have a solid foundation steeped in a “far out, man” range of influences, including an interesting version of Bob Marley’s “Misty Morning.” (facebook.com/marcus.singletary)
– Kelley Simms

The giveaway — apart from the byline and absence of Super Troopers references — that Trevor Fisher has been taking some deserved time off from IE has been zero babbling on one of three fronts: High On Fire, Superchrist, or Bible Of The Devil. Well, bonds of holy moly — Spaceballs, bee-yotch — have we a ding-dong-dilly of a dinger in “Mosh” this month!

Fisher, for those of you who’ve never met nor stolen glances of him at his monthly “Metal Up Your Tap” nights at Red Line Tap in Rogers Park (or now the Vaudeville Mews in Des Moines, as well), isn’t physically imposing. His politics, fast-food choices, and geographically indifferent sports allegiances cast little shadow on his varied tastes in metal, though his obsessions all froth over the same goblet.

Bible Of The Devil return next month with their sixth album, and it may as well be their first. For The Love Of Thugs And Fools (Cruz Del Sur) rolls up its denim sleeves and throws in some pelvic thrusts that nod more to ’70s arena rock than bludgeoning black and death metal. Could they throw in a couple acknowledgements toward the last 30 or so years of human achievement? Yes. Would it behoove them? Nope. BOTD are exactly the kind of argument you make to people who stick to nostalgia acts: without them, there’s not much that’s current to make your memories worthwhile.

We’d like to think that Fisher’s imprimatur for Superchrist — another MUYT alum — reflects BOTD, but it’s probably more to do with his mancrush on frontman Chris Black. Black also fronts High Spirits, drums for Pharaoh, writes for Nachtmystium, and runs Planet Metal, which ticks all the boxes some columnists look for in a mate. Now that the band have joined “Mosh”-friendly record label Hells Headbangers for the new Holy Shit — well, let’s just say they’re dancing in the Fisher house tonight. (And, Superchrist release the album on April 28th at Ultra Lounge playing with Bible Of The Devil!) Disentangling this mess could take days (not to mention hours of therapy), but then we’d never get to a certain hairy-chested thunder-harbinger du jour.

Lemme first digress to mention that another IE scribe once misinterpreted a song title “Diet Of Worms” to mean a surreal dinner. It was actually an historical event, though it has nothing to do with the name of High On Fire’s new record, Mysteries Of The Worm. Despite his fondness for schlock and shit, Fisher quite adroitly preceded (in fandom) the rise of both Mastodon and HOF. High On Fire, the scion of Sleep mastermind (and Matthew McConaughey wannabe) Matt Pike, has outgrown Relapse for De Vermis Mysteriis (“mysteries of the worm”), which sees light via EOne on the 3rd. The whole release wraps its arms around a number of items with which “Mosh”’s normal author wouldn’t be comfortable: the track “Fertile Green” first debuted at Pitchfork, and the title explicitly honors HP Lovecraft, and we’ve never seen Fisher read a sci-fi novel since we’ve known him. But love them still he will. High On Fire join Slayer, Anthrax, and Slipknot on the 2012 Rockstar Energy Mayhem Tour that hits First Midwest on July 21st.

Though I hesitate to advance you toward fun offered by something called Wassup Xtra Magazine, we assure you that the missing “E” hasn’t been sacrificed in the name of effort. Their “Hell On Earth Metal Fest II” features Fashion Bomb, A Born Plague, Skinwalker, Impale, Orion Nine, Bleed For The Fallen, and Miles From Exile and also boasts some giveaways — all of which goes down on the 15th at Reggies Rock Club.

Despite having neither the time nor the inclination for a comprehensive overview, I feel confident in declaring that the offshoots of classic British metal bands (Fight, GZR, Bruce Dickinson, etc.) have a shoddy history. So consider my trepidation peaking when I was first approached about Primal Rock Rebellion, the unfortunately named collaboration between Iron Maiden’s Adrian Smith and vocalist Mikee Goodman from Sikth. Smith’s checkered past already includes the daft decision to leave Maiden in 1990, which he then followed with an unheralded solo outing as ASAP (Adrian Smith And Project, which featured Zak Starkey). To his credit, Smith keeps Goodman in check on Awoken Broken (Spinefarm), and moves freely without a power-metal crutch. He clearly grew fond of Korn in the ’90s, and layers the tracks with thick, dissonant chords and overtones though has trouble distinguishing himself. What’s strange is how Goodman channels Sebastian Bach in parts, which further lends a post-grunge pop-metal feel to “I See Lights” and more, until he starts losing control and begins to rave. Congratulations on avoiding embarrassment, even if it feels every bit the one-off as ASAP.

Trevor Fisher is taking some time off.

– Steve Forstneger

There are two things with which Hollywood has a spotty record. The first is making decent films out of popular fiction. Notice I didn’t say successful films from popular fiction, but decent. The left coast can churn out films based on novels that rake in cash hand over fist, but they’re rarely ever up to the version on the printed page.

The second example of stepping on the third rail is when studios feel the need to remake foreign films for the U.S. market. Most of the time, the results fare even worse than a novel adaptation.

So you can imagine the trepidation over The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which hits both patches of quicksand in one fell swoop: an American version of the Swedish adaptation of the first book in Stieg Larsson’s blockbuster “Millennium” trilogy. Tall order.

Full disclosure: I have not read any of Larsson’s books. However, almost everyone I have talked to who has says the films handle the transition successfully. The main concern lies in how this version stacks up against the original. Good news is it’s just as good, and occasionally surpasses it.

The story follows disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) who’s hired by aging businessman Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to dig into a decades-old family mystery. Blomkvist enlists the help of anti-social computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander (Roony Mara). Salander has issues of her own, as a ward of the state whose guardian is sexually abusing her, until she gets her revenge, that is.

The chief concern about the American version of Dragon Tattoo was how much they would water down the darker and more graphic elements of the Swedish version. Luckily, the producers had the good sense to ask — and pay — David Fincher to direct. Fincher’s resume (Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac) reads like a virtual how-to when it comes to directing good old-fashioned gritty, disturbing darkness.

Also, unlike most Americanizations, Dragon Tattoo retains its Scandinavian setting, which leads to some curious accent decisions. To wit, Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård uses his natural accent, Mara tries to adopt an accent — and pulls it off for the most part — while Craig doesn’t bother and uses his cumulative British. Granted, it doesn’t sink the film or anything like that, it just can be a little jarring.

The three-disc Blu-ray release comes packed with nearly four hours of immersive, behind-the-scenes footage including interviews and more. There’s commentary by Fincher, features on the casting of Craig and Mara, as well as on-set features that want you to believe they got it right — this time.

The Descendants
Fox Home Entertainment

With films like Election, Sideways, and About Schmidt, director Alexander Payne has shown a knack for presenting seriously flawed characters, then giving the audience reason after reason why we should sympathize with them instead of hate them: sure they were obnoxious, but that didn’t make them bad people.

With The Descendants, Payne sands down the edge and gives us George Clooney as disheveled Honolulu lawyer Matt King. It’s a study of bad things happening to good people in paradise. King’s wife is comatose after a boating accident; his daughters are in full-blown teen-angst mode; he has to decide a land deal that could have enormous impact on his entire extended family; and he also found out that his wife was having an affair before her accident. “Paradise can go fuck itself,” King states in a voiceover.

While the supporting cast, especially Shailene Woodley as his eldest daughter, is strong, The Descendents reinforces the fact that Clooney has become one of the most fearless “A-list” actors working. That’s the intriguing thing about star power: when most people achieve it, they seem to spend the rest of their careers protecting the brand. Clooney, on the other hand, uses his to make choices that go out on a limb and stretch his talents every time.

The Blu-ray set is loaded with deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes extras, and several featurettes, as well as a digital copy of the film.

– Timothy Hiatt

IE: Now that you are a veteran of a supergroup, does that open up doors to a supergroup secret society?
Rebecca Cole: [Laughs.] Yeah! Actually, we get together with Chickenfoot every now and again for some beers. But no, we haven’t been indoctrinated yet. Maybe I should be disappointed that we haven’t received that invite.

IE: Had you thought about the connotation when you got into it?
RC: We hadn’t. It was sort of a surprise — it’s still a surprise to see that term associated with something I’m doing. When I think of “supergroup,” I think of The Highwaymen or million-selling artists coming together. Or something bloated, like Chickenfoot. I don’t think we’re either.

IE: What about Superheavy, Mick Jagger’s new group?
RC: We should totally be drinking red wine with those guys and flying on their jet. But no, we didn’t think about it. I don’t know if the term means something different now. We all were in different projects before, and now we have this new project. It’s flattering, in the spirit it means people are excited about your work. I hope that’s how it’s meant. [Laughs.]

IE: How did you even become a band?
RC: There was a film project that Carrie [Brownstein] was working on, and then she enlisted Janet [Weiss] and she enlisted me to do some instrumental songs. The three of us being in the room working together was pretty easy-going. A lot of work came really quickly on these instrumental songs. The director wanted vocals, so we sent a track to Mary [Timony] in D.C. and she sent it back. Listening to it, it was funny: “That sounds like a band.” There weren’t any blueprints for what we were doing. Mary came out a couple times, and we got together in a practice space. The happy surprise was it was actually that it was something we were excited about.

IE: From a personal standpoint, is this something you were looking for? Or has it interrupted the normal course?
RC: For me, the timing was awesome. I had quit my last band [The Minders] and finished my degree, which had taken years because I was trying to do it between tours and working jobs. So then I had my degree and I got a job, and I was really unhappy. It was paying good money and I had everything that should have made me happy as a “grownup,” but I realized — after a lot of soul searching — that the reason was I didn’t have people to make music with. It was shocking, because I had it for so many years that I think I took it for granted. So, when we started playing together, I had [already] decided to start making music again.

Wild Flag play Metro on Thursday, April 5th with Hospitality. The band’s self-titled Merge debut is out now. Q&A by Steve Forstneger.

The Portillo’s Music Shell? President Obama flushed his Al Green capital down the toilet when he butchered the word “Lollapalooza” in his explanation for the G-8 deserting Chicago. “La Palooza,” as he coined it, certainly inundated the White House press office with “WTFF?” e-mails, along with purposefully incorrect syllable breakdowns of Coachella and Bonnaroo to even the field. British Prime Minister David Cameron got in on the action, and immediately dispatched VIP tickets so Big Boss Barry could attend the “reeding” festival in England this summer.

STRAT’D FOR CASH

The mixture of music and corporations makes people nervous — nothing new there. But with Fender Guitars, the nightmare returns. It first stepped on a rollercoaster when founder Leo Fender — due to his health — sold the company (the manufacturer of iconic instruments like the Stratocaster, Telecaster, and P-Bass) to CBS in the ’60s, which gave birth to the slur known worldwide as a “Japanese Strat.” Owned today by a private-equity firm, its overseers decided in March to file with the Securities & Exchange Commission for a $200 million initial public offering. (Gibson Guitars is a private corporation, which means its shares are not traded publicly.) Naturally, red flags have flown because corporations — by law — are obligated to make money for their investors, and when times are tough they cut costs. Half of the IPO money would be directed to pay down a $100 million loan; part of the company’s pitch is to invade the Chinese and Indian markets. Wall Street’s worry, however, is the continued decline of rock music in the United States, mocked by the sales growth of DJ and computer equipment.

WELL, THAT’S A (LOT OF) CHEAP TRICK!

Through an exclusive agreement with Popmarket, Sony’s reissue arm Legacy began releasing complete-album collections featuring such heavy hitters as Miles Davis, Judas Priest, John Denver, and Billie Holiday, though the one that naturally sticks out to us is Cheap Trick’s The Complete Epic Albums Collection. To some, the requested $100 bounty represents a bargain, since it includes 13 releases and counts the rare Found All The Parts EP among them. You also get 1998’s expanded Budokan, and scaled-down reproductions of all the album sleeves. To others, it’d be masochism to spring for anything including the press-savaged All Shook Up, The Doctor, and Busted. (A similar argument arose on the Popmarket page for a Lou Reed bundle, as fans weigh the risks of purchasing Metal Machine Music.) At least the ratio of good-to-bad isn’t as low as Robert Christgau’s rationale for agreeing to like Cheap Trick: two pretty guys, two ugly.

– Steve Forstneger

UNION JACKED UP

Molding eager unknowns into the next big thing on “The Voice” is just Adam Levine’s day job. The Maroon 5 frontman took a break from his mentor duties on the NBC reality competition to preen and prance for Rosie O’Donnell, Billy Dec, and a few hundred fawning fans (er . . . rewards members) in Union Station’s cavernous Great Hall as part of a four-city concert extravaganza hosted by Caesars Entertainment Corporation. The “Escape To Total Rewards” promotion on March 1st beamed in Lil Wayne from L.A., Mariah Carey from New York, and Celine Dion from Sin City via satellite between quick sets from Sara Bareilles (channeling Beyoncé on a “Single Ladies” better suited to a solitary night in than a wedding bouquet toss) and Levine’s crew. Maroon 5 flipped the formula by starting with the inescapable “Moves Like Jagger,” before seamlessly transitioning into the band’s string of radio hits that double as earworms. Not even a rattling train ride home can push out the remnants of Levine’s helium voice.

– Janine Schaults

If Joe Strummer, Thurston Moore, and Kurt Cobain can have their have their own signature guitars, why not Jeff Tweedy?

After its disastrous choice of awarding the mostly deceased Mama’s And The Papa’s with their own model, C. F. Martin & Co. has redeemed itself in our eyes by introducing a Custom Artist Edition, 00-DB Jeff Tweedy designed guitar in collaboration with Wilco’s Grammy Award-winning Chicagoan/frontman. The piece was unveiled at Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Germany in March. The limited-edition Martin will be built for only two years and will be available from participating, officially sanctioned Martin dealerships (including Tobias Music, Naperville Music, Guitar Center, and Guitar Works).

The 00-DB Jeff Tweedy Edition was inspired by one of the guitarist’s many Martins. It’s a traditional 14-fret “00 size” with a deeper body for fuller tone and a modified V-shape neck with long scale (25.4 inches). The top, back, and sides are all constructed from 100-percent environmentally friendly, FSC-certified mahogany and it features a unique mahogany sunburst top vintage style that Tweedy has long admired. The interior label of each instrument is personally signed and numbered in sequence. The guitar is Martin’s first Custom Artist model that is completely FSC Certified (with wood harvested from licensed, managed forests), an important distinction for both Tweedy and Martin.

Tweedy acquired his first Martin in 1998 while tracking (the recently reissued) Mermaid Avenue sessions, a collaboration with with Billy Bragg that supplied original music to song lyrics and unfinished songs by folk icon Woody Guthrie. For those recording sessions, Tweedy wanted an instrument that captured the dustbowl and WWII-era sound in which Guthrie was writing and recording music — hence he purchased a 1930s Martin 018. Since then, Tweedy’s collection has grown to include dozens of Martins, including his own 00-DB Jeff Tweedy.

“It has been such a privilege to work with Martin to design this guitar,” said Tweedy. “The shape and the aesthetic are based largely on my favorite go-to Martins that I have been using for years to write and record music. It is a huge honor to have my name associated with an instrument of this caliber.”

As you can imagine, the folks at Martin are as equally thrilled with his participation. “Jeff Tweedy has carried the torch of acoustic songwriting to an exciting place in contemporary music. He is a remarkable ambassador for Martin and has bridged generations of fans,” said Chris Martin, Chairman and CEO. “It is a pleasure to work with such a talented artist and to see this partnership reach a new level with the 00-DB Jeff Tweedy model.”

The fact that Tweedy got involved with this guitar project adds a little more collectability of the guitar, because you rarely see him involved with any commercial endorsements. MSRP is $2,999, a relatively reasonable price for a custom Martin. More info and interviews with Tweedy are at martinguitar.com.

While Jeff Tweedy has his endorsement deals near zero, Richie Sambora has no such filter. Let’s just say he’s given more than a few endorsements over the years .

This week, I mean . . . this year, five-year-old German-based Blackstar Amplification has announced that the Bon Jovi guitarist is now using its Series One 1046L6 and Artisan 100 amplifiers. Sambora states it short and sweet in his press materials: “From studios to stadiums, these are the amps I use.”

The folks at Blackstar — through their interpreters — have praised Sambora for his blessing. “We’re extremely proud to have such a high-caliber artist as Richie joining the Blackstar family. With 2012 marking our fifth anniversary, it’s great to see such a diverse range of guitarists choosing Blackstar. It shows how Blackstar amps cater for up-and-coming bands all the way through to legends such as Richie.” For information about the Series One 1046L6 and matching 4×12 cabinet, visit blackstaramps.co.uk. List prices for the amps start at $319. Blackstar is also offering 18 months zero-percent financing through retailers on their amps.

News & Notes

Our friends at Niles based Shure, Inc are doing a test run of Shure-sponsored Open Mic Nights across the country, and are holding two Chicago-based Open Mics on April 23rd and 24th at Lincoln Tap Room and Uncommon Ground. Because we have limited information at press time about this event we’ll direct you to its ad on page 5 of the digital issue. If this event is sucessful, Shure will add more dates to their Open Mic Nights later at a later date, so bring your instrument and be sure to participate. For more info visit www.shure.com/openmic

Speaking of Shure, Hix Music in Aurora is holding a In-Ear Earphone Monitor clinic on Tuesday, April 17th at their Aurora location.

Warwick Bass is holding a bass-guitar clinic with acclaimed bassist (and Jake Peavy look-alike) Andy Irvine at Naperville Music on Monday, May 7th.

– David Gedge

Both children and their parents love singer/songwriter Ralph Covert’s “Ralph’s World” indie-pop CDs.

Now, the Bad Examples frontman wants to wow both age groups with a “Ralph’s World”-based TV show, “Time Machine Guitar” (more info at timemachineguitar.com).

“With the TV show, we’re trying to create something that has the same sensibility to it, and also do a show that engages and activates the kids. I think that’s something that’s not done enough with TV,” he said during a phone interview, during which his 3-year-old son, Jude, interrupted him. “Our show gets kids moving and thinking and participating.

“The early ‘Ralph’s World’ videos have dancing kids that come along and dance with me. Every time I watch those videos with kids, the kids get up and dance along. Time Machine Guitar features four music videos in every show, and in the first one on every show we have dancing kids so we can have that same experience with kids.”

The clear guitar Covert plays on the show acts as a time machine that takes him and three puppet friends — a cat, dog, and a squirrel — on trips through history, where they’re exposed to different lessons and different types of music. In the pilot episode, they travel to 1785 in search of Benjamin Franklin — and end up meeting his mole.

Covert and his wife/business partner, Rita, have shopped the kids’ show idea around to Hollywood for nearly a decade before deciding to make the pilot themselves. “I have had deals that have gone all the way to a signed deal with a network and producer, and it fell apart before it came to fruition,” he says.

“The money involved in making a show is enormous, which is part of why the choices of both cable and regular networks are so safe,” he says. “There’s a lot of risk in going from taking the idea from in your head to where you can see it. That’s why I felt it was important to make the show: I was taking some of the risk out of it for them. ‘Here’s the show. Here’s what it’s going to look like. You can watch it for half an hour and decide for yourself: Do I suck or am I engaging?’ The proof is in the pudding.”

He continues, “If you look at the Chicago music and theater scene historically, and even some shows like ‘Oprah’ that came out of Chicago, they didn’t do it by asking permission. People here historically do it by having a great idea and pursuing it. For better or worse, that’s been my business plan with the music, so we might as well apply it to the TV show.”

At the urging of Bad Examples fan, friend, and Charlottesville, Virginia-based producer Erica Arvold, Covert shot the pilot there in January, using his own funds and $18,577 raised through a Kickstarter campaign.

Although he’s acted and written plays and musicals (he and G. Riley Mills‘ musical “The Hundred Dresses” is currently playing off-Broadway in New York), Covert says shooting the pilot was a stretch. “It’s been in some ways more stressful and challenging than anything I could ever imagine, because it required me to pull from so many different directions. When you’re standing on a set, and it’s your money paying for it, and a friend who pulled the production together got a lot of A-list film and TV people together, and you’ve got to go and act with these puppets, it’s something else. It’s exciting.”

At press time Covert — who, growing up, was a fan of Mr. Rogers, the Banana Splits, and “Get Smart” — was editing the pilot, which he plans to shop around to public, cable, and network TV.

“We got through the first big thing,” he says. “We have a worthy and exciting show on our hands. Now we need to find somewhere we can share it with people in a way that we can keep the magic intact — which is a great challenge to have.”

Covert is also gearing up for a Ralph’s World concert at the Old Town School Of Folk Music on April 22nd. “The Old Town School is where this started, with me, when I was doing ‘Wiggleworms’ before ‘Ralph’s World.’ It’s one of the most magical shows we do, because we get a chance to go back and stand on the stage where it all started.”

ODDS N SODS: Look for Sean “Diddy” Combs and Comcast to launch a new TV channel “influenced by the nonstop chatter of social networking” called Revolt next year. Magic Johnson and filmmaker Robert Rodriguez also have channels in the works . . . Robert Feder’s Time Out Chicago piece about radio’s irrelevance on the night of Whitney’s Houston’s untimely death was spot-on . . . RIP Chicago News Cooperative: we’ll miss you — really . . . We can’t decide whether we love or hate WGN Morning News’ brilliant (yet so wrong) “Eddie & JoBo” bits featuring Mike Toomey and Jeff Hoover . . . Anyone else underwhelmed by the new Trop-rock college radio format, which features acts like Jimmy Buffett and Bob Marley? Decide for yourself at lewisu.edu/wlra/index.htm.

– Cara Jepsen

This version of the story has been updated since it was originally posted.

Scott Lucas is best known as the singer/guitarist for the two-man, Chicago rock band Local H. But recently, he has broadened his musical scope and greatly expanded his lineup, pulling together a collective of musicians — The Married Men — that currently numbers seven and includes violin, accordion, and organ. The result is quite different than Local H and a perfect fit for Lucas’ more personal, introspective songs. Reviewers have compared the band to American Music Club, The Waterboys, and Lambchop. Lucas calls the group’s evolving sound, “country-ish alt-rock for people who like metal.”

As they did with their first two releases, the Married Men engaged Andy Gerber (Smoking Popes, The Tossers, The Effigies) to produce their new LP, Blood Half Moon (due June 5th), and recorded it in their native Chicago. But instead of working exclusively in Gerber’s Million Yen Studios, they laid down the bulk of the record at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio, bringing in engineer Greg Norman (Neurosis, Pinebender, Russian Circles) to assist. And, to infuse just the right amount of heaviness, they turned to metal guru Sanford Parker (Yakuza, Pelican, Bloodiest) to mix it.

Kevin Lee & The Kings recorded basic tracks for a new album at Rax Trax in Chicago with producer Todd Jones and engineer Rick Barnes.

Originally released in 1971, Poems, Prayers & Promises introduced John Denver’s iconic songs, “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and “Sunshine On My Shoulders.” It is now the third in a series of vinyl releases from Daytrotter, the only physical products in the site’s six-year history. Daytrotter is the popular website best known for their live sessions recorded at The Horseshack studio in downtown Rock Island.

The Poems, Prayers & Promises 40th Anniversary Edition will be released on April 3rd on limited-edition vinyl with new Daytrotter artwork by Johnnie Cluney. Digitally remastered from the original recordings, the album will also be available for download at digital retailers worldwide via Sony Legacy.

Mud Morganfield, the eldest son of Muddy Waters, came onto the Chicago blues scene scene nearly five years ago. His closeness to his father in voice, appearance, and mannerisms are inmpressive. Severn Records released Son Of The Seventh Son, Morganfield’s first national release last month. The CD, produced by Bob Corritore, features a great backing band consisting of Rick Kreher, Billy Flynn, Barrelhouse Chuck, E.G. McDaniel, Kenny Smith, and Harmonica Hinds and Corritore switching off on the harmonica chores

Mat Lejeune just completed recording and mixing the debut EP for talented young singer/songwriter Evan Meador. The EP was tracked and mixed at CRC’ CHicago in Studio Four. Dave McNair at Sterling sound will be handling the mastering duties . . . Lejeune wwas also recording vocals at CRC’s newly renovated 5.1 mix suite Studio 12, with Damon Ranger, frontman of Blackbox . . . Lejeune entered the final stages of overdubbing at The I.V. Lab with Chicago mainstays Cyclesomething.

Hey Studiophiler: To get your studio or band listed in “Studiophile,” just e-mail info on who you’re recording or who’s recording you to ed [at] illinoisentertainer.com, subject Studiophile, or fax (773) 751-5051. We reserve the right to edit submissions for space. Deadline for May 2012 issue is April 15th. After you mail your taxes, send us your news. We need your news, you need us to print it.