17 Hippies preview

17 Hippies
World Music Festival, Chicago
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007

17 Hippies are sort of liars, or maybe more like embellishers. They aren’t really hippies, first off, and there aren’t really 17 people in the band. Only 13, actually.

Thirteen musicians might not be that big of a deal compared to, say, Polyphonic Spree’s 20-something, but compared to The White Stripes it’s a friggen’ army, ain’t it? While it is certainly interesting, the quantity of musicians in this Berlin-based outfit isn’t as much a story as the concept behind their formation in the mid ’90s. As the tale goes, original quintet Christopher Blenkinsop, Kiki Sauer, Lüül, Dirk Trageser, and Antje Henkel decided they wanted to do things differently, and started by playing different instruments. Each decided to throw the instrument they had been playing for years to the curb and instead chose something they “thought would be fun.” As years passed, numbers grew, and with each new member came a new instrument. On the band’s most recent, Heimlich (Hipster), double-bass, Jews harp, Irish bouzouki, santur, and the euphonium are just a few noisemakers (along with the usuals like clarinet, violin, cello, etc.) the Hippies employ to create their globe-trotting brand of folk that touches down in French, Romanian, German, and English territories.

Sunday night 17 Hippies play Hideout, and Tuesday, the group perform a free show at the Daley Center at noon.

– Trevor Fisher

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly