Van Ghost Opens for Dirty Dozen Brass Band at Bottom Lounge #OriginalPhotos

We've shot Chicago's own Van Ghost a number of times over the years at North Coast, Summer Camp Music Fest and all over Chi-town.  Jennifer Hartswick (Trey Anastasio Band) is a force to reckon with on vocals and trumpet and  trombonist/vocalist Natalie Cressman.   The women in the band truly shine.

They even did a Fitz and The Tantrums cover justice.   It was great to see them open for Dirty Dozen Brass Band, a true treat to catch live in the intimacy of Bottom Lounge.   A guest appearance by The Heard's sax player, Lucas Ellman, made the night even more memorable.  

Their music was the perfect accompaniment to the moody rain, outside of Bottom Lounge.

*Click here to check out some of our past Van Ghost Coverage including live show photos.*

*Click here to check out some of our past original photo features on The Heard.*

Photo Credit:  Bonnie Kenaz-Mara for ChiIL Live Shows.  9/1/2013 Bottom Lounge.  Van Ghost Opens for Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

More on Van Ghost

Michael Harrison Berg of Van Ghost was a musician in high school, but as an adult swapped his onstage pursuits for backstage ones. For over 10 years the Chicagoan has been managing bands and promoting concerts like the North Coast Music Fest and Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Fest rather than making music. But when a band he poured time and money into imploded, he sought solace in songwriting and awoke the musician within.

In mid-July, Van Ghost will release The Domino Effect (Dustimmoff Music), a focused pop-rock album with smart hooks, cocksure classic rock swagger, and refreshingly optimistic lyrics. In addition to singer-songwriter/guitarist / founder Michael Harris Berg, Van Ghost features the talents of decade-plus Trey Anastasio Band vocalist Jennifer Hartswick, who has shared the stage with Herbie Hancock, the Rolling Stones, Dave Matthews Band, among others. The sympathetic interplay between her silk and sandpaper vocals intertwining with Berg’s folksy emotive lead vocals has become a staple of Van Ghosts sound, garnering favorable comparisons to CSNY (Flavorpill).  The band also features the telepathic interplay of guitarist Grant Tye, drummer Greg Marsh, and Klem Hayes. The Chicago Tribune has described Van Ghost as, “an ultra-melodic take on epic ’70s rock — augmenting the group’s smooth vocal harmonies with blissed-out guitar solos.”

The Domino Effect is produced by Justin Niebank, a GRAMMY-award-winning producer who has worked with Eric Clapton, Bon Jovi, Blue Traveler, and a veritable who’s who of contemporary Nashville chart toppers.  Niebank’s sterling production aesthetic streamlined Van Ghost’s innate pop sensibilities while preserving its classic rock patina.

Album standouts are the euphorically uplifting title-track “The Domino Effect” and the empowering soulful pop of “Cage.” Van Ghost is currently prepping videos for both songs with Ian Gelfand (director of the TV series “American Pickers”), and ‘Cage’ is currently in the Top 100 at Triple A Radio. The track bursts with Berg’s unflinchingly positive message: Cause the door door door it’s wide wide wide/ it’s open like a long midnight/and lock lock lock is broken like my brain/and there ain’t no bars in front of my face/arms wide open, magical place/let me out of this, let me out of this cage/let me out of this. These uptempo tracks contrast with the shimmering Hartswick-penned ballad “Drowning”’ and the haunting beauty of “White Lies,” a cosmic slice of Pink Floyd-transcendence with teardrop guitar solos.

Van Ghost built an impressive local profile through a tireless work ethic and the broad appeal of their infectious hooks and burly musicianship. They’ve amassed a devoted local following opening for diverse artists like Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero’s, Drive By Truckers, Grace Potter, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, John Oates, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and Tim Reynolds.

“I didn’t plan my future,” Berg says of the surprise turn his music business career has taken after those initial private and therapeutic songwriting sessions.  “I found inspiration in writing a song and I took that inspiration and multiplied it. I found I could deal with demons through music.” Berg has found that he is as comfortable operating under the spotlight as he is behind the curtain. With Van Ghost, he sets out to inspire music fans the same way other artists have inspired him – one song at a time.

Van Ghost is:

• Michael Harrison Berg  – vocals, guitars
• Jennifer Hartswick – vocals
• Grant Tye – guitar
• Greg Marsh – drums
• Klem Hayes – bass

Dirty Dozen Brass Band & Van Ghost at Bottom Lounge #OriginalPhotos #NCMF

Dirty Dozen Brass Band:

We've shot North Coast Music Festival every year since its inception. 

This year it was our pleasure to shoot Dirty Dozen Brass Band, a true treat to catch live in the intimacy of Bottom Lounge, as one of the NCMF official aftershows.   

To describe how the Dirty Dozen Brass Band has arrived at its 35th Anniversary, trumpet player Gregory Davis employs a tried-and true New Orleans-centric analogy: “It ends up being like a pot of gumbo – you drop in a little okra, drop in a little shrimp, you drop in some crabs. Before you know it, you’ve mixed in all these different ingredients and you’ve got a beautiful soup. That was our approach to music early on and it still is today.”

Baritone sax player Roger Lewis — who, like Davis, has been with the combo since its inception in 1977 — echoes that sentiment: “It’s a big old musical gumbo, and that probably made the difference, separating us from other brass bands out of New Orleans. It put a different twist on the music. We were not trying to change anything, we were just playing the music we wanted to play and not stay in one particular bag.”

An appetite for musicological adventure, a commitment to honor tradition while not being constrained by it, and a healthy sense of humor have brought the world-traveling Dirty Dozen Brass Band to this remarkable juncture in an already storied career. To celebrate its 35th, the band is releasing Twenty Dozen, the septet’s first studio release in six years. The new album, cut at the Music Shed in New Orleans, reunites the band with producer Scott Billington, who helmed DDBB’s first major-label release, Voodoo, in 1989. It’s a resolutely upbeat effort that seamlessly blends R&B, jazz, funk, Afro-Latino grooves, some Caribbean flavor, and even a Rihanna cover. Twenty Dozen mirrors in flow and feel a vibrant DDBB live set. The disc reaches an exuberant peak with a medley of New Orleans staples, including a particularly high-spirited rendering of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” The final track – or, as Lewis puts it, “the after-party” – is an audience encore favorite, the ribald “Dirty Old Man,” with Lewis doing an outstanding job in the title role. Twenty Dozen, says Lewis, is “classic Dirty Dozen. It’s got something for your mind, body, and soul. We’re gonna get you one way or another.”

Twenty Dozen is also very much a group effort, with each of the members – Davis, Lewis, tenor-sax man Kevin Harris, trumpeter Efrem Towns, sousaphonist Kirk Joseph, drummer Terence Higgins and guitarist Jake Eckert — bringing original compositions or arrangement ideas to the sessions. It kicks off with the light-hearted funk of “Tomorrow,” segues into the jazzier “Jook” then heads into the party-hearty island groove of “Best Of All.” Billington suggested DDBB cover Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop the Music,” and the group’s reinterpretation is as ingenious as it is fun. The tough, seventies-style soul of “We Gon’ Roll” supplies the most serious moment, as composer Higgins pays tribute to the indomitable nature of his fellow NOLA residents. As Davis – whose own “Git Up” is a smoking jazz workout — explains, “Just about everybody had a song or something they wanted to contribute. As we started to record the songs and listen to them, each song seemed to fit not just with the character of the individuals who wrote them but the character of the band. We are the Dirty Dozen and it’s the overall character of the band that makes the live show work –and that makes this record work. Had we planned to make a certain kind of record, it might not have come out like that. In letting the guys’ voices speak and come out on their own, the album turned out this way.”

The traditional numbers at the tail end of Twenty Dozen serve as a reminder of how the group, since the beginning, has tried to reinvigorate the standards and build a bridge between old and new. Says Davis, “Over the last few years we have been doing a medley that has included ‘Paul Barbarin’s Second Line,’ ‘E Flat Blues’ and ‘Saints.’ It had been going over so well that we thought maybe we needed to capture the spirit of what we’re doing with this medley and put it on a record. ‘Saints’ is one of the most requested songs we do and you have to face the challenge of playing that song so many times. But once you get that started and see the smiles on people’s faces and they start dancing to it, it makes you want to do it a little bit more. In the studio, I was envisioning different scenes from our audiences. I’d remember the reaction I would get attempting to get people up to dance, to do certain steps and follow me. It made it so much fun to remember the faces, the smiles, the body movements of the people. To get them up, to get them sweating — it’s always a pleasure.” Listening to this new “Saints” rendition on disc has the same effect: it’s impossible to remain in your easy chair. Davis considers this and, laughing, imagines a new opportunity for the band: ““Maybe we need to sell this as a work-out CD.”

While traditional numbers infused with a DDBB flavor have always been crowd-pleasing staples of the group’s repertoire, it’s the Dirty Dozen Brass Band’s willingness to look beyond the New Orleans songbook and find connections amongst a wider range of music that has endeared them to critics, fellow musicians and a multi-generational, global audience. They’ve been embraced enthusiastically by the jam-band followers at Bonnaroo as well as by the devotees who flock to the yearly New Orleans Jazz Fest. Acts like the Black Crowes and Widespread Panic have taken them on tour and artists from Dizzy Gillespie to Elvis Costello to Norah Jones have joined them in the studio. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, DDBB participated in the From the Big Apple to the Big Easy benefit at New York City’s Madison Square Garden and offered its own response to the aftermath of the disaster with an acclaimed 2006 song-by-song remake of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. Their music has been featured on the HBO series, Treme, named after the New Orleans mid-city neighborhood where the band had formed, and the group performed on screen with Galactic and rapper Juvenile in Season 2. New Orleans remains a wellspring of musical inspiration and DDBB is a living, breathing embodiment of the continued vitality and evolution of the sounds of the city.

But, Davis cautions, “We’ve never been the norm, even though we started out as a traditional New Orleans brass band. In the beginning we weren’t getting work of any kind, so we thought it was okay to explore other music. That allowed us as individuals to bring ourselves into the rehearsals and that’s where we started to experiment. At the time the band started, I was a student at Loyola University and we were all being introduced to other music – to jazz from the twentieth century and so on. It’s impossible to think that you can be exposed to the harmonies that Duke Ellington was making, the rhythms coming from Dizzy Gillespie or the funk being done by James Brown, and then ignore it when you’re playing New Orleans music. New Orleans music is all of that. If we had chosen to just put in the music presented to us then as traditional, it would have stunted our growth. Being more than what we heard is what the band was about. "

DDBB enjoyed the opportunity to look back with the 2011 reissue of it galvanizing 1984 debut, My Feet Can’t Fail Me Now, but the hard-working band has little time for nostalgia. For mainstays like Davis and Lewis, 35 years have passed in the blink of an eye, as Lewis, who also sits in with several other NOLA combos, acknowledges: “Check it out – I’m 70 years old, I’m the oldest dude in the band – I’m the oldest dude in everybody’s band, now that I think about it. I don’t know where the time went. I guess it’s just the music, man, you don’t be thinking about all that. I’ve been in it 35 straight years. The reason why the band stayed together for so long, despite all we’ve gone through, it’s the right chemistry. We’re trying to make it do what it do. If we have this conversation when I’m 80, we’ll still be trying to make it do what it do.”

“As we continue to do live shows,” Davis concludes, “the challenge is still going to be, how am I going to entertain these people that are in front of me tonight? You have to make that happen at the moment, and that’s what we do best.”

– Michael Hill

Photo Credit:  Bonnie Kenaz-Mara for ChiIL Live Shows.

Members of Van Ghost & Dirty Dozen Brass Band jam together at Bottom Lounge, Chicago

Check out more of our favorite original shots from that night below:

NCMF Ticket Winners Announced - Dirty Dozen Brass Band/ Van Ghost- Did YOU Win?

Congrats to ChiIL Live Shows' ticket winners out of 105 entries.   All 3 of you won a pair of tickets to Dirty Dozen Brass Band/ Van Ghost at Bottom Lounge this Sunday--doors at 10pm. Your names will be on the guest list at the door for this official North Coast Music Fest after show.   Click here for full show details.   

• Tim W.
• Blythe B.
• Sherry C.

Check your in box.   We will private e-mail winners today.   Please E-mail us at zbluesun@gmail.com to confirm you got the word about your win.

Didn't win this time?   Tickets are still available for purchase.   Show is 17+.

Enjoy!

FLASH GIVEAWAY-- 3 FREE Pairs of Tickets To Dirty Dozen Brass Band & Van Ghost at Bottom Lounge THIS Sunday #NCMF13

ChiIL out with ChiIL Live Shows and enter here through midnight TONIGHT 8/29 to win a pair of tickets to this official North Coast Music Fest after show!  (3 pairs available/ $24 value each). 17+
Click the Rafflecopter link below to enter.   

**a Rafflecopter giveaway**

Disclosure:  Thanks to NCMF and Bottom Lounge for kicking us review & giveaway tickets for our readers. 

Bottom Lounge

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band
featuring Van Ghost

Sunday, Sep 01, 2013 10:00 PM CDT 
Bottom Lounge, Chicago, IL
17 years and over

Call me old school, but I still dig bands that play INSTRUMENTS, and Dirty Dozen Brass Band can PLAY.   Don't get me wrong, I do my best work on a silver Macbook Pro.   And I've got nothing against DJs.   Still, there's nothing like some down n dirty R&B and New Orleans brass to get your groove on to!

Whether you scored tickets to the sold out North Coast Music Festival or not, anyone can go to the after shows.   And even better, ChiIL Live Shows can get you there for FREE!   We're your music source in Chi, IL and beyond.   

Check back with ChiIL Live Shows like we vote in Chi, IL... early and often for great giveaways, free downloads, original content video band interviews, pit photos, tour coverage, music reviews and more.

*Click here for some of our past original photo filled coverage on local Chicago favs, Van Ghost.

*Click here to check out Dirty Dozen Brass Band via their YouTube Channel.

To describe how the Dirty Dozen Brass Band has arrived at its 35th Anniversary, trumpet player Gregory Davis employs a tried-and true New Orleans-centric analogy: “It ends up being like a pot of gumbo – you drop in a little okra, drop in a little shrimp, you drop in some crabs. Before you know it, you’ve mixed in all these different ingredients and you’ve got a beautiful soup. That was our approach to music early on and it still is today.”

Baritone sax player Roger Lewis — who, like Davis, has been with the combo since its inception in 1977 — echoes that sentiment: “It’s a big old musical gumbo, and that probably made the difference, separating us from other brass bands out of New Orleans. It put a different twist on the music. We were not trying to change anything, we were just playing the music we wanted to play and not stay in one particular bag.”

An appetite for musicological adventure, a commitment to honor tradition while not being constrained by it, and a healthy sense of humor have brought the world-traveling Dirty Dozen Brass Band to this remarkable juncture in an already storied career. To celebrate its 35th, the band is releasing Twenty Dozen, the septet’s first studio release in six years. The new album, cut at the Music Shed in New Orleans, reunites the band with producer Scott Billington, who helmed DDBB’s first major-label release, Voodoo, in 1989. 

It’s a resolutely upbeat effort that seamlessly blends R&B, jazz, funk, Afro-Latino grooves, some Caribbean flavor, and even a Rihanna cover. Twenty Dozen mirrors in flow and feel a vibrant DDBB live set. The disc reaches an exuberant peak with a medley of New Orleans staples, including a particularly high-spirited rendering of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” The final track – or, as Lewis puts it, “the after-party” – is an audience encore favorite, the ribald “Dirty Old Man,” with Lewis doing an outstanding job in the title role. 

Twenty Dozen, says Lewis, is “classic Dirty Dozen. It’s got something for your mind, body, and soul. We’re gonna get you one way or another.”

Disclosure:  Thanks again to NCMF and Bottom Lounge for kicking us review & giveaway tickets for our readers. 

Also check out these Fri/Sat night NCMF after shows at Bottom Lounge:

CHI, IL LIVE SHOWS ON OUR RADAR: Red Wanting Blue & Van Ghost at Lincoln Hall on 2/1

Just a reminder that Red Wanting Blue will be in Chicago on 2/1 at Lincoln Hall with local Chi town favs Van Ghost opening.

Red Wanting Blue

Van Ghost

Poor Young Things

$15.00

Friday, February 01 2013

8:30 PM | 18+

ChiIL Live Shows has shot Van Ghost a zillion times over the years, everywhere from Summer Camp Music Festival, to Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Fest, Northcoast Music Fest, The House of Blues and local street fests.   

ChiIL out with some of ChiIL Live Shows past Van Ghost show shots here.

More on Red Wanting Blue

Check out their recent features with Chicago friends at WBEZ and Audiotree:

• WBEZ
• Audiotree

 They've also been rockin' the national scene:

Late Show with David Letterman 

• Daytrotter 
• NPR’s Mountain Stage 

Want more info?   Check out Red Wanting Blue's main site here.

Greensky Bluegrass & Van Ghost (solo) This Sat At The Abby

Greensky Bluegrass

Van Ghost (Solo)

Sat, September 8, 2012

Doors: 8:00 pm / Show: 9:00 pm

The Abbey Pub

$15.00 - $18.00

TICKETS

This event is 21 and over

**ChiIL Live Shows will be there to shoot this Saturday after we catch Mathien's early set at Reggies at 7PM!   Can't wait to see Greensky Bluegrass tear it up at The Abby!    Icing on the cake--Van Ghost (Solo) is opening.    Check out our Van Ghost live show shots from North Coast Music Fest 2012.**

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Greensky Bluegrass

• Watch
• Listen
• Links

"Greensky Bluegrass hits timeless targets with deadly accuracy while simultaneously veering off the tired and true highway."-Jambase.com 

If you're familiar with bluegrass music, then you're tuned in to some of what Greensky Bluegrass does. They're also known to throw a great party, rock n roll, and (if the critics are to be believed) they have great songs. They are unquestionably a team of friends that traverse the country making music they enjoy. What makes Greensky different than Bluegrass? Poignant rural ballads about real people? Dobro tone that Jerry (Douglas or Garcia) would love? Distortion Pedals? Grit and attitude from a whiskey soaked card game? Indeed, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

This quintet from Michigan has been staying up late at all the coolest festivals and stopping to play your favorite clubs and theaters across America for 11 years now. Nearly 175 shows per year has prepared them for the rigorous task of continuity. Greensky Bluegrass isn't slowing down. "They're coming to your town to help you party down." Yeah. Really. Like you never thought possible.

At the start of the millenium,some of these guys met, then they met more guys. They thought Greensky was a clever name for a bluegrass band. Fast forward to 2011 when they recorded their fourth studio record, called Handguns. Among them, words like, "proud," "killer," and "damn right!" have been spoken in regards to the music of Handguns.

While they all may be accurate, we hope you'll find far more than you expected, hell - even more than we expected contained in this piece work that may well come to define one of 21st Century America's hardest working musical ensembles.

Greensky Bluegrass is Anders Beck (dobro), Michael Arlen Bont (banjo), Dave Bruzza (guitar), Mike Devol (upright bass) and Paul Hoffman (mandolin).

Van Ghost (Solo)

• Links

For nearly a decade Michael Harrison Berg of Van Ghost was a behind the scenes type of guy. Having poured his energy into his ventures as a concert promoter and band manager, little was left over for personal creative endeavors.

That all changed in 2007 when Berg's close friends encouraged him to revisit the acoustic guitar he put down in his younger days and asked him to perform a song at their wedding. Melding the inspiration from the many talented bands he has worked with and his own passion for music, the singer returned to his roots. He began writing songs, drawing from his life experiences, creating a heartfelt and staggeringly honest perspective. After building up a solid repertoire of folk ballads, gritty Americana tunes and classic rock laced jams, Berg assembled an all-star cast of musicians and named the project Van Ghost.

With an exquisite 6 piece band flavored with pedal steel and psychedelic guitars, an earth shattering rhythm section, and haunting guy/girl harmonies, the band played it's debut show before a packed audience at Chicago's revered Metro in January 2008. It was an auspicious beginning for one of Chicago's most promising new acts.

Following up their debut record, "Melodies For Lovers", on Split Red Records, the band headed down to Nashville, TN to begin the tracking of their next release. With 2009 Grammy award winning Producer/Engineer/Mixer, Justin Niebank at the helm the bands sound continues to develop and expand. Berg has established that he is as comfortable operating under the spotlight as he is behind the curtain. 

With Van Ghost he sets out to inspire music fans the same as other artists have inspired him - one song at a time.

Count Down To SCamp-Chi-Town Favs

ChiIL Live Shows original shots of Cornmeal's late night set at Summer Camp 2011

*Cornmeal Summer Camp Sets Thurs 9:30pm, Fri 6pm, Sat 2:30 all on the Sunshine Stage

Tomorrow's pre-party day at Summer Camp Music Fest and we'll be there to bring the whole "four day weekend" to you in all it's colorful glory!    Here's a final few of our Chi-Town favs to look out for.   Look for our earlier pre-fest features on the following:

Midwest Hype, Van Ghost

Click here for set times, band bios, video clips and more

Chi-Town Bands Rock:

JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound , Mathien, Indigosun, Cornmeal, Sexfist, Henhouse Prowlers, This Must Be The Band, Jaik Willis, Greensky Bluegrass,  Future Rock, Common, Chicago Farmer.

Highly Recommended:

*JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound

Summer Camp Set Sat 1:30-Starshine Stage

*Mathien
Summer Camp Set Friday 9-10pm at E. Camping Stage 
 
We're working on setting up an interview with Mathien.   Although we haven't heard them live we have it on good authority they're ones to watch. 

 

The nucleus of the band was formed at Southern Illinois University Carbondale around the magnetic personality of singer/songwriter/guitarist Chris Mathien. Bassist Mike Schiff and drummer Aaron Bouslog were initially drawn to Mathien’s sharply observed lyrics and eclectic musical influences. After signing with Midwest Music Group, relocating to Chicago and releasing their debut “Hello Again” the band took to the road and became a formidable live act selling out venues in Chicago and throughout the Midwest. 

In the fall of 2010 with the addition of keyboardist Peter Wilkins the band returned to the studio to begin work on their latest release “The Night I was an Alpha Male”. The album is available in CD format through the band’s official website here.

SCamp Countdown-Van Ghost @SummerCampFest

 Summer Camp Music Fest:
*Van Ghost is playing this Thursday 5-6pm & Friday 4:30-5:30pm at the Starshine Stage both days.* 

ChiIL Live Shows has shot Van Ghost at so many great shows over the past year.   They're a lot of fun to see live, especially when they jam out with major players like Allie Kral from Cornmeal.   Even on their Allie free gigs, they're worth a listen, just to see uber talented Jennifer Hartswick (Trey Anastasio Band)!   


Here at ChiIL Live Shows/ChiIL Mama, we gave away free tixs to their House of Blues gig and to Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Fest, where they played The Congress Theatre.   We also gave away free tickets to Northcoast Music Fest where they rocked the stage and we got more smokin' shots.   We recommend checkin' em out at Summer Camp this weekend.

Download their EP right HERE for free

Click the links below for more ChiIL Live Shows' Van Ghost Shots

◦    Allie Kral LIVE at Summer Camp 2011 
◦  Van Ghost-Mellow Yellow Monday HOB Feature

Here's their bio from the Summer Camp site:

ARTIST WEBSITE

With an exquisite 5 piece band flavored with psychedelic guitars, an earth shattering rhythm section, & haunting guy/girl harmonies, the band played it’s debut show before a packed audience at Chicago’s revered Metro in January 2008. It was an auspicious beginning for one of world’s most promising new acts.

For nearly a decade Michael Harrison Berg of Van Ghost was a behind the scenes type of guy. Having poured his energy into his ventures as a concert promoter and band manager, little was left over for personal creative endeavors.

That all changed in 2007 when Berg’s close friends encouraged him to revisit the acoustic guitar he put down in his younger days and asked him to perform a song at their wedding. Melding the inspiration from the many talented bands he has worked with and his own passion for music, the singer returned to his roots. He began writing songs, drawing from his life experiences, creating a heartfelt and staggeringly honest perspective. After building up a solid repertoire of poppy folk ballads, gritty Americana tunes and classic rock laced jams, Berg called on his dear friend Jennifer Hartswick (Trey Anastasio Band), and they collectively assembled an all-star cast of musicians and named the project Van Ghost.

With an exquisite 5 piece band flavored with psychedelic guitars, an earth shattering rhythm section, & haunting guy/girl harmonies, the band played it’s debut show before a packed audience at Chicago’s revered Metro in January 2008. It was an auspicious beginning for one of world’s most promising new acts.

Following up their debut record, “Melodies For Lovers”, on Split Red Records, the band headed down to Nashville, TN to begin the tracking of their next release “The Domino Effect” for Dustimmoff Records (a start up label with Split Red owner Timm Martin & 8 time Grammy winning Producer/Engineer/Mixer Justin Niebank). With Justin Niebank at the helm the bands sound continues to develop and expand. Berg has established that he is as comfortable operating under the spotlight as he is behind the curtain. With Van Ghost, he sets out to inspire music fans the same as other artists have inspired him – one song at a time.