Pages

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

INCOMING: Dunn Dunn Fest #2 THIS Weekend

Harmonica Dunn’s Dunn Dunn Fest 
is Back THIS Weekend!

You might be done done with Winter madness, but a bit of Dunn Dunn Fest will have you grinnin' again.  We've marked ChiIL Live Shows' must sees below.




DUNN DUNN FEST – 2014 - “3 Nights. 4 Venues. Celebrating American Music”
Dunn Dunn Fest 2013 was such a great success, that they're back at it again this year.
Over 700 people attended the inaugural Dunn Dunn Fest! 
A limited amount of 3-Day passes are now on sale for only $30! Save $20 and gain access to all 4 shows.

MOON TAXI will headline Dunn Dunn Fest 2014 on Saturday, February 22nd, 2014 at Subterranean.

VENUES & DATES:
Thursday, February 20th, 2014 at Tonic Room w/ TRISTEN, CHICAGO FARMER, and RYAN JOSEPH ANDERSON
GET TICKETS
**ChiIL Picks List:  Friday, February 21st, 2014 at The Hideout w/ *MARTIN VAN RUIN, THE WHISKEY GENTRY, & MICHELE MCGUIRE

**ChiIL Picks List:  Friday, February 21st, 2014 at Beat Kitchen w/ the SOIL & the SUN*GREAT DIVIDE and SAFE HAVEN

Saturday, February 22nd, 2014 at Subterranean w/ MOON TAXI, DANIEL ELLSWORTH & THE GREAT LAKES and SANTAH | GET TICKETS 


Interested in volunteering with Dunn Dunn Fest?
Email harmonicadunn@gmail.com 


Click here for the full fest site.


Monthly Riot Act Media Roundup #MP3s #NewReleases #FreeStreaming

BEGINNING THIS MONTH, OUR FRIENDS OVER AT RIOT ACT ARE PSYCHED TO SEND A MONTHLY ROUNDUP OF THEIR ARTISTS' MP3S FOR OUR READERS. ENJOY!

The weather might be cold, snowy and sucktacular in much of the country right now, but here are some new tunes to brighten your grey day.   Remember, no matter how deeply you're buried in snow right now, we're more than half way to spring equinox.


Benjamin Verdoes
"Evil Eye" from The Evil Eye (Out now on Brick Lane Records): http://benjaminverdoes.com/track/evil-eye-2


The Caribbean
"Jobsworth" from Moon Sickness (out February 18th on Hometapes)


Cassorla
"Future One (Feat. Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes)" from the Amigos EP (out February 4th, self-release)





Cataldo
"In Now and Then" from Gilded Oldies (out March 4th on Red Pepper Records)



Christine Hoberg
"All That Hate" from World Within (Out on February 11th; self-released)



Colleens
"No Flowers" from Wild Dreams (out February 4th, self-released)





Jess Williamson
"Blood Song" from Native State (Out now on Brutal Honest)




Jessie Frye
"Dear" from Obsidian (out February 11th; self-released)



We've got two words for you... DOUBLE BANJO.

The Lowest Pair
"Living Is Dying" from 36 Cents (Out now on Team Love Records)



Mayors of Liberty
"When You Were Part of Me" from Dream On (Out February 11th on Brick Lane Records)


Potpourri of Pearls
"Sochi" (Special track for Olympics/Unreleased, out now)




Solander
"The Woods Are All Gone" from Monochromatic Memories (Out February 4th on A Tenderversion Recording)



Tom Brosseau
"Tami" from Grass Punks (Out now on Crossbill Records)


INCOMING: Jazz Showcase Weekend With 10 of Chicago's Best Jazz Players

Chi, IL live Shows on our Radar

Local alto saxophonist and composer Shawn Maxwell has an ambitious new project and accompanying album for 2014. Shawn Maxwell’s Alliance features ten of the city’s best jazz players, all of whom will assemble for a weekend of shows at Jazz Showcase, Thursday, Feb. 20 through Sunday, Feb. 23.

Click here for the full show details 





Monday, February 17, 2014

NEW RELEASES: MiWi La Lupa's Solo Debut New Way Home Out Now (Red Baraat) #FreeStreaming

ARTISTS ON OUR RADAR:

MiWi La Lupa
"Everybody's Fuckin' With Me" on New Way Home (Out now on Team Love Records)
https://soundcloud.com/teamlove/miwi-la-lupa-everybodys-fuckin

Here at ChiIL Live Shows we've enjoyed MiWi's talent for years, and we're so stoked about his new solo work. Check it out!

Click here for our past original MiWi La Lupa photo features on the Broadway Fela! tour and Red Baraat including our video interview with MiWi La Lupa!



Catch the whole album FREE streaming here.



Buffalo, New York. Hockey, the cold, the canal, the train yard, Rick James and Ani DiFranco, cheap dilapidated Victorians, potholes brimming with ice and slush . . .

Buffalo is a place where people grow up, and a place people sadly—but understandably—end up leaving in pursuit of their dreams. And it’s Buffalo where MiWi La Lupa started his musical adventure, as so many public school kids in America do, by picking a dented, smelly old instrument off the shelf in band class and giving it a go. MiWi picked the trombone. It fit—sort of. He started a band, Thought. Then he packed his bags.

MiWi made his way east, first to Rochester and the Eastman School of Music, trading in his trombone for a bass trumpet, before, like many musicians, continuing on down the Hudson and arriving in NYC in the summer of 2005. 

Once in the city things began to take off for MiWi, and he soon found himself performing with music greats like Les McCann, David Byrne, Bill Frisell, Femi Kuti, Charlie Hunter, and El-P. MiWi would also become an original member of the band Red Baraat, with whom he would go on to tour the world.

Be it the diversity of MiWi’s palate, his growth as a musician and experiences on the road, or his roots coming from a blue-collar corner of the country often passed over and left for dead by the chronologists of the musical cannon, MiWi’s endeavors were aligning, naturally, with the art of songwriting. Expression—of loss, desire, grief, forgiveness—and a growing need to examine, document, and articulate his life began to take over, and soon the seeds of MiWi’s first solo album were firmly planted.

New Way Home, MiWi’s debut album on Team Love, is the result of life taking an unexpected turn. With the help of Monica Frisell, the songs began to take shape in early 2013. As things developed, friends such as Joanna Warren, Conor Elmes, Curtis Fowlkes, Rob Jost, Mara Kaye, Natalie John, Timothy Allen, Bill Frisell, and Conor Oberst, all enthused at the sound, eagerly jumped in to lend a hand. New Way Home is a short, immediate, and catchy album, but its real magic lies in its ability to invoke a wide range of sonic diversity while not losing sight of its singular vision. 

A track like “Ashes To The Wind” invokes legendary bluesman Howlin’ Wolf, while “Here I Am” positions itself neatly between singer-songwriters like Ron Sexsmith and Stuart Murdoch. The album’s songs range from playfully vengeful (“Everybody’s Fuckin’ With Me”) to sorrowfully serious (“New Moon”). MiWi’s voice is frank, his phrasing crisp, his lyrics easy to grasp yet full of twists. The songs document a season in a life, offering empathy to the listener while asking for the same in return.

New Way Home was released on Team Love Records January 21, 2014.


LINKS:

Chicago's Own Jason Narducy Back With New Band Split Single #NewRelease #SXSW


SPLIT SINGLE ANNOUNCES THE RELEASE OF FRAGMENTED WORLD 4/1; ALBUM TRAILER, SXSW, RELEASE SHOW

“Watching Jason was the first time I thought I could start my own band, and write my own kind of music....Jason totally set my life in this new direction. It wasn’t a Jimmy Page or KISS poster I had – it was fuckin’ him!”-- Dave Grohl

“Jason’s been doin’ the rock since he was a snot-nosed little punk. And I can attest from his work with me on the road that he’s got it down. And it’s not going to stop any time soon.”-- Robert Pollard

“I’m used to hearing Jason making me sound better, but it’s funny and familiar as well to hear his voice standing out in front again. I’m a fan of Jason’s work – it’s classic late 20th-century pop music songwriting"--Bob Mould

“Jason is a fan of great songwriters like Pete Townshend, Lennon & McCartney, Bob Mould, Robert Pollard, and Strummer & Jones, so it would only be natural that he’d write such well-crafted, memorable pop songs.”-- Jon Wurster


“I’m always wearing so many hats, so I loved the idea of being in a band where all I do is play bass on someone else’s stuff. I felt like a session musician, which was so cool. Still, I got pretty in depth: there were no preconceptions, which is what collaboration is all about.”--Britt Daniel



Jason Narducy's epic career first started as a co-founder of Verböten – one of the seminal acts in the Chicago punk scene that produced groundbreaking bands like Naked Raygun and Big Black. Narducy then went on to become frontman/songwriter/guitarist for Verbow, another beloved Windy City outfit who signed a major-label deal with Epic/Sony during the ‘90s alt-rock bubble. He followed that up with an ongoing, nearly decade-long run as indie-rock’s secret weapon – serving as bassist and backing vocalist for indie-underground icons like Bob Mould, Robert Pollard, and Superchunk, as well as Seattle’s indie power-pop faves Telekinesis. 

Now, Narducy is returning to center stage as a bandleader with Fragmented World – the debut album from Split Single. A new project formed with fellow travelers Britt Daniel (Spoon, Divine Fits) on bass and drummer Jon Wurster (Superchunk, Mountain Goats, Bob Mould, Ben Gibbard, Robert Pollard), Split Single proves equal parts solo project and collective. The material on Fragmented World ultimately spans the breadth of Narducy’s history while artfully exploring a gamut of styles and emotions in ways he’s never approached before.

Photo Credit:  Marina Chavez

Split Single will be touring on this album, and Jason will be at SXSW (with touring band Ben Trokan of Reigning Sound and Tim Remis). The band's record release will be in Chicago at Schubas on April 5th. 

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

NEW RELEASES: Simone Felice Molly-O MP3

ARTISTS ON OUR RADAR:

Simone Felice
"Molly-O" from Strangers (Out March 25th on Dualtone)

Simone Felice is a founding member (lyricist, vocalist, drummer and guitarist) of internationally acclaimed, Catskill Mountain-based artists The Felice Brothers and The Duke & The King. He has toured and worked with the likes as The Band’s Levon Helm, Conor Oberst & Bright Eyes, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, The Lumineers, Mumford & Sons, Rick Rubin, The Avett Brothers, and Old Crow Medicine Show.


In 2010 Simone underwent emergency open-heart surgery to correct the slow, degenerative effects of a childhood fever. It was this close brush with death, coupled with the need to tell his own story, which prompted him to walk the solo artist’s path.

His new full-length album, Strangers, is a ten song collection recorded in the Catskills with guest artists The Felice Brothers, Leah Siegel, and Wesley Schultz & Jeremiah Fraites of The Lumineers. Here is an effort that truly captures Simone’s rare gift as a poet, song-crafter and unique visionary.


Strangers is March 25th, 2014 on Dualtone Records

“Each song somehow sounds like a classic, each live performance suggesting we are in the presence of a rare, fiery brilliance.” The Guardian

“Often times the word ‘poet’ is casually assigned to a songwriter, and all too often it is not true. Simone Felice is a poet to the core.” Wesley Schultz of The Lumineers

“Dylan and Leonard Cohen are brought to mind, such is the depth of emotion wrought by Felice’s careful approach… Shows the power of music to lift your spirits and make your heart full – absolutely fantastic.” BBC

“The most unique person I know in the world, incredible charisma. He sees things in a way that nobody else sees them, which is why his music is beautiful.” Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons

“Nothing shackles Felice.” Mojo

“There is a boldness to Simone’s writing, the fierceness and fearlessness of complete honesty that pushes into places that simply take the breath away…some of his songs are so perfectly formed they sound like they might have been around forever… the best I have heard in a while, touching the hem of Dylan by way of Gordon Lightfoot…These songs are good enough to be sung by the whole world” The Telegraph

“Brilliant.” The Boston Globe

“Spellbinding.” UNCUT


* BIO *
Simone Felice is a celebrated songwriter, author, and poet. He was born on 4 October 1976 in Palenville, New York, a small working-class hamlet in the Catskill Mountains.

At the age of twelve Simone suffered a brain aneurysm and was pronounced clinically dead for several minutes. Recovering from emergency brain surgery in a local hospital, he spent two months in intensive care, relearning basic motor skills, including reading and writing.
When he was fifteen he formed a punk band with friends, making weird noise-rock in his grandpa’s barn. Their emphasis was on head-banging and freaky storytelling. By eighteen, he had quit school to panhandle and play bars and low down clubs, including New York City’s fabled CBGB.

It was around this time that Felice began writing poetry and vignettes, eventually leading to the publication of his first collection, The Picture Show, when he was twenty-two years old. He began performing these bizarre monologues regularly at the historic Nuyorican Poets Café in New York’s lower east side, garnering the young poet invitations to read in London, Harvard University, San Francisco and Berlin.

In 2004 and then 2005 Simone’s first works of short fiction were published: Goodbye Amelia, a coming of age story about a small-town girl with secrets to keep and a hunger to see the world, and Hail Mary Full of Holes, a fable noir about a runaway prostitute lost in the dawn of the Reagan era.

In the Fall of 2001, just after the attacks on New York City, Simone began writing songs with his brother Ian. Together they retreated to the woods they grew up in where, jobless with a cheap guitar, they wrote and made recordings (two collections know as The Big Empty and Mexico) with their friend Doc Brown. In this manner the two brothers clocked five years in complete obscurity, sewing the seeds of what would become (with the edition of their younger brother James in the Winter of 2006) The Felice Brothers, whose subsequent albums Through These Reigns And GoneTonight at the ArizonaThe Felice Brothers, and Yonder is the Clock have garnered international praise, earning these Upstate New York natives an inarguable place in the Great American Songbook. Over the group’s early history, from starting out playing New York’s subways and streets, to Radio City Music Hall and beyond, brother Simone has been one of it’s key lyricists and arrangers, co-writing some of the boys’ most beloved songs, including Don’t Wake The Scarecrow, Frankie’s Gun, Run Chicken Run, Ruby Mae, Whiskey in My Whiskey, Love Me Tenderly, Hey Hey Revolver, Mercy, Wonderful Life, Your Belly In My Arms, The Devil Is Real, and Radio Song to name a few.

At the request of iconic record producer Rick Rubin (Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, Beastie Boys, Adele, et al), Simone flew to California in the late summer of 2008 to play drums on the Columbia Records release I and Love and You by The Avett Brothers. Lending his signature Catskill Mountain dirtbag swing to the Avett’s riveting songwriting and Rubin’s thoughtful production, Felice appears on some of the albums stand-out songs, including the title-track and lead single I and Love and You, which helped send the album to #1 in the Billboard folk charts

In the winter of 2009 personal tragedy reared its head when Simone and his long-time love lost their first child in a late-term miscarriage. It was then that he retreated to a cabin in the Catskill’s with old friend Bird and began writing and recording the songs that would (unknown to them at the time) become The Duke & The King’s album debut. Taking their name from the itinerant Shakespeare theatre grifters in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the project released its gripping Nothing Gold Can Stay in the Summer of 2009 to critical acclaim, being hailed as one of the most haunting and honest albums of the year. 2010′s followup Long Live The Duke & The King has been similarly praised.

Felice’s first novel, Black Jesus, was released by award-wining publisher Allen & Unwin (Atlantic Books/Faber&Faber) and Random House Germany. It tells the story of a young Marine shipped home to his nowhere town after being blinded in action by a homemade bomb, and the unexpected friendship he finds with a mysterious dancer who arrives one day fleeing darkness and violence of a different kind. Part love story, part protest of the broken promises lying at the heart of the American dream, Black Jesus is a passionate, twisted hymn to the marginalized and forgotten.

On 2 June 2010, after a series of fainting spells, Simone underwent emergency open-heart surgery at Albany Medical Center when doctors discovered that a childhood congenital disorder had left the thirty-three year old with an irreversible calcification of the aortic valve, leaving only 8% blood-flow to the body and brain. Just two weeks after the surgery he joined his brothers on stage at Pete Seeger’s annual Clearwater Festival to help rid their beloved Hudson River of industrial waste. The following month his daughter, Pearl Simone Felice was born, a healthy blue-eyed girl who came in a summer thunderstorm.

In the subsequent years following his operation and Pearl’s birth, with a new mechanical heart-valve ticking away the time, Felice did what it seems he’s always done: He wrote songs. With a renewed clarity and sense of purpose, Simone bent to his new work, leaving behind any past monikers, in search of something pure, something truly his own.

April 2012 saw the release of his self-titled debut solo album, featuring songs such as New York Times, You & I Belong,and Charade which have become staple highlights in his live appearances. Among other accolades, Nick Hasted of The Independent called the record: ‘A taut masterpiece of terrifying, exhilarating American tales.’

Simone’s new full-length album, Strangers, (due out March 2014) is a ten song collection recorded in the Catskills with guest artists The Felice Brothers, Leah Siegel, and Wesley Schultz & Jeremiah Fraites of The Lumineers. Here is an effort that truly captures Simone’s rare gift as a poet, his high song-craft and unique vision; an album certain to cement Felice’s place as one of the great songwriter-poets of his generation.

Recently Britain’s esteemed Guardian newspaper commissioned Felice to write a personal memoir on the subject of his near-death experiences, first as a young boy, then as a grown artist, and how these two odd brushes with ‘the other side’ have influenced his work. The piece begins with a lyric from The Wizard Of Oz:

I would not be just a nuthin’, My head all full of stuffin’, 
My heart all full of pain. 
I would dance and be merry, 
Life would be a ding-a-derry, 
If I only had a brain…

Simone lives less than a mile from the creek-house he was born in, and travels his own country and abroad sharing his songs and stories


Monday, February 3, 2014

INCOMING: The Black Angels LIVE at Park West THIS Wednesday & at Moogfest in April


Park West
8pm
18+

The Black Angels
with Roky Erickson and Golden Animals
February 5, 2014 8:00 PM
Door Open: 7:00 PM

TICKET PRICES CURRENTLY AVAILABLE
INDIVIDUAL: 
Ticket Price: $26.00
Fees: $7.61
Order fees: $3.00


RollingStone Premiere:
The Moog Sound Lab ft. The Black Angels

WATCH : THE BLACK ANGELS PERFORMING "DON'T PLAY WITH GUNS"
(CLICK BELOW)



In December, Moog Music partnered with Rolling Stone to premiere the next video in their Moog Sound Lab series with Austin-based quintet The Black Angels (Alex Maas - vocals, bass, organ, drone machine; Robert "Bob" Mustachio of The Warlocks standing in for band member Stephanie Bailey - drums, percussion; Kyle Hunt - keyboards, percussion, bass, guitar; Christian Bland - guitar, drone machine/organ; Jake Garcia - guitar, bass). Following 2010's acclaimed Phosphene Dream, the band stopped by the Moog Sound Lab to perform their new single "Don't Play with Guns" off their new album, Indigo Meadow. This LP marks The Black Angels' fourth full-length studio album, and their most revelatory song collection to date. 

Kyle Hunt of the Black Angels says of the Moog Sound Lab experience, "So glad we had time to swing by the Moog Sound Lab to record with nothing but Moog synthesizers!  We doubled some bass lines in the studio with a vintage Moog Prodigy (while recording Indigo Meadow). After playing through the Sub Phatty (in the Moog Sound Lab session) that day I realized that I could pull off some of the doubled bass lines with my left hand while playing the organ parts on my right hand. It was fun to strip away our "go to" guitars, organs and fuzz pedals and see what can happen when you explore analog synthesis with modern stability and patching!" 

The Moog Sound Lab is an original content media channel produced by Moog Music that invites artists and bands to perform in the Moog Music factory in Asheville, North Carolina. Armed with an unlimited supply of electronic instruments from Moog, musicians create a unique analog interpretation of their original material. The first half of the 2013 Moog Sound Lab series included Toro y Moi, Washed Out and Zola Jesus.  For behind the scenes photos of Moog Sound Lab session, visit www.facebook.com/moogsoundlab.

Moog Music is currently gearing up for Moogfest 2014, the annual festival created by Moog that celebrates the innovative spirit of its founder, Dr. Bob Moog. The iconic synthesizer manufacturer recently announced that the festival is returning as a 5-day event with a variety of activities, including daytime conferences and nighttime music showcases. Taking place April 23 - 27, 2014 in Asheville, North Carolina, the daytime presenters will include Laurie Anderson, Giorgio Moroder, film scorer/musician Cliff Martinez (Drive Soundtrack)  and other futurist thinkers.

Today Moogfest announced headliners including Electronic Music Pioneers KRAFTWERK 3-D to present 3 Concerts at Moogfest 2014 and a dance party featuring music super producer Nile Rodgers and his band CHIC plus more HERE. 70+ more artists to be announced - Sign up for the mailing list at Moogfest.com to keep up with breaking news, announcements and ticket information.

About Moog:
Moog Music is the leading producer of analog synthesizers in the world. The company and its customers carry on the legacy of its founder, electronic musical instrument pioneer, Dr. Bob Moog.  All of Moog’s instruments are hand built in its factory on the edge of downtown Asheville, NC.


Moog Sound Lab:  Website  |  Facebook 

Moogfest:  Website  |  Facebook  | Twitter



Google Analytics