Any Kind — A N Y K I N D

Posted on February 23, 2012 by

Band: Any Kind
Album: A N Y  K I N D
Release Date: February 14, 2012
Free mp3: “Never Seen Anyone Out There Like You” (’til March 1)

I have had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with this debut from a new band made up of veteran Chicago musicians.

Any Kind contains almost every member of one of my favorite local groups, This is Me Smiling. Frontman Dan Duszynski’s songwriting shone through in that group as it does here, but this time perhaps with even a little more clarity.

What Duszynski has done here is impressive. He has grown, and I suspect this new moniker allowed him to experiment with ideas that probably wouldn’t have flown in TiMS. Rather than craft another perfectionist studio work, this debut has the feel of a home-recording. A 21st century home-recording, mind you, but an overall relaxed feeling permeates these songs. Take a listen to “Can’t See it,” all acoustic guitar and atmosphere, where he sings and plays idly as if lying on his back on a couch at home. This is a new side to him, I think, but not one that feels unnatural.

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Unicycle Loves You — Failure

Posted on February 21, 2012 by

Band: Unicycle Loves You
Album: Failure
Release Date: February 13, 2012

So this was me about a week ago:

“I’ve had Unicycle Loves You’s new one, Failure, on my desk for at least a week now. One of the reasons it’s taken me awhile to spit out a review — I haven’t yet, still — is because I’m finding they’re harder than the average band to categorize and, well, put in a box. The needed idea that condenses what they’re doing on Failure into something practical is pending.”

Amazingly, little has changed in my opinion of Unicycle Loves You. And yet, damn it, it’s been two weeks to the day since Failure was delivered to my inbox. Time for me to divulge some impressions.

May that be read as high praise, Unicycle Loves You. I never ever ever take this long.

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The Runnies — ‘You Can’t Win’

Posted on February 19, 2012 by

Band: The Runnies
Free mp3: “You Can’t Win” (’til Feb. 26)

A song review like this one happens so infrequently on Chicago Tunes that I needed to backtrack some to research how I went about writing and formatting it the one and only other time.

That post, uploaded over a year ago, was a celebration of U.S. Royalty’s “Equestrian,” a tune that hit and profoundly affected me at a time that I apparently wanted to hear it.

What’s funny about singly digesting “Equestrian” then and “You Can’t Win” now isn’t that I’m doing so by picking through separate pieces of their respective assemblies. (This is, however, true. Whereas the “Equestrian” piece was an exploration of possible messages in the lyrics of U.S. Royalty, “You Can’t Win” gets its own posting today because it’s groovy as hell).

The funny, then, is how stylistically different “Equestrian” is from “You Can’t Win.” Any lingering suspicions I may have had about the level of satisfaction I’ve lately received from garage/psych/punk or any loose combination of the three is surely gone now. I might be hooked or be there very soon.

You see, I’ve noticed in the new year here that the bands subscribing to those genres — I dislike genres, you know, but I need ‘em here as a sort of foundation — are the same ones that are largely shaping the livelier side of the city’s music scene. They are, I think, Chicago’s trailblazers.

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Tyler Jon Tyler, Nones, The Runnies @ The Empty Bottle (2/14); Unicycle Loves You, Lightfoils @ The Empty Bottle (2/13)

Posted on February 15, 2012 by

credit: The Runnies' Facebook

I’ve long been partial to the Empty Bottle for good, cheap entertainment in Chicago. But a great string of kick ass — these back-to-back shows I’m just now digesting, as well as Radar Eyes’ record release and an Apteka/Secret Colours show in January — have made this Uke Village hole-in-the-wall my favorite space to see live music in the new year.

Perhaps it goes hand in hand with my matured tastes in music. Were you to ask the me of a year ago whether I’d be excited to go and see, say, The Runnies, I don’t know what I’d say. But ask the me of last night, after their thick hooks and slam rock crawled up under my skin and gave me the shakes, and I’d say: “Heck yes. When’s their next show?”

I’ll begin things with The Runnies. Their set happened to be my favorite of three at the Bottle’s free-with-rsvp Valentine’s Day show. (My friend, at night’s end, said the same). Their front woman, Mary McKane, was a familiar face. I’d just seen her wailin’ it as part of Outer Minds, which opened for Bare Mutants and then Radar Eyes a week ago. Runnies bassist Russ Calderwood was there that night, too. He’s in Radar Eyes.

The Runnies, I think, seemed an even better fit — musically — for Mary, who I liked enough already in Outer Minds. She’s got throaty bite like Ida Maria and just lit it up from behind her keyboard when stepping up to deliver keys-voice combos. I’ve listened to “You Can’t Win” a lot today, actually.

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Posted in Lightfoils, Nones, Show Review, The Empty Bottle, The Runnies, Tyler Jon Tyler, Unicycle Loves You, Video | 2 Comments

Elephant Gun, The Damn Choir @ Subterranean (2/11)

Posted on February 12, 2012 by

credit: The Damn Choir's Facebook

My handpicks for February were put on hold Saturday night when I neglected to go to a Lincoln Hall show I’d advised was worth your time and money. Instead, my attention shifted southwest, in favor of a party at Subterranean curated by a handmade website doing wonderful things for the city’s music scene.

The site, as you might subscribe to already, is Chicago Mixtape, and for one night only it lassoed the likes of Elephant Gun, The Damn Choir and two others to honor its one-year anniversary as a webpage.

A friend and I arrived fashionably late, we’ll say, due to an extended stay at Dunlay’s for its burgers, sweet potato fries, ground beef and sausage chili and extensive list of craft beers. And then, having gotten our fill from the two bands I’m about ready to write about, we missed out on the evening’s headliner, The Shams Band, too.

Despite catching about a song and a half of the opener, Architecture, I don’t know that my impressions, based on such brevity, would ring true. So I’m skipping ahead to The Damn Choir.

The Damn Choir. I enjoyed these guys. Like Elephant Gun with its violin, The Damn Choir uses a notable member of the string family — a cello — to compliment and round out its roaring rock. Should it have been turned up some? I’m sure of it. But that’s the fault of the guys working sound.

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K.Flay — Eyes Shut EP; or, why K.Flay reminds me of the Smoke Monster on Lost

Posted on February 9, 2012 by

Band: K.Flay
Album: Eyes Shut EP
Release Date: January 31, 2012
Free mp3: “Easy Fix” (’til Feb. 16)

I must say, what I think I like most about this place is an intentional effort from launch to now to write about music that I — and anyone else lingering around the halls of Chicago Tunes — am listening to and like.

With that said, over time the page has taken on a kind of swagger. You see, as I’ve concentrated more and more on the types of music I willingly respond to — lately, my taste seems generously steeped in psych rock and garage-like noise — the site, inevitably, develops a nonsense personality that says THIS is what gets written about here, and so THIS is what you’ll (probably) read about.

Nevertheless, musicians and PR people of all types — and I mean all types — continue sending me lots of things. Lots of files and lots of tour dates. Some of it aligns rather nicely to something I’ve reviewed before, and that’s great. A lot of it, though, does not. And yet I say to the outliers: Keep on keeping on! You can’t know for sure what might inspire me. I don’t even know.

K.Flay, an Illinoisan turned Californian, happens to be one of those artists that caught me by surprise.

For whatever reason, the site’s email address ended up on her mailing list, and from time to time she sends me things. Her last email, dated January 31, had this subject line: “FREE K.FLAY EP.”

I mean free, right? Free.

I get going with it, eventually, and I realize pretty quickly that even modified hip hop has a place on Chicago Tunes. In a year and a half, I haven’t written a thing about hip hop. And yet here I am writing about the hip and the hop.

Is K.Flay totally hip hop though? Well, not really. That’s why it’s modified. She spits out words quickly and surrounds herself with good beats, but that doesn’t make her a hip hop star. I mean, Vince Vaughn talks fast, but that doesn’t make him a scat man.

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Radar Eyes, Bare Mutants, Outer Minds @ The Empty Bottle (2/6)

Posted on February 7, 2012 by

credit: Radar Eyes' Facebook

So it was a noontime text, I think, that confirmed to me that yes, I was still a ways away from mental balance after a free night of sweet noise at the Empty Bottle.

The text, from one of my roommates: “Hey, do you guys know what happened to the big container of cooked broccoli that was in the fridge?”

My reply: “Oh shoot. Is the one I made Sunday in there anywhere? It’s got goat cheese on it. Feel free to take, I mixed up.”

Her: “Yep, that one’s in there. I’ll leave it for you, I don’t want it.”

Eep!

You see, in lieu of watching the big game on Super Bowl Sunday, a friend and I celebrated America’s biggest fake holiday by cooking a delicious feast of pistachio crusted salmon and green sides and then watching a few Downton Abbeys. One of those sides, as you might guess, was broccoli.

But it wasn’t just whitebread broccoli like the stuff I unintentionally stole from the refrigerator. It was broccoli mixed with Brussels sprouts, and then topped with goat cheese and maybe another thing. So, a far cry from simple greens in a tub.

And then after my lunch break, I attempted to staple some papers together, nixed being mindful of how firmly planted the base of the stapler was to the office table and managed to knock everything in front of me — stapler and all — to the ground with a weighty thud.

The staple went in clean, though, so that felt like a win.

Despite my forgetfulness — it’s matter-of-course, really — I’d formally like to blame my Tuesday troubles on an apparent failure to fully recover from the wall of sound that shot through and around me the evening before.

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Posted in Bare Mutants, Outer Minds, Radar Eyes, Show Review, The Empty Bottle, Video | 1 Comment