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Roommate is a Chicago-based five piece band, self-described as “Stoner Crooner.” They recently recorded a Coach House Sounds session and had some interesting reflections on coaches, Chicago and basements.
Their CHS session released on February 3rd. Hear the entire session over at coachhousesounds.com!
What the dumbest thing you’ve ever done in a basement?
In 1999 I started playing keyboards in an Iowa City band called Swim Team. At my birthday party that summer we played a basement show in the house where I was living and ended our set with a cover of Europe’s “The Final Countdown.”
Our singers/guitar players Cody & Jason Hennesy didn’t want to even try to do the ridiculous guitar solo, so they cued up a tape of the original song to the solo and when we got to that moment in the song we all stopped and they put a little portable cassette player up to the mic. That maneuver was pretty clever, but the song is really dumb.
Tell me about a coach you had as a child. What did you learn from them?
Rick French was the coach of my high school’s swim team. I was on the team in 9th and 10th grades. We were a terrible team with barely enough members to fill all of the events in a swim meet. Coach French always assigned me to swim the 200 Meter Intermediate Medley and I always puked my guts up shortly after swimming it. So I learned from Rick French that if I swim the 200 Meter Intermediate Medley I puke.
Describe a scenario where Roommate could be someone’s life coach and the top 2 life lessons you’d teach them.
[Our drummer Seth Vanek fielded this one.] I think we could do a good job with something called Sarcasm Therapy for people who have trouble getting that ’90s ironic sensibility out of their system. We would 1) help them start saying what they really mean and in the process have them figure out what they really think 2) Help them realize that you don’t have to be intelligent to be sarcastic and not to confuse sarcasm with wit.
What do you like about Chicago, and what makes it special to you?
I’m no music historian, but I think Chicago’s music culture represents a particularly vital intersection of the avant-garde with traditional music. When I think about how Sonny Blount became Sun Ra and recorded seminal albums like Angels and Demons at Play and Nubians of Plutonia in Chicago, or when I put on a track like The Art Ensemble of Chicago’s “Theme De Yoyo” (the most electrifying marriage of pop and free jazz I can think of) or an album like Bonnie Prince Billy’s Beware (essentially a country album played by Chicago jazzbo heavies like Josh Abrams and Michael Zerang), I feel deeply humbled and inspired and grateful to be here.
Also, I’d argue that the breathtaking corruption of Chicago and Illinois government has inspired an especially vibrant culture of activism here. Publications like AREA, grassroots groups like Tamms Year Ten, our burgeoning community gardening movement, those things make me really proud and excited to call myself a Chicagoan.
Tell me about your CHS session – what did you like about it? Was there anything that surprised you or was spontaneous that came out in the recording?
Our CHS session was a blast. The Coach House is a really cozy space, and Matthew and his crew are courteous, charming, professional dudes. We hadn’t played in almost two months, so we had a short practice just before the session and decided to stick mainly to songs we’ve been playing live for a while.
We almost nixed “After The Boom” because we thought maybe it needed some more tightening and polishing, but Gillian ended up insisting that we do it and I’m glad she did, it’s my favorite song of the session… so that was a nice surprise.
Like in any live show, each of us tried to maintain a little bit of spontaneity in our performance—sometimes that resulted in little flubs (or “clams” as they call ‘em in the biz) but it also yielded some beautiful surprises, where the music gelled and swelled in unexpected ways.
It was interesting for me to listen to multiple takes of the same song and to hear how our playing evolved in the course of the session as we got more comfortable with the space and situation. We’re always honing our arrangements and group dynamics so that the songs evolve and stay fresh and get more powerful and interesting with every show, so it’s nice to have the CHS session as a document of where we were on that particular day.
What’s happening? What are your current/upcoming shows or releases?
Yesterday we had quite possibly our best rehearsal EVER – we’ve invited our friend and guitar hero Reid Coker to join us at our next couple of Chicago shows and on tour, so we’re a five-piece again and we are sounding pretty sweet, if I do say so myself.
We’re really excited to return to the Hideout on Saturday and to get to play with SHAPERS. Later this week a remix I made for a track by the soul singer Bilal (whose album Airtight’s Revenge was released last year on our former label Plug Research) should appear on our Soundcloud page…
What else? A video I made for our song “Snow Globe” was premiered at Magnet Magazine a couple weeks ago, and sometime around the release date (March 22) for our new album Guilty Rainbow we’re planning to release a remix and super-surreal video that our friends mr.666 made for the album’s first track “My Bad.”
Our record release show is set for March 18 at the Empty Bottle with Dozens and Algernon, and a week later we’ll head out on a two-week tour through the midwest, southeast and northeast. In the last couple years we recorded a lot of material that didn’t make it onto the album, so it’s fairly likely that we’ll release some of those songs later in the year. Lots is happening!!
White Mystery is a band so rooted in Chicago, you’ve probably run into them at the store, at the show or at the bar. Their sound is heavy and their debut, self-titled album is every bit as enticing as their live show.
Somehow, they are just as loud over email, with their answers sent in ALL CAPS. The brother sister duo have an upcoming show at Beauty Bar; It’s the 2nd annual Fan Appreciation Party. With opening band Squish on the bill, White Mystery treats its fans to free beer and free pizza.
Wednesday, January 26th 2011, Beauty Bar Chicago (1444 West Chicago Avenue), 10:00pm, No Cover.
Erik Roldan: I remember a call for natural red heads for a music video shoot. How did that turn out? What are the top three things about being a natural red head?
White Mystery: HERE IS THE WHITE MYSTERY ‘POWERGLOVE’ VIDEO BY MEDICINE FILMS TO SEE FOR YOURSELF: THE NUMBER ONE THING IS THAT NATURAL REDHEADS LIKE IT HOTTER!
ER: Your music is raw – the production on the record is very minimal—tell me about the decisions to go with that stripped-down sound and how the result differed from your expectations.
WM: THE RECORDING IS A RAW ROCK’N‘ROLL EXPERIENCE THAT CAPTURES THE PURELY LIVE SOUND THAT PEOPLE LOVE ABOUT WHITE MYSTERY.
ER: Working with your sibling—how does that affect your music? How does it compare to previous bands where you didn’t have those family ties? Have you ever been in a situation where you thought “this could only happen with my brother/sister?”
WM: IT’S A POWERFUL CREATION PROCESS AND IT’S AWESOME TO SHARE IT WITH EACH OTHER! BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER.
ER: What’s your take on being from Chicago? How do you think being from here affects how your band is perceived in the media or in the music industry?
WM: BEING BORN AND RAISED IN CHICAGO PROVIDES A UNIQUE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE THAT BUILDS A TASTE PROFILE WHICH IS REFLECTED IN MUSICAL OUTPUT.
ER: What’s next for White Mystery? Tours? Projects? Collaborations?
WM: WHITE MYSTERY PLAYS SXSW, RELEASES A NEW ALBUM ON APRIL 20TH 2011, PLAYS THE ATLANTA MESS AROUND FEST, TOURS THE USA IN SPRING AND SUMMER, AND YOUR BIRTHDAY PARTY!
In the year 2000, Kerthy Fix, co-director and producer of Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields, joined Gail O’hara in documenting live performances, rehearsals, and interviewing the band. A decade later, Fix would finally be able to premiere the documentary at South By Southwest Film Festival 2010. This started an international screening schedule, and Chicago will finally get two chances to see the film at the Gene Siskel Film Center on January 15th and 20th.
Fix, obviously a big fan, says that following the band for 10 years revealed many layers of Merritt’s process and interpersonal relationships. A large portion of the film’s focus is on the relationship between Merritt and friend, band-manager and creative muse Claudia Gonson.
“Claudia helps bring him to his audience,” she says. “It’s her creative-management genius and friendship with him that allows his music to reach his audience. I felt like they were really working in tandem and their relationship itself was so fascinating – I haven’t seen this type of ‘gay man/ fag hag’ 20-year friendship profiled anywhere.”
“I thought that was an interesting thing to profile in pop music – what are the relationships and process in making this kind of work? He’s known Claudia since he was 14. Things happen in the film where you are not sure if their relationship is going to withstand the changes. He’s very reserved, and Claudia’s very outgoing and emotionally open and really funny. She kind of functions like the heart of the film because I think she’s the heart of the band.”
Having once interviewed Stephin Merritt myself, and eventually commiserating with my fellow journalists about what a hard time we had doing so, the concept of Merritt allowing someone to follow him around with a camera for ten years seems almost implausible. “He’s doesn’t plug in well to the 20 minute interview,” Fix says. “It’s sort of required as a musician – you put out a record, you go on tour (which Stephin doesn’t like to do) and you have to do a million interviews and answer the same questions over and over.”
“Stephin’s much better when you engage him on a topic. I remember the very first question for the very first interview I did with him, I was very nervous. And he has this habit of pausing for a really long time before he answers a question, but he’s actually formulating the answer to the question before he says it because he’s so thoughtful. So, I ask him what he’s reading, like as a warm up question. And he pauses for a long time and I’m getting more nervous, and he says ‘What can I say that I’m reading right now? Because I don’t want to tell you what I’m actually reading because I’m writing an opera about it.’ He pauses again and then says ‘Oh! I like your shoes.’”
“He knows that he’s making me nervous but he knows that complimenting my shoes will put me at ease and give him time to think. And we put that segment at the front of the film because it’s kind of symptomatic as to how he’s misread. He’s just not great for the quick sound-bite. He’s great if you want to hang out and talk about any kind of music or film or books. People in the press who interview him, what do you get? You get 20 minutes of this excruciating arrangement which will end badly. And so he gets this reputation of being difficult, which is not really justified. When you see the film, you’ll see a different side of him.”
Press materials for any of Stephin Merritt’s recordings usually contain the name “Cole Porter” and a statement about how in the future, Merritt’s catalogue will be revered as iconic, standard American pop music. But why not now? Why isn’t a new Magnetic Fields record greeted with reverence for a living legend in the same way that a new Bruce Springsteen record is?
“Yeah, he has an outsider status, I think,” Fix says. “He writes from different points of view. The album Distortion was written from the point of view of an overweight Midwestern housewife. He writes from these different perspectives, and as human beings, we all have that kind of shifting persona.”
“We are asked by our culture to lock down on a solid persona but the internal experience is much more complicated. As a straight white woman, I might feel like a gay man inside. Or someone who’s black and likes country music might not feel culturally comfortable with the Black Panther kids he grew up with in the ’70s and feel like an outsider.”
“There’s all kinds of different ways to feel like an outsider, and I think in that way, Stephin’s writing from different characters and different points of view is very much of our time. But in terms of mainstream success, are the most important artists the most popular? I don’t know if that’s a criteria. He makes a living off of his music – but it’s an artisanal craft like a fine wine or a fine cheese. Do you want to eat Kraft American Cheese? Probably not. I think he’s right where he wants to be situated. He’s influential without being popular.”
Kerthy Fix will be hosting a preview of the documentary at Stardust on Thursday, January 13th at Berlin Nightclub, 954 West Belmont Avenue. Co-presented by CHIRP Radio and featuring CHIRP DJ Erik Roldan and special guest DJ Kim Ann Foxman (of Hercules and Love Affair), the event goes from 9pm to 4am, $7 cover.
Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields screens at The Gene]http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/">Gene[/url] Siskel Film Center on January 15th at 8:00 pm and January 20th at 8:30 pm.
Over the summer, Chicago duo Love of Everything went over to Coach House Sounds and recorded what would be a marker in the band’s career. I sat in on the session but couldn’t have been aware of the tension between the two members.
To me, the songs they played seemed to land hard – they had worked a lot on the tracks and there were hints that they were still working through them.
Throughout, the delicate pop that Love of Everything crafts was apparent, but surely I couldn’t have known what was happening beneath the surface. It wasn’t until Bobby Burg answered my pre–set e–mail interview questions with surprising honesty that I figured out what was going on.
The Love of Everything Coach House Sounds session will be released on 12/14 over at coachhousesounds.com – listen to chirpradio.org all week for a preview of this amazing time stamp in a young band’s career.
What the dumbest thing you’ve ever done in a basement?
I licked this toy transformer tank that had fallen into the sump pump. That specific taste haunts me to this day.
Tell me about a coach you had as a child. What did you learn from them?
I learned that i wasn’t interested in sports from seeing the football coach at my high school go absolutely berserk during a mandatory pep rally.
Describe a scenario where Love of Everything could be someone’s life coach and the top 2 life lessons you’d teach them.
I could see myself teaching a younger band about how to eat right on while on tour.
What do you like about Chicago, and what makes it special to you?
Chicago is great for playing in a band and seeing live music. It’s flat, so its good for riding bikes. I have a 15 year relationship with Chicago.
Tell me about your CHS session—what did you like about it? Was there anything that surprised you or was spontaneous that came out in the recording?
I didn’t know this at the time but recording that session was the last time Elisse and I would ever play music together.
You’re a coupled, married duo, right? How long has that been the case and how does that factor into the music you make?
We were doing that for 2 years, but now we are getting divorced unfortunately. It totally did effect it, I think the songs I was writing got better as the marriage got worse.
What’s happening? What are your current/upcoming shows or releases?
Loads is happening! Love of Everything’s new drummer will be Tim Kinsella who I play in Joan of Arc with. Our two bands are going on a 3 week European tour together. Love of Everything’s Best in Tensions album came out this month on CD in Europe on the label Seayou Records.
Seeing “Jailbait” and “Bangover” listed as the names of two available singles by Chicago quartet Rabble Rabble, you start to get a sense of their intentions. Low-end Stooges sleeze with a yelpy punker in the front and reverbed psychedelia in the back give this heavy rock a mature swagger.
This summer, Rabble Rabble recorded a session with Coach House Sounds and the result was an amplification of their vinyl-friendly bass, warmth only an analog recording could bring out. The band insisted on democratic answers to my interview questions; below is their group effort.
Rabble Rabble’s CHIRP and Coach House Sounds Live session is streamable at coachhousesounds.com starting Tuesday, November 9th!
What the dumbest thing you’ve ever done in a basement?
We were doing a photo shoot for our album at Ottoman Empire (R.I.P) over the summer and they had a show the previous night so the basement was still pretty trashed. One of the bands that played had a giant cardboard/plastic vagina as a prop that was sitting in a corner and was covered in olive oil (yes, olive oil) to create a “wet” visual effect.
Being the young, innovative, individuals that we are, we all climbed into this giant wet vagina and did a Beatles-esque stack-up. It was pretty gross. Those pictures might not surface for awhile… Also Salvia…
Tell me about a coach you had as a child. What did you learn from them?
Rabble Rabble never went to school. We all coach each other and help each other out when we’re having life or other problems. Got have each others backs in a band like this, you never know when a fight is gonna break out.
For instance, we played at Mortville in January and there were some crust punks that were starting some shit with us. They were trying to grab our microphones and getting all up in our shit when Matt started strangling one of them and fighting him.
Kaylee saw what was going on and got out from behind her drums and started fighting these punks too and then Ralph and Todd joined in. It was an all out Band Vs. Audience brawl for a minute.
What do you like about Chicago, and what makes it special to you?
Chicago is a city of diversity. If you get sick of hanging out in Wicker Park getting wasted at the Flat Iron with a bunch of post-art school cats, then go to Pilsen and get mugged. Now that you don’t have a wallet, go to Lincoln park and peddle outside of the Pita Pit so you can get enough money to catch the 74 bus back to your apartment in Logan Square. Safe and sound!
Never a dull moment. Keeps you tired at the end of every day. Plus the sense of camaraderie and general love that is developing in the music community is a breath of fresh air compared to New York or L.A.
Tell me about your CHS session—what did you like about it? Was there anything that surprised you or was spontaneous that came out in the recording?
We recorded our set sometime in June just before Radar Eyes did. It was brutally hot. In fact it might have been one of the sweatiest one hour periods of our lives, and we have played many a sweaty basement shows. That day was exceptional hot however.
Also, our session includes two songs that at the time happen to be very new. “Why Not” and “Long Hook”. We are quite certain that both songs have grown a lot since then but it’ll be nice to hear the early stages of our first steps into new territory after recording our first LP “Bangover.”
What’s happening? What are your current/upcoming shows or releases?
We are doing a radio program on December 15th for Vocalo 89.5 FM. Then we have the Chicago Music Blogger Showcase at the Sub-T with White Mystery, Hollows and Radar Eyes on December 18th. That’s all that’s confirmed as of now. But we may be doing a few out of town gigs and a DIY space or two. November is gonna be filled with a lot of experimentation and new song writing.
As for releases, we are actually gonna release a full studio-recorded single of those two new songs that are on the CHS session, “Why Not” and “Long Hook” sometime early next year. We are also hard at work on new material for our next album and things are sounding EPIC!