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The CHIRP Blog
notamouse writesCHIRP Radio Welcomes Menomena and the Helio Sequence to the Bottom Lounge Monday, October 21st!
CHIRP welcomes Menomena and the Helio Sequence to bring their Pacific Northwest charm to the third coast and make us all wonder how to pronounce “Oregonian.”
For Menomena, it all started with a flipbook. Drummer/multi-instrumentalist Danny Seim made an 80-page flipbook for each copy of Menomena’s debut release, I Am the Fun Blame Monster, while working at Kinko’s. What might have been a small DIY project by a bored copy shop employee became a sensation when Seim was encouraged to send the album to a blog he had never heard of, called Pitchfork. Ten years, four full-lengths, and four 8.0+ Pitchfork reviews later, Menomena are still chugging along. Their latest release, Moms, is filled with the exuberance, creative loops, and pop hooks the band is known for. Coincidentally, Monday’s show falls on the one-decade anniversary of their first Best New Music P4K review. Bop along and watch them build their indie rock layer after layer.
Veteran Portland-based duo, Helio Sequence have a guitar, a drum kit, and a record deal with Sub Pop. Might not seem like much, but Brandon Summers and Benjamin Weikel have managed to use those simple tools to fill their records with a sound as big as the sky, and as compelling as the sea.
Let a little more heart into your Monday, and head down to the Bottom Lounge for the show!
Doors @ 7pm / Show @ 8pm / 17+ / Tickets
Mike Bennett writesFriday iPod/MP3 Shuffle—Happy Birthday Chuck Berry Edition
Today, we celebrate one of the true founding fathers of rock ‘n’ roll, a man who created many of the musical and lyrical archetypes that defined the sound for decades. No artist had a larger role in establishing rock ‘n’ roll as the music of youth culture, which not only changed music, but all entertainment in general. Chuck Berry’s songs are still covered to this day, as classics like “Johnny B. Goode”, “Sweet Little Sixteen”, “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Back in the U.S.A.” still endure. And when not singing about “School Days” or the “Havana Moon”, he wrote one of rock’s first important songs about race, the classic “Brown Eyed Handsome Man”. There’s simply not enough you can say about a man whose influence still reverberates, both directly and indirectly, to this day. So in honor Mr. Berry’s birthday, please grab your iPod or MP3 player, hit shuffle, and share the first 10 songs that come up.
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesWeekly Voyages: Friday 10/18 to Thursday 10/24
(Weekly Voyages is CHIRP Radio's listing of concerts in Chicago at select venues. Information about tickets can be obtained from the venues' Web sites. (Do you have corrections or updates for this list? Send us an e-mail.)
Friday October 18
Justin Willman
Abbey Pub 8pm 21+
Flow Tone, Magisty, Mr. F
Abbey Pub 10pm, 21+
Alpine, Basic Vacation
Beat Kitchen 7pm
The Swellers, On My Honor, Late in the Playoffs, Lights Over Bridgeport
Beat Kitchen 10:20pm
Tribal Seeds, Passafire, Ballyhoo!, Fortunate Youth
Bottom Lounge 7pm
Jessi D writesCHIRP Radio Welcomes CocoRosie to Metro on Friday, October 18th!
After deciding to forgo a traditional education at their mother's insistence, sisters Bianca "Coco" and Sierra "Rosie" Casady dropped out of high school and got their education in the form of doing art in the real world. They spent summers with their father on Native American reservations partaking in vision quests, and lived in New York, Hawaii, California, New Mexico, and Arizona. They formed Coco Rosie in 2003 after reuniting in Paris after a ten-year separation.
Now, after four albums, a stage production of Peter Pan, opera performances, visual art shows, and a couple of film scores, CocoRosie has released their fifth album, Tales of a GrassWidow, with firm creative control and a collaboration with composer Valgeir Sigurðsson (Björk). GrassWidow is bold, cohesive, and sentimental, with more traditional song and lyric composition, it's a bit of a step back from the freak-folk we've been so accustomed to from the sisters.
Make sure to check out opener LA-based rapper since the age of 9, Busdriver.
Doors @ 8 / Show @ 9 / 18+
cocorosiemusic.com / metrochicago.com
Jessi D writesCHIRP Radio Welcomes Fuck Buttons to Subterranean on Monday, October 14th!
CHIRP welcomes Fuck Buttons (which, as I have come to find out, you cannot say on the radio) to Subterranean on Monday, October 14. The Bristol-based electronic duo made up of Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power have been creating grandiose and fierce synth-driven music since 2004's Street Horrrsing.
Coming off the high of featuring two songs ("Surf Solar" and "Olympians") during the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London, Fuck Buttons is currently touring to support their third and newest release, Slow Focus, which is admittedly much darker and more expansive than previous albums. Drawing inspiration from “the period of time that your eyes take after waking up to readjust to your surroundings and you realize that you’re somewhere that maybe you don’t recognize or it’s an unwelcoming place,” Fuck Buttons' sound has taken a turn towards unease and dissonance with the occasional and very necessary soaring synth.
Be sure to get there early to catch multi-instrumentalist electronic artist Lichens, aka Robert Lowe.
Doors @ 8:30 / Show @ 9 / 17+
fuckbuttons.com / subt.net