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The CHIRP Blog
SKaiser writes@CHIRPRADIO (Week of September 26)
UPCOMING EVENTS
Join us for the road to 107.1FM at Lagunitas Taproom (2607 W. 17th St) on Monday, October 3rd for a cool after-work event featuring great beer, tasty pizza and appetizers, and music from one of our favorite local bands, Impulsive Hearts. $10 cover * $5 Lagunitas pours * Complimentary food from Bacci. 100% of net proceeds will benefit our broadcast build project. More details here. Buy your tickets today. We hope to see you there!
NEW MEDIA
- Top Five Underrated Musicians from Extremely Successful Rock Bands by Clarence Ewing
- CHIRP Factory Session - Horse Lords
- Andrew Meriwether writes CHIRP Welcomes Tobacco to Lincoln Hall on Sept 30
- CHIRP volunteer Marites Velasquez interviews Lifestyles
- First Time - First Taste by Maggie Kubley
- CHIRP's Amelia Hruby interviews Girl Band at Pitchfork
- Rediscovering Our Record Collection: Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life" by Josh Friedberg
TOP OF THE CHIRP CHARTS
1. Frank Ocean – Blonde (self-released)
2. Wilco – Schmilco (dBpm)
3. Kishi Bashi – Sonderlust (Joyful Noise)
CHIRP DJ writesCHIRP Factory Session - Horse Lords
Baltimore's Horse Lords joined us in our factory studio building to record this exclusive live session. The band is made up of Owen Gardner on guitar, Max Eilbacher on bass & electronics, Andrew Bernstein on saxophone & percussion, and Sam Haberman on drums. This session was recorded on location at the CHIRP Radio studio building by Mike Lust of Manor Mobile Recording. Video of the full session was captured & edited by Big Foot Media.
1. Truthers (0:18)
2. Intervention (7:05)
3. Bending the Lash (11:54)
Horse Lords>>
Northern Spy Records>>
Big Foot Media>>
Manor Mobile Recording>>
CHIRP DJ writesCHIRP Welcomes Tobacco to Lincoln Hall on Friday Sept. 30
by Andrew Meriwether
Pittsburgh’s own Tobacco brings his trippy, twisted electronic creations to Lincoln Hall this coming Friday, September 30th.
Tobacco (aka Tom Fec) is currently touring after his latest release, Sweatbox Dynasty. The album is clearly a continuation, but also a refreshing evolution, of Tobacco’s previous heavily modulated synths and vocoded vocals. Fec began his career as the frontman for the much-acclaimed Black Moth Super Rainbow, which has been consistently releasing albums since 2003. BMSR’s 2007 release Dandelion Gum received praise from critics, and it is around this time that Fec began work on his solo project, Tobacco, with his release of Fucked Up Friends in 2008. While having following of his own, Tobacco found some mainstream popularity after “Stretch Your Face” from 2010’s Manic Meat was used as the theme song for HBO’s Silicon Valley.
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesTop Five Underrated Musicians from Extremely Successful Rock Bands
This one goes out to those who appreciate the work of the New York Yankees, Microsoft, and Mcdonald's. Who cheer on the scrappy go-getters like Sony Music and Amazon.com and cheer on Mark Zuckerberg when his bank account swells up another $10 million.
OK, not really. But yeah, kinda. History, after all, is written by the winners, and there are times when winners must get their due. Especially when the whole overshadows the individual parts. This is very much true in the music world, where the brilliant work of individual musicians can get overlooked from time to time for any number of reasons.
Is it possible for someone who’s part of a group that’s sold millions of records and made untold sums of money to be considered “underrated?” I say, in certain aspects, yes. I believe there are some groups that have achieved certified legend status that have members who still don’t quite get the full credit they deserve. Like these five....
Josh Friedberg: Music Historian's Corner writesRediscovering Our Record Collections: Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life”
Preachy, saccharine, bloated, inconsistent—call it what you will, but Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life has held up exceptionally well over the last 40 years. Maybe it’s because the messages are still relevant, maybe it’s because the arrangements to songs like “Sir Duke” and “I Wish” still sound fresh, maybe it’s because Stevie Wonder toured behind the album two years ago and audiences still love it. In any case, this month, Stevie Wonder’s double-LP-plus-a-7”-EP (!)-length monstrosity has been selected for Classic Album Sundays, which CHIRP is sponsoring in Chicago at Transistor (transistorchicago.com) on Sunday, September 25.
In terms of my relationship with this album, I saw it in my mother’s CD collection as a kid, and I eventually bought the later remastered version. I’ve sometimes had a mixed reaction to this album: as others have pointed out, the lyrics are convoluted and the songs go on and on, but if you just pay attention to the arrangements and the overall sound, the album is absolutely brilliant, and today it is among my ten (five?) favorite albums ever.