Matty G of CHIRP Radio recently spoke with Ari Levin and Nate Dorian of Chicago-based indie rock group Billy Joel Jr. Their most recent EP, Rubberhose, was released in April 2024. You can catch them opening for Modern Dairy at Schuba's on December 19th. You can listen to their full interview HERE.
Matty G: You guys are still relatively fresh in the Chicago music scene. Do you want to take a second and tell us a little bit about your band and its members? Ari Levin: I'm the singer-songwriter for the band. Nate Dorian: I also play the electric guitar in the band and I sing in the background sometimes. AL: We've got two other members. We've got Charlie Dykstal, who plays bass, and then Karl El Sokhn, who plays the drums. We're all normally recording together, so we'll record live and then do any kind of overdubs or tracking with all of us together. We have a couple of other folks that kind of come in and out. As you probably know, there's a huge community in Chicago of artists and musicians that are making music and we try to collaborate wherever we can. So a lot of other folks like Blake Sokoloff, who is a good friend of ours and who runs a studio that we work out of, will sometimes do some overdubs on keyboards with us. Other friends like Cima Kale will do bass and different string instruments, and then vocalists and friends of ours like Syd Kamuda from Big Kid, will add additional vocals here and there.
Shamefully, I struggle having as voracious an appetite for new artists as I get older, so I find I am just picking artists who I have liked for years or even decades in some cases.
This list is also impacted by Chappell Roan "The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess" coming out in 2023 instead of 2024, as that was probably my #1 of the year, but doesn't count. I can brag that it was on my list last year, before it blew up or whatever.
My rubric for this list is just albums I listened to. So if you're like, how could you not have included Ben Folds "Sleigher" album?? I'm sorry, I'm sure it was his best in years, but I can't rank if it I didn't personally take the time to listen to it. That's on me! I will do better I promise!
Throughout December, CHIRP Radio presents its volunteers’ top albums of 2024. Our next list is from vounteer n23haynes.
2024 was full of so much great music in every genre--pop, rock, rap and beyond. Anyone who tells you that music is in a sad state doesn't know what they're talking about.
Throughout December, 
Matty G of CHIRP Radio recently spoke with Ari Levin and Nate Dorian of Chicago-based indie rock group Billy Joel Jr. Their most recent EP,