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Upcoming CHIRP Events
CHIRP Welcomes: Andy Shauf
Thalia Hall
1807 S. Allport St.
Chicago
,
IL
60608
17+
CHIRP Radio 107.1FM is enthused to be welcoming Andy Shauf to Thalia Hall on Wednesday, March 22nd!
Hailed as “a gifted storyteller” (NPR Music) for 2016’s The Party and 2020’s The Neon Skyline, Shauf writes albums that unfold like short fiction, full of colorful characters, fine details and a rich emotional depth. With Norm, however, Shauf has slyly deconstructed and reshaped the style for which he’s been celebrated, elevating his songwriting with intricate layers and perspectives, challenging himself to find a new direction.
Under the guise of an intoxicating collection of jazz-inflected romantic ballads, his storytelling has become decidedly more oblique, hinting at ominous situations and dark motivations. With Norm, he recreated his idea of a concept album, and also made it about faith and fatalism. But Shauf has realized he doesn't need to moralize. He's assigned that task to us, the listeners. At once narrators and investigators, we fill in the blanks.
CHIRP is Partnering with Rendezvouz Arts for “STEAM Traditional Irish Instrumental Ensemble & Ben Calvert”
Artifact Events
4325 North Ravenswood Avenue
Chicago
,
IL
60613
(773) 348-1395
All Ages
CHIRP is proud to partner with Rendezvouz Arts for a special pairing of music and art withSTEAM Traditional Irish Instrumental Ensemble & Ben Calvert.
The Steam Quartet is a powerful combo of the leading exponents of traditional Irish music from the international acoustic scene. Chicago artists John Williams, Katie Grennan, Steve Morrow, and Jeff Lindblade have thrilled audiences from Shanghai to Chicago and Paris to Pittsburgh. Concertina, fiddle, bodhran, and guitar ignite to raise the rafters and warm the heart. Appearances on BBC, PBS, Dreamworks, Riverdance, and the Chieftains round out their various backgrounds, and their versatility embraces dance, wit, and road-tested musical integrity.
Katie Grennan, fiddle
John Williams, accordion
Steve Morrow, bodhran
Jeff Lindblade, guitar
Visual Artist, Benjamin Calvert carves his art into woodblocks and then prints the images onto paper. Ben will be carving before and during the concert and then printing after the concert so you can see his art form as it happens,
For more information, visit https://www.rendezvousarts.org/
First Time: First Break
Martyrs’
3855 N. Lincoln Ave.
Chicago
,
IL
773.404.9494
21+
The First Time is CHIRP Radio’s Live Lit and Music series. The show pairs a reader’s personal story about a specific "first time" -- a different "first" for each show -- with a song performance.
This quarter's show theme is "First Break," and our readers are:
- Alderman Andre Vasquez
- Journalist Parker Molloy
- Storyteller Jitesh Jaggi
- Musician Carrie Shemanski
- Actor Adam Schulmerich
- CHIRP's own Kristi Turnbaugh (DJ K-TEL)
Plus the always-amazing First Time Three!
Join us for a night of great stories and music produced by our amazing CHIRP team, hosted by Jenn Sodini. More information at firsttime.chirpradio.org.
CHIRP Welcomes: Ezra Collective
Lincoln Hall
2424 N Lincoln Avenue
Chicago
,
IL
60614
(773) 525-2501
18+
CHIRP Radio 107.1FM excitedly welcomes London genre-hopping jazz group Ezra Collective to Lincoln Hall on Sunday, April 2nd!
The group – consisting of Femi (who also drums for Gorillaz) as drummer and bandleader, Joe Armon-Jones on keys, James Mollison on saxophone, Ife Ogunjobi on trumpet, and Femi’s younger brother TJ on bass guitar – originally came together in 2012 as teenagers at the youth band of Tomorrow’s Warriors, a music education initiative at the South Bank Centre in London.
They have since shot forward to become architects of a new phase in their city’s musical journey, a hybrid time in which Black genres – jazz, grime, afrobeat and more – can dovetail and harmonize fluidly, at new, forever rising levels.
CHIRP Welcomes: Ron Gallo
Schubas
3159 N. Southport
Chicago
,
IL
60657
(773) 525-2508
18+
CHIRP Radio 107.1FM is excited to welcome Ron Gallo to Schubas on Wednesday, April 12!
Hi, my name is Ron Gallo, I live on the line between two mindsets:
1. The world is completely fucked
2. The universe is inside youThis is my artist bio. Who has time to read this in 2022? With all that’s happening? With these attention spans? I know I am not cool or important — no one is — I think it’s a good thing. Listen to the music, come to a show, think for yourself. The best compliment I ever received was when someone told me they can never tell when I am serious. My two biggest fears are opposites — having a child or killing someone. You’re probably a little confused or annoyed, but at least you’re not asleep. That’s kind of my thing. I bet you made it this far. Success!!!
We have all been through a lot. Especially the last few years but also all the years before that. There was never time to collectively stop and question what has been considered “normal” for so long and it turns out nothing really is. These ways of thinking and doing in America were never serving everyone but now they’re not serving anyone (except maybe 5 guys that all look identical and own everything). So, I spent an entire record trying to understand what is happening, what’s wrong with this place and what’s wrong with myself, it’s called “FOREGROUND MUSIC” and it’s going to come out on legendary label, Kill Rock Stars, on 3/3/23.
If you’re new to this, or maybe you heard the name but glazed over at another guy with a guitar (like I would have) I’ll sum it up as quickly as possible:
2015, life crumbled in Philadelphia, I became “frustrated with humanity” and it led me to write and record songs that became the first album “HEAVY META.” I moved to Nashville for change of scenery with that record on a hard drive and started playing as many shows as possible with whoever was around — the shows were chaotic, confrontational. It was well-received, or probably strange enough to be intriguing in “MUSIC CITY” so it led to signing with a label, releasing the record in February 2017, touring the world and playing Coachella, Bonnaroo, Governor’s Ball, Austin City Limits, Pukkelpop and more. We toured and played shows with Spoon, Parquet Courts, Ty Segall, Courtney Barnett, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Twin Peaks, Caroline Rose, Wilco, The Black Angels, J. Mascis, Post Animal and more. We played the song “Please Yourself” on a truck stopped in the middle of downtown Nashville and got it on film which is now a music video. NPR called the record “a burst of literate electricity” and me “an insurgent poet and rock n’ roll disruptor.” OK!
It was bizarre to suddenly be doing all this stuff I never thought I would do, so in January 2018 we put out the “Really Nice Guys” EP, a joke concept album and mockumentary film commenting on the absurdities of my newfound role as a professional touring musician. In October 2018 “Stardust Birthday Party” came out — described by The Guardian as “bringing the fruits of meditation to Gallo’s jams — a little like Bodhisattva Vow marked the influx of MCA’s Buddhism into the Beastie Boys.” Iggy Pop played and talked about a track from it on his BBC Radio show and that was a life highlight. The initial pandemic period resulted in my “stay-at-home” pop experiment, 2021’s “PEACEMEAL.”
Now 2022, 50 lifetimes and too much time to think later, I’m full circle, living back in Philly a block from where I made the first record. The neighborhood has become a giant construction site, humanity has too, and I feel similar angst to those early days. I live with my life/musical partner, Chiara D’Anzieri, AKA Santa Chiara, who immigrated from Italy to the U.S. in the beginning of 2020. She plays bass (+ many others instruments) and co-produced “FOREGROUND MUSIC” with me. Having an outsiders perspective on our country and seeing other places has really shown me how fucked up America can be. I strongly suggest getting away from it if you can. Or, if you can’t, maybe this album or a show of ours can help you find a way out from within.
Yours Truly, Ron
CHIRP Welcomes: U.S. Girls
Lincoln Hall
2424 N Lincoln Avenue
Chicago
,
IL
60614
(773) 525-2501
18+
CHIRP Radio 107.1FM is excited to welcome U.S. Girls to Lincoln Hall on Friday, April 21st!
Masterminded by experimental songwriter Meghan Remy, Polaris Music Prize nominee U.S. Girls developed from a noisy, abrasive solo act into a larger-than-life pop group. Remy's fascination with girl group melodrama and eerie soul music grew from reverb-coated experiments in her early days to the ambitious arrangements and slick production of albums like 2018's In a Poem Unlimited and 2020's Heavy Light, as well as the post-punk-leaning 2022 single "So Typically Now."
Remy began U.S. Girls as a solo project in Philadelphia in late 2007. Armed with a gigantic reel-to-reel tape machine, her earliest performances included tape recordings of primitive percussion and vocal performances both aggressive and darkly moody. During this time, Remy toured the U.S. and Europe extensively, lugging her only-sometimes-functional reel-to-reel around and sometimes traveling via Greyhound bus.
Though her harsh tape experiments remained at the core of the U.S. Girls sound, 2011's U.S. Girls on Kraak hinted at a change in direction with sample-based songs and a more vivid vocal presence. Issued by FatCat in 2012, the album Gem delivered on the change suggested in that release as well as in ever-reaching live performances. It was the highest fidelity of any U.S. Girls release to that point, doing away with harsh drum machines and distorted vocals in favor of a more traditional live band-style recording as well as faithful covers of glam rock and '60s AM radio pop. The group's live performances at this time went from solo to full-band experiences as well.
CHIRP Music Book Club: Hit Girls by Jen B. Larson
Roscoe Books
2142 W Roscoe St.
Chicago
(773) 857-2676
It's been a minute, so let's get together at Roscoebooks to discuss Hit Girls: Women of Punk in the USA, 1975-1983 by local author Jen B. Larson!
(photo courtesy of the Chicago Reader)
Think punk was only a boys club? Read about the women who were the punk revolution!
Women have been kicking against the pricks of music patriarchy since Sister Rosetta Tharpe first played the guitar riffs that built rock-n-roll. The explosion of punk sent shockwaves of revolution to every girl who dreamed of being on stage. Punk godmothers Suzy Quatro, The Runaways, Patti Smith, Poison Ivy, Tina Weymouth, Debbie Harry, The Go-Gos, and Fanny’s Millington sisters provided the template for thousands of girls and women throughout the United States to write and record their songs. These pioneering women were more than novelty acts or pretty faces--they were fully contributing members and leaders of mixed-gender and all-female bands long before the call for “girls to the front.”
Pick up your copy at Roscoebooks for a 10% discount using the code "CHIRP"
CHIRP Book Club FAQs:
Q: Do I have to finish the whole book?
A: No! Really, you just need to have an opinion or interest in the topic of the book. You will not be tested on comprehension or interpretation of themes, motifs, etc.
Q: What do you guys talk about?
A: Usually we'll have someone facilitate the discussion by asking some general questions (did you like/dislike? favorite/least favorite part, etc.) and identifying some interesting passages or questions raised by the book. We also listen to music related to the topic at hand.
Q: Is it a big group?
A: Nope, typically just 4-8 people, which is probably for the best. We want to have a good discussion where everybody feels comfortable to speak.
Q: How late do you go?
A: The shop closes at 8pm and we try to get out shortly after. Participants are encouraged to continue their discussions over drinks at one of Roscoe's many fine establishments.
Each meeting is BYOB and light refreshments are provided 😊
CHIRP Welcomes: Fever Ray
The Salt Shed
1357 N Elston
Chicago
,
IL
60642
17+
CHIRP Radio 107.1FM welcomes Karin Dreijer -- AKA Fever Ray -- to the Salt Shed on Sunday, May 7th!
The solo project of the Knife's Karin Dreijer, Fever Ray broadens and deepens the shape-shifting electronic pop of their former group, allowing them to explore different identities -- and their meanings -- even more fully with their music and imagery.
On 2009's Fever Ray, Dreijer's moody character sketches used the icy atmospheres and pitch-shifted vocals they perfected with the Knife in more personal and intimate ways. On 2017's fiery Plunge, they delivered frequently thrilling manifestos on queerness, politics, and desire. With each Fever Ray release, Dreijer pushes artistic boundaries, questions society's limitations, and challenges listeners.
CHIRP Welcomes: Goth Babe
The Salt Shed
1357 N Elston
Chicago
,
IL
60642
17+
On Wednesday, May 10th, CHIRP Radio 107.1FM welcomes Goth Babe to the Salt Shed!
Goth Babe is Griff Washburn enjoying himself. Originally from Tennessee, Griff currently lives in a Tiny House with his pup Sadie in the mountains of Washington. When not on the road touring, Griff and Sadie are off enjoying the outdoors in the great Pacific Northwest. Snow, surf, and trails are plenty to occupy them in their offseason.
Griff has seemed to have picked up on the brighter parts of life. Parting ways with social status and relevance, he's discovered how wonderful living day by day is. Making music to Griff is less a climb to the top, as it is a form of free thinking and enjoyment
CHIRP Welcomes: Westerman
Lincoln Hall
2424 N Lincoln Avenue
Chicago
,
IL
60614
(773) 525-2501
18+
CHIRP Radio 107.1FM is thrilled to welcome Westerman to Lincoln Hall on Wednesday, May 17th!
As Westerman, British singer/songwriter Will Westerman makes low-key, atmospheric indie pop with a cerebral bent à la Steely Dan, one of his influences. His debut album, Your Hero Is Not Dead, saw release in 2020. The political-minded single "Idol; RE-run," a collaboration with Big Thief's James Krivchenia, appeared in 2022 ahead of a Los Angeles-recorded follow-up LP, 2023's An Inbuilt Fault.
At first recording mostly with acoustic guitar, light effects, and percussion, the Londoner's earliest singles appeared on streaming sites throughout 2016. He made his label debut on Blue Flowers Music with the Call and Response EP in August 2017. Featuring more textured arrangements that added keyboards and electric guitar, it marked a shift away from gentle folk-pop into a space between '70s soft rock and contemporary bedroom electro-pop. He reinforced the transition by having his friend Bullion produce the two-track single "Confirmation"/"I Turned Away," which arrived in early 2018.
"Confirmation" enjoyed minor online buzz, giving his career a boost and creating interest in the remainder of his output for that year: two singles and a four-track EP, Ark. He played his first U.S. dates in late 2018 and -- aside from an August guest appearance on Amen Dunes' track "L.A." -- spent the bulk of 2019 either touring or recording. Bullion assisted with sessions for his debut album, and these took place in both southern Portugal and London. In January 2020, Westerman signed to Partisan Records (PIAS), which issued the environmentally themed single "Blue Comanche," his first material in over a year. Further singles were issued before "Your Hero Is Not Dead" -- reputedly composed on the day that Mark Hollis died -- was issued in April. The full-length Your Hero Is Not Dead followed on Partisan in June 2020.
After a period that included the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a move to Athens, Greece, and disenchantment with making music, he returned to songwriting with a more uncompromising approach. A song he wrote shortly after the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capital, "Idol; RE-run" was recorded with producer/percussionist James Krivchenia (Big Thief) and released in October 2022. Further sessions with Krivchenia -- alongside a handful of additional players based in Los Angeles -- resulted in Westerman's second album, An Inbuilt Fault, being issued in 2023.
CHIRP Welcomes: Alex Lahey
Schubas
3159 N. Southport
Chicago
,
IL
60657
(773) 525-2508
18+
CHIRP Radio 107.1FM is excited to welcome Australian singer-songwriter Alex Lahey to Schubas on Wednesday, May 31st!
An Australian singer/songwriter with a sardonic streak and a flair for crafting melodically charged and relatable pop-punk anti-anthems, Alex Lahey broke through in 2016 when her song "You Don't Think You Like People Like Me" earned her awards and positive press both at home and in the United States. On her first full-length album, 2017's I Love You Like a Brother, Lahey showed off her knack for energetic guitar-based tunes with equal portions of hooks and attitude, while 2019's The Best of Luck Club found her mixing up her performances with a wider range of influences and tempos.
Citing a wide array of artists as influences, including the Killers, Paramore, Dolly Parton, and Bruce Springsteen, Alex Lahey was born in Melbourne on July 30, 1992. She started playing both guitar and saxophone when she was 13 years old, and studied art and jazz when she first enrolled in university. She soon put her academic focus strictly on art, but kept up with music by joining a local band called Animaux, in which she sang and played sax. As Lahey became more interested in songwriting, she left the band to become a solo artist. She submitted one of her songs, "You Don't Think You Like People Like Me," for the Josh Pyke Partnership, a talent search to support promising Australian songwriters, and in 2016 the song beat out 200 other entries to win the prize. Just as important, later that week the online music journal Pitchfork named the song Best New Track, giving her music international exposure.
CHIRP Welcomes: Damien Jurado
Evanston SPACE
1245 Chicago Avenue
Evanston
,
IL
60202
(847) 492-8860
All Ages
CHIRP Radio 107.1FM is excited to welcome Damien Jurado to Evanston SPACE on Sunday, June 18th!
“Play on, there’s no such thing as better days,” Damien Jurado sings on “Roger,” the sweeping wash of a song that opens Reggae Film Star, his 18th full length album and second release from Jurado’s own Maraqopa Records label. But as he enters his 25th year as a recording artist, it’s clear these are, at the least, very good days for Jurado on the creative front. In these 12 songs, which evoke half-recalled dreams and overheard conversations, the cosmic rushes headlong into the autobiographical and specific moments on the clock fade from past to future to scenes set only in the eternal now.
Playing out like a backlot documentary filmed on the location of an unnamed TV or film set—maybe a sitcom taping, or perhaps it’s a low budget science fiction B-movie, or could it be a talk show?—the album is populated by performers awaiting call times, camera operators praying for their shot, and studio audiences rapt with anticipation. The stars here eschew glitz and glamor. Instead, they wander grocery stores and parking lots in the verdant Pacific Northwest and the desert Southwest, looking for payphones and a sense of purpose.
Produced by Jurado with multi-instrumentalist Josh Gordon and recording engineer Alex Bush at Sonikwire studio in Irvine,CA, Jurado’s home away from home and musical headquarters, the record’s compositions are among the most musically rich in his vast discography, encompassing romantic AM gold, ‘60s psychedelia, driving rock & roll, Latin shuffles, and left of the dial ambiance. Strings swell, melodic bass bubbles, and piano sparkles, undergirding Jurado’s unmistakable voice, at once intimately present and ghostly, grounded in the here and now but capable, at any moment, of drifting off into the divinatory. Following threads established by 2021’s The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania, the album sees Jurado embracing his auteur era, penning vignettes that arrive with little fanfare and depart quicker than you might suspect, only to linger long after they wrap.
Seeking a skeleton key to decipher the action is beside the point—Jurado’s songs are worlds meant to be lived in, not picked apart—but on the beatific single “What Happened To The Class Of ‘65?” the singer imagines himself as both the viewer and the viewed, the eye behind the camera and its subject. This emotional and spiritual transference animates Reggae Film
Star. Like a masterful director, Jurado offers motivation to the listener, staring unblinkingly from the mise-en-scène in your mind. “Look into the camera,” he commands on “The Day Of The Robot,” “One more time with anger/And sadness/I believe you.”
A quarter-century in, Jurado remains gripped by his visions and driven by an unmatched creative drive. Reggae Film Star is one of Damien Jurado’s finest works to date, a stunning new feature from one of indie rock’s most cinematic figures. Here on this sound stage, you are the camera, you are the scene, you are the setting, and you are the viewer. Please try not to blink.
CHIRP Welcomes: Deerhoof
Lincoln Hall
2424 N Lincoln Avenue
Chicago
,
IL
60614
(773) 525-2501
18+
CHIRP Radio 107.1FM is excited to welcome Deerhoof to Lincoln Hall on Friday, July 14th!
Miracle-Level is Deerhoof’s mystical manifesto on creativity and trust, its answer to the artificial industries of deception, coercion, and boredom we’re forced to put up with.
Surprisingly, Deerhoof’s 19th album is also their first to be made from beginning to end in a recording studio. Not because they had tired of their anarchic sound, but because they wanted to make themselves uncomfortable — by opening up their secretive DIY methods to someone new after 28 years.
The results are an avant-garde, anti-fascist carnival, its spicy surprises whispered conspiratorially, and lit by candlelight. Sit down, let me tell you a story celebrating the infinite small wonders of existence… the miracles that spontaneously present themselves when we’re not distracted by the tribalism and manipulation of our death-driven masters… the miracles that Artificial Intelligence will never replicate. Deerhoof speak in a secret code in which hooks abound, genre is nonexistent, and magic ever awaits us.
CHIRP Welcomes: Le Tigre
The Salt Shed
1357 N Elston
Chicago
,
IL
60642
17+
CHIRP Radio 107.1FM is thrilled to welcome Le Tigre to The Salt Shed on Saturday, July 15th on their first North American tour since 2005!
Originally conceived as the live backing band for her Julie Ruin solo project, Bikini Kill founder and quintessential riot grrrl Kathleen Hanna formed Le Tigre, another bold, feminist-oriented trio, with filmmaker Sadie Benning and zine creator Johanna Fateman in 1998.
Borrowing a page from Hanna's Julie Ruin output, Le Tigre mixed punk's directness and politics with playful samples, eclectic pop, and lo-fi electronics. The group also added multimedia and performance art elements to their live shows, which often featured support from like-minded acts such as the Need.
Le Tigre arrived in late 1999 on Mr. Lady, followed by the From the Desk of Mr. Lady EP in 2001. Benning left the group to pursue her filmmaking career before the recording of Le Tigre's second album, Feminist Sweepstakes, and was replaced by J.D. Samson. The band made a surprising leap to the majors for 2004's This Island, which was distributed through Universal.
CHIRP Welcomes: Altin Gun
Thalia Hall
1807 S. Allport St.
Chicago
,
IL
60608
17+
CHIRP is happy to welcome GRAMMY® Award-nominated Turkish psych-folk innovators Altin Gün to Thalia Hall! Their eagerly anticipated new album, Aşk, arrives via ATO Records on Friday, March 10.
Aşk sees Altın Gün veering away from the electronic, synth-drenched sound of their critically acclaimed 2021 albums, Âlem and Yol, to capture all the infectious power and urgency of the Amsterdam-based band’s famously propulsive live performances. Recorded using vintage equipment and techniques, the album’s ten groundbreaking tracks all represent visionary new readings of traditional Turkish folk tunes, revealing how these ancient songs remain eternally resonant and ripe for reinterpretation.
Hailing from Amsterdam but coming from various backgrounds (Turkish, Dutch and more), Altın Gün have captured the world’s imagination with their indelible fusion of psychedelic rock, deep funk, synthpop, cosmic reggae, and more with the rich and incredibly diverse traditions of Anatolian and Turkish folk music.