Pinback

We’re not wacky-personality guys that try to force people to like our music because we’re crazy…We’re just guys that really like making music and that’s fine with us.

story by Jonathon Simpson
photo by Brad Miller

Pinback’s music is the kind that accumulates a lot of odd-couple/opposite descriptions like “simple yet complex” or “mellow yet intense,” so I don’t feel bad about hoisting my own contradictory labels upon both the duo and its music: easily approachable, often illusive. The music is precise, well-orchestrated simplicity: pop beats, subtle bass, mystery plug-ins and vocals embedded into the music, not embroidered upon it.

Music that doesn’t just benefit from several listens, the best of it is practically predicated on doing just that. Pinback is well-known for its DIY home production, and the process is meticulous. “We’re both pretty much hacks. We just go over stuff so much that it eventually starts sounding alright. We do our own things and make them fit together,” says Rob Crow over the phone while fixing one of his computers used for recording.

Rob is one half of the San Diego-based band (“I’m the fat one,” he says,) along with Armistead Burwell Smith IV (or Zach – “He’s the skinny one.”)
The latter was driving one of the band’s vans to NYC where they played for the October 12 release of their new album, Summer In Abaddon. Rob was to fly there the next day because he had to be there earlier for a solo show and because he “doesn’t know how to drive anyway.” (I can’t report whether Rob, who in his late teens spent some time in a mental hospital, was joking or not. I think he was…)

Both members have one or more back-burner bands or projects but Pinback takes priority, says Rob. “Everything else I write for is easy to do, but Pinback songs take up to a year to write sometimes.” You really have to fish out the lyrics, and when you do – with or without the help of the CD booklet – you might be left bemused, but not unsatisfied. Fun fact: “You can usually tell who wrote what lyrics by what handwriting it is [in the CD sleeve]. I write the majority of them,” says Rob. What you get is music that is good for rainy days, sunny days, car rides, social nights or Bloody Mary mornings – whenever your mood desires music that falls somewhere between ambient and salient.

Live, the band is no less illusive than their records. They seem shy in the lights, kind of humble; just purveyors of music that seem to represent them well. “We’re not wacky-personality guys that try to force people to like our music because we’re crazy…We’re just guys that really like making music and that’s fine with us.” They are not, nor have ever been “wannabe rock-star fuckbags,” says Rob with a laugh. And live, they don’t stray very far from their records – though neither is lost in even the tiniest beep, boop, shake or other effect.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on,” explains Rob. “I don’t know how many plug-ins we use for each song.” It’s interesting enough to see them play, if only to answer for yourself questions like “who sings when and plays what” and “how was that sound made?” Though everything on the record is played and recorded by Rob and Zach, on tour with them are up to three other members, filling in on drums, keys, synths and so on. The last time Pinback played in Chicago, practically the only thing to come out of anybody’s mouth that wasn’t a song was when Rob noted that he had never had so many lights on him, and that it made him feel fat. Then he used the top of an unopened bottle of spring water to pry open another Guinness.

Pinback :: with Earlimart :: Metro :: November 7.

Sex Mob

When you hear a Sex Mob record, it doesn’t sound like a jazz record. It would fit in with other genres like Nirvana, Bjork and the Beastie Boys – and your ears won’t hurt.

story by Ronnie Reese
photo by Mike Schreiber

In contemporary society, there are certain words that draw both the eye and the ear. “Free” and “sex” are probably the most common. There is music that elicits the same reaction, and groups that incorporate the aforementioned terms into their routines are often afforded a wealth of fame and riches. Sex Mob aren’t rich, but if you ask leader and slide trumpeter Steve Bernstein, that doesn’t matter. Their name is sexy and so is their music. Bernstein’s approach to music is no different than the average person’s approach to sex. “Sometimes you might get lost for a while,” he says, “but once it gets going, it’s going.”

It’s the sex that sells, but that’s not necessarily what Sex Mob is selling. Neither is the above statement descriptive of the band’s approach to just sex. Instead, it describes their take on creating sexy music – the ability to deconstruct songs in Sex Mob style by taking a strong, recognizable melody, stretching it to the limits of auditory understanding, and having it either snap back wildly or slink back under the guise of sleazy, skin-flick funk. If it sounds clichéd, perhaps it is, but the clichés are coming from top-notch musicians with active imaginations and reverential respect for their elders.

“Quincy Jones is my hero,” says Bernstein, who has been terrorizing downtown NYC audiences with fellow Mobsters Briggan Krauss on alto saxophone, bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollesen for nearly a decade. As a group, Sex Mob is a prime example of Jones’ influence in popularizing jazz music, one pioneered by Miles Davis and practiced by fellow trumpeters Donald Byrd and Freddie Hubbard.

Each recognized that with the advent of rock and roll, the interpretation of rhythm would become different for the popular culture. National consciousness had expanded and as times changed, many musicians found themselves having to change with them. This was especially true for jazz artists, who had to be unafraid to acknowledge and embrace other forms of music. “The guys who could cross over to the hippies, they stayed popular,” Bernstein explains, “but if you didn’t have something psychedelic about your music, it would sound square to people because their minds – and their outlook on the world – had changed. You had to adapt or be left behind. That’s the story of evolution…look at what happened to the dinosaurs.”

Yes, dinosaurs are now extinct. Just as extinct as jazz music is for the average modern music fan, a condition Bernstein and company view as their mission to reverse. Recent performances have included pleasingly incoherent covers of Prince’s “Darling Nikki” and The Who’s “I Can See For Miles,” part of an effort to establish a connection between jazz music and a potential new audience – something Sex Mob has practiced for years through renditions of songs by ABBA, the Grateful Dead and James Bond film composer James Barry.

“When you hear a Sex Mob record, it doesn’t sound like a jazz record,” says Bernstein. “It would fit in with other genres like Nirvana, Bjork and the Beastie Boys – and your ears won’t hurt.” This is a good thing, especially for jazz music. Sex Mob freaks the familiar in order to hook the listener. They might as well be teaching Marketing 101.

Come for the sex, stay for the music.

Sex Mob Horns :: as part of the Ropeadope New Music Seminar with Charlie Hunter and Lyrics Born :: Park West :: November 12.

Slicker

Everyday life is really inspiring, and I just wanted to be really honest with myself and just be inspired by what was going on in my house. I can’t write when I don’t have something in my life that’s inspiring me.

story by Karen Budell

Like the menagerie on the cover of We All Have a Plan, the music of Slicker’s fourth album is a curious mix – a collection of animal noises sprinkled throughout electronic beats, jazz, hip hop, soul and pop in order to create an organic sound best described as future roots.

Slicker, a.k.a. John Hughes – the man behind Chicago’s Hefty Records – said the optimism of electronic music and the progressive and limitless aspect of the genre continually captivated him while growing up. No doubt the 28-year-old son of the iconic ’80s film director of the same name (creator of The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) also drew from the creative energy surging through his home. Listening to Herbie Hancock, Kraftwerk, Sugar Hill and Grandmaster Flash helped, too.

What fuels the creative fire inside him now is his new family life with his wife and two year-old daughter. So it’s fitting that he wanted the new album “to be sort of symbolizing starting new relationships. Everyday life is really inspiring, and I just wanted to be really honest with myself and just be inspired by what was going on in my house,” Hughes said in a telephone interview with Chicago Innerview. “I can’t write when I don’t have something in my life that’s inspiring me.”

Another source of inspiration is his record label. Hughes envisions Hefty Records as a collective of artists who are “building a cohesive little unit” by getting involved with each other’s projects. “Whatever I can do to sort of make that a reality instead of an idealization I like to do,” he said. “I’m just sort of inspired by the idea of a bunch of artists swapping on each other’s tracks and inspiring each other. I’m kind of really drawn to that spirit.”

Lindsay Anderson of L’Altra and Joshua Eustis of Telefon Tel Aviv are just two of the players who add inspiration to We All Have a Plan. Along with Retina.IT, the two will showcase their talents this month as part of the bi-monthly “Immediate Action Night” at Sonotheque.

Slicker will also do his thing, and part of that includes throwing demos into his deejay mix in order to “see the way people are vibing off of it. Most everyone I put out [on Hefty] had arrived in the mail, so I really take sending me music seriously,” he said. “I really go overkill on listening to people’s demos…it’s really exciting knowing that, you know, there’s like five other people that heard this. It just feels so fresh.”

And Hughes’ handpicking of a community of musicians who share a similar vision also feels fresh. His plan is definitely in motion.

Slicker :: with L’Altra, Retina.IT, and Joshua Eustis of Telefon Tel Aviv :: Sonotheque :: November 5.

The Arcade Fire

I think there’s a fair share of people that just want the next thing so they can crap all over it and move on to the next new thing. But I think there are also a lot of people who really like music. And I think the people that are connecting to the music and connecting to the lyrics are the people we’re ultimately going to be involved with.

story by Don Bartlett

In the world of indie rock, where credibility is the local currency, hype has become a four-letter word. Win Butler is conscious of this fact, though it seems to amuse him more than concern him. His band The Arcade Fire has come storming out of a scene-stealing weekend at the CMJ Conference in New York City last month, and just in case anyone missed it, a feature-length story on the band in the New York Times got them up to speed. In the space of a few months, the band has morphed from obscure Montreal art-rockers into “the next big thing.” Chicago Innerview spoke with Butler as the band rolled out of New York, and he shared his thoughts on the privileges and perils of success.

At first glance this seems like a story we’ve all seen before. Bands like The Killers and Franz Ferdinand explode onto the scene seemingly out of thin air, and within months they’re in heavy rotation on MTV and dominate old-media standbys like Rolling Stone and Spin. While The Arcade Fire may find themselves at the beginning of a similar trajectory, the path they’ve taken to this point has been traveled quite on their own. Their home is Merge Records, the small but prestigious North Carolina label owned by Laura Balance and Mac McCaughan of the band Superchunk. Lacking the powerhouse marketing muscle of larger imprints, Merge has built its reputation by signing great musicians and letting them make music.

Given the lack of a major label marketing blitz, Butler seems justified in his defense of the building buzz. “Look, we’ve just done some live shows and put out a record,” Butler says. “It’s just some review sites that have been hyping it, and people who have been to the shows. It’s not like there’s some dude in a suit out there coming up with catchy slogans to get people to like it.”

In recording their debut LP, Funeral, The Arcade Fire made one important marketing decision….they created a brilliant album. Their unique blend of orchestral art-rock has built a following from word of mouth and near-universal critical acclaim. The record plays like a unique journey, leading the listener from the David Byrne intensity of “Neighborhood #2 (Laika)”, to the Brian Ferry sensitivity of “Une annee sans lumiere”. Surrounded by a unique brew of guitars, strings, xylophones and accordions, the lyrics are the cord that unexpectedly binds the album together.

Butler and his wife Regine Chassagne, who together handle most of the singing duties, approach the songs with a child-like innocence, infusing the music with a naïve honesty that would approach the corny if it were not pulled off so expertly. The result is refreshingly unpretentious, a magical realism that leaves the listener with the powerful catharsis that great art provides. As Butler explains, “It’s hard to tell what is connecting with people. I think the subject matter of a lot of the songs is different from typical rock fare. In a certain way, you’re trying to use surreal imagery to talk about something very real and scary.”

Translating this controlled chaos to a live setting is a challenge, but Butler feels confident that the soul of the music comes across. “We’ve always been most comfortable and felt that our music has the most impact in a live setting. And my experience is that when people see something they like [that] they are excited about it, they tell people about it. And that’s not hype, that’s the music.”

As he speeds off into the New York night, Butler is both realistic and optimistic about the future. “I think there’s a fair share of people that just want the next thing so they can crap all over it and move on to the next new thing. But I think there are also a lot of people who really like music. And I think the people that are connecting to the music and connecting to the lyrics are the people we’re ultimately going to be involved with.”

The Arcade Fire :: at Logan Square Auditorium (all ages) on November 25 :: and at Empty Bottle on November 26.