Flashback Friday: California Baroque Pop Spun Beatles Style

California sunshine popsters, The Merry-Go-Round, endured a wild, dizzy ride of short fame in the late 1960's. Fronted by multi-instrumentalist and musical golden boy, Emitt Rhodes in 1966, the band featured former members of Grass Roots and the Gene Clark Group. With two members still in high school, The Merry-Go-Round managed to reach the Top Ten with their first single, "Live" on radio stations, KHJ-FM in Los Angeles and KGB-FM in San Diego. Sounding somewhere between the California folk-rock of the Byrds or the baroque pop of the Zombies, the band toured briefly with psychedelic acts, including Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, The Electric Prunes and Janis Joplin. While only recording one self-titled album and several singles during its short three-year career, the band's songs "Live" and "Time Will Show The Wiser" were covered by The Bangles and The Fairport Convention, respectively. One of their stellar 60's nuggets "Listen, Listen," maybe the best song that Paul McCartney never wrote. Likewise, Emitt Rhodes maybe the American bastard brother of the once Beatlesque McCartney.

Live

Time Will Show the Wiser

Listen, Listen

 

RFC Review: Timber Timbre

Over the summer, I was sitting outside of Reggie's Music Joint drinking a beer and talking with a friend about the new music that we'd respectively been spinning. I'd been rattling off my summer favorites Bad Veins and Dawes when he asked if I'd heard of Timber Timbre. I hadn't, so he extracted his iPod from his bag and played me "Demon Host", the first track off of the band's just released self titled album. I was immeadiately reminded of Ryan Gosling's new project, Dead Man's Bones, with the evocative, spooky overtones of the songs and within days, had procured myself a copy of the disc.

Upon further listening, I discovered the similarities to Dead Man's Bones weren't baseless, although Timber Timbre seems to lie somewhere in the ether between Gosling's vaudeville project and the acoustic musings of M. Ward's earlier, pre-Monsters of Folk work, only with significantly more horrific lyrics.

Timber Timbre - Demon Host

Get on the List: White Rabbits @ Lincoln Hall 11/12

Had a chance to check out Chicago's newest music venue yet? No? Would it help if we snuck you in for free? Today we've got your hook-up for free admission to see White Rabbits open for The Walkmen next Thursday at Lincoln Hall. Just drop us a line at radiofreechicago(at)gmail.com with "Chasing Rabbits" in the subject line for your chance to get on the list with a +1. Good luck!

White Rabbits - Percussion Gun

Sky Larkin & Peggy Sue @ The Whistler 10/31

With all the talk of vampires, werewolves and the New Moon soundtrack these days, the Whistler daringly gave their bar over to a group of undead to liven up the evening. From the land of 28 Days Later, Leeds' Sky Larkin and Londoners Peggy Sue treated the small cocktail bar to a mixed concoction of indie and folk not yet seen in Chicago. Granted only a few people got bloodied up, lost a limb or were irreparably transformed while everyone got a dose of the up and coming British indie scene in their own Logan Square backyard.

RFC Interview: Wax Tailor

Before Schubas, Wax Tailor's music came to attention to me while sitting at a microbrewery café years ago with soulful cuts crafting a smooth trip-hop and hip-hop combination not heard of since Madlib's Blue Note foray. While one is established, the other is rising with his unique blend, evoking a sound reminiscent more of Portishead than any other hip-hop producer. Utilizing jazz instrumentals, strips of film dialogues, and vocalists from around the world, Jean-Christophe Le Saoût has been building upon his firm French foundation with a featured track on the recently limited released film, Paris, from Cédric Klapsich. Hot off the presses of his third album, In the Mood for Life, Wax Tailor recently had his first Chicago show accompanied by a flutist, a cellist, Mattic, and Charlotte Savary.

Noah and the Whale @ Lake Shore Theater 10/29

Noah and the Whale's sophomore release The First Days of Spring indicated a departure in tone from a mere year earlier, when their single "5 Years Time" garnered a Saturn commercial and was a radio hit in the United Kingdom. Gone was the brightly colored folk, replaced instead by orchestrated melancholy. With this sophomore sea change in mind as well as their prior Chicago appearance last autumn at the Empty Bottle, I was quite apprehensive going into the Lake Shore Theater Thursday night. Would this be the same free-wheeling folk band I discovered on La Blogothèque's Take-Away Shows? Or had they permanently changed?

Flanked by a wonderful and helpful staff decked out in Halloween regalia, I entered to find the theater's seats nearly filled for the night's performance. Needless to say the upbeat, gleeful 2008 quartet of Noah and the Whale was supported by the moderated, mellow 2009 quintet version. This provided two distinct sets in one performance. The repressed mallet drumbeat of "Blue Skies" opened the curtain on what has happened to the Londoners; more withdrawn in tone yet oft giving in to soaring flourishes. That main apprehension persisted until it dissipated on the follow-up, "Give a Little Love" off Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down. The audience ate it up, relishing in the encouraging choruses pinnacling up into the call-and-response between Charlie Fink and the rest of the band.

Koji 10/24 @ Summer Camp

Chances are you haven't heard of Koji. I hadn't heard of Koji until I bumped into two gentlemen at Kevin Devine's Metro gig on the 22nd who I got to chatting with. Ends up they were pals of this Koji fellow and they encouraged me to hit up Koji's house show at Summer Camp if I didn't have anything going on on the 24th. I told them I didn't and after hearing their description of Koji (A Hawaiian gentlemen with a huge fu manchu who plays the most unexpectedly wonderful folk music), I told them I would definitely come. It wasn't until later that night I realized that on the 24th, I was going to be at Lincoln Hall to see David Bazan. Thankfully, after a bit of research, I discovered doors wouldn't even be opening for Bazan until 9:30 pm, giving me ample time to head over to Summer Camp and check out this Koji fellow for myself.

Flashback Friday: This Star Hangs Brightly

Countrified dream pop duo, Mazzy Star was formed from the ashes of Opal in Santa Monica, CA in 1989. Following in the footsteps of the California Paisley Underground movement of the 1980s, the band was heavily influenced by the psychedelic stylings of The Doors and The Velvet Underground. Mazzy Star's debut album, She Hangs Brightly, was released by Rough Trade in 1990 and sounds like a hollowed-out version of Jesus & The Mary Chain; the perfect companion for a rainy day affair. The album begins with the breezy bluesy "Halah," which reminds one of a drug-induced Patsy Cline outtake. "Ride It On" encompasses a simple, acoustical approach filled with heartache and regret, while "Blue Flower" is a classic garage rock number full of slow-core feedback and light shoegaze elements.

Halah

Blue Flower

Ride It On

RFC TV: Sea Wolf's "Wicked Blood"

Earlier in the week, the new video from Sea Wolf hit the web and it's timing couldn't be more perfect. Featuring vaudevillian ghosts, skeletons, some sort of big-foot-astronaut hybrid and the babe-tastic Shannyn Sossamon, the spooky effort is perfect viewing for Halloween.

David Bazan 10/24 @ Lincoln Hall

One of the musicians that has impacted my life the most is doubtlessly David Bazan, who I first discovered about ten years ago after the release of Pedro The Lion's It's Hard To Find a Friend. Most of the musicians that have impacted my life for as long as Bazan has have either died or disbanded so when it was announced earlier in the summer that Bazan's headlining tour would bring him to Chicago in October, my excitement levels started building immediately.  The fact that the show was at my new favorite venue, Lincoln Hall, just added to my anxiousness.

RFC TV: Port O'Brien's "My Will Is Good"

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For those of you who didn't get to see Port O'Brien steal the show earlier this month when they opened for Sea Wolf and let the audience play pots and pan, the next best thing might be the sunny video for "My Will Is Good", the lead track off their stellar new album, Threadbare.

Dawes and Langhorne Slim @ Lincoln Hall 10/23

After missing Dawes during Daytrotter's second Barnstormer Tour, I was pretty excited to see the band play with Langhorne Slim. In fact, I was also quite excited to see headliner Langhorne Slim as well. But the thing that made me the most excited about the events of the 23rd was the fact that it marked my first attendance to fledgling venue Lincoln Hall. All three of those elements together made me a very happy camper indeed.

I've been excited for Lincoln Hall to open it's doors since I first heard about the venue all the way back in June. It is, after all, presented to you by the same folks that own and operate one of my favorite venues in the country, Schubas and the things that make Schubas special are all present at Lincoln Hall- The relaxed hipness of the restaurant and bar, the genuine niceness of the staff, and amazing sound quality in the concert hall itself. When I say that Lincoln Hall just might be my favorite venue, I mean that. Atmosphere is everything and Lincoln Hall has just the perfect amount of it.

Dawes - When My Time Comes

Langhorne Slim - Restless