Author: Anita Overcash

Categories
Arts

Birds of Chicago stop and play on the road

Having a daughter didn’t stop husband-and-wife duo Birds of Chicago’s busy tour schedule—they just go slower and experience the journey together. Publicity photo

Life on the road as touring musicians can be demanding. But long days driving and late nights on stage aren’t the only enduring requirements for the husband-and-wife-fronted Birds of Chicago. JT Nero and Allison Russell decided to bring their 3-year-old daughter along for the ride. The pair started touring with their daughter before she turned 1 and say her presence has caused them to tour smarter.

“She’s taught us to say no to some things,” Nero says. “If someone said, ‘Hey, I know you have this show in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but there’s a cool radio thing that happens the next morning in Austin, Texas, so if you drive through the night after your show you can make it just in time,’ we would just do it.” Instead, the couple finds themselves taking detours to parks and playgrounds.

Birds of Chicago
The Southern Café and Music Hall
April 13

Nero and Russell initially met through mutual musician friends and reconnected when Russell was in Po’ Girl and Nero in JT & the Clouds. After crossing paths frequently, they decided to get serious about their own musical collaborations, as well as their personal life. The duo released the album Birds of Chicago in 2012 and married in 2013. Although initially just an album title, the name stuck as the collective’s form of identification. “I kind of like it because the idea was that it’s a collective,” says Nero. “It’s built around Allison and me, but there’s a kind of tribe of conspirators that are involved and the name hints at that a bit. But the shorter answer could have been: We really like birds and we’re from Chicago.”

Birds pop up as symbols in the band’s lyrics—take “Pelicans” and “Sparrow” from their 2016 album, Real Midnight. Listeners get touches of soulful gospel-tinged rock, but there’s a deeper melancholy vibe with several tracks touching on mortality. Nero says a large portion of the record was inspired by the birth of their daughter.

“In some ways it was the happiest year of our lives but I think when you experience that kind of happiness you’re also really aware of how easy it can get ripped away and how fragile everything is,” he says. “You’re that much more aware of the shadows creeping in.”

Just as they share an equal role in parenting, Russell and Nero also share vocals on the album. Nero is intuitive, knowing that certain songs he writes are meant for Russell to sing.

“Sparrow” and “Barley,” on Real Midnight were written by Russell, who drew inspiration from her Scottish-Canadian heritage.

“Her grandma grew up singing her a lot of the really old Scottish and Irish folk tunes and weird old murder ballads and things like that,” Nero says. “On ‘Barley’ she was really tapping into those old traditions.”

Birds of Chicago just finished recording Love in Wartime, produced by Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars. Nero believes it has a more rock ’n’ roll feel and less melancholy elements, while thematically, it revolves around love.

“I think it’s the idea that there’s always wartime. There’s always forces out there trying to extinguish love. It’s just a weird self-destructive gene that humans have in them,” says Nero. “We wanted to write a record about love. I feel like people could use some good news more than ever right now with a good rock ’n’ roll beat behind it.”

Categories
Arts

79.5 bandmates are romantic psychedelic soulmates

Brooklyn’s 79.5 is making a name for itself through ear candy soul and unique musical residencies. The group supports Chicano Batman at the Southern on Friday. Publicity photo

When 79.5 founder and frontwoman Kate Mattison started her band in 2012 she didn’t envision playing gigs in a setting that looked like something straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean. But, three years later after adding five new members to the band, including vocalists Piya Malik and Nya Parker Brown, guitarist Matty McDermott, bassist Adrienne Hailey and saxophonist/flutist Izaak Mills, the magic happened. 79.5 was asked to play a series of shows on the Clipper City Tall Ship in New York.

“Those shows really brought the band to a whole ’nother level,” says Mattison. “It’s really hard to play on a boat but it’s so much fun. You can’t hear anything while you’re playing because the sound goes straight out to the water—and you may or may not get seasick.”

The band sold out the shows quickly. It was a big move for the Brooklyn-based group, which had played its first gig at Sunny’s, a small, historic dive bar in the neighborhood.

In September 2015, the band raised $8,654 through an Indiegogo page to help fund its debut album, Predictions, which Mattison credits to coming mostly from supporters in Brooklyn. “People on the street stop us and say, ‘Go get ’em. Go make a name for us out there,’” says Mattison. “The outpouring of love from that community has really helped lift us up.”

The album is slated for release this summer. “Overall, I’d say the record has a romantic theme to it, but it’s also kind of psychedelic and lofty. A lot of the songs are about relationships and what could go wrong or even just imagining a relationship.” The single “Terrorize My Heart,” which Mattison calls her “song revenge,” is about being cheated on. Meanwhile the band’s latest single, “Boys Don’t Be Afraid,” is about manning up and telling someone you love them despite past relationship drama.

Chicano Batman with 79.5 and Sad Girl
The Southern Café and Music Hall
March 24

While the band’s sound falls into a mix of genres—nu-soul, psychedelic pop, disco and R&B all weave through the dancey tunes—Mattison dubs it as “romantic psychedelic soul,” citing the influence of old soul records. “One of my biggest influences is Todd Rundgren, if you can believe that. It’s because I really like the chords that he uses on the piano. There’s a lot of major and minor seven chords,” says Mattison. “I would say—especially with the big sound of the band with all the singers—we have a Pointer Sisters and Rotary Connection kind of vibe.”

Since the addition of Malik and Brown, Mattison has developed an even stronger appreciation for unison singing and three-part harmonies.

The band’s alluring vocals attracted the attention of Los Angeles-based soul psych act Chicano Batman, who asked 79.5 to join them onstage last year for a set at The Bowery Ballroom in Manhattan.

“Without even hearing us they asked the three of us to do backup vocals at that show and we just killed it…it came naturally,” says Mattison.

That gig set the ball rolling for the band’s current tour with Chicano Batman, on which 79.5 will also provide backing vocals and keys during part of the headliner’s set.

“For me that’s the most exciting part, playing keys for somebody else’s music,” says Mattison.

As for the singing, Mattison enjoys the way her bandmates’ voices complement and contrast. “All three of us sing so differently. …I have a softer, more whispery voice. I would say Piya has a more cutting, stronger voice. She sings in Hindi and stuff like that so she can do a lot of trills, and then Nya is the R&B ringer,” says Mattison. “We’ve all sung our whole lives, so working together just came really easy for us.”

Going for gold

Why 79.5? Mattison says, “The band kind of sounds like AM gold, so [a friend] came up with the band name. It was like the name of a radio station that was below the dial, you know. I liked it. It wasn’t anything specific but it encompassed the sound of the band.”

Categories
Arts

Natalie Haas talks about traditional music comebacks

While the cello is often seen in an orchestral setting, Natalie Haas (with Alasdair Fraser) and a small number of musicians are leading the revival to recognize its place in traditional Celtic music. Publicity photo

In the fashion world, LuLaRoe is bringing leggings back, one pop-up at a time. And it could be said that in the music world, Natalie Haas is helping to bring the cello back as a substratum for Celtic songscapes. Over the years she’s embraced the instrument, transforming its sound to complement those by the legendary Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser.

Haas, 33, met Fraser when she was 11 years old. Her parents had enrolled her and her sister in Fraser’s Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddle School in California. But unlike her sister, Brittany Haas, she didn’t play the fiddle. Instead, she lugged her cello off to the camp, where there was a specialty class devoted to its role in Celtic music.

“That camp really changed both my and my sister’s life and made us realize that music was something we could do and not just for fun,” says Haas, who is a professor at Berklee College of Music. “It was so important to us that we decided we wanted to make it our life’s work.” Five years after visiting the camp, Haas played her first show with Fraser, and the pair has performed together since. Fraser and Haas recently finished their fifth studio album and the duo will play at C’ville Coffee on March 11.

Natalie Haas and Alasdair Fraser
C’ville Coffee
March 11

For the new album, Ports of Call, Fraser and Haas have swayed from their staple Celtic melodies, which make up only half of the disc. The rest of the tunes were influenced by other cultures and music styles that they encountered while touring. “The ones that we are really exploring on this album are Scandinavia, Spain and France,” says Haas. Part of the exploration centers on the relationship between music and dance. “Halling,” one of the Scandinavian-inspired tracks on the album, is inspired by a Norwegian folk dance that involves acrobatics by male participants. “The goal is to kick off a hat that is resting on a pole that someone is holding up and it’s pretty far off the ground, so it’s a very impressive dance to watch,” says Haas.

“Waltzska for Su-A” is one of three songs that Haas wrote for the album. “It’s a little Celtic and a little Swedish,” she says. “That’s why it’s called ‘waltzska,’ a combination between a waltz and polska. It was written for a friend who came to visit me in Montreal.”

Haas, who has been hailed for bringing the cello back to Scottish music, explains how the instrument declined in popularity in Scotland—largely due to an increase of pianos and accordions that emerged in the 1900s. “They [instruments like the piano and accordion] could project more than the cello in terms of accompanying music for dancing. So cellos became more associated with orchestras and chamber music,” says Haas.

Today, Haas says she can count the number of cellists playing traditional music in a professional capacity on two hands. She credits Scott Skinner with being one of the last famous cellists in terms of traditional music, and notes that Abby Newton, a teacher at the Valley of the Moon camp 20 years ago, was one of the first cellists in recent times to play a role in its revival. “It’s still kind of a very niche thing, but we’re seeing more and more people—especially through the camp that we run—coming to study it,” says Haas, who has spearheaded the cello class at Valley of the Moon since 2002.

“I think it’s becoming more and more accepted, not only in traditional music but also in pop music and with singer-songwriters and all sorts of things,” she says. “It’s a very exciting time for the cello.”

Categories
Arts

The Last Bison forges a new sound

Newly local, The Last Bison brings a fresh lineup and recently recorded tunes to the Southern on February 19. Photo by Jakob Wandel

Ben Hardesty is roaming Charlottesville. The frontman of indie folk- pop act The Last Bison moved to C’ville last August. Since then, the musicians that once comprised the band in its former home base of Chesapeake have scattered. Only six months on the new terrain, Hardesty is still trying to discover where he can get the juiciest bison burger in town, but he’s more focused on new music for The Last Bison, performing at the Southern on Sunday.

The band, formerly known as Bison, gets its name from Hardesty’s fascination with 19th-century American history.

“I thought the American buffalo/bison represented a lot of things about the way our country is because it has a pretty complicated past as an American icon,” he says. “It represents power but it also represents greed. It represents the creation of civilization but also the destruction of another one. I felt it was the most honest representation of what America really is.”

The Last Bison
The Southern Café and Music Hall
February 19

The Last Bison released Quill independently in 2011, then signed with Universal Republic and went on to release two albums—Inheritance and Sleigh Ride—in 2013. After being dropped, the band followed with two more independent albums, 2014’s VA and 2015’s Dorado.

Hardesty, 25, reflects on Dorado’s songs, which are based on his life experiences. The tracks even fall chronologically on the album, making it a play-by-play of Hardesty’s most memorable moments. “Souls in the Sand” is about his childhood journey across Bolivia. His missionary parents (his father is a pastor) went to remote jungles to build churches and train locals to be pastors. While they were working, Hardesty explored. That sometimes meant getting into trouble during his encounters with the wilderness—like losing his shoes in quicksand when he was 8 years old.

Since Dorado, there have been other coming-of-age moments, the biggest being Hardesty’s father’s departure from the band (to commit to his work as a pastor). Last summer, he performed his final show with his dad, who had been with The Last Bison from the start.

“My dad gave me a guitar [at the age of 12] and said, ‘It doesn’t matter how you play, just make it sound good,’” he says.

With the member shuffling (the band is currently made up of longtime members Andrew Benfante on keys and Amos Housworth on bass) have come changes to the band’s overall instrumentation. You won’t hear violin, banjo and mandolin, as before.

“We’ve definitely reduced the instrumentation a little bit,” says Hardesty. “It was a difficult transition with the music because you never want to force anything because people can see through fakeness.”

Last summer the band started recording songs for a new album that Hardesty says have an underlining theme of nostalgia. One of the newbies, “Gold,” also recalls Hardesty’s experience in the Bolivian Amazon.  “That song is a retelling of that transition for me as a very young child and a kid trying to process all that,” says Hardesty.

Skipping forward to another impressionable time is “The Glow,” inspired by Hardesty’s anxieties about the transition into adult life. “I was scared and anxious about how everything was going to work out, but there was a moment where I just knew everything was going to be okay, no matter what,” he says.

Now if he can only find that burger on the comfort food landscape.