This Thursday marks the release of Tiger Bone’s first EP, “Go Over Here,” on their newly formed record label, Dedd Foxx. The band, while friends with many in the Chicago music scene—like HoZac Records cofounder Todd Novak, or ex-Ponys member Jered Gummere—have a sound that sets them apart: a little post-punk, a little surf-rock and a little everything in between. As drummer Mike Renaud suggests, Tiger Bones are the Randy Quaid of the hometown scene.

When asked about their influences, the band wants to claim basically all time periods dating back to the fifties as source material. As guitarist Jay Ranz cuts in, “Between the four of us, we’ve probably heard everything there is to hear.” Renaud, meanwhile, points to inspiration from the world of visual art and design, claiming that their music often follows aesthetic themes arising in favorite movies or pop culture.

Renaud also explains that an important tool in the group’s songwriting has been the shared Tumblr (ossosdeumtigre.com) account they set up a year ago. “All of us would just drop images into it that we found on the internet that we thought were cool …and I think that informed our songs more than anything.” Ranz names the site as a visual diary of Tiger Bones’ genesis. Read the rest of this entry »

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Fresh off of their stint on Carnival Cruise’s Bruise Cruise festival, the world’s first floating indie music festival, the Jacuzzi Boys are once again spreading their swampy garage rock on the mainland. Hailing from Miami, a town better known for its cosmetic sex appeal and overly solicitous cocaine vendors than for its live music scene, the Jacuzzi Boys give the city reason to hope. Breaking down the music of their rock progenitors with ease, the Jacuzzi Boys’ lead vocalist Gabriel Alcala channels Lou Reed and Mick Jagger being, in turns, leonine and faded. Similarly, what the band self-identifies as “tropical rock ‘n’ roll,” or in their own local nomenclature, “little-Haiti rock ‘n’ roll,” is a slow-paced chug meeting halfway between blues and psychedelic. The track, “Komi Caricoles,” on Jacuzzi Boys’ EP “No Seasons,” features head-rush filter effects, dirge-like vocals, and a woozy pace that oozes a kind of voodoo weirdness unknown to West Coast garage. Whatever they’re doing, the Jacuzzi Boys managed to catch Miami emigré Iggy Pop’s attention, who was spotted cheering in the front row at one of their shows. If it’s good enough for Iggy… (David Wicik)

March 6 at The Hideout, 1354 West Wabansia, (773)227-4433, 9pm. $9.

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If you have never heard the music of NOMO, consider this your opportunity for musical education. Rising out of the well-trodden depths of Afrobeat diaspora in the mid-aughts, the Ann Arbor, Michigan ensemble, fronted by Elliot Bergman, styled its own unique hybrid form with two releases late in the decade, 2008’s “Ghost Rock” and 2009’s “Invisible Cities.” NOMO’s original derivation includes reliance on softly metallic vibraphones as well as standard kit in percussion, funk horn and sax parts and subtle electronic manipulation. Perhaps the more avant-garde of the two, “Ghost Rock” is not afraid to employ dissonance to build anxiety, as on opener “Brainwave,” perhaps a more sedate and drawn-out analogue to the genre-spawning crescendo’s of Radiohead’s “The National Anthem.” Overall it is NOMO’s boldness in synthesis that marks them out, somehow managing to combine Fela Kuti and Tortoise without making it sound like cats fighting in a bag. (David Wicik)

March 5 at The Empty Bottle, 1035 North Western, (773)276-3600, 10pm. $14.

Riccardo Muti between his wife Cristina and Dr. Bradley P. Knight/Photo: Todd Rosenberg

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Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians performed for doctors, staff and patients at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in gratitude for the care that their music director Riccardo Muti received there last month.

Last Tuesday, February 22, violinists Nathan Cole and Akiko Tarumoto, violist Max Raimi and cellist Kenneth Olsen performed works by Mozart and Haydn and on Wednesday, February 23, Christopher Martin and Tage Larsen (trumpets), David Griffin (horn), Charles Vernon (trombone) and Gene Pokorny (tuba), performed a program including works by Bach and Holst. The string program was performed twice, once for the doctors and staff, and then again for patients through the hospital’s closed-circuit television network which is available in all of the patients’ rooms. Nearly five hundred individuals attended the concerts over the two days, in addition to the broadcast. Read the rest of this entry »

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Seattle musician Michael Benjamin Lerner rolls into Chicago this week, bringing with him his onetime one-man act, Telekinesis. Lerner was quick off the mark, signing to the epoch-making Merge Records in 2009, just a year after starting Telekinesis. His debut album, “Telekinesis!,” is a neat indie-pop artifact which no doubt benefits greatly from the expert production of Death Cab For Cutie front man Chris Walla. A sweater-and-glasses-wearing song-styler, Lerner may be the mild-mannered Clark Kent of the indie-verse, but his ability to write infectious compositions that avoid being trite belies his pop superpowers. While Telekinesis probably won’t be the next big thing, and in fact can come off as a rehash of the last big thing, its clean, no-frills writing deserves more than cranky critical parsing. Treating on such banner themes of youth as battered hearts, a lover’s smile remembered in juxtaposition with sunny coasts, and adrenaline-amped dreams of far-off wonderlands, Telekinesis makes it easy for the listener to buy in. (David Wicik)

March 4 at Schubas, 3159 North Southport, (773)525-2508, 10pm. $10 (advance), $12 (door).

Photo: Madstone Productions

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Formed in the same manner as Celtic Woman (under the direction of David Downes of “Riverdance”), the High Kings are a group of male singers and instrumentalists who sing a blend of traditional and modern Irish music. The band members have backgrounds in traditional music, pop and the theater—for instance, Darren Holden originated the role of the lead piano man in Billy Joel’s musical “Movin’ Out,” and also toured with the man himself, while his band mates (Finbarr Clancy, Martin Furey and Brian Dunphy) all come from families with extensive participation in their countries’ music scene.

Their music is highly enjoyable, but bear in mind that it is intended for mass markets. Among their songs is “Fields of Glory,” an all-out celebration of their football (soccer in America) heroes, and “Parting Glass,” a hauntingly beautiful tune that pays tribute to friends lost too soon. Their debut self-titled release reached #5 on the Irish charts, and they are coming to the US on their first massive tour to promote their sophomore disc “Memory Lane” (Universal Ireland). At their stop in Chicago, they will also be paying tribute to the legacy of music of The Clancy Brothers (Finbarr’s father was a member) and Tommy Makem. (Ernest Barteldes)

March 3 at the Irish American Heritage Center, 4626 North Knox, (773)282-7035, 7:30pm. $35.

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This Polish-born singer has various facets in her career. She seamlessly bridges the gap between avant-garde and classical music, and from what we’ve been able to hear she is equally comfortable in either style, whether singing in front of a symphony orchestra or a cacophony of sounds—Zubel’s YouTube clips show her belting out tunes like Gershwin’s “Summertime” and Chopin with the same enthusiasm that she does more contemporary material.

Also an awarded composer in her own right, Zubel premiered her 2nd Symphony during the Beethoven Festival in Bonn in 2005, and she has since been commissioned to do several other contemporary works. She has released various albums throughout her career, the latest being “Cascando,” a piece seemingly inspired by the tango of Astor Piazzolla, but being this modern music, don’t expect to feel the urge to dance to this. Zubel is also a music professor, and she holds a teaching position in her alma mater, Wroclaw University (Ernest Barteldes)

Zubel is half of Contempo’s Double Bill: European Connections, March 1 at Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 East Randolph, (312)334-7777; 7:30pm. $ 10-$25.

Photo: wit

By Janine Schaults

Fans often try to ply the members of Murder By Death with alcoholic beverages before, during and after the Indiana quartet’s raucous sets. This generosity, while not unique to the band, is surely bolstered by swig-worthy ditties such as “As Long As There Is Whiskey In The World” from 2010’s “Good Morning, Magpie” and a tendency to shun the solitude of the backstage dressing room in favor of mingling among ticket holders.

Frontman Adam Turla tries his best to appease all the two-fisted well-wishers, but must balance his role as the social ambassador for his songs and the proficient musician who must perform night after night.

“Every night there are quite a few people who are kind enough to want to buy me a drink and it’s like that’s great, but I still got to play the show tonight,” Turla says by phone from Bloomington. “If I accept all these drinks plus ones that come up while we’re playing, plus I have the option to drink at my own leisure, I’m gonna get fucked up and play bad. You have to definitely prepare yourself for the fact that you are out every single night and you’re not just out, but people want to be out with you.” Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not surprising that the thirteen new songs on The Beets’ “Stay Home” don’t come off as significantly different from anything the Beets released a few years back on “Spit On The Face Of People Who Don’t Want To Be Cool.” That’s not the point of playing in a band like this. Instead, guitarist and singer Juan Wauters, along with bassist Jose Garcia, want to tackle tough issues like girls, hanging out and puking by using familiar musical constructions. Working with Captured Tracks for both of its full-lengths has granted the Beets a sympathetic outlet for its purposefully simple, acoustic-guitar-led sing-alongs.

“We released stuff with Captured Tracks, because Mike (Sniper, label honcho as well as the brains behind Blank Dog) wanted to put out the record we were selling on CD-Rs,” says Garcia via email. “Since then, he puts out generally anything we want. And we’re allowed to do any artwork we want for the record. That’s really important to us.” Read the rest of this entry »

Sean Kubota

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Though he was not conducting nor appearing publicly, recuperating CSO music director Riccardo Muti has had an active administrative week at Symphony Center, overseeing auditions as well as the rescheduled finals of the first-ever International Sir Georg Solti Conducting Competition and Apprenticeship. Curiously, Muti himself first came to wide attention when he won a similar competition back in 1967, the Guido Cantelli Competition for conductors in Milan.

“When I accepted the Music Directorship of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, one of the first ideas that I had was to create an apprenticeship position for young conductors to come to Chicago and study both with me and also with some of my most experienced colleagues whom I have had the pleasure of inviting to conduct this wonderful Orchestra,” said Muti in a press statement.

“I feel it is very important to identify conductors early in their development and to encourage them to study, not only to understand deeply the structure and content of the music, but also to know what it is they want to convey when they stand in front of an orchestra and chorus and how to communicate it. I spoke to my good friend Valerie Solti and asked her permission to name this apprenticeship after her husband, Sir Georg Solti, who led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for many years. We named the competition and apprenticeship in his honor not only because of the great leadership he gave to this Orchestra, but also because he shared my concern that young people, when studying the craft of conducting, should develop the ability to work with singers and instrumentalists from the piano. I believe this study is crucial in the development of a complete musician, one who is able to stand in front of an orchestra with natural authority.” Read the rest of this entry »