R. Kelly 4/26 & 4/27, 2006 @ Chicago Theatre

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Franz Ferdinand/Death Cab for Cutie 4/19/06 @ Aragon

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Fall Out Boy 4/19/06 @ UIC Pavilion

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Kid Rock 4/14/06 @ Allstate Arena

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David Gilmour 4/12/06 & 4/13/06 @ Rosemont Theatre

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KT Tunstall 4/11/06 @ Park West

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Raq 4/7/06 & 4/8/06 @ Martyrs

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The Dresden Dolls 4/7/06 @ Metro

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Eisley 4/7/06 @ Metro

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The Strokes 4/7/06 @ Aragon

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Rob Zombie 4/8/06 @ Aragon

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Buckethead 4/6/06 @ Park West

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Raq 4/6/06 @ Orpheum Theatre in Madison, WI

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Matt Wertz 4/5/06 @ Park West

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Ray Davies 4/4/06 @ First Avenue in Minneapolis, MN

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Keller Williams 4/4/06 @ Orpheum Theatre in Madison, WI

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Umphrey's McGee "Safety in Numbers" CD Release Party 4/3/06 @ Park West

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Clap Your Hands Say Yeah 4/3/06 @ Metro

`Clap' happy to let music be message

By Greg Kot
Tribune music critic
Published April 5, 2006

Things have happened fast for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, maybe too fast. But the Brooklyn quintet that became the talk of the Internet music world last year with its self-released debut album sees no need to slow down. At a sold-out Metro on Monday, Clap Your Hands played with a focus and fury that belied the torn-and-frayed condition of Alec Ounsworth's voice. The singer is not possessed of a conventionally beautiful or even pleasing instrument under the best of conditions. He sounds like a drunk spinning around on one leg shouting half-remembered poems to anyone who'll listen. But it's a voice that suits his songs: dense, delirious, heart-sick lyricism riding a subway train of rhythm.

Though his voice was pretty shot, Ounsworth compensated with the forward momentum he commanded from his guitar. Like the Velvet Underground, the Feelies and the early Talking Heads, it starts with the all-mighty groove, with guitars, drums and voices functioning like interlocking parts of the same single-minded machine. The songs were played hotter and harder than on the album; after honing these tunes for much of the last year on the road, the quintet sounds like a better, more confident band than the one that recorded "Clap Your Hands Say Yeah" piecemeal fashion more than a year ago.

That the self-distributed album has sold more than 100,000 copies without benefit of commercial radio or video airplay has turned the band into the feel-good music story of the year, the poster kids for peer-to-peer file swappers and indie-rockers.

But the music itself isn't the stuff of world conquest. It's cultish and insular by design, but lacks the polish and the obviousness necessary to infiltrate the top-40.

It didn't matter a bit to the fans who packed Metro; they were in pogo mode from the get-go, and the band did not let them down. "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" turned seemingly unrelated details--a chiming guitar, a thumping kick drum, a hissing high-hat, a voluptuous bass line--into one surging matrix of motion. "Is This Love?" galloped while keyboards pinged and ponged in outer space. "In This Home On Ice" floated over a lush blur of guitars.

Another hypnotic disco number invoked Satan and jabbing Devo-esque keyboards--an unbeatable combination that sounded ripe for a remix as a 12-inch dance single. By the time of the closing "Heavy Metal," Ounsworth's voice had completely collapsed, even as the rolling beat of drummer Sean Greenhalgh sounded like it could've continued indefinitely.

The audience was clearly ready for more, but the band smartly called it quits after 60 minutes. The quintet could use some help with its stage presence; Ounsworth and Clap Your Hands barely acknowledged their audience. But this wasn't about personality. It was about the rush of riding a bullet train.

Chicago Tribune Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Review

Beth Orton 4/3/06 @ Vic Theatre

Beth Orton makes even a sad song sound sweet

By Joshua Klein
Special to the Tribune
Published April 5, 2006

Early collaborations with the Chemical Brothers and William Orbit got Beth Orton pegged (dubiously) as "folktronica" or "trip-folk," but her allegiance to British folk rock revivalist forebears such as Sandy Denny, Nick Drake and John Martyn revealed her true roots. At her heart she was, like those acts, a traditionalist. Or perhaps a new traditionalist. Or maybe because they got there a few decades before her, a new, new traditionalist.

So now that countless acts, similarly entranced with the same formative folk influences from the heady days of yore, have followed in her wake, does that make Orton an old new traditionalist?

Wherever she fits in, Orton has a gift for making the austere, simple finger picking of an acoustic guitar sound absolutely contemporary.

On Monday night, Orton forced the the Vic to respectfully adopt the hushed intimacy of a small club, and her adoring fans happily complied.

Yet Orton immediately showed how different she is from the usual bleak British folky cliches. She's not tiny, fragile or shy. She doesn't appear terribly tortured or haunted. She's tall and she smiles a lot, and the warmth of her presence lent her songs of heartbreak and melancholy a surprising sense of hope.

Material from her fourth album, "Comfort of Strangers," espoused this contradiction, with elliptical songs such as "Countenance" and "Heartland Truckstop" somehow sweet even when the sentiments conveyed seemed sour. It helped that her band could swing and shuffle in all the right places, though the melodies were carried almost exclusively by Orton's smoky, soulful voice.

Orton's voice really shined when the rest of the music subsided to a spare, hushed backdrop. Yes, she looked like she relished the chance to rock during "Shopping Trolley," but it was during the more pared down "Comfort of Strangers" and "Pieces of Sky" that she sounded downright magical, when that voice beamed like the spotlight Orton otherwise shunned.

Not to downplay the power of older Orton tracks such as "Central Reservation" and "Stolen Car"--like most of Orton's songs, they display an unerring instinct for melodies that, while they may occasionally blend into one another, are never less than appealing. The songs from "Comfort of Strangers," however, emphasized the looser, more affable side of Orton, allowing audience and artist alike to relish the curious joys of bad news delivered with a smile.

Chicago Tribune Beth Orton Review

Hank III 4/2/06 @ Metro

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An Evening with Ray Davies 4/1/06 & 4/2/06 @ Vic Theatre

Kinks-less, Davies and fans celebrate a bond

By Greg Kot
Tribune music critic
Published April 3, 2006

With a growl in his voice and a splayed-leg stance in black jeans, Ray Davies declared, "I'm not like everybody else."

One of the great songwriters of the last 40 years, Davies is now 61 and Kinks-less for the first time in his career. The great British Invasion band he led is no more, and Davies himself has been missing in action for nearly a decade. But he came to the Vic Theatre for two concerts over the weekend in jaunty spirits, and armed with a weighty songbook.

Davies brought a backing quartet whose primary job was to frame the songs and stay out of his way. Guitarist Mark Johns kept his virtuosity relatively under wraps for most of the two-hour show (plus intermission). That was a smart decision, because his fancy fretwork didn't suit the songs nearly as well as the more elemental roar of Ray's brother and longtime Kinks' sparring partner, Dave Davies, who is recovering from a 2004 stroke.

The most touching element of Saturday's performance was the obvious connection that remains between the brothers, despite their much-celebrated feuding. There was a proud defiance in Ray's voice as he recalled how the Kinks' music was initially rejected by countless record labels because the crude guitar playing sounded like "a barking dog." Then he reprised Dave's clarion riff on the Kinks immortal "You Really Got Me," as if to reaffirm who was right all along.

Ray Davies leaped between obvious Kinks touchstones such as "Till the End of the Day" and "All Day and All of the Night" and connoisseur's gems, including acoustic versions of "Picture Book" and "Village Green" from what he called "one of the most unsuccessful albums ever made": "The Village Green Preservation Society." There is no more important work in the Kinks' canon, as it set the template for Davies the social commentator who could both satirize and embrace the flawed characters in his life, not least of all himself.

For all the willfulness to stand apart that fueled the young Davies, there is a wistfulness, a humanity, at the core of his best songs that transcends time and geography. So, "Oklahoma USA" became something more than just a song about how he and his older sister Rosie whiled away Saturday afternoons at the movie theater, but a song of deep longing about how art can help us transcend the mundane and the soul-crushing, if only for a few hours.

Davies' best songs have done exactly that. The tunes from his latest solo album were more hit-and-miss, as they spoke of the singer's personal travails in more literal terms. But this night was as much about the fans as it was the singer. The common bond was the songs, and in a solo "Days," Davies could well have been celebrating the gift of those tunes as much as he was the memory of a long-ago lover:

"Thank you for the days/Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me."

Chicago Tribune Ray Davies Review



Ray Davies in Chicago at the Vic

Ray's show last night at the Vic Theater in Chicago was energetic and superb. He played a mix of crowd-pleasing favorites, semi-obscure Kink fan classics and new material from the solo album. All of it was engaging with Ray showing now signs of being 61 years old. His between-song banter, storytelling and sharp sense of humor were all displayed for the sellout crowd. He played two multi-song encores at the end of the two set show.
The backing band was very good. There's no real substitute for Dave but Ray did dedicate a song to his brother and another one to his sister.
He's on stage at the same venue tonight. Wish I could be there. He's a gem and a must see for all fans of rock music.

Jeff Johnson

Hour.ca Ray Davies Review

Motion City Soundtrack 4/1/06 @ Riviera Theatre

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The Magic Numbers 4/1/06 @ Double Door

Magic Numbers hope to score big with America's pop fans

By Andy Downing
Special to the Tribune
Published March 31, 2006

Romeo Stodart, singer/guitarist for the Magic Numbers, is optimistic as the band readies for its second stateside tour. The Magic Numbers are already stars in Britain with more than 285,000 copies of their self-titled debut sold there since its July release. Still, he acknowledges that making it on this side of the pond is no slam dunk.

"The whole idea of breaking America--we've been getting that a lot lately. You've got Robbie Williams, who's huge here, and there are always things published like `Robbie can't crack America' and `Robbie came home with his tail between his legs ... again.' It's like, `Oh man, c'mon here,'" says Stodart laughing. "What we're going to do is go out and try to reach as many people as we can and hopefully people will feel what we feel about our music."

If Stodart appears laid back about the band's U.S. prospects, it's with good reason. Even in the U.K. the Magic Numbers are far from an overnight sensation; Stodart first formed the band with sister Michelle (bass/vocals) and the sibling combo of Sean (drums) and Angela Gannon (vocals/percussion) more than a decade ago in London.

"I see this whole thing as a mad journey," says the 27-year-old Stodart. "Five years ago, I thought I was writing really good songs, but I still knew I hadn't found my voice. I was thinking too much about what kind of band we were and how much I should give of myself."

It wasn't until Stodart stopped holding parts of himself back that he found a comfort level as a writer, first feeling that spark on the emotionally draining "Which Way To Happy." Despite outward appearances, most of the bouncy melodies on "The Magic Numbers" (Capitol) are haunted by this pervasive sense of sorrow and regret. "Mornings Eleven," which intersperses jangly guitar and Mamas and the Papas vocal harmonies in a soaring chorus, comes crashing back to reality as Stodart coos, "I had it all, but I never thought I did," like a man sitting alone in a pub cradling a photo of his ex.

"Sometimes it's hard listening to it because I let everything of myself in the vocal," says Stodart. "I had just finished a long relationship and the songs were about trying to find something else to cling onto."

It's this melancholic element that first drew Stodart to music, rummaging through his mom's record collection to spin albums by the likes of The Beatles and, most importantly, the Beach Boys. The Numbers even opened for Brian Wilson on a leg of his U.K. tour, joining him onstage for "Love and Mercy." "I was kind of looking to my right to watch him sing," says Stodart. "It was like, `Oh my God. I'm on stage doing harmonies with Brian Wilson!'"

"Brian has a keen sense of people's intentions and he's had his share of invasive ones. For him to invite [the Numbers] onstage night after night means he was completely at ease with them," says Darian Sahanaja of Brian Wilson's band. Prior to the Numbers, Wilson had never invited anyone to sing with him on the "Smile" tour.

It was a long way from Stodart's childhood in Trinidad to singing alongside the former Beach Boy. Growing up in an artistic household--his mother was an opera singer and his father had a business designing sketch pads--Stodart and his sister were always encouraged to express themselves. He can recall Michelle singing around the house from when she was 7. Stodart also remembers his grandma telling him to make up his own songs on the family's piano, where he would sit and tap out random notes. "Eventually I found myself going to the piano when she wasn't around. I got hooked," says Stodart.

When he was 11, the family moved to New York City and Stodart felt as if he had "walked into a movie" with the city's dizzying skyscrapers and constant stream of yellow taxicabs. "I loved the escape from being on a island to being thrown into this mad little world," says Stodart. Within two years, a 13-year-old Stodart, who could pass for 18, was hanging out with an older crowd and getting into "some seriously dodgy death metal." On weeknights he would take the subway to CBGB and see bands such as Cannibal Corpse before heading home to listen to the tamer British fare of the Smiths.

When Stodart was 15, the family moved again, this time settling in London. Life in England proved to be more of an adjustment for Stodart, who experienced difficulty making friends as everyone he ran into was more guarded. Then he met the Gannons, a family "as unorthodox and crazy" as the Stodarts.

"Right from the start we always seemed to be so different from everything else that was going on," says Stodart. "I think that was great because it allowed us so much creativity and so much room to just be who we are, really."

Chicago Tribune The Magic Numbers Review