Tomorrow Never Knows Festival, Day 1 Preview
By Lizz Kannenberg in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 14, 2008 6:05PM
All week, Chicagoist will be breaking down the Schubas Tomorrow Never Knows Festival by day to take a look at the sometimes raw, always promising talent that's creating some of most deafening buzz on the independent music horizon.
TNK kicks off this Wednesday.
San Francisco's John Vanderslice is as regular a presence at Schubas as an out-of-towner can be, and his borderline-quirky yet still genre-appropriate, moody songs have carved out a place amidst the venue's votive candles and rich, wood-paneled walls. Don't go expecting to be blown away, but we can't think of a much better way to spend a wintry Wednesday at Schubas than with microbrew in hand and Vanderslice onstage.
MP3: John Vanderslice - White Dove
The M's spent 2006 as one of (if not THE) most well-respected and popular indie-ish artists in Chicago, and with good reason - their disjointed Beatles pop-meets-early 90's college rock fuzz is undeniably catchy and oddly unique in a sea of indie pop sameness. A couple of successful turns at SXSW and Lollapalooza still couldn't raise the band's profile too far outside of Chicago, but they remain a staple on Internet radio and the underground club circuit. Their most recent LP, 2006's Future Women (Polyvinyl), is still one of Chicagoist's favorite local releases of all time.
MP3: The M's - Plan of the Man
Arts & Crafts dream-pop duo Young Galaxy is as neat and orderly a deep-space production as you'll find ... if you're into that sort of thing. We personally wish they'd stick a bit closer to classic shoegaze, which plays upon the pair's formidable atmospheric pop skills, but these two clearly have a deep-seeded need to bring the rock.
MP3: Young Galaxy - Lost In The Call
Unsigned Nashville group Heypenny probably fits better with The M's than any other band on this bill, but we're glad they were added last minute and we hope folks show up a little bit early. Their Myspace page cite influences from Wilco to Radiohead, which is an oft-claimed but seldom delivered upon spectrum. It's the Tweedy-like, calculatedly shambling guitar solo in "Parade" that first caught us, so we'll let that grandiose assertion stand ... for now.