4 CHICAGO READER | MARCH 24, 2006 | SECTION THREE

CHICAGO READER | MARCH 24, 2006 | SECTION THREE 5

friday24EULORHYTHMICS Kenny Keys emerged last year asone of the most promising producers on All Natural’s terrificalbum Vintage. Since then he’s been active with this project,a duo with MC Adad; on their U.S. debut, Extended Play(due April 11 on All Natural Records), his jazz- and soul-inflected tracks provide a lush but unobtrusive setting forAdad’s rhymes. An important element in Keys’s productionstyle is his keyboard playing, which helps create a moreorganic feel than you’ll find on a typical sample-basedrecord. The instrumental “Listen” even features a synth solo(though, given the rather annoying sound used, this isn’tentirely a plus). Working against Eulorhythmics, if onlyslightly, is Adad’s excessive similarity to Mos Def, both in hislyrics (largely empathetic narratives about poverty and thestruggle to escape its grip on the mind) and in his musicality.But if you were picking an MC to copy you could do a lotworse. Top to bottom the lineup for this big local hip-hopshow is Iomos Marad, Primeridian, Eulorhythmics, VerbalKent, Rusty Chains, and Matlock, with 5th Element andSean Doe spinning throughout. Eulorhythmics also performThursday at the Morseland; see separate item. a 10 PM,Abbey Pub, 3420 W. Grace, 773-478-4408 or 866-468-3401,18+, $7 in advance, $10 at the door. —Peter Margasak

cDAVE HOLLAND DUO AND OCTETYou could forgive Dave Holland if he had decided

to rest on his laurels instead of forming even one of histhree current bands: by the 70s he had a well-establishedrep as the most versatile double bass virtuoso in jazz—andthat was after he played electric bass on Miles Davis’sBitches Brew in 1969, when he was just 22. But since the70s Holland has also proved himself a bandleader non-pareil, first with his quintet—which debuted in the early 80sand starred saxist Steve Coleman and trombonist RobinEubanks—then building on that group to form his 13-piecebig band in 2000. Now comes the golden mean: his midsizeoctet, which for its Chicago debut beefs up the smaller bandwith alto and baritone saxes and adds the redoubtable vet-eran Kenny Wheeler on trumpet. I can’t quite imagine itspurpose, since the octet presumably does the same thing asthe big band—expand the palette of the quintet whileadding new solo voices. But these days if you can’t trustDave Holland to come up with interesting music, you can’ttrust anyone. (And such ensembles have a strong trackrecord, starting in the 40s with Dave Brubeck’s proto-cooloctet and Davis’s Birth of the Cool nonet.) The show openswith a duo set of Holland and Indian percussionist TrilokGurtu, and few bassists are better qualified for such anexposed project. Now nearing 60, Holland’s retained thequalities that propelled him to the head of the class fourdecades ago: a spectacular sense of time and space, a needfor adventure, and an unmistakable alloy of supple tech-nique and booming tone, which allows him to not justanchor his bands but animate them from within. a 8 PM,Orchestra Hall, Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan, 312-294-3000 or 800-223-7114, $23-$82. —Neil Tesser

ALECIA NUGENT On her second album, the new ALittle Girl . . . A Big Four-Lane (Rounder), singer AleciaNugent follows the model for middle-of-the-road bluegrasssuccess that Alison Krauss established—her country-drivenrepertoire deftly mixes hot picking and sweet harmonyvocals. Producer Carl Jackson, a Nashville vet, gives thesongs a soft-focus sheen, but his efforts to make the tunesradio-ready don’t undercut the fiery instrumental interplayof Nugent’s crack band. Though treacly sentimentality ham-pers a few ballads, by and large the album’s a winner.Nugent plays on the opening night of the Indoor BluegrassMusic Festival along with Gerald Evans & Paradise, SpecialConsensus, the Lovell Sisters, and the Chicago BluegrassBand. See Fairs & Festivals for a complete schedule. a 7PM, Holiday Inn Select, 1801 Naper, Naperville, 217-243-3159, $20, $40 for a three-day pass, half-price for teens,free for kids. A —Peter Margasak

cOCTOPUS PROJECT Lots of indie bandswith a couple of albums under their belts dream of

playing Coachella, but hardly any actually get to. So you can

Dave Holland & Trilok Gurtu

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TheTreatmentA day-by-day guide to our Critic’s Choices and other previews

such an early stage.” Late last year the group arrived at

its current lineup, adding vocalist andmulti-instrumentalist Janie Porche, acoworker of Gallivan’s who plays violin,recorder, bass, keyboards, and guitar.She took the spot that singer KateGross—never a full-fledged member—had occupied during the EP sessionsand at a couple gigs. “Janie’s beeninstantly indispensable,” says Sult. “Ifeel like Bound Stems took its finalform when she joined the band.”

For better or worse, no one hasbeen quick to put a name to that form.“We still have a completely blankanswer for what we sound like,” saysSult. “But it seems to be a really greattime for our music to be out among thestuff that’s happening right now.Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene,Tapes ’n Tapes, Wolf Parade, those areall bands that—while we don’t neces-sarily sound like one another, and wedon’t know those people so it’s not ascene—it’s interesting and fortuitousthat there is a sound that’s simpaticowith the music we’re making.”

In December the Bound Stemssigned on with the Noise Problembooking agency and hired managerJake Hurn, who’d just ended a six-yearstint as A and R man for Palm Picturesto start his own management firm,Chief Dark Cloud, whose other clientsinclude LA pop act Earlimart. Hurn istrying to negotiate a deal for the bandamong a handful of labels, rangingfrom small indies to majors. Amongthem is Flameshovel, which recentlystrengthened its bidding position byswitching from Southern to a largerdistribution company, North Carolina-

based Redeye. “We have a pretty goodidea what we want,” says Sult. “We’re agoal-oriented band. Not in terms ofwanting to take over the world, but ifthere’s something we want, instead ofsitting there wanting it and expectingit or wishing for it we’re busy trying todo it.”

This week the Bound Stems leavefor their longest tour so far—ten daysthrough the midwest and northeast,coinciding with Gallivan and Porche’sspring break. “We’re doing every singlething we can as far as touring, giventhe reality of our jobs,” says Sult. Hurnexpects the group will be able to final-ize a label deal shortly after the tour,and Appreciation Night is tentativelyscheduled to come out this summer.Until then they’ll play weekend showsand finish adding Porche’s overdubs tothe album.

Sult is especially happy about theBound Stems’ success, because it’llgive him the chance to apply the les-sons he learned on his first go-round.“I’m certainly not a person who’s eversaid I wouldn’t change a thing,” hesays. “There are a million things Iwould’ve changed with HarveyDanger. After the band ended, I did alot of self-examination and for my ownpart I feel like I truly got past whateverinterest I may have had in fameitself. . . . Right now, what’s fascinatingto all of us is the idea of having someself-sufficiency in making music.Making music our day jobs, that’s thegoal. On one hand it seems impossible,but at the same time you can lookaround and know that there are otherbands that are doing it. We’d just liketo be one of them.” v

The Meter

By Bob Mehr

themeter@chicagoreader.comwww.chicagoreader.com/TheMeter

Dan Fleury, Evan Sult, Janie Porche, Bobby Gallivan, and Dan Radzicki (front)

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How to Grow a BandWith big prospects even before their first album, the Bound Stemswill need to learn from mistakes they haven’t even made yet.

E van Sult doesn’t believe that oldline about how there are no sec-ond acts in American lives. Back

in 1998 he was at South by Southwestdrumming for the Seattle alt-pop outfitHarvey Danger, which had just signedto a major and was riding high on theovernight hit “Flagpole Sitta.” He andhis bandmates were romanced bymusic publishers in swank hotel lob-bies and capped their weekend playingto a capacity crowd at the ElectricLounge—but two years later their sec-ond album tanked, and after they losttheir contract they broke up in 2001.

Last weekend Sult made it back toSXSW, this time with his new band,the Bound Stems. They played on thepatio of a half-filled club on aWednesday, with the smell of a backed-up sewage system in the air and a flus-tered soundman fumbling to get themix right for half the set. But Sult’sbeen around the block once before—at32, he’s six or seven years older than hisbandmates—and he knows that despitetheir rocky showcase appearance theBound Stems are on the fast track.

In November they released a seven-song disc called The Logic of Buildingthe Body Plan on the local Flameshovellabel, and major mainstream outletslike the New York Times,Entertainment Weekly, and Spin allraved about it—a remarkable level ofattention for an EP from a new bandon a small indie. In fact the buzz onthe Bound Stems was going strong atleast eight months before the recordcame out—I first heard about themlast July, when the head of the Dominolabel’s U.S. division came from NewYork to see them play the Beat Kitchen.Sult has only been in two bands, andhe knows how lucky he is. “It reallydoes feel like lightning striking twice,”he says.

In September 2002, Sult had justmoved from Seattle to Chicago with hisgirlfriend and answered a “musicianswanted” ad in the Reader. Among theinfluences it mentioned was Death Cabfor Cutie. “Who were friends of mine,”he says. “So I figured that would atleast get me an audition.” The ad hadbeen placed by vocalist BobbyGallivan, bassist Dan Radzicki, andguitarist Dan Fleury, who’d been play-ing music together since their days onthe Benet Academy basketball team inLisle—though none of their bands haddone anything but land a gig or two atthe Fireside Bowl.

The Bound Stems debuted in May2003 but played out only sporadicallyfor the next two years. Instead offocusing on building an audience, theyworked on refining a style—arty, liter-ate indie pop with a touch of post-rock’s complexity but none of its sterili-ty. “From the outside, it may not havelooked like we were busy, but all we’vedone is play every day,” says Sult, “try-ing to develop our songs, productionstyle, and sound.”

In late 2004 the band startedworking with Tim Sandusky atChicago’s Studio Ballistico, and by lastspring they’d finished a full-lengthcalled Appreciation Night. But becauseheavy touring to support an albumwasn’t practical at the time—Sult is anart director for the up-and-comingcomic-book company Devil’s Due,Gallivan is a history teacher atGlenbrook North High School,Radzicki is a biology researcher atNorthwestern, and Fleury does data-base work downtown—they opted notto release it, instead signing a one-offdeal with Flameshovel and recordingThe Logic of Building the Body Plan.The EP shipped only around 800copies, but the stir it caused wasimmediate. “To release something andsee how seriously people took it cer-tainly helped us,” says Sult. “Anythingthat can happen to make a band feelless imaginary and more like it existsin the world is crucial, especially at continued on page 6