Gretchen Kalwinski

A TOC blog post about a Joe Pug show at the Hideout. This kid’s star is rising.

Time Out Chicago / Issue 124: July 12–18, 2007

Music
No Pitchfork tickets? No problem
Yes, Pitchfork is totally sold out. But there still might be ways to get in.

By Gretchen Kalwinski

If you put off buying tickets to Pitchfork, you’re outta luck. These tips below, however, might help procrastinators rock out.

1. Craigslist (chicago.craigslist.org/tix) Sure, it’s obvious, and prices will be jacked up. But when’s the next time Yoko Ono will play alongside Aesop Rock, the New Pornographers and De La Soul in your backyard?

2. Volunteer Many vendors could use help, and you’d get in for free once you’re done for the day. Here are some people looking for help: Busy Beaver Button Co. (buttongal@busybeaver.net); Chicago Conservation Corp—you’ll help to recycle (Aicha_Menendez@hotmail.com).

3. Be a roadie Hey, those amps aren’t going to plug themselves in. Local bands are probably set, but some acts probably could use a little help with setup. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to be, you know, hot. “[Roadies should be] really attractive, with an SAT score of at least 1550,” says Ramesh Srivastava of Voxtrot. Is he kidding? We’re not sure, but he did say anyone interested should e-mail the group at voxtrot@voxtrot.net.

4. Tailgate or sneak in (shhh!) It might be possible to see/hear performers from the playlot and swimming pool in Union Park. And not that we’re advocating illegal acts, of course, but two years ago, it was easy to sneak in from the pool area. Last year, however, organizers wised up and heightened security. So, trespass at your own risk.

UR Chicago / Sounds section

Interview with: Christine Baze
By: Gretchen Kalwinski

Christine Baze wants to reach every “woman and every man who has a woman in their life that they love” so that she can scare the hell out of them. With good reason — she’s trying to prevent other women from suffering as she did in 2000, after being diagnosed with cervical cancer and having a hysterectomy 10 days later, throwing her life and musical career into disarray.

During recovery, Baze learned about cervical cancer and HPV (high-risk types of the virus cause cervical cancer and low-risk types cause genital warts). She also watched Harold and Maude, a film famous for its humorous morbidity and spirited, 79-year-old Maude. Inspired by Maude’s yellow umbrella, Baze began playing music again and decided to incorporate cervical cancer awareness into her message. She started the nonprofit organization Popsmear.org and the Yellow Umbrella tour, an annual musical benefit that educates women about preventing cervical cancer.

HPV is extremely common — almost 80 percent of women will get the virus by the age of 50. It gives no symptoms and is transmitted through sexual contact. Annual Pap tests are supposed to catch precancerous cells but they don’t always do so, and Paps don’t test for HPV, so it’s important to get both the liquid Pap and HPV test. “People say, ‘It’s too invasive to get in the stirrups or get a finger up my butt,’” Baze says. “But you know what’s really invasive? Getting a radical hysterectomy or internal radiation. Getting a Pap or an HPV test — that’s going to save your life.”

Having HPV doesn’t mean you’ll get cervical cancer: The immune system usually fights off the infection. But when high-risk types of HPV persist, precancerous cell changes can occur and cause cervical cancer. However, because it is one of the few types of cancer for which the cause is known, Baze says it’s beatable. “We’ve got the answers and we can’t say that about any other cancer.”

Baze’s initial reaction to her own diagnosis was disbelief. “I was healthy and having the time of my life,” she recalls. “After the disbelief was incredible horror and anxiety.” But her compassion made her an activist. “Cancer disempowers you because your own body is betraying you,” she says. “But after chemo I felt so empowered and started getting onstage saying, ‘Hey ladies! Pay attention! This can save your life.’ It worked — and now I’m in my fourth year of touring around the country doing essentially the same thing.”

This fall, Baze and headliner Kaki King (previous lineups featured Ben Folds and the Samples) will perform in 35 U.S. cities, including Chicago. The tour is also sponsored by companies doing work related to cervical cancer, such as Digene, the makers of the HPV test.

Baze, whose new album, Something New (Lime Green), mixes jazz with electronica, says her musical sensibilities shifted post-cancer. “I was trained as a classical pianist and did that for 20 years, then just before cancer my music had a nonsensical, whimsical attitude,” she says. “Now the songs come from a place of deep appreciation of my life. These days I think about the gift of cancer, the enlightenment that comes with it.”

The tour reflects the same spirit. “We’re celebrating the passion of music and the passion of life,” Baze says. “Even the venues and promoters have been so supportive; these guys come up to me at the end of the night like, ‘Hey Christine, what’s that test? HPV? I gotta tell my wife.’ And they write it on their hand to remember, which is so cool. If that happens once every show, everything I’m doing is worth it.”

Words: Gretchen Kalwinski

The Yellow Umbrella Tour hits Schubas (3159 N. Southport; 773/525-2508) October 14; Something New is out now

For more SOUNDS coverage, pick up the latest issue of UR Chicago in streetboxes now

Published in Venus Zine, October 2005

Cat Power at Chicago’s Lincoln Park West

Chan-sans-band is drama and spectacle free, but still oh-so-magnetic Chan Marshall’s fans have come to expect eccentric behavior onstage. Notorious for being clearly uncomfortable while performing as Cat Power, she often hangs her head low while singing, shielding herself from the audience with a veil of hair and bangs. Her onstage quirks have become almost legendary, with tales of her ending songs in mid-sentence, walking off of the stage, or as one rumor goes, playing a four-hour show because she was waiting for the crowd to disperse so that she wouldn’t have to interact with anyone.

I’ve never minded the quirks and just figured that it’s not actually normal to get up and perform like a monkey in front of large groups of people. Walking into Chicago’s Park West for her solo show promoting her fourth album, The Greatest (due out on Matador in January 2006), I was happily prepared to give her a free pass for crankiness and had few expectations.

My friends, the lady has come into her own. She seemed — dare I say it? — happy. Not intimidated by the audience, not imploding into breakdowns or exasperation, not trailing off while singing. The performance was riveting and soulful, with very little of the usual drama. She began the set with a smattering of mellow new tracks from The Greatest, most notably, “Love and Communication,” “Lived in Bars,” “Islands,” and “Could We.” These new songs round out her formerly jagged, raw style with softer country and Southern soul undertones, and continue her affinity for plain, introspective lyrics like “Love and communication you were here for me / At this very moment ’cause I found you on the phone / You called me.” Or, “Islands,” with its spare, pensive refrain of “I want to rule the islands / I want to rule the sea / I just want my sailor to come back to me.”

In the show’s latter half, she turned chanteuse and crowd-pleaser with some tunes from her Covers and You Are Free albums. “Good Woman” induced immediate clapping and presence of lighters, testifying to my belief that this is one of her best tunes, and she did it up, even changing the lyrics from “I’ll love this love forever” to a simple “I’ll love you forever,” packing a little extra punch of heartbreak to possibly one of the saddest love songs ever written. She followed it with “Names,” and then her staccato, reworked cover of Nina Simone’s “Wild as the Wind,” and then a melodic medley of her “Dream/Blue Moon/Try a Little Tenderness.”

Mood-wise, Marshall was content, occasionally smiling, and once mumbled an apology when she thought her own performance wasn’t cutting it, musing, “I want to do what I think I should be able to do. Don’t we all? I guess we all want that.” But mostly she was technically masterful; lyrics flowed, equipment and performer were in sync, and she switched seamlessly from piano to guitar every few songs.

In comparison to previous shows — other than having her shit remarkably together — this was a solo and less rockin’ performance, since she was sans band. It was a different, slower tempo — no reverb, no angry guitar, no band to pick up on her visceral energy — but still imbued with power and a quieter brand of world-frustration. If people came to see the spectacle of her angst, they found no spectacle here. Instead, just her usual restrained, minimal growl, and soft, throaty moan, something like a woodland animal wailing in moonlight. With Halloween approaching, maybe the moon is at the forefront of consciousness. It did seem that the stage — after she asked nicely to “get that white light turned off? Any other color is fine” — appeared lit by the moon, and she was likewise illuminated by silver and periwinkle hues.

For longtime Cat Power fans, this show was like meeting up with a friend who you haven’t seen in a long time, and having the distinct sense that they’d figured something out. It’s obvious by reading her lyrics and interviews and listening to her world-weary voice that the woman gets it – she knows that the world is often hateful, usually unfair, filled with injustice, abuse, and poverty, but still finds the gumption for beautiful love longs and can spit out a gorgeously beautiful medley, of all things. Matador, her label, recognizes the shift, calling this album the most “confident and life-affirming” of her career. Before, Marshall showed us how to be angry, dissatisfied, strung-out, disgruntled, passionate, sorrowful, and tormented. If this new Chan is the beginning of a trend, Ms. Cat is showing us how to be something else, too. Hopeful.

By: Gretchen Kalwinski

–published in Venus Zine / Issue 26 / Winter 2005

Edith Frost
Album Review: It’s a Game
(Drag City)

Edith Frost once described her sound as “dreamy, sleepy, country-folk songs for jacking off in the bathtub.” Her poetically moody music can also be a soundtrack for heartbreak, alternately rocking out, and then spinning the listener ‘round the room in a consolation waltz. Frost’s new album It’s a Game evokes the beautiful melancholy of fading love, but despite haunting chords and introspective lyrics, she avoids a wrist-slitting or sad-sack-o’-potatoes tone with wry humor, and songs that are occasionally sing-song. Many tracks are laden with organ and bells, creating the subtle effect of a lullaby at a country carnival. The title track in particular has a sweet sadness, with melodic bells alongside disillusioned lyrics; “it’s a beautiful day for launching your lovebeams / out into the stratosphere/…everyone knows it’s a game.”

While previous albums (with elements of rock, pop, noise, and country) only alluded to Frost’s assuredness, here she is fully resolved – vulnerable, while also caustic and confident, and using a complex mix of upbeat yet lyrically depressed ballads alongside country tunes. Her whispery vocal style is not kittenish but more like a Cheshire cat – sly, sexy-in-an-earthy-way, and spunky. For example, she inserts a knee-slapping “hot damn!” even while lamenting, “I was there for you, I was there for you, “ in “What’s the Use.”

Frost’s ability to shift volume and speed for dramatic effect is best showcased in the gorgeously harmonic “Playmate,” with keyboards that are initially delicate but quickly become dreamy, crashing crescendos. Play this track first for guaranteed goosebumps and sighs.

–Gretchen Kalwinski