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When Lili Trifilio shakes off the cold in a Wicker Park coffee shop in the middle of a January snowstorm, her asymmetrical pink hair feels beamed in from a sunnier dimension. Since Trifilio’s band Beach Bunny evolved from a solo project into a regular group, their heartfelt, punky indie pop has built a devoted audience so quickly that they’ve barely been able to keep up.

Trifilio is the lyricist and lead singer, backed by guitarist Matt Henkels, bassist Anthony Vaccaro, and drummer Jonathan Alvarado. The first Beach Bunny lineup only started doing shows in suburban parking lots in summer 2017, but within two years Trifilio and the band have played Riot Fest and Lollapalooza and landed a song on the Billboard charts for 12 weeks. In April, they’ll make their first appearance at Coachella. Even more impressive, they’ve done it all before releasing an album: Honeymoon, their full-length studio debut, arrives on Valentine’s Day.

Trifilio, 23, grew up in Chicago and took guitar lessons in middle school, encouraged by her parents, who wanted her to try a variety of after-school activities. She sang in school choirs but didn’t otherwise perform much, aside from playing cover songs at talent shows. Trifilio’s interest in modern rock began when she was attending Resurrection College Prep in Edison Park and she and her friend Rachel Vogrich started looking up bands they saw on Lollapalooza lineups. In June 2015, the two of them went to see Hippo Campus at Lincoln Hall, knowing only a single song from their discography. “After we saw them, we were both like, ‘Whoa, that was the best concert we’ve ever been to ever,'” Trifilio says. “I was like ‘I’m ready to write music, let’s do this.'”

Trifilio and Vogrich began writing together, forming the short-lived duo Fingers x Crossed. “A lot of our songs consisted of singing of heartbreak and loving guys that didn’t love us back,” Vogrich says. They played shows as a two-piece at Wire in Berwyn and at Bottom Lounge–both sang, and Trifilio played guitar. Vogrich recalls passing hand-burned CDs of their EP to Nashville group Coin at Lollapalooza in summer 2015, hoping that their band name’s similarity to the Coin song title “Fingers Crossed” would catch their eye.

Beach Bunny began as an outlet for Trifilio’s songs following the duo’s dissolution in fall 2015. Though Honeymoon is the first Beach Bunny studio album, the band already has four EPs, a single, and a live Audiotree session–and the majority of those releases are basically Trifilio solo projects. She recorded her first two EPs, Animalism (December 2015) and Pool Party (August 2016), at home on acoustic guitar and ukulele, putting them out herself via Bandcamp, Soundcloud, and various streaming services. For Crybaby, which includes early live favorites “Boys” and “February,” she had her friend Ryan Adams add drums. Around the same time that EP came out–in summer 2017–she put together the first Beach Bunny band.

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Trifilio was already playing shows on her own, but she wanted to compete in a battle of the bands–a battle where one of the other groups included an ex-boyfriend, which she maintains was a coincidence. “It wasn’t like a vengeance thing, and it wasn’t to get back together with him or anything. I just wanted to compete,” she says, laughing.

Trifilio knew Henkels and Alvarado through mutual friends and invited them aboard. (Alvarado was also in the ex’s group.) “I think that we both adored Lili’s songwriting from the start,” Henkels says. “It’s super memorable and charming.”

After the battle (which the ex’s band won), Beach Bunny solidified their chemistry with steady practicing and gigging. By now, Trifilio can anticipate their instrumental parts as she writes songs. “Matt and I would butt heads sometimes, where my vocal melody and what he wanted to play on guitar would sometimes clash,” she says. “But just by jamming over time, he knows how to complement my voice.”

Her bandmates share the sentiment: “When Lili brings us a demo, we can quickly kind of piece it together into a full-band thing by writing our own instrumental parts and tweaking them where it’s necessary,” they explain, in an e-mail sent as a group.

Beach Bunny had added a bassist by August 2017, and they went through a few before finding Vaccaro–he came aboard in January 2019, so Honeymoon is his first recording with the band. Throughout 2017 and 2018, the members of Beach Bunny split their time between college classes (Trifilio and Henkels had started at DePaul in fall 2015) and driving out to the suburbs with friends, where they found a place for the band in the DIY scene–especially in Elgin, where Alvarado and Henkels had gone to South Elgin High. They learned about booking, songwriting, and gear from their peers.

“There was a ton of guidance that I don’t think I would have had without having that DIY community,” Trifilio says. Those connections helped the band smoothly transition into Chicago’s scene, where they gigged frequently, playing DIY shows and ticketed concerts at clubs. “Everyone I’ve met through DIY has still stuck around over all the years,” she says. “That’s been really sweet, to still see people at bigger shows buying tickets, when I’m like, ‘You’ve seen me enough, you don’t need to do that, thank you.'”

Beach Bunny had their breakout hit in summer 2019, when the title track from the 2018 EP Prom Queen peaked at number 26 on the Billboard Hot Rock Songs chart–it’s now closing in on 39 million Spotify plays, boosted by its popularity on video-streaming app TikTok (which had just helped propel Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” into orbit). The song confronts oppressive female beauty standards using the language of grade school toys and high school popularity contests, which make it an irresistible incitement to lip-synching or singing along: “I’m no Quick Curl Barbie / I was never cut out for prom queen.”

Prom Queen and the stand-alone single that preceded it, “Sports,” were recorded in part at Lubeck Studios in Mount Prospect with engineer Ray Ortiz, who’d worked with one of Alvarado’s other groups, the recently disbanded Mt. Pocono. “With a band like Beach Bunny, there wasn’t a need to be super experimental with the studio,” he recalls. “They all knew what they wanted to hear, which was great.”

“Prom Queen” departs from Trifilio’s usual romantic themes because she wrote it for a friend who was struggling with an eating disorder. “I knew they were a big Beach Bunny fan,” she says, “so it’s like, ‘All right, maybe this song can help in some way.'”

Trifilio’s lyrics mostly reflect her own perspective, but they resonate easily with listeners going through their own rough patches. “I think Lili makes music that allows people to react in a way that’s like, ‘Oh shit, I’m not alone, and I’m not the only person out there that feels this way,'” Vogrich says.

Beach Bunny fan Jimmy Kemper, who lives in River North, describes the band’s music as “powerfully simple, catchy songs that nail the universal angst of the teenage experience.” Meagan Hughes, a fan from Wicker Park, elaborates: “The vulnerability and genuineness of their music is really what gets me. Lili’s not afraid to be called naive or show how deeply she falls for someone. Their music is somehow never cheesy regardless of this, because it’s so genuine,” she says. “Also their live shows are dope, ’cause everyone knows all the words and it’s a big community.”

Trifilio doesn’t take this kind of reaction for granted. “If I’m singing something sad, and someone listens to it and they feel some closure or comfort, that’s amazing,” she says. “There’s a ton of younger girls who have come up to me after shows and been like, ‘Hey, this helped me get through this, it was a wake-up call.’ Anytime someone says something like that, I just start crying because I’m a sensitive person, so I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I’m glad you’re better!'”

Beach Bunny’s Honeymoon is the kind of album best heard through the aux cord in a decades-old sedan packed full of sweaty friends on a sunny day. Though its nine songs are mostly about heartbreak, it’s dressed up in vibrant colors–and the group ornament their straightforward guitar-bass-drums sound with overdubbed vocal harmonies and occasional keys. With grooves built from springy bass lines and tight drums, their emo rock is danceable enough for terrestrial radio and festival stages.

“Promises” opens the album with the drums and bass locked in like a syncopated heartbeat, and then the guitar drops in with straight eighth notes, boosting the song’s metabolism like a shot of adrenaline. “Part of me still hates you–how could you love someone and leave?” Trifilio sings on the chorus. “When you’re all alone in your bedroom, do you ever think of me?” She says it’s her favorite song on the album because it’s the “most honest.”

“Ms. California,” the second single from Honeymoon (it came out in early December, following October’s “Dream Boy”), is the band’s first to center envy. It introduces a third character, beyond the usual you and me, to talk about the pain of learning that an ex has found someone new (and being reminded of it constantly because “she’s in all your pictures”).

Beach Bunny originally intended “Rearview” to be a solo song, and it begins with just Trifilio’s voice and guitar. But the group jammed on it enough to realize that it needed what Trifilio calls a big “head-bopping” ending. In its coda, the song abandons metaphor to convey the emotional vortex of a breakup in a few blunt phrases: “You love me, I love you / You don’t love me anymore, I still do / I’m sorry, I’m trying / I hate it when you catch me crying.”

“I have a pretty good habit of using music as a therapy session,” says Trifilio, laughing.

The band recorded the majority of Honeymoon in May 2019 at Electrical Audio, scheduling the sessions over two weekends to leave time for final exams at DePaul during the week. (Trifilio was finishing a degree in journalism, Henkels in secondary education, and Vaccaro in photography.) Though they’d finished Prom Queen in about a month, Honeymoon had a gestation period of nine months–a process the band call “super exhausting and complicated but ultimately extremely rewarding.”

Beach Bunny hired Joe Reinhart to produce. They liked the work he’d done for Remo Drive and Prince Daddy & the Hyena, both of whom they’d played shows with, and they were fans of his own bands Hop Along and Algernon Cadwallader. Reinhart focused on creating a comfortable environment for the group, so they could take full advantage of the studio.

Trifilio especially appreciated the salve of the producer’s calm while she worked on recording vocal harmonies–because she hadn’t planned out what she’d do before entering the studio, it was the most difficult part of the process for her. She workshopped her vocals over loops of the backing tracks, a frustrating process of trial and error. “Maybe I get the first two lines and then just yell ‘fuck’ because I mess up one note,” she says. “And then Joe’s like, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK!'”

Trifilio also credits Reinhart with suggesting ways the band could flesh out their sound without fundamentally changing the songs. Her bandmates agree: “He’d push you, but not in a bad way,” they say. “That recording process made all of us better musicians in the long run, thanks to him.”

Beach Bunny originally intended to self-release Honeymoon, like all their other music, and they’d set a date for themselves in the fall. But then this summer the band got multiple offers from record labels. Trifilio had graduated that spring and was already suffering from job-hunt anxiety, but this label interest did away with that. “It was like, ‘Oh, I can just do music? For real? This is a thing that can actually happen?'” she says.

In August the band signed with New York indie Mom + Pop Music, joining a roster that includes Courtney Barnett, Cloud Nothings, Metric, and Sleater-Kinney. “Mom + Pop just had the best artist-friendly conditions,” Trifilio says.

Beach Bunny’s relationship with the label has already helped the band reach a new level of popularity. They’d already landed the Lollapalooza gig on their own, but since signing, they’ve benefited from a few new promotions. They’re giving away tour tickets through a brand partnership with roller-skate company Moxi, and “Prom Queen” is playable on Rock Band. And the band’s Coachella date will be followed by a set at Primavera Sound in Spain in June.

“Ultimately, we like to look at every show the same way, no matter the scale/importance or whatever,” say Henkels, Alvarado, and Vaccaro, speaking collectively via e-mail. “We’re getting on each stage and doing the same thing every night as any other stage we play, so we really just make sure that we’re tight and ready to play.”

Trifilio calls the band’s set at last year’s Lollapalooza a “teenage dream” come true. Her remaining goals include collaborating with and doing songwriting for other performers–and she’d also love to work with Marina, Hayley Williams, or any other “pop icons,” she says. Beach Bunny’s contract with Mom + Pop lives up to the label’s artist-friendly reputation, allowing Trifilio to pursue outside work that doesn’t interfere with the band’s release dates. She’s already released a four-song EP under her own name called Book Club, which came out in September 2019. In December she dropped a solo cover of Wham!’s “Last Christmas” (under the Beach Bunny name) as a fund-raiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, inspired by her father’s work in cancer research and her younger brother’s successful fight against leukemia a few years prior.

Earlier this month, Trifilio performed onstage with Hippo Campus–the band she’d seen with Vogrich almost five years earlier–at First Avenue in Minneapolis. She sang their song “Way It Goes” with the fervor of a fan who’s belted along with its wordy verses countless times. “I am literally living in a dream,” she tweeted the next day.

Trifilio is working on a batch of Beach Bunny songs to follow up Honeymoon, though she’s unsure if they’ll come out as singles, EPs, or another album. She’s been making a conscious effort to address topics besides romance. “Less like ‘This is my relationship with someone’ and more like ‘This is my relationship with something I’ve observed in the world,'” she says. “Growing up, self-love, feminism, something like that.”

“We just want to keep making music that we’re proud of and keep being best friends while doing it,” say her bandmates. “If people keep liking the music, that’s amazing!”

Beach Bunny has gotten big enough fast enough that Trifilio worries about the reception Honeymoon will get, an anxiety she’s never much felt with previous releases–for the first time, she has to deal with the pressure of expectations from a large fan base. “We’ve got the indie-pop kids, we’ve got these super punk emo kids that just want to thrash, and then the younger high school TikTok crowd,” she says. “It’s super strange seeing that combination at shows. It’s interesting that all those groups can somehow relate.”

To kick off a national album tour that’s already mostly sold out, Beach Bunny play Saturday, February 22, at Metro, a venue they played most recently as openers on Death Cab for Cutie’s Lollapalooza aftershow in August. Trifilio has been considering playing keyboards at the show–something she’s only ever done in the studio.

The songs on Honeymoon, like most of what Trifilio has written so far, are about heartbreak, but by the time they’re ready for the stage–to say nothing of recorded and released–the emotions don’t weigh on her too heavily. “At this point, I’m mostly thinking, ‘Is the crowd enjoying it? Is my voice OK?'” she says. “I’m yelling the word ‘cry’ with a smile, you know what I mean? I try not to get too sentimental about that kind of stuff.” v

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The University of Chicago Folklore Society has been booking marquee acts at its annual winter Folk Festival since 1960–the first one featured legends Roscoe Holcomb, the Stanley Brothers, Willie Dixon, and Elizabeth Cotten. Coming to Mandel Hall on Friday, February 14, and Saturday, February 15, the festival’s 60th edition includes Pennsylvania-born traditional bluegrass pickers Danny Paisley & the Southern Grass, Cajun accordion powerhouse the Jimmy Breaux Trio, Tennessee golden-era country squad Bill & the Belles, fiddle-piano duo Medicine Line (who specialize in music of the Metis people along the western U.S.-Canada border), local Cuban dance band Orquesta Charangueo, and Mariachi Sirenas, who bill themselves as “Chicago’s First All-Women Mariachi.” Evening concerts are ticketed, but the workshops and jam sessions at Ida Noyes Hall from 10 AM to 5 PM on Saturday are all free. For tickets and info, visit UofCFolk.org.

In case you’re like Gossip Wolf and can’t afford tickets to Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game at the United Center, there are lots of related activities on the block. You could camp out for the Joe Freshgoods New Balance gear drop, but this wolf recommends Sunday afternoon’s Metro show–the bonkers lineup includes Polo G, G Herbo, Calboy, NLE Choppa, Ann Marie, Tink, Dreezy, and SBG Kemo. Tickets are $41 and benefit Polo G’s Amateur Athletic Union basketball team, the Boys & Girls Club of Chicago, and depression-awareness nonprofit Erika’s Lighthouse.

On Saturday, February 15, Mississippi Records hosts the first annual Marz Record Fair at Marz Community Brewing’s McKinley Park headquarters. The fair’s dozen-plus vendors include several local labels (International Anthem, Black Pegasus, Maximum Pelt) and record stores (Tone Deaf, Electric Jungle, Shady Rest); some sellers will also DJ throughout the day. The event runs from noon till 8 PM. v

Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail [email protected].

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Two members of Chicago hardcore band Daybreaker, guitarist Alex Petrov and singer-guitarist Cameron Wentworth, are headed to Hollywood Spirits, at the intersection of Hollywood, Ridge, and Wayne in Edgewater. They need to talk to the owner about using his store’s stocked coolers and shelves of craft beer as a backdrop for their next video–and they’re expecting director Alex Zarek and the band’s other two members to meet them for the shoot in less than an hour.

Posted on the door is a small sign handwritten in black Sharpie on a scrap of torn green paper: the owner will be back in 30 minutes, it says, but there’s no way to tell when it was written.

Petrov and Wentworth aren’t fazed. Petrov lives around the corner, and he’s used to the sporadic hours at Hollywood Spirits–the owner regularly closes up shop when he decides to make some extra money doing Uber Eats deliveries. The two of them head back down the street to meet drummer Garrett Ramage and bassist Jason Perez, and they all sit down with Zarek over a spread of Dunkin’ Donuts Munchkins and coffee.

Petrov, 21, formed Daybreaker in October 2018–they played their first show in January 2019–but he’s wanted to be in a band with Daybreaker’s melodic grunge sound since he was a teenager. Back then, though, he didn’t have the support and connections to get off the ground.

“I always wanted to start an alternative grunge band, after seeing Superheaven play live for the first time when I was 13,” says Petrov. “I tried to start a band–I played one show, but it didn’t really work out. When you’re 14, you don’t really know any other bands to play shows with.”

Over the next six years, Petrov would play in several other bands–since summer 2016 he’s been in Decay with Perez and Wentworth, for instance. But it wasn’t till late 2018 that he decided to make another committed attempt at a melodic hybrid of grunge and hardcore.

Daybreaker began with Petrov on guitar and Wentworth on drums and vocals, and over the course of about seven months they recorded early demos with a couple different bassists and second guitarists. The constant personnel changes slowed the band down, though, so it was a huge relief when they solidified a lineup with Wentworth switching to guitar and vocals, Ramage on drums, and Perez on bass.

Daybreaker moved fast after that. They spent summer 2019 playing every backyard DIY gig they could book, and in October they released their five-song debut EP, Fall. For their release show, they sold out the downstairs venue at Subterranean.

Petrov is definitely happy not to be reliving the frustrations of his 14-year-old self. “We came into the scene at a very good time in Chicago. It’s very rare to have a show in a backyard where 150 people come out. And it’s not a one-time thing–it’s almost weekly where shows like that happen,” he says. “It was definitely a lot easier this time, but it still wasn’t as easy as one would think. No one wants to book the new band–that’s how it is. But fortunately, we had friends that supported us from the start who were in other bands. It felt like starting over again.”

“But that’s what we were doing,” interrupts Wentworth, referring to Daybreaker’s rebirth with its current lineup.

Petrov continues: “It was a good feeling because it was more hopeful–it was a fresh start, and we could do whatever we wanted with it.”

As part of that fresh start, Daybreaker have teamed up with Chicago-based videographer and director Zarek to create two music videos for songs from Fall. The band learned about Zarek after they were booked to play a show at Live Wire Lounge with Pennsylvania underground group the Standby in May 2019. Hoping to learn more about the Standby, Petrov looked them up and found a series of videos that Zarek had created for them.

“They were really good,” said Petrov. “It actually made me think that they were famous and professional because of their videos.”

Zarek’s first Daybreaker video, for the EP’s title track, was released in December 2019 and modifies live performance footage with glitchy postproduction effects. The second, a more ambitious clip for “Porn and Fame,” came out the morning of Valentine’s Day.

Once Petrov and Wentworth leave Hollywood Spirits and meet Zarek, Perez, and Ramage, they gather around Petrov’s kitchen table, surrounded by unopened cases of Lagunitas beer and small chests filled with Dungeons & Dragons dice. The band are explaining to Zarek the idea they have in mind for “Porn and Fame”–a narrative that Perez and Wentworth have been referring to as a “Weekend at Bernie’s storyline.”

Despite the video’s comic premise, “Porn and Fame” isn’t a lighthearted song. Wentworth, the band’s main lyricist, says it addresses a real problem that many young people face–when partying with friends crosses the line into substance abuse. “You’re feeling numb and out of touch,” he sings. “You try so hard to give it up.”

In keeping with that tone, the hard-driving music doesn’t sound like party punk. It’s thoughtful and even morose, which conditions the way the video’s profusion of cheap beer and goofy antics comes across. The whole thing can even be read as a subtle subversion of the time-honored “dirtbag fuckup band dudes” subgenre.

That said, Daybreaker’s brainstorming session is hardly serious. They want somebody to pretend to be passed out the whole time–to be the “Bernie” of the video–and they decide it’d be funny to pick Ramage, the only member not big into partying. He’ll be fake-unconscious on the couch while Wentworth pours himself a bowl of “beereal”–that is, Boo Berry cereal with Miller High Life instead of milk. Perez is excited about shooting dice in the alley after the band finish the scene in Hollywood Spirits. Did Petrov ever talk to the owner? Someone needs to check on that. Zarek wants to know if there will be any skateboarding in the video, because, well, it seems like there should be a skateboard.

“You don’t have to overthink a lot of this stuff, and that’s a misconception for a lot of people,” Zarek says. “You don’t script out or block out a music video in the same way you would with a show or a short or a documentary. You can be so creative and so random with music videos, because all it is is a three-and-a-half-minute visual supplement to something that already exists.”

The filming process is mostly silly and fun, and all of it takes place on Petrov’s block, between Bryn Mawr and Hollywood on Wayne. While Wentworth chokes down his beereal, the rest of Daybreaker watch from behind the scenes, pretending to gag and muffling their laughter. When Wentworth and Petrov carry Ramage down the front steps and into the windy 16-degree weather, Ramage stifles a grin and tries to control his shivering–he’s still supposed to be passed out.

“One of the shots was us shooting dice in an alley, and for continuity’s sake we couldn’t put a jacket on Garrett,” says Wentworth, laughing. “So we had to sit him down in this alley in 16-degree weather and have him stay completely still for every shot.”

The laughter and horsing around behind the scenes aren’t reflected on the screen, though. The way the video is edited, three guys are simply going about a mundane day–they eventually meet in the alley to have a few beers and shoot dice–but they have to drag around their passed-out friend the whole time. Nobody ever remarks on this or treats it as odd. Even the gross-out jokes (the beereal sequence, a shot where Petrov brushes his teeth with Fireball) are played straight, as though these are totally ordinary things to be doing.

That leaves the “Porn and Fame” video as something of an open question: Is it supposed to be funny? It’s certainly not much of a party video. Sometimes it seems to be commenting instead on how laughing off red flags and dysfunctional behaviors serves to normalize them–which is one way substance abuse goes undetected, even in tight friend groups.

“The lyrics for ‘Porn and Fame’ do have quite a bit about partying too hard, dabbling in things you probably shouldn’t. Flying too close to the sun with substance abuse,” says Wentworth. “Singing about something as serious as substance abuse, you have to do it respectfully, but . . . I don’t think we should have gone in on this very serious storyboarding. Not to make fun of people who suffer from substance use–like myself–but you have to take everything in life with a grain of salt. You can’t take yourself too seriously.”

Daybreaker hope their fans will be able to see that they’re more involved and more passionate about the “Porn and Fame” video than they were for “Fall,” where they deferred more to Zarek due to their own inexperience. The band are split on how they think viewers will interpret the new clip, but they all agree that their goal was never to solicit a specific reaction–they hope each fan will make a unique connection.

“I’m a really big believer that art is subjective to the person,” says Wentworth. “So however the fuck you want to receive [the video] is how you should receive it, and I don’t think we as artists should tell you how to receive our art. I think it’s entirely a personal thing.”

The “Porn and Fame” video is live on Daybreaker’s Facebook page via YouTube. The band’s next live show is at a DIY space on Saturday, April 18, with Natural State, Mannequins, the Kreutzer Sonata, Lower Automation, and Sawbuck. If you want the address, as the old saying goes, “Ask a punk.” v

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Polish death-metal legends Vader have seen many major world changes in their 35 years as a band, some of which have directly impacted their career. Following the fall of the Iron Curtain in the early 90s, for instance, they became the first Polish death-metal band to sign a record contract with a Western label. They’ve since been reliably prolific, bringing a sense of martial discipline to every track they lay down. On last year’s Thy Messenger EP (Nuclear Blast), they package their talents for circle-pit thrash and sweeping, primal death into a neat bonbon of a release. The record includes a rerecording of the pile-driving title track from their 2000 album, Litany, that enhances the multiple-buzz-saw-orchestra quality of its guitar sound and perfecting its pummeling drums. Vader have a busy year ahead, with the release of their 16th studio full-length, Solitude in Madness, on the horizon. Though they haven’t announced a date yet, they’ve dropped the new single “Shock and Awe,” with an official lyric video that’s as gloriously retro in its flame effects as the song is of-this-moment in its raw force. The album also includes “Emptiness” and “Despair” from Thy Messenger, and “Emptiness” is reportedly one of only two slow numbers–come ready to rumble at high speed. Vader are also planning anniversary events in celebration of their classic albums–De Profundis turns 25 this year–but I expect their set at this show to mix older tunes with previews of their upcoming material. Also on the bill are LA’s solidly vicious Abysmal Dawn, Italy’s cleverly horror-inspired Hideous Divinity, Portland’s sadistic Vitriol, and Chicago’s fantastically grand and crunchy Blood of the Wolf, who show off their blackened-death chops on the recent EP III: Blood Legend. v

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Since it opened two years ago, Sleeping Village has become a hub for some of the city’s best (and most affordable) local shows. A fine example is this concert, headlined by Chicago underground stalwarts Mako Sica. They’ve been at it since 2007, with core members Przemyslaw Drazek (formerly of intense rockers Rope) and Brent Fuscaldo steering the band’s expansive ship. Drummers and collaborators, including legendary percussionist Hamid Drake, have come and gone over their numerous LP releases (via adventurous labels such as La Societe Expeditionnaire, Feeding Tube, and Permanent), but Mako Sica have always retained a certain fluid consistency in their sound. They travel in spacey, often dissonant soundscapes; Fuscaldo’s airy vocals and primordial, rhythmic guitar and bass guide the way, perfectly complementing Drazek’s delayed, psychedelic guitar and trumpet excursions, which can make the music feel like the soundtrack of an obscure, heady film. Mako Sica have recently added drummer Jacob Fawcett, who studied with free-improv legend and former Chicagoan Frank Rosaly, so you can expect a slightly jazzier approach and some new material from these prolific cosmonauts. Opening the show is Natalie Chami, who’s been operating under the sobriquet TALsounds since 2009, exploring electroacoustic sonics in a solo setting or in collaboration with folks such as Brett Naucke and Whitney Johnson (aka Matchess). Using treated voice, synthesizers, and a variety of more mysterious devices, Chami resides at the forefront of avant-garde ambient experimentation. Also on the bill are Traysh, one of many bands to feature guerrilla booker, drummer, synth noodler, and scene mainstay Ben Baker Billington, who also plays as Quicksails and in a trio with guitarists Mark Shippy and Daniel Wyche. Billington is mostly known for his crazed yet nuanced drum-kit attack, and in Traysh he’s joined by bass Svengali Andrew Scott Young and keyboardist Daniel Van Duerm for outre excursions whose gnarly, difficult sounds might test your strength of will. These artists are all leading lights of the local experimental scene, and for a mere $5 ticket you too can contribute to this often overlooked but essential part of Chicago’s musical tapestry. v

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Even before Alicia Greco moved from Buffalo, New York, to Chicago in November 2017, she knew she wanted to start a party series that centered women and nonbinary DJs. She was already DJing herself, under the name Leesh, but she figured she wouldn’t be able to launch an event and simultaneously find her bearings in a new city. After she arrived, she decided to pursue the same goal–spotlighting contemporary dance artists from marginalized gender communities–with a podcast instead. That way she could involve people from anywhere in the world, instead of needing to rely exclusively on a Chicago network that she was still developing. And in theory, building a name for her podcast would make the transition into throwing actual parties seamless.

In January 2018, Greco launched the weekly podcast Daisychain. She started organizing Daisychain parties that summer, but even now, the podcast is the regular event–the parties remain sporadic. “It’s funny, the podcast actually became the thing,” Greco says. “The parties are just something that happen in support of the podcast, when it was supposed to be flip-flopped.”

Every Tuesday, Greco posts a new episode to Daisychain‘s Soundcloud page. It’s not a talking podcast–each episode consists entirely of a single mix by a guest contributor, typically about an hour long (though nonbinary producer Acid Daddy, from Chicago’s Naughty Bad Fun Collective, made a mix for May 2019 that runs nearly an hour and 45 minutes). Every episode’s individual Soundcloud page identifies the contributor (name, alias, pronouns, home base) and includes a list of influences, a favorite quote, and advice for queer, POC, nonbinary, and woman-identifying DJs.

Many episodes also include a link to a track list, which Greco posts on the Daisychain Facebook page. Greco interviews every Daisychain guest, and when the corresponding episode goes live, she publishes a thoughtful profile derived from that interview (though it appears on her personal Facebook page, not the Daisychain page). She takes great care to describe each guest’s personal history and connection to dance music. “It’s like, ‘Yes, they’re DJs, but they’re people–they have a story, they have something that’s pushing them and making them want to do this,'” Greco says. “I think that that is just as important as the tracks that are coming through.”

Greco has posted 110 mixes from 112 different producers–episode 73 features three members of New York collective Working Women. Greco knows she’ll never run out of potential subjects, and she says she’s planned out every week of Daisychain through July. Only about a fifth of the guests live in Chicago; others have been from Mexico, Canada, Ukraine, Australia, Peru, Norway, Portugal, Uganda, and Malaysia. And Daisychain matches this diversity in points of origin with diversity in sound: in December 2018, Brooklyn DJ Vicki Siolos offered a mix made entirely out of sylvan ambient tracks from Canadian label Silent Season, which might as well have come from a different universe than the hyperactive, face-melting blitz submitted in December 2019 by Pittsburgh artist W00dy (who headlines a dance-friendly installment of the Hideout’s experimental Resonance series on Saturday, February 29).

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Daisychain‘s most popular episode, with renowned Brooklyn-based producer Octo Octa, has nearly 20,000 Soundcloud plays, but many mixes have fewer than 1,000. Those numbers may not seem impressive, but the podcast has attracted an active and engaged listener base–Greco has already noticed instances where it’s helped create the positivity she’d hoped it would. “There’s been a few people that have told me how it’s affected them as a DJ, the way they throw parties,” she says. “Even just people, listeners, have been super touched by it–it’s helped them in some way.”

Earlier this month, dance historian and critic Michaelangelo Matos profiled Daisychain for globally minded UK dance-music outlet Mixmag, calling it “one of the most consistent in the game.” Each new episode not only unfolds another story of a marginalized voice in dance music but also adds a new artist to the growing community involved in Daisychain.

“I can’t even quite wrap my head around how many awesome people are in so many different places, doing so many different things, and Daisychain‘s become this little home that people come to,” Greco says. “It makes me cry–it’s so touching and heartwarming. I feel really grateful to be that in-between to get people to know that they can do this too.”

Greco got hooked on IDM, drum ‘n’ bass, and dubstep just before she started college in Buffalo in the late 2000s, then immersed herself in underground house and techno. She studied journalism at Canisius College, graduating in 2013, and in 2015 she decided to express her love of writing and dance music with a blog called Sequencer. “That was when I really started to get to know DJs on a very personal level and forming this narrative of what it is they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and that symbiotic connection between music, DJ, and dancer,” she says.

In her first year running Sequencer, Greco interviewed Chicago DJ Sam Kern, better known as Sassmouth. “Hearing her story, I was like, ‘This woman is amazing–she’s a mom, she’s a flight attendant, she’s traveling the world, DJing,'” Greco says. The Sequencer interview doubled as a preview of a Sassmouth DJ set in Rochester that was part of a series called Signal > Noise; Greco drove an hour and a half to be there.

“Alicia has incredible energy that you feel when you meet her in person–and through everything she does, it’s a true genuine enthusiasm for music,” Kern says. “She came up and introduced herself before I DJed. In some ways it reminded me of seeing a younger version of myself.”

Kern grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and her day job relocated her to Chicago in 2000. By going to clubs such as Crobar and Smart Bar (where she’s now a resident), she connected with scene regulars who inspired her to give DJing a try. She didn’t come to them for pointers, though–instead she taught herself, largely in private.

“I was afraid to ask stupid questions, or not look like I knew what I was doing, because I was really one of the few women that I knew that was doing it,” she says. “The women that I did know that were doing it–DJs like Heather and Lady D–were already touring around, and to me, they were superstars. They weren’t really people I could approach, so I figured it out on my own over the years.”

The fact that Kern felt she had no choice but to learn the mechanics of the craft in isolation was a big part of what inspired her to team up with fellow DJ Elly “Kiddo” Schook in 2017 to launch the workshop and mentorship program Walking & Falling. “We decided to start working on a program, and it was all the idea of volunteering our time–and whoever else wanted to could volunteer their time as well–to teach and accelerate the process for women and nonbinary folks that want to learn,” Kern says. “Hopefully, if we start teaching folks, then they can go on and teach folks.”

Kern and Schook had already spent a lot of time as mentors when they held the first formal Walking & Falling in March 2017. It included DJing workshops, parties at Smart Bar and Gramaphone Records, drop-ins at WNUR and WLUW, and a potluck. Kern invited Greco, who was still living in Buffalo, to stay with her for the week.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God, there’s so many women here, there’s so many queer people here, everybody’s working so hard and such an individual and doing their thing,'” Greco says. “That just opened my eyes big-time to all that could be.” Eight months later, she sold off most of her belongings, packed the few that were left into her Toyota Corolla, and drove to Chicago.

Greco had posted guest mixes on Sequencer, but that series wasn’t as ambitious as what she dreamed up for Daisychain. “I remember talking to Elly–Kiddo–about my idea,” Greco says. “She was like, ‘It’s a good idea–how frequently?’ I’m like, ‘One a week.’ She’s like, ‘That’s so aggressive.’ She still says that to me, all the time. And it is, it’s super aggressive, but the idea of doing one a month isn’t enough–there’s too many people out there to do it just once a month.”

Greco drew on her growing network of friends to help fine-tune the podcast. Acid Daddy, aka Jarvi Schneider (who would later appear on episode 69), recorded the chain-clattering sounds that open each Daisychain mix. In-demand Chicago DJ Sold, aka Glenna Fitch (episode 12), transformed Greco’s sketch for a logo into a digitized design–a daisy with a smiley face at its center, surrounded by a circle of link chain. Greco enlisted San Francisco producer Experimental Housewife, aka Evelyn Malinowski, for the inaugural mix. “I’ve studied Evelyn’s DJ sets,” Greco says. “I really just went for people who were friends of mine that I’ve connected with over time, and then it really snowballed from there–I kept meeting more and more people, making friends with new people, and finding out that they’re really awesome DJs.”

At first, Greco would “cold call” DJs through Facebook or Instagram messages, explaining the podcast and asking them to contribute. “It’s been funny, ’cause usually their response is, ‘Oh my God, I love it,'” she says. “I still am in the state of mind that people don’t know it. It’s wild that a lot of people are already aware of it, and they’re super excited about it.” At the end of 2018, Greco put out an open call for Daisychain submissions, which has helped increase her list of contacts.

Whenever a DJ signs on, Greco has to find a good time to run the mix–she uses spreadsheets to keep tabs on everyone’s progress through the process. She likes to give contributors plenty of time to finesse their mixes, and she usually sends DJs a reminder message a couple weeks before an episode is set to go live. “I get it, being a DJ–it’s dates, mixes, and gigs,” she says. “It gets kind of wild at times, so I’m happy to be the organizer. I like it. It’s thrilling.”

Greco says she hasn’t had much trouble maintaining Daisychain‘s weekly schedule. And she’s been happy with the mixes she’s received–she’s never asked a DJ to fix anything but sound quality. “I’ve had DJs ask me if they think I should put it out, or if it’s good enough,” she says. “I’m like, ‘This is you. I like it, but my opinion also doesn’t totally matter. This is your space to be yourself and do your thing.'”

“The care that Alicia expresses towards each and every person who does a mix on Daisychain is completely unparalleled in any other mix series that I’ve seen,” says Seattle DJ Livwutang, who goes by Liv and made the podcast’s 68th mix. Greco reached out to her to contribute at the suggestion of Liv’s friend Ceci, who DJs as CCL and did the 41st Daisychain episode. “I was stoked to see a mix series that was explicitly focused on women and nonbinary people,” Liv says. “I was new to playing dance music–I still am–but I can’t think of any other mix series that is operating with that explicit focus besides Daisychain.”

Liv says she spent about a month working on her mix, including rehearsing the final version live about a half dozen times in her studio–which is inside a vault in the former Old Rainier Brewery. “My mixes are the main creative output that people will have to remember me by, and I want them to be perfect,” Liv says. “Alicia’s put out so many mixes–I have no idea how she’s had the time to do all of it–but she’s very conscious that not everything she records or plays out is perfect. She taught me how to be really gentle with myself, and that people can sense when you’re being kind to yourself, whether that’s in a recording or if that’s in a live DJ set.”

After Liv’s Daisychain episode went live in April 2019, it helped her land a gig in Vancouver. She and Greco have also become close–they’ll talk before one of them has a performance, ask each other for advice about a mix, or commiserate about their personal lives. They’ve met in person only briefly, in September at Sustain-Release, a four-day underground dance festival in the Catskills. But their connection means a lot to both of them. “I haven’t met a lot of people who’ve done Daisychains,” Liv says. “But I feel like we’re all intricately connected now, because we’ve all had the experience of feeling cared for and invested in by Alicia.”

Greco isn’t interested in using Daisychain to further her own aspirations as a DJ, and so far she hasn’t contributed a mix to the series. “It’s not about me,” she says. “A lot of people think it’s a team of people, which is really funny–like, ‘No, it’s just me.’ It’s helped me foster my own little sense of community here and abroad.”

That community–at least the Chicago part of it–has helped support Greco’s Daisychain parties, which also celebrate woman-identifying and nonbinary DJs. The first was a private Fourth of July event in 2018, but since then they’ve been increasingly public. In fall 2018 she hosted a party in Buffalo, and last year she had three: a one-year anniversary at an underground space in March, a patio session in July, and a free afternoon of music in Humboldt Park (in collaboration with the Humboldt Arboreal Society’s dance series) in August.

Greco hasn’t used the podcast to promote herself or her gigs, but working on it has made her a better DJ. Talking to Daisychain contributors and listening to their mixes has spurred her to challenge herself creatively. “I’ve been playing more aggressive, which is something I’ve always liked and something I’ve always cared about. Now that I’m starting to find more confidence and my voice, I’m not as nervous to play those tracks out and take risks,” she says. “That ties back into the inspiration of all these DJs that are just doing the thing and doing it well. That pushes me too.” v

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This morning Pitchfork announced the lineup for its 15th annual music festival, headlined by mope masters the National, rap superduo Run the Jewels, and New York hipster-rock darlings the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Pitchfork the website originally built its reputation by covering the indie music world that gave birth to these headliners, and even though Pitchfork the festival has grown big enough to book them now that they’re stars, it hasn’t lost sight of that mission–which lends extra significance to its crystal anniversary.

Run the Jewels sets have become as routine at Chicago summer festivals as sightings of Matthew Churney (aka “hacky-sack guy”), but El-P and Killer Mike nonetheless help make the 2020 Pitchfork lineup as eclectic and distinctive as the ones that preceded it. It’s expanded well beyond its indie-rock comfort zone, and other big names invigorating this year’s roster include art-rock royal Kim Gordon, funk oddball Thundercat, and rising dance star Yaeji. Chicago indie rockers Fiery Furnaces, who took most of the past decade off, will return to the stage the first night of the fest.

If you’re a Pitchfork regular, chances are you’ve seen several acts on this year’s lineup at previous editions. Danny Brown will rap at Pitchfork for the fifth time, and all told 17 of its 42 acts are repeaters–at least if you count Caroline Polachek’s set with Chairlift in 2013, Jehnny Beth’s appearances with Savages in 2013 and 2016, and Kim Gordon’s performance with Sonic Youth in 2007. If you were at Pitchfork Paris in 2017, this lineup might feel particularly repetitive–the National and Run the Jewels headlined there that year.

As usual, the lineup’s highlights include some acts who’ve never played Pitchfork. Emo bands Oso Oso and Dogleg likely owe thanks for their bookings to the Hotelier, who in 2016 became the first group from that often-maligned genre to play the festival (Oso Oso front man Jade Lilitri also played guitar in the Hotelier during that set). Joining them as first-timers are emo-tinged indie rockers Hop Along, Atlanta R&B singer Mariah the Scientist, London jazz unit the Ezra Collective, and extraordinary LA singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers.

The nine Chicago acts playing this year’s Pitchfork are some of the most exciting, though that number is a hair below the average the fest has established in recent years. Among them are soul-leaning singer-songwriter Kaina, hip-hop storyteller Femdot, and footwork experimentalist DJ Nate. (Angel Olsen could be considered number ten, but she moved away in 2013.)

The Pitchfork Music Festival runs Friday, July 17, through Sunday, July 19, in Union Park. Last year, ComplexCon and the Silver Room Block Party took place the same weekend as Pitchfork, and while the Silver Room event will do so again, it doesn’t look like ComplexCon is returning this summer. Given that the Silver Room Block Party is always free, at least that means nobody has to worry about finding the money for two simultaneous big-ticket events!

Single-day tickets are $75, three-day passes are $185, and three-day Pitchfork Plus passes will set you back $385 (one-day Plus passes are $160). You can also buy tickets at slightly cheaper early-bird prices ($150 for a three-day pass, $325 for Pitchfork Plus) tonight and tomorrow at the Chicago Athletic Association’s parties celebrating the festival’s 15th anniversary. The Cool Kids, DJ Spinn, and Kaina perform tonight; Ohmme, Dehd, and Spencer Tweedy play tomorrow night. Both events have already sold out.

The daily lineup is below, with links to past Reader coverage where applicable:

Friday, July 17

Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Angel Olsen
Fiery Furnaces
Jehnny Beth
Deafheaven
Waxahatchee
Tim Hecker & the Konoyo Ensemble
Sophie
Fennesz
Hop Along
Dehd
Spellling
Kaina
Femdot

Saturday, July 18

Run the Jewels
Sharon Van Etten
Twin Peaks
Danny Brown
Thundercat
Cat Power
BadBadNotGood
Tierra Whack
Dave
Oso Oso
Divino Nino
Boy Scouts
Ezra Collective
Margaux

Sunday, July 19

The National
Big Thief
Kim Gordon
Phoebe Bridgers
Yaeji
Caroline Polachek
DJ Nate
Maxo Kream
Rapsody
Faye Webster
Mariah the Scientist
Dogleg
Hecks
Dustin Laurenzi’s Snaketime v

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