Smile Politely. Speak Directly. A Champaign-Urbana Culture Blog

In case you hadn't realized already, the Mike N' Molly's beer garden is truly the place to be for live local music in downtown Champaign these days. It's spacious and inviting, the PA won't destroy your eardrums, and it's got a good beer selection to boot. This is all fine and dandy on most days, but when the weatherman cries "precipitation," everyone starts to get a little worried about playing outside.

This didn't stop Ryan Groff and Mike Ingram from performing their duet rendition of Radiohead's The Bends in support of Nashville's Parachute Musical and Heypenny last Tuesday, however. Amid reports of a storm, the two local rockers pushed all doubt aside and told the crowd just what they wanted to hear: "It doesn't matter if it rains — we're playing anyway!"

One gallon of gas north of Champaign-Urbana is Backbeats, a used records and books store situated inconspicuously on the main strip in Rantoul. It is, in a literal sense, a mom-and-pop shop. Don Boskey runs the used record store, and his wife, Rebecca, sees to the used books, art and other eclectic collectibles that line the walls of the store.

The pair has been at it since July of last year, when Rebecca closed up her antique store and moved a few doors down the street. She consolidated her shop’s inventory to shift focus away from antiques and toward books, and Don added a hefty selection of LPs to the mix.

Country-rocker Shooter Jennings will appear with his band, the 357's, tonight at the Canopy Club in Urbana. It's a 9:00 p.m. show, and American Bang and local up-and-comers Number One Sons are slated to open. Tickets are $16 in advance.

Upon first hearing “Highly Suspiscious,” from My Morning Jacket's newest LP Evil Urges, one of the — what do you call them? Singles? Whatever a band releases to the internet to preview its forthcoming record — I felt a sort of dismay. Having grown to adore My Morning Jacket for the searing, epic guitars (especially as exemplified on the band’s double-disc live opus Okonokos), the folksy charm, and Jim James’ falsetto-reverb vocals, the fact that “Highly Suspiscious” sounded like a band trying to cover Prince disturbed me greatly. Was this the band I had claimed to love? Praised endlessly? Pushed on so many people?

One of our finest bands has suffered a bit of a set back this week, as Nic Dillon of Casados was injured by a falling tree during some rough thunderstorms last weekend.

According to bandmate and wife, Heather Dillon, Nic was cleaning up some of the picnic before planning to take shelter inside when a tree fell and hit him from behind, lacerating the back of his head, fracturing his skull, breaking his scapula and several ribs and slightly puncturing his lung.

Fortunately, all is looking well for Nic, who is currently on the road to recovery in a Bloomington, Ill hospital. Update: Plans for him to return home have come to fruition, he is currently back in Urbana, and resting well in a big comfy recliner with electronic features to make it easy on him.

Psych lovers, beware: If this article is introducing you to The Black Angels, there is reason to heed a real fear that, in the very near future, you won’t be removing this record from the player for months. Yes, we writers operate almost exclusively by use of hyperbole, but in all frankness, Directions to See a Ghost is the most illuminating psych record to have any popular appeal in my recent memory.

Fiery Furnaces and Raconteurs at The Pageant, St. Louis, June 12

Note: Not for the first time, I was one of the only audience members caught obeying the club's strict "no cameras" policy, and so I can offer only these sketches I made of the bands as they performed — WG

William: The Fiery Furnaces are an astonishingly original one-man and one-woman band who create enough music to fill setlists from a dozen power-trios. Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matthew Friedberger from Oak Park did time in the local Champaign-Urbana music scene as a member of Corndolly and Liquorette, before moving back to Chicago to start a band with his sister Eleanor.

This is the first in a series of video profiles highlighting local bands, how they view the music scene and where they think it is going. The interview transcript appears after the jump. Enjoy!

Good Night and Good Morning are a band that rejects all of the stereotypes that traditionally come with being in a band — they aren't loud, they don't dream of playing in large arenas and they don't care about making money. How is it, then, that they can survive in the seemingly stagnant Champaign-Urbana music scene? We decided to sit down with them and discuss their experiences as an acoustic-ambient band, and also, as local musicians in C-U.

The first installment in an anticipated series of articles on local music stores

William: In the Feb. 28 issue of Buzz magazine, readers' choice winners for Best of C-U in the “best place to buy music” category were, reportedly:

1. Exile on Main Street (winning by "like, one vote," gloats the student-run periodical)
2. Best Buy
3. iTunes

There are at least two things wrong with this list. Can you spot them?

Cristy: First, shouldn’t it be Exile on REO Speedwagon Way? Ha!

W: Ew. Cristy, no. Don't go there.

In the pleasantly muddled world of indie music, there are a handful of not-so-descriptive terms that are often branded onto select acts. “Piano rock” is one that gets thrown around a lot, as well as “jangly guitar pop.” Of course there’s also “dance indie,” a la the Happy Mondays. These labels, however, do not come across as a positive portrayal, but rather as an indication of the one-dimensionality that pervades pop music.

Enter Tall Tale, a young Champaign-based band whose debut full-length album Pirate Ship was released last month. With female vocals and piano based verses, listeners will make obvious connections to already established acts such as The Hush Sound and Eisley, but Tall Tale offers a little more innovation and versatility than their more radio friendly contemporaries. Pirate Ship, consequently, is a very impressive first album that is often surreal and surprising.

Richard Swift is a shapeshifter, a musical sorceror of mythical proportion. Each of his releases shows a mastery of a different affect of pop music, and each one is unique in its own way. Pending the release (some as Richard Swift and some as Instruments of Science and Technology, his electronic moniker), you’re likely to find a completely different sound, but what’s been clear all along is that Richard Swift’s forte is using the elements of popular music to turn popular music on its ass. In that sense, As Onasis is perfectly in form.