Celebrating its two-year anniversary just last month, Chicago recording project Coach House Sounds has been making great strides over the past twenty-four plus months, even being named one of Chicago’s best new music websites by Time Out Chicago. Bringing unique and personable analog recordings by various local, as well as touring acts, to music lovers everywhere, Coach House has also begun to dabble in hosting events across Chicago. Earlier this year they were behind two sold out shows featuring Brighton, MA at Schuba’s, and have since put on a launching event at The Whistler, featuring not only musicians but writers of prose as well.
Coach House Sounds is the brainchild of Matt Baron, who you may recognize from a variety of bands, but more immediately as the drummer of Tell Your Friends, and guitar/vocalist behind Baron Von Something, his two current projects. Having already been aware of such efforts like that from Quad Cities based Daytrotter, Baron birthed the idea for Coach House after reading about an upcoming show for the band The Grand Ole Party taking place at Schuba’s, just down the street from Baron’s home, and Coach House’s location. Already having a rehearsal space set up for his own band’s use, Baron’s gears started to turn and the concept of creating an environment to capture live sound on tape came to be.
Recording on ¼” analog tape, mixing live, and using no over dubs, allows Coach House to embody the true organic quality of live music, something all parties involved feel is important. Besides Baron, the Coach House team is made up of photographer Neil Morrison, and audio engineer Doug Leinen, with web design split between the latter two. Collectively the three are hard at work to push the united feel of a creative community, and capturing some great music sessions in the process. All sessions are up for free streaming via the website, whose visuals depict the clean, simple aesthetic that seems to be omnipresent in the mission behind Coach House- “Coach House captures a band’s spirit on a given day. Their music is recorded live to a reel of analog tape in our basement in Chicago. No money exchanges hands. We welcome you to come back and listen whenever you’d like.” (Matt, Neil & Doug- Coachousesounds.com)
March 22nd, 8pm at The Hungry Brain, Coach House Sounds Presents:
Scott Tuma/Mike Weis
The Ruin Ensemble (feat. Rachel Ries)
Coach House Sounds’ Matt Baron met up with us to talk about the details behind the project, as well as sit in our hot seat to be grilled about such things as his favorite local bands, and 5 ‘Desert Island Picks’.
Telgram Sam: What made you decide to use analog recording for this project?
Matt Baron: The reasoning behind it is that we wanted to have the sessions to have a live feel to them, and the idea of recording to be intriguing to bands. I feel the idea of recording live to tape is definitely interesting and worthwhile to bands. We find that a lot of times a band’s first recording tends to be the best, so we promote bands to treat it as a live show, and just go with that first instinct. Typically it’s myself, our engineer Doug, and photographer Neil in the room, and having a small audience there sets it up in a way where it doesn’t feel like a sterile studio environment, it’s more like recording in one’s parent’s basement or something, and that’s really the initial intention, to make it a little different. I feel like our space is a catalyst for bands to do something a little different than they would in a regular studio.
T.S: How can fans of what you’re doing get involved in Coach House?
M.B: We’re focusing more on putting on events this year, and not only having it be music related. So anybody who is involved in other community based projects, whether they’re specifically music related or other cultural, or arts projects that they feel is aligned sort of what with we’re doing- which is essentially based on local, but definitely still interested in trying to engage national, international acts and not just having it be about one genre- so it’s not only about painting, or not only about fiction. We’re just starting to get our toes wet with that stuff, but it’s definitely something we’re looking to expand on.
T.S: What are your eventual goals for Coach House?
M.B: We’d like to have podcasts available on iTunes, that’s something we’re definitely working towards. We’d like to put on more events, presented and curated by Coach House, and also just help out bands coming through that have worked with us and help market those shows independently. I’d like to be getting more bands through our doors, more new bands, just for the imminent future.
T.S: Thus far into the project, what is the most memorable session that you’ve recorded?
M.B: I’d have to say our session with Ono, who are an experimental art rock band formed in the late 70’s. We also invited Joe Carducci, formerly of SST Records and now a writer/filmmaker, and having him there, just sort of the grandfather of this whole indie-rock, DIY thing, and having him in the basement with Ono, who’s unlike any other band I’ve ever heard, was just an incredible experience. Their keyboardist brought these homemade Grecian desserts from a wedding she had been at the night before and that was really cool. It was overall just a really good day, that band has such a great personality; both as individuals and as a band. Also, having Mark Pickerel in was a great event- he’s on Bloodshot records and was the original drummer for the Screaming Trees. The session was great, his songs were excellent, and then after he proceeded to tune my drums with a beer in one hand, and he probably played the drums better one handed than most drummers I’ve ever heard. Lake’s session was also great, because they used all our gear and that was sort of aligned with my original intention of just having bands load in at Schuba’s and walk over, be over for a short amount of time playing on our set up, and then just playing their show after.
T.S: What are your top three Chicago local bands to see live?
M.B: I’d say Daniel Knox is up there, he’s an amazing piano player and vocalist, and when he plays live he’ll do a set typically solo, and then with his group, just amazing. The whole place will go quiet when his voice comes through the PA.
Disappears, I saw them at the Hideout a few months ago and they were excellent, just incredible, timeless sounding songs and the drums sound is just amazing. Scotland Yard Gospel Choir are always great, Elia has such a great stage persona, and the band is just having such a good time, embodying a great spirit up there that is totally infectious. I don’t like when bands are too cool to be up on stage, I like when the bands having fun and letting the crowd know it.
T.S: How about some of your favorite venues?
M.B: Well to discover new bands I like to go to the Whistler or Ronny’s, they get some good bands there. Hideout typically has some nice openers, the headliners I’ve typically heard of, but they do a nice job booking. I like going to the Immediate Sound Series and the Emerging Artist Series at the Hideout and the Hungry Brain, which has an emphasis on free jazz. I like going to those shows because a lot of those bands are based in Chicago and it’s astounding to see some of the creativity that’s coming out of the city and is still unseen by most of the listening audience.
T.S: If you were to put together your dream show, who would be playing and where would it be?
M.B: I really like Lincoln Hall, and I love the Hideout, but Lincoln Hall has a larger capacity, and with the bands I’d like to invite it’d have to be a little bit bigger scale. With a focus on local rock we’ll say, just to boil it down a little bit, I’d like to have Joan of Arc, Disappears, and Pit Er Pat, even though they’re based in L.A. now. That’d be a great Chicago show that’d bring out a lot of music lovers and create a cool atmospher
T.S: What are a few of your favorite locally made albums?
M.B: When I was a sophomore in high school I got Being There by Wilco, and I loved that, it’s still a great album, and I remember listening to that every day on the bus with my discman for a good year. More recently I’ve been listening to this band In Tall Buildings, who just did a recording with us and is putting out their new album with Whistler records. It’s sort of a Neil Young, Grand Daddy kind of thing. White Mystery is putting out a new record that’s got some good stuff on it, also with Whistler, and they’ve come through with us. One of my favorites, local and forever, is Siamese Dream by Smashing Pumpkins. I remember buying that CD at Record City with my Dad in 93. A couple years ago Fred Anderson and Hamid Drake released a CD, and he’s someone I’d love to have come in. Fred Anderson is kind of an institution in Chicago himself, he’s a saxophonist and that record is absolutely great.
T.S: Any new albums you’re looking forward to in 2010?
M.B: I just got the new Midlake, and that’s pretty good, I like it. Locally, Shapers, they’ve got a release show in March, that’s an album I think will be great. Joanna Newsom’s new album is going to be huge deal; I’m very intrigued- I hear its two hours long or something really crazy. Daniel Knox is putting out a new record this year that I’m also looking forward to hearing.
T.S: Desert Island picks: Five records to listen to for possibly the rest of your life.
M.B: I’d say Ambient Music 1: Music for Airports by Brian Eno. Marquee Moon by Television, great guitar playing and I always hear something different when I listen to it. Wolf Parade, Apologies of the Queen Mary is probably one of my favorite albums of the last five years; I love Alien Lanes by Guided By Voices, and I would say the new Jim O’Rourke album called The Visitor. It’s one track and basically like an Indie rock-opera. All those albums for me are ones that I feel like that don’t get old.
Tags: Free Music, Interview, Upcoming Event
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