WEEK OF 12/13/2019

Elijah Berlow / 📷 : Tina Mead & Kyle Land

Chicago has an incredibly eclectic scene, brimming with bands from every possible spectrum of musical tastes and influences. Quite often a bill comes along that is shaped by this diversification, containing little to tie together the acts beyond respect for each others art and the community ties. The no frills, classic Chicago back room venue of Coles featured such a lineup last Friday with the jazzy protest anthems of Cordoba, followed by the post-punk rattle and verve of Daymaker, and wrapped all up with the personal folk/bluegrass jams of Elijah Berlow. It was a night to remember, on an unusually un-fridged mid-December Chicago evening, as local music fans packed into the cozy rear room to take in three of the cities most engrossing acts.  

Cordoba is this city. Chicago wrapped in a musical spectrum fusing jazz, funk, hip-hop, soul, blues, and rock; while lyrically taking on where we are as a society in this broken system we attempt to coexist within. Brianna Tong’s vocals glide through the tunes, weaving their way toward your cerebral cortex as the five heavily improv based players drive the ship of genre explosion. Zach Upton-Davis’ drums and Khalyle Hagood’s bass lines blend into a syncopated resolve that lays the foundation for Cam Cunningham’s guitar and Zach Bain-Selbo’s keys to bleed musical muscle into the textured melodies, while Eric Novak’s sax rubs elbows with his and Tong’s vocals leading the stampede into protest charged bliss. If Cordoba was simply a jazz fusion sextet (as they’re bio self-describes) they would be fantastic; however, with their politically charged manifestos of poetic import, they hit a level of visceral art that excites and inspires, driving one to throw a fist in the air at one moment and get a groove going the next. Last years Break the Locks Off Everything New cannot be recommended more, and they are a force to be reckoned with live.   

Full of righteous indignation and fists of tangerines comes Daymaker, fresh off the release of their excellent Let the Sun Fall last month. Clad in jumpsuits and a sunburst spandex number for fronter Erin Delaney, the quartet came out raging, and tore through a far too short collection of tunes that had the worked up crowd clambering for more as they wrapped up the sizzling set. The intensity of Delaney’s performance is set off by Egon Schiele’s thrashing guitar antics while the solid rock of Eric Newmillers bass and Whitney Milikan’s rolling drums fills the space with a fuzzing, bashing buzz as they push the ride toward the void only to have Delaney push it over the edge as she drops to her knees in passionate, screaming rapture. Full of musical peaks and valleys and plenty for the punk and indie fan alike, Daymaker is gearing up for a killer 2020. Check out their brand new video for “Mask On” released this week.        

With a collection of some fine local musicians backing him, Elijah Berlow took the stage with his acoustic in hand to deliver a touching set of beautiful americana that prods the soul and dislodges the emotional core. With only a handful of recordings including a live set at VCR and the sprawling single “Roadkill”, but with quite a bit of performance footage on YouTube from this year, Berlow is a star on the rise in a crowded pool. A storyteller in essence, Berlow fills his songs with the will of life well lived and the struggle of the urban versus the rural tradition. Displaying a deft hand at the subtle art of metaphor, he weaves his narration through his folk styled tunes with skillful craft. Delaney, Tong, and Schiele joined him onstage for an emotional tune, providing a bridge that connected the evening and created a cozy fuzzy haze that lasted the entire unseasonably warm walk home.        

-Kyle Land