I had the chance to talk to Lazzeretti about the upcoming show.
Q – Great talking to you. I know that you will be performing at FitzGerald's Sidebar on Sept. 30 as part of a CD release party for "Fat Head, Sunday Paper."
Of course, you have been playing at FitzGerald's for years and
currently host a Songwriter Circle there.
What do you like about playing
at FitzGerald's? Is it an honor to perform at such an esteemed music
venue that has meant so much to so many people over the years?
It's hard to express just how rare and
sacred FitzGerald's is. I've been going there for 30 years.
I always
say that if I knew FitzGerald's was there when we moved to Oak Park, I
would have moved there to be near it. But I had no idea.
Then one day, I
walked through that door and a whole world opened up for me. It's like
this amazing road house dropped from the sky and landed in Berwyn,
Illinois.
And, Bill Fitzgerald and his wife, Kate, and the Fitzgerald
Family built this...you know, they built Bill's dream. He loves music.
He told me that when he was a kid, he had a cordless, battery operated
record player. And he would assemble his friends down on the street or
up in a treehouse fort and play music for them.
It's essentially the
early model of what came to be his professional career. He had a
calling.
And any chance I've had to play there, it just never gets old.
And now Will Duncan has taken over and it’s wonderful because he came in
knowing the power of the place.
Anyone who has ever been there can tell
you, it's a very special place born of someone’s passion; nothing
cynical about it.
And it extends to other places in the area like the
Rob Pierce's Friendly Music Community. Or The Outta Space. It's really a
vital scene. Sometimes I think it's the best kept secret in the Midwest.
Q – It seems like there is a meaning
behind the album's name. Is there? In sitting down to make the album,
what were your goals and do you think you accomplished them?
My main goal was to make a record,
not just a pile of songs. I like a record, a complete piece; like a
novel or a book of short stories.
You hear that vinyl records are making
a comeback. I'm not sure about that. But anything that encourages
people to listen to a record from top to bottom and think of it as a
whole, I'm all for that.
I'm not comparing what I've done in two records
to the classics. But to illustrate what I mean, "Pet Sounds" is a record. "Blood On The Tracks"is a record. "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"...a
record.
I can cherry pick songs for mixes or whatever but I have a
place in my heart for an album. So I was aiming for that kind of
integrated piece.
As for what it means, it's purposely a little vague: "Fat Head, Sunday Paper."
But it's safe to say that there's a bit of a "morning after hangover"
thing. That Sunday vibe you feel in the air with regard to a lot of
things; that sense that maybe the party is over.
It’s not that all hope
is lost but it is a bit of a wake-up call.
Q – I understand you share a birthday with Bob Dylan. How much of an influence has he had on you and your music?
Well,
the Dylan birthday thing is just something that tickles me because
clearly it means nothing, but it is one of those things that sounds like
something. But I can’t deny that he has had a tremendous influence on
me; me and zillions more like me.
This is a guy who had tremendous
influence on the Beatles, so what more do we need to know? I admire him
because he has such creative integrity, does what he wants and does it
with conviction.
And he’s aged just the way I hoped; kind of a crotchety
old bluesman. And he’s funny. He cracks me up.
Anyway, I also share a birthday with David Hasselhoff. And Britney Spears. So I travel with a pretty interesting crowd.
Q – It seems like you are always working
on something, whether that is making music, making movies or writing and
directing commercials. Do you view each one as providing a different
creative outlet?
I’m more and more aware of how much
overlap there is in the work that I do; how everything feeds on itself.
Commercials taught me about film. Independent film taught me
storytelling.
Some musicians I’ve worked with provided music scores.
Others proved to be wonderful actors.
If creativity and curiosity are in
your DNA, there’s no telling what you can do. So we try to stretch and
see what we’re really made of.
Q – What projects do you have coming up and do you have any dream projects or collaborations?
I have
two thoughts bouncing around. One is a film idea and one is the next
record, which has already been percolating in my head.
It’ll have a
different, more stripped-down sound. I’m excited about it.
Then again,
first I have to learn to enjoy the moment. That’s what my wife tells me.
And she’s usually right.
Jim Green entertained Fox Valley audiences for years with his innovative guitar playing.
Green recently moved to Colorado, but is back in the area as part of his "Tethered To A Dream" tour. As part of the tour, he will perform at 2 p.m. Oct. 1 at the St. Charles Public Library, One South Sixth Ave., St. Charles.
I had the chance to talk to Green about the tour.
Q – Great
to talk to you again. The upcoming show at the St. Charles Public
Library is part of your "Tethered to a Dream" tour. You
recently released the song “Tethered to a Dream.” What was the
inspiration for the song?
Since
I was in high school back in the '80s, I knew I wanted to play
guitar as a career. 2003 is when I could finally say I was supporting
myself with my music.
Fast forward to today, I’ve had some
reasonable successes such as getting signed to a record label and
opening for some well-known artists. Throughout that time, I had my
fair share of doubts, but I’m happy to say it is all working out.
To
engage in some other line of work would feel dispiriting to me. Hence
the song title and inspiration, “Tethered to a Dream."
Q – Is
there anything in particular you will be showcasing at the library
show?
Located
on the second floor of the library is the Carnegie Community Room, where I will
be playing. My first thought is, I’m just excited to play that room
again because of the great acoustics in there.
Unfortunately, I don’t
think most people in and around St. Charles have even experienced a
concert in that room and I hope if they are reading this they feel
encourage to join me there that Sunday afternoon. Other than that,
I’ll be playing a mix of moods and tempos, including what I am
mostly known for, percussive guitar.
This style incorporates unusual
and innovative guitar techniques that have been described as visually
entertaining as well as musically.
Q – You
recently moved out of the area and moved to Colorado. What made you
want to do that and how has life in Colorado been so far?
I
learned of a CO transplant saying I like that goes like this, “I’m
not from Colorado, but I got here as soon as I could.”
I’ve always
wanted to live near mountains. I’m really into running, biking,
just being outdoors, and the landscape there enhances all those
activities.
After
eight months, I’m still looking for my tribe and musically slowly
building a name for myself. I think it’s going well overall.
I’ve
been lucky enough to play a couple gigs at the legendary Broadmoor
Hotel and Resort. I know the more I play out, the more chances to
meet people and make friends.
Q – I
know that you are on Sky Valley Records, which is a small,
independent record label dedicated to instrumental guitar music. It
makes sense to be on the label.
Is
being on the label bringing even more exposure to your music?
I’ve
been very fortunate in the beginning with being able to sell a good
number of CDs at my shows. With the introduction of free streaming,
that has seen a significant drop.
Last year, I finally started
promoting and directing people to my music on those streaming
platforms. My stream count had risen quite a bit verses doing nothing
of course, but the record label has connections with a lot of
different playlist curators and has brought that count higher than I
ever could on my own.
Previously I was only reaching those who were
at my gigs. The label has helped me reach a larger world-wide
audience.
I admit many of them are passive listeners to a playlist
but my growing follower count is good evidence that the songs are
catching some ears.
Q – Of
course, you are known for your finger-style approach to playing
the guitar. How did you develop the style in the first place and how
do you think it has changed over the years?
Some
of my playing is very unorthodox, with my left fretting hand over the
top of the guitar neck instead of underneath. So when asked that
question my usual joking response is, “A year of trying to get my
hands to work together and a lot of swearing.”
Mine
and everyone else’s technique is built on the backs of past artists. I always admired the late great Michael
Hedges for his innovative approach to fingerstyle guitar.
He was
doing things on the guitar in the late '80s that are still mind
blowing today. I wasn’t even playing fingerstyle then, but his
influence was sort of baked in.
In the late '90s, I was thumbing
through a catalog of guitar instructional videos. The one
that caught my eye was Preston Reed’s, "Expanding the Realm of
Acoustic Playing."
That sounded really interesting to me so, I ordered
the VHS tape, watched it and his percussive way of playing really
spoke to me. I learned a lot from him and also watching Flamenco
guitarists and studying their techniques to apply to my music.
This
style of playing started with Hedges and Reed, growing to a small
band of us gigging around to morphing into the creation of a new
genre of music called Math Rock.
Q – You
also recently released the song "Phronesis," which you
have said is one of your best written and recorded solo guitar
songs. In sitting down and writing the song, what goals did you have?
I
normally don’t have any goals or expectations in writing a song.
It’s too much pressure.
What I do have is connected detachment. I
just try to listen and act on a musical idea when it happens, while
wearing two hats, explorer and scientist.
I tend to use a different
guitar tuning for every new song. By retuning the pitch of some or
all the guitar strings changes the musical landscape to something
unfamiliar, something to explore.
When I find a musical idea I like,
I put on my scientist hat and I test, listen, adjust and test again.
The tune will eventually reveal itself and what it’s about. I just
trust the process and build on the results.
Q – Your
music evokes a lot of imagery. And it seems like your love for nature
is just as great as your love for music. I just watched the video for
your song "We Leave at Dawn," which I know you wrote and
recorded a few days before moving from Illinois to Colorado. Is that
love for nature strengthened by the fact that when you aren't making
music, you are hiking or biking?
The
closer we are to nature, the more we realize there is no separation
from us and it. There’s certainly no lack of inspiration nature
provides musically.
If I’m doing some outdoor activity, I sometimes
hear music in my head. If I’m creating music sometimes I visualize
something like tall grasses, the smell of autumn, or the rustling of
leaves from a cottonwood tree.
It might be something else for someone
else but, hiking, biking and being outdoors serves my spirit and in
turn serves my artist output.
Q – What
would you like people to get out of your music?
That’s
a simple question but hard for me to answer somehow. Whenever music
is heard by someone, it’s going through their personal filter of
past experiences and how it’s perceived can be so different from
maybe how I felt writing it.
That’s what makes us all so unique and
it’s a beautiful thing.
I’ll
answer this with two words – emotional depth.
Chicago musician Brian Krumm’s first solo album was born out of the pandemic.
Krumm fronts the band The Great Crusaders. He wrote the songs on his debut solo album, "Just Fade Away,” during the 2020 shutdown.
The album was released on June 2 on Chicago independent record label Pravda Records. Krumm and His Barfly Friends will hold an acoustic CD release show at 8 p.m. Sept. 9 at Uncommon Ground, 3800 N. Clark St., Chicago.
Q – Great to talk to you. Are you happy that “Just Fade Away” is being released on Pravda Records, which is one of Chicago’s longest running independent record labels?
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve known Kenn Goodman for years and he actually has helped out The Great Crusades, my other band, in the past.
He got us placed on some very high profile TV shows, including the season finale of “True Blood,” which was amazing. And I think Pravda is just on to something these days.
The artists that they’re putting out are all putting out amazing records. I know that they just signed Nathan Graham who is a great singer/songwriter and is based in Chicago.
They are really paying attention to people who are making great music. I have been admiring Pravda for quite some time.
Q – Of course, the album is called “Just Fade Away.” I know you started writing songs for the album during the pandemic shutdown. Does the album’s title refer to you wishing the pandemic would just fade away?
It probably has a bunch of different meanings. During the lockdown, I gave myself an hour to try to write a song at 5 p.m. every day along with a shot of whiskey, truth be told.
Like everybody else, we were all confused about whether we could go inside or if we could see other people. My wife actually came up with the idea. She suggested that rather than me moping and pacing around, that I should try to write a batch of songs.
And after 25 days, I had 25 songs.
Some people thought the album’s title was a nod to Buddy Holly’s song “Not Fade Away.” I just thought “Just Fade Away” fit for that collection of songs and it also worked with the artwork my friend came up with.
It didn’t really having anything to do with wanting the pandemic to go away. But that’s what we were all feeling and hoping for.
It took a lot longer than anybody thought it was going to take. And it’s still not completely gone.
Q – How did you go about choosing the 11 songs that are on “Just Fade Away?”
I just started sending Christian Moder, who’s my lifelong friend, the tunes, which I just recorded on my iPhone.
I just sent him these recordings pretty much every day after I finished one and we just worked on the ones that started naturally coming together. There’s still another batch of songs that are waiting to be worked on, but these were the first ones that we got to and these were the ones that felt most natural to work on.
Q – But you said the rest of them might be released at some time?
Yeah. It’s going to be a similar process for what we did for this initial first record.
Q – Were you surprised that you actually wrote 25 songs in 25 days?
Yeah, I was very surprised. The Great Crusades have been putting out records since 1997, so I’ve been doing that for more than 20 years.
This process, where there was no preconceived notions about what the end result was going to be, was super refreshing to me, to just have that blank slate.
I did surprise myself. After I wrote the first five, I said to myself, ‘Wow, I guess I do have some more things to say, some more stories to tell, some more memories to sort of mine and make them into songs.’
So it was pretty cool. I was happy with the end result and still want to write more.
That was the one positive thing that came out of the pandemic.
Trey Gunn is the type of musician who is always up for a new challenge.
Gunn and Pat Mastelotto, known for their work in King Crimson, are members of the band Tu-Ner alongside touch guitarist Markus Reuter. The band will perform at 8 p.m. Aug. 26 at Reggies, 2105 S. State St., Chicago.
Sammy Boller and Greg Howe are also on the bill. Tickets range from $25 to $35, available at ticketweb.com.
Tu-Ner is touring in support of its debut double album, "T-1 Contact Information," which was released on Aug. 14 on Gunn's record label, 7D Media. I had the chance to talk to Gunn about the project and tour.
Q – “T-1 Contact Information” came out on Aug. 14, the same day the tour began. How has the tour been going?
Yeah, that's correct. We had a couple of kind of warm up gigs. We participated in this King Crimson "Three of a Perfect Pair" camp up in Woodstock the week before that.
We were up there with 120 musicians doing workshops and stuff. And then we do kind of an informal concert there and joined Adrian Belew and Tony Levin to do a big show at Bearsville two days earlier.
Q – How did that go this year?
It was great. This is my third year and it was completely sold out. There were 120 people playing and singing and doing all sorts of stuff all day and all night long.
These are all musicians and actually they spend the good part of the year rehearsing for it.
Q – This is the most recent incarnation of Tu-Ner. What do you enjoy about working with Pat and Markus?
Well, I've been playing with Pat for 30 some years now. It's just a very playful experience playing with Pat.
We're constantly teasing each other and trying to throw each other off and having fun on stage. I've known Marcus almost that long, but we haven't played together as much.
We did some duo concerts out in Seattle a couple of years ago and have done a lot of recording together.
Q – The album was recently released on 7D Media, a record label that you founded in 2006. In starting the label, what were your goals and do you think you accomplished them?
I've been running that label for a long time. I kind of started it with just my own releases and it has grown and grown.
It's not easy being a small label, but it works. And I'm seeing now the Tu-Ner record has been number one on the prog and experimental charts on Bandcamp for like a month now.
Q – Obviously that shows that people are interested in hearing this album. Does that make you happy that it is doing so well?
Yeah, it makes us very happy. And the record is very strange and unusual, so that makes us even more happy.
Q – So obviously there are people that want to listen to that type of music. There's a lot of artists out there that kind of copy each other, so I guess people appreciate something that's kind of different.
Yeah, this is not copying anything. It's very, very weird music.
And it's like that live too. We keep surprising each other.
Last night, we were in Buffalo. About half the show is improvised and Pat surprised us by going in a completely different direction last night.
Q – Is that kind of a thrill to go off in your own direction, so much that you're even surprising your fellow band members?
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, that's real creative play when something happens that no one planned.
Q – I understand you first met Robert Fripp when he was teaching guitar in the 1980s. Did you ever imagine at that time that you would someday work with him?
No, no at all. I had no idea what to expect.
I was surprised when he asked me to work with him the first time and every time he's asked me to do a project with him, I've always been surprised.
Q – I'm sure there's a long list, but what kinds of things has he taught you?
Basically how to work as a musician. I'm not talking about professionally, but how to practice and how to play and how to pour your work into it.
No matter how much you prep, when you go on stage, it's completely different than practicing or prepping. It's a completely different experience.
Robert is very, very good about being open to what happens on stage.
Q – I know your primary instrument these days is a Warr guitar. What do you like about the instrument?
It's a tapped guitar, so it's completely all fingers of both hands tapping on the strings on the fretboard.
And it has five bass strings and five guitar strings. So it's kind of like playing the inside of a piano.
It lets me do pretty much anything you can do with any stringed instrument. I can do it all, so that's why I love it.
Q – Besides working with Robert Fripp, you’ve worked with many other musicians over the years, including John Paul Jones, Vernon Reid and Eric Johnson. Is it flattering to be such an in-demand musician?
Well, I guess I would say it's flattering to have been able to play with those guys. I feel like I played at their level, so that was great.
Q – Do you learn new things by playing with different musicians?
Everyone you play with is completely unique. You have to be on your toes and be ready to learn how you're going to blend with that particular musician. Every relationship is unique.
If there is a different guitar player that night, everything changes. And you have to adapt.
