Jeff Tweedy

OUT OF SPACE 2019: JEFF TWEEDY w/ OHMME presented by SPACE at Canal Shores Golf Course Tickets  go on-sale to the general public Fri, Apr 12, at 10am CST. ABOUT THE SHOW GATES: 5pm   |   OHMME: 7pm  |  JEFF TWEEDY: 8:15PM Canal Shores is located at 1030 Central Street in Evanston, IL.  Please click HERE for a detailed FAQ. ABOUT THE ARTISTS Genre: Alt-rock TWEEDY Jeff Tweedy is “one of the most daring songwriters of his generation” and his band Wilco is “vital, adventurous . . . breaking new stylistic ground with each ambitious and creatively restless album” – Salon.com. As the founding member and leader of the American rock band Wilco and before that the co-founder of the alt-country band Uncle Tupelo, Jeff Tweedy is one of contemporary American music’s most accomplished songwriters, musicians and performers. Since starting Wilco in 1994 Tweedy has written original songs for eight Wilco albums and collaborated with folk singer Billy Bragg to bring musical life to three albums-full of Woody Guthrie-penned lyrics in the Mermaid Avenue series. His latest project is Tweedy, a musical collaboration with his 18-year-old son and drummer Spencer Tweedy. The father/son duo’s debut album is called Sukierae and features 20 songs written by Jeff Tweedy. With Spencer on drums, Jeff handles his usual guitars and vocals, as well as bass and keyboards. Musician Scott McCaughey (R.E.M., The Minus Five, The Baseball Project) lends additional keyboards and backing vocals on Sukierae come courtesy of Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of the Brooklyn-band Lucius. “When I set out to make this record, I imagined it being a solo thing, but not in the sense of one guy strumming an acoustic guitar and singing,” Jeff said. “Solo to me meant that I would do everything – write the songs, play all the instruments and sing. But Spencer’s been with me from the very beginning demo sessions, playing drums and helping the songs take shape. In that sense, the record is kind of like a solo album performed by a duo.” Tweedy’s touring band includes Spencer on drums plus bassist Darin Grey, guitarist Jim Elkington and keyboardist Liam Cunningham. Also an accomplished and in-demand producer beyond the Wilco and Tweedy realm, Jeff has collaborated twice with soul and gospel legend Mavis Staples. First on her 2010 release You Are Not Alone, and on 2012’s One True Vine. Both albums were produced by Jeff and recorded at the Wilco loft and both have garnered widespread critical acclaim. “One True Vine sounds at once contemporary and true to Staples’ lengthy career and history… haunting, beautifully restrained…” – The A.V. Club. “ Best Americana Album in the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards. Jeff Tweedy’s producer credits also include The Invisible Way by the Minneapolis trio Low, Wassaic Way by folk-rock duo Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion’s (co-produced production of Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy… mixes triumphant gospel and evocative blues, Guided by the brilliant infusing each with hard-won wisdom” -NPR on You Are Not Alone. The album went on to win with Wilco’s Patrick Sansone). Additionally, he’s done production work with Austin’s psychedelic rockers White Denim. A touring tour-de-force Tweedy and Wilco have played more than 1,500 concerts worldwide. Wilco also mans the helm at its own Solid Sound Festival at MASS MoCA in The Berkshires in Western Massachusetts – a three-day event blending music, comedy, world-class contemporary art and more. Website OHMME: Already celebrated as the “Heart of Chicago’s Music Community” (Noisey) by both fans and tastemakers alike, OHMME (aka the duo of Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart) amalgamate the aggressive and the meditative on their bold debut full-length album, Parts. Still in their 20s, Stewart and Cunningham are both classically trained musicians and are established players within the Chicago music scene. They are especially involved in performing and working for venues within the local experimental music scene. They’re constant collaborators and have recorded and toured with homegrown acts as varied as Tweedy, Whitney, Chance The Rapper and Twin Peaks. Cunningham and Stewart are multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriters with a penchant for two instruments in particular. "The band started because we knew we could sing well together and we wanted to make some noise with the guitar,” says Cunningham. Stewart elaborates, “Sima and I are both trained classical pianists and we know many of the sonic spaces keyboards have to offer. Since we were interested in experimenting and creating something different from what we had both done in the past, we chose guitar as our outlet for this band. We wanted to create both new and uncomfortable parameters for ourselves to force us into a different creative space.” These guitar-heavy experiments are sometimes earthy and resounding, at other times shimmering and buzzing—swirling around the duo's expertly crafted vocals while creating a chaotic bed of harmony. Cunningham's smoky alto complements Stewart's higher-register croon, all underpinned by the restrained yet highly inventive polyrhythmic percussion of drummer Matt Carroll. Think Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian-era Dirty Projectors. Enlisting fellow Chicago cohorts Doug McCombs (Tortoise), Ken Vandermark and cellist Tomeka Reid, OHMME recorded and self-produced Parts from Cunningham’s Logan Square home studio, Fox Hall. With Parts, OHMME "wanted to capture a moment in time instead of something perfect.” The results are thrilling: from the pure pop opening track “Icon” to the candied sludge of "Peach" to the skipping rhythms of "Parts" and the dusky closer "Walk Me," Parts draws from influences as diverse as Kate Bush and Brian Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets to jazz and improvisational music, making for an electric debut listening experience. This range from sweetly shiny 2-minute hypnotic bangers to woozy and sprawling 7-minute long tracks boasting moodily atmospheric wafting guitars and piercing feedback shows a band colliding thoughtfulness and creative ingenuity to produce music as unique as it is earworm-worthy. With Parts, OHMME manage to organically marry a breadth of divergent styles into an album that is cohesive, daring, and distinctly their own. Website