This year marks the Ten Year Anniversary for the “Bash On Wabash” with the goal of bringing neighbors and businesses alike, from near and far, to a festival that showcases the beauty, creativity, history and culture of the South Loop.
Located in the heart of the neighborhood on Wabash Avenue between 13th Street and 14th Place, this years’ “Bash on Wabash” promises to be an experience to remember!
Benefiting the Greater South Loop Association (GSLA) and a portion of proceeds to the South Loop Food Pantry, this lively, colorful festival will have something to offer everyone including a wide variety of musical acts, food and beverages (including beer and wine), arts & crafts, an elaborate children’s area, vendor booths, and so much more!
LYDIA LOVELESS
Blessed with a commanding, blast-it-to-the-back-of-the-room voice, the 21 year-old Lydia Loveless was raised on a family farm in Coshocton, Ohio—a small weird town with nothing to do but make music. With a dad who owned a country music bar, Loveless often woke up with a house full of touring musicians scattered on couches and floors. When she got older, in the time-honored traditions of teenage rebellion, she turned her back on these roots, moved to the city (Columbus OH) and immersed herself in the punk scene, soaking up the musical and attitudinal influences of everyone from Charles Bukowski to Richard Hell to Hank III.
Indestructible Machine, Loveless’ Bloodshot debut, combines heady doses of punk rock energy and candor with the country classicism she was raised on and just can’t shake; it’s an gutsy and unvarnished mash up. The rattletrap electricity in foggy mountain throwdowns like Bad Way To Go and Do Right may channel ground zero-era Old 97s, but the underlying bruised vulnerability comes across like Neko Case’s tuff little sister. Can’t Change Me, with its choppy, tense guitar tonality recalling Television’s Richard Lloyd, stridently and stubbornly tells the world to stuff it, while More Like Them’s muscular power pop hits on the classic rock and roll motif of the outsider; both could be anthems for blank generations along the rural routes everywhere. But she’s also got the vocal nuances to pull off country soul well beyond her years on How Many Women, which could have been pulled right out of the strong-woman-wronged canon of Loretta Lynn, and Crazy, full of boozy heartache and the lilt of Appalachia.
Loveless’s true-to-life testimonials hit and hit hard. Be it whiskey, men, god or alienation, Lydia takes them all on; they may kick, but she kicks back and, even though she stands 5′ tall, when the barstools start flying, we want her on our side.
PYYRAMIDS
PYYRAMIDS is the dark and mysterious union of two beautifully creative minds joined together from great distance. Improbably comprised of Tim Nordwind and Drea Smith – he from the indie rock band OK Go, she from the electro-pop outfit He Say/She Say – the duo initially bonded over an affinity for first-wave British post-punk and 80’s Manchester bands. “We were an unlikely combination, and that seemed like reason enough to try it,” Nordwind explains. After a mutual friend introduced the pair via email, a dialogue started and a fast friendship was forged…the musical ideas began to flow back and forth via email. “We didn’t have any specific goal, we just started writing and these songs emerged,” elaborates Smith.
Feeding off each other’s energy, productive beat maker Nordwind and thoughtful lyricist Smith wrote a handful of songs before they ever met in-person. Over time, PYYRAMIDS’ sound began to emerge, favoring stripped back instruments mixed with electronic elements and layered with Smith’s laid-back soulful vocal delivery to produce a mystical, intimate sound. Critics have said of Smith’s crooning it’s as if “Billie Holiday grew up listening to The Smiths.” “I’ve never really heard indie music with a voice like that,” Nordwind explains. “It adds three-dimensionality to the moods, beats and chords.”
