Catchy blend of 60’s rock, 70’s punk and 90’s alternative with harmonies and a driving back beat.

Moritat is the hard-grooving, avant-rock trio from Chicago behind the 2012 studio LP Clill Blanzin, which the Chicago Reader hailed as “full of serious earworms”. The group is composed of vocalist and keyboardist Venus Laurel, bassist/guitarist Konstantin Jace, and drummer Corey McCafferty. Their first EP, One Minute Fade, was released in the summer of 2010.

The three met in Chicago, and their subsequent contributions to Venus’ solo piano project quickly blossomed into a full musical collaboration. Since 2007, they have lived together in a heavily-fortified two-flat in Albany Park. Their danceable, driving sound blends ethereal pop hooks, world-music influences, and the sometimes heavy, textured palette of Chicago’s post-rock scene.

Legendary indie-folk producer Brian Deck (Modest Mouse, Iron & Wine) made a natural fit for the group’s first full-length album, produced in Deck’s Engine Studios. Deck’s ear for off-beat recontextualizations of traditional sounds and beats was matched only by his zeal for pinching the band members’ food during recording sessions. The result of the collaboration is Moritat’s Clill Blanzin, a pre-emptive greatest hits album from the future.

As the band follows up on the release of Clill Blanzin with a tour, a remix project, and music videos, their thoughts are already on the next studio effort, a beat-oriented EP which will expand on the danciest sounds from Clill.

Boots with Spurs is a four piece progressive rock band from Chicago, IL. The band just finished it’s second album, entitled “Voodoo or Die: The Sun Never Sets Part 2” released May 5th, 2012. This album is the second installment of their two part conceptual project and features a new member in vocalist, Ty Wyffels. Ty joins original members: Clay Bail, Matt Gonzalez, and David Lugo as they plan on bringing their hard hitting, psychedelic approach to progressive rock to the Chicago music scene.

“{Boots with Spurs music} makes Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ look like a nursery story, whilst Coheed & Cambria can no longer be deemed the most imaginative band on the planet.” “I’d hazard a guess that the world just simply is not ready for these kind of ludicrous tales.”

– album review from music blog, “The Only Thing I Know For Sure”

The Jailhouse Poets are an Alt/Country band from Northwest Indiana. Started in the fall of 2012 by frontman Jeff Shepherd (Whiskey Business) and friend Matt Patt as an acoustic duo, the two soon decided to bring others into the mix and in December of 2012 they recorded their first EP “The Steel Mill Diaries”. In the summer of 2013 they shot a music video for their single “The Worst Wothdrawal”. Look for it on YouTube!

“We call it American Gypsy, because it wanders but isn’t lost.  Its a tramp, you can’t get lost when you’re in love with where you are.”

Formed in 2011, songwriter/director Antony Ablan began his search for a band–a group of musicians that could handle, with grace, the wildly eclectic and dynamic changes in mood of his writing.  “It was several months of working with all sorts of great players before I found the right fit.  When it clicked it was so obvious to me, I knew these were the right musicians, it finally worked.”

The virtuosic group developed quickly.  “Once it clicked, things moved fast,” says Antony.  The band soon found themselves headlining Chicago’s most notable venues, from Schubas to Lincoln Hall, to The Empty Bottle.  They embarked on their first national tour in the fall of 2011, earning notoriety for their explosive live shows all the down to Texas and back.  Swinging from gentle sunshine ditties to wild soaring epics, to dirty garage floor american gypsy, The Tramps had come into their own.

Upon returning to Chicago, full of fire, they began recording their ambitious debut album.  Over 6 winter months,  the band created a completely independent, full length album.  Its not a studio album, and its not a live record.  Making use of portable recording gear they were able to record anywhere, at any time, with unbound freedom to experiment with sound for their anticipated debut.

“We had two guiding concepts for this album,” Antony says.  “We wanted the texture to be ‘wooden-electric’, and we wanted the narrative and imagery to be a ‘movie for your ears’.    The band brought on engineer Matt Livensparger to realize their vision.  Matt recalls: “When he called me at 4 in the morning to tell me the album needed to sound wooden-electric, I knew exactly what he meant.  Antony came to me with concepts, textures, feeling, scenes for this album, but he isn’t a technical person, so I stepped in to make those ideas into sound–the mic placements, the room choices, and so on.  He’d direct the music and musicians with imagery and emotion, never musical or technical terms.  I was there to capture these amazing musicians performing.”

The band recorded the album like making a movie, choosing locations to suit the scene.  Enormous recital halls, warehouse hallways, cavernous train underpasses, intimate bedrooms, tiny closets.  “We weren’t stuck in the studio trying to fake it, we could choose the room like choosing an instrument, and it affected the musician, it evoked something in us that inspired the music, inspired the scene we were recording,” Antony says.