Cheer-Accident

Hailing from the singularly vibrant musical hotbed known as Chicago, CHEER-ACCIDENT has been a creative, vital force in rock music for over 30 years. They constantly strive to surprise their audiences and themselves through relentless reinvention. From dreamy pop to angular art-rock, CHEER-ACCIDENT strikes a powerful balance between personalized and unique studio wizardry and the visceral excitement of a well-honed, explosive live rock band. The band is currently a septet, comprising of various members who have come and gone throughout the past two decades. Their body of work is unparalleled in its ambition and originality, and their most recent releases, “Putting Off Death” and “Here Comes The Sunset” (to name just two, on Cuneiform and Skin Graft, respectively) demonstrate how the band continues to improve with each passing year.

Current lineup:

Jeff Libersher- guitar, trumpet, vocals

Alex Perkolup- bass

Mike Hagedorn- trombone, slide trumpet, tuba

Thymme Jones- drums, vocals, trumpet

Laura Boton- vocals

Cory Bengtsen- woodwinds, synth, drums

DroneLayer- keyboards, vocals

YOWIE

Yowie plays a dense foreign language through two guitars which communicate in an angry six string banter over strictly scattered drums. This power trio speaks in alien code with founding member Defenestrator playing the part of percussive conductor. Each song comes densely packed with rare repetitions: a series of guitar riffs pass like clever one-liners with unbridled speed.

SIMA CUNNINGHAM

Sima Cunningham has been on the Chicago music scene since her first album, Squeeze, which she recorded at age 15 with one of Chicago’s leading independent rock producers, Brian Deck. In high school, she performed and recorded with the rock group The Audians, but has since been traveling and performing with musicians in different countries around the world, including Venezuela, Armenia, and Ireland. In 2008, the Chicago Sun-Times recognized her as one of the “Women to Watch Under 30″ and music critic Jim Derogatis heralded her as “an incrediblypowerful and self-assured performer, with a smoky, sexy voice.” In 2014, she self-released the wolf that eats the sheep, an EP recorded by Brian Deck at Minbal Studios in Chicago with celebrated Chicago musicians Dorian Gehring, Lane Beckstrom,Charles Rumback and Liam Kazar. In August 2014, Cunningham debuted her new experimental rock duo with Macie Stewart (of Marrow), called HOMME. The duo is releasing their first project in late 2015 and released the single “Fingerprints” in March.

2015 brought a number of new, exciting collaborations. In January, Cunningham was invited to lend background vocals to the Jeff Tweedy produced Richard Thompson album, Still, and performed with Thompson at the Solid Sound Festival in June. In March, she joined the Tweedy band (featuring Jeff Tweedy, Spencer Tweedy, Liam Kazar, Jim Elkington, and Darin Gray) for a month long U.S. tour as a vocalist. She also lent some vocals to the new Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment record, Surf, and joined Chance the Rapper and his band on stage for his headlining set at the 2015 Pitchfork Music Festival. She also performs as part of the indie-chamber group Passerines.

Cunningham also works as a music presenter. She hosts and curates a monthly singer-songwriter focused series called I Hear Voices at Chicago’s premiere venue for improvised and groundbreaking music, Constellation. For the past 8 summers, she has organized a small music and art festival, Postock, on a farm in Southern Wisconsin. She co-owns and manages a recording studio, Foxhall, where she is currently working on her new record with Chicago producer and engineer, Dorian Gehring.