No Expectations 060: Keeper of the Shepherd
Why your friends are always the best source for recommendations. Plus, new LPs by Friko, Ducks Ltd., Astrid Sonne, and Itasca.
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Headline song: Hannah Frances, “Keeper of the Shepherd”
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Always Listen To Your Friends’ Recommendations
Thanks to Presidents’ Day (a not entirely real holiday that some people get work off for), I spent the long weekend visiting family in Michigan, where I grew up. I didn’t bring my laptop and just spent a few days hanging out, eating, and seeing loved ones. It was a needed recharge and a great visit. Coming back to where you grew up is always nostalgic: you think about who were you when you lived there and how far you’ve come as a person since. This time, realizing that it’s been 15 years since I moved to Chicago—just under half of my life—stopped me in my tracks. It sounds corny but this kinda homecoming trip truly hits differently in your thirties.
What made me think a little too hard about time and growing up was seeing one of my best friends, Ian, for the first time in six months. We’ve known each other for about 20 years—his family moved across the street when I was 12 or 13 years old—and we’ve been close ever since. Besides my family, that friendship is probably the longest relationship in my life. Knowing someone for that amount of time, your lives both change dramatically. You’ll go through ups and downs, choose different colleges, take on separate career paths, make it through formative breakups, and move to different cities. For us, the one through-line has been a shared love for music. No matter what’s going on in our lives, we’ll always find time to share a cool song, recommend a great movie, and try to convince each other to check out the things we love.
You probably have people like this in your life, where the animating force in the relationship is a shared love for music and culture. In my case, I started playing guitar because he had been taking lessons and was already really good. He showed me Led Zeppelin and I showed him AC/DC and Metallica. As we got older (remember we were 12 listening to AC/DC), our tastes expanded. I showed him Jason Molina and he showed me Townes Van Zandt. We took trips to see Radiohead play Lollapalooza and developed an earnest love for other genres like country, hip-hop, punk, and electronic music. It got to a point where wanting to impress each other with our impeccable taste broadened our horizons and made us more curious and adventurous. More than any music website, this friendship is probably the most formative part of my taste and sensibility to date.
When I started writing about music in 2012, I wanted my voice to eventually capture the feeling of showing a cool band to a friend. I hoped the prose would always be casual and fun—not couched in unnecessary jargon and pretension—but still informative enough to convince someone to check it out. While I’m not sure I’m quite there, that nebulous goal still feels like a good North Star to follow. To me, the whole point of writing about engaging with music is to share it. You find the diamond in the rough, it moves you to the point where you feel something beyond yourself, and you want to funnel that experience through someone else’s taste and sensibility. Music journalism is important, but these one-to-one relationships are just as vital.
Think about the most formative music in your life. Is it something you found alone online or something someone you care about shared with you? Is your relationship to a particular band because you found it on an algorithmic playlist or did a family member spread the word about it? To give just one example, my recent Grateful Dead obsession started because my friend Brian A. Anderson is writing a book on The Wall of Sound and I wanted to have the vocabulary and familiarity with the band’s music to talk to him about it. I figured if I had a better understanding of the songs and the group’s history beyond the two studio albums I already liked and Cornell 77, it could at least show I understand what he’s talking about when he mentions things like “Bear,” “Big Steve,” and “The Betty Boards.” What started as a small attempt to add a layer to our friendship turned into finding an all-time favorite band in my early 30s.
In a world where you can log onto Twitter and find tech dorks fantasizing about replacing movies with Open.AI products or crafting soulless songs made entirely by an algorithm, your relationships that center around a mutual love for art should be nurtured and valued more than ever. You’re not just a passive vessel to consume content. The best way you can assert that you are a human being possessing values, tastes, and the capacity to see something like the divine in a work of art is to engage with beautiful things with the people closest to you. It’s not just to expand your tastes and to find cool new things, it’s to see the world through another person’s eyes. It’s to know more about the people you love through the things that move them. This sounds basic but given everything it’s worth reiterating: the need to be understood is a fundamental part of both making art and our relation to it.
There are millions of things vying for our attention online and elsewhere (as a guy who runs a weekly music newsletter I am sorry for adding to the morass). It’s an endless scroll of despair, mindless entertainment, conflict, and work obligations. It’s all overwhelming and it’s easy to get sucked into passivity. One simple trick to break out of that is to listen to what your friends recommend you. They took time and care to think about you: a work of art moved them and inspired them to share it because they’d think you’d like it too. That’s a small miracle and a pure act of kindness. Sure, not everything they recommend is going to become your next obsession (I’m kinda failing to convince Ian to start his Grateful Dead phase), but you can validate them by giving them a fair shot. While it’s tempting to go back to the scroll, to “get around to it eventually,” or to just ignore their recs entirely, you owe it to the people you love to hear them out. You won’t just learn more about yourself and what you like, you’ll find out more about them and see the world through their eyes.
What I listened to:
The No Expectations 060 Playlist: Spotify // Apple Music
1. Hannah Frances, “Keeper of the Shepherd”
2. Adrianne Lenker, “Fool”
3. Sam Evian, “Rollin’ In”
4. Waxahatchee, “Bored”
5. Friko, “Get Numb To It!”
6. Jess Cornelius, “People Move On”
7. Dent May, Jordana, “Coasting On Fumes”
8. Ducks. Ltd, “On Our Way To The Rave”
9. Hot Joy, “Fingers On My Side”
10. Jessica Pratt, “Life Is”
11. Sofia Wolfson, “Donuts (Everyone Reminds Me Of You)”
12. Vampire Weekend, “Gen-X Cops”
13. Itasca, “El Dorado”
14. Villagerrr, “Honesty”
15. Astrid Sonne, “Light and heavy”
Gig report: Yuma Abe, lake j at Empty Bottle (2/14)
My girlfriend and I chose to spend Valentine’s Day with buds at the Empty Bottle to see Friend of the Substack Cadien Lake James perform as lake j and open for Japanese songwriter Yuma Abe. That week, lake j announced his debut album Dizzy complete with lead single “My Own Mess” and to support the release, he brought a stellar band of his Twin Peaks bandmate and guitarist Colin Croom (Whitney, Waxahatchee, Kevin Morby), drummer Julien Ehrlich (Whitney), and keyboardist Garrett Spoelhof. The gig was great: the new songs remind me of Pinback and the Sea and Cake—glimmering pop melodies encased in jangle and tasteful electronics. (That said, Cadien hadn’t listened to either of those bands while writing those songs). The LP is out soon—3/1—and it’s one of my favorites.
Yuma Abe put on a masterclass show as a headliner. The Tokyo-based songwriter makes Haroumi Hosono-inspired songs that burst with breeziness and good vibes. Unlike the Sea and Cake pull, Abe is a huge fan of Hosono and even covered “Fuyu Goe” off Hosono House that night. His band was on fire and it was great that despite the language barrier (only one band member spoke English), they all felt very welcome in Chicago. Abe will appear on a forthcoming Hosono covers compilation (I’ll bet he does “Fuyu Goe” again), guests on lake j’s Dizzy, and has a stellar 2021 LP called Fantasia.
Friko, Where we’ve been, Where we go from here
In the second-ever No Expectations newsletter in December 2022, I raved about seeing Friko play Metro with opening bands Lifeguard and Cafe Racer (RIP). I wrote, “Indie rock lately can feel insular and claustrophobic but Friko isn’t afraid to make it feel huge, cathartic, and totally earnest.” At the time, Friko (which is composed of singer Niko Kapetan and drummer Bailey Minzenberger) were a young band that had only a self-released EP out and hadn’t started recording what would become Where we’ve been, Where we go from here. Still, there was a lot of buzz then (I spotted a bunch of music industry folks and booking agents precariously trying to fit in the young crowd) and it’s been a steady build until this debut. Now on the label ATO, the Chicago band lives up to whatever sky-high expectations the hype cycle can spark. Opener “Where We’ve Been” serves as a showcase for Kapetan’s dynamic and powerhouse voice: it warbles vulnerably at the start but slowly builds to a hair-raising howl. There are several fantastic and theatrical songs here and I was so delighted to see that Ian Cohen—a writer I love who is also the hardest to convince about certain Chicago bands—jump happily aboard the Friko Wagon with a lovely 7.9 Pitchfork review.
Ducks Ltd., Harm’s Way
Disclosure: I wrote this album’s bio and I’m friendly with the two guys in this band. That said, even if I uncouple my friendship with Tom McGreevy and Evan Lewis, Harm’s Way is still undeniably one of the finest indie rock records I’ve heard in a long time. Though I filed the bio in late August, it’s still on constant rotation for its precise and infectious take on jangle-pop and ‘80s college rock. Each track is imbued with propulsive energy, careening riffs, and a keen sense of timeless power-pop melodies. As a bonus to make this perfectly in my wheelhouse, Tom and Evan recorded this in Chicago with a bunch of local guests like Friend of the Substack Julia Steiner, Dehd’s Jason Balla, Lawn’s Rui Gabriel, and more. While I’m sure Ducks Ltd. is sick of being compared to their Toronto peers Kiwi Jr and Australia’s Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, I’m having trouble finding a more apt RIYL entry point.
Itasca, Imitation of War
Back in 2016, Friend of the Substack Ryley Walker told me to check out Itasca’s album Open Chance and I’ve been a fan ever since. The songwriting project of guitarist Kayla Cohen, her songs sparkle atop an unhurried, ambling haze on Imitation of War, her first full-length in four years. Across 10 immersive and dreamlike folk-rock tracks, the material soars with patient, exploratory guitar work, and Cohen’s feathery voice. The whole record is great but it really excels in the second half thanks to the gentle pop of “El Dorado” and the cosmic nine-minute jam “Easy Spirit.” While heads will love this, it’s accessible and enveloping enough to recommend it to anyone with a curious ear.
Astrid Sonne, Great Doubt
Danish songwriter Astrid Sonne has such an unorthodox and beguiling album in Great Doubt this year. It threads the needle between avant-pop and brooding electronic but it’s all anchored in the London-based composer and violist’s stunningly idiosyncratic sensibility. While she sheds the experimentalism of her previous efforts for a comparatively straightforward singer-songwriter LP, the songs still surprise and shock throughout. “Do you wanna” and “Give my all” feel like they’ll end up as contenders for favorite song of 2024. If you play this for a friend, you’re going to get a “whoa what’s this?” immediately. It’s that interesting.
The 2024 Playlist Is Now On Tidal
Last week, I posted my Favorite Tracks of 2024 - So Far playlist and linked to the streaming services I use Apple Music and Spotify. Because I don’t pay for TIDAL despite it being one of the better platforms, No Expectations reader Todd Gotmon was nice enough to transport the yearly playlist there. It’s an incredibly kind gesture and I’m grateful he did it. You can follow that here.
What I watched:
The Alien franchise:
While visiting Michigan last weekend, my mom suggested we watch some of the Alien movies because she loves Ridley Scott. For reasons I can’t fully explain, the iconic sci-fi/horror franchise has been one of my bigger blind spots. I’d only seen the divisive 2012 prequel Prometheus, which I hated at the time—probably due to not watching any of the other films. Like most blockbuster film series, Alien starts impossibly strong. The 1979 debut installment is basically a perfect movie—a terrifying slow burn that morphs into pure, barebones horror. That said, the second feels like a beat-for-beat remake of the first but with more guns and a better ensemble cast. They get progressively worse with the third and fourth entries in the series with the latter being by far the nadir of the franchise thanks to Joss Whedon’s cornball script. Mercifully, Scott returns to the director’s seat with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, his first time helming films from this series since Alien. He gives the series a needed boost with two somewhat silly movies that excel for being daring and thought-provoking even if the plot gets muddy and not everything works. It’s a franchise of serious highs and lows—only four or five of them are worth checking out.
My ranking: Alien, Aliens, Prometheus, Alien3, Alien: Covenant, Alien: Resurrection
What I read:
What Happened to Baseball Jerseys? (Amanda Mull, The Atlantic)
The uniforms might bear the Nike logo, but in looking to assign blame, fans have largely seized on what has become a familiar villain in American sports: Fanatics, the sprawling memorabilia conglomerate that manufactured the new uniforms on Nike’s behalf. Over the past couple of decades, Fanatics (with the apparently full support of all of the major American sports leagues) has upended the licensed-sports-merch market and centralized much of the production and sale of team gear under its control. If you’re a fan who wants a T-shirt or cap with your team’s logo, Fanatics has immense power over your options. Complaints about the quality and prices of the products it sells abound.
The story of how American pro-sports jerseys—baseball and beyond—have lost some of their swagger, however, goes further than a single company. It’s also a story about the nature of sports uniforms themselves, and why fans might be doomed to more disappointment in the future.
On the personal essay (Terry Nguyen, Vague Blue)
In the beginning, the internet was made up mostly of words: message boards and discussion forums and blogs. When the personal essay, “a form without a form,” became adapted for the blogosphere, the form became popularized for its casual approach to personal testimony. The number of people writing who had nothing interesting to say drastically increased. (Tolentino: “The Internet made the personal essay worse, as it does for most things. But I am moved by the negotiation of vulnerability.”) But readers seem to care little about whether today’s writers have anything interesting or original to say, never mind the style or quality of their prose and argument. We read what’s popular, right (ideologically), or good (morally), and the righteous and the good are often conflated.
Some time during the blog boom, style was flattened into content, reducing the essay to a confabulatory, confessional mode of online writing. Content that was gendered and gossip-laden and cheap to produce. Content that was, ironically, essential to generating page-views to boost advertising sales. Suppose it’s a systemic issue then. Content is a byproduct of our saturated information landscape. There’s too much stuff to watch and read, we exist in echo chambers, etc etc. Remember, content is one-dimensional. It traffics in the explicit, the easily interpretable. Content has a message. It explains things to us and leaves no room for ambiguity. Content, like fast fashion or fast food, is cheaply made and quickly ingested. We forget the titillating details; we want more of it.
While the essay is not a mode of direct address (writers are not explicitly referring to the audience within the text), the viral pieces that evolve into discourse become mirrors to measure how one feels about the subject matter at hand. We’ve fixated overwhelmingly on an essay’s message, in lieu of a substantive style.
The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar
Thursday, Feb. 22: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Edging at Lincoln Hall. Tickets.
Friday, Feb. 23: Pinksqueeze, Uniflora, Sharp Pins at Metro. Tickets.
Friday, Feb. 23: Militarie Gun, Pool Kids, Spiritual Cramp, Spaced at Bottom Lounge. Sold out.
Friday, Feb. 23: Cabeza De Chivo, Plastic Crimewave Sound, and more at Hideout. Tickets.
Friday, Feb. 23: Elton Aura, Semiratruth, DJ Simmy at Sleeping Village. Tickets.
Friday, Feb. 23: Jamila Woods, DJ Ca$hEra / Ami at The Vic Theatre. Tickets.
Saturday, Feb. 24: Lifeguard, The Mall, Upchuck, Cel Ray, Nancy at Empty Bottle. Free.
Saturday, Feb. 24: Joshua Abrams, Jake Acosta, and more at Hideout. Tickets.
Saturday, Feb. 24: Provoker, Riki, Future Nobodies at Sleeping Village. Tickets.
Saturday, Feb. 24: Jonathan Richman at Thalia Hall. Tickets.
Sunday, Feb. 25: Elizabeth Moen, Gabacho at Hideout. Tickets.
Sunday, Feb. 25: Sidaka, Brinstarr, Qari at Empty Bottle. Tickets.
Monday, Feb. 26: Prize Horse, Sign Language, Interplay at Schubas. Free.
Tuesday, Feb. 27: World Energy Corporation, Llo Llo, Sharp Pins at Empty Bottle. Tickets.
Tuesday, Feb. 27: Cat Power Sings Dylan at Northwestern University. Sold out.
Wednesday, Feb. 28: Frank Hurricane, Chris Coleslaw, Pleasant Mob at Empty Bottle. Tickets.
Love the essay - I'll always listen to my friends. Unfortunately, two of my best recommenders are no longer with us...
Yes to Friko and Astrid! Also enjoying Ducks as I type. While I haven't watched it in a while, check out Alien Vs. Predator, which fell in the middle of my ranking at the time! Maybe not pure "Alien canon" but highly entertaining.
Thanks for the shout out bud! Can't wait to come visit so soon.