No Expectations 065: I Wouldn’t Want It Any Other Way
A mailbag question about going to shows alone. Plus, Wild Pink, Sun June, and Sinai Vessel at the Empty Bottle.
No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. (Please, no PR pitches). Personal email: joshhowardterry@gmail.com. (Pitches, paid work, and job offers welcome).
Headline song: Margaux, “I Wouldn't Want It Any Other Way”
Thanks for being here. Expect a Taste Profile interview next week with an artist who has one of the best albums of the year. This week, No Expectations is checking the mailbag. If you dig what you read, consider signing up for a paid subscription.
Mailbag Q: Going to Shows Alone
How do you feel about going to a show alone? What’s different from going with friends? From going with a date? And have you ever gone to a show alone and ended up meeting someone you connected with?
I write this between sets at a show I’m alone at! For me, having moved to Chicago kinda recently, going to shows alone lets me connect with a part of me that’s always loved music even if I haven’t quite found my Chicago show-attending crew. I love it still. You can leave whenever! Stand wherever! - Tyler
Welcome to Chicago, Tyler. This is my 15th year living here and I can't imagine being anywhere else. I hope it's starting to feel like home for you more and more.
I love going to shows alone and do it often. Since moving here in 2009, I've been hitting up local venues regularly: twice a month at least and three to four times a week at my very peak. (Right now, being 32 years old, I usually can't get myself to do more than two a week). Adding all those up, there are dozens if not hundreds of times I've ended up at a gig by myself. When I was younger, I was much more self-conscious about being alone. I'd scramble to fill an extra ticket and worry about what people would think. I learned pretty fast that no one cares. It's totally normal, and often even a better vibe, to go by yourself.
In Chicago, if you go to enough shows you'll eventually find your people. I know that being a music journalist in this city for the past 12 years, my live music experience is kind of an outlier. At this point, if I go to a gig alone, chances are I'm going to know at least the door person, the bartender, a few friends, or maybe some folks who follow me from Twitter or read this newsletter. This is definitely due in part to my job (there aren't a ton of music journalists here, I tweet a lot, and I'm also 6'5 so you can't miss me at shows) but it's also because I've just put in a ton of time being at these spaces. You notice the same people at gigs and you'll eventually strike up a conversation. It's a big city but a relatively small music community.
It can be pretty intimidating to try and make friends at a show. It's especially so if you're not a drinker or a smoker, the latter though are usually the most friendly and gregarious folks between set breaks. Sometimes people are there with their friends, some people who are going alone want to stay that way, and other folks are just assholes. Not everyone will want to chat and you gotta respect their boundaries. What usually works for me is seeing a person who I've noticed a few times at other shows and asking them about the gig I last saw them at. "Hey man, I see you at a lot of gigs like MJ Lenderman last week. What a show. I'm Tyler." I first met most of my very best friends and my girlfriend of four years at music venues.
Even as a music journalist, it took me a couple of years to finally feel comfortable going alone. In my early twenties, my girlfriend at the time worked the first shift at a coffee shop so I’d often have to attend by myself. Eventually, I started noticing more friends, more artists I interviewed, and more friendly venue employees at the same gigs. Only then did it start to feel better and more like a welcoming community. Moving to a new city is awkward but by being open, kind, and putting yourself out there, good things will happen. You're basically there already.
I don't think twice about going solo to a gig. Sometimes, it's better than going with buds. You can attend on your own schedule and stand wherever you want. Also, if it's one of your favorite bands, you don't have to worry about vibe-checking and making sure the friend you brought is having a good time. (There are few things more crushing than realizing in real that your bud hates the band you dragged them to see).
As far as dates go, I’d just make sure they’re open to the music you like. When I was single, I usually preferred first dates at a bar or a restaurant. There were exceptions of course but seeing bands is part of my job and an office setting, however unconventional, is not an ideal place to get to know someone. Plus, there’d often be a few buds either attending or playing, which is a lot of pressure for a new person. But if you don’t work in music, there is no reason not to bring a date to a gig. Being in a long-term relationship with someone who loves live music, I rarely have to worry about an extra ticket being wasted. It rules. That said, if I end up going solo that’s great too.
I hope this answers your question and if you see me at a gig, you can always say what's up.
What I listened to:
The No Expectations 065 Playlist: Spotify // Apple Music
1. Margaux, “I Wouldn't Want It Any Other Way”
2. Blue Ranger, “Close Your Eyes”
3. lake j, “What You See”
4. Hovvdy, “Make Ya Proud”
5. GLOM, “Below”
6. Sofia Bolt, “Bus Song ft. Stella Donnelly”
7. Jessica Pratt, “World On a String”
8. Jackie West, “Ruins”
9. Zero Point Energy, “Closer To You”
10. Pedro The Lion, “Modesto”
11. Bnny, “Something Blue”
12. Washer, “You’re Also a Jerk”
13. Adrianne Lenker, “Free Treasure”
14. Sun Seeker, “Laughing at the Light”
15. Vampire Weekend, “Mary Boone”
Gig report: Wild Pink, Sun June, Sinai Vessel at Empty Bottle (3/28)
Back in 2020, I got an email from a trusted publicist with a promo download of Wild Pink’s upcoming LP A Billion Little Lights. Coming out of an alltimer bad year, that album was such a welcome balm: it’s pretty and introspective indie rock complete with atmospheric arrangements and raw feelings. I loved the single “Oversharers Anonymous” and rinsed it. Then in 2022, Wild Pink did it again with ILYSM. Now, they’re signed to Fire Talk Records and have released a string of excellent singles this year. It’s tough to think of a band on such a consistently solid tear since 2020 more than this Queens-based outfit.
On Thursday, Wild Pink headlined a stacked bill of Texas’ Sun June and Asheville’s Sinai Vessel at the Bottle. They were without their pedal steel player, who was absent with food poisoning, but they still played a mighty indie rock set as a three-piece. Fronted by songwriter John Ross, they’ve been making what Steven Hyden calls “Heartland Indie” for the better part of a decade. It translated perfectly as a trio. There are few finer rock bands touring right now.
Second of three Sun June, who I’ve seen open for bands like Katy Kirby, were expectedly excellent too. The real treat was seeing Sinai Vessel for the first time. They’re a perfect pairing with Wild Pink and do the same things well. That said, “How,” their latest single, is one of the best songs I’ve heard all year. They’re on Keeled Scales now and are putting the finishing touches on a new LP.
What I watched:
BlackBerry (dir: Matt Johnson, Hulu)
Matt Johnson is one of my favorite directors. He shoots his movies as he would a documentary, like 2013’s disturbing The Dirties and 2016’s Operation Avalanche. His camera is dynamic, zooming in and zooming out on characters and guiding the scene from their emotions. His movies are always low-budget but totally electric and kinetic doses of filmmaking. His latest BlackBerry is the first time he’s been given a multimillion dollar budget ($5 million) and it’s amazing how he keeps his esoteric sensibility making a movie about a tech company. It’s like the dirtag’s The Social Network and is anchored by a killer performance by Glenn Howerton.
What I read:
Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture (by Kyle Chayka)
When I started No Expectations in December 2022, I called the blog “anti-algorithm music writing.” If you’ve read more than a couple issues of this newsletter, you’ll know one of the bigger themes is the importance of person-to-person recommendations and getting out of the house to support your local music communities. Around that time, New Yorker staff writer Kyle Chayka (whose book The Longing for Less is an excellent dive into minimalist design) announced his book Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture. It came out in January and it’s pretty substantive and sobering. Chayka’s a lucid and curious writer who can trace the lines between The Mechanical Turk, a 1700s “device” that could win a chess match that was actually just a guy beneath a curtain, and why a random Galaxie 500 song is their most streamed on Spotify. As someone who thinks a lot about personal taste, cultural homogeneity, and algorithmic culture, there’s a lot to stew on here. Expect a couple of newsletters here discussing more of the material soon.
The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar
Thursday, April 4: Paul Cherry, JW Francis at Hideout. Tickets.
Thursday, April 4: Nadah El Shazly, GS70, Caroline Campbell at Empty Bottle. Tickets.
Thursday, April 4: Eliza McLamb, Mini Trees at Schubas. Sold out.
Thursday, April 4: Ira Glass, Excrusis, Model Living at Sleeping Village. Tickets.
Friday, April 5: Michael Nau, Allegra Krieger at SPACE. Tickets.
Friday, April 5: Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, Half Gringa. Tickets.
Friday, April 5: Willis, Toledo at Lincoln Hall. Tickets.
Saturday, April 6: James McMurtry, Bettysoo at Fitzgerald’s. Sold out.
Saturday, April 6: Bendigo Fletcher, Free Range at Lincoln Hall. Tickets.
Sunday, April 7: Liam Kazar, Sarah Weddle at Hideout. Tickets.
Sunday, April 7: Deerhoof, Half Scratches at Lincoln Hall. Tickets.
Sunday, April 7: Andy Shauf, Lutalo at SPACE. Sold out.
Monday, April 8: Liam Kazar, Sarah Weddle at Hideout. Tickets.
Monday, April 8: Woods, Avey Tare at Lincoln Hall. Tickets.
Monday, April 8: Andy Shauf, Lutalo at SPACE. Sold out.
Tuesday, April 9: Tommy Prine, Kiely Connell at Beat Kitchen. Tickets.
Tuesday, April 9: Meth Math, Fire-Toolz, Conjunto Primitivo at Empty Bottle. Tickets.
Tuesday, April 9: John Vanderslice at Bim Bom Studios. Tickets.
Wednesday, April 10: Mannequin Pussy, Soul Glo at Thalia Hall. Sold out.
Great post! Personally love going to concerts alone, and not just because I'm usually the only person who wants to get there super early to grab a good spot. Very glad to have discovered sinai vessel via this post as well.
Saw Wild Pink at a local brewery last month. Funny, I thought the band was bigger, maybe because folks I read a lot like you and Hyden talk about them so much. A small venue and not even close to full, just barely enough so that it wasn't awkward. But killer show, new songs sounding great.
Opener blew me away too, a dude named Greg Mendez playing as a duo. I was like, where have I heard that name before? It was, of course, here.