No Expectations 068: Make Ya Proud
No Expectations 068: Make Ya Proud
A Taste Profile interview with Hovvdy. Plus, gig recaps on Rosali, Minor Moon, Bnny, and Waxahatchee.
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Headline song: Hovvdy, “Make Ya Proud”
Thanks for being here. No Expectations will take next week off because I’ll be traveling and wrapping up some freelance deadlines. Because of that, the weekly show calendar is a long one: it has all the must-see gigs until May 8. Appreciate you all for understanding.
Taste Profile: Hovvdy’s Charlie Martin and Will Taylor
Over the past decade, Hovvdy have been making affecting, homespun, and hook-laden indie pop. Across five great albums—their latest self-titled double LP is out Friday—the Texas-formed duo of Charlie Martin and Will Taylor has gotten progressively more confident with each one. Where their early material thrived on bedroom pop intimacy, their output since boasts stronger melodies, more hi-fi recordings, and songs with such a palpable comfort that you can tell they’re having fun with it.
There’s a warm chemistry between Martin and Taylor: their voices pogo about in ebullient harmonies. They sing about family, trying to be a good person, and getting through hard times. It’s wholesome, life-affirming stuff that never feels forced or saccharine—just two guys writing honest songs that welcomely seep into your skull. Like every record that’s preceded it, Hovvdy is the duo’s best yet. That said, unlike what’s come before, it’s also their biggest swing. It’s 19 tracks—six of which have already been released as singles—but the other 13 could’ve easily been contenders.
Hovvdy are beloved by musicians: artists as disparate as Zach Bryan and boygenius have praised the duo. Also, during her recent Taste Profile interview, Katy Kirby recommended their singles “Portrait,” “Jean” and “Bubba” off Hovvdy. I’ve loved their music for years too, so it felt right to get Charlie and Will on the horn for their own Taste Profile.
Below, check the three most formative things from their life and the three things they’re into now. Hovvdy is out Friday, April 26. Preorder and buy here.
Charlie’s formative movie: Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman)
Tell me about your first experience with this movie.
Charlie: I went with my buddy Brandon at the Angelika in Dallas when it came out in 2008. I would’ve been a junior in high school. It was my first experience walking out of the theater where both of us felt completely shaken to our core. Around that time, I was struggling with some pretty intense anxiety issues and existential crises, and that movie described a lot of what I was going through. It jolted me into a headspace that felt a little bit dangerous, but rewarding. There are a lot of really powerful depictions of humanity in that movie and that was impactful on me.
When was the last time you revisited it?
Charlie: God, it's definitely been years. I mean, it's kind of an undertaking. It's a journey and it can be a pretty painful watch. More than the movie itself, I revisit the score. All of Jon Brion's stuff is so good. At the time, I don't think I knew how influential it was. It's huge for me.
Will, have you seen this movie?
Will: No, I haven't. But I'm a huge Philip Seymour Hoffman fan, obviously. I went to a show last night and I saw a guy that looks so much like him that it freaked me out. He was just a few rows ahead of me. He had his whole vibe and even talked like him. It was wild.
Will’s formative sport: Getting into the NBA in 2002.
I grew up a Bulls fan in the ‘90s so my love for basketball was baked into my childhood but this was such a special time for the league.
Will: From 98 to 2002 is a really nice intersection of the NBA, where the previous legendary generation was on their way out and then they ushered in the new stars like Tracy McGrady, Vince Carter, and Allen Iverson. I just became obsessed with it. My brother played high school basketball and so I was all about that. It was my favorite sport to play. Slam magazine was a big part of it for me. It was a monthly or biweekly magazine with the most stylized and amazing photoshoots and stories. I would write to the magazine as a kid.
I still subscribe! Shoutout Slam magazine. The latest issue is on my desk.
Will: Hell yeah, there you go. That’s so funny. But yeah, that was a moment when the NBA was really growing, especially culturally. These new stars were expanding what the NBA means in pop culture. The music was changing and so was the fashion with the baggy uniforms and the change in fashion carrying over off the court. I didn't have any other friends who really loved it the way I did, so it felt like my own thing. It felt unique. It felt specific to me. And yeah, it was just a fun time.
I relate to this so much. I was a 10-year-old kid decked out in AND1 sneakers and t-shirts. I still looked like the kid from Jerry Maguire but I felt pretty cool. Were you both Dallas Mavericks fans growing up? That was the Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki era.
Charlie: Yeah, for sure.
Will: Dirk had been in the league for a few years already. I just loved those teams. ‘06 was when they first went to the finals but lost to the Heat.
Charlie: I was there.
Will: I still follow the team and feel like the Clippers will be a fun matchup.
Charlie’s formative album: Yo La Tengo, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
Yo La Tengo comes up a lot in this interview series and for good reason. Just a couple of weeks ago, Rosali was talking about how formative I Can Hear The Heat Beating As One was for her. Charlie, why did you pick this LP?
Charlie: It's always hard to pick one record. I had a good friend who I looked up to his tastes and he turned me on to it. This album felt like my intro to quiet music. When I grew up, I was aware of Elliott Smith and other soft music, but my dad was such a rocker that he was really only into fat guitar tones and loved Smashing Pumpkins and the Foo Fighters. Same with my older brother who was into a lot of heavier stuff like nu-metal. That all meant that I was pretty late to Yo La Tengo: I didn't really listen to them until my sophomore year of college in 2011.
By that point, I was getting into Yo La Tengo and their whole catalog. Diving in and realizing they've been putting out records since the '80s was mindblowing. This is just unbelievable music and every record is so ambitious. I get really excited and inspired by bands that are head down, doing the work, and inspired. For decades, Yo La Tengo have been staying in their lane and making really honest heartfelt work over the years. Wilco is another great example of that: a good, honest, hardworking band. When I discovered this record and the band, I hadn't even really started pursuing a music career at all. But it was really formative in the early years for me.
The great thing about Yo La Tengo is that you can get some of the softest, prettiest songs but also some of the loudest, guitar-noise face-melters. They really do a lot of things so well.
Charlie: They'll just jam. They'll do a 12-minute track one. It's sometimes things that I would never do but it's still so inspiring.
What other music were you listening to around this time?
Charlie: When we first started the band, me and Will were both into the East Coast DIY stuff: Elvis Depressedly, Alex G, Orchid Tapes, etc. It was fun to see all the new artists cropping up and start to connect the dots to a lot of the music that I was inspired by at a young age. It's hard to remember exactly because at that time, I was also just obsessed with hip-hop. So it was a lot of Yo La Tengo and then a lot of Drake.
The older I get the more I’m interested in longevity. What keeps a band doing the thing over and over again? How does someone keep it fresh over decades? Yo La Tengo is a great case study for that.
Charlie: Me and Will have had conversations about this. Early in our careers, we'd see various artists kind of leapfrogging us having a much quicker success. And that wasn't really happening for us, but it did feel like we were on this slow burn of a trajectory. We had some people that we really trust over the years say, “If you just really stick with it, things will happen.” That is honestly a recipe for success.
Will’s recent activity: Yardwork
Was yardwork something you’ve always done as a kid or is this a recent hobby?
Will: It's funny, I actually didn't mow too much growing up, but for my summer jobs, I’d spray paint curbs with numbering stencils for like 15 bucks. Yardork didn't really start happening a lot until my wife and I became homeowners. She grew up on a farm and she's always trying to touch grass. We just got really into it. We have this insane backyard with a bunch of stuff. The grass grows really tall and it grows really fast. My daughter loves playing in the dirt and being barefoot. We stay outside a ton and as much as we can. It's a place where we're all doing fine. If we're inside, at least one of the three of us is either grumpy or hungry but if we're all working out in the sun, we're feeling good and having a blast.
I've definitely been through some mowing years now with all these houses we've moved in and out of. My grandpa used to say, "The best way a modern man can exercise is to mow the lawn." I'm just in love with it because it's a time when we're all feeling good. No one needs a lot and everybody has their own path. You can't really mess it up because it'll grow back. It's a very low-stress, engaging task.
Has it gotten to the point where you’re getting a little competitive with your neighbors? “Why is Steve’s lawn greener than mine?”
We're not super picky. Our grass is really tall right now. We're not a "mow lines" family. We're not going super hard on it. When we got this house, it was already very well landscaped and there was a huge garden. We got lucky with that and walked into this situation. If I had to start from scratch, it'd be a much tougher experience.
Charlie’s recent song: Teethe, “Moon”
Teethe is also from Texas. I assume you’ve toured with or known them for a long time.
Charlie: We go way, way back. Me and Boone [Patrello], who's one of the songwriters and producers in the project, was my childhood best friend's little brother. They grew up a block away from me and my family. I was always over and his family was like my second family. They moved to a suburb of Dallas when we were pretty young and we ended up getting connected again when I was in college around the time Hovvdy was starting. I think I shared some music on Facebook or something and Boone hit me up. He's maybe five years younger than me and he was apparently into the same music as I was. Then I started to pick up that he was doing music too.
He was living in Denton, Texas, which is a great little music scene and he had a project called Dead Sullivan. We'd play Denton a lot doing house shows. Teethe is this super group of bands that me and Will were pretty tight with from that area. I'm obsessed with this band. I did a solo tour and they opened on that. They just signed to Winspear, which is our good buddy Jared's label.
Shoutout Winspear.
Big fan. I'm always so impressed with the label’s work. Teethe are a really cool all-in-house operation too: Boone and Grahm engineer, produce, mix, and master everything. Maddie does all their art as well. It's crazy. They're all so talented.
Will: Dead Sullivan's record Imbecile from 2017 was one of my favorites for years at a time. They never cease to amaze me. What seems like ultra-casual songwriting has so much depth and immediacy. It's got a big rock sound but there's so much immediacy in what they do because it just sounds like them. It jumps off the page really.
Will’s recent artist: Olivia Rodrigo
We’ve gone back to the most formative things from your childhood in this interview but you chose Olivia Rodrigo because your daughter loves her music. How is it seeing your kid develop their own taste and passion for music?
Will: It's so cool. I'm such an early 2000s pop-punk kid: Blink-182, Sum 41. The stuff that sounds a little too perfect when it got really popular. My daughter cannot stand music like that. She wants it to be loose. She'll tell me when something isn't really punk rock. It's ridiculous. She's a little kid.
Oh my God, that rules.
Will: I don't have a lot of standards. I'm down for whatever and the Blink stuff really stuck with me. She's really found her own way. She loves the mid-80s punk rock stuff: The Ramones and the Clash. She likes newer bands like Turnstile. But Olivia Rodrigo hit her like a ton of bricks. It's the thing that she's for sure returned to most. It's the humor. It's the joy. She can make faces and roll her eyes while singing and feel empowered and extra and silly. She doesn't even know half the words. There's this one line, where Olivia says, I'm grateful all the fucking time." My daughter just started saying that one day and we had to almost tackle her like, “No, please don’t say that.”
To be fair, that song is called “all-american bitch.”
Will: It’s true. But yeah, just getting into that record has been really fun. I liked a few songs on her last record but getting to know this one more, it's just really good. It's theatrical, funny, and self-aware. She's self-deprecating and in her bag a little bit. It's really unique in that it truly doesn't feel perfect but is nicely performed without being too sloppy. She found a really nice thing. I enjoy it so much.
The closest thing we had growing up was Avril Lavigne but I love Olivia’s songs much more.
Will: Truly, it’s way better. We revisited Avril in the van recently and only the hugest songs held up the best.
Another cool thing about Olivia is her songwriting partnership with Dan Nigro. As Tall As Lions were one of my favorite bands in high school. More former emo/ indie rock guys should start writing songs with pop stars.
Will: That’s what we’re trying to do even though we’re not “former indie rock guys” yet. He's done a really good job. A part of me is nervous that, one day, Olivia's gonna make just a massive pop record—but I'm sure she will and it will be great—but I've really enjoyed their work together and I hope they continue to rock.
What I listened to:
The No Expectations 068 Playlist: Spotify / Apple Music
1. Ben Seretan, “New Air”
2. Color Green, “Four Leaf Clover”
3. Waxahatchee, “Ice Cold”
4. Rosali, “Rewind”
5. Hovvdy, “Jean”
6. The Bird Calls, “Old Faithful”
7. Little Kid, “Somewhere In Between”
8. Jeffrey Silverstein, “Gassed Up”
9. Coco, “Cora Lu”
10. Bnny, “Changes”
11. This Is Lorelei, “I’m All Fucked Up”
12. Kara Jackson, “Right, Wrong, or Ready”
13. Minor Moon, “Right In Your Eye”
14. Jackie West, “End of the World”
15. Scott McMicken and the Ever-Expanding, “Back In the Water”
Gig report: Rosali, Fran at the Empty Bottle (4/18)
I wrote a lot about Rosali when I interviewed the fellow Michigander for the newsletter’s Taste Profile series two weeks ago. In that piece, I was pretty laudatory but seeing the band live on Thursday made me love her latest record Bite Down even more. Backed by David Nance and Mowed Sound, Rosali’s set was just killer. You know when you’re at a show and you think, “I love this one” as soon as the artist starts a new track? That happened to me throughout the entire show. It was just relentless. There’s nothing better than seeing a bunch of tour-tested pros rip through a flawless set at your favorite venue.
Special shoutout to Fran, who opened the show. Fran is the songwriting project of Chicago’s Maria Jacobson, who put out an incredible LP in January 2023 called Leaving. Her voice is stunning and the new material she debuted that night with a full band has been stuck in my head since Thursday.
Gig report: Minor Moon, Macie Stewart, Moontype at Lincoln Hall (4/19)
I can say with near certainty that everyone who attended Minor Moon’s record release for The Light-Up Waltz at Lincoln Hall on Friday night will remember it for years to come. In my 15 years of going to shows in Chicago, it’s one of the most special nights I’ve ever experienced here. It made me grateful to live in this city and spend so much time immersing myself in its music scenes. When things went wrong and seemed unsalvagable, it ultimately didn’t matter: the artists, venue workers, and fans banded together for one of the best possible shows given the circumstances.
Here’s what happened: About a minute or two before Minor Moon were set to hit the stage as the headliner, fans on the main floor of Lincoln Hall noticed dirty water coming out of the drains in the middle of the venue. At first, it seemed like somebody spilled a beer but the water kept coming. In minutes, it spread to the stage and the sound booth in the back of the room. Soon, the venue cleared everyone out and moved them to the bar area. While waiting for news, I ran into Minor Moon’s singer Sam Cantor, who seemed defeated by the situation: his big record release night was in jeopardy of getting canceled by a flooding venue. As I’ve mentioned before, Sam’s a bud, and it was horrible to see him stressed.
Instead of wallowing, the band played an impromptu set out by the front bar. For the first song, it was just Sam and an acoustic guitar but by the third or fourth tune, the rest of the band plugged into outlets behind the bar. Amps were placed on bar tops. The embarrassed venue staff did everything to help the band out. I got goosebumps seeing everyone plug in their instruments: the songs gradually became fuller in real-time with each member joining. What started as a solo acoustic set to make do with a tough situation, became a full-fledged record release show. Everyone in the venue before the dirty water hit stayed. They were silent too, hanging on to each lyric.
It’s funny that The Light-Up Waltz is full of imagery about floods (there’s a song called “Since The Water Rose”). More than that, it’s about what happens when things fall apart. Though I’m sure this may have been a little too on the nose for Cantor that night, Minor Moon made the best of what could’ve been a disastrous night. It was beautiful and I’m so lucky to have been there. Special shoutout to No Expectations favorites Moontype and Macie Stewart for stellar opening sets that went without a hitch.
Gig report: Bnny at Empty Bottle (4/19)
Two shows in one night is always tricky. You have to confidently guess set times and understand that there’s a chance you’ll miss the openers. With the dirty water venue flood postponing things over at Lincoln Hall, I had to miss both No Expectations favorite Ulna and a set from Tim Kinsella and Jenny Pulse before headliner Bnny. When I finally got to the Empty Bottle a little before midnight, the Chicago band was already onstage playing songs off their excellent new LP One Million Love Songs. Thankfully, I only missed one tune.
The set was a blast: the band brought dozens of glow-in-the-dark bunny ears for the audience to don (I had one on for a few songs but a Friend of the Substack took it). Fronted by Jess Viscius, Bnny is rounded by Viscius’ twin Alexa, drummer Sarah Weddle, guitarist Adam Schubert (Ulna), and original guitarist Tim Makowski. They excel in quiet, dreamy indie pop but also know how to rip when they need to. Everyone was just in great spirits, which came to a catharsis when Bnny played “Good Stuff” as their encore. The people around me were all singing along—just a really lovely moment and a perfect nightcap for a packed night.
Gig report: Waxahatchee, Good Morning at Salt Shed (4/20)
When Waxahatchee played the Empty Bottle last month to celebrate the release of Katie Crutchfield’s new album Tigers Blood, I was across town at the Hideout seeing Lily Seabird and Florry. Even though Friend of the Substack Liam Kazar opened the Empty Bottle gig, I didn’t have severe FOMO because I knew Kazar would be back at the Hideout in April and Waxahatchee would be headlining Salt Shed weeks later. This is an artist whose music I’ve listened to for almost 15 years and this gig was the biggest venue I’ve seen her play.
On top of her doing her record release show in the city, Crutchfield’s band now features several Chicago musicians in Twin Peaks’ Clay Frankel and Colin Croom as well as Spencer Tweedy so I’m going to start filing Waxahatchee as a local artist. It was an incredible production: the songs sounded spectacular and her band was excellent. Though Bonny Doon backed her on the St. Cloud LP and tour, only Bonny Doon touring keyboardist Cole Berggren is still in the band. She played the entire record, which includes my three favorites “Crowbar,” “Ice Cold,” and “Bored.” I remain in awe of Crutchfield’s ascent and think her move into country-tinged songwriting is one of the most important and fitting moves a songwriter has made this decade.
Salt Shed is the nicest venue in Chicago too. If you haven’t been to the space yet, I highly recommend it. Also, I didn’t know much about the opener Good Morning going into it but now I’m a fan. I’m stoked to dig into their discography.
What I watched:
Ken Burns: Baseball
A good thing that this newsletter forced me to do is to watch more movies. With the “What I watched” section, I would rather broadcast the fact that I saw a critically acclaimed film on the Criterion Channel than mention “I caught the Chicago Bulls lose a play-in game once again.” That wasn’t the case this week with four shows on my schedule. I finished the Baseball Ken Burns documentary (shoutout former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee for being a memorable talking head). It ruled. I also chose to spend my little remaining free time watching regular-season baseball along with playoff basketball and hockey. Sometimes you need to take a breather from staying on top of new releases and sports is a great way to take a load off.
What I read:
The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports (by Jeff Passan)
Sorry for all the baseball this week. I bought this book in 2017 but realized I never finished it. Written by veteran baseball journalist Jeff Passan, this is an in-depth and behind-the-scenes look at MLB pitching: the history of Tommy John surgery to fix torn ulnar collateral ligaments (UCLs), how younger athletes are getting hurt throwing harder in more innings, and what this means for the future of the sport. I decided to revisit this book because there have been so many injuries from MLB’s top pitchers: Spencer Strider, Jacob deGrom, Shohei Ohtani, Robbie Ray, Sandy Alcantara, and many more are all out with season-delaying or season-ending arm injuries. It’s a crisis. I loved how Passan tracks two athletes two major-league pitchers, Daniel Hudson and Todd Coffey, as they go through post-Tommy John rehab, trying to rebuild their arms and their careers. Passan, who must have an iron stomach, even sits in on Coffey’s surgery. Hudson, almost 10 years after needing two consecutive TJ surgeries, is still a valued setup man for World Series contender the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Coachella Isn’t Dead—but It May Be Haunted (Jeff Weiss, The Ringer)
For the past quarter century, America’s most prominent music festival has continually spun in a neon Ferris wheel of death, rebirth, and Diplo cameos. But over the past few months, speculation about Coachella has been shrouded with existential concern. For the second straight year, the festival—which began its 23rd edition last weekend with headlining sets from Lana Del Rey, Tyler, the Creator, and Doja Cat—failed to sell out. According to Billboard, only 80 percent of the 250,000 available tickets for both weekends were purchased as of April 12.
A variety of factors could explain the decline in interest: a lackluster lineup, limited disposable income due to inflation, a saturation of festivals, generational shifts, and the sustained reverberations of the post-pandemic concert market. But no matter the specifics, it’s a stark contrast with the years of peak Coachella in the middle of the last decade, when attending became enshrined as a millennial rite of passage and it routinely sold out in less than an hour—long before the lineup was even announced.
The death of Coachella makes for an alluring headline, but it’s a partially inaccurate description of our current purgatory. After all, it’s been a dozen years since Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg summoned a 2Pac hologram, its arms messianically outstretched, greeting the floral-crowned hordes with a booming “What the fuck is up, Coachella?!” In front of the still-corporeal survivors of Death Row, the shredded digital apparition performed “Hail Mary” to prove that we are no longer forced to choose between riding or dying. Within a year, the company that created the computer rendering filed for bankruptcy.
The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar
Thursday, April 25: Jon McKiel, Max Subar at Gman Tavern. Tickets.
Thursday, April 25: Owen, Love of Everything at Empty Bottle. Tickets.
Thursday, April 25: MIKE, 454, Niontay at Metro. Tickets.
Thursday, April 25: Kara Jackson, Verdnt at Old Town School of Folk. Sold out.
Friday, April 26: Laraaji, Sam Prekop at Epiphany Center of the Arts. Tickets.
Friday, April 26: Tommy Goodroad, Al Scorch, Lawrence Peters. Marz Community Brewing. Free.
Friday, April 26: Red Scarves, Jessica Risker, Mooner at Sleeping Village. Tickets.
Friday, April 26: STRFKR, Ruth Radelet at Salt Shed. Sold out.
Saturday, April 27: Gustaf, Ganser at Empty Bottle. Tickets.
Saturday, April 27: Windy City Soul Club at Gman Tavern. Tickets.
Saturday, April 27: Allah-Lahs, Maston, Reverberation Radio at Metro. Tickets.
Saturday, April 27: Panchiko, TAGABOW, Weatherday at Concord Music Hall. Tickets.
Saturday, April 27: Sheer Mag, Dusk at Sleeping Village. Tickets.
Sunday, April 28: Jacob on the Moon, Dogcatcher at Sleeping Village. Tickets.
Monday, April 29: Brent Penny, Sports Boyfriend, Nat Harvie at Empty Bottle. Free.
Monday, April 29: Land of Talk at Schubas. Tickets.
Tuesday, April 30: Pictoria Vark, Mint Green at Beat Kitchen. Tickets.
Tuesday, April 30: Helado Negro, Marem Ladson at Thalia Hall. Tickets.
Thursday, May 2: Sam Evian, Hannah Cohen at Lincoln Hall. Tickets.
Thursday, May 2: Eric Slick, The Darling Suns, Alicia Walter at Schubas. Tickets.
Thursday, May 2: ((( O ))), Shawnee Dez at Sleeping Village. Tickets.
Thursday, May 2: Rosie Tucker, Fran at Beat Kitchen. Tickets.
Friday, May 3: Bill Orcutt, Wendy Eisenberg, Ava Mendoza, Shane Parish at Constellation. Early show. Sold out.
Friday, May 3: Bill Orcutt, Wendy Eisenberg, Ava Mendoza, Shane Parish at Constellation. Late show. Tickets.
Saturday, May 4: Cindy Lee, Freak Heat Waves, Laurie Duo at Empty Bottle. Sold out.
Saturday, May 4: Belle and Sebastian, The Weather Station at Salt Shed. Tickets.
Sunday, May 5: John Hiatt, Nathan Graham at SPACE. Sold out.
Sunday, May 5: Teenage Fanclub, Sweet Baboo at Thalia Hall. Tickets.
Monday, May 6: Tei Shi, Amira Jazeera at Sleeping Village. Tickets.
Monday, May 6: Ty Segall, Sharpie Smile at Thalia Hall. Tickets.
Monday, May 6: John Hiatt, Jared Rabin at SPACE. Sold out.
Tuesday, May 7: Wendy Eisenberg, Eli Winter at Hideout. Tickets.
Tuesday, May 7: John Hiatt, Sara-Jean Stevens at SPACE. Sold out.
Tuesday, May 7: Royal Dog, Strawberry Boy at Sleeping Village. Tickets.
Might just be me, but it's nice to see John Hiatt still selling out a run of shows.
Just settling into your article, listening to your first song by Ben Seretan, reading about that Minor Moon gig, and am absolutely loving it.