The next show is for a taping of Chicago favorites, The Orwells on February 7th. Getting access to this or any JBTV taping is unlike any concert event in town. You’ll be a part of a very small group of people getting in to see a up close and personal live concert at the JBTV Studios. Only about 100 people will be there on any given show. How cool is that!? Thanks Jerry Bryant!<\/p>\n
Not only that, but you’ll be a part of history! Forever housed in the famous JBTV archives. You never know when you’ll see yourself on JBTV. Sure you’ll see the original air date of your show, but who knows. Maybe five, ten or twenty years down the road you might be back on the small screen for an anniversary event or highlight reel. Just think, you’re kids can revisit that special event! Ooooh… the future!!!!<\/p>\n
Here’s more on The Orwells taping at JBTV:<\/p>\n
\u201cNot too far back we sat down to write what we call mutilated pop songs,\u201d explains guitarist Matt O\u2019Keefe.\u201d \u201cWe wanted to make songs that at their core are catchy and pretty, then slash them up,\u201d adds singer Mario Cuomo. \u201cAfter two misfires we landed on something that felt right,\u201d O\u2019Keefe continues, \u201clike an engine failing to start then finally turning itself over. Broken verse \u2013 Running chorus. \u201cThey Put a Body in the Bayou\u201d was the first song written for this record. Where it came from is lost to us, now. And that\u2019s where Terrible Human Beings begins. Everything in-between is closely related. All these songs ooze over and flood into one another. In \u201cCreatures,\u201d it\u2019s the suspiciously warped guitar line that adds to the song\u2019s funhouse-mirror effect. In \u201cHippie Soldier,\u201d it\u2019s the eerie, high-pitched backing vocals accompanying the tale of a guy who\u2019s losing his mind. Elsewhere, it\u2019s the subject matter that veers toward the sinister: \u201cHeavy Head\u201d describes vengeful decapitation. And for an album closer Matt O\u2019Keefe describes \u201cDouble Feature\u201d as \u201cOur own Hail Mary, a stack of drum loops and guitars and voices coming at you from all different directions. It all collapses in on itself towards the dead end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whereas Cuomo was more focused on the his own tales of suburban malaise for The Orwells 2014 album Disgraceland, he found external inspiration for Terrible Human Beings. Movies such as the psychological thriller It Follows and noir fiction like Last Exit To Brooklyn provided fodder for a more narrative, vignette-based approach. Cuomo also notes that his bandmates challenged him to push beyond his comfort zone lyrically, in a way that reflects The Orwells growing maturity as songwriters. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of funny how much our songs and our records have evolved,\u201d says guitarist Dominic Corso, \u201cbecause when we first started together, we very much had no idea what we were doing. We\u2019ve grown into being able to write legitimately musical songs that we worked hard on and are proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t blame them for not knowing what they were doing at the start. After all, this is a band they formed in 9th grade, living in Elmhurst, IL and dreaming of escape. When The Orwells started recording their songs and giving out homemade CDs to classmates, their objectives were simple: You make good music, say what you wanna say and have a good time. They released their critically beloved 2012 debut album, Remember When, while they were still in high school, and had already started writing Disgraceland\u2019s songs when they graduated in 2013. And soon, as word of their ferocious live show earned them invitations onto stages around the world, The Orwells were no longer stuck in their hometown. After they came off the road again in early 2015, most of the guys moved out of their parents houses, settling in shared apartments in nearby Chicago. Cuomo even built a skate ramp in the livingroom of a shared loft he dubbed \u201cThe Compound,\u201d as a testament to his newfound freedom. It was around that same time that work on Terrible Human Beings began, with Cuomo, Corso and O\u2019Keefe conceiving the initial ideas. \u201cWe wrote these songs in a much more confined way than what we had done with the last records, where it was all five of us in a room,\u201d says O\u2019Keefe. \u201cThis time, it would start out with me and Dom with acoustic guitars and Mario on vocals. We\u2019d build the skeletons of the songs, and didn\u2019t take them too far from what we started when we added Grant and Henry.\u201d Recorded over the course of a month at Chicago\u2019s Electrical Audio, Terrible Human Beings was produced by Jim Abiss, with whom The Orwells had worked on a couple of Disgraceland\u2019s best tunes. \u201cJim would often times come up with a little something out of leftfield that just made the whole song,\u201d says Corso. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t think the songs would be as full of energy and grit if it wasn\u2019t for him.\u201d Crafty touches like the backing vocals Corso and O\u2019Keefe contribute throughout the album, or the kraut-rock freak-out at the end of \u201cDouble Feature,\u201d augment songs that are otherwise deceptively simple. \u201cThe Pixies were an obsession when we were writing this album,\u201d says O\u2019Keefe, talking about the song \u201cBlack Francis,\u201d but also Terrible Human Beings, in general. \u201cI think that\u2019s where a lot of trying to make the songs and the guitar parts very simple was coming from, because the Pixies are kings of that. We\u2019ve always been a simple band, but this time it was about trying to keep everything straightforward, nothing flashy.\u201d<\/p>\n
For your chance to be a part of this history, click here<\/a><\/p>\n
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