Familiarize Yourself

For those of you looking to break into the music business, the best advice I can give you is to intern, intern, intern. Yes, you are working for free. Yes, they may take advantage of you, force you to work long hours, and not even buy you coffee, BUT  every once in awhile you find an internship with perks. My last internship was at a PR company – the perk… a Starbucks machine. All the free hot chocolate I could ever drink in a day. My latest internship, one of my all-time favorite venues in the city of Chicago, Schubas. The perk? Lots of live music!

One of the bands that is playing the aforementioned venue this week is Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin (SSLYBY). This band came highly recommended at last year’s CMJ Music Marathon, but unfortunately I was not lucky enough to catch a performance. I won’t make that same mistake this time around. Now with three studio albums under their belt, SSLYBY has captured my ears and made a new fan.

Although their Myspace gives you the ultimate discography of SSLYBY throughout the years, they are also nice enough to allow fans to stream all their albums for free online. On their latest 2008 release, Pershing, “Glue Girls” and “Modern Mystery,” have become two of my personal favorite tracks. “Modern Mystery” (the demo version) has high placement on the “playlist of my life,” easily capturing my mood as I wake up and ride the train into downtown while the sunrises. A melodic love song with soothing lyrics  ”there is no modern mystery,
no mystic chords of memory, there is no modern mystery, we’re making up our history.” The opening guitar riff is simple enough, and the overlaying acoustic guitar continues the movement and sweeps right into the chorus.

This Missouri band also breaks the norm when they released a baseball anthem in 2009 for their favorite hometown team, the Springfield Cardinals. “Cardinal Rules” begins with the signature baseball organ that quickly builds into the chorus “I’m going downtown! Springfield tonight!” I wish a Chicago indie band could write an anthem for the Cubs that was this catchy. Our “Go Cubs Go!” song has nothing on SSLYBY.

Check out SSLYBY Thursday at Schubas! Tickets are still available and it is a show you will not want to miss!