Drakkar Sauna @ Empty Bottle

Recently we visited the Empty Bottle to bare witness to a Drakkar Sauna show and oh so glad I was to do so. First and foremost we must mention the opening bands as they were quite delightful.

Cory Chisel & the Wandering Sons

How blues like and jazzy to the ear this all was. The dank surroundings of the Empty Bottles venue made their music so much more exquisite. Indulge me for a moment: slinking along the steps with a beer in one hand a cigarette in the other hearing gentle intermingling harmonies and watching the accordion breathing with the lyrics, it was all a perfect scene.

Melissa had this to say about it: "I want to make paintings that are like clarinets in dirty bars."

Romping along after to get the blood flowing and make our ears perk came...

Barely American

And it was at this point that the sounds of what I could only describe as Irish punk-esque feelings with some rock-a-billy and a whole lot of loudness came striking off the stage. Fantastic characterization. "Unexpected" would be the word I'd choose to watching their performance, maybe even tagging on "pleasantly" before it.

Then at long last, rolling in around 11:45 on a cold Sunday night in Chicago came the taut harmonic two-stepping tunes of Mr. Jeff A. Stolz and Wallace J. Cochran from Lawrence, Kansas.

Better known to us here as:

Drakkar Sauna

They are a riot. Literally speaking their own language through song and through speech. Their stage routine encourages others to emulate their process laughingly knowing all the while it cannot be attained by anyone other then these two. Each song is succinct, impressively punctual with each note and each key. The likes of which continues to resonate well after you've left the venue. These are musicians who love their craft requiring nothing more then four instruments, guitars, tambourine (tied to foot), the harmophone (basically a small piano that plays like a harmonica) and their incredibly skilled and disciplined vocal cords. If you have a chance to pick up one of their albums, see them in concert, or read some of their work. I highly recommend it. For all those back home tunes folk that cant get enough of two steppin, this is a true treasure.