TEN YEARS TO LIFE WITH IKE REILLY

 

PUT A LITTLE LOVE IN IT 

'Salesmen and Racists' July 31, 2001

I first heard Ike Reilly in the summer of 2001, when I lived and worked in a second floor apartment on Columbia Avenue. 

A few months earlier, I had quit my job at LaBov & Beyond, where I had worked since 1996, climbing the marketing firm's ladder, and where I was eventually invited to be a partner in the company. I was making a little-too-much money, doing high-profile marketing for wicked cool multi-national companies—selling Volkwagens!—across the country, and working with people I genuinely liked. What can I say? I was miserable.

Everyone has a story. Mine was, I bought a guitar. I bought it from Bob Dylan's guitarist, who I ended up getting to know, and becoming friends with, and running around Nashville and the eastern half of the States with. Back in Fort Wayne, some friends and I started a band, and it turned out we were pretty good, and people wanted to see us play. I made plans to leave my job. Most remarkably of all, a girl I had been chasing for a decade—unsuccessfully—called me up and asked me if I wanted to hang out. What was happening? These were dreams. The guitar was lucky. 

At the end of 2000, I went to work by myself, a freelance graphic designer, starting a business with the name "One Lucky Guitar."

In the hot spring and summer of 2001, I sweatily worked away in the kitchen of that apartment on Columbia, listening to Teenage Fanclub and Whiskeytown and You Am I. I felt I made up for making not-nearly-enough money by enjoying what I was convinced might be the finest music collection in the city—after a rough start in high school, I had found my way in college, moving from Springsteen, to Dylan, somehow to the britpop of Blur and Pulp, with stops along the way for Lloyd Cole and, of course, Paul Westerberg and the Replacements. I loved what I loved, and looked for more of it. The newer bands I got into fit with what I was digging before, but tweaked it. Pushed it forward, a little bit. Or I'd go backwards, and hear an old record I never knew had inspired the new record that reminded me of the one in between. This was the summer of Napster, and the pained, loving, unending joy of tracking down impossible-to-find import singles of your favorite band—just to hear them perform an obscure cover of a song by a band that was about to be your new favorite band—well, that age, sadly, was sailing away. I loved loved loved the music, but only just a bit more than the journey to find it.

I found myself reading the web site of Minneapolis City Pages, in particular articles by a writer named Jim Walsh. In hindsight, I can't remember what led me there—likely, I was looking for some kind of gossip about someone hearing something—anything—that would offer some insight on Paul Westerberg's long silence. Like, whether he was alive or not, because I needed him. Walsh wrote with his heart on his sleeve. One day, he profiled a new artist that was taking the twin cities by storm. I've always loved hyperbole, and Walsh wrote the most hyperbolic line since Jon Landau writing about Bruce Springsteen in 1974. Walsh said, "I have waited more than twenty years to feel the way I felt when I saw The Clash perform—and finally, I feel it again. Ladies and gentlemen, Ike Reilly is here."

I ordered his album. I was sitting sweaty in a hot kitchen, between a stove and an aging Mac tower, eating a turkey sandwich with Doritos and mustard on it, drinking a Busch Light. It was a Tuesday. IT WAS HOT. The Doritos crunched. The box fan vibrated. The birds chirped. I had turned my back on one era, and was starting another. 

Squinting, my life felt like a tornado. 

Ike Reilly sounded like one. From the first time I played his (unfortunately named) debut album, Salesmen and Racists, it was like I had run up to the line—the line that separates what you like and don't like...and the closer you get to that line, the more and more acute that difference is. In that sense, the line like a reverse spectrum. It's not polar opposites—it's polar the sames. I was razor-close—torn between yanking the disc out of my CD changer and whipping it out and down through the alley and aiming squarely at the Rotweiler that had chased me down Columbia, torn between that, and starting every song over after just a few seconds after it began, to re-hear what I was just hearing for the first time, again and again and again.  

I loved it. 

The music was sharp, the words were funny and sad and poetic and glorious and raunchy and put together like an architectural wonder. Other bands were kicking the can down the road—Ike put gasoline in the can, put the can on a fence, and shot at it. The songs sounded...well, they sounded just exactly like you'd hope (or fear) a song would sound if its title was "Commie Drives a Nova" or "Hip Hop Thighs #17," only crazier...the songs sounded like America, but not America the melting pot, because no details were lost. Nothing was without its sharpness. The only thing melting was your brain. The songs sounded like the wildest party with the biggest heart on the wildest night. I thought maybe I should walk away from this music, but I just couldn't: it sounded just the way I felt. It was positively dangerous. 

 

Sidenote:

Ike was playing Birdy's that winter—my band had played Birdy's!!!—opening for an Austin songwriter named Bob Schneider. I e-mailed a guy who had just moved from Fort Wayne to Austin, to find out what he thought of Schneider. He hated him, of course, but he liked what he heard about Reilly. (I never knew this guy in Fort Wayne, but we became penpals after this exchange, and eventually I went to visit him. Crashing at Chad and Hannah Beck's for my first SXSW? Well, I won't forget it.) Anyway, the night of the Birdy's show, there was a massive snowstorm, and my girlfriend's family talked me out of the trip. They were looking out for me. 

 

 

GARBAGE DAY 

'Sparkle in the Finish' Oct 12 2004

Reilly went missing for the next three years, finally resurfacing without his major label deal, and now in a band named The Ike Reilly Assassination. I've always love bands—much more than "FirstName LastName and the Names"—and loved the idea of this group marketing itself as a band, and not an individual. But, my mom wasn't going to like this. Assassination? Really? Again, right up to the line. 

That said, Sparkle in the Finish had all of the flow, the flash and the bared teeth of Reilly's debut, but shoved the boundaries out even further. The production was not quite as produced as before—it was still adventurous, but now more urgent. The songs and their subject matter were all over the place, and I found that I either had no idea what they were talking about (and pretended I did), or knew a little too much (and pretended I didn't). The Assassination pushed the song "Whatever Happened to the Girl in Me?" to insane heights. I wasn't sure why Ike was asking this, but I suddenly found myself asking the same question for the rest of 2004, and every few days since. 

One Lucky Guitar had moved to Randallia Drive. I had written off any kind of agency freelancing—it was our clients, or no clients. I worked through the early mornings with a baby boy sleeping on my chest, listening to a track called "The Boat Song (We're Getting Loaded)." You could feel our velocity.

Sidenote:

The Ike Reilly Assassination was playing at the Melody Inn that winter—I dreamt of being in a band that could play the Melody Inn!!!—but, again, there was a massive snowstorm, and my wife's family talked me out of the trip. They were looking out for me. 

 

 

SUFFER FOR THE TRUST 

'Junkie Faithful' Sept 27, 2005

Less than a year later, Reilly's third album was released—Junkie Faithful. It was the last record I bought before boarding a plane for San Francisco, where the band I was in, The Trainhoppers, were headed to record an album. I took sleeping pills in the airport and heard the album for the first time through my headphones, the music careening in slow motion around my head like the fog was rolling off a bay we hadn't yet seen, swirling through the aisles of the plane and into the heads of me and my bandmates, and I dreamt it would give us the brilliance and bravery and sense of risk and stupidity and yes, most of all, that it would give us the courage, the courage to create something positively dangerous.

Someday, I'll let my kids tell me if that worked out or not. 

In between Sparkle and Faithful, One Lucky Guitar had moved off Randallia, and into a small office above the nascent Avant-Garde Gallery. OLG started attracting a little attention, and we moved again, this time down the hall. There were now two of us. This was the album that was playing when we turned out the lights on one era, and turned them on in another. 

Sidenote: 

A couple of years later, I would be quoted in PRINT magazine's prestigious Regional Design Annual, reciting the lyrics from a song on Junkie Faithful, and talking about a back-to-the-wall resurgence of creativity in the Midwest, in Indiana, in Fort Wayne, in our office. "Stuck in the middle with no voice, no coast, nothing but a river and a shoreline..."

 

 

TODAY I DON'T 

'We Belong to the Staggering Evening' May 8 2007

By the time Reilly's next record hit the streets, things were a little different at One Lucky Guitar. Our company had growns up a bit, and the days of everyone loving the spunky little kids with their design shop was over. For me, and bands, and certain purveyors of local music scene, it was a similar situation. There were some folks out there that actually hated us. In other words, we'd finally made it!

I never felt like we were on a more right course than we were that summer, and that feeling drove us, and drives us still. 

I needed a soundtrack for these times, our wildest times yet, and hearing Reilly's latest was like swallowing a lit firecracker. Somehow, he had defied the odds—he'd made his best record yet (on his fourth try!)—an album that not only did everything he was great at better than he'd ever done it before, but that broke new ground and burned old ground and felt like the music that should be playing on the last, best, greatest nights of your life. It rocked, it rolled, it filled your heart—it was hilarious and terrifying and thought-provoking and charismatic and over the top. That long, hot summer, with the windows open and the sweat glistening, to sing along to this album was a most joyous kind of therapy, like laughing and crying at the same time, and like you'd never laugh or cry like that again. 

Sidenote:

The Ike Reilly Assassination was playing at Birdy's that summer—my second band had played at Birdys, too!!!—and there was no snowstorm to stop us this time. The show was everything I'd imagined it would be—reckless, cathartic, funny and inspiring. The way the band worked onstage, they were chasing some kind of salvation. On the drive home, I started daydreaming of Reilly playing in Fort Wayne. Why not? A couple of our other heroes, Tim Rogers and The Avett Brothers, had come to our fair city. It seemed possible, somehow—and it was. As with Rogers and the Avetts, all we had to do was ask. It occurred to us that it was OLG's seventh anniversary, and, well, we should have a party. We wanted to show the folks who were booking outdoor events, block parties and such, we wanted to show them that you could be ridiculously adventurous and brave in your booking, and it just might play. It just might work. The bill was some form of a Trainhoppers string band on their last legs, and Metavari learning to crawl and walk and run on their beginning legs, and then Reilly and his bandmates, pirouetting around the stage with their molotov cocktails of rock and roll. 

For that event, we made Lucky Seven shirts, and on the inside-back, below the neck, we printed SEVEN YEARS AND STILL NO BULLSHIT. 

 

 

LIGHTS OUT, ANYTHING GOES 

'Hard Luck Stories' November 24 2009 / February 16, 2010

It was immediately apparent to me that we should try to get the Assassination back to Fort Wayne as part of the Lucky Ten series of shows. Unbelievably, One Lucky Guitar is celebrating its tenth year of existence. As OLG client John Prine once sang, "It's a big ol' goofy world"...and I'm not sure there's much out there that's more true than that statement. We've grown to a team of nine, and I get to work with eight seriously amazing people, great partners, and a roster of amazing clients. 

At the end of 2009, Ike released his excellent Hard Luck Stories as a digital download—surrounded by ridiculously fantastic podcasts—just as all the music publications and blogs and "drooling fanatics" were writing about the decade that was. It occurred to me that Reilly had kicked off, and wrapped up, the decade with one of the most impressive five-for-fives in music history—ever-growing, ever-evolving, full of conviction, and forever restless, and endlessly hungry. His musical spirit reminded me of OLG, in a way, once again. 

This Saturday, May 1st, Ike Reilly plays two shows in Fort Wayne—first, solo in our office (our office!!!), and then later that same night at The Tiger Room, with the full Assassination and openers The B-Sharps (on their last legs). It's hard to describe what this means to me, or how, ten years later, you can still be so damn surprised and amused and blown away by what might happen when the best and bravest ideas get mixed with a generous, undeniable helping of willpower, and where quitting is not an option. Trying to find context for this show, I find myself thinking about how The Who played in Fort Wayne in 1967, at The Swingin' Gate, a little club that's now a parking lot on Berry Street. It's been 43 years since we last saw something so positively dangerous.

 

Reilly at the Botanical Conservatory; 'Courtesy Photo'

A couple of Octobers ago, I was fortunate enough to be asked by a good friend to design the poster for Jay Reatard's highly anticipated, highly memorable performance at Fort Wayne's Brass Rail. It was a great night—as RMike (the friend in question, who booked the show) later remarked, "This whole concept of 'if you want to see someone, just invite them to your town' is frankly beyond my wildest dreams." Since that night, here in Fort Wayne, we've kinda come to expect those wildest dreams, or at least not be surprised by them, and that's a little sad to me tonight, on a pretty sad day. The Reatard show was when the tide started turning in our favor. But there's just somethin' about being the underdog. 

While I have poster designs that I like better and that generate a greater emotional punch to my gut (both Tim Rogers posters, the B-Sharps album release, some old Trainhopper shit), I think when it comes down to it, the Reatard poster is probably pound-for-pound the best graphic design I ever did, and I always thought there'd be a chance for an encore.

Reatard died today at 29. 

If you don't know, he played a Flying V. And, damn, did he play it. 

 

I couldn't catch a wink, and ended up starting out 2010 with a long weekend of design fury, as my co-worker Drew might say. You know that at OLG, we're committed to doing everything we can to affect the quality of place pillar for this community, and that starts with the vibrancy of arts, music and cultural events. These three posters represent three levels of OLG involvement—host, designer and curator. All three should be excellent nights of music, for anywhere from 24 to 2,400 people.

First up is Sleepy Furnace: An Evening with Mark Hutchins and Friends. Hutchins is the songwriting force behind Vandolah, one of Northeast Indiana's finest bands. This "songwriter showcase" will actually be at One Lucky Guitar on January 30th, following in the footsteps of David Bazan's show at our place just last month. Even better, Mark has asked some of his favorite collaborators and contemporaries to do sets of their own music—including Josh Hall of Thunderhawk, Kevin Hambrick of Orange Opera, and C-Ray Harvey of Wooden Satellites. We're thrilled to work with Mark on this special night, which should be woozy an' wild. There are a few tickets left—get yours by following this link.

Next up, we were happy to receive the call from Rich Lee of Little Brother Radio, NIPR's excellent, left-of-the-dial music show. LBR hosted Nashville's Matthew Ryan for their first anniversary show a couple years ago; now it's time for a return visit. This poster is something of a sequel to the poster we designed for that first show, and follows in an ongoing "campaign" of posters for LBR shows. Catch Matthew (and support "TBA") at The Tiger Room on February 5th. 

Lastly—it's time. Down the Line 4 is set for February 20th at the historic Embassy Theatre. Featuring perhaps the event's most diverse lineup of artists yet, DTL4 promises to deliver all of the surprises and thunder that has been a Down the Line hallmark. We're thrilled to serve as event producers and art directors, again, and have enjoyed a great season of collaboration and laughs with the hard-working Embassy team. 

Remember, last year's event sold out (!!)—get your tickets early by following this link, or avoid the Ticketmaster surcharge and visit the Embassy's box office. 

 

 

Top Musics

Not sure it's all about records anymore. I wish it was, but, still. Here are my 2009 cage rattlers.

 

Ike Reilly, Hard Luck Stories, and surrounding promotion

Fairly obvious I would say that my favorite artist of the decade (five-for-five on A+ full-lengths, plus two EPs and an outtakes collection that never lower the bar) released the best album this year, but, it's more than that. This digital-only release (comes out as a physical CD in February...best of 2010, too?!) was supported by an onslaught of Ike, including web videos and a fantastic podcast series that is never less than sardonic, revealing and, yes, rivetingly hilarious. Find 'em free at ikereilly.net. The album? Ike's writing pop songs this time, with better-than-ever, over-the-top, layered lyrics that reveal new levels of brilliance on every spin. If I could do anything the way I wish I could when I daydream...things like writing lyrics, developing a melody, perform with a rocket of a band...if I could do it exactly as I daydreamed, well, it'd sound exactly like Ike Reilly's music. 

 

Jarvis Cocker, "Further complications."

Who knew? In a year when many of my favorites didn't reach the standard they'd set in previous albums and live shows, JC trots out this nasty, cathartic collection of songs that reminds me why he was my Ike Reilly for a couple years in the mid-90s. Guitar-heavy, lyrically driven, rough and raw and hopeful and great. Don't want a Pulp analogy? Don't need one. This record is a like the Stooges, fronted by Leonard Cohen circa New Skin for the Old Ceremony. PS How can my top two records of 2009 be NSFW?

 

The B-Sharps Play Cherchez Kahuna

I was lucky enough to work with Joel Faurote on the artwork for this album, and the release poster is probably my favorite thing I've ever designed. What could be better than that? How about an album that more than delivers on the hype. It's fast, dirty, punky-and just poppy as hell. And I'm not even sure these guys know The Replacements stink! Also worth noting: another absolutely amazing year for local music. Metavari released one of the most ambitious, beautiful albums that's ever come from our city (and taken on the world); The Orange Opera made us forget everything we'd ever heard from Kevin Hambrick and hear the freshest, most concise, lovely and popalicious collection he's yet penned; Thunderhawk thunderhawked us (again); a little-heard band named Arial put out an EP that was one-part inside joke, one-part national anthem; Castles...Riverbottom...and more! I wish I was in a band.

 

Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

In a year when a lot of my favorites were my usual-favorites, this record came out of nowhere (along with Here We Go Magic's self-titled debut) to become a soundtrack of my 6AM-6PM life; a soundtrack to work to, to laugh over, to collaborate with, and to (secretly) dance around. Great album that will say "2009" for years to come. 

 

5-14, in order of purchase

M Ward, Hold Time

Tim Easton, Porcupine

Here We Go Magic, s/t

The Strange Boys, And Girls Club

Son Volt, American Central Dust

Paul Westerberg and The Ghost Gloves Cat Wing Joy Boys EP   

The Fruit Bats, Ruminant Band

The Avett Brothers, I and Love and You

Julian Casablancas, Phrazes for the Young

The Orange Opera, Year of the Beard

 

Disappointments—these weren't always bad albums, per se, but they were a far-cry from the first time these artists each busted my brains out. Don't doubt I still enjoyed the ride with every one of 'em, though:

- Bruce Springsteen, Working on a Dream

- Clem Snide, Hungry Bird

- Bob Dylan, Together Through Life

- Cracker, Land of Milk and Honey

- Todd Snider, The Excitement Plan (best album on this list, BTW)

- Rhett Miller, s/t

- Wilco, s/t

- Dinosaur Jr, Farm

- Felice Brothers, Yonder Is the Clock

- Joe Henry, Blood from Stars

- Mark Knopfler, Get Lucky

- Graham Coxon, Spinning Wheel

 

 

Best Book(s):

- Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby 

- everything by Patrick Lencioni 

 

Best Movie, without any question:

- Adventureland

 

Live Show:

in town: Two Cow Garage, The Brass Rail

out of town: Ike Reilly Assassination, album release, Lincoln Hall / Chicago IL

 

Get my 2009 mixtape! These are the songs that rocked/wrecked my world. Some new, some old. 

Side One

1. Jarvis Cocker, "Angela" from "Further complications."

A long time ago I drove five hours to put "Disco 2000" under my (future) wife's windshield wiper. This is kinda like that, kinda not.

2. The B-Sharps, "Cheap Suit" from Play Cherchez Kahuna

This was my first favorite song by these guys. Usually shows up in their set like the song played when the funnel clouds start turning.

3. Tim Easton, "Porcupine" from Porcupine

Tim played his album release show in Fort Wayne back in April, after a memorable Rail debut the previous December. Can't wait for the next one.

4. Julian Casablancas, "11th Dimension" from Phrazes for the Young

I guess I'm not the only one that feels OK leaving behind his rocking past to spend a night on the dancefloor.

5. Phoenix, "Girlfriend" from Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

An album so inescapable and undeniable...that you're not going to escape it or deny it here.

6. Ike Reilly, "7 Come 11" from Hard Luck Stories

"Satellites and aeroplanes don't mean that much to me; if I was writing poems they'd be for you."

7. Two Cow Garage, "No Surrender"

Two Cow played this Springsteen cover in their incredible set at the Rail. Tremendous.

 

Side Two

1. Todd Snider, "Corpus Christi Bay" from The Excitement Plan

2009 was the year my brother finally collaborated with OLG-and blew our minds. This Robert Earl Keen cover kinda makes me think of him, and me.

2. M Ward, "Hold Time" from Hold Time

I joked that I made my four-year-old daughter sign a contract saying she'd play this for me at her wedding. It's funny because it's true. 

3. Tom Waits, "Ol' 55" from Early Years Volume One

Near the end of 2009, I came back to early Waits for the first time in a decade. Doesn't get much better than singing your lungs out in the middle of the night, realizing you might even be in harmony, alongside Tom on this one.

4. Thunderhawk, "Blue Eyes Wild" from Thunderhawk VI

Thunderhawk's performances in 2009 were some of my favorite nights, and least favorite mornings. 

5. Teenage Fanclub, "Everything Flows"

Oddly enough my most-played band of the year was the Fannies, who haven't released a new record since 2005. Back in the early 00s, I bought some bootlegs by them, and would listen to them when OLG was in a second-floor kitchen on Columbia Avenue. This acoustic on-air cut is from those days.

6. Paul Westerberg, "Good As the Cat" from The Ghost Glove Cat Wing Joy Boys EP

Truer than I want to admit, in more ways than I'm comfortable with.

7. Marah, "Limb" from Let's Cut the Crap and Hook Up Later on Tonight

"Limb" was the best live song I heard all year. I caught Marah in Pontiac back in February, breaking my "The only live shows I'll see this year are in Fort Wayne and Austin" resolution. (The other two were Bob Dylan (Bloomington) and Ike Reilly (Chicago).) Anyway, "Limb" sounds like the probable anthem for One Lucky Guitar (the company where I work)'s tenth year in business, which is 2010, in particular the line about "dancing shoes" and the one that goes "I climbed in the ring tonight, nothing to my name; then I threw a punch I never thought I'd land." 

Never stop.

Cue up "The Magnificent Seven" by The Clash. PS We're hiring.