SILKWORM


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Silkworm - You Are Dignified CD EP
release date 05.05.03 12XU 017-2

Following the release of 2002’s explosive & expansive ‘Italian Platinum’, the Chicago based trio of Andrew Cohen, Michael Dalquist and Tim Midgett (aka SILKWORM) were approached by 12XU executives with a strange proposition. Feeling that the band’s seminal works (the ‘Lifestyles’ and ‘Italian Platinum’ albums in particular) were routinely misunderstood, the label wanted to stress in some way shape or form that Silkworm’s true peers were not the multitude of independent/underground acts with whom they’ve shared a circuit. Rather, that the band had a shared musical and lyrical sensibility with the likes of Neil Young, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Who, The Faces, the years when the Stones didn’t suck, etc. And what better way to reinforce this point than by showcasing Silkworm’s interpretive skills with some spookily, stripped-down covers of their favourite classics?

Several months elapse and we learn that band have indeed commenced work on acoustic home recordings of “classics”. It is only after funds have been wired and mastering dates confirmed that we are told that the classics in question are renditions of songs by Shellac (“Prayer To God”, the opening salvo from the Chicago threesome’s ‘1000 Hertz’), Pavement (“And Then…”, a b-side that deserved better), Bedhead, Robbie Fulks and Nina Nastasia.

So never mind. Classics are where you find them. Silkworm have put their own spin on 5 of them and the results are alternately scary, silly and beautiful. Those of us who love them to death continue to insist that Andy, Michael and Tim are one of the planet’s best bands. This EP shows a side of them that you might miss amidst the physicality of their studio albums….and perhaps sheds a different light on the compositions themselves. Ahh, there's no "perhaps" about it.

- Gerard Cosloy, London, March 2002

" No man is an island...."--John Donne, _Meditation XVII_

To find kindred spirits is to ensure psychological and spiritual health. Unless you are crazy already, in which case your kindred
spirits will also be crazy, and perhaps you will drive each other to new depths. But if you have a relatively sound mind and healthy
enthusiasms, the discovery of other people who share your general outlook on life is a wonderful thing. It provides sustenance,
perspective, and the occasional moment of glorious synergy. The songs we play on this little record are all written by our
friends. These friends, in addition to being excellent human beings, are excellent musicians as well, more capable than we
are at essaying properly the music they write. "What's the point in you jokers even doing this then?", one might reasonably ask.
The point is twofold:
1. To place these compositions in a new light, perhaps to demonstrate a flexibility in the music that might not otherwise be evident.
To reveal the beating heart of "Prayer to God" (a/k/a "Fuckin' Kill Him"), to strip "The Hexx" (a/k/a "And Then...") to its
sly bones, to highlight the stark delicacy of the astonishing " Lepidoptera," to mark the brave pathos of "Let's Kill Saturday
Night," and to put some mandolin on "That's All There Is" (basically perfect in its original form).
2. To send out five little love letters to some of our favorite people. Shellac and in particular Steve Albini are generous
beyond the point of reasonableness and have done more favors for us than we can expect to repay. Pavement and in particular
Steve Malkmus have been stalwart running buddies for many years now. Bedhead was not only the finest band of the 1990s, but
its stage-solemn members are (against all odds) some of the funniest sons of bitches on the planet. Robbie Fulks would loathe to
be associated with 'indie rock,' but he shares its general code of ethics, including a healthy distaste for undeserved largesse.
Plus he's a funny son of a bitch. And Nina Nastasia manages to be smart, funny, unfailingly sweet, and completely unassuming
all at once.

We love these people, we love their music, we wanted to make a little tribute to them without being too hideously cute about
it. And that is the reason for this record.

Hope you like it!

Tim Midgett, Silkworm

Italian Platinum CD/LP, June 2002

Bullheaded, crossbeam-chomping persistence: twelve years, eight full-lengths (Italian Platinum is their first for 12XU), many singles and EPs, innumerable tours, wild fluctuations in the public appetite for their work. That's not to demand that Silkworm be called forward for some sort of alt-culture valor award--their concentrated, seemingly effortless force arises from dogged pursuit of certain virtues that most current bands either don't care about or fudge in the studio environment. Namely: tightness, heaviness, instrumental command.

Silkworm do care, and don't/won't fudge. But recently, starting perhaps with 2000's highly distilled Blueblood, they've passed though these virtues and out the other side. Songs are shorter and often end, without ceremony, the moment their job is done. The emotional heft of the performances always registers first, but the playing is full of jarring, chaotic moments that aren't the results of mere "chops." The same goes for the increasingly ambitious songwriting. Guitarist Andy Cohen and bassist Tim Midgett write separately, and each sings what he writes, but they share a sense of gravity. Sometimes direct, sometimes utterly cryptic, it doesn't have much to do with typical notions of singer-songwriterly "craftsmanship."


photo by Heather Whinna

A notoriously self-reliant band, Silkworm swells its ranks considerably on Italian Platinum. Kelly Hogan (whose own recordings, solo and with The Pine Valley Cosmonauts, are no drink coasters themselves) contributes backing vocals on several tracks and sings the living hell out of "Young," an outsize ballad that has no precise equivalent in the band's catalog. And Matt Kadane (currently chief songwriter/guitarist for The New Year) has become the band's quasi-official keyboardist, troubling the waters with an organ bed here, a glowing piano line there, a greasy clavinet solo on "White Lightning." Needless to say, these are not the choices of a band that's wildly concerned about its rock-purity credentials being revoked--or, really, anything beyond pushing a little harder with each record against what they already know they can do.

Still, Cohen, Midgett, and drummer Michael Dahlquist (who does get to sing now and then) remain at the core of Italian Platinum. You can hear their damn-everything confidence as individual musicians in the drum fills that stagger through "Bourbon Beard," the Neil-Young-meets-Andy-Gill guitar solo that plays havoc with the chords of "(I Hope U) Don't Survive," or the polluted, swaggering baritone guitar on "Dirty Air." As for how they and their guests lock together (and split apart) as a unit, there's no point in isolating moments. In the last analysis, that symbiosis defines this band, and you're better off hearing it for yourself.

Franklin Bruno

* Silkworm recently completed a years-in-the-making relocation to Chicago. They now live in the same city for the first time since 1998.

* Italian Platinum marks for Silkworm ten years of recording with the winsome Steve Albini.


Italian Platinum LP/CD (12XU 011-1,2) coming 10 June 2002

track listing :

1) I Hope U Don't Survive
2) The Third
3) The Old You
4) Is She A Sign
5) The Brain
6) Bourbon Beard
7) LR72
8) White Lightning
9) Dirty Air
10) Young *
11) Moving
12) The Ram
13) A Cockfight Of Feelings

Andy Cohen - guitars, vocals,
Tim Midgett - bass, vocals,
Michael Dalquist - drums,
Matt Kadane - keyboards,
Kelly Hogan - backing vocals, lead vocal on *
Recorded Winter 2001/2002 at Electrical Audio, Chicago, IL.

Engineered by Steve Albini

issued under license from Touch & Go.

photo by Heather Whinna