Mad News

• Now with more drums

  by Mike

  We're all really excited for our fifth anniversary show. Not only because it is such a great place to be as a band, but also because we are starting to play with a percussionist. Mark Hartman has been rehearsing with us for the past few weeks and will be making his Mad Bread debut at Martyr's on December 13th. You'll be able to hear all the Mad Bread favorites in a new light - with a backbeat to make you want to dance even more than before.

  hide this

• Martyr's Writeup on Newsprint-Fray.com

  by Slatron

  A writer from Newsprint-Fray was in the audience at our Martyr's show last week. She really enjoyed the show and wrote about it on her weekly punk show blog, once again exposing us to a new crowd.

  Click here to read the review.

  hide this

• Great Atmosphere at Uncommon Ground

  by Nate

  When you have played in a band for five years, some gigs feel like work, and some are just pure fun. Last night at Uncommon Ground was definitely the latter. We are in the third month of our monthly Friday night residency there, and it feels like we are really hitting our stride. The crowd last night had a great time listening to us, and there was tremendous energy in the room for the entire two hours. Even better, we met some listeners who had found us by looking online for bluegrass bands to go see in Chicago and came upon our YouTube page. Another group had seen us play on the stage at Uncommon Ground more than a year ago, and happened to be back last night when we were playing again. One woman picked up "Tune Back In" from us after having bought "Southport & Eddy" when she last saw us more than a year ago. All this goes to show that the excellent work that Mike has done with the website has been paying off, and that our continued presence at a popular room like Uncommon Ground is helping more people hear our music. If you have not made it to an Uncommon Ground show yet, we play the first Friday of every month in the front bar area from 6-8p. With any luck, next month the weather will be nice enough to move the music onto the outdoor patio. Hope to see you there June 3rd!

  hide this

• Reggie's Mainstage Roundup

  by Mike

  In case you missed it, the Reggie's show on April 16th was a blast. From the stage it looked like there were well over 100 people at the show. It's so great to see people dancing and having a good time listening to us.

  Besides the crowd, the other bands really made the night for us. I got to speak with members of Northside Ruckus and the Steel Chops before having to get home to Zoey. Both bands are on our list for potential openers / open for-ers. It's great to meet other musicians in the area.

  hide this

• Mad Bread MOBILE

  by Adam

  
  Thanks for visiting our page. Have you ever tried doing this from your mobile device? You haven't? Really?
  
  You should probably check it out. We've got some very cool stuff there, including a mobile-only tool that allows you to vote for which song you'd like to hear at the next show!
  
  We're planning on performing the winning song at our gig at Reggie's on 4-16-2011.
  
  Your choices are:

  "Squeeze Box" (originally by The Who)

  "40 oz. to Freedom" (originally by Sublime)

  "Let Down" (originally by Radiohead)

  
  
  One of these covers will be played "bluegrass style" at Reggie's... but which one will it be? It's up to you!

  For those of you who do not have access to the mobile interwebs, fear not. You can still vote through your browser. Click to vote. It just might not be pretty.

  hide this

• Successful Release Party

  by Slatron

  Our release party at Fizz was a rousing success! Around 50 people turned out at Fizz for the event. We played a two hour show, some of which you can see on our madbreadflint youtube channel:

  http://www.youtube.com/madbreadflint

  Thanks to all who showed up for the night. We had a great time. Here's to the next album. Third one's supposed to be live, right? We'll let everyone know when we need a live crowd for the recording.

  hide this

• Vote for Dogpatch Ramblers

  by Slatron

  Members of Mad Bread are in a contest sponsored by the Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Festival. We're playing with the Dogpatch Ramblers and will need to get online votes to stay in the competition.

  To vote, or for more information, visit cbbfestival.com

  And thanks for helping us out! IF we win, we'll be playing the Congress Theater downtown in early December.

  hide this

• Tune Back In is Here

  by Slatron

  I have the CDs in. They look and sound superb. Tune Back in really turned out great. We have a couple shows coming up with Halloween at the Knot and the release party.

  Since Arielle has been playing with us, the sound has really solidified. We can add a lot more depth to the slow songs and get away with a couple more in a set. If you haven't seen us in a while, it's a whole new experience.

  hide this

• Tune Back In is On Its Way

  by Slatron

  The final CD is approved and off to the duplication company. We should have the CDs in our hands in a couple weeks, though the official release date will be the day of the party. CD copies of Tune Back in are $10 and come with a nifty Mad Bread bumper sticker. Although I recommend attending the release party for the full experience. Since Mad Bread now includes a fiddle player, that's the place to hear somefiddle on these tunes.

  hide this

• Possible Band Addition

  by Slatron

  It's preliminary, but we're in talks right now with a fiddle player. We'll keep everyone updated, but we're very excited at the prospect of adding this sound to the lineup.

  hide this

• Mad Bread Merchandise - Coming Soon

  by Slatron

  In anticipation of our summer concerts, we finally got off our asses and set up some band merchandise. We'll be getting Hats, Shirts and Stickers in for limited release right away at shows. We should have the full order available at all shows this May.

  We'll post some images soon as we get the goods in.

  hide this

• Mad Bread on Chicago Acoustic Underground

  by Mike

  Our performance on the Chicago Acoustic Underground has finally arrived!

  You can view images and hear the podcast at this link.

  Here's the CAU site.

  Thanks to Michael Teach and the entire CAU crew for letting us be a part of this Chicago tradition!

  hide this

• Tune Back In is Ready for Recording

  by Mike

  After last night's practice, we are completely ready to record the next album. So many songs came together all at once. The four of us are just in the process of coordinating our holiday schedules to see if getting the recordings in before the end of the year is possible. Stay tuned in here for all the current info.

  In even better news, Joel returned from his honeymoon ready to play with the band again. He's been MIA from rehearsals due to the wedding and the job for so long that we won't be able to get him up to speed in time to record everything, but we will have him on at least one track for Tune Back In. Even though we've done so much without him around, he continues to be a member of the band in spirit if not in body.

  As if that weren't enough, we're talking to Johnny about recording a live album this Spring. Johnny did the cd mastering for our first album and is an accomplished musician in his own right. He has a reel to reel we could use to create an all analog album in this digital age.

  See you at a show!

  hide this

• Honky Tonk Happy Hour

  by Nate

  On Friday we played a two hour show at Uncommon Ground on Devon, and it was an excellent time. The event was appropriately named the "Honky Tone Happy Hour," because the room had a genuine honky tonk feel, a lot like you'd find in a Nashville bar. People filtered in and out as we played, some were there to have a drink, others listened in while they were waiting for a dinner table, and still others were just passing through. But the room had a really warm feel, and people danced and clapped along during the time they spent with us. Thanks a lot to Uncommon Ground. Hopefully we'll get a chance to do another one of these real soon.

  hide this

• Reggie's - Sunday Show

  by Nate

  Reggie’s Music Joint – Even though it was a Sunday night, we never want to pass up an opportunity to play on one of Chicago’s finest small venues. Located in the south loop, across town from where we usually play, Reggie’s has become one of our favorite spots, and this time it certainly didn’t disappoint.

  There was a big crowd out for the pig roast the bar was throwing that night, and a busload of party-hungry folks coming directly from the White Sox game gave the whole night a second wind just about the time we were taking the stage. We wanted to keep the energy high, so we reeled off a set list packed with our more up-beat original songs, including several slated for the new album that have become real standbys recently, with a sprinkling of our more bluegrass and blues-rock covers.

  The crowd and the venue both showed their love by letting us play as long as we wanted, and we marked a milestone in our career as a band. For the first time ever, an over-enthused fan jumped up on stage with us and danced along as we played, although the bouncer eventually pulled him off.

  Thanks dancing guy! And thanks Reggie’s Music Joint!

  hide this

• Hear Mad Bread On WLUW

  by Mike

  We just got through an intense weekend of shows. It all started with a live radio performance on the Full on Fridays with DI radio show.
  
  In case you missed it, you can visit our tunes page to hear an mp3 of the show - or click here to open the audio in another window/tab.

  hide this

• Pig Roast Weekend - Bass Report

  by Mike

  Last night's show at Stanley's Kitchen & tap was the second time we played their pig roast. It was every bit as fun as the first. Perhaps even more tiring as well. I hadn't played my upright in a few weeks, and I forgot how much those strings rip through my fingers. After four sets, my hands are in need of a rest. Unfortunately, we have another pig roast to play at tonight.
  
  Reggie's has been the place to play different basses. So far, I've played my Upright and the green ibanez there (St. Patrick's Day Show). I think the viola bass is coming out tonight. Reason - it sounds best with a pick and I don't think my fingers can cut it with the upright tonight.
  
  Hopefully, we'll get some good pictures at Reggie's - I don't have many with that bass. It's a nice looking hollow-bodied hofner clone. The sound is super slinky and mellow with the flat-wounds I have on it now. I have to pick the thing to get a good punch out of it. Together, the pick attack with those strings on the hollow body add up to a cool unique sound for an electric. We'll see how it goes.

  hide this

• Mad Bread Writeup on Centerstage

  by Gavin Paul

  We got a nod for our third appearance at Reggie's. Perseverance is paying off! Here's the page.

  Mad Bread, Grace Askew, Mississippi Gabe Carter

  Channeling a little dusty folk is in every Midwesterner's genes, but Mad Bread dresses it up with a bit of Southern banjo charm that saves the group from overwrought moments of acoustic melancholy. The band rides a bluegrass/rock hybrid not too different from The Avett Brothers' quieter moments.

  (Gavin Paul)
  Sunday, August 23 at 8pm
  Venue: Reggie's Music Joint
  Tickets: $5

  hide this

• Website Struck Down

  by Mike

  The website data was wiped out while our server was transferring to a different host. We're back up and running, but it might be a while before we find enough to news about.

  hide this

• The Captain's Lament and History

  by Nate

  A lot of people have asked if “The Captain’s Lament” is supposed to be about the Civil War, so I thought I would write a little bit about how the images that appear in the song relate to its narrative. In part because of the strong perspective voice of the captain, the song at first gives the impression that it is grounded in a particular time, and a particular war. The composition and arrangement of the song, steeped in folk idioms, probably contributes to this impression in the minds of most listeners. Folk music suggests to the listener that they are about to hear a story, with more concrete elements of character, setting, and plot than in most pop music.

  Admittedly, a lot of the images and artifacts that make appearances in the song are borrowed from the Civil War era. The image of an officer on a horse in the first line is one (“I don’t want to sit astride my ivory horse in the rear any more”). The ambulance train mentioned in the first verse (“Anyone who thinks that you get used to it after a little while, hasn’t seen the ambulance train that stretches miles and miles”) is another. Probably more than any of the specific images or references, the captain’s archaic manner of speech (“I felt the pain of their mortal wounds even as they were my own”) evokes the nineteenth century.

  But if you listen closely, there are a few distinct references that make it impossible for the song to be grounded in the Civil War. In fact, these references make it impossible for one to take the song’s narrative too literally. For one thing, there is a line that mentions to Idaho (“They write letters to their folks in Illinois and Idaho”), which was an unorganized territory during the Civil War, and not part of the United States until fully three decades after it ended. Another veiled hint that the song is not fixed in the Civil War era comes in the second verse when the captain quotes Richard Nixon (“Back home the politicians speak of peace with honor in our time”). “Peace in our time with honor” are words from Nixon’s famous speech in which he defended the escalation of the war in Vietnam by claiming the mandate of the so-called “silent majority” of Americans who approved of his policy.

  I have always resisted characterizing “The Captain’s Lament” as a song “about” the Civil War, because that reading assumes that the narrative can be trapped in a specific point in time. Instead, I tried to explore some of the universal characteristics of war, and to make broader statements it, by assembling a set of artifacts that are irreducible to any specific place in time. Call it purposeful anachronism: the juxtaposition of images that share a common theme but do not fit together into a specific context.

  It was not my intention for the song to be historical. If it was, then I could easily be criticized for accidentally being unhistorical, or factually inaccurate. Instead, the song is purposefully ahistorical, outside of or unrelated to history, but evocative of its themes.

  hide this