My brother KSM is the unofficial Mayor of the third floor (my brother has an artist studio there) of the Flatiron building in Wicker Park. The Flatiron is where an odd assortment of artists live, work and hang out, carrying on a hard-edged bohemian existence in this little island in the heart of a now very "gentrified" neighborhood. Maybe that John Cusak movie had something to do with the crazy, explosive growth and the strange wanna be coolness factor?
Anyway, the last two years there's been a whole nother thing going on, it kind of sprouted out of the "rock opera" I was working on for my theater company. The rock opera spawned a bunch of songs and the Lovely Carla, Pat MCD of the Telepaths and I would go to the Flatiron at my brother's invitation and play in the third floor hallway, just kind of working out our sound. We would do this every once in awhile on the first Friday of the month. Over time we started to build a little fan base, mainly artists and other hangers on, looking for illicit substances, the free booze and pizza that floated around. It's a very cool scene and we've had some of our best gigs in the hallway, the building is so resonant it's almost like you you're not playing an instrument, you're playing the building.
Well, at one of the sessions I encouraged my brother to join in on harmonica. He hadn't played for many years, but the first time playing together really sparked something inside him, and now he's playing and singing, and well, he ended up starting his own band with some players that were drawn to the scene. They're called the Banana Street Band, and they have a really cool sound, a melding of my brother's blues sensibility (his favorite musician is Leadbelly) along with Yako's exquisite Polish Gypsy guitar playing, topped off by guy named Jeff who provides a steady, mecurial beat on a pair of big bongo type drums. Anyway it a really unique sound and they are wild and combustible and you can hear them on Thursday nights jamming and rehearsing.
My brother has a little digital recorder and over the last year he recorded a number of performers who stumbled through the hallways and laid down some tracks. Last night was the CD release party, (the cover image is one of my brother's paintings) and it was a real joyous night. WWSP played first with Pat MCD as our special guest, and we were in fine form. Then I just sat back and watched the carnival. It was marvelous! The disc is great too. Only a limited run. I'm sure it will be a collector's item. And my brother, well, he's the Mayor and last night everyone in his little domain was happy with the world and the world can sometimes be a place where you play and sing and watch others play and sing and there ain't no bullshit, no competition, just a mosaic or rainbow of vibration and it's a beautiful thing.