On a Saturday night in Wrigleyville, Uncommon Ground, an upscale coffeehouse, is ready for some live music.
There’s an amp suspended from the ceiling, childlike art hanging on brick walls and a worn-out Persian rug covering the performance space.
Northwestern alumnus and Brother Sean front man Kevin McPeak, a ruddy-haired 26-year-old, steps up to perform. He’s going solo tonight: His two band mates (his brother, Sean, and Eric Pietras) won’t perform.
He launches fearlessly into his set, jamming on an acoustic guitar. His thin, gentle voice suitably accompanies the guitar and electronics, which include drum machines, looped guitars, reversed guitars, and synthesized noise.
McPeak plays a cover of Johnny Cash’s “Man Comes Around,” but focuses on songs from Just Hold Still, Brother Sean’s debut album. It’s pop with a rock flavor and interesting electronic tweaks.
But McPeak is having issues with his audio monitor, an earphone that allows him to hear when electronic elements are queued.
“That technical issue made for an interesting evening,” McPeak says later, laughing. “But when the record is so electronic, we want to embrace that live.”
The McPeak brothers recorded Just Hold Still in their respective apartments in 2003. They had been playing together since they were children, but it wasn’t until they hooked up with Pietras, a Chicago musician, that their sound became the distinctive mix that it is now.
“(The electronic sound) is there to give a percussive, rhythmic difference,” McPeak says. “Eric is about 90 percent of what makes this band unique.”
While at NU McPeak spent three years in the basement of Phi Mu Alpha, majoring in environmental engineering and making trips to Indiana every weekend to work on music with his brother.
He graduated from NU in 1999; now the brothers both live in Chicago and exchange musical ideas via the Internet as well as collaborating separately, a process McPeak says he finds successful.
“Taking lessons and working with others has been great,” McPeak says. “If you don’t, you can really get in your own little world.”
With Just Hold Still finished and a series of new songs in progress, McPeak has the typical artist’s fear — that his wealth of ideas will one day dry up.
“For me, when you run out of ideas, you have to put the instrument down,” McPeak says, brushing back his hair. “It’s scary.”
He’s come a long way from performing at The Keg and Suitcase Party during his college years, but McPeak says he still feels the sting of audience rejection.
“Sometimes I have difficulty in removing myself from (what they think),” he says. “If you love the music, though, you have to play.”
