A story in Thursday’s PLAY gave the wrong date for the Niteskool show. The show will be held Sunday.
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For Eric Tal, rock concerts are about being in the moment. They’re about state trooper costumes and howling about whales. They’re about bleeding on a guitar because he’s playing so hard he’s lost his senses.
“It’s more about performing than the music, to be honest,” says Tal, guitarist of Citizens on Patrol and a Communication senior.
Northwestern students will have the opportunity to experience COP’s high-octane live performance, as well as that of Chicago-based band Chin Up Chin Up, this weekend. Both bands will play Sunday in the Niteskool Productions Spring Kickoff Concert at Norris University Center’s McCormick Auditorium at 5 p.m., with tickets available at the door. The Appleseed Cast also will perform.
Adding to the allure of COP’s live show will be an unlikely replacement on bass. Will Butler, the band’s regular bassist and a Weinberg senior, will be absent due to a recording session in Montreal with The Arcade Fire.
So COP made friends with 12-year-old Rob Smierciak, who was on the set of the music video they filmed last weekend. The band asked Smierciak to play bass, and he said, “Hell, yes.” But before being able to play with him, COP needed special permission.
“His mom said it was OK,” Tal says.
In just 15 minutes, Smierciak was able to pick up four songs of the band’s seven-song set. Tal says this episode reflects the spirit of COP.
“Everything’s at the last minute for this band,” Tal says.
In fact, the band itself formed on a whim. The group of friends used to go bowling every Sunday until the bowling alley closed down. To keep with the Sunday tradition, COP, then known as Sandpiper Air, started practicing every week.
“Instead of hanging out and going to a bar, we get to perform and be productive with our time,” Tal says.
And productive they are. Two of the band’s members are in medical school, two are undergraduates at NU and Jenn Frank, the band’s lead singer, works as an actress.
“We just do many things with our time,” Tal says. “That’s how we operate.”
The band members’ other activities include poetry, film, performance studies, comic strips, the dulcimer, dancing and playing in other bands. It is this diversity of personalities that combine to form a volatile stage atmosphere. They keep watch on one another, never knowing what trick someone will pull next.
“Usually one of us gets hurt,” Tal says. “We fall on the ground, drumsticks go flying. It’s both insane and awesome.”
To get themselves into such a playful mood, COP’s band members wear costumes at every show, dressing as a state trooper (Butler), a NARC (keyboardist Adam Yanke), a vixen cop (Frank), a detective (drummer Alex Thomas) and a fugitive (Tal). For Sunday’s show, Smierciak will dress as a prison inmate.
“We walk the line of the absurd,” Tal says. “The audience will be like, ‘What the hell is going on?'”
Perhaps the audience will understand things a little clearer when professional band Chin Up Chin Up takes the stage. The band’s bassist, Chris Saathoff, was hit by a drunk driver and died last summer after a recording session for the band’s most recent release, “We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers.”
“It’s always in the back of our minds,” says Jeremy Bolen, the band’s singer/songwriter. “Everything in life affects the mood of our music.”
But as the band’s name suggests, they try to maintain an optimistic attitude.
“The whole idea of the band has been to be positive through things,” Bolen says. “It’s about persevering through tragedy. It’s always kind of been that way, but it’s just a bigger tragedy now.”
But the Chicago-based indie band would rather be remembered for their uniquely orchestrated art-pop than for their tragedy, Bolen says. Their style is a result of a collaborative process.
“We’ve always wanted to operate as a collective rather than have any one person take the lead,” Bolen says. “I don’t think it’s about the individual person. It’s about the band. We try to throw our egos out as much as possible.”
Chin Up Chin Up carefully layers keyboard and guitar effects, sometimes disguising their strange lyrics. To get a sense of this quirkiness, one need only see the song title “Why is my sleeping bag a ghetto muppet?”
Bolen, who says he tries to make his lyrics both sincere and sarcastic, understands that others might not walk away with his intended message.
“The lyrics are probably easier for me to understand than for other people,” he says.
One of Bolen’s friends, who apparently does understand Chin Up Chin Up’s lyrics, described them as “walking home on a really nice spring day after your girlfriend broke up with you.”
Chin Up Chin Up’s hopeful songs are a way the band remembers its deceased bassist.
“Keeping the band going and playing shows is a tribute to him,” Bolen says.
Music sophomore Rebecca Huval is a PLAY writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
