This show will take place at the Athenaeum Theatre (2936 N. Southport).

It’s considered lazy journalism, or just plain old cliché, to say that an artist’s work gives you “the chills.” Or to describe how saltwater wells up in your jaded Internet-era eyes as you listen. But in the case of Laura Marling’s ambitious new LP Once I Was an Eagle, these things really do tend to happen. After seven years of playing music professionally, three albums, one BRIT Award (UK Grammy equivalent), two Mercury Prize nods, and one move across an ocean and a continent, the precocious and preternaturally talented British singer-songwriter has attained what sounds undeniably like vocal, emotional, and artistic maturity. It’s a record for the ages. Released at the age of 23.

Eagle is a concept album, sort of. It follows a thread of mythology, lyrically and metaphorically. An eagle and a dove, the devil, and the sea populate her cast of across he States. The loose narrative is this: A character, or perhaps alter ego, Rosie, journeys from heartbreak to defiant temptress to vulnerable lover to confident, contemplative woman. Through it all, a bird flies in and out of Rosie’s consciousness, attempting to show her the way as she grapples with her place in the world.

The songwriting process, to Marling, is less about musical conceits than about weighty life questions. “I was focusing a lot on the frustrations and the walls I was coming up against, whether I consider myself an artist,” she says. “Being an artist doesn’t necessarily mean you are aggrandizing yourself. It’s just taking what you’ve seen and what you’ve learned and translating the experience for other people to see and learn from.” The dance between independence and codependence, and issues of modern morality, were on her mind too. “I really wanted to question, in retrospect, the conventions of what it is to be alone or what it is to be in love or what it means to be a good living human person,” she says. “How do you continue to improve yourself as a human being if all you’re focusing on is not being alone?”

Appropriately enough, Marling has just decamped from East London to lush, hilly Silverlake, in Los Angeles, having fallen in love with the western U.S. on her tour. It’s that facing-the-fear thing again. She’s availing herself of the natural wonders of the West Coast—Big Sur, Joshua Tree, Sequoia National Park. Marling likes to tell a story about meeting a shaman in Oregon who directed her to the headwaters of Mount Shasta, where the water is said to have magical powers. She drove out in the pitch black, alone, and wandered into the stream, which she could sense only by its icy touch. Scared senseless, she collected a bottle full of water, and drank it. It tasted as pure and delicious as was promised, “like what regular water would taste like if you were on mushrooms, but I wasn’t, “ she says. “It’s the collection of these vulnerable experiences that allows you to have a different perspective.”

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Born as a basement recording project in the year 2000, Saturday Looks Good To Me brought together the jubilant fun of Motown and Northern soul with a decidedly indie approach. Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Fred Thomas poured generations of influences ranging from as widely as the Beach Boys to Guided by Voices into dusty pocket symphonies recorded on four track cassettes. Enlisting friends from a community of musicians for one-time recording sessions was easy enough, but soon the band started performing live, and the membership became a little harder to pin down. Rather than commit to one given lineup, Thomas opted for a revolving door style with the live group, and players and vocalists often changed from tour to tour. This made for dramatic changes in sound, too. It wasn't uncommon for Saturday to show up in a town for the first time as a gentle chamber pop ensemble and come back a year later doing the same songs in a garage rock style with all new band members. This constant shifting and experimentation was reflected in the groups' records as well. Between 2002 and 2007 the group released four proper albums and mountains of 7"s, compilations, tour only releases and the like, ranging in tone from the lo-fi sunshine pop of 2003's critically lauded All Your Summer Songs to the cathartic atmospheric howling of 2007's Fill Up The Room. The band also toured constantly during this time, playing several European tours and traversing the US more times than could be counted. Despite the frequent line-up changes, Thomas was joined on most of these tours by key players in the band-family, including keyboardist Scott Sellwood, vocalist Betty Marie Barnes and drummer Ryan Howard. The group ended a summer tour in May of 2008 with a show in London and promptly vanished into a vague hiatus. The extended SLGTM family worked feverishly on various new projects including Sellwood's rugged Americana folk band Drunken Barn Dance and Thomas and Howard's spectral indie duo City Center. In early 2012, just as out of nowhere as the band's dissappearance, we're happy to announce their return. Joined by new vocalist Carol Gray, Thomas and a stable of familiar friends return for a summer tour playing material from the band's beginnings to songs written last week. A new album will follow in the fall and the almost crushing amount of beautiful possibilities in the world come into focus once again.

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Andrew Belle is a new artist on the pop singer/songwriter scene. Residing in both Chicago and Nashville, he is currently a member of the critically acclaimed national tour Ten Out Of Tenn. Andrew released his debut EP All Those Pretty Lights in 2008, containing songs featured in hit TV shows including “90210? and “The Real World.” His song “I’ll Be Your Breeze” garnered nationwide airplay including Los Angeles tastemaker station KCRW. Andrew recently was named “Best Breakout Artist, Chicago” by MTV. His music and vocal stylings draw comparisons to Coldplay, The Fray, and John Mayer. Fans and critics often refer to his songs as “smart pop” – nuanced melodies and contemplative lyrics coupled with bold, infectious hooks. Look out for his debut full-length album The Ladder, released in February 2010.

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Andrew Belle is a new artist on the pop singer/songwriter scene. Residing in both Chicago and Nashville, he is currently a member of the critically acclaimed national tour Ten Out Of Tenn. Andrew released his debut EP All Those Pretty Lights in 2008, containing songs featured in hit TV shows including “90210? and “The Real World.” His song “I’ll Be Your Breeze” garnered nationwide airplay including Los Angeles tastemaker station KCRW. Andrew recently was named “Best Breakout Artist, Chicago” by MTV. His music and vocal stylings draw comparisons to Coldplay, The Fray, and John Mayer. Fans and critics often refer to his songs as “smart pop” – nuanced melodies and contemplative lyrics coupled with bold, infectious hooks. Look out for his debut full-length album The Ladder, released in February 2010.

“Since I was a child, I’ve always been around music; taught to appreciate the art form but only at a reasonable distance. My parents never let me listen to the radio or any kind of secular music until I was well into High-school. Before that, in Junior high, I recall making mix tapes from local radio stations during the day, and then lying in bed at night listening to all the pop hits of that time through a small, plastic walkman that I had received a few Christmases earlier. Third Eye Blind, the Counting Crows, the Verve Pipe… these were the artists that first welcomed me into the world of meaningful pop-music. The first album that I ever bought for myself was the Counting Crow’s ‘August and Everything After’ when I was a Sophomore in High-school. It had already been out for several years at that point, but I can still remember sneaking it up to my room and listening to it very softly out of the dusty sony boombox in my bedroom; pouring over every melody and marveling over the lyrical genious in Adam Duritz; thinking, ‘maybe I can do this someday?’. Not that I think of myself now as important to music as Adam Duritz or the Counting Crows have been, nor do I even dare to compare myself to such talent, but thinking back on my earliest experiences with music, there is no doubt that those quiet moments spent alone in my bedroom shaped my desires and passions and gave me the hope to make my small mark on this world, one song at a time.”
-Andrew Belle

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