Bill Tucker: Mythological Creatures.... hear it

Sleepy Tuesday mp3 Bill Tucker, Mythological Creatures….. buy it!

No One Is Illegal mp3 Bill Tucker, Mythological Creatures And, I’m gonna include this 11:48 min. piece because I love it, and because it’s got everything in it that I’m talking about in this review. So, if you’ve got the patience (and I highly recommend you muster up some) please sit through the whole thing. This just turns me on, and maybe that will tell you something about me, for good or bad! But it will tell you a whole lot about the talent and passion of Bill Tucker.

by Rachael Mchan

Bill Tucker is a troubadour, and you don’t often hear one of those these days. I met Bill in an art gallery last summer. And the minute he and I got to talking, I knew that when he would pick up his guitar later that evening, he would sound exactly like he talked: fast, and urgently expressive. We chatted about music and politics and how to fight the apathy that comes with volunteerism burnout. Bill and I had done some of the same things, been to the same type of rallies, worked on some of the same kind of causes. We also knew some of the same bands and his face lit up like mine does when I talked about why I love to write this blog and how music connects people in the same way that politics on a grass roots level can. Why am I telling you all this instead of how interesting and cool Mythological Creatures is? Darlings, there’s always a rhyme to my reason, now isn’t there?

Mythological Creatures has an uncanny ability to call to mind such varied sources as the labor folk songs of Billy Bragg and Arlo Guthrie, the great story telling of singer/songwriters in the late 70s like Neil Young and Lou Reed, the instrumentation of newer folk sounds that I’m hearing out of Edinburgh and other parts of the UK from Mumford & Sons and eagleowl, and most unexpectedly, noise and ambient sounds such as those I fell in love with from Jasmine Dreame Walker’s work on Cabinet of Natural Curiosities‘ Searchlight Needles. Could you make sense of all those sources just now? It is hard to squeeze them together, isn’t it? Well Bill Tucker manages it. In 14 tracks he doles out some prescient political messages, and yet also grasps just how interconnected each of us are with what’s going on in the world and with the real people in it. With tunes that are both catchy and crafted to recall a great musical legacy of protest and political empowerment, Mythological Creatures is also a really fun record – don’t worry!

The sounds on this are weird and wonderful. His guitar predominates, joined by scratchy recordings of I don’t know what, and then by beautiful string arrangements. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on how Mythological Creatures is going to be, the next track is a hilarious discussion of Febreeze by a roomful of people, simply labeled “Rochester, NY.” “Somewhere in Pennsylvania” opens the record with Bill playing guitar over filmmaker, Allen Keating Moore talking about stereotypes. This is something Bill thinks about, how to overcome the differences in folks and find a way to relate to everyone. Scattered throughout this album are songs that explain just how he does that. But track ten, “Red Leaves,” stops you in your tracks (pun intended); it’s just a gorgeous instrumental piece, calm and daydreamy and I can understand how this is where Bill sees we need a breather from the angst and the reality of the world. What follows are some more experimental, noise/sound and some traditional songs and finally, the last track, “Rockford, Illinois” a piece with wind chimes/heartbeats/birds/wind/water (altogether) that ends the record in a beautifully peaceful manner. Bill Tucker is all these things, no… you can’t leave one bit of it out. He plays here in Chicago, and other Midwestern cities,  more than a few times a year, and a hundred or so people come out to hear him. His record release show last week went really well; he sold quite a few (of course, he could stand to sell some more.) This concoction of politics, and noise/sound, and music, and narrative, is alive and thriving here.  And Mythological Creatures encapsulates these seemingly disparate bits into a charmingly disturbing record that causes you to question some things you maybe don’t want to question, and find answers maybe you don’t like hearing, and take a breath when you need to. I love it. Some of you will too. xoxo

Chicago, come hear Bill play for free this Saturday at The Kahawa House w/The Bliss and Katie Dahl, 838 W Montrose. 4:00 pm