Chicago Songwriters

The new Sundowner record, We Chase the Waves, comes out August 10th on Asian Man Records. Coincidentally, Asian Man is also choosing that day to release Matt Skiba’s compilation of demos, all of which he recorded throughout 2009. That record will be titled, creatively, Demos. We Chase the Waves will be the followup to Four One Five Two, which came out in 2007 on Red Scare, while Demos will mark the first appearance of Skiba’s solo material since a split EP in 2002.

I have high hopes for both of these records. Chris McCaughan played an untitled song about a year ago in California, the video of which is, of course, on Youtube. It’s absolutely fantastic, bound to be one of my all-time favorites, so I’m counting on that to appear on We Chase the Waves (or at least on a future Lawrence Arms record, but for now that’s a distant fantasy). And maybe Skiba’s demos will include unreleased acoustic versions, or something of that nature, of songs from This Addiction.

Alkaline Trio has never let me down, so Demos should be no exception. Plus, it’s coming out on Asian Man Records, which, along with This Addiction having been recorded by Matt Allison, makes it seem as though the band is jumping back through time, in a sense. That’s not to say that their music has become stagnant or anything, but it’s certainly nice to see a band that has such a strong reverence for its origins and for the people who set their career in motion. “Return to roots” is often a pretty contrived phrase, and I use it sparingly if not at all, but the trio does it justice in an honest manner.

If Demos contains acoustic versions of songs from This Addiction, and I expect it will, then I’m curious to hear the songs’ progressions. Apparently, the production is minimal, as most of the recordings were created in Matt’s living room, while drunk, or something like that. Coming across additional details is not easy, but that’s unsurprising considering that Matt said in a recent interview: “I want Demos to be kind of a small record. I want it to come out kind of quietly and be something that people will kind of have to seek out.”

Perhaps this is the reason that the record, which has been finished for quite some time now, was delayed until August. If you ask me, pushing it so far back makes absolutely no sense, especially since This Addiction came out in February. Then again, I guess that I’m a traditionalist. I realize that typically, a (predominantly major) label will space apart albums to maximize the exposure of each. DGC/Interscope, for instance, could have easily released the new Blaqk Audio record, but first they’re making sure that they can generate every ounce of hype out of AFI’s Crash Love. Greed sometimes dictates album releases, but since Mike Park of Asian Man could obviously never have such motivations (the label is run out of a garage, after all), then I’m a bit confused as to why it’s taking so long.

Regardless, now that there’s a solid release date, the release itself seems much more tangible now. And to think that my future Asian Man package will also contain the new Sundowner... that makes the prospect even more exciting.