By Matt Harness
My first memories of listening to Scotland Yard Gospel Choir are fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure I was at Subterranean a few years back for another band when these lads and lassies opened the doors to their world. With guitars, trumpets and violins, the orchestral sound was as soothing as it was shirt-shaking.
Elia Einhorn, who co-founded the band in 2001 with another college music major, took some time between mastering SYGC’s latest effort (due out in the fall and tentatively called . . . And The Horse You Rode In On to let Beachwood Music peel back the curtains.
Beachwood Music: This is your second album (third overall) with Bloodshot Records. How did you get hooked up with the Chicago label?
Elia Einhorn: I had a side project going, a country/folk band that included Edith Frost, Tim Lawson from the Drovers, Jason Labrosse from the Thin Man and Ted Cho from Poi Dog Pondering. We only ever played one show, but I wanted to go into the studio and cut a record with them. I e-mailed Bloodshot about the project, and I was surprised when (label co-founder) Nan Warshaw replied that she’s heard great things about us and that she wanted to hear my band’s newly finished and then still unreleased record. I guess they liked it.
Beachwood Music: When did you go into the studio? Any difference between recording this and the other two?
Ella Einhorn: This next record will be our third. We recorded the first for free on a music engineering course at DePaul University. The second (we recorded at) Clava Studio (on Chicago’s South Side) and two home studios. This is the first record that we’ve recorded 100 percent in an amazing pro studio.
We holed up at Studio Chicago on the North Side, jamming the studio with string quartets, horn players, a guitar player brought in just to make noise and so many others. The mixing board is Prince’s old one. He recorded Purple Rain on it.
Beachwood Music: What is the concept behind this album? Trying anything new?
Elia Einhorn: The orchestration is bigger than ever on a few songs, but the record’s much more punk than before. It’s the sound of relationships ending and there’s nothing but black humor and rock and roll to save you.
Beachwood Music: What was your most recent tour like? Besides Chicago, of course, where was your favorite stop? Best venue you played?
Elia Einhorn: Our last tour had some amazing highlights. Playing a show at NYC’s The Knitting Factory with Tommy Ramone was certainly one, as was playing live at Cincinnati’s WOXY and Seattle’s KEXP, two of the best and most influential radio stations in America. Our KEXP session ended up on their year-end compilation, our song sandwiched between tracks from Vampire Weekend and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.
My favorite show was in Seattle. It was packed to the gills and the kids knew the songs. And I’d never even been to Seattle.
Beachwood Music: What music was the band listening to on the road?
Elia Einhorn: Ethan Adelsman, our violinist, plays only Radiohead and Weezer. I play as much Jam as they can stomach and then switch to James or the Libertines. Or Pulp.
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SYGC will play Saturday at Plumbers’ Hall (1340 West Washington), home of the Chicago Independent Radio Project, as part of National Record Store Day. It might go a little bit like this:
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Matt Harness brings you Bloodshot Briefing every Thursday. He welcomes your comments.
Posted on April 16, 2009