The burry, burry good sounds of Bur.

Last April, I was catching a friend’s band play an early set at Montrose Saloon, and the second band on the bill, Bur, blew me away with their energy. Bur’s set was short and sweet, but it left me wanting more. Exactly the sort of thing every music fan hopes for! And on a weeknight in an early slot? Double score!

As far as I can tell from the limited info they have online, Bur has been active in fits and starts since at least 2016 but seem to have hit a new groove since 2022, releasing material at a more regular pace. Last year’s No Brainer EP was a turning point (to my ears), locking more into the live sound I saw from the band at Montrose that night. And the group just released another live EP, Hey Now (Live On WZRD 88.3 FM), that its almost exact mirror of the set I saw!

The band's sound is aggressively tuneful, built on chords and guitar runs that feel like the group is always experiencing them for the first time, filling their delivery with an honest spur-of-the-moment energy that I find incredibly hard to resist. Give me a band that can sound loose while still charging forward with reckless precision, and I am hooked. On their hooks! So, I guess I'm now hooked on Bur.

Keep an eye out for Bur and catch them live whenever you can. But until then, digging backwards through their catalog has provided me a fair amount of pleasure over the last few months, and if you do the same, I expect you'll have a similar experience.

Summer's here. We're all still growing. Especially me.

Funny. I used to be up in the early morning hours writing at my computer as soon as I woke up. These days I can’t seem to find that drive any more. And due to that, once I am ready to start writing I usually have a huge clog of thoughts that I don’t feel I can unravel quickly enough, with now festooned by years of detritus building up and adding complication to what were once simpler exercises.

I am trying to reconcile my newer world of trying to live in the moment, appreciate the unexpected, and delight in all the overlooked beauty in the world around me. I've always have a wide canvassing view of things and experiences, but in the years since I quit drinking, that world has grown even larger, leading me to discover countless moments of little wonder throughout my days. Sometimes it seems simpler, and other times it is unimaginably more complicated than my prior existence.

But I'm still adapting. Getting used to it. And growing.

I'm glad you're still around to grow along with me.

Fig Dish is Back!

 

Continuing the recent trend of legendary Chicago groups getting back into the action, Fig Dish has announced the release of a bunch of material that's been languishing in the Million Yen vaults, and will be playing a show in September to celebrate that "new" LP!

Read all about it at Third Coast Review!