[Let's Just Call It 'Smell Ya Later'.]

Hey. Yeah. I know. Let’s move on.

After what seems like a blissful eternity, our own Shaylah Kloska, friend to man and animal, has decided to step down from her post as Chaperone’s most talented and well-loved member.

It’s with a heavy, yet happy heart that we tell her here, in the public forum of the internet, that we love her with the entirety of our being. From heel to head. Stem to stern. Root Chakra to whatever the topmost Chakra is. Shaylah, you’ve been an inspiration and we are going to miss you desperately.

Please join all of us in saying ‘so long, farewell, etc…’ to Shaylah (and the current incarnation of Chaperone) at The Beat Kitchen on January 28th, which is also, coincidentally, Shaylah’s birthday. Presents are encouraged. As is cake.

Tickets are available at The Beat Kitchen’s website, and all of your friends are invited. Even the one with the eyepatch.

This is going to be one for the books.

[Superheroes for life, until our shows vanish.]

We need you here tomorrow.  Miles will be daytime drunk and will need someone to play his bass ala “A Farewell To Arms” (the improv game, not the overrated novel).

[There ain't enough raised right men.]

“You see, I’m just waiting for Glee to do ‘The Tom Waits’ show, cause then I think you’ll see this guy’s true colors.  They’re primed for it.”

JIM DEROGATIS IS A FUCKING IDIOT.

[We Row and we row and we row and we tire.]

It’s hard work.  It’s time and heart and cash and moments of brief, fleeting beauty.  It’s connection.  It’s unspeakable bonds.  It’s wonderment even in the worse times.  It’s compulsion.  It’s bruises and blisters and black-eyes and the same songs 1000 times over.  It’s more and less than you imagine it being.

We are so thankful to you.  We are thankful beyond words.  People say that they’re driven to do it.  That it’s a part of them that grows beneath the ribs, until it’s pressing against them so hard they fear they’ll burst.  They need to let it out.  It’s the way ‘I love you’ sits like cotton in your mouth when you’re lying next to someone warm and thrilling and familiar.  Something safe and risky all at once.  And you say it.  Lay it at the alter.  But, without a lover’s ear, or heart, or hands, it wouldn’t mean anything.  ‘I love you’ would be motionless.  It’s like that with us.  We are driven and alive with direction.  But we are dependent.

So, thank you.  For following us.  For reflecting our songs back to us.  For stirring within us.  And, on our best nights, for letting us stir within you.  We’ll, hopefully, be given a chance to see you all in person this Saturday, when we do, the smile in our eyes are for you.  Are for us.

Until then, vigilance.

[In Which Love Will Keep Us Together.]

The autumn is upon us, which means it’s time to pull on your sweaters, turn your iPods to Yo La Tengo, and join Chaperone at the Double Door on September 17th.

That’s right, on Saturday, we will be playing with noted (yet not convicted) ladykillers Archie Powell and the Exports, as well as the dazzling Singing in the Avery, and the exemplary Bright Light Social Hour.  The show starts at eight, and may be your last chance to catch Archie and the Gang for a while.  So, put on a sensible scarf and join us at the Double Door.

Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=260403560655168

We will see you there, or we will never, ever speak to you again,
-Chaperone

[We're all in this together.]

Well, hello there, gorgeous.  It’s been a long time.  A long, long time.  A long, long, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.   But, it’s a pleasure to be in your presence again.

What’s happened while we’ve been apart?  My goodness, let me tell you:

• Miles’ life turned, briefly, into a Lifetime movie (fortunately, not The Pregnancy Pact.  Something closer to Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life)
• Beyonce and Jay-Z announced the conception of their child.  Kanye West got adorably excited about it.
• Chaperone sniffed an awful lot of rubber cement preparing these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4OEX2mzAAE&feature=player_embedded

Now, if I may, I’d like to share a little bit of information about that last bullet.  We, in Chaperone, have created 500 (or, you know, 150) individually designed and assembled record sleeves for your visceral enjoyment.  Each one is imbued with the powers of those who made it.

Here’s a rundown of the various powers you may be receiving:

Shaun Paul: Tallness, Mustache Growing, Creepy Beard, Immunity to Dairy, Southern Accent When Mad/Sleepy, Surfer Hair, The Chords of D, C, and G, Uncontrollable Urge to Say the Word Dong, Ghost Adventure-itis,

Mark Sheridan: Unstoppable Editing, Atari Shirt, Multi-instrumentalism, vivid music-related dreaming, cascading waterfall hair, gonzo comedy, invitation to the New York Film Festival, embarrassing high-school photos.

Shaylah Kloska: Adorability +3, Vocational Awesomeness, Lyrical Proficiency, Early to Bed-itude, Part-Time Glutonlessness, Wolf’s Blood, Knife Skills, Landing The Man of Your Dreams, Mighty Collageing, Drunken Domesticity, Cold-Blooded Murderer Syndrome

Christian Rogala: Bad-ass haircut, Cuban Grooves, Spot-On Tom Waits Impression, Hug Magnet, Way With Kids, Omni-instrumentalism, Young at Heart, Allergy to BBQ Chips, Classical Training, Sunny Disposition, American Spirit

Miles Doornbos: Crushing Debt, Romance and Ruin, Obscene Bakery, Nude Apron Wearing, Long Torso Oh NO!, Hip-Hop Hands, Spreading Yourself too Thinerism, Nimble Fingers, Wide Nails, Nerditude, Ghost Adventure-itis, Self Made Hair.

Enjoy all these and more by purchasing our 7″ single at Logan Square Auditorium on Friday, Sept. 2nd: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=249743858372057

Until later,

-Chaperone

[In which we realize that God may, in fact, be a circle pit.]

Let’s not kid ourselves here, there are questions about my commitment to this blog.  It seems to many that if R. Kelly stopped releasing songs and artists I respected stopped dying, this blog wouldn’t be updated at all.  Truth.

That said, here are some tidbits:

• Chaperone will be assaulting your ear drums at Wicker Park Fest [July 24th, 2:45PM].  We’ll be sharing the stage with a myriad of amazing bands, including our friends Ha Ha Tonka and our future lovers Wild Flag.  Quoting Sleater-Kinney and Portlandia is an accepted method of seduction, correct?
• Chaperone will also be partaking in a Milwaukee Avenue Arts Fest After Party [or, as the kids call it, an MAAFAP (and then they all laugh, cause *fap* is internet slang for masturbating.  Oh, 4Chan, you truly are the Lenny Bruce of the internet generation)].  Catch us at Cole’s on July 29th.
• Chaperone will then be releasing a 7″ single entitled “Raised by Wolves” on 8/2.  Pitchfork made mention of this.  We’re right below Boston Spaceships’ “Let it Beard”.  If you have any money left after purchasing that gem [or the Arcade Fire DVD, Okkervil River single, Moonface album, etc...], please consider purchasing our record as well.  We promise that it will be, at the very least, useful for killing a (few) zombie(s).
• 1/5th of Chaperone watched fireworks from the beach rather than Fucked Up at Lincoln Hall.  It was worth it.  Next time, however, he’ll be inviting the members of Fucked Up to perform at the beach while fireworks are going off.  Valentine’s Day is looking mighty fine this year.

That is, I think, all.  If you have any questions/complaints/concerns/quality control issues, please don’t hesitate to have R. Kelly write a song about it, I’m sure I’ll respond quickly.

You have my heart and my hands,

-Miles

[In Which We Wonder About the Worth of a Man.]

Gil Scott-Heron, known alternately as the Grandfather of Hip-hop and that guy that Kanye sampled on “Who Will Survive in America”, has passed away today.  He was too young, just shy of 63.

Scott-Heron was an exceptional artist.  Uncompromising and compassionate.  Full of fire and alive with a heart that beat anger and mercy and intelligence.  His words could embrace and lacerate in equal measure, and his voice met and matched them in gravitas and fury.

I’m not sure what I feel today.  Gratitude for a literary and musical giant.  Sadness that his life and work was cut so short.  Scott-Heron was, to me, the heir apparent to the legacy of Langston Hughes, in both a literal and worldly sense, and in my own creative growth.

I cannot express my appreciation for the often troubled road he walked down and bravely illuminated.  Regardless of how he died, what is most important is the life that he lived and the words he’s left.

[They sent a limousine from heaven to take him to god, if there is one.]

[Come See The Band Alternately Described as "Fun!" and "Chaperone!"]

As I sit here in my bedroom (or, as it’s more commonly known, my apartment), watching M*A*S*H on mute while listening to Destroyer records, I’m struck by the fact that, in this world, few things are guaranteed.  The sun rises and sets, the tides wax and wane, Alan Alda is perpetually handsome, my cats vomit on dry-clean only clothes; but, short of that, we are promised very little.  We, here in Chaperone, are aiming to change that.

We’d like to promise you a good time (not necessarily in a sexy way).

At every show, through every song, with every broken string and missed cue, we’d like to make sure that you feel the same degree of joy that we do, the self-same extraordinary amount.

Come put our promise to the test at one of the eighteen-thousand shows we’re playing this April, the first of which is taking place at The Beat Kitchen on April 9th with blackgrass superheroes O’Death.

Be there so we can shower you with affection and admiration.

Thou art our joy,

-Chaperone

[Would be an awesome name for a ST:tOS Episode.]

First: Yonkers.  Which is not exactly safe for work.

Oh, really, you produced the beats, directed the video and can do a badass kickflip?  OFWGKTA are too young to be this talented.  Tyler, The Creator is right, he is a unicorn, he is a table, he can be anything that he wants to be.

Yes, admittedly, I could take the time to write about the more off-putting elements of the Odd Future oeuvre, but, truth is, more talented and insightful writers than I have already tackled the subject at length.

What interests me about the last piece (other than the writer’s contention that MF DOOM may not be incredible) is that, near it’s conclusion, the writer suggests that Odd Future needs to “grow up”.  This is, for me, one of the most fascinating things about the collective, that they are both mature beyond their years and absolutely indicative of what it’s like to be barreling out of adolescence, confused, talented beyond your years and not quite formed.

[Also, lastly, can we please all call a moratorium on the word 'hipster', regardless of its connotations?]