bookies new and used books is a supporter of wxav 88.3 fm and wxav.com located at 10324 southwestern avenue in chicago bookies offers a selection of new and used books with orders available for books not currently in stock for more information visit their website at bookiesbookstores.com this is a wxav 773 sounds podcast introducing you to the best local bands in the chicagoland area and we're back here on 773 sounds i'm your host peter craton and i'm really excited for this next band that we're gonna sit down and talk to they're a local folk and bluegrass band from the north side of chicago that on their website they have this great description for their sound for their band and it's this in the heart of chicago there's a band playing the songs of summer all year round and like their namesake this little band makes a big sound inspired by bluegrass irish folk and other folk music traditions cicada summer brews up a warm acoustic blend of tunes spiced with just a pinch of city flair and with that joining me now is cicada summer hi how's everyone doing can we kind of go around introduction sure hi here uh my name is mark kamata and i play violin in cicada summer awesome i'm caroline sinikowski i sing and play the tin whistle in cicada summer hey my name is alec i play nandalin and banjo and mostly guitar in cicada and i'm dada ryan i play nandalin and guitar welcome guys this is so exciting i think we got to go back to the beginning um and just kind of how did cicada summer start how did you guys come together sure peter uh alec and i were both music guys students at de paul uh we were one year apart so outside of a few classes together uh that was sort of the only contacts we saw each other and it wasn't until we were in grad school a few years later that we sort of locked eyes on day one orientation and through facebook we were i was aware that alec was dabbling in strings and learning mandolin and guitar uh he knew i played violin and we both had a mutual love of them nickel creek and chris lealy so over lunch alec pulled me aside and asked if we could try to go through a couple nickel creek tunes and that became a regular thing little lunchtime jam sessions after a couple weeks of that he folded in his then girlfriend at the time who was caroline and three of us for for a couple years then it was just the three of us all playing together and um alec i'll let you talk about how david came into the mix yeah yeah and i want to add to that too marcus caroline was my then girlfriend and she's my now wife that's worth mentioning and then the other thing that's so funny about that marcus you and i would gender our lunches in grad school it was an intensive program and we literally had 20 minutes to eat lunch and play some tunes and uh one of the photographers from the school snuck out into the park where we were playing during our lunch and to this day there's a picture of mark and alec on the vandercook.edu website come vandercook this could be you playing your 20 minutes i really hope that you guys are getting some royalties then from that photo i'm sure you were not yeah we're really in the red from that transaction uh but then david uh you know ever since david came we really just bonded together not only as musicians but as his friends and uh it also we all like to play a lot of irish traditional sessions which i guess you could kind of call them a pickup group even though it's really not a jam session you'll come together usually at like an irish pub and you'll kind of fit into the form of traditional irish music well one of these down in lincoln park at the gallway arms which is one of our usual haunts there's this guy kind of with a haircut similar to mine playing a mandolin that sure was a lot similar to mine and was even signed in the exact same place by the one and only chris theely and basically looking across the circle i think really got a chance to talk with david but the music kind of did a lot of talking and needless to say we hit it off very quickly it's like you love the same music that i do let's make some of that music that we love and that was eight years ago yeah that's amazing and i love the whole connection with nickel creek and everything because i'm such a fan of punch brothers and all his like solo works and everything but i find it interesting because you don't like find a lot of people out in the wild where it's like you know folk and americana like that's my jam so has everyone here always been fans of folk like how did you kind of discover it yeah i mean i'm sure all our stories are a little different for me that was i kind of just grew up in the environment where my dad was just constantly playing music and i grew up playing classical music played piano and trumpet but he always had like the chiefman's van morrison and paul's i'm like all sorts of folky things playing and i think in hindsight really got in there more than i maybe thought in the moment um and then coming to chicago and kind of connecting with alec and the folk music scene just it really just felt very natural for me um yeah i know david you've had such a folk upbringing yeah i was really fortunate that the public school i went to um had an alternative string program as part of their education so it wasn't just suzuki violin classical music um i was intent on playing the saxophone and then in my fifth grade open house my orchestra teacher and his two daughters were in the hallway playing fiddle tunes and i just thought it was so energetic and fun to hear and the way they were interacting and smiling with each other um just really kind of captured my interest and um he bob phillis's name he built a whole string program around um teaching kids to learn by ear through folk music oh wow so i grew up kind of in a in a public school string program that incorporated folk music into the curriculum um and then toured with a high school ensemble imagine like a travel soccer team with cowboy hats um and then played a lot of bluegrass and some you know irish and pelvic music uh and got a lot of great experience out of that so i'm a product of public music education and you know will always uh champion the importance of music in school and and how i can create lifelong love of music and the desire to create it yeah i was just gonna say i mean you're the prime example of why we need to fund music and the arts in public school education and peter i should say david's being very humble like the group was called the fiddlers and it's toured all around the country they played at the white house oh wow this was this was a serious group that david was part of it's why you know we've gone on 20 years of playing mandolin and uh both music it's really great to have david on our team i'll tell you what yeah i can believe it now um a few years ago back in uh 2022 you guys released a really wonderful album called heartland and it's this great balance of like the modern folk sound of like you know stealing the punch brothers um you know i'm with her but then you have very traditional bluegrass sounds to it as well too can you kind of share like your approach of like how do you approach writing a song like do you go kind of melody do you kind of just let your fingers find out where you're going to go like how do you approach writing a song for me i think we all have a different process but i start with like the story that i want to tell um and most of my songs especially we have our you know recording new songs for a second album and they're all kind of based on life experiences i've had or kind of versions of life experiences i've had so i think thinking about those experiences like oh this would make a really good story and then kind of picking apart like which pieces of the story i want to kind of have the listener visually imagining their head while they're listening to the song if that makes sense yeah and then i kind of write and record everything on my phone like a crazy person i type everything in notes and i'll like be recording something on a voice memo whispering in the corner just whenever the ideas kind of strike me i write it down and then i'll kind of hack it out on the piano and then i kind of give it over to the boys here and you know the guitar and mark and david all kind of help me with the arrangement so um it becomes a very big team effort in the end um yeah that's kind of how i go about it yeah mine is similar to carolines where i'm more of like an ice sculpture i basically start with a big block and then slowly starts a will uh things away and i pass it off to the band and they help me a little even further before you know you got some sort of ice culture unicorn or whatever it is yeah together yeah and i think um you know the question about traditional versus progressive is an interesting one i think all of us love paying homage to that traditional music but also really enjoy listening to other artists who are building on the tradition and adding new creative interpretations to it and obviously uh we've been inspired by a lot of bands that already do that so i think we love having something that has that heart and soul of that old music but then um injecting some of our own ideas and inspirations uh into that storytelling thanks here i i really love the question of you know what comes first melody or lyrics for me i really like writing with both in mind in tandem and i think it's a constant process of one informing the other uh depending on the song or the moment uh one element might come before the other but usually it takes just one of those elements to really lock in for me for me to feel really inspired i think it's often like the opening line of a song or the main rec of a song and that will kind of inspire the rest of it from there i kind of love how you guys have your own individual spin on how you approach songwriting by the end you all come together as a group and that's gonna be a really fun process because as i was listening to heartland it just kept popping in my head oh man they're having fun like listening to that it's a fun album like i can hear the smiles as you're playing as you're as you're uh singing and and everything i mean how much fun is it just for you all to get together like we're jamming tonight or we're gonna go to this venue and we're gonna play yeah i mean we were talking about that we were just talking about that last night oh i think you said you want people to hear that we're friends first musicians second and but hopefully that energy gets injected into the sound and and is evident when um if you come see us play and we certainly do do a lot of instruments lay around our respective homes and when we're hanging out we happen to pick them up and see what happens and so you know obviously there are times when you know as a band we rehearse with intention say hey we're gonna prep for this gig and we got this material bang out but then there are a lot of times where it's like hey i had this cool idea or hey i learned this tune will you learn it so we can play together there's there's a ton of that um feedback and i think um part of being a really rewarding band experience is having musicians that you're excited to get together and play with and having musicians who push you technically and creatively um certainly i know we feel that way yeah and to have like a safe space to try new things and everybody supports you is yeah i was gonna say peter you might already know that you know the folk scene here in chicago is it's pretty tight-knit especially in the irish scene it's like when you play all these sessions you basically know everyone uh who's on upcoming albums if you don't know them you know someone who knows someone like you're always one degree uh separated from sometimes you're musical heroes and those people very quickly become to be your friends because you're all speaking the same shared language that only a few percent of people here in chicago speak and then you find that oh all of a sudden you're going to each other's weddings it's like there's there's a very special connection that happens in the community and i'm really proud so i just get to play music with my best friends and we play across the city and none of us none of us have to be here we all have day jobs and we do this because we like to and we'd love to and it makes me so proud to hear that you say that it comes through an album it's true i mean just just listening to it and it's one thing that i always love when i listen to folk music is just just you hear the band jamming you hear the band getting into a flow and you hear the fun on the album and you know as a listener if the band's having fun well i'm having fun too because it's just infectious and everything now you kind of mentioned previously you guys are working on your second album now correct how's that coming along we're making progress i think we've got about five tracks recorded maybe not mixed fully yet and then um we're actively in the process of writing a few more new songs and tunes that we're chipping away at here and that we're working on uh one just last night here so we're really thrilled to be um making progress we've uh slowed down a little bit you know maybe from our original intent mark uh had a second child i've had two kids between uh our last album heartland and okay congratulations thank you thank you and it's a wonderful and creatively inspiring experience but it does slow down you're here you're recording and uh you're recording songwriting ambitions sometimes so well they all kind of corresponded around that great cicada emergence we had once again all of a sudden cicada's appropriating every time it truly was a cicada summer but i'm really excited to for people to hear what we've already recorded it's it's really exciting yeah there's been a great mix of new original songs alex got an original song caroline's got several original songs um mark's got an original song and a banging duolipa cover we have a really excited really fun mix for this album i cannot wait to hear that that's gonna be phenomenal um now this is something that's really cool uh speaking as a south side cubs fan uh you guys over the summer got to actually play gallagher way outside of rickley field what was that like what was the response and everything i mean it just had been i'm assuming we're talking with cub fans here uh what was that all like it was it was really magical you know we got invited as part of the old town school folk music's folk happy hour series um you know really honored to be a part of that and be involved in such a great organization but that's just such a special venue you know we snapped a photo outside of big cubs market yeah oh nice and you know i had to get the picture album cover but yeah it was just so great to have friends and family and then so many members of the community come out especially so hot yeah i was actually worried nobody was gonna come because it was so hot but it was the opposite it was just a great turnout and yeah it was really magical oh that's so wonderful something that's really special to me there peter is you know my kitty corner to the uh cubs to the rickley field is the cubby bear which is the venue in itself and it was there about almost exactly 10 years ago where i was playing a show and caroline and i reconnected at that show and here we are about 100 yards yeah exactly 100 yards and a decade later i would not have imagined like oh yes i'll be playing right across here with my wife that really sounds like you got some like rom-com like potential going on there it was a good full circle yeah so if anybody wants to license us yeah for sure speaking of if people want to check you guys out and follow you on socials you know what's your website what's your socials for people to follow you yeah you can find us online at cicadasummerband.com on facebook and instagram at cicadasummerband you know and uh we'll be trying to share the progress that we're making on the new album along with where we're playing right now we're kind of kind of pulling back with it we had a really fun engaging summer with a lot of music but now we're kind of turtling up and working on some of that songwriting and recording process yeah yeah so if you check there yeah so if you check there you don't see a lot coming up that's why we're kind of focused on making some new music to share with everybody and we'll definitely be posting where we're at and what we're doing on there um you know i've only got a couple more questions left for you but i kind of want to go back to something we were talking about earlier and that was um inspirations i don't think people realize the rich folk tradition that that chicago has you know with the old town school of folk music and john prine being from the city i mean even bands like wilco and everything they really bring that uh modern folk sound to to you know the mainstream musical audience if you were meeting someone and they go to you and say you know i really like folk but it's such a daunting genre to get into who would you recommend i check out who would you recommend it can be modern it can be you know more traditional older style you know who are we going to go around and check out i'm going to i want to hear everyone's response mark i'm going to start with you who are you going to recommend anyone who are you going to recommend um uh peter ask yaleck yeah i said no i'm i'm in schaumburg and i live in schaumburg i'm a little disconnected from the chicago scene i think you're up in the chicago area we don't have to get into whether or not schaumburg is part of the chicagoland area um i'll i'll answer first though okay thanks thanks for that passing mike um peter i think the best way that i can answer for myself we live about a quarter half a mile from the old town school of folk music up in linden square and they have become such an institution that i'm so proud to have close to us they have curated folk music not just the american tradition but folk music from around the world it's like a German word for people it is music of the people and that just doesn't mean from chicago and so when we think of folk music yeah we we draw a lot of stuff from ireland and scotland and the british isles uh and then also you're going to find that when that came over to the states you know 100 200 years ago there's a lot of crossover tunes and songs and was down in Appalachia. So we're getting a lot of those things. And so if I were to recommend to anybody, just pop on the social media, type in folk music, and all of a sudden you're going to find the same ingredients are flowing everywhere. Oh, you play Temperance Reel?
Oh, this guy plays Temperance Reel. Oh, John Pryne is recording that song. And all of a sudden you're going to find the Venn diagram is very wide in the middle of all of these overlapping folk traditions. Who'd you pick, though?
Oh, man. I don't want to know. All right. If I had to pick, there's a specific album that the Chieftains did where they invited folk musicians from all around.
I can look up the name of the album in just a second, but it has punch brothers on it. It has all of these top performers in their own respective things, and they all come together via the Chieftains. And that is really just, for me, is a conglomeration of everybody who's big in folk. And so if you follow that as your roots and spread out in those branches, you can't go wrong.
That's a great choice. Chieftains are phenomenal. For me, I'd say try to find music that makes you want to dance to it or that resonates with you emotionally. It's, I think, less important about, you know, whether it's old or new or whether it's, you know, traditional or progressive.
You want to find something that makes you dance. So for me, the dance that really energized me growing up were bands that were playing traditional music but with a really progressive spin. You know, I was a guitar player, and so I didn't just want to hear, you know, one chord, four, four, five chord, boom, chicka, boom, chicka, guitar, picking parts. You know, I was playing guitar, so I wanted to hear some wild and creative stuff.
So bands like Lunasa, bands like Solis, bands like Fluke, all kind of that Irish scene really, really inspired me with how creative their arrangements were. So it wasn't just like the creativity was the melody. The creativity was also a conversation between the rhythm section and the melody players and introducing different ideas. So those are kind of ones that were big to me.
But specifically in Chicago, if you want to get out and see some folk music again, old town schools, an amazing venue, you know, for all kinds of traditions and just go see a show. Go to an Irish club, find out if they have live music. I mentioned the Galloway Arms where I met the two of them. They have live music four nights a week.
Just go and listen and see what resonates with you. And if you like something, say, hey, what was the name of that song? Or what was the name of that tune? If you're a player, listening is the best way to learn and get involved.
I think I would recommend Abigail Washburn, any of the projects that she's done, like Sparrow Quartet, Move Wars I think it's called. But she, I think for me, I remember going to see her live. My parents took me to a concert when I think it was in like early college and it was just like mind-blowing. So there's a Sparrow Quartet and I just think recommending other people to listen to her, she just has like this Americana voice that's so iconic and nobody comes close.
So just to kind of hear her singing and obviously her band of play is incredible too, but she's just such an inspiration for me vocally and I think I want more people to listen to that kind of music, that kind of Americana-esque, it just captures everything for me in music. And I think I would also recommend like Nickel Creek, Decembrist, like some more modern, like fun things to get people, yeah, to get them hooked in. So that'd be amazing. Peter, I think before we pass over to Mark, I don't know if we've shared, but a lot of us have backgrounds in classical music.
Like Marlon Art obviously is a violinist and a folk player. He's also a practically a professional jazz pianist. He has a degree in jazz piano. Caroline has a degree in classical trumpet performance.
That's amazing. That was my instrument all the way through and obviously for myself that folk music for me turned into a musical life raft where after doing for a couple decades this classical music that was very, I would call it script and stringing with tradition and rules and sometimes even a little, just kind of became socially a little competitive to find a community of folk musicians who weren't about the competitiveness or about sharing the overlapping elements. It's like, oh, you don't know this tune like David said? Let me teach it to you.
Let's come together because the more tunes we all play together the more fun we get to have together. That to me was a very opposite experience even after having been classically trained for all these years. It's just a breath of fresh air and that's what's keeping me doing it. And the collaboration element too.
Like we can write something and collaborate on it and we're all doing it together and it's not a competition. It's very, it's different. So I'm here with Cicada Summer. You know, thank you guys all for coming and joining us and talking with us.
I have just one final question for you all. For those of you who have never seen Cicada Summer live, how would you describe your live performance? That's a fun question. I think for us, Peter, first of all, thanks for talking about this.
It's just so nice to talk music with folks who are equally passionate about it. For us, when you come to a show, I think you're going to be surprised at the amount of electrification that even though we are at our core, we're an acoustic quartet, we have a couple tricks up our sleeve. For example, like we run the guitar through an octave pedal and that creates our bass. And so we use a shocking amount of electrical equipment to take our show to the next energy level.
We have a little rolling foot pedal called Stoppy and that gives like this real thick bass kick sound and that's our goal for a lot of these songs. It is a lot of dance music and so we use those tools to amplify our energy and run them through a lot of single processors and make them as rich and pure and energized as they can so we can hopefully get folks to get that bigger sound too. Like we're only four people and you know, our description of a little band You don't have a drum kit, you don't have a bass, you know, so we use some of those electronic tools and technology to thicken the sound a little bit on this part of our life. I don't know if you would necessarily know that if you were just walking by and listening, you might not know what's happening behind the scenes.
And I think if you would have come, I mean, like we said, we've been playing together for like 10 years. If you would have come to our early gigs, we did a lot of like covers and you know, more traditional stuff, which we still do a lot of traditional stuff but obviously now we have a lot of our originals, things we've written or we are doing some sort of cover like the Dua Levi's, a more like thoughtful arrangement that's, you know, for our band specifically. So I think that's just kind of been a really cool element for me as being in the band and being able to play these originals and like seeing the reaction to this would be really positive. Like we played a gig last summer at a festival and I had been posting stuff and like tagging on the band Instagram and someone messaged and was like, oh, that one song and they described what it was about and it was a song that Mark had written.
We recorded it, it'll be on our second album and they're like, where can I listen to it? And I just felt like so special that people hear the original song, they're not just tuning out, they pay attention to what it was about, they want to hear it again. So that's another reason I'm so excited for the music we've recorded for this second album to come out because I know it's just so exciting. To Keir's point, it's always really magical to see audiences sing along to the music that you've written.
Yeah. It's a special feeling of musical reward. Or requesting a specific one that is on an album or something. It's just, it feels...
It's got to be powerful because it's something you created. It came out of your head and your heart and you touched the soul of another human. Yeah. So, well, Cicada Summer, guys, this has been so much fun.
I could keep going, but you guys got to head on off. Again, if you could just give your socials and your website again so people can go and check you guys out. Yeah, absolutely. You can find us on Instagram or Facebook at Cicada Summer Band and then our website CicadaSummerBand.com.
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