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With some of the coolest graphics and designs we’ve seen around here in years comes Canoe Canoe, a Chicago band with great tunes that you don’t want to miss. Whether you’re already familiar with their psych-pop or just into good music, their upcoming show promises to be a lot of fun.
Canoe Canoe are playing at the Cowboy Monkey on March 9th at 9PM after an in-studio interview at WPGU 107.1. They are playing with Sonny Stubble and Love Toy, two local bands you also won’t want to miss. Make sure to make it out to their show and hear them on the radio (or through our dandy listen live feature).
Not familiar with Canoe Canoe? They have an infectious pop sound layered with psychic distortion. Think a poppier Santah, or a sexier Wilco. You can check out their bandcamp site here. The tracks they have online will get you excited for what will be a fun Saturday night, as they will certainly get the venue up and dancing.
Canoe Canoe released their Black Sheep EP last July, which features two great, anthemic tracks. With a chorus of vocals and jamming guitars and keyboards, the many twists and turns in their music would keep you on the edge of your seat, if you weren’t already standing to dance. This stuff will get you excited, and the alternating energy of the tracks will make it easy to jam out with these guys. This classic four piece setup is able to use feedback fluidly to give their tracks layers that won’t leave you disappointed. If you need any more convincing, just listen to their tracks now and imagine how much more exciting they would be live. - wpgu 107.1 Champaign-Urbana
Novel things oftentimes come with uncertainty, so it’s nice when a new band features a familiar face. The Chicago-based Canoe Canoe have only been around since the summer, but we should take comfort in the familiarity of at least one member. The band’s keyboardist, Otto Stuparitz, studied music at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and played with former locals Santah. Now, he is coming back to Champaign with new bandmates and new music.
After spending five years in Urbana, Stuparitz moved to Chicago two years ago where he reconnected with a friend from high school, Tony Jones. The duo soon started playing music together, eventually writing songs and recording the Black Sheep EP, available for listening on the Canoe Canoe’s bandcamp page. The EP features only Jones and Stuparitz, who soon realized that in order to play their music in front of an audience, they needed to find additional members. In no time, the two friends found John Mahoney, who now plays bass for the band, and eventually a drummer in Jordan Thomas.
Canoe Canoe: "just swim"
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Once the lineup became finalized, the band started writing songs together, usually in practice, which happens once or twice a week. The songwriting process, described by Stuparitz comes very naturally:
Somebody comes up with something, and if we like that, then we repeat it and try to make it sound like a song. Most of the songs don’t have full lyrics because they’re pretty fresh. It’ll be nice when we get the record out because then we’ll have full structured songs… A lot of the songs will end with a big chorus that repeats and then we just have to rock n roll ending it.
The band is currently working on their first record as a quartet, and fans should expect its release in late April or May. Although they have only recently started touring, Canoe Canoe are already getting serious stage time in. The guys recently opened up a show at the Metro in Chicago, playing for an audience of roughly 1,000 concertgoers. Unsurprisingly, Stuparitz said it was “a dream to play there.” The band may also have another exciting opportunity coming up, as a show at Chicago’s Lincoln Hall, constantly voted Best Venue by numerous reader polls, might appear under their tour dates sometime in April. In the coming months, the guys are looking forward to more shows, hoping to play Chicagoland at least once a month and come down to Champaign-Urbana once every two or three months.
When asked about the band’s live show, Stuparitz described it as high energy:
A little bit crazy. We usually make a setlist and then deviate from it. We try to play a new song every show… I play keyboard in the band, so I make a lot of atmospheric noises to bridge the gaps between everything, and Tony, the guitarist, has a real punk quality to him. We’re playing poppy-ish music, rock and roll really, but he comes from a punk background, so he just starts railing on something. Basically, all of our songs start strong and tend to be big messes that we clean up at the end. We try to keep it lively. I’m stuck at the keyboard, but the guitarist will jump on the drums, jump in the crowd if he can.
“I’m just really excited to come back down to Champaign,” said Stuparitz. “Hopefully, everyone comes up and sees a new band. I’m excited to come down and enjoy the comforts of where I started playing live music.” Excited is a good word for all involved, as Canoe Canoe are already proving themselves a promising quartet.
It’s always nice to be surrounded by familiar faces. Whether it’s Stuparitz who will take comfort in being surrounded by his C-U friends, or the fans who have come to know and love him through his work with Santah. - smilepolitely.com
It seems like the quaintest mode of aquatic transportation is the new trend in indie rock band names. Sandwiched in between pseudo funk-metal screamers Norman Toronto And His Band and the dreamy Audiences, heavy poppers Canoe Canoe played a solid six song set that included one new song and standout set closer “Push On”. “We write a new song every time we practice,” keyboardist Otto Stuparitz (and, full disclosure, my friend) told me after the show. The band, who effortlessly switch from Vampire Weekend-y Afro-Pop to gravel-throated Americana in the span of a single song (reminiscent of the recently disbanded WU LYF), got the crowd moving, at least in comparison to their confusion-inducing predecessors. As a result of the band’s writing speed, we’ll hopefully see a full release from these guys sometime in the near future. It’s sure to make waves in the Chicago music scene, much like the releases of Stuparitz’ other band, the Champaign, Illinois-based Santah. At the very least, Canoe Canoe should inspire up and coming bands to move on to paddle boats. —JM - frontpsych.com
Discography
The Black Sheep (EP)
Just Swim (demo)
Photos
Bio
CANOE CANOE
the origins of canoe canoe are muddied with the elaborations best left to campfire stories.
because of this, here are the things i know to be true.
canoe canoe started during the one chicago snow storm in an otherwise surprisingly temperate winter, otto stuparitz and tony jones decided to record some simple pop songs in a rustic cabin once occupied by the legendary john dillinger. after summoning a spirit with candles made from the melted wax of a box of crayola crayons tony stole from the westboro baptist church and a ouija board found in the ashes of h.h. holmes lincoln park apartment, the spirit announced the band should be called canoe canoe.
otto and tony recorded the black sheep demos over the course of that week, trading with the locals of the town meat and produce they had garnered from nights of hunting and gathering in the dense forests in exchange for use of the town's few instruments. once the album was recorded it became abruptly apparent that they would need other musicians to play these songs live, in a matter of days they met a bible salesman by the name of john mahoney and convinced him that his lifes purpose was to play the bass in their band, and he did, he dropped the heavy sack of bibles on the steps of the local church and rode back to chicago with tony and otto. it was then that the search for a drummer became their single minded goal, weeks passed and no redeemable characters had surfaced. it wasn't until a traveling carnival came through the town of highwood which tony just happened to have been in due to a somewhat serendipitous flat tire, that tony met jordy who, at the time, was working the ring toss a the carnival to pay his way through internet night school to become a neurosurgeon in guatemala. but once again fate had intervened and after a number of beers and shots of whiskey the two became fierce friends and jordy quit the carnival and used his weeks pay to purchase a glowing drumset off of an elderly man who we later found out was billy corgan's father.
the band now seemed complete and they began working and writing new material and playing shows around the state, the music is best described and anthemic rock, chant, clap, you can't help but dance to it. they will be releasing a new ep on the last full moon before the great planetary alignment and pseudo-apocalypse.
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