Keeping Up With the Joans
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
By the time Joan of Arc released The Gap (Jade Tree, 2000), the “band” was essentially Kinsella and a revolving cast of helpers, including engineer Casey Rice. When Owls released their eponymous debut album the following year, it seemed as if Joan of Arc was finished. “We never really intended to get back together as Joan of Arc,” says Kinsella. But during this time he was making music with Rice using Pro Tools, a project he half-jokingly referred to as Joan of Arc II. “I had built a maze around myself with the tracks that were begun with Casey, and eventually my computer threatened to swallow the songs completely if I didn’t grab them at the last minute and simplify them,” he says. “But by that point I had been working on them so long that I was afraid they’d get overly undone, so I decided the best way to deal with them was to go to tape in a studio and have people who hadn’t turned them inside out a million times play them quickly.”
While this material is hardly conventional–Kinsella’s lyrics read like cryptic journal entries, and the tunes rarely follow verse-chorus-verse form–it’s still Joan of Arc’s most accessible work since the group’s first two albums (their “emo” phase). The clean guitar arpeggios and curlicued lines played by Kinsella, Zurick, and Mattei lock into a precise pattern over which Kinsella warbles. These aren’t exactly pop songs, but they are undeniably melodic and sweet even as they constantly change shape. Players like Califone’s Ben Massarella and Jim Becker, cornetist Rob Mazurek, and Graeme Gibson of Boas (who recorded both albums) provide a range of additional instrumental colors.
On May 9, city representatives and plainclothes policemen issued two tickets to HotHouse, charging the nonprofit venue with improper liquor sales and operating without the correct business license. They also issued two cease and desist orders, which forced HotHouse to shut down. At a hearing with the Department of Revenue last Friday, the two tickets were dismissed. For the last three weeks HotHouse has operated sporadically under the limitations of its license, selling alcohol only before and after performances. Last Friday the club also submitted a new application to the city for a public place of amusement license; for now, HotHouse will resume its regular programming and begin selling liquor throughout shows–which makes it conceivable that it’ll be shut down again.
