“I met this chick on campus two months ago,” says Northwestern student Sean Pawley, aka No Doctors guitarist Chauncey Chaumpers. “She was like, ‘Aren’t you one of those No Doctors guys?’” Enjoying this taste of notoriety, Pawley chatted her up, asking what she knew about his band. Well, she said, “I heard you guys take acid every day and don’t know how to play your instruments.”
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No Doctors have been working on this concept for four years–since Pawley, Sobaski, and guitarist Andrew Morrow (aka Elvis DeMorrow) were in high school together in Minneapolis. But they released their first album only a few months ago. All 1,000 copies of their self-titled LP (on the Minneapolis avant-chaos label Freedom From) have the same packaging and track list–but not the same music. Comparing the copy I received for review with one a friend had bought, I noticed that the arrangements differ: some tracks are more sluggish, some use fewer or different instruments. No Doctors won’t acknowledge that there are two distinct versions, let alone reveal their motives. The only clue they’ll give is Pawley’s vague insistence that “the song is not the recording. It’s like a spirit that manifests itself in all these different ways.”
Sobaski and Pawley also ran a cassette label called Flaming Beaver. They scoured zines for musical oddities, and within a year had released six tapes of experimental electronic music and noise, one credited to Jim O’Rourke. (“We thought he knew about it, but it turns out maybe it might not’ve even been Jim O’Rourke,” says Sobaski.) By their senior year they’d ditched Flaming Beaver to help Freedom From founder Matthew St-Germain with label tasks. Says Pawley, “Matt was older and knew more people, and we started hanging out with him anyway, so we figured we might as well join him.”
“And I conceptualize,” says Sobaski. “I’ll listen to a song sometimes and meditate upon it. Then I’ll get an idea of, like, talking typewriters or mice walking backwards, and I want to replicate those sounds that were in my head.”
No Doctors perform Friday, November 8, at 7 PM at the Fireside Bowl, 2646 W. Fullerton; 773-486-2700.
