Wicker Park Fest - July 26th, 2008 and July 27th, 2008
Get ready Chicago! Over the past decade, millions have flocked to all over Chicago to countless outdoor festivals... not only to witness the music, but also to contribute and take part in some of the magic created by the Windy City's culture. This year will be no exception; and, for the 5th consecutive year, music lovers will have a multi-day opportunity to bring the good vibes that surround Silver Wrapper shows to the Chicago summer festival circuit.

The Wicker Park Fest is a two-day, all-day event featuring music presented by Silver Wrapper. It is a free event, and all of us here at Silver Wrapper have been working hard all year to make this another one to remember, and introduce some new, fresh music. As a result the musical line-up is stacked. Silver Wrapper is proud to announce the line-up for the 2008 Wicker Park Fest South Stage, to take place outdoors, July 26th and July 27th, at the famous six-way intersection of Milwaukee, North and Damen (which will be blocked off):

 Bassnectar
 Prefuse 73
 Bob Schneider
 Charlie Hunter Trio
 Future Rock
 Daedelus
 Nomo
 Dub Trio
 Van Ghost
 Skybox
 Company of Thieves
 Dark Party featuring Eliot Lipp & Leo123
 Algernon

Festival Schedule

Artist Information

Bassnectar
For the last decade, Lorin Ashton has helped develop the North American underground dance music scene. From touring full time as a DJ (an average of 125 shows per year), to his production & remixing under the alias Bassnectar, he has ammassed a dedicated fan base, crossing over from hip hop to electronica to breakbeat to ragga/dub to the jam band scene and the greater Burningman scene. In 2005, Lorin released the first full length Bassnectar CD, Mesmerizing The Ultra, a double album debut on Organic / Amorphous Music, available through Fontana distribution, a division of Universal Music and Video Distribution. Having remixed or collaborated with the likes of, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Buckethead, Michael Kang (The String Cheese Incident), FreQ Nasty, Saul Williams, Noam Chomsky, Cheb I Sabbah, Sound Tribe Sector 9, Crash Berlin, Landslide, Heavyweight Dub Champion & KRS One, and Perry Farrell, the Bassnectar sound has benefited from a wide lense of exposure, and evolved from cutting edge dance music to where it exists today: a mutant mash-up of multiple styles and genres.
learn more about Bassnectar | myspace

Prefuse 73
Prefuse73, unlike Brazil 66, is the work of a lone gun, a super-sharpshooter with an army of aliases who mostly answers to the name Scott Herren. Ensconced in the Atlanta, GA with backyard pit bull breeders for neighbours, outland anonymity is the perfect cover for this Clerk Kent of the mixing desk. But he doesn't need a telephone kiosk to transform into a Cubase cubist, a carbon-based biped skewering humans with block rockin' beats or serial seducer wowing one and all with supple instrumental flow. A sonic empath with the ability to sync with any scene, Scott's nice networking reveals the extent of his dexterity, equally at home 'neath the balmy palms of tourist trapping Miami with native labels Schematic and Chocolate Industries as working in Chicago, Illanoize with Tortoise sticksman Johnny Herndon and The Sea And Cake's Sam Prekop, budding and blossoming talents in a fecund field of hothouse flowers.
learn more about Prefuse 73 | myspace

Bob Schneider
Bob Schneider was born in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and raised in Munich, Germany. Not that it should matter, since Bob will never ask where you were born and doesn't care. He only wants you to dig his music and rock your ass off at his shows. And the odds are very much in his favor that you will do both. Left-handed as a child, Bob was quickly reformed by the enlightened nuns at the Catholic school he attended in Munich, and with his right hand he has gone on to pen several hundred songs (his first was called "Pussy Fever") and to create stunning artworks laden with tortured imagery of phalluses and feces. So the nuns spent their time well. Performing since he was a tot, generally for the amusement of his parents and their friends, Bob gained his first real professional experience while backing his musician father on drums at numerous moonlighting gigs throughout Germany. Thus a lifelong career was born, with Bob eventually stepping into his fatherís frontman shoes. His first performance as a lead singer, using the questionable handle of Bobby Blues and the Basstones, occurred at the University of Maryland at Munich, after which Bob knew what he wanted to do leave talent shows behind. A gifted visual artist, he moved to El Paso, Texas, to study art at UTEP and soon discovered a second thing he wanted to doóleave universities behind.
learn more about Bob Schneider | myspace

Charlie Hunter Trio
As a young guitarist growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, Charlie Hunter was looking for a way to stand out in the '80s. His primary influences were jazz great Joe Pass and the fluid Tuck Andress (of the guitar/vocal duo Tuck Patti), both six-string guitarists who were adept at blending bass notes into their standard guitar melodies to make themselves sound like two musicians at once. But Hunter wanted to take it one step further, and set out to find an instrument on which he could simultaneously function as both a guitarist and a bassist. For his self-titled 1993 debut CD, Hunter played a seven-string guitar for the duality effect, locking down the bottom with drummer Jay Lane and mixing melodically with saxophonist David Ellis. But on his trio's sophomore 1995 release, Bing, Bing, Bing, Hunter unveiled his custom-made Novax eight-string, the guitar that finally allowed him to realize his capacity. Designed by Ralph Novak, the instrument featured special frets and separate signals for its guitar and bass portions. Picking bass notes with his right thumb while fretting them with his left index finger (while at the same time fingerpicking guitar chords and single notes with his right hand's remaining four digits as he frets with his left hand's other three fingers), Hunter achieves the real sound of two-for-one.
learn more about Charlie Hunter Trio | myspace

Future Rock
Future Rock is electronic sensory overload. The trio has steadily been touring the US, electrifying audiences and developing a dedicated following during their journey. Their legendary late night performances at festivals and after-parties have quickly confirmed their status at the top of the live electronic scene. Coupled with an explosive light show, FR certifies an unparalleled multi-sense experience. The Chicago-based trio exhibits an uncommon grasp of minimalist, yet visceral, rock. Skillfully manipulating live loops, synthesizers, filters and an electronic drum kit, the trio succeeds in creating a larger-than-life sound that sends crowds into frenzies.
learn more about Future Rock | myspace

Daedelus
Daedelus, the eccentric, electronic maestro of the Pacific coast returns with "Exquisite Corpse" his most complete and baffling record to date. One of LA's most daring new artists this young musical romantic weaves together a true "love-sound" that falls between honeyed melody and avant-electronics. Daedelus chops and splices disparate acoustic sources into incredible works of staggering resonance. Contrasting IDM styled cut-ups with childlike arrangements from the 30's and 40's, he has refined a style that has no imitators. Exactly the kind of music you’d expect from a scarily well-connected hip hop nut who happens to dress in Edwardian clothing and names himself after an Ancient Greek Legend.
learn more about Daedelus | myspace

Nomo
Ghost Rock is the new album from the Michigan-based collective NOMO. The album, produced by Warn Defever, sheds light on the way forward for a band that has been forging its own vital sound. This is not the Afrobeat of Fela, nor the revivalist funk of a forgotten decade. This record owes as much to Can, Eno, and MIA as it does Kuti, Francis Bebey, and Funkadelic. On Ghost Rock, NOMO arrives in a new place. There’s no loss of steam as they incorporate new influences, instead NOMO breaks through with a matured and developed sound that is fully its own.
learn more about Nomo | myspace

Van Ghost
For nearly a decade Michael Harrison Berg of Van Ghost was a behind the scenes type of guy. Having poured his energy into his ventures as a concert promoter and band manager, little was left over for personal creative endeavors. That all changed in 2007 when Berg's close friends encouraged him to revisit the acoustic guitar he put down in his younger days and asked him to perform a song at their wedding. Melding the inspiration from the many talented bands he has worked with and his own passion for music, the singer returned to his roots. He began writing songs, drawing from his life experiences, creating a heartfelt and staggeringly honest perspective. After building up a solid repertoire of folk ballads, gritty alt country tunes and classic rock laced jams, Berg assembled an all-star cast of musicians and named the project Van Ghost .
learn more about Van Ghost | myspace

Skybox
It was the year 2005 Anno Domini when a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky and smashed down mightily into the barren desert landscape of Phoenix, Arizona, leaving in its red hot embers the colorful spectre of the eclectic pop band that would be known as Skybox. That cosmic genesis would portend great things for the young quintet. Their debut LP Arco Iris was recorded by Jamie Woolford (The Stereo, Let Go) and mastered by Jason Livermore (The Ataris, Rise Against, MxPx) . It immediately won over critics and fans alike with its mix of spacey indie-pop melodies and darker, Radiohead-esque moodiness. Their wide-ranging appeal has strangers mumbling comparisons to The Flaming Lips from dimly-lit corners of coffee shops and brothels. Thats what it sounds like, at least...its tough to be sure about such things. After a years worth of buzz-building live appearances with bands like The Honorary Title, The Format, Dios (Malos), Jacks Mannequin, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and Communique, the spaceship demanded a larger landing pad.
learn more about Skybox | myspace

Company of Thieves
Company of Thieves is on the tip of your tongue for a few key reasons: Chicago’s Union Station, moody Mondays, and an urgent energy meant to spread the sound of organic rock music. Guitarist, Marc Walloch, and vocalist, Genevieve Schatz, met by chance in Union Station through passing mutual friends. They formed a fast friendship over their love for the Beatles and their loathing of moody Monday nights in the city, starting a weekly Monday Music Night with fellow artists/musicians at Marc’s studio apartment for a fix. Dorian Duffy, a coast dweller from Rhode Island who came to Chicago on a gamble hoping to expand his musical horizons was often in attendance, clad with a an open mind and smooth, down-home style of bass playing. Marc and Genevieve spent an entire summer writing the foundations for what is now Company of Thieves’ first full length album, Ordinary Riches, knowing Dorian would provide the bass soon after.
learn more about Company of Thieves | myspace

Dark Party
Dark Party is Eliot Lipp and Leo123. They met in San Francisco. Their songs are inspired by their favorite Classic Electro, Techno & Hip Hop producers. From Tacoma to San Francisco to Chicago to Los Angeles to New York, producer Eliot Lipp has always followed the music. Creating songs that, according to XLR8R, “tickle days after the last spin,” he combines hip-hop influenced drum programming with the vintage synthesizer sounds found in the cutting edge electronic music of the 70s. Eliot Lipp’s early career saw him vigorously honing his skill on the club circuit where his fresh and daring take on hip-hop impressed Scott Herren (Prefuse 73) so much that he put out his 2004 debut LP on Eastern Developments. Subsequent successful releases on Hefty Records have continued to expand his audience and refine his craft. Now, Mush is thrilled to bring offerings of Eliot Lipp’s timeless yet novel interpretation of electro-funk to the people.
learn more about Dark Party | myspace

Algernon
Fostering an atmosphere that relies on composition and a larger sonic palette, Algernon creates a fusion of indie rock, jazz, and classical chamber music. The effect is that of a distinctly modern band, providing musical clues to our modern landscape. In the process, Algernon engulfs the listener in an entirely different world of its own making. With combined experience in genres from jazz to hard rock, from punk to classical, the band is well equipped to deliver on the promise.
learn more about Algernon | myspace

Saturday, July 26th
South Stage
8:45pm > Bassnectar
7:25pm > Prefuse 73
6:00pm > Future Rock
4:30pm > Daedelus
3:15pm > Nomo
2:15pm > Dark Party (featuring Eliot Lipp & Leo123)

North Stage
9:00pm > Polvo
7:55pm > Joan Of Arc
6:45pm > Ra Ra Riot
5:40pm > Bishop Allen
4:35pm > The 1900s
3:30pm > Brighton, MA
2:25pm > Bailiff

Sunday, July 27th
South Stage
8:45pm > Bob Schneider
7:00pm > Charlie Hunter Trio
6:00pm > Dub Trio
5:00pm > Van Ghost
4:00pm > Skybox
3:00pm > Company of Thieves
2:00pm > Algernon

North Stage
9:00pm > Isis
7:55pm > Red Sparowes
6:45pm > Maps & Atlases
5:40pm > Film School
4:35pm > The Most Serene Republic
3:30pm > Kid, You’ll Move Mountains
2:25pm > Aleks and The Drummer