HearYa Featured in the Illinois Entertainer

HearYa has hit the newstands in Chicago! Local publication, the Illinois Entertainer, caught wind of the HearYa live sessions and Shirk’s tremendous studio work and they decided to write up an article about both. You can read the full article here. If you pick up a hard copy of the publication on the streets of Chicago, you’ll find that hot picture of Shirk as a centerfold. I’ve got it pinned up in my room already.

Some excerpts:

“During such a BBQ-drenched night, a few Miami Of Ohio graduates cosmically ran into each other and turned their indie rock obsession into an aurally lucrative venture.” (…talking about SXSW…I really just liked the phrase “aurally lucrative venture.”)

“Like an in-demand bootleg, Shirk’s sessions for HearYa.com accentuate the unpredictability of live performances. Different from recording a full-length album, the songs (five or six on average) are recorded live with everybody in the studio at the same time, tripping over cables and floor monitors. Usually the phrase “take two” is inconspicuously absent from the proceedings.

We try to keep it moving forward one take a song and capture it as raw and as live as possible. We don’t fix stuff in the mix. People ask for auto tuning,’ Shirk explains. ‘I’ve had a few people ask me to fix notes, and no, this is about just doing it the way you do it, bruises and all.’

Osler (that’s me) likens the sessions to having the band set up shop in someone’s living room and performing for an audience of one.”