By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Before Sam Naples added his guitar to the sound of Chirp, he had heard the band.
As a Michigan musician sojourning in Portland, Oregon, he kept his ear cocked for happenings on his hometown scene. He encountered a few videos made by a new band called Chirp. He was impressed, he said, by their fresh approach.”
When he moved back to southeast Michigan, he got a chance to hear the band live.
He connected to the style. “I was hearing elements of ‘70s jazz fusion,” Naples said in a recent telephone interview. “ I was hearing sprinkles of Motown. I was hearing elements of early progressive rock. I was hearing a lot of funk in the sound. I felt the combination of styles that were being brought to the table was conducive to the way I play ”
And when on the advice of a musician housemate, he auditioned for the band he felt the camaraderie from the start.
Chirp, with frontman and songwriter Jay Frydenlund, bassist Brian Long, and drummer Patrick Blommel along with Naples, will perform Sunday, Dec. 18 at 6 p.m. at Grounds for Thought, 174 S. Main in downtown Bowling Green. The show will wind up a three-gig mini-tour that will also takes them to Indianapolis and Grand Rapids, Michigan.
It will not be Naples first visit to the coffeeshop. He played a show with another band a few years ago sharing the bill with Tree No Leaves, which is led by Dustin Galish who produces the series of Grounds and BG Independent.
Naples joined Chirp, which was founded in 2015, in early 2020, just a couple months before about 80 gigs evaporated with the onset of the pandemic.
Thanks to Michigan’s vital outdoor music festival scene Chirp was able to get back into gear in spring, 2021.
Chirp, Naples said, is identified as an improvising, jam band in the line of Grateful Dead, “people playing music to explore the territory and space in real time.” Naples has long appreciated and studied that musical scene.
“The thing that struck me about Chirp was they were very song oriented. Even though they had improvisation and jamming as part of their tool bag,” he said, “the songwriting, the forms, the melodies are out front and center. Those were very, very important to the band.”
Those songs come from Frydenlund.
Bringing those songs to fruition is “a delicate balancing act,” Naples said.
The songwriter does a good job of giving enough guidance, “a road map,” to the band that enables the band to bring together its concept of the songs in a couple rehearsals.
Though each song is a little different, typically Frydenlund will come in with most of the lyrics written. He’ll also share with the band his initial musical concept, “just a loose idea of the feel or the vibe.”
The other musicians will work out ideas for what they might add, sharing them through a Google document and voice memos.
Frydenlund intentionally leaves elements unfinished when he brings them to the band, Naples said. “He wants all the other the musicians’ fingerprints on what he does. …He wants us to have a sense of creative ownership over it which I really appreciate. The skeleton of the song is there. It’s just up to us to complete.”
It’s a kind of musical puzzle, he said.
“It’s important for us to have preparation,” Naples said. “I learn in my own time, in my own practice regimen, ideas of what I’m going to play or being ready to execute certain ideas. … It’s always different. You have to adapt to what’s in the room. He has to adapt what happens.”
The band has been releasing the product of all that work one single at a time throughout the year. The newest “Fast Food Blues” drops on Dec. 23 on all platforms.
Those singles have been compiled into a vinyl LP, “In Motion,” which will be on sale during the Grounds show. It is Chirp’s first vinyl record – another step in the band’s musical evolution.
