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The co-founder of Chicago Acoustic Underground talks about his free-music mission.

Friday Aug 01, 2008.     By Keidra Chaney

Music Feed

Chicago Acoustic Underground is technically neither underground or acoustic. The local live-music podcast (celebrating its second anniversary in July) invites local and touring musicians to chat and perform on the second floor of an intimate Lincoln Park two-flat, occupied by Michael Teach, the show's host and co-founder. The living room that doubles as the podcast's recording studio holds a keyboard, an electric guitar and at least a couple of other instruments that are decidedly not acoustic.

But after a few minutes talking to Teach, a life-long musician and former IT consultant, it's easy to feel the independent spirit that inspired the podcast's name. "This is my job, my vocation, my avocation, my mission in life," he says.

The show has evolved from recording once a week to at least once a day, with seven rotating hosts and recording engineers. It has a particularly wide reach across the web; in addition to the podcast's website, CAU has its own MySpace page and is also hosted on The Local Tourist. With almost 180 shows either completed or in production, CAU is now a full-time job for Teach.

A performing musician in the 1970s, Teach started the podcast with musician/recording engineer Michael Narvez and musician Jacob Covington (who has since moved to San Francisco); the three were inspired by a discussion after an open-mic performance where they lamented the "singer-songwriter factory environment" that makes it hard for professional musicians to make a living.

"A venue brings you in assuming that you'll provide (an audience), saying "if you don't bring at least 20 or 30 people with you, you'll never perform here again," explains Teach. "If you get past the open-mic thing and you get invited in for a (solo) show, you can't book a show anywhere in Chicago two weeks prior and two weeks after that. How does anybody live, based on that? It's insane."

Teach wants CAU to create a free environment for musicians to get their music heard and to keep the city's music scene strong. "They’ve got it in their mind that the only way they're gonna make it is if they go to the East Coast, the West Coast, Austin or Nashville," he says of some local artists. "We've gotta find a way to continue to grow this community of musicians and get them to stop leaving."

And apparently it's working. Teach says that three acts that performed on CAU have recording contracts that were partially due to their performances. Two Chicago-based transplants from Arkansas—Adam Fossett and William Blackheart—booked a 56-city tour and found a backing band using their CAU performance as a calling card.

"I've made so many connections with musicians through [the podcast]," says musician and CAU intern, Christine Knodle. [Teach's] "heart and kindness makes you want to do the same towards others; we're all in this together and you really encourage that collaboration."

"Everyone stays in touch; if people need help for a gig, other musicians to work with, they communicate through us," says Teach, whose goal is to keep the show and the community "free for the performer and for the public." "We want to make the Chicago scene less like a machine and more like a family."

Chicago Acoustic Underground celebrates its second anniversary on August 10 with a benefit concert for the Rolfe Pancreatic Cancer Foundation at Green Dolphin Street. Cost: $30-$160.