It can be hard to find things to do in the middle of the week. The stretch between weekends can seem eternal. Some of us get bored! Lucky for the easily wandering eye, Mike ‘N Molly’s offers a lot of entertainment during the in-between times. Tonight, for instance, Cameron McGill is playing at MNM’s with Edward Burch and Rory Book.
I got to talk to Cameron online all week. We covered a lot of ground: music, inspiration, the differences between Champaign and Chicago, and more. Check out our conversation leading up to the show.
Smile Politely: So how long were you in this area?
Cameron McGill: My whole life, mostly. I was born and grew up in Champaign-Urbana. I’ve lived in Chicago for about 15 years now.
SP: What’s the biggest difference between living in C-U and Chicago (besides the rent!)?
McGill: The size of the cities to me is an obvious difference, and how much is involved with navigating the place you live.
No matter the city, I think you find your community and that could be a large or small group. Champaign-Urbana always had a vibrant counter-culture scene — music, art, theatre — partly the advantages of being a college town, I would guess. Seemingly everyone knew everyone else (for better or worse), and it was easy to be immersed in your community. Maybe Chicago cares less if you find that, or it’s just bigger and takes more time. Sometimes it’s hard to see past any of this when it’s your hometown, be it C-U or Chicago. So much of you is tied up in how you perceive it, having grown-up there.
In Champaign, it’s interesting that there was always at least two distinct scenes: the campus and the downtown, and, if you chose, you could exist in either without spending much time in the other.
SP: A very good point about campus and downtown! They really are like small villages of their own.
What are your favorite spots in Champaign-Urbana to eat/play/love?
McGill: I like drinking beer at The Blind Pig and Esquire, and getting coffee at Josh Lucas’ Flying Machine [Coffee] in Urbana. I think I will always measure good pizza against Papa Del’s. Love playing music at Mike ‘N Molly’s and Cowboy Monkey, and still one of my favorite shows was a live WEFT session. That place is a time-capsule.
SP: Yes. Yes, it is.
Where are some of your favorite places to play beyond C-U? Why?
McGill: One of my favorites is an all-ages club in Provo, Utah called Velour. It’s a beautiful room and the audiences really pack it out. A true listening room. There are always great young bands coming up there as well; it’s where I first came across Desert Noises. On the Margot tours we go through San Fran, and usually play the Great American Music Hall, a ballroom from another era. They still have Duke Ellington’s dress room in tact, his name on the door. You don’t see that everyday.
SP: Incredible.
How did you get started in music?
McGill: I think a few things happened that got me started. My grandmother was a piano player/tuner and I took a liking to melody early on, listening to her play. I had a few lessons, but didn’t get much past “Row Row Your Boat.” Didn’t care for the lyrics. Which is fine, I guess. I had to teach myself piano later on, and it certainly was a different path than learning to read music first.
Someone gave me an acoustic guitar in maybe 8th grade; showed me how to re-string it and how to play a few chords. There may have been a chord book in the guitar case. I had been keeping little notebooks for a few years -still do- and I’d just write down little thoughts and little ideas, poems -sentimental bullshit, mostly. I also remember having a songbook of old folk tunes with lyrics and chords; I didn’t know the melodies so I just made up my own. Found I liked the idea of something written being set to music; elevating both elements to something more important or more emotionally viable. I saw it a bit as a puzzle to try and solve. Felt like a way for me to ease the world a bit to my own hands.
SP: Other than your grandmother and the mystery guitar benefactor, who are your musical and/or personal influences?
McGill: I’ve been very into the poems of Jack Gilbert, Li-Young Lee, Sharon Olds, and Philip Levine. Just read a compelling and touching collection of essays by Aleksandar Hemon, called The Book of My Lives.
Musically, it’s always something different. Lately, lots of Fleetwood Mac and Harry Nilsson, some Sibelius, the new Rhye record, the Divine Fits record, Serge Gainsbourg, etc.
Gallows Etiquette and on, whatever comes next, I feel I’m still a bit intent on marrying Sade and Randy Newman. Why not?
SP: Why not, indeed! I like unusual mash-ups and blending. It shows how universal music is. It’s comforting.
What kinds of things do you write about? Personal, universal, narratives…?
McGill: Feels like a bit of all those things converging on Gallows Etiquette. I was hoping that storytelling, dreaming, and conversation would find a confluence in the songs. It’s definitely a narrative that is personal at times, especially when focused on the dialogue about being a citizen and artist in America, and wondering what kind of place you can make for yourself and others, given the times.
A lot of Gallows was written during the last presidential campaign when the political vitriol was at a fever pitch, which probably led me to songs like “Slow Vampire” or “American Health Insurance.” But of course I was trying to connect with people who maybe felt the same frustrations or fatigue that I did. I felt more comfortable this time around with a darker narrative. Sometimes that makes humor easier.
SP: Yup. The murkiest of times can produce the richest humor.
How do you write? What’s that process like?
McGill: I try to write as much as I can -or as much as I feel like doing it- whether it’s poems or songs or essays. Reading is a big part of that, of course. The more you work, the more things (lines, ideas, melodies, poems, songs) seem to come your way. There’s a lot of notebooks, more than I can keep straight. Am trying to work on that.
These days it mostly starts with me at the piano. I spend a lot of time with Rodrigo Palma (bass) and Charlie Koltak (drums) working out ideas; demoing and trying to find the best structures for the songs. The process always feels like trying to get somewhere else outside of yourself. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes not so much.
SP: Speaking of going places: Where are some places you like to visit/travel?
McGill: I enjoy heading west on tour in the States. Something about getting to the coast after going through stark and beautiful places like Wyoming or Montana. They seem so severe; it’s always a good place to write it out. I love going through Portland and Seattle, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Madison, New York City. We always hit this one town on the Margot tours: Pismo in California. Funny little old beach town. Has something though.
I’d like to go to Paris again someday.
SP: If you could jam with anyone, who would it be? Anyone, any time period…
McGill: The Beatles or the Funk Brothers or both together.
SP: Together? Now you’re talking…
Get to Mike ‘N Molly’s for the 10 p.m. show tonight. It’s only $7, man. Can you even think of a reason not to go?