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WED. DEC 4th @ 8:00PM
Footballhead is a Chicago-based alternative rock band headed by Ryan Nolen. At its heart, the band is a vessel to toil forward through internal and external insecurity. It also serves the unrelenting spirit of new-millennium Midwestern youth, with MTV and skatepark dreams in the core of their memories. By blending pop structures with alt and emo
sounds, Footballhead channels the frantic, dramatic, and anthemic to map the pressure points of existence. It's outcast music, revitalized in search of a modern, blissful awakening.
Nolen was a skate kid from the western Chicago suburbs; the one who only kicked it with older neighborhood kids. The punkish attitude of Llate-90s and early-aughts alt-rock galvanized Nolen, from the infectiously fun music down to the fashion. A teenage relocation to Palm Springs, CA coincided with Nolen inundating himself with all the music he could: Warped Tour, 411 videos, Limewire and the like. The Footballhead ethos comes from this comfort zone of pop impulses and raucous energy, carried by a DIY spirit that grants Nolen the autonomy to facilitate honesty and reflection.
Joined by Adam Siska (The Academy Is), Liam Burns, and Robby Kuntz, Footballhead crafts supercharged rock songs like brief, open secrets. However weathered one is from their struggles and mistakes, this music
offers unbridled fun as a reprieve, and salves for the shaken. These are your old friends inviting you in to commiserate, elevate, and believe.
2024 has seen the band release their debut album 'Overthinking Everything' and follow up EP 'Before I Die' to critical acclaim, with playlisting and radio play around the world. Recent tracks have appeared everywhere from famed Spotify playlists 'Adrenaline,' 'Emo Right Now,' 'All New Rock' and 'The Scene' among many others, to tastemaker radios stations such as Australia's Triple J and Chicago's
Q101.
The story of NEW AGE THIEF begins with an ending. By 2021, Gino Savarino had begun winding down his solo project Safe Bet, an acoustic-turned-full-band emo endeavor that had garnered more 5 million Spotify streams as well as national esteem in the underground from fans and media alike. He longed for an outlet that would allow him more musical freedom, unburned by expectations and aided by a new drive for collaboration, and he found it alongside drummer Brady Corcoran, another fixture in the close-knit Chicagoland scene.
Together, the pair spent the next two years melding influences both shared (Jimmy Eat World, Basement) and distinct (Savarino’s love of nu metal and “disgusting” heavy music; for Corcoran, indie-rock cool like Death Cab for Cutie) into what would become their debut EP, MEMENTO. Produced by Brett Romnes (Hot Mulligan, Mom Jeans) and released via Wax Bodega, the EP introduces New Age Thief with an alternative rock and emo sound that’s all at once classic but updated for modern times, holding their genre forefathers in high regard without being beholden to the past. It marries the kinetic energy of sweaty VFW halls with the pose and lyrical maturity of bands twice their senior, from the fuzzed-out, groove-heavy “Circle The Room” and driving “Under Your Wing” to the dynamic, ascendant title track.
FRI. DEC 6th @ 8:00PM
SAT. DEC 7th @ 8:00PM
SUN. DEC 8th @ 8:00PM
WED. DEC 11th @ 8:00PM
THURS. DEC 12th @ 8:00PM
$10 cover, 21+ at door
"Academy Order masterfully blends goth, death rock, post rock, new wave and hints of hardcore to create a special sound that is simultaneously a revival and a revolution. Though these songs sound like the work of a band at the peak of their career, one can tell the band is just getting started.” - Evan Martin-Casler, Cvlt Nation