Tributosaurus, one of Chicago’s best-kept secrets, never especially cool, not exactly challenging, pushing nearly 25 years as a mainstay of local bars and theaters, without an original song to their name, are my favorite Chicago band, and this review is a shameless, slobbering valentine. The heart wants what it wants, and on Valentine’s Day, at Theater on the Lake, Tributosaurus played three hours of one-hit wonders from the 1970s. They played AM favorites that, 30 years ago, certainly 40 years ago, I would have mocked.
You get the feeling the guys in Tributosaurus — and the musicians they recruit to round out their shows, some from established, well-known bands, some from the Chicago Symphony and beyond — would have once made fun of, oh, “Spirit in the Sky,” too. Then, unexpectedly, after a note-for-note reading of the 1970 Norman Greenbaum faith classic, guitarist Curt Morrison began sliding into the dirty strut of ZZ Top’s “La Grange.”
Not to be confused with the village of La Grange, he noted later.
After a rousing singalong of “The Night Chicago Died,” Tributosaurus singer Matt Spiegel, a Chicago sports-radio jock by day, called out the 1974 hit’s somewhat mistaken understanding of local geography and dedicated it to “all of you who grew up on the East Side of Chicago.” Before “Afternoon Delight,” that spacey cornball ode to daytime sex, a song that sounds now like a time capsule, like a shag carpet rolled around a macrame incense pot, pianist Chris Neville asked the audience if anyone took any ‘ludes on their way to the show.
They’re funny and loose between tunes, then as they play, they are exacting, finely tuned. Tributosaurus is a cover band, also known as the lowest, primordial rung on the evolutionary ladder of live music. Except these guys subvert the usual reverence; they don’t dress like the acts they cover, they don’t attempt to look like another band in any way. Their hook is that when they choose one or two acts to replicate a month, they pull out all the stops to recreate what that band sounded like on record, then, on stage, they relax. The point — particularly with their fabulous entertaining one-hit wonder revue — is not so much a clinical imitation but, well, what it felt like to hang out with a friend in their room when you were younger, freshly in love with records, flipping through vinyl and goofing.
They opened the second set — yes, they played two sets of disco, rock, soul and novelty songs — with a genius mashup of ‘70s instrumental hits. A bit of the theme from “Rocky,” a dab of that early electronic experiment “Popcorn,” a smidge of the disco reworking of “Star Wars.” The stranger beside me slapped me on a shoulder: “The ‘Rockford Files’ theme!” he shouted in my ear. “Dude, I had this 45!” I smiled and nodded. I had it, too.
The guy wore a shirt that was way too tight and looked like it might have been rumpus room wall paper, circa 1975. It was hard to tell if he wore it ironically or if he just liked it.
A Tributosaurus-like fashion choice.
To nail those aural Madelines, one of the best things about Tributosaurus is their insane attempts to recreate on stage the sound of music that was likely cobbled together using multiple tracks and layers of instrumentation not always obvious. Or practical to recreate. Years ago, when I wrote a profile of them, Morrison summarized their approach: Most art aims to reduce, to streamline, to cut back fat, “but what if it was about assembling?” I saw them pay homage to Michael Jackson after he died, which meant bringing in various singers to replicate his vocals at different times of Jackson’s life. On Fleetwood Mac night, to perform “Tusk,” they brought in a full marching band for one song (because Fleetwood Mac did). At Theater on the Lake, they had a string section during the T. Rex rocker “Bang a Gong,” because, buried in that mix, is a cello.
The show (pretty sold out) served as an ideal Whitman’s sampler of why Tributosaurus is so charming. Sort of like the ‘70s itself, they regard variety as a fundamental strength. One-hit wonders — meaning, they clarified, acts with just one Billboard Top 40 hit during the 1970s — can include Steve Martin’s “King Tut,” Sammy Davis Jr.’s “Candy Man,” “O-o-h Child” by the Five Stairsteps and “Stuck in the Middle With You” by Stealers Wheel. All of which they played. They would love to play Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street,” they explained, but he had a few hits; “Stuck in the Middle,” which Rafferty sang and wrote, was a loophole. They would stop periodically and dive into random music history like that, the “inappropriateness” of ‘70s lyrics, or apologize sorta for including Nick Lowe.
Technically, he had only one smash, “Cruel to Be Kind,” but he didn’t exactly belong in such slight company, they said. Their cover, crisp, bouncy, reminded you of how perfect Lowe’s song is, and how, until the internet flattened tastes and decades, it was easier to think of music as a bunch of territories, divided up, metal here, soul there, disco here, soft rock there. A listener was expected to choose a side and stick with it. To put that another way, I adored the Minutemen, which meant Journey had to be off-limits. The pure delight that Tributosaurus brings to playing “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl),” or some joyful dumb-as-rocks rave-up like “Black Betty,” dissolves that big lie.
Tributosaurus returns warmth to taste and virtuosity, without sacrificing discernment.
Besides, as Morrison said at Theater on the Lake, the only thing they have in common with the one-hit wonders they were playing is that all of them “have one more hit than we do.”
cborrelli@chicagotribune.com
Tributosaurus next perform the songs of Bob Dylan on March 7 at Martyrs, 3855 N. Lincoln Ave., and U2 on March 15 at FitzGerald’s in Berwyn 6615 W. Roosevelt Road; www.tributosaurus.com
Originally Published:
