Big Buildings

The foundations for gritty lo-fi Chicago rockers Big Buildings began back in the late ?90's when childhood friends Matt Maloney (vocals, guitar) and Michael Wood (vocals, guitar) furiously exchanged four-track cassette tapes via post. In early 2001, Maloney, then playing in a variety of San Francisco bands, paid Wood a visit in Chicago to bash out an eight-song demo. Wood's roommate Adam Yoffe (drums) joined up with the duo, providing bass and drums and engineering the sessions. Maloney relocated to Chicago in early 2002 and the initial trio of Big Buildings began playing the club circuit.

In 2002, Big Buildings produced and released their first EP This Is The Bricks (2002, Stars/No Stars). After a slew of different bass players, Maloney, Wood, and Yoffe all chipped in to get Maloney's old San Francisco bandmate Matt Cummings (vocals, bass) a train ticket from New Orleans to Chicago to come and join up. Now a quartet, Big Buildings hit the ground running on the sprawling Hang Together For All Time (2004, Stars/No Stars). This 19-song offering mixed and matched grainy swagger and melodic folk-rock, with all four members singing selections. Chicago press and radio effusively praised the record for its lo-fi bluster and compared the band to a rootsier Guided by Voices.

Big Buildings released Water Everywhere (2006, Stars/No Stars) to increasingly massive critical acclaim. The Chicago Reader's Monica Kendrick anointed Water Everywhere ?the best Chicago rock record of the year?, and the Chicago New City's Tom Lynch called Big Buildings ?everything you could possibly want from a rock band?. Water Everywhere finds the band in a rare comfort zone, sashaying with ease among the ancient ruins of rock, reminiscent of the glory-days of ?80's Athens and Hoboken. Water Everywhere abounds with slabs of Stonesy groove, punky rave ups and four-track hallucinations.