Main Street Minority makes trip to Q-C

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By Stephanie DePasquale | Wednesday, March 19, 2008 10:46 AM CDT | () comments

(CONTRIBUTED PHOTO) The Chicago-based band Main Street Minority will be playing Saturday night at RIBCO in downtown Rock Island.

Main Street Minority has been playing Chicago venues since its inception three years ago. But when it came time to expand the band’s horizons, Jared Skiba, rhythm guitarist — and Augustana College alumnus — knew where to start.

“We were just looking to start branching out further out into the Midwest,” he said. “So, from my experience at Augie, RIBCO (Rock Island Brewing Company) just seemed like a logical place to try to get in at.”

Main Street Minority got its start in 2005 when Skiba and lead guitarist Pauly Bartel were on a break from their jobs teaching lessons at the same music store.

“We both were on the main floor, plugged into whatever, trying out various guitars and amplifiers, and we were sort of noodling around with each other, but we weren’t necessarily playing with each other,” Skiba said. “But we both knew the song ‘Slither’ by Velvet Revolver and we both just kind of looked at each other and said, ‘Let’s play it. I know the rhythm parts and you do the solo.’

“So we played it and the owner of the store happened to be in there and he thought that we were just way too loud and told us to just knock it off and our amps were just set on two or three and we actually weren’t that loud, but our sound together just locked in and it sounded like a freight train.”

Skiba and Bartel knew they had something and began looking for other members to put together a band. It took them nine months to find the right combination in John Strand on bass and Nick Jochim on drums.

Main Street Minority replaced its original vocalist in September with Nick Proyce

“We were sort of picky about who we wanted to let into the group because our goal was to be very serious about it, so we wanted people who we not only saw eye-to-eye with musically, but also could spend a fair amount of time with without wanting to punch in the face,” Skiba said.

Classifying Main Street Minority’s music is a difficult task for Skiba. Alternative rock, the music its members grew up listening to, is probably the best match, he said.

“Our style of music isn’t completely original, but there is sort of an edge to it that I don’t think is around much these days,” he said. “Lyrically, we’re not as maybe psychedelic as Incubus, we’re a little more politically and socially direct. But I wouldn’t say we’re as progressive as RX Bandits. They’re a little more progressive, we’re a little more concise in our songwriting.”

The band’s social and political awareness, especially having grown up in the Chicago suburbs, is what led to the name Main Street Minority.

“Growing up in the suburbs, there’s kind of the more conservative viewpoint, and a lot of kids growing up, they weren’t the most politically or socially active people in the world, and the five of us were,” Skiba said. “Basically growing up on Main Street but not having the same views as everybody else walking down the street.”

While the band writes songs about weighty issues such as war and immigration along with the occasional love song, Skiba said the band does a few covers that normally aren’t part of a rock band’s set to create a high-energy show.

“We’ll do some very, very pop material with a rock twist,” he said. “We don’t do it, but I’ll put it this way: One of our favorite covers that we appreciated was when Local H did ‘Toxic’ by Britney Spears and they did a hard rock version of that.”

Stephanie De Pasquale can be contacted at (563) 333-2639 or sdepasquale@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.

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What: Main Street Minority

When: 10 p.m. Saturday, March 22

Where: RIBCO, 1815 2nd Ave., Rock Island

How much: $7 cover

Information: (309) 793-1999 or ribco.com on the Web

Also on the Web: myspace.com/mainstreetminority