Mary Dixon: The Chicago Summer Music Festival season is here. And that means some of the biggest acts in music will play in stages across the city, WBEZ. Producer Andrew Merryweather joined me to look at some local acts that may become your new favorite. Hi, Andrew. All right. So local band. What does it mean when a local band gets an opportunity to play at these festivals? Some are pretty

Andrew Meriwether: big. It's a huge deal for a lot of these artists is a big break out, right? I mean, Chicago is blessed to have a lot of great venues around the city, but a lot of time there are smaller rooms, they might be stages in the back of bars and so a chance to play at Lollapalooza, Pitchfork, Suenos, whatever it might be. I mean, this is a chance to share the stage with a headlining artists like Kendrick Lamar. Ok.

Mary Dixon: So let's start with this weekend Swain Music Festival Saturday in Grant Park's Sunday as well. Are there any Chicago X Reggaeton fans should be looking out

Andrew Meriwether: for? Absolutely. Yeah. So DJ Miriam or Miriam pause, she's going to be performing a D J set on the 27th and it's going to be sort of in between some of the more major acts. She'll be doing a D J set there. And I feel like this is typically a time where you might say I'm going to go to the bathroom or I'm going to get some food. I'll take a break. I would highly recommend that you not do that for her set. You should definitely go to check it out. She is an incredible deejay has an incredible sense of pace and we'll introduce you to some really exciting new reggaeton

Mary Dixon: artists. All right, that's DJ Miriam at Suenos Music Festival. Um Horse Girl is playing summer Fest in Milwaukee and they already have a spot at Coachella this spring. So what's next for them? Yeah,

Andrew Meriwether: you know, there, there in this really interesting spot. So in 2022 they released versions of modern performance, two rave reviews. I mean, they really skyrocketed and there they were so young when that came out, you know, the 17, 18 years old. And so now they're kind of in this place where they signed with Matador Records, which is a huge Indy label. Uh And you know, they built quite a following, but also they talked about an interview that now they're kind of wanting to balance this sort of like music fame with their regular lives, but they are definitely put on a great show in Milwaukee. So I would highly recommend making the drive up there. Enjoy the lake. Enjoy all the other performers there and definitely make sure you see Horse Girl. Yeah, it's

Mary Dixon: a great venue out there. Horse Girl did get there break early on by playing a set at Pitchfork early in the day of a couple of years ago. What other local artists might get their own break this

Andrew Meriwether: summer? Yeah. So there's gonna be two bands that I'm super excited about the baby playing Pitchfork. The first is deeper. So they're sort of a post punk indie band that have come out of the D I Y Chicago scene here and they just signed with Sub pop, which is another major indie label. And there's also an electronic artist named Ariel Santina. She got her start in theater and performance art, but then kind of transitioned over to DJ and electronic music and she released a record in 2022 called Cyclorama, which is this really fascinating combination of house music, trance, sonic weirdness and also these really interesting portrayals of trans identity. And she says that she's got something special kind of cooking for her pitch works set. So I feel like there's gonna be some costuming, some light designs, some staged design. So I think that will definitely be a really fun performance.

Mary Dixon: All right, who throughout the summer, who are you most excited to see?

Andrew Meriwether: So, one act I'm super excited to see um is this guy named Anthony Bruno? He is a jazz saxophonist. And he's going to be playing at the Logan Square Arts Festival and he for a long time was just an in demand session musician. He played with Wynton Marsalis. He was playing with The Temptations. He was just like gigging all the time, but the pandemic happened and all of that kinda fell out from under him and he went through a number of different tragedies and he ended up kind of turning inwards and producing this really beautiful emotional album that self titled that was released in 2023 I just can't get it out of my head. Um He has this ability to create these melodies on saxophone. It's all instrumental, but I swear that I here lyrics in my head when I hear the saxophone lines, I don't know how he does it, it's, it's truly astounding and I'm very excited to see how it translates to a live

Mary Dixon: performance. Andrew Merryweather is a producer on WBEZ is Reset. Thank you so much, Andrew. Thanks,

Andrew Meriwether: Lisa.

Carrie Shepherd