Couch Potatoes// Living Room Songs

—by jack

Getting lost in a North Side Chicago residential neighborhood, with serpentine roadways and dead-ends and obscured street signage, was not fun. But hanging out with four artsy high school kids in a carpeted basement space filled with musical instruments, nerf guns and Simpsons paraphernalia was most definitely fun. The presence of an old Pac-Man arcade module was even more fun. The only thing missing to full out bring me back to 2004 was frozen Bagel Bites.To get to the point: The band was THE HUNGRY PILGRIMS. The front-girl was Alaina Stacey, wildly talented country-tinged singer from Chicago’s Irving Park neighborhood.The song was Flowers, a perfect song for your Valentine’s Day given that you’re into bitter-heartbreak-with-robust-underlying-hopefulness music that only a 16-year-old with crazy lyrical talent could cook up. Between songs the foursome gossiped about classmates, gave each other healthy doses of shit, apologized to me for cursing once (natch), and talked musical shop in sophisticated terms way beyond their years.Imagine the 1995 classic, Clueless, if Breckin Meyer was a young Jack White and Alicia Silverstone a young Gillian Welch.We hope you enjoy this really wonderful song by this crazy talented group. And have a Happy Valentine’s Day. Go see Casablanca somewhere.