One consistent truth in the music business: In spite
of the heartfelt aspiration and keen ambition felt by the people who trudge
it, the path to making music for a living is littered with lost dreams,
dashed hopes, and unfulfilled desires. Micah Walk, a singer/songwriter and
leader of the Micah Walk Band, is quite aware of this, so much so that his
latest record is titled Bright Side Fantasy in recognition of the desire to bridge the gap
between hope and reality.
“It’s the title of a song I wrote after I
got back from a two-week tour and I didn’t want to come home,”
Walk says. “For me it was about pursuing what really makes someone
happy, doing what they love. That goes for anyone, not just me.”
The song touches on the universal sentiment of
hope, but the potent desire to succeed is personal for the
nearly-27-year-old Walk. From his earliest longing to play guitar in high
school to his relocation to Chicago, a little over a year ago, Walk has
steadily pursued the goal of sustaining a living through artistic purpose.
Beneath the unassuming personality and low-key demeanor is a determined and
confident individual who takes things step by step, heading where his heart
takes him. According to someone who knows Micah pretty well, this is normal
behavior.
“When he started, I think he would just sit in
a corner and sing. He didn’t like to sing in front of anybody,”
says Dan Walk, Micah’s father. He’s a lifelong resident of
Girard, a town of about 2,200 souls 30 miles south of Springfield on State
Route 4. “I knew one day he would come out and start doing it.”
After buying a starter guitar kit to satisfy a
request from the 15-year-old wannabe musician, dear old Dad watched to see
whether his youngest son would stick with “the music thing.” No
one else in the family ever showed any inclination toward playing music,
but the patient father was willing to see how far it would go —
whether the guitar would be a passing fancy for young Micah or a stronger
draw. They started lessons with a teacher whose quaint songs and simple
technique didn’t appeal to the aspiring rocker. When Dad invited a
musician friend named Ed Gradyover to teach Micah a few basic chords and old rock &
roll numbers, the teenager jumped in with both feet.
“After that he always had a guitar in hand,
strumming and playing, wherever he went,” says the elder Walk.
“While we were watching TV or doing anything, he was playing that
guitar.”
During his high-school years, influenced by the
popular bands of the day — Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and
Soundgarden, plus the burgeoning Christian-rock scene — Walk teamed
up with other local high-school musicians and played
church youth-group rallies and various other gigs. He wrote a few songs
then but now claims that “they weren’t very good at all.”
After graduating from high school he enrolled at the University of Illinois
at Springfield, taking general classes geared toward a major in
communications and a few introductory music classes that expanded his ideas
of melodic structure and harmonic theory. His musical tastes grew to
include classic artists such as the Beatles and singer/songwriter types
like Neil Young, Ryan Adams, Dave Matthews, and Damien Rice. Walk cites
Rice as “a huge influence” but later found it necessary to
distance himself from the Irish singer’s startling intensity and
powerful attraction to forge ahead with an original sound of his own.
During this formative artistic stage Walk played out some, continued his
UIS studies, and worked at Samuel’s Music, always playing that guitar
while fine-tuning his singing and songwriting skills.
“He would come home late from college and I
would hear him in his room at 2 a.m., going over songs on a recording
machine,” his father says. “It was muffled, but I could hear
him practicing.”
It took some time before Dad ever heard his son sing
in person.
“Ifollow him as much as I can,” says the
elder Walk, “but the first time I really heard him, he was playing up
in Springfield at 11 West.”
Walk moved to the capital city in 2003 and immersed
himself in the local music scene, performing at local open mics. During one
such open mic at Floyd’s Thirst Parlor, Jim Wavering —
owner/operator of Marly’s Pub, a live-music club on the west side of
the Old Capitol Plaza, and 11 West, a now-defunct bar that was located at
the corner of Fifth and Adams streets — chanced upon a Walk
performance. He immediately hired the singer/songwriter for a weekly gig at
11 West.
“I didn’t realize how playing bars and
clubs worked then. It was totally new to me,” Walk says. “Now I
know what it meant to be approached by him and offered the job. It
doesn’t always happen that way.”
Walk performed most Tuesdays for nearly four years,
first at 11 West, then at Mojo’s, and finally Marly’s Pub,
cultivating a following along the way. He played cover songs he liked and
originals from his growing list, usually going it alone on guitar and
voice, with the exception of harmony vocals supplied by Macie Smith, a
friend from the church days.
“I met Micah at the Abundant Life church
in Auburn when he played with the Sunday-morning band,” says Smith, a
former Chatham resident. “I ran sound and he would come early to
practice. I wasn’t aware then of my music abilities. I owe that to
Micah.”
Originally another high-school friend, Tenika Beard,
sang live with Smith and on Walk’s first recording project. When
Beard left the area to pursue other interests, Walk asked Smith to stay on
and continue singing. She became a staple in Walk’s solo live show,
adding delicately balanced harmonies to his powerfully subtle tunes.
Nowadays they sing together whenever they can — which isn’t
very often — but she recalls working together as “a natural
fit” and Walk remembers the collaboration as “a really good
time.” She now lives in Springfield, employed by Blue Cross Blue
Shield and taking piano lessons while working on “getting out and
playing more.”
Walk’s live shows seem to evoke a common
response that echoes Wavering’s reaction on first hearing the
restrained yet intriguing performer.
“I don’t think he realizes there is
something different about him,” Smith says. “Other musicians
try to make you like them, and he just does what he likes to do and people
respond. I think humility is a big part of the reason.”
Stolie, a talented one-name Chicago-based
singer/songwriter, has hosted open mics throughout the city, experiencing
more than her fair share of players and poseurs in the process. She saw a
difference in her audiences’ reactions when Walk took his turn on
stage.
“People would actually stop talking and listen
when Micah would sing,” she says. “That’s not always the
case at open mics. It was surprising and encouraging.”
This beguiling of the audience is certainly not the
result of histrionics or stage antics. Walk is about as undemonstrative a
performer as you’ll find: His voice is closer to a whisper than to a
scream, and his guitar playing generally entails gentle fingerpicking.
What, then, is the root of his appeal? Everyone has a different opinion of
what makes Walk interesting, but each of those opinions contains some
reference to a mysterious something that draws the listener in and appeals
to an unspecified emotion. Walk is just as lost as to why anyone cares to
listen as the most rabid fan; in fact, he downplays it with his usual
modesty that approaches reticence at times.
“I’m not sure why it happens or even that
it does. I’m just happy someone wants to listen,” he says,
slowly choosing his words and obviously embarrassed by a question
concerning his appeal. “I mostly just sing and write for
myself.”
Whatever the attraction, the acquired attention gave
Walk a local fanbase and the confidence to pursue more recording projects
while whetting his appetite to find a way to a make a living playing music.
In other words, he went looking for a way to reach the bright-side fantasy
before he even knew what it was.
During his Springfield stay, Walk played mostly in
central Illinois, with a few forays to neighboring states; graduated with a
communications degree from UIS; and continued to teach guitar and work
part-time at Samuel’s. In 2004 Walk recorded a five-song EP of
originals and in 2005 finished his first full-length recording. Both were
recorded locally with friends at home studios, and though the releases
lacked high-dollar polish and production values, they showed Walk’s
growth as a singer and songwriter, presenting his material in a favorable
light and garnering more fans and attention.
As he maintained the solo performance experience and
played with a few area musicians, Walk searched for players to flesh out
his tunes and bring the full-band recorded sound to a live audience. In
early 2006 he hooked up with some Milliken University graduates, well
schooled in music performance and theory, playing in a band called Public
Display of Funk. John Cardoni was the guitarist and Darin Holthaus the
drummer, and when Walk found them they were looking for something, too.The bandmates recruited
bassist Dan Hartman, a former roommate from Cardoni’s and
Holthaus’ college days, resulting in a combo that was cohesive and
engaged, ready and willing to interpret Walk’s backload of original
songs.
“I first met Darin and we wanted to put the
band together,” Walk recalls. “We booked a gig at Mojo’s
only a month down the road to light a fire under us. It was our first gig
and with only a few practices, but it worked.”
Soon they were discussing recording-studio options,
settling on Mark Rubel’s Pogo Studio, in Champaign-Urbana, as the
home for the first recording of the Micah Walk Band. Change, released in mid-2006,
explores the funkier, rock side of the band, fleshing out the heartfelt
songs with a jazz-fusion flair. The band flexed some musical muscle and
Walk stretched beyond the typical singer/songwriter mode to create a
forceful, band-driven, electric sound much different than his earlier
acoustic outings.
“We approached that record as more of a jam
session and went through a variety of styles,” Walk says. “The
songs were longer and we were evolving, plus we were on the studio clock
and couple of the songs didn’t come out the way we wanted.”
Local fans seemed to enjoy the record and the live
concerts. They showed their appreciation by voting Walk Best Musician for
2006 (runner-up in 2007) and Best Singer for 2007 in the Illinois Times reader poll. In
March 2007 Walk left Springfield and took up residence in Chicago, hoping
to increase his chances of being heard and to develop new opportunities.
With the expanded gig base of a large metropolitan area, he’s played
plenty of places, but a larger population also means more competition,
which often translates into lower-paying shows. Walk held off getting a day
job for as long as possible, but he now works part-time in sales for a
dot-com cottage industry. The job provides flexible hours to accommodate
his pursuit of the musical dream and a steady paycheck to cover the costs
of living in the big city.
The band has made some adjustments, with members now
living in various Illinois cities, but has stayed committed to the Micah
Walk Band project. Although pleased with the majority of Change, the guys decided to record
the next disk at their own pace, avoiding the time and money limitations of
a professional working studio. Home studios are a common reality today,
boasting high-quality equipment that would have been unimaginable not that
many years ago. Armed with bass player Hartman’s recording-engineer
knowledge and studio gear, the band transformed Holthaus’ home into a
makeshift studio and proceeded to record whenever their schedules allowed,
mostly on weekends, for nearly a year before completing the latest album.
“This is the best thing I’ve ever been a
part of musically speaking,” Walk says. “We found our voice as
a band and I feel I found mine as a songwriter and that helped the overall
band sound. This record is what we really are.”
Others who have heard prerelease copies of the
recording tend to agree, lauding the balance of acoustic and rock sounds as
a fitting equilibrium between Walk’s songwriting style and the
band’s instrumental approach. The official release for Bright Side Fantasy in
Springfield is set for Friday, July 25, with a 7 p.m. all-ages show at
Andiamo and a 10 p.m. adult show at Marly’s Pub. The CD comes out in
Chicago on Aug. 8 with a release party at the Cubby Bear, a longtime
Wrigleyville bar, and is available online now through CD Baby and iTunes.
After the long recording process and buildup to
the release comes the reality part of the business side: pushing the
product to the public and gaining recognition in any way necessary to sell
those CDs.
“It’s kinda like being pregnant,”
Walk says. “You put all this time into making the record, then you
have to shift gears. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it.”
Walk sees the group “trying to work smarter
than harder,” supporting the new CD by playing out more, scoring
radio airplay, keeping the Internet connections running, and generally
raising public awareness for the band without disrupting the private lives
of its members.
“When you’re doing it yourself, you gotta
get out there and do it,” he says. “I like to do what I do and
figure it out as I go along.”
And that would be the way to Micah Walk’s
bright-side fantasy.
Contact Tom Irwin at tirwin@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Jul 17-23, 2008.
