Claud at Lincoln halL
Once upon a time, my wife and I were binge watching The Sex Lives of College Girls on HBO, when a song that was playing in the background of an episode caught our attention. It had dreamy guitar chords, a steady kick drum beat, and melancholy vocals.
It sounded like butterflies in your stomach.
You made it clear that it’s over now,
but you’re all that I think about
So now I don’t know what the hell to do
Cause I’ve got a soft spot, I’ve got it for you.
Claud is a non-binary artist from the suburbs of Chicago. They’ve been making and releasing music under various titles (Toast, and a band called Shelly with Clairo, Josh Mehling and Noa Frances Getzug) since 2018. They started pursuing music full time in 2019 and in 2020, Claud became the first artist to sign to Saddest Factory Records, the record label started by Phoebe Bridgers.
It seems like Claud has found a great home at Saddest Factory Records. It’s amazing to see young artists find a musical home that really seems to want to foster their growth and individuality, rather than make them conform to an industry standard. I’m so excited to see more projects come out of Saddest Factory, because so far, they haven’t missed. Not once.
(Plus the Saddest Factory instagram page is actually peak comedy. 10/10).
Claud was one of those exciting musical discoveries that makes you feel like you’ve found a four leaf clover growing up out of the concrete. It was completely unexpected, but absolutely exciting. Sometimes with new artists, you’ll like one or two of their songs, not really investing until they discover more of their sound or what kind of artist they want to be. That was never the case with Claud.
Claud sounds like my freshman year of college. For me, that year was monumental. It was all self discovery, soft touches, severe crushes, and sunrises through sleepy eyes. That year was a whirlwind of so many pieces of myself falling into place.
One of my favorite Claud songs is “Tommy”. It’s a song that bleeds. A real heartbreaking slow dance of longing for someone that’s only using you because you’re available, when they want someone else. The crux of “Tommy”, and of so many of Claud’s songs, is just the desire to be wanted and to be loved.
You keep the lights down low, keepin’ your eyes closed
But it won’t change the feel of my body
When you say my name, it don’t hold the weight
Like it does when you talk about Tommy
Touch my body
Like I’m Tommy
Touch my body
Pretend I’m Tommy
Hearing songs about longing like this, sung through a queer lens makes these songs hit with a kind of thunder that knocks me out, because I know this kind of pain and someone is finally putting it in a way that cuts right through any sort of pretense.
Claud is no one trick pony. While they can break your heart with one hand, they can mend it with the other. Claud has a tongue in cheek sense of humor that’s so refreshing and executed perfectly in their songs. They write songs like “Wish You Were Gay”, that just based on the title alone, sounds like it might be a farce, but it’s not. It’s a sweet piano driven song where Claud daydreams about loving a friend that is, unfortunately, straight.
Or, the song “That’s Mr. Bitch to You”, a true nonbinary anthem of reclaiming power back from a boring straight guy that decided to call Claud a bitch.
When I listen to Claud, I’m stunned at how it felt like I was looking back at a younger version of myself, in their music. They were reflecting back to me my queerness, my tenderness to be loved, and that tried and true Midwest sense of humor.
It’s always exciting when an artist gets you like that with their first album.
On February 26th, the city of Chicago welcomed Claud home with unseasonably “warm” weather for their show at Lincoln Hall.
Kyle and I posted up in the balcony with a few beers and watched as the crowd filtered in before the show. I’ve always loved live music, but I especially loved this show. I loved watching all of the queers stumble into Lincoln Hall, seeing them get lost in each other as they swayed to the pre show playlist, holding hands. There’s something so magical about watching queer people love so loudly and so softly (especially with, you know, everything, everywhere). It was really amazing to see an artist establish that kind of environment on their first tour.
This particular show had two opening acts. The “pre-openers” were a songwriting group from Interlochen. Interlochen is both an intensive summer camp and a boarding school that focuses on fostering young artists. This group that was on tour with Claud, was a group of high school songwriters. Claud attended Interlochen, so this was really quite a full circle moment for them to take these young songwriters on tour. When the Interlochen songwriters were introducing themselves, they were awkward, but in the most endearing way possible. Then they started to play and holy shit.
Each member of this band held their own distinct style, both in fashion and in how they approached music. Some showed influences from Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks. Others were definitely holding style from the 2010 pop punk scene, and even a bit of musical theatre singing came out. They were awkward and silly, but you could tell that each of them loved the music they were playing. By the end of their set they had the audience eating from their hands. There was no pretense with these musicians. There didn’t need to be, they were just good.
After the Interlochen singers, Jackie Hayes took to the stage. Jackie is a musician from Chicago. She’s been making the rounds playing opening gigs at a lot of the local Chicago venues and she was received warmly by the RiotFest crowd when she performed there in 2021. Jackie Hayes looks like the cute suburban girl next door, but then she opens her mouth to sing and a darkness erupts from her. Her voice is strong, and bellowing, dark and intense. You can hear influences from The Strokes, Hole, No Doubt, and even a little Paramore in her sound.
Jackie Hayes by Adam Alanzo
Opening acts are so important to a successful tour. To be honest, I walked into Lincoln Hall expecting to hear an opener that was a bedroom pop musician, with soft sounds and a whistful voice. Instead, we got polar opposites. Jackie Hayes and Claud are foils of each other. Claud is tender, dreamy, a little vulnerable and silly. Jackie is headstrong, brazen, and almost a bit guarded. Jackie is the sour to Claud’s sweet.
I’m so excited to see what kind of music Jackie starts to make after this tour. I think, right now, a lot of her music is high octane, pop punk/rock influences. I can’t wait for Jackie Hayes to discover a little more softness and vulnerability in her sound, to show real control and finesse in her songwriting and her performing.
The next few sentences are going to sound like something out of a Mindy Kaling script, but I promise you, it actually happened and I experienced it with my own eyes and ears.
The lights in Lincoln Hall all dimmed, the stage was lit in a blue light, anticipation was building in the crowd, when suddenly- the opening chords of Eye of the Tiger by Survivor started to reverberate throughout the hall. The band filled in and then Claud made their entrance, popping their hips to the chords and finally raising their fist in the air as the last guitar chord rang out. Before anyone really had any idea of what exactly had just happened, the kick drum came in and the three piece band jumped into the opening track, Overnight from Supermonster.
I fell in love like a fool overnight
I fell behind, can't keep up with real life
And all the time spent with you in my head
Turned into things that we finally did, overnight
The entire time Claud was on stage, it felt like we were all there just hanging out with one of our friends. We sang “Happy Birthday” to their brother, we flipped each other off during “That’s Mr. Bitch to you”, we laughed when a fan threw a card on stage that said “To the best Dad”, we all lost our minds when Claud teased us with a sample of “Driver’s License”, and then when the beat dropped during the final song of the night, “Soft Spot”, we threw beach balls at each other (and Claud).
I’ve been to a few concerts post stay at home order, but this was the first show that felt like a true homecoming to live music. I’m currently reading Hunger Makes me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein and there’s a quote that I came across in it today that made me think of Claud and this show.
“It was reassuring to come across what felt like a network of people finding their voices for the first time. Those individual expressions formed a collective force, one that may be lacking in refinement but was deeply sincere.”
This show wasn’t Harry Styles levels of production or pomp and circumstance, and that’s what made it feel so special, so intimate, and so sincere. It was raw, young musicans cutting their teeth as they figured out their voices and their music. It was a queer artist making a music hall feel like a sleepover with a bunch of besties.
I’ve been to a few shows post stay at home order, but Claud was the artist that welcomed all of us back to live music, and damn does it feel good to be back.