Ha Ha Tonka – Laughing Through the Midwest

In high school, I dated a guy who was, what I liked to call, “a little bit country.” He was, in fact, a little bit “white trash,” but that’s beside the point. He was my white trash and among the many things I took from the relationship (like “never believe the slumber party your boyfriend is having with his ex is innocent”) is an appreciation of country music.  

Living in Chicago and New York for nearly a decade, this hasn’t served me too well or often, but every once and a while, it helps to be able to tolerate a honky tonk and tap your toes to some bluegrass. Surprisingly, this was exactly the kind of flexible music taste I needed last Monday at Schuba’s on Chicago’s north side. Ha Ha Tonka, Missouri’s four man alt-country-rock band, was taking over the small stage in the back bar to turn the college bar neighborhood into a country music outpost in honor of their newest CD, Novel Sounds of the Nouveau South, which was released that evening.  

The set opened with some solid country-rock tunes, but quickly slowed down when guitarist Brett Anderson took the microphone three songs in. Starting with “Falling In,” Anderson took us through a couple of suicide-inducing ditties. This girl couldn’t tell if the band’s intention was to drive listeners to jump of a bridge, but everyone in the audience would have been on board, having drunk the Tonka kool-aid early on.  

After picking up the tempo and bringing us back from the brink with some upbeat rock, the band finally mentioned the television that has been playing behind them. Apparently they felt the need to bring Benny Hinn, the evangelist preacher/healer along with them on the tour, perhaps as a throw back to their Bible Belt roots. Or because the video of him healing people to the ground set to “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor” is really hilarious. Either way, entertaining.  

Now, all this time, the audience showed a lot of love for Ha Ha Tonka. But it wasn’t until the band busted out “St. Nick on the Fourth In A Fervor” that they really broke out of their cumulative case of the Mondays. Bassist Lucas Long lit up a cigarette, assuming, correctly, that no one would tell the band to follow the “no smoking” rules that are slowly taking over the US. This small act of rebellion was the icing on the cake of the foot-stomping anthem. After cheering through the ending, the two rapidly-approaching-middle-aged dudes in front of me exchanged high-fives, in case anyone forgot that they were still in the middle of frat-tastic college bar-ville.  

With the crowd clearly invested in whatever Ha Ha Tonka wanted to deliver, the band slowed down the momentum of the show with two consecutive and well written a cappella numbers, starting with “Hangman.” Frat boys young and old were more than happy to come along for leisurely the ride.  

Predictable as the encore is at any show, Schuba’s provides even less of a “surprise” as the venue is not equipped with a back stage area. Bands aren’t given much breathing room in between the faux-last song and the follow up songs, and it’s pretty obvious when they’re just hanging out for a few minutes, waiting for the cheers to reach encore-deserving levels. Even so, one couple sprinted out after the first last song, for whatever reason, but they missed out on a pretty sweet encore. Ha Ha Tonka capped their already impressive performance with a cover of “Black Betty.” The twangy rock classic was the perfect close to a refreshingly diverse set from a great live band. For this girl’s walk down memory lane, country-esque hasn’t sounded so good in about ten years.  

*By Jesy, who lost her camera somewhere between the three homes she has lived in during the past two weeks, and sincerely apologizes for the lack of pictures.

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