OurStage: Let The Fans Decide

Long-time midwesterner Thomas Comerford started Kaspar Hauser while living in Iowa City in 1999. Though he’d played guitar, written songs and played in bands since the age of ten, with influences ranging from the Beatles to Will Oldham to the mid-80s SST Records roster, his only releases were hand-held tape recordings handed out to friends. Upon moving to Chicago in 1999, he began to assemble various lineups to do sporadic shows and recordings. Kaspar Hauser was still a part-time activity, however, as Comerford (who teaches film at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago) was producing 16mm films and touring the country with them.

While working on the Quixotic/Taxidermy record between 2004-6, Comerford began to devote more time to songwriting, recording and performing music. In making the record, he drew on a number of friends and previous contributors, including Stephen “the kid” Howard (Pinebender, Ambulette), Johnathan Crawford (ex-Head of Femur, William Elliot Whitmore) and Kent Lambert (Roommate), among others. Kris Poulin, a Chicago engineer (Pinback, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Love Story in Blood Red) who has recorded and played with Comerford over the years, recorded and mixed the bulk of the record, which came out in 2007 to excellent reviews and airplay on college radio stations.

With a new live lineup, including Chicago musicians Steve Kiraly (Reagan National Crash Diet) and Matt Seifert (Stanley Ross, Cool Devices, Pike St. Germain), the band has been playing shows in Chicago and the US throughout 2007, and has begun working on a follow-up to Q/T in '08.

Kaspar Hauser has a new song available for free download. Click here to get it!