RECENT:
Chicago-based Kaspar Hauser have recently completed work on a 9-song record, tentatively entitled, The Sons. With mixing underway, KH will be playing a series of Chicago shows featuring both the new material and the players who have contributed to the record. The record’s release is tentatively slated for spring 2009. To preview rough mixes, click here.

BIO:
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 played a lot of shows in Chicago and the US throughout 2007 and early 2008. With this lineup and a stable of returning talented guests, including Stephen "the Kid" Howard and Kent Lambert, KH have just completed a follow up to Q/T, tentatively slated for spring 2009 release.

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

Nice words on KH and the recent record:
• "Here are a few pop-culture items I've been digging this week ... Kaspar Hauser's Quixotic/Taxidermy, which was spotlighted in this week's podcast." -Whitney Matheson, Pop Candy/USATODAY.com

• "The Chicago based band should be able to capitalize off of their latest album Quixotic/Taxidermy: packed with cool/bluesy Tweedy-like vocals and tracks that pull influences from both the Stones and Kinks." -Nathaniel Gravely, i guess i'm floating

• "Local act Kaspar Hauser has been kicking around for the last seven years, but has kept a low profile, playing sporadic shows, putting out a new record every couple of years. Their latest, the self-issued Quixotic/Taxidermy, is quite nice -- a loose homage to the Stones grafted to workaday Midwestern indie rock. Frontman and band mainstay Thomas Comerford sounds casual; he sings with a little bit of a cool remove. The band is no-frills but sweet, chimey and has a particularly easy way with a bluesy swagger. Fans of Jeff Tweedy's pre-Wilco works would do well to check them out." -Jessica Hopper, This Week in Live Music/Chicago Tribune

• "Comerford ... sings in a nasal tenor that reminds me of Bill Callahan (the artist formerly known as Smog), ripping through shambling, melodic rock tunes with a bored swagger. There’s a definite shot of the Rolling Stones here, particularly in the looseness of the arrangements, but Kaspar Hauser doesn’t seem particularly concerned with using classic rock ‘n’ roll riffery; the guitars sputter and clamber more than they groove. A few ballads embrace a darker, more atmospheric vibe—including a surprisingly good cover of Big Star’s “Holocaust,” a tough tune to mess with—but ultimately Comerford’s writing and the way he comfortably wears the skin of these warmly familiar songs is what puts the band over. Even when the songs seem like they’re about to fall apart, his singing threads them back together." -Peter Margasak, Post No Bills/Chicago Reader