A Hard Day's Ike
May 21, 2009
by Joseph Lord
The Courier-Journal

It seems like a stretch, but Ike Reilly has more in common with the Beatles than you might realize
By Joseph Lord

Ike Reilly's modesty precedes him.

In every interview you'll find, the frontman for the Ike Reilly Assassination comes across as self-deprecating, even a little chagrined that some people, like PopMatters.com, for example, consider him "probably the best songwriter in America."

Then there are the occasional couplets in his songs, like this one:

You can have my Crown Vic and you can have my debt/You can have my weakness and my regret

Reilly, a feisty Chicagoan, doesn't even like being called a musician.

"I do it everyday," he said. "I write something every day, but my identity isn't really as a musician."

So what are you, Ike?

"Man about town?" he said, laughing. "I don't know. I'm an artist, friend, lover, father, son. I think in musical terms and write music all the time, but I don't claim to do music all the time."

That may be news to the small cache of fans who've stumbled upon one of Reilly's half-dozen or so albums, all of which teem with songs that mix punkish garage rock with lyrical insights into Middle America as seen from a bar stool. And sometimes he even (sort of) raps - best found on 2001's "Salesmen and Racists" - although he owes the vocal style more to Chuck Berry than to hip-hop.

The Ike Reilly Assassination's brand of pub rock is an odd addition to family-friendly Abbey Road on the River, at which he'll perform on Saturday. His cursing and downtrodden demeanor is perhaps best representative of the Beatles' earliest days, before Brian Epstein arrived to smooth the rough edges. There is also the fact that, like the Fab Four, his songs are deceptively complex and instantly endearing.

Predictably, Reilly is cynical about the direction of music today. And despite the handful of raves about his albums, he has reasons for his grounded demeanor.
"I tour with Tom Morello all the time, and he's one of the characters on 'Guitar Hero,'" Reilly said. "My kid one day said to me, 'Are you playing with Tom tonight?' And I said yes. He said, 'Are you going to beat him?'"

The prodigious Reilly has a new album of rarities and B-sides, "Poison the Hit Parade," on Rock Ridge Records. It's odd, perhaps, for a musician unknown on the national scene to have a B-sides album, particularly a good one like "Hit Parade." But Reilly sees it as a necessity of the modern music industry.

"We just had a record come out not a year ago," he said. "We need to generate interest, and this is what happens. I don't mind. I like listening to the old s---."

Get Out

What The Ike Reilly

Assassination

When 10:30 p.m. Saturday

Where The Belvedere

Cost $20 advance, $25 day of show

Info www.abbeyroadontheriver.com , www.ikereilly.net

Abbey Road on the River

Thursday-
Monday on The Belvedere
Music begins at 4 p.m. Thursday, at noon all other days

HIGHLIGHTS
Thursday: The Pete Best Band, The Beatrips
Friday: Band on the Run, Instant Karma, Digby
Saturday: Abbey Road Live!, Hal Bruce, Ike Reilly Assassination
Sunday: All You Need Is Love, Steve Sizemore Group
Monday: Merry Pranksters, Nervous Melvin & the Mistakes, Yardsale

TICKETS
Single-day passes are $20 in advance, $25 day of show.
Three-day passes are $59.99 and are available until Wednesday.
Five day-passes are $69.99 and are available until Wednesday.
INFO
www.abbeyroadontheriver.com.

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