"Band Of the Month: Unicycle Loves You" - Venus Magazine

September 26, 2009

Band Of the Month: Unicycle Loves You
Chicago band mixes pop sensibilities with psychedelic inspirations.

By Sarah Collins

IN A NUTSHELL
Not everybody can make the transition from marching band to indie rocknroller, but Nicole Vitale, frontwoman for Unicycle Loves You, did it just fine.

“I was a band geek in high school,” says a cat-eyed, curly-haired Vitale. “I was on the football field while everyone else was out partying.” It’s hard to see the geek looking at her today, but she swears it’s a recent turn. “As far as being in a rock band goes, this is new for me.”

But that’s not stopping her from taking full advantage of it. Always attracted by rocknroll aesthetics, the well-dressed singer has an arsenal of vintage gowns and bubble-wrap frocks to keep shows interesting. She’s also picked up the bass, giving her a way to bring her band background into ULY’s intricate sounds.

“I think the musicianship involved with each member. I think we’re a tight band,” muses Vitale when asked why everyone seemed so surprised by their first few shows. “We came off polished from the start.”

As quick as they took off, they weren’t planning on starting a band. It was a crappy day job that the three original members shared that led them to their rocknroll career.

“I had been recording for many, many years by myself and didn’t do anything with it,” says guitarist Jim Carroll. He passed along the tapes to his co-workers, Vitale and former guitarist Jon Pollock, who flipped at the dreamy and muscular sounds.

Vitale was planning on leaving music behind for art, but the tapes changed her mind. “I listened to it, and I thought I had to do something. He doesn’t have a band!”

The three roped in Carroll’s ex-manager as a keyboardist, picked up a drummer, and started rehearsing the songs. “It took us two months and we were like, ‘Let’s play a show,’” says Carroll. “It was very natural.”

Performing bands need a name, however, not something the group had discussed before. Carroll had been recording demos under the name of Unicycle, a name the band unconsciously adopted. “Then when we went to do our first show, we thought that would get lost in the shuffle, so we added the Loves You,” explains Carroll. The added endearment must have worked. ULY has a who’s who of compliments from Pitchfork to Time Out.

They still can’t ride a unicycle, though.

“We are bad luck magnets,” says Carroll, rattling off a list of current band injuries that include two wrist braces, a back brace, and a bum ankle.

With the hazy pop gems coming off of their new record, expect that luck to change.

"Unicycle Loves You" - New City Chicago

November 2, 2008

Mix virtually every successful movement of the last sixty years and see what happens, resulting in ten lively, unpredictable tracks that flow without warning from Belle & Sebastian quirk-rock to late-1970s butt-rock to bluesy psych-rock back to Beach Boys pop.

"Unicycle Loves You" - Incendiary Magazine

September 29, 2008

Everybody bounce! No, not in that hip-hop way, but more in a kind of space hopper cum pogo stick way. Swing your head from side to side, wave your arms around with no real coordination and spill your beer all over the place. You know, the kind of thing you do when you’re drunk in a bar and are having way too much fun to care about anything else other than jumping up and down for a few minutes. That’s it! See how much better you feel? Now then, grab this, press play and do it repeatedly for a little over half an hour. You’ll be knackered by the end of it, and your carpet will be ruined, but you’ll have had a bloody good time in doing so.

You see, Unicycle Loves You are a lot of fun. They remind me a lot of Supergrass, although I’ll bet that at least one of them has a Devo album in their collection and, hey, seems as I’m throwing stuff out there for no apparent reason I’ll wager a tenner that one of them has spent hours in their bedroom studying Kim Deal’s bass lines. What does that matter? Not a lot to be honest.

What does matter is that, if you’re in the need for something that’s got a bit of a jollier outlook on life than what you’ve been listening to lately, you could do worse than pick this up. Listening to this is the aural equivalent of drinking a pint of Sunny D and eating a whole pack of wine gums. Music by e-numbers. It’s a complete sugar rush and should really come with a health warning.

The music jumps up and down like a fat man’s heart monitor after a run to the kebab shop and is perfect for those of you with attention deficit disorder. Every song contains an album full of ideas. Slow bit, fast bit, slower bit, faster bit, slow bit again, doo doo bit, waa waa bit, faster bit, dum dum dum bit, woah oh oh bit, slow bit, faster bit. The songs change track so often they end up going round in circles, but who gives a toss when its this much fun?

There may be a rhyme and reason to the whole thing, but frankly I’m not bothered about it. They have a song entitled “Woman Bait For Manfish,” for Christ’s sake! That’s enough for me. All I want to do is fill my glass up, climb on that pogo stick and ruin the carpet some more. Won’t you join me?