Jake Simmons & the Little Ghosts

 Four well­-meaning Midwestern fellas walk into a Southwest Michigan bar...  A heady aroma of spilled PBR and fryer grease against a backdrop taxidermy wildlife and hockey on budget­widescreens serves as a welcome home. The clientele? Punks, hunters, tattooed scene kids, factory workers, college students, and most points in between. Neither primarily red nor blue, Kalamazoo is purple­country. Part of the borderlands where distinctly different American cultures meet and drunkenly exchange stories and recipes. A place where you'll hear “please” and “thank you,” but also frequently catch sight of a sloppy fist fight in an icy parking lot. The place Jake Simmons & the Little Ghosts call home.  Simmons himself—touted by DIT Kalamazoo as the city's best front man—works for a family-­owned scrap yard. His songwriting style is as much blue­collar Springsteen and Stone Cold Steve Austin as it is Hold Steady­esque self­awareness and indie sensibilities. The Little Ghosts, comprised of Matt Blasco (guitar), Ben Bojanich (bass), and Ian Cooper (drums), each bring with them their own eclectic yet distinctly Midwestern take on American roots rock that pays homage to its lush ancestry without pretending the 21 and loud, without leaning toward irony or fashion.  When the time came to craft No Better they set out to make a simple rock and roll record full of simple songs – “Not a lot of frills or bullshit, we just set out to make every song a loud rock and roll tune” as Simmons puts it. While on the surface it certainly seems like they achieved their goal, if you dig a little deeper it soon becomes clear this band of Rust Belt desperados are a little more thoughtful than perhaps they’d care to admit.  Written in Simmons’ basement and recorded at Russian Recording in Bloomington, Indiana, the songs on No Better belie a thoughtfulness perhaps not readily apparent at first listen. From the meditation on how easy it is to pass unfair judgment and how quick we are to do it in “Toledo”, to the genuinely moving love song “Take Me With You” (“I don't write a lot of love songs but I particularly like this one,” says Simmons,) to “Steel Toe”, brimming with the deeply felt pride that comes from honest hard work, Jake Simmons and the Little Ghosts translate a vivid snapshot of our shared humanity into the language of rock and roll.  The band have toured extensively since forming in 2010, from fire­hazard basement shows and sketchy dives to The Cake Shop in New York City, The End in Nashville, and Empty Bottle in Chicago. They've shared a stage with such notable acts as Cloud Nothings, Ha Ha Tonka, Good Old War, What Made Milwaukee Famous, Screaming Females, and many others.  If you find the fellas having a beer or two at a show, by all means say hello. Before long, though, it will be time to load out and roll on; their passion for the work of performing precludes them from finding clichéd ruin on the road. They don't fancy themselves rockstars or indie­chic darlings.  They're four regular guys who drag heavy gear out of a van, set it up, play songs, and repeat. They like it that way. 

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