Sufjan Stevens

Thomas and Denison Witmer and two more on November 18th with backing band The Michigan Militia (Nicolai Dunger and Awry opened). Little did we know Sufjan's next project would all but guarantee that on his next trip through Chicago, he would draw more fans than could reasonably squeeze into our intimate room. The record he was working on during the period he stopped by turned out to be the second installment of his 50 States Project after Michigan- Illinois.

The widely acclaimed album was the highest-rated of 2005 on the Metacritic review aggregator site, based on glowing reviews from Pitchfork, The Onion A/V Club, Spin, Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, KEXP, and The Guardian. The 2006 PLUG Independent Music Awards awarded Stevens with the Album Of The Year, Best Album Art/Packaging, and Male Artist Of The Year. Pitchfork Media, No Ripcord, and Paste Magazine named Illinois as the editors' choice for best album of 2005 and Stevens received the 2005 Pantheon prize, awarded to albums selling 500,000 copies or more.

Over the 2005 winter holidays, Sufjan recorded an album with Schubas show-sharer Rosie Thomas and Denison Witmer playing banjo and providing vocals. In December 2006, the collaborative recordings were digitally released by Nettwerk as a Rosie Thomas album entitled These Friends of Mine.

A comment from John Fuller on StereoGum.com reads "I saw Sufjan play at Schubas in Chicago and the show blew me away. Afterwards, I got to chat up the xylo player and buy her a drink while fawning over the music." These are the nights Schubas is built for. For those of you who couldn't be there, here's a video of Sufjan at Schubas in April of 2005...