Conrad Plymouth

Something strange happens when the musically subdued Conrad Plymouth take the stage, whether it’s at an open mic or an open-air festival like Summerfest. People listen.

This attentive atmosphere is by design. Christopher Porterfield, front man of Conrad Plymouth, creates it by producing a melodic type of music that won’t knock one over the head right away but inspires a closer inspection. When the band starts quiet, the music has room to build and expand, and can take its time in reaching a musical climax.

“It’s been sort of a conscious effort to play shows with bands and at venues that foster that listening environment, rather than just being background to someone’s drunken night,” Porterfield said. He enjoys playing at Linneman’s Riverwest Inn and Club Garibaldi because of the separation between the bar and stage.

“Sometimes when people are getting too loud I’ll let them know by getting really quiet, or getting really loud—so it’s a give and take, just kinda react to your audience.”

The current configuration of Conrad Plymouth reflects the way the band is headed. For just shy of a year, the current lineup has consisted of Porterfield on lead guitar and vocals, Nick Berg on keyboard, Travis Whitty on bass, and Damian Strigens on drums. When anything resembling this current lineup played at Summerfest last year, Porterfield felt like Conrad Plymouth moved from simply being a stage name derived from his initials to an ensemble group.

Berg engineers most of the music, and “does a good job of flushing stuff in soundscape-wise,” while Whitty has been incorporating more loops into the sounds, Porterfield said. “We try to fill up as much space as we can without taking away from some of the holes that are also consciously there too.”

This sparse sound is a construct of Porterfield’s influences, such as Mark Eitzel from American Music Club and Red House Painters.

“I think we’ve probably borrowed from the Wilco playbook a little bit,” he also said, which explains the hooks in songs like “Fergus Falls.” A multi-part vocal harmony rounds out the song’s final chorus and cries out for a sing-along. Aware of the song’s quickened tempo and catchier material, Porterfield joked that the song was “to reward people for slogging through the first three [songs on the EP].”

Conrad Plymouth’s latest album is being released for the first time in physical format. Porterfield plans to have an unofficial release show in July for the self-titled 10-inch EP, pressed on clear vinyl. It is given special treatment as the first release on the new record label, Ten Atoms, created by Ryan Matteson, who runs the Muzzle of Bees blog and does promotions for the Pabst Theater.

The summer is quickly filling up for the band. In August, a mini “barnstormer tour” is planned, which includes playing a biker fest in Matteson’s hometown of Hillsboro, Wis., and a show in Eau Claire, where Porterfield attended college.

Before then it plays a Summerfest slot on July 3 at the U.S. Cellular stage and a show at Bradford Beach as part of WMSE’s Music by the Fire series on July 22. Conrad Plymouth also opens for Longacre at Chill on the Hill in Humboldt Park on July 13.

“Bay View listeners tend to be people who listen to and like good music and it’s really an honor to be a part of it,” Porterfield said. The band practices in the Hide House, and Whitty and Strigens both reside in Bay View. Strigens and his wife, Betty Blexrud-Strigens, also play with Longacre and another band on the Chill lineup, the always-fun Bikini Beach Combers. Strigens is best known as the drummer in Testa Rosa.

With a fan base carved out in Texas from attending South by Southwest, Minnesota from the song “Fergus Falls” on the EP, and Wisconsin, widening (or at least connecting) fans should be the next step for Conrad Plymouth—and would be, if not for a self-imposed hourglass running out of sand. “I had arbitrarily given myself to the age of 30 to get this out of my system,” Porterfield, 29, said.

However, he also added, “setting those arbitrary numbers isn’t really a realistic way of going about things.” His drummer Strigens is in his 40s and has a son and a career, which gives Porterfield a model on which he hopes to balance music and his married and professional life. “I can’t really imagine just stopping.”

Besides, sometimes uncertainty is the only certainty, and the resulting change can be a vehicle for growth. “We’ll never get to the point where we say this is what we are, and that’s on purpose. The struggle is the fun part, really,” Porterfield said. “If anything comes too easily, it’s easy to get bored with it. And the guys who I’m playing with now—the members of Conrad Plymouth—get that.”

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