Chris Schlarb and brood deliver the best gift you’ll get this year

Everyone has a story about a misshapen sweater he or she received as a gift from grandma or a poorly-knitted scarf given by a long-forgotten ex. Trying to feign happiness for well-intentioned but badly-executed gifts is a time-honored tradition. Conversely, one of the hardest [...]

‘We Scream’ needs your help

Like all correctly raised Americans, young Chris and wife Adriana Schlarb spent their summer afternoons with their ears alert, patiently waiting for the ice cream man’s unmistakable cue, whenever it might come—the eerie and unrecognizable melody ringing above the truck, the monophonic midi-rendition of “Turkey in the Straw,” the bike-bell of [...]

Many thanks to Chris Schlarb for this tip: the owner of Pittsburgh record store Record Rama puts up a comprehensive collection of American music for $3 mil or more on eBay—according to the seller, it’s the world’s greatest music collection, though more because of its value as a survey of everything reasonably popular in America [...]

Many thanks to Create (!)’s Chris Schlarb for passing along this free-to-all download of Create (!)’s out-of-print debut album Moth Nor Rust, including live recordings of the night Orlando’s bass amp blew out at their very first show. You can download the entire thing from Schlarb’s Sounds Are Active label here, or you can stream [...]

Create (!) has a master plan

PHOTO by ZACK PIANKO
Create (!) gets every opportunity once, says guitarist/device wrangler Chris Schlarb—Project Blowed, a Bixby Knolls Christmas party, a five-hour Long Beach Marathon set cut when it began to rain and equipment began to electrocute its players—and Create (!)’s collaborative roster lists like alums of a wishful creative [...]

Chris Schlarb’s Rainstorm in Curved Air

PHOTO by ADRIANA SCHLARB
Chris Schlarb, guitarist, filmmaker, label curator and now after a first solo album that took five years to dot dozens of postal collaborators into an ambitious and considered psychological set-piece: “Composer,” he says, “or that’s how I’m thinking of myself.” Twilight & Ghost Stories (just out on [...]