a little article in today's Chicago Tribune (by Andy Downing):

Springtime makes indie musicians happy, too
Davis, Fairchild ready to bloom

Published May 18, 2007
In interviews, Devin Davis is meticulous, speaking in a slow drawl and carefully choosing every word. So it should come as no surprise that the singer-songwriter approaches writing in much the same manner, spending weeks or even months at a time crafting a single tune.

Davis' 2005 debut, "Lonely People of the World, Unite!," which garnered praise from magazines such as Entertainment Weekly, was the product of over three years' work—a laborious pace he's maintaining as he records his still-untitled follow-up. The situation wasn't helped when he was forced from his Bucktown basement apartment/studio in January after a high-end jeweler moved into the storefront above him.

"I'm sure they thought I was a maniac, crazy person living in the basement," says Davis. "So that was a bit of a kink in the process. I kept waiting for it to happen because it was this ridiculously cheap space in the middle of all these Jaguars and [Mercedes] Benzes. I just wish it hadn't happened in January."

The singer didn't put up much of a fight when he was asked to leave, describing the apartment as "dreary" and prone to flooding. Instead Davis moved in with a friend and found a rehearsal space that he could bicycle to in 10 minutes—just long enough for his eyelids to start freezing in the dead of winter. There the Clinton, Iowa-born musician, who has lived in Chicago for eight years, works on his sophomore LP.

Devin Davis

Patient music craft

When: 6:30 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave.

Price: Free; 312-280-2660.