Little Man plays with Ike Reilly

I had the privilege of joining Ike Reilly for a show at Minneapolis' historic First Avenue as lead guitarist on Nov. 26th 2008. Our releationship goes way back to when I lived in Chicago and toured with Ike as his guitar tech./roadie for close to two years. Drummer Dave Cottini used to be Little Man's drummer and Ed Tinley and I went to college together at DePaul University. Both of them, including Ike, have continued to be a part of supporting Little Man recordings in various ways. (Shot from the first row, this video is a little shakey at first!)

In 2001, I had set Little Man aside to be on their national tours in hopes to gain some touring experience and meet some industry folks. Although it was really fun to be traveling on a bus all over the place with friends, it was difficult for me not to have the release of playing a show every night and to be on the sidelines.

With the absence of Phil Karnatz for the Thanksgiving Eve show, Ike invited me to take his place along side bassist Tommy O'Donnell. The show brought back some good memories and a feeling of fulfillment for me. It was a one hell of a show.

In addition to helping out on guitar, Little Man got to open the evening to a fantastic crowd.

See all the pics by Alexa Jones HERE and See some of the Little Man set in video HERE.

Of Mind And Matter Album Release

Of Mind And Matter is available now!!!The band celebrated the release with a fantastic show to a packed crowd at The 7th Street Entry. The band was enhanced with a guitarist/keyboard player and two female back-up vocalist to help recreate the albums sound. Little Man performed the entire album from start to finish.

See VIDEO.

This picture was taken by Darin Back.

Click here to see PHOTOS by Alexa Jones.

Little Man's forth full length album Of Mind And Matter is a strong companion to 2007's acclaimed Soulful Automatic. While still a good mix of acoustic and rock songs this album has more lush layered vocals, guitars, organ and strings that create a dynamic landscape. Produced by Ed Tinley, it was recorded in an old hunting lodge and a little house in Chicago.

Read an article from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Of Mind And Matter is a digital release. The amaizing cover photo by Emily Utne can be yours. You'll recieve by mail the special edition cover art card that contains the code to download 12 songs, 2 documentry videos, pictures, lyrics and liner notes. LISTEN to some of the tracks. Order yours HERE now!!

Little Man makes news with vintage.

I like vintage clothes. Thrift stores, yard sales, vintage clothing shops are all the sorts of places my wife and I go to find unique clothes. We brought Minneapolis paper, The City Pages, along for a vintage shop about town. Emily Utne took some great pictures. It was an effort to help promote the stores we shop at often. These stores and there owners have been super kind in helping me find clothes that fit and look great, so we wanted to give a little back to them by telling everyone about these great neighborhood shops. We visited Rewind, Up Six, Lula (1587 Selby Ave St Paul) and Go Vintage (1560 Selby Ave St Paul) The feature ran in this past weeks City Pages. You can read it here: Fashionably Yours.

In the studio

I packed up all my gear and headed down to Chicago with new bass player Andy Ferkinhoff to record with producer/engineer Ed Tinley. Past Little Man member, Dave Cottini, joined in on drums once again. Ed has been a part of the past three Little Man albums and both he and Dave are in the Ike Reilly Assassination , a band I used to help out in the past. Ike was more than kind enough to let us record at his place. It used to be an old hunting lodge, it’s beautiful. We tracked the band live to tape there and were able to get down basic tracks for 10 songs in two days which is pretty damn good. Ike popped in on the second day and introduced a song to us that he’d been working on, so with a few practice passes Ed hit record and we got something down. Really pretty fun to be a part of that. I played slide guitar.

The second half of the week was spent at Ed’s place, it’s just a little house on the north end of the city. When your tracking guitars and vocals there’s really no need to be in a big studio. Ed has all his equipment there and he really knows how to get some good sounds no matter where we are. We did track some super loud guitar parts that could be clearly heard from across the street, so at a house like this in a neighborhood, we had to be cool with the neighbors once and a while.
It’s very comfortable here and it’s great to take a break and cook up a meal or grill out. We’ve easily been doing 10-12 hour days. Ed’s cat Willis is an old grey and white cat that walks around always looking to be pet. Sometimes he’d curl up at your feet while your recording, but we mostly kept him out of the way because he likes to talk once and a while. So things went really good. We are working on 14 songs. Huge vocal parts. I have to go back to track some more later in the summer. In the mean time I got a new band here in St. Paul. There’s Andy ,as I mentioned above, and drummer Sean Sauder. We’ve been rehearsing a ton to get back on track. My most gracious thanks to Ben and Ryan for making the band sound so great in the past.

Bowie Night

The 5th annual Rock for Pussy show took place at the legendary First Avenue in Minneapolis. It’s a show that benefit’s the Minnesota Humane Society’s “no-kill” cat shelters in town. Local guest singers perform with an all-star band to perform their favorite David Bowie songs. This is always such a great event! I’ve participated for the past 3 years I believe. This year I sang “Hang On To Yourself “ and “Star” from the Ziggy Stardust album and I also got to play guitar on a whole bunch of songs, so it was really cool to be a part of the band this time. You can see more photos by Steve Cohen HERE!! Holy cow! Check out the review!

"...one of the real stars of this year’s show was no doubt Mr. Chris Perricelli – Little Man lead singer and guitarist who is both Marc Bolan of T Rex and Bowie combined. Featured on multiple songs, especially notable is his treatment on “Hang on to Yourself,” with his vocals full of Bowie panache and with a guitar prowess was as close to Mick Ronson himself as you could possibly get in his blistering guitar solos on “Ziggy Stardust” and “Starman.”

Jen Paulson, City Pages. Read the full review.

The same night my Cheapo TV episode (mentioned below) was aired. I didn’t get to see the episode that night but I taped it to view later. They did a really good job with it! Wish you could all see.

Walking

I think spring is finally here. I can feel that there is a little bit of warmth in the air. I live in St. Paul, Minnesota and winters here are usually pretty long. Now that it’s nicer I can get back into getting outside to walk around a bit. The usual walk is only about 20 minutes to a half hour. I just walk around the neighborhood. Some people see me and often and say hi. My pace is somewhat quick. Sometimes the tempo helps me think of songs in my head. A notepad helps to jot down ideas. Usually in my mind, my walk starts with what things I have to get done or want to do that day or in the near future. The more I walk the quieter things become in my head. Portions of my trip are zen walks. I do this a couple different ways. Just like sitting meditation, instead I’m walking. The first way is to just observe my thoughts. I try not to judge or have feelings for, or discriminate what enters my mind, and then I just wisk each one away, one after another. The other one is to try to be clear headed for a certain distance while I’m walking. For both I like to breath from my belly, long breaths. Happiness comes automatically though when I arrive at the neighborhood gnome. There is a little garden gnome that stands on a rock and he’s got all his animal friends around him. And no matter what the weather, he’s always smiling.

In-store performance

Today a was invited down to the Cheapo music store in Minneapolis to play some songs and do an interview. The footage will be aired on the CW TV network in May. I should be getting my own episode, which would be great!
I arrived at the back parking lot, got out of the car and a car pulls up with a screech, out pops my friend/fan Shane wearing a blue blazer as he approaches me with a red pizza warmer bag. He pulls a pizza box out of it and hands it to me. "I delivered it inside the store but you weren't there, here you go." he said. WOW thanks Shane, LUNCH. I open it and it's a tan colored suede jacket!! CRAZY! Super cool.
So I walk in there and it turns out Megan Wiley would be interviewing me, so I was happy about that. I got to know here down at SXSW in Austin and she hooked me up with an interview for Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine after our showcase. You can click the link to see it.

It all went very well. Very kind people. A pleasure to help out. I played Soulful Automatic and Tire Fire from Soulful Automatic.

#1

Well it's my first very own blog. Hi everyone. I am the singer/songwriter/frontman for the band Little Man. I also do quick posts on the band's Myspace page, you can learn more about the band there. I love writing songs and actually spend alot of time coming up with ideas. It's funny they usually come in threes. I've recently been writing with my old Gibson acoustic. I'm usually in the living room or bedroom with a little tape recorder and a notepad. Imagination is the key word.
So...nice to meet you. Subscribe to the site so you can be informed of updates!