Bound Stems

Chicago’s Bound Stems comprise Bobby Gallivan on guitar and vocals, Dan Radzicki on bass, Dan Fleury on guitar, and Evan Sult on drums. Gallivan, Radzicki, and Fleury had shared a high-school basketball roster and already logged several years of music-making before crossing paths with Harvey Danger’s Sult in 2001. The following year the quartet’s self-conscious indie-rock aesthetic took shape. Their first recording, the Logic of Building the Body Plan EP, surfaced on Flameshovel in late 2005; vocalist Janie Porsche joined the lineup at roughly the same moment. That March the group appeared at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. Appreciation Night was scheduled for release in September 2006. Midway through the subsequent tour Gallivan decided he wished to resume teaching, prompting the band to head back to Chicago and resume songwriting—only to reach an impasse. Following a short break they reconvened for further sessions in fall 2007, and their third album, The Family Afloat, appeared a year afterward.