At an intimate yet welcoming venue called Pour Souls in the Wicker Park neighborhood, friends and strangers fill up couches and settle in for an evening of deep listening. Their phones are put on silent, and the two hosts for the evening, Grant Frahm and Kalium Ewing, drop the needle on a record of their choosing.
This is The Heavy Rotation, a regular listening club event tapping into something a lot of Chicagoans didn’t know they were craving: a reason to slow down and be present with other people. During each listening session, an album is played from start to finish. Talking isn’t banned, per se, but most folks tend to stay less chatty than they would be at a bar or a concert as they dive into the intricacies — the production, the lyrics, the vocals — of the evening’s chosen album.
It’s a community-rooted affair born out of a love of music between Frahm and Ewing that began in college. The two met at Illinois State University and created a shared ritual: every Friday, when new music dropped, they’d listen to albums together. After moving to Chicago, life, unsurprisingly, pulled them into separate apartments and separate routines.
“We felt like we were really losing that aspect of what we used to have, that easy, ‘Oh, OK, I really like this song’ energy,” Frahm said. “It’s easy to share that over text, but it doesn’t really feel the same. So we were basically trying to carve out that time again.”
Thus, The Heavy Rotation was born. Ewing described their initial attempts as a sort of book club meeting amongst friends at someone’s house, but due to busy schedules and a text chain that never quite went anywhere, the idea was tabled. It was Frahm who insisted on reigniting the event in the summer of last year.
“He set the foundation,” Ewing added. “It doesn’t have to be really big or anything like that, but we have a good idea to slow down, get people back together and focus on music.”
The event found a home at Pour Souls, a living-room-esque event space that regularly hosts book clubs, community ventures and now deep listening events like The Heavy Rotation. Frahm’s wife, Brie Hines, became their graphic designer, event photographer and social media manager.
A couple of things happen for every Heavy Rotation session. Before the event, the founders will spin the album three or four times each, methodically playing through each song to establish what the theme of the album is and if there are any lyrics that speak specifically to them. They’ll also develop a list of discussion questions to pass out during the event.
“Most of the time, our questions are posed to the audience around how a song or lyric relates to them personally, to their friendships, to their life,” said Frahm.
For their first session (featuring Clipse’s “Let God Sort Em Out”), they focused on the break in the rap duo’s creative relationship and their coming back together. “What does brotherhood and friendship mean to you? How does it develop while still staying the same?” Frahm recalled.
During the night of an event, the two open up the room with a brief spiel. There are no set-in-stone rules. They may ask folks to stay off their phones or keep conversations to a minimum if they’re not really about the music or the song that’s playing.
“Everyone’s an adult,” Ewing added. “You understand when you show up to an event. Just try not to be disrespectful or ruin someone else’s experience.”
The first event saw around 15 guests, half of them friends. “Folks sat there and listened to music, and it recreated what we had been doing for years already,” Ewing said. “That was the stepping stone.”
Since then, they’ve held regular events almost monthly, and it’s become something of a local hit. They attribute this in part to Chicago’s deep music culture, its tight-knit creative communities and its abundance of events, making it the ideal backdrop.
“Chicago just has a natural appreciation for music and arts in general,” Ewing added. “A lot of people come to our events who maybe aren’t musicians themselves, but they know someone who is a musician. I think that also adds to the appreciation, wanting to give the music the respect it deserves.”
Kalium Ewing, left, and Grant Frahm, who run album listening club The Heavy Rotation, at at Pour Souls in Chicago which is one of the venues that the duo uses for their events. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)
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Kalium Ewing, left, and Grant Frahm, who run album listening club The Heavy Rotation, at at Pour Souls in Chicago which is one of the venues that the duo uses for their events. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)
More importantly, The Heavy Rotation is addressing a real, widespread need for analog connection and community in an overscheduled, screen-saturated world. During a time when most folks spend more time doom-scrolling on their phones, The Heavy Rotation leans into the purity and possibility of in-person community.
“Having a space where you can just sit down with no expectations, not dancing, just slowing down and really listening — and then rolling with whatever emotions come from that — that’s something different. That’s what we’re offering,” Ewing said.
It’s no wonder that, their events have become more and more popular. Most recently, they launched The Spin Cycle, a community vinyl exchange and cocktail tasting also taking place at Pour Souls. They’ve also begun talking to other venues to try to accommodate larger crowds in the future. Demand will only go up as people crave more experiences where they can connect and indulge in the sounds they love in non-traditional settings.
“My goal is just to get people to slow down,” Ewing said. “Just to create a space where people can take a moment, listen to music, connect with each other and honor whatever emotions come up.”
If you go
Session 10 is “Alligator Bites Never Heal” by Doechii at 6:30 p.m. May 21 at Tree Top Lounge at the Salt Shed, 1357 N. Elston, threetoploungechicago.com; Session 11 is “Octane” Don Toliver at 7 p.m. May 28 at Pour Souls, 1740 W. Division, poursoulschicago.com
Britt Julious is a freelance critic.