Moon Bros. w/ Whitney Johnson

It’s difficult to follow the fragmented life and musicianship of Matt Schneider. His twofold path has always embraced both an abiding love for Chet Atkins and Nashville session virtuosity, and a begrudging though fruitful flirtation with Chicago’s post-rock underground and middleground. In his native McHenry County as a young teenager, he was a guitar phenom, an engine of local pride who played old-timey anthems and oldies for an audience of delighted townies in a button-up shirt and short dweeby haircut. His clipping book is filled with front page praise lavished on his performances at Dobbyn’s House along the Fox River. That he made it through high school is due in part to the fact that he provided the soundtrack for many of his teacher’s drunken evenings and they let him slide through like a star athlete. In a simultaneous, parallel universe he was roped into playing with bands like Adhesive and Filament (two different bands who shared members and lovers) who had more in common with Seam and Tortoise than Chester or Les. The summer of 1998, immediately after graduating high school, Schneider went on a several week trip to Nashville, where he found more of a ghost town than a warm welcome for a burgeoning session player; Chicago’s fecund melting pot of jazz and rock was far more inviting. He moved to Wicker Park with his Adhesive band mates and participation in a succession of acts followed: The Exciting Trio, then Toe (where he and Griffin Rodriguez replaced, respectively, Jeff Parker and Doug McCombs of Tortoise), and then ex-Codeine Doug Scharin’s large fusion ensemble HiM. After touring Europe with HiM, Schneider retreated to his mother’s empty house in Marengo, Illinois and woodshedded for six months, grinding out fundamentals. He recalls “I wanted to learn the instrument.”

From the Hideout website