Premiere: “Southsider”, Burr Oak at Home in the Studio

Savanna Dickhut of Chicago folk-rock outfit Elk Walking started Burr Oak to house her new song ideas and take on new creative challenges. Burr Oak blends story-driven folk songs with dreamy timbres and pop hooks. Below you can stream the premiere for their single "Southsider" and a photo diary captioned by Savanna. Catch them headlining Schubas, on July 23rd.

We recorded “Southsider” at my house in Rogers Park. We set everything up in the living room and made our own home studio during one weekend in mid April. Andrew suggested putting my deluxe reverb inside of my bedroom to accentuate the verb and I loved that idea. I’m standing right outside of my room in this photo tuning my telecaster before we started tracking.

Andrew Christopoulos recorded and produced my two singles. I snapped a good one of him while “in the zone” during our home recording venture.

One of my best friends and roommate, Jeff Sullivan, plays in our other band Elk Walking, also plays guitar in Burr Oak. Here he is tracking one of his guitar parts for “Southsider.”

Sean Burke tracking bass.

Pictured here is Tommaso Veronesi who tracked drums. Tommy, Sean and I all tracked “Southsider" live together in one take. We then layered more of my vocals and Jeff’s guitar parts over it afterwards.

My friend Allie Robson came by to lay down some lovely back up harmonies. They don’t appear on “Southsider” but you will hear them on my second single I’ll be putting out later this summer, and she’ll be singing with me and the band for the single release show at Schubas on July 23rd!

Andrew and I mixed the singles at Sound Vault Studios where he works. Of course the one day we had to leave my house to drive to the studio after two days of being cooped up recording, it snowed an insane amount. Friday and Saturday were both gorgeous days but just our luck (thanks to the notoriously unpredictable Chicago weather) we had to drive all the way to Sound Vault from Rogers Park in the heavy April snow shower. It was somewhat exciting though, and we were both determined to knock out the project that weekend, and we did.

My live band and I at Hungry Brain after we played our first show together as Burr Oak on April 19th. From left to right; Jeff Sullivan, Savanna Dickhut, Emily McDermott, Tony Mest.

Savanna on the beach. Polaroid by Kayla Lynn.

Single cover photo for “Southsider.” Polaroid taken by Alexa Viscius.

Keep up with Burr Oak here.