Newswire Is Cap'n Jazz getting back together?

Lately it seems like another '90s indie rock favorite is getting back together every other day. There was Pavement, then Jawbox, and now rumors are swirling that seminal Chicago emo band Cap’n Jazz is prepping for a 10-show reunion tour this summer. For those that aren’t students of American underground rock music, Cap’n Jazz was formed in the late ’80s by Tim and Mike Kinsella, who later added Milwaukee’s Davey von Bohlen on guitar. After releasing a series of singles and the 1994 album (deep breath) Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork Balloon Sports, Cards In The Spokes, Automatic Biographies, Kites, Kung Fu, Trophies, Banana Peels We've Slipped On and Egg Shells We've Tippy Toed Over , the band broke up in 1995. Later in the decade Cap’n Jazz gained notoriety as the source band for other more prominent groups, including Joan Of Arc, Make Believe, Owls, and von Bohlen’s The Promise Ring.

When reached by email, von Bohlen did his best to squash the reunion tour rumors. “We did play together one time, though there are no definite ‘plans’ per se,” he said. “A 10-day tour sounds pretty arbitrary, and is something I won't likely be doing.  I'm not sure about the possibility of shows either. I suppose the likely outcome of rehearsal is a show, but we're all in pretty different places that could yield pretty wildly different outcomes to this. There is a possibility of some reissue of the anthology in some form, though at this point it is putting the cart before the horse. Like I said, one practice.”

In case that wasn’t clear enough, von Bohlen added that the more the reunion tour gets written about, "the stupider it sounds to me.” Well, at the risk of sounding like total morons, there’s speculation that Joan Of Arc’s Dec. 20 show at Chicago’s Empty Bottle might include a short Cap’n Jazz set. And since von Bohlen was only in the band for a couple of years, a reunion tour without him is entirely possible. Or maybe not. Stay tuned, kids.