From the cutout bin: Chalk farM - notwithstanding

I have a bit of a soft spot for Chalk FarM (no idea why the capitalization is that way). In the late fall of 1996, I went to see Better than Ezra at the UNO Arena in New Orleans, still (so far as I know) the largest headlining show BTE has ever done. It was the homecoming date and the last show on the Friction, Baby tour and it was awesome. Chalk FarM was the opening act, and during "King of New Orleans" the lead singer of Chalk FarM came back onstage and turned over cue cards with the lyrics to the song on them. Then he placed a crown on Kevin Griffin's head, which Griffin tossed into the crowd at the end of the show (I still have one of the plastic jewels from the crown).


I believe Chalk FarM came back through town in the spring of '97, but that was the last I ever heard of them, until I found this CD in the dollar bin at my local record store.
So who were they? A Los Angeles band made up of East Coast transplants, they were originally a two-man acoustic outfit that then expanded to a full band, and they were frightfully socially earnest (this really comes through in the lyrics). So a bit like Vertical Horizon crossed with Live. Their one big hit was "Lie on Lie," from 1996, which you can find on YouTube, but which I can't embed for some reason. They then had a minor hit with "Live Tomorrow," which skirted the edge of the mainstream rock Top 40 in '97. As a sidenote, they did much better on the mainstream rock charts than the modern rock charts, which is a little surprising, as the modern rock station where I lived played them a lot.

Chalk FarM was dropped by Columbia sometime in the late '90s, lost their drummer, regrouped enough to put out a second album on their own label in 2000, performed in the film Coyote Ugly, and broke up. The lead singer, Michael Duff, recently released a solo album, and appears from his website to have gotten fairly involved with Scientology... perhaps he can open for Beck.
notwithstanding is a decent album, neither great nor terrible, and considering the success Vertical Horizon had with this basic sound three years later, it's a little surprising that they were dropped by Columbia.