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Arts & Entertainment

VIDEO: Lake Forest Roots Drive Kaplan's Music Career Forward

He kick-started his music career nearly a decade ago as a sixth-grader at Lake Forest Country Day School.

Nearly a decade ago, Doug Kaplan walked out of his sixth-grade music classroom at with a smile across his face and a large black leather guitar case in his left hand.

Kaplan was accompanied by some of his classmates, who also were carrying their guitars. For Kaplan, however, that guitar meant something else. It meant the start of his career.

Today, the 23-year-old Kaplan, who defines himself as a “devourer of music,” has released a 10-track “post-rock” album with his band, The Earth is a Man, as well as his own solo album, titled See Land, of ambient and drone music, where he plays a variety of instruments including the bass, synthesizer, and his guitar.

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Kaplan continued to learn to play the guitar after Scott Baeseman’s music class by taking private lessons and by joining Coax, a student and faculty rock band at , where he graduated in 2007.

“Coax was really great. It provided a really good foundation for band management and taught me to work with a lot of people on a variety of songs,” Kaplan said. “A lot of my friends came from Coax; it’s pretty defining for me.”

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Musical Growth at NU

Kaplan expanded his music career when he attended Northwestern University and became more interested in analog music and powerful electronic noise — sounds that weren’t introduced in the Beatles songs he first learned to play in sixth grade.

“Growing up in Lake Forest, although I like it there a lot, led me to get into avant-garde music as a way of rebellion against its culture. It introduced me to a free kind of music and I took it like a punk,” Kaplan said. “I am not an angry person though, just to clarify.”

At Northwestern, Kaplan met other musicians, through Facebook and various social events, and formed The Earth is a Man.

The band plays instrumental post-rock music, which combines math-rock guitar interplay and prog-rock technicality. According to Kaplan, math rock consists of odd angular rifts, two-hand tapping, and time changes.

Band Continues to Morph

The Earth is a Man consists of Kaplan, recent Northwestern graduate Maxwell Allison and Northwestern senior Zach Robinson. The trio immediately began to play around campus and eventually throughout Chicago.

The band has seen a few changes in its members and is looking for a new drummer. Kaplan has stuck with it from the beginning and plans to in the future. Using his interest in photography, Kaplan has produced all of the band’s press photos as well as its 10-track album cover.

When the band released its first album on the Internet, it was ranked No. 3 on bandcamp.com. The Earth is a Man used the site to give its listeners the option to download the songs for free, but to also make donations.

“It (bandcamp.com) is really great and allows artists to sell music easily. It’s replacing Myspace,” Kaplan said. “As you can see, we’re pretty big music nerds.”

Kaplan’s solo effort, See Land, was released in June as part of his music technology studies thesis at Northwestern. He has played his music throughout Chicago at venues such as Bottom Lounge, Subterranean, and rock club and music joint Reggie’s.

“My musical tastes are out there and most people aren’t down with my musical interests,” says Kaplan of his own sounds. “I am planning to work with one of my friends to develop a second band of more psychedelic music, that is more appealing to people but doesn’t compromise our musical talents.”

Plugged-In Sound

All of Kaplan’s music involves computers — something that wasn’t initially part of his career in middle school. Similar to many of today’s top 40 pop music, his music gradually has moved from a recording studio to all on a single hard drive.

“Without computers, I don’t know what else I would be doing for music,” he said.

Now living in a three-bedroom Bucktown residence, complete with the band’s practice studio in its basement, Kaplan is striving to expand his music talent by getting to know as many people in Chicago’s music industry as he can. While the recent graduate loves living in the city, he frequently returns to Lake Forest where his parents still live and where he kicked off his career.

“If I hadn’t taken that class, I am sure I would have arrived at music somewhere else, but that class taught me the basics. Mr. Baeseman was way cooler than the average middle school teacher, and I will forever be indebted to him,” Kaplan said.

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