When he goes back to Chicago to finish his senior year at Loyola University in a couple of weeks, Colin Caulfield will have quite a story to tell about how he spent his summer vacation. Among the highlights are prepping his first album for a prominent New York indie label and opening shows for Dawes, Local Natives and Sebadoh frontman Lou Barlow.
"It's been going really well for a first go-round like this," said Caulfield, 21, who records and performs under the rather generic but fitting moniker Young Man.
The St. Paul native was back in town visiting his family last week and returns Wednesday on his mini-tour with Barlow and Wye Oak, coming to the 400 Bar.
A drummer throughout his tenure at Cretin High School, Caulfield realized drum kits don't fit too well inside dorm rooms, so he picked up an acoustic guitar and keyboards instead. He started learning some of his favorite songs and turning them into lo-fi music videos that he posted on YouTube, including tunes by such current collegiate favorites as Animal Collective, Bon Iver, Beach House and Deerhunter.
It was Caulfield's organ-hazed cover of the Deerhunter track "Rainwater Cassette Exchange" that really earned him attention. None other than Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox posted a link to the clip on his own blog, declaring, "[It's] fantastically superior to the original. It actually sent shivers up my spine, especially during the second verse."
Somewhere between all the YouTube hits and the modest European following he developed while studying abroad (and gigging) around Paris this past winter and spring, Caulfield started earning attention from music bloggers and record labels with his original songs, which he shrewdly posted alongside the covers on YouTube. The attention culminated in a deal with French Kiss Records, the label behind the Hold Steady's first two albums (as well as Local Natives, the Dodos and Les Savy Fav). It will release Young Man's debut EP Tuesday on iTunes and Oct. 12 everywhere else.
Titled "Boy," just like U2's debut -- a fact Caulfield is probably too young to know -- his first batch of music blends the soft and (yep!) boyish indie-folk sound of Sufjan Stevens and Iron & Wine with the more atmospheric, harmony-looping recording style of the acts he has covered on YouTube. He wrote the songs last summer at home in St. Paul before heading off to college, resulting in such titles as "Home Alone" and "Just Grown."
"They're all relevant to that moment in time where you're sort of forced to let go of childhood," Caulfield explained. "I've moved past that period already, but I can still relate to those songs, and I think most people can."
