(Somg).

BILL CALLAHAN is fed up with noisy neighbors. The guy living above bun just put on a Bjork record, which sounded nice up until he whipped out his saxophone and started playing along, totally out of key. Callahan promptly left his apartment, which he doesn't always do. He usually wears headphones instead.

"I've got these ones for a person who operates a jackhammer," he imparts. "I usually wear those all day, but I can still hear the man upstairs. He drives me crazy."

So what's wrong with this picture? Well Callahan, you see, is the rock star. OK, so not exactly a "rock" "star"...

For one thing, Callahan--better known as (Smog)--is a master of small, not big, sounds. While others prove their point through high-powered riffage and pelvic thrusts, Callahan makes his with a gentle tap on the shoulder. His quiet, folksy compositions are perfect fodder for the imagination, and his wry, pint-sized voice is enough to lull you right there.

Years before Elliott Smith and Will Oldham dusted off their cassette recorders, there was Callahan, warbling about evil tyrants and insane cops over meager strands of acoustic guitar. Years after his first record, 1992's Forgotten Foundation, he's still doing the same thing, though his once-cracked, erratic jingles have now bloomed into well-rounded, fully realized chestnuts. He still resides on Drag City, the Chicago label that took on (Smog) as one of its first roster acts.

On his delectable new album Supper--the 11th in the (Smog) library--Callahan, once again, would rather whisper than shout. He makes you pry open his secret rather than giving it all away, as he sings lines like, "Butterflies drowned in wine / I'm headed into town / Where up is up and down is down / None of this fumbling around."

So no, he's not a "star," really. He's too precious for that. A notorious recluse, Callahan is infinitesimally reserved, decibels quieter than his tender melodies even. He begins each answer with four or five seconds' pause and a milky "hmmm," speaking as if each word cost him $500.

"I'm not sure where anything comes from," he says when asked about his storytelling sources. "It's not like I live something and then write about it. Things kick off.. .or experiences kick off, trigger other ideas in a metaphorical way that's not actually happening. Everything I have comes from interactions with people. That's the only way I can think to explain it, really."

But do you ever go out, in order to interact?

"Yeah," he says, laughing with a low pant. "I mean, I try to see people a couple times a week, at least."

Even in his youth, Callahan was like this. Growing up in Maryland in the '70s, he took up skating while his friends would have nothing to do with it.

"I was the only one who had a skateboard," he recalls. "It was a yellow slalom board from Sears. Long and thin... I think skaters--I'm not just saying this because of the magazine--always seemed cool. It's a subculture, they've got their own style and everything. There's a park across the street from where I live. They work really hard at it. They spend hours jumping off one step and never doing it right. But they're really diligent. I admire that."

Callahan's craft begins with a home recorder that, after all these years, he still relies heavily upon. The songs "seem to come in waves," he says. "Over the period of a year, I'll write a couple songs. Then I'll write eight more in a month-and-a-half, right before I make a record. You can't really force music through repetition, except in learning to play instruments. As far as writing stuff, there's nothing strict about it. It just comes when it comes."

After laying down his initial ideas, Callahan typically calls together a cast of friends to fill out the lineup; for Supper, he corralled Dirty Three drummer Jim White, pedal steel player Ken Champion and others. It's not until the actual recording session, though, that he unveils his song concepts.

"Everyone jumps into it without any knowledge, which seems to make the best performances. People shouldn't think about what they have to play. If everyone has tapes beforehand, they might get stuck in a kind of rut."

Call him a hermit or a misanthrope, there's one thing for sure: Callahan is a citizen in his own world. And one who doesn't want to step on anybody else's toes at that.

"I really want to leave Chicago," he says. "I've been here for years. I want to get a house, which I never wanted before. I just hate to bother anyone, so I don't like to play guitar here or anything."

Lucky for Callahan, he shipped out for a three-week European tour in May; he'll also grace the US in support of Supper. But when he returns the pressure to leave behind Chicago--and a pair of jackhammer headphones-- will be on once again.