Kelly

(Please note: this is rather long, props still need to be given and links need to be made.  I will make sure to do so ASAP… I just needed to get it up here before it’s totally outdated.)

I love living in Logan Square.  I love the tree-lined streets and the elote carts, with their awkward, honking horns. I love the lively Quince años parties in people’s yards in the summer.  I love the candy that’s left over after the piñatas have been broken and the kids have gotten sick from sugar.

 Most of all, I love that I can afford to have a bedroom, a painting studio, and an office.  My boyfriend has a bike shop and a wood shop.  My dog has his own bedroom.  I have more than enough space and I only have to travel an extra mile out of my way to get it.

 Often, though, my enjoyment is soured by subtle reminders that I am not entirely welcome here.   To some of my neighbors, I am a blonde-haired harbinger of doom and my freshly renovated apartment with its’ granite countertops and hardwood floors is the lair in which I conspire my fascist agenda.  Or something like that. 

 Although most of Logan Square has already been gentrified, the West end, where I live, is just beginning to turn.  And so somehow, although this is my home too and I only want what’s best, my being here is apparently an open invitation for self-involved yuppies and money-hungry developers to come suck the life out of the neighborhood. I realize that some of my queasiness about gentrification can probably just be chalked up to white guilt, but gentrification is a real and hotly debated issue and discussions about it are not only valid but important, so I will forge on.

 In a recent article titled, Gentrification: Can freak bohemians avoid becoming pawns in the capitalist ethnic cleansing game?, in the Berkeley-based anarchist ‘zine, Slingshot, an anonymous writer put it well when he/she wrote: “I am one small piece of the gentrification puzzle, one of the group of people the real estate analyzers call “risk oblivious”, willing to live in an area with little capital invested in it and high crime rates, eventually making the area palatable for other generally white people with higher incomes.”

 And then, as the story goes, the unique culture of the neighborhood is homogenized and bleached out little by little with the opening of every new Starbucks and doggie day care.

 I find myself stuck somewhere between the anarchists and the yuppies on this one. The anarchists with their, “Fight the capitalistic homogenization of culture!” and the yuppies with their spas and their organic vegetable gardens and insatiable appetite for Target stores.

And then, at another end of the spectrum, there are the occasional off the wall comments on online forums, like the one titled “Humboldt Park & Gentrification” on citynoise.org, which simply preach about banding together to stop whitey from taking away the homeland.  That argument immediately fails for me because the Latino community itself is a relatively recent transplant. Logan Square was built by and inhabited by mostly Eastern and Northern European immigrants until relatively recently.  And, of course, before them it was Native American turf.

 The Square’s Roots

 According to an article on Logan Square’s history written for The Reader by Harold Henderson, The neighborhood now known as Logan Square (named after civil war general John A. Logan) was spawned in 1836 when a twenty-four-year-old schoolteacher named Martin Kimbell came to town from upstate New York.  He supposedly rejected land at Dearborn and Lake as “a damned mud hole” and instead staked his claim to 160 acres five miles northwest.

 Logan Square didn’t exist as a neighborhood or even a square in Kimbell’s day, though. Beginning in 1850, the relevant political unit was Jefferson Township, stretching west of Western and north of North Avenue. 

 The population in Logan Square peaked in 1930 at 114,000. Now, it hovers around 82,000.  The neighborhood emptied out with the Great Depression, World War II, and the rise of suburb-a-mania. Between 1950 and 1960 more than 22,000 people left the area and moved northwest. Vacant storefronts became common along Fullerton, Diversey, and Milwaukee. In 1941 Logan Square’s business district had been ranked fourth in the city in sale volume; by 1956 it was 15th.

 In 1958 the Chicago Human Relations Commission officially announced that lower-income groups in Logan Square were “replacing the older and more affluent residents.”

 Ever since that first influx of Yankees, most of its residents have been hardworking immigrants who cherish their native tongues. First there were Germans, Norwegians, and Swedes, then Poles and Russian Jews, and for the past few decades, Latinos. Beginning in the seventies, Logan Square became a haven for gangs and gang violence, and most of the retail shopping that held the community together disappeared.

 Slowly, over the past several years, artists and students have migrated northwest to Logan Square, attracted by the large apartments, low rent, and proximity to public transportation and downtown Chicago.

 The Role of the Artist

 Artists seeking bigger spaces for lower rents are often the first “gentrifiers” of neglected urban neighborhoods.  A study by the National Endowment for the Arts has shown that downtown gentrification in cities all over the US increases in proportion to the number of artists in the area.  Students, artist, and other “bohemians” settle in depressed, low-rent districts and then complain about the influx of yuppies that follows them, driving them out as prices rise. In other words, artists are anxious that they will be priced out due to their own success in transforming the neighborhood.  Paradoxically, it is the artists and other bohemians themselves who set up the conditions for the gentrification process that unfolds.

 Rob Ray, proprietor and curator of Deadtech, a progressive art space that operated in Logan Square from 1998-2008, had a lot to say when I asked him about the correlation. “There is a relationship [between artists and gentrification,] but this is different than saying that the growth of an artistic community is the cause of gentrification or that gentrification is an inevitable result of that growth.  Artists are, in many ways, used by developers and landowners as the screwdriver to pry the lid off a neighborhood. I believe the burden of gentrification is often carried by many low-income support structures, such as restaurant workers. Artists, oftentimes, are those people filling those shoes. So we, inevitably, play a role.”

 Whether they like it or not, the pioneering inclinations of artists are often taken advantage of.  Artists are often used as pawns by city managers around the world, employed to carry out capitalistic agendas.  It is not uncommon to see adds on websites like the Chicago Artists Resource for cheap, fixed-rate artists studios in run down neighborhoods.

 Recently, Logan Square alderman Rey Colon rejected a plan to convert a vacant building at 2800 N. Milwaukee Ave. into more than forty “supportive housing units,” in favor of artists’ lofts.  The decision was somewhat unpopular because, according to an article by Lindsay Welbers for chicagotalks.org, the housing would have helped low income families and offered social services like healthcare, employment and mental health outreach for residents.   But, of course, in the end it is money that makes the decisions. About the decision, Colon said, “it amounted to about a $10 million difference; it was kind of a no-brainer.”

 “It’s easy to see why a mayor would love gentrification,” said Ilana Stanger in an article titled The Gentrification Game for New York Foundation for the Arts. “Soho, once a neighborhood of abandoned warehouses and loose-cobblestone streets, is today filled with cafes, expensive restaurants, and designer boutiques. But you’ll be hard pressed to find a real-live struggling artist living there. Once the studios open and the smell of cappuccino wafts through the air, price hikes are just around the corner. This leaves the artists, not to mention the original neighborhood residents, packing bags in search of the next, cheap frontier.”

Ironically, artists who seek out poor areas for an “anti-establishment” aesthetic become accomplices in the gentrification of an area and end up attracting the bourgeois culture they originally fled. 

 Instead of simply complaining about the influx of yuppies, which too many artists are guilty of, artists and art spaces need to acknowledge their role and their context in the neighborhood.  An article in October in 1984 titled The Fine Art of Gentrification explains, “It is of critical importance to understand the gentrification process – and the art world’s crucial role within it -if we are to avoid aligning ourselves with the forces behind this destruction.”

 Many artists and art-institutions in Logan Square are responsible and active members of the neighborhood, though, who acknowledge their effect on and potential to change the neighborhood, and actively contribute to the quality of the area for all who care to notice.  The building that houses the historic Congress Theater on Milwaukee Ave. is also home to various creative venues, most notably InCUBATE.  In their mission, they explain, “InCUBATE is a research institute dedicated to challenging current infrastructures, specifically how they affect artistic production. As art historians and arts administrators, our goal is to explore the possibility of developing financial models that could be relevant to contemporary art institutions, as well as collective or individual artist projects working outside an institution. Our goal is to continue to conceptualize new possible situations, document these innovations, and make this information available to everyone.”  One of their current projects involves a detailed mapping of the area directly surrounding the space.  Their website explains, “The goal of the aerial map is to visualize the space through social and economic data to begin to understand the demographics of the neighborhood and pinpoint possible areas of gentrification and socioeconomic divisions.”

 Real Estate

 The root cause of gentrification is real estate, the relationship between property and capital. With the exception of tenant protections like rent control and subsidized “affordable housing”, housing costs are determined by the market. Landlords charge what they can, based upon the demand for an area. They profit when a lot of people with money want to live in an area. When people with money aren’t interested in an area, landlords have little incentive to put money into their property. Buildings deteriorate and are sometimes even torched so landlords can collect insurance money. Lots lay fallow, buildings deteriorate, and social services slump.

 Gentrification happens because of this relationship between property and capital, because the landowner can make a profit off the fact that somebody is living on their land. It is this profit-motive that keeps poor people moving at the whim of the wealthier folks. Displacement of poor and working class people is built into the very structure of capitalism.

 In an article by Neil Smith titled, Gentrification in Brief: Enough Room for Space, it is explained: “The central mechanism behind gentrification can be thought of as a “rent gap.” When neighborhoods experience disinvestment, the ground rent that can be extracted from the area declines, which means lower land prices. As this disinvestment continues, the gap between the actual ground rent in the area and the ground rent that could be extracted were the area to undergo reinvestment becomes wide enough to allow that reinvestment to take place.”

 Cities encourage gentrification because it will generate more tax revenues, which city governments increasingly depend on as the federal government moves away from supporting local governments. Thus cities have an incentive to encourage reinvestment in an area through zoning concessions, tax structures, and reducing protection for affordable housing.

 And up until the recent real estate crash, it was working for Logan Square.  According to an article titled Logan Square: Small Town in the Big City by Mary Lu Laffey for the Chicago Tribune, In 2006, the median sale price for a single-family detached home in Logan Square was $603,250—a ninety-five percent price increase from five years earlier and a 385 percent price increase from 1996. Rehab permits that year were four times greater than new construction permits: 1,008 to 280.  The rehab I currently live in was one of them.

 The Problem

 The main problem with gentrification of an area has to do with displacement and homogenization.  The article I mentioned earlier for Slingshot magazine illustrates this colorfully.  “Gentrification is essentially apartheid by race and class. There are always multiple cultures coexisting in one area; the question is which cultures are officially recognized, and what political power these recognized cultures have. As an area gentrifies, the range of activities and people considered acceptable in the area shrinks. Formerly vibrant urban areas become suburban monocultures were human creativity is replaced by packaged experiences OK’d by the market. Neighborhood gentrification mirrors global homogenization where culture and life are governed by an increasingly small number of rich, powerful organizations with no relevance to the immediate local.”

  The Logan Square Neighborhood Association’s website gives a compelling argument against gentrification.  On it, a local Catholic priest and housing activist, Father Mike, explains, “When the community begins to change, it is not just the houses. Suddenly “we” need more green space, more play space. Each time they go and tear something down, they say drug dealers lived there. There’s a feeling that now “we” deserve a park more than [someone] deserves a home. When the neighborhood begins to change, then the meaning of the neighborhood begins to change.”

An organizer for LSNA’s Parent Mentor program, which trains parents to work in Logan Square schools alongside the classroom teachers, described the sleazy behavior of developers and the impact that displacement is having on her school and community.

“I had 6 parent mentors living in one apartment building (it was a 17 unit building) and they got a 30 day notice and they were offered $2000 to be out in 5 days. These people started construction even before the 30 days were up. There were no permits issued, nothing. They were just told to leave. And not one of those families came back to Brentano. So we lost 17. I lost all those parent mentors. I lost a few friends. The fact they were able to do this; they weren’t issued any permits and when they were, they were backdated. I look at the parent mentors we lost, the children we have lost from the school, the rental units we lost, and the lack of aldermen caring about those people, and even back-dating the permits! That all ties into what we’re up against.” 

 Many skeptics of a changing Logan Square also question the extent to which new residents are invested in the community. 
 In an article titled The Split Personality of Logan Square, published in January 2008 in the Chicago Tribune, Major-Emanuel Seay, associate executive director at a YMCA street intervention program was quoted: “When you look at [Logan] Boulevard, ask yourself: How many of these people are raising families, young children who are going to Chicago Public Schools?  The mom and pop stores, the local churches, they’re starting to leave. Unless you’re of a certain socio-economic status, you’re pushed away.”

 The Tactics

 So how are people fighting gentrification?  So far it seems like many residents are cutting off their noses to spite their faces.  In other words, embracing ghetto behavior and low standards of living and neighborhood upkeep to ensure that developers won’t take interest in their real estate.

 An article titled Gentrification and it’s Contents, written by Charles Buki for The Next American City magazine, comments on this: “Impoverished cities are so dominated by the interests and legitimate needs of the many poor in their cities that they often disregard abysmal neighborhood conditions so long as repositories of affordable housing are maintained. In city after city, when it comes to local policy-making, concern about housing affordability masks the more central issue of neighborhood quality. Given the dynamics of neighborhood change outlined above, keeping a neighborhood unattractive often presents itself as the easiest way to keep a neighborhood affordable. But preventing gentrification and keeping neighborhoods affordable are not victories if those neighborhoods remain unsafe and unattractive places to live.”

 Others have taken more constructive action.  There are a handful of Chicago-based organizations fighting to keep gentrifying neighborhoods affordable like the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation, Chicago Rehab Network, and Young Lords.  Young Lords was founded in Chicago in the sixties by a group of Puerto Rican gang members-turned activists, upset by being pushed out of Lincoln Park.  What started as a fight against displacement quickly expanded to other social issues such as affordable housing and day care.  Today though, Young Lords doesn’t appear to be as active or influential as the aforementioned organizations, it almost seems like more of the sort of throwback club that your hippie Puerto Rican grandma would be part of in than a contemporary organization with viable answers to new questions.

 The Improvements

 After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that Gentrification doesn’t have to be a dirty word.  After all, the neighborhood certainly seems to be getting some positive attention from the city.

 A shiny new skate park has recently opened under the interstate on Logan Boulevard at Western Ave., an area that used to only be inhabited by homeless guys and dead pigeons.

 There has been talk of transforming the abandoned elevated railroad tracks that run between North Ave. and Armitage into a plant-lined path for peds and pedalers called “The Bloomingdale Trail.”

There have also been rumors about installing the controversial children’s museum, (originally intended for Grant Park, but not welcome there,) alongMilwaukee Ave., just southeast of the square.  An article posted in the Chicago Tribune in May 2008, (the most recent word I can find about the potential project,) sells the idea: “Imagine the thrill for kids of O’Hare-bound CTA trains rolling through one transparent part of a multi-level building that combines the museum with art galleries, athletic facilities and performance homes for dance and drama troupes. The area is spacious enough to hold a large park above a parking ramp on Milwaukee Avenue, across a street from the historic green space of Logan Square and its eagle-topped monument. 

This Logan Square option allows remaking four-plus acres now occupied by a discount store and a CTA trench where the Blue Line slips underground. City Hall already wants the store site redeveloped.” 

 The discount store that would be torn down is the Megamall, basically a permanent and constant indoor flea market that is hated by developers because of the prime real estate it sits on.  It caught on fire at 2am on a Saturday night in September of 2007, a suspicious incident to say the least.  The fire destroyed many businesses and benefits were arranged to help the affected families.  So we must consider that the children’s museum being plopped on that land would put a lot of vendors out of work.  It is not a win-win proposition, but it sounds like a good deal to me.

 Many residents of gentrified neighborhoods enjoy the changes they’ve seen around their homes.  I recently had the opportunity to speak with Lynn Stevens, an urban planner and longtime Logan Square resident who maintains a blog (called Peopling Places) detailing the goings-on in and around the neighborhood.  About the changes she’s noticed on her own block, she optimistically remarked, “This past winter only one person put junk in the street to save a parking space, and since my immediate neighbors moved away two or three years ago, no one has used a car horn as a doorbell.”

 An anonymous commenter, identified only by the initials ‘KLS’ in response to an article titled Humboldt Park and Gentrification on a blog at Citynoise.org wrote, “I love the cultural richness found on the Humboldt Park, but hate to see this cultural pride tied to dysfunctional American culture in the form of trash, anger, gangs and violence. All of my neighbors are happy to see the mellowing on our street. No one, no matter how long they have lived on the block, is unhappy to see the car burnings stop and the crack houses rehabbed. Everyone’s gardens, rich or poor, look brighter since the corner store turned into a flower shop. If this is gentrification, is it so bad?  Urban areas are fluid beings that ebb and flow over time. It is sad to see what we have known change, but also sad to waste so much energy on antagonism rather than embracing the positive.”

Last Summer Forbes magazine identified Logan Square as one of America’s “Most Fuel Efficient Neighborhoods.”  The blurb doesn’t even mention that Logan Square is incredibly bicycle friendly.  We have four bike shops within the neighborhood limits and a boulevard system that was designed with bikes in mind.  Palmer Square, a park within the greater Logan Square neighborhood, is home to Tour de Fat, Fat Tires’ annual touring festival, celebrating the bicycle in all its’ glory. On Peopling Places, Lynn Stevens wrote, “Tour de Fat seems like an indescribable irreverent spectacle! A veritable cycling circus! With neighborhood bike ride, bike rodeo, costumes, slow race, live music and more. Proceeds from beer and merchandise (admission is free!) go to a worthy organization, West Town Bikes, a community bicycle learning workshop.”

 Local foodies boast that Logan Square is home to a great Farmers market, which was recently taken over by the Logan Square Chamber of Commerce.  Because of the takeover, it is the first farmer’s market the city to accept food stamps.  So who says eating right isn’t affordable?  Logan Square residents are also eagerly anticipating the opening of the new Dill Pickle Food Co-op on Fullerton Ave.  Their website proclaims, “The co-op, when fully operational, will be a consumer cooperative, a grocery store that is owned and democratically controlled by the members who shop at the store. Anyone can become a member, and the store will be open to members and non-members alike.  Dill Pickle’s commitment to local, organic and healthy food will go far beyond the commitment of chain stores. We will connect residents with local food producers and create a store whose major concern is quality and affordability, not corporate profits.”

 How to resolve your internal conflicts about gentrification

 It seems as though the first step toward being a responsible gentrifier is simply being aware of your impact in your community and taking responsibility for it.

 For those who want to take more progressive action, there are other options.  The Slingshot article posed some interesting suggestions for young white urbanites who want to fight unjust gentrification in their neighborhoods.  Admittedly, some seem more realistic than others:

• Look around and talk to people about neighborhood change and anti-displacement work already being done. Do oral history projects of the neighborhood.

• Expose development plans on the part of corporations and various branches of government. Snake your way into the ‘public’ meetings held by the inner workings of the government bureaucracy. Oppose corporate development scams with a range of tactics.

• Support the foundation of neighborhood associations.

• Help fight individual evictions.

• Help with direct neighborhood improvement projects like kids projects, gardens, traffic slow-down devices (but be prepared to fight the yuppies who want to leach off this good work).

Charles Buki gives us direction: “Policymakers must acknowledge that neighborhoods are always changing, and that idealizing a static notion of communities is counter-productive. Community bonds and organizations maintain their central role in the life of a community, even as individuals come and go. In successful neighborhoods, marketability, a sense of community, and the choices of individuals do not conflict, but rather reinforce each other.”

 Last but not least, I was solaced by a conversation with Josh Deth, an eleven-year resident of Logan Square who served as the executive director of the Logan Square Chamber of Commerce for two years and is currently in the process of opening Revolution Brewing, a brewpub in the square on Milwaukee.  “Change is a constant in urban places like Logan Square.  It is one of the things I like about living in the city, and it contributes to vibrancy.  And to be super cynical, aren’t cities all about the continual process of destroying and creating over again?”  When I asked him how Logan Square can be developed in a less-invasive way to allow the neighborhood to evolve in a positive, natural way, he replied, “Getting people to interact together and create community together is a key to keeping it a stable community for everyone.  The important thing is that people organize and fight to get what they want and care about, instead of expecting others to do it for them.”

Thematically, my work is the product of three basic interests:

Nostalgia, introspection, and documentation. [from crude home videos and cameraphone pictures to giant oil paintings.]

 At this point in my life, above all, I think I want to make art that I can hang around me, that will make me happy. 

 But there is a possibility that by taking my good memories and feelings and aestheticizing them [by reproducing them,] hanging them all around me, essentially exploiting them and putting them to work, I will strip them of their meaning.

 But that’s a risk I’m willing to take.  And actually, it’s something I’d like to explore.   Because I’m not really a fan of meaning.  Part of me wants to be a cowboy or a monk or something.  Someone with nothing to loose.

The Hideout

(This is a story I wrote last April for my in-depth reporting class.  It’s about the music scene in Chicago and the controversial Event Promoters Ordinance which has been tossed around for a few years…)

Last weekend I overheard a conversation in the smoking tent at the bar I work at.  A group of regulars were talking about forming a band.  The most enthusiastic of them, a well-groomed, twenty-something blonde guy, suddenly yelled out in a fit of passion: “Chicago has an incredible music scene that just isn’t happening!”

This got me thinking.  Back in 2006, I spent six months traveling around the UK and Europe.  During my trip, I spent a good deal of my time seeking out good local music.  I was generally disappointed by what I didn’t find.  Although I did see some great bands in London and Liverpool, I found a lot of the music mediocre, unoriginal, and drab.  England and Ireland seemed to be tripping over themselves musically and Europe was just way too into techno for my tastes.  I finished my trip with an invigorated appreciation of Chicago. 

Often, when I tell people I think Chicago is the best music city I’ve been to, they are surprised.  Most people, especially people who don’t live in Chicago, have no idea what’s going on here musically.  And, after minimal Internet research, I understand why.  To say that Chicago has an amazing music scene might not be entirely accurate. Chicago has an amazing UNDERGROUND music scene.  And if you aren’t already part of it, it can be difficult to access. The Chicago music scene has a ton of potential, but is underrated and often ignored.

Chicago’s musical heritage is built on a strong foundation of blues, soul, jazz, and gospel.  Famous venues like the Green Mill (est. 1910) are still around, often hosting new acts, and we have world-class jazz and blues festivals every summer in Grant Park.  Chicago is also known for being the birthplace of House music in the late ‘70’s.  Later, House was nationally popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino, and gay communities.  At that time, Chicago was also a center for industrial, punk and new wave. This influence continued into the alternative rock of the 1990s. The city has been an epicenter for rave culture since the 1980s.

Chicago has also been breeding a critically acclaimed underground metal scene with various bands like Indian, Yakuza, Pelican, Russian Circles, and Raise the Red Lantern gaining national attention. 

Today, Chicago is the site of an influential Hip-Hop scene.  Common and Kanye West are the best-known Hip-Hop artists from Chicago, but there are countless others who slip under the radar like GLC, No I.D., Naledge of Kidz in the Hall, and Mic Terror.  You will see some of them downtown on the streets and after big events handing out CDs and fliers.  It’s not all good, but the point is there’s a ton of it, and it’s being ignored by most.  Yet, for others, it’s the whole world.  “I’ve always been a big fan of Common and Twista,” says Andrew Barker, author of Chicago Hip-Hop blog Fake Shore Drive. “I realized that there was so much talent that people weren’t hearing. In bigger markets in LA and New York it’s easier for underground artists to get heard because there’s actually industry there.  There’s so much talent here, but outside of Chicago people think the only rappers we have are Kanye, Common, Lupe, Twista, and the Cool Kids. My goal was just to showcase all the talent in town.” 

Chicago’s pride and joy

What makes Chicago most unique now, though, is a flourishing independent rock music culture.  We have everything from Shoegaze to Grindcore to Freakfolk to Klezmerpop and everything in between.  Many people including myself would argue that Chicago indie music has it’s own distinct sound.  It is often characterized by a strong technical and complicated rythym section, decorated by lacy guitar riffs that weave around the songs, oscillating between major and minor chords, breaking every rule in the pop music book.  I could talk about this sound for days because I love it and I believe it is working man’s music for a working city.  The sound is exemplified in the music made by Chicago indie sweetheart, Tim Kinsella.  Kinsella has been a musician for twenty years, and played in eight very Chicago-esque bands, a few of which internationally known and respected.

Chicago is also home to icons The Smashing Pumpkins, Wilco, Tortoise, Mucca Pazza, Bobby Conn, and Cheer Accident.  To list every band that is playing in and around Chicago on any given night would take all day.  Chicago is also home to a number of annual rock festivals including but not limited to Lollapalooza, The Intonation Music Festival, and Pitchfork Music Festival.  Pitchfork media has been a Chicago indie-music reference for over a decade with their popular and controversial music webzine of the same name.

Chicago is home to some of the best indie labels that exist, like Touch and Go, Thrill Jockey, and Drag City.  And we have a distinct Chicago identity.  You can’t talk about Chicago music without talking about Kinsella, Steve Albini, and Wesley Willis. Albini is a Northwestern University alumni from the Medill School of Journalism, musician, and ultimately and most famously a record producer.  Albini estimates that he has engineered the recording of 1,500 to 2,000 albums. More prominent artists Albini has worked with include Nirvana, The Stooges, Pixies, PJ Harvey, and Cheap Trick.  Willis was a street performer, musician, and painter.  He was known for his light-hearted schizophrenia-inspired banter.  He died at age forty from complications of leukemia.  As a musician, he was a cult favorite across the country..  

Some of my personal favorite Chicago music gems include The Empty Bottle’s Free Mondays concert series, our multiple independent radio stations, like WZRD 88.3FM, Chicago’s Sound Experiment WNUR 89.3 FM, and Chic-a-go-go, Chicago’s cable- access dance show for kids of all ages.

 I have heard Chicago Sun Times music critic Jim DeRogatis has repeatedly referred to Chicago as “the greatest city for underground live music in America” on both Sound Opinions and Chicago Tonight.

Well, it might be the greatest city for underground live music in America, but it also might be the worst city to be an independent musician in.  A study done by The University of Chicago in 2007 brought to light some discrepancies between the production, distribution, and consumption of contemporary music in Chicago.  Chicago Tribune music critic Greg Kot wrote about the study shortly after it was released in an article he wrote for the Tribunes’ blog.  He opens with, “Despite having one of the most lucrative and vibrant music scenes in North America, the University of Chicago study describes Chicago as “a music city in hiding.”” 

The study was conducted by The University of Chicago and funded by the Chicago Music Commission.  Since their formation just four years ago, The Chicago Music Commission has made great strides in the name of music in Chicago.  Their website proclaims: “Formed by a group of concerned members of the Chicago music community, the Chicago Music Commission is a nonprofit independent organization working to transform Chicago’s relationship with its world-class music community. CMC is working on behalf of the music community to ensure that its many diverse voices are fully heard by government and business leaders and that the community’s needs are being fully addressed. In serving as its independent voice and building ties among government, business, and the music community, CMC will allow the music community to thrive on its own terms.”

The study was the first comparative music study of music industries and scenes in the fifty most populous metro areas in the U.S.  These included New York and Los Angeles along with eight others with reputations as music-rich cities: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Las Vegas, Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans, and Seattle.

For each of these eleven metropolitan areas, the study looked at:

• The size and shape of the music industry – measured by total employment, number of businesses, payroll, revenues, and sales of recordings.
• The availability, affordability, and accessibility of live music – measured by numbers of performances, tickets sold, sell-out rates and gross receipts for these shows.
• The quality, variety, and intensity of the live music scene – measured by percentage of shows performed by the biggest stars and the most critically-acclaimed artists, the size of venues, the range of musical offerings, the number of grassroots performers, and the geographical distribution of clubs.

The survey found that Chicago ranks third in overall size of music industry, third in the numbers of concerts, and fifth in the number of music groups and artists employed.

“We’re number three in the United States, but we’re a long, long way behind New York and Los Angeles in terms of revenue generated,” said Bruce Iglauer, president of Chicago-based Alligator Records, from the Kot article. “The study shows there are a number of cities hot on our heels that are nurturing their music communities, which the City of Chicago at this point isn’t doing.”

The report provides ample evidence of Chicago’s musical vitality. It says the city is home to ten times as many musicians as Austin, Texas, which bills itself as the “Live Music Capital of the World.” It also concluded that Chicago’s core music industry generates $84 million annually and employs 13,000 people in 831 businesses. In all music sub-industries, 53,000 are employed and $1 billion in payroll is generated, third in the country.

Other findings about where Chicago fits nationally include: total concert ticket sales of 1.8 million (fourth) generating $79 million in revenue; 24 million albums sold (third); seating capacity of 408,000 (second), including 28,000 in small clubs, more than Austin, Nashville or Memphis; and a wide variety of clubs specializing in at least thirteen different genres of music (third).

Bolstered by the findings, the commission proposed that that the city set up an independent music office to help coordinate all aspects of the music scene through a combination of private and city funding.  Two years later though, no headway has been made and instead of receiving funding, our independent music infrastructure is being attacked.

What we’re up against

What’s the problem?  According to an article written for The Chicago Reader by Deanna Issacs, “For starters, a splintered, fiercely independent music community, venues scattered all over the map, and a tradition of hostile relations with local officials.”

“We’re trying to get people to understand we’re not just a bunch of long-haired people putting on concerts, but an industry that puts money in people’s pockets and entertains a lot of people,” said Paul Natkin, one of the executives of the Chicago Music Commission. The group was formed in the wake of the E2 nightclub stampede in 2003 in which twenty one people died. More than 2,000 spot night inspections were conducted by the city in the year after E2, and sixteen clubs were closed at least temporarily for exceeding occupancy limits.

Here is the CMC’s biggest problem: the E2 nightclub tragedy spawned talk of a city council ordinance that would require independent promoters to obtain $300,000 in liability insurance and pay fees ranging from $500 to $2,000, even if they’re working with fully licensed clubs. The revised ordinance addresses the music community’s concerns over the high insurance fees by allowing independent promoters to obtain “multi-event” insurance to reduce costs. But the music commission asserts that it “has learned that this new form of insurance is only being offered by one broker and has yet to be adopted by others.”  According to the most recent release of the ordinance, an “Event promoter” or “promoter” is any person who is directly or indirectly responsible for the organization of an amusement or event, as evidenced by activities such as contracting with the principals, selecting entertainment, advertising or otherwise holding out an amusement or event to members of the general public, inviting participants to an amusement or event, or renting or controlling the site of an amusement or event.

According to the CMC’s March 3, 2009 press release, “If the ordinance becomes law, it will create unworkable burdens for many small and young music promoters in Chicago, pressuring a key component of the vibrant Chicago music community instead of supporting and fostering its growth.” Andres Meneses, CMC Board Member and music promoter, said “With Chicago music as one of Chicago’s most visible and largest exports and revenue generators, now, more than ever, we need city government to be supporting the music community rather than viewing it as a safety risk.”

In an article titled Work-in-progress event promoter ordinance still cause for concern in music community in the Chicago Tribune last March, Greg Kot notes: “Club owners say the proposed ordinance would cut into their business, and make it financially prohibitive for grassroots promoters to stage the kind of independent events that have long been a vital part of the music scene.”

One wonders if the city has any idea of the fragile grassroots infrastructure that is Chicago’s music scene.  Sure, according to the CMC’s study, we have a whopping 400,000 seats for music fans, and 93 percent of them are in places like the United Center and Soldier Field, but most of the city stands while we see bands play.  There are hundreds of small, independent, some even non-profit music venues around the city who couldn’t possibly pay to stay legal if the ordinance is passed as is.  These are the sorts of venues where the Smashing Pumpkins and Fall-Out Boy got started.  The CMC website pleads, “Chicago’s small music promoter businesses, despite their unique economic and cultural contributions to our city, are extremely fragile enterprises that operate on very thin profit margins and in a regulatory climate that treats them not as treasures of Chicago, with specialized business needs and practices, but as safety risks and mere tax revenue generators.” 

You don’t go to the House of Blues to discover Chicago music.  You don’t go to stadiums, you don’t go to festivals, you don’t go to the suburbs.  Don’t even bother with the Metro if you want to see the new, local stuff.  To see the heart and soul of local music, go to The Empty Bottle, The Hideout, and The Abbey Pub.  Check out Reggies Rock Club, Ronnies Bar, the Whistler, The Beat Kitchen, The AV-aerie, The Hungry Brain, The Bottom Lounge, The Double Door, and Schubas.  They are just the tip of the iceburg for good, local, independent rock music. 

Why these venues are the ones that will be penalized because of a nightclub stampede is not clear.  And whether or not this ordinance is going to ruin music in Chicago is up for debate.  You do have to give the CMC props for trying, though. 

This eloquent statement written by the CMC in April and sent to 47th ward Alderman Gene Schulter should get some attention: “Despite a less supportive city government than other cities, Chicago’s music community gives Chicago a global tourism draw, generates hundreds of millions of dollars in entertainment revenue, and provides more than 50,000 jobs.  Indeed, music is one of Chicago’s most important and visible exports.”  Then the statement goes on to explain what needs to be done.  “Chicago music’s vibrant and diverse current scene and rich history gives Chicago music’s “creative class” the unique ability to help Chicago emerge from the current economic downturn and beyond.  But first our leaders must acknowledge Chicago music is a positive economic and cultural force rather than merely entertainment or source of revenue—or, as we believe is reflected here, a potential threat to public safety.  The City must embrace the Chicago music community in the same way as our competitor city governments such as Seattle, Austin, and San Francisco are doing.  Those cities have implemented laws and policies that actively bolster their music communities rather than creating additional regulatory and financial burdens—and they have healthy, growing cultural economies as a result.” 

The way to legitimize the music scene and make money for the city is not to fee venues and event promoters out of business but to work with them.  It makes sense: people will come to and spend money in Chicago to enjoy live acts, the bands will be exposed, the bars patronized.  Our city is underestimating the value of it’s own people.

In an interview on WBEZ’s show “Eight Forty-Eight” a few weeks ago, titled Chicago Avant-Rockers Release New Album, Thymme Jones says of his long-lived Chicago band Cheer Accident: “We aren’t just doing this for ourselves, we want people to hear the music.  Otherwise I would’ve just been a composition major and have stuff on paper in drawers that people would never hear.  The idea is to communicate to people while we’re on the planet.”

Let’s all just take a deep breath, sit back, and listen to the music.

Rob Ray

Rob Ray was the proprietor and curator of Deadtech, a defunct Logan Square artspace that existed from 1998-2008.  Deadtech was a venue for unconventional, electromechanical art and a community for artists interested in exploring the dichotomy between man and machine.   Ray is currently working on his MFA at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.

Kelly Reaves: What was Deadtech’s mission?

Rob Ray: To be a center for art and technology and an assistant to technology-centric artists in the best way we knew how. This tended to manifest itself in the putting on shows, providing technical assistance, and loaning equipment. We also hosted various regular meetings such as the Chicago Dorkbot and the chicago_pd group.  Our mission changed in the mid 2000s as new-media became a term very similar to “alternative” in that while it might have been new at the time, it became quite common.  So, I had to think about how Deadtech could differentiate itself from more established, better funded, and more highly recognized commercial and institutional places.  It used to be common for somebody to look at you totally sideways when you said you wanted to hang a projector in their space. It is now a common thing to see.  We took a fresh look at our assets and realized the biggest one we had was time.  A commercial space or somewhere like the Cultural Center never has time, and tech-based art is a PAIN to suss-out and painful to install. So we could work with artists that really wanted to do almost a residency-type install, or try something new in the actual space.

KR: How many people were involved with Deadtech?

RR: We were a very informal collective of volunteers. I was the only full-time volunteer but over the years MANY people have helped.  We were no-profit; we had no official status- sort of like Mess Hall (an “experimental cultural center” in Chicago).  Deadtech never had a commercial concern. We sold a few pieces, but we were adamant in our finances.

KR: Did you take a commission?

RR: We never charged a door charge and we never let artists hang a price tag on their work. In exchange we asked for no money. If a piece sold we only asked the artist to donate back to the space what they thought was fitting.  Deadtech was founded on this naive idea that amazing work doesn’t get created in the commercial sphere. It’s a naive idea I still hold today.

KR: What made a show successful?

RR: There are two types of shows I would consider “unusual successes.”

There are shows where I feel like the artist(s) just slayed it- what they wanted to do and what they were working on and the space and my assistance all came together and just totally gelled. Then there are shows that a bunch of people come out to, which is awesome too.  There were 500 people at our first show.

KR: That must have been encouraging.

RR: Yeah! Totally. That was pretty great.

KR: any catastrophes?

RR: sure! Not many…

KR: probably a few technical glitches…

RR: There have been a few shows where what the artist was trying to do just didn’t come together.  Failure is not just a threat in tech-based art; it is an un-removable component of the art.  ‘What will fail and when’ is the appropriate question, not ‘how can I prevent failure?’  And also some nights just don’t come together. There was a show where two really awesome out of town artists had their opening and it just POURED rain in buckets all night.  Things like that will nuke attendance. I felt bad, as they had been in residency for 2 weeks installing. 

KR: I imagine in 1998 the location was a little off the beaten path.  Was it hard to get people to come out?

RR: Yes and no.  Deadtech showed art that a kind of hardcore audience goes to so they will travel.  Plus Logan Square has always been home to a LOT of artists, just not a lot of art spaces. So we would intentionally have our openings from 8pm to midnight to catch people on the way home from West Loop or whatever.  It seemed to work quite well.

KR: There is still a nice metal Deadtech sign on the building.  Why didn’t you take it down?

RR: The sign is a funny story. When I had the sign made, I was influenced by all the old signs you see on warehouses all over Chicago, tombstones of the industrial-era in a way.  When I was moving out I told my landlord I was going to have the sign taken down, and he goes “Oh man! That sign is so beautiful, I’ll happily pay to take down the sign for you later if you could leave it up for a while. I can’t bear to not see it on the front of the building.”  As the removal was about $200 I obliged him and also thought it fitting that, like the rest of signs like it, it would stay up as a reminder of what was.

KR: Are you planning on coming back to Chicago?

RR: This is a good question… it is high on my list.  Chicago and LA have a number of artists I work closely with and am good friends with, so I think it will be one of those two.

KR: LA doesn’t seem too souless for you?

RR: Not at all!  That’s what’s crazy about LA.  I was in LA for 10 days and never once even thought about Hollywood or even “art-hollywood” bullshit.

CLUI, The Institute for Figuring, Machine Project, the Jurassic, etc., are all out there saying “fuck you” to all that stuff.

KR: What are you currently working on?

RR: Right now I’m moonlighting one day a week at my old job. The money is good so I force myself to squeeze it in. It has been REALLY nice to be making art after showing it for SO long and not really having enough time to make some myself. I want to spend a few years, selfishly, just making it.  But I think I’ll get back on the horse again. There are a lot of really inspiring places kicking ass: Mess Hall and InCUBATE in Chicago, Machine Project in LA, etc…  Right now I’m focusing on “living creatively,” bringing art practice into everyday living.  That doesn’t mean I don’t like art shows, it’s that I like them so much, I am thinking about how to apply that pleasure to other things like going to the dentist or buying dishes for my kitchen.  The creative challenge is something I only pursued within the confines of a 4 walled warehouse I called Deadtech. I’m now looking to figure out how I can take that thinking and apply it to doing other things.

KR: big job

RR: indeed!

KR: but fun

RR: but hella fun

Jeremy Boyle's guitar, photo courtesy of Deadtech's website

photo courtesy of Time Out Chicago

On a snowy Wenesday night mid February I had the pleasure of speaking with Billy Helmkamp, co-owner of The Whistler, a new gallery, music venue, and bar in Logan Square.  He made me a Long-Faced Dove, a refreshing, pale pink tequila and ginger beer cocktail, and answered my questions about the new space.

Kelly Reaves: When did you open up here?

Billy Helmkamp:  We opened on September 26, 2008.

KR:  What inspired you to open?

BH:  The other owner, Rob Brenner, bought this building about three and a half years ago.  We initially wanted to make it an all-ages music venue and workspace so we could be a space for our friends who do silk-screening and make t-shirts.  The idea behind it went through some variations.  At first, we wanted to do twenty things with the space and we widdled it down to music and an art gallery and there were some other arts related events thrown in like readings series and theatres coming in.  We had a rough idea of what we wanted to do with the building and figured it out over the course of six months to a year.

KR:  Why did you decide to focus on music and art?

BH:  That’s primarily what we’re interested in.  My educational background is in film and video, and my day job was working in video.  I shot concerts for west coast bands that were coming through Chicago.  

KR:  And you and Rob manage a record label together?

BH:  Yeah

KR:  How long has that been around?

BH: We’ve been doing that for six years.  It was operating under another name… we basically killed off the label prior to opening this place and re-launched it under the name “Whistler Records.”

KR:  Why did you choose this location (2421 N. Milwaukee Ave.) for the bar?

BH:  That was entirely Robs’ thing.  He spent a year and a half looking at buildings.  His primary focus was in Logan Square and Pilsen.  He had been living in Pilsen at the time so he knew that area pretty well.  Before that he lived in Logan Square so he knew this area pretty well… and he knew that they were pretty up and coming neighborhoods.

KR: And they’re affordable

BH: Yeah, exactly.  Also, he was looking for a place that allowed him to live upstairs and work downstairs.

KR:  I read about a brewpub opening up right around here soon.

BH:  Yeah, Josh Deth is opening that; it’s called Revolution Brewing.  It’s a block South of here on Milwaukee.  He’s a great guy.  He owns Handlebar.  He was the director of the Logan Square Chamber of Commerce, he’s super involved in the neighborhood.  When we were going through the process of opening this place someone recommended that I talk to him because he’s been through a lot of what we had to go through as far as having public meetings and whatnot.  I called him up, we talked for forty-five minutes and he answered all of the questions I had and we just went on tangents… he’s a really friendly guy.

KR:  Why did you decide to serve alcohol here?

BH:  To be economically sustainable.  Part of that mission too is because we don’t ever want to charge a cover at the door.  We like the idea of doing free shows, so if we didn’t charge a cover and didn’t sell anything in here we’d basically be broke within the first month of business.  At that point we had to tweak our idea, so we decided to go with the traditional live music setup with a tavern license and all.

KR:  Do your neighbors complain about the noise?

BH:  No.  One neighbor mentioned something about a show we had a couple weeks ago, but it was a pretty loud show.  And the neighbor wasn’t terribly upset or anything, he just said, “you know, our glasses were shaking.”  But we typically don’t have that loud of music.  Tonight is jazz night, so it shouldn’t be too loud.

KR:  I also heard that you have a metal night.  Is that true?

BH:  Yeah.  We were doing it on Tuesday nights but we moved it to the third Saturday of every month.  It’s called “Screams from the Gutter.”  It’s metal, punk, hardcore, grindcore, etc.  One of the main DJs we have here goes by the name “The Librarian” and “Screams from the Gutter” is his night.  He also does a night called “My Sebadoah Called Life,” which is the indie pop night.  He’s really good at coming up with themes.

KR:  I read that you’re participating in a festival in August called the Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival.  Can you tell me about it?

BH:  It’s something we’ve been involved with for the last three years.  It used to be called The Boulevard Arts Fest.  It was held in Palmer Square Park; just a couple blocks south of here.  We ended up moving it out of the park for logistical reasons, like there’s no power, so we decided to have the festival on Milwaukee Avenue instead.  We’re not going to shut down the street or anything.  The rough parameters are going to be from the Logan Square circle up Milwaukee to Diversey and Kimball. There are roughly thirty people on the planning committee.  Local businesses are going to be encouraged to have sidewalk sales.  We’re trying to rent three empty storefronts out for the weekend and set up art galleries.  In some of the parking lots we’ll set up stages and have live music. We want to turn Logan Square auditorium into a big gallery.  There will be street performances… just random stuff like stilt walkers, sword swallowers, and fire breathers out on the street. 

KR:  Why did you decide to make this space look like a gallery from the street instead of a bar?

BH:  We do our programming more like a gallery than a bar.  It kind of goes along with the idea of free shows.  We want to show free art- we wanted our gallery to be open twenty-four hours a day.  It faces the street so it never closes, and to see it you don’t necessarily have to come inside.  And we think it makes the block look a little cooler.  We don’t have a sign, we kind of like the speakeasy vibe of it. And there was already a lot of interesting stuff in the storefronts on this block.  The botanica has a big pirate in the window.  The photography studio next door has some interesting photos up, and the western wear place on the corner has a life sized stuffed ox with a wagon hitched to it.

KR:  Do you rotate the art that’s up?

BH:  The gallery rotates every other month.  And inside here is more of a work in progress.  We have photos of our parents up most of the time.

KR:  How do you choose the art?

BH:  Josh Dumas curates the gallery.  He’s been real involved in the Chicago art scene for a while.  He’s got half a dozen projects going on all the time.  Tonight he’s doing a performance art piece in the loop where thirty people pop up out of nowhere to do dance on the street. 

KR:  Do you get a pretty mixed crowd in here?

BH:  Yeah.  It’s mostly locals, but it’s pretty diverse, more diverse than you might expect.  I do read reviews of people complaining that it’s a hipster crowd but it was probably just the twenty people standing around that person that night.  It changes every night.  It depends on the program.  Last night we had a table of people in their fifties and sixties- that was the crowd that was brought in by the bands.  And tonight it’s jazz night so it’ll probably be different, and then tomorrow is hip-hop so it’ll definitely be different.

KR:  The Whistler is becoming known for the drinks, too.  Can you tell me a little about them?

BH:  Well, we always have eight on our drink list and they change seasonally.  Our mixologist, Paul, invented six of the drinks on the current list.  He’s been a professional bartender for a long time.  We were very lucky to get him, he was a friend of a friend… he moved here from Las Vegas looking for work just in time for us to hire him.  It was serendipitous. 

photo courtesy of Yelp

This is the first of a series of interviews I’m conducting now about art and culture in the Logan Square neighborhood in Chicago.  In February I stopped by my local sandwich shop, the Brown Sack, to speak to the Malaika Marion, co-owner.  I nervously sat and sipped tea while trying to muster up the courage to do my first interview with a stranger.  Well, not quite a stranger, last summer my dog demolished her patio by dragging her picnic table and potted tree onto Armitage Ave. in an attempt to tackle a cute bitch.  So, I kind of hoped she wouldn’t remember me.  She remembered.  But, even despite my mishap, she ended up being one of the nicest people I’ve ever met!  The interview turned out to be extraordinarily enjoyable- a nice introduction to the wonderful world of journalism.  The tape ran on for about an hour before it ran out.  In an effort to make it short and sweet for a school assignment, I’ve cut it down to the first 500 words.  

Kelly Reaves: When did you open up?

Malaika Marion:  December 2007

KR:  Why did you choose this location?

MM:  It was fully equipped.  We like this neighborhood- you know, definitely there were a lot of pros and cons to it.  There was a lot of good car traffic on this street.  We were a little nervous about the foot traffic.  But mostly because it was a fully equipped restaurant, ready to move into.  It used to be Borinquen, the famous Puerto Rican restaurant.

KR: What has been the most challenging part of this business?

MM:  Paying bills.  Just keeping up with everything.  You know, we’re so small; it’s just my fiancé, Adam and me, so it’s hard to just juggle everything.  It’s kind of like learn-as-you-go.

KR:  What sort of crowd to you get in here?

MM:  EVERYTHING.  We get police officers, gang bangers, drug dealers, teachers, young hip kids, old people, everything.  People bring their families here, and it’s cool because the neighborhood has a rough reputation.  Every once in a while Adam’s parents will call us and say “Guess what I just heard? There was a shooting a block away.”  And it’s nice for people to be able to bring their parents here and say “see, it’s not that bad.”  It’s nice to be a part of… NOT a gentrification… just working with the nice people that already live here. 

KR:  Do you have any stories about people who come in?

MM:  Oh yeah, we’ve got nicknames for all our crazy customers.  The saddest one was this lady Shirley.  She lived in the complex next door.  She was like, 80, and she was like a little bulldog.  She was always walking up and down the street.  She was in here literally probably 10, 15 times a day, every single day.  And she’d bring in little knickknacks, like a rock or a bullet.  Things off the ground.  She’d pick them up and she’d bring them to us.

KR:  -like a cat or something

MM:  Exactly.  And she left.  She was here everyday for a year and a half and all the sudden we didn’t see her for a month, so we were all worried- going down there, checking on her.  And her neighbors told us she was in the hospital but she couldn’t have any visitors. So we were just hanging in there.  And it’s funny cause every time she’d come in here she’d be pissed off about somebody in her apartment complex.  And she’d say, “I’m gonna dye my hair red and move to Kentucky!” cause she could “fish, and have a dog, and a garden!”  And so then she came back after having been missing for 2 months with her hair dyed red.  And she just walked in like she hadn’t even been gone, so we said, “Hey?! How ya doin Shirley? Where have you been?” and she said, “I TOLD you I was gonna move to Kentucky!”  And that’s awesome.  So it was actually a happy story.  We were sad to see her go.  Well, kind of.  She was very aggravating.  But she was OUR aggravation.  And we’ve got Earl the bootleg guy.  He sells movies, socks, pillows, pictures.  Everything.  You can find him here and at Tony’s Finer Foods on Fullerton Avenue.

KR:  What are your goals for the brown sack?

MM:  We just wanna be around, part of the neighborhood for a while.  I grew up in Evanston and it’s nice to be able to go back to places that have always been there.  I love that.  So that’s what we want to be. I think a cool thing about Logan Square is that the money and the developers haven’t come in and destroyed it yet.

photo courtesy of Decider Chicago

photo courtesy of the Sass Dragon's myspace page

The Sass Dragons are a punk rock band from the suburbs of Chicago. The Sass Dragons are Mike Oberland, Jimmy Adamson, and Jason Smith. They recently relocated to the city, and are about to celebrate their fifth anniversary as a band. I sat down with them in the beginning of March to reminisce about their oeuvre. (Warning- the following is lude, crude, and incredibly immature.)

Kelly Reaves: How did the band form?

Jason Smith: On a damp locker room floor.

Jimmy Adamson: My dad cummed in my mom’s vagina. Jason’s dad cummed in his mom’s vagina. And Mike’s mom…

Mike Oberland: My mom came in my dad’s ass.

Jimmy: Exactly.

Jason: Mike was adopted.

Jimmy: He was a true ass baby.

Kelly: What is your mission as a band?

Mike: I don’t think we really have a mission. We want to have fun.

Jimmy: Free Baghdad.

Kelly: Have you been helping with that?

Jimmy: We support our troops. Wholeheartedly.

Jason: We support our poops.

Kelly: Can you tell me about your most memorable shows?

Jason: Our most memorable shows are the ones that are told back to us. Everyone’s like, “You got naked and you were telling everyone to go fuck themselves and you threw a beer bottle at the wall…”

Mike: I threw a bass at Jimmy’s head one time and I vaguely remember that. That’s probably one of our most memorable.

Jason. You punched Jimmy too and then I threw Mike over a bass cabinet and I said the band was broken up.

Mike: We broke up for four hours.

Kelly: When was that?

Jimmy: 2006 in Carbondale at the “Lost Cross.” I was too drunk to play and Mike got upset about it.

Mike: Part of the reason is because when we were driving down I told them that ‘if anyone gets too drunk to play tonight I’m going after you’ and sure as shit Jimmy’s got his little stupid grin on his face the whole time we’re playing.

Jason: Well what made it worse is that we went on the first time and we were too drunk to play and the guy said, “Well maybe you guys shouldn’t play right now, you should sober up and play a little later.”

Jimmy: That’s after Mike punched me off the drum set.

Jason: Mike punches Jimmy off the drum stool and I figure that we are broken up and we won’t play that night, so I kept drinking. We got wasted as shit and then they came back to us three hours later and said “ok now you guys are playing” and I’m like ‘this is not happening.’ And all of us are staring at the floor, wasted drunk, trying to play.

Jimmy: I made out with a girl.

Jason: Then he peed in the bed.

Kelly: Do you prefer basement shows or traditional music venues?

Jimmy: Basement shows.

Jason: Basement shows.

Mike: Hands down.

Jimmy: Hands down.

Jason: As long as they pay us.

Kelly: Basement shows pay?

Mike: We did a whole tour of basement shows.

Jimmy: They paid 280 dollars in a basement in New Brunswick.

Jason: Basement shows actually paid us better than traditional venue shows because the traditional venues have limitations on how many people can fit inside and they have to pay the bouncers and the bartenders and everything. Not that that’s the most important thing.

Mike: It’s about the cash money.

Jason: It’s about having your nuts nailed and stapled to a chair.

Kelly: What is your favorite Chicago area band?

Jimmy: The Brokedowns.

Jason: A close call for between The Brokedowns and The Arrivals.

Mike: Vacation Bible School.

Jimmy: Bread and Bottle, Das Capital.

Mike: Every band we play with is my favorite band, that’s why we always have so much fun.

Kelly: What is your favorite Sass Dragons song?

Jimmy: “Jeremy.”

Jason: By Pearl Jam. Actually I was gonna say “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” by the Spin Doctors.

Kelly: What does it feel like to be a rock star?

Jimmy: It feels great! But sometimes it’s really dark and lonely.

Mike: It’s lonely at the top.

Jimmy: After a night of doing cocaine and fucking a million girls, then you wake up alone in your bed and it kind of sucks.

Mike: The million girls part sounds awesome.

Jimmy: Yeah it’s awesome until-

Mike: Until you can’t get it up, Jimmy.

Jimmy: Not getting it up to have sex is the best part of being a rock star.

Kelly: Do you have any crazy fan stories?

Jason: One time I got asked out by a sixteen-year-old girl. Jimmy got a hand job in front of everybody.

Jimmy: She was crazy.

Jason: She was kind of ugly. But I don’t know about crazy fans, I think we’re usually the crazy ones. Everyone tells us to get naked and then when we do, they seem unimpressed. I would love it if people actually loved us enough to take their clothes off. Especially babes.

Kelly: You’ve never had panties thrown at you?

Mike: We’ve worn more panties than we’ve ever had thrown at us.

Jason: We’ve worn more dresses than we’ve seen worn at a show. And we’ve seen more penises than I’ve ever seen vagina in my entire life. Women don’t come to shows thinking ‘I’m gonna show my vagina’ they come to shows thinking ‘I’m gone look at everyone’s penis getting thrown around and then I’m gonna decide which one I’m gonna go home with.’ And it’s usually not one of us because we all have small dicks.

Kelly: You said earlier that you have big dicks.

Jason: I have a wide dick. Mike has a long dick. Jimmy has a tiny dick.

Kelly: Are there lucky ladies in your lives?

Mike: Mine’s pretty unlucky but she’s still there.

Jason: I’m married.

Jimmy: I have that random unlucky lady in my life.

Kelly: What are your types?

Jimmy: When I’m drunk I don’t like white chicks.

Kelly: How do you write songs?

Jason: Carefully.

Mike: Diligently. Most of the ideas are from Jason, but we all do it. Someone gets an idea and brings it to the rest of us.

Kelly: Do the lyrics come after the songs are written?

Jason: They’re written at the same time.

Jimmy: I rip off Screeching Weasel songs.

Jason: I rip off Paul McCartney.

Mike: I listen to Lionel Ritchie.

Kelly: What’s the worst show you ever played?

Mike: There have been some stinkers.

Jimmy: Any show in Milwaukee.

Kelly: What’s the worst Sass Dragons song?

Jimmy: Cuttin’ Grass.

Jason: No offense to Josh. We used to be a four piece and he wrote Cuttin’ Grass and it’s a pretty bad song. All of them are pretty bad.

Kelly: Do you play old songs live?

Mike:  Older songs.

Jimmy: We play old schlongs live.

Jason: We don’t play anything off the first two albums. We’ve got about sixty songs to filter through. There are a few that we never play live, and there are a few that we can’t play live because we’re not that talented, like ‘Ass Scorpions.’

Kelly: What’s your most popular song?

Jimmy: ‘I Whooped My Grandma’s Ass’ is pretty popular right now.

Kelly: Who writes lyrics?

Jimmy: All of us. Plus some others.

Kelly: What are your influences?

Mike: Pussy. Big hairy pussy.

Kelly: What are your day jobs?

Mike: I walk dogs.

Jimmy: I have night jobs.

Kelly: What are your night jobs?

Jimmy: I make pizzas and sandwiches.

Jason: I work at a hotel.

Kelly: What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?

Jason: Heroin.

Jimmy: Smoking crack with a fifty two year old lady. It was a long time ago, I’m a better person now.

Jason: Actually I have no regrets.

Mike: Technically when we were all drunk and we were jumping off that rock at the quarry. We could’ve really gotten hurt.

Kelly: Do you have insurance?

Mike: No.

Jimmy: No.

Jason: I do, because of my wife.

Kelly: That’s why people get married, right?

Jason: And steady pussy.

Jimmy: We were in Bloomington and we decided to jump off forty-foot cliffs into a quarry.

Mike: Jimmy got a bunch of water up his ass. It was fun though.

Jason: But looking back I can’t believe we did it.

Kelly: What’s your favorite city to play in?

Jimmy: Milwaukee.

Jason: For the record, fuck Milwaukee.

Mike: Carbondale has been good to us.

Jason: When we first started we couldn’t get a show to save our lives and Carbondale was the only city that cared enough to see us. Even our friends in Chicago didn’t come out in the beginning because they thought we were just a short-lived thing.

Kelly: Now it’s been five years, so you showed them.

Jason: Naperville was always pretty good.

Kelly: Are you all from Naperville?

Jason: Around there.

Kelly: Why did you move to the city?

Mike: Somebody was going to get arrested soon. Every house we ever lived in out there had some sort of reputation. We would move out and people would complain, “Why is there a hole in the roof? Why are there strippers’ baby wipes stapled to the wall?”

Jason: We all commuted out here all the time anyway.

Mike: I didn’t want to have to drive a car everyday.

Kelly: What’s the gayest thing you’ve ever done?

Jason: Had my dick sucked by a dude.

Jimmy: Yeah that’s it.

Mike: That’s it, collectively. But we’ve all kissed all sorts of dudes.

Jimmy: I tried to stick a microphone up my butt.

Kelly: Is that gay?

Jimmy: No it’s not! Scratch that from the record.

Jason: It’s just gross. Being gay though means that Jesus frowns upon you.

Kelly: What do your parents think of the Sass Dragons?

Mike: Thankfully, my parents aren’t good with computers so they have no idea.

Jason: My parents do not like it at all. There are naked pictures of me and my friends on the Internet.

Kelly: Have your parents seen you play live?

Jimmy: Mine have.

Jason: Jimmy’s parents have been to the most shows out of all of them. I’ve explicitly told my parents they’re not allowed to come to shows.

Kelly: What’s your favorite thing about playing shows?

Mike: Seeing Jimmy’s penis. And, it’s just fun.

Jimmy: I like seeing people be happy and smile.

Jason: I’ve never found it more endearing than to be in front of a giant crowd of people I mostly know who are heckling me and throwing beer cans at me.

Jimmy: I like when Jason fights people.

Kelly: Is Jason the most aggressive out of you guys?

Jimmy: Yes.

Kelly: What are your goals for the future?

Jimmy: Drink more beers, smoke more cigs.

Jason: I personally want to do some PCP before I die.

Kelly: How has the music evolved over the years?

Mike: It hasn’t.

Jimmy: It hasn’t. Next question.

Kelly: How did you each loose you virginity?

Mike: Mine’s super un-eventful. I thought a beam of light was going to come down and shine on the two of us but it didn’t happen, I just got some blood on my boxers. And I didn’t come because her mom came home. I just put the condom and the boxers in a bag and threw them in a ditch because I couldn’t bring them back to my parents’ house.

Jimmy: I lost mine Christmas Eve while listening to the Dwarves.

Jason: I lost mine in a field next to a playground. My girlfriend tried to pull a blanket up but it kept on falling off of us. Kids came by with flashlights to hassle us.

Kelly: What’s the worst disease you could get?

Jason: Everything I do revolves around my dick. Anything that involves my dick falling off.

Jimmy: I’ll go on the record and say the worst disease you could ever have is kids.

Jason: I agree.

Mike: I agree.

Kelly: We were speaking about the advantages of “hate-fucking” earlier- can you each tell me who you’d most like to hate-fuck?

Jimmy: My Dad.

Jason: Kevin Spacey in…

Mike: K-Pax?

Jason: No, American Beauty.

Mike: I’d like to hate fuck that guy who filmed the plastic bag.

photo courtesy of the Sass Dragon's Myspace page

“Today I am going to breathe water,”

explained Chris Burden in his 1974 video, ‘Velvet Water’, “which is the opposite of drowning, because when you breathe water, you believe water to be richer, thicker oxygen capable of sustaining life”. In doing so, he decided not to be bound by conventional wisdom and to mistrust everything except his own experience.  After five minutes he collapsed, choking.

Is there something wrong with Chris Burden?  Is he crazy, or is he just a good artist?  Although his artwork has tamed quite a bit over the years, it is still awe-inspiring.  But the question that his work, especially his early work, elicits in my mind is- is he doing this out of insanity or love?

Burden is best known for his early work.  Beginning with his 1971 MFA show, ‘Five Day Locker Piece’, in which he confined himself in a tiny student locker for five days straight, Burden spent his early career staging performances that explored a potentially fatal merging of art and life. Over a three year period from ’71 to ‘74, he nailed himself to the roof of a Volkswagen Beetle, lay under a tarp on La Cienega Boulevard, lay in a bed in a gallery for 22 days, slithered, nearly naked, through 50 feet of broken glass, and most infamous of all, had himself shot with a rifle.

 Over 30 years later, art students still tell stories about the artist who shot himself in the name of art.  “Didn’t he die?” they say.  No, he didn’t.  Chris Burden is not a one-hit-wonder. He still makes art.  In fact, he currently has a large-scale installation outside the LACMA and recently had one up outside the Rockefeller Center.

Burden is still an interesting and relevant artist.  His youthful bravado has been traded for wisdom and subtlety: a healthy progression.  Dissidence has been replaced with inquisitiveness and optimism.  However, the common thread throughout his art is an interest in testing limits- in proving seemingly impossible things to be possible after all.

One of his most interesting post-performance pieces is ‘Samson’, from 1985.  It is a machine that, when installed in a gallery, threatens to reduce the building to rubble.  Upon entering the gallery, every visitor must pass through a turnstile.  Connected to the turnstile, a gearbox makes a hundred-ton jack expand a little with every turn, ramming two huge pieces of timber more tightly against the walls. The more people who attended the exhibition during its six-month run, the greater the probability of the destruction of the building.  Luckily for its inhabitants, the building never fell.

Chris Burden’s father was an engineer. You can imagine his disappointment when his son strayed from his architecture major and began making conceptual art.  Perhaps he would be pleased to know that his son is now returning to his roots- his most recent major project being a 65-foot model skyscraper made with approximately one million stainless steel replicas of Erector set parts.  Appropriately, the behemoth sculpture is titled ‘What My Dad Gave Me,’ “a reference to the fact that he gave me the confidence to think that I could do something like this,” says Burden. 

It’s funny the way things turn out.  Decades ago when Chris was young, his performance pieces reflected an ambivalence toward life.  Some might even call it a death wish.  Now though, as he ages, he shows an appreciation for life and a yearning for more.  When asked in an interview about his ambitions, he replied, “I want to live a long time so that I can fulfill my ideas. I have more ideas than I have life left.” 

Burden’s work is not the subversive product of a crazy man but a celebration of art and life and a manifestation of his desire to enrich those things.  His work reflects a responsibility toward art and life by blurring the distinction between the two, and then taking them and making the most out of them.  In doing so, he asks us what we are doing with our lives and how we relate to our own mortality.  He reminds us to enjoy life instead of trudging through it.  He has made himself a martyr for us and an example of what could be, and this is not something to be dismissed. 

When you say your prayers tonight, and you’re thanking Goya and Duchamp for their contributions, don’t forget to give a shout out to Chris Burden- that guy who shot himself in the name of art.

   There is one last sacred place downtown. 

It is small, smelly, soggy, and guarded by loyal homeless guys.  But they are friendly, and they all know my name.  Everybody knows my name there,
 and they’re always glad I came.  This place is my own personal “Cheers.”  It is called Cal’s Liquors, and it is the last dive bar in the loop. 

At 61 years old, Cal’s is barely hanging on.  The city isn’t too happy about it being in the loop because it is loud and the attached liquor store sells half pints of booze, which attracts the homeless.  The homeless, in turn, scare the condo owners who live next door with their odor and enthusiasm.  There are no beer taps in the bar, and you’re probably better off with a bottle anyway because the “dishwashing system” is questionable.  If you are a female and you need to use the bathroom, empty your pockets first because if anything falls out while you’re dropping your pants you will not want to fish it out of the standing water on the bathroom floor.Despite its neglect, I love this place because it is unpretentious.  Bands play on the weekends, squishing their equipment into a tiny space at the end of the bar.  Although some bands are terrible and most are mediocre, just about every band that has played in Chicago has played at Cal’s at some point, so you’re bound to see some great stuff eventually.  Those who feel belittled by stages will feel right at home because Cal’s doesn’t have one.   When asked about competition from Reggie’s and the Bottom Lounge, Mike Feirstein, the manager of the bar (Cal’s son) said in an interview for the Sun Times: “Those places can’t duplicate what I have. The bands play on the floor. On a good night, you’ve got people standing a foot away from you and you get that feedback from the audience, so if you’re having a good show and the music’s happening, it just explodes in front of you.”

The crowd varies, but it mostly consists of businessmen (as it is in the heart of the financial district) and bike messengers.  “You’ll run into local music icons as well as your Mutual fund manager, and that roughneck messenger that was on the elevator that you looked at funny who could kick your ass for fun,” said beer aficionado Matt Morgan in an online review of Cal’s.  If you walk in on a late afternoon and sit at the bar, the person next to you will undoubtedly start talking to you.  Last Friday I spoke with a wasted self-proclaimed first generation feminist about abortion while a guy a few seats to my right repeatedly bought me beers without ever speaking to me.  I mentioned to one of the bands that I thought their band name was odd (FCAB, short for Free Chicken and Beer) so they gave me a cd.

Although Cal’s is a little rough around the edges, many of us have had warm and fuzzy experiences there.  I met my boyfriend at Cal’s.  A few weeks later, we had our first kiss there.  I was at Cal’s when Obama got elected.  We danced on bar stools to Stevie Wonder until we were too drunk to stand.  And on the fateful day when the city shuts down Cal’s and they host their last rock show, I will be there, beer in hand, dancing and crying.

They make painters happy, not only because they’re well rendered but also because their commercial success is a sign that painting is not dead.Not even close.

Standish currently has a solo show of his new large-scale photorealistic paintings at Carrie Secrist gallery. Although the subjects vary, an urban theme is pervasive.

In the front room are four candid portraits of Los Angeles street dwellers, presumably vagrants and prostitutes, each looking worn down and off guard. Corporate logos are subtly embedded into the pictures, giving the appearance of a modern & minimal high-budget billboard add.A young blonde in a tube top advertises Viagra, a homeless man advertises Rolex.

The back room contains paintings of blurred traffic lights, perhaps less intriguing than the others at first glance but attractive and graceful in their simplicity. A few of the paintings are basically just strips of color, diagonally sweeping through a black void.

Despite the undeniable visual appeal of the paintings, upon reading about Standish and his work, there is a problem. His ideas are becoming foggy.  Maybe the art world in finally getting the best of this fresh, “untrained” artist. The figurative paintings in the show would be clearer without the brand logos. The logos seem like an afterthought; a convoluted way of validating photorealistic painting for the conceptual art world. Their inclusion degrades the simple elegance of the paintings.

The body language of Standish’s’ muses is compellingly classic, though.  The people look uncomfortable and unsatisfied.  In “Woman on Sunset Blvd,” a woman stares down into the corner, past the viewer, much like Degas’ “Absinthe Drinker.” The tweaked-out man in “Gastown Finn (Rolex)” looks like Vincent Van Gogh.  And although there is never more than one figure in each painting, there is the sense that these people are standing, lost, in a sea of bustling people.

  Those who go to the show without reading this review will be lucky, because they will be able to enjoy the paintings as I did- as titillatingly well-rendered copies of banal urban happenings.  Perhaps, like me, they will hold up their hand to block out the Rolex emblem as they admire the brushwork on “Gastown Finn.”  They will likely admire the way the light plays off of the stray hairs of the mans’ beard.  That, after all, is what painting is all about.

White people love Rashid Johnson.

 They love him because he’s a black artist who makes art about identity politics without assuming the role of a victim or pointing fingers. His art also makes white people feel like they understand black people, which delights them, but it is a dubious understanding because his work is intentionally ambiguous. It is anything but didactic, and it is refreshing. And it is refreshing, but not satisfying.

Johnson has been embraced by the art world not only because white people love him and because he threw himself into it at a young age, with none of the self-consciousness that comes with education. He was exhibiting regularly during his undergraduate education at Columbia College and his work was in the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection before he started Graduate school at SAIC.

On the opening night in September in the West Loop gallery compound, amongst the hoards of hipsters, academics, and collectors, there seemed to be a general sentiment that the installation at Monique Meloche was the star of the show.

The installation, titled “The New Escapist Promised Land Garden and Recreation Center”, transformed the gallery into a mystical, smoking lounge-like space. The art in it mixed black history with references to alchemy, divination, and astronomy, freely combining the natural and spiritual worlds.

The installation was a little underwhelming. The photographs were awesome, and the paintings were nice, but the assemblages seemed slightly forced although they smelled great. The palms, in their store-bought black plastic pots seemed like an afterthought. Surely Johnson would have a good explanation for installing things exactly as he did, but no explanation should be needed.

Perhaps the most striking piece in the show was a jarringly large lambda print titled, “Self-portrait as the black Jimmy Connors in the finals of the New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club Summer Tennis Tournament.” It showcases the artist in full tennis regalia, surrounded by foliage and being obliterated out of recognition by a jungle-like mist. The knife-twisting irony of a black man as a white prepster is pervasive in Johnson’s work. His technique of playing dress up and photographing himself is reminiscent of Cindy Sherman, but in a 21st century, tongue-in-cheek kind of way. A Newcity review by Jaime Calder aptly observes: “The Gold Coast-meets-South Side concept is laid on thick.”

His contemporary way of addressing identity is what sets him apart from those who came before. In a critical context, his work is widely regarded as being part of the “post-black” movement.

Most definitions of “post-black” that you will find on the Internet are paradoxical and utterly unsatisfying. The best one is in a blog called “hellatuff.” In it, the author explains: “The original objective of Post Black labeling was to abandon and progress beyond the limitations of pigeon-holing an artist’s work with a racial identity. Post Black better suits the linguistic and artistic needs of the post-Civil Rights generation as a means to express their identity within black history and American Art. Post Black art embraces the works and idealism of black artists across a broad spectrum of personal history, while their common denominator of African decent unifies them. While many artists and critics embrace the liberal sentiment of the Post Black movement, others denounce Post Black as a regressive social construct that diminishes the progress of those involved in the Black Arts Movement.”

In the New York Times last year, Kori Newkirk, one of the quintessential “post-black” artists wrote, “We’re all making work that can be difficult sometimes, with an incredible investigation into materials and a strong basis in conceptual art. I would say we’re all making work that doesn’t hit people over the head with the race conversation anymore. It’s a juicy conceptualism— a ghetto-fabulous conceptualism — based on reality and the intricacies of daily life.” It seems as though Johnson would like to remain a little mysterious.  No webpage or artist’s statement can be found online; the closest is a faux personal add he wrote for an art show a few years ago. Clever and telling, it reads as follows: “young artist seeks audience to enjoy poly-conscious attempts at post-medium condition production. Must enjoy race mongering, disparate disconnected thoughts and sunsets (really). Familiarity with the works of Sun Ra, Joseph Beuys, Rosalind Krauss, Richard Pryor, Hans Haacke, Carl Andre and interest in spelunking the death of identity a plus. I’m looking for an audience with a good attention span that is willing to stay with me thorough the good and the bad. I enjoy creating videos, producing sculptures, and making photographs. My interests are costuming, Sam Greenlee novels, Godard films and masturbation. Ability to hold a conversation using only rap lyrics, and a sense of humor a must.”