File: June 2007
Clubs Gone Dry
One of the downplayed outgrowths of music’s digital age has been its role in altering the concert landscape, especially in Chicago. It’s not something extended from MP3 files or iPods specifically, but more the mindset that comes with them. The touch-of-a-button conveniences we all enjoy have led to a revival of the music festival, combining the old radio fest, annual stationary European-style camp-outs, and the ’90s spasm of H.O.R.D.E., Lillith Fair, and the original Lollapalooza. Get everyone in the same place, slap a pricetag on it, and you don’t have to worry about live music for the rest of the summer.
Perhaps nostalgia has tinted the glasses a little, but Chicago’s summer of 2006 seemed particularly blighted by the presence of Lollapalooza, Intonation, Pitchfork, Warped, Ozzfest, Sounds Of The Underground, Family Values, and the Touch And Go/Hideout melée. Not that these particular showcases were bad — to the contrary, they were excellent — but they effectively drained the traditional haunts and street fairs. Bands, like they do for South By Southwest in Austin and CMJ in New York, built their summer tours around these goliaths and for the most part didn’t return for more intimate performances.
Last month there was hope, however. May 2007 was one of the better months for concerts in memories, featuring visits from Björk, Morrissey, three shows of Arcade Fire, Ronnie James Dio reunited with Black Sabbath as Heaven And Hell, Mastodon with Against Me! and Cursive, Ben Gibbard solo shows, The Killers, Arctic Monkeys, and an influx of relative newbies like Peter, Bjorn & John, Amy Winehouse, !!!, Black Rebel Motorcylce Club, Brandi Carlile, Regina Spektor, Kings Of Leon, Animal Collective, Jet, and El-P.
Chicago is a great music town, but it didn’t get that way by packing 40,000 people in a parking lot. Get out to the clubs this summer.
Can You Lick The Neck?
Back when IE was a young, virile stallion, if we wanted to play air guitar we locked the door and courted the long mirror. Maybe we caught a sweet move by Rudy Sarzo in a Whitesnake video where he slid his tongue down his bass (sometimes we air bass’d) and wanted to try it out. We didn’t have these “Guitar Hero” video games, and we certainly didn’t have The 5th Annual US Air Guitar Championships. This spring the competition comes to Smart Bar on June 15th, and all bets are off. You might think this is kind of like the Slam Dunk Contest, where after awhile all the good moves are gone. It won’t be an issue with the winner being sent to New York for the national title, and then possibly to Finland for the world crown. We have but one quesiton: Can you lick the neck? Can you?!
Shut Up Yourself
Don Imus deserved to be fired just for the firestorm of idiocy that followed his dumb comments. In late April, hip-hop honcho Russell Simmons called for the hip-hop community to effectively censor itself and cease using slurs about women and minorities, referring specifically to the dreaded “N-word.” While it’s cute how white liberal guilt has spread to affluent blacks, protecting one person’s delicate sensibilities by asking someone to throw away their speech rights reeks of stupidity. Simmons built his career and fortune on the backs of those epithets, after all. Problems are a little more complex than some dull words.
New World Riordan
IE makes a difference. Daily. And while we’d like to take full credit, former IE scribe James Riordan deserves the lion’s share for his Jim Morrison biography, Break On Through (Harper Collins), being named the 10th-best rock bio all-time by Amazon.com. Riordon’s book was originally released in 1991 and has not gone out of print.
At IE we stop there. It’s no accident our 1996 win in the Gottleib Report is polished daily. But Riordon, wily slave to the printed word, has seven books out this year. The avalanche began with The Coming Of The Walrus, a fictional novel positing all the great things about the ’60s were tied to a single man. Then Swordsman re-released his first book, 1981’s The Platinum Rainbow. March found him in an expository mood with The Bishop Of Rwanda, a post-genocide exploration of faith in the African nation. Then you can keep an eye out for The Enemy Strikes, a collection of novellas with author Bill Myers; two poetry books, The Well Thought Out Scream and Madman In The Gate; and finally more novellas as Deception. Someone hook him up with Axl Rose.
— Steve Forstneger
Don Imus should not have been fired period. He is one small cog in a wheel that will see a domino affect in the near future.
Our freedoms are slowly being removed.
Bruce from Florida