An excerpt from The Empty Bottle Chicago: 21+ Years of Music / Friendly / Dancing
Author Archives: John Dugan
Posted inBlogs
A wide-ranging interview with Neil Michael Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema of Royal Trux
The duo discuss their history and their 2001 album Pound for Pound for the album’s 15th anniversary; Hagerty also plays a free solo show at the Owl tonight.
Posted inBlogs
Jon Fine talks about the 90s indie scene and his new memoir, Your Band Sucks
“I didn’t want to sleep because I didn’t want to miss any of it.”
Posted inBlogs
A conversation with Scott Crawford, writer-director of D.C. hardcore documentary Salad Days
The film plays Sat 3/28 and Sun 3/29 at the Vic.
Posted inBlogs
‘If I think too much about the music it stinks’: An interview with the Clean’s David Kilgour
Talking to the front man and guitarist of the New Zealand trio, who play Lincoln Hall on Monday.
Posted inMusic
How Much Chaos Is Too Much Chaos?
So far the Libertines are still a step ahead of their own cloud of dust.
Posted inNews & Politics
He Has Built It. Will They Come?
Dan Dietrich’s new recording studio is up and ready to go. But places like his may be dinosaurs in the digital age.
Posted inMusic
New and Improved Formula
Strokes Room on Fire (RCA) Hype is considered more blessing than curse for a young rock act. Though industry types will tell you it’s crucial that buzz be cultivated gradually and delicately, bands and labels pay publicists to create it first and control it a distant second. And hype clearly pays off in short-term commercial […]
Posted inMusic
It’s a D.C. Thing
The Pocket: The DC Go-Go Movement Directed by Nicholas Shumaker and Michael Cahill From Madchester to Miami Bass, regional scenes have a way of drying up once their mass appeal has subsided. Folks outside the beltway might imagine that go-go–the funk variant birthed in Washington, D.C., that seemed poised to cross over nationally in the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chi Lives: inspiration comes out of the blue
In the weeks following September 11, 2001, Kevin Stacy was in a bit of a crisis. Hospitalized that summer with a form of arthritis called Reiter’s syndrome, he was then back at home, doing his best to recover and watching a lot of TV, when he was struck by the sudden proliferation of those I […]
Posted inMusic
Honor Among Thieves
Interpol at the Empty Bottle, September 6 Making rock music involves a lot of promiscuous recycling. Euphemistically, this is called “assimilation of influences” or “working in the tradition of.” But ask your average indie rocker what his favorite band right now sounds like and he’s likely to describe it using the names of two or […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Cool and Collected: highs in the fifties
Last year was a dark one for the big auction houses, with the economic slump and September 11 hitting an industry already rocked by the Sotheby’s and Christie’s price-fixing scandal. But according to Richard Wright, his young West Loop auction house is on the upswing. “Our business has thrived, while Sotheby’s closed the Chicago location,” […]
Posted inMusic
Ragged But Right
Velvet Underground Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes (Universal) Once, back in 1990, I smuggled my college radio station’s handheld recorder into a Chicago club and recorded a matinee gig by a shaggy and relatively obscure band called Nirvana. One listen to the cassette today and the room still comes into focus: Chris Novoselic […]
Posted inMusic
Who Got the Stones Rolling?
Stoned: A Memoir of London in the 1960s By Andrew Loog Oldham (St. Martin’s Press) In the annals of rock history, artist managers are rarely recognized for their creative vision. Their behind-the-scenes manipulations may be well documented, but we prefer to think of them as scheming, greedy, and shallow (and preferably old and fat). That […]