Lydia Loveless at Golden Dagger in Chicago on December 30, 2022
A selection of things I enjoyed this month:
This paragraph from Grey Horse’s newsletter, written by fellow OG Chicago Twitter person Kate Gardiner:
It’s easy to look away from potential wrongdoing when you want to believe an optimistic story. The temptation is even greater if you want to emulate the protagonist. “I could be like him,” the thinking goes — and that thinking gets complicated when you take into account that getting to be like him might take some dirty work.
Yes, it’s about SBF but it’s also about why knowing your values can keep you from making mistakes.
Rachel Maddow Presents Ultra: I’ve been enjoying this for months, but it recently wrapped in a satisfying, if cautionary, way. It poses the question “how do you fight fascism in America when it’s supported by a professional PR campaign and reaches the highest levels of government?” It’s a complicated answer best summed up as “it takes all of us doing our part.” I found comfort in the idea that we have been here before and we know the way out, but also discomfort from knowing it’s a cycle. Our form of government allows fascism to rest beneath the surface. We are threatened by an invasive species we can’t ever truly kill because the roots are impossible to dig out of the soil. We can stop its growth if we have the resolve.
This 2012 oral history of Rainbo Club: A ten-year-old profile from Eater Chicago of the legendary Wicker Park bar told through stories from some of the artists who lived, worked, and created there in the 1990s (Dmitry Samarov, Tim Kinsella, Liz Phair, and others).
Nikki Morgan at Golden Dagger in Chicago on December 30, 2022
Lydia Loveless and Nikki Morgan: Last night, I saw both of these women perform at a sold-out show at Golden Dagger (fka Tonic Room), a tiny, warm room with good beer, great cocktails, and a stage just barely big enough to hold the flames coming off Loveless and Morgan (who opened). Lydia Loveless is from Columbus, Ohio with some Chicago DNA due to her complicated, former time spent on Bloodshot Records. Straddling the lines between alt-country, indie punk, and wry humor, she sets fire to sadness, death, and danger. Nikki Morgan describes herself as a girl from North Carolina, but says Chicago made her the woman and artist she is today – someone who mixes soulful vocals and Southern swamp. Lately, something new has often signaled heartache. But in last night’s show, both artists felt comfortable enough in the intimate venue to share new songs, which portended something more hopeful for 2023.
NASA’s Mars InSight probe goes quiet: Do you like to feel sad about anthropomorphized space vehicles? Well then this story (and the related Twitter account) is for you.
A thread of life advice from former Chicago Tribune writer/editor Kevin Williams: Unlike most “what I’ve learned” threads like this, which are often about showing how wise, clever, and interesting the poster is, Kevin’s is about how to improve the lives of others, starting with yours. He’s apparently moving to Portugal, which is good for him but bad for Chicago.
(Disclosure: I was a writer and editor with Chicagoist from 2004 to 2007 and stayed in close communication with people who worked there up until the time it was sold to DNAinfo. While some of the below is based on knowledge gleaned during that time, none of this is based on off-the-record conversations. For my full ethics disclosure statement, read this.)
A brief announcement about the sale divulged little about Chance’s plans, but lyrics in a simultaneously released song called “I Might Need Security” perhaps shed some light on his intentions:
I missed a Crain’s interview, they tried leaking my addy I donate to the schools next, they call me a deadbeat daddy The Sun-Times gettin’ that Rauner business I got a hit-list so long I don’t know how to finish I bought the Chicagoist just to run you racist bitches out of business
Suffice it to say Chance keeps the media at arm’s length and has been savvy about managing his image, going all the way back to 2013 in this Chicago magazine piece from Jessica Hopper (who coincidentally was MTV News’s editorial director last year):
Chance the Rapper doesn’t want to show me his hood. The burgeoning hip-hop star sits in my car behind the Harold Washington Library issuing a flurry of excuses: It’s too hot. Chatham, the South Side neighborhood where he grew up and filmed his viral video “Hey Ma” (it’s on YouTube), is too far. He has to be at the studio in an hour. Anyway, that place isn’t really his story, he insists. His story is “here,” he says, motioning toward the library.
On one hand, you could imagine Chance is tired of being misrepresented by “the media” and like other savvy cultural creators he’s taken the means of production into his hands to exert more control over his image. The MTV News blow-up, the “Security” lyrics and the Chicago magazine excerpt all lend some credence to this theory.
Also of note is Corcoran’s $15,000 founding member donation to Block Club Chicago, the new hyperlocal Chicago news organization (disclosure: I am also a member of BCC but at 1% of that amount). Considering Chance’s philanthropic endeavors and he and Corcoran’s recent interactions with journalism it’s tough to know whether this is more in line with the former or an attempt to hedge bets on the latter.
To be taken seriously as a funder of independent journalism, he’ll need to address the questions around all of the above. But if I had to guess, I’d imagine he’ll be a media owner more in the mold of a Mansueto or Bezos than an Adelson.
Chance has been an undeniable force for good in Chicago culture. The erstwhile Chancellor Jonathan Bennett is the son of politically active parents whose lives have been devoted to public service. He is seemingly a devoted father, philanthropist and community advocate who has donated upwards of two million dollars to Chicago’s public schools, testified at the Chicago City Council and supported voter registration efforts. When we talk about a music community, it looks a lot like what Chance creates in Chicago by investing in its people.
Chance’s familiar critique of mass media is that it too often misses nuance in favor of an easy-to-swallow narratives and elevates conflict over conversation. Buying Chicagoist could be a way to put create another independent media organization in Chicago, albeit one run by a well-heeled single investor, that serves as a catalyst for the kind of social change he’s been creating.
A business plan for a business, man
Mike Fourcher, a former Chicagoist colleague and also the former publisher of a few hyperlocal news and politics sites, delves into the business and audience side of things in this post. In short, re-building Chicagoist won’t be easy. The business model it had as part of the Gothamist network is lost as a standalone site. With an increasingly mobile audience accessing news via phones, local news sites are competing for attention with not just national publications but also everything that’s in app form whether it’s Facebook, Netflix, Fortnite or text threads.
But with this sale, Chance and Chicagoist will have some valuable assets most startups don’t. When it was shut down, Chicagoist had a sizable social media audience of 500,000 across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, monthly unique visitors of 700,000 and an email list of 29,000 subscribers. All that’s waiting to be reactivated.
One possible way for Chicagoist to start re-engaging and building on its previous audience is to act as an amplifier/partner of news from the startups who cover underserved-by-news neighborhoods still trying to get to Chicagoist’s size like City Bureau and The Triibe Chicago. This isn’t about aggregating the work of others, but using Chicagoist’s already existing audience to support community engagement.
Maybe Mr. Bennett wants to turn Chicagoist into a kind of “Players Tribune” for entertainers. Maybe he’d like to use the title as platform for something other than news. Perhaps he is thinking of creating a site about the experience of Black Chicago, a sorely under-reported topic. “Chicagoist” could mean so many things. We shouldn’t limit ourselves to what it’s meant in the past.
All of which leads to one a couple key questions: What is Chicagoist’s voice going to become and what does its audience need and want?
I have a few thoughts on how to answer that.
What could Chicagoist be?
If he has the time, team and treasure to invest, Chance’s Chicagoist could be an exploration of, and a check on, emerging power in Chicago: who has it, how they use it and what are the ways that power affects the everyday lives of Chicagoans, particularly those on the South and West sides who often find a surge of interest in their concerns when something goes wrong, but not as often when something goes right. How is power being used for good as well as for destruction?
It shouldn’t be another variation on “watchdog” reporting though. It can, and should, be celebratory. Imagine this article as an ongoing content vertical with products and events built around it. Billy Penn is already doing something like this with Who’s Next in food, music, the law, education, schools, etc. Someone else will try it here if Chance/Chicagoist doesn’t.
Crain’s Chicago Business covers established power with a specific downtown focus and a high-income audience. Daily papers do this for politics and big business. Local publications cover some of this in a breaking-news, scoop-driven way. But it’s rare to see, for example, a deep dive into the history of a longtime neighborhood developer building condos with first-floor retail in a neighborhood that isn’t on a “hot” list. Not to mention those just coming up.
There’s also something to be said about being a voice for those whose views often go underrepresented in this city. Chicagoist could be the source that represents Pilsen and Humboldt Park and Jackson Park in the way that the Tribune represents…well, often, the western suburbs, bridging the gap between young progressives and older, passionate Chicagoans. It’ll mean taking stands, reflecting the grit of the city, avoiding both the middle ground and “both sides” reporting – pointing out truth, lies and agendas.
This kind of voice would mean elevating people on the front lines of these community issues, making sure the audience sees itself reflected in what’s discussed and giving the readers a stake in it, which increases relevancy, word of mouth and audience size.
We see these voices all over social media. They are guiding the conversation and too often the traditional news media products are playing catch-up to them or just throwing up a screenshot without delving into context. They should be a part of what Chicagoist does, even if, or perhaps especially if, it doesn’t involve traditional journalists.
While the Tribune seems to have cornered the market on op-eds by people who are leaving Chicago and Illinois, Chicagoist has an opportunity to talk about why people stay here and build. Young entrepreneurs who have never set foot in 1871 are creating businesses here. The national political organization Run for Something had an event here last year that was even larger than one in D.C. Who attended, why are they running? Can we track their campaigns in a way that is shows the path and doesn’t follow the patterns of who’s-winning-who’s-losing, horse-race journalism?
When we do this, we find:
The next lead-contaminated pipes before they harm the brains of our kids and make them more susceptible to violence
The next models for entrepreneurship in neighborhoods which others can replicate and build a hyperlocal economy
The next political movement leaders
The next…Chance the Rapper
It’s about giving the audience an understanding of power and how it’s used but also in reinvigorating the trust between reader and publisher by demonstrating that we’re listening to what they need, not just telling them what we think they need. Hearken, a Chicago startup with national reach, has been pioneering this approach. I’m surprised more newsrooms aren’t using their tech and process. Also, City Bureau’s public newsroom collaborations have showed that developing news products side-by-side with readers has tremendous value for the end product and develops audience loyalty.
This starts with research on not just on the previous Chicagoist audience, but also its potential readers – the ones who stepped away from Chicagoist and the ones it never appealed to – as well as the places they live. The geographic communities and the psychographic communities – their interests and needs. What do they need out of a media publisher vs. a mobile website vs. an email product vs. a social feed vs. ongoing coverage of a topic that’s created for the place in which it appears.
But more importantly, it allows Chicagoist to own the relationship with its readers and reinvigorate the entire model of useful products and information given to readers in exchange for trust, money and information about themselves. It takes work, but it’s how you develop a true business model.
It also makes the content actionable for the audience. For someone with Chance’s philanthropic leanings, a media organization that consistently says “If this is important to you, here’s what you can do…” could be an important next step.
Correction:A previous version of this article listed Pat Corcoran’s Block Club Chicago contribution as $10,000 based on this page. Block Club Chicago Director of Strategy Jen Sabella says the actual amount was $15,000 and said that “Pat’s contribution to BCC was not on behalf of Chance…he just liked/missed his neighborhood news and wanted to help us get going again.”
(Note: I wrote the following back in 2009 about a now-somewhat-legendary mix of Christmas music I made in 2001. The reasons why I made it – and how, in the years since, I lost and found the joy that went into it – are what follows. I’m re-publishing it here now because I’ve finally re-created this mix on Spotify. Embed below.)
***
My feelings on “the holidays” have always been mixed.
Even when I was a kid, I always associated this time of year with a lot of running around. Between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we’d be zipping from one set of grandparents to midnight mass to our house to another set of grandparents and then back home. Then, when I was in high school, my parents divorced, which meant one more place to go on Christmas. I’d head to my Dad’s on the evening of the 23rd, then to grandma’s, then mass, then mom’s, then grandma’s, then home. A two-day, four-house gauntlet.
Then in college…well, you’re never really “home” in college, are you? The house you grew up in and the dorm with your hot plate both get tagged with that description, meaning you’re never really there. This feeling was always exacerbated by the break between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. There was a little bit of me in Chicago, and a little bit of me in Ohio.
After college, I moved into a series of apartments and this feeling of “the holiday gauntlet” was inescapable. I didn’t own a car, so I’d take the train down to the ‘burbs or have my parents pick me up, loaded down with presents and a suitcase. It never felt relaxing to me, pausing just long enough in places to eat, drink and do my best to be merry. I never really felt at home.
Look, I’m not saying being around my family is a miserable experience. It isn’t. I love them, and it doesn’t feel like Christmas to me if you’re not around friends and family. But for the ten years after my parent’s divorce, I never felt like I was in a place, emotionally or physically, to be able to fully enjoy Christmas. Again, there were good times. But I never felt like I could sit back and soak in the spirit (much less The Holy Spirit).
—
One of the other things I always disliked about Christmas was the music. If you want to put me through hell, make me listen to music I hate. And since most Christmas albums are cash-ins – recorded for easy money or to fulfill a contract requirement – the resulting music is generally awful. It’s not that I hated the sentiments, I just hated the arrangements.
I trace the genesis of my dislike of Christmas music back to my high school days in show choir. From 1990 to 1993, I, along with several of my classmates, spent cold December afternoons and evenings traipsing around the south suburbs singing the most common of Christmas songs. Over and over and over. (And yes, Virginia, there was accompanying choreography.) While this time period accounts for some of my most cherished memories, there is nothing more depressing than realizing you need to take “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” out of that afternoon’s repertoire because you’ll be singing at a nursing home. And I won’t even get into the lack of irony it takes for a bunch of white kids from a Catholic high school to run around singing a calypso version of “Mary’s Boy Child.” After that, I wanted to be as far away from the Christmas standards as possible.
—
I don’t need to rehash what most of us were feeling in the fall/winter of 2001. But I’ll tell you that my friends and family instinctually drew closer. It was against this backdrop that I decided to counteract my usual grumpiness around Christmas.
So in the winter of 2001, I set out to make a mix of Christmas songs that would give me the spirit again: The ones that married seasonal good cheer with the sense of fun that most people seemed to have this time of year. The result was A Rock and Soul Christmas. This was the cover:
Here were the liner notes: If you know me (and undoubtedly you do as I’m not generally prone to giving presents to strangers), you know that music plays a rather important role in my life. Sadly, there are quite a few bad Christmas albums out there. Mannheim Steamroller alone has released seven of them.
So this year I set out to pull together some of my favorite Christmas songs — songs that not only expressed the spirit of the season but also didn’t, as a wise man once said, suck. While a few great tracks didn’t make the final cut (Elvis’s “Blue Christmas,” Cheech and Chong’s “Santa Claus and His Old Lady”), I think the ones that did fit the bill very well.
A note to my friends of non-Christian faiths: Though the selections here focus mainly on Christian holidays, I think the sentiments expressed within them contain universal truths that we can all appreciate during this time of year. Regardless of your expression of faith, a song like Clarence Carter’s “Back Door Santa” speaks to all of us. A note to my atheist friends: You’re all going to hell. Repent now. Just kidding.
The artwork on the cover was blatantly ripped off from A Charlie Brown Christmas as well as James Brown’s Funky Christmas. I’ll leave it to you to figure out what came from where.
I hope this CD finds you well and happy and gets you in a Christmas mood. If I can save just one person from buying A Rosie O’Donnell Christmas then it will be worth it.
Happy holidays and much love, Scott
I sent the mix to a bunch of friends as a substitute for cards and presents and it went over really well. Every year since, I hear from one or two friends who tell me they’ve pulled out RSC during a party or while they’re opening presents. This brings me no small amount of joy.
Like most endeavors of this type, it ended up making itself. This isn’t the coolest, hippest mix of Christmas tracks ever assembled or even a collection of my personal favorites. In fact, it’s deliberately corny in some instances. Basically, I wanted to create both a Christmas-party record and a Christmas party-record. It’s also designed for all-ages listening (There’s one track on there that’s a little heavy on innuendo for the littlest ones, I suppose, but since I have friends with kids who say they play it, I’m not losing sleep over it).
I put together another mix the next year called Songs For Swinging Santas, which mixed jazz, blues, and cocktail hour together. It too was well-received, and I figured I’d do a variation on the theme each year.
Then, in 2003, I got married for the first time, which added yet another level of familial stress, not to mention more places to be, including an occasional trip to Phoenix to see my ex’s family. They were all very nice people but…well, suffice it to say there’s a fair amount of romance in the notion of a White Christmas and that gets all shot to hell in Phoenix. Plus, it was our first year as a married couple and we spent the holidays on a honeymoon cruise around the Caribbean and this, coupled with a lack of ideas as to what to do for that year’s holiday mix meant I passed on putting one together.
For a number of reasons, I lost the spirit again over the couple of years that followed. The nadir of my holiday experiences was Christmas 2005 when my marriage was breaking up. As luck would have it, we were spending the holidays in Phoenix that year. It’s not possible for me to describe how isolated and out-of-time I felt then. It was awful. One of the lowest points of my life.
The echo of that time carried through the successive holiday seasons, which brought some discord to my then-newish relationship with Erin. She loves everything about Christmas, always has. For someone whose feelings about the holidays were mixed to begin with and were now marred by an altogether unpleasant association, this was hard to take. Also – and this really is deserving of special mention – she loves The Carpenters’ Christmas Portrait. It is a holy relic to her. All due respect to Karen and Richard, but…it just wasn’t my thing.
I don’t know what lousy metaphor best describes the last couple years – a wound that’s slowly healed? A rough edge sanded over time? – but I’d found myself slowly coming around on the holidays again. This year, I noticed something weird: I was getting excited for Christmas. When I saw some Christmas trees on display, I involuntarily said “Oooh!” Out loud. I oohed, people! At first, I thought my renewed sense of Christmas spirit derived from all the folks telling me how much Rock and Soul Christmas was again adding to their Christmas celebrations. But earlier this week, I figured out what was really driving it:
For the first time in 18 years, I was going to be home for Christmas.
Or perhaps, more specifically, Erin and I would own a home for Christmas. We closed on this place during Thanksgiving week, just in time for the grind. And though we’d be running the gauntlet again this year, I was looking forward to it. Because no matter what, at the end of the day, we’d be at home together, not just in a place we called home. Not some apartment we were renting because we weren’t sure where we wanted to end up, not spending the night at our parents’ place, not in a convent singing for a bunch of nuns and mothers…no, we’d be home.
Hey, I realize that sounds trite. For God’s sakes, it’s cribbing the name of one of those cursed songs from the days of show choir. But it just makes sense now.
I’ve been blessed with many, many gifts this year. If you’re reading this post, you’re one of the people responsible since I pretty much I owe my career to the Internet. (2016 Note: This is still true, but keep in mind this was written in 2009. I think maybe 20 people read this blog then.) Eight years after I put together A Rock and Soul Christmas, I feel like I’m once again in a place where I can really enjoy it. So I’d like to share it with you.
Merry Christmas.
(Hey 2016 Me here. A couple notes on the above which is limited by what’s available on Spotify.
The original mix contained a different version of the Bowie/Crosby duet. It was intended as an interlude because it contained the awkward dialogue between the two at the beginning. That version feels way more Christmas-y to me.
The second-to-last track was originally a duet with Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” I know how this song has been recast recently, but it’s never felt that way to me. And feminist responses to it here, here and here say it better than I could. But that’s not why it’s not here. It’s simply unavailable on Spotify (oddly, it’s the sole track off that Tom Jones album of duets that isn’t available there). That’s a shame because that version dials up the ridiculous-ness of that song and brings out the notion that the two people singing it are engaged in a consensual tete-a-tete. You can judge for yourself in the live version here:
The NY Times recently proclaimed Phil Collins to be “very much alive” based on his recently reissued classic albums, an upcoming memoir and its interview with an ambulatory Collins during which words and sounds came out of his mouth, indicating life.
This Q&A along with a re-eaxmination of his legacy it published in January (which you should read if for no other reason than the description of “In The Air Tonight” which fills the latter half of the piece) were very much on my mind this morning as I watched and listened to Neon Indian’s “Annie.”
Because the whole thing really reminds me of Collins’s “Don’t Lose My Number”:
It’s not a direct lift by any means but the bouncy keyboards and guitars, the missing-persons storyline and even the cheeseball video reinforce the central conceit of those Times articles: whatever Collins’s crimes were in the 80s, they’re newly embraced by current cultural creators and critics (the love for “Take Me Home” in the Mr. Robot season premiere has been hard to miss.)
“I don’t really care if bands can play guitars or not,” McLaren said in a 1984 interview. “I want them to say something. But, above all, I really want them to make money. Lots and lots of it.”
The budding entrepreneur, always seeking controversy, then decided to rename the shop Sex, sell punk clothes covered in safety pins and have the group promote it. He also paid for rehearsal space and renamed them the Sex Pistols — over objections of band member John Lydon (better known as Johnny Rotten), who wanted the act to be known as “Sex.”
“I didn’t want these herberts to be named just that,” said McLaren, in his 1984 interview with me for “The Dictionary of Rock and Pop Names.” “I wanted to get them known. I wanted to sell loads of trousers.”
Lydon: Yes, with a vengeance, but we share a common cause, and that’s your money.
Filthy lucre, indeed!
Oh and then there’s this.
It isn’t so much that a Sex Pistols credit card is a betrayal of a punk ethos as it is a surprise that it took this long to happen.
Sure, the card is produced by Virgin Records and it’s possible the Pistols had nothing to do with it. But it’s not like they’ve ever been interested in running away from money. The Pistols coincided with punk more than they formed it.
If there’s ever a Clash credit card you should only be allowed to use it in a supermarket.
Back on June 23rd, 2008, Mavis Staples made an appearance at The Hideout, one of Chicago’s best live music spaces. I was there as a fan but back when I was working at Time Out Chicago it wasn’t unusual for me to turn the personal into something professional. I went to the show with my friend Lindsey because, if memory serves, Erin was out of town for work (we were four months away from that first trip to Vermont).
I spent an inordinate amout of time in our home office the next morning, writing this review. I’ve never been a fast writer and I sweated this one hard because it was Mavis Freaking Staples and because there seemed a lot more going on that night than just a few songs. Pretty sure I ended up rolling into the office late because I was trying to get this one right. But I was pretty pleased with it. Still, I posted it and then kinda forgot about it.
A few weeks later, the publicist of her label emailed me and asked if it would be OK if they used the below review as the liner notes for a live album of that night’s performance called Hope at the Hideout. I didn’t have an actual bucket list but I remember the time a high school friend and I discussed how we’d love to write the liner notes of an album someday. So uh…yeah…Mavis Staples can definitely use my review…uh, thank you.
I asked her publicist to let me review it so I could make it better, seized with fear that once it was printed inside the label I’d discover some horrible error or typo. I’m sure the below could be improved but I stared dumbly at it for a while and thought “Well, if they liked it, it must be fine” then told her to go ahead. I think I’ve mostly avoided re-reading it in the past because I’m worried I’ll find something wrong with it. (Even now I’m just cutting-and-pasting it.) The album was released on Election Day 2008.
So if you buy Mavis Staples’s Hope at the Hideout, you’ll see the following in the liner notes with my name at the end. I don’t talk about it much because it seems like something I lucked into. Or I’ll wake up one morning and find out I was wrong and they used something Greg Kot wrote instead. (Even though I own the thing and can double-check it anytime I like.) But I’m posting it here as a reminder, to myself at least, that sweating things out is sometimes worth it.
—
Mavis Staples, Hope at the Hideout
There are few living musicians who can lay claim to being America’s conscience, even fewer who continue to make vital music. On Monday night at The Hideout, Mavis Staples proved she’s still capable of both. But far more than merely being capable, the 69-year-old Staples showed she can light a fire, agitate for change or re-energize the American songbook.
Though she never referenced it directly, it was impossible – even in an anachronistic setting like The Hideout – to experience Staples’s performance outside of the context of an election season in a country at war. Opening with “For What It’s Worth,” a song whose power – at least in Buffalo Springfield’s all-too-familiar version – has long since ebbed thanks to its ubiquity, Staples tapped into the song’s theme of absolute corrupted power, giving new resonance to lines like “Paranoia strikes deep…it starts when you’re always afraid.” Later in the night, she would sing of waiting for a letter from a long-away son or daughter (“Waiting For My Child”) or of letting her light shine in the streets or on the battlefield (“This Little Light of Mine”).
Staples commanded the stage with a dual mission: To record a live album (the bulk of her performance that night pulled from last year’s We’ll Never Turn Back, a collection of songs from the black civil rights movement) and, in her words, “to bring joy, happiness, inspiration and positive vibrations…to last for at least the next six months.” Just enough to get us to Election Day.
Befitting the intimate space, Staples performed with only a three-piece band, and a trio of backup singers. The warm acoustics of the Hideout were the perfect setting for their Southern-fried soul and Staples’s voice moved with ease from the high notes of church-choir praise to a throaty growl of defiance. The deep, swampy bottom of the rhythm section perfectly complimented guitarist Rick Holmstrom’s no-wasted-notes style.
Though Staples has performed some of these songs countless times over 40-plus years – she introduced “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” as the first song her father “Pops” taught her to sing – she injected her set with a stunning immediacy, as these are both traditional songs, and stories of her life. Whether it’s the autobiographical lyrical touches she adds to J.B. Lenoir’s “Down In Mississippi” or the lunch counter standoff of “We Shall Not Be Moved,” the politics of Mavis Staples are very personal indeed.
As for the happiness and inspiration she promised at the outset, Staples and her band delivered. A Monday night crowd of once-in-a-while concertgoers is a rough audience, and most of the assembled kept a hushed reverence as she sang, limiting their joyful noises to moments between songs. But by the end – with warm encouragement from her backup singers – she helped them find their voice in call-and-response and revival rhythms, bringing the night to a close with the hopeful promises of “On My Way” and “I’ll Take You There.”
Anger burns hot. So much so that if not properly directed, it burns up quickly, preventing movement, resulting in sadness or frustrated impotence. Hope, on the other hand, promises joy on the other side of the river, just over the mountain, a few more miles away. It is this country’s primary renewable resource and, as such, Staples’s show demonstrated why it is the only way to conquer fear and inspire change.
Set list:
For What It’s Worth
Eyes on the Prize
Down In Mississippi
Wade In The Water
Waiting For My Child
This Little Light of Mine
The Weight
Why Am I Treated So Bad?
March Up Freedom’s Highway
We Shall Not Be Moved
Turn Me Around
Encore:
Will The Circle Be Unbroken?
On My Way
I’ll Take You There
Have felt somewhat creatively bereft this week so here’s a roundup on the topics this site’s most often devoted to:
Comics: Part of me still wants to reserve judgment on The Superior Spider-Man, the new Marvel title arriving in the wake of Amazing Spider-Man #700; a story arc in comics can’t be judged from one issue. But all my concerns about this new direction seem to have come to bear and a new one’s risen: the idea that Doc Ock is burdened with responsibility is jettisoned for a literal deus ex machina. I won’t spoil it here but if you thought Peter’s death lacked weight before… *
The other Marvel relaunch I checked out recently was Fantastic Four. I really liked where Hickman was going in the previous series so a Reed who charges ahead without considering his family first – or bringing him into his plan – is a step back. Again, we’ll see.
All this was enough to make me pick up last year’s Spider-Men crossover, which was excellent and touching and therefore recommended.
Fatherhood: Last night I watched Taken 2 while I assembled a small pastel table and chairs for Abigail – a gift from her grandmother. I’m sure many fathers mentally see themselves as Liam Neeson, willing to do whatever it takes to save their families from enemies both foreign and domestic. Let’s be honest though: Most of the time fatherhood means assembling a pastel table and chairs at 11pm on a Saturday night while you drink scotch, eat beef jerky and watch Taken 2. I am perfectly fine with this.
Internet: This video of a Fisher-Price record player spinning a bootleg “Stairway to Heaven” blew my mind.
Media: Alpana Singh is leaving Check, Please so the show is looking for a new host. This sentence from a report on the move caught my attention:
“The station hopes Singh will continue to appear occasionally on Chicago Tonight, WTTW’s nightly newsmagazine, where she answers viewers’ wine and beverage questions posed by host Phil Ponce in the “Ask Alpana” segment.”
Hopes? Has there not been a conversation about this yet? Is this high school? “Yeah, I know we’re broken up and everything but I’m really hoping we can still be lab partners without there being all kinds of weird vibes. I mean, she didn’t say we couldn’t so I’m sure everything will be cool. We’re adults, you know?”
Music: I’ve found Townes Van Zandt’s Live at the Old Quarter, especially “Two Girls,” to be revelatory.You ever hear something for the first time but find yourself able to sing along with it? I’d also recommend a listen to Taj Mahal’s “She Caught The Katy” if only to hear how much the Blues Brothers version nicked from it.
Politics: With so many problems facing Illinois, the possibility that the governor’s race will become Daleys vs. Madigans is profoundly depressing.
* If you don’t mind spoilers, this AV Club summary gives you the gist.
I’ve always found it difficult to listen to an unfamiliar album and understand the complete statement the artist was trying to make with it when I’m already very familiar with some of the album’s individual songs.
Case in point: Songs in the Key of Life, which I just listened to for the first time, in its entirety.
Songs is one of those albums that impossible to fully understand with one listen. There’s so much going on musically, lyrically and emotionally that trying to absorb it all will probably require several listens over a few years in many physical spaces. Is this the point? In the span of a double album, Wonder is trying to explain complexities ranging from socioeconomic hardship, racism and love – of a man for a woman and of a father for his daughter – through funk, big band, gospel, pop and jazz. Themes are dealt with best in literature, and Stevie’s produced the musical equivalent of a great novel.
Yet just as I’d find myself following a line through the album I’d get distracted by the familiarity of “Sir Duke,” “Isn’t She Lovely” or even the strings and choral lines of “Pasttime Paradise” which countless listens of “Gangsta’s Paradise” colored over almost to the point where I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to hear “Pasttime” independent of its antecedent. I may also never be able to hear “As” without thinking of my wife. She loves that song like nothing you’ve ever seen. Literally. She has this whole dance she does with it, which she performed as we were driving down Lake Shore Drive earlier this week. It takes a while before you feel this kind of music in that way.
But again, that’s likely the point. Songs plays as a very personal album, as if Wonder isn’t so much creating characters and singing through them but speaking honestly from his heart. They’re composed specifically to make the listener put his or herself in the mind of the singer. The shared blame he lays at all our feet on “Village Ghetto Land” is as palpable as the nostalgic joy of “Sir Duke.” These songs came from years of living, in various contexts. Listening to them in a number of ways and spaces will likely be the only way to fully understand them, requiring the listener to bring as much of himself to the work as Stevie did.
In another lifetime* when I hung out in bars all the time, I came up with this idea** of The Jukebox Game. Here’s how it works:
You and a friend or friends choose a dollar amount. I’d suggest between two and four dollars per player.
Player 1 puts in a dollar and chooses the allotted number of songs. He or she is awarded points based on the reactions of strangers in the bar to the songs played (friends in your drinking party do not count). Points are awarded as follows:
Head bobbing, foot tapping, hand clapping: 1 point
Singing along with lyrics (lip-sync only): 2 points
Spontaneous affirmations of musical selection: (“This song rules!” “Bon Jovi, fuck yeah!”): 3 points
Singing along with lyrics (out loud): 5 points per group of patrons (2 bonus points if people throw their arms around each other and sway)
Note: If a group of three people starts singing you only get five points, not 15, but if three people sitting by themselves all start singing separately, that’s 15. Same with the bonus: each swaying group is two bonus points. If two groups of three people start singing and swaying that’s 5 + 5 + 2 + 2. If two strangers start singing and swaying, it’s still 5 + 5 + 2 + 2.
Actual dancing: 10 points per person (including groups but you can only collect if the bar does not have an actual dance floor; points awarded for spontaneous dancing only)
After player 1’s songs are finished, player 2 puts a dollar into the jukebox and tallies up the points based on the patrons’ reactions to the songs played. Additional players follow the same pattern. No player may repeat a song played by a previous player, but artists may be repeated. Play alternates until the chosen dollar amount is spent by all players. The person with the most points wins.
Why alternate dollars? Simple. This rule prevents latter players from acquiring an advantage over earlier players because the patrons in the bar and significantly more inebriated. If player 1 played five dollars worth of songs, we’re talking around an hour of drinking before player 2 starts. An hour more of inebriation generally produces more singing and dancing.
Now, when I came up with this game Internet jukeboxes weren’t a thing. Internet jukeboxes completely change the nature of this game. With a regular jukebox, everyone has the same limited inventory to work with so it’s a challenge. Playing with an Internet jukebox is like everyone playing the same game but with cheat codes on. Play the game right and use a real jukebox with finite selections.
Lastly, I have never actually played this game. I just created the point totals. No idea if it’s actually a workable game. If you play it over the weekend, I’d love to hear how it goes.
* Roughly 2004-2008 ** Like I said, this was another lifetime ago so this may have been the result of a barroom conversation I had with a few people but I’m the only one who bothered to write down the rules. If you were present during the genesis of this game – it was probably during a Chicagoist staff happy hour – and contributed to it, let me know.
This year, I’m trying to fill some holes in my musical knowledge by listening to some artists and albums that have escaped my ears in full. To do this without breaking the bank but still feel like I’m financially supporting good music, I bought a Spotify Premium membership. The streaming quality and selection are excellent. For the amount of listening I intend to do, it’s a steal at $10 a month.
I’m planning on buying the individual albums that most strike my fancy and The Stone Roses first album will be one I want to have on hand. As someone who likes music and owns hundreds of CDs and albums, it’s embarrassing to me I’ve never heard more than a couple songs off this album.* It is as good as everyone says it is but far more joyous, poppy (Beach Boys influences abound) and groove-y than I expected though offset by a quiet darkness. Listening to this album felt like meeting someone for the first time and instantly becoming best friends with him. I don’t have much else to add to all the critical accolades thrown its way so I’ll just say if you ever thought about tracking it down, do it.
Erin and I were at the home our friends the Chibes this weekend. While Russ is mostly known for his beer knowledge, he mixes up some fine cocktails as well. He served us something like a Manhattan but with brandy instead of bourbon, which inspired me to whip up a Metropolitan but with Courvoisier instead of brandy because that’s what we had on hand as my wife puts together a mean cognac-marinated beef tenderloin for Christmas. It’s sweeter than a Manhattan but still has a nice warmth to it. Instead of boiling the sugar on the stove, I shortcutted the simple syrup by boiling a little water in the microwave (maybe 1/3 cup) then dissolving the sugar in it. Manhattans are my preference but it’s nice to have a substitute until the Christmas cognac runs out.
* I was familiar with “I Wanna Be Adored,” of course, and “Fool’s Gold” is a song I know well as it was one of the songs in a category marked “X” at my college radio station. “X” songs were the extra-long songs you put on during your solo overnight shifts from 2am-7am as they offered a long break during which one could use the bathroom without as much fear of dead air greeting your return.
