Chicago MMXII

I think everyone should go see Better Than Ezra at the zoo.

If that were free or for a street fair standard donation, I would go. But it's $28!!!! The only 90s alternative rock radio one hit wonder that I would pay money to see is The Toadies, and that would be like $10, $15 tops.

Weirdly, I have had "Possum Kingdom" in my head for the last few days.

I also wanted to say:

1. I've been to Owen & Engine once, but I was disappointed in their fish and chips and haven't been too eager to return. (It's a pretty meat-heavy menu, alas.)

2. I pour most beer into glasses, so the argument that beer tastes better in bottles than in cans doesn't carry much weight with me. Plus, aren't the new cans that breweries use supposed to be better-tasting?

The metal affects the taste before you actually drink it.

I thought craft beer cans were routinely lined to protect flavor, but I could be wrong. I know some are.

Yeah, I think it's some sort of polymer lining.

I'm so happy to be back in a place with buildings for miles and miles and miles. This bus ride to work is washing away the anxiety.

i think we've already talked about this, but who's going to pitchfork? sarah and i are going sat. and sun.

I am not.

However I will reiterate my advice re: Pitchfork from last year when I took tickets for four hours: put your drugs in your underpants. Security is arbitrary and capricious and sometimes wants to search your pockets. Also they will take your food and eat it do I guess put your food in your underpants, too.

huh security always seemed pretty light in years past, just a cursory glance in purses and bags at the front gate

From my observations, it depends on when you go through and who the security person is. I mean, I saw people get their pockets thoroughly searched so that they lost all matter of drugs and paraphernalia, bags searched to the point that the guy went into somebody's spare pairs of socks to confiscate granola bars, all the way through security guys finding pot and letting the people keep it and security guys not looking in bags at all. Also last year there was this really arbitrary rule about no "professional" cameras, which meant cameras with removable lenses, sometimes, depending on who was working that entry line. Like, I can't stress enough how o_O and random the whole endeavor was.

The very very worst was when people would show up with those camel pack water backpacks with the tube on them all full of ice and water, just deliciously cold and wonderful (I had minor heat stroke by this point) and security would make them dump it onto the ground, and then hand them a warm bottle of free water on the way in as a "don't sue us if you are hospitalized for dehydration" consolation prize.

security is the same the world over ime, the dudes at fire games are very similarly behaved

Also a lot of the security people were late teens working a summer job as an event-variable security team, like the security version of the catering people in Party Down, but younger, which is a recipe for randomness. Plus sometimes the security people would get caught up unrolling somebody's socks looking for trail mix or ecstasy, and meanwhile ticket takers like me are just waving people through with their bottles of water and cameras and Flaming Hot Cheetos because who gives a shit, really.

Yeah, I had ~something~ confiscated at Pitchfork last year. I realized too late that the security person for my line was a middle-aged woman who was checking every last zippered compartment of people's bags, while the guy working the line next to me was just waving people through.

For the first time ever, I'm not going to a single day of the festival. Was sort of interested in Saturday, but my mom is getting married that day.

At the risk of opening myself up for a whole lot of hectoring, I went to a Phish show a couple weekends ago and it was pretty lol at how lax security was. I guess they figured they didn't even want to start to go down that path.

HAHAHA YOU LIKE PHISH

j/k guess what I was listening to most of the day on Friday?

John, I remember you telling me about that. I remain really frustrated on your behalf! Also congrats to your mom!

Spin Doctors? :p

It was sort of a "let's relive our wayward college years" thing. My cousin from Denver was there for a bachelor party weekend thing, it was pretty fun.

Haha NO (although I've admitted here that I have seen Spin Doctors a lot, thanks to their early involvement with Phish on the Horde Tour.)

Let's relive college was why I was listening to them on Friday! I woke up Friday morning with "Bouncing Around the Room" in my head so I decided it was time to revisit one of the musical obsessions of my late teens/early 20s and grabbed Junta, Lawn Boy, Picture of Nectar and a 1995 live album from Spotify. (Phish started losing me with Rift and "Fast Enough for You," which is a TERRIBLE song so I stuck with releases I knew well and liked.) It was okay! I still like a lot of the instrumental stuff, and the live stuff. I struggle now with some of the lyrics, which are just too goofy. But mostly I absolved younger self for nearly flunking out of college to go on Phish tour, twice, because that was pretty fun and I can see why I enjoyed the music.

I told Jeff what I was up to and he got a kind of panicked look on his face like I was going to start wearing patchwork home-sewn pants and let my hair dread up again before leaving him to live in a van with a dude who goes by the name of Wilson. But that's pretty unlikely.

The music is way easier to take in a live setting, thats for sure. I think it helped that the show I saw was really light on their "silly" songs. They've taken to doing a cover of TV on the Radio's "Golden Age" that was pretty good. But, to get all old man here, the crowd at Phish shows has changed A TON since the 90s. There was huge percentage of 18-20 year old kids wearing hip-hop gear, clearly only there for the drugs.

If you like to jam for hours
just go ahead now

I saw Phish and took e once back in like 2000. I put the drugs in my underwear.

Damn right. Dan knows where to put his drugs.

There was a def contingent of similarly styled (sort of a skater/hip hop hybrid) kids on tour when I was out there, too. I had a lot of very commerce minded friends who looked at Dead/Phish and the Rat Dog/Further shows as jobs* as much as leisure activities.

*Selling grilled cheese sandwiches or cigarettes or bootleg shirts or whatever but mostly drugs.

i have never heard a full phish song. the clips on the "analyze phish" podcast i was telling jenny about are probably the most exposure i've had to their music.

Speaking of revisiting college, I'm in the midst of making a "Songs of 1997" playlist in the vein of the 1994 one I made.

i have a playlist of indie rock from my high school and college years that i'm always adding to as i remember stuff.
http://open.spotify.com/user/naamme/playlist/5pqGJJB6FTmfKZGwLw6Zrx

I know a couple of Phish songs: "Chalkdust Torture" b/c someone once put it on a mixtape for me, and "Bouncing Around the Room" b/c, I dunno, that's like their most famous song, right?

Kr knows more.

Bouncing Around the Room was the closest to a hit they had when I was into them. I have no idea what's transpired between 1995 and now, however.

They had a few songs from Farmhouse played on XRT and adult alternative stations around 2000 or so, "Heavy Things" was one I remember hearing a lot.

Farmhouse is the only album I know any songs from. That and the Oh To Be Prince Caspian song.

Yeah, I think I've heard "Bouncing Around the Room" on, like, WXRT. When Farmhouse came out, I was studiously avoiding commercial radio of any kind. (That's the era when Kr was listening to Phish, though.)

Billy Breathes must be their biggest-selling album, though, no?

I think I've only seen their a cappella Star-Spangled Banner, frim an NBA game, which was good. My brother's a big fan.

Hmm, I'm not sure. Weirdly enough, according to wikipedia, Junta is their only album to be certified platinum. Everything else up through Farmhouse (with the exception of Story of the Ghost) went gold.

Apparently not:

According to Nielsen Soundscan, its best-selling album was 1994’s “Hoist” (Elektra), at 662,000 copies.

I could see that too.

Billy Breathes was their highest Billboard debut, though.

The one year I spent living with hippies exposed me to a lot of Phish and other stuff of the same vein that I can now look back on and lol. That's got to be a sign of maturity, or something.

Small Bar Logan turns 10 this weekend, they're having a pig roast and I think I might wander over sometime in the afternoon incaseanyoneisinterested.

beer list:

Half Acre Galactic Double Daisy Cutter
Three Floyds Blackheart
Stone Double Dry Hopped Ruination
Green Bush Cabra Perdida
Revolution Double Fist
Jolly Pumpkin ES Bam
Smutty Nose Wheat Wine
Allagash Victor
Allagash Victoria
Grand Teton 5 O'Clock Shadow
Green Flash Imperial IPA
Six Point Occupation Ale
Lagunitas Imperial Stout

More to come.

Galactic Double Daisy Cutter is tasty.

a nice retort to those neighborhood logos going around recently

http://slightlyinsultingchicagoposters.tumblr.com/

lol

My favorite, not just b/c it's about Uptown.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6yhkvERXf1raz3uuo1_500.jpg

Heh. Is Logan Sq. really that dangerous anymore, though? There have been "only" 17 homicides reported in Logan Sq. within the last five years, vs. 100+ in Humboldt Park, per http://homicides.redeyechicago.com/neighborhood/logan-square/.

Yeah that's pretty OTM about Uptown.

xp R had a similar complaint. I suggested she write an angry email to the site owner demanding they change that one to Humboldt.

most of those seem like pretty boilerplate stereotypes about chicago neighborhoods. like is it scathing satire to point out that boystown is gay? or there are bros in wrigleyville? though they look cool i guess

sorry for being a bummer and for liking the word "scathing" too much

the hyde park one made me laugh tbh

whats up chicago, its been two years and two months since i was in you, which is the longest period of time ive been away from chicago since i was like 13 years old.

anything rad happening 7/21 - 7/22 and 7/26 - 28? i already have a lot of shit planned but have some pockets of free time and want to see and do some big city shit.

also, i have my favorite spots, but just in case some places closed/new spots opened, someone give me a primer on your favorite:

• used book stores
• record stores
• vintage clothing/antique shops
• vegan food spots