When I was 14 or 15, I spent a long weekend in Chicago with my parents. It struck a chord with me instantly, and I knew I wanted to live there. Now, 14 years later and I have yet to return to the city. Not for lack of want; not for lack of means. I have friends who live there, many in fact, dear friends. Many of my favorite bands are from the city or surrounding areas. And yet, for various reasons both real and abstract, Chicago, it seems, has slipped away for me for the time being. But Chicago's resonance is not lost to me. Instead, I was able to absorb bits through a surrogate, namely, my college town of Iowa City, IA. Through that lens, Chicago become a condensation of a handful of people, places and music, a tiny but potent representative of the larger scene. In those formative years it came to mean a few things: albums Luke Tweedy and Dan Maloney were pushing at The Record Collector (usually albums produced by Mike Lust and/or released on the Sick Room, Divot and Southern labels), tour stories from The Empty Bottle and Fireside Bowl, and touring bands who played at Gabe?s Oasis on Washington Ave. At the time, these elements seemed to be ALL of Chicago, every neighborhood, every drunken night, every show, every crude joke between friends. Some of these bands aren?t from Chicago, some aren?t even American, but they are still crucial to my understanding of that scene. Now, with the benefit of a few more years, I consider how limited that scope is and how insular that world might ultimately be, were it the case. And still, no other definition for Chicago exists for me. Not yet, anyway.
WARNING: MINOR CHORDS!
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1. Sweep The Leg Johnny - "Please Give Me Roses Before I Am Dead" 2. Pelican - "Pulse" 3. The Ghost - "They Came To See You" 4. Faultlines - "Leave Your Drama At The Door" 5. Rockets Red Glare - "Halifax" 6. The 90 Day Men - "Methodist" 7. Ten Grand - "Grave? Shovel! Let's Go." 8. Hotatache - "Fidopoli" 9. North By Northwest - "That Conversation Made A Lot More Sense This Time" 10. The Race - "It Looks Like A Circle, But It's Really a Spiral" 11. Colossal - "Embers Only" 12. Tekluvi - "Low Center of Gravity" |