CHIRP: Chicago Independent Radio Project

The Homage Thing
Posted by Luscious Gris on August 11, 2008 around 10am

The tribute album came and went. Now it’s more aptly termed a “trite homage” album. The same vaguely indie bands show up, the same non-indie bands that don’t mind some extra cash, the same regrettably uninspired targets. What deserves a bit of attention in this calculus is: what is homage?

The Webster Dictionary defines it thus:

Pronunciation:
\ˈä-mij, ˈhä-\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English, from Anglo-French homage, omage, from home man, vassal, from Latin homin-, homo human being; akin to Old English guma human being, Latin humus earth
Date:
14th century
1 a: a feudal ceremony by which a man acknowledges himself the vassal of a lord b: the relationship between a feudal lord and his vassal c: an act done or payment made in meeting the obligations of vassalage
2 a: expression of high regard : RESPECT —often used with pay b: something that shows respect or attests to the worth or influence of another : TRIBUTE

Let us then pause to consider what would rightly constitute a recorded testimony to the worth or influence of an artist. One might write and record a song in the style of person being paid homage, implying some core truth in the adage that the sincerest form of flattery is mimicry. It would appear that writers enjoy this form of homage from time to time, visual artists do not, and musicians are somewhere in between.
(more…)

Dancing
Posted by Luscious Gris on July 28, 2008 around 1pm

As a middle-aged white boy, the opportunities for me to dance are few & far between. I don’t know when it became taboo to dance with abandon. Nor do I know when it became even more taboo to take your clothes off and dance with more abandon. But so be it, there’s the unfortunate legacy of an American society founded on Protestant ethics. There’s got to be something left to those of us, and it’s a massive majority, that have a raging need to express a bunch of stuff that is, well, nasty & brutish. I’m told patience is a virtue, and I believe it.

I recall the glory days of the mosh pit. I missed whatever went down in the early 70s, I was stuck in preschool and kindergarten in the suburban wasteland of Northern New Jersey. Now there’s all this crap on TV that glorifies dancing as an art form. That’s fine & dandy, but it’s missing the point. I need the handcuffs off. I don’t care if I look good, if girls think I look sexy. My wife thinks I’m sexy when I feel good, when I’m dancing like I want to, obeying an abstractly choreographed ballet expressing my response to the recycled armageddon(s) forced pitilessly on my generation. I need sanctuary; a time & space where I let go and am able to do whatever I want as the feelings rush at me in a bewildering array of sparking electricity and disorienting maelstrom. Sturm & drang. Whoever sells sanctuary, I’m buying. $12 for an LP that is sanctuary, this is a bargain all day long, any year.
(more…)

It’s Time, Baby
Posted by Luscious Gris on July 3, 2008 around 3pm

to die by your side
the pleasure, the priv’lege is mine
take me home, tonight
take me anywhere, i don’t care

Morrissey wrote those lines a long time ago. I’ve been listening to this song, covered by somebody I don’t know, on a Rough Trade compilation I bought in London in the spring of 2006. It hits home. I came to the Smiths in college in 1988, a few years after I had bought my first cassette tapes: Never Mind the Bollocks, The Cure: Standing on a Beach, and VU & Nico. All purchased in Greenwich Village in 1985. Shortly thereafter I made the tennis team in high school listen to Catching Up With Depeche Mode, played on a crappy boombox on a concrete court.
(more…)

Bone-in, Skin-on
Posted by Luscious Gris on June 30, 2008 around 1pm

The appeal of cooking for me is the fusion of art and science, an arena where feel is hard to teach and innovation is a personal thing I can do with a cigar, a glass of scotch, and a record playing. And all of the technique and microgreens and fresh herbs out there won’t help unless I’m working with bone-in meat, fresh poultry with the skin on, and fresh fish with the shimmery skin firm and pretty. Boneless is a waste of my time and money. Bone-in, Skin-on. I think I have two shelves of cookbooks, I consult them infrequently nowadays. It is more fun to experiment, once in a while you get something truly innovative. Which brings me to the same theme as it applies to art & music. The women & men whose work stays with me remain in this zone for a stretch, sometimes a few years and sometimes a lifetime, where the basis is dedication to musicianship or painting or photography, and their commitment to innovation and a personal body of work forces them in and out of favor, in and out of financial viability, in and out of retail catalogs.

I turned 38 and my wife took me out to Violet Hour. Duck meatballs, 22 year rye whiskey, A.H. Hirsch Select. Now I want something else for when I turn 39 and then 40. If Chicago is the new destination for emerging and established chefs, here’s my two cents on a way to differentiate their establishments.
(more…)

Unseasoned - A poem set to music
Posted by Luscious Gris on June 25, 2008 around 1pm

Click here for the audio version

it hides in bottles, it’s watching me, you can’t run or it will see

last year I read books on trains, all my papers and pants had stains

bought a used coat, went to court, took the pill outside the airport

insomniactivationalize, bleach it out before it dies, before it decides,

before it realizes, before it compromises, before it crystallizes, into something

our friends they’re not here anymore, I dream of knobs on closed doors

birdfeeders tennis and coffee your mother called

she was unhappy.

uneasiness stirring from deep, it’s unseasoned and

poison from deep

we drink and talk, but never crowd, we talk alike, but never aloud, never aloud

never aloud, never aloud, never aloud, I was never allowed to be

our friends they’re not here anymore, I dream of knobs on closed doors

streaming pages of hip band tours, I don’t fight no civil wars

it’s been smeared across the sky, it’s watching me where I lie

the stones in her pockets made her shiver, the egglayer drown in

indian giver

our friends they’re not here anymore, I dream of knobs on closed doors

streaming pages of hip band tours, I don’t fight in civil wars

our friends they’re not here anymore, I dream of knobs on closed doors

streaming pages of hip band tours, I don’t fight in civil wars

Music ‘n Film, Coffee ‘n Cream
Posted by Luscious Gris on June 23, 2008 around 3pm

I have often elected to skip a film based on a book that I like for fear that it will ruin my experience of the book. On the flip side, some filmmakers get it right and flip it around just so; like a glass menagerie in late afternoon sunlight. Atom Egoyan comes to mind, or some of Clint Eastwood’s recent forays. But I want to spend some time with the rare moments that stay with me, those that have altered my impression of a song or a rock star. In so many words, this is an homage to filmmakers, actors, and artists that float through my mind and visit me at odd hours.
(more…)

Let Us Now Praise Small Venues
Posted by Luscious Gris on June 9, 2008 around 11am

In these halcyonic days of technology this that & the other, I catch myself worrying about all that will be lost beneath the rubble of forgotten bullshit. Unsurprisingly, they are all things I grew up with, things I adore and adored, and stuff I remember by touch feel sight. Paperback books, 7” records, Pez dispensers, pinball, real jukeboxes, old skool b&w photo booths, diners. Let’s move on. I desperately hope for the persistence of small venues where bands play and top shelf means a double dewar’s. For some of us, dive bars and small venues are home.

The logic is excruciatingly simple. Small venues permit a band to play like they’re in your living room. Small venues don’t hold lots of people, the line at the bar can only get so long. Lots of the time you can get away with $15 or less. But it’s really about the dream. You just never know when the next Hendrix will play to 25 forty-somethings with shaggy beards and tallboys for $6. To me, it’s a free option: take it, shut up, and be thankful.

Without further ado, LET US NOW PRAISE SMALL VENUES!
(more…)

10+2 Reasons I Love Community Radio
Posted by Luscious Gris on June 2, 2008 around 11am

A few explanatory notes up front. First, since 1990 I have never had a functioning CD player in my car for a complete year, hence a two decade dependence on radio. Second, I adore the intimacy of community radio – it feels like a friend is talking to me and inviting me into her world; this brings me great and unrivaled comfort. Third, if you have idiosyncratic taste in music you’ll take what you can get when it comes to new stuff to buy. Because of this, I’ve always had a pad and a pen in my car in case I get lucky and need to write down albums and bands. So: 10 transformative experiences from two decades of listening to community radio.
(more…)

We want to listen
Posted by Luscious Gris on May 29, 2008 around 8am

Election years prompt historical comparisons. Or bittersweet reflection. In a period of rampant doom and fear-mongering, aided and abetted by a media that is curiously incapable of telling it like it us, we’re left casting a wide net for a voice of reason. And it is abundantly clear that the sought after voice isn’t on TV, it’s not in print media, nor is it coming from mainstream radio.

If you find yourself listening to favorite albums hundreds of times, vivid scenes from novels and images from paintings and photographs raining down on you at odd times, you start looking for connections, patterns. Maybe you convince yourself that the authentic voice of artists sends a beacon out, a semi-anguished cry reflecting ugly politics, social distortions, or dim economic prospects. Nebraska-era Springsteen; much of the Stones albums through the early and mid-60s; the early Steve Reich tape loops recorded on the streets of Berkeley; the Fahey recordings of the early 60s; the early ambient work from Brian Eno; the Velvet Underground albums recorded while John Cale was still with them; maybe the embryonic forms of ska, punk, rap. In the sound of Joy Division at the end of the 70s, it’s hard not to hear the effect of a ravaged Manchester economy.
(more…)