CHIRP: Chicago Independent Radio Project

Posted by Michael P. on June 10, 2008 around 3pm

Show business is a strange business, and music is probably the strangest of them all. From working in college radio, to becoming a promoter and talent buyer (jargon for booking agent lackey) for a recognized music venue, I’ve had the fortune of witness some truly astrophysical phenomena. As a quick bio, I spent close to five years heavily involved in the music scene of my old stomping ground, a quaint college town in the south, before uprooting to the city with broad shoulders.

I’ve always felt I could write a sitcom around these experiences, and I might just fax over my pilot to Lorne Michaels in the next couple of business days. The owner of the club where I once worked and played also had this idea, and he wanted to consolidate his thoughts into a book called, get this, “Bar World.” Yep. I think this avenue is better.

Anyway, most of following instances occurred at a 400+ capacity music venue and bar that shall not be specifically named to protect the innocent and to protect me from defamation claims. Not that any of this counts as defamation because it’s all true, but I have no way to prove it. The people that were there could certainly provide expert testimony to every detail, but since most people who work in music are invariably drunk half the time, I’m sure you start getting into witness credibility issues. Undoubtedly there are more bizarre stories that exist in the Chicago market, especially with the amount of music festivals held here. I think I can speak for CHIRP when saying that we’d love to hear your experiences as well!

So without further ado, here are some nuggets from the other side…..Rock stars rule.

Mogwai

As brazen Scotsmen, Mogwai’s contract and rider provided the same delightful sense of humor that their song titles do. Some of their requests included “drawing by a gifted child” and “five football tickets,” as well as the usual smorgasbord of food. However, they all were very gracious and polite people. Mogwai was one of my favorite bands ever – someone who believed that anyone who had friends that didn’t “get” Mogwai weren’t really your friends - so I certainly was starstruck while getting to meet them and take them around looking for computer parts and random effects. Stuart describes everything as “wicked.”

While loading beer into the green room, Stuart and company were hand-making T-shirts for sale later that night. I apologized for all the noise I was making while stocking up, to which one of them retorted “Oh that’s fine, we apologize for all the noise we’re going to make tonight.”

This much was true, as Mogwai parted seas with tridents in hand, challenged everyone’s physiological fortitude toward rock, and used all the building’s electricity in the process. The power from the office and other non-essentials were rerouted to the stage. Though a 32-channel sound board was good enough for every single act that’s ever played there before, Mogwai needed a 64-channel board (that we had to rent from a company who stated “no one has ever asked for something this insanely large before”) with an additional, smaller auxiliary board that was set up on a platform to the side of the PAs, impeding the bathroom line. None of the five members could move around on the stage due to their equipment arsenal. A strategy was developed in the event that Mogwai completely blew the power - how we would get people out safely, and how we would keep the fans from chasing after us with pitchforks and goedendags.

All went smoothly, fortunately, and Barry, Dominic, and Lee (the merch dude) joined us afterwards at a friend’s birthday party two or three block away. They chugged brews whilst party guests inquired who the Scotish dudes were. By the time I left, Lee was in a tree, wearing a top hat, cackling at each passerby. Mogwai uber alles.

DJ Funk

It certainly could be considered par for the course for “booty house” pioneer DJ Funk to copulate with a fan or two. No qualms with that. But why did he have to choose the booking office for this engagement; and on my nap couch nonetheless? DJ Funk has no concern for subtlety.

Suicide Girls

Specifically stated in the rider: “no whipped cream, no show.”
Serious business.

Pete Best

Though some Beatles maniacs may feel sorry for Pete Best due to the nature of “being a human footnote,” I don’t. Pete still makes a rather handsome living playing songs that he had only a minor role in creating. When an artist is booked, their management usually sends a press pack with various information, CD, and glossy black and white press photos. Press photos are usually set to a theme, and feature a band or artist looking somewhat stoic. Sometimes it’s shadowy, sometimes it’s diffused (depending on the artist), but always done with some sort of thoughtful composition and artistic motif. Pete Best sent a bunch of 35 mm color photos of him on a jet ski.

Pete will sign autographs for exactly 30 minutes. After that, all bets are off. No dice, easy goer.

Carlos D of Interpol

Carlos does DJing gigs throughout North America and Europe. He charges a large sum of money to spin records that you probably already own (Violator, Unknown Pleasures, et al). When he arrives, he specifically requests to not be seen. He wants to be on the far stage left or the back, with objects obscuring his view. No lights are to be shown on him whatsoever, presumably since he is afraid of light. Nobody would even know he was there. As a matter of fact, I had a friend that looked similar to him and the club manager and I considered (sorta jokingly) to just let my friend slam the decks like Carlos, save a few thousand dollars, sell out the room, and no one would ever know. He’s just as Nosferatu looking of a dude as you would expect. As most philosophy majors I know, he likes to ask anyone and everyone about their bookshelf.

Devin the Dude

In the time it took to walk from the green room to the walk-in refrigerator and back, a distance of about 80 or 90 feet (approximately 24 to 27 meters for you metric types), Devin had cut, gutted, packed, fastened, and ignited a massive, voluminous, triumphant blunt. Sweatshops don’t even work that efficiently. Pothead ingenuity is a hell of a thing.

Dark Star Orchestra

The first thing you notice with jam bands is that an entire culture surfaces from beneath gnarly depths. Outside, hours prior to the show, a gaggle of rather crusty fellows sold weed pipes and all-natural, homemade, organic, vegetarian-friendly, $3 burritos to any and all who pass. As for the performers on this most groovy of evenings, the jam heads have come out for Dark Star Orchestra who, as some may be privy to, don’t just cover the Dead, god dammit - they recreate a specific Grateful Dead show, with instruments that represent all the members present at that performance, set list, and identical stage banter. They bolster themselves as “the world’s most enthralling Dead tribute.” Personally, I hate the Grateful Dead. Paying money to watch longhairs noodle on the guitar is lame.

There were two extraordinary personality types in this band. The first one we encountered was just before the show time. One of the members was in the backstage stairwell smoking. The club manager approached him to inform him that he cannot smoke in that area of the building. “I’ll just go outside,” he responds. “Right, but you guys are getting ready to start in five minutes,” my boss said. The guy takes a drag and exhales: “that’s fine, I hate this band anyway.”

I encountered the second type when trying to find my friend’s ride. It turned out she had taken off to a neighboring bar, with DSO’s vocalists, and was sucking face in front of all the inebriated Irishmen. We wait for my friend’s ride (and old dude, I suppose) outside the bar. When they exited, the vocalist has his arm around her, looking longingly from his Bonnaroo ravaged eyes, and said in the most cheese-dick of inflections “so, if you and your friends want a couple of free passes to the gig tomorrow night, I got you, babe.” Gig? Babe? Jesus. Then, when he leans back down for more lip action, he turns to my friend and I - “you all can get lost now.” At this point, I end up taking my friend home, and spent the next couple of days spreading the gospel concerning how astonishingly retarded DSO is. Fucking cover bands. The burritos were righteous, though.

KRS-One

Hip-hop artists, along with most punk bands, notoriously foster a healthy aversion to being punctual. The difference between KRS-One and his contemporaries, though, is that if his set time is 10:30 p.m., and he shows up at 10:27, he still performs on time, without sound check or removing his coat. All while sporting some remarkable sweat pants.

Rhys Chatham and Tony Conrad

There’s still something rather amusing about seeing minimalist neo-classical and avant garde musicians rock a cerebral, challenging, often inaccessible art-ensemble performance while knowing that these dudes are really, really into pizza. Lots of it. And they totally asked for more throughout the night. Maybe this isn’t that strange.

Robert Earl Keen

Typical of the archetypical Nashville, pony-tail-clad music industry two-bit charlatan, they usually do present a fascinatingly abysmal attitude about everything. When the tour manager refused to move Robert’s colossal tour bus from the venue’s storefront, located on a busy downtown street, we made sure that he understood we expunged all responsibility for what happens to that bus. When the police arrived about two hours later, they actually did a full search of the bus (though they found nothing). The tour manager spent the rest of the evening looking spooked and said nothing else to us. Moral of the story, the police do not give a shit and will search a large tour bus no matter how much No Depression loves you. Don’t be a meat head.

Low

Alan Sparhawk shows gratitude for booking a Low show by giving you a novelty Low refrigerator magnetic poetry kit.

Animal Collective / Six Organs of Admittance

What was strange about both of these acts was that there was nothing strange about them at all. Dave (Avey Tare) kicked it on MySpace all afternoon. Noah (Panda Bear) helped me hang up the posters around the club and was an all around swell, chipper guy. They were nice people. Six Organs’ Ben Chasney was pumped about everything. He loved the green room, the venue, the scenic downtown, the Thai restaurant down the street, the stage, the sound, the posters we made, the cheap beer, his chakras, and life in general. Truly a hippie in the best regard. So why is it that artists like Animal Collective and Six Organs are normal, friendly dudes making freaky music, while straightforward artists like David Lowery and his Camper Van Beethoven act like total freaks? Let’s call this, for conversation’s sake, the Lennox-Lowery Conundrum. That could also serve as an excellent band name for some vapid white jazz fusion group.

Hopefully, when CHIRP starts hosting a regular roster of concerts, we can add many more cosmic experiences and oddities to the strange world of music promotions and booking. These are nefarious times - it can only get stranger from here.