In case you missed it, Pitchfork has a documentary that came out recently about the early days of Chicago punk scene up on its site (only for 7 days), You Weren't There: A History of Chicago Punk, 1977-1984.
Meh... it's pretty good, worth watching. Mainly posting as I know some of my friends from Chicago are on here and may be into it, and some of you old school Chicago dudes this may hit home (Gabino/Clark Starr/Bill Zink, i'm looking in your direction)(Right? You are all Chicago guys?).
dc
5 comments:
I've been meaning to check that out. I grew up in the burbs about an hour away from Chicago, so I was a bit of a wannabe, but that is definitely my era(though I have to confess I was way more new wave than punk). Had a good friend in a ska band who would play in the city a lot, dated some girls who saw some cool shows, but mostly I would only make it into town to record shop. I was more of a scenester at IU, where I knew Bill & Clark.
Thanks for posting this- this was really awesome. The only band I really know anything about here is Big Black. I really need to get hold of some of the Effigies, Strike Under, and Naked Raygun stuff.
I'd CaptainCrawl "Jettison" by Naked Raygun, that's my joint.
That was awesome. I didn't move to Chicago until early/mid 90s. I was familiar with Naked Raygun as my old band played with them at least once. At the time, I didn't think much (but I was a dickhead who defaulted to disdain for any band bigger than mine--which left me disdainful for 99.9999% of the bands in the world), but I like the way the singer comes off in this. His very last statement on the last bit is hilarious: Punk is stuck in the suburbs and will be there for thousands of years.
I loved the squabbling in this. Albini seems genetically designed to get under people's skin. I'm surprised DARPA hasn't kidnapped him for research purposes (think what an army of Albini's unleashed in the caves of Bora Bora or Yemen could accomplish!).
When I was in Chicago the whole avant garde thing was really ramping up, some of which was awesome (The Sea and Cake, nee Cocktails, Tortoise, and some others) some of which was not for me (some of the ACCM (?) stuff, the really outre stuff put on by John Corbett, etc.).
Most of these guys played at a tiny place in Muncie IN called the No Bar & Grill, which is where I caught them. Huge fans of most of these bands. Saw this a while ago (I think it was this one), but missed it when it was up on Pitchfork.
I was a huge Big Black fan at one point, but Naked Raygun is the band that really sticks with me.
I didn't really start playing in Chicago until the 90's.
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