The Mix Tape, 1991: I’m 13, and I Live in Evergreen Park

By Michael Brett

I turned 13. I loved metal. Nirvana was a year away. I was not the most popular kid in my class. I discovered girls liked music. I made out for the first time. I did not start puberty. The year is 1991, and I live in Evergreen Park.
SIDE A
Stop! (Jane’s Addiction, from Ritual de lo Habitual)
It was the album cover. The original album cover. I always went through the vinyl racks at Wind Records, even though the only turntable I had was a busted Fisher-Price portable unit. I asked the guy behind the counter who they were, not yet hip to a hipster’s assumed knowledge. “They’re playing right now,” he said. And it was this song. I whiled away the next 45 minutes browsing and listening to this whole incredible album. Cheesy? Yes. Derivative of almost every ’70s rock trope? Yes. I loved this album because it made me feel older, and because it was Rolling Stone‘s Critics Pick for Album of the Year (after I bought it!). Stop! was what I wanted drugs to feel like. And when I got older, I found that I was right.

Posted on March 28, 2006

Hipster 101

By The Beachwood Music Affairs Desk

A list.

Posted on March 21, 2006

“ATTACK!” They Sang, And Other Notes From SXSW

The sun is out, trees are gaining back their natural color, and a frail, scraggly man is swaying down Fifth Street in women’s pants. He looks like he could be Bon Jovi’s little brother. More likely, he’s just another wannabe rock star menacing SXSW XX, the 20th South-by-Southwest annual music festival in Austin, Texas.
I’m in my At the Drive-In T-shirt.

Posted on March 21, 2006

Marfa Public Radio

By Tom Michael

Former Chicagoan Tom Michael is the general manager of the new public radio station in Marfa, Texas. He submitted this for our inaugural installment of Playlist. Feel free to send yours.
It was nice to have programmed an afternoon and evening of music on the radio via iTunes streaming from my laptop today. Then I realized it was Sunday night and the Academy Awards, so probably no one was listening.
Funniest was the “whooshing” sound people heard on the radio–the sound of me sending e-mail. Whoosh!
My set list follows. It recycled once for eight hours of music.

Posted on March 13, 2006

Neko Case’s Answering Machine

By The Beachwood Country Affairs Desk

– Wanna know what’s on Neko Case‘s answering machine? Steve Forstgener has the scoop in his Illinois Entertainer cover story this month. It doesn’t look like much in print, but imagine it in Neko’s voice:
“Hey, this is Neko. I am not around. I’m not answering the phone, and I’m not calling anybody back because I can’t. Because I’m working. So if you leave a message, I probably won’t call you back for a month. It doesn’t mean I don’t like you, I’m just not picking up the phone. Thank you for understanding.”

Posted on March 6, 2006

A Bucky Bloodshot Bloodbath

– Some dude named Bucky Covington covered Garth Brooks‘s Thunder Rolls on American Idol last night, proving that songs by professional hacks that don’t seem like they can be any worse actually can be in the hands of amateur hacks. (Saving grace: “I don’t see Bucky as the star attraction,” said Simon Cowell, “I see him as the supporting act.”) . . .

Posted on March 2, 2006

Chicago in Song: 20 Flight Rock

By Don Jacobson

Obscure as I thought the Eddie Cochran rockabilly epic “20 Flight Rock” was these days, there must be some kind of weird karma in the air because I just saw Paul McCartney perform it on PBS’s Great Performances.
And guess what? McCartney said it was the song that got him into the Beatles.

Posted on March 2, 2006