By The Beachwood Rock Local Affairs Desk
You shoulda been there.
1. Anarbor at the Beat Kitchen on Wednesday night.
Posted on November 12, 2010
My Guilty Pleasures
By Drew Adamek
When I was single, I had a surefire conversation starter for first dates.
At the first awkward pause, I’d spring my winner: Say you are alone in your car and a shitty song comes on the radio. You turn it up, sing along and completely jam out but you’d be totally embarrassed if your friends saw you enjoying it. You’d just die if anyone knew how much you loved this song. Which song is it?
I could usually tell which direction the date was going to go – and if there were any relationship possibilities – by her answer.
I got through a lot of first dates with this little gem. Now that I am married*, I still like to use it as an icebreaker with people I don’t know very well. It never fails because everyone has at least one guilty pleasure song.
My list of guilty pleasure songs is really long because I have to adhere to my own, made up metalhead rules. Music must meet the ridiculous standards I arbitrarily created as an angry, know-it-all, 14-year-old boy.
That means no poser bullshit, no genres outside of metal, blues or early ’90s hip-hop and nothing with any meaningful emotional content. I don’t truck in musical ironies or diversity; it’s all blazing guitars, testosterone and aggressive posturing for me. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy a couple of jams that fall outside my limited musical tastes. I am going to share these today at the risk of ruining my imaginary metal reputation.
These are the rules for this list: 1) I can’t own the song; I can only catch it on the radio. 2) My brother, or my inner teenaged boy, would laugh at me if they caught me listening to and liking any of this crap. 3) I generally only listen to these while alone in the car. 4) I am not a poser because I like a couple of crappy songs.
Here, then, are my guilty pleasure songs:
Posted on November 10, 2010
The Weekend In Chicago Rock
By The Beachwood Rock Local Affairs Desk
You shoulda been there.
–
1. Ben Folds at the Riv on Friday night.
Posted on November 8, 2010
Dylan At The Riv
By The Beachwood Bureau of Bob Dylan Affairs
Catching up with his performance last Saturday night.
*
“Dressed in what’s become his custom attire – a wide-brim hat, bolo tie and military-style suit that looked pulled out of the attic of a Civil War battlefield general – Dylan led a crack backing quintet that, given its sharp black suits, low-key demeanor and angular movements, could’ve passed as a gang of mob hit men from the 1930s,” Bob Gendron wrote in the Tribune.
Posted on November 5, 2010
The Weekend in Chicago Rock
By The Beachwood Rock Local Affairs Desk
You shoulda been there.
1. The Vaselines at Lincoln Hall on Thursday night.
Posted on November 2, 2010
The Week in Chicago Rock
By The Beachwood Rock Local Affairs Desk
1. The Cult at the Vic on Thursday night.
Posted on October 29, 2010
In Action! Gary Numan
By The Pleasure Principle Affairs Desk
At the Metro on Tuesday night.
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1. The opener.
Posted on October 28, 2010
Song of the Moment: The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald
By The Main Hatchway Affairs Desk
A storm stronger than the one that sank the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975 is expected to slash across the Midwest tomorrow, snarling Chicago travel and whipping waves as high as 30 feet across Lake Michigan. – Bloomberg
This year, the gales of November have come calling a week early. Rumors are flying that the storm we have right now rivals the region’s most famous storms of old. “The rumors are not rumors because they’re true,” said Dan Miller with the National Weather Service. “This storm is actually probably a little stronger than the Edmund Fitzgerald storm.” – Northland News Center
[T]he storm’s pressure was worse than that produced the Blizzard of 1978, the March 1993 “Storm of the Century” or the November 1975 storm that sank the Edmund Fitzgerald freighter, memorialized in a song by Gordon Lightfoot. – AP
Recorded: December 1975
Artist: Gordon Lightfoot
Released: August 1976
Produced By: Lenny Waronker and Gordon Lightfoot
Label: Reprise
Length: 6:32 album, 5:57 radio edit
Posted on October 27, 2010
The Weekend In Chicago Rock
In Action! Robbie Fulks
By The Beachwood In Action Affairs Desk
With Kathleen Keane and Jim Conway at the Hideout earlier this week.
1. My sins, they have overtaken me.
Posted on October 22, 2010