1986
DecemberBest tunes
I was behind the times when I got to Chicago, Sam caught me up on what I missed while in Japan/Kansas City, so while it came out earlier I'll put Echo and the Bunnymen up on top this year. I still have the casette of the live show I bought at Wax Trax. Pretty cool to sell bootlegs, especially since bunny men seemed somewhat defunkt after the stellar Ocean Rain.
July Its a toddling town
After visiting Sam last year, he moved back to finish his degree at SAIC where his dad just made dean and finding that my Dallas pal Chris also seemed to catch the city bug, it seemed like moving north was the way to go. Chris was to get a huge loft space for him and his Cleveland cohorts up north in the Uptown theater. But somehow shady real estate dealings left us with Moffat Wire products at Halstead and Cermak in the not soon to be gentrified Pilsen/Chinatown/Bridgeport area where I was to spend the next 20 years. Sheesh.
But on the plus side it was cheap, and Luxem brought lots of friends, Chuck Judy, Caesar Citraro and well, me. Also, Sam seemed to live around the corner on Archer with Dave Krohl, Ian Scheller, Eric Claridge (Ian's bro), beginning the band we know and love as Shrimp Boat. Met our neighbor Paul McAlpin, soon to be Max Cap and basically starved while thinking up enterprises like Sinus Art Laboratories where we hung scupture out in suburban hotels. Sam and I painted houses with Winky. Life was ok, I started gathering historical detritus such as pipes and light fixtures from bygone days at Maxwell street, and tried to make some art.