We may earn a commission from links on this page. Split the difference between Courtney Loves Hole and Liz Phair, add a big dollop of Material Issues power-pop sensibilities, and you have Veruca Salt, which of course took its name from the bratty girl in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. YouTube, in particular, has paved new beginnings for unsigned alternative bands. Because at that time, there actually were A&R people in Chicago that were sort of looking in the clubs. Its easy, especially at that age, to become almost like a gang. Jamila Woods. I was like, Oh yeah, wait a second, its not about the music anymore, its about those fucking ratings. But you know, its about those Arbitrons and Neilsen and all that stuff. Last song we play is You Cant Have Me by Big Star, thinking this is a great tribute to this guy. I dont know why they would. We werent shy about advertising our phone number. One guy took us record-shopping in New York and we basically got to fill up a shopping cart, with hundreds and hundreds of CDs, which was great. The other reason is because people pay less money to make records now. It was early on, they had just put out their first EP, and that was the first time I had seen The Jesus Lizard and I went, Holy shit, who is this man? Ever since then, it was just a cavalcade of darkly comedic entertainment every time David Yow is on a stage. The legendary first-wave British art-punk collective Mekons had adopted Chicago as their town, says Doug McCombs, of Tortoise, Eleventh Dream Day, and Brokeback; Mekons/Three Johns founder Jon Langford relocated to Chicago in the early '90s. Like Eleventh Dream Day, Material Issue was ahead of its time, but it was as good as the ironically marginalized genre of power-pop ever has gotten. We werent going to be Silverchair, we werent going to try to sing like Kurt. Check them out below. Nash Kato) and Eddie King Roeser (vocals/guitar/bass) migrated to Chicago from the Twin Cities and linked up with each other as well as with Steve Albini at Northwestern University circa 1985. It wasn't just people saying, Oh, rock is so over. It was people saying, We have to look beyond.. Suddenly, older, difficult, and even anarchic movements, as well . Learn More. So it was booked months in advance. Joe Shanahan: I have lots of fond memories of Jim showing up at Metro on Wednesday nights. I did have Gene Simmons call. Limiting the series to 50 Chicago Artists Who Changed Popular Music is completely arbitrary it could have been 100, or 1,000 and Im leaving other genres such as jazz and country to other critics and fans. Where in L.A., theyd say, Id rather not work for two weeks, and wait for the right band. He had that great Midwestern taste that we also had. And other people did too, people were getting record deals, and were putting out records, and none of that happened before. Fueled by a wicked horn lineup, powerful rhythm section, and multiple vocalists, the band covers a great mix of 80s & 90s music in their own upbeat s. Learn More. But the difference between a Smashing Pumpkins and a great band like Eleventh Dream Day is that Corgan knew how to play the game. But yeah, that was a great time. Some of the bigger labels wouldnt talk to us ever again after that. You were just borrowing the money. Greg Kot has been the music critic at the Chicago Tribune since 1990, and co-hosts WBEZs Sound Opinions with Jim DeRogatis every Saturday. 311 . 345+ bookings! It was, for a lack of a better termit was a music industry. Joel Spencer: We actually got signed to Capitol when we were still in Champaign. We literally went from a basement to world-class studios. That event still is so painful that many in Chicagos music scene cant talk about it to this day. We didnt really have much trouble. All rights reserved. Jump in the econo van and go. Tortoise, Mule, the Jesus Lizard, Mouse, and other animal-named-bands. That band worked harder than people actually ever thought they did. Local H, all the time. Corgan was hated. I remember when [Chicago alt-rock radio station] Q101 all of a sudden was Mancow. I wanted to quit my job as a janitor. When it comes to discussing '90s rock, we usually turn the conversation towards critically acclaimed bands like Pavement, Superchunk, Archers of Loaf, Built to Spill, Neutral Milk Hotel, and My . It completely swung the other way. They werent just going to phone in it, so to speak, and just slap it together. If you think the best Chicago indie rock band is missing from the list, then feel free to add it at the bottom so it's included with these other great acts. The gentrification process had begun. Apr 30, 2023 9:01 PM EDT. Theres only one. People were really supportive at the time.. But the ultimately under-appreciated band in that town is Naked Raygun, and that was way before that time. You were just borrowing it. I just love that song. It seems to me, yeah, we all wanted to have enough success to keep going, and yeah there were egos, and yeah there was definitely sort of high-flying, it seemed like everybody was on a big wave. It was Fig Dish, Triple Fact Action, Hush Drops, and Nectarine, and everybody was supposed to play one side of Hot August Nights by Neil Diamond, just to fuck with the A&R people. Josh from the Popes left the band for a little while. It meant that maybe this isnt going to go where you wanted it to go. There was a huge influx of money, audio engineer, outspoken advocate for all things Chicago and DIY, and Shellac guitarist Steve Albini explains. It was a different role than I had traditionally been doing, which is more or less a glorified engineer, where a band hires me to come into a studio, set up microphones, and record. Thats it. That night as back in the day, Naked Raygun was much, much better. Touch and Go became a distributor and manufacturer for a lot of them, doing millions of dollars of business with some of the weirdest music and people imaginable. Urge Overkill was doing Saturation, that was pretty big. The music that Azita's made since then has totally followed suityou can still see this thing that's totally her own and totally personal., There was definitely a real interest in free jazz andother music outside of indie rock, says, Things have changed since then, of course, and Albini reflects on what the current landscape means for independent music in Chicago: , The thing we've lost is the influx of cash that the profiteers enabled. Watch the latest episode of Pitchfork.tv's new series "Yearbook," which chronicles important years in Chicago music history. But my point is this, all of those artists at that time were really intricately involved in their personal and their public persona. It just kind of goes from genre to genre. You never knew who was going to be there. The day, the date, you know. It was fertile, it was experimental. I love listening to their record still to this day. They were really one of the best things in that whole thing as far as I was concerned. I remember when we put the New Years Eve show together, she wanted to do the flyer. Every band that I thought should be huge was never huge. But it was a great time. Nirvana. We just blew it up. Pop/Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Post-Grunge, Punk Revival A New January 1990s - 2000s I think to this day hes still one of the best songwriters that Chicago has produced, and I think hes made a bunch of really great records that people seemed to care less and less about as the years go on, but he still does really strong work. We pay for tickets, and wed go to see Liz Phair. And that wound up paying dividends down the line. Abrasive post-punk and indie rock crossed paths frequently with the citys vital free jazz scene. There was a certain amount of that. But I have really fond memories of making it. It was like a laser beam coming out of her face. Its not going to happen. But I wasnt interested in recording KISS. Ansel Pereira. We did a tour of Florida that was just kind of a nightmare. So it was the way to get in touch with me. So I said, But it sounds exactly like Downed by Cheap Trick. 9. Some of it was like, are you happy with playing Saturday night at Metro? Then it was all over, except for the occasional reunion and the opening gig for the Foo Fighters at Wrigley Field in 2015, thanks to still-a-fan Dave Grohl. In an effort to find Nirvanas successor/gold mine, major record labels then knocked themselves out in an attempt to sniff out the next big scene. It burst into the mainstream when "Smells Like Teen Spirit"the first major-label single from Nirvana, a trio based in Seattle, Washington, U.S.became a national hit. When the final product isnt desired, the price of it goes down, then the budget to record that diminished product also go down, and Ive had to deal with that. Special thanks to ace director and videographer Andrew Gill, online majordomo Tricia Bobeda, and former digital intern Jack Howard for all of their help. The A&R guy would show up and literally say, Well, I just dont hear a hit. Could you be any more stereotypical? Again, coming out of bowling alleys like Fireside. Chicago was the new capital of the cutting edge, proclaimed a front-page story in Billboard magazine, the Bible of the old music industry. Larry Marano/Shutterstock. Patrick Monaghan, who founded Carrot Top Records in 1993, remembers seeing Phair for the first time at a small Polish bar not long before Exile in Guyville, written about Phairs experiences in Wicker Park, came out. Urge Overkill also dissolved after the Saturation followup Exit The Dragon, and drummer Blackie Onassis eventually entered rehab. Who could blame them? I wanted to just make enough money to work in a studio and get paid for it. It was super hard work. The next thing I know I was backed up against a wall, this guys in my face telling me how great his band is. The Lounge Ax closed in 2000 due to unfortunate pressures from neighbors who thought the scrappy rock club didnt belong in gentrified Lincoln Park, the difficulties of maintaining an alcohol license in a city that keeps changing rules and fees on bar owners, and a landlord who didnt truly support the clubs existence. But thats neither here nor there. So enjoy yourself. I think that was one of the few instances in that whole thing when we were able to take it for what it was. I think certainly that Capitol thought that Jesus Lizard was the next Nirvana. The way Nirvana took what Big Black was doing and turned it into pop songs that were being sold to millions of suburban teenagers. When you first start a band, or at least when we first started that band, and you have that sort of epiphanal moment or series of moments where you realize that this is no longer just a group of friends that are getting together to have fun. Touch and Go became a distributor and manufacturer for a lot of them, doing millions of dollars of business with some of the weirdest music and people imaginable. And the Smoking Popes, those guys, I still listen to them all the time. Greg Kot: I always thought that Local H was a great band. But I got a lot of laughs out of it. It's not a venue, really, but it's just a really great place. You cant underestimate band chemistry. Billy Corgan. Wes Kidd: We did tour: Probably the best one was with Everclear, because their record was blowing up right at that time, like a bazillion people at those shows. Theyre really good at moving around and changing intervals and stuff. Material Issues Jim Ellison committed suicide in 1996, only two years after Kurt Cobain did. And also, out of all the bands in that scene, I think they were the best band. The mic preamps are the same. But Chicago followed a close second. That was the good kind of competition, where youd watch the band play in front of you and just really want to do a good job, because they always did. Now everybody has to earn every nickel and it doesn't seem quite as glamorous to drag your ass up and down the country if there's no tour bus or record deal on the horizon.. Brad Wood: I didnt intend to move to Los Angeles in 2000 and build a recording studio in my backyard. Hed want to record at 9 in the morning. Joe Shanahan (Metro, Double Door): I was out every single night and seeing band after band, visiting studios, rehearsal spaces, on a daily and certainly weekly basis. We would play, and Veruca Salt would get on stage. Which is why I think Jim Ellison, like, Material Issue and Urge Overkill, people either loved them or hated them, because for a lot of people, it was like, These guys are cocky and confident and clearly want stardom, and people mistrusted that. So reviled as careerists. But six of the seven artists that follow I intensely love to this day. She always was an embarrassingly amateurish act on stage. Post-2010, a number of alternative bands are fusing diverse styles of indie, punk, hip-hop, emo, hard rock, and electronic in their music. Local Hs eighth studio album, Hey Killer, was released in 2015 on G&P Records. That just wasnt what we were doing. Ah, Urge. But, you know, Minneapolis went through its thing with The Replacements and Hsker D, and Trip Shakespeare and all those bands being signed. 1. I think it was very much a fear of success for a lot of bands in the Midwest. Athens, Georgia went through its moment. $ 1,000 per event. We lived together, we practiced every night together. About Us; Songs We Play; Upcoming Show Dates; Media; Search for: Search. Ultimately, you owe them that money, but only from things that you produce. 2 Sets of 90s Rock. Starting at. We came back to the city after college and started playing again. But there are other ones. They were making records. Dance Of The Seven Veils has a lot of that. Some artistslike the Pumpkins, Liz Phair, and Local Hcontinued to tour and record. So I would say that Exile In Guyville was for me, a really personal statement. There were certainly other bands that were part of it and around it, like Triple Fast Action, Material Issue, Urge Overkill. My money went with Post, who released another great post-Nina Veruca album in 2000 called Resolver. But I dont know who I thought was going to hit it. Pearl Jam performing at Club Babyhead, Providence, Rhode Island. Were all still friends. That parts great. I remember talking to Jim Ellison one night at a Cheap Trick show on my birthday, and I was like, I love Renee Remains The Same. He was like, You should, its the greatest pop song written in the last 10 years.. It was a guys club. I gave up on that a long time ago. Brad was the same way. Its difficult to sort of undo that. They were like the first wave of bands that started to get notice and started getting signed to major label deals, and that was before the big alt-rock explosion. A startling number of DIY labels that would go on to have great legacies were founded or thrived in Chicago in the early 1990s, partly because the city's DIY scene bred and supported weird, wonderful artists who would never be able to find the right home on a larger label. Most of us didnt have home phones. Guitarists-vocalist Nathan Kaatrud (a.k.a. There were certain DJs and certain program directors and certain music directors that lost their jobs. They really evolved very quickly, as bands that could deliver a good entertaining show. I think really between Lounge Ax, Metro, I suppose Schubas, that was all in the mix there. Joel Spencer (Menthol): We picked Brad. Joe Shanahan: Its interesting, because we did so many Pumpkins shows, we think theyre so synonymous. To understand why, we need to rewind to 1986, when the Near Northwest Arts Council (NNWAC) formed in the then-somewhat bleak neighborhood of Wicker Park, an area with a good deal of unused industrial space. The apparatus now is a lot more complicated. Pitchfork is the most trusted voice in music. Lawyers got involved, some specializing in the independent/major interface, crafting complex documents that were more likely to expire unfulfilled than run to term. For my money, the trios next two albums, Though the dwindling and nostalgic few who still hold them dear disagree, the Pumpkins were best when they were paring back and giving us less, most notably on the less ironic, more heartfelt, With Beverly native Johnny Blackie Onassis Rowan joining on drums, Urge (or session musicians hired Monkees-style to fill in for them) slickened up their earlier sound and won fame for Andy Warhols euphemistic 15 minutes thanks to the 1993 album, True, she often delivered them in a voice that was monotonous, to be charitable. For my money, the trios next two albums, Destination Universe (1992) and Freak City Soundtrack (1994), are every bit as good, if not better. Drag City wasn't particularly Chicago-centric but their Chicago crew was spectacular, Brise-Glace, anything with David Grubbs in it, Jim O'Rourke, all of Rian Murphy's endeavors.. Its actually sort of an homage, is it not? And he grabbed me by the shirt and said, Theres only so many chords on a guitar neck, man! We adored Material Issue and The Slugs and Green. But he was hilarious and said a bunch of really stupid stuff. Its like when we went to Australia, getting off the plane, I was like, Okay, nobody knows us here. He produced Veruca Salts reunion album, Ghost Notes, which was released in 2015. That was when I first met him, and after that, I said, All right, Ive listened to their records, theyre interesting. That started a relationship with him that lasted a couple years. I think Jimmywine Majestic by Red Red Meat is probably one of my favorite albums of all time that I worked on. And thinking, when were playing Madison Square Garden, This is never going to happen again. So it was nice to have some normalcy. I remember hearing, when I lived with Wes from Triple Fast, hed come home and played rough mixes that they had just done in the studio. We had some people at Island that really believed in it, but they also kind of shielded us. They werent cool enough. It can be hard. Fig Dish is not going to make you a ton of money, being the kind of band that they were. Brad Wood opened Idful Music Corporation in Chicago in 1989 and now owns Seagrass Studio in California. So it was hard to wade through that shit, and we probably didnt do a great job if it, I dont know if anybody could do a great job of it, you just kind of get lucky. As soon as we went over that hump, we were like, uhh uhn. People say, Oh, thats not really Chicago. Thats totally Chicago. We may never see that again, and in some ways, I hope we dont, because I thought it did put this artificial layer on Chicago that in some ways was antithetical to what Chicagos artistic scene has been all about for so many years. He was perfectly willing to work with a big label to help him move that along, whereas some of these more indie-oriented bands, I mean, Eleventh Dream Day and bands of that ilk were coming out of the whole punk and post-punk scenes and they were very much skeptical. They certainly made Metro their laboratory, their hub. As does McCombs, who mentions Tortoise soundman, former Nerves drummer, and current stick man for the post-punk trio Stomatopod, Elliot Dicks, as someone who could always make a show happen at a moments notice: Elliot was a pretty important person around that time because he would try to make things happen on a super underground level. And hes in 20 bands and he comes and he fills in for people and Im sure its a pain in the ass some days, but from my point of view, its pretty cool. I guess thats what production would be for me. Greg Kot (Chicago Tribune): I started living in Chicago in 1980, and I was going to shows all the time. There was a lot of amazing music in our circles at the time, Albini says. Mine is a class in music, however, and the biggest reason to care, as well as to include her here, is that she wrote a whole heck of a lot of great songs.