THE CITY OF CHICAGO: Rock’n’Roll Paradise? [1980]

Text by Cary Baker / FFanzeen, 1980

Introduction © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2016

Images from the Internet

This article was originally published in FFanzeen, issue #6, dated Year-End 1980. It was written by writer-turned-press agent extraordinaire Cary Baker.

Baker, who is well regarded in the music historian field, studied journalism at Northern Illinois University, and despite all his protesting below, moved to Los Angeles to work at Capitol Records and Discovery Records in the publicity field. He now owns and runs the Conqueroo PR firm, where he works long hours promoting some major talent. 

As for Chicago, well, I’ve never been there – yet. A good friend and musician/writer, JD Glass, moved to the Windy City (aka Chi-Town) recently, so who knows, I still may get there; then you can ask: “Chicagee? Did you drove or did you flew?,” in the words of Sid Dithers. – RBF, 2016

I’ve spent countless weeks in both New York and L.A. and you know what? I like Chicago better than either of ‘em. Enough so that if I could afford it, I’d buy a house right in the center. I’ve had ample opportunity to relocate; could’ve kissed a little ass and taken an editorial job in L.A., had I been willing to zero in on Bee Gees, KISS and Boston (to provide some time reference). Looked over Cleveland, Detroit, Nashville, Minneapolis (an almost, if it weren’t for the climate), Atlanta, Dallas, Milwaukee, Tulsa, St. Louis – Nothing compares. This city gives me the best feeling of all.

Chicago has borne the brunt of several misconceptions. Gangsters are relegated to the 1st Ward, which is miles from my neighborhood. Chicago (the group) plays here no more frequently than, say, the Eagles and go just as shunned by the rock’n’roll intelligentsia. At its worst, it is practically true that everyone knows someone who knows someone whose sister went out with Cliff Johnson of [the band] Off Broadway. Chicago is WLUP (“The Loo, FM 98”, Steve Dahl’s largely-metal AOR station) [now a Classic Rock station – rbf, 2016], but it’s also WXRT (“Chicago’s Fine Rock Station,” with lots of New Wave, Blues, Jazz, R&B and Reggae – hip enough to flail stills of Marley, Costello and Springsteen on its TV spots) [now an Adult Album Alternative station – rbf, 2016].

Whereas New York is The Village Voice, Soho and the Aquarian, Chicago is the Reader [aka The Chicago Reader] (free very Thursday night) and the Illinois Entertainer. While L.A. is pastrami tacos in hotdog-shaped outdoor stands, Chicago is El Taco Loco, Korean grills, gyros, corned beef and stuffed pizza. Where New York’s not the Mudd Club or CBGBs, Chicago‘s not Tuts or Jamie’s or Neo. Soho-style lofts are relegated to Printers Row in the North Loop; Chicago’s “look” is 1930-vintage Greystone six-flats which look like home and still hold up and cost $305-350/month – lower than New York but higher than Louisville or Rockford. For that, you have proximity to subways, the beach, restaurants, clubs and a copy of the Reader. You can also park your car out in front, some of the time anyway.

There’s no James White or Lydia Lunch in Chicago; there’s no Skafish or Desmond anywhere else I’m aware of; the Chicago influence (hale’n’hearty, blues bars in the neighborhood, X-rated flicks three blocks over) is particularly evident in the style of the latter. Chicago has never had a band like X – I doubt we could; Immune System, Dadistics, Bohemia and Phil ‘n’ The Blanks – for better or worse, are more our style. You don’t have club DJs as universally recognizable as Phast Phreddie or “Get-Off-the-Air” Rodney [Bingenheimer – rbf, 2016]; then again, the records you hear at Neo in Chicago are far better.

Chicago’s a pedestrian city. You can walk it at any hour of the day, except for certain sections (like Clybourne & Division or 63rd and Woodlawn). It used to be the good schools and corner grocery stores that kept people in the neighborhood; now it’s actually the Reader, which you can’t find in the auto-oriented suburbs. Chicago’s not an industrial city – most such activity occurs largely to the east in Gary or Hammond, Indiana, or south in the Calumet regions. There are suburbs that look variously like Westchester, Hackensack, Rockaway Beach, Edison, Shaker Heights, Culver City and Southfield. Some, like Schaumburg (home of B. Ginnings – the Capitol Theatre of the Chicago area) are mini-metropolises, with phenomenal growth rates over the past ten years (Schaumburg rose from 18,000 to 62,000 in that time [at last official count, in 2013, the population there is 74,907 – rbf, 2016]. Others, like Evanston, are old, landlocked, racially balanced, collegiate and comfortable. The less-descriptive suburbs have metal/glam groups that play shopping-strip nighteries like Studio One and Pip’s. No doubt Trillion, M&R Rush and the Boyzz recall Twisted Sister and their ilk. Such species have been tar’n’feathered from all but a very few inner-city clubs. Every so often, you’ll hear of an R. Stevie Moore disciple living in an exurb like Joliet or Aurora or Elgin. Occasionally, you meet someone who grew up in Rockford (2 hours by Interstate), where the five best minds are doubtless Cheap Trick [inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015 – rbf, 2016] and John Anderson. Or a place you never through about twice, such as East Chicago, Indiana, turns out of be the home of Skafish; or the nuke-invested Zion, Illinois, which unassumingly gave us Shoes, as well as six-inch spiders.

Chicagoans don’t ask a lot. A nice apartment/condo/coachhouse, a good meal (Schezwan, Sushi, fondue or Thai will do), a concert at Park West ($8.50 covers a two-drink minimum [tickets are in the $30 range now – rbf, 2016]) and a weekend for two in nearby Lake Geneva will hold you for a week.

Better pick up the Reader before you get too comfy on Thursday night or else all your phone pals will be quoting Don McLeese’s reviews despite you. They’ve been bombasting the reviews in the dailies all day. Saturday afternoons are spent at Wax Trax, possibly the best record store in the world with everything from Mickey Gilley’s Drive-In-Movie, to Human League, with videos, old fan mags, new British fanzines, Russian Beatle imports and very elaborate décor.

Sunday mornings are leisurely brunches at the 2350, Otto’s Coq Rouge, Oxford’s or the neighborhood hash house. Sometimes, brunch is followed by a sojourn to Maxwell Street Market where you can still see Big Walter Horton [d. 1981] and Blind Arvella Gray [d. 1980] playing Blues outdoors on the street corners. You can buy anything from a hot Fender bass to your stolen hubcaps there. In ten years, this strictly Chicago institution will be a memory, as the adjacent University of Illinois-Chicago Campus engulfs. Sunday afternoons – when a blizzard hasn’t hit – are well-spent exploring unknown sections of the sixty-square-mile metropolitan area. Or visiting friends in the ‘burbs for a brief respite. Or Cubs games or Bears games or corner laundromats or records in the living room. Or people-watching on the subways or at record collectors’ conventions or the Chicago Public Library.

When it comes down to it, Chicago is the most livable city in the U.S. that’s still exciting and omnipotent. The real lack of enlightenment is not among us-by-choice-Midwesterners, but rather those convinced there’s no life more intelligent than nocturnal fungus existing west of the Hudson and east of Riverside/San Bernardino. If you don’t believe it, visit. Bring lots of cash, plan to pick up (and devour) the Reader. Check out Tuts, eat at a decorless Korean grill for $4, spend $50 on rockabilly singles at Wax Trax, tune in WXRT between 7-11 PM, and visit the Maxwell Street Flea Market (home of Aretha’s soul Food Café). Take in a museum. Walk the lakefront.

I guarantee you’ll be profoundly moved.

CHEAP TRICK: Interview [1978]

Text by Cary Baker / Big Star fanzine, 1978
Introduction and photos © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2015
Videos from the Internet

This interview was originally published in Big Star fanzine, issue #3, dated Spring 1978. It was written by Cary Baker. Thanks to Bernie Kugel, the fanzine’s publisher, who kindly granted permission for this reprint.

Thanks to uber-rock writer Mary Anne Cassata, I had the chance to hang out with most of Cheap Trick in the very early 1980s, during a promotion for a USO Tour. I stood outside the New York USO headquarters snapping pix of guitarist Rick Nielsen and drummer Bun E. Carlos goofing around, while vocalist Robin Zander bought a pretzel off a street vendor. Over a decade later, I would work with Carla Dragotti, who was a huge fan, and actually became their tour manager (I had met her just a year earlier in 1991 at the Marquee NY Johnny Thunders Memorial Concert). With all of that, I’ve never seen the band perform live. – RBF, 2015
 

Rick Nielsen and Bun E. Carlos hanging out on Times Square

Cary Baker: After getting off the road with KISS a week ago after two months of solid touring, what impressions do you have of Gene Simmons and crew?
Rick Nielsen (lead guitar): I can give you a scoop. That’s not really makeup they wear at all: it’s tattooed right on their faces. It’s amazing to me as a musician that they’d be into their act enough to do that. I mean, this baseball hat I’m wearing is not sewn to my head. It does come off every time I go for a transplant.

Cary: I’d imagine it must be quite different touring with Foreigner.
Rick: It’s geared way down. KISS’s set is very elaborate with hundreds of people behind the scenes. Foreigner is a normal tour. My parents go out and buy albums by anyone we’re touring with. Foreigner was easy – they have only one album. KISS posed a problem.

Cary: Who is the handsomest man in rock’n’roll?

Rick: I’m not going to say Dick Manitoba. I read that somewhere. I guess it’s Bun and me. It’s a tie. Bun E. and I are the two most eligible bachelors in the rock’n’roll business. I did tell Paul Stanley [of KISS – RBF, 2015] that the four most eligible bachelors in the world today are Gene Simmons, Robin Zander and himself, not necessarily in that order, and if the Mexican divorce goes through, Bun E. Carlos.

Robin Zander buying a street pretzel

Cary: I heard there’s a live LP of you guys.

Rick: We did record live in the Whisky in the middle of recording In Color, but it probably won’t come out.
Tom Peterssen (bass; 12-string guitar): Who wants a boring live LP?
Rick: We’ve got other projects we’re more concerned with. Someday we’ll get to the point where we’ll be auditioning the Vienna Boys Choir, the London Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra – but only if they rock. We’ll draw up the ultimate charts. It won’t be Cheap Trick and Orchestra. It will be an entity of its own. But we’ll always be pounding rock’n’roll in warehouses. We’re doing TV too. Just taped shows in New York and Atlanta. Also, we’ll be appearing on Lloyd Thaxton [d. 2008], Hullabaloo and Shindig.

Cary: The single from In Color, “I Want You to Want Me,” reportedly has a B-side that’s not on the album.

Rick: It’s called “Oh Boy,” and it marks the singing debut of Bun E. Carlos. But since Bun E. has never sung, there are no vocals on it.

Cary: What if it’s the runaway A-side?

Rick: I doubt it. But it’s neat. You’ll never guess who’s whistling on it. When you get a copy, listen to the whistling at the beginning. I’d tell you who it is only it would be like dropping names. We did our LP at Kendun [Studios] in L.A., where the greats have done albums, like Fleetwood Mac. Just think, it could have been Stevie Nicks whistling, but nah!

Bun E and Rick bookend Steven Stills on his birthday.

Cary: Word’s reached us here that there’s a Cheap Trick bootleg on the West Coast. You must be very flattered.

Bun E. Carlos (drums): There was. But not since the FBI’s been out there.
Tom: The idea was flattering…
Rick: …the recording was terrible. They made my voice sound so stupid.
Bun E.: They took a $75 cassette machine in the 50th row or something with no EQ added.
Rick: Though I must say, the performance was brilliant!

Cary: Rick, are the rumors true that you played on a couple of Yardbirds’ singles?

Rick: Jimmy Page said he never saw who did the keyboard stuff. He was always gone before that stuff was added. The editor of Trouser Press asked Page about that. He said if he does remember me, he called me Pete Townsend, 10 or 12 years ago. He called me Pete Townsend because he wanted to buy some guitars from me. Instead, I stole them from him. No, I never stole a guitar, though he did get some stolen. Really, though, he wanted to buy my guitars. I didn’t sell them to him and his career went right down the drain.
Bun E.: Serves that guy right.

Robin Zander stands amid member of other groups
such as the Eagles and Kansas

Cary: What new songs have you written for the new album?

Rick: I’m in a real slump. One I just wrote – and the band hates it – is “Oh, Claire.” I think it’s a cool song, though. In 3-1/2 minutes, this couple, well, they meet, they get married, they have kids, they grow old, the guy dies and goes to heaven. It’s cool. Look for it on our next album.
Bun E.: Kind of like Love Story.

Cary: After working with two producers, Jack Douglas and Tom Werman [who currently owns a luxury B&B in Lenox, MA – RBF, 2015], who do you feel handled the group best?
Tom: I’ll put it to you this way and let you guess which is which: one guy was unbelievably great. One guy didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
Rick: One of them cheats on his wife. I’m sorry; they both cheat on their wives. The first album that Douglas did had more of a live sound; the second was more of a studio album. If we use a different producer for four albums – and I’m not saying we will, but if we do – we’ll call in the producers and we’re gonna produce them and see what they sound like. That will be after Cheap Trick Four, which is the tentative name of our fourth LP [their fourth album was, of course, 1979’s Dream Police – RBF, 2015].



Rick Nielsen motor-vatin'

Cary: Has there been radio action on the album?

Rick: Sure, all over. We were even interviewed on Clairol Essence Earth News Radio, you know? We did that a year ago. They ask you your favorite color on the taping. Then on the show, they ask you, “Rick, you look a little down in the dumps. How do you feel today?” “Blue.”

Cary: What’s on the boards for the third album [Heaven Tonight – RBF, 2015]?

Rick: The Ten Commandments. It’s really very clever. We’ll dedicate it to the growing Bun E. Carlos is God sect in Chicago. We’ll have “In the Bun-ginning” or “In the B. Ginnings” and “On the Third Album.” It will be a total concept. The Ten Commandments etched in vinyl. Watch for it around Spring.

 

 

 

Who the hell...

Text and photos (c) Robert Barry Francos

Back in the 1980s, I went to a conference to promote the USO in New York's Times Square, filled with musicians and radio DJs from big '70s arena bands, most of whom I just don't care about... so all these years later, I have no idea who most of them are. Can people please resond and let me know who they are and what bands they were from? I think there are some members of Kansas and the like. Eagles? Not a clue.

The only ones I do know are Stephen Stills, and Cheap Trick members Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen, and Bun E. Carlos. When I get everyone's names, I'll put up more of the photos. Thanks for your help, everyone!

Picture 1
Back left to right: ?, ?, ?
Front: ?, ?, ?

Picture 2
Back (left to right): ?, Robin Zander (Cheap Trick), ?
Front: ?, Steve Walsh (Kansas), Phil Ehart (Kansas), ?


Picture 3
Back (left to right): ?, ?, ?
Front: Bun E. Carlos (Cheap Trick), Stephen Stills (CSNY, etc.), Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick)