90s chicago alternative bands

When we met, I knew it was something serious It wasnt like falling into it for me. He said, Hey, I can finally buy a house. It was some band, then us, and Local H was opening. I still talk to Wes. Pearl Jam managed to hit the scene hard and fast, considering they formed in 1990, and Nirvana changed music in 1991. This home outdoor projector supports a 50-250" projection size, allowing you to enjoy the joy of a large screen whether indoors or outdoors. The HotHouse moved out of Wicker Park in 1995 and has since become more of a non-profit organization for supporting musicians than a venue. Now it seems to be you have to be much more established to even go on a tour, but back then you could put a tour together and sleep on friends floors. But, at its best, so unexpectedly brilliant. There was this cross-pollinationto me, that was a really interesting scene. It was the birth of what was going on in Wicker Park as well. In 1993, if you loved underground music, Chicago was a special place to be. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication (Official Music Video) [HD UPGRADE] Red Hot Chili Peppers was formed in 1983, but they hit their stride in the 90s with their Blood Sugar Sex Magik album. Theres only one. We also did a short stint with Matthew Sweet. Wes Kidd was a founding member of Rights Of The Accused and Triple Fast Action. Scott Lucas band since 1987, Local H, is playing Chicagos Empty Bottle on May 27 as part of that clubs 25th anniversary concert series. When there's loose money around, everybody feels like a winner. The live musical experience had a real pulse, and it was supported by the music fans and the people like myself going out every night. They were in great form that night. In my other role as an assistant professor at Columbia College Chicago, I was asked in the fall of 2015 to develop one of several Big Chicago classes intended to introduce first-semester students to the rich and diverse culture of Chicago. There were regular house music nights at rock bars. It sort of pre-dated all that by just a few years. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit (Official Music Video) Nirvana was formed by Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic in 1987 in the suburbs of Washington. You also meet a ton of people, so I was able to go into the other side of it knowing a ton of people, A&R people and publishers and radio people and everything else, so that was good. They probably played like two shows a week and it felt like they were doing a completely new set of material each time they played., McCombs describes the first ever Tortoise show, at the Lounge Ax, in 1994: We were supposed to be opening for the Ex but they didn't make it because they had problems at the border of Canada. The Audition (band) B. Bnny; C. Catherine (alternative rock band) Caviar (band) Certain Distant Suns; Chevelle (band) Company of Thieves (band) Cupcakes (band) D. Detholz! I just want to rock. Jim Ellison. But I got a lot of laughs out of it. She always was an embarrassingly amateurish act on stage. But my point is this, all of those artists at that time were really intricately involved in their personal and their public persona. But we never had a problem booking that room. From grunge to indie rock, shoegaze to electronica, the best 90s alternative songs represent the eclectic spirit of the decade. I remember being so surprised at how well accepted we were. That band worked harder than people actually ever thought they did. Some nights, you had 10 people show up, and some nights you had 500 people show up. 2. "The top alternative songs of the '90s helped usher in a major cultural shift, as serious-minded, image-free bands blew hair metal and pop off the airwaves a. A list made up of bands like Wilco and Andrew Bird. So we made the second record, and that was the one that we were about to get some traction on. They didnt even promote us because they signed so many bands for so much money that never got promoted. People like Albini and Brad and Casey would just say Fuck it, were open for business if you want to come in and record. But the only reason we got two days in there is because L7 had canceled and it was the record that they did with Butch Vig, so we got in. She always was an embarrassingly amateurish act on stage. These major movements: Youve got house, youve got industrial, genre inventors who are living in this town, and then you have the noise-rock thing with [Steve] Albini. Mostly because I missed having my own recording studio. You start out and you suck and you practice and your songs suck and they get better and they get to a certain level and you go up and more people go to your shows and at a certain point you peak and then you start going down. We thought that because they had such a big machine that it was going to be probably a better place for us. 311 . There were other things that were going to happen for him, because of his dedication to his craft, and to his overall work and stuff. Independent labels and bands stopped being sidelines and became going concerns. It was a bunch of opening tours, and then we got that Stone Temple Pilots tour. It was like a laser beam coming out of her face. Abrasive post-punk and indie rock crossed paths frequently with the citys vital free jazz scene. I gave up on that a long time ago. We were arrogant enough to think that we were making art. 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. Wes Kidd: I got offered a gig to go work with a guy who managed my band, at Red Light Management. 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. I saw a lot of that, and I really hated it. Again, coming out of bowling alleys like Fireside. There was everything before Exile In Guyville and then there was life after that. That's why that stupid post-rock term came about, because it was just musicians looking for inspiration elsewhere. While alternative rock raged in the 1990s, the softhearted sound of bands like Heavenly, Tiger Trap, and the Pastels welcomed listeners into their own . The day, the date, you know. We cant afford to give it away. Rocking out in Chicago. I know I didnt. And he grew up on a lot of the same music that we did. Triple Fast broke up right around then and Wes moved to New York. Greg Kot: How many times have you heard that story? And thinking, when were playing Madison Square Garden, This is never going to happen again. Jim Ellison was hated by a lot of people in this town. But the ultimately under-appreciated band in that town is Naked Raygun, and that was way before that time. perfectrx, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons/Photoscape. 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. We just blew it up. It was, for a lack of a better termit was a music industry. 1. He had done Exile In Guyville and everybody was intimidated by that. It was a blast, because everybody was having fun, everybody was taking each other on tour. I am so bad at that. Urge Overkill also dissolved after the Saturation followup Exit The Dragon, and drummer Blackie Onassis eventually entered rehab. Everybody just came out of the place just at once. They had multiple drummers, including Chad Channing and Dave Grohl. They asked if we wanted to play South By Southwest, and nobody knew what that was. There was things that would be happening, little splinter bands of some of the more established artists that would slide up and people would come and check them out. People were kind of sniffing around for like a year, but nothing was really coming out of the town. Parker, who played in a soul-funk band called Uptighty at the time with Dan Bitney, who would also go on to be in Tortoise, and Leroy Bach, who played with Tortoises John Herndon in 5ive Style and, later on, in Wilco, emphasizes how much was going on at that time. Back then, Chicago was kind of a dark and cold place musically. I think that when youre that age, then of course youre over your head. I remember talking to people, Oh, house music, thats that English thing. Well, actually, its not. And they all flew in, and our rider was like 50 Little Caesars pizzas and two kegs of beer. That was just crazy. THE MUSICIANS IN BLIND REALITY HAVE BEEN FRIENDS FOR OVER 30 YEARS WITH THE COMMONALITY TO LOVE TO PLAY MUSIC. Last summer my editors at WBEZ said, Hey, we should highlight your overview of Chicago music here!. 9. You cant underestimate band chemistry. Billy Corgan. The NNWAC helped turn Wicker Park into a destination neighborhood for visual artists, filmmakers, and musicians, who quickly started to turn the cheap and plentiful industrial lofts in the area into live-work spaces. He knew how to deliver singles. The canvas was Metro, it was a blank canvas for many bands, certainly for Billy and Liz. Local journalists, bought off with access and promotional spending, began to write about this feeding frenzy as though it were the renaissance of a music scene that had been percolating along nicely regardless.. I remember when [Chicago alt-rock radio station] Q101 all of a sudden was Mancow. In some ways, that was an aberration. They eventually got signed to Capitol and David Yow was very transparent with me. About Us; Songs We Play; Upcoming Show Dates; Media; Search for: Search. Because we werent from Chicago. I mean, Nirvana worshipped them. Its like, wow, two guitars, thats so cool. I was bartending Monday nights, I was going to school and bartending at a place that doesnt exist anymore at Clybourn and Webster, making $20 a night. According to Margasak:Time has proven that the [underground bands] are the ones that people still care about, whereas no one remembersa lot of those major label bands.. I really liked that about Seagrass. I once saw David Yow pour lighter fluid on his jeans and set himself on fire. Its a Chicago thing that all these U.K. DJs appropriated. The Idful stuff is timeless. Many of those bands are well-respected, well-loved, well-remembered, and well-thought-of if theyre still going. It was very, very workaday type of stuff. Do we sell out at all? I just cant stand still and not adjust to economic change. Going through that process, you do learn a ton. Three-piece outfits that fans used to be able to see for almost free were showing up on MTV. 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. Veruca Salt broke up shortly there after. But Veruca Salt broke up soon after its second album was released. Then we made our own 7-inch that got put on a compilation. We loved them, but it wasnt, thats not who we were. And they were thinking, coming to Chicago, some A&R guy would sign them. True, she often delivered them in a voice that was monotonous, to be charitable. We toured with everybody. But I wasnt really very good at telling people to come work with me. There just wasnt any weirdness. Colins like, Sure. Even though we werent friends with him, I think he knew who we were. Id be reading about these bands in the Reader, and wed go to see these shows, and wed be in the audience; we werent on anybodys list or anything. Openness and curiosity that fed into it. Sort of like, hence, why my partner Sean and I opened up the Double Door in the mid-90s. alternative rock, pop music style, built on distorted guitars and rooted in generational discontent, that dominated and changed rock between 1991 and 1996. Wed go to each others shows; wed hang out together. 3. There was a huge influx of money, audio engineer, outspoken advocate for all things Chicago and DIY, and Shellac guitarist Steve Albini explains. Scott and I talk all the time. They were just super tight. A number of emerging alternative acts are promoting their music in a big way on video streaming channels. American Music Club . And he said, Alex wants to use your amps, is that cool? I said, Yeah, thats great.. 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. But that album probably is the least popular of their initial releases, so as with Survivor or Chicago the band, what do I know? Lollapalooza was originally conceived as this outsider festival, and look what it became within a few short years. 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. Whereas Billy Corganthat was his ambition all along and he made no bones about it and it was pilloried for it. Brad Wood opened Idful Music Corporation in Chicago in 1989 and now owns Seagrass Studio in California. And they make great albums, too. All of a sudden we had people coming to our shows that didnt before. It was like a bomb went off. But six of the seven artists that follow I intensely love to this day. . So that was a big motivation. Their sound reads . 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. Urge Overkill was doing Saturation, that was pretty big. We just decided thats what we wanted to do. Youve got to understand, The Melvins and the Butthole Surfers were getting signed to major label deals, too! We opened for Alanis Morrisette one day at Grant Park. Joe Shanahan: I have lots of fond memories of Jim showing up at Metro on Wednesday nights. So I said, But it sounds exactly like Downed by Cheap Trick. And at the same time, by that point, were almost 30 years old and you start to feel like, how is this even going to continue? And yeah, it was about going out to the Rainbow for a drink after or going to those kinds of things. Menu. I think really between Lounge Ax, Metro, I suppose Schubas, that was all in the mix there. If it wasnt fun, we wouldnt do it. Rick Rizzo. Its not focused on that sort of commercial, lets get a song on the radio wave of major label signings that occurred in the early 90s. You could really see, here was a band that probably could have played a venue 10 times that size, but the atmosphere was just so electric in that place. It was all supportive. Nobody was barbecuing at Billy Corgans house or vice versa. Look at Screeching Weasel in the suburbs. Josh from the Popes left the band for a little while. We really didnt want to be one of those bands. The Popes sounded exactly the same every night. But also, Ive got a good job, Im married and have got great kids. 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. They were making records. My favorite tour was the Winter Dance Party tour, which was us, Smoking Popes, and Triple Fast Action. Alternative rock band The All-American Rejects scored a string of arena rock anthems in the '00s with their romantic lyricism and punk-influenced sound that often found them added to . No, it was great. For Artists Developers Advertising Investors Vendors Spotify for Work. And the Smoking Popes, those guys, I still listen to them all the time. It was just that people didnt like the way they went about pushing it out into the world. 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. Patrick Monaghan, who founded Carrot Top Records in 1993, remembers seeing Phair for the first time at a small Polish bar not long before, There was a lot of amazing music in our circles at the time, Albini says. Right behind them were names like Veruca Salt, Material Issue, and many other bands that were just as good, but for whatever reason are now only remembered by diehard fans. We can go nuts, lets have a good time. And we wound up terrifying the label and everything and had a great time. Its been percolating for a long time, with Wax Trax and then Touch and Go, but things are really coming to a crescendo.. They were really one of the best things in that whole thing as far as I was concerned. For a brief period in the mid-90s, the city famous for blues but not much in the way of rock was swarmed by A&R reps looking for talent to sign. If you pick up a guitar and you get on stage, secretly you want people to like you. Collected Musings on the Alternative Music Explosion of the 90s choosing these bands was difficult. . Studios were busy, clubs were busy. That was a real, very important time. And we had just barely enough songs to get by, and it worked out. I absolutely love Menthol. So reviled as careerists. It was a lot of fun. Lawyers got involved, some specializing in the independent/major interface, crafting complex documents that were more likely to expire unfulfilled than run to term. Sorry, one and all. Some of the bigger labels wouldnt talk to us ever again after that. The citys got Twin Peaks and The Orwells and Ne-Hi. Grohl et al blended refined, complex instrumentals with eminently catchy chords. The Rainbo Club has been able to dodge gentrification by being the ultra-curmudgeon of bars; the sports bar crowd doesn't see the appeal of going into the Rainbo Club., The legacy of the fertile and experimental early '90s in Chicago lives on, too, and time has been kind to the music made in that scene. But it didnt work out that way. 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. You layer that with Jimmy Chamberlinthe first time I saw him play drums I was slack-jawed. We got a gig at Lounge Ax early on, like a Tuesday night. Im just glad we were able to be so in that radar, in that sort of canvas. Were all still friends. But as with new-millennial Urge or everything Corgans done in this century, it just aint the same. That was always the struggle. So Casey and John McEntire were encouraged to book their own projects. The next day somebody calls our Oakwood apartment and I pick up the phone and its like, Hi, this is Jody Stephens. I remember singing with Louise, sharing a mic. The union propelled the 1994 debut, My money went with Post, who released another great post-Nina Veruca album in 2000 called, You want the history? You could just kind of feel it. Once we got a better handle on that, it ended up being something completely different. We pay for tickets, and wed go to see Liz Phair. We were underage, and we were like, were going to do all this. We all had to get jobs and I was taking the L and working in a deli. What was it about these certain bands? There were a couple years after that where it took me a little while to figure out what I wanted to do. Jeff Parker remembers seeing Tortoise at the HotHouse before he joined the band. Its not to say there werent good people working for these labels, but these were such big corporate machines used to working in a certain way. And, at least for me, her best work came on albums two and three, not the much-lauded debut answer record to the Rolling Stones, 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, The daughter of a Chicago attorney, Nina Gordon famously first heard St. Louis native Louise Post play guitar over the phone, thanks to a local pal who knew both were looking to form a band. Shop. 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. He produced Veruca Salts reunion album, Ghost Notes, which was released in 2015. To me, Chicago has always been a city of neighborhoods, and the music scene sort of reflected that diversity. They deserved to be hits. The boom spread to clubs, recording studios, and indie labels as well as the bands themselves. I think certainly that Capitol thought that Jesus Lizard was the next Nirvana. I think at that point, all of us had put all of our eggs in that basket. Greg Kot: I always thought that Local H was a great band. It all depended on the juxtapositions of which bands played together. Radio payola guys made a mint buying airplay to break bands in different markets. Monaghan remembers the store fondly as a special crossing point for electronic music, particularly house music, and rock playing a similar role for that cross-pollination as the HotHouse and Lower Links did for indie rock and jazz. Suffice it to say here that from those earliest post-Uncle Tupelo gigs on stage at Lounge Ax, the legendary club that Tweedys wife Sue Miller ran with Julia Adams, to the festival-headlining present, the group never has stopped evolving or holding a well-deserved spot among Chicagos greatest. WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information. It can be hard. I certainly didnt have a plan B. So in a way, we didnt want that huge money up front, because in that way, we would never really become a huge pain in the ass. I loved The Poster Children and The Bowery Boys and Titanic Love Affair, all those bands. We came back to the city after college and started playing again. The magic of the group always was the soul-sister partnership of these two guitarists, vocalists, and songwriters. 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. That was a funny conversation. Red Hot Chili Peppers. The mic preamps are the same. We would play, and Veruca Salt would get on stage. Pop culture obsessives writing for the pop culture obsessed. Joel Spencer: We actually got signed to Capitol when we were still in Champaign. And sometimes, people dont want that. Ultimately, you owe them that money, but only from things that you produce. And then they start talking numbers with your lawyer and with you. Some bands thought that was the best. Learn More. A band like The Sea And Cake was a great band that never really became hugely popular, but to me, represented the real creative impulse that was coursing through Chicago at the time. I always say, management is a great place for failed musicians. Duane Denison is an incredible guitar player. They admired bands like The Minutemen and Hsker D. And then we had just done a tour with Menthol and The Smoking Popes, which was a lot of fun, playing small clubs, and people actually showing up, and we had a blast with those guys. The Best 90s Music: 200+ Songs From Alternative, Hip-Hop, And More. You can't overstate how much that changed everything. People took risks. Perhaps because I covered this period in-depth as a journalist and critic with much of my work compiled in the 2003 book Milk It! We lived together, we practiced every night together. Click here to listen to Wilco on Sound Opinions in 2007, or here to hear the offshoot band Tweedy in 2014. You never knew who was going to be there. We did a tour with Everclear, which was weird and fine. It just seemed like a hit coming out of the radio. We were definitely honored by the history of the label. I remember when we put the New Years Eve show together, she wanted to do the flyer. And then at the end of that, we were all like, Are we really going to do this again? I cant even remember of there was an official, Hey, are we all just gonna stop meeting, or if we just stopped calling each other, but it just kind of faded. Ive got Polaroids of bands who I still dont know who they are. But the strength of the music and its influence on the sounds that followed matter just as much, if not more. It was solely about the music that we made and how we were live. That might have been in the back of my mind, that this should be something I want to do for the rest of my life. But he was hilarious and said a bunch of really stupid stuff. It was just great. Of course, I had to consider massive commercial accomplishment, so the Pumpkins are here for the same reason Survivor was. I really dont think I was very good at [recording], with some exceptions, until later on in the 90s. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated as of 1/1/21) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated as of 1/1/21). Your California Privacy Rights. And its corrupting. Greg Kot: Yeah, I got a different take on that. There was nothing free about it. Its difficult to sort of undo that. I used an old sampler that I found in college and used samples that I recorded of a musician in the music department and I was recycling that stuff, pitching it and changing it and putting it on that record. Joel Spencer, founding member of Menthol, is the Adult Services Librarian at the Urbana Free Library. Larry Marano/Shutterstock. Hes fucking doing it and its for real and it always has been. Tortoise, Mule, the Jesus Lizard, Mouse, and other animal-named-bands. And other people did too, people were getting record deals, and were putting out records, and none of that happened before. I think it has more to do with my lack of business mind than anything else. 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 still about getting a single on commercial radio. So many great people in town right now doing hip hop and R&B. Any competition that there would have been was really in the healthiest sense. . It was fertile, it was experimental. Period. Pages in category "Alternative rock groups from Chicago" The following 38 pages are in this category, out of 38 total. Apr 30, 2023 9:01 PM EDT. Again, we got so drunk that at least two of us fell off the stage, and then that was the night I think that Triple Fast Action actually signed with Capitol. Search for: Search. Brown Betty, Fig Dish, Liz Phair, Local H, Menthol, Pumpkins, Veruca Salt, and there was the Red Red Meat kind of scene. Most of us didnt have home phones. Tortoise, Mule, the Jesus Lizard, Mouse, and other animal-named-bands. Pearl Jam performing at Club Babyhead, Providence, Rhode Island. Some of that stuff is specifically used, extensively, on Exile In Guyville. And they were telling stories about Minneapolisthis is in the 2000sand they were like, This band fucking sucks, and that guys a dick, and this guys an asshole, and asked us, Did you guys go through this? And were like, No, we all barbecued at each others houses and got drunk together. Maybe one of the reasons that seems really good is the whole rising tide lifts all boats thing. I think I was the worst of the three in terms of not wanting to stop. I think it was very much a fear of success for a lot of bands in the Midwest. In 1993, bands like Tortoise and the Jesus Lizard, venues like HotHouse and Lounge Ax, and labels like Touch and Go and Bloodshot turned Chicago into a bastion of musical adventurousness. The address of the club, the name of the club. Support Free Mobile App Let alone moving in a positive direction. Next: The top alternative bands of all time list feature. To tell you the truth, I think I did a really stupid mistake which a lot of people do, and now that I manage bands, I tell everybody not to do this: Once you sign a record deal, you kind of think, Oh, all these people know what theyre doing, and you kind of step back, which is the opposite of what you should be doing. Its always propelled by the music itself and the cultivation of a music community and the businesses and arteries that support it. That parts great. 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.. Corey and Lisa Rusk had moved their Touch and Go Records operation to Chicago in the mid-'80s. 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. As the title of the documentary put it, 1991 was, Chicago was the new capital of the cutting edge, proclaimed a front-page story in, Perhaps because I covered this period in-depth as a journalist and critic with much of my work compiled in the 2003 book, Of course, I had to consider massive commercial accomplishment, so the Pumpkins are here.

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