1940's CHICAGO : ADS & STREET SCENES

Even back in the 1940's Chicago was a bustling metropolis filled with working people, tycoons, and hustlers. The city also looked a little rough around the edges, and you can see the evidence of the city's rural past folding into the more industrialized corners. This was a city that still had farm houses and prairies in its vicinity.

This film, shot in color film, documents a city hustling around and wrapped up in day to day life. Adverts scream in vivid hues of vague racism, americana, and traditionalist ideas. This is a world where doctors recommend smoking Chesterfields and drinking Schlitz Beer. Much of this world no longer exists. It's interesting to see North Ave. and State Street with shoppers in three piece suits, mink coats and fedora hats. There are certain sequences in this film that look like they were taken in another reality, but there are the occasional, surprisingly familiar moments that look like they were captured yesterday.

LEE BALTERMAN : 1940's CHICAGO

Lee Balterman is a photographer for such publications as Life, Fortune, Time, and Sports Illustrated. This short film captures his personal documentary work focusing on Chicago, its people and nightlife. The photos are hazy, immediate, and capture Chicago's working class ethos and eccentric spirit. Balterman's photos show a city filled with soldiers, factory workers, jazz clubs, taverns, and line cooks. They show a city that rolled up its sleeves, woke up early, and drank away the blues.

CHICAGO BREAK BREAK

Chicago breakbeats from the city of big shoulders. Put some Midwestern swag in your bag. Enjoy!

Porter Records / Eclectic Sounds

Music is a diverse and dense universe, crowded with divergent sounds and artistic interpretations. It takes a good record label to sift through the plethora of sounds and give life to important works of art. Porter Records, a small upstart created in 2007 by a record collector with a passion for sound, is turning out to be one of the most unusual and creative labels running. The label's variety of music is staggering, and label owner, Luke Mosling, is dedicated to keeping the variety flowing in the years to come. Currently, the label releases everything from hip hop, reggae, free jazz, soul, and experimental electronic. While eclectic, the music on Porter records is never elitist or confounding. If anything, Porter gives listeners the unique chance to experience a wide variety of sound in a context that is accessible and understated. The label also has a unique design aesthetic, reminiscent of the well branded packaging from labels like Blue Note and Impulse in the 1960s. Each Porter Records release has a distinct visual presentation, which helps the label stand out in a saturated market.

Mosling runs Porter Records as a one-man-band, and he views the label as an extension of his diverse record collection. In the next year, Mosling plans on putting out a host of rare-reissues and new releases featuring everything from organic hip hop groups to ambient electronic artists. The label also plans to reach into the global music community and release jazz and experimental music from Europe and Australia.

For information on Porter Records and its upcoming releases, visit http://www.myspace.com/porterrecords.


When Porter Records artist The Misled Children remix Dr. Dre and Snoop- it's a wacky affair.

BREAK BREAK

On a cold Saturday afternoon, sometimes it's nice to sit back and listen to some classic breakbeats. Those interested to know what a breakbeat is can Wikipedia it up.

The Art Gallery Cabaret : Free Music, Cheap Beer

Hidden away down a nondescript side street is one of Chicago's secret pleasures. The Art Gallery Cabaret, a local Bucktown haunt for a few decades, is now one of the most unique spots to listen to undiscovered music in Chicago. The long narrow establishment is reminiscent of many Chicago corner taverns dotted across the city. In decades past, these after-work gathering spots served as a place of refuge and camaraderie for Chicago's blue collar working class. It's the kind of place where 60 year old men come to drink, after a meatloaf dinner, wearing fishing flannel and slippers. It's the kind of place where the Midwest is the whole world encapsulated in a snow globe of tap beer and brown liquor. The Cabaret's washrooms are dim, musty, and covered in phone numbers and show bills, but this only adds to the charm. The long bar is perfect for accommodating a group of drinkers, and if you are lucky, you might be able to strike up an interesting conversation with one of the Cabaret's regulars. The majority of the Cabaret's seating consists of cocktail tables strewn about as if a tornado had discharged them from its inner core.

What separates the Cabaret from the rest of the corner taverns in Chicago is the music. Acts of diverse aptitude perform almost every night and the sheer variety can be staggering. Country musicians open sets, only to be followed by middle age, jazz session cats reliving their glory days. Youthful big bands test out their chops on the small stage, and even more youthful punk bands test the limits of the room's PA system. I have been to the Gallery Cabaret on numerous nights and at first I was a skeptic. "Does Chicago really need a continuous amateur hour bar?" After going back again and again, I began to realize that the Art Gallery Cabaret does not offer a pristine musical experience, but an experience based on pure human expression. On a cold January night, I sat at one of the small cocktail tables, drinking a cheap glass of beer and watching a band of elderly jazz musicians, when it occurred to me that we could all be watching television instead of participating in this collective experience. Don't get me wrong, I like television, but there was something special about watching music happen with such a raw veneer and so little pretense. Suddenly, music was just a beautiful mood, and I didn't want to be sitting anywhere else in the whole god dammed world.

For those not overtly motivated by music, the Cabaret offers $4 pitchers of decent local beer, and some might say that cheap brew is more "Chicago" than good music.

The Art Gallery Cabaret
2020 N Oakley Ave Chicago, IL 60647
(773) 489-5471

The True Eccentric = Cornet (Tiny Trumpet)

The true eccentric. The man in the big band, full of big men, holding the tiniest of trumpets. I know, the item in the photograph hovering above this paragraph is actually the very respectable cornet, an instrument of impressive sound quality if played correctly. We must admit however, there is something of the eccentric about it. After all, I still see a tiny trumpet when I glance at it. It takes a man or woman with a fair amount of self confidence to place their lips on this little trumpet and blow. The tuba is such an all encompassing status quo of an instrument. And let’s be honest, tuba players are the Porsche drivers of the jazz world, and let’s face it; they all have extremely inadequate genitalia. Sorry Germany.

Some find eccentricity in excess. The Hindus for instance, or Donald Trump, or Devendra Banheart- they are all hedonistic eccentrics. I would also put the hilariously enthusiastic chef Mario Bitali in the camp with the hedonistic eccentrics. In fact, I would like nothing more than to see Devendra Banheart and Mario Bitali being heroically, hedonistic and eccentric together. If it were a TV show, and free, and both characters were in various stages of undress, I would watch it with bliss painted across my face. An excessively hedonistic, eccentric, adjective filled bliss. Both of these entertainers, one an indie-rock folk singer and the other a world traveling chef, seem to exhibit their eccentricity through every aspect of their lifestyles. Even their beards and haircuts flaunt convention.

In Catholic school I would wear the same pale blue polo shirt and faded black chords every single day. It was my grade school uniform and eliminated eccentricity. I was cajoled into conforming to both imposed theocracy and traditional education. I found out later that eccentricity was in fact resting dormant inside of being, and would soon creep its way out in the form of neon skull adorned pedal-pushers and a series of unfortunately rebellious mullets. I was 12, it was 1990, Milli Vanilli had just been exposed for being horrid frauds, and George Bush's father was leading the nation in a sterile techno-war with Iraq. In the midst of all of this action, my eccentricity furrowed its way out, covered in awkward acne patterns and arm-pit hair. In Catholic school eccentricity is something to be buried under a Family Circle cartoon book, a game of red rover, or a clergyman’s robe. It is in Catholic grade school where I learned that eccentricity, at least of the Devandra Banheart haircut and beard variety, will get you relegated to long lonely bus rides, and bouts of Greco Roman wrestling.

Sometimes it’s better to refrain from the cool haircuts, but then again, sometimes a cool haircut can lead to an unfortunate sexual experience. If there is anything that has the potential to define a potentially eccentric man or woman, it’s a backlog of unfortunate sexual experiences. There is something very eccentric about mounting another human being at 3am with a bottle of rum coursing through your system, and trying, without hesitation to muster some default satisfaction . Maybe that is what keeps the Devendra Banhearts eccentric. Maybe eccentricity is the result of multiple failures, turned brilliantly into success.