On the Town (Peter Case)

Two nights after I caught the Vulgar Boatmen show at Martyrs' I headed out to Berwyn, Illinois, on the western outskirts of Chicago, because Peter Case also coincidentally happened to be playing in the area during my whirlwind business trip to the city. I'd seen Peter live three times before, but not for a span of several years, because the club where I used to see him has gone under. I hopped on the CTA's Red Line, switched to the Blue, and rode it in the company of a dwindling number of passengers to the largely deserted station at Oak Park overlooking I-290, then walked in the dark along the few blocks of South Oak Park Avenue that brought me to West Roosevelt Road and Fitzgerald's, where Peter was playing.

Fitzgerald's is a long-established venue in Berwyn. It has two performance spaces: a larger one (which I didn't enter) and the more intimate SideBar, which has the congenial atmosphere of the kind of neighborhood tavern or beer hall you don't see much anymore, at least where I live. I sat at a table on the forward end of a long bench, and more or less randomly ordered a Guinness draft, which arrived cold and dark and with a head as rich as whipped cream. The room gradually filled up, the opening act played a few tunes (including a version of "Spanish is the Loving Tongue," a great song I hadn't heard in many years), and then Peter came on. Working solo, he played a generous set of material from various phases of his career (including his Plimsouls hit "A Million Miles Away"), drew from his grab-bag of hilarious stories, and even revisited, briefly, some of the first songs he composed as an adolescent. The room has excellent acoustics and Peter was as in fine form as ever. I ordered a second Guinness. After the show I went over to say hello and buy a copy of his newest release, On My Way Downtown, which is just out from Omnivore Recordings, then headed back to downtown Chicago on a Blue Line train that was now vacant except for a few lost souls who appeared to be more or less domiciled on it. I made it to my hotel room around midnight.

The new record presents previously unreleased archival recordings of 18 songs that Peter and accompanying musicians performed in the studios of KPFK radio in Los Angeles in 1998 and 2000. The first nine tracks recapitulate the bulk of Full Service No Waiting (only two songs are missing), largely with the same band as the studio version; the others correspond either to tracks on his next record, Flying Saucer Blues, or to songs from earlier records. Since Full Service No Waiting is a particular favorite of mine (those with time on their hands can read my long post on it here) I was especially interested to hear how these KPFK recordings would sound. The answer is that they come across as both comfortingly familiar and refreshingly different, opening up a whole new angle of approach to the songs. The vocals have a more relaxed feel, the instrumentation is a bit more improvised (Greg Leisz is particularly good), and the whole thing conveys a pleasurable, informal sense of being in a room with good music and among old friends. It'll be essential for Case fans, but it's also not a bad place to start for those who don't know his songs at all.

Harmonic Convergence

The band known as the Vulgar Boatmen is based in Indiana. They don't play many gigs, and in fact as far as I know they basically don't play at all outside of Indiana and Chicago. I don't live in the Midwest, so even though I've been a fan for twenty-five years the chances of my ever seeing them live would seem to be about as good as the chances of my seeing a total solar eclipse.

But total solar eclipses, though rare, do occur. I didn't catch the celebrated one this past August, but in compensation a business trip took me to Chicago on October 19th of this year, which coincided precisely with a visit by the Vulgar Boatmen to a club called Martyrs' in Chicago's North Center. This is called fate; you don't mess with it.

I took the CTA's Red Line, then changed to the Brown Line. At some point during the trip I saw the lights of Wrigley Field in the distance. (The significance of this will be made clear below.)

I got off at a station called Irving Park. I walked along West Irving Park Road to the intersection with North Lincoln Avenue, then took a left. One of the cross-streets I passed was called West Larchmont Avenue. (The significance of this may be explained some other time.) I found Martyrs' without any trouble. I hadn't reserved a ticket ahead of time, but getting in wasn't a problem, maybe because people were home watching the Cubs play the Dodgers. I paid the cover charge, stepped inside, and found a table a little off to the side.

The opening trio, the Sunshine Boys, had already started playing. They were a guitar player and singer named Dag Juhlin, a bass player named Jacqueline Schimmel, and a drummer, Freda Love Smith, whose name I was vaguely familiar with. I liked them. I ordered an Ayinger Weissbier and sipped at it slowly.

The second act was Walter Salas-Humara. Walter was an original member, or at least an early member, of the Vulgar Boatmen, but went off on his own long ago, for a while as the lead singer of a group called the Silos. He was accompanied by Jonathan Rundman, who alternated between accordion and mandola and pitched in on vocals. Walter prefaced "I'm Over You" with a funny story that involved Hootie and the Blowfish and an unexpectedly large check from BMI.

There was a TV over the bar and facing the stage, and every now and then Walter would look up to see how the Cubs were doing. The Cubs were not doing well at all, and at some point in the course of the evening the TV was switched off.

After Walter's set I went over and bought a couple of CDs from him and said hi.

The Boatmen lineup for the evening, in case you're keeping a scorecard, was Dale Lawrence (lead vocals and guitar), Matt Speake (lead guitar), Jake Smith (bass), and Freda Love Smith (returning to the drum kit to pinch-hit for the absent Andy Richards). This was probably a better lineup than the Cubs were able to muster, on that night at least.

They opened with "Heartbeat," done as more of a rocker than the old recorded version, then played an energetic set of about 14 or 15 songs, including "Wide Awake," "Allison Says," "Mary Jane," and other old faves, plus a few covers I didn't recognize.

Dale called Walter Salas-Humara and Jonathan Rundman back to the stage, and together they ripped through an exuberant version of Michael Hall's gleefully antinomian anthem "Let's Take Some Drugs and Drive Around." It was hard to say whether it was Walter Salas-Humara or the beaming Freda Love Smith who was having the most fun on that one (see video clip), but when it was over I don't think anyone in the audience went home disappointed either, except, of course, for the Cubs fans.

Chicago: A History in Block-Print

These linoleum-block prints were created by a group of design students under the direction of Clara MacGowan, assistant professor of art at Northwestern University. They were published in 1934 in an oversized paperbound portfolio, accompanied by captions by James Alton James, a professor of American history at the same institution.

The prints were presented in chronological order, beginning with Marquette and Joliet in 1673 and concluding with several images of the Century of Progress exposition of 1933. Some of the earlier images may now seem a bit trite (log cabins, Indians attacking a woman with a hatchet, and so on), and the level of command of the medium among the various students varies, but many of the architectural scenes are quite vigorous and appealing. In the selection below I have included the subject of each print and the name of the artist responsible, but have omitted the historical captions.


University Hall, Northwestern University (Josephine McCarty)


The Tribune Tower (Louise Ebeling Dean)


The University of Chicago Chapel (C. Dean Chipman)


The Daily News Building (Alice Rose Dedouch)


The Chicago Civic Opera House (Dorothy Aires Westerdahl)


The Deering Library, Northwestern University (Hannah Jewett)
With one ambiguous exception -- C. Dean Chapman -- the students were apparently all women. It would be interesting to know whether any of them continued their printmaking activities after graduation.