{"id":209,"date":"2007-01-31T22:04:55","date_gmt":"2007-02-01T03:04:55","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-12-15T16:00:42","modified_gmt":"2008-12-15T16:00:42","slug":"half-assed-rant-chicago-world-class-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/half-assed-rant-chicago-world-class-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Half-Assed Rant: Chicago, World-Class City\/Third-World Rock Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NteT0TFjYt0?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Is there any city as cool as <strong>Chicago<\/strong> that has produced a legacy of such insignificant rock bands? I\u2019m not talking about Chicago\u2019s excellent R&amp;B and Blues scenes, but rather the <strong>Windy City\u2019s<\/strong> white-boy rock lineage. <\/p>\n<p>Starting with the 1960\u2019s, the <strong>Second City<\/strong> gave us such musical luminaries as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shadowsofknight.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>The Shadows of Night<\/strong><\/a>, <strong>The Buckinghams<\/strong> (kind of a drag, indeed!), <strong>The Cryin&#8217; Shames<\/strong>, <strong>New Colony Six<\/strong>, <strong>The Ides of March<\/strong>, and of course, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chicagotheband.com\/history.htm\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Chicago<\/strong><\/a>. With the exception of Chicago (the band), the compete sum of the above mentioned bands\u2019 hits could barely fill a <em>Greatest Hits CD<\/em> (believe me, I know my <em>GH<\/em> collections). <\/p>\n<p>The 1970s gave us, if we consider the broad Chicago region, <strong>Styx<\/strong>, <strong>Cheap Trick<\/strong>, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Shoes_(band)\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Shoes<\/strong><\/a>, <strong>Survivor<\/strong>, and that\u2019s probably &#8211; thankfully &#8211; it. With the exception of the number of strings that a bass guitar can hold, none of these bands is going down in history as having changed anything.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/users\/frankenslade\/townhallllp.gif\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"138\" \/><\/div>\n<p>The 1980s and 1990s gave us the likes of <strong>Ministry<\/strong>, <strong>Liz Phair<\/strong>, <strong>Big Black<\/strong>, <strong>Naked Raygun<\/strong>, <strong>Smashing Pumpkins<\/strong>, <strong>Veruca Salt<\/strong>, <strong>Material Issue<\/strong>, <strong>Wilco<\/strong>, and <strong>Green<\/strong>. With the exception of Wilco and <strong>Steve Albini<\/strong> as a producer and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chicagoreader.com\/hitsville\/pander.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>provacateur<\/em><\/a>, these artists would not be included in anyone\u2019s Rock Time Capsule. <\/p>\n<p>Chicago is an awesome city \u2013 I lived there for most of the &#8217;90s and witnessed firsthand the rise of the \u201cWicker Park scene.\u201d Chicago is a magnet for anyone west of <strong>Cleveland<\/strong> and east of <strong>Iowa<\/strong>, so the city certainly makes up in quantity of bands what it lacks in quality, but none has the gravitas to be truly influential. Why then the suckage? Is it too good of a city? Are the people too nice? Is it tied to the curse of the billy goat? What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is there any city as cool as Chicago that has produced a legacy of such insignificant rock bands? I\u2019m not talking about Chicago\u2019s excellent R&amp;B and Blues scenes, but rather the Windy City\u2019s white-boy rock lineage. Starting with the 1960\u2019s, the Second City gave us such musical luminaries as The Shadows of Night, The Buckinghams <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/half-assed-rant-chicago-world-class-city\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[93,90],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}