If you`re worried that your social status will plummet if you`re caught listening to anything harder than U2, be careful. You may end up like those unfortunates who held on to their disco records just a little too long. Bands like Guns N` Roses, Metallica and Jane`s Addiction are threatening to make heavy metal the Next Big Thing.
In part, it`s nostalgia for the `70s, but it`s also because these bands know how to rock in an era when most bands have given up trying. And for the passionate subculture in Chicago devoted to this high-energy, guitar-oriented hard rock, the rock `n` roll dream is far from dead.
”The reason that I work with metal bands is that you can cultivate a following,” says metal promoter Tony La Barbera. ”There is a willingness to be excited. Each band is like its own little tribe; they have their following that is very loyal.”
La Barbera is one of the most active promoters of Chicago metal. He publishes the Chicago Rocker, a free monthly devoted to the local music scene, distributed at clubs and record stores. ”We started it because it was hard for local bands to get consistent coverage,” La Barbera says.
He also books bands for three clubs, releases compilation albums of Chicago rock (”Chicago Metal Works III & IV” is due out in February on Silver Fin Records) and has managed some of the biggest names on the local scene.
One of the clubs La Barbera schedules for is the Thirsty Whale, a bar in suburban River Grove that has become the No. 1 venue for Chicago metal bands. (One group jokes about changing its name to Jonah because it spends so much time in the Whale.)
The Whale is far from glitzy. It`s still decorated in `70s-era medieval pizza parlor style, the stage is cramped and the dressing room is basically a closet.
But the Whale is the one place in the Chicago area where you can go six nights a week to hear local metal and hard rock bands, sometimes three or four at a time. Bands from elsewhere in the country-those that aren`t yet well known enough to fill, say, the Aragon Ballroom-also play at the Whale three or four times a month.
Anyone worried by the horror stories from Geraldo Rivera and Tipper Gore`s PMRC (Parents Musical Resource Center) can probably relax. At the Whale, bands are much more likely to sing about parties, cars or rock `n` roll than about Satan and kinky sex. And the drug of choice seems to be beer.
In fact, metal`s most shocking secret is that most of the people involved in it are . . . well, nice. There`s something innocent about people in their mid-20s who are still playing the music they liked when they were in high school.
Hanging around at the Whale, you get a feel for the current metal fashions in Chicago-or, more accurately, the northwest and south suburbs, where most metal fans seem to come from.
Denim and leather are the dominant fabrics, although female fans often adopt a dressier bad-girl look. The hairstyle for women is the long and frizzy look that Melanie Griffith has in ”Working Girl”-before she becomes a yuppie-while men generally wear a shoulder-length shag. (It`s usually easy to tell who`s in a band. Almost uniformly, they wear their hair about six inches longer than their fans.)
But there is little of the every-night-is-Halloween atmosphere that pervades many heavy metal scenes, particularly Los Angeles`. ”In Chicago, there are a lot of raw, let`s-get-up-and-rock-and-roll bands,” says Jim Tsicouris, sound engineer at the Thirsty Whale. ”There`s nothing wrong with dressing up a little bit here and there, but the L.A. scene is fake and plastic to me.”
”Chicago isn`t a town that stands on pretense,” says Sean Duffy, who books metal acts through his Last Rites Productions. ”Chicago`s always been a blue-collar kind of town. That`s why places like the Limelight are up for sale.”
This attitude extends to the music as well. Although scenesters deny the existence of a ”Chicago sound,” at venues like the Thirsty Whale traditional `70s-based metal and the harder-edged speed metal seem to predominate over the flashier, more pop-oriented glam metal. (If you don`t know what these terms mean, see the accompanying glossary.)
As fond as the metal community is of the Whale, the lack of clubs willing to play metal is a frequently heard complaint. Says Duffy, ”I know hundreds of kids in hundreds of bands that are together for six months, but there`s no place to play, so they get frustrated and break up.”
”Clubs stay away from metal,” says Mick Vega, guitarist for the band Sindrome. ”They can make the same amount of money playing dance videos.”
Those old enough to remember invariably recall the late `70s as a Golden Age for the Chicago music scene. ”I used to be able to make a living playing rock `n` roll,” says Glenn Miller, guitarist for the metal band Tattoo. ”I drove a Cadillac car when I was 20 years old. These days, unless you`ve got a video on MTV, or a good-selling record, you`re not going to go out and make a lot of money wherever you play.”
”I used to work at a club in Schaumburg called Beginnings about eight or nine years ago when the Chicago club scene was untouchable,” says the Whale`s Tsicouris. ”There were 15 to 20 steady clubs, national bands always playing. I don`t know if it`s the video bars coming in that hurt it or just the drinking laws.”
Bands and promoters often cite the change in the drinking age, which was raised from 19 to 21 in 1980, as a factor in the decline of the club scene. The metal bracket is the 14- to 24-year-old age group, according to Patty Burczyk, manager of the speed metal band Tyrant`s Reign. ”It`s definitely a statement of suburban kids,” she says. Eliminate everyone under 21 from that group and there`s not much left of that demographic slice.
But it may have more to do with the Baby Boom generation, which packed the clubs in the late `70s, growing up and trading bar-hopping for cocooning. ”People don`t go out as much just to hang out,” says Barry Stern, drummer for Trouble, a band recently signed to the Def America label. ”They used to just go, no matter who was playing or what was happening. It`s not quite like that anymore.”
Fewer clubgoers mean fewer clubs, and for bands that means it`s harder to win the reputation that might get you signed to a record label, the pot of gold all bands are searching for. ”Many of the bands that we`ve had come here couldn`t make it,” says Tsicouris. ”They think it`s the people (in Chicago), so they shoot to L.A., and they end up breaking up.”
It is possible to get noticed playing in Chicago-bands like Tattoo and Trouble played many a gig at the Thirsty Whale before being picked up by major labels. ”The problem with a lot of Chicago bands is that they try to imitate the trend of the day,” says promoter La Barbera. ”The only ones that have gotten any national attention have an original sound of their own.”
There are a lot of original metal bands in Chicago, well worth the attention of people who enjoy the national acts but don`t follow the local scene. ”There were 10,000 kids at Metallica,” says Last Rites` Duffy, referring to a recent concert at the UIC Pavilion. ”Where do they go on weekends?”
Those who are unfamiliar with the music may want to check out the scene as well. Next to rap, it`s the liveliest, most intense musical subculture in town.
”Heavy metal has to grow on a lot of people,” says Randy Barron, lead singer of Tyrant`s Reign. ”You don`t like it at first, but the more you hang around and the more you listen to it, the more you like it.”
Who could ask anything more of music?
