It`s been a rough few months for Medusa`s ”orphans.” For nearly a decade, the North Side juice bar served up punk rock and gloom `n` doom music, along with non-alcoholic beverages, to the under-21 crowd. In the process, it became a weekend home-away-from-home for hundreds of city and suburban kids. So when Medusa`s closed after losing its lease last June, teenage scenemakers were left without a place to call their own.
During the summer, rave parties-held nearly every weekend at ever-changing warehouse locations-helped fill the void by supplying all-night marathon dancing. But with cooler weather setting in, former Medusa-philes have been looking for new spots to mix, mingle and mosh.
Around the corner a couple of blocks from the shuttered Medusa`s, in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot at North Clark Street and Belmont Avenue, some two dozen black-togged music fans cluster Saturday nights to while away the hours and wax about the good old days.
Cheryl Donzelli, in dark glasses, black leather jacket and white
”Bauhaus” T-shirt, says she still drives in from her home in suburban Long Grove because ”there`s nothing out there but, like, trees and cows where I live. I liked going to Medusa`s because when you go somewhere for two years you get to know everyone. And you meet lots of guys.”
When she heard that Medusa would close, Donzelli, 16, says, ”It was a drag. A big drag. Now, we`re all just on the street; all we do is hang out now, `cuz that`s all there is to do.”
Jason Walker, dressed in a long black overcoat with lank blond hair falling over one eye, says there`s no place where he lives-south suburban Lansing-where people his age can listen to music. ”There used to be a club called Off The Alley,” says Walker, 17. ”But they closed it and now there`s nowhere to go around there.”
A second clique of under-21 music fans gathers at Cabaret Metro, 3730 N. Clark St., or The Vic, 3145 N. Sheffield Ave., whenever those clubs host heavy metal shows for fans of all ages. A recent triple bill of ”death metal” rock bands-Napalm Death, Carcass and Brutal Truth-drew about 500 like-minded young rockers sporting a Gothic-meets-biker look. Typical for both sexes: long hair, tattoos, jewelry with cross, skeleton and dagger themes, black or blue jeans, high-top sneakers and T-shirts bearing logos of such bands as Pestilence, Cannibal Corpse, Macabre Zodiac and Grave.
Vinny Vogel, the 23-year-old bass player in the Chicago-based heavy metal band Impulse Manslaughter, says that even Medusa`s was too tame for his band when it was around. ”We played there a couple of times, we were too slamming for the place.”
More juicy details
For teens who went to Medusa`s mainly for the dancing, Alcatrazz, a juice bar at 112 N. Green St., is picking up some of the slack. Marked by a tiny neon sign in the West Loop area less than a mile from Shelter and China Club on Fulton Street, Alcatrazz is typically jammed by midnight on weekends with 15- to 20-year-old hip hoppers.
After being frisked for weapons and passing through a foyer furnished with Salvation Army couches, guys in low-slung blue jeans and girls in short skirts and vertical striped tops enter a dark, strobe-lit dance floor where deejays blast Techno (disco music stripped of vocals or melody) at teeth-rattling volume through giant black speakers. Walls are covered with fluorescent, spray-painted safe sex and anti-drug messages.
Part of Alcatrazz`s appeal is that owner Albert Cisneros won`t tolerate gang violence. Louis Hernandez, a 17-year-old Schurz High School senior, says he has been coming to Alcatrazz about a year. ”There`s hardly any fighting here. It`s nice to be able to go somewhere safe.”
Dressed in striped T-shirt with a yellow handkerchief hanging out of his black jeans, Hernandez continues: ”We come here for the girls-girls and music. We just come to have fun and party. I like it here better (than Medusa`s).”
Rita Tillman, 18, begs to differ. Sporting a black beret and white T-shirt, she takes a look around and concludes that she still misses
Medusa`s. ”Medusa`s was the greatest place because they played every kind of music. . .. This looks kind of straggedy (translation: rundown) to me.”
While young music fans explore new ways to enjoy their Saturday nights, former Medusa`s founder and owner Dave Shelton has kept the torch flickering with a series of ”Medusa`s on the Run” promotions at The Vic. Shelton plans to open a permanent new club in the spring which, he hopes, will revive that old Medusa magic.
”We had a packed (dance) floor every Saturday for nine years,” he says. ”The club became a family thing. Hundreds of kids were practically raised at Medusa.”
The secret to the club`s popularity, he says, was its anti-snob ethic.
”We tried to keep the place open to everybody; there was no picking certain people as the hipper ones. Everyone-Asian, blacks, North Shore, people who liked House music, even sailors-were welcome.”
