The Grammys are Sunday, but for us, the real action takes place on the club level.
We celebrate our tuneful, diverse music scene with the first edition of Friday’s local venue honors . . .
Our reporters fanned out across the city visiting smaller music venues, to come up with a list of awards, from “best place to cut a rug” to “most diverse crowd.” The astute reader will notice a few things: We didn’t go everywhere; we didn’t do everything; we had a great time; Price Waterhouse had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the tallying.
Now that the caveats are dealt with, here’s our fast and loose take on Chicago’s club scene.
Here they are, the Clubbys, the Friday section’s awards for the local music scene. The criteria for the awards were quite simple: Have fun. Some of the usual parameters were evaluated when people visited clubs, such as sound and sight lines, but we found other notable things too. The biggest revelation: In Chicago’s club scene, everybody’s a winner.
THE BIG TIME . . .
Most likely to see the next big thing: Metro. Where tomorrow’s superstars meet their Chicago audience.
Coffeehouse most likely to grind out a great show: Uncommon Ground. Owners Michael and Helen Cameron have hosted everyone from national lights to local heroes.
Best for major names: Buddy Guy’s Legends. Its size and cachet allow it to book notable out-of-towners.
Most predictable bookings: The two Blue Chicago clubs. They serve up an unvarying diet of the same half dozen or so acts. That said, they’re often pretty good ones.
DEEJAY HIJINKS
Most likely to use the term turntablist: Metro’s Smart Bar. Resident and premier deejays spin fans into a frenzy nightly.
Most likely to ask the deejay “What’s that?” Sonotheque. The resident deejays play an exceptionally eclectic mix.
Best to cut a rug: Slick’s. Even if dancing on carpet is no easy feat.
Best for some twangin’ tunes: Hideout. A host of celebrity deejays cut a country or alt-country rug.
SONIC DELIGHTS
Most likely to damage your hearing: The Note. The mics are turned up to Allstate Arena level at this neighborhood-bar size venue. Runners-up: Fireside Bowl. Low ceilings and hard surfaces combine with bands that bring the rawk. Cal’s Liquors. This tiny bar in the back of a tiny liquor store seems to only book screechingly loud rock bands.
Best for a band to record live: Lyons Den. Owner Joe Tozier keeps a 24-track digital tape deck tucked beneath his mixboard.
Most obnoxious audience blather: Empty Bottle. Oftentimes, the jazz and abstract improvisation relies on concentrated silence, but scenesters congregate at the side bar and loudly yak during the sets.
Best live sound: Lyons Den. Live, it’s loud enough to rock, but you can still talk across the table without shouting.
THE VELVET ROPE
The dinkiest VIP section: Metro. Patrons peer over a flimsy wrought-iron banister for a bird’s eye view.
Seen-it-all doorman: Mark Skyer, B.L.U.E.S. For 20 years, he’s been taking money and patiently answering the question, “Who’s playing?” Runner-up: Dan Orman, Abbey Pub. Orman was the doorman at the late, great Lounge Ax, and now that the Abbey has become Lounge Ax northwest, there Dan is.
THEY’RE SPECIAL . . .
Lifetime achievement award: FitzGerald’s. Once a hunting club and watering hole, FitzGerald’s has been at its Berwyn location since the 1920s.
Special award for appearance of haggis in a role other than a punchline: Martyrs’. The club served the real thing (it tastes a lot like oatmeal) at its annual Robert Burns Night Supper on Jan. 26.
NEIGHBORHOODS AND AMBIENCE
Most like your living room: HotHouse. It looks like a huge loft apartment, which yieldsan intimate setting for live music.
Great smoky bar award: Gunther Murphy’s. The music may pump, but fumes in the bar area are enough to make you choke. Runner-up: The Empty Bottle. All the Lounge Axers and their chain smoking habits have migrated.
Most European: Sonotheque. The designers of this chic club went for a London soul feel and it works.
Good luck with parking, bubba: The Empty Bottle. Between residents and revelers, legal spaces near this great joint are few and far between.
Most likely to see a band you’ve never heard of: Abbey Pub. Adventurous bookings and eclectic musical tastes mean you might get a funk-rock band, or moppet-haired Japanese noiseniks. Runner-up: The Empty Bottle. As diverse a booking policy as the Abbey’s–these folks have great musical taste.
Most likely to make you want to stay a while: Schubas. This tidy, elegant wood-festooned music room is just so homey.
Most inconspicuous bathroom: Wild Hare. The door to the women’s bathroom, which looks like part of the wall, is easy to miss.
Above the fray award: Gunther Murphy’s. The ‘hood is now happening and congested but thankfully, the club’s unpretentious vibe remains.
The worst path to the bathroom: B.L.U.E.S. The narrow center aisle is invariably clogged with people, so finding your way to the bathrooms (inconveniently located just to the left of the stage) is a challenge even under the best of conditions.
Best faith in a neighborhood: Green Mill. Even when many city officials gave up on Uptown, the Green Mill proved that a great small jazz bar could help bring back a time when the neighborhood was a thriving entertainment district.
Best club in an unlikely location: Rosa’s Lounge. It’s a good thing Rosa’s is so warm inside, because its location on a desolate stretch of Armitage Avenue in Humboldt Park ain’t exactly Blues Central.
Most likely to prevent you from ever coming back to Lakeview again: The Bottom Lounge. If the Bottom Lounge ever hopes to attract the kind of crowds it wants in order to attract the kind of bands it wants, it’s got to move. Belmont Avenue is a perfectly lovely street until it hits Sheffield and all cheesy hell breaks loose.
Most likely to be bypassed: Sonotheque. There’s no sign and no address on this incognito hot spot.
MUSIC AND STYLE
Most likely to be a tailor’s nightmare: HotHouse. Phat Tuesdayz–a showcase for local hip-hop artists–has a male consortium dressed in pants 12 sizes too big, and females whose clothes are a size too small.
Best rummage sale in clubland: Nevin’s Live. The club hosts an annual $2 sale where it unloads all the stuff bands leave behind.
Best artwork: A tie. Kingston Mines has a series of beautifully rendered, wall-sized murals. Blue Chicago has evocative paintings of ’30s-era bluesmen and women.
Best decor at a jazz club: Green Mill. Probably most of the fading landscape paintings, and statuettes date to when this club was a pre-Prohibition hangout. Runner-up: The Velvet Lounge. It has Afrocentric interior curtains.
Worst artwork: Kingston Mines. The cheesy drawing of Jimi Hendrix has been in a place of (dis)honor on the wall for years. What, no velvet Muddy Waters?
WE ARE THE WORLD
Most diverse: HotHouse. If you are trying to catch a little hip-hop on Tuesday and avant-garde jazz on Wednesday, no problem.
Best to swap drinks with your visiting uncle: Dating Game. This South Side lounge is more like a family reunion than your typical club.
Most likely to have someone you know onstage: Wild Hare. Devon Brown, at the Hare every Tuesday with the Dub Dis Band, has been in the Chicago area for over 10 years.
Most diverse crowd: Blue Chicago. Despite its location in the heart of touristville, Blue Chicago draws all kinds.
Lost ones award: Red’s. Best to find someone you haven’t seen in a decade.
BARGAIN TOWN
Most cost effective line wait: Slick’s. Post no cover and the partygoers come running.
Best bargains: Blue Chicago clubs. Pay one cover and get into both clubs, located a mere two blocks from each other on Clark St. Runners-up: Kingston Mines. If you don’t like the band in the first music room, check out the one in the second, as one starts when the other goes on break. Metro. Where the venerable music club hosts a new and emerging music showcase on Tuesdays, for $2. Empty Bottle. The Tuesday night series, featuring jazzers like Ken Vandermark, is a mere $3.
DRINKING AND EATING
Best after-hours party where the kitchen is still open: Slick’s. Most club kitchens close at midnight, but this late-night dance party serves into the wee hours.
Best food smell in a venue: Velvet Lounge. The delectable smoke and sauce aroma floating in from Fitzee’s soul food next door could convert a vegan.
Best to have a really good salad (salad? Yes, salad) before the show: Beat Kitchen. The Beat Kitchen offers pretty good food, some of it healthy.
Most likely to run through its supply of Red Stripe: Exedus II. It has been providing live Jamaican-style reggae and dancehall in Wrigleyville since 1986.
Most outdated policy: The two Blue Chicago clubs. They have a one-drink minimum on top of the cover charge. On the bright side, where else are you going to find such retro drinks as Harvey Wallbangers, Whiskey Sours and Tom Collins’?
GIVE THE DRUMMER SOME
Most likely to see double: Wild Hare and Exedus II. It’s very common to see performers from the Wild Hare checking out a show at Exedus II; or performing at Exedus II.
Most likely to summon up the ghost of Chicago blues’ glory days: Rosa’s Lounge. The club regularly features Billy Boy Arnold, who played blues harp on a number of 1950s Bo Diddley’s classics, including “I’m a Man.”
Most likely for guitar wankery: Rosa’s Lounge. Melvin Taylor plays blues-rock guitar licks fast. Real fast. He’s also known to take solos so long you can make a trip to McDonald’s and back and he’ll still be wailing away on the same song.
Best musician-operated venue: Velvet Lounge. Saxophonist Fred Anderson, a founder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) runs this low-key temple in the south Loop.Runner-up: Candlestick Maker. It’s run by percussionist Michael Zerang.
Least likely venue for a smooth jazz weekend festival: Jazz Showcase. Owner Joe Segal won’t hesitate to declare how much he can’t stand this contemporary commercial format, and his club is a haven for bop veterans. Runners-up: 3030, Empty Bottle, Candlestick Maker. This is a trio of small and determined avant free-improv spaces.
REST OF THE BEST
Most eclectic bill: Lyons Den. It does everything from anarchic punk to Christian rock, stand-up comedy to front-porch blues.
Most likely to make anyone over 30 feel oooold: Fireside Bowl. The city’s only real all-ages music venue takes over an actual bowling alley for its concerts.
Where they’re the most serious (so be quiet): Candlestick Maker. Denizens are fans of, and know improvised music, so they demand a respectful silence during concerts.
Most likely to have fans that know every word to every song: Fireside Bowl. Because kids have so much free time, a concert at the Fireside Bowl will almost certainly have hardcore fans singing along.
Best to run into dancers in training at your neighborhood steppers class: The Dating Game. The steppers at this neighborhood haunt prefer to dance in groups than with a partner.
Longest coat line wait: Estate. You’ll want to leave the dance floor an hour early to beat the rush at this always-packed club where coat check is mandatory.
Best non-existent smell in a venue: Jazz Showcase. Segal’s strict no-smoking policy (which even the musicians have to abide) makes the odor of cigarettes forbidden, yet hardly missed.
Biggest misrepresentation of a venue in a Hollywood film: Green Mill. When John Cusack ruminates at the Green Mill’s bar in “High Fidelity,” some pop chanteuse is onstage. But that sort of singer would rarely (if ever) perform at one of the city’s best jazz clubs.
Best illustration of youthful enthusiasm for jazz: (tie) Hungry Brain and New Apartment Lounge. Young open-minded musicians who emerged in Chicago following saxophonist Ken Vandermark and his peers have made the Hungry Brain’s Sunday night series a crucial public workshop. On Tuesday nights at the New Apartment Lounge, octogenarian Von Freeman proves he sounds younger at heart than musicians a third his age.
Best to tell your out-of-town friends you’ve been to: The Double Door. It provides a real, modern movie reference to which you can refer. It’s in “High Fidelity,” the last scene, when Jack Black sings, yeah.
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Visiting the awardees
Abbey Pub, 3420 W. Grace St.; 773-478-4408, www.abbeypub.com
Andy’s, 11 E. Hubbard St.; 312-642-6805.
Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont Ave.; 773-281-4444, www.beatkitchen.com
Blue Chicago, 536 N. Clark St. (312-661-0100) and 736 N. Clark St. (312-642-6261), www.bluechicago.com
B.L.U.E.S., 2519 N. Halsted St.; 773-528-1012, www.chicagobluesbar.com
The Bottom Lounge, 3206 N. Wilton Ave.; 773-975-0505
Buddy Guy’s Legends, 754 S. Wabash Ave.; 312-427-0333, www.buddyguys.com
Cal’s Liquors, 400 S. Wells St.; 312-922-6392, www.drinkatcalsbar.com
Crocodile Lounge, 221 W. Van Buren St.; 312-427-9290
Candlestick Maker, 4432 N. Kedzie Ave.; 773-463-0158, www.candlestickmaker.org
The New Dating Game, 8924 S. Stony Island Ave.
Double Door, 1572 N. Milwaukee Ave.; 773-489-3160, www.doubledoor.com
Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave., 773-276-3600, www.emptybottle.com
Estate, 1111 W. Lake St.; 312-850-3740
Exedus II, 3477 N. Clark St.; 773-348-3998, www.exeduslounge.com
Fireside Bowl, 2646 W. Fullerton Ave.; 773-486-2700, www.firesidebowl.com
Fitzgerald’s, 6615 Roosevelt Rd., Berwyn.; 708-788-2118, www.fitzgeraldsnightclub.com
Green Mill, 4801 N. Broadway, 773-878-5552
Gunther Murphy’s Music Room, 1638 W. Belmont Ave.; 773-472-5139, www.gunthermurphys.com
Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia Ave.; 773-227-4433, www.hideoutchicago.com
HotHouse, 31 E. Balbo Drive; 312-362-9707, www.hothouse.net
House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn St.; 312-923-2000, www.hob.com/venues/clubvenues/chicago
Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont Ave., 773-935-2118.
Jazz Showcase, 59 W. Grand Ave.; 312-670-2473, www.jazzshowcase.com
Kingston Mines, 2548 N. Halsted St.; 773-477-4646, www.kingstonmines.com
Lyons Den, 1934 W. Irving Park Rd.; 773-871-3757, www.lyonsdenlive.com
Martyrs’ Restaurant & Pub, 3855 N. Lincoln Ave.; 773-404-9494, www.martyrslive.com
Metro, 3730 N. Clark St.; 773-549-0203, www.metrochicago.com
Nevin’s Live, 1450 N. Sherman Ave., Evanston; 847-869-0450, www.nevinslive.com
New Apartment Lounge, 504 E. 75th St.; 773-483-7728.
The Note, 1565 N. Milwaukee Ave.; 773-489-0011
Old Town School of Folk Music, 4544 N. Lincoln Ave.; 773-628-7000
Red’s, 6926 S. Stony Island Ave.; 773-643-5100.
Rosa’s Lounge, 3420 W. Armitage Ave.; 773-342-0452, www.rosaslounge.com
Schubas, 3159 N. Southport Ave.; 773-525-2508, www.schubas.com
Shark Bar, 212 N. Canal St.; 312-627-0800
Slick’s Lounge, 1115 N. North Branch St.; 312-932-0006Sonotheque, 1444 W. Chicago Ave.; 312-226-7600
3030, 3030 W. Cortland St.; 773-862-3616, www.elasticrevolution.com
Uncommon Ground, 1214 W. Grace St.; 773-929-3680
Velvet Lounge, 2128 1/2 S. Indiana Ave., 312-791-9050, www.velvetlounge.net
Wild Hare, 3530 N. Clark St.; 773-327-4273, www.wildharereggae.com
