Gaper's Blog

Cheap Trick Perform 'Dream Police' at Potawatomi Casino in Milwaukee, WI

We're barely into the second month of 2011 and I've already seen a show that will be tough to beat as best show of the year for me: Cheap Trick at the Northern Lights Theater at Potawatomi Casino in Milwaukee. Cheap Trick already did the 'perform an album in its' entirety' concept way back in 1998 when they did their first four albums over four nights at Metro, chronicled on their "Music For Hangovers" live CD and a featured performance by XRT's own Lin Brehmer on "On The Radio" found on the ONXRT, Live From the Archives Volume 4.

So, when you've already tackled that idea, you have to up the ante; nothing short of a full orchestra and choir will do. Enter The Bombastic Symphonic Philharmonic with The Rhythmic Noise Mind Choir. For the next three weekends, you can make a rock and roll roadtrip across the Illinois/Wisconsin border to Milwaukee to see the spectacle yourself.

My love of Cheap Trick is well-documented around the radio station and to XRT listeners, so for me this was a 'must-see' show. Perhaps you saw the band perform the song 'Dream Police' on Conan a few weeks back, that was just a small taste of this fantastic show. In a video clip that precedes the performance, bassist Tom Petersson explains that given the critical and commercial success of their previous four albums (a few of which went platinum) the label let them cut loose with 'Dream Police', which they did with some fantastic string arrangements and great pop songcraft which yielded them a few Top 40 singles and earned them another platinum award. The raw album material lends itself quite well to this--to borrow a phrase--bombastic stage show.

In this show, three of the original members of the band--Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen and Tom Petersson--are augmented by a keyboard player and two of Rick Nielsen's uber-talented sons: Daxx on drums and Miles on guitar and backing vox on the main stage. Miles also also tackled the lead vocal on Cheap Trick staple "Heaven Tonight" in one of two songs played before the "Dream Police" set. The 18-piece orchestra and three choir members are on a second level above the stage. The title track kicks off the record and this show in fine fashion but what was equally impressive was how the less-familiar tracks from the album that rarely make their way onto regular Cheap Trick setlists shone. All the familiar stage antics and fun you expect from a Cheap Trick show are in abundance (who wants a guitar pick?) it's just improved by the scope of this production; really, how cool is it to have an orchestra at your disposal? Following the performance of the album, the band tore through a very broad swath of their catalog, featuring crowd favorites like "I Want You Want Me" and "Surrender" and some underrated depth tracks like two gems from 1980's 'All Shook Up' album: "Baby Loves To Rock" and "High Priest of Rhythmic Noise". Of course, the second set changes from night to night, so your mileage may vary, all the more reason to see which gems you might catch on a given night.

Three weekends of this show remain, February 11-12, 18-19 and 25-26 at the Potawatomi Casino in Milwaukee, a ninety-minute drive from most of the Chicago area. One of the best parts of this show being staged in a first-class casino is that after the show's over, you can hit the tables or slots, grab some drinks and superb cuisine, all on-site. The staff at Potawatomi Casino were exceedingly helpful and friendly, which made the fact that I lost a few $$ at roulette easier to take. Go see this show!

 

Cards on the Table Time

My snooze button was jammed. That's my only explanation for being gone so long.  That was without a doubt my longest absence from this page (almost four months!) and for that I apologize.  A friend of mine even asked me if I had changed my URL, because he hadn't seen a new post from me since April. I don't really have a real excuse, just life happening, momentum lost. An object at rest tends to remain so.  Some of it was being a dad, some was being paid as a writer elsewhere and other factors kept me away. That said, I'm thinking about one of three options for this blog going forward: downgrading to the free version with fewer bells and whistles, keeping it the same or retiring the blog entirely.

I do have a fun (IMHO) topic today to bring you back, so to speak: (so-called) Guilty Pleasure Songs.  It's kind of a misnomer really, why should one feel guilty for liking something that was created to bring joy to people?  It's simple, most of us want to appear cool and there's no shortage of music that many consider uncool.  So, we'll call them "Uncool Songs I Really Like".  I am a professional tastemaker, I do have a reputation to uphold, so please keep that in mind; if I'm willing to admit these songs bring me joy, don't hold back when it comes to yours.

1) The Boys of Summer - Don Henley - As Mojo Nixon once sang, 'Don Henley has no Elvis in him' and that's not a good thing.  Don Henley represented a lot of the excesses of the 70's and 80's as not only a member of the Eagles but also being one of those celebrities who embraced liberal causes and spoke ad nauseum about them.  Don't get me wrong, I have liberal causes I embrace but the way Henley went about it just reeked of opportunism.  He also had that ponytail in the 90's, the kind of ponytail the art teachers in high school wore to tell the world they weren't like everybody else, like Harrison Ford's earring.  That said, "The Boys of Summer" is the jam, about as perfect a song as they get.  Sonically it's a little dated in spots (the drum machine, the 80's production) but with a Mike Campbell (Tom Petty's guitarist) pedigree it's a very effective song that hasn't been dulled by 25+ years of constant airplay.  Those guitar squeals that evoke seagulls can still give you chills on the right autumn day.  I'll never turn this one off when it come on the radio.  Further disclosure: I saw Henley at Alpine Valley in 1991 and he was awesome.  Really.

2) Windy - The Association - Now when you were a child first discovering your parents' records, this one is completely excusable, one of those just under three minute pop gems that kids are supposed to like.  But when you've gone through puberty and have discovered punk rock, you should've outgrown this one, right?  Nope.  Hell, I'm 40 and it still makes me giddy.

3) Anything by Duran Duran - It's not a stretch to say that Duran Duran were the Jonas Bros. or New Kids of the Block of the 1980's: fluff designed to appeal the tween girl crowd, fodder for posters and magazines more than longevity.  But damn if they didn't write some great some great friggin' songs, scads of  'em in fact.  They hold up too.  You can hear the Bowie and Roxy Music influence all over the place without being pale imitators. DVR the Classic Albums documentary on "Rio" on VH1, a fascinating sixty minutes.  Personal faves: "Hold Back the Rain", "Rio" , "Planet Earth" and "Hungry Like the Wolf" (of course).

The Crucial (and yet largely) Unheard Music of Chris Mars

Given his somewhat limited (but absolutely essential) role in the Replacements and their somewhat acrimonious and very public breakup, few fans would have predicted that drummer Chris Mars would be the first out of the solo gate with his solo debut Horseshoes and Hand Grenades in 1992. What was even more surprising was how self-assured and solid the effort was.  I don't mean to damn him with faint praise, quite the contrary, I just wish his contributions had been a greater part of the Replacements as he proved that he was a formidable talent not just a drummer but an adroit guitarist, clever lyricist and ragged vocalist. The debut also showed off his considerable ability as a painter, his first two albums featured original art from Mars himself.

The lead-off single "Popular Creeps" sounds like it would've fit in just fine on Pleased to Meet Me. In an interview, he revealed that the song's title came from the late, lamented Hoffman Estates music venue, Poplar Creek, a stop the Replacements made on their ill-fated tour with Tom Petty. Speaking of Petty, "Don't You See It" has the mature perspective of the wizened Petty.  Quick to prove that his solo career wasn't just a one-off lark, he followed it up with 75% Less Fat, (possibly a swipe as his old bandmates?) had the same solid charm as the debut.  Two more albums followed with slight downgrade in quality but overall, his solo career was an unexpected delight and again a sad reminder of what the Replacements could have been if the contributions of the other members had been more welcome.  These days, he's focused entirely on his painting and visual arts career, with great success.  His original art commands top dollar in the gallery and fine art worlds, figures that would dwarf the budgets of most band's albums these days. Check out his macabre and visually arresting works here.

In a personal note, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Mars on the radio in 1993.  I was so excited to meet my favorite Replacement that I cued up a fresh reel of 1/4" tape to record the event.  I started the reel-to-reel machine just as the interview began and was assured to see the reels spinning, it was only after the interview that I noticed that I had forgotten to engage the 'record' button on the machine, so I had a 45 minute blank reel.  A record button I should add that I'd engaged on countless interviews before and (most certainly) after. It's probably for the best, while I remember the interview as a good one, it's will always be better in my mind than it was in real life. And I do have this photo as proof that I did meet the guy. No that's not a mullet, I had really long hair.

Have a great weekend, enjoy the music.

Roadside Memorials

Is it me or have those makeshift roadside memorials been cropping up more and more lately? You know the ones, the crosses, candles and flowers the mark the spot where one or more people perished, usually in a car crash.  I'm driving much less than I did a year ago but somehow I seem to be seeing more and more of them.

Just last Thursday, I was on my way to work.  I usually take the Stevenson inbound and as I got to my entrance ramp, it was blocked by a Minuteman truck (the crew of state employees who patrol the highways and assist in accidents and flats and other assorted roadside matters).  I was able to get on the Stevie at the next ramp and heard a traffic report indicating that my exit was closed for an 'accident investigation', which I know from my traffic reporting days is almost always due to a fatality.  Sure enough, the next day as I got on at my usual ramp, there were three bunches of flowers and crosses affixed to the guardrail.  Someone died or maybe multiple people did.

My wife and I were recently driving through a neighboring town and came upon another roadside memorial on the parkway in a residential neighborhood.  In addition to the flowers and crosses was a sign that read "I Miss Mommy".  It was a story that made the news and newspapers a year or so ago.  A woman was walking with her two children, one of whom was an infant.  As I remember it, the mother and infant died and the other child lived when a car struck them.  It was a tragic story.  It got us talking though, about how despite the tragic nature of the incident, how that was someone's lawn and that they have this semi-permanent memorial on their property.  

I honestly don't have a solid opinion either way regarding these memorials.  It they're on a public roadway, I don't really see a problem with it.  I see it slightly differently in the second case where the memorial is on someone's property.  Technically it's on a parkway which is municipal property but is still the responsibility of a homeowner.  I think it would be tragic enough to know someone died on my lawn but to be reminded of it constantly with crosses and signs might get to me after while. 

What do you think? Have you noticed an icrease in these memorials?  What if it was your lawn?  Or someone you knew who passed?

Rites of Spring Redux

I was tempted to write about my annual Spring traditions but knew I had to have done it before.  Yup, I did a post about it in 2006, it's in the archives if you care to revisit it.  I made some judicious edits and some new additions, so consider this like a a 'clip show' of blogs.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a creature of extreme habit, sometimes to a fault.  I have patterns and ways I like to do things and enjoy the comfort of those routines. It's not like OCD or anything, it's merely the order of doing things the same way all the time I enjoy with certain things. As seasons change, I have my little idiosyncratic behavior patterns that come out, especially in Spring. Some of my annual traditions.

I'm a seasonal drinker in that I drink whiskey, bourbon or Scotch in Fall and Winter and Gin and diet tonic in the Spring and Summer. On the first day in which it gets above 70 degrees, I have my first G&T. 

XTC's Skylarking album is the aural embodiment of Spring to me and one of the first things I do when Spring arrives is listen to this album in its' entirety, sometimes with that first G&T. Now, if you listen carefully to it (in order) lyrically, it really covers all of the seasons from Spring to Winter rather than just Spring but the Todd Rundgren production and the instrumentation just lends itself to Spring. If you don't own this album, you really need to buy it. If you do own it, take it for a Spring test-drive and report back to me, just do yourself a favor and skip "Big Day".  Surprisingly, I haven't gotten around to my first listen of this yet this Spring. Oh, and if you want to kick it old school, here's an mp3 of the song "Mermaid Smiled" which was on the original pressings of Skylarking, before getting replaced by "Dear God".

Cutting the grass. Not all rites are fun. This one's making a comeback for me.  Now that Ihave my own lawn, it's almost become fun to cut the grass again. I said almost.  Mowing the lawn is one of those great projects in which you yield instant tangible results, like painting, you immediately see what you've done. 

Yesterday as it reached 80 degrees, I made a mad dash to the basement to retrieve a few pair of shorts. How long before I have to get the air conditioners out?  We've also added 'taking Abby for a long walk in the stroller' as another rite of spring. 

 

How about you?  What do you do every Spring?

Backing Up Your Backup's Backups

Back in my high school radio days, I remember hanging out at the station with a few of my classmates and one of them (a guy who visits here once in a while) expressed how he was upset with one of our fellow station employees for something.  He said he was going to get back at him by erasing all his LPs.  We all laughed at him as it's impossible to 'erase' LPs.  Now audio tape is a different matter, we had a bulk tape eraser at the station, all stations have them.  Anything on a cassette, reel-to-reel tape, cart or videotape is erasable, LPs and CDs aren't.  Which brings me to the present day.

We're becoming a culture of data storage, a lot of us aren't even retaining the original medium fromwhich we obtained the data.  I hear all the time of people ripping their music collections onto their hard drives and then selling their CDs.  Of course, technically, that in of itself is illegal as you can only legally have that data on your drive if you own the source material.  Then again, entire networks are built upon the idea of 'trading' music illegally, so I doubt many are losing sleep over a technicality.  What scares me isn't the legality of it so much as the very real possibility of that data on your hard drive itself getting erased, lost, destroyed or stolen. 

A lot of us have taken the prudent step of buying external hard drives and backing up our precious data/music on those drives. Problem is, a lot of those drives are sitting there backing up this data right next to the computer where the originals are kept.  Now if the computer crashes, we're likely fine, the external drive can be called upon to retrieve the lost data.  But what if, say, a thief, a fire, flood or some other catastrophe befalls our data and the data on the drive right next to it?  Most of us are screwed, no?  Especially the poor soul who unloaded his or her source material after ripping it.  That's the fatal flaw of digital data storage these days, it may be convenient to have the equivalent of thousands of CDs or LPs on one's hard drive but like all magnetically stored data, it's inherently vulnerable to loss.  Not just loss by theft or destruction but also accidental erasure.  Who among us hasn't accidentally deleted a file? Imagine your entire hard drive.

I wonder what your backup plan is? I know people with backup external hard drives kept in separate locations that they then update regularly or swap out their drives periodically. Call me paranoid but I'm not ready to unload anything until someone can assure me that what I have stored digitally is retrievable and I have adequate backups.  And make sure my backups have backups.

Lucas Is Dead.

What is it about breaking news to people, bad or good?  There is some sort of power in it, we revel in knowing something before someone else and then telling them the news.  More often than not, we traffic in celebrity death, we're nearly always detached from it but it's still a rush to spill the beans to someone.  Because of my schedule, I often spill such beans to my wife when I get home from doing an overnight.  The other morning, the tables were turned and she woke me up with the news that Corey Haim had died.  I wouldn't call it glee but there was a certain tone to her voice, knowing that this wasn't the death of just any random celebrity but the death of a celebrity who had a starring role in one of the most overtold stories in my admittedly large repitoire of overtold stories.  They don't call wives 'long-suffering' for nothing and my wife has suffered through so many of my oft-told stories and being in the movie Lucas was always #1 with a bullet. It became a joke pretty early on and it had gotten to the point where I wouldn't bring it up unless a direct question was asked about it or the subject of being in movies was the topic of conversation.  Fair enough, it had been my lead story for a looong time. 

After a cursory peek at the news sites for details, I showered, got dressed and headed downtown for a meeting.  While sad, Corey Haim's death was hardly a surprise, I was kind of amazed it took this long, after all he was selling his teeth on E-Bay a few years back.  While in my meeting, my cell vibrated with the familiar area code (312) and prefix (222, The Tribune's exclusive prefix), I let it go to voicemail; seconds later a text buzzed my phone again, it was Carla: "Here's your chance to shine, someone actually wants to hear about your Lucas experience, expect a phone call." After my meeting, I called the Tribune reporter who had done her research and knew that I had been an extra in Lucas and I told her about my fleeting brushes with the young cast of Lucas (Jeremy Piven, Charlie Sheen, Winona Ryder & Courtney Thorne-Smith).  The story ran in yesterday's Trib.

It's true I did meet Corey and the rest of the cast as a paid extra on the set (my high school) of Lucas, in fact I wrote about the whole experience in my fifth or sixth post on this blog.  And here we are, 25 years later, Corey Haim is dead, so I think it's time to officially mothball the Lucas stories, at least until Abby asks if daddy ever did anything cool when he was younger.

Feel free to post in the comments about your brush with greatness--Lucas or otherwise--or nominate another Ken story to put away in the story vault.

Oscars Wrap-Up

Jeez, has it really been almost three weeks since I posted here?  Sorry, I really have been super-busy, had like a 60-hour week last week including not one but two days in which I was awake for a 24 hour period. 

I can say without question that this the year in which I saw the least amount of movies (we have a one-year-old child) but the few ones I did see weren't exactly Oscar-caliber.  Not bad movies, just not the kind The Academy recognizes.  Hell, I only managed to get to two movies at the theatre: I Love You, Man and Adventureland and I loved both, for different reasons.  Of the nominees, I only saw Inglorious Basterds and that was on DVD with my wife, mother-in-law and two nieces and a nephew Christmas Night, not exactly Jesus's birthday-friendly but hey, we all loved it.  Everybody loves killing Nazis.  Even working with my 2009 movie deficiency, I still feel I can write a post about last night's Oscars with a modicum of credibility, right?

The Good:

Jeff Bridges winning an Oscar.  I'm a longtime Bridges fan, well before his turn as 'The Dude'.  I think the first time I remembered taking note of a quality performance from him was inStarman, then was blown away by his roles in The Fisher King and Fearless, both at the very least Oscar-nomination-worthy performances. I haven't seen Crazy Heart but still really want to.

The John Hughes Tribute.  My adoration of John Hughes and his work is well-chronicled (I wrote about his death here).  For the Academy to dedicate 5-6 minutes of Oscar telecast time (outside of the memorium montage) to a guy who was never even nominated for an Academy Award speaks volumes about his continuing influence on Hollywood and his alumni list is pretty amazing.  Was it me though, or did Judd Nelson look a bit haggard?

No performances of Best Song. Sure, in the past we've been treated to some pretty special live Oscar telecast performances (The Swell Season, Elliot Smith and Aimee Mann come immediately to mind) but so many of the 'written-for-the motion-picture' songs are MOR stuff like the Dianne Warren-penned Aerosmith ballad "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing'.  I didn't miss it, even if it didn't make the awards show any shorter.

The Bad:

Ten Nominees for Best Picture.  Really?  If I told you I have ten 'Best Friends', wouldn't that cheapen the sentiment?  Ten nominees seems a bit too high.

Multiple Winners Should Get Equal Time.  I'm not saying each winner should get their own 45 seconds for a speech, but give each winner 15-20 seconds to thank a few people.  I hate it when one guy (or girl) selfishly takes up the entire allotment.  Hey Fisher Stevens, you used to date Michelle Pfeiffer and you produced what looks like a heartbreaking but eye-opening documentary but you're already famous, let your partners say something.

Lame Host Jokes.  Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are funny guys, why do the jokes always make the hosts seem like they're working the Catskills matinee show circa 1963? 30 Rock is a fantastic show with razor-sharp writing and a boatload of Emmys, why not let some of those scribes take a crack at it?

Meryl Streep Is A Good Actress.  We get it, she's great but need everyone make jokes about it?  Clooney too, yes he's handsome and a great actor (I love Clooney) but we don't need fifteen (my estimate) reaction shots of him.  I guess since Jack Nicholson apparently took the night off, the director needed a go-to guy.

Your thoughts?  Who deserved it, who got shut out? Your likes/dislikes?

I've Seen This Happen, In Other People's Lives. Now It's Happening In Mine.

Talk about parking meters enough and I guess you eventually get stung.  In September of 2008, my employer moved from a non-desrcript single-story cinder block building in a semi-dodgy neighborhood to the 6th floor of NBC Tower, in the heart of Streeterville.  We also went from windowless to floor-to-ceiling windows with a gorgeous view of the Chicago River, Navy Pier, Lake Shore Drive.  The change in real estate also meant no more free parking, so with the two ticket threshold before getting the 'Denver boot', I settled up with the City of Chicago on two outstanding parking tickets that were complete and utter B.S..  I will own up when I have parked illegally but when I get tickets for no legitimate reason, I won't pay them, unless of course, I have to. Amazingly, I've managed to park in a very busy and crowded Chicago business district without any real issue for the last eighteen months, save one ludicrous incident I wrote about last summer. 

Last week, I found a killer parking spot in Lakeview, mere steps from my destination: The Improv Olympic (I/O) Theatre.  I went to the meter box to print out my ticket receipt and placed it very prominently on the curbside part of the dashboard.  It was 6:22PM and I had the spot until 7:37.  Imagine my surprise when I went to retrieve something from my car at 6:50 and found a parking ticket on my windshield for (wait for it) an 'expired meter'.  Even with the ticket tucked under the wiper, you could still plainly see the receipt.  Apparently, Stevie Wonder was on duty that night because not only did he fail to see the valid receipt, the photos presented as evidence looked as if they were taken by a sight-challenged individual.  These two photos are the actual photos they presented on the LAZ website as 'proof'.  All they prove to me is that LAZ doesn't drug test their employees. Want a cool job where you get to get high, walk around the city, take pictures and piss countless people off? Contact LAZ for parking enforcement positions.

I'll update here when I hear back from the City of Chicago Department of Revenue, I contested this ticket by mail.  My success rate contesting tickets by mail (9 for 12 in the last 15 years, only one of which was a legitimate violation) is decent.  My one and only experience contesting in person was a slam dunk (last summer) but I have better things to do with my time than take off work and prove my innocence in person every time I get a (bogus) ticket.  It's bad enough that we now have to pay double what we used to to park in an overcrowded city but to have to spend time to defend ourselves for completely unwarranted reasons is criminal.  If I do get this ticket expunged, I will write back and ask for a written apology from the idiot who wrote it.

Tell me about your favorite City of Chicago parking nightmare.  It's not whether or not you have one, it's just which is the best story to tell, drive in Chicago for more than fifteen minutes and you'll have a story.

Lenten Sacrifices

I'm hardly 'Mr. Catholic'  but one thing I've always held to was lenten sacrifice, I always give up something for lent.  One year in college, I gave up meat and lost ten pounds which is odd because I'm sure eschewing meat just meant I overdosed on the always plentiful (in a college board plan) carbs.  I don't go full bore with meatless Fridays during Lent (unless I get guilted into it) but I think sacrificing things is good.

We joined the YMCA right after New Years (January 3rd actually) and I've been religious in my devotion to that--3-4 days a week--and seen some great results so far in weight loss and blood pressure.  That coupled with 40 days of fast food and ice cream abstinence should pay dividends, I hope.  Trust me, as the parent of a wee ten-month-old, fast food and ice cream are staples, just as lasagnas (brought to the house by caring friends and family) were last year after Abby was born.

So, after a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit this morning and a decadent burger tonight followed by some Edy's Slow Churn, we're off McFood for 40 days.  How about you, what are you giving up for Lent?