Jim DeRogatis

The Vortis Diaries: The view from the other side

By: Jim DeRogatis | Aug. 9, 2012

Aug. 9, 2012
The point may seem obvious, but it’s one many people don’t think about, musicians included: When you’re onstage playing with a band, even though you’re an integral part of that gig and every one it does, you never actually see the group performing. And, as any fan of live music will tell you, video after the fact is not an adequate substitute.
 
Though I’ve been playing with them for a decade, I’ve only ever seen my band mates Tony and Louie Vortis and our second guitarist/bassist emeritus Chris in brief glimpses when I’ve glanced up from the drums and caught a narrow slice of the action moving between my cymbals—and it’s been a view of their backsides at that.

In mid-June, the band shared a killer bill at Quenchers with its pals Die Time and Like Like The The The Death.

…Read Full Entry

The lessons of Lollapalooza 2012

By: Jim DeRogatis | Aug. 6, 2012

Aug. 6, 2012

“We got lucky with the weather tonight, didn’t we?” Jack White asked from the stage Sunday night as he closed out Lollapalooza 2012, the eighth edition of the giant corporate concert that’s become Walmart on the Lake.

In fact, Austin, Texas-based concert promoters C3 Presents and city officials are the ones who should be counting their blessings after a severe-weather evacuation Saturday afternoon shunted more than 60,000 people out of Grant Park on to Michigan Avenue as a torrential downpour, intense lightning and winds up to 60 miles per hour descended on the lakefront. As WBEZ’s Kate Dries observed, “It’s pure luck that things went as smoothly as they did.”

…Read Full Entry

Tribune: If severe weather hits, Lollapalooza fans are screwed

By: Jim DeRogatis | Aug. 1, 2012

Aug. 1, 2012

 

Four years ago, on the Monday after Lollapalooza 2008, the tornado sirens went off in the city of Chicago for the first time in the 20 years I’ve lived here. Raised on the east coast, I was startled when my wife grabbed me by the hand to cower in the basement for 45 minutes until the all-clear. What would have happened, I wondered, if the warning tolled 24 hours earlier when 150,000 people were in Grant Park? (This year, the city has approved attendance of 300,000.)

I wrote a piece for the Sun-Times trying to answer that question, but I had little luck getting an answer as city spokeswomen stonewalled me. The people in the northern end of the park, it seemed obvious, would be directed to the underground parking ramps below Millennium Park.

…Read Full Entry

Remembering Bill Doss of Olivia Tremor Control

By: Jim DeRogatis | Aug. 1, 2012

Aug. 1, 2012

Of the three hugely influential Elephant 6 bands that first came together in in the mid-’90s, Neutral Milk Hotel was and remains the most brilliant, and Apples in Stereo the most tuneful. But Olivia Tremor Control, in the person of its two main men Bill Doss and William Cullen Hart, always were the most ambitious. That was true in 1996, and it still seemed to be the case when the reunited band performed at the Pitchfork Music Festival a few weeks ago.

Yesterday, the Olivia Tremor Control Web site announced that Doss had died at the age of 43: “We are devastated by the loss of our brother Bill Doss. We are at a loss for words.” No cause was given, but a report in the Banner-Herald of Athens, Georgia, where the band had long ago relocated, notes that, “No evidence of foul play or suicide is evident and Doss had no history of medical problems, [Athens-Clarke County coroner Sonny] Wilson said.

…Read Full Entry

Grant Park watchdogs at Lolla

By: Jim DeRogatis | Jul. 30, 2012

Jul. 30, 2012

As usual in the days leading up to Lollapalooza, which takes place Friday through Sunday in its eighth year in Grant Park, the Chicago media has been in full-on hypemaster mode, with a particular emphasis on repeating promoters’ claims that there won’t be an encore of the trashed grounds that took months to clean up in 2011, or the massive onslaught of freeloaders crashing the gates and trampling everything in their path—flower beds as well as paying customers.

Here is Thomas Conner and Fran Spielman in the Sun-Times and Chuck Sudo in Chicagoist, to cite a few of the many recent stories repeating Texas-based promoters C3 Presents’ promises of more fencing and security, both to protect the park and to keep the non-paying customers out, complete with Chicago Park District Superintendent Michael Kelly

…Read Full Entry

Congress Theater partners up, looks to expand

By: Jim DeRogatis | Jul. 26, 2012

Jul. 26, 2012

As he continues trying to convince the city that the Congress Theater is not a poorly run blight causing myriad problems in Logan Square, its colorful owner has partnered with an Internet entrepreneur to develop the ground-floor block of the venue… and apparently is bidding to expand by buying the Portage Theater on the Northwest Side.

The social media director for Doejo, which describes itself as “a full service digital agency and startup accelerator headquartered in Chicago” and founded by “serial entrepreneur” Phil Tadros, announced earlier this week that the advertising and marketing firm “has partnered with Congress owner Eddie Carranza to oversee the cosmetic and business phase as well as strategy and online development” for the dozen or so storefront spaces on the ground floor of the theater on Milwaukee Avenue near Western.

Plans for these spaces, which will be part of a grander “Congress Theater Entertainment Center,” include an organic grocery, a café and a brewpub.

…Read Full Entry

Frank Ocean: Remaking R&B

By: Jim DeRogatis | Jul. 23, 2012

Jul. 23, 2012

First things first: Forget everything you’ve heard about Frank Ocean—his recent “coming out” as a bisexual, his seemingly contradictory friendship and collaborations with the notoriously hateful, homophobic and misogynistic Odd Future collective, or the fact that everyone from Justin Bieber and Kanye West to John Legend and Brandy wants to work with him—and focus on the fact that at 24 years old, on his first proper album, a strong argument can be made that a voice this fresh and a vision for remaking R&B this bold puts him in the ranks of D’Angelo, Prince, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. And no, that’s not hyperbole.

Dropping out of the University of New Orleans and moving to L.A. after Katrina and W.

…Read Full Entry

Cultural Plan draft offers no specifics on music

By: Jim DeRogatis | Jul. 16, 2012

Jul. 16, 2012

And so the much-ballyhooed draft Chicago Cultural Plan finally arrived Monday morning, and what does it say about this blog’s primary concern, music in the Windy City? Drum roll, please…

Actually, cancel that drum roll. What the slick, profusely illustrated, approximately $300,000 draft plan says about the rich cultural community we care about most in this space is little to nothing.

…Read Full Entry

Pages