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And because kids don’t drink, forget about making the money that comes with liquor sales. It’s an expensive room to get into, according to one local promoter. Ashland Ave., isn’t a possibility either. The vintage charm of Centrum Hall, at 1309 N. The Odum isn’t a full-time music venue and doesn’t want to be, while Prodigal Son is an over-21 room. Halsted St., don’t expect either of these rooms to be the one. Chicago Ave., and Prodigal Son Bar & Grill, at 2626 N. Sputnik hosts music Thursday through Saturday nights and is one of the places that some speculate could become a potential successor to the Fireside - except that it’s way the heck out there.Īnd while Brian Peterson, who books shows at the Fireside, also books shows at the Odum, at 2116 W. They feel like is their own, and they like it.” I give them 50 percent of the door, so it’s in their best interest to get the word out about their show. “We give them the kind of respect - a lot of establishments view kids as being pesky and destructive. “The kids love being and playing here,” says Brazas. It could take a few months or a few years, according to a Park District spokesperson, citing the complicated nature of land acquisitions. There is no date set, because the proceedings have just begun. The Chicago Park District, exercising eminent domain, seeks to take over the space occupied by the Fireside and three other businesses for expansion of Haas Park. Unfortunately for the Fireside, the rumors about its eventual demise that have flitted about since the first year it began hosting shows may become fact. The importance of all-ages shows from the perspective of a musician is that young people have different tastes than older people.” “If you look at it as an all-ages venue, the booking aesthetic that has been established is geared toward what I would call younger people’s tastes. “The Fireside is a lot more open to the music that would cater to younger people,” says Weasel Walter, drummer and frontman for the Flying Luttenbachers, a free-form ensemble that has been melding free jazz with savage rock energy for a decade. But when the first jagged chords rend the haze of cigarette smoke, the Fireside emerges from its phone booth, transformed into the personification of punk’s DIY attitude. “You’re too old,” replies the frontman for Ted Leo, before launching into another song. “Too loud,” shouts one female patron at the band. You almost expect the sound waves to collapse the little room. Seven nights a week, usually for less than $10, you can hear rock music at the Fireside, standing around on the battered black-and-red tile floors. Through the bad sound, bad sightlines and dingy, tattered interior, the place goes on. “We all search for a meaning” is scrawled on one of the benches inside the place, even though the Fireside has found its meaning – a launching pad, a home for countless bands.
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That was about seven years ago.” Today, it’s known simply as Fireside, a place that’s as punk as it gets. “Everybody said it’s just a place to do shows for a while, so don’t get too excited. “When the Fireside started it was a temporary place,” said Scott Thomson of Harmless Records, a Chicago punk and hardcore label. And like most things that become icons, the Fireside was an accidental birth. This would probably be better than we actually were, haha.The Fireside Bowl’s disheveled exterior is more than matched by its disintegrating interior.Ī squat, tan building, identifiable from a half-mile away by its sign, a seemingly levitating bowling pin silhouetted against the night sky, the Fireside is the center of Chicago’s under-21 punk and hardcore music scene. Then I magically transported to a different dream where I found a garage for my van and no longer had to find street parking. So basically this whole bands shtick was a PITF cover band who played At War With Everybody 8 times and had a different singer each time. The first person in line got on the microphone and once again as a 4 piece they covered At War With Everybody. When the song was over the singer went and joined the line with all the other band members off to the side. Everyone at the show went wild, and I got caught in a mosh by Diego who was moshing low as fuck. This 11 person band started their set as a 4 piece (the other 7 standing in a row off to the side) covering Punch In The Face’s song “At War With Everybody”. The band had 11 people in it, all of whom I had never seen before. I then had a dream that a new band in Chicago was playing their first show. Last night I listened to the PITF LP over and over again while assembling zines.