I have a handful of concert previews already written for the next two issues of the Reader, but now I’m sitting in a friend’s apartment, with almost everything I own in storage, on the eve of leaving the city I’ve called home for 34 years—this post will be the last thing I write for the paper for the foreseeable future, and it’s definitely my farewell as a staff member.
I will miss Chicago greatly, though I fear that the municipal government’s coddling of corporate money will continue to allow well-connected power brokers to crowd out the things that have made the city not just livable but special. In the name of private profit, our alleged representatives have enabled forces profoundly destructive to grassroots music culture—the corrosive presence of Lollapalooza, for instance, or the approaching apocalypse of the Lincoln Yards development, which threatens much more than the Hideout. I hope the citizens of Chicago will fight back like I know they can.
My lasting appreciation for art-rock band Cheer-Accident blossomed when I wrote this story about their longtime guitarist, Phil Bonnet, who died from a brain aneurysm in 1999. Bonnet was also a beloved recording engineer, and writing the piece let me see in a new way how a single person could be a crucial force in a broad musical community.
