Steve Krakow Celebrates The Release Of His Secret History Of Chicago Music Book

Shortly after I took over as the Reader‘s music editor in April 2004, I started working with Plastic Crimewave—aka Chicago musician, label head, promoter, illustrator, and zine author Steve Krakow—to debut the Secret History of Chicago Music, a hand-drawn and hand-lettered single-frame comic devoted to “pivotal Chicago musicians that somehow have not gotten their just dues,” in the words of Krakow’s tagline.

Tonight at the Empty Bottle, Krakow will sign copies of My Kind of Sound at a release party that also features a full lineup of music: glam-pop weirdo Bobby Conn presenting a multimedia show called “My Chicago,” long-running avant-garde collective Ono, 70s psychedelic proto-power pop group Athanor, and early-80s synth collective VCSR. (Everybody but Conn has been a subject of a Secret History strip over the years.)