for darko and the band he's trying to book a gig for, idk the capacity of sub-t off the top of my head (it can't be that much.... 250-500 for the upstairs "proper" venue?) however i can vouch for sub-t as a great place to have/attend a show. for people who are imported from the suburbs getting off at the damen blue line is about as dangerous as driving down western ave all the way south past/through 290/55/southside with your windows up and and your head on a swivel.
yeah there's prolly some shit going on outside of your
car/personal-universe but as long as you keep your (proverbial/metaphorical) windows up and keep on moving forward you'll be alright. wicker park has undergone quite a makeover since i first got to experience the neighborhood around 98-99. the "soul" of the neighborhood disappeared along with hito's (where those 3.99 4packs of becks tallboys were the veritable onramp to ADVENTURE back in the day) great horse / crazy horse / whatever (home of the 2am sleazy burrito that we theorized had rat meat in it) and of course the homeless people who used to get awfully cozy there on milwaukee ave and had no qualms about coming up to you and asking for a few $$$ for [sob story]. the gentle tentacles of gentrification gripped wicker park began gripping the area around ~98-99 and what used to be a fun and somewhat gamey neighborhood became a laminated home of suburban kids who graduated college @ MSU and came out to chicago in order to try and get some use for that "fashion degree", ultimately deciding to live in a "hip" "cool" or dare-i-say "happening" neighborhood.
there's lots of nice bars/eateries that i choose to call "laminated" (in terms of the gloss and luster of gentrification slowly turning an urban neighborhood habitat into the overglorified strip/mall aka "lifestyle center" that one could argue epitomizes suburbia v3.0 (assuming suburbia v1.0 started in earnest around the 1950s when ike's defensive road network found a useful ulterior purpose as arteries pumping the blood of white flight) AHEM, meaning that it's a veritable playground for yuppies/hipsters who are either new to the whole wicker park experience and think rodan is the coolest place ever, or those veteran yuppies/hipsters who are actually on a first name basis with rodan's weeaboo owner (PAGING JORR! =) and chuckle everytime they're reminded that the guy has an asian wife. GEE GO FIGURE GIVEN THAT HE RUNS FUCKING *RODAN*
(and yes, for the record i'm on the side of "i wouldn't pass the smell test to get into rodan nowadays" as my sarcastic armor to protect me from the realization that i'm the only person in the whole damn place missing any teeth. it's like you took the best and brightest (just ask them) from the non-cubs-game nisei lounge crowd and told them they'd go meet some musicians and/or artists if they hung out at rodan)
so wow hey tangent/TLDR/WHO CARES THIS AINT ABOUT CONCERTS SINI!!!!!!!!!!!!
i just took a few minutes to ramble about wicker park because i think it's a swell place for darko's band to have a concert nowadays. like i first said it's ridiculously easy to get to via pubtrans (parking might be a bit of a bitch but typically if you park down north ave heading back towards western you'll find something down around that goofy bicycle bar called "handlebar/s" or whatever. and then you gotta pay your tribute to daley's buddies as it'll prolly cost you $4-6 to park for the up-to-2-hours that it takes to get you to 9pm when the meter hustle simmers down for the night, but hey you lot are prolly credit-card-having-people so you dont have to worry about "where the hell am i going to find $5 in quarters in the next 5 minutes?") ---- and then once you're there the neighborhood is chock full of quality restaurants/bars/shops (reckless records on milwaukee is a wonderful record store and the wicker park / milwaukee ave one is definitely my favorite out of the trio/duo (cuz i think that one of the three maybe closed? idk) and it's not too "gamey" so people who proudly live in the suburbs to stay away from the riffraff of the world ("i know! if i live in a place where you have to have a car to survive that'll weed out the undesirables who don't own cars and my life will be that much more serene!) because by and large those types were weeded out of the area 10-15yrs ago.
while i can tell you that.... shit, about 5-6 years ago i was able to run into some street guy who squatted in a back alley down there and have a sunrise-fueled crack adventure, that's definitely the exception and not the rule. also at the time i was actively seeking out life in order to get some experiences together for the inevitable future novel, so it would be fair to say that i was "looking for trouble." the last assembled group of riffraff-looking-people i encountered was either around the same time or in 2012 when i happened across a group of ~8 kids who were squatting and hitchhiking across america "for the lulz." yeah i think one of them said something about this being their ode to "on the road"; whatever the case they were all about going crosscountry and experiencing life on the streets about as literally as you can make that statement, as they actually hung out on street corners begging/panhandling for $$$ to fund their next adventure out of chicago going to ??? ---- you know that at least one of these kids had a trust fund from mom&dad and that's how they were pulling this off, but i'm guessing that in the name of "art" they decided to see if they could successfully beg their way across america in (the) ~2010/s.
they invited me to go with them and i'm pretty sure that at the time i would have been able to just go on a whim..... but then again i've turned down something like ~5-10 compelling offers to leave my suburban/chicagoan existence and go off seeking adventure, love, glory, purpose, and ultimately life. you haven't lived until you've had a rapper who you own some vinyl by on the phone with you telling you that at some point you gotta "step up and put yourself out there" otherwise you're just gonna sit at home for the rest of your life content with the inherent mediocrity of the 9-5 lower-to-middle-middle-class life that you're mostly mooching off of. and hey between you and me if i'm gonna just up and say "fuck it" and disappear i'm going to do it to run out to LA and pretend i'm a rapper as opposed to rolling with a bunch of kids in leather jackets with plans to hang out on street corners and beg for $$$ all the way across america. i should have asked dude if they had a blog cuz that woulda been an interesting one....
but i digress. wicker park is cool, and sub-t itself is a solid venue that's got location location location which means plenty of fun things to do before/after the concert to turn it into a proper day/evening out on the town, and out of that list you put out there i'd definitely aim to have the show there. there's appeal for both city folk and suburban folk, and of course since i'm assuming your band isn't a hiphop band you're not going to be dragging any suburbanites into a neighborhood where they're going to feel like they should have shelled out extra $$$ for the deluxe version of their car alarm.
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Curious Hair wrote:
Les Grobstein's huge hog is proof that God has a sense of humor, isn't it?
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I actually do want to see them at some point so 
