DIY Houses Prove to be Savior for Smaller Music Acts

ChicagoTalks- by Nick Tallid - Feb 23, 2009

The article starts out by stating that before DIY houses started arising, the underground scene was looking pretty non-existent. Touring musicians referred to Chicago as a "Black Hole" of the midwestern circuit, causing many good bands to skip it altogether. Basically he contributes this to a lack of motivated action on the listeners part who in his words "were stuck at home with nothing to do but blog about it." This lack of musicians coming through Chicago has nothing to do with a lack of venues, there's plenty of top-dog rockstar venues where bigger bands can come make a fortune; but not a lot of room for the less known underground bands. At the very least these venues require an impressive full press-kit to even be considered. Playing live shows is the key to collecting a following, but if the "Big Venues" that Chicago often boasts about will only take bands with tracks on the Top 100 lists it leaves little or no room for the talented small timers.
DIY established venues are made with the help of the common people's basements, living rooms, and loft areas; for bands whose self-promotion is realistically limited to a Myspace pageand a trip to kinkos for CD covers. These spaces help to open doors between the average local underground music listener and the small time artist without the expensive drinks, bands that all sound like creed, and hundreds of screaming, jumping 12 year olds with their dads watching from the minivan across the street from the venue. The article goes on to mention the Go-Go Town, and Castaway House which are two of the main and most widely known spaces in Chicago. (Though I'm pretty sure niether of them are functioning today) All in all an interesting read about the less profitable, but no less talented bands who come through Chicago.
by: Erik Anderson