#WXRT

[fuzzyghost]

[oldshowbiz]

SoundStage Stereo Simulcast

[pinkfloyd-musicartnaturelove]

David Gilmour at the radio station WXRT in Chicago, Illinois, 1984

[iheartvelma]

Today I randomly discovered Lin Brehmer, who was a beloved local radio host on WXRT; he passed away in 2023 prematurely from cancer, two years ago today.

He had a segment called “Lin’s Bin” where he answered listener questions with long, poetic essays.

One of the episodes of The Bear opens with him introducing a Sufjan Stevens song, to a montage of Chicago street scenes and historical moments.

He called himself “your very best friend in the world.”

The Lin’s Bin archives are on Audacy.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Los Lobos Live Show Review: 12/14, Cahn Auditorium, Evanston

BY JORDAN MAINZER

The Chicago area was a fitting stop for east L.A. Chicano rock band Los Lobos on their current 50th anniversary tour. Sure, Los Lobos is one of many bands not from the Windy City to call it "like [their] second home," as did David Hidalgo on Saturday night at the Cahn Auditorium in Evanston. But Los Lobos, especially, have been influenced by and increasingly seem to absorb the aesthetic of the various music scenes within Chicago, big and small, from Chicago blues to alt-country. Even their most recent album Native Sons (New West), a covers album of entirely musicians from L.A., has a secondary Chicago feel to it: I can imagine Jackson Browne and The Blasters rubbing elbows, played on WXRT or booked at the Old Town School of Folk Music, back-to-back. In Los Lobos' direct and indirect embrace of Chicago, music fans here have espoused them right back.

Oh, and it certainly helps their case that whether they're playing their original material or others', Los Lobos expand their songs such that the studio or original versions sound like ditties in comparison. Folks were dancing in the aisles on Saturday to everything from the dynamic "The Neighborhood" to ripping psychedelic jams like "Chuco's Cumbia". The band found new ways to elevate well-known songs. On the beloved "Kiko and the Lavender Moon", Hidalgo's accordion, Steve Berlin's keyboard delay, and Cesar Rosas' guitar distortion congealed into a dub-like haze, emphasizing the groove above all else. And for their encore, they threw a bone to not just the Chicago area but the Midwest in general, inviting on stage to play with them Milwaukee-based guitarist/singer-songwriter/bandleader Paul Cebar and Chicago jazz and blues guitarist Dave Specter, who opened the night. They played, as expected, Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba", interspersed with The Rascals' "Good Lovin'" (as Los Lobos are known to do), but it was the preceding performance of "Buzz, Buzz, Buzz" that caught my ear even more. Los Lobos covered the 50's doo-wop song, originally recorded by The Hollywood Flames, for their 1995 collaborative children's album with Lalo Guerrero, Papa's Dream. Given the President-elect's cabinet's promise to make Chicago ground zero for mass deportations, there was perhaps no better time than now to pay tribute to the late Guerrero, a farm labor activist. I don't know whether or not the political connotation of the song's inclusion in the set was intentional. That, however, is the richness and magic of Los Lobos, who have five decades of songs and albums about Mexican-American life, struggles against oppression and joy and thriving in spite of it.

[raspberryconverse]

Spouse and I were cleaning up what will eventually be our office (if we ever get our shit together) and in a box with a bunch of printer paper we're a bunch of my old journals. I started reading one from when I was 21-22, but I wanted to read the previous one because I wanted to read about a particular exboyfriend. I started out writing about how we met, then my next entry was a bad day while I was interning at WXRT. I ended the entry with this:

I miss Lin so much. He was one of the best people I've ever met. He was one of the best people on this planet.

[jimflanigan]

A Tale of Two Concerts

How in the bloody hell did I end up at this show over the weekend? Some say it’s because I’m Father of the Year. I volunteered to take my 15-year-old daughter and her friend to see the feminist punk band Destroy Boys. You may remember them from their haunting ballad “I Threw Glass at My Friend’s Eyes and Now I’m on Probation.” Anyway, I took these two lovely young ladies into Chicago to Metro to…

[chaunceyandchumleysdad]

In anticipation of their appearance at Riot Fest, I listened to Spoon's album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. I couldn't believe it when this song came up. I've heard it played on WXRT countless times and never knew it was Spoon. So in anticipation of Spoon's upcoming Riot Fest show, I'm kicking off the weekend with The Underdog.

[chaunceyandchumleysdad]

I have good memories of the Grateful Dead in the 1980's. I saw them twice in the 70's and ten time in the 80's. Most of those 80's shows were at Alpine Valley in Wisconsin. I also taped a few their New Year's Eve shows that you use to air live on WXRT radio in Chicago. I'm quite sure I have this show on tape. It is no doubt buried somewhere the the hundreds of cassette tapes that I have not listened to in decades.

Song Review: Grateful Dead - “Hell in a Bucket” (Live, Dec. 31, 1987)

The Grateful Dead must’ve felt some foreboding about 1988, for as the clock struck midnight signaling the end of ’87, the band launched the New Year’s party with … “Hell in a Bucket.”

But at least everyone seemed to enjoy the ride.

The song is out as the latest entry in the Dead’s “All the Years” video series and despite the balloons, the iconography and the obviously festive spirit inside the Oakland Coliseum, this is a fairly standard rendition for the era, replete with In the Dark sound effects complementing, or, depending on one’s perspective, bastardizing, the music.

Jerry Garcia’s final guitar solo has a bit of New Year’s spirit to it and Bob Weir’s screaming-falsetto outro is about as fierce as they come. Instead of yelling, Yeah!, Weir signals the end of the tune with a raised arm and feigns some windmills - but doesn’t touch his guitar strings in the process - as the song crashes to a close.

There wasn’t much better than the Grateful Dead on New Year’s Eve. But there are a ton of songs better than “Hell in a Bucket” for the Grateful Dead at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

But then, the Dead often missed expectations in big situations such as this.

Grade card: Grateful Dead - “Hell in a Bucket” (Live - 12/31/87) - B

Read Sound Bites’ previous “All the Years Live” coverage here.

5/27/24

[himikochan]

reblog for sample size and all that

[derangedrhythms]

It’s definitely the bad side. It wasn’t the one that won. My point of view was not the side that won in this song. I think where it shows up on the record, and the whole reason Sneeze is where it is is because, well, obviously, it was definitely malaria. It’s one of those things where you know this isn’t good for you. You know that anything any of your friends say to you just doesn’t mean anything. ‘Don’t do this Tori. You’re crazy. Don’t do this. Why are you doing this?’ You just look at them and say, ‘Oh, I know exactly what I’m doing. Don’t worry. Everything’s just fine.

Tori Amos, on ‘Caught A Lite Sneeze’ from WXRT Chicago (1996)

[projazznet]

Herbie Hancock feat. Jaco Pastorius – Live In Chicago ’77

“Herbie Hancock featuring Jaco Pastorius, Live at Ivanhoe Theater, Chicago Ill. on February 16th 1977. By 1977 Herbie Hancock was firmly established as America’s leading purveyor of jazz-funk. This superb performance finds him playing with Weather Report’s legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius, as well as Bennie Maupin (tenor sax, bass clarinet) and James Levi (drums). Broadcast on the local WXRT-FM, it offers a setlist anchored in his Head Hunters era, but also offers a track from Maupin’s superb Slow Traffic To The Right album. With “Hang Up Your Hang-Ups” and band intro’s at the start.” – Rick Ransom/AllMusic.

[petimiti67]

Allman Brothers Band @ WXRT, Chicago,IL 1971

Allman Brothers Band WXRT Chicago IL 1971-XX-XX Personnel: Greg Allman - organ, vocals Duane Allman - guitar Dicky Betts - guitar Berry Oakley - bass Butch Trucks - drums Jai Johanny Johanson - percussion

[yuja]

i watched that episode that starts off with lin brehmer from wxrt introducing the demo version of chicago by sufjan again and he’s talking about how beautiful the city is and how he’s happy to be alive and i started crying like an idiot. i listened to lin on the radio every morning my whole life, i remember his voice from when i was very young. i miss him a lot. the show is good

[sinceileftyoublog]

Matthew Sweet Live Preview: 4/5, Metro, Chicago

Photo by Evan Carter

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Tonight, at Metro, power pop aficionado Matthew Sweet returns to Chicago after over 5 years away. Though his most recent album was 2021's underrated Catspaw, and he is purportedly at work on a new studio record, it's actually a different recent item he shared that has me excited. Earlier this year, Sweet released his July 4, 1993 show from Grant Park, recorded by Metro Mobile Recording for WXRT. The show consisted of songs from his 1991 breakout Girlfriend, yes, but also much of Altered Beast, which would come out weeks later.

You can tell from the recording why it's considered one of Sweet's best-ever shows. Though you can imagine the crowd melting on a hot day as two of the first four songs played were slower in tempo and likely unfamiliar, yet to have their studio versions drop, it's clear concertgoers ate up the band. Television's Richard Lloyd, who lent his axe to Girlfriend, plays lead guitar, while Tony Marsico's (Cruzados, Bob Dylan) on bass and Will Rigby's (the dB's) on drums. They add dynamic riffs and meaty fills on "The Ugly Truth", and their mammoth breakdown on "Evangeline" generates applause from an audience charmed by the song's otherwise bright, buoyant melodies. And even the slinkier, more psychedelic tunes like "Do It Again" and "Reaching Out" are crystal clear. The whole collection was remixed and remastered from the original DAT source by engineer Brian Kehew, and you can hear not just Sweet's banter but even moments of crowd chatter. At one point, someone says, "Nice to see you, bro, let's get lunch," like it's an outtake from "Undone (The Sweater Song)".

Of course, though devoted fans were probably foaming at the mouth hearing so much new material, the Girlfriend songs were the unabashed highlights of the set, from the Rolling Stones strut of "Does She Talk?" to the epic, cascading "Divine Intervention". When Sweet introduces the title track, he says, "If there's any song of mine you know, this might be the one," and for good reason: He never wrote another earworm quite like it. Funny enough, Lloyd did not play lead guitar on the album version (it was Robert Quine), but his distorted solo here absolutely rips. By the time Sweet plays the final two songs of the afternoon, covers of John Lennon's "Crippled Inside" and The Troggs' "I Want You", you get a true sense of his appreciation for pop music and songwriting, and at the moment he was on stage, he was the one on top.

Not to say he won't be great tonight! Sweet should deliver an excellent set. Singer-songwriter Abe Partridge opens. Doors at 7:00 PM, show at 8.

[raspberryconverse]

Real talk: I did not live 100% on my own with very little parental help until I was 32.

Part of that is being a geriatric millennial who graduated from college in 2008, right when the economy tanked. I believe that a lot more of us would have succeeded if the Great Recession hadn't happened. I spent literally a decade trying to figure my shit out while underemployed. I moved back in with my dad twice during that period. The only reason I got out was because I went back to school for web development (after being laid off from my bank teller job when I was 28), and even that wasn't my golden ticket right out the gate.

I started a not quite full time web dev gig during my last semester of college, but got all but officially fired a few months before graduating (I knocked all our websites offline right before I needed to go to class and our account manager told me to go, but the admin got mad that I didn't answer my phone in class 🙄, so they banished me to email only, which joke's on them: that's all I do now and I'm really good at it because of that and get paid triple what I did there). I landed a contract position that summer that was supposed to end in December, but I ended up leaving it early for my current job, which a headhunter actually contacted me for.

I saved up for 6 months and moved out of my dad's for good the following April. I met my spouse in November, we moved in together the next May (yeah, we uhauled it 🤣) and got married literally 4 years and 1 day after that.

Every time I see a 29 year old dreading their 30th birthday, I reassure them that my 30s were light years better than my 20s ever were. Sometimes I think about what might have happened if the economy hadn't tanked as soon as I graduated from college the first time. What if I did land a job at WXRT after being "the best intern ever" (the late Lin Brehmer once introduced me to his brother as that)? Perhaps my 20s wouldn't have been such a struggle. I'd have about $15k less in student debt too, but I never would have met my spouse. And I wouldn't trade that for anything.

If you're not succeeding in your 20s, don't panic. Your 30s are going to be so much better. Trust this geriatric millennial. Your 30s are where all the pieces start to fall into place.

I just want to remind you that sometimes your life really doesn't begin until you are 26+... Romanticizing and obsessing over our youth is harmful. Growing up is beautiful. Discovering who you are and how you interact with the world is a gift. Maturing and learning what you truly want out of life and living in that purpose brings fulfillment and peace. Your life is not over in your early 20's because you haven't figured it out yet, it's just beginning.