Welcome welcome, to the third and final portion of this fantabulous thing called an interview!
If you can't tell, I'm rather sick of introductions. Read the damn post.
Me: So, besides the ages, what did you feel really changed about the scene in Chicago from when you started playing to when you stopped?
Joe: In the mid-90s in Chicago, there was this emphasis more on art rock or math rock or post-rock bands, like The Sea and Cake, Tortoise, Don Caballero, bands that were pretty instrument-based, almost jazz-influenced. The idea of being "rock", like a rock band, whether that was garage rock or indie rock – for a couple years, that fell away. So at a lot of venues, there was like - I don’t wanna say prog-rock or whatever, but these people were awesome at their instruments - there were no lyrics, mostly instrumental music, bands that had more of an abstract sound… and that was real interesting for a while. And then in the late 90s, there was this revival or resurgence of garage rock that really took off. There was this great explosion of bands like Baseball Furies, and Brian [Costello’s] band the Functional Blackouts, and a couple bands that I played in. Then this real interesting scene started developing - and I think I still see them online - this magazine Horizontal Action, and there were all these different garage-rock-oriented festivals. Suddenly, there was the return of, “Okay, it’s cool again to be in a rock band, and have songs with lyrics, and to honor the music you had grown up listening to," like The Who, or The Rolling Stones, or The Beatles. And then in the late 90s, early 2000s, there was a kind of similar resurgence on a national level, bands like The Hives, and The Strokes, and The White Stripes, bands that were getting national attention that were returning to a more familiar rock-song structure and sound, and it echoed what was already going on here. It was wonderful, because that’s the music I always loved, you know? I like rock music. Not to say I’m not a huge jazz fan – it’s just a different kind of experience.
Me: It’s more familiar.
Joe: It is, and I mean, Chicago has one of the greatest avant-garde jazz scenes in the world, and we have these great people, like Ken Vandermark, and a number of other amazing soloists and avant-garde players, but going to see a jazz show, it’s kinda this thing up here [
hovers his hands around his cranium] and it feels like you listen with your head, and not with your chest and your balls – like when you see a great rock show and your whole body’s involved.
Me: I’ve always heard the word “cerebral” to describe certain bands like that.
Joe: And it is! And it’s also clear that Vandermark grew up listening to Black Sabbath, and it feels like “Oh shit, this is as intense.” It still has those rock elements, even though it is avant-garde jazz.
Places like the Empty Bottle and Lounge Acts hosted these different nights to promote these different kinds of sound. And they still do! Well, the Hideout kinda took over when Lounge Acts closed. And then there was the “return to rock” thing. Somewhere in there too, there was this blossoming indie rock scene, which was a little more reserved or restrained. Bands that were echoing the Pixies, or Pavement, or the Smiths. There were bands like the Scotland Yard Gospel Choir and… I’m trying to think of who else fits that bill, that incorporated stuff from folk and rock, that had maybe a less direct garage-rock/punk sound, but still didn’t feel like mainstream rock. You could go see a show, and there was this loud punk-kinda garage band, here’s this band that feels more indie rock, here’s this other band that has some weird instrumentation. Venues like that showed the breath of all the different music that was being produced at that time. You feel really luck to be able to go see a show that has that many different kinds of music being played.
Me: When you were first starting out, back in the early 90s, what bands that you’d seen or played with did you look up to? Like, who made you want to play music?
Joe: There are a few bands here in Chicago, they were bands I felt were so tremendous that I didn’t associate them with Chicago, like “Oh man, I didn’t even know they were from here”, bands like the Jesus Lizard-
Me: Oh shit.
Joe: Well there you go! I saw a couple shows at the Metro, and they were just completely electrifying… They were bands like that, that made you think “This is why I live in Chicago, because people like that are making music.” You almost felt this weird sense of ownership. Bands like that, and the Mids – I think they broke up by ’95 or ’96. That was one of the big bands. And there were bands like Shellac, Steve Albini’s band, who’d put out these really formidable, really interesting records. Jay Ryan’s band, Dianogah, which was another more instrumental, but really really interesting band that starting putting on shows in the mid-90s, and I think every so often they continue to play. That was more noise rock or aggressive rock stuff. And then there were bands like Andrew Bird, who was doing this quasi-jazz rock folk stuff that had interesting instrumentation – like instead of there being a lead guitar set up, there’d be someone playing a violin. To this day, Andrew Bird is widely recognized, still lives in town. Then there's like, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. Bands like that in the mid-90s that you felt were almost ambassadors. And that’s not even to mention by the mid-90s/late-90s, Chicago hip-hop started to take off, performers like Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco. Those guys suddenly put Chicago on the map in a huge way, so you felt like you’re part of this city that’s on the forefront of some really interesting music.
Me: I guess we’ll move on to the final question: the hackneyed interview question. If you had to tell your younger musician self something, what would it be?
Joe: I don’t know if I’ve ever heard that question. I don’t think it’s hackneyed at all!
Well, it’s like I said earlier, that playing in bands… There’s just all these interesting implications I wouldn't have been aware of at the time, like helping you understand your relationship to an audience, your idea of promotion, and marketing, and touring. Even when I’m writing a short story, I don’t feel like it’s done until I can read it to an audience, and that’s one of the ways I figure out if it’s working or not; you read it and you’re like “Ooh… This part… that didn't work,” or “This part, people laughed.”
When you’re in a band, you’re constantly doing stuff. You’re writing songs, you record a record, you have to make flyers, you have to rent a van or save up and buy one, maybe you play a bunch of shows, and you’re constantly having to convince your friends and strangers to come to your shows and promote yourself in a fairly aggressive way, right? If you book a show at a venue and no one shows up, they’re not gonna have you back. So this pursuit of making stuff and getting in the habit of finding a way to get it out in the world, whether it’s making a record or making a flyer, getting posters made, booking shows, that habit that I did over and over and over again in my twenties, it really helped me as a writer, cuz I still do that stuff, I still am having constantly to promote work.
I had two books come out with these big corporate presses, my first two novels, and they had a certain way of promoting their books, which meant they just kinda sent them out to reviewers and hoped people reviewed them – and I had grown up playing in all these bands, and I was like “Why not go on tour? I could do it for cheap, I could sleep on strangers’ floors – I’ll sell books out of the car.” and they’d never had someone do that. This was what I’d been doing. Third book came out. I worked with a publisher that was really interested in that idea, and the book was a huge success because I was able to get out and tour, basically adapt what I’d been doing, what I knew already worked. If I do a reading in Portland, I need to get like, two people from Portland on the bill, cuz if I show up and I only know ten people in Portland, there’s only gonna be ten people in the bookstore. But if I invite another writer, or some musician, then we’ll have forty people. That was a totally foreign concept to a lot of these publicists, and they were actually afraid to do that. Over the last ten years, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing, and it’s been really successful. And it’s actually more enjoyable for me to go to Portland, do a reading, hear someone else read, hear a band. It’s more of a night, more of an occasion, versus me just like, showing up. So there were all these really important things that I was learning about what it means to be an artist that I thought was just part of being in a band, and that was really helpful.
And a step removed from that – having grown up in the 70s and 80s and playing in bands – not seriously, but in a committed way – in the 90s, I learned the reliance of independence, because a lot of the bands that I admired were bands on small labels, like Dischord or Touch-and-Go, and those were basically labels run out of someone’s house. They didn't have money, but they had this great reputation and dignity. If Ian MacKaye came out with a record by some band, I’d go buy it, just because I trusted him as a label-owner. That idea of DIY, not buying into this corporization of art, that had a huge impact on my writing as well, because I feel like the freedom to make books that I’m interested in reading, not so concerned with whether this is gonna be a big hit… The books that I write are kinda influenced by that same spirit. As an indie musician, your goal isn't to get on the radio or sell a billion copies; it’s to make a real interesting record. That same spirit is a huge part of what I do. A couple weeks ago, I did this reading at the Metro as part of Story Week, and I've read there a couple times before, but it was really momentous for me, because I grew up going to shows there. I've done readings now at a lot of these music venues that I had once played at in bands, so in some ways it’s like I never really stopped. In a lot of ways, I'm still engaged in that world. Literature isn't just for people who go to college, or go to bookstores. Through my experiences, I've learned that it’s bigger and there’s these interesting connections between music and literature, literature and art… things that musicians sometimes take for granted. And I feel really grateful for that.
