Chicagoland General Area

I am thinking that the "Chicago Sound" in music is a new step for me. It isn't comedy, but if you're high on life, "Naked Raygun" is to "Britney Spears" as "Saturday Night Live" is to "Desperate Housewives".

And if you've had too much of funk reggae and you're thinking that you're outcast from "Outkast", "The Eternals" have a similar Alka Seltzer effect. Especially if one's team is facing Donovan McNabb in 2007. Fred Armisen drummed with some of the Eternals before moving on to Blue Man Group and comedy; his judge character from whats-her-name's will hearing reminds me of an internet story about an Ohio judge from a few years ago; more Alka Seltzer for the people.

There's always a multitude of bands from San Francisco, a plethora of bands from LA, a juggernaut label in Seattle or Washington DC, a load of music from Boston, a vast wasteland in London and New York. Good Chicago bands are hard to come by; one must live up to the standards of "The Blues".

"Big Black" from Chicago is an example; in the late 1980s, one was faced with unlimited amounts of hard core, and Big Black just provided a capstone for those who were vulnerable to drowning in the sound, it went so far beyond the hardoore norm, and became an industry standard in doing so.

One can always tell if one has something special, if the music is very hard and very melodic; it indicates that some people in the band had dads or moms who owned some Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck, viz Gang Green, J Church, Fugazi, The Jam.

Sports fans know that Chicago is the Hub of the Midwest. Why worry about the White Sox in the AL and the Bears in the NFC? Why not add the Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers, the Detroit Lions w/their new quarterback, the Vikes, the Pack, the Colts, The Ohio State; hell, limn the midwest from Denver to Buffalo to Edmonton to Corpus Christi and you've got the solar plexus of the American sound right there in Chicago.

One Alka Seltzer band seemingly not from Chicago is Trans Am. I think these guys' parents also had a lot of Rush albums lying around the house.

On "Heavy International's "Stage a Coup", The Eternals make an antithetical political statement, singing in a soothing lullaby: "Stage a...I want to stage a coup....stage a...and bring it back to you." Such difficult subject matter!