So Jaime-Lynn and I arrived safely in Chicago yesterday around noon. We had to get up at 4am to make our first flight out to D.C., so the first thing we did when we got in was take a nice nap in our king-sized hotel bed.
We woke up around 6pm and took the El to Wicker Park. It's one of my favorite neighborhoods anywhere, probably because it reminds me a bit of a combination of St. Laurent St. in Montreal and downtown Burlington. We first had a great dinner at one of my favorite Chicago restaurants, Papajin (Shrimp and black bean stir-fry....yum!) and then did a bit of shopping.
First stop, Reckless Records. Sorry Pure Pop, you know I love you but I have to admit that Reckless is my favorite record store. They have a great selection of used and new CDs, vinyl, DVDs and random other stuff. They also have their very knowledgeable staff do reviews of a good percentage of the albums in the store that they print onto Avery labels and attach to the front of the album. It has resulted in me buying a lot of albums I wouldn't have otherwise, some of which I've really loved (included my fav of last year, Ponies in the Surf).
I ended up walking out of Reckless with a considerably lighter wallet, but I had these in my slightly heavier bag--
Miles Davis, The Complete Bitches Brew
Pharoah Sanders, "Black Unity"
Art Ensemble of Chicago, "Reese and the Smooth Ones"
And my very own Buddha Machine!
We then went to Marshall McGearty's smoke shop and had beers & fancy cigarettes for a couple hours (which explains my pounding headache today). After that, a stop at Myopic Books where I picked up some used Burroughs and Bukowski and then took the El back to the hotel.
All in all, a quite nice first day. We are leaving in about ten minutes to go see the new Harry Potter movie at the Navy Pier IMAX theater and then...off to the Pitchfork Music Fest to see Sonic Youth perform "Daydream Nation". A full-report of that show to follow!
5 comments:
nice record choices there. i see JB's spiritual / free jazz obsession is rubbing off on you....
wicker park like downtown burlington??? no way!!!!!
more like st. laurent though, maybe....
that BB box set is so incredible, its got that song Corrado, like 15 minutes of the same goddamn chord progression that starts off so strong and just gets better and better and better and better and better, they just keep somehow bringing it back around heavier and heavier...like spacemen 3 or something, possibly my favorite miles track ever. the percussion is unreal, it sounds like 3 guys - and that intro is priceless.
oh wait don't get me started about Black Unity...I just got to the Bitches Brew part of the post. you're somehow reversing years of Mdubs and making me like jazz again, thanks Jay. have fun and keep your eye out for the Perfect Strangers.
Well, Wicker Park is kind of like a condensed Burlington, with a hip record store & used bookstore, good restaurants and bars--only on one small strip.
Reckless was awesome! I walked out with the remastered KMFDM Xtort, Miranda Sex Garden, the new Peter Murphy and I got a steal on a Daniel Ash album!
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