Remember those battles for first chair in the school band that seemed like life and death? Our latest episode takes that competitive spirit to new heights as we sit down with Chicago's own Mark Guarino, tracing our shared roots from clarinet rivals to carving unique paths through the world of music and journalism. We share a laugh over past musical skirmishes and revel in the rich tapestry of Chicago's dynamic music scene, from the folk and indie of yesteryear to today's alternative country and Americana beats.
Venture with us through the storied streets and parks of the Windy City, where each corner hums with a melody of memories. Mark opens up about the hidden history of country music in Chicago, bringing to light the unsung heroes who've strummed and sung their way through the heart of this metropolis. We get real about the perils of urban development too, reflecting on how it reshapes not only the skyline but the creative lifeblood of our neighborhoods.
Wrapping up, we cast a critical eye over the city's political landscape, examining the performance of recent mayoral leadership and pondering Chicago's future as a potential haven in a climate-challenged world. It's a journey not just through the streets and sounds of Chicago but through the pressing issues that will shape its destiny. Join us, and let the nostalgia, the insights, and the sound of the city resonate with you long after the final note has faded.
Have someone you think should be a guest on this podcast? Let us know! Email your suggestions over to: karen.sandvoss@berealtygroup.com, andrew.wendt@berealtygroup.com
Connect with Karen and Andrew at Be Realty: Be Realty Group
Email the Show: karen.sandvoss@berealtygroup.com
Guest: Mark Guarino, Country & Midwestern: Chicago in the History of Country Music and the Folk Revival
Link: The Hideout
Link: Jaime Wyatt
Link: The Interview Show
Link: Loyola Park | Chicago Park District
Link: Fitzgerald's
Link: Bistro Campagne
Link: ratboys
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Records in Real Estate, a podcast about
well records and real estates.
You'll be entertained andinformed as we explore the
intersection of these two worldsthrough interviews with
Chicago's most interesting andsuccessful people from both
industries.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
That was Andrew Wendt and I'm Karen Sanvoss.
We are Chicago Real EstateBrokers, property Managers, avid
Music Lovers and your hosts ofRecords in Real Estate.
Hi, karen Andrew.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
We talked to your friend.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
From back in the day.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
My longtime acquaintance, mark Reno, all the
way back to kindergarten.
We go back Nice.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So how did you find him?
Or think that you know,determine that he would be a
good guest because he was agreat guest.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
He was a great guest.
I reconnected, I believe,through this book, but now I'm
trying to figure out how I evenheard about this book that he
wrote, which is fantastic andthat we talk about.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, just a fascinating guy Chicago
historian, lover of music.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
And a journalist, journalist, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
And so he knows a lot about the city and the history
of the city and he loves thiscity and the changes that he's
seeing.
You know sometimes break hisheart a little bit, but, man, he
is somebody who is keeping thehistory alive, especially
through this book.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Which is so important .
We'll let you listen to ourinterview with Mark Guarino.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Karen, we're here with Mark Guarino and you guys
know each other from way back inthe day.
Huh.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Way back when.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah that's right Back when we were single digits,
that's right Fellow clarinetplayers.
That's right.
That's right Back tokindergarten.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Did we go all yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I guess right.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, we had a nice little rivalry, clarinet rivalry
.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Clarinet rivalry.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
That's right, was one of you first chair and one of
you second chair, I don'tremember.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
David Jenkins was always first chair, david
Jenkins, was still in contactwith.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Where are you?
Oh, that's right.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
How's he?
Speaker 3 (02:15):
doing.
He's good.
He's a pilot for UnitedAirlines.
No way, yeah, amazing.
I'm going to see him in a week.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Tell him.
I said hi.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
I will, oh yeah, I will Definitely the clarinet
plane pilot.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
He should.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
He was effortless.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, so he was always first chair.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
I know.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
And then Mark and I, second and third just back, and
forth I remember in my mind youused to challenge me all the
time.
We had challenges, so you hadto go in front of the teacher
and play a passage and whoeverplayed it better got to sit in
second chair Okay, and Iremember that.
I was second and third all thetime Back and forth.
In that I was like can he juststop challenging me Like I don't
(02:56):
care.
That's my memory.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
It's funny because I don't have any memory of
challenging that at all.
But I'm sure you're right.
I'm sure you're right, I'm notchallenging that memory.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
But I think you're absolutely right that.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
I probably did that, and who knows why.
I think I would probably liketo sit next to Dave, that's
probably right.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Everyone wanted to sit next to Dave that was
probably.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Are you competitive by nature?
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I'm only competitive on maybe certain things.
I think I come from journalismand I think daily journalism and
that is kind of a competitivemarket way back.
I don't know if it is anymore.
But yeah, especially what I'mdoing now, it's like you always
want to be the first and youwant to get it, you want to have
something exclusive.
So in that world it's kind ofdrilled into me.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
But my personal life?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
not really.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, how does that?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Clearly I've changed Apparently what I was saying.
Yeah, I was like I was veryMachiavellian.
I was like we'll have thatsecond.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Well, nothing's as important as first or second
chair, or third chair.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, the band, the great school band.
We're not even talking highschool or college.
No, no, no.
St Giles grade school band.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
That's where my band days ended.
I was trumpet.
I don't think I ever competedor got challenged.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
No one ever challenged.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
No one ever challenged.
It's probably an underachiever.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, you know sometimes it's good just to be
bad at something.
That way You're not challengedto play in front of the teacher.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
So journalism you trained in journalism or got a
degree in journalism?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Actually, I am completely untrained.
I've never taken a journalismclass in my life.
I didn't go to journalism schooland so I always tell kids that
in a way, I feel like we live inthis society where you have to
let go and you know if you wantto do something you've got to.
There's something to go do, togo become it, and but in
journalism, no, I went to Loyolahere in Chicago and my I like
(05:00):
to write and I think I wrote afew things for our high school
paper, but that was how.
I wasn't on the staff of thepaper, but it really was.
When I went to Loyola I justjoined the school paper because
I wanted to write and I likedthe people who were.
It was sort of my little tribe,you know.
I liked the people who were onthe paper and I just kind of
then just got into it and Ilearned by just doing it.
(05:21):
And and and that and thattransferred once I got out of
school and started getting jobsand everything.
So yeah, that's kind of an oddthing because I didn't go.
You know, it's right down thestreet from Northwestern's
journalism school, which is veryexpensive and prestigious
school, and I didn't ever thinkof going there.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
I actually have the opposite story.
I am a journalism major.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Okay, interesting yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Never you know, wrote a lick for any journalist to
endeavor.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
In fact I was a communications major, but I
remember after the firstsemester I dropped it because I
realized that I felt like incommunications, like a lot of it
was just self evident to melike what communicate?
Like radio, it just seemed likethe history, and so I one thing
I needed to learn.
I knew that I just didn't reada lot, and so I became an
English major and so I just feltlike I just wanted to be
(06:11):
exposed to more stuff.
So I was.
I ended up being an Englishmajor.
Nice yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
The communications thing I remember correct me if
I'm wrong back in the day youwere kind of a ham radio guy.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
You got into that for a while it wasn't ham, you're
right, it was great I've gottenreally into like the history of
radio.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, okay, you're like the shadow or the old time,
exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Yeah, so I collected a lot of those show I just got.
I was fascinated by like thegolden age of radio in the 30s
and 40s and 50s and when I wasin grade school, right, and
there was a show called thoseAre the Days which is still
broadcast on, and actually thissummer they had me on to talk
about my book, which was likewow, it's like full circle.
It's a different host but hekind of took over from the guy
(06:57):
who founded in the 70s.
But yeah, for whatever reason,like I just kind of hooked into
that, I was fascinated by it.
And then as a kid I was reading.
I just read all these booksabout like the history of radio
and all the early television andyeah, I got real.
It's funny, I got heavily.
I remember when I went to highschool.
(07:17):
I remember telling myself inhigh school okay, you need to
stop this, you need to be like anormal person and go like I do
remember because I had juststopped it.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
You know, I stopped, like collecting Cause.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
I thought like you need to be into, like what my
peers are into, like MTV andstuff.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Because I was like this is going to alienate you
from having a social life.
Well, it's funny because I,when I thought about you doing
this, I was like and I did thinkI'm like that's kind of weird
Like why is he into old timeystuff?
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Like this was the, you know, the 70, at least in
the early 80s, when you know.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Madonna and what?
Speaker 3 (07:50):
yeah, right, right, exactly, and I was.
I was aware of that too, and Ididn't make the distinct
decision to like put that awayand now go join the rest of them
.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Luckily I had no social status to like ostracize
you or anything being you knowand nor did you hold a grudge
for all of those challenges fromback then.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yes, exactly, you can have a challenge after this I
feel like clarinet's in the car.
I'll be the judge.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, I know that I will not win.
At least you have a clarinet,so you would win.
Oh, you guys win, oh would win.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, there you go, and that does it, folks.
Thank you for joining thisepisode of records and real
estate.
We'll be here.
So you know you have a new book.
It's probably not new to you.
You've probably been working onit a long time so it feels
probably an old hat to you.
But it kind of combines Chicago.
It combines music andjournalism and obviously it also
(08:49):
combines history, which you'vejust admitted.
You have a love of history.
So we talked about your sort ofyour journalistic roots and
your love of history.
But you know where does yourlove of music come from?
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Well, I mean, I think it even goes back to those days
in grade school where I justkind of grew up around music and
learning music and you know somusic was always around and I
think it had.
So I think it was definitelyrooted in that.
But I know, you know it's tough, you know I found like I was
really interested in the peoplebehind the music as I got older.
(09:22):
I think that came from doingthe journalism.
And when I was at Loyola I wouldgo.
You know there'd be littlethings around the neighborhood I
would go cover and I think Ithink it kind of goes back to
sort of like I was reallyinterested in the history of
music too.
I think it kind of went back toeven like the radio stuff like
where does it come from?
And once you start looking backat you know you can look at
(09:44):
something that's happeningcurrently and then once you
start unpeeling the layers,everything's rooted in something
behind it and clearly that'strue of anything in our society,
but with music, you know, itgoes, it goes, it gets really
complicated and really deep, andI just found that really
fascinating.
Nice, and then, secondly, youknow we live in a city where
clearly the musical roots govery, very deep and they're
(10:06):
really interesting, and I foundit, I found that just a really
rich source as a journalist towrite about, because I became
interested in like not just kindof dwelling on the past, but
what's about the past ishappening today, where can you
see the past today, and so thatkind of that's just really rich
(10:29):
source of stuff to write about.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Nice, yeah, love it.
So, speaking of things that youcan see today, what are some of
the landmarks that stick out toyou, especially like around
writing this book?
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yeah, so well, you know, I always became interested
in like places, that like wherepeople performed, you know, and
that's really difficult becausein a city like Chicago is
talking to realtors the propertyvalues change, they become more
valuable and what was there?
You know, there's this tensionbetween, like, the rising
(11:03):
property rates and what wasthere is, you know, there's a
story in the book that I thinkthat has continued from
beginning to end that theneighborhoods are constantly
changing I'm starting going backto the 20s and because the city
is constantly changing and soyou have these things that
bubble up and they like there'sthese.
(11:25):
Really it creates these kind oforganically, creates these like
really incredible scenes thatcouldn't have ever been planned,
and then they kind of disappearand then the same thing happens
, like over here in this otherneighborhood, and that bubbles
up and it's amazing for a coupleof years and then that kind of
dissipates that sort of thecontinual story of it and I
(11:46):
think that sort of tracking thatwas kind of really, really
interesting to me.
But also a lot of the samereasons why something would
begin and something would endwere always the same.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Yeah, economics, economics.
The city of Chicago always hada really antagonistic approach
to small business owners,especially in music clubs.
So a lot of these club ownerswould just get harassed by the
city of Chicago for variousreasons and then the clubs would
shut down and boy, that'ssomething that just.
I first experienced that whenlong before I wrote this book,
(12:21):
in the 90s, there was a club onLincoln Avenue called Lawn Jacks
and that was a rock club thatwas really like.
And again, another continualstory through the book is that,
like, scenes happen aroundspecific places For whatever
reason there's, there's a smallclub somewhere, there's an own
couple owners who are passionateabout what they're doing, and
(12:42):
it becomes a magnet for allthese artists to show up, they
get to know each other, theycollaborate and then great
things happen out of it.
And that kind of was like LawnJacks.
It was a woman owned club andfor about 10 years they hosted
all these kind of undergroundbands, kind of indie bands that
were kind of on their way up.
But it became a place formusicians to hang out because
and to watch other musicians,even if they weren't playing,
(13:04):
and then they would meet eachother.
So the band Wilco, that wasreally their kind of clubhouse
for many years before theybecame very well known.
But what happened with thatclub is that it was in the
middle of Lincoln Park wasrapidly gentrifying.
They had a lot of problems withlike a big condo building
opened behind behind it.
Condo owners startedcomplaining about the noise, of
(13:27):
course, of course, and so thecity inspectors would come in
and give them tickets andessentially they were like this
isn't worth it anymore, so theyclosed and then that was the
last music club on that corridor.
Lincoln Avenue had a bunch ofmusic clubs dating back to the
70s, so all that is kind of gone.
What are the cross streets there.
If you start like, really,where Lincoln Avenue begins, all
(13:50):
the way up to like Fortin, allthe way up to what's past Fortin
, right Wood, around there, yeah, that that long stretch Okay,
that was in the 70s that was along stretch of, like folk music
clubs.
There was a bluegrass club thatwas called the Clearwater
Saloon there's a photo of it inmy book because that's our right
where.
(14:10):
You know, old town, yeah,that's inherently connected to.
So it started with the Earl ofOld Town, which is on Wells,
right across from Second City,which is now the Bar Corcoran's,
and that in the 70s.
It's a similar story.
I'm a passionate guy named EarlPionkey who was a real Chicago
character, just loved folk musicand that at the time, you know,
(14:33):
coming out of the old town,school was right down the street
and so he opened this.
He was a, he was not a musicianbut he was a bar owner and he
opened this bar and he knewnothing about music but he would
just have put a.
He just constructed a littlestage and then in the 70s it
became like a ground zero forthe singer songwriter scene that
(14:55):
developed out of it.
So that's where John Prine wasdiscovered Steve Goodman and a
whole list of other people andthen if you go up Wells Street
and then you take a left onLincoln Avenue, it that it kind
of had this ripple effect thatother clubs started opening up
on.
Holsteins and somebody else'stroubles Clearwater Saloon is
talking about.
The Kingston Mines was not ablues club when it started.
(15:17):
It actually was a.
It was a folk club and atheater right where the Brown
Elephant was.
I don't even think the BrownElephant's there anymore at the
corner of Lincoln and Fullerton.
So, and then down Wells Streetthere was a club called the
Quiet Night, and so Wells Streethad a couple of clubs too, and
so it's sort of like, asproperty values go up, then all
(15:39):
of these clubs kind of shut downand they move somewhere else.
You know, they're constantlymoving.
The people who started theseclubs may retire because they're
older, so somebody else maytake it up.
So it's this constant movingorganism in the within the city.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Is there a?
Is there a?
So I mean, I guess what you'resaying is there isn't one, but
would, if you had to, pick, asort of a central hub where
music and people arecollaborating around music in
the city right now?
Is there a place, or?
Speaker 3 (16:06):
I hate to say there isn't.
There really isn't.
And I think that has to do withwhat we're talking about, in
that, like the city has becomealmost like it's just over the
top in terms of it's just notaffordable and also a lot of
artists like have are they'rekind of moving out too and so
there's not like a centralcorridor at all.
Like like the 90s, wicker Parkwas kind of a place that had.
(16:30):
I mean, there's a whole, it'slike you know it's talking about
lounge acts with all this kindof well, it was indie rock bands
but my books about kind ofcountry alternative country
bands, but then there was allthis like commercial rock scene
happening and that was reallyfocused on Wicker Park and their
clubs there.
And also the thing is the doubledoor and the other thing that's
kind of central to it is likethe musicians have to live
(16:52):
somewhere too, right, and so,like they lived in the
neighborhoods, they could walkto the play, you know, they
could walk to where they'replaying or cafes and hang out.
So there was a whole thing, andthen that bubbled over to Logan
Square and that's kind of wherethe scene was and that's kind
of gone too.
So it's sort of like yeah, it'sbeen kind of decentralized
anyways, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Do you think it will coalesce at some point into
something, or is that just the?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
nature of the beast?
I don't know.
You know, I think that you know, the music business has changed
so much that, and that's reallyaffected the live music
business there's still a lot ofclubs to play.
I think that there's also likealternative spaces too that have
kind of popped up that peoplenow are used to going to, that
(17:37):
are not club, they don't sellliquor, but the basically that
kind of the house concert model,but it's in an art studio or
it's in a somebody's loft orlike a brewery or something.
So I think that, yeah, I don'tknow if it'll ever come back, if
I think Chicago is an odd theway it's shaped, so odd because
of the lake.
So everything is inherently youhave to go west for anything.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
You have to go west or south.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
You know you can only go north.
At a certain point that ends,and so you have to go.
So how far west can people go?
Speaker 1 (18:05):
You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 3 (18:06):
It's kind of like, and then there's southwest and
south side and everything likethat.
So it's kind of a weird.
The nature of like, how Chicagois shaped, is kind of like,
kind of affects what we'retalking about.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Interesting.
Well, your book I don't thinkwe've given the title is called
Country and Midwestern Chicagoand the History of Country Music
and the Folk Revival.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah, yeah, I love this book.
It's so fun to read.
I've bought a couple of copiesfor a friend Nice.
In fact a former guest on thetwo dudes that own, is it Orbitz
?
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Orbitz, orbitz.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
I brought them one oh nice Thank you.
You know, loved the history ofstuff.
I was like, oh, this is goingto be right up their alley.
Yeah, it reads like a novel.
Yeah, I can't every time, maybeit's because I know you.
When I read it, I'm like Ican't even imagine what it would
have was like to write thisbook because, the amount of
(19:10):
detail and tracking of peopleand the depth that you go into.
I mean you know letters from thewidow of somebody you know,
like that played in 1932 andtalking how did you, how did you
research this book?
Speaker 3 (19:28):
It's a tough question to ask because it kind of was
sort of like this thing that Ididn't really necessarily know
about going into it, and so Ihad an idea of like the outline
for the book, you know.
So I kind of knew like here'sprobably what I'm going to cover
, but as you get into it it'ssort of like you have no idea,
like what you're going todiscover.
And people you talk to, peopleyou know the journalism was a
(19:49):
really good background because,you know, I one thing I liked, I
liked interviewing people andso I liked hearing people's
stories.
So I already knew that Istarted in the middle of the
book where I knew there werepeople who were still alive.
You know the people.
I figured the parts whereeveryone's dead.
I was like I'll get to that.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
There's no real rush for it.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
So I was like I'll start where there's people still
alive, and then people wouldturn me on to other people or
tell me about things that Ididn't I had no idea about.
So a lot of it was like alearning experience for me
because I didn't, and I thinkthat's good.
That's true of a lot of thingswhere you don't know what you're
going into, and so if it's adiscovery for you, it's going to
(20:30):
be discovery for the reader.
If I knew everything, then itwould be boring, I would just be
transcribing Right.
And so I had greatconversations with people who I
would learn about things.
I would have to kind of stopand rethink what I thought.
But the research, you know, Iwent to some of the obvious
places to go see what people had, like the country music hall of
(20:50):
fame or some specialcollections here and there.
People gave me things therewere.
I just kind of stumbled uponsome things.
So it was kind of all over theplace.
It was sort of like a detectivehunt in many ways.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
That's really cool and you do such a good job of
honoring everybody that youmentioned in the book and there
are thousands of people that youmentioned in this book, and it
really, you know, every personin a small way contributes to
this.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
This, you know, glacier of music throughout
history and it's really cool youknow I covered music for a long
time.
I was a music critic for a longtime and I would go cover big
things at the United Center andbut then I was always interested
in smaller things too.
And one thing I learned fromthat experience and it was very
humbling that, like the majorityof musicians or music that's
(21:41):
out there is made, is likethat's 99 percent.
The stars represent the 1percent and I think people only
know the 1 percent and becausethe working model for musicians
is, in Chicago especially, it'sreally a working class model.
There are musicians who, whosename you may not know, but
they're making a living beingmusicians in.
(22:02):
Chicago and I think that's anold story, and so I saw this
book as, in a way, kind of likethose, those are the people that
tell the story of that of likeof my book, and also like tell
the story of books about theblues and the development of
jazz and everything like that,and I felt like it was really
(22:23):
important to focus just on thosepeople than really focusing on
anybody bigger, because I feltlike that that's really, that's
the undercurrent that keepsmoving through all of these
decades of the book.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Yeah, yeah.
And so because I'm sure a lotof people have covered the blues
and the jazz.
Not a lot of people covered thecountry.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
How did?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
that come to be.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Well, I mean, it was sort of that I couldn't believe.
You know, when I was writingabout music I would cover a lot
of the stuff from the 90s.
You know that was my time, youknow so, and I was.
What was great about that thatdecade was, you know, you always
hear about the 90s Grunge Rockand all this other stuff,
alternative Rock, which was allthere and fine, but underneath
(23:09):
it was this kind of likesubculture of like alternative
country and there were bandssort of rediscovering, who are
like our age, you know, who areat the time, were in their 20s
and discovering older music.
Because a lot it was the CD erawas reissuing a lot of stuff.
It was interesting.
It was a lot of different erasof like reissues that impacted
(23:31):
generations.
So you had all this musicrecorded in the 1920s and 1930s,
maybe a little beyond, and youknow, kind of the fundamental,
like when recording technologywas new and so people went out
and recorded people playing ontheir porches, playing wherever,
and so that's out of that.
You had, like the Carter familyand all these kind of pioneers
of what we consider to bepioneers of country music, but
(23:52):
then all that stuff went awayand people forgot about that
music and then in the 50s, theSmithsonian, a lot of small
labels.
They reissued all of it and sopeople in their if you're in
your 20s and the 50s you justthis is the first time you ever
heard this stuff.
It blew your mind and thatimpacted.
Like Bob Dylan was one of thosekids and he was really impacted
(24:13):
by that early folk music andthen that pushed things into the
50s or the 60s.
You know that impacted thatgeneration.
So now you move forward in timeand now you have formats change
and in the 90s all theSmithsonian again and all these.
They were reissuing all thestuff Robert Johnson and these
kind of landmark box sets on CDfor the first time and all the
(24:36):
people from who were in their20s then were really for the
first time discovering Doc Boggsand Carter family and, like
Robert Johnson, and were playing, wanted to play those songs and
that impacted.
And at the same time that washappening stadium country was
happening at the very GarthBrooks and all that stuff and it
was unrelatable in many ways topeople who were just learning
(24:56):
about country music.
And so you had people whoweren't necessarily from
Nashville, they were kind ofindie rock.
Kids were playing that musicfor the first time in Chicago
was really ahead of the curve ofthe Americana movement, because
all these great artists kind ofcame out of that scene I was
talking about and there werelabels here and there are
studios, and it was thisincredible time and they kind of
(25:19):
really really took off andradio stations, and radio
stations were a big part of that.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Right, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Yeah, and so it was a really kind of boy, it was a
really kind of creative, likeexplosion really, and I can only
think of classified as that.
By looking back at the time Ididn't really realize, but then
when it kind of like dissipated,I realized that was completely
unique.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Did you know you wanted to write about it at that
time?
Or were you just a kid?
Well, I was.
I had a job.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
I was a music critic for the Daily Herald.
I got a job in 97 as the musiccritic.
So part of it was I was justreally into it and so I wanted
to write about it.
And the other thing is thatthere was an audience for it too
.
There were people going tothese shows and who were excited
about it, and but it came veryorganically.
I was very unusual as someonewriting for a daily newspaper in
the suburbs to write about thatstuff.
(26:07):
It wasn't that those namesdidn't really become household
names until about a decade later.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
I was going to ask.
I mean, this is kind of anironic question, but is there a
band that somebody might know ofthat you're talking about?
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Well, wilco, of course, came out of that whole
scene too, but, like Andrew Birdwho's playing this week in
downtown Chicago on Nico Case,the handsome family Ryan Adams
was here for a bit.
All of the you know, the Wacobrothers, robbie folks, people
like that.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Who did the forward of your book?
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yeah, I was really grateful for him.
It's a great forward.
I got to get it.
Yeah, he's a really recent andincredible writer.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, how did that come to be?
Speaker 3 (26:45):
I, you know, I've been interviewing him since the
90s so I kind of got to know himand I've written about him for
so long and I wrote about himfor the book and I just you know
, I just asked I felt he waskind of a perfect, he was kind
of like an archetypal artist forthe book in that like he, he
really knew the music reallywell at the time I mean still
(27:05):
clearly.
But his first record, which waslike a 96 or 97, it sounded
very.
It sound that the instrumentssound very traditional classic
country but his lyrics had avery modern sensibility and very
funny and witty and also he heknew the classical conventions
of the Golden Age of countrywhere he would just he had great
(27:27):
like song lyrics, like the buckowns could have sing songly
songs and he also had this likereal punk rock energy to his
live shows.
It was, I mean, the first timeI saw him.
I didn't know who he was and Iwas blown away by this guy who
had this.
I'd never seen anybody who hadthis man at crazy energy.
It was funny.
And these songs that soundedlike they were old songs but
(27:47):
they were new songs and hedidn't.
And the one thing I liked abouthim was he never dressed like.
He didn't wear a Western shirt,he didn't, like you know, wear
cowboy.
He just looked like a guy, justkind of like a Chicago guy, who
walked out of a bar and justgot on stage and just did all
the stuff.
And you know, and it was that,that's also what was great about
him too, and so seeing him nowhe's this legacy artist, he's a
(28:09):
great bluegrass player.
You know, it was really great tokind of watch artists like him
and many others kind of like getbetter over time, like develop
his, really like develop theirmusic and songwriting.
So yeah, I just asked him.
He said yes, yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Really great.
So you probably don't remember.
You know all of the articlesthat you've written and that
sort of thing.
But in just doing a little bitof research I went on your
website, which is lovely androbust and like has seemingly
most of what you've written.
You know, I found a blurb thatyou did for the Daily Herald on
(28:46):
a concert at the Metro of EmpireWeekend.
Yeah, like one of their firstshows.
Yeah, and I think he's saying inthe article that they went
through all 14 songs that theyhad and we don't have anything
else.
So but I also thought that thiswas in.
I mean, metro is obviouslyright down the street from our
office?
Yeah yeah, Great, great club.
(29:07):
So you know, you say in thearticle, these days it's all
about media manipulation.
The smarter you can make itseem like a band is famous, the
quicker the band will actuallybecome famous.
Yeah, Is that still true oftoday?
Is it like?
Is it true more on sort of theis the onus on the band itself,
(29:27):
just to sort of do some socialmedia manipulation to like make
themselves seem bigger?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah, well, I mean, at that point, you know it was,
that was pre-social media, thatvampire weekend phenomenon
Actually, and there's nothingthat band has turned.
You know, it was fine.
I think that that they were atthat point.
They were on, I think, coversof magazines when, right when
they had their first recordcoming out.
And I think that, like, what Iwas focusing on was the idea of
(29:56):
hype and paid hype, and so theyclearly had a machine behind
them before they even right outof the gate.
And so, like, why, all of asudden, am I hearing about this
band everywhere?
I'm supposed to like them?
It's because there's a lot ofpeople behind it who are getting
paid a lot of money to makesure you know that and so it's
not like really organic is whatI was kind of saying, and I
(30:18):
think that one of the I thinkthat is still going on I one of
the problems of I don't know ifit's really a problem, but if
you it's a problem, if you thinkit is a problem, in that like
you have artists who are kind oflike thrust into the spotlight
immediately but they have noexperience, like they haven't
really spent years learning whatthey do Right, and so it's like
(30:43):
they are immediately playinglarge venues, I think of.
Amy Winehouse as the tragicexample of that, as somebody who
was just immediately famous andbut she had no, she never a lot
of experience playing manyyears playing small clubs, and I
think it really kind of threwher.
And as we kind of move forwardin music, as much more
(31:03):
manipulation, you have artistswho aren't necessarily in bands
and they're recording music justin their bedroom on a laptop,
and so it's much moreartificially manufactured, that
sort of live component is goneand they're just making tracks
and uploading them to websitesand stuff like that, and so
(31:25):
they're not necessarily have anyexperience like I.
You know, I guess I am atraditionalist and I think, like
, your weight is valued to me bylike, can you stand on the
stage and convey a song orwhatever you do to an audience
(31:46):
who doesn't know you and movethem?
It's a very old, it goes backto the beginning of time, you
know, and I think that a lot ofpeople can create things on
their laptop, but they don'thave that other thing, they
can't perform it live, or they.
And so I think that definitelyhas become more of an issue,
because the music has becomebroken down more of artifice.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
I guess Are there, you know?
I mean we talked about some ofthe bands that came out of the
scene that you sort of cut yourteeth on, but are there newer
bands that you think do a goodjob of conveying, you know,
feeling on stage?
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Yeah, I mean there's yeah, of course there's tons of
great bands out there.
Who are you know playing everynight?
Who are you listening?
Speaker 1 (32:34):
to these days.
I'm gonna rephrase the question.
I've tried to really refinethis question.
I mean it really really throwspeople but I've moved from like
what is your favorite band?
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Oh, it's funny because when people when they
found out what I did, especiallywhen I was doing it full time,
they were like, oh, who do youlike?
And I would always go blank.
You know, I have walls of musicat home and I can go look at it
, but I always go blank becauseI know that, like, whatever I
say is gonna sound like I likeBob Dylan.
Yeah just like you know and I.
But I know there's stuff outthere and I think, mike, I've
(33:06):
never been a good person to likepull things from my brain
immediately, but I know if I wassitting in front of all of it I
could be like, oh yeah, this,this and this I really like, and
also it changes too.
I will go through these cycles.
Like there's a singer who Ireally love named Jamie Wyatt
from Sheila's in Nashville and Ithink she's on her third record
and she's this like incrediblesinger and these records are
(33:30):
kind of classic.
They're kind of classic countrysongs but they're her second
record.
This is a record called NeonCross that was produced by
shooter Jennings, who's whale,and Jennings son and man, oh man
.
The songwriting is really good.
She's a great singer and she'sa great example of someone who
just been like doing it for alot of years, and so I really
(33:52):
she's got a new record out thatI've been really enjoying.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
See, that's, that's the answer we're looking at.
Yeah, yeah, all right, good,good, so you know, it took me a
little.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
I had to pause there for a second.
I had to build up to it.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
My brain was like Well, it's funny because you
know I should take some of myown realtor medicine.
I mean that you know it's, it'stold, it's taught to realtors
and I subscribe to this that youasking somebody just for a
referral is a ridiculousquestion Because their brain
literally breaks just what youjust did.
You need to be specific, likeis there somebody, is there a
(34:29):
family that you know of throughyour kids t-ball class, that you
know might be talking aboutmoving or is pregnant or you
know?
So like you can kind of focusthem on on a shorter or a
smaller group of people, so thatthey can actually run through
the Rolodex instead of justbeing overwhelmed by 500 people
(34:52):
that they know in their lives.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
So I think also like I, I come from daily journalism
where you work on something oneday really really intently and
you're the expert on it, and thenext day it's gone and you're
onto the next thing and youforget about it, and I think
that's trained me to like.
I'm always so, because I'vebeen listening to Jamie White
recently.
She's on my mind but you know Iwould have to go back and go
(35:16):
look like, okay, who you knowwho's on my radar here.
There's a great band in Chicago.
They just released a record, anew record called Rat Boys, and
they are.
They're kind of in the mold ofwhat I'm kind of talking about.
They're really young band andboy.
Their audience is kind ofreally exploded.
Cool, yeah, yeah, and so Ireally like them.
Do they have any shows comingup in Chicago?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
I know they played few shows this summer.
I think they seem to betraveling, going to Europe and
stuff.
They're really great.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
The Rat Boys, yeah, just.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Rat Boys.
Okay, yeah, Nice, I do reallylike it seems like there are
more you know sort of currentcountry artists coming to
Chicago.
I mean, a lot of them areplaying at the Salt Shed, you
know Tyler Childers, and it'snice to see that there are more,
seemingly more sort of countryartists.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Well, I think that's a product of kind of this
Americana thing that you know alot of the history record music
is about creating genres andidentifying genres and selling
it to an audience and that thingI was talking about in the 90s
it was called.
It was called AlternativeCountry because it was
considered an alternative tostadium country.
That's where mainstream countryhad gone the furthest in the
(36:28):
90s.
By that point it enteredstadiums and that you know big
kind of rock sort of show.
So now you have thisalternative country underneath
it.
It was really those twofactions.
And then, like a decade later,they started calling what was
kind of alternative countryAmericana, because now bigger
labels started signing thoseartists who are on these small
labels, all this alternativecountry.
(36:49):
Because the alternative countrything had recognized there's an
audience out there for thismusic.
So it was not being served, butnow it's being served by these
little mom and pop labels.
So a decade later major labelsare saying, okay, let's get a
couple of those and let'sactually get some of the same
artists, let's just sign them tobigger labels.
And now we'll expand thisaudience and that really so.
(37:11):
Tyler Childers really kind ofbenefited from his career,
benefited from what was going on20 years earlier by this kind
of development of thisalternative Americana genre that
now is sort of a dominant genreon country music today that
Jason Isbell and everything andall those people really have
roots in.
It really goes back to the 90sBecause all that music was being
(37:35):
ignored by major labels.
They just were really interestedin this really heavily kind of
pop flavored version of countrymusic which is still going on
for sure, but now it's sort oflike there's this genre that's
really identified.
There's a major audience thatcould fill the salt show when
these people come to town.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Is the term Americana an old term or did somebody dub
it, and if so, do you know whocame up?
Speaker 3 (38:00):
with it.
I don't, you know, the termAmericana has been around
forever just to talk aboutAmericana culture or something.
You know that, something kindof rooted in something old, you
know old, that's very unique toAmerican history.
So the term's been around along time but in terms of the
associated with music is stillkind of relatively new.
(38:23):
And now there's an AmericanaMusic Association, there's
Americana Fest in Nashville,there's now a Grammy category,
Americana category, and so, yeah, it's become like something
that's it's a really, really biggenre of music.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
I was just wondering if because you know there is
always a thing that you talkabout music with people, at
least around here and in my lifeyou know?
What do you like to listen to?
Oh, I listen to everythingexcept country.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
And so country became this, I don't know, just kind
of a bad word or something beingfor people in the North, I
don't know.
But now if you dub it Americana, then you know, right, it's
cooler.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
Yeah, yeah it seems like there's more of kind of an
urban sensibility to it and yeah, I know it's funny because it's
just these genres become.
They become empty after a whilebecause country music well,
what is country music?
It's quite a lot of things todifferent people.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
And you can't really pinpoint what it is.
I think everybody can all agreewhat kind of classic country is
you know?
And but then after the 60s itjust kind of splintered so many
different ways.
What is you know?
And now it's a bunch ofdifferent things.
So yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Yeah, and you talk about some of that in your book
about the term country.
You know it was like Southernor something here.
I don't remember all the insand outs.
Well, it was first kind of youknow when you go back, way back.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
You know the artists that are today considered
pioneers of country music.
That term didn't exist at allwhen they were around, and they
were called the Hillbilly Music.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Hillbilly.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Music it was called Hillbilly Music, marketed as
that, whereas, like blackmusicians were, that was being
marketed as race records toblack audiences.
So you have the race records,hillbilly Music, and they didn't
really know what to call it andbasically they were just, you
know, records with stringedinstruments.
Sometimes they would actuallybe called that, like voice and
(40:18):
guitar, and it really wasn'tthose terms really weren't.
You know, because if you thinkabout it, the recording industry
was still kind of an infantform too and they were kind of
still the industry was stilldeveloping and figuring out like
who's buying, who are auditing?
You know, as also thetechnology started entering more
(40:40):
homes, record players Like thatwas not, that was something
only rich people had initially,you know, and so then it became
much more of a staple of homes.
The industry got bigger andthere's demand for different
types of music and so that'swhat kind of like the kind of
the record buying Cause beforeyou would just kind of like the
(41:00):
record, you know they werealmost like pieces of furniture,
you know they would be in yourliving room and so what you were
playing on it wasn't asimportant as just like the piece
itself.
It was kind of a novelty.
So it, yeah, it's reallyinteresting how fast.
You know it's the same thingthat we kind of look at with
like technology today, with likestreaming, is a new, relative,
(41:24):
still relatively a new thing,and that's changed everything.
You know, it's really changedhow we get our films and
television shows and music andeverything, and there's that's
kind of created the sort of likehyper categorization of media
into our homes, and so it's likeeverything's a reaction to the
(41:45):
technology.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, yeah.
If you are interested audiencein learning more about this,
read the book.
It's really cool.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Oh, I do have one last question, and then we'll
take a break and we'll come backand talk a little bit more
about Chicago.
I found your book on Amazon.
I have it in my cart, but doyou know, and I did stop at, I
think it's called Roscoe Books,Roscoe, but is there a local
bookstore where you know thereare copies?
Speaker 3 (42:10):
still Sure, there should be in Chicago.
I mean the, the like thebookseller on Lincoln Square on
a bridge books, and Lakeview,the book stall up in Winnicka.
You know these are places I'vedone events at or they've, or
the what's the city lit booksand Logan Square's great,
they're really great bookstore.
(42:31):
They've done a lot of my events.
So all the kind of independentbooksellers in Chicago should
have it or the order it for youif you don't have it, and then
it's online.
You can buy it from theuniversity of Chicago press
website their catalogs online orfrom Amazon.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Okay, great, cool.
Well, in the show notes whenthis airs, we'll make a make
sure there's a link to where youcan buy it, To the book to
where you can buy it All right,let's take a break, hey Karen.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Mark.
Nope, your name is not Mark.
Who are you, andrew?
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Do you have record to share with us?
Speaker 2 (43:06):
I do Nice, I do.
I'm excited about this one.
It is an album called theReturner.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
By Allison Russell.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
I literally just started listening to it
yesterday, okay, but found itbecause I read a weekly magazine
called the Week and they've gota little blurb about music and
up and coming artists andwhatnot.
So I check them out.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
And I've got four and a half stars or something which
is not usual, and it is adelightful record.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
I wanna dive deeper into it.
Allison Russell is contemporary, she's bluesy, she's.
There's a kind of a disco songthere's I don't know it's upbeat
, but the messaging is very real.
She talks about what it's likebeing a black woman in America.
(43:59):
Because she talks about thehistory she mentions, you know,
all sorts of things that areculturally relevant and issues
and whatnot, without being ladendown by oh God, this is a
political record or anythinglike that it's very enjoyable
and even if you wanna just putit on the background so yeah, I
(44:20):
won't say much more about thatbecause I don't know too much
about her history or anything,but check it out.
Allison Russell's the Returner,the.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Returner.
Great, I'm gonna look forwardto checking that out, thank you.
So we're back with Mark Guarino, and this is Records in Real
Estate.
I'm not gonna ask you a bunchof real estate questions, but
you know we do often talk a lotabout Chicago on our podcast and
lifelong Chicago in.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Yeah, I grew up in Oak Park along with Karen.
Yeah, and been in the city Ihave since I was 18.
Yeah, nice yeah.
First apartment was when I was20 in Rogers Park, cool yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
I lived in Rogers Park yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Rogers.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Park is underrated.
Oh yeah, I love it.
So what is I mean?
These are difficult questionsmeant to be rapid fire.
Difficult because your brain'snot gonna land on something.
What's your favorite thingabout Chicago?
Speaker 3 (45:15):
You know, I think the character of Chicagoans I think
is one of my favorite things.
You know I think that it's acity that doesn't really take
itself too seriously.
I think that's embedded in thecharacter of the city.
And then the history of Chicago, I think, is really fascinating
.
The more you learn about it youreally learn how Chicago plays
(45:37):
such an important role in justthe history of the country and
its location and everything likethat.
It's really kind of endlesslyfascinating to me.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Yeah, what about your favorite venue?
Speaker 3 (45:50):
That's a tough one, but I would have to say maybe
it's not because there's a bunchof them.
One of Metro is like that Iwent to first met.
I first went to Metro probablywhen I was 20.
And it's just.
You know, it feels like homegoing there.
It's such an important venue,not just for Chicago but for,
you know, the rest of thecountry in terms of bands
(46:10):
playing there, feeling like theyreally made it when they made
Played Metro.
But I think the other venues isfor me, Fitzgeralds and Burwin.
In the 90s for me A lot of themusic I talk about in my book
really was playing there.
Bill Fitzgerald and his familybrought up a lot of great music
from Louisiana and Texas and allover the place to play and they
(46:33):
were really only playingFitzgeralds, old Cajun bands and
Texas singer songwriters, andso when I went there in the 90s
I was, a lot of my friends wentto go get advanced degrees and I
was feeling like I got my PhDat Fitzgeralds.
I go there all the time and Ilearned a lot.
Yeah, and that's a greatexample of great clubs.
If you have a great someonecurating the music, you can go
(46:55):
there any time of the week andyou know what's going to be
there.
It's going to be reallyinteresting and important and I
feel like that's the place forme.
And then the other venue is theHideout.
It was again a club.
That is a great music club butalso a great community room too,
so they have events that you'renot going to find anywhere in
(47:15):
Chicago.
I'm doing it, I've done eventsfor my book there where we've
done focusing on differentaspects of the book and I don't
know.
It's the type of place you canonly the hideout would be the
only place to host somethinglike that and open their space
up.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Yeah, I've seen, I think it's called the interview
show.
Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeahthat's the hideout staple.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Yeah, yeah, what is?
Speaker 1 (47:37):
that about.
It's kind of like a late nighttalk show format, but you know
and live, yeah, live, every likeChicago.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
I mean, he's had everyone, from mayors of Chicago
to musicians, to artists, toboy.
You know, ron, the gamut havebeen out there.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
I know, his name is Mark too, right, mark Bezer?
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Mark Bezer.
Yeah, oh well.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yeah, that's really.
I don't know, is this still?
Speaker 3 (48:00):
going on.
It's still going on, yeah youshould.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
Definitely you'd, karen.
It would be center cut.
Karen San Vos, I think.
All right.
Do you have a favoriterestaurant?
You get out to eat much.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
I do, boy.
Now that's the tough oneBeester or Champagne.
I know I'm saying it wrong,it's a French restaurant.
Lincoln Square is probably oneof my favorites.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Nice.
Somebody else just told meabout this place.
Speaker 3 (48:20):
Yeah, it's on sunny side, off of sunny side, on
Lincoln Avenue.
Okay, I really, really lovethat place.
It's a great restaurant yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
I'm supposed to go there tonight.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
It all comes around.
That's very I love it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
Yeah, and I know I'm saying the name wrong, it's but
it's yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
It is.
It looks like Champagne though.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Yeah, we're supposed to go there.
We rescheduled, but yeah, I'msupposed to go there tonight.
That's funny.
Yeah, that is so funny Funnyhow the world works.
Do you have a favorite street?
That's really an interestingone.
I think Like it could be like awestern or like a section of.
It's definitely not western.
It's probably one of my leastfavorite streets because of
(49:02):
traffic and everything I wouldhave to say.
Speaker 3 (49:06):
You know, one street I always loved was Glenwood,
because it was just kind of thislovely street that goes through
so many neighborhoods andthat's a great one.
I guess I'm being heard inNorthside Centric, but I think I
was.
I always loved Sharon Road too,because Sharon Road starts
around here and goes.
But it was this grand road thatwhen I was in high school, when
I was in college, sometimes Iwould get on Sharon Road on a
(49:29):
Sunday afternoon and just driveall the way up to, like Lake
Bluff.
Oh, I've done that so manytimes.
Yeah, and it's a great and youcan.
That road really was built forthe advent of the automobile too
.
You know it really was builtfor you see photos of like old
cars and they would just itbefore highways.
It was here on the road Right,and so I have a fondness for
(49:51):
that.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
I told earlier this year we had two 20-something
like early 20-somethings workingfor us on our commercial
division and one of them wasjust starting a relationship and
that was one of my, mysuggestion.
You probably thought me old andfunny, but I'm like just take
her on a drive up Sheridan Road.
You get glimpses of these parks, you get glimpses of the water,
(50:15):
you see these magnificenthouses.
You can take her up to theBotanic Gardens or whatever, and
so, yeah, it's just a beautiful, beautiful drive.
Yeah, absolutely, chicago ismade up of a bunch of parks.
Do you have a favorite park?
Speaker 3 (50:31):
Well, I do.
Yeah, I have a couple of them.
One of them is Loyola BeachPark, and the reason I love that
is that it's very long and it'svery wide and it's kind of
still kind of undiscovered inthat people, because it's the
only beach and park that's noton the water, that's not cut off
(50:53):
by Lakeshore Drive and so it'shidden.
You can go down Sheridan Roadand not know it's there, and
when I was younger when Idiscovered it I was really fat.
I just couldn't believe youcould walk at the end of the
street and then drop down onsand and I take my dog.
I still take my dog up thereall the time.
Because it's the greatest mix ofpeople too, I think.
A lot of like you go to a lotof the parks below the lake and
(51:15):
it's like everyone looks thesame, they're all the same age,
and up there you have peoplespeaking Russian, you have
Africans, you have a lot of oldpeople, you've got a lot of
young people.
It's really like the greatestmix of people that I can't think
of.
Any other place in Chicago thatreally fits that.
So you go there on a summer dayand it doesn't feel packed at
(51:35):
all, and so it's really a verypleasant place.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
Yeah, that's one of the reasons I like Rogers Park
so much is because just thismelting pot of different
cultures.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
Absolutely.
Yeah, it's really.
I feel like all the rapid firegentrification that happened
kind of ended.
It ends up in Rogers Park.
It hasn't really become likeit's its own unique.
Yeah, it's almost like its owncity.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
Yeah, I mean the real estate joker you know is Rogers
Park has been up and coming for40 years.
Speaker 3 (52:05):
Well, that's it, 40 years it always, always.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
But yeah, you're right.
I mean, and a lot of developersin their early 2000s converted
out these apartments and Ibought a condo up there which is
still in existence, but a lotof them failed.
Because you know, if things aregoing so well that you're that
these developers are now lookingfor inventory up in Rogers Park
(52:29):
, you know that it's probablycoming to an end and you should
get off that train Right.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Because, it's too late.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
Yeah, you're, you've.
You've missed the window.
Yeah, what is your leastfavorite thing about Chicago?
Speaker 3 (52:42):
Let's see what's my least favorite thing.
Well, traffic is one.
I think the well I'm on a realestate podcast.
You don't want to hear myanswer, wow.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
That's fine, okay.
Okay, I'll tell you.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
I think it's been overdeveloped and I think that
the overdevelopment has made itunlivable in many ways, to be
really frank, and I think thatyou might have.
And it started happening in thelate 90s, but now it's been
like you have like a singlefamily home.
That's a perfectly fine singlefamily home.
It gets demolished and theybuild like a six-flat bomb or
something like that, and thosecome with six cars and and then
(53:13):
this happened under the date aROM administration almost hugely
, where you have like a buildinggets torn down.
They build a giant building andevery single one of those has a
parking, has a car, and so nowwhat's happened is that it's
tougher to get around the citybecause there are more cars,
there are more people, you haveneighborhoods that don't feel
(53:34):
human level anymore, and I thinkthat has really destroyed the
character of a lot of theseneighborhoods.
And so what has made Chicagogreat was the character of the
neighborhoods.
Now you've got, you've got youryou are literally not you, I'm
the general you.
It's being stripped out.
And so now what do you haveleft?
Blant, suburbia, and I thinkthat is a really overall problem
(53:58):
in Chicago, and you have stripsthat just look like Gulf Road
and Schomburg and there'snothing about Chicago that feels
.
And so my book is all about,like all these great things that
happen in Chicago and all these, you know, and it's a culture
book, I get it, you know, butthat stuff is all going to
disappear because of what's beenhappening.
The overdeveloped ChicagoPeople are going to realize well
(54:21):
, we're so great about livinghere in the first place, we
forgot you know, because it'sgone.
And that, to me, is somethingthat I've written a lot about,
and it's really I and I'm notthe only one it just seems to
seeing that happen is is, Ithink, also it makes me really
sad, too, really sad, sure yeahSad at the point of finding
(54:44):
somewhere new, or maybe.
yeah, I mean, I think thatyou're seeing it already.
You're seeing people moving outof Chicago.
You care about like, oh, youknow we're moving.
People are moving out ofChicago because of the crime.
People are moving out ofChicago because, like, they
can't afford to live here and soa lot of artists are living,
you know they're.
It's weird, this is reversemigration of people moving to
(55:05):
cities outside of Chicago.
You know we were talking aboutearlier.
There's really no centralcorridor for stuff anymore,
because it's been, because youcan't do it anymore.
And I think that is sort of thereal unspoken problem that
Chicago is going to be facing isthat it's cultural economy.
You'll always have the finearts, You'll always have
(55:26):
nonprofit theaters and balletcompanies and because that's
funded by the government, youknow, and so that that'll always
be there and museums.
But what you're not going tohave as much is that, like the
art galleries, the music clubs,it's going to be really
difficult for those to hang outanymore, because the city's has
been overdeveloped, Is there?
Speaker 1 (55:48):
a way to work, to bring those back.
Speaker 3 (55:52):
I, you know I'm not smart enough to know the answer
to that in terms of like city.
You know, I think it takes thecity, it takes political will to
recognize that.
But the problem is the money isso good that it's just tough to
say no to any of this stuffthat I think Lincoln Yards.
It's like the worst example ofwhat I'm talking about.
I think that is what.
(56:12):
If that fully goes through,it'll, frankly, destroy the
north side of Chicago.
You're creating a city within acity and you're building all
these made the plan is to buildall these major mega
developments and a shortblueprint, or a short, you know,
geographical blueprint.
How is that sustainable?
How is that livable?
(56:34):
How is that going to be?
How are you going to be able toget around when you're adding a
city within a small, within aneighborhood in a city?
It's not.
But the people who are behindLincoln Yards add a lot of
political, you know, power withour past administration and so I
think the pushback to that waspeople.
(56:55):
There was a lot of despair overthat when that was going to
happen.
I went to a couple of thosepublic meetings and I was amazed
by people just were in despairover it, but nobody was
listening to their voice becausewe already saw what happened
with Bucktown and Wicker Park.
Those were vibrantneighborhoods and those were
architecturally incredibleneighborhoods in the history of
(57:17):
the city and people bought thosebuildings and brought them back
to life and it's great.
You know, this vibrant economyand those neighborhoods those
are now.
You know, developers came in,they raised all the houses.
They built these super-sizedmansions with gates around them,
which might, by the way, isvery why are you living in the
city with people to gate aroundyour house, I don't know why
(57:39):
Kind of goes against the wholenature of being in a city,
living around your neighborhoods, but anyway.
But that neighborhood has becomejust kind of like there's
nothing special at Wicker Parkanymore, just a bunch of tourist
trap restaurants and there'sreally nothing.
You know, there's a lot ofpeople coming in from the
suburbs and tourism, and there'snothing really.
It's like rush street, you know, and there's no real small
(57:59):
business owners there anymore.
It's a lot of go-down daim andit's all franchise shops, right.
And so what do you want in yourcity?
Do you want your city to have,you know?
Do you want to look like asuburb?
Do you want it to just beSouthboard?
It's a great example of thatFranchises from left to right.
Speaker 2 (58:14):
The same ones that are in Schomburg.
Speaker 3 (58:15):
So what do you want your city to be?
And I think those are thequestions that people have to
ask themselves.
But you know, I know I'm goingon a long rant to your question,
but I think that is a it makesme it's.
I'm not someone who lives inthe past.
I really believe that thingschange and you try to roll with
it, but that's the one thingthat I think is really making
(58:38):
Chicago.
It makes me very sad forChicago.
It was the hyper development ofChicago and how Chicago, the
North side especially, hasbecome just like suburban hell.
Speaker 1 (58:49):
Is there a neighborhood that still sort of
maintains its character?
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Well, I mean, of course we talked about Rogers
Park because of the fact there'sno money to be made there.
Speaker 1 (58:57):
So Rogers Park has been.
You know it's a residentialneighborhood.
Capitalism is a problem.
Speaker 3 (59:03):
Well, no, not really capitalism, but I think it's
because it's a better, it's a.
It's a highly dense residentialcommunity without a lot of
commercial corridors, and Ithink that's what.
That's what's kind of preventedthat from being always taken.
It's just so dense.
How do you you?
know you can't you can't teardown that entire neighborhood,
(59:23):
but there are neighborhoods inChicago that literally they've
been so.
So, anecdotally, I used to liveon Damon off Irving Park Road
in the very late 90s and thatwas right before all this was
starting to happen, and Iremember that there was, you
know, beautiful little two flatsthat are mostly still there,
little bungalows, and you knowit's like I love you're talking
about your favorite streets, Ilove Damon.
(59:44):
I love Damon.
Because of that it felt like alittle small town.
It was like so Chicago to me.
And then what happened was theystart tearing down most of Damon
and so they start building.
They tear down like thebeautiful little grandma's
bungalow, art Deco bungalow, andbuild the shoebox three flats.
And those shoebox three flatswere built so poorly they don't
(01:00:07):
even like they're falling apart.
Now they were falling apartfive years after they were built
and they're ugly and they'reand nobody there wants to go in
and raise their family there, sothey're made for flippers.
And so now you have aneighborhood that was.
People live there forgenerations.
Their kids went to school downthe street, they went to church
over here, they built, theyopened small businesses around
there.
It was a classic Chicagoneighborhood and now you flip
(01:00:30):
that neighborhood for just realestate flippers and is that good
for the city?
Is that good for like, whywould anybody want to live there
?
And temporarily, right, and soI think that to me, is a.
I found that really, when Ifirst saw that happening, I was
like it, just it was.
I was in shock and but it'sjust.
It made me really sad.
(01:00:50):
It's just like you can't have aneighborhood just built just
for investment.
You have to build neighborsthat people want to live in for
a long period of time and theydon't want to live in those
neighborhoods because, or youknow, clearly people are living
there, but it's like, but arepeople going to live there to
stay?
Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Yeah, it's a transient, yeah, everything
becomes transient.
Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
Exactly so.
Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Well, speaking about, you know Chicago and progress.
You wrote a article that waswhat's the word, I don't know.
Something is published.
Published, yes, they have to bepublished.
In the Washington Post whenformer mayor Lightfoot was sworn
in and it was a hopeful article, that's.
You know.
Your quote is when Lightfoot issworn in Monday, the outsider
(01:01:36):
will usher in an era of hope inthe city long run by a political
machine.
Right?
Do you still feel like herMayor ship did?
That ended sort of thepolitical machine is that?
Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
is that what we're seeing next in Brandon Johnson
or Well, I think it was truethat she came out of the.
She was, she really was areformer and I think that's what
got her to office.
People and I talked to voters,people voted for her because
they were very sick of and Ithink like the Lincoln Yards
example I'm talking, people arejust so sick of these insider
(01:02:10):
deals of and they were just likecan we just get somebody from
the outside who recognized so,like with the Lincoln Yards
thing, she would talk about thatlike that's bad for the city.
But of course when she got inshe didn't do anything about it.
But I think two things one isthat she was hip with COVID and
that was that hurt all anybodywho was mayor of any city
(01:02:31):
Anywhere had a real difficulttime with that.
And then you had the social orthe rest of George Floyd's order
in 2020.
Yeah, those two things werereally the death knell for any
big city mayor, because you know, these are major disruptions to
any city life.
But I think that the way shehandled that at the towards the
(01:02:52):
end of her term, she came veryparanoid and she became very
stubborn.
She wouldn't listen to people'sall those things that I think
the office kind of Corrupts someof these people.
They get in, they just getoverwhelmed and they can't, and
so their instinct is to Lash outat critics, and I think people
saw that.
I think it made her seem verysmall, and so I think that so
(01:03:16):
she was tossed out of office.
The new mayor come in and he hadthe same thing of how he was
gonna be an independent.
He's only been mayor for abouta year, so there's not much of a
track record.
I think it's been really anunimpressive track record so far
.
His proposals are Very naive.
He wants to the city to run agrocery store instead of.
(01:03:36):
That to me seems like Notreally.
The way you solve a food desertis to have you know the city.
Chicago is now gonna.
You know food business you know,and again to the food business
and to deal with all the graftand corruption that would
Inevitably be part of that.
The immigration crisis that'shappening in the city.
We have people sleeping onsidewalks outside police
(01:03:57):
stations in December 15th orwhatever the day today is yeah,
and he's completely failed inthat point and he's had since
his beginning of terms toseriously handle it.
So I don't know I mean, I don'tknow if he's from the quote
outside as well.
I think that you need to havesome kind of.
I think we live in this era ofjust.
You know, there are a lot ofproblems in society, and so the
(01:04:20):
natural thing is select.
Somebody can promise you a lotwho has no experience in
government, no experienceworking with different people,
no experience in creating policy, and that sounds really good,
but the what I think we'restarting to learn is that you
kind of need some of that.
Yeah and you need to be aserious person.
But sometimes being a seriousperson is not that sexy or fun,
(01:04:41):
right, and so it's.
So you're seeing that at thefederal level, you're seeing at
the local level.
So I mean, I hope that I wishhim well and I hope he's got
three more years, so I hope thatthings will, you know, he'll
kind of find a groove.
Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
Yeah, I think you should be hopefully learn on the
job.
I think you're right.
Yeah, you know, mayor Lightfootwas unable to do that because
of all the tumult that washappening.
Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
I think that she was.
I think anybody in that rolewould have been just like
roasted.
But I think towards the end ofthe term she really proved she.
She had a lot of gravitas goingin and a lot of people riding a
lot of hopes there, and thenshe just seemed very small at
the end of it and she could haverisen to the occasion a lot
more, but instead she just shecould not take any criticism,
she just would.
(01:05:24):
She seemed very reactive,reactive to things instead of
leading, and I think people seethat and that's why they wanted
to change.
Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
So, yeah, it's, it's pretty interesting, dynamic well
, let's, let's end on a sort ofa positive note.
Karen, do you have any?
Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
I know I'm Just so forlorn doing it's one of my
channels to bring the room down.
Well, my, my hopes for Chicagoand I do believe this is that,
because of climate change,people are gonna flock here.
(01:06:01):
It might make exactly whatyou're talking about with over
development even worse, butChicago is gonna be the place to
be.
Yeah, fresh water.
Yeah, we are not on fire, we'renot on the coast.
Speaker 3 (01:06:14):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
So I'm curious to see what's gonna happen when
everyone flocks here.
It might be a nightmare, butEventually, I mean you know,
hopefully they're.
Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
They're.
I think there are there twoneighborhoods.
You know I live in Avondale.
Yeah, avondale kind of is still, you know, kitschy and has,
yeah, a Bug museum and a horrormuseum.
That is in those two flats thatyou're talking about.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we had aguest on early on who has a
record store in Portage Park.
(01:06:46):
You know it takes a while forthese things to develop.
But eventually, you know thereis a neighborhood that is
affordable to artists, that theyall sort of right right too,
and you know, I think, I thinkit's possible that that that
happens because there's a lot ofspace, right, it might have to
keep going west, right, right.
But then you know, as what'shappened, you know it,
(01:07:09):
neighborhoods become moreaffordable too because they they
become less popular.
You know, I mean, you've kindof seen ups and downs with
Lincoln, like the stretch ofLincoln in Lincoln Park, you
know when, right, there was alot of hipness to it and now
it's a wig shops and regs,stores and stuff, right.
Right right right, andeventually I mean landlords just
(01:07:29):
have to deal with the fact thatnobody really wants those types
of stores and they're, you know, in their neighborhood, and so
maybe they'll Cut their rates alittle bit to make it a little
bit more affordable for peopleto come in.
But right what, you know what?
What is possible for Chicago'smusic scene?
Speaker 3 (01:07:47):
Well, you know I think that it's kind of what
you're saying I think thathaving music in neighborhoods
that normally didn't have musicbefore, and so you're seeing, in
places like Avondale already,you know, there's music clubs
opening there that just didn'texist before.
Mm-hmm and hopefully it'llhappen in place like Portage
Park and Jefferson Park, and soI think that, as artists, just
kind of go out and find spacesthat are more affordable to do
(01:08:10):
things in.
That's just gonna.
It's gonna widen the net.
It won't be consolidated.
It's the ones that used to bethe north side of Chicago,
everything east of Western, youknow, up to the lay, up to the
Evanston, from Old Town.
That was the quarter you knowthat was like a real that no
longer is gonna exist.
Yeah, I think now it's likeit's spread out more.
So I think that is kind of whatthings are gonna look like,
(01:08:33):
spread out both north and southand west.
Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
I think yeah it does sound lovely to have a central
spot to go see a bunch of musicin the night, yeah, but here we
are hopeful that that can happenagain.
Yeah, never know you know, ifnot, we'll just jump it in uber.
Well, mark, wonderful to talkto you.
This has been an outstandingconversation, karen, thanks for
(01:08:59):
having me, you know,reconnecting with mark and yeah,
so fun to see you.
Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
Here it's been decades, yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:09:06):
I have to go see you play piano.
Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
I don't write on you know, when we have, maybe on the
on the February 15th, when wehave a listening party, you guys
can bring your clarinets.
Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
That's a nice suggestion, but I think that I
think that you know on papersounds good, but in practice I
feel like, as the night goes on,and if you, you know, we imbibe
enough, yeah, those that mighthappen.
Speaker 3 (01:09:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
Never say never.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (01:09:34):
Thank you, oh, no, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
I Andrew.
Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
Yes, Karen.
Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
I have a very serious question for you right now.
Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
Mmm.
Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
You ready.
Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
Give me a second.
Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
Okay, anyway, yes, all right, shoot, I'm ready.
Are you ready?
Okay, why journalism?
Speaker 1 (01:09:54):
Like why journalism for me, like what a major in
journalism are you?
specifically, why should theworld care about journalism both
?
Mm-hmm.
Well, how much time do we have?
We talked to mark for a longtime because he was fascinating,
so I will try to keep thisshort.
I love writing.
I you know, as a as a kid, asan idealistic kid, I wanted to
(01:10:17):
change the world and I thought Iwould do that through my Dean,
which I think is you know, maybe, why anybody gets into
journalism or writing, maybe not, I don't know, but I'm.
Interestingly, you know marktalks about that.
He was doesn't have anyjournalistic training.
I Went to school for journalismat Indiana University and,
(01:10:41):
after taking a class calledmedia ethics, which is
essentially just a clever titleto alert Journalism majors that
Journalism is a business, andthat you're going to be writing
for a Business and you know youalways have to like kind of keep
(01:11:02):
that in the back of your mindbut not be compromised by it.
And, and you know again, I was17, 18 years old and so
idealistic and once I discoveredthe journalism was a business,
which of course it is everything.
Otherwise, you know, the systemcollapses.
I didn't want to write foranybody anymore and so I added
(01:11:25):
English as a second major andThought that maybe I'd be a
writer someday.
Maybe I still will be apublished writer.
I should say I, you know, Ijust I don't know.
I just love writing and I lovethinking about things and
expressing opinions in more of along printed word format.
Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
Do you feel that this ?
I Usually don't do a follow-upquestion, but in this day and
age, I am afraid to writeanything.
I'm also not a good writer andI don't I find it torturous.
But I'm afraid to writeanything on any social media
platform because of the factthat my opinion is going to be,
you know, denounced or attackedor whatever, no matter what the
(01:12:12):
opinion is.
And so I'm just like I don'twant to have that Discussion, I
don't want to have that argument, I don't care, and so I tend
not to say things and I, whichis a shame Because my voice
isn't being heard right, but howdo you feel about that when you
put something out into theworld?
because you're doing anewsletter right now?
We use letter.
Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
I'm doing a newsletter.
I mean I really send it to ourcompany and might start sending
it to our clients, but I do postit on my website and you know,
then I do link to it on socialmedia.
Yeah, I mean, I think, in orderto you really have something to
say, you have to sort ofvanquish that fear.
Otherwise, you know you are,you might as well be Writing for
(01:12:53):
a corporation who wants you towrite there.
You know, be a right thereshill, that's the right term.
I don't know that's right term.
Anyway, you know so.
So you're you know if you'regonna be compromised, you're
gonna be compromised, and so ifyou have fear about what you're
writing, you're compromising tothat fear and you're falling
into a trap that you know arethe construct of our society has
(01:13:19):
set for you, and so you need towrite fearlessly.
I'm not important enough to getcanceled, but I don't think my
opinions would necessarily Getme canceled.
But yeah, I mean, I, I took mea long time to to to get to a
point where I I Without worry,but I think that is the the
(01:13:45):
process of becoming a writer isMostly to Vanquish those fears
so you could write without afilter.
Speaker 2 (01:13:55):
That's great.
Yeah good answer, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
Why journalism for the world.
I mean, I you know, even withall that I've said, it's the
only way that information getsout there, and a lot of it is
certainly compromised these days, but it's in, journalism
actually was formed out ofpropaganda, and so that's not,
(01:14:21):
that's sort of inherent withinjournalism and it's incumbent on
us to Cut through all of thatand kind of find the truth, yeah
, which is hard.
Again, because journalism isthere to sell papers or, you
know, create viewership, to selladvertisements, I shouldn't say
sell papers.
So yeah and so that's part ofthe reason why I gravitate to
(01:14:43):
literature is because I feellike an author who's writing
about a period of time might bea little bit more true to those
sort of prevailing feelings thatare happening at those times
amongst his cohorts which, orhis or her cohorts.
Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
So so you know like painting a more clear picture of
the era, the time, otherfactors going into it?
Yes, just the headlines.
Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
Yes, as opposed to reading what the history books
tell us, because who knows whowrote that and for what reason?
Yeah, totally All right, Thanksyeah this has been an episode
of records in real estate.
Thanks for listening.
We hope you enjoyed it.
Today's episode was brought toyou by be realty.
Be where you want to be.
(01:15:35):
Be realty.
Welcome to Records in Real Estate, a podcast about
well records and real estates.
You'll be entertained andinformed as we explore the
intersection of these two worldsthrough interviews with
Chicago's most interesting andsuccessful people from both
industries.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
That was Andrew Wendt and I'm Karen Sanvoss.
We are Chicago Real EstateBrokers, property Managers, avid
Music Lovers and your hosts ofRecords in Real Estate.
Hi, karen Andrew.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
We talked to your friend.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
From back in the day.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
My longtime acquaintance, mark Reno, all the
way back to kindergarten.
We go back Nice.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So how did you find him?
Or think that you know,determine that he would be a
good guest because he was agreat guest.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
He was a great guest.
I reconnected, I believe,through this book, but now I'm
trying to figure out how I evenheard about this book that he
wrote, which is fantastic andthat we talk about.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, just a fascinating guy Chicago
historian, lover of music.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
And a journalist, journalist, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
And so he knows a lot about the city and the history
of the city and he loves thiscity and the changes that he's
seeing.
You know sometimes break hisheart a little bit, but, man, he
is somebody who is keeping thehistory alive, especially
through this book.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Which is so important .
We'll let you listen to ourinterview with Mark Guarino.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Karen, we're here with Mark Guarino and you guys
know each other from way back inthe day.
Huh.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Way back when.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah that's right Back when we were single digits,
that's right Fellow clarinetplayers.
That's right.
That's right Back tokindergarten.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Did we go all yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I guess right.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, we had a nice little rivalry, clarinet rivalry
.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Clarinet rivalry.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
That's right, was one of you first chair and one of
you second chair, I don'tremember.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
David Jenkins was always first chair, david
Jenkins, was still in contactwith.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Where are you?
Oh, that's right.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
How's he?
Speaker 3 (02:15):
doing.
He's good.
He's a pilot for UnitedAirlines.
No way, yeah, amazing.
I'm going to see him in a week.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Tell him.
I said hi.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
I will, oh yeah, I will Definitely the clarinet
plane pilot.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
He should.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
He was effortless.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, so he was always first chair.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
I know.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
And then Mark and I, second and third just back, and
forth I remember in my mind youused to challenge me all the
time.
We had challenges, so you hadto go in front of the teacher
and play a passage and whoeverplayed it better got to sit in
second chair Okay, and Iremember that.
I was second and third all thetime Back and forth.
In that I was like can he juststop challenging me Like I don't
(02:56):
care.
That's my memory.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
It's funny because I don't have any memory of
challenging that at all.
But I'm sure you're right.
I'm sure you're right, I'm notchallenging that memory.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
But I think you're absolutely right that.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
I probably did that, and who knows why.
I think I would probably liketo sit next to Dave, that's
probably right.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Everyone wanted to sit next to Dave that was
probably.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Are you competitive by nature?
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I'm only competitive on maybe certain things.
I think I come from journalismand I think daily journalism and
that is kind of a competitivemarket way back.
I don't know if it is anymore.
But yeah, especially what I'mdoing now, it's like you always
want to be the first and youwant to get it, you want to have
something exclusive.
So in that world it's kind ofdrilled into me.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
But my personal life?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
not really.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, how does that?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Clearly I've changed Apparently what I was saying.
Yeah, I was like I was veryMachiavellian.
I was like we'll have thatsecond.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Well, nothing's as important as first or second
chair, or third chair.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, the band, the great school band.
We're not even talking highschool or college.
No, no, no.
St Giles grade school band.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
That's where my band days ended.
I was trumpet.
I don't think I ever competedor got challenged.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
No one ever challenged.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
No one ever challenged.
It's probably an underachiever.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, you know sometimes it's good just to be
bad at something.
That way You're not challengedto play in front of the teacher.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
So journalism you trained in journalism or got a
degree in journalism?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Actually, I am completely untrained.
I've never taken a journalismclass in my life.
I didn't go to journalism schooland so I always tell kids that
in a way, I feel like we live inthis society where you have to
let go and you know if you wantto do something you've got to.
There's something to go do, togo become it, and but in
journalism, no, I went to Loyolahere in Chicago and my I like
(05:00):
to write and I think I wrote afew things for our high school
paper, but that was how.
I wasn't on the staff of thepaper, but it really was.
When I went to Loyola I justjoined the school paper because
I wanted to write and I likedthe people who were.
It was sort of my little tribe,you know.
I liked the people who were onthe paper and I just kind of
then just got into it and Ilearned by just doing it.
(05:21):
And and and that and thattransferred once I got out of
school and started getting jobsand everything.
So yeah, that's kind of an oddthing because I didn't go.
You know, it's right down thestreet from Northwestern's
journalism school, which is veryexpensive and prestigious
school, and I didn't ever thinkof going there.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
I actually have the opposite story.
I am a journalism major.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Okay, interesting yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Never you know, wrote a lick for any journalist to
endeavor.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
In fact I was a communications major, but I
remember after the firstsemester I dropped it because I
realized that I felt like incommunications, like a lot of it
was just self evident to melike what communicate?
Like radio, it just seemed likethe history, and so I one thing
I needed to learn.
I knew that I just didn't reada lot, and so I became an
English major and so I just feltlike I just wanted to be
(06:11):
exposed to more stuff.
So I was.
I ended up being an Englishmajor.
Nice yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
The communications thing I remember correct me if
I'm wrong back in the day youwere kind of a ham radio guy.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
You got into that for a while it wasn't ham, you're
right, it was great I've gottenreally into like the history of
radio.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, okay, you're like the shadow or the old time,
exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Yeah, so I collected a lot of those show I just got.
I was fascinated by like thegolden age of radio in the 30s
and 40s and 50s and when I wasin grade school, right, and
there was a show called thoseAre the Days which is still
broadcast on, and actually thissummer they had me on to talk
about my book, which was likewow, it's like full circle.
It's a different host but hekind of took over from the guy
(06:57):
who founded in the 70s.
But yeah, for whatever reason,like I just kind of hooked into
that, I was fascinated by it.
And then as a kid I was reading.
I just read all these booksabout like the history of radio
and all the early television andyeah, I got real.
It's funny, I got heavily.
I remember when I went to highschool.
(07:17):
I remember telling myself inhigh school okay, you need to
stop this, you need to be like anormal person and go like I do
remember because I had juststopped it.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
You know, I stopped, like collecting Cause.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
I thought like you need to be into, like what my
peers are into, like MTV andstuff.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Because I was like this is going to alienate you
from having a social life.
Well, it's funny because I,when I thought about you doing
this, I was like and I did thinkI'm like that's kind of weird
Like why is he into old timeystuff?
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Like this was the, you know, the 70, at least in
the early 80s, when you know.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Madonna and what?
Speaker 3 (07:50):
yeah, right, right, exactly, and I was.
I was aware of that too, and Ididn't make the distinct
decision to like put that awayand now go join the rest of them
.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Luckily I had no social status to like ostracize
you or anything being you knowand nor did you hold a grudge
for all of those challenges fromback then.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yes, exactly, you can have a challenge after this I
feel like clarinet's in the car.
I'll be the judge.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, I know that I will not win.
At least you have a clarinet,so you would win.
Oh, you guys win, oh would win.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, there you go, and that does it, folks.
Thank you for joining thisepisode of records and real
estate.
We'll be here.
So you know you have a new book.
It's probably not new to you.
You've probably been working onit a long time so it feels
probably an old hat to you.
But it kind of combines Chicago.
It combines music andjournalism and obviously it also
(08:49):
combines history, which you'vejust admitted.
You have a love of history.
So we talked about your sort ofyour journalistic roots and
your love of history.
But you know where does yourlove of music come from?
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Well, I mean, I think it even goes back to those days
in grade school where I justkind of grew up around music and
learning music and you know somusic was always around and I
think it had.
So I think it was definitelyrooted in that.
But I know, you know it's tough, you know I found like I was
really interested in the peoplebehind the music as I got older.
(09:22):
I think that came from doingthe journalism.
And when I was at Loyola I wouldgo.
You know there'd be littlethings around the neighborhood I
would go cover and I think Ithink it kind of goes back to
sort of like I was reallyinterested in the history of
music too.
I think it kind of went back toeven like the radio stuff like
where does it come from?
And once you start looking backat you know you can look at
(09:44):
something that's happeningcurrently and then once you
start unpeeling the layers,everything's rooted in something
behind it and clearly that'strue of anything in our society,
but with music, you know, itgoes, it goes, it gets really
complicated and really deep, andI just found that really
fascinating.
Nice, and then, secondly, youknow we live in a city where
clearly the musical roots govery, very deep and they're
(10:06):
really interesting, and I foundit, I found that just a really
rich source as a journalist towrite about, because I became
interested in like not just kindof dwelling on the past, but
what's about the past ishappening today, where can you
see the past today, and so thatkind of that's just really rich
(10:29):
source of stuff to write about.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Nice, yeah, love it.
So, speaking of things that youcan see today, what are some of
the landmarks that stick out toyou, especially like around
writing this book?
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yeah, so well, you know, I always became interested
in like places, that like wherepeople performed, you know, and
that's really difficult becausein a city like Chicago is
talking to realtors the propertyvalues change, they become more
valuable and what was there?
You know, there's this tensionbetween, like, the rising
(11:03):
property rates and what wasthere is, you know, there's a
story in the book that I thinkthat has continued from
beginning to end that theneighborhoods are constantly
changing I'm starting going backto the 20s and because the city
is constantly changing and soyou have these things that
bubble up and they like there'sthese.
(11:25):
Really it creates these kind oforganically, creates these like
really incredible scenes thatcouldn't have ever been planned,
and then they kind of disappearand then the same thing happens
, like over here in this otherneighborhood, and that bubbles
up and it's amazing for a coupleof years and then that kind of
dissipates that sort of thecontinual story of it and I
(11:46):
think that sort of tracking thatwas kind of really, really
interesting to me.
But also a lot of the samereasons why something would
begin and something would endwere always the same.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Yeah, economics, economics.
The city of Chicago always hada really antagonistic approach
to small business owners,especially in music clubs.
So a lot of these club ownerswould just get harassed by the
city of Chicago for variousreasons and then the clubs would
shut down and boy, that'ssomething that just.
I first experienced that whenlong before I wrote this book,
(12:21):
in the 90s, there was a club onLincoln Avenue called Lawn Jacks
and that was a rock club thatwas really like.
And again, another continualstory through the book is that,
like, scenes happen aroundspecific places For whatever
reason there's, there's a smallclub somewhere, there's an own
couple owners who are passionateabout what they're doing, and
(12:42):
it becomes a magnet for allthese artists to show up, they
get to know each other, theycollaborate and then great
things happen out of it.
And that kind of was like LawnJacks.
It was a woman owned club andfor about 10 years they hosted
all these kind of undergroundbands, kind of indie bands that
were kind of on their way up.
But it became a place formusicians to hang out because
and to watch other musicians,even if they weren't playing,
(13:04):
and then they would meet eachother.
So the band Wilco, that wasreally their kind of clubhouse
for many years before theybecame very well known.
But what happened with thatclub is that it was in the
middle of Lincoln Park wasrapidly gentrifying.
They had a lot of problems withlike a big condo building
opened behind behind it.
Condo owners startedcomplaining about the noise, of
(13:27):
course, of course, and so thecity inspectors would come in
and give them tickets andessentially they were like this
isn't worth it anymore, so theyclosed and then that was the
last music club on that corridor.
Lincoln Avenue had a bunch ofmusic clubs dating back to the
70s, so all that is kind of gone.
What are the cross streets there.
If you start like, really,where Lincoln Avenue begins, all
(13:50):
the way up to like Fortin, allthe way up to what's past Fortin
, right Wood, around there, yeah, that that long stretch Okay,
that was in the 70s that was along stretch of, like folk music
clubs.
There was a bluegrass club thatwas called the Clearwater
Saloon there's a photo of it inmy book because that's our right
where.
(14:10):
You know, old town, yeah,that's inherently connected to.
So it started with the Earl ofOld Town, which is on Wells,
right across from Second City,which is now the Bar Corcoran's,
and that in the 70s.
It's a similar story.
I'm a passionate guy named EarlPionkey who was a real Chicago
character, just loved folk musicand that at the time, you know,
(14:33):
coming out of the old town,school was right down the street
and so he opened this.
He was a, he was not a musicianbut he was a bar owner and he
opened this bar and he knewnothing about music but he would
just have put a.
He just constructed a littlestage and then in the 70s it
became like a ground zero forthe singer songwriter scene that
(14:55):
developed out of it.
So that's where John Prine wasdiscovered Steve Goodman and a
whole list of other people andthen if you go up Wells Street
and then you take a left onLincoln Avenue, it that it kind
of had this ripple effect thatother clubs started opening up
on.
Holsteins and somebody else'stroubles Clearwater Saloon is
talking about.
The Kingston Mines was not ablues club when it started.
(15:17):
It actually was a.
It was a folk club and atheater right where the Brown
Elephant was.
I don't even think the BrownElephant's there anymore at the
corner of Lincoln and Fullerton.
So, and then down Wells Streetthere was a club called the
Quiet Night, and so Wells Streethad a couple of clubs too, and
so it's sort of like, asproperty values go up, then all
(15:39):
of these clubs kind of shut downand they move somewhere else.
You know, they're constantlymoving.
The people who started theseclubs may retire because they're
older, so somebody else maytake it up.
So it's this constant movingorganism in the within the city.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Is there a?
Is there a?
So I mean, I guess what you'resaying is there isn't one, but
would, if you had to, pick, asort of a central hub where
music and people arecollaborating around music in
the city right now?
Is there a place, or?
Speaker 3 (16:06):
I hate to say there isn't.
There really isn't.
And I think that has to do withwhat we're talking about, in
that, like the city has becomealmost like it's just over the
top in terms of it's just notaffordable and also a lot of
artists like have are they'rekind of moving out too and so
there's not like a centralcorridor at all.
Like like the 90s, wicker Parkwas kind of a place that had.
(16:30):
I mean, there's a whole, it'slike you know it's talking about
lounge acts with all this kindof well, it was indie rock bands
but my books about kind ofcountry alternative country
bands, but then there was allthis like commercial rock scene
happening and that was reallyfocused on Wicker Park and their
clubs there.
And also the thing is the doubledoor and the other thing that's
kind of central to it is likethe musicians have to live
(16:52):
somewhere too, right, and so,like they lived in the
neighborhoods, they could walkto the play, you know, they
could walk to where they'replaying or cafes and hang out.
So there was a whole thing, andthen that bubbled over to Logan
Square and that's kind of wherethe scene was and that's kind
of gone too.
So it's sort of like yeah, it'sbeen kind of decentralized
anyways, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Do you think it will coalesce at some point into
something, or is that just the?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
nature of the beast?
I don't know.
You know, I think that you know, the music business has changed
so much that, and that's reallyaffected the live music
business there's still a lot ofclubs to play.
I think that there's also likealternative spaces too that have
kind of popped up that peoplenow are used to going to, that
(17:37):
are not club, they don't sellliquor, but the basically that
kind of the house concert model,but it's in an art studio or
it's in a somebody's loft orlike a brewery or something.
So I think that, yeah, I don'tknow if it'll ever come back, if
I think Chicago is an odd theway it's shaped, so odd because
of the lake.
So everything is inherently youhave to go west for anything.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
You have to go west or south.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
You know you can only go north.
At a certain point that ends,and so you have to go.
So how far west can people go?
Speaker 1 (18:05):
You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 3 (18:06):
It's kind of like, and then there's southwest and
south side and everything likethat.
So it's kind of a weird.
The nature of like, how Chicagois shaped, is kind of like,
kind of affects what we'retalking about.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Interesting.
Well, your book I don't thinkwe've given the title is called
Country and Midwestern Chicagoand the History of Country Music
and the Folk Revival.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah, yeah, I love this book.
It's so fun to read.
I've bought a couple of copiesfor a friend Nice.
In fact a former guest on thetwo dudes that own, is it Orbitz
?
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Orbitz, orbitz.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
I brought them one oh nice Thank you.
You know, loved the history ofstuff.
I was like, oh, this is goingto be right up their alley.
Yeah, it reads like a novel.
Yeah, I can't every time, maybeit's because I know you.
When I read it, I'm like Ican't even imagine what it would
have was like to write thisbook because, the amount of
(19:10):
detail and tracking of peopleand the depth that you go into.
I mean you know letters from thewidow of somebody you know,
like that played in 1932 andtalking how did you, how did you
research this book?
Speaker 3 (19:28):
It's a tough question to ask because it kind of was
sort of like this thing that Ididn't really necessarily know
about going into it, and so Ihad an idea of like the outline
for the book, you know.
So I kind of knew like here'sprobably what I'm going to cover
, but as you get into it it'ssort of like you have no idea,
like what you're going todiscover.
And people you talk to, peopleyou know the journalism was a
(19:49):
really good background because,you know, I one thing I liked, I
liked interviewing people andso I liked hearing people's
stories.
So I already knew that Istarted in the middle of the
book where I knew there werepeople who were still alive.
You know the people.
I figured the parts whereeveryone's dead.
I was like I'll get to that.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
There's no real rush for it.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
So I was like I'll start where there's people still
alive, and then people wouldturn me on to other people or
tell me about things that Ididn't I had no idea about.
So a lot of it was like alearning experience for me
because I didn't, and I thinkthat's good.
That's true of a lot of thingswhere you don't know what you're
going into, and so if it's adiscovery for you, it's going to
(20:30):
be discovery for the reader.
If I knew everything, then itwould be boring, I would just be
transcribing Right.
And so I had greatconversations with people who I
would learn about things.
I would have to kind of stopand rethink what I thought.
But the research, you know, Iwent to some of the obvious
places to go see what people had, like the country music hall of
(20:50):
fame or some specialcollections here and there.
People gave me things therewere.
I just kind of stumbled uponsome things.
So it was kind of all over theplace.
It was sort of like a detectivehunt in many ways.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
That's really cool and you do such a good job of
honoring everybody that youmentioned in the book and there
are thousands of people that youmentioned in this book, and it
really, you know, every personin a small way contributes to
this.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
This, you know, glacier of music throughout
history and it's really cool youknow I covered music for a long
time.
I was a music critic for a longtime and I would go cover big
things at the United Center andbut then I was always interested
in smaller things too.
And one thing I learned fromthat experience and it was very
humbling that, like the majorityof musicians or music that's
(21:41):
out there is made, is likethat's 99 percent.
The stars represent the 1percent and I think people only
know the 1 percent and becausethe working model for musicians
is, in Chicago especially, it'sreally a working class model.
There are musicians who, whosename you may not know, but
they're making a living beingmusicians in.
(22:02):
Chicago and I think that's anold story, and so I saw this
book as, in a way, kind of likethose, those are the people that
tell the story of that of likeof my book, and also like tell
the story of books about theblues and the development of
jazz and everything like that,and I felt like it was really
(22:23):
important to focus just on thosepeople than really focusing on
anybody bigger, because I feltlike that that's really, that's
the undercurrent that keepsmoving through all of these
decades of the book.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Yeah, yeah.
And so because I'm sure a lotof people have covered the blues
and the jazz.
Not a lot of people covered thecountry.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
How did?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
that come to be.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Well, I mean, it was sort of that I couldn't believe.
You know, when I was writingabout music I would cover a lot
of the stuff from the 90s.
You know that was my time, youknow so, and I was.
What was great about that thatdecade was, you know, you always
hear about the 90s Grunge Rockand all this other stuff,
alternative Rock, which was allthere and fine, but underneath
(23:09):
it was this kind of likesubculture of like alternative
country and there were bandssort of rediscovering, who are
like our age, you know, who areat the time, were in their 20s
and discovering older music.
Because a lot it was the CD erawas reissuing a lot of stuff.
It was interesting.
It was a lot of different erasof like reissues that impacted
(23:31):
generations.
So you had all this musicrecorded in the 1920s and 1930s,
maybe a little beyond, and youknow, kind of the fundamental,
like when recording technologywas new and so people went out
and recorded people playing ontheir porches, playing wherever,
and so that's out of that.
You had, like the Carter familyand all these kind of pioneers
of what we consider to bepioneers of country music, but
(23:52):
then all that stuff went awayand people forgot about that
music and then in the 50s, theSmithsonian, a lot of small
labels.
They reissued all of it and sopeople in their if you're in
your 20s and the 50s you justthis is the first time you ever
heard this stuff.
It blew your mind and thatimpacted.
Like Bob Dylan was one of thosekids and he was really impacted
(24:13):
by that early folk music andthen that pushed things into the
50s or the 60s.
You know that impacted thatgeneration.
So now you move forward in timeand now you have formats change
and in the 90s all theSmithsonian again and all these.
They were reissuing all thestuff Robert Johnson and these
kind of landmark box sets on CDfor the first time and all the
(24:36):
people from who were in their20s then were really for the
first time discovering Doc Boggsand Carter family and, like
Robert Johnson, and were playing, wanted to play those songs and
that impacted.
And at the same time that washappening stadium country was
happening at the very GarthBrooks and all that stuff and it
was unrelatable in many ways topeople who were just learning
(24:56):
about country music.
And so you had people whoweren't necessarily from
Nashville, they were kind ofindie rock.
Kids were playing that musicfor the first time in Chicago
was really ahead of the curve ofthe Americana movement, because
all these great artists kind ofcame out of that scene I was
talking about and there werelabels here and there are
studios, and it was thisincredible time and they kind of
(25:19):
really really took off andradio stations, and radio
stations were a big part of that.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Right, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Yeah, and so it was a really kind of boy, it was a
really kind of creative, likeexplosion really, and I can only
think of classified as that.
By looking back at the time Ididn't really realize, but then
when it kind of like dissipated,I realized that was completely
unique.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Did you know you wanted to write about it at that
time?
Or were you just a kid?
Well, I was.
I had a job.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
I was a music critic for the Daily Herald.
I got a job in 97 as the musiccritic.
So part of it was I was justreally into it and so I wanted
to write about it.
And the other thing is thatthere was an audience for it too
.
There were people going tothese shows and who were excited
about it, and but it came veryorganically.
I was very unusual as someonewriting for a daily newspaper in
the suburbs to write about thatstuff.
(26:07):
It wasn't that those namesdidn't really become household
names until about a decade later.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
I was going to ask.
I mean, this is kind of anironic question, but is there a
band that somebody might know ofthat you're talking about?
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Well, wilco, of course, came out of that whole
scene too, but, like Andrew Birdwho's playing this week in
downtown Chicago on Nico Case,the handsome family Ryan Adams
was here for a bit.
All of the you know, the Wacobrothers, robbie folks, people
like that.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Who did the forward of your book?
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yeah, I was really grateful for him.
It's a great forward.
I got to get it.
Yeah, he's a really recent andincredible writer.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, how did that come to be?
Speaker 3 (26:45):
I, you know, I've been interviewing him since the
90s so I kind of got to know himand I've written about him for
so long and I wrote about himfor the book and I just you know
, I just asked I felt he waskind of a perfect, he was kind
of like an archetypal artist forthe book in that like he, he
really knew the music reallywell at the time I mean still
(27:05):
clearly.
But his first record, which waslike a 96 or 97, it sounded
very.
It sound that the instrumentssound very traditional classic
country but his lyrics had avery modern sensibility and very
funny and witty and also he heknew the classical conventions
of the Golden Age of countrywhere he would just he had great
(27:27):
like song lyrics, like the buckowns could have sing songly
songs and he also had this likereal punk rock energy to his
live shows.
It was, I mean, the first timeI saw him.
I didn't know who he was and Iwas blown away by this guy who
had this.
I'd never seen anybody who hadthis man at crazy energy.
It was funny.
And these songs that soundedlike they were old songs but
(27:47):
they were new songs and hedidn't.
And the one thing I liked abouthim was he never dressed like.
He didn't wear a Western shirt,he didn't, like you know, wear
cowboy.
He just looked like a guy, justkind of like a Chicago guy, who
walked out of a bar and justgot on stage and just did all
the stuff.
And you know, and it was that,that's also what was great about
him too, and so seeing him nowhe's this legacy artist, he's a
(28:09):
great bluegrass player.
You know, it was really great tokind of watch artists like him
and many others kind of like getbetter over time, like develop
his, really like develop theirmusic and songwriting.
So yeah, I just asked him.
He said yes, yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Really great.
So you probably don't remember.
You know all of the articlesthat you've written and that
sort of thing.
But in just doing a little bitof research I went on your
website, which is lovely androbust and like has seemingly
most of what you've written.
You know, I found a blurb thatyou did for the Daily Herald on
(28:46):
a concert at the Metro of EmpireWeekend.
Yeah, like one of their firstshows.
Yeah, and I think he's saying inthe article that they went
through all 14 songs that theyhad and we don't have anything
else.
So but I also thought that thiswas in.
I mean, metro is obviouslyright down the street from our
office?
Yeah yeah, Great, great club.
(29:07):
So you know, you say in thearticle, these days it's all
about media manipulation.
The smarter you can make itseem like a band is famous, the
quicker the band will actuallybecome famous.
Yeah, Is that still true oftoday?
Is it like?
Is it true more on sort of theis the onus on the band itself,
(29:27):
just to sort of do some socialmedia manipulation to like make
themselves seem bigger?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah, well, I mean, at that point, you know it was,
that was pre-social media, thatvampire weekend phenomenon
Actually, and there's nothingthat band has turned.
You know, it was fine.
I think that that they were atthat point.
They were on, I think, coversof magazines when, right when
they had their first recordcoming out.
And I think that, like, what Iwas focusing on was the idea of
(29:56):
hype and paid hype, and so theyclearly had a machine behind
them before they even right outof the gate.
And so, like, why, all of asudden, am I hearing about this
band everywhere?
I'm supposed to like them?
It's because there's a lot ofpeople behind it who are getting
paid a lot of money to makesure you know that and so it's
not like really organic is whatI was kind of saying, and I
(30:18):
think that one of the I thinkthat is still going on I one of
the problems of I don't know ifit's really a problem, but if
you it's a problem, if you thinkit is a problem, in that like
you have artists who are kind oflike thrust into the spotlight
immediately but they have noexperience, like they haven't
really spent years learning whatthey do Right, and so it's like
(30:43):
they are immediately playinglarge venues, I think of.
Amy Winehouse as the tragicexample of that, as somebody who
was just immediately famous andbut she had no, she never a lot
of experience playing manyyears playing small clubs, and I
think it really kind of threwher.
And as we kind of move forwardin music, as much more
(31:03):
manipulation, you have artistswho aren't necessarily in bands
and they're recording music justin their bedroom on a laptop,
and so it's much moreartificially manufactured, that
sort of live component is goneand they're just making tracks
and uploading them to websitesand stuff like that, and so
(31:25):
they're not necessarily have anyexperience like I.
You know, I guess I am atraditionalist and I think, like
, your weight is valued to me bylike, can you stand on the
stage and convey a song orwhatever you do to an audience
(31:46):
who doesn't know you and movethem?
It's a very old, it goes backto the beginning of time, you
know, and I think that a lot ofpeople can create things on
their laptop, but they don'thave that other thing, they
can't perform it live, or they.
And so I think that definitelyhas become more of an issue,
because the music has becomebroken down more of artifice.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
I guess Are there, you know?
I mean we talked about some ofthe bands that came out of the
scene that you sort of cut yourteeth on, but are there newer
bands that you think do a goodjob of conveying, you know,
feeling on stage?
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Yeah, I mean there's yeah, of course there's tons of
great bands out there.
Who are you know playing everynight?
Who are you listening?
Speaker 1 (32:34):
to these days.
I'm gonna rephrase the question.
I've tried to really refinethis question.
I mean it really really throwspeople but I've moved from like
what is your favorite band?
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Oh, it's funny because when people when they
found out what I did, especiallywhen I was doing it full time,
they were like, oh, who do youlike?
And I would always go blank.
You know, I have walls of musicat home and I can go look at it
, but I always go blank becauseI know that, like, whatever I
say is gonna sound like I likeBob Dylan.
Yeah just like you know and I.
But I know there's stuff outthere and I think, mike, I've
(33:06):
never been a good person to likepull things from my brain
immediately, but I know if I wassitting in front of all of it I
could be like, oh yeah, this,this and this I really like, and
also it changes too.
I will go through these cycles.
Like there's a singer who Ireally love named Jamie Wyatt
from Sheila's in Nashville and Ithink she's on her third record
and she's this like incrediblesinger and these records are
(33:30):
kind of classic.
They're kind of classic countrysongs but they're her second
record.
This is a record called NeonCross that was produced by
shooter Jennings, who's whale,and Jennings son and man, oh man
.
The songwriting is really good.
She's a great singer and she'sa great example of someone who
just been like doing it for alot of years, and so I really
(33:52):
she's got a new record out thatI've been really enjoying.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
See, that's, that's the answer we're looking at.
Yeah, yeah, all right, good,good, so you know, it took me a
little.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
I had to pause there for a second.
I had to build up to it.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
My brain was like Well, it's funny because you
know I should take some of myown realtor medicine.
I mean that you know it's, it'stold, it's taught to realtors
and I subscribe to this that youasking somebody just for a
referral is a ridiculousquestion Because their brain
literally breaks just what youjust did.
You need to be specific, likeis there somebody, is there a
(34:29):
family that you know of throughyour kids t-ball class, that you
know might be talking aboutmoving or is pregnant or you
know?
So like you can kind of focusthem on on a shorter or a
smaller group of people, so thatthey can actually run through
the Rolodex instead of justbeing overwhelmed by 500 people
(34:52):
that they know in their lives.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
So I think also like I, I come from daily journalism
where you work on something oneday really really intently and
you're the expert on it, and thenext day it's gone and you're
onto the next thing and youforget about it, and I think
that's trained me to like.
I'm always so, because I'vebeen listening to Jamie White
recently.
She's on my mind but you know Iwould have to go back and go
(35:16):
look like, okay, who you knowwho's on my radar here.
There's a great band in Chicago.
They just released a record, anew record called Rat Boys, and
they are.
They're kind of in the mold ofwhat I'm kind of talking about.
They're really young band andboy.
Their audience is kind ofreally exploded.
Cool, yeah, yeah, and so Ireally like them.
Do they have any shows comingup in Chicago?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
I know they played few shows this summer.
I think they seem to betraveling, going to Europe and
stuff.
They're really great.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
The Rat Boys, yeah, just.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Rat Boys.
Okay, yeah, Nice, I do reallylike it seems like there are
more you know sort of currentcountry artists coming to
Chicago.
I mean, a lot of them areplaying at the Salt Shed, you
know Tyler Childers, and it'snice to see that there are more,
seemingly more sort of countryartists.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Well, I think that's a product of kind of this
Americana thing that you know alot of the history record music
is about creating genres andidentifying genres and selling
it to an audience and that thingI was talking about in the 90s
it was called.
It was called AlternativeCountry because it was
considered an alternative tostadium country.
That's where mainstream countryhad gone the furthest in the
(36:28):
90s.
By that point it enteredstadiums and that you know big
kind of rock sort of show.
So now you have thisalternative country underneath
it.
It was really those twofactions.
And then, like a decade later,they started calling what was
kind of alternative countryAmericana, because now bigger
labels started signing thoseartists who are on these small
labels, all this alternativecountry.
(36:49):
Because the alternative countrything had recognized there's an
audience out there for thismusic.
So it was not being served, butnow it's being served by these
little mom and pop labels.
So a decade later major labelsare saying, okay, let's get a
couple of those and let'sactually get some of the same
artists, let's just sign them tobigger labels.
And now we'll expand thisaudience and that really so.
(37:11):
Tyler Childers really kind ofbenefited from his career,
benefited from what was going on20 years earlier by this kind
of development of thisalternative Americana genre that
now is sort of a dominant genreon country music today that
Jason Isbell and everything andall those people really have
roots in.
It really goes back to the 90sBecause all that music was being
(37:35):
ignored by major labels.
They just were really interestedin this really heavily kind of
pop flavored version of countrymusic which is still going on
for sure, but now it's sort oflike there's this genre that's
really identified.
There's a major audience thatcould fill the salt show when
these people come to town.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Is the term Americana an old term or did somebody dub
it, and if so, do you know whocame up?
Speaker 3 (38:00):
with it.
I don't, you know, the termAmericana has been around
forever just to talk aboutAmericana culture or something.
You know that, something kindof rooted in something old, you
know old, that's very unique toAmerican history.
So the term's been around along time but in terms of the
associated with music is stillkind of relatively new.
(38:23):
And now there's an AmericanaMusic Association, there's
Americana Fest in Nashville,there's now a Grammy category,
Americana category, and so, yeah, it's become like something
that's it's a really, really biggenre of music.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
I was just wondering if because you know there is
always a thing that you talkabout music with people, at
least around here and in my lifeyou know?
What do you like to listen to?
Oh, I listen to everythingexcept country.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
And so country became this, I don't know, just kind
of a bad word or something beingfor people in the North, I
don't know.
But now if you dub it Americana, then you know, right, it's
cooler.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
Yeah, yeah it seems like there's more of kind of an
urban sensibility to it and yeah, I know it's funny because it's
just these genres become.
They become empty after a whilebecause country music well,
what is country music?
It's quite a lot of things todifferent people.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
And you can't really pinpoint what it is.
I think everybody can all agreewhat kind of classic country is
you know?
And but then after the 60s itjust kind of splintered so many
different ways.
What is you know?
And now it's a bunch ofdifferent things.
So yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Yeah, and you talk about some of that in your book
about the term country.
You know it was like Southernor something here.
I don't remember all the insand outs.
Well, it was first kind of youknow when you go back, way back.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
You know the artists that are today considered
pioneers of country music.
That term didn't exist at allwhen they were around, and they
were called the Hillbilly Music.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Hillbilly.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Music it was called Hillbilly Music, marketed as
that, whereas, like blackmusicians were, that was being
marketed as race records toblack audiences.
So you have the race records,hillbilly Music, and they didn't
really know what to call it andbasically they were just, you
know, records with stringedinstruments.
Sometimes they would actuallybe called that, like voice and
(40:18):
guitar, and it really wasn'tthose terms really weren't.
You know, because if you thinkabout it, the recording industry
was still kind of an infantform too and they were kind of
still the industry was stilldeveloping and figuring out like
who's buying, who are auditing?
You know, as also thetechnology started entering more
(40:40):
homes, record players Like thatwas not, that was something
only rich people had initially,you know, and so then it became
much more of a staple of homes.
The industry got bigger andthere's demand for different
types of music and so that'swhat kind of like the kind of
the record buying Cause beforeyou would just kind of like the
(41:00):
record, you know they werealmost like pieces of furniture,
you know they would be in yourliving room and so what you were
playing on it wasn't asimportant as just like the piece
itself.
It was kind of a novelty.
So it, yeah, it's reallyinteresting how fast.
You know it's the same thingthat we kind of look at with
like technology today, with likestreaming, is a new, relative,
(41:24):
still relatively a new thing,and that's changed everything.
You know, it's really changedhow we get our films and
television shows and music andeverything, and there's that's
kind of created the sort of likehyper categorization of media
into our homes, and so it's likeeverything's a reaction to the
(41:45):
technology.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, yeah.
If you are interested audiencein learning more about this,
read the book.
It's really cool.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Oh, I do have one last question, and then we'll
take a break and we'll come backand talk a little bit more
about Chicago.
I found your book on Amazon.
I have it in my cart, but doyou know, and I did stop at, I
think it's called Roscoe Books,Roscoe, but is there a local
bookstore where you know thereare copies?
Speaker 3 (42:10):
still Sure, there should be in Chicago.
I mean the, the like thebookseller on Lincoln Square on
a bridge books, and Lakeview,the book stall up in Winnicka.
You know these are places I'vedone events at or they've, or
the what's the city lit booksand Logan Square's great,
they're really great bookstore.
(42:31):
They've done a lot of my events.
So all the kind of independentbooksellers in Chicago should
have it or the order it for youif you don't have it, and then
it's online.
You can buy it from theuniversity of Chicago press
website their catalogs online orfrom Amazon.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Okay, great, cool.
Well, in the show notes whenthis airs, we'll make a make
sure there's a link to where youcan buy it, To the book to
where you can buy it All right,let's take a break, hey Karen.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Mark.
Nope, your name is not Mark.
Who are you, andrew?
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Do you have record to share with us?
Speaker 2 (43:06):
I do Nice, I do.
I'm excited about this one.
It is an album called theReturner.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
By Allison Russell.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
I literally just started listening to it
yesterday, okay, but found itbecause I read a weekly magazine
called the Week and they've gota little blurb about music and
up and coming artists andwhatnot.
So I check them out.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
And I've got four and a half stars or something which
is not usual, and it is adelightful record.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
I wanna dive deeper into it.
Allison Russell is contemporary, she's bluesy, she's.
There's a kind of a disco songthere's I don't know it's upbeat
, but the messaging is very real.
She talks about what it's likebeing a black woman in America.
(43:59):
Because she talks about thehistory she mentions, you know,
all sorts of things that areculturally relevant and issues
and whatnot, without being ladendown by oh God, this is a
political record or anythinglike that it's very enjoyable
and even if you wanna just putit on the background so yeah, I
(44:20):
won't say much more about thatbecause I don't know too much
about her history or anything,but check it out.
Allison Russell's the Returner,the.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Returner.
Great, I'm gonna look forwardto checking that out, thank you.
So we're back with Mark Guarino, and this is Records in Real
Estate.
I'm not gonna ask you a bunchof real estate questions, but
you know we do often talk a lotabout Chicago on our podcast and
lifelong Chicago in.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Yeah, I grew up in Oak Park along with Karen.
Yeah, and been in the city Ihave since I was 18.
Yeah, nice yeah.
First apartment was when I was20 in Rogers Park, cool yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
I lived in Rogers Park yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Rogers.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Park is underrated.
Oh yeah, I love it.
So what is I mean?
These are difficult questionsmeant to be rapid fire.
Difficult because your brain'snot gonna land on something.
What's your favorite thingabout Chicago?
Speaker 3 (45:15):
You know, I think the character of Chicagoans I think
is one of my favorite things.
You know I think that it's acity that doesn't really take
itself too seriously.
I think that's embedded in thecharacter of the city.
And then the history of Chicago, I think, is really fascinating
.
The more you learn about it youreally learn how Chicago plays
(45:37):
such an important role in justthe history of the country and
its location and everything likethat.
It's really kind of endlesslyfascinating to me.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Yeah, what about your favorite venue?
Speaker 3 (45:50):
That's a tough one, but I would have to say maybe
it's not because there's a bunchof them.
One of Metro is like that Iwent to first met.
I first went to Metro probablywhen I was 20.
And it's just.
You know, it feels like homegoing there.
It's such an important venue,not just for Chicago but for,
you know, the rest of thecountry in terms of bands
(46:10):
playing there, feeling like theyreally made it when they made
Played Metro.
But I think the other venues isfor me, Fitzgeralds and Burwin.
In the 90s for me A lot of themusic I talk about in my book
really was playing there.
Bill Fitzgerald and his familybrought up a lot of great music
from Louisiana and Texas and allover the place to play and they
(46:33):
were really only playingFitzgeralds, old Cajun bands and
Texas singer songwriters, andso when I went there in the 90s
I was, a lot of my friends wentto go get advanced degrees and I
was feeling like I got my PhDat Fitzgeralds.
I go there all the time and Ilearned a lot.
Yeah, and that's a greatexample of great clubs.
If you have a great someonecurating the music, you can go
(46:55):
there any time of the week andyou know what's going to be
there.
It's going to be reallyinteresting and important and I
feel like that's the place forme.
And then the other venue is theHideout.
It was again a club.
That is a great music club butalso a great community room too,
so they have events that you'renot going to find anywhere in
(47:15):
Chicago.
I'm doing it, I've done eventsfor my book there where we've
done focusing on differentaspects of the book and I don't
know.
It's the type of place you canonly the hideout would be the
only place to host somethinglike that and open their space
up.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Yeah, I've seen, I think it's called the interview
show.
Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeahthat's the hideout staple.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Yeah, yeah, what is?
Speaker 1 (47:37):
that about.
It's kind of like a late nighttalk show format, but you know
and live, yeah, live, every likeChicago.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
I mean, he's had everyone, from mayors of Chicago
to musicians, to artists, toboy.
You know, ron, the gamut havebeen out there.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
I know, his name is Mark too, right, mark Bezer?
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Mark Bezer.
Yeah, oh well.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yeah, that's really.
I don't know, is this still?
Speaker 3 (48:00):
going on.
It's still going on, yeah youshould.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
Definitely you'd, karen.
It would be center cut.
Karen San Vos, I think.
All right.
Do you have a favoriterestaurant?
You get out to eat much.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
I do, boy.
Now that's the tough oneBeester or Champagne.
I know I'm saying it wrong,it's a French restaurant.
Lincoln Square is probably oneof my favorites.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Nice.
Somebody else just told meabout this place.
Speaker 3 (48:20):
Yeah, it's on sunny side, off of sunny side, on
Lincoln Avenue.
Okay, I really, really lovethat place.
It's a great restaurant yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
I'm supposed to go there tonight.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
It all comes around.
That's very I love it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
Yeah, and I know I'm saying the name wrong, it's but
it's yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
It is.
It looks like Champagne though.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Yeah, we're supposed to go there.
We rescheduled, but yeah, I'msupposed to go there tonight.
That's funny.
Yeah, that is so funny Funnyhow the world works.
Do you have a favorite street?
That's really an interestingone.
I think Like it could be like awestern or like a section of.
It's definitely not western.
It's probably one of my leastfavorite streets because of
(49:02):
traffic and everything I wouldhave to say.
Speaker 3 (49:06):
You know, one street I always loved was Glenwood,
because it was just kind of thislovely street that goes through
so many neighborhoods andthat's a great one.
I guess I'm being heard inNorthside Centric, but I think I
was.
I always loved Sharon Road too,because Sharon Road starts
around here and goes.
But it was this grand road thatwhen I was in high school, when
I was in college, sometimes Iwould get on Sharon Road on a
(49:29):
Sunday afternoon and just driveall the way up to, like Lake
Bluff.
Oh, I've done that so manytimes.
Yeah, and it's a great and youcan.
That road really was built forthe advent of the automobile too
.
You know it really was builtfor you see photos of like old
cars and they would just itbefore highways.
It was here on the road Right,and so I have a fondness for
(49:51):
that.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
I told earlier this year we had two 20-something
like early 20-somethings workingfor us on our commercial
division and one of them wasjust starting a relationship and
that was one of my, mysuggestion.
You probably thought me old andfunny, but I'm like just take
her on a drive up Sheridan Road.
You get glimpses of these parks, you get glimpses of the water,
(50:15):
you see these magnificenthouses.
You can take her up to theBotanic Gardens or whatever, and
so, yeah, it's just a beautiful, beautiful drive.
Yeah, absolutely, chicago ismade up of a bunch of parks.
Do you have a favorite park?
Speaker 3 (50:31):
Well, I do.
Yeah, I have a couple of them.
One of them is Loyola BeachPark, and the reason I love that
is that it's very long and it'svery wide and it's kind of
still kind of undiscovered inthat people, because it's the
only beach and park that's noton the water, that's not cut off
(50:53):
by Lakeshore Drive and so it'shidden.
You can go down Sheridan Roadand not know it's there, and
when I was younger when Idiscovered it I was really fat.
I just couldn't believe youcould walk at the end of the
street and then drop down onsand and I take my dog.
I still take my dog up thereall the time.
Because it's the greatest mix ofpeople too, I think.
A lot of like you go to a lotof the parks below the lake and
(51:15):
it's like everyone looks thesame, they're all the same age,
and up there you have peoplespeaking Russian, you have
Africans, you have a lot of oldpeople, you've got a lot of
young people.
It's really like the greatestmix of people that I can't think
of.
Any other place in Chicago thatreally fits that.
So you go there on a summer dayand it doesn't feel packed at
(51:35):
all, and so it's really a verypleasant place.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
Yeah, that's one of the reasons I like Rogers Park
so much is because just thismelting pot of different
cultures.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
Absolutely.
Yeah, it's really.
I feel like all the rapid firegentrification that happened
kind of ended.
It ends up in Rogers Park.
It hasn't really become likeit's its own unique.
Yeah, it's almost like its owncity.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
Yeah, I mean the real estate joker you know is Rogers
Park has been up and coming for40 years.
Speaker 3 (52:05):
Well, that's it, 40 years it always, always.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
But yeah, you're right.
I mean, and a lot of developersin their early 2000s converted
out these apartments and Ibought a condo up there which is
still in existence, but a lotof them failed.
Because you know, if things aregoing so well that you're that
these developers are now lookingfor inventory up in Rogers Park
(52:29):
, you know that it's probablycoming to an end and you should
get off that train Right.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Because, it's too late.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
Yeah, you're, you've.
You've missed the window.
Yeah, what is your leastfavorite thing about Chicago?
Speaker 3 (52:42):
Let's see what's my least favorite thing.
Well, traffic is one.
I think the well I'm on a realestate podcast.
You don't want to hear myanswer, wow.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
That's fine, okay.
Okay, I'll tell you.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
I think it's been overdeveloped and I think that
the overdevelopment has made itunlivable in many ways, to be
really frank, and I think thatyou might have.
And it started happening in thelate 90s, but now it's been
like you have like a singlefamily home.
That's a perfectly fine singlefamily home.
It gets demolished and theybuild like a six-flat bomb or
something like that, and thosecome with six cars and and then
(53:13):
this happened under the date aROM administration almost hugely
, where you have like a buildinggets torn down.
They build a giant building andevery single one of those has a
parking, has a car, and so nowwhat's happened is that it's
tougher to get around the citybecause there are more cars,
there are more people, you haveneighborhoods that don't feel
(53:34):
human level anymore, and I thinkthat has really destroyed the
character of a lot of theseneighborhoods.
And so what has made Chicagogreat was the character of the
neighborhoods.
Now you've got, you've got youryou are literally not you, I'm
the general you.
It's being stripped out.
And so now what do you haveleft?
Blant, suburbia, and I thinkthat is a really overall problem
(53:58):
in Chicago, and you have stripsthat just look like Gulf Road
and Schomburg and there'snothing about Chicago that feels
.
And so my book is all about,like all these great things that
happen in Chicago and all these, you know, and it's a culture
book, I get it, you know, butthat stuff is all going to
disappear because of what's beenhappening.
The overdeveloped ChicagoPeople are going to realize well
(54:21):
, we're so great about livinghere in the first place, we
forgot you know, because it'sgone.
And that, to me, is somethingthat I've written a lot about,
and it's really I and I'm notthe only one it just seems to
seeing that happen is is, Ithink, also it makes me really
sad, too, really sad, sure yeahSad at the point of finding
(54:44):
somewhere new, or maybe.
yeah, I mean, I think thatyou're seeing it already.
You're seeing people moving outof Chicago.
You care about like, oh, youknow we're moving.
People are moving out ofChicago because of the crime.
People are moving out ofChicago because, like, they
can't afford to live here and soa lot of artists are living,
you know they're.
It's weird, this is reversemigration of people moving to
(55:05):
cities outside of Chicago.
You know we were talking aboutearlier.
There's really no centralcorridor for stuff anymore,
because it's been, because youcan't do it anymore.
And I think that is sort of thereal unspoken problem that
Chicago is going to be facing isthat it's cultural economy.
You'll always have the finearts, You'll always have
(55:26):
nonprofit theaters and balletcompanies and because that's
funded by the government, youknow, and so that that'll always
be there and museums.
But what you're not going tohave as much is that, like the
art galleries, the music clubs,it's going to be really
difficult for those to hang outanymore, because the city's has
been overdeveloped, Is there?
Speaker 1 (55:48):
a way to work, to bring those back.
Speaker 3 (55:52):
I, you know I'm not smart enough to know the answer
to that in terms of like city.
You know, I think it takes thecity, it takes political will to
recognize that.
But the problem is the money isso good that it's just tough to
say no to any of this stuffthat I think Lincoln Yards.
It's like the worst example ofwhat I'm talking about.
I think that is what.
(56:12):
If that fully goes through,it'll, frankly, destroy the
north side of Chicago.
You're creating a city within acity and you're building all
these made the plan is to buildall these major mega
developments and a shortblueprint, or a short, you know,
geographical blueprint.
How is that sustainable?
How is that livable?
(56:34):
How is that going to be?
How are you going to be able toget around when you're adding a
city within a small, within aneighborhood in a city?
It's not.
But the people who are behindLincoln Yards add a lot of
political, you know, power withour past administration and so I
think the pushback to that waspeople.
(56:55):
There was a lot of despair overthat when that was going to
happen.
I went to a couple of thosepublic meetings and I was amazed
by people just were in despairover it, but nobody was
listening to their voice becausewe already saw what happened
with Bucktown and Wicker Park.
Those were vibrantneighborhoods and those were
architecturally incredibleneighborhoods in the history of
(57:17):
the city and people bought thosebuildings and brought them back
to life and it's great.
You know, this vibrant economyand those neighborhoods those
are now.
You know, developers came in,they raised all the houses.
They built these super-sizedmansions with gates around them,
which might, by the way, isvery why are you living in the
city with people to gate aroundyour house, I don't know why
(57:39):
Kind of goes against the wholenature of being in a city,
living around your neighborhoods, but anyway.
But that neighborhood has becomejust kind of like there's
nothing special at Wicker Parkanymore, just a bunch of tourist
trap restaurants and there'sreally nothing.
You know, there's a lot ofpeople coming in from the
suburbs and tourism, and there'snothing really.
It's like rush street, you know, and there's no real small
(57:59):
business owners there anymore.
It's a lot of go-down daim andit's all franchise shops, right.
And so what do you want in yourcity?
Do you want your city to have,you know?
Do you want to look like asuburb?
Do you want it to just beSouthboard?
It's a great example of thatFranchises from left to right.
Speaker 2 (58:14):
The same ones that are in Schomburg.
Speaker 3 (58:15):
So what do you want your city to be?
And I think those are thequestions that people have to
ask themselves.
But you know, I know I'm goingon a long rant to your question,
but I think that is a it makesme it's.
I'm not someone who lives inthe past.
I really believe that thingschange and you try to roll with
it, but that's the one thingthat I think is really making
(58:38):
Chicago.
It makes me very sad forChicago.
It was the hyper development ofChicago and how Chicago, the
North side especially, hasbecome just like suburban hell.
Speaker 1 (58:49):
Is there a neighborhood that still sort of
maintains its character?
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Well, I mean, of course we talked about Rogers
Park because of the fact there'sno money to be made there.
Speaker 1 (58:57):
So Rogers Park has been.
You know it's a residentialneighborhood.
Capitalism is a problem.
Speaker 3 (59:03):
Well, no, not really capitalism, but I think it's
because it's a better, it's a.
It's a highly dense residentialcommunity without a lot of
commercial corridors, and Ithink that's what.
That's what's kind of preventedthat from being always taken.
It's just so dense.
How do you you?
know you can't you can't teardown that entire neighborhood,
(59:23):
but there are neighborhoods inChicago that literally they've
been so.
So, anecdotally, I used to liveon Damon off Irving Park Road
in the very late 90s and thatwas right before all this was
starting to happen, and Iremember that there was, you
know, beautiful little two flatsthat are mostly still there,
little bungalows, and you knowit's like I love you're talking
about your favorite streets, Ilove Damon.
(59:44):
I love Damon.
Because of that it felt like alittle small town.
It was like so Chicago to me.
And then what happened was theystart tearing down most of Damon
and so they start building.
They tear down like thebeautiful little grandma's
bungalow, art Deco bungalow, andbuild the shoebox three flats.
And those shoebox three flatswere built so poorly they don't
(01:00:07):
even like they're falling apart.
Now they were falling apartfive years after they were built
and they're ugly and they'reand nobody there wants to go in
and raise their family there, sothey're made for flippers.
And so now you have aneighborhood that was.
People live there forgenerations.
Their kids went to school downthe street, they went to church
over here, they built, theyopened small businesses around
there.
It was a classic Chicagoneighborhood and now you flip
(01:00:30):
that neighborhood for just realestate flippers and is that good
for the city?
Is that good for like, whywould anybody want to live there
?
And temporarily, right, and soI think that to me, is a.
I found that really, when Ifirst saw that happening, I was
like it, just it was.
I was in shock and but it'sjust.
It made me really sad.
(01:00:50):
It's just like you can't have aneighborhood just built just
for investment.
You have to build neighborsthat people want to live in for
a long period of time and theydon't want to live in those
neighborhoods because, or youknow, clearly people are living
there, but it's like, but arepeople going to live there to
stay?
Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Yeah, it's a transient, yeah, everything
becomes transient.
Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
Exactly so.
Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Well, speaking about, you know Chicago and progress.
You wrote a article that waswhat's the word, I don't know.
Something is published.
Published, yes, they have to bepublished.
In the Washington Post whenformer mayor Lightfoot was sworn
in and it was a hopeful article, that's.
You know.
Your quote is when Lightfoot issworn in Monday, the outsider
(01:01:36):
will usher in an era of hope inthe city long run by a political
machine.
Right?
Do you still feel like herMayor ship did?
That ended sort of thepolitical machine is that?
Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
is that what we're seeing next in Brandon Johnson
or Well, I think it was truethat she came out of the.
She was, she really was areformer and I think that's what
got her to office.
People and I talked to voters,people voted for her because
they were very sick of and Ithink like the Lincoln Yards
example I'm talking, people arejust so sick of these insider
(01:02:10):
deals of and they were just likecan we just get somebody from
the outside who recognized so,like with the Lincoln Yards
thing, she would talk about thatlike that's bad for the city.
But of course when she got inshe didn't do anything about it.
But I think two things one isthat she was hip with COVID and
that was that hurt all anybodywho was mayor of any city
(01:02:31):
Anywhere had a real difficulttime with that.
And then you had the social orthe rest of George Floyd's order
in 2020.
Yeah, those two things werereally the death knell for any
big city mayor, because you know, these are major disruptions to
any city life.
But I think that the way shehandled that at the towards the
(01:02:52):
end of her term, she came veryparanoid and she became very
stubborn.
She wouldn't listen to people'sall those things that I think
the office kind of Corrupts someof these people.
They get in, they just getoverwhelmed and they can't, and
so their instinct is to Lash outat critics, and I think people
saw that.
I think it made her seem verysmall, and so I think that so
(01:03:16):
she was tossed out of office.
The new mayor come in and he hadthe same thing of how he was
gonna be an independent.
He's only been mayor for abouta year, so there's not much of a
track record.
I think it's been really anunimpressive track record so far
.
His proposals are Very naive.
He wants to the city to run agrocery store instead of.
(01:03:36):
That to me seems like Notreally.
The way you solve a food desertis to have you know the city.
Chicago is now gonna.
You know food business you know,and again to the food business
and to deal with all the graftand corruption that would
Inevitably be part of that.
The immigration crisis that'shappening in the city.
We have people sleeping onsidewalks outside police
(01:03:57):
stations in December 15th orwhatever the day today is yeah,
and he's completely failed inthat point and he's had since
his beginning of terms toseriously handle it.
So I don't know I mean, I don'tknow if he's from the quote
outside as well.
I think that you need to havesome kind of.
I think we live in this era ofjust.
You know, there are a lot ofproblems in society, and so the
(01:04:20):
natural thing is select.
Somebody can promise you a lotwho has no experience in
government, no experienceworking with different people,
no experience in creating policy, and that sounds really good,
but the what I think we'restarting to learn is that you
kind of need some of that.
Yeah and you need to be aserious person.
But sometimes being a seriousperson is not that sexy or fun,
(01:04:41):
right, and so it's.
So you're seeing that at thefederal level, you're seeing at
the local level.
So I mean, I hope that I wishhim well and I hope he's got
three more years, so I hope thatthings will, you know, he'll
kind of find a groove.
Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
Yeah, I think you should be hopefully learn on the
job.
I think you're right.
Yeah, you know, mayor Lightfootwas unable to do that because
of all the tumult that washappening.
Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
I think that she was.
I think anybody in that rolewould have been just like
roasted.
But I think towards the end ofthe term she really proved she.
She had a lot of gravitas goingin and a lot of people riding a
lot of hopes there, and thenshe just seemed very small at
the end of it and she could haverisen to the occasion a lot
more, but instead she just shecould not take any criticism,
she just would.
(01:05:24):
She seemed very reactive,reactive to things instead of
leading, and I think people seethat and that's why they wanted
to change.
Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
So, yeah, it's, it's pretty interesting, dynamic well
, let's, let's end on a sort ofa positive note.
Karen, do you have any?
Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
I know I'm Just so forlorn doing it's one of my
channels to bring the room down.
Well, my, my hopes for Chicagoand I do believe this is that,
because of climate change,people are gonna flock here.
(01:06:01):
It might make exactly whatyou're talking about with over
development even worse, butChicago is gonna be the place to
be.
Yeah, fresh water.
Yeah, we are not on fire, we'renot on the coast.
Speaker 3 (01:06:14):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
So I'm curious to see what's gonna happen when
everyone flocks here.
It might be a nightmare, butEventually, I mean you know,
hopefully they're.
Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
They're.
I think there are there twoneighborhoods.
You know I live in Avondale.
Yeah, avondale kind of is still, you know, kitschy and has,
yeah, a Bug museum and a horrormuseum.
That is in those two flats thatyou're talking about.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we had aguest on early on who has a
record store in Portage Park.
(01:06:46):
You know it takes a while forthese things to develop.
But eventually, you know thereis a neighborhood that is
affordable to artists, that theyall sort of right right too,
and you know, I think, I thinkit's possible that that that
happens because there's a lot ofspace, right, it might have to
keep going west, right, right.
But then you know, as what'shappened, you know it,
(01:07:09):
neighborhoods become moreaffordable too because they they
become less popular.
You know, I mean, you've kindof seen ups and downs with
Lincoln, like the stretch ofLincoln in Lincoln Park, you
know when, right, there was alot of hipness to it and now
it's a wig shops and regs,stores and stuff, right.
Right right right, andeventually I mean landlords just
(01:07:29):
have to deal with the fact thatnobody really wants those types
of stores and they're, you know, in their neighborhood, and so
maybe they'll Cut their rates alittle bit to make it a little
bit more affordable for peopleto come in.
But right what, you know what?
What is possible for Chicago'smusic scene?
Speaker 3 (01:07:47):
Well, you know I think that it's kind of what
you're saying I think thathaving music in neighborhoods
that normally didn't have musicbefore, and so you're seeing, in
places like Avondale already,you know, there's music clubs
opening there that just didn'texist before.
Mm-hmm and hopefully it'llhappen in place like Portage
Park and Jefferson Park, and soI think that, as artists, just
kind of go out and find spacesthat are more affordable to do
(01:08:10):
things in.
That's just gonna.
It's gonna widen the net.
It won't be consolidated.
It's the ones that used to bethe north side of Chicago,
everything east of Western, youknow, up to the lay, up to the
Evanston, from Old Town.
That was the quarter you knowthat was like a real that no
longer is gonna exist.
Yeah, I think now it's likeit's spread out more.
So I think that is kind of whatthings are gonna look like,
(01:08:33):
spread out both north and southand west.
Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
I think yeah it does sound lovely to have a central
spot to go see a bunch of musicin the night, yeah, but here we
are hopeful that that can happenagain.
Yeah, never know you know, ifnot, we'll just jump it in uber.
Well, mark, wonderful to talkto you.
This has been an outstandingconversation, karen, thanks for
(01:08:59):
having me, you know,reconnecting with mark and yeah,
so fun to see you.
Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
Here it's been decades, yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:09:06):
I have to go see you play piano.
Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
I don't write on you know, when we have, maybe on the
on the February 15th, when wehave a listening party, you guys
can bring your clarinets.
Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
That's a nice suggestion, but I think that I
think that you know on papersounds good, but in practice I
feel like, as the night goes on,and if you, you know, we imbibe
enough, yeah, those that mighthappen.
Speaker 3 (01:09:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
Never say never.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (01:09:34):
Thank you, oh, no, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
I Andrew.
Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
Yes, Karen.
Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
I have a very serious question for you right now.
Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
Mmm.
Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
You ready.
Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
Give me a second.
Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
Okay, anyway, yes, all right, shoot, I'm ready.
Are you ready?
Okay, why journalism?
Speaker 1 (01:09:54):
Like why journalism for me, like what a major in
journalism are you?
specifically, why should theworld care about journalism both
?
Mm-hmm.
Well, how much time do we have?
We talked to mark for a longtime because he was fascinating,
so I will try to keep thisshort.
I love writing.
I you know, as a as a kid, asan idealistic kid, I wanted to
(01:10:17):
change the world and I thought Iwould do that through my Dean,
which I think is you know, maybe, why anybody gets into
journalism or writing, maybe not, I don't know, but I'm.
Interestingly, you know marktalks about that.
He was doesn't have anyjournalistic training.
I Went to school for journalismat Indiana University and,
(01:10:41):
after taking a class calledmedia ethics, which is
essentially just a clever titleto alert Journalism majors that
Journalism is a business, andthat you're going to be writing
for a Business and you know youalways have to like kind of keep
(01:11:02):
that in the back of your mindbut not be compromised by it.
And, and you know again, I was17, 18 years old and so
idealistic and once I discoveredthe journalism was a business,
which of course it is everything.
Otherwise, you know, the systemcollapses.
I didn't want to write foranybody anymore and so I added
(01:11:25):
English as a second major andThought that maybe I'd be a
writer someday.
Maybe I still will be apublished writer.
I should say I, you know, Ijust I don't know.
I just love writing and I lovethinking about things and
expressing opinions in more of along printed word format.
Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
Do you feel that this ?
I Usually don't do a follow-upquestion, but in this day and
age, I am afraid to writeanything.
I'm also not a good writer andI don't I find it torturous.
But I'm afraid to writeanything on any social media
platform because of the factthat my opinion is going to be,
you know, denounced or attackedor whatever, no matter what the
(01:12:12):
opinion is.
And so I'm just like I don'twant to have that Discussion, I
don't want to have that argument, I don't care, and so I tend
not to say things and I, whichis a shame Because my voice
isn't being heard right, but howdo you feel about that when you
put something out into theworld?
because you're doing anewsletter right now?
We use letter.
Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
I'm doing a newsletter.
I mean I really send it to ourcompany and might start sending
it to our clients, but I do postit on my website and you know,
then I do link to it on socialmedia.
Yeah, I mean, I think, in orderto you really have something to
say, you have to sort ofvanquish that fear.
Otherwise, you know you are,you might as well be Writing for
(01:12:53):
a corporation who wants you towrite there.
You know, be a right thereshill, that's the right term.
I don't know that's right term.
Anyway, you know so.
So you're you know if you'regonna be compromised, you're
gonna be compromised, and so ifyou have fear about what you're
writing, you're compromising tothat fear and you're falling
into a trap that you know arethe construct of our society has
(01:13:19):
set for you, and so you need towrite fearlessly.
I'm not important enough to getcanceled, but I don't think my
opinions would necessarily Getme canceled.
But yeah, I mean, I, I took mea long time to to to get to a
point where I I Without worry,but I think that is the the
(01:13:45):
process of becoming a writer isMostly to Vanquish those fears
so you could write without afilter.
Speaker 2 (01:13:55):
That's great.
Yeah good answer, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
Why journalism for the world.
I mean, I you know, even withall that I've said, it's the
only way that information getsout there, and a lot of it is
certainly compromised these days, but it's in, journalism
actually was formed out ofpropaganda, and so that's not,
(01:14:21):
that's sort of inherent withinjournalism and it's incumbent on
us to Cut through all of thatand kind of find the truth, yeah
, which is hard.
Again, because journalism isthere to sell papers or, you
know, create viewership, to selladvertisements, I shouldn't say
sell papers.
So yeah and so that's part ofthe reason why I gravitate to
(01:14:43):
literature is because I feellike an author who's writing
about a period of time might bea little bit more true to those
sort of prevailing feelings thatare happening at those times
amongst his cohorts which, orhis or her cohorts.
Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
So so you know like painting a more clear picture of
the era, the time, otherfactors going into it?
Yes, just the headlines.
Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
Yes, as opposed to reading what the history books
tell us, because who knows whowrote that and for what reason?
Yeah, totally All right, Thanksyeah this has been an episode
of records in real estate.
Thanks for listening.
We hope you enjoyed it.
Today's episode was brought toyou by be realty.
Be where you want to be.
(01:15:35):
Be realty.
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