Chicago

After a whirlwind two nights in Minneapolis, we headed to the Greyhound bus terminal to catch the bus to our final city, Chicago. This may have been the only thing throughout our whole trip that we were not just on time for, but actually running way ahead of schedule, and instead of that extra hour of sleep we really could have done with, we were subjected to an hour of blaring TV coverage of the trial of Michael Jackson’s doctor. This may have passed for news if anything was actually being reported, but it was a series of dubious expert opinions that went round in circles and left me just wishing they’d would give up and play the Thrilller video instead. Sam sensibly ignored the TV and played computer games. The bus trip itself was unremarkable, except for the fact that the one stop during the nine hour trip was at a smalltown hicksville McDonald’s in the middle of nowhere, and as we were starving, I gave in and broke my not having eaten McDonald’s for almost ten years thing. It was no surprise that the waitress with the puff mullet had not heard of a salad burger and could not make me one even though I explained that all it really involved was your standard burger minus the meat patty. Subsequently, Sam and I were forced to survive until ten that night on a measly box of fries.

Undernourished on the Greyhound bus

It was a relief to arrive at the place we were staying in Chicago and find that our host Mike not only sympathised, but also recommended a nearby vegan restaurant that was open late (he also complimented Sam on his Rancid t-shirt, bonus points awarded). Nearby vegan restaurant was called Handlebar and was awesome - it fed us at least fifty percent of our meals for the next five days. Along with our standard PBR order, Sam decided to take advantage of the fact that dinner was my shout, and ordered a Bloody Hammer, the ‘take it up a notch’ extreme cocktail version of a Bloody Mary. It tasted like drinking pepper, came garnished with a deep-fried pickle and seemed to have the alcohol content of a dozen beers. I shudder with the memory of that thing, and I only had two sips of it… Needless to say, we didn’t venture too far from the well-worn path of the PBR for the rest of the trip. 

The Bloody Hammer - I think the deep-fried pickle was meant to be the titular hammer

The next day was the start of our four nights in a row of Riotfest (as it transpired, I only made it to three of the four, sorry Weezer), and also marked the return of Nico. After swapping tales of debauchery and crazy Americans (Nico won I think, having spent time in both a gated community full of Republicans in Texas and the back of a tour van with the Outsiders), Sam and I caught the train downtown to the Chicago Art Institute. Finally, an art museum that wasn’t closing an hour after we arrived… We spent a glorious four hours there, encountering such masterpieces as Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic,’ – a nice lady took a photo of us posing in front of it, sans pitchfork, but sadly it came out blurry – Edward Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks,’ Georges Seurat’s ‘La Grande Jatte’ and your garden variety Picassos, van Goghs, etc. I was disappointed to find that the Magritte work I really wanted to see had been replaced by a little sign explaining that it was currently on loan to the Tate Gallery in London, but more than making up for this was the discovery of an entire room of Joseph Cornell shadowboxes. Oh happy day! I hadn’t even realised that the Chicago Art Institute had one, let alone about thirty, including three that I’d written about in my third year art history catalogue project. The good thing about Joseph Cornell is that he doesn’t - yet - enjoy the status of blockbuster artist, and so I had the room to myself while everyone else jostled to get at the van Goghs.

In a similar vein to Cornell’s boxes were the miniature rooms, a collection of painstakingly crafted reproductions of the interiors of European and American grand homes from different historical periods, each staged in a little display cabinet recessed into the wall. These doll’s houses for grown-ups were surprisingly fascinating, and we spent ages examining them despite the fact that a group of rowdy school children en masse was visiting at the same time. It was entertaining to note that even twenty years on and in a country on the other side of the world, teachers still march out the old “when we’re out in public, we’re representing blah blah school, and remember what we talked about as appropriate museum behaviour.” Teacher was fighting a losing battle, but luckily we managed to ditch the kids after the miniatures room.

Miniature frogs, miniature rooms, the excitement is all too much for me

The main event of the day – well, of our Chicago stay really – was Riotfest, and as this was the first night, we were still suitably enthused and raring to go. As with all US gigs we’d been to, it kicked off far too early, but we flagged the first bands in favour of pre-drinks at home, and headed along to the Congress Theater at the more sensible hour of 9pm in time to catch headliners Social Distortion. The venue turned out to be way bigger than we had imagined (easily double or triple the capacity of the Rancid gig, which is now the benchmark by which I judge all shows), and we were soon separated. Sorry again to Sam who was left to hold my bag while I rampaged off up the front (well, they were the band I was looking forward to dancing to the most at Riotfest, and who wants to be encumbered by all the unnecessary ‘essential items’ like jackets and make-up they brought with them).  Despite playing far too many songs off their abominable latest album, Social Distortion were on the whole great, and did manage to fit in heaps of older stuff as well. Best songs were ‘Prison Bound,’ ‘Don’t Drag Me Down,’ ‘Story of My Life,’‘1945’ and ‘Ball and Chain.’ Worst song was undoubtedly the new one that goes on for friggin ages and has back-up soul singer/dancers. Mike Ness, what are you thinking these days?

Friday was another one of those days that didn’t get started till the afternoon, and a visit to American Dog proved our saviour. American Dog is a wonderful local Chicago fast-food chain that has about twenty different kinds of hotdog to choose from (cutely themed around US cities – the Tucson dog was most to my taste, with its emphasis on jalapenos), and the added distinction of being the only place we found in the US that allowed you to order any of them as a veggie dog instead. Bellies full, we headed over a few blocks to the highly anticipated Chicago Architecture Foundation boat tour, which came recommended to us by a number of people.  It didn’t disappoint, and we even managed to learn a few things about architecture as we sipped on our beers in the sun and looked at examples of art deco, modernist, post-modernist and neo-classicist buildings (not sure if I retained much of what I learned beyond these words, but oh well).  Cruises are definitely the way to go for sightseeing…

A selection of buildings on the Chicago Architecture Boat Tour 

Awesome 1960s building on the boat tour

Next stop was Millennium Park, where we gave our cameras a bit of a work-out taking weird photos of our reflections in the infamous ‘bean’ sculpture by Anish Kapoor. As is the way with most pieces of public art, this one caused a fair amount of controversy along the familiar lines of ‘that’s not art’ and ‘waste of public money’ when it was first commissioned, but once unveiled people loved it, and it has since become one of Chicago’s most popular tourist spots. It’s basically a giant, highly polished silver bean shaped structure which you can walk under, and its reflective surface produces distorted mirror effects on a grand scale.

Distorty times in the bean

We were disappointed not to run into Al Bundy

We also made a quick pilgrimage to nearby Buckingham Fountain – you might know it as the fountain at the start of Married With Children – before we were due once again at the Congress Theater, this time for Danzig Legacy. I had my suspicions beforehand that what was advertised as Danzig and Doyle performing Danzig, Samhain and Misfits songs would result in 95% of the first two and maybe a Misfits song if we were lucky, but, no, we got a decent Misfits set of about half an hour, including my favourite songs ‘Bullet’ and ‘Last Caress,’ and a second encore of ‘Skulls.’ We wandered into the sound desk area and no-one seemed inclined to kick us out, so we had the best listening spot in the venue and an unobstructed view. It also resulted in an invitation to an after party at what I gather was one of the sound guy’s houses, as people assumed that we were legitimately involved in some sort of roadie/crew capacity. To top it off, some random goth girl later asked if I was the girlfriend of one of the band members. Ha, no I’ll leave Danzig to Tessa I think… We declined the party invitation (it seemed like a good decision at the time, although now I’m wondering what sort of adventures we would have had), and went for the cheap option of returning to where we were staying and finishing off the PBRs  (in the process being far too noisy and probably annoying our patient hosts).

As we were fast running out of time in the States, Saturday was decreed a shopping day, and we wandered around Wicker Park hunting out last minute presents for people (not to mention a fair few for ourselves). Wicker Park had endless vintage clothing stores, Reckless Records where we spent at least an hour trawling through vinyl and DVDs (woop on my Bad Brains  DVD and Daria box set), and plenty of general quirk, but the highlight was finding a retro gift shop that sold bubblegum collector’s cards from the 1980s. You name it, they had it - Garbage Pail Kids, 21 Jump Street, Full House and even some original 1984 Michael Jackson cards. Flatmate Greg later bravely ate the 25+ year old bubblegum from the pack of Back to the Future cards we bought him and proclaimed it crunchy, and survived the experience.

[So I think somewhere around this time we lost interest in taking photos/ran out of batteries/weren't allowed cameras in to Riotfest anyway. Shame, because I would have loved some pics of Cherry and the Congress crew]

Once again, we were a bit behind schedule for Riotfest night take three, although it wasn’t really our own fault this time - we ordered pizza with more than an hour to spare, but it turned into a debacle because they couldn’t get through to my NZ cell number to confirm delivery and as a result refused to deliver it. We gave up and went to a pizza place near the venue, where we ordered and then sat there jiggling and watching the clock as it loomed closer and closer to the time Leftover Crack were taking the stage. Our very accommodating and friendly waitress Cherry (who called us all hon and had the most epic 1980s hairdo) offered to hold on to our pizza until after the show, so we raced off down the street and made it to the Congress Theater only slightly late (we missed the first song - grrrr, because apparently it was ‘500 Channels’ ). Leftover Crack seem to be even more of a polarising ‘love em or hate em’ band in the States, and the reviews I’ve read of Riotfest either miss them out entirely or rubbish them, but I guess being anti-police and championing squatters’ and gay rights doesn’t exactly endear you to a fair proportion of Americans. As a five piece band with Ezra back playing guitar, I thought they put on an even better show than they did in Auckland in 2009, and Stza was an excellent spazzy-dancing frontman, and also the first singer who actually climbed down into the crowd and interacted with/harassed the audience. Check out Youtube to see a video that’s been posted of the last three songs – ‘Gang Control,’Ya Can’t Go Home’ and ‘Unity.’ They really should have been allowed to play longer than a half hour set…

Next band up was Suicide Machines, who I haven’t listened to since high school and don’t really know that well, but their set was relatively enjoyable (despite their singer’s annoying between-song banter), at least as a backdrop to drinking beer and getting excited about Descendents. And when they finally took the stage, they were incredible, I think it would be fair to say that they blew the whole crowd away. Looking older and greyer, but no less nerdy, and certainly no less energetic, Descendents played pretty much the setlist I would have written for them (including six songs off ‘Everything Sucks,’ my favourite of their albums). One of the few bands that provoked genuine excitement in the kids and the older folk alike (I guess I’m somewhere in the middle these days), they were truly on form. And for a band that always incorporated humour into their lyrics anyway, it was pretty cool that they seemed to relish the added layer of irony that came from cranking out songs like ‘I Don’t Want to Grow Up’ and ‘When I Get Old’ now that they’re slowly creeping towards their fifties. When they played ‘Thank You’ as part of the encore, I almost got misty-eyed, as the lyrics were so appropriate for not only their own performance that night, but for most of the bands I’d seen while in the States. Basically a love song dedicated not to a girl, but to any and every awesome band you’ve ever loved – “Did you know you're why I go and waste my time at a rock and roll show… I'll never be the same again now - no way, I just want to say, thank you for playing the way you play” – this was probably the stand-out song of Riotfest for me. Thank you Descendents, you ended my US gig-going on a note almost as high as it started (cough, Rancid)…

By this point we were completely starving, having forgone dinner in favour of music, and decided we would venture back to the Congress Pizzeria to reclaim our (by now probably cold and gross) pizza we had purchased earlier. We were happily surprised that not only was our pizza held aside as promised, but was delicious in its reheated state, and for some curious reason the proprietors and their waitresses really took to us, and proceeded to bring us free beers, pizza, shots and even t-shirts for the rest of the night. We had thought we might finally make it to one of the Riotfest after parties, but the lure of free stuff and welcoming folk proved too great, and we hung out with the Congress Pizzeria gang until the early hours, feeling particularly privileged when they kicked out everyone else in the bar at closing time but let us VIPs from New Zealand stay indefinitely while plonking down free beers every time it looked like we might be leaving. I am seriously mystified at the hospitality of Americans – each time we met incredibly generous and lovely people my cynical side got the better of me and I was just waiting for them to rip us off, but it never happened, and I’ve come to the conclusion that Americans just really want you to have a great time in their country at any cost. Any more free PBRs and I may have started waving an American flag…

Inevitably our last day in the States arrived, and with it melancholy and hangovers. There was some lacklustre shopping, and a final lunch at Handlebar, then a horrible taxi ride to a hotel by the airport. None of us had ever been carsick before, but in a taxi that kept stopping and starting abruptly on the freeway on an unbearably hot day where the result of winding down a window for fresh air resulted in traffic fumes was bound to be too much for anyone, and when we reached the hotel we all had to have a lie down and copious amounts of water. The hotel was another Aloft one and was almost identical to the one we’d stayed in in Minneapolis except for the fact it didn’t have a spa and the pool was unfortunately full of chads and chadettes, so we didn’t get our anticipated relaxing swim. There had been vague intentions of maybe heading along to the last night of Riotfest for Weezer, but this was soon rejected in favour of comfy beds and new season Dexter. Oh well, not a huge Weezer fan anyway, but would have quite liked to have had gloating rights to a bunch of my friends who do like them… Sam got his second wind and made it out to see Marky Ramone’s Blitzkrieg at the after party (which was by all accounts pretty rad due to an hour of Ramones covers), but I was fully spent by then and didn’t even feel bad about missing anything. Well, maybe later on once back in NZ I may have had twinges of Ramones-related regret, but at the time it was just bliss to lie in a real bed with sheets and pillows and relax.

The next day it was time to begin the arduous journey back home, in which we were beset by flight delays, jetlag, general grumpiness, and a tummy bug on my part. At this point, none of us really wanted to go home, and would have been keen to continue on and see some more of the States, or even go back to NYC or San Francisco. For some reason, getting back to Dunedin became much more appealing once we hit Brisbane. Brisbane was either hell on earth, or we just finally discovered what it was like to be jet-lagged, take your pick. We were only there for one night and two days, but it seemed neverending and monotonous, and we managed to land in the loudest, partiest, chaddiest backpackers ever and were kept awake all night to the sounds of eight different rubbish pop songs played over the top of each other thanks to the talented mixing skills of the inhouse DJ. Don’t stay at Base Brisbane if you’re not one of those up-for-it, perky, dance music-liking twenty-somfings whose idea of travel involves taking party pills with like-minded people on their gap year. I narrowly avoided getting into a fistfight with some belligerent and foul-mouthed Irish lasses who were both a lot younger and sillier than me, but also unfortunately a lot tougher looking. They parked themselves authoritatively in the doorway of the backpackers and refused to move to let us get in at about 2am. I tell you it was a struggle to keep my steelcaps to themselves as we were forced to climb over them in order to get inside. Brisbane did have one egg-cellent record store at least, Egg Records (sorry, I know Greg will like my pun while the rest of you groan), and the owner let Sam get a photo wearing his not-for-sale collector’s item original Devo hat. The smile on Sam’s face said it all…

Like every other Christchurch to Dunedin bus trip I’ve taken, you know the fun’s over when you’re forced to stop at the La Gonda Tearooms in Oamaru, and it was at this point that I think the US dream faded into a distant memory. It’s good to be back in Dunedin (familiarity is so comforting!), but I’d love to go back and see more of the States (Portland, Seattle and New Orleans, I’m looking in your direction). A fantastic place that both exceeded our expectations and confounded some of our long-held assumptions and lazily constructed stereotypes, the USA is a country I would recommend to anyone wanting to experience incredible diversity, a nice as hell bunch of people who are forthcoming and really proud to show off their home to you, and of course such an insane number of punk gigs and art shows that it seems you can’t spend one night in a city without partying. At least that’s our excuse… And in case you were wondering, Ferret the famed flat cat not only survived without us, but thrived, putting on weight and gaining an uppity cat attitude in the process. He still deigns to sleep on my feet, so I feel it’s a happy ending all round. Financial contributions towards the next Filleul Street overseas adventure (next time with Greg too!) gladly accepted…