4/13/2024 0 Comments Fireside Bowl ChicagoLocks: I remember Fred saying, “I think I need something that is not as hard as this,” and that was it. I want to get famous.” I think the rest of us were like, “We’re writing these crazy songs! So of course we’re not going to get famous or played on the radio.” And Fred was always very upfront about wanting to be famous, so he said, “That’s the thing, I want to hear our songs played on the radio.” Montana: When (Trenchmouth) finally got around to the band-ending discussion in ’96, Fred said, “Look, we’re not getting famous. Fred was such a horrible person! But I also love him so much. He would tell people that Mark was working as a mime at Great America, or when bands called he would tell them send us a tape and draw a monkey on the envelope, so I would get all these envelopes with monkeys. I think he started honing his characters on our phone. Fred was also my assistant when Mark (Greenberg, former Lounge Ax booker and member of the Coctails) was on tour, and when Fred was around I never got anything done. One time he was a hipster Wicker Park girl. Sue Miller: Actually, he was dressed like Jesus and Hitler. He once showed up as Hitler, which didn’t go over so well with Sue. He would do these outlandish karaoke nights and would host them in character and do impressions of the people who sang. I wasn’t a fan of Trenchmouth, so that’s not why we would have become friends. Steve Albini: Yeah, I met Fred at Lounge Ax. (Owner) Sue Miller was my boss, which is how I got to know Jeff (Tweedy, Miller’s husband, the leader of Wilco). He had this philosophy on how to live and be and gave me advice that I still keep in mind. I don’t carry those fights with me now, but then, I was like, “I never go into that neighborhood!” (Musician/producer) Steve Albini became a huge influence on me, which I don’t know if he knows. I remember Tortoise had this loft where they would record and I loved that I became part of that scene, not the Cubs scene. We shared the stage with Jesus Lizard and we got along with everyone, but because we signed to a label (Skene! Records, the early home of Green Day) in Minneapolis, I don’t think we ever felt like a part of the Chicago music thing.Īrmisen: I lived on Wolcott, on Division. We played this bowling alley on Fullerton, the Fireside Bowl, which was uncomfortable because we set up in the lanes. We played Art Institute parties, places like Club Dreamerz. In the meantime, Trenchmouth formed its own scene, really. Locks: It took years for the Wicker Park scene to happen. So, a few years later, Trenchmouth was like the old-school band. But when we first got to Chicago, there was nothing, no scene, no unifying aesthetic. Later with Damon we started (the post-hardcore, pre-emo band) Trenchmouth. Fred and I packed a U-Haul and moved to Chicago. Wayne Montana, Chicago musician and co-founder of The Eternals: This was 1988 and Damon was there for 10 days, then he called and said Chicago was “pretty cool.” Which is funny, because that’s all it hinged on. Chicago then was like this embryonic version of ‘Portlandia.’ Though, no question, the show’s informed by my time in Chicago.” That sensibility, for me anyway, came from being part of the music scene there.”īut for Armisen, 45, the roots of “Portlandia” are found here, in Chicago, where he was a familiar figure on the music and art scene throughout the ’90s, particularly around then-burgeoning Wicker Park, “where I lived for a long time, surrounding myself with the things I loved. For Brownstein, 37, the roots of “Portlandia” are traced to Olympia, Wash., “when I was in my formative years navigating a world with a lot of rules and in-groups and out-groups and an obsessiveness with detail, and this thing about exalting fastidiousness and knowing the inner workings of things. In short, it takes a hipster to know a hipster. Then consider why Armisen and Brownstein know this stuff so well. Never mind, of course, the legacy of their day jobs - his as a cast member on “Saturday Night Live,” which he joined in 2002, hers as the guitarist of Wild Flag, the power-pop group she formed in 2010, several years after the breakup of her previous group, the beloved Portland indie band Sleater-Kinney.Ĭonsider their cultural baggage, too: the militant foodies, preening mixologists, blinkered animal-rights activists, hipster entrepreneurs and oversensitive bohos - the precious, upscale artisan urbanity - that “Portlandia,” which began its second season last Friday, so knowingly sends up. When comedian/musician Fred Armisen and musician/comedian Carrie Brownstein swing through Chicago next week for a sold-out show at the Hideout based on their hit IFC sketch series, “Portlandia,” they’ll be carrying serious baggage.
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