I welcome Chicago with a red nose and a sore head..

Hello Chicago.... and... *sniff*.

I never had a real opinion on this city. There was something very shiny and impersonal about it... a city that (in my mind) lacked personality. OF COURSE i was pleasantly surprised by it's offerings, or what little I saw of them.

We flew out from La Guardia, where they weighed our bags... Little scott's bag was 20 kilos heavier than mine! ahaha.


Arriving in Chicago was not everthing it should have been. I was tired, i was hungover, and I was pretty damn sick and cranky! Over the previous 24 hours a sore throat had developed into a full on fluish headcold (no doubt aided by a heavy Brooklyn drinking session) I think I was feeling very sorry for myself... and the ice cold weather didn't really help my mentality. Yes, I had set myself up for an exhausted mini meltdown.

Driving in to town with both the scotts..


I recall thinking to myself 'this is the sickest i've ever felt' .. (but of course it wasn't really)

ID and I checked into the most incredible B&B called the Two Urns which was located in the hispter area of Wicker Park. It was run by an odd lady, rather eccentric, with amazing collections of all sorts of crazy art and objects all over the place. I swear she thought I was retarded- ID did all of the talking, whilst I stood there like a mute stunned mullet unable to engage with her whatsoever (this was repeated over the next couple of mornings when she cooked us breakfast in the dining room downstairs)

Our room "Les Chalet des Chats"

I can't show my face, I am looking quite foul.

Cameras in the Staircase

I was totally lame and slept... I slept / read magazines every spare minute I had in Chicago.
We'd made friends with a band called VeryTrulyYours who put the boys up - they took time off work to show us all around town. The others got to see it, I stayed in watching Cattle Auctions on TV and making Terrible coffee.


We played our show at a venue called Subterranean.


It was grand, two levels and a generous rider to boot in the band room..

They're super strict on ID there, and despite us all being close to / in our 30s... we all got carted everywhere we went..

id getting ID'd (at 34).

We explored.. Wicker Park is an area rich with Vintage, Hipsters and furniture shops.

Check out the Typos... I can't imagine the inconsistency is intentional!?



The show, in my opinion, was diabolically bad.

Probably the worst show I have ever played. I felt my temperature hit some ridiculous level, my head stopped working, the kit caught me up (I made many mistakes and could barely follow what was going on). And I was sweating- soaking wet! At one point I almost fell backwards off the chair, at another I felt like i was about to faint.

Enter the mini meltdown!

When I got off the stage I was SO upset, I wanted to quit immediately (embarrassed!) I am a drum liability at the best of times, but this tapped into some weird part of my brain where I felt completely useless. I pulled myself out of it pretty quickly, but there was a dark half hour or so where I really didn't want to speak to anyone!! It's the exhaustion and lack of sleep of touring I guess.

Anyways VeryTrulyYours came on next, and they were fab!

Adorable, sweet, lovely tunes.
I have their cds now and thoroughly enjoy listening!

After the show we visited their rehearsal space, apparently in the Ghetto!
(cue excitement)
It's an enormous multilevel building full of rehearsal spaces.. you hire them out yearly i believe.

The general vibe..

The artwork inside:


The band:
I continued to waste time in Chicago, but the next day they suggested Mexican here

Apparently Chicago's best Mex. It was very busy!

I bought an orange juice the size of my head.



When we met the boys, we foudn that Kristy/ Lyall from the band had DEVO HATS!
Holy crap, amazing.

I look digusting in my shot, so here's Hugh rocking the look a bit better...


Packing up our Tahoe, and hitting the road...