The love of music is what brought my husband and I together. While booking shows in my Pennsylvania hometown in my teens, I discovered his band from Chicago and booked them to play. Long story short, we ended up having a long distance relationship for a while and then moved to the Chicago suburbs together. Eric introduced me to a lot of great bands and several awesome venues in the city. One venue that we frequented most often was an old, run-down bowling alley called The Fireside Bowl located on Fullerton. The Fireside was a place for us to hang out and watch up and coming bands. It was cheap and small and we loved it. I can recall some very brisk evenings where we would have to stand outside waiting in line. The Fireside closed down a while ago and the bowling alley has since been completely remodeled and people can bowl there once again. Eric and I haven’t been back since they stopped having shows.
Another favorite venue of ours is the Metro on Clark. Just about a block or so north of Wrigley Field, this place has become top on my list for shows because it is smoke-free. You can actually see the bands clearly now instead of watching them through a hazy cloud of smoke. Some local acts that we’ve seen there include, The Smoking Popes, Alkaline Trio, Allister and Braid to name a few. Other venues that we like a lot include The Empty Bottle on Western and Schubas Tavern on Southport. I think we actually see more shows now that we’re parents than we did before. I suppose that could have something to do with the fact that the grandparents really, really like Hailey. We’re actually taking our little one and a half year old to her “first” show (outside of the womb) at the beginning of June. We’re taking her to see The Terrible Twos from Lawrence, KS. This band plays “Indie rock kid’s music”. They are playing a matinee show on a Sunday afternoon at Schubas. We think it’s great that there are bands like this around. The sound is not far off from what we like to listen to, yet the lyrics are geared more toward youngsters. There are plenty of other bands out there like The Terrible Twos. I’d much rather throw on the “You Are My Flower” album by Elizabeth Mitchell rather than “I Love to Sing With Barney” by the annoying purple dinosaur.
There is definitely another world of music out there when you have kids. We’re hoping that the music we love will someday appeal to our child(ren). Maybe if we take her to enough shows while she’s little, it will spark the interest. Thank goodness we have so many cool places to check out our favorite bands in our little land by the lake.
*Original Chicago Moms Blog post
