Chapter Sixty Three:     Chicago

Melly and Lissandra have suggested that each of us involved with this soon-to-be-infamous "Chrome Squatch Concert Tour" contribute a chapter to the web-site they are posting on the Internet, which I think is a pretty cool idea. So here's me, Scott Richter of Chrome Pie fame and renoun, adding my 2½ cents worth.

Ewan and I had a little argument about just who would cover Chicago, and in his usual crude and rude Aussie manner, he insisted that he would grab that honor for himself. So after an extremely vicious battle (we flipped a coin) I won and he graciously allowed me to have my way, feeling he could follow up with a much better report about some stupid other town.

I wanted to do the chapter about Chicago because it's one of my favorite towns. Chrome Pie has performed at least five concerts here over the years, so we know our way around.

ARRIVING CHICAGO

Luckily, by the time we left Minneapolis/St Paul, Wednesday at noon, the snow on the Freeway had almost completely evaporated, so we had no problem driving the 400 miles to Chicago. About 7 pm we stopped a few miles short of the town itself and checked into the Windy City Campground to avoid dealing with downtown parking. We weren't due at the Chicago Theater before noon Friday, at which time we had a reservation for parking our whole convoy in the theater's parking lot, but not before. It ain't easy to just plunk down 3 busses and an 18-wheeler in the middle of a big busy city.

We'd made reservations at this particular campsite because we've stayed here before, several times. It's got the usual basics-- toilet facilities, electricity, yeah, yeah-- but we also know the area and there are some special advantages to being there. It's right next to a CTA el-train station that makes it an easy 20-minute trip into town and back, which would be handy since we had the next day free to spend in Chicago before we had to work again.

I may as well admit it: there was also a favorite tavern, The Jolly Olde Codger, just across the street from the campground. We were especially fond of that place-- Chrome Pie had played two or three gigs there early in our career --so we had plans for the evening. Since all of us in the band had been to Chicago several times no one felt a need to go into the center of town tonight, especially with that particular pub waiting for us just across the street. We could be tourists tomorrow.

But nobody in S&F had ever been to Chicago before, and all those skyscrapers look pretty hypnotic from a distance, so they and about half our roadies went off to see the bright city lights, explore new experiences, etc. Might have been a new experience for the town of Chicago too: three Sasquatches wandering around, checking out the sights. But it seems they had no problems, all the TV coverage from Minnesota had paved the way, local folk were aware that some Squatches & friends were in the neighborhood, here to do a concert Saturday, so their presence was neither secret nor surprise. Folk in Chicago are big-city sophisticates, they don't get all silly about celebrities and stars, so they don't swarm over them like country bumpkins do. They hoped.

As for the rest of us, we had a lot of fun at the Jolly Olde Codger: it was open microphone night and we sang some songs with a bunch of local musicians we already knew. It was free beer for the participants, but I've learned not to go crazy. Can't say the same for some others. Kind of reminded me of the old days (notice I don't say "good old" days).

CHROME PIE HISTORY LESSON

Maybe I should mention those old days, back when even I was young and foolish. If you're an old hard-core CP fan you probably already know the history of our band, so I'll keep it short. But we seem to be collecting a new crop of potential fans, so let me fill you in on the last thousand years. Once upon a time...

Charlie Madison and I grew up and went to school together in Torrence, California, somewhere in the middle of what everybody calls "LA". We started playing music together about the age of 13-14. Me on guitar, him on bass. Dylan, Beatles, Stones, Credence, etc. By the time we were in high school we sounded kind of okay, although we had no real act together. For one thing we kept losing drummers and other musicians, nor did we have any good original songs yet. Your everyday kid's wanna-be band. That changed in high school.

Probably because we were going to Torrence High School, which numerous Hollywood-based studios used as location for lots of TV series, including Beverly Hills 90210 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer from 1996 to 2003. That's right, we were in the center of the Universe (or the Buffyverse) media-wise. Sometimes we even got to be extras in crowd scenes, but most important, we were in touch with lots of creative people, actors, writers, musicians. I accredit the influence of Spike for my perfection of the Rock Star Pose.

Anyway, I started writing songs somehow and that changed everything. We started doing gigs, called ourselves Star Pirates (for some reason), but kept on losing drummers and keyboard players so that it was hard to keep any kind of well-oiled act together. Once out of high school I started going to college at UCLA, Charlie got a job at a Safeway supermarket, so music just became a hobby and it all sort of fell apart for a while.

I was studying English Literature and got turned on to the great poets, Shakespeare, William Blake, T.S: Elliot, Lord Byron, Dylan Thomas (and the other Dylan) and especially Edgar Allen Poe. So we set some of those poems to our own melodies (like Poe's The Raven), which was fun but in violation of copyrights, of course so we couldn't use them commercially.

Then Charlie and I tried acid one weekend and we wrote The Spiral together. That was like the break-through for us. Suddenly we were pumping out a whole bunch of original songs. I suddenly got inspired to do the science-fiction-fantasy stuff, like Horizon Gone Sideways and 98 Light Years, while Charlie came upon the stupid/genius trick of writing songs about girl's names, like Pain of Jane and Whenever Jennifer, until we had enough for an album. We still had our old garage studio with Q-Base on a PC so we could make a half-assed demo, just the two of us, drum machine backup. We played it for family and friends, which resulted in... nothing, of course. But we kept on writing anyway until we had enough for two albums, then three, all going nowhere.

Until we met Yvonne Framus. She was a knock-out grown-up blonde and beautiful woman (about 30, us both barely 21) and man, could she SING. She'd been around with a bunch of different groups, still looking for the right kind of music for her. She was good at rock, rhythm & blues, pop, folk, country; she could do it all. She liked our songs, having stumbled across our home page, and offered to try a rehearsal with us. We all clicked, it was sort of magical.

Yvonne knew her way around, knew other musicians, introduced us to our new bassist-- Benny Joe, ready to go --and she already had a rep, so we found ourselves suddenly scheduled with gigs to play. It went hard and fast and we were freaking out about not being ready for such exposure, but we believed in our songs and everybody believed in HER, so we got carried along. Glass Pie was the name she gave us and within a year we were a busy rock band. But.

The most clichéd problem with having a beautiful, talented, dynamic woman in a rock band is that all the guys fall in love with her. We became that cliché. She was a divorcee, therefore potentially available, and we all wanted her.

So everybody got jealous and crazy and out of control, what a mess! Actually, a jealous Benny Joe, our resident ex-con, could get pretty scary, but I don't think I'll be bragging about my own level-headed actions during that period either. But we did learn the lesson that needed to be learned: it's best not to have an unreasonably hot woman in your band unless you are somewhat mature, which none of us were at that time.

Major problem being that Yvonne WAS the band, or at least, the brains behind it. She never got jealous or out of control and eventually went back to her ex-husband Bradley and had a kid. So then we were on our own, mature or not.

Now, years later, we can only say "Thank You, Yvonne, for being mother to the band we are today. Sorry we were such dicks."

We restructured: changed our name to Chrome Pie. I took over vocals, giving us a "new manly sound". We went through a few different keyboard players, settled in with Al Stenson for a few years. We toured the West Coast, then cut our first album, called CP # 1, which was kind of a hit, paving the way for CP # 2. After that we were established. More tours around the States. Eventually Europe.

We were also getting laid by a never-ending supply of young female groupies, so didn't need to get jealous with each other, we just passed the girls around, it was great. We lived the infamous wild life of a rock band for at least four years. Groupies galore! Until I fell in love with Shirley, got her pregnant with Billy, and was relieved to realize that it might be really nice to settle down. Then came our daughter Sandi and that clinched it, we finally got married. Which was fine with me, I don't think my liver could have taken much more alcohol, enough is enough.

Charlie got married too, to Clarice, and dropped out for a while, but came back after his divorce. After all he had some new songs: Oh Please, Clarice and Sheesh, Clarice.

Benny Joe just kept on truckin', no settling down for him. The trick with him was keeping him out of jail.

Al Stenson died of a heroin overdose about five years back. Which was sad for all of us, but we could see it coming and had already begun looking for a new keyboard player. None of the rest of us were into hard drugs, and Al kept getting more seriously screwed up until we couldn't use him in a live concert. We went through a few more keyboard guys until Lee Springer joined us three years ago, just a punk kid at the time. He's still our punkest kid at 22.

We were always looking for a new sound and one day, also three years back, we were approached by Miguel deSanto, who had already been famous in all of Latin American as this flamenco child prodigy. Ethnically a Chicano, he was actually a typical California/American guy from Fresno who would really rather be playing electric rock and roll than classical flamenco. Blindingly fast, incredibly intricate, a guitar god was offering us his talents. So we generously allowed Mike to join us. Now we did have a unique sound!

That's been Chrome Pie for the last 5 years. Now we're doing this thing with Squatch & Friends, which has been good for all of us so far.

I should note that the fame and renown Chrome Pie has achieved over the ten years we've been playing our kind of music, which we've hyped as "Sweet Rock", seems to have made some kind of quantum leap in respectability since joining forces with Adam and friends. We've always been a little too boy-band to be taken seriously, maybe too romantic to be considered street-smart. But this new "orchestra" seems to have become politically valid.

AROUND TOWN

Anyway, back to Chicago. The next day, Friday, we had the day off, so everyone wanted to go into town. The weather was even good: the sky was blue, the air nice and warm, like May is supposed to be, rather than like The Windy City so often is. So everybody was aced-up for going into town and seeing the sights. Me too, I like Chicago, it's a got a great music scene.

Of course, we had to leave at least one person behind to guard our vehicles, it just wouldn't do to find them all stolen when we came back and have to cancel the rest of our fabulous USA Concert Tour because we'd have no instruments or amps. That's actually Ewan's responsibility as Tour Manager, but we liked to run this tour as democratically as possible, so he delegated Osmond, our security guy, to get the duty. Which worked out fine, since Osmond had really overdone it at the tavern the night before and wasn't quite up to a day wandering around a big city anyway. Besides, he'd been on our roadie crew with us in Chicago a few times before and the only thing he wanted to repeat was the Jolly Olde Codger later on that evening, assuming some of us would be back by then.

So we were 19 people, too many to go in one group, although we did all pile into the El-Train together. Took it to the corner of Lincoln Street Art Park, at the north end of The Loop, planning to go our separate ways. But the reaction of people to our three sasquatches was too entertaining to miss out on.

Actually, when Adam and Magga wore normal clothes they didn't look much like Sasquatches at all, mostly getting noticed because of their size, looming over everyone else in a crowd. But when they walked together, separate from the rest of us shorties with no one beside to compare them to, they more or less passed for normal. Taller than normal and stockier, sure, but human. They got some looks, but people were unsure of what they were seeing.

But their faces were famous enough to get recognized now and then. And whenever those two squatch chicks Masnia and Magga, were spotted, squadrons of cute young girls would cluster around us, taking selfies. Benny Joe was all for that, he likes cute-young, so he'd announce who we were so that the girls would finally even recognize HIM.

And Chrome Pie, of course. But many of those young girls could care less about some old-fart musicians from some obscure rock and roll band; Masnia and Magga were the stars, we were just their entourage. It was humbling.

But once the locals discovered that we were being tourists, people wanted to show us around their town. Enthusiastically, and all at once. It quickly became common knowledge that we were scheduled to play in the old Chicago Theater on Saturday, which was nearby, so they insisted on showing us where it was. So we were literally transported there in a swirling storm of 50-60 Chicagoans.

ABOUT THE VENUE

I know the Chicago Theater well -- in fact, this will be the third time CP performs there out of the 6 concerts we've done in Chicago. It's a posh old Neoclassical opera house right in the heart of town on North State Street, refurbished a few years back, very elegant, swanky, seats 3600 bottoms, just the right size for our show.

It's also got a great-looking marquee out in front, that big iconic bull's eye with those "Chicago" signs running up and down and across. Tourists are always taking pictures of it. It's definitely status to get our "Chrome Squatch" name up in those lights-- and in fact, they were halfway through putting up the letters as we passed by. Inside, it's like an opera house in Vienna or Prague, arches and columns and chandeliers, ornate but harmonious, the seating flows in sweeping rows of purple, pink and gold, all the shapes and colors are really fabulous. A genuinely beautiful venue is what it is.

We had considered playing at the United Center again, but the big stadiums aren't quite right for this particular tour, they require a big pyrotechnics show. Which I certainly don't miss, having done 2 gigs at United Center. It's always a lot of extra fuss and expense, requires a bigger crew, all that. And so much can go wrong, as Ewan will attest if you ask him. The sound quality can be tricky too, being outdoors and all.

You're yearning to hear more about our touristing? Sure you are. Past the giant "Forever Marilyn" statue on Michigan Avenue-- you know, the one with her skirt blowing up from that old movie-- the "Seven Year Itch", I think (never seen the movie but I know the clip from YouTube). That brought on lots of semi-pornographic gags about Marilyn being too much woman even for a Bigfoot (27 feet tall). I noticed Adam resisted looking up from under her skirts because there were too many cameras trained on him. Then on to the big chrome Bean on the AT&T Plaza.

Finally Adam raised his hands and addressed the crowd, thanking them for their hospitality, but mentioning that they'd seen these sights the day before and now he'd prefer to be allowed to wander around town without being surrounded. I think he handled it perfectly: he was very polite and offered the fans a selfie-session for fifteen minutes, which became half an hour, but finally we were free of the mob. Once again I noticed the quality of his voice and how he seemed able to hypnotize a crowd.

Mike says Adam is considered an "Orator" among his own people, the Nokhtli. Which supposedly earns him some kind of shaman status. I believe it.

Theoretically, Adam and I are supposed to be ranked as equals on this tour-- he as the leader of his band, me as leader of mine, we discuss our strategies and share decisions. But it's hard to feel exactly "equal" with a guy who stands two feet taller and weighs over 500 pounds, not to mention his almost frightening physical muscular presence AND the aura of... well... raw intelligence he radiates.

I mean, hey, I'm in pretty good shape for my age (37) and I'm a fairly famous rock star, but next to him I can't help feeling like a little punk kid. Even though he's about 16 years younger than me. Not that he's trying to intimidate me, at all, I can tell that he likes and respects me. He wants us to be equals. So I try to be.

Once we were free of the crowd I felt it was my turn to be tour guide. I wanted to show our Sasquatch friends a sample of how spectacular an American city could be, so had arranged tickets to the Skydeck up on the 103rd floor of Willis Tower, from which we could see a "panoramic view of the Chicago Skyline". Our group had reduced to ten in number, including me, and the elevators were big enough to hold twice that many people at once, so we could take the elevator up all together. Actually, many other tourists offered to wait a turn rather than be in an elevator overburdened by the extra weight of three Bigfoots.

I was paying attention to Magga and Masnia, who were both nervous about going up so high in a big glass box, but willing to brave it. The elevator takes just one minute to climb 103 stories, so they reacted to the acceleration, just like everybody else. I'd almost expected them to go into panic, but they'd both spent most of a year around modern cities and architecture by then, they'd become used to it.

No, the panic was how the other tourists reacted when Adam took one step toward The Ledge: that glass platform extending about 4 feet outside the building. When Adam's Big Feet touched that transparent glass floor several already-nervous people out on the Ledge lost their nerve, screamed and jumped back into the building, afraid his weight would be too much and send them falling 1,353 feet to the street below. Of course it is designed to take the weight of many people at once (actually 4.5 metric tons, whatever that means) so one measly little Bigfoot had no effect on it. No cracks.

But our squatch chicks were impressed by the view. Skyscrapers all around us: John Hancock Center, Trump Tower and farther off in the distance Lake Michigan looking big enough to be an ocean. There were "ooos" and "aahhs" so it was a success. I was also surprised that they weren't afraid of being up so high, like many other tourists were. They were totally unfazed.

I considered taking them to Wrigley Field, home of Chicago Cubs, but that meant nothing to our Bigfoot friends (who didn't even know what baseball is). And actually, none of those Seattle people had any idea of who the Cubs might be either, so I didn't bother.

A STREET MUSICIAN

You can't wander around downtown Chicago without coming upon some street musicians, which we did, of course. As fellow musicians, we always feel sympathetic to their performances, especially if they show some actual talent, or even more important, dedication. And one guy had all of that; an Aussie named Erik, a real hippy freak with long blonde rasta hair and Guatemalan clothes, barefoot, playing drums and a didgeridoo-- you know, that Australian tube that makes a wah-wah droning sound. No real melody but definitely a vibe.

Something about him interested Pokey, who plays a similar kind of tom-tom drums, so they got to talking, and then Erik recognized them-- Adam kind of stands out in a crowd and this guy was perfectly aware of who S&F were. He had some extra drums with him and next thing we know, the three of them are jamming on the Magnificent Mile. Adam was doing his skat-singing routine, boogie-woogie sounds rather than words, and the other two were pounding out rhythms. They sounded good enough that I'd thought it's too bad it wasn't being recorded, but then a lot of people stopped and made videos with their smart phones, so I guess it DOES exist somewhere. It's probably already on You Tube.

You know, before it was always us from CP who got recognized; Charlie and Mike and myself. Then the street musicians would want to us jam, which doesn't always work out as well as it should and can end up embarrassing everyone. But this time all eyes were on Adam, so we were invisible. Just as well, I hadn't a clue what to do with didgeridoo music.

OUT TO DINNER

I had foolishly proclaimed myself as most-expert in Chicago night life, and thus had cornered myself into promising the others a culinary experience in a little off-the-beaten-etc restaurant I'd come to know about. So that evening I led them to Yvolina's Tamales on 18th Street, knowing our Nokhon friends are mostly vegetarians. And it went well, they really liked the eggplant tamales, while Porky and I pigged out on pork and the non-squatch girls had chicken. Everyone tried the mole. Mike always likes to eat there, says it's got tamale variations you can't even get in Mexico.

We didn't go out drinking-- at least not like the night before at the Jolly Olde Codger, the way rock bands usually do-- some of us had a beer each and that was that. What with Nokons being uninterested, Pokey and Maki being retired alcoholics, and my own not-so-fond memory of this morning's hangover, there was really no wish to end the evening with a pub crawl, even though we were in a city reputed for its bars and "speakeasies". We were home again by 11:00 and got a good night's sleep.

ABOUT CONCERT

The next day at noon, Saturday, we had to move our convoy into place and set up for the concert. We were issued permits to park on the street behind the Chicago Theater. Several of our roadies were not so well-rested as those of us who'd been together for the party-free evening before, but they still did their jobs. Ewan, our grizzled old Ozzy Road Manager, was as professional as always.

Don Tennison, our always dependable sound guy, had everything spot on by 2:00 pm, but would be tweaking it all through the concert, since the physical presence of a moving audience always affects the acoustics. By 3:00 we were performance ready, although we wouldn't be playing until 8:00 pm. We did a quick rehearsal of every number in shortened versions, so as not to burn out the eagerness we would need for the show itself.

That gave us some hours off to enjoy Chicago, which I used to charge up my personal affection for this town so that we could give them the performance they deserved. Charlie Madison and I, the original CP's, went off by ourselves beside the Riverwalk, across Millennium Park and once around the 606. That was a hefty enough hike that we had to take a taxi back to make it to the theater an hour before showtime so that we could change gears and think like jaded rock stars.

We gave a good concert, I think. Not only did things go smoothly technically, I could also feel feedback from Chicago-- the city itself, or at least that particular audience of Chicagoans --that we were welcome in their lives for that moment. And by "we" I mean all of us, not just me-the-rock-star or the band Chrome Pie, or the exotic Squatch & Friends, but the whole musical family of Chrome Squatch, musicians and roadies alike. It felt like Love, man, love between visitors and a city.

After the show there was an onslaught of fans & groupies like we rarely see. Maybe "groupies" is the wrong word, those are usually girls out to score a rock star (any rock star will do) but most of these people just seemed to want to be friends, it was all kind of pure somehow. And real, which groupies usually aren't.

Another late night for us, teardown and some partying, but most of us went back to our busses as soon as we could, about midnight. Ravenously hungry after the concert, we bought some of those Chicago style hot dogs with tomatoes and pickles at the MTA Station, ate them on the train. Adam tried one too, even though he rarely eats meat, admitted that he liked it.

I Skyped Shirly and the kids to hear how things were in LA, 2 hours earlier for them over in the Pacific Time Zone.

It's morning and we're all packed and ready to roll on to Indianapolis. We're getting off to an early start because Charlie has made certain arrangements and we need to be there a day early to check in, actually two days before our concert there.

Our destination is only 181 miles away, theoretically just a 3-hour drive, and we have reservations in yet another campground. Of course, we're keeping an eye on the weather, so as not to get caught in another blizzard.

But that freak snowstorm seems to have been just that and the weather forecast promises some nice days before us. So now I'll let Charlie take over the next chapter. Ewan's turn? Aww, screw him!