Ephemeral Creation:
Music and Art in Chicago, 1978 - 1982 ← Part 12.

by Ken Mierzwa

Note: Many of my post-punk photos, including the ones from this site (plus some by Karen Wehrle, Diane Dittrich, and Michael Hernandez de Luna) were be exhibited in Chicago, opening on September 12, 2003. For details visit my Exhibits page.

Links, Credits, References, and Acknowledgements

Ephemeral Creation is based almost entirely on my personal recollections and journal entries from 1978 through very early 1983. A timeline with dates and places was constructed from the notes on my carefully filed proof sheets of thousands of negatives of bands and patrons; it was then supplemented from the ads and reviews in Coolest Retard and other fanzines. Since these events took place more than 20 years ago, certainly my memory is foggy in a few places. It's amazing that things were so well documented, given the prevailing anarchy of the times. But in some cases available sources offer conflicting accounts of what happened or when or where it happened. If anyone finds a mistake, or has additional info or documentation or just a comment, e-mail me at

Kenneth S. Mierzwa shadowplay2@mac.com

In retrospect, it's one of those "if I knew then what I know now" situations. I wish that I had spent more time in the clubs in the earliest days, but at the same time am glad that I was able to experience it at all. I wish I had written more down, gone to more shows, taken more photos... but recognize that I was already pushing the physical limits of my then 20-something year old body. Today, there is no way that I could sustain the out-five-nights-a-week-midnight-til-dawn schedule that was so routine then.

There is still a box of archived material in my attic, with event posters, old Chicago Readers, assorted fanzines, and who knows what else. Maybe someday I'll pull that out and add new material as inspiration and time permit.

Links for a few of the bands and for some other source material follow. I've included a few of the British bands home pages because 1) that's part of what I was into; and 2) really, in the end, most Chicago bands just didn't do all that much that lasted. Most of what is online today is about more recent bands which have appropriated the "punk" label. If they choose to define themselves that way, fine; and it's true that of what is out there now, they are closer to the original than most of the alternatives. But be aware that the current flavor of so-called "punk" is very different from what we experienced in 1978.

While serious authors differ on exactly when the original version of "punk" became something else, most place the transition before 1980. The modern variant differs most notably in it's much narrower definition. What we had in the beginning was simply too diverse to be contained for long within any one label.

Related Links:

http://www.thirdav.com/hd/_discog/clubs/V_obanions.html consolidates a page of excellent info on O'Banions all in one place. There are some great quotes from a member of the Dadistics about the experience of playing at a club with no stage and no dressing room. I learned a few things from this site about the pre-punk history of the bar. Apparently it was named after a former owner, Dion O'Banion, a 1920s gangster who ran a flower shop from the premises. He was gunned down inside by Capone's men.

http://www.chicagopunkpix.com is a neat site by Marie Kanger Born which includes a diverse range of Chicago punk memorabilia, including a page of my photos from Coolest Retard (she's in one of them). Check this one out.

http://www.planetearthchicago.com/scrapbook/LaMereVipere.pdf purports to be a collection of photos from a La Mere Vipere geezer reunion. It's a huge pdf file, and the link is not active here because I got tired of waiting for it to open after more than three minutes... so I haven't actually seen it.

http://www.aofcomplete.com/Chicago.htm is a rant by Vic Bondi of Articles of Faith. I like these guys as individuals, and like their music, even though I don't agree with their politics; but a skim through this and you'll understand what I mean about factions and negative attitude among the Chicago hard-core participants.

http://www.effigies.com/ is the Effigies web page. I heard them play more times than can be remembered; and always enjoyed it.
http://www.windycitypunk.com/ includes a variety of items, most notably a bulletin board. This is a good place to keep up on the latest punk news.

http://www.visi.com/fall/ is the official web site of The Fall. Mark E. Smith is still a prolific genius, and is still creating music somewhere in the north of England.

http://bauhausmusik.com is an archive site for this extraordinarily creative British band.

http://www.vamp.org/Siouxsie/ is the Siouxsie and the Banshees website. Among other things, it includes 147 images which actually load quickly.

Annotated Bibliography:

Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. Methuen, London and New York. Every self-respecting post-punker had read this by the end of '81.

Middles, Mick. 2002. From Joy Division to New Order: The True Story of Anthony H. Wilson and Factory Records. Virgin Books, London. This is a great story about the Manchester music scene, and really captures the flavor of the times. By a writer for one of the British 'zines, it's about a different place and (mostly) different people, but it was so much like my own experiences.

Sabin, Roger (editor). 1999. Punk Rock: So What? The Cultural Legacy of Punk. Routledge, London and New York. Like any work consisting of a collection of writings by various authors, the chapters range from enlightening to inane. I got a particularly good laugh out of one chapter which claimed that we all had basically conspired to create a situationist-inspired subculture (actually, while we were half-aware of what was happening, things were moving far too quickly for anyone to control anything. It was like being along on an exciting ride in an out-of-control vehicle). This guy really needs to get out of his postmodernist classroom and into the real world. Some of the other chapters are good though, if sometimes a bit too laced with academic jargon, and it's a great compilation of source material.

Savage, John. 1992. England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond. St. Martin's Press, New York. Centered on the Sex Pistols, this well-written book is a great narrative of the mid-70s British scene, with some info on the states as well.

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to the O'Banion's bunch, wherever you are; to Nancy for being a wonderful friend; to Roseann for that great kiss at Neo; and to Phil, I only met you at the end but you went out of your way to help.

Al, I know where you are. If you weren't the last person on the planet without e-mail I'd tell you thanks for getting me to O'Banion's in the first place.

Thanks to all the club managers for helping to make it easy for me to get my photos.

Thanks to all the bartenders, Veronica, Andrea, Dawn, Kathleen, Rose, Elaine, Debbie... and a few more whose faces and bodies I remember better than the names... for all the free beer.

Thanks to all the bouncers and doormen for keeping the peace. I only witnessed three fights in five years, a really good record. When they did happen somebody usually left on a stretcher, so it's good that you guys helped keep a lid on it.

Thanks to Eric Nihilist for booking some great bands, and for some fun chats.

Thanks to the guys from Articles of Faith and Toxic Reasons for the intense political discussions.

Thanks to Craig, Karen, Diane, Johnny, and the rest of the CR staff for encouraging me to write.

Thanks to Marilyn, Terry, Mike, and Lorna for the fun chats at WZRD.

Thanks to Stephanie for the chance to watch a newbie acclimate to the post-punk scene. That was one hell of a slam dance at Tut's, but then you always did go 100 percent. By the way, I still have those naked pictures of you, but no one else has ever seen them.

Thanks to Darlene for... well, I'm not sure what for.

Thanks to Meghan for being interested in this project. Our conversations about Mark E. Smith and other things inspired me to dust off the old files and get busy again.

Thanks to Katie, a young and gifted writer in the cultural wastelands of southern Illinois; you weren't even born yet when these events took place, but you reminded me that the things we experience in our youth can be powerful, and that they need to be written down.

Thanks to Regina for asking about this project a few weeks ago. It was the push I needed to complete the last two chapters.

Thanks to Phil for early comments on this site, and a bunch of new info.

Thanks to Mike and Barb for info on Franke Nardiello.

Thanks to Verna, aka "V-dog" for providing motivation to create a hard-copy version of this rant.

And finally, thanks to Ellin for helping to make things since 1985 so wonderful.

continued..... ← back

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