Nancy Rapchak
outside of O'Banion's,
early February, 1982
Photo by Ken Mierzwa,
copyright © 2003-2006
outside of O'Banion's,
early February, 1982
Photo by Ken Mierzwa,
copyright © 2003-2006
January 1982 -- The Beginning of the End
In the bitter cold of January 1982 I spent a lot of time at O'Banion's. I've got lots of photos from those few weeks, I pretty much just hung out and photographed patrons. They were almost always aware of the camera, and although I didn't know most of them, no one turned away. At the end of most nights, after all the customers were gone, I'd hang out in the back room with the staff (Nancy, Roseann, Phil) and drink a couple more beers.As the other clubs booked big acts and attracted large crowds, O'Banion's had once again become a hangout for some of the people who wanted to talk about social issues. Most nights Nancy was spinning a diverse array of vinyl, but every now and then there would be a band. Usually they were lesser-known hard core acts, like Direct Drive (about to change their name to Articles of Faith).
On January 23 Toxic Reasons from Dayton, Ohio, played. After the show everyone, including the band, went to a party at someone's house; I can't recall whose or even what neighborhood it was in. I do remember a very long and very intense political discussion with a couple of the band members, Phil the roadie brooding in the corner, and some girl laying on the floor, pulling her shirt up and flashing her chest at everyone.
One night at the very end of January I started the evening on the far north side at Misfits, then was headed south on Lake Shore Drive. It was something like 23 below zero, record cold, when my radiator hose blew. I managed to make it to the Wilson Avenue elevated station in the rough Uptown neighborhood, left the car, and jumped a southbound train. It was well after midnight, and only a few dozen bums were riding, trying to stay out of the brutal cold. The four block run from the Grand Avenue station to Clark and Erie was maybe the coldest I've ever been, but I knew there would be friends at O'Banion's. I ended up sleeping on a couch at the apartment of a couple of the guys from Articles of Faith. The next afternoon things moderated enough to be able to pour a little antifreeze in the car and drive it to a repair shop.
I might have been to O'Banion's one more night after that. Within a week it was closed and padlocked. A few days after that, I helped Nancy take her records out of the DJ booth and load them into her brown 1971 Chevy Nova, and then up into her apartment. We had to get the key for the O'Banion's padlock from the owner, at one of those nearby sleazy liquor stores. As we moved boxes, Nancy gave me a few well-worn records she had extras of, The Clash and a few others. I still have them. Late in 1983, Nancy moved to New York.
O'Banion's had been open for just under four years. It had not changed much in that time, basically the same staff, basically the same niche. While other clubs came and went, O'Banion's remained the purest version of Chicago "punk" right up to the very end. The closing of O'Banion's marked the beginning of the end. We didn't know that yet, and it took perhaps another year for everything to fall apart.
But I went to fewer and fewer shows, and was more and more disappointed by the people I met. Some of the bands were beginning to cash in. The big record companies had stopped trying to fight, and were basically just buying up the talent. In the process, the suburban masses were "discovering" our music. The clubs were packed now, with places like Metro drawing hundreds or thousands of people for some bands. Most of those people were more concerned with what they were wearing than with philosophy or art.
There were still some good times ahead in 1982. But as I look back at the list of bands I photographed, it is evident that I began to avoid the bigger acts, and increasingly covered obscure local bands or very specialized types of music.
First though, there was a sort of punk-postscript. In March, The Damned passed through Chicago. One of the original London punk bands, they were summed up by Jon Savage [in his book England's Dreaming]:
"They were the bash-street kids of punk: their lack of calculation and insistence on high-octane, hell-raising fun meant that their rapid rise was bedevilled by the impossibility of any planning. While the other groups were carefully considering their moves, The Damned went out there and pulled faces at the world as if there was no tomorrow."But a lot had changed since the the day in 1976 when The Damned had cut their first record deal, as evidenced by my notes written the day after the show:
The Damned played last night - so many morons pushing toward the stage no one could move. Some of us went to Neo after that to watch the hollow-headed N.R.s dance their lives away. Then another party at Rhonda's, that I suppose was lively enough, but I was too involved in a long and aggressive philosophical discussion to pay much attention. The end result of the evening - and morning (it was 7:00 am before I headed home)was frustration and disillusionment. Everybody had something or someone to complain about, and plenty to say, but the ideas are disorganized, sometimes conflicting, and seldom positive. Everything is breaking up into little cliques, and each one finds another one to hate.Although the next band epitomized this new cynicism, at least they were a lot of fun. Flipper, out of San Francisco, did not take themselves or anything else very seriously. With catchy titles like "Love Canal" and an entire song consisting of "see, there's this... it's like... uh.... forget it, you wouldn't understand anyway." Right there, on one little piece of vinyl, and in very few words, they summed up the whole experience.
The night was a blur. Nancy knew the band, so introductions were made before the show. Things got so informal that I took many of my photos from right on stage at C.O.D., actually among or behind the band, with the audience clearly visible and looking up. Later bassist Will Shatter practiced his sneer for the camera, then we lined up some completely absurd group shots. I had a blast.
Flipper at Club C.O.D. the view from on stage - March 20, 1982
Photos by Ken Mierzwa, copyright © 2003-2006
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Kenneth S. Mierzwa shadowplay2@mac.com
February 5, 2003 - Updated: March 27, 2006
February 5, 2003 - Updated: March 27, 2006