The raunchy Fireside Bowl bathrooms of yore have finally achieved mythological status. Last week the Chicago News Cooperative reported for the New York Times on a new series of shows being booked this summer at the bowling alley by House Call Entertainment’s John Benetti. WBEZ did its own version of the CNC story, which featured nostalgic quotes from former Los Crudos front man Martin Sorrondeguy and Underdog Records collectivist Douglas Ward but no comment from famously reticent former Fireside booker Brian Peterson. Of course, where there’s nostalgia, revisionist history is never far behind: ‘BEZ reporter Robin Amer remarks that shows at the Fireside back in the day “sold out nightly,” news to everyone who ever played to Elliot Dicks and the four other touring bands on the bill.
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Brian Slodysko, a founding guitarist of Seattle retro-metallers Black Breath, recently abandoned the Pacific Northwest rock scene for a reporter’s beat in the ‘burbs. Although newly moved into a place in Logan Square, he’s covering crime, politics and other goings-on in the teeming metropolis of Downers Grove for the Chicago Tribune. Critics have called his dispatches “not metal enough.”
