Photo: Robert Karlic

By Brian Costello

It’s one of the first warm nights of spring, and tonight’s show, after having its location changed two-to-three times due to landlord hassles and police concerns in the past week before settling on Crown Liquors in Logan Square, is packed with zitty rock ‘n’ roll youth and paunchy garage-dude vets like myself, cramming in closer as Mickey finishes setting up on the too-small stage. Dirty D, the rhythm guitarist, starts playing a guitar line not unlike “Bang a Gong,” as the drummer, Christmas Woods, marks the 2 and 4 beats on the high hat. I look around. Everyone is smiling, as much from the end of another lousy winter as for what is about to happen.

The only person not smiling is the lead singer, my old friend and collaborator Mac Blackout, who has that look I’ve seen countless times—where he’s either going to break everything around him, and/or he’s going to start screaming, like a drunken demon, some made-up song about dead babies or something of the sort. Usually, he’s a sweet Indiana kid with a chaotic creative streak, but when he looks like this (whiskey-flushed, rabid eyes, hissing mouth), well, you don’t think he’s going to hurt you, but then again, this might be the time he does. Christmas Woods moves into a triplet snare fill, and Mac screams “SHE’S SO CRAZY!!!!,” leaps into the crowd and lands on some unsuspecting audience members. The crowd not knocked down smiles, jumps in time, sings the words. They back up and dance, as Mac paces around in front of the stage in exaggerated pantomimes, falling and leaping around, singlehandedly making the term “outrageous frontman” mean something again. The music is rock ‘n’ roll at its most elemental—fun, simple, rooted in the past while putting a whole new spin on the familiar.

We’re all very happy here at Crown Liquors. The Party Season has come around again in Chicago, and Mickey is destroying another stage. Read the rest of this entry »