A Brief Vocabulary Study Guide for the ACT or SAT

ABDUCT - to kidnap - to take a person to a state of unlawful restraint ABHOR - to hate strongly; to loathe ABJURE - to step down ACRIMONIOUS - bitter AGGREGATE - to add AUTISM - a developmental disorder made up of a spectrum of deficits in social communication, dissociative behaviors, or excessively repetitive behaviors AUTOMOBILE - a car AUTOMOTON - a robot BALLISTIC - related to combat; enemy; having an attitude of pugnaciousness BELITTLE - to disparage BICENTENNIAL - a period of two hundred years CACHE - a hiding place CARCINOGENIC - cancer-causing; a chemical or substance known to cause cancer. CENTENNIAL - a period of 100 years CLASSIFIED - secret; clandestine. CLIQUE - a big group of select people, especially in a street gang. CLOAK - to hide CONTRAPUNTAL - in music, related or or having to do with the use of counterpoint. CONVECTION - thunderstorms or any condition related to the occurrence of thunderstorms. CONVECTIVE - related to thunderstorms or any condition related to the occurrence of thunderstorms; also refers to winter precipitation which related to heavy snowfall or heavy barrage of ice pellets - with or without the occurrence of thunder. COTERIE - a small group. COUNTERPOINT - in music, at least 2 or more voices moving independent of each other. CRAP - riff-raff; garbage. DEFICIENCY - a state of lacking in something (for example, a vitamin or mineral) DETONATION - explosion (of a bomb, firework, TNT, dynamite, etc.) DEFILLADE - cover against gunfire, grenades, bullets, or bombs DISCO - meaning "disc" or "record" in Spanish, it was a style of dance music mainly in the 1970s. DISCOTHEQUE - a dance club where people danced to disco music or have disco dance parties during mainly the 1970s. ERRONEOUS - incorrect; misleading EFFERVESCENT - bubbling EGREGIOUS - obviously mistaken; blatantly erroneous ELEVATED - up high in the area of concern; in meteorology, it refers to the atmosphere about 700 millibars or above in height above the earth. FELON - a serious infection of the palm side of the fingertip usually caused by staph bacteria FLAG - to report somebody for a violation or transgression of a rule or regulation FLUENT - have sufficient skill or ability (in) GARGATUAN - giant; huge GENIUS - very smart; highly intelligent HEMORRHAGE - bleeding HYPOGLYCEMIA - low blood sugar HYPONATREMIA - low blood sodium HYPOTENSION - low blood pressure HYPERGLYCEMIA - high blood sugar HYPERNATREMIA - high blood sodium HYPERTENSION - high blood pressure IMPLOSION - an explosion of a building designed to bring the building down in collapse instead of spreading it out. INTERCONTINENTAL - between continents JURIS DOCTOR - also known as J.D., it means "doctor of law" in Latin. JURY - a group of peers picked to do duty in the courtroom to decide if the defendant is guilty or not guilty KAPUT - out of action; out of service; no longer functiong KARATE - a type of marital art mainly from Japan, which means "empty hand" in Japanese MARTIAL - referring to something happening or something used in combat, fighting, or duelling. MYOCARDIAL - related to the heart muscle MYOCARDIUM - heart muscle; the heart NAVAL - related to the armed forces called The Navy, or related to the Navy NAVIGATE - to travel; to roam; to trek; to go on a trip to somewhere. NECROSIS - death or deceasing of a tissue or tissues in the body NECROTIC - the process of death or deceasing of a tissue or tissues in the body NINJA - a student or teacher who practices or uses the art of ninjitsu. NINJITSU - a Japanese secret martial art focusing on deception, stealthiness, and the ability to take out enemies without being noticed by other ninjas or authorities OCTOGENARIAN - a person who is from 80 to 89 years old. OCTAGON - a geometric shape with 8 sides. ORWELLIAN - a law, decree, rule, or regulation that is extremely strict and often strictly enforced PARIAH - someone shunned completely from society - an outcast PENURY - strong or severe poverty POLYGLOT - a person who has at least working or advanced knowledge of several foreign languages as well as one's native language POLYPHONY - something with many voices POLYRHYTHMIC - in music, having several rhythms in a single measure or having multiple subdivisions in meter in a single measure PUGNACIOUS - easily provoked to belligerence PYROTECHNIC - related to fireworks or its chemicals; something or event that involves fireworks QUADRIVALENT - a vaccine that has 4 killed strains of a virus or organism in its shot ROTOGATE - a rotary gate used for entry or exit to a building, or to a subway or train. SAYONARA - originally Japanese to mean "good bye", it is often used in English to mean a "farewell". SESQUICENTENNIAL - a period of 150 years. SYNDROME - a serious of physical symptoms that usually gets worse and cause gradual deterioration of the body, sometimes leading to death TAEKWONDO - a type of martial art from South Korea, which means "foot, fist, way of life" in Korean TRESPASS - entry into a property without authorization or permission to do so TRIVALENT- a vaccine that has 3 killed strains of a virus or microorganism in its shot VAPORIZE - to turn into a gas VITRIOL - abuse; severe, acidic let-down or put-down XENON - an inert gas YODEL - a series of high-pitched musical notes in singing with lots of leaps, often used to depict the peaks and valleys of mountains (such as the Swiss Alps)

THE RITE OF SPRING (IGOR STRAVINSKY)--SYNOPSIS OF THE DANCE AND THE MUSIC

PART A: THE ADORATION OF THE EARTH

 

Introduction

THE DANCE

The curtain doesn't usually rise up in some productions during the introduction. Some
involve a curtain that rises up to show a primeval forest, the setting for the Rite of Spring.

THE MUSIC
The music starts with a bassoon going just beyond its normal range. Its obvious purpose
is to depict some primeval cry--perhaps a cry of a wolf, or an old hunting call from someone's prehistoric horn. Then the oboe comes in to depict another animal--perhaps
a low-pitched nightingale or even an owl. The other low woodwinds then weave in fourths
to complete the pattern. In the next part, other animal calls are given. The piccolos  and flutes represent bird calls, the horns represent something like worms calling as they inch forward.

Then, on a B-G-Ab-D-E chord cluster droning in the low basses and cello, the animal calls start out with one in the first woodwind, and then the other in the next woodwind, and then increase until a big cacophony of sound appears in the other upper woodwinds, climaxing with a low-pitched, whippoorwill sound in the bassoons. Suddenly, there is a stop, and then the high bassoon comes in once more to start the thematic reprise that started the opening measures, followed by a "Db-Bb-Eb-Bb" ostinato in the middle strings--which will be the main part of the "Dance of the Adolecents.. Then, a brief lull on an F# pedal point, and then the reprise of the 4-note ostinato, quiet, repeats

4 more times...with a sudden segue to the next part...the Auguries of Spring.

The Auguries of Spring

THE DANCE

The curtain now rises to show usually quasi-naked lady dancers, adolescents particularly,
doing strange movements in their bodies that are not really ballet-related. Crouches,
deep knee-bends, monkey and ape poses, and other unusual drops and lunges.  In some
other productions, adolescent men are often added to the mix of ladies.

 THE MUSIC

This part of the music is most striking. We are now in duple meter. The strings, punctuated by horns, do a bichordal element of G-Bb-Db-Eb (the V of the Ab chord) and the E-G#-B-E chord (the regular E chord)--at the same time....forte and with sudden, violent actions. A fragment of the G-Bb-Db-Eb chord, the "Db-Bb-Eb-Bb", appears first in the horns, and then, later on, the strings.

The music eventually gets quiet after a pausing low F from the tuba, preceded by a long Eb note in the brass., as the Db-Bb-Eb-Bb ostinato continues. The high winds now make a new quasi-folk melody. Then, after a rhythmic variation on the bichordal theme in the strings, the crescendo is slow but grand, until the whole orchestra comes in punctuating the folk melody in the upper instruments with sharp accents. Then a segue suddenly to the Ritual of Abduction.

Ritual of Abduction

THE DANCE

Right now, the ladies either get abducted by other ladies, or the men abduct the ladies
in an abduction ritual. Things like play-fighting, rape scenes, cat fights, are the main
actions here.
 

THE MUSIC

Now, the music becomes more irregular and unpredictable. Big meter changes and
irregular meters vying for regular meters make this ballet scene seem like a wild orgy.

Spring Rounds

 THE DANCE

As the title suggests, this is almost like Greek round dancing in the dancers--so mainly, they are either in one circle or in a group of circles.

 THE MUSIC

After long trills on Eb-F on a few of the woodwinds, the music is moderate and almost

processional, on a Eb minor-ninth chord mainly, punctuated by a bass drum. As that
part of the orchestra plays an ostinato--which first holds back in volume and then bursts
out in a full fortissimo with other orchestra members---the "auguries" theme is played
in the upper instruments in the orchestra. Then, a quick but brief shift in scene; the music is suddenly fast and represents something like the "Ritual of Abduction" music heard earlier. Then the music goes back to the trills that started the Spring Rounds in the first place.

Games Of The Rival Clans

THE DANCE

Think of the Sharks and the Jets in Bernstein's West Side Story....but this Rite milieu describes a sort of primitive gang war. Primitive rival clans push each other, strike each other, take sides. Sometimes they dart away or into each other.

THE MUSIC

The music is loud and there are clashes of double thirds that seem to be played wrong (e.g., some wind players play Ab-F, and others play A-F#). It seems like Stravinsky wanted it to sound wrong because most of the ballet is primitive.

The Arrival of the Sage

THE DANCE

The fighting stops as the bass drum, the tuba, and horns come in. The dancers then make way for the sage, who enters the stage usually with a staff, walking slowly until he reaches the center of the stage. The dancers honor the sage usually by raising and lowering the arms in the area.

THE MUSIC

The violins start the passage with a double-third Russian folk melody, and the bass drum plays an irregular rhythm that takes up the rest of the passage. As the violins drop out,
the "G#-F#-G#-A-C#-A" ostinato motive in the tuba (playing at a very high range than normal for a tuba) permeate almost the whole section., and the horns, playing in their high range, have the ostinato on C-D. The whole percussion comes in, including the kettledrums that continue playing the note "D".

The whole orchestra comes in, and suddenly, there is a long stop.

Kiss of the Earth

THE DANCE

This is where the sage goes down on his knees, and then lies forward, and kisses the earth
when the strings make only one chord.  The other dancers remain still.

THE MUSIC
The shortest part of the ballet. Long chords first in the woodwinds, and then one chord in the strings. . All of them are played soft yet slightly in a state of inquietude.

Dance of the Earth

THE DANCE

Usually, the dancers seem to dance in all directions---this is almost like chaos. Some dancers turn, some jump, some stamp, some kick, some go down on their knees--all at irregular times. But most of them stamp because they are honoring the earth. The sage usually remains still in the explosive frenzy of the other dancers.

THE MUSIC

A rhythmic beat in the bass drum with a very quick crescendo leads to a wild tutti.

Harsh chords constantly punch at you in the high winds and the brass.....and the same time, the basses, cellos, and trombones spurt out a rising scalar motive F#-G#-A#-C-D-E.  The 3/4 meter in the part seems almost like it is not exactly 3/4 meter. The part starts loud, and then suddenly soft,

and like in Ravel's Bolero, a gradual crescendo back to loud again as the violins seem to
take a fragment of the Db-Bb-Eb-Db theme in the Auguries of Spring. The harsh chords
then resurface and then an abrupt stop on the 3rd beat ends not only the piece---but Part I as well.
 

PART B: THE SACRIFICE

Introduction

THE DANCE

Usually no dancing on stage. The curtain simply goes up and reveals a different scene.

THE MUSIC

The music is slower. Slow, flowing chords, punctuated by violin harmonics, feel like something taking out of Varèse or Messiaen.

 Next, the oboe brings out a new motive: the notes  Bb Cb, and in the clarinet, Ab, G, F. It then turns into a mid-range ostinato.  The strings and flutes then come in on a Bb13 chords while the oboe and clarinet continue the ostinato.

That ostinato motive then passes to the brass to end the section.

Mystic Circles of the Young Girls

THE DANCE

Now, like the Spring Rounds, there are circle dancers, but all of them are by the female
adolescents. They play with the circles, sometimes making them large, sometimes making them small. Some ladies leer at each other, gaze at each other, or even look at the sky.

On the "Bernstein" motive, this represents the process of choosing the lady who will be

condemned to her sacrificial dance. This occurs two times. The first time, the ladies seem to stop movement in the circle. Then the circle starts again. the second time the theme
comes, the lady is then touched and picked. The other ladies move away from the lady
that is touched. The lone lady represents the one who will be sacrificed in her solo dance.

THE MUSIC

The first part is in C major, now slightly faster, where, in 2/4 meter, the wind instruments, helped by pizzicato strings, play a new folk melody.

The second part involves a tremolo in the upper strings, and several wind instruments play the same fragements of the new folk melody in either 2/4 or 3/4 time.

 The third part, slower than the first two, focuses on the pizzicato rhythm on the strings, and then, a more legato fragment of the folk rhythm reprise in Part A.

All of them are gently rhythmic and represent a moderate order of the moving circles
of the dancers.

The coda is what I call Bernstein's "Somewhere" theme (from West Side Story)...the famous two note motive. But in this case, this indicates the other ladies picking out the lady to be condemned.  The second time the "Somewhere" theme (preceded by the reprise of the folk melody in the third part)this represents that the lady has been chosen. The theme picks up speed, a big crescendo takes place, and
then 11 hammer chords in the whole orchestra segues right into the The Naming And Honoring Of The Chosen One.

The Naming And The Honoring Of The Chosen One

THE DANCE

Now, the lady that has been picked remains there without movement; the other ladies then explode into a jovial orgy to tell the audience that the lady who can't move was chosen to do the sacrificial dance.

THE MUSIC

The whole orchestra, most of the time in fortissimo but in some passages in piano, seems to play like one bass drum. Seems Bartokian in most of the passages----changes of rhythms are constant.

Invocation of the Ancestors

THE DANCE

The elders usually come near the end of the passage....usually coming from the wings of the state. The condemned lady still does not dance at that point.

THE MUSIC

There are two clashes. The low winds and brass, punctuated by timpani, play the notes F#--E-D# several times, and then the high winds and brass spurt staccato chords. The strong loudness of the passage seem to depict that the sacrificial lady had been chosen.

 Ritual Action of the Ancestors

THE DANCE

Typically, the old dancers (ancestors) go around and make several circles around the
motionless lady who is condemned to do the sacrificial dance. Sometimes they
make squares or rectangles around the lady. The other ladies sometimes join in the
ancestors' dancing rituals.

THE MUSIC

Very slow pattern, with the timpani and low strings doing mostly a 4/4 ostinato drum pattern; the top tine, consisting of a English horn grunt  and clarinet response in the soft  patterns, fading away into a very quiet pianississimo.  Then, the clarinet runs 16th notes while the bassoon counters with staccato eighths, and then, two measures of 6/4 in a very loud way for the whole orchestra, and then afterwards, accents by the string orchestra and the wind orchestra with a mixture of triplets and eighths come in, then a brief ffff  (fortississississimo - or very, very, very loud) pattern, and then, back to the beginning of the part, pp (or pianissimo, very soft). The timpani and low strings do the ostinato reprise as the English horn and clarinet do the conversational reprise. Slowly, the instruments drop out until the bass clarinet and low strings/timpani do a broken version of the theme to end. A quick segue to the sacrificial dance comes in.

Sacrificial Dance

THE DANCE

Now, the condemned lady, who had to stand still at the "The Naming and Honoring of the Chosen One", gets her chance to do this deadly dance. The dance is filled with non-ballet as well as ballet moves, as the ancestors watch her die. At the final bars of the music, the lady finally expires. One ending to the dance involves the ancestors and the other ladies picking the dead lady up to the sky---the other involves putting the dead lady on a stone, and then, everyone falls prostrate, indicating that the rite has come to an end.

THE MUSIC

The main meat of the quasi drum-pattern at the start by almost the whole orchestra is the complex composite rhythmic pattern - the 2 + 2+1+ 3+1+1+1; 2+1+2+1+3+1+1+1 pattern, and variants on that rhythmic pattern. All of this leads up to a polyrhythmic climax on the flamenco chord (A-C#-E-Bb) leads to the final orchestra tutti, then a break by trills leading to a quasi-glissando by the flutes upward...then a short pause, and a final blow by the whole orchestra, ending the ballet.

Lollapalooza May Not Be Welcoming These Days To You As You Think

Lollapalooza is starting to become an something like capitalist DIY society. Here are the clear reasons why, I think, it is so......

Reason no. 1: Ticket prices seem to have soared for Lolla every year. Learning from basic economics, I think this is likely due to supply and demand - more bands and more music artists performing in the event mean much higher demand, and hence that is why prices were inflated. Ticket prices were quite low and not-so-inflated in the first years Lollapalooza came to Chicago.

The inflated prices can also be blamed on royalties and mechanical license fees that Lolla has to pay to the artists and bands involved. And with more and more artists and bands performing now, I think the increase in prices are understandable. Another reason for the inflated prices are the elaborate stage sets in Lolla--some of the sets use a lot of electricity, lots of strobe lights, and other elaborate lighting effects. Such sets can be pretty costly also. Since 9-11, Lolla added some more security guards and this may have also reflected in the increased ticket prices.

I can remember when you can get a 3-day ticket pass for a little over $100 in the first years of Lolla. (I had been to Lolla in 2007.) Now, you cannot do it anymore. It seems like the passes now are inflated in price to a few hundred dollars. When the tickets do sell out, you have to go to a ticket broker but sadly expect to shell out as much as $700 to $800 from a broker for a good seat or a 3-day pass. Some people cannot afford paying ticket brokers and the only choice they have is to sit-out from Lolla. This hurts.

Reason no. 2: More and more people who wanted to go to see the Lollapalooza festival were out of luck in recent years when tickets did go on sale at the box office or online. In the worst cases, most of the tickets--or all of them--were sold out in a very mere 10-15 minutes, even on official ticket websites like Ticketmaster!! They were literally ripped off and gypped. My guesses for what I call "rigged sell-outs" is that Lolla's tickets go to the VIPs (and I am guessing there could be a lot of VIPs who will get tickets first) as prioirity before tickets are released to the general public, but that is all I know. So what happened? Those who found out that the tickets were sold out too fast responded with severe distrust with the festival, doing rants online (usually through Youtube) decrying their disappointment of not getting tickets. Some may have decided not to go to Lolla ever again.

Reason no. 3: Now suppose you already got your ticket to Lolla. Lucky for you! But Lolla has its sandbox--and you have to live by their rules!! Break these rules and you will either be denied admission, ejected, or even worse, arrested. One of the rules is that wristband you wear--if it is a 3-day, you cannot take it off for the whole 3-day period or you will not be re-admitted. Then there are the security checks that are a little like airports before you board a plane. And you have to deal with the list of allowed and forbidden items into Lolla, which can be challenging. It is a bit Orwellian to me, and probably to you also, but it is Lolla's rules, and if you do not like them, you need to take your fun someplace else!!!

There will likely be a revolt against Lolla in some form or another...maybe a protest, when this Lolla comes to Chicago this weekend. But for all of you who already have tickets to Lolla, it will be probably the biggest time of your lives as a music fan.....

Partial List of Airport Codes Used By Air France

AGS    Augusta, Bush Field

ALB    Albany, New York

ABQ    Alberquerque, New Mexico

ATW   Appleton, Wisconsin          

AVL    Asheville, North Carolina

AUS    Austin, Texas

BHM   Birmingham, Alabama

BNA    Nashville, Tennesee

BOI     Boise, Idaho

BOS    Boston, Massachusetts

BTR    Baton Rouge, Louisiana

BUF     Buffalo, New York

BWI     Baltimore, Maryland

CAE     Columbia, South Carolina

CAK    Canton--Akron, Ohio

CHO    Charlottesville, Virginia

CHS     Charleston, South Carolina

CLE     Cleveland, Ohio

CLT     Charlotte, North Carolina

CMH    Columbia, South Carolina

CRP     Corpus Christi, Texas

CVG     Cincinnati, Ohio

DAL     Dallas, Texas

DAY     Dayton, Ohio

DCA     Washington, D.C. (Reagan International Airport)

DEN      Denver, Colorado

DFW     Dallas Fort-Worth, Texas

DTW     Detroit, Michigan

ELP       El Paso, Texas

EWR     Newark, New Jersey (Newark Liberty International Airport)

EYW     Key West, Florida (Key West International Airport)

FLL       Fort Lauderdale, Florida

FMY     Fort Myers, Florida

GRK     Killeen, Texas

GRR     Grand Rapids, Michigan

GSO     Greensboro, North Carolina

GSP      Greenville, South Carolina

HNL     Honolulu, Hawaii

HOU    Houston, Texas (Hobby Airport)

HRL     Harlingen, Texas

HSV     Huntsville, Alabama

IAD      Washington, D.C. (Dulles International Airport)

IAH      Houston, Texas (George Bush Intercontinental Airport)

ILM      Wilmington, North Carolina

IND      Indianapolis, Indiana

JAN      Jackson, Mississippi

JAX      Jacksonville, Florida

JFK       New York City, New York (John F. Kennedy International Airport)

MCI      Kansas City, Missouri (Kansas City International Airport)

MCO    Orlando, Florida

MDT    Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

MKC    Kansas City, Missouri

MSY    New Orleans, Louisiana (Armstrong International Airport)

OMA    Omaha, Nebrashka

PBI      West Palm Beach, Florida

PDX     Portland, Oregon

PHL     Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

PHX     Phoenix, Arizona

PIT       Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

PNS     Pensacola, Florida

PVD      Providence, Rhode Island

RDU     Raleigh, North Carolina

RIC       Richmond, Virginia

RNO     Reno, Nevada

ROC      Rochester, New York

RSW     Fort Myers, SW Florida

SAC      Sacramento, California (Sacramento International Airport)

SAN     San Diego, California

SAT      San Antonio, Texas

SAV     Savannah, Georgia

SEA      Seattle, Washington

SFO      San Francisco, California

SHV     Shreveport, Louisiana

SLC      Salt Lake City, Utah

SMF     Sacramento, California

SRQ     Sarasota, Florida

SYR      Syracuse, New York

TLH      Tallahassee, Florida

TPA      Tampa, Florida

TUS      Tuscon, Arizona

TYS       Knoxville, Tennessee

VPS      Fort Walton Beach, Florida

 

 

THE MORTVILLE COLLECTIVE – ITS BEGINNINGS, RISE, FALL, AND THE AFTERMATH

      As I first entered the building to see its first show on quasi-penthouse-like 3^rd floor, I never even knew that this loft was a little bit like the secretive Homan Square site used by Chicago Police that was a bit like a loft. But around 2009, when I got there---this now defunct place known formerly as 2106 S. Kedzie—I did not see boys in blue, squad cars, evidence of people being slapjacked or waterboarded, or cordoned-off barbed-wire fences. I did see some modern hipsters doing their dance thing, or punk rock thing, and even shooting off some marijuana smoke in the process. In addition, I saw a tire swing, a rather unkempt brown wooden floor, and a loose-knit stage focusing on a dark atmosphere as strings of Christmas lights try to shine through this semi-darkness. There was an outside terrace to the west of the area where people converse and talk, while the main action was inside. It was basically a nearly no-holds-barred place that might have rivaled other radical DIY music places that had popped up and died in Pilsen, though this spot was at Douglas Park.  The vibe was nearly unbounded and nearly unrestricted, almost like Josh Harris’ bunker depicted in “We Live in Public”, in December 1999 in a nondescript loft in New York’s Manhattan, but without the non-private bunks or the guns. Moreover, the third-floor concessions there were on the southeast corner near the bathroom area, and it had a sort of multicolored theme paying homage to the colors of ice cream trucks. It served beer and other non-alcoholic essentials.The bathroom was unisex, and it had a window facing south toward the railroad bridge that hugged the building, where the Metra Union Pacific-West commuter trains, Amtrak trains, and freight trains, pass by. Sadly, this place was not ADA-accessible and you have to walk 2 flights of stairs to get there, but there is transportation accessability near the building—about 150 feet north of it, the CTA Pink Line ran alongside the building from west to east, but it did not run 24 hours a day, and when the train stopped running after hours, you are at the mercy of finding other transportation means. Sure there was the CTA #52 Kedzie that cut through just by the place but it was difficult to get that bus especially during the weekends, so with options running (before there was Uber or Lyft), you had to take a taxi to get yourself home from there. Despite the transportation problems, I very profoundly believe that it was the ultimate DIY utopian place in Chicago for a while before it had to go under—and that name was Mortville.

     Mortville, which was ran by Meg McCarville and Sara Heymann, was not only utopia for me—it was utopia for hundreds of its spectators, fans—as well as the scores of bands from Chicago and away from it that made it their home for several years. Coming right straight directly from Sara, she remembered that the first show ever by Mortville happened in September 2008, and was an art show, which Sara states, “sold convenience store products by artists made by artists for $5.” Then, as for the start of the music, Sara said the first booked bands for its first music show were Percolator, Nothingheads, and pisspisspissmoanmoanmoan (which would feature Nicole Miller on theremin/effects and Alex Morales on drums; the band partially disbanded so this band only features Alex as solo), but Sara said that those bands did not even show up. The second show did have bands that showed up—Bitchin’ Bajas, Charlie Slick, and the Dozal Brothers. I did not know in my first dates with Mortville that it was a building formerly owned by Weiser and Sons., who used to make pianos at that place. The whole loft had a total of 18,000 square feet of space, and the front façade of windows in the 1^st floor area featured 4 glass block windows on the east side, each of them about 6 feet by 7 feet along the north door on its right. The rest of the front windows were on the 2^nd and 3^rd floors, the second having 5 windows of about 10 feet by 10 feet, and the third, about 6 feet by 10 feet. The side façade on the north side had tan brick had only windows on the 3^rd floor, while the front façade had red brick.

     And because it was a loft that used to be free to use, other DIY people took the reins of the 1^st and 2^nd floors and made up their other spaces under the third-floor Mortville—to make that 2106 address seem to be more than just a Mortville DIY music collective—it seemed like a complete DIY loft venue collective. The 2^nd floor housed what was then called Treasure Town. I can only speculate that because the noise of  the music would be absorbed by the first floor under it and the third floor (Mortville) above it, the focus of Treasure Town was loud punk bands and loud noise bands and other experimental noise acts. My rememberances of Treasure Town was that it had a big colorful wall mural on the south part of the building, which featured an orange string, a red door, and a brown dilapidated fence, among lots of items, and the ceiling was not really high—about 10 feet, with exposed electric wiring and piping in its dark ceiling.

    And just under Treasure Town, there was still another house place on the 1^st floor that was used mainly for not-so-weird DIY music ensembles—mainly experimental and avant-garde, but not terribly wild. That 1^st floor place was known as Casa Donde, which was quite pitchy, because it was near the Little Village (aka “La Villita”) neighborhood. It simply meant—and roughly so—“House Where”, in Spanish, so it was a sort of hyperbole to the Treasure Town/Mortville combination above it. If you can make a word anagram from “House Where”—it would be “Where House”, which is subliminally messaged as “Warehouse”—which also smacks of the heyday when DIY industrial music was king in Chicago. Bands that came in to Casa Donde – mainly likely were first-time DIY bands who wanted to really sell their merch, and they showed their merch front-and-center—really!! I did not know who ran Casa Donde, but I found out that the calvacade of past bands that embraced the place included S.L.F.M., Truman and His Trophy, Animal City, Maren Celest, Katrina Stonehart, Relatives, Karl Marks, New Diet, Meah!, and Meatwave. When I saw Meah! at Casa, they were an ultra-crazy progressive punk ensemble that made me wonder that this place might trump the regular Mortville abpve. The band did make some noise, but later on, I realized that Mortville, with its variety of shows from music to performance art, still came up on top on that 2106 address.

      And I was keenly aware about what happened during the post 9-11 area, and what happened when two nightclubs – Chicago E2 nightclub and The Station nightclub in New England – both had fatal disasters. These three factors caused a major excuse for Chicago’s big wigs to target nearly any DIY venue that did not have a Personal Place of Amusement license and was not places like The Empty Bottle, The Whistler, or Cole’s (all of these 3 places did have PPAs and not house venues, so basically most times the Chicago Police left them alone). And Chicago’s bigwigs – including members of the Department of Buildings, Chicago Police, and other municipal entities – started to wage war—and had won part of the battle. But not only these bigwigs tried to silence Chicago DIY music from house venues and independent cooperative-collectives. Anti-DIY neighbors and landlords also joined in the fight to put an end to such venues like the Bakery in Pilsen, The Mopery and Ronny’s at Logan Square, and MTV Studios in Pilsen.

     Sara also told me that the area around the place was quite heavily gang-laden—The Satan Disciples were the main gang and probably the Latin Kings or Two-Sixers were also there, but Sara said that the gangs did not look out at Mortville to create fear, or do a “tumba” (stick-up), or worse, shoot down dead as many DIY fans or bands they did not like at all if they perceived any of them as rival gangbangers.. The bangers, she said, “mainly left us alone.” But Meg and Sara were not going to do a police-state type of security for this place—that would turn off a lot of DIY fans. No metal detectors, no frisking, no bag checks for weapons, and no impersonal security guards with tasers either—even though these two ladies still had to be on the lookout for jerks who could cause trouble in that place. But that is all that I can say for now. Marijuana was welcome in that place—that was a thing that made me be just a little bit concerned.

      Mortville—and its two curators—were known for setting off some of the most outrageous and most wacky shows and happenings at the place. It is something that people who love the Burning Man events blush, but not too much……some exciting moments:

1. The place held Garbage World for the first time on November 15, 2009 (just a little over 1 year before Mopery had to close its doors with its last show on August 28, 2010), with the help of its creator who used to live in Chicago, Eileen Lillian Doyle, who was coined Gertie Garbage. It was a weekend featuring a calvacade of performance artists, spoken word artists, and interdisciplinary performers performing avant-garde, experimental, or anarchist-driven presentations. 3 other Garbage World events were held there on February 20 and June 25—both of them in 2010, and another one on November 18, also in 2010. The June 25 show I saw featured one of the near-headliners, multidisciplinary artist now known as Here Heather Marie (or “Here”), doing some type of experimental spoken word to a crowd of about 100-120 people on a summer Friday night.

2. When Chicago had its corporate entities embracing the Pitchfork Music Festival around 2010 and 2011, the Mortville founders, through the help of two unsung founders of a large DIY music festival that actually started in 2009---solo act artist, Rotten Milk and the members the jamband, Rotten Milk, realized that the event can be held at the 2106 address. From these two bands, Meg and Sara realized that the rules at the Pitchfork music event were too strict for them to do things like smoke marijuana or sell their own DIY merchandise—both actions that can get you ejected from Pitchfork. So with a hunch of me seeing Mortville a fair deal in its wide variety of shows, Meg and Sara, with the help of radical graphic artist, Rand Sevillla (who promoted two of these events through extremely bizarre promo videos of the festival), to make an anarchist-driven apathy to the traditional Pitchfork festival—at Mortville. There were thoughts about a pig with its ugly “oink” sound, a dirty pig-pen, and mud for some type of logo regarding an ultra-anarchist, ultra-crazy, ultra-wacky, ultra-outrageous music festival in reaction to the regular Pitchfork festival, and they got it—and it was the Bitchpork Festival.

         So with that, I researched a website (which still exists), called Pigeons and Planes, and found out that Mortville held two Bitchpork festivals—namely Bitchpork 3 and Bitchpork no. 4.

         According to Daniel Margolis, who wrote an article about the history of Bitchpork, Mortville’s Bitchpork no. 3 started really well on July 17 to July 19, 2009, when Lightning Bolt on July 17th bolted out its very heavy, very loud at-you ritual drumming to satisfy the very hungry crowd who came out of the Pitchfork festival to get what they wanted—and they got it in return. Sara and Meg loved it, I guessed it, from that first Bitchpork they curated in Mortville.

         The calvacade of DIY bands that appeared in Bitchpork 4 on July 15 to July 17^th of 2011 (the second Bitchfork that Meg and Sara curated) ranged from the ultra-radical, screaming-at-you, noise-driven, crowd-intruding bands and projects (for instance, Forced into Feminity), all the way to DIY-driven modern EDM-driven jamrock projects like Chandeliers---and Mahjohgg, another jamband featuring the EDM wizardry of Hunter Husar (who made his stints mainly at the Bridgeport areas of Chicago; Mahjohgg is now defunct), who rocked the place on July 16^th with a sort of Sound-Tribe-Sector-9 type of atmosphere with spectacular green-colored moving lights, and hard-hitting, coming-at-you, disco-driven drumbeats,  permeating the venue to attempt to make the whole place musically utopian. Specifically, according to Margolis, when the radical Bad Drugs, a radical punk band, played on Mortville’s roof outside, the crowd went as wild as what happened when the disco record blow-up on July 12, 1979 at Sox Park caused a near-riot. Then regrettably—you guessed it—Daniel stated that the 5-0 came in to almost bust the Bitchpork party, and the band was told not to play anymore on the roof on that Friday the 17^th night, or that rest of the whole night will be busted. So the band decided to play inside on a very hot day and the fans had to deal with that—either that or they had to go home—as well as the band.

     In total, over 100 of Chicago’s DIY bands from a wide area of musical styles—from power-punk—to prog rock—to noise project—to experimental glam—embraced that rumpus-driven fest which was Bitchpork 3 and Bitchpork 4, and it was great especially for Meg and Sara!

      In the 1970s,  the word “bitch” –said out or written out, would have been edited or censored, but now, I am free to say it without limitation. Sorry, Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction!!!

3. May 13, 2011—was the memorable Mortville concert featuring a sort of shoegaze-driven post-rock ensemble (actually a drone-pop band) of 11 people which had a long title—Call Me On the Allphone/Names Divine, but they called it Names Divine for short. It was run by singer and droner Kendra Calhoun, and Jillian Musielak, a radical designer, on tom-tom drums. It actually featured 11 musician-members at its peak around 2010-2011, and some of its alumni included performance artist Right-Eyed Rita. When I saw Names Divine at Mortville, I started to like Jillian’s drumming, but Kendra’s wails were also enticing to me, because at 2011, I was starting to adore avant-garde and experimental music—not just traditional classical music, and that is another reason why I loved to go to Mortville. And a bonus—I was on the bill on that May 13 performing as DIY music project Mr. Forefinger, so this gave me a bit of a boost for me increasing my fanbase when I started that DIY music project at Cal’s Bar in 2010. (This bar is now permanently closed down.)

4.. On August 26, 2011, with the success of holding Bitchpork 3 and Bitchpork 4 fests, Sara and Meg hosted The Ultimate Badass Band Contest. With DIY musician Davitt Terrell as the curator of sorts, there were several judges which included Li’l Princess (who was the stage name for Meg at that time), Rotten Milk, Ray Ellingsen (a extremely strong Chicago DIY music superfan, who died in the fall of 2014), and a man only identified as Paul. When I saw the event at least once, the rules were simple: laptops and droning were prohibited, and you have to do your set for no more than 5 minutes. The contestant musicians were on either of the three stages, and the atmosphere for this wacky contest is that performers needed to prepare to get things thrown upon—like bits of paper all the way to probably something as wacky as stink bombs---to express disapproval. The contest was a cross between The Gong Show and Showtime at the Apollo, and the winner of this bizarre concourse would win an earning of being crowned The Ultimate Badass with a yellow crown with a tall spire of purple and white.

THE FACTORS THAT LED TO THE DEMISE OF THE FIRST MORTVILLE

       But you think Mortville would last forever? Sadly, according to Jessica Hopper’s and Leor Galil’s article in The Reader, dated June 27, 2012, called “Gossip Wolf—Burying Treasure Town”, carcass-cleaning property sellers, taking advantage of the precipitous drop in property values in the 2009 recession, started to target loft venues a few years after the recession—and even though Mortville was not forced to permanently shut down by the police even though the place did have dates with the cops in the past—these aggressive sellers honed in on Mortville, and the landlord (who remains unnamed) told Sara and Meg somewhere on June 2012—IT’S TIME TO GO! I did not know how these two ladies felt directly – but directly myself, I was extremely hurt that Mortville had to go—but I was also glad that I will not have to worry about going into a sort of dangerous place in Chicago which made this DIY venue its home. Treasure Town had to leave also with Mortville, and its last show there was on June 29, 2012, when I saw Vimeo footage of a band that I did not know that featured Ben Billington the drummer—but I found out that the band was a cover band called Naked Island. (Don’t find that band anywhere today on the WWW—it broke up after a short while.)  But I did not see it because it was so sad for me to go to see the last show. Meanwhile, Casa Donde—the lowest strata in the Mortville collective, also had to go too, and right now, the ReverbNation website for Casa Donde—literally dead-on-arrival, no more shows. The Oh My Rockness website for Treasure Town – also gone. No more shows there either. So sad, and so painful for me as a DIY music lover—AND performer!!!

       Even worse, Mayor Rahm Emanuel sealed the deathblow on the Mortville/Treasure Town/Casa Donde collective---with new ordinances that were backlashes to the struck-down 2008 Chicago Promoters’ Ordinance that would have destroyed almost anything DIY in Chicago anywhere if that decree was passed, and even worse, the G8 summit was going to happen in Chicago in August 2012, and that meant an extremely high-profile Department of Homeland Security event. With that, pre-G8 raids on some Chicago DIY venues including the Mortville collective happened—practically any venue that had even a hint of being flagged as an anarchist site was marked for being targeted, and Mortville was very highly—and very openly---anarchist.

WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE OLD MORTVILLE WAS FORCED TO SAY GOOD-BYE?

     The loft building that made up the famous DIY venue collective that made up the first Mortville is now off the market so regrettably, Meg and Sara—the primary founders—are not allowed for a long time to go back to that building for any renaissance of its wild and willy actions that made Mortville “Mortville” for at least several years.

        But I can tell you a bit of what happened after Mortville came to an end—its founders, and a few of its regulars….

Jillian Musielak, one of the Call Me On The Allphone alumna who embraced Mortville,  went on to do some DIY music work under the name Sick Cakez, with several stints around the Pilsen area, and in one nondescript event, she almost teamed up with a radical Butoh artist, Rose Hernandez. She was also a fan of the defunct house venue, MTV Studios in west Pilsen, which was run by Joseph Blanski.

Meg McCarville, one of the Mortville co-founders, went on to be a quick fan of the Bijou theater in Chicago and she invited me to do a collaborative performance with me before Bijou closed down a few years prior. My hunch is that the worsening crackdowns on Chicago’s DIY world—the crackdowns that eventually did in the first Mortville--made her want to leave Chi-town, and she did, and she moved to New Orleans, living in a ultra-radical trailer home where she can freely express Mortville-related attitudes without even a bit of restraint.

Kendra Calhoun, another Call Me On The Allphone alumna who performed at Mortville, moved out of Chicago and currently released her new solo album, “Crazy For You” in 2015, which was a compilation of her original numbers.

Sara Heymann, the other founder of Mortville, had a deep passion for art and painting afterwards (since her joys of being with the defunct Land Line DIY newspaper), and created a house venue just south of Douglas Park called a second Mortville, but for obvious reasons, I am unable to tell you exactly where due to the Trump frenzy. I can tell you that a few years prior, Sara coined a new venue that lasted a few more years around 2015 to 2016, called “The Egg”, in a garage or in the backyard, or even in a slightly bigger loft behind the house. Performance artists and even some punk bands embraced the place, especially on summer days and nights. I was there for almost half of the approximately 50 or more events. Regrettably, Sara had to close down “The Egg” in late 2016 not because of the fears that the place may not have had a PPA permit or fears of cops busting down the place, but because she wants to focus full time passion of being a visual artist.