More specifically, a bewildered Levinson was forced to peddle to the outskirts of Wicker Park on July 3 as a result of giving books away for free without a permit or belonging to a formal organization. The one-man project, as previously reported in The Chronicle on May 3, is based on the notion that giving away books for free in a public park will inspire people to read.

Just mere days later, however, those working at the Chicago Public Library, after reading the Chicagoist’s report of this particular incident, contacted Levinson and the Chicago Park District and proposed an official partnership with the Book Bike. A badge will simply represent the Chicago Public Library’s blessing, which was described by both Levinson and the Chicago Public Library’s Director of Marketing and Press Ruth Lednicer as neither a financial agreement nor in any way intrusive.

“When I first spoke with [the Chicago Public Library] I was blown away to get that call,” Levinson said. “That’s the Chicago Public Library. Being a book lover, those guys are celebrities. But the fear of, ‘Well OK what are we talking about here…what happens next’ set in. But the next time I spoke with the Chicago Public Library all of those fears melted away.”

Rest assured the Book Bike won’t change a bit regardless of its newfound official association with a bigger entity, according to Levinson.
Instead, the debacle ended in a perfectly viable solution within a day of when it was introduced. This was mainly due to the willingness of Chicago’s agencies to communicate with one another—something that Lednicer admitted happens often in Chicago but hardly makes news.

“Chicago departments are great in that sense because we all do know each other and it’s not too hard to pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey, just so you understand, he’s with us…,’” Lednicer said.

Levinson has always had a relationship with the library, especially since he’s accustomed to handing out copies of the book and resource guides for the library’s One Book, One Chicago program.

The resolution seems natural in that Levinson and the Chicago Public Library complement each other.

“With my tricycle I can go to places in the city that the library can’t reach because of my brick and mortar establishment,” Levinson said of their shared goal of promoting literacy.

After numerous attempts to contact the Chicago Park District, calls were not returned to The Chronicle by press time.

“The Chicago Park District champions literacy and works with partners such as the Chicago Public Library to encourage reading. With thousands of children and families enjoying the parks each day, the Chicago Park District has the responsibility to ensure the safety and enjoyment of its patrons,” said a Chicago Park District representative in a press statement released on July 7.

An immersion in traditional blues culture at an early age spurred Dolin’s genuine curiosity about the genre, which eventually led to his serving 27 years as the deputy director of the internationally renowned Chicago Blues Festival, held annually in Grant Park. This year, however, marked Dolins’ last year coordinating the festival. That, paired with the Mayor’s Office of Special Events cutting the schedule back to three days from four in 2009, could have put a damper on a festival that once hosted Ray Charles, B.B. King and Buddy Guy, to name a few. While performers and attendees alike didn’t seem too fazed by the festival’s recent cutbacks, it’s apparent that Dolin’s absence at next year’s festival won’t go unnoticed.

“I’ve been in public service and education for 40 years and I’ve been around the blues community for almost 50 years and certainly that has enabled me to have a particular point of view and specific opinion of what the blues tradition and heritage means to Chicago,” Dolins said of his contribution to the festival.

His decision to retire was not influenced by the city, Dolins said. He added that he’s unsure if anyone else will hold the formal position at next year’s festival.

“There’s a sense of relief certainly and I’m looking forward to retirement and catching my breath and looking toward the next chapter,” Dolins said. “But there might be a long hiatus between chapters.”

While attending DePaul University for graduate school, he wrote his masters thesis on house party pianos and underground music in Chicago from 1913 through 1927. Dolins went on to teach a class at Loyola University called Chicago Blues and the Urban Experience, then helped his brother develop and maintain Sirens Records, ultimately having “a little bit to do with everything that had to do with the blues industry,” he said.

Billy Branch, a member of the Sons of Blues, which features musicians who are the sons of famous blues artists, is also a Grammy award-nominated blues harmonica player. Branch appeared at this year’s festival with the Chicago Blues Living History act.

Branch’s wife, 58-year-old Rosa Enrico, said she has a deep admiration for traditional blues music and has been attending the festival for about 10 years.

With regard to the city’s budgetary issues resulting in replacing stars with local acts, she said, “This is the Chicago Blues Festival. I think most of the performers should be Chicago blues acts.”

This year’s festival, which remains the largest blues festival in the world, was dedicated to Howlin’ Wolf on the centennial of his birthday. Many of the blues musicians who played the festival paid special tribute to Wolf, also known as Chester Burnett, on five different stages.

The retirement of Barry Dolins has Enrico both sad and hopeful, as Dolins has personally sponsored the Branchs’ Blues in Schools program for the past 25 years, which teaches children about the roots of modern music.

“We’re going to really miss him. I was getting teary-eyed the other day when I saw him,” Enrico said. “He’s to be commended for his commitment to the local acts and this genre.”

Festival attendee Leslie Keros said, though she thought Dolins should have received more of a send-off than he did, the new coordinator might be able to reinvigorate the festival.

“Barry knows the scene thoroughly and has a whole lot of contacts,” Keros, 45, said. “It may not be a bad thing to let someone else take a crack at it. This might be an opportunity to get some new blood in there and draw on some fresh contacts. Maybe it will bring some new funding ideas to the festival as well.”

What’s in store for the Chicago Blues Festival after Dolins’ retirement is uncertain, though he’s confident that the festival won’t suffer as a result.

“I’ve been here in this office for 27 years and there have been a number of talented programmers here almost as long and I’ve hopefully been able to instill some of the important aspects of festival production to them,” Dolins said.

This past year, Fischer, 37, who works as a software engineer for Google, compiled data from thousands of pictures from the popular image hosting platform, Flickr, to create a series of maps he calls “The Geotaggers’ World Atlas.” He chose to use the data associated with the geotagged pictures from Chicago and 49 other cities in the world with the largest clusters of photographs taken. The map consists of black, green and red lines representing different modes of transportation. A concentration of colored lines simply means that a lot of pictures were taken in those areas in the city.

The real reason for pursuing this project, however, has to do with the power of location-based data. Its use is becoming increasingly more prevalent as illustrated through applications such as FourSquare—entirely based on visiting locations frequently to earn rewards—and social networking sites such as Twitter.

After Fischer uploaded the maps to Flickr on May 19, he said he received an unexpectedly overwhelming number of positive responses.

“People take pictures when they tend to see something interesting so it seemed to be a good source for identifying what the places people are interested in each of the cities,” Fischer said in explaining why he developed the idea for a series of geotagged maps. “People are always seeking confirmation of their favorite places in the city. The map confirms what you think the interesting parts are.”

After using Flickr’s API and requesting pictures with geolocation tags to create the maps, Fischer created a program to plot points on the map.
On the map, black lines represent people who are walking at less than 7 mph, the red lines represent bicycling or the equivalent of less than 19 mph and the green lines represent the freeways or rapid transit. The different modes of transportation paint a more accurate, livelier map of the city, he said.

Fischer added that this information is purely based on the time stamps attached to the pictures.

Stephen Hood, who’s the co-founder of the 6-month-old GPS driven mobile bulletin board application BlockChalk, said experimentation with location-based data, such as Fischer’s map project, isn’t uncommon right now. He explained that GPS technology finally works indoors despite tall buildings, which traditionally interfered with signals, as well as in downtown areas. Companies such as SkyHook, use wifi networks to approximate location in the place of GPS nowadays, he said.

“I think we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg right now,” Hood said. “We’re going to see far more innovation in the next 12 to 24 months than we can possibly imagine being driven by the fact we’ve reached the saturation point in the market where people can do this with their devices.”

With regards to privacy, Fischer consciously chose not to reveal any personal information; his data is aggregated. In addition, people have chosen to include GPS on e setting of their cameras, which he said is a lot different than tracking somebody without their knowledge.

Hood shares Fisher’s opinion, which is why BlockChalk is committed to protecting its users. The application doesn’t reveal anyone’s identity nor does it reveal anyone’s exact location. In fact, the folks at BlockChalk drop digits of precision off the latitude and longitude, which makes the user’s location less accurate.

Dan O’Neil, manager of business development at Chicago-based website EveryBlock, implements a similar policy. EveryBlock has collected raw data from a variety of sources to provide granular information since 2007, ranging from newly installed bike racks on the street to crimes on any particular city block, in 16 cities in the U.S.

O’Neil said he’s interested in the future of automatic geocoded information like the iPass, for example.

“We just need more data and better information to make better decisions about things we don’t even know we need to make a decision about yet,” O’Neil said.

For EveryBlock’s purposes, publishing information that’s relevant to location is key.

“It’s one thing to be at North Avenue, Milwaukee Avenue, and Damen Avenue, talking about how much you love President Obama, but it’s another thing if you start walking and you see President Obama walk into an establishment,” O’Neil said.

In other words, pursuing a new artistic hobby at the 2-year-old nonprofit Rumble Arts Center is relatively easy because they employ a donation-based class system and their classes are mostly ongoing. This summer, the community center will launch a new class schedule and continue to reach out to anyone in the underserved, yet culturally rich, Humboldt Park neighborhood with a variety of artistic interests.

Sherry, who helps Rumble Arts Center with tech support while taking a break from DeVry University, said the center benefits those who simply cannot afford typical art programs in the city.

“A lot of classes at other places around the city are $120 for six weeks and I can’t afford that, but I can help these guys out with tech support and donate five or 10 bucks when I can for a class,” Sherry said.

Bree Johnson, administrative assistant and programming director for Rumble Arts Center, echoed Sherry’s praise and added that classes with official start dates and end dates are prohibitive for people who have a regular work schedule.

“People can walk in and out, they can attend classes when they can, they’re always free to observe or take part,” Johnson said of some of the new classes soon to be offered, such as an MCing class and a Cuban-flavored Latin dance mix class.

Two years ago, Rumble Arts Center Director Brook Woolf founded the multicultural center after living in Humboldt Park. Initially, a team consisting of Woolf’s family, friends and supporters designed the center, which is complete with hardwood floors and a professionally lit main gallery space.

Woolf rallied two full-time staff members, Johnson and co-director Edwin Perry, who will be replaced by Cristina Gutierrez on account of Perry moving out of state.

Traditional classes at the center range from illustration and puppetry to African dance and yoga throughout the week, Johnson said. Classes to be held this summer tentatively include, but are not limited to, puppetry, footworking, mixed media art for teens, yoga for beginners and pop ’n’ lock dance classes.

The center’s mission largely has to do with instructors who almost always volunteer to teach, which is not exclusive to this summer.

“Sometimes teachers approach us, sometimes they are volunteers who are inspired and they have something that they’ve always wanted to teach or we get college students who are interested in education,” Johnson said.

Admittedly cheaper than any other arts center she’s aware of, Johnson said Rumble’s pricing guidelines vary. They’ve allowed people use the space for free on occasion if they felt it was for a worthy cause. However, renting out the space to other organizations is an important source of income for Rumble Arts Center.

“Arts funding has been slashed so significantly that many community centers and types of nonprofit projects have had to find additional sources of income like running their miniature businesses through the center to bring in money,” Johnson said.

Leida Villegas, manager and founder of the footwork dance group, FootworKINGz, decided to teach her first public dance class at Rumble Arts Center at the end of March.

FootworKINGz is Chicago’s only professional ensemble that teaches a street style dance called footwork, originating in Chicago out of the house music and juke music scene, she said.

“It’s a lower body style, generally with leg and feet movements and executed at 140-160 beats per minute,” Villegas said.
Having grown up in Humboldt Park and later befriending Woolf, Villegas said it seemed only natural for Rumble Arts Center to serve as their rehearsal space.

The public dance class is one that Villegas hopes to continue in other spaces after beginning to teach at Rumble Arts Center. She said they do teach through the program After School Matters at Chicago Public Schools, but that program is not public.
Johnson hopes in years to come, artists who can’t find work in their field will come to the center to do what they care
about doing.

“We’re working on reaching out to individual artists and groups locally now, but I would love to see more collaboration between different areas of Chicago,” Johnson said.

For information about times and dates of classes this summer, visit RumbleArts.com.

The Chronicle talked with Caldeira to find out how three songwriters in a band can affect the group dynamic, what they were trying to accomplish with their most recent release and how they feel about being compared to Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service.

The Chronicle: What do each of you bring to the dynamic of the group?

Jason Caldeira: We actually bring a lot of different things to the table, which kind of makes us sound the way we end up sounding. Musically, I’m very much into two styles: guitar and bass, melodic pop rock—indie stuff. I’m also really into electronic, which I don’t necessarily play but I get into the down-tempo, Thievery Corporation side of electronic music. Dave, on the other hand, is a lyricist and he really gets into guys like Paul Simon and David Byrne—just lyricists and longtime songwriters. Brian brings a totally different side to the table. He’s very much into keyboard-based electronica from the mid ’80s.

The Chronicle: You’re all songwriters. How does that work when it comes time to write a song?

JC: We’re all songwriters and it brings a lot of good things and bad things to the table. The hard part is that we’re all very opinionated. The trio thing helps us quite a bit because we’re able to do a two-against-one policy. We don’t all have to agree, because as long as two guys agree we end up going in that direction. We all have individual strengths, though. Dave is much more of a vocals and lyricist guy, whereas I’m an overall vision of the song kind of guy. Brian gets really into the production side of things and how it’s going to sound when it’s recorded.

The Chronicle: What were you guys trying to accomplish with your most recent release, “Sizing Up the Distance,” as compared to your previous releases?

JC: “Sizing Up the Distance” was the first time we were actually writing as a trio. The first album was “How to Fake Fall Asleep” and that was written by myself, Dave and a former band member named Gregory. That was our first soiree into digital production and really playing around with the digital side of things. That was a real shot in the dark. We’d never done that before and we were experimenting with something brand new. Our second album is called “Walking to Be Looked At,” which was an ability to learn from our successes and failures from our previous albums, and halfway through the recording of that album Gregory moved to Ireland. That’s when we went on hiatus and we were deciding what to do next. “Sizing up the Distance” was starting from scratch with me, Dave and Brian. We had learned a little bit about digital production, we had learned a little bit about our sound, but we had to learn more about what we were trying to accomplish sonically. It’s essentially a year-and-a-half old, but we have a new release coming out hopefully in June, which will be even more of an evolution of learning how to write together as a trio.

The Chronicle: How do you feel about being compared to Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service?

JC: I think we got that label early on, which is really funny because I don’t think anyone who hears and listens to us frequently would make that comparison. Our very first album was compared very much to The Postal Service. I think that was largely because The Postal Service was the poster child for electronic pop. At the time, nothing really sounded like that, so anything that came out that had that electronic element fused with a pop element and had guitars fused with blips and pops of digital production was kind of labeled with that Postal Service tag. I think we had trouble shaking that with the next album. The follow-up album really sounds nothing like Death Cab for Cutie. If anything, it sounds like The Postal Service from a production standpoint. I think of it as a compliment, as I’m a huge Death Cab for Cutie fan and I have been for many, many years. We definitely didn’t mind hearing it. I think that most people who spend the time to listen to us and dive a little bit further into our albums, and especially if they see us live, you lose that tag pretty quickly.
Helicopters will play at Quenchers, 2401 N. Western Ave. on June 3. To listen to the band, visit MySpace.com/Helicopters.

The St. Louis native and bibliophile developed a project in July 2008 called the Book Bike because he said he believes everyone has the right to develop his or her own personal library. Weather permitting, he rides a cargo tricycle stocked with 200 pounds of books with the intention of giving the books to city dwellers for no cost.

Up until now, independent publishers such as McSweeney’s, Dark Horse Comics and Drawn & Quarterly have donated books to the project for the sake of spreading appreciation for independent publishing, inspiring people to read and hopefully gain new, informed customers. However, this financial model, or lack thereof, was not ideal, Levinson explained.

“How do I know if someone who takes a book is going to go out and buy a book?” Levinson asked. “That’s my hope, but I had no way of knowing that. That hope is nice but not necessarily as much of an impact as I want to have with this project.”

The new focus of the Book Bike relies on donations, whereas prior to this summer, Levinson would refuse them on-site. Now, he’s encouraging people to donate money directly to him so he can buy books from local, independent booksellers or directly from the independent publishing houses themselves, he said.

Levinson is the reviews editor of Make: A Chicago Literary Magazine, associate editor for the online journal “Is Greater Than” and developed an online literary iniative “Something To Read.” The Book Bike project falls under the “Something To Read” umbrella.

This summer, publishers such as Electric Literature, Featherproof Books and Parking Block Publishing, will donate their last books to the project. The next time Levinson writes to them, he said he will be asking for a subscription for the Book Bike as a result of the donation money he’s received.

“I keep learning that the simpler you make something, the more interesting it will be,” Levinson said. “That seems to boggle peoples’ minds. [People ask], ‘What are you doing here?’ [I say], ‘Just giving away books. Take one home.’ And they don’t know what to do!”

The heart of the project has to do with inspiring people to read and value books, which is why founder of Chicago-based Parking Block Publishing, Tim Pigott , chose to donate books to the Book Bike in the first place.

Pigott, 34, said he met Levinson at an art show they were both involved in about a year ago. Parking Block Publishing does small runs of art-centered books about artists and photographers, involving both fiction and nonfiction work. Described as collectables, Pigott said his incentive for donating the work he’s publishing stems from reaching people who might never have seen the books otherwise.

“I really hope that maybe someone who hadn’t thought of it would see that and be like, ‘Hey I could do that and maybe I could do something even better,’” Pigott said.

Approximately 80 percent of the individual donations, either through the Book Bike’s Web site or giving the money directly to Levinson, will be invested in books and zines for the Book Bike, whereas 20 percent will go toward maintaining the bike.

Stephen Horcha, the man behind Philadelphia-based Haley Tricycles, built the Book Bike in spring 2008.

Typically, 32-year-old Horcha said his custom tricycles take roughly three weeks to build. Haley Tricycles began when Horcha had trouble transporting his drum set using a Volkswagen beetle in 2003, which lead him to construct his own cargo tricycle.

Horcha designed the Book Bike tricycle to fit the needs of Levinson’s project by building shelves and compartments for standard-sized books. Many of the other projects the two-man operation, Haley Tricycles, has undertaken include, but are not limited to, student-run farms for moving compost, handicapped dogs and bike messengers.

Currently, a larger scale project is in the midst for Levinson, which has much to do with the new attention on supporting independent publishers. Soon he hopes to travel with the Book Bike to other cities and work in tandem with independent book sellers in those respective cities, which he calls the Book Bike Tour.

“I’ll spend most of my donation money on books in the store, go to the park and give away the books in that city,” Levinson said. “At the same time, I’ll be promoting the Book Bike, the concept and of course directly promote the independent
book sellers.”

However deeply rooted in Levinson’s love for books the project may be, the simple hope that people will be inspired to buy books is something he cannot track.

“The hope is that they’ll see a bookmark in the book and they’ll go, ‘Oh wow, this is where I can find a book like this. I’m going to go back there,’” Levinson said. “That’s the part I can’t track, but I can always hope that people will be inspired to buy books on their own.”

For more information, visit BookBike.org.

Brent Lewis THE CHRONICLE

“I felt like busting out a move, but [the gym] is not really the place to do that,” Brandel said.

In 2006, Brandel said she happened to read an article about a free-form dance group in New York called Dance Dance Party Party, or DDPP, where only ladies would get together at a studio to simply dance for one hour without an instructor and with no specific fitness-related goals. The Chicago chapter was born shortly thereafter, when Brandel and her then roommate Jenn Salvatore decided DDPP was exactly what they were looking for.

Now one of nearly a dozen chapters, Chicago’s DDPP classes meet on Wednesdays and Sundays each week at Perceptual Dance Motion, 4057 N. Damen Ave. They consist of an hour of what they refer to as “booty-busting tunes.” No boys, no booze and no judgment are the three rules that all attendees must adhere to.

Brandel, who works as an independent media producer for the Bahai Temple, also does holistic healing and radio reporting for Chicago Public Radio. She initially thought the Chicago chapter of DDPP would serve as a fun way to work out without competition. Soon she realized the classes were incredibly therapeutic not only for herself but for many of the ladies who attended.

“There’s really no place that I know of where there’s a group of women and everyone can suspend judgment of themselves and each other for one hour,” Brandel said. “We’ve had a few dancers who have lost their partners to illness or have had really dramatic life experiences and they’ve come up to me and said, ‘This is really what’s gotten me through, being able to express joy and feel free for this hour.’”

On average, 15 ladies will attend each of the classes, said Kelly Periano, who has been attending for three years and became one of the four den mothers almost two years ago. Aside from their Web site and inviting their friends who invite mutual friends, DDPP is a strictly word-of-mouth group.

Women between the ages of 25 and 30 are the typical attendees, Periano said, but she added there are DDPP regulars who are “gray-haired rockers,” as well.

Whether the women use the class as their only weekly workout or incorporate the class into their regular fitness program, they’re invited to become a DJ for a class, which means they can create an MP3 playlist of their choosing to share with the rest of the attendees. The only requirement is having already attended at least one class.

“[The mixes] are completely eclectic, we don’t screen anyone’s mixes—we just have the warm-up song in the beginning and a cool-down song at the end,” Brandel said. “Every week, we get to hear new music and it’s a snapshot of the person’s personality.”

Mixes include everything from Bolshevik Russian dance songs and ’80s pop to ’90s hip-hop and M.I.A., Brandel explained.
Kristen Studard, who describes herself as alternate den mother when one of the four ladies is out of town, has also been attending for three years.

Studard, social media coordinator for Threadless—a company that sells printed apparel—recalls women crawling across the floor for Shakira’s “Shewolf,” and a time when an Animal Collective song on her playlist elicited the greatest reaction, which was something she hadn’t anticipated.

“DDPP has changed my roommate,” Studard said. “She went for the first month and she was just step-touching in the corner. And then she became the explosive dancer that she is after getting comfortable there.”
In a similar vein, Brandel said they view DDPP as a public service.

“We’re getting a work out, they’re getting a work out,” she said. “It’s a safe space where they can feel free to move however they want to move.”

The four ladies behind the Chicago chapter do not financially profit from the group. Instead, they use the $5 per person class fee to cover the cost of the studio space and equipment such as new speakers, rope lights and a lava projector, Brandel said.

This month, they want each class’s DJ to feature a mix from a different record label. Brandel said they will begin by including songs from a Chicago-based label called Numero Group.

Dance Dance Party Party hosts classes on Wednesdays from 7 p.m. – 8 p.m. and on Sundays from 4 p.m. – 5 p.m. every week at Perceptual Dance Motion Studio, 4057 N. Damen Ave. For more information, visit DDPPChicago.wordpress.com.

Courtesy KRISTIE KAHNS

“In some cases, the sparks that fly off are actually positive, and tap dance is one of those positive outcomes from the collision,” Alexander said. “That’s why it’s called the Human Rhythm Project and not the Chicago Tap Presenter or Tap Fest Chicago, because there’s a social mission, which is really to build a bridge between diverse individuals and communities through the shared practice and appreciation of rhythm.”

What once started as a tap dance summer festival in 1990 at the Gus Giordano Dance Center in Evanston, Ill., with a single performance at Northwestern University, has evolved into a year-round presenter of concerts, education events and community outreach programs. This year marks CHRP’s 20th anniversary as an organization. The plan is to celebrate on April 27 at Katerina’s, 1920 W. Irving Park Road, with performances by jazz musician Jivay Tellis Nayak, Tim Davis, members of resident tap group BAM, Kristie Burris, Heather Brown, Jessica Chapuis and young tap dancers who are recipients of CHRP’s yearly scholarship.

The fundraising event is being held to support the Leo Harris Tap Scholarship Program, which was increased from $15,000 to $20,000 this year, to honor 20 years of existence. The scholarship program translates into either a $500 or $1,000 tuition waiver for an intensive tap dancing program with renowned tap dance instructors, Alexander explained.

Chicago Human Rhythm Project hosts a major public presentation quarterly and organizes after-school tap dance programs at Chicago Public Schools for aspiring young tap dancers.

“We’ve seen young people who’ve gone through the program for three or four consecutive years, grow up, become life-long friends,” Alexander said. “[It's] people who wouldn’t necessarily have ever met each other if it weren’t for their love of tap dance and the ability to study together.”

Though Alexander realizes budget constraints for CPS is nothing new, he said providing arts education has become an important focus for cultural organizations such as CHRP.

Since 1995, 39-year-old tap dancer Martin Dumas has taught classes through CHRP at the Mayfair Academy of Fine Arts,
for example.

More recently, Dumas has worked as an associate arts director of sorts to help facilitate their quarterly tap dance events and additional workshops. Watching his students grow is the most rewarding feeling, he said.

“It opened a lot of doors in that these students are privy to training that they definitely wouldn’t have got any other way with top level dancers and instructors,” Dumas said. “You can’t beat what you can’t see and giving children the role models and the actual tangible examples, they say, ‘OK, I can do this. He or she does it, so why can’t I?’”

One success story is 20-year-old Columbia student Nico Rubio. The performing arts management major recalls listening to his sister and her friends talk about tap dance in his mom’s carpool at age 10.

“After a while, I was able to answer people’s questions about tap just from the stories I would hear,” Rubio said.

Now, he takes tap classes, teaches tap classes throughout the city four to five times a week through CHRP and hopes to teach at their summer festival. Rubio has also earned scholarships through the organization, which helped him pursue his love of tap dance.

“Some students may see how advanced I am, but they still see I’m taking classes and there’s no ego involved because I’m still open to learn,” Rubio said. “And then they’re still open to learn [as a result].”

In the fall, he plans to start a Columbia-based tap dance club called Columbia Tap Club, or CTP, partly because tap dance as an art form doesn’t get the respect it deserves, he said.

As a tap dancer for 22 years, Alexander shares a similar sentiment, which is one of the initial reasons why CHRP was founded.

“Almost every dance program in the U.S. is dedicated to contemporary dance or ballet,” Alexander said. “Tap classes can be found, but usually in very limited amounts and with very limited goals.”

Regarded as folk art or street art, tap dance was being practiced 150 years ago but was never treated like ballet, which was an art form that originated from the French courts, Alexander explained.

Although, after 20 years of education and community outreach, CHRP continues to honor tap dance’s rich history and spread appreciation. The sheer growth of the organization is a testament to their success.

“The big vision is to have a cultural center and that means education space, administrative space, performance space all devoted to the practice to American tap and contemporary percussive art,” Alexander said.

On April 27, CHRP will celebrate their 20th anniversary at Katerina’s, 1920 W. Irving Park Road, from 6 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. For all other information, visit ChicagoTap.org.

Courtesy LAUREN FINCH

London native Mano Vayis primarily sells textiles, small decorative furniture, engravings and mirrors. But this year, when the Merchandise Mart’s International Antiques Fair returns to Chicago,  he has a 19th century Wedgwood vase,  modeled after a Roman vase, in tow.  Naturally, the more rare the antique, the more interest it will garner, which is why prominent antique dealers from around the world have traveled to the Merchandise Mart every spring for the past 13 years.

From April 30 to May 3, 125 antique dealers will set up their booths, showcasing everything from maps and jewelry to tribal art and 19th century furniture at 222 Merchandise Mart Plaza. The show will be held in conjunction with Artropolis, a large-scale modern and contemporary art fair and NEXT, an invitational exhibition of emerging art.  An estimated 50,000 people visited the art and antiques fairs last year.  Both the vendors and the organizers are expecting a similar turnout due to the quality and prestige of the vendors and their returning customers.

Merchandise Mart Marketing Director Ann Fruland said the fair ultimately allows Chicagoans to travel the world without ever leaving the city.

According to Fruland, on April 30 keynote speaker Thomas O’Brien, founder of design company Aero Studios and author of design book, “American Modern,” will host a discussion. Some of the upcoming attractions unique to the Antiques Fair include a series of design consultations held by the American Society of Interior Designers to teach antique buyers how to incorporate antiques into their existing homes, along with a lecture with Chicago Home and Garden.

Those who attend this year’s fair in particular will probably be looking for different items than they would have been even a few years ago, according to Fruland.

“People are loving urban looking, hip antiques that are not causing harm to the environment by any manufacturing processes or salvaging new materials,” Fruland said.  “Whereas a few years [ago],  I don’t think people really cared about that.”

Vayis, who founded his London-based antiques business in 1986, has sold his work at the International Antiques Fair for the past 11 years.

“The fair has improved tremendously,” Vayis said. “It was on the second floor of the Merchandise Mart and it looked like a commercial fair of not much interest but a few years later an in-house team took over the organization of the fair and the quality and types of vendors improved. The eighth floor is a much nicer floor because it’s more intimate and more welcoming for clients.”

Though he’s attended other grand-scale, international antiques fairs in other major cities around the United States, Vayis said he finds that Chicago antique enthusiasts are especially faithful customers, which is why he has decided to sell his work year after year at the Merchandise Mart.

Items in his inventory range from woven textiles to classic greek-style dining room chairs and his price points range from $130 to $30,000. Such variety is common for most of the vendors at these types of events, he said.

Rita Boucheit, founder of Boucheit Ltd., 449 N. Wells St., has been attending the International Antiques Fair for several years now as well, though she hardly has to travel to do so.

In her showroom, she sells museum-quality pieces, such as Biedermeier and Empire furniture from 1799 to 1818 and 1815 to 1848, as well as pieces from the Vienna Succession in 1900 and antique Art Deco furniture from the ’20s and ’30s.

Boucheit said the contemporary art fairs during the weekend help the antique fair flourish because she can reach out to people with a wide range of interests.  She said the only reason to do a fair is to reach out to new people.

Despite the recession, she said her antique furniture has been selling because her pieces are classic, they have clean lines and they appear more modern.

The Merchandise Mart International Antiques Fair will take place April 30 – May 3. Tickets are $15 – $25 and provide admission to Artropolis, Art Chicago and NEXT. For all other information visit, MerchandiseMartAntiques.com.

Brock Brake THE CHRONICLE Rosey Merkin (left) is a technician who works on her glass arts at Chicago Hot Glass. Sam Lipscomb (right) is working on what she calls a “dirty dish.” She uses glassblowing techniques to add a variety of swear words to a glass jar.

An empty, seemingly useless beer bottle tossed onto the curb the morning after a debaucherous evening is the means with which 33-year-old Nick Paul makes a living. Instead of ending up in a landfill, the bottle is heated, melted and molded as if it were clay or paint on a canvas.

After being laid off from his job of nine-and-a-half years as head designer for Dimension Craft, an exhibit design company, Paul decided to pursue his hobby of glassblowing, which subsequently led to creating an online Etsy.com store where he sells unique glassware by repurposing beer bottles. With the money he saved from his Etsy sales, he purchased a portion of Chicago Hot Glass, 1250 N. Central Park Ave—the only public glassblowing studio in the city.

Founded in 2001, the studio teaches students about glassblowing, glass fusing, kiln forming and glass torch working, as well as serves as a public space for professional artists and engineers to work on their specific glass arts projects.

“To everyone that comes in and talks about the bottles, I say, ‘This is just one of the things we do around here at Chicago Hot Glass as well as all these other things,’” Paul said.”There’s nothing like us in
the Midwest.”

At any given time, about 15 to 30 people are working in the studio, according to 32-year-old resident artist and glass arts instructor Pearl Dick.

Dick began working on figurative glass sculptures about six years ago in Chicago after attending Alfred University in New York. She now teaches glassblowing classes for beginners and advanced artists at Chicago Hot Glass, along with an after-school art program for high school students in the city.

Using glass as an art medium appeals to a certain individual who likes to be challenged, Dick said.

“There’s certainly a lot to be said about the process itself,” she said. “It’s very much a physical medium. You’re using your whole body when you work with this material.”

Likewise, Paul’s unique glassware requires time and energy as the artistic process is tedious. By either scouring the streets, asking his friends or going to bars, Paul procures the bottles, he said. Then the bottles are washed and placed into an annealing oven, or a furnace used by glassblowers to eliminate stresses created in glassware. The oven is set to 1,100 degrees and left to sit for 30 minutes. Paul then dips a large, metal rod into a molten pot of glass in order to create what’s called a punti to provide a handle for the object being made. The punti touches the bottom of the bottle and the whole semi-formed bottle is transferred into a furnace used to melt the glass called the glory hole furnace. Once the glass begins to melt, he uses a special tool called jacks to open the bottle up and create a cylinder in the shape of a cup. It is left to cool for a 24-hour period.

Due to the amount of steps it takes to make the finished product, Paul said he tries to make at least 60 or 70 bottles at one time. In fact, when he’s working at Chicago Hot Glass, he performs these tasks every
three minutes.

While Paul and the many artists who take glassblowing classes or work on their individual projects at Chicago Hot Glass are quite fond of repurposing the material, city dwellers and establishments are quick to throw away their used glass instead
of recycling.

Recycle Plus, 1334 N. Kostner Ave., is a small company that provides a recycling service for businesses such as schools
and synagogues.

“We work with people who can’t produce that much but still want to recycle, so therefore we serve a niche,” said Gary Zuckerman, founder of Recycle Plus.

Bottles that aren’t recycled in Chicago end up in a landfill and can take up to a million years to break down, he added. Though the bottles are not as harmful as batteries, paint or microwaves, for example, glass recycling is important because it saves energy. Glass, as a material, is sustainable by nature, meaning it never loses quality.

In order to make new glass, sand and various substances are heated to 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit, which requires a lot of energy and creates industrial pollution, Zuckerman explained. Reusing glass as opposed to purchasing more glass means less energy is exerted in the long run.

Glass, unlike plastic or metal, is a fairly stable material in terms of its value.

“When it hits a certain price, it stays there for a while,” Zuckerman said. “Recycling glass needs to be subsidized by the state so that more people will do it.”

Though people who work at Chicago Hot Glass are reusing and recycling by definition, Paul said he describes his work as “problem solving.”

“I’m an advocate for the do-it-yourself movement,” Paul said. “We have this excess material and trash that’s lying around in our environment and we’re basically just finding another use for it.”

For more information about Chicago Hot Glass, visit ChicagoHotGlass.com. To purchase Nick Paul’s work, visit Etsy.com/Shop

Courtesy BRIAN FOY

Indie rock foursome The Kickback, originally hailing from South Dakota, is currently saving their money to buy equipment in order to record their new EP, which is expected to be released this summer. Admittedly, these guys aren’t fans of the middleman or a stopwatch when it comes time to record in a studio, but they’re also well aware they may not be able to record a full-length album with their budget.

Described as pragmatists with a warm sense of humor, The Kickback comprises brothers Billy Yost on guitar and vocals and Danny Yost on drums, as well as Tyler Zee on guitar and vocals and Zach Verdoorn on bass. The Chronicle caught up with three of the band members to talk about their individual tastes, the varying tempos within their songs and their
all-in-the-family dynamic.

The Chronicle: What’s the dynamic like with two of you being brothers?

Danny Yost: On my end, I know it gets weird for the two other guys because Billy and I can talk to each other differently than most people can communicate. We also know what each other is thinking without having to say anything. Having brothers in the band I’m sure is a little bit weird, but I also think there’s a connection there that a lot of bands don’t have just because we grew up listening to the same music and we have a lot of the same ideas about sounds and the direction of the band. It’s a different dynamic, but it’s an amazing one.

The Chronicle: How do your individual music tastes contribute to the overall sound of the band?

Tyler Zee: There’s some middle ground for sure. I think more recently we might be more on the same page than we were … or maybe not.

DY: Before, when we were all playing together, I think everyone listened to ridiculously different music. Zach is into old school funk, whereas I came up listening to punk rock.

TZ: I’ve been into classic pop stuff like the Beatles and Elvis Costello. Maybe more of singer-songwriters.
Billy Yost: I was mostly exclusively into oldies until age 12, and that’s what my mom listened to. I was a momma’s boy. The thing that’s kind of nice, at least for me, is that the earliest influences took a stronger hold than the crap I was forcing on myself.

The Chronicle: Do you guys experiment with varying tempos for your songs?

BY: I’d probably call that growing pains. We go through a lot of phases depending on how I’m feeling about myself at the time. The older stuff is a lot more upbeat. The newer stuff, we try to control sounds a little better and work more with vocal harmonies because those are what’s most important to me. So with the new stuff, we’re doing a bunch of slower, down tempo stuff and now we’re starting to go bigger again, but in a different sort of way.

TZ: I was just going to say that you can go to a punk rock show and nod your head all night to the same tempo, but we all think it makes it way more interesting to listen to and way more of an experience. This isn’t a stagnant group. We’re always trying to work on things and push certain things. I just feel it’s so easy to get into one vein of music and that gets old to all of us really fast. We just think within one style of music, there’s still a million different ways you can take it. So why just settle on one way of doing things?

The Chronicle: You guys really came alive in one of your live show video clips. Do you thrive on stage?

TZ: I think live we might have a little brighter sound. I don’t know the right word for it.

BY: Manic, incendiary.

TZ: Yeah, when you play a show, you’re sitting for hours waiting and then it’s time to go. We just try to make the most out of every second we have on stage.

DY: The way we’re trying to approach recording right now is that the record is one thing and the show is something else entirely. The show is the reward, but the record is what’s going to be around hopefully for 100 years.

To listen to The Kickback, visit Myspace.com/TheKickback. They will be playing at the Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont Ave., on April 25 at 8 p.m.

Mina Bloom THE CHRONICLE

“Sex is still a very touchy subject. Pun intended!” said Ursala Orelse, laughing while lighting up a cigarette outside of Villain’s Bar and Grill, 649 S. Clark St. A member of the Chicago-based Pleasure Salon and the Sex Workers Outreach Program Chicago branch, Orelse celebrated the Pleasure Salon’s first anniversary on April 6 with about 20 other members who share a similar sentiment.

The Chicago Pleasure Salon was conceived by Clarisse Thorn in April 2009. Ultimately, Thorn and six other leaders in the sex-positive activism scene developed a series of meet-and-greet events for people interested or involved in sex-positive communities in Chicago. Due to the success of Thorn’s “Sex-Positive” film series, in which participants watch what’s called a sex-positive film and have a discussion afterward, the Chicago Pleasure Salon was born.

“Being sex-positive is keeping an open mind about different sexual communities and different practices,” said Serpent Libertine, director of the Sex Workers Outreach Program, sex-positive activist and one of the original hostesses of the Pleasure Salon. “I work with sex workers, and a lot of those sex workers are very stigmatized because what they’re doing is an exchange of money for sex, and people look down on that.”

The salon was organized, however, to bring together members of different sex-positive communities, such as sex worker, pornography, BDSM, swinger and polyamory, as well as invite newcomers who aren’t familiar with any of these practices and lifestyles to educate themselves. Psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich hypothesized that historically, many traditional Western societies seek to repress open sexuality. Activists including, but not limited to, Libertine and Thorn have attempted to combat a society that generally stifles sexual differences and possibility.

Modeled after the New York Pleasure Salon, the Chicago branch encourages networking, developing friendships and learning about other communities opposed to having romantic encounters.

“There’s no agenda with these salons,” Libertine said. “There’s so much going on in Chicago and everyone hangs in their own communities. This is a way to hang out with everyone in the same spot. It’s certainly not a hook-up event.”

Thorn, who belongs to the S&M community, or people who specifically engage in sadomasochism, said that people in different communities have encouraged the Pleasure Salon to incorporate explicit demonstrations such as how to tie someone up. She has advised against this, though, because she believes that a comfortable environment for newcomers who just want to talk is important.

Currently, Thorn is doing HIV/AIDS work in South Africa and plans to return to Chicago sometime next year. Still, Thorn separates her professional life from her sex-positive activist life, which is fairly common for members of these types of communities.

Orelse, for example, said many of her friends and neighbors don’t know what she does and for some she’d like to keep it
that way.

“Prostitutes are human beings too,” said Orelse, who also volunteers for Howard Brown and Recovery Alliance. “I’m still the person that would watch your cat on vacation and get together with you for dinner. I’m still a productive member of society.”

Aspasia Bonasera, a 29-year-old DePaul University student, is on the Sex Plus Plus Plus Film Curation Board and was asked by Thorn to help organize the Chicago Pleasure Salon’s meet-and-greet events after reading Bonasera’s blog.

Having been involved with the salon from the beginning, Bonasera said the events are intended for meeting a lot of great,
friendly people.

“It’s based in the notion that if we do veer on the topic of sex, we don’t have to worry about, ‘Oh, I can’t say something because that person might be offended,’” Bonasera said.

Regarding Chicago’s progress in accepting sex-positive communities, opinions vary. Libertine said she thought Chicago has always been more on the conservative side while Thorn said the city lags behind New York City and San Francisco, of course, but not as much as one would think.

“I know people who claim to be very liberal, but as soon as it turns to the topic of sex or something out of any hetero-normative model, they sound like any conservative from Alabama who goes to church six times a week,” Bonasera added.

Being an activist, Thorn said she hopes that the Pleasure Salon eventually becomes a way to politically organize, but she would never push for that.

For more information about the Pleasure Salon, visit PleasureSalonChicago.com.

Owens-Reid’s mission became selling an estimated 500-700 vintage salt and pepper shakers, which was a cause she felt personally connected to; she inherited the collection at age 11 from her great-grandmother. In order to sell the shakers, she signed up for Kickstarter.com a few months ago—the all-or-nothing social fundraising Web platform based in Brooklyn—where creative endeavors are funded by real people who believe in a particular project.

“I’m glad I inherited them and I’m not ungrateful,” Owens-Reid said. “But I just have so many. Unless I wanted to put shelves literally lining my walls, there’s just nothing I could do besides try to share the love.”

Independent, often times quirky projects such as Owens-Reid’s are ideal when it comes to Kickstarter, which is neither designed as an investment nor a charity, for that matter. The start-up asks artists, activists and everyone in between to set a goal of a specific amount of money they’d like to raise for their cause or project, which is when fans and friends alike can donate any amount of money. The funds won’t be used unless the goal is met. Compensation in the form of rewards is given to those who donate based on the individual.

As of March 31, Owens-Reid raised $2,772 for her Shaker Love project linked to her Shaker Love Tumblr site, which wasn’t enough to fund the whole project because she set her goal at $5,000 with an end date of April 1.

In no way is Owens-Reid disappointed, however, because people everywhere have become fans of the project.

“I’ve had this opportunity to reach a bunch of people that I would have never been able to reach,” she said. “I still have contact with them and I can still send out a message that’s like, ‘Hey, we didn’t reach the goal, but if you still want to buy a shaker that’s great and we’ll set up PayPal or something.”

Similarly, comic artist Kody Chamberlain, 37, had great success with Kickstarter in an effort to raise money to market his new comic.

A mere two days after designing his Kickstarter account, he received 80 percent of his pledged funding, which he attributes to his preexisting fan base, social networking and getting a featured spot on Kickstarter’s recommended page.

Though Chamberlain has a publisher for the five issue mini-series he’s writing and drawing called “Sweets,” this is the first project he owns himself. The money he’s raising through Kickstarter will go toward marketing funds such as creating press kits, posters and booking trade shows.

“They see something in the project that they’d like to come to life,” Chamberlain said of Kickstarter. “I don’t necessarily think it’s any sort of celebrity. They look at the concept and the artwork. I think that’s what they’re responding to.”

Not only is Kickstarter a way to gauge the success of a creative project, it also teaches artists financial responsibility. Such is the case with California-based band Hi Ho Silver Oh, who used Kickstarter to fund their 10-day tour.

“We had a $1,600 goal, which was just to cover basic expenses,” said Phil Eastman, a member of the band. “It would be great to go on our first tour and not go into the red because that’s such a cliché of bands who put it on a credit card or just paying with money you didn’t have.”

Ultimately, they raised $1,695.10 from 45 backers, which was 106 percent of the $1,600 that they pledged.

“Not that we expected people to give us money, but we knew that we made it an event and helped people to get involved that people would support us,” Eastman said. “People have come out of the woodwork—people I haven’t talked to since high school donated just because they saw a link on Facebook.”

For more information about Owens-Reid’s collection ,visit Shakers.Tumblr.com. To learn more about Kody Chamberlain’s work, visit, KodyChamberlain.com. Visit Myspace.com/HiHoSilverOh to listen to Hi Ho Silver Oh.

Despite the romance, however, many underground art spaces in the city cease to exist due to city regulations. Quennect 4, 2716 W. North Ave., was an apartment-turned-cultural-haven dedicated to raising money for charities and organizations throughout the city. Now John Ibarra, who founded the organization in 2007, no long has a home to host events.

On Jan. 5, the city delivered a notice from the alderman, Ibarra explained, which notified the organizers of Quennect 4 that their space and six other addresses were given citations for loud music and illegal promotion, and have subsequently been shut down.

The independently run, multi-use art space, which is where Ibarra and his roommates are currently living, originated from a desire to expose people in the city to art, fashion, primarily world music and provide people with an opportunity to recite their work at an open mic or a story slam.

A global rhythm project called “Café Vida,” art showcases of all mediums and regularly scheduled story slams took place every week at Quennect 4 before they shut down. Café Vida now takes place at Wicker Well Lounge, 1637 W. North Ave.

In order to organize these types of events, Ibarra, who previously worked at independent bookstore the New World Resource Center, 1300 N. Western Ave., recruited the artistic people in the community to help.

Ibarra refuted that Quennect 4, or Q4 for short, was ever deemed a hipster hangout.

“The way that I look at it now was that it was always a community cultural center no matter who it was geared toward,” Ibarra said. “People tend to want to keep things apart. The hipsters, the hip-hop cats, the activists. One thing that we did do was bring people together. Even now, things are segregated in Chicago and without places like ours, there’s really no place for everybody to come together as a whole again.”

Q4 continues to be committed to providing a safe environment for city dwellers interested in underground art.

“We’ve had a lot of age restrictions so that the young crowd wouldn’t be a problem,” said Phillip Morris, who helped organize events and participated regularly in Q4’s open mics. “Developing artists come out of their shell just by coming to Quennect 4 every week. People get exposed to a wide array of music that they may have never heard before. Really interesting, original and authentic people would come here.”

Perhaps most importantly, those behind the organization were constantly fundraising for charities such as Latino Union, Women’s Health Care Center, U.S. Social Forum and the Leftist Lounge, to name a few.

Morris, 30, who is an emcee, performed at Q4 and “walked into a world of wonder,” he said.
West Side native and full-time vocalist, Morris said whenever anyone from Q4 asked him to help out he was on board.

“The city is quick to crack down on anything they can’t control, regulate or tax,” he said.
Louis Tubens, not unlike Morris, was asked to help organize and emcee events at Quennect 4 after being involved in a party his group, the Leftist Lounge, threw at
the space.

Tubens, 28, said the majority of people who attended the events were in their early 20s to mid-30s and were willing to dig for an art outlet such as this one.

“By being underground and people really having to search for it, we really did get an audience of people who come for the art and the music,” Tubens said. “Not because it’s something cool or hip to do, but more because they sought it out. It’s something that they’re seeking.”

Tubens currently works for After School Matters, teaches video production at an inner-city high school, performance installation at a youth center and gives tour guides at a museum in Pilsen.
He said the members of Q4 wanted to cater to the people who already live on the West Side, as well as bring people from different neighborhoods to the events to expose them to cultural events they might enjoy.

As far as Tubens is concerned, Q4 will continue to act as event planners or as a go-between for artists and potential spaces for gigs until they re-establish their space.

“We’ll do everything from sound to putting up the artwork, to taking it down when it’s all over,” Tubens said. “There will be security, [and] drinks if drinks are provided. We’ve definitely continued; we just don’t have a home.”

Ibarra, who has worked odd jobs since Q4 shut down, encourages everyone to donate money to their organization by visiting their Web site.

“Q4 will never stop,” he said. “It’s only going to be a matter of time. It’s kind of like that saying, ‘Life finds a way.’ There will always be a way for us to continue what we’ve been doing.”

To donate, visit Kickstarter.com. For all other information, visit Quennect4.com.

Nick Donlin and Zach Vouga, a current Columbia student, comprise the up-and-coming band. The Chronicle talked with both members to learn about the vision behind their “Returning the Magic” EP, how they scored a gig opening for Deakin (of long-time indie darlings Animal Collective) and how their live performance greatly differs from simply listening to their recordings.

The Chronicle: Tell me about both of your roles in Glitter Bones.

Zach Vouga: When we’re writing, I’d say there’s no rules when we’re writing. It’s a big stream of consciousness of ideas. We’re constantly firing ideas back and forth to each other. Nick will send me something and it’ll depict a certain emotion, and I’ll pick up on that emotion and I’ll add something back to him. It’ll just kind of snowball until it becomes something. Sometimes the things that we produce will fall through the cracks and will later be renovated. That’s the process in which we collaborate.
Nick Donlin: Generally, we’ll come up with a core part each and just go from there. When we do that live, most of the time we play the core part—whoever wrote it—and then the other person plays whatever they laid over it.

The Chronicle: What was your vision for the “Returning the Magic” EP and how long did it take to write and record?

ND: Honestly, I’d say it took about two weeks.
ZV: It took a good part of the month
of January.
ND: It was a pretty quick, painless process.
ZV: As far as vision, Nick and I are both pretty magical guys. [Laughs] As stated in the title of the album, it’s definitely something that we wanted to capture. I wanted to capture the vibe of a young girl’s fantasy novel and Nick was on the same page as I was. The kind of emotion we were trying to convey is some fantastical adventure but still highly emotional, but at the same time, very bleak.
ND: Yeah, that’s pretty accurate. I’m into a lot of fairy tales, witchcraft and things like that. I’m not into it, but I like to read up about that stuff. It’s very inspiring to me.
ZV: I’d certainly say that our music and our individual tracks can be looked at as a spell or incantation of sorts. Something’s being conjured in each track.

The Chronicle: How do your live performances differ from hearing a Glitter Bones recording?

ND: First and foremost, it’s very loud. I think when you’re feeling the bass and stuff, you’re more inclined to move and get into it and jam out to it.
ZV: And even something as simple as the sound quality. I mean, the maturity of listeners in today’s age are on MySpace, which is perhaps the lowest form of listening quality. So, [in a live setting] you’re experiencing it in an all-encompassing atmosphere.

The Chronicle: How did you guys land a gig opening for Deakin of Animal Collective?

ND: That show came about because I just started messaging him on MySpace and he’s a really cool guy. He has no problem talking with bands who are interested in getting their stuff out there. He’s just real nice about it. We ended up e-mailing the guy from the Empty Bottle. He’s cool and it all just
worked out.
ZV: It sort of fell into our laps and we were both very excited about it.

The Chronicle: Are you working on recording anything currently or are you just trying to get your name out there?

ZV: Yeah, it’s really interesting to see how our sound has evolved—even in the short run of the band we’ve been in so far. So it’ll be explored in the next release. With “Returning the Magic,” Nick and I were still freshly working together but with this new stuff, you can tell there’s unity and we’re exploring new sounds and new depths. We’re in correspondence with a few smaller labels about maybe pressing our newest one into vinyl. There’s nothing for sure yet. We’re mainly concerned with getting the material finished in a finite manner that we’re happy with.

Glitter Bones’ next show will be at Ronny’s Bar, 2101 N. California Ave., on March 2. For more information, visit MySpace.com/GlitterBonesBand.

The group was designed to provide additional performance opportunities for street musicians and to educate the public about the talents of Chicago-based musicians, who contrary to popular belief, are neither beggars nor homeless, Chapman explained.

“We both share a passion for trying to shed light on musicians who might not be well-recognized,” said Barnes, who works full time as the vice president of marketing and communications for Cook Associates Inc., which is a business centered around mergers and acquisitions advisory services.

After spending a great deal of time in the Washington Blue Line subway tunnel, Chapman realized many of the musicians he encountered exhibited real creative talent. After talking with many of them, he discovered some had incredible backgrounds in music.

“I thought: ‘Someone should organize a gig for these musicians. Their music should be featured,’” said Chapman, who plays guitar and sings for his latest projects, Juno+Jupiter and About A Girl.

After conducting a survey to ask street musicians why they choose to play on the street as opposed to clubs, Barnes and Chapman began their initiative by organizing a music video project for the song “Sweet Home Chicago,” involving about 18 different musicians to draw attention to some of the unknown, or perhaps overlooked talent.

Crystal Bowersox, for example, is a 24-year-old musician who works with Chicago Street Musicians and performs gigs around the city and her native town of Toledo, Ohio. Bowersox is currently one of the finalists in this season of “American Idol.”

Many of the other Chicago street musicians are also educated, classically trained and motivated.

“There’s a drummer who’s written instructional drum books, one of the musicians was starting grad school studying social work at University of Illinois at Chicago, a bunch of the guys who are playing at Potbelly, wine shops, churches, clubs, bars—all around town,” Chapman said. “They have recordings and they’re doing all kinds of neat things.”

Chicago Street Musicians mainly receives visibility from its Web site, Facebook page, Twitter and street musicians who pass the word along. Its job, Chapman said, consists of coordinating gigs for the musicians they choose to work with by simply acting as a go-between for companies that request performers and the performers themselves.

“We do not work as a booking agency,” Barnes said. “We do not receive any money from organizations who want to hire them because Chicago Street Musicians is
purely volunteer.”

Some of the more recent jobs Chicago Street Musicians has coordinated include an ad agency promoting Axe body spray, Active Transit Alliance promoting car-free day, a Chicago Cares benefit and celebrating the new Columbia Sportswear store on Michigan Avenue, Chapman said.

But despite such accomplishments, Barnes pointed out that negative stereotypes associated with street performing have to do with cultural ignorance.

“You go to Europe, you’ll see a bunch of street performers and it’s a part of their culture,” Barnes said. “We’re stuck with this stereotype in the states and it’s simply not reflective of who they are.”

Growing up in Haiti, Fritz Legros played in the National Orchestra at age 15. Since 1984, however, he played guitar on the street in New York City and moved to Chicago to do the same in 1995.

Legros, who plays guitar, harmonica and sings primarily in the Jackson El tunnel, is currently recording and has recently played music at Haitian benefit concerts across the city.

Barnes and Chapman discovered Legros after reading a Chicago Tribune article and approached him about becoming a part of their organization. Legros said they do a wonderful job of bringing together the Chicago street performers community, most of whom he knows.

“People might think, ‘Why are they begging?’” Legros said of street performers. “But then they realize you’re actually playing great music—like, ‘Man, you could be playing in the club or a recording artist. You sound good.’”
For more information, visit ChicagoStreetMusicians.com.