When John Manion was a teenager back in the 80s, he used to hop on his old Vespa scooter and struggle to keep up with Dan Ryan traffic on the 15-mile trip from Calumet City into Chicago, where he came to see his favorite local mod bands. “I used to take my life into my own hands doing that,” he says. “You tend to do that kind of thing when you’re 17.”
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The fourth OWOT fest–subtitled “Kinetic Underground” in tribute to a late-60s psych club called the Kinetic Playground, which operated in the Uptown space that would become the Rainbo roller rink–kicks off Thursday, June 2, at Delilah’s with a performance by Atlanta’s Cherry Splits and several DJ sets, including one by New York’s Soul Sisters. On Friday San Diego’s legendary Loons play the Subterranean with local mod-psych combo the Civilized Age, who are celebrating the release of their self-titled debut EP. On Saturday a scooter rally and a mod garage sale will be followed by an all-night dance party at the Note that Manion expects will draw close to 500 people; DJs from across the country will spin mod, psych, freakbeat, organ jazz, and northern soul.
Chicago’s mod revival flowered between 1983 and ’86, first with a series of all-ages shows at the West End booked by Sue Miller, who’d go on to co-own Lounge Ax, and branching out to venues as big as Metro. A number of popular bands–Green, I Spy, the Slugs, Reaction Formation–arose during this period, but the good times didn’t last. (For a definitive history, see J.R. Jones’s 1997 Reader article “In Mod We Trusted.”) “Basically all the people involved were really young, and then they kinda grew up,” says Manion. “It was pretty disheartening to see people leaving to go to college as mods and coming back as Deadheads.”
The marathon Saturday-night dance party is still the biggest event, though. “Most of the DJs who spin have their own mod nights at clubs across the country,” says Manion. “They’re serious about the music. No one plays CDs or LPs, no Britpop or 90s stuff. They only play vintage 45s–and these guys have amazing record collections.”
“In the four years I’ve done it, we’ve never broken even,” he says. “But, hey, we put on a great event. A lot of people come out from all over, we get some really well respected bands and DJs, and we just have a great time. That’s really all that matters.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/Kristina Marie Kurg, Carlos J. Ortiz.
