NEWS

May 2016

During the weekend of May 13-15 Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events is hosting its second annual Lake FX "the Midwest's largest free convening of artists and creative entrepreneurs." As would be expected, the summit seems oriented more to the fine arts than the popular arts and towards endowed institutions than commercial endeavors. Nevertheless, there are a lot of workshops and seminars meant for commercial artists especially in the music field. It's free so it is well worth a look for those seeking knowledge about legal issues or the business structure in the music industry.

February 2016

The second issue of Chicagoly magazine is now out and can be obtained in print or read on-line at chicagolymag.com. It is an attractive journal in the lifestyle genre tradition but still seems to be missing the hard hitting investigative journalism that the editor, Joe Coughlin, promised in the inaugural issue.

January 2016

The Museum of Contemporary Art has an exhibition about Pop Art that shows how commercial artists influenced design. There really is not much in the exhibition about Chicago commercial artist's considerable contributions to design; nevertheless art exhibitions that favor commercial artists are rare in Chicago so this is well worth seeing for that reason alone.

September 2015

 Chicago has a new non-profit organization, actually a consortium of twenty existing institutions, the Chicago Collections Consortium. The commonality of the institutions is that they are holders of Chicago historical artifacts: maps, photos, books, documents, etc. With a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Consortium has been assembling an on-line catalog that connects the twenty institutions in various categories like politics, neighborhoods, etc. They have also created an exhibition of some of the material for display in the Harold Washington Library from August to mid-November.

It is a positive step that Chicago based institutions are working for a common purpose; but it is a small step. Frankly, Google already provides on-line searches and digital documents so nothing new has been created. Furthermore, Chicago's popular culture is mostly ignored which continues a long Chicago tradition. Nor is the Consortium purposed for acquisition. If an artifact of significance in Chicago popular art, literature, theater, became available, there is no depository or acquisition ability. The first exhibition of existing artifacts from the collections of the various member institutions is in a small room on the ninth floor of the Central Library adjacent to the Special Collections Room with little visibility. No one will know it is there.

July 2015

Jerry Weintraub the veteran Hollywood impresario passed away on July 8th. The major national news outlets have all published long obituaries. Weintraub had a long and distinguished career; most notably as the manager of singer John Denver. What is never mentioned is that while Weintraub managed Denver he had business investments in Chicago's music industry both in record recording and talent management. Yet even Weintraub failed here in a typical Chicago manner. To better understand these traditions, read Chicago's Music Industry.

June 2015

The June 18th issue of New City weekly newspaper has an interesting article by local musician/songwriter David Safran. While the article might seem like something of a rant by an artist who feels aggrieved by the business practices of local music venues, at least it does provide a view of the business of music in Chicago instead of the usual music reviews and evaluations. It suggests one aspect as to why Chicago's music industry isn't as big as it might be. A general ignorance of the importance of business in the creation and promotion of popular culture. A more detailed explanation is in Chicago's Music Industry

May 2015

WTTW Chicago is broadcasting a documentary about Newton Minow the former FCC Chairmen who famously called television a "vast wasteland." While many people agree with this assertion, it seems a just criticism that the most powerful government regulator of an industry should not derogate those whom he regulates. Minow does deserve much credit for pushing thru Congress against strong conservative Republican opposition an expansion of the industry by requiring set manufacturers to include UHF reception as well as VHF. What is rarely discussed is Minow's influence on Chicago's television program industry. He was the only Chicagoan to ever hold such a high position in the Federal Government. The results were not good. To learn more, read Chicago's Radio and Television Industry History, volume five in a series about Chicago's popular culture.

May 2015

We placed the full series of books about Chicago's popular culture on Amazon. While you can buy print copies at our bookstore, forty percent of all books sold in America are sold at Amazon Books. Consumers just seem to prefer Amazon so that is where we went.

April 2015

An exhibition of art by Archibald Motley has opened on the fourth floor of the Chicago Cultural Center and will run through the summer until August 31st. Motley is better remembered as a pioneer artist than a master painter. He was the first African-American artist to graduate from the School of the Art Institute. So, naturally, much of the exhibition is about race. There are more traditions evident if you notice where the paintings come from. Even though the artist was from Chicago and his subject was usually Chicago culture, only one painting is on loan from a Chicago collector or institution (Chicago History Museum). All the other paintings are  from East Coast based collections. Not one painting from the Art Institute! To be sure, Motley was never in the upper ranks of painters by the objective measure of the resale value of their works, but he was documenting an aspect of Chicago, the culture of Bronzeville, that has had a huge influence on American culture. For more about Chicago's traditions in art, read Chicago's Visual Arts.

April 2015

It has been announced that Amazing Grace, the musical that premiered in Chicago in fall 2014, will open on Broadway this summer. The musical is about John Newton the man who converted from slave trader to abolitionist in the 18th century and who wrote the song. What received little notice was that the song that is world famous now is a 20th century arrangement by E.O. Excell who was a Chicago composer and music publisher. Chicago was a national center of music production and was especially dominant in religious music. To learn more, read Chicago's Music Industry.

April 2015

There is an interesting article on Pitchfork.com by Marc Hogan entitled How Much is Music Really Worth. Pitchfork is the company that produces an independent music festival in Chicago's Union Park during the summer. They also have an on-line zine. Mr. Hogan proffers that it is difficult if not impossible to quantify music into an objective unit so that one can give a value to a unit of music. If one wants to assert that the digital revolution is adversely affecting the music industry and especially the musical artist, you need an objective measure other than just industry gross revenues. He makes the exercise even more difficult by comparing inflation adjusted values to single units of music. Comparing a nickel play in an 1889 Arcade to the purchase of a 45 RPM record in the 1950's makes no more sense than comparing a inflation adjusted one month lease of a Hupmobile to the purchase of a Cadillac. Still at least this analysis does point to the difficulty of objective measures historically in an industry that is now a century and a half old. In Chicago, it is rare that anyone looks at the business,  instead of just the artistic, perspective of music.