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It’s OK to laugh againAriel Parrella-Aurelion September 29, 2020 at 3:30 pm

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A few weeks ago, on one of the first chilly nights, I sat in the grass wearing a mask and watched my first live comedy show in over six months. It was like a light was reignited in my body and in my face–real laughs from real people! It was clear the audience around me felt it too; even if not all the jokes landed, there was barely a silent moment in the crowd, which spanned from a spacious Logan Square backyard to the boulevard.

Appropriately, this show is called the Stoop Comedy Show and the organizers have put on weekly open mikes since August–it’s one of several in-person comedy shows that have sprung up in the last few months. Comics are done with virtual open mikes and after brooding inside like everyone else, are creating new, safe, and creative shows to keep the laughs going and blow off much-needed steam from this hellscape of a year. From big comedy clubs to DIY outdoor shows, the comedy scene is alive again and ready to take on whatever the pandemic throws next–including winter.

“Neighbors want to be able to see each other and comics have not had a reason to hang out unless we are at a show,” says comic Caitlin Checkeroski, one of the producers of Stoop Comedy. Thanks to the Lincoln Lodge, which donated professional speakers, Checkeroski says the show has gained momentum. With chairs, stoop lights surrounding the stage, two mikes that are disinfected after each use, and signs encouraging people to buy tickets ahead of time, Stoop Comedy feels like a normal show.

But after the open mike got shut down by the house’s landlord at its most recent show, Stoop is in limbo. The all-female crew is looking for other yards or rooftops to run Stoop and keep it going through October.

Under the state’s Phase 4 reopening plan, outdoor gatherings with adequate social distancing, mask wearing, and surface-disinfecting are allowed, and indoor venues can operate at 50 percent capacity with seats six feet apart, but those that also serve food and drink must operate at 25 percent capacity.

Like other indoor venues, comedy club owners are taking every precaution to make sure safety comes first. Earlier this summer, comedian D.L. Hughley tested positive for COVID-19 after collapsing onstage during a performance in Nashville, and New York comedy clubs are currently fighting to reopen under the same restrictions as restaurants. The hope for Chicago comics is that by putting safety first, people who feel comfortable being outside will support the open mikes and comedians, many of whom have not performed or made any income until now.

Over in Lakeview, Rodescu Hopkins II had a similar idea. The cofounder of Trigger Warning Comedy, an open mike show that ran at the Sedgwick Stop until the pandemic hit, started the Backyard Sessions series September 18 in his backyard with cohost Ed Towns. Eager to reawaken the comedy scene and seeing big comedy clubs reopening, the duo felt it was the right time to gather in a socially distant way and provide live shows before the winter hits. They plan to host shows every other week for the next three months with a capacity of 22 people, but if the wheels keep turning then the show might go until there is snow on the ground, Hopkins says with a laugh.

Each Backyard Sessions show features a gallery space–the backyard fence walls–for select artists to show visual artwork. At the first show, local photographer Katia Jackson featured her photos from recent protests. “Everyone needs a relief,” Hopkins says. “We are bottled up and frustrated. When we don’t have a place to let off steam and laugh, you see how it happens, the world goes nuts.”

Hopkins says putting on the shows feels like exercising a muscle that’s been dormant for too long. To attend this open mike, tickets must be purchased ahead of time and everyone’s temperature is checked at the gate to ensure safety.

Backyard Sessions by Trigger Warning Comedy

Every second Friday 8 PM, Lakeview, (location disclosed with ticket)

Comedy Pickup

10/17-10/31: Sat-Sun 5 PM, various locations, instagram.com/comedypickup, free.

Lincoln Lodge show with Deanna Ortiz

Fri-Sat 8 PM, Lincoln Lodge, 2040 N. Milwaukee, thelincolnlodge.com, $10.

Ms. Pat

Mon 10/19-Thu 10/22, 7 PM, Zanies, 1548 N. Wells, chicago.zanies.com, $35.

Out in the Open Mic

Through 10/30, Fri 7 PM, various locations, instagram.com/outintheopenmic, free.

JP Sears

Sun 10/11: 5, 7, and 9:15 PM, Zanies, 1548 N. Wells, chicago.zanies.com, $40.

Social Distance Comedy with Sarah Perry

Fri-Sat 7 PM, Laugh Factory, 3175 N. Broadway, laughfactory.com/clubs/chicago, $30.

Perhaps one of the most innovative comedy shows to come out of the pandemic is the Comedy Pickup, a traveling stand-up show in the bed of a pickup truck created by Donovan Strong-O’Donnell and Ryder Olle. The two started the show at the end of July, driving around the city to parks, secluded street corners, zoo parking lots, and even partnering with Taylor Street Tap for to-go drinks. After seeing the success locally, the comics embarked on a nationwide road trip in that same pickup to bring outdoor comedy to Baltimore, D.C., New York City, Boston, Denver, and more.

“It’s been exciting to see what local comics have shown interest, on the road as well–every city scene has been supportive to us,” Strong-O’Donnell says.

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With portable speakers and amps, the sound system has attracted more than 100 people to shows, he says, which has also helped the comics build their network and experience new cities. The tour has produced more than 45 shows in ten cities and put nearly 2,000 miles on Olle’s pickup. To close it out, there will be one last show October 12 in Chicago.

Ollie says the tour has attracted people who might not ordinarily like comedy and makes it accessible to those on their daily outdoor activities. “Part of the issue sometimes with the exposure of stand-up is it seems so mysterious and dark to most people that the idea scares them, but [with Comedy Pickup], people get to come out and have a really good time at something they would never see,” Olle says.

Indoor comedy has started to fill seats again too, with social distancing regulations, safety protocols for comics, and fewer shows and audience members. Deanna Ortiz, the lead comic at the Lincoln Lodge shows, remembers when the Logan Square spot reopened to the public in June. “To go back and do stand-up for the first time in months, there was energy there,” Ortiz says. “On our first show back, we had 30 people in a room that sat 200 and it was electric.”

Like many creatives, she was not happy to turn her attention to virtual shows during the height of the pandemic but says that time helped her keep the juices flowing, practice new work, and stay engaged as an artist. With a rotating cast of 12 comics plus guests and a cap at 50 people, the Lodge shows are starting off bare-bones with just stand-up, but Ortiz says the crew hopes to bring back its popular variety and character shows.

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Sarah Perry, host and comedian at Laugh Factory, says recent unrest, combined with looting and the pandemic, made it feel like comedy was never going to return. But once the Laugh Factory reopened August 1–with plexiglass everywhere, chairs spread six feet apart, and all the servers wearing face shields–comedy was back. She says the audience was timid at first but once she helped them loosen up, laughs were everywhere. “People that are here really want to be here and support live comedy,” Perry says. “People want to literally laugh at anything and talk about anything other than COVID.”

However, she says the pandemic inspired some of the best jokes she’s ever written, and yes, they include coronavirus-related material as well as a slew of personal experiences that made her new 15-minute set sing.

Zanies Comedy Night Club downtown also opened with only 50 seats and a heavy set list of nearly 30 shows for fall. The downtown club opened July 9 and the Rosemont location plans to open October 9, says Bert Haas, executive vice president of Zanies. He admits that booking shows at both clubs has been stressful and some comedians are still wary of performing in person, but he’s excited for several upcoming shows. Highlights include comedian JP Sears, rising stand-up comic Dan LaMorte, Ms. Pat, and the all-Spanish show by Nacho Redondo.

“We keep adding shows and hopefully we will get to seven days a week,” Haas says. “In times of stress and duress, people need comedy.” v

It’s OK to laugh againAriel Parrella-Aurelion September 29, 2020 at 3:30 pm Read More »

Rest in power to Chicago hip-hop’s first breakout artistLeor Galilon September 28, 2020 at 10:15 pm

As hip-hop culture spread throughout the U.S. in the late 80s and early 90s, a Miami-based UHF station called the Box helped it take root. The station was dedicated to music videos, and viewers could call in and request their favorites. As former Box executive John Robson told Thrillist in 2016, callers weren’t interested in the rock clips MTV prioritized: “We very rapidly became a channel that was dominated by hip-hop,” he said. According to Nelson George’s 1998 book Hip Hop America, by 1992 you could tune in to the Box in 36 states. And in 1991, a video from Chicago had made its way into the Box’s rotation: “No Typa Drugdeala,” credited to producer and DJ Quicksilver Cooley and rapper Black A.G.

“A.G. was one of the first guys to actually get a nice buzz here in the city–not even just in the city but a little outreach, without a major push,” says rapper Vakill (aka Donald Mason), who hit the Chicago scene in the 90s as a member of foundational underground hip-hop crew the Molemen. “At that time, that was pretty big, because nobody was actually doing that.”

In 1991, Chicago hip-hop didn’t have much of what you’d call a national profile. The following year, Twista, Common, and Ten Tray would drop their debut albums through big labels that distributed all over the country, but before Chicago hip-hop made that first big push, Black A.G. and Quicksilver Cooley got national exposure for the video of the B side of an independently released 12-inch single. That made “No Typa Drugdeala” a landmark and a source of inspiration. “It put a battery in my back,” Vakill says.

Black A.G., born Tim Poindexter, never repeated the crossover success of “No Typa Drugdeala,” but he continued rapping and recording, often with Quicksilver Cooley. A.G. was working on a comeback album when he died Sunday, September 6, at 51 years old.

A.G. grew up in Englewood near the intersection of 56th and Emerald. He first got hooked on hip-hop in the mid-80s, as a student at Hyde Park High School. “At Hyde Park, they was big into breakdancing–real big,” says childhood friend Keith Carson, who goes by KC. “He fell in love with it at Hyde Park–they’d go there, practice their skills, battle. He came back to the neighborhood and decided he wanted to start his own breakdancing group.” A.G. recruited KC and four other friends from the neighborhood to form the Soul Sonic Rockers.

“They used to just bring out the cardboard, man, and they’d have their windbreaker outfits, and they’d just go at it right there on 56th and Emerald,” says Spencer “Spoon” Hampton, another longtime friend. “It used to be a crowd back then–it was dope, man.”

The Soul Sonic Rockers mostly battled neighborhood breakers. One of their frequent opponents was a crew called TNT, whose members lived a block east of A.G., off 56th and Union; they included Quicksilver Cooley and a dancer known as Sirgio. “Everybody had their specialty, but A.G. shined at the top, because he could do windmills,” Sirgio says. “I would never tell some of his buddies, but they edged us out because of A.G.’s moves.”

The Soul Sonic Rockers came to an end in 1986, after A.G. enlisted in the Illinois Army Reserve National Guard. He returned home a year later, which is when he started making music with Quicksilver Cooley, who’d previously produced and DJed for pioneering Chicago rap collective O.Z. & the D.V.S. Crew–their 1985 “Right to Rock” 12-inch was one of the first local hip-hop releases on vinyl. “Cooley, he heard about A.G., and so we had him come over and do a couple lyrics,” Sirgio says. “We looked at each other and we said, ‘Wow, this dude’s pretty good.'” Sirgio’s dance crew, TNT, also tried their hands at rapping around then. “After I heard A.G., I kind of said to myself, ‘You better get better at your day job, because rapping is not going to be it.'”

KC says A.G. and Cooley moved to California for around a year and a half in the late 80s to try to break into the music business. At the time, A.G. rapped as Tim-Ski. While his friends were out west, KC moved to Philadelphia for college, where he could find underground rap cassettes that were hard to get in Chicago. A.G. and Cooley were back in town by the time KC returned in 1990, and he gave A.G. a mixtape that included Big Daddy Kane’s “Young, Gifted and Black,” which caught A.G.’s ear. “He was like, ‘I love that. Imma change my name ’cause I’m Black and gifted–so Imma change my name to Black A.G.,'” KC says.

In 1990, Poindexter dropped his debut as Black A.G., the cassingle “Straight Gangsta Mac,” which Cooley produced. From that point forward, they shared credits on most of their releases. “Him and Cooley is inseparable, man,” says Vakill. “Like Premier and Guru–you can’t say one without the other. Those are the legends.” After Black A.G. and Quicksilver Cooley dropped “Fame Goes to Your Head” b/w “No Typa Drugdeala” in 1991, they put out a joint full-length (1995’s Tell the Truth) and an EP (1996’s Paper Story), all on independent labels. They traveled to California, Atlanta, and Houston to network with stars in an attempt to boost their careers. “A.G. and Scarface is pretty good friends,” Spoon says. But that kind of big success didn’t rub off.

A.G. had begun to move into a mentorship role by the time he met Keith “Shawtbizle” Wiley in the late 90s–he wrote the hook for a Shawtbizle song called “Droppin Bombz.” “He was basically tooling us to start our careers,” Wiley says. “Once I was inspired to produce, I wound up going to SAE.” Wiley studied engineering and graduated in 2018.

Spoon says A.G. never stopped writing, even though his recordings and performances tapered off. Over the past decade, Spoon had been encouraging his friend to return to the mike. “I would not let him retire,” he says. “I used to always tell him he’s my favorite rapper of all time. I’d always tell him, ‘You got a gift, so even if you don’t make a dollar off of it, still release that gift to the world.'” To help A.G. do that, Spoon opened a Canaryville studio in the mid-2010s called Alien Audio Studios. That’s where A.G. met engineer and producer Dennis Moore in 2015.

“I originally was hired to do Black A.G.’s visuals,” Moore says. “The first thing we actually worked on was a visual, which was a track called ‘Damn!’ From there we developed a chemistry.” Moore admired A.G. for his intellect and spirituality, and A.G. clearly took a shine to Moore. “If you know A.G., he will call you two, three in the morning,” Moore says. “Just talking about life, God, and music.”

A.G. enlisted Moore to produce what he saw as his comeback album. He was still booking studio time in early September, and he had plans later in the month to meet up with Wiley to record. Moore and Spoon ended up releasing the album, titled Long Live Black A.G., on Friday, September 18, the day of his funeral.

“I would rank ‘No Typa Drugdeala’ in the top ten most important Chicago hip-hop songs, historically,” says Chad Sorenson, aka DJ Risky Bizness, an executive producer on the forthcoming documentary Midway: The Story of Chicago Hip-Hop. “It’s one of the most influential songs. Other people heard Black A.G., they knew he was from the neighborhood, they heard the quality, and they thought, ‘Oh, I could do that.'”

Sorenson and the Midway team interviewed A.G. a few years ago for the documentary. They managed to interview Cooley too, before he died in March 2019–thus preserving the voices of not one but two pivotal early players. “We lost a chunk of real Chicago hip-hop history, losing these guys,” Vakill says. “It sucks to lose them as early as we lost them.” v

Rest in power to Chicago hip-hop’s first breakout artistLeor Galilon September 28, 2020 at 10:15 pm Read More »