An incomplete history of Chicago punk rock (vol. 23)

Posted on 3 September 2008 | No Comments

Filed Under: Chicago Punk

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Can you even believe that I haven’t posted anything in this series since December of last year? I’ve been seriously slacking here. I can hear all of you asking now, “What brought this out of dormancy?” Well, I (first) got an email, then a letter and two tapes. Let me explain…

Back in October of 2006 I posted the five songs from the totally-obscure and out of print original Skokie demo tape. Skokie featured Roy & Dale from the ska-punk band the Eclectics and existed during 1997 and 1998 but that’s about it. I thought they put out the one tape until I got an email from Kevin (who played guitar for Skokie) asking if I’d be willing to digitize the rest of the Skokie catalog. “Hell yes!” is a pretty good approximation of my reply.

So a month or two later I got a letter from Kevin (who now lives in Columbus, OH) and an envelope with tapes containing a total of nine songs from recording sessions at Sonic Iguana in 1998. In his letter he stated that Skokie’s lineup on these songs was Kevin: guitar, Dylan: bass, Eric: guitar, Tony: drums, and Roy: vocals. Kevin also said that (aside from “Skokie”) he didn’t even remember any of the song names from the October 1998 session, so I just made up the titles based on what I could understand of the lyrics. If there are any Skokie aficionados out there that might know better, I’m all ears.

Due to the nature of the source tapes the quality is questionable at best. Just like Skokie was. Special thanks to Kevin.