Patrick Sisson - Writer, Journalist, Cultural Documentarian, Music Lover

PATRICK SISSON

Enjoy the Experience

Feature
Nothing Major
April 19, 2013
Link

Lost albums and self-made musicians are profiled in a sprawling new book on DIY recordings.

SI-105-ENJOY-THE-EXPERIENCE-FRONT-COVER-_978-1-938265-04-4

As the ritual of hunting down limited-edition vinyl for Record Store Day begins, music fans can turn to a new book about private press recordings to see what limited really means. Enjoy The Experience: Homemade Records 1958-1992, the first release from the Sinecure Books imprint, compiles, catalogs, and exposes hundreds of private press records, a celebration of self-funded, small-batch sounds from the margins of the music world.

Assembled over three years from the collections of noted vinyl afficianados like Eothen Alapatt and Gregg Turkington, the profiles of these rare releases paint a portrait of self-starters and artistic misfits, from outsider folk trios to religious cult leaders, who had the drive to commit their visions to vinyl by themselves, before the days of Soundcloud and Bandcamp.

Editor, author, and collector Johan Kugelberg, who wrote the book with Paul Major and Michael P. Daley, says the attraction is “privately made records as an American vernacular.”

“I’ve been knee-deep in this stuff for over half my life to date,” he says. “I love this music and these people, so the ultimate art experience for me is the realization that what Paul Major coined as ‘real-people music’ is infinitely more rewarding than mass-produced music product.”
Read more…

The Comradery

Post
Nothing Major
March 25, 2013
Link

page.e37c0c48

Designers Erin Huizenga and Deborah Alden are the types that get invited for coffee to talk shop. Both also teach at schools like Northwestern and IIT Institute of Design and work with socially conscious organizations like Firebelly University (where Alden was Dean) and EPIC (which Huizenga founded). But their experience, and a jolt of caffeine, hasn’t always produced immediate answers, especially when questions came from mid-level designers looking to navigate to the next level of their career.

With their new design-centered educational organization, The Comradery, Huizenga and Alden decided to tap into community wisdom to provide answers to complex professional questions. Aiming to be an inclusive hub where students learn through participation, The Comradery plans to host classes focused on design thinking and leadership, starting with a kickoff event April 13, a design research workshop taught by IDEO’s Julka Almquist.

“We want to establish a culture of lifelong learning,” says Alden, “and doing things experientially.”

The upcoming workshop schedule suggests an interdisciplinary, professional approach: how to craft a compelling presentation by Dinesh Goburdhun, Associate Partner of Strategy at VSA Partners; entrepreneur Chris Finlay of Otabo discussing how to find the value of your business; and Alisa Wolfson, director of design at Leo Burnett, on finding inspiration in life and practice. By focusing on interdisciplinary topics and leadership, the learning experiences won’t just be relevant for designers, says Alden, but will benefit anyone interested in creative processes.

“The thing about a place like IDEO is, they aren’t all designers by trade, they become designers by using the process,” says Alden. “To me, the design process is a way of thinking laterally and asking the right questions. It can be mystical to people, and we want to pull back the curtains.”

Pencil to Pixel

Post
Nothing Major
March 25, 2013
Link

pencilpixel

Even in the age of streaming video, the vast majority of the information we consume online is in the form of type. While sophisticated typography may be a given in an era of web fonts, a new exhibition from famed font and imaging firm Monotype showcases the painstaking artistry behind the classic typefaces we see on screens everyday.

“Pencil to Pixel,” which runs May 3-9 at New York’s Tribeca Skyline Studio, connects historic, handcrafted fonts and hot metal typesetting to the contemporary type displayed on handheld devices. More than a century of artifacts drawn from the Monotype’s archives in Salfords, UK, will be part of this rare display, including drawings by Eric Gill, creator of Gill Sans, production pieces from Helvetica, original drawings of Times New Roman commissioned for The Times of London, as well as concept art, photos, and metal and film masters. It helps “tell a story about how the design of typefaces is informed, constrained, and even enhanced by technology” according to Monotype type director Dan Rhatigan.

“It’s an opportunity to see the hand of the author,” says James Fooks-Bale, Monotype’s director of marketing, who helped curate the exhibit. “A lot of designers are familiar with the tick-down menu in Adobe and aren’t familiar with the fact that it came from someone’s hand. Consider that in Salfords alone, the original Monotype plant built in 1897, there were once 1,000 people at work designing typefaces. The precision engineering apprenticeships there were considered second only to Rolls Royce.”

New Trends in Mobile Design

Article/Interview
Nothing Major
March 25, 2013
Link

timoni

The chances are good that you’re reading this article on your smart phone. It shouldn’t be news that, increasingly, mobile design is synonymous with web design. But while the ability to read anything anywhere isn’t noteworthy anymore, the new ways that designers shape and deliver content—from a new gesture-based app, or a responsive news site that shifts to fit the device, to an interface with flat fields of content you control with the swipe of a finger—all showcase a new series of design solutions and innovations.

“People are reinventing the standard all the time,” says Nick Disabato, who runs a freelance interaction design consultancy in Chicago.

Nothing Major spoke with Disabato, also the editor of the Distance design quarterly journal and author of Cadence & Slang, and Timoni West, a designer at Foursquare, about how design is evolving in response to the challenges, constraints, and characteristics of the mobile space.
Read more…

Unbranded Designs

Article/Interview
Nothing Major
February 27, 2013
Link

ISACHAIR

Early last year, Unbranded Designs co-founder Sameer Dohadwala thought it would be easy to build his own custom desk. After a process he jokes was a miserable failure—all that was left were Home Depot receipts and a “pile of wood and broken dreams”—he sought out independent designers to help finish the job. That’s when he had an epiphany. With co-founders Samer Saab and Max Greenblatt, he could create a better way to bring well-designed furniture to the masses.

That spark led to Unbranded Designs, a new online design community and furniture manufacturing concern in Chicago. Dohadwala met with independent designers and found that most had amazing prototypes and renderings in their studios, unrealized and unseen by the masses. “Their work was much more interesting than the mass-designed pieces we had been looking at,” said Dohadwala. “I wanted all of them in my apartment.”

Read more…

Getting to Know Rainbo Club Through Its Regulars

Article/Interview
Eater.com
October 2012
Link

GavinMorrison-Ken-Ellis

There are neighborhood bars—somewhere you don’t have to work to get a seat or the bartender’s attention, a dive that you like in a non-ironic way. And then there are bars that define a neighborhood. While the personality of Wicker Park seems malleable, as aspiring hotspots dilute the bohemian character that brought the area attention, it’s probably a safe bet that the role of local fixture will be played by the Rainbo Club, a shot-and-a-beer saloon on Damen at Division, for the foreseeable future.

Rainbo’s current incarnation started in October 1985. After past lives as both a polka bar and a watering hole in the Wicker Park of author Nelson Algren, the building was bought that year by Dee Taira and her partner, Gavin Morrison. The sprawling wooden bar, small white stage and red-vinyl booths have been maintained pretty much as purchased.

What changed was the clientele and staff, increasingly more artsy by demographics—as the ethnically diverse neighborhood became populated by artists, musicians and hipsters, and spots like the now-shuttered café Urbis Orbis—and by design, as ownership made it a point to support those artists with jobs and use the Rainbo’s walls as gallery space. In ’90s, the bar was a scene, a frequent hangout for local rock bands and musicians such as Urge Overkill, Tortoise and Liz Phair (the famous Exile in Guyville cover was taken in the Rainbo’s photo booth), and a fixture in the area’s social life. Here to tell the bar’s story are Taira, Phair and some key players from over the years.
Read more…

Getting to Know Miller’s Pub Through its Regulars

Article/Interview
Eater.com
June 2012
Link

Millers-Pub-original

In a city of divided loyalties, a bar that counted both Cubs announcer Harry Caray and White Sox owner Bill Veeck as regulars must be on to something. Miller’s Pub, a longtime Loop fixture at 134 S. Wabash, has the warm patina of Old Chicago, with a wooden bar worn like a pilgrim’s idol, celeb snapshots everywhere and street signs from the intersections of Wrigley, Comiskey and the old Chicago Stadium on its walls. It speaks to the cross-section of patrons the bar attracts. Though, for those baseball fans keeping score, the technically south side bar and restaurant does dedicate the end of the bar to the memory of Mr. Veeck.

The bar’s location and late hours — favorable for the Loop business crowd, guests and celebs staying at the Palmer House, and downtown theater goers — proved fortuitous. The brothers expanded and opened two additional businesses downtown, Wabash Inn and Vannie’s. When a fire in 1989 caused smoke damage to the original Miller’s location, the brothers moved the bar to Vannie’s, which is now where the flagship business resides. Currently, Andy Gallios, Vannie’s son, as well as his cousin, Aris Gallios, run the business. Here to tell the story are Vannie Gallios, the only surviving brother, and some key players from over the years.
Read more…

Getting to Know the Hopleaf Through its Regulars

Article/Interview
Eater.com
April 2012
Link

Hopleaf-exterior-500
Photo by Grant Kessler

For many Chicagoans, their love affair with Belgian beer was first consummated at the Hopleaf, the Andersonville beer mecca started by husband-and-wife owners Michael Roper and Louise Molnar. Named after a brew from Malta, the origin of those red hopleaf signs decorating the bar, this Far North Side venue has introduced drinkers to microbrews, rare imports and, somewhat more recently, Belgian-inspired food, for two decades. Frequently praised as one of the country’s foremost beer bars, the Hopleaf is close to revealing an expansion, which will bring total indoor seating to about 275.

But at the beginning, things were a bit more modest. Roper moved to Chicago in 1982 from Detroit after his previous bar, the New Miami, was firebombed. He worked a variety of jobs and bar shifts, always looking for the chance to run a bar again. It came in 1991 when Clark-Foster Liquors (also known as Hans’) became available. Located on the eponymous corner of the Swedish neighborhood, the bar was previously owned by Hans Gottling, a neighborhood fixture who supposedly introduced the area to glogg. It was a fixer-upper; a lot of work happened before the first iteration of the Hopleaf opened in November 1992. Here to tell the story are Roper and some key players from over the years.
Read more…

Event Horizon: Interview with Michael Rother of Neu!

Feature
Wax Poetics
Issue 48
Link

i48-Cover-300x428

Always honored to have a piece in Wax Poetics. My interview with Michael Rother is in the latest issue — buy it where they still sell printed materials now.

Famous chefs’ first jobs: Before they earned Michelin Stars or hosted TV shows, here’s how 11 famous food personalities kicked off their culinary careers

Article
Metromix
January 2011
Link

guyfieri

Whether it’s fast-food purgatory or a brainless post on the retail frontlines, your first job tends to be a not-so-glamorous introduction to the working world. While the source of your first paycheck probably isn’t occupying prime space on your resume, for some it’s an unlikely start on a winding career path, especially if it’s your passion. For many of the biggest chefs in the country, their first kitchen jobs got them hooked. Whether it was through entrepreneurial endeavors, such as Guy Fieri’s childhood pretzel stand (pictured), or by accident, here are the stories of how 11 culinary superstars entered the ring.

Paula Deen

The doyenne of Southern food is known for her satisfying home cooking, so it’s not shocking she discovered her calling serving up simple, straightforward meals to the public. Before she started her famous restaurant, The Lady and Sons in Savannah, Ga., Deen ran the Bag Lady delivery service in town with her two sons, Jamie and Bobby. She’d prepare brown-bag meals with dishes like chicken salad and include muffins and cookies. Her sons would then sell them all around downtown.

Tom Colicchio

The “Top Chef” judge and Craft owner recently impressed contestants during a Quickfire challenge on the cooking reality show, completing a full dish in under nine minutes. It was a none-too-subtle reminder of Colicchio’s well-honed skills, which he began to develop working around his hometown of Elizabeth, N.J. In addition to helping out his uncle, who sold fruits and vegetables, he also worked as a short-order snack-bar cook at the Gran Centurion swim club. According to the book “Super Chef,” he was getting paid $250 a week under the table to work the stove and whip up dishes like grilled cheese and grilled sausages. It’s a long way from the premium cuts of meat so artfully served at his high-end restaurants, which include Colicchio & Sons and the recently opened Riverpark.
Read more…

Older Posts
Newer Posts
© 2025 PATRICK SISSON | Writer and reporter