On the hill up the South Side live the elite. They’re hyper-boring yet they’ve got the ear of touring indie bands, and vice versa. Bands you hear on college radio (sometimes even the behind-the-times College on the Hill station) can breeze into town and play gigs on campus to a handful of too-hip-for-town disaffected sophomores, then zip away before the rest of the city even knew they were here.
The local band scene has always been a world apart from what happens on the hill. The first local club of renown, on the west side of town, was Ellie’s Plain Food (no jokes please, they’ve all been made), a downhome diner which was convinced to allow live music on Saturday nights. Fortunate Fields has entered legend as the first band to play Ellie’s. Within weeks of the Saturday bookings, Ellie’s Plain Food had enlisted a Thursday house band, a proto-New Wave combo called I Love the Blast.

This is where the real people played. The gods on the hill saw this, and approved, and sent representatives, and before anyone could stop it there was a town/gown scene.

Airport Mystery tonight at The Bullfinch, with Melted Coins… Crisscross Shadow, featuring Sky Sabotage, at Hamilton’s, for two sets… Metal onslaught at D’ollaire’s with Demon’s Den, Program for Destruction and Racing to Disaster…