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joesepi wrote:Once played a rock show in the basement of a record store/skate shop. It was fun.

R.F.F. wrote:Also, my last year there, Denny Hasert's son opened up a decent punk record shop named Seven Dead Arson. I wonder if it's still around.

That's the place. Don't know if it still exists, but it was fun to play a rock show in their basement. Hope they are still operating.

johnB wrote:

R.F.F. wrote:Also, my last year there, Denny Hasert's son opened up a decent punk record shop named Seven Dead Arson. I wonder if it's still around.

That store closed a few years ago (2000, 2001 perhaps) and last I heard Josh Hastert is lobbying in DC somewhere

So sad to be the son of Denny Hasert. I wonder what he's lobbying for anyways? He didn't look the part of your typical lobbyist (tatoos/piercing).

And...here's Otto's.

Jam bands aside- Otto's was the best place for live music. I'm suddenly missing college.

The area we liked the most was right around Lincoln, either just north or just south anywhere from one to 5 or 6 blocks or so, mostly in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh street range. There's a fricken *awesome* looking house right near Lincoln and Park Av. There's a Shell station right on that corner... and so I'm wondering, all of these beautiful old houses (many circa the late 1800's), are they in a neighborhood that is just madness and totally overrun with drunken partying kids once school is in session?

scott wrote:The area we liked the most was right around Lincoln, either just north or just south anywhere from one to 5 or 6 blocks or so, mostly in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh street range. There's a fricken *awesome* looking house right near Lincoln and Park Av. There's a Shell station right on that corner... and so I'm wondering, all of these beautiful old houses (many circa the late 1800's), are they in a neighborhood that is just madness and totally overrun with drunken partying kids once school is in session?

If it's the part of town that I'm thinking of (just east of the college area), when I went there that was were the artsy kids and bible thumpers lived. Somehow, they managed to peacefully co-exist in a rare DeKalb vortex. It was pretty decent and not over run with meatheads or hippies.

R.F.F. wrote:So sad to be the son of Denny Hasert. I wonder what he's lobbying for anyways? He didn't look the part of your typical lobbyist (tatoos/piercing).

Believe it

johnB wrote:

R.F.F. wrote:So sad to be the son of Denny Hasert. I wonder what he's lobbying for anyways? He didn't look the part of your typical lobbyist (tatoos/piercing).

Believe it

What a slimy little fucker! That's the guy that hooked us up with the show and was all punk rock and shit. What juice bag! I need to go wash my hands.

I've been to DeKalb a few times, and like it quite a bit. My band's booking agent lives there, and introduced us to a pretty talented and prolific group of indie rock kids in town, college aged to late-20's. For better or worse we've also called this, "the most twee town in America", as the scene there seems way into the Calvin Johnson, Olympia, K, Phil Elverum, 4-track cassette aesthetic. But they mean it, aren't pretentious about it, and generally smart, fun people.

And yeah, my band played the House all 3x we were there. Cool venue, kids seems to come out, and b/c there're a few promoters in town now, it seems more and more bands are stopping by DeKalb.

I guess how much you'd enjoy living here depends on your tolerance for a small college town surrounded my corn.

Ollies Frozen Custard on Sycamore.
Also Dekalb is the hometown of Cindy Crawford.
Otherwise Dekalb has an amazing dearth of places to eat for a college town.

Lived in or near there for 20 years and my parents still live there. I think most of it has been said. Here's a couple places worth checking out:

Record Revolution - best indie record shop in town
Duck Soup Co-op- natural/organic food mentioned previously
I second Ollie's
Pizza Villa

Shabbona Lake Sate Park- 15 miles away and nice place to get away and enjoy nature

Traffic in DeKalb is not an issue. There are good Mexican hole in the wall type places as well as a Thai restaurant my friend swears is great.

R.F.F. wrote:http://www.laingmanagement.com

This name is so funny to me. Charlie Laing (of Laing Management) is a decent guy. He built the house (Evans Scholar House) that I lived in for 4 years in DeKalb. Whenever we had any trouble, he'd send somebody over to fix a leak, plunge a toilet, etc for free. He even used to plow our parking lot for free! Then some ass sent him a bill for the basketball pole that he broke while plowing our parking lot. He stopped doing free stuff for us after that. For some strange reason, I just became very excited seeing his website. It must have brought back some repressed memories or something. Salut Charlie Laing of Laing Management!

So sorry to pass on the bad news...

Plane Crashes in North Georgia, Kills 1

and about the Evans Scholar House...

23. Northern Illinois University
Evans Scholars and Pi Kappa Alpha
Retaliation action resulting in death

With alcohol a factor, Louis Carfagnini dropped a cinder block from a rooftop and killed a fellow student, Brian White. The irresponsible act was apparently motivated by some fraternity members' beating of Carfagnini. Carafagnini profusely apologized to the victim's family during sentencing for his crime.

I lived in the aforementioned, east-of-campus area during my 2 years there. It was mainly inhabited by angry lesbians, hippies, junkies, and Calvin Johnson worshippers. Otto's is a great place to see a show, too bad there's never any one worth seeing play there (Mr. Blotto, Underwater ppl, etc.). My girlfriend at the time worked at the House and is a cool place to hang out. It is now owned by Fareed Haque, so I don't know how that has affected bookings.