THICK OIL, day ten - Rise Against

"Driving from Thick Records HQ in the North Side Ukrainian Village neighborhood to the Oil Factory on the South Side takes about 30 minutes today due to heavy traffic. The usual trip about 20 minutes. Every band that has come in for OIL has at least mentioned the drive and the neighborhoods you pass through on the way. One of the most drastic changes comes at 19th and Kedzie, where The West Side becomes Little Village. The West Side must be 90% African American with Little Village being 90% Mexican. The border, 19th Avenue appears to be strict. It is a drastic change between the two ethnicities. A change more apparent than any of the neighborhood borders in Chicago, and believe me there are many. Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in the country. Once past Little Village you enter the a massive industrial corridor comprised of train yards, shipping routes along the river, factories, and our temporary studio."
Thus begins the tenth in a series of journal entries by THICK Records kingpin Billy Spunke documenting his label's newest compilation, "OIL". To read the full entry, click on READ MORE, to see pictures from the sessions click here, and keep coming back here every day for the latest installment.

Driving from Thick Records HQ in the North Side Ukrainian Village neighborhood to the Oil Factory on the South Side takes about 30 minutes today due to heavy traffic. The usual trip about 20 minutes. Every band that has come in for OIL has at least mentioned the drive and the neighborhoods you pass through on the way. One of the most drastic changes comes at 19th and Kedzie, where The West Side becomes Little Village. The West Side must be 90% African American with Little Village being 90% Mexican. The border, 19th Avenue appears to be strict. It is a drastic change between the two ethnicities. A change more apparent than any of the neighborhood borders in Chicago, and believe me there are many. Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in the country. Once past Little Village you enter the a massive industrial corridor comprised of train yards, shipping routes along the river, factories, and our temporary studio.

Rise Against, as it turns out, would break the record for the fastest session to date, just beating Local H by a mere 30 minutes. Word up to The Scullies! The most amazing and noteworthy section of an overall extremely smooth session is the delivery of Tims’ vocals. Now Tim stands on a short and thin frame, but the voice that lifts out of his lungs is bigger than a body twice his size, or so it seems. I stand near the opening of the control room to the recording space and watch as Tim stands alone in the huge room with a lone light shining directly down on him. I expect to hear a voice come barrelling out of him and bouncing off all walls, but to my surprise the screams that resonate around us are relatively small. I learn that Tim has mastered the sound of his voice. He creates an illusion of major amplitude by simply using inflection. Amazing! Where I thought he was ripping his vocal chords to shreds, he is actually just making the sound of it.

The entire session is done and we stand around and talk about the other sessions and the factory itself. Our factory man himself, Pat Kay appears and says that some nights if you are very, very quiet, you can hear the sound of something "dripping". "The sound of The Bootleggers Blood". Over the last two weeks Pat has made subtle references to "an incident in the basement", that he does not want to talk about. Is the factory haunted? Maybe. The other night, during Haymarket Riots’ session we had an unexplained surge of power through the sound system. I immediately thought a satellite, plane or truck with a massive communication system passed close by. Lance started talking about spirits trying to communicate with the living through electronics being common. That night we all remained very spooked out. Tonight we entertain Chicago’s newest addition to the underground, The Ghost. Stay tuned….Bwahahahahaha….