We're seeking new members for our 2025 Board of Directors, as well as our founding Associate Board for young professionals 35 and under. Details and application at each of the links above.
The CHIRP Blog
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesThe Future of Bars in Chicago
CHIRP Radio's Citations presents interesting and informative content about Chicago or music (or both) from around the Web.
The Coronavirus pandemic has affected the lives of every person in America and will have lasting impact on many livelihoods. In the May 14th edition of the long-running Chicago-based broadcast/podcast This Is Hell, host Chuck Mertz talks to Michael Roper, owner of the venerable northside bar Hopleaf, about how his business is doing as well as the severe and possibly permanent changes happening to the independent bar and restaurant industries in Chicago.
CHIRP Radio writesIn Rotation: Wendigo Woods
The Delta Flood Prophet, the new self-released album from Chicago artist Wendigo Woods, is in rotation on 107.1 FM CHIRP Radio!
Jessi D writesCHIRP Radio Shelter In Sound Presents: Smashed Plastic
Like you, the CHIRP Features team is staying home to help flatten the curve! We are shifting our programming to present a new series in our Artist Interview Program.
Shelter In Sound features interviews with artists and local music related tastemakers on what they are doing right now during this global pandemic. Tune in to learn how some of your favorite folx are managing and staying creative while hunkered down.
In this edition, Features Co-Director Jessi D spoke with Andy Weber, one of the founding members of Smashed Plastic. They discuss the founding of his vinyl pressing plant in 2018 and how the pandemic has affected his industry, the trends he's seeing in how music is consumed, and the quirks of the Chicago music scene. This podcast features tracks from local artists ROOKIE, Mute Duo, and Impulsive Hearts, who have all had records pressed at Smashed Plastic.
Produced by Jessi D
CHIRP Radio writesIn Rotation: Retirement Party
Runaway Dog, the new album from Chicago band Retirement Party, is out on Counter Intuative Records and is in rotation on 107.1 FM CHIRP Radio!
Beatnik writesThe Songs That Get You Through: “Where The Streets Have No Name” by U2
These are obviously strange times we are living in, so we asked some of our CHIRP volunteers to tell us about a particular song they like to listen to when things are tough. We're calling it, "The Songs That Get You Through."
Today, we hear from CHIRP partnerships coordinator Bradley Morgan:
I am a dreamer, so I have pretty big dreams about the world and my place in it. I am also an Irish citizen, a heritage with no shortage of big dreamers. So I feel a special kinship with Bono. He wrote “Where the Streets Have No Name” after visiting Ethiopia and it is there he had an epiphany about classism in the Western world. This idea that where you live determines your worth and whether you live or die. In America, block by block, the marginalized are relegated to their corners and the privileged to their own. That is an unjust way to live. "Where The Streets Have No Name" represents an idealized world, one to strive for where class lines cannot be drawn on a map. A world that guarantees equal access to food, housing security, and the right to not be murdered by police. That is the world I want to live in and am striving for. COVID-19 has further highlighted the vast inequities that exist in America. But it also has emboldened the dreamers to step up and tear down the invisible walls that divide us and make the rich richer while the poor get poorer.
“Where The Streets Have No Name” gets me through difficult times because it reinforces the responsibility I have to help make this world more just for all.
