Reader on Mopery DVD

From the Chicago Reader

Crickets / Music

The Mopery RIP on DVD

Posted by Miles Raymer on Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 3:49 PM

For the couple of years it existed, the Mopery was an oasis of unkempt, wild-eyed, art-damaged DIY punkitude in rapidly yuppifying Logan Square. A vast and scruffy loft hidden above a nondescript neighborhood grocery store, it hosted a handful of tent-dwelling residents and an impressively packed schedule of visiting musical acts, many of them on the punk/noise/sludge axis.

Despite the sometimes aggressive amount of weirdness on display (see the aforementioned people living in tents), the Mopery was pretty widely beloved, and the venue's final show last August brought out a crowd that filled pretty much every square foot of it, extended down the lengthy flight of stairs leading up to it, and spilled out onto the street. The air was a dense miasma of sweat and smoke, compounded by the considerable background humidity of a late-summer Chicago night, and though I was only there for a little while I walked out completely drenched.

The event featured 13 Mopery favorites providing the soundtrack to the loft's sendoff, including Loose Dudes, Paper Mice, and Mark Solotroff. One attendee, Victor Spatafora, brought along what the blog Gonzo Chicago refers to as "a completely ridiculous" high-def video camera to document the action. Spatafora has recently put out a DVD of his footage for anyone looking to relive (or piece together memories of) that night.

Copies of the DVD are available at Reckless for six dollars, or through Gonzo Chicago for a suggested donation of five (e-mail hotmetaldobermans@gmail.com).