“What’s this? This car? This stupid car?” John Belushi’s Joliet Jake demands, early in “The Blues Brothers,” having just been picked up from prison in a beat-up old cop car by his brother Elwood. “Where’s the Cadillac? The Caddy. Where’s the Caddy? The Bluesmobile.”
“I traded it,” Elwood says tersely.
“You traded the Bluesmobile for this?” Jake says, aghast.
“No, for a microphone,” says Elwood.
“A microphone?” Jake replies, incredulous. Then he pauses to think. “OK,” he concludes. “I can see that.”
Of course he can. Microphones are important. And cool. And Chicago. The nation’s preeminent microphone company, Shure, has been based here for 99 years. Under the radar, since microphones are the unsung heroes of the electronic age. Even though every phone call you make, every note of every song you hear, every desperate demand put to Alexa, is conveyed through a microphone. They matter.
Thus is it made me wince to see another important, cool and very Chicago icon, urban historian Shermann Dilla Thomas, do his TikTok videos holding this tiny little microphone between his thumb and forefinger, like a man about to pop a peanut into his mouth. Sometimes it was just the wire from earbuds. Thomas is 6-foot-5. The microphone looked dinky.
I said nothing. For months. Shutting up is an art form that requires practice. People don’t take criticism well, no matter how nicely couched. I’ll read a colleague’s story and think, The lede is in the sixth graf. But say nothing. There’s no point. The story’s printed. They wouldn’t fix it; they’d just hate me.
But Thomas’ work is ongoing. And he obviously cares about what he does. So how could I sit here, silently judging him, with the solution at hand? I had to make an effort. First I reached out to the Shure folks and acquainted them with the situation. They nodded happily. Then I messaged Dilla. “I hope I’m not being presumptuous,” I began. “But lately, watching your videos, I had an odd thought, ‘He needs a better microphone....’”
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For the record S.D. Thomas also provides live tours of Chicago's many neighborhoods using motor coaches and other transport.
ReplyDeleteSomeone with a lot of good things to say.
Dilla rocks, this is so cool!
ReplyDeleteShure is a Chicago icon?
ReplyDeleteThey were in Evanston & now Niles.
And Mike Royko lived in Wilmette.
DeleteBut he grew up in Chicago & lived in the city most of his life!
DeleteA mite fussy, Clark Street. 60 some years ago, when I was in boot camp in San Diego, a fellow seaman apprentice identified himself as a Chicagoan and upon my questions as to where in Chicago he came from, he told me, "Arlington Heights." At that time, Arlington Heights could have been in Wisconsin for all I knew, but I thought "close enough," and considered him a home boy for the duration. I believe Shure is on Touhy (I once applied for a job there) and if you drive West from the Lake to Harlem, you go in and out of Chicago a half dozen times, I believe. If Shure wants to share in and contribute to the ambience of the great City of Chicago, more power to it.
Deletejohn
Yeah...I remember their big complex on Howard Street, west of California Ave. Big art deco building with SHURE on the face of it.
DeleteYou could also see the company as you rattled by on the Skokie Swift, now known as the Yellow Line. Later generations of Jewish kids called it the Yom Kippur Clipper and the Rosh Hashana Rocket.
So what's there now? Google Earth indicates an enormous parking lot for a Target...and a Nissan dealership. Face it, dude...too much of the Chicago we both knew has either already gone away or is vanishing before our tired old eyes. The only constant is change. It sucks...but it's the way of the world.
I dont think that true. at least not for the majority of his life
DeleteShure seems to have been located in Chicago from its founding in 1925 until 1956. And it's not like Evanston and Niles are distant exurbs. "Chicago icon" works for me. That being said, Royko living in Winnetka for 5 years isn't a particularly apt analogy.
DeleteShure was never on Howard, they were on Hartrey, north of the Target store. Before Target, that was Bell & Howell after they moved from Lincolnwood, but the huge Howard St. building, which was almost a quarter mile long was built for Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Co., which at the time owned the True Value Hardware brand. After HSB moved out & sold the True Value name to Cotter & Co, Air Force intelligence [a classic contradiction in terms] occupied part of the building.
DeleteClark St., I would admire your encyclopedic knowledge of Northside geography, if you would only lay off the gratuitous insults.
Deletejohn
I moved from Evanston to Cleveland in the summer of 1992, and I don't get back to Chicago as much as I used to. Thanks for catching me up.
DeleteWhat "gratuitous insult?"
DeleteOne step closer to your shared history podcast!!!
ReplyDeleteGood article and thanks for the info on a blogger to follow
ReplyDeleteThanks - nice story, good work. I’ve long been curious about Shure's HQ building’s location, so maybe this is the thread where my curiosity can be satisfied: how is it possible to do world-class audio work in building that’s right next to the Metra train tracks? Judging from the Thompson Center, when it comes to architectural acoustics, Jahn doesn't have a stellar track record (no pun intended).
ReplyDeleteThis, is fantastic. Every word of it.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to buy a Shure microphone now.
Let's not forget Shure phonograph cartridges, providing sound quality from vinyl still unmatched by digital.
ReplyDeleteInteresting.
ReplyDeleteI'm an editor for a major broadcast network, and I just received a "package" (hip producer slang for story) where the talent, a young and probably inexperienced Productin Assistant, was doing "man on the street" interviews...WITH A GODDAMNED peanut-sized lavalier microphone.
It looks so stupid, so shitty, so not-professional. Oy, it's no wonder I have virtually no respect for most "producers".
And we've interviewed Dilla. Great man, he, full of knowledge you won't get from your average historian.
ReplyDeleteThough in general, I have way more respect for historians than producers...
Looking forward to hear the more mellifluous monologues of Dilla. I thought the little mic was funny looking but sounded sufficient.
ReplyDelete