The Quaker Is Dead. Long Live The Quaker
(click on the image below to view the website)
The Quaker Goes Deaf, "Chicago's most DANGEROUS record store", opened for business on the morning of May 19, 1995 and closed 1864 days, 3 floods, and some $2-million-of-music-sales later on Sunday, June 25, 2000.
It's founders were:
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| Charlie Edwards |
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Elisa Keir |
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Mark Swindle |
And some of the supercool, amazing people who worked there are:
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| Julie Anthony |
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Jennifer Siegel
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Ray Rodriguez |
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| Jason Walker |
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Julie Roberts
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Geoff Albores |
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| Randy Lancelot |
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Allie Young
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John Woosley |
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| Mike Butkovich |
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Tom Moran
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Phillip Hertz |
And those without mugshots:
- August Dooley
- Chad Verrill
- Jacob Ross
- and others...
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Julie Anthony came hotrodding in from hell (Kansas); Ray was found in a hotdog stand across the border in Hoosierville; Geoff later made his way to NYC; Jason sells real estate now, but is still one of the coolest cats in Chicago; Julie Roberts is transforming into belly dancer extraordinaire; Jennifer came from a Pavement tour and before that Miami; John Woosley from interstellar space; August arrived in September; Chad came from - then returned to - someplace called "M'aine"; Randy continues doing sound and wearing thick black glasses; Allie heads a consortium established to subsidize the piercing and tattoo industries; Mike plots world domination from Aurora; Tom goes incognito as The Mad Jesuit; and Phillip plays a lot of volleyball ... Charlie, of course, was previously employed as a model for Quaker Oats (and rumored to have been involved in the retail music industry for 20 years); Elisa was a political exile from Idaho; and Mark was fresh out of a stint doing drawings of diseased body parts.
This is what the place looked like after the Wood-Elves-On-Crack (like Erik Newman, Marcello) threw a bunch of boards and old pipes together in about half the time it takes a overaged bull elephant to drag its ass end across a carpeted hotel lobby ...
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Reckless Records, the record store with an Attitude, tried to keep us from opening with a threat of court action, but we told them to...uh...well, you, know, sorta...fuck off. We decided to geek out and be nice to our customers, a far-fetched idea based on the hopes that we could take our enthusiasm for all the indie label and import bands we were trying to sell the hell out of and pass it on to the people who came through the doors. Until midnight. 6 days a week. 363 days per year.
...except when water came through the ceiling. We love Bob Berger AND his Fat Henchman (even more than we love Reckless). He really helped us out with the plumbing problems up above - the incredible NonStop Overflowing Toilet (not once, but twice!), and The Worker Who Decided To Open Up The Sprinkler System Like A Barber Bleeding A Patient! But what can be expected from a pathological liar and former federal prison inmate - and from someone who is so obviously deranged? His hand-wringing, sincere apologies, and complete failure to provide any compensatory aid surely helped us to bounce back from these setbacks like a rocket-powered pogo stick.
This is what the place looked like after our consolidated payback for 10,000 years of karmic transgresssions...
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Not having on hand the resources of a Virgin Megastore, nor the shady below-cost pricing skills of a Best Buy, we provided free in-store sauna services (to complement our free ins-store performances) the first summer of operation. Deranged from the heat and flushed with our market-cornering powers, the 3 Capitalist Pig founders got primo dibs on the excess heat from the Killer Heat Waves from high in their Control Tower at the back of the store, stealing most of the heat from the Exploited Workers in the cooler regions below. We then took our watery runoff (aka "sweat"), collected it in a gutter-and-downspout system, and sold it to Hinckley Schmitt, who then passed it on to the corporate offices of the aforementioned competitors. The salt was used on carryout food from all the local businesses we spent our outrageous profits on...
Some of the in-stores we had over the years included...
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- Acid King
- Bardo Pond
- Bevis Frond
- Bobby Conn
- Bollweevils
- Butterfly Child
- Come
- Cornershop
- Danko Jones
- Drugstore
- Dead Steelmill
- Eugene Chadbourne
- Fang
- Fells
- Fu Manchu
- Geezers
- Geraldine Fibbers
- Hatewave
- Robyn Hitchcock
- Insomniacs
- Kingsize
- Lucifer
- Chris Knox
- Low
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- Melvins
- Mitch Mitchell (of GBV)
- Motorhome
- Murder City Devils
- Par Crone
- Phoenix Thunderstone
- Pulsars
- Quadrajets
- Reatards
- REO Speedealer
- Reservoir
- Run On
- Scorn
- 68 Comeback
- Soul Coughing
- Splash!
- SugarSmack
- Tarwater
- Trailer Hitch
- Usurper
- Valentine Six
- Wendy & Carl
- Wicker Man
- You Fantastic
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Charlie's Angels on the lookout for fiends who listen to music at the Quaker, then go to Best Buy to save a dollar. Thrifty. Smart. Deadmeat. | | 
International powerbroker/woman of mystery/Quaker rep on the NASDAQ, Emma L. |
Some of the Quaker ads that appeared through the years...
(TO BE CONTINUED)
Any commentary, antecdotes, archival footage, trust fund excess, or biting satire, or whatever is welcome at
The Quaker Goes Historical
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