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Friday, Jan 20, 2012 - Posted by Rich Miller

* My old friend Tom Irwin made the cover of the Illinois Times this week…

To call Tom Irwin a fixture on the Springfield music scene would be something of an understatement. Beginning in the mid-1970s as a bass player and eventual frontman for various local rock bands, straight through to his present status as an accomplished songwriter and bandleader, Irwin has been a popular draw in local clubs since before he could legally drink in them. He has performed virtually every Sunday night in Springfield since the 1980s at a series of different venues, with his current weekly residency at Brewhaus stretching back to 1993. Now, after years of personal and career highs and lows, including occasional layoffs and wholesale musical reinventions, Irwin, the longtime music columnist for Illinois Times, has just released the most ambitious and accessible music of his career.

* Tom also mentioned yours truly in his weekly Illinois Times column…

Sunday came and went with a rocking show at the Brewhaus until well past midnight. The crowd was good, with the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday on Monday becoming a buffer for regular working folks to beat the aforementioned schedule switch. A highlight of the night was seeing fellow IT columnist Rich Miller dancing to Bongo, Bongo, Bongo with all the gusto he could muster, which can be a bunch.

I’ve been dancing to that song for twenty years, especially for the last minute or so when it kicks into high gear…

Meanwhile, back in the jungle

You can see some live videos of Tom at the IT’s YouTube site.

* But we’re not going to close out our week with Tom’s song because Etta James has died.

Ms. James embraced songs so lovingly that you’d swear she must’ve written them herself. And if songs like this don’t make you want to snuggle up and/or slow dance with your best girl or guy, then something is seriously wrong with your heart, or your ears. Oh, what a gorgeous voice…

You’ll never know
How slow the moments go
‘Til I’m near to you

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“This place has got everything”

Friday, Jan 20, 2012 - Posted by Rich Miller

* It’s amazing to me that this building is still standing…

Bulldozers soon may finish what Jake and Elwood started more than 30 years ago: the destruction of the Dixie Square Mall.

The mall has been vacant since John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd raced through it with police cars in hot pursuit, scattering extras and laying waste to much of the 600,000 square feet of retail space in an iconic chase scene from the 1980 film”The Blues Brothers.”

In the decades since, vandals and the elements nearly finished the job, while officials in south suburban Harvey have tried — at least a dozen times — to find someone to redevelop a site that has become both the city’s bleakest eyesore and most famous landmark.

The zombified property slouches in the middle of nearly 60 acres of craggy asphalt near the intersection of 153rd Street and Dixie Highway, with trees two stories high poking through holes in the roof.

This month, funded by federal money promised more than a year ago during a campaign stop by Gov. Pat Quinn, a demolition contractor has permits in hand and Dixie Square Mall is at long last coming down, city spokeswoman Sandra Alvarado said.

* Disco Pants and Haircuts…

* And speaking of tearing down buildings, what the heck?…

Last week, scrap metal thieves in southwest suburban Shorewood weren’t content with mere scraps.

They first apparently called the owner of a business next to 18400 Frontage Road along I-55 and told him the structure was being dismantled that day because the property had been sold, the Will County Sheriff’s office says.

They then pulled up two semi-trucks to the building — and tore it down. They removed the steel from the structure and then carted it away in the trucks, officials said. At some point, a friend called the property manager to tell her what had happened. Police were called last Thursday, a day after the trucks left.

Sheriff’s deputies then tracked down the building owner who said, no, the building hadn’t been sold — and he hadn’t given anyone permission to tear it down.

I have never heard of such a thing.

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