![]() ![]() Jason Gagovski plays with Sweet Cobra at the Mutiny in 2006. Many regulars found a cozy community at this one-of-a-kind dump, and it will be sorely missed in a Logan Square full of high-rises and cocktail bars. The Mutiny wasn’t all about blackout drunks, smashed ceilings, and the disturbingly huge urinal in the men’s room. “Seeing these kids come in and be happy and do their show-it was exciting.” “Every day that someone enjoyed their show, whether they made it or didn’t make it, was great for me,” he says. Mroz is clearly bummed, but he’s also proud of all the memories (no matter how foggy) he helped create for the Chicago music community. ![]() I just put my head down on the bar.” At first Mroz framed the closure as temporary, but on November 29 he admitted the bar was done for. “I told them to come back on Monday,” he said. Past-due bills had been piling up while Mroz battled prostate cancer, and he’d failed to keep his licenses up to date, something he admits is “somewhat my fault.” On October 12-Mroz’s 68th birthday-state regulators came into the bar and shut it down. “Nobody ever wanted to go there or play there, but everyone is obsessed with it.” “The Mutiny really has a pretty compelling legend,” says my Catburglars bandmate Mike Conway. That’s Brian Costello and Chris Ilth of the Functional Blackouts. Just another day for the Mutiny’s long-suffering ceiling. Until last Friday, Mroz was selling off the remaining ceiling tiles as keepsakes. Destroying part or all of the Mutiny’s ceiling became something of a tradition-at a show there I played with the Catburglars more than a decade ago, in the middle of a song I saw someone pull down a drop-ceiling tile and take a bite out of it. “I remember at a (Lone) Wolf & Cub show there, someone was just tearing track lighting down from the ceiling,” says artist and musician Ryan Duggan. Local poster artist Josh Davis says he let a bartender punch him in the face for free drinks and sneaked in an underage friend inside the road case for a bass drum. Everyone kept coming back.Įven Mroz himself seemed to revel in the bar’s reputation for unhinged debauchery, and it’s become the overarching theme to pretty much everyone’s Mutiny memories. “You’ll just get sick.” Everyone laughed about it. “They don’t clean the lines,” a friend told me. I very specifically remember my first trip there: I got in with a fake ID (sorry, mom), and everyone I was with warned me not to drink the tap beer. “It was spectacular.” That night, the Nerves and fellow Chicago rock-scene staples Grand Theft Auto and Gaza Strippers kicked off a 20-year run of loud music and bad behavior at the venue.ĭelightfully dark and charmingly filthy, the Mutiny had a lawless energy that was a big part of what turned people into regulars. “Seth of the Nerves told me that he was going to put on the most unbelievable Halloween show you’ve ever seen of your life,” Mroz says. But it wasn’t till Halloween 1998 that the Mutiny solidified its status as a punk-rock hot spot. Mroz opened the Logan Square dive bar in 1990, and by the end of 1996 he’d started hosting shows and events. “‘The worst thing about the Mutiny is that anyone can play here.'” “Once one of my door guys said, ‘The greatest thing about the Mutiny is that anyone can play here,'” says Mutiny owner Ed Mroz. Best of Chicago 2022: Sports & Recreation.The Glyders, who were supposed to play, played a set at East Room instead later in the night. The fire was in a back office, and it was put out about 30 minutes later. Walter Schroeder, a Chicago Fire spokesman. The Fire Department was called about a fire at the club, 2428 N. "Luckily the fire started before the show started and there weren't many people there," he said. McMenamin, who runs the record label Dumpster Tapes with Alex Fryer, was set to host a tape release at the bar for Chicago-based band Glyders. "The last trip I went in you couldn't really see anything." "Within five minutes you couldn't see anything," he said. The fire started in the office, which is located behind the stage, and quickly filled the bar with smoke, according to McMenamin. Western Ave., after the fire, according to a Chicago Fire Department official. There was no major damage to the Mutiny, 2428 N. "People were running in and out grabbing stuff, guitars, amps, drum sets, all that," McMenamin said. CHICAGO - Patrons of the Mutiny banded together to save music equipment during a fire that broke out at the Logan Square dive bar Thursday night.Ībout two dozen people were inside the bar and music club when the fire broke out in a back office about 9:45 p.m., according to Ed McMenamin, whose record label was hosting a release at the Mutiny last night. ![]()
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