The mentions of Jim O'Rourke took me back to a meeting with him I've never forgotten. Thought others would enjoy hearing.
Our paths used to cross in Chicago through a mutual friend when Jim was in his early 20s. Through the mutual friend, I had heard a story that Jim had purchased a fax machine--something reserved for big corporation at the time--and was sending his scores around the world.
One night all of us ended up at the Old Town Ale House on North Avenue in Chicago, a real old school funky mix kind of a place. Jim sat next to me at one of the two tables by the windows. He pulled a photo out of his wallet, the way people share photos of kids. This picture, though, was of an old record producer he loved. Then Jim laid out a precise vision of an album he hoped to make some day. The vision he shared became Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Wilco did not even exist as Wilco at the time of this get together. This is one of my first direct exposures to a person with a distant dream becoming a reality.
Many years later I was flipping through the Sunday Chicago Tribune. The edition had a full page story on Jim when he decided to move from Chicago to New York.
A number of years after that, one Sunday I decided to walk to a local gas station to surprise my wife with the Sunday New York Times. What article happened to be inside? A full page piece on Jim moving from New York to Japan.
Our paths used to cross in Chicago through a mutual friend when Jim was in his early 20s. Through the mutual friend, I had heard a story that Jim had purchased a fax machine--something reserved for big corporation at the time--and was sending his scores around the world.
One night all of us ended up at the Old Town Ale House on North Avenue in Chicago, a real old school funky mix kind of a place. Jim sat next to me at one of the two tables by the windows. He pulled a photo out of his wallet, the way people share photos of kids. This picture, though, was of an old record producer he loved. Then Jim laid out a precise vision of an album he hoped to make some day. The vision he shared became Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Wilco did not even exist as Wilco at the time of this get together. This is one of my first direct exposures to a person with a distant dream becoming a reality.
Many years later I was flipping through the Sunday Chicago Tribune. The edition had a full page story on Jim when he decided to move from Chicago to New York.
A number of years after that, one Sunday I decided to walk to a local gas station to surprise my wife with the Sunday New York Times. What article happened to be inside? A full page piece on Jim moving from New York to Japan.