Last night was a gas, man. I had heard that Logan Square Auditorium was a tough place to play because the stage sound was pretty bogus and the room sound was echoey and hollow. In fact, it wasn't too bad sonically and was really comfortable otherwise. If I noticed anything, it was that the loudest band Electrelane (and they were really loud) sounded the fullest as it's guitar amps were really cranked on stage and therefore didn't get eaten up by the crowd as Ted Leo's and Perfect Panther's did (bands with little amps for rocking clubs). How do I know? I recorded most of the show in stereo to minidisc with help from Dave L. of the Pharmacists. Actually everyone sounded good. I've never done sound (worked the PA) for a big live show (maybe some basement gigs), but I get a bit obsessive about it. After all, it can be the difference between an okay night and a great night out for hundreds of people. LSA is also a great old building with interesting detailing, and unusual urinals. The whole area of Logan Square has amazing architectural detail. I want house now.

So Jason from the Modernist took some photos of the band. It'll be cool to see how they turn out, for me at least. You wanna see too?

Er, yeah. Anyway, I'm reading this shocking (okay, not so shocking really) piece on Salon about how there are all these chemical sites in the US where really nasty potential weapons of mass distruction are leaking. Many of the sites are private chemical labs not too far from residential areas. One of the worst ones was/is called, no joke, Armageddon Chemical where this chemical genius starting mixing flourine with anything else he fancied as some kind of side business. I have yet to finish the article, but this alarming situation calls to mind Superfund sites, and this program that was designed to address the basically 1000s of environmental dumps that the EPA had to clean up. I don't remember the details, but Superfund was a big government buzzword in the late '80s. I'm going to have to track down some stats on how successful it was. Get me the GAO on the phone. I would think it is still going on, unless Bush cut the funding. The Harper's reader in me also wonders if Superfund was a kind of financial boondoggle disguised as an environmental crisis. As in, someone made a ton of money cleaning those sites up. And someone made a ton of money checking to see if they were cleaned up. And on and on. You make the mess, I clean it up, the public pays. We win, they lose. And I'm fairly certain that in most cases the polluters didn't pay, but again I have no facts to support it. What happened to Superfund? Maybe it can swoop in and save us from WOMD in our backyard.